1/5 Sharjeel Imam has given an interview detailing his Islamist manifesto. Surprisingly, no storm has been kicked up over pronouncements that are so unapologetically anti-liberal, anti-secular, anti-democracy, anti-Constitution—in a word, anti-national. 2/5 He openly calls the Constitution fascist, labels secularism a trap, and denounces democracy as a contrivance to deny Muslims their political rights. 3/5 The piece is a litany of indictments against the liberal class. Imam rejects any difference between liberals and Hindutvadis. In his essentialist worldview, all Hindus are the same, unanimous in denying Muslims political power they claim as a divine right. 4/5 Inadvertently, Sharjeel has recognised something that liberals have been fighting shy of acknowledging: that Hindutva’s idea of India is anchored in the same “overarching nationalist framework”— that Muslims are Indians above all else. 5/5 For more, read this Opinion article by Ibn Khaldun Bharati, who looks at Islam from an Indian perspective: Sharjeel Imam’s Islamist manifesto will be forgotten. The silence of liberals will not theprint.in/opinion/sharjeel…

Have you noticed the not-so-subtle difference? This is a Reuters image of protests in France. Most of the western media reportage on French protests focus exclusively and overwhelmingly on brutality, destruction and anarchy of the protestors, portraying them as out of control monsters. In contrast, most of the visual reportage of protests in India focus exclusively on police action on violent protestors. Rarely would you find images of destruction, though these were widely noted. This isn't a coincidence. The lens is revealing. The visual imagery creates two narratives. One, protests in West are "evil". Protests in India are "against evil".

France has FREE health care, paid parental leave, paid family leave, FREE child care, FREE preschool, 5 weeks paid vacation, a 35 hour work week, generous unemployment and housing benefits, and heavily subsidized higher education. Everything the left says they want AND THEY'RE STILL PROTESTING AND BURNING SHIT DOWN.

Disagree

If one is excluded it’s an illegitimate election. Period.

If you had to pick the most charismatic of India’s Gen Z protest leaders who would you choose? (Feel free to share a comment explaining your reasons.)

The American establishment has drunk their own kool-aid - doctored academic research on India, its history and what constitutes Indian nationalism. They genuinely believe the country is an artificial construct where the state stitches together weak alliances between warring tribes and communities. Extending this, the belief is that the nation can be colonized, brought to its knees and broken. The echo chamber the Americans live in will be the undoing of the Indo-Pacific/Pivot to Asia. Relying on paid acolytes in the target country backfires in the end. It gives a colored view of the ground reality of what makes the country resilient. It also overestimates weaknesses. Refusal to understand Hindu civilization for what it is, and the Indian state as the inheritor of this civilization, leads to miscalculations and misjudgments. Moreover, a country of India’s size that has tasted progress after several generations, is unlikely to give up on the upswing it is enjoying at any cost. When a giant starts moving, it gains momentum enough to push back against internal and external sabotage. Washington’s miscalculations are not unique with respect to India. They briefly cracked Iran decades ago, but it did not last. We see how that is playing out today. They tried to turn China into a democracy, and that too failed. They believed Russia would break further after the Soviet Union fell, and yet, nothing like that happened. All efforts involved galvanizing “dissidents”. If anything, all three countries have emerged strategically stronger. Over time, the US has only lost relative power in the global order. It is no surprise that they turn to white Christian nationalism and lofty talk about mythical “Western civilization”. It is a hard coping mechanism. The US is still powerful but on the wane. The Pavlovian response to this is sharp edged, often schizophrenic foreign and economic policy, which undoes the RBO undergirding decades of unipolarity. This naturally gives way to multipolarity. The rise of the East is unstoppable. The relative decline of the West is inevitable. Europe has resigned to its fate. The US too will eventually when India breaks free. It is the last major power which will tilt the balance of power firmly from the North Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. It is for this reason the viciousness with which the US will target India will be far greater than seen with any other country. Now, going back to the original point, their miscalculations will only accelerate India’s rise as a pole in the world.

Modi govt invited Elon Musk to invest in satellite communications in India. Modi govt amended the Telecom Act 2023 to enable allocation of Satcom spectrum administratively and not via auction. Modi govt opened up 100% FDI in sattellite communication to make way for SpaceX. SpaceX even signed infrastructure sharing and distribution agreements with two existing players Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. Also recall how PM and his top aides gave Musk head of state status during Modi's US visit last year and how Musk came for that much televised meeting with his wife, children and their nanny in tow, sitting across PM and his negotiating team! So what has suddenly gone wrong forcing Musk to complain about not being allowed to operate in India. As always one doesn't know what exactly is going on inside this govt. One way or another we need to have some policy transparency and not such flip flop which doesn't augur well for foreign investment sentiment. If you don't want FDI say it clearly. Let's know what the policy is.