#MyTwitterAnniversary Twitter reminded me I joined this day 6 years ago. My online life started with blogging in '07 Wordpress, soon after on a dear forum thats changed so much, and then '14 twitter initially on urging by others. Each phase has been an experience to learn from.
Humanity never ceases to surprise and intrigue me, and each of my phases of exploring the online world gave me new insights and an opportunity to sharpen and clarify my own thoughts arguing with or explaining to others. I have made friends and perhaps enemies.
But the great fallacy of online life is also its great safety net: its detachment and ability to edit interactions - something we are not so easily able to do in real life. For ppl like me, who use online world more as whetstone to keep the sharper edges of our minds -its a gift.
In my constant detached self-observation, I can see that twitter brought back my younger penchant for debating, but also a greater maturity in drawing lines and restraint - not just because of age and life experience, which cdnt hv come in only 6 yrs.
our online interactions don't really create new things in us, doesnt alter our personalities - they just release or suppress features that are already there. I am grateful to both my friends and my enemies online - for the opportunity to learn from my interactions with them.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
1) All borders are temporary compromises in space and time. Retreats and expansions are part of the process. Identities should not be linked to physical borders, even though never give up on territorial claims, even while retreating.
2) Country and nationhood are not identical, and they don’t have to be. However, their deviation from each other over long periods can only be resolved by the dissolution of one or the other, eventually leading to dissolution of both.
3) Sometimes existing power relations in a state form itself prevent the natural fulfilment of a nationhood. It becomes a state where every force within balances and wears the other out, paralysing the state. That is when the state itself becomes the greatest enemy of nationhood.
1) Some observations. Hindus, (and all those in other identities who find themselves aligned closer to Hindus than their community leaders) should not rely only on the country’s army to stand fast against jihadi aggression. They might. They may fail. But a bigger issue remains.
2) the army is conditioned to obey superior command. Their first reaction will be to obey the order. If the order is to hold back, or retreat, bulk of them will follow. The greatest weakness in national armies before jihadis is the vacillation or betrayal of their commanders.
3) many hv argued with me on the most used defence of Indians in the British army of India, “the oath”. It’s not that oath was a novelty invented by the Brits, but Indians obviously wr not so shy about flipping oaths when they left defeated Hindu kings to join invaders.
1) The E.Pak army could easily paralyse jihadis. Two reasons it won’t: such a move can provoke jihadis inside the army to revolt, 2nd, the longer jihadis rampage, better army’s case for not handing over power to elected parties. Current arrangement works for three key players.
2) the intention of international backers of E.Pakistan is to create a weak political regime (Ghazi Yunus is excellent for this with no real networks of power in a jihadist social base) dependent entirely on the army. As long as he can be the facade, army rule can’t be blamed.
3) with Yunus in facade, the army can protect jihadis so jihadis can be reassured to do what they do best: rape, arson, massacre, generally terrorise the population and impose mullah rule at all levels of society. Both Yunus and army have plausible deniability.
1) Nice try. But USA, China, Pakistan form a threesome where India is concerned. Given all three’s record in attempting or managing to destabilise other countries, and all three’s links into Bangladesh, it’s a reasonable projection that they were involved.
2) Interim gov won’t go and can’t go against mullah networks in control of society. The interim gov wont displease an essentially Islamist society that has been consistently and increasingly Islamised under every Bangladeshi regime, via foreign agents, aid, and organisations.
3) anti-Hindu violence has always existed in Bangladesh/E.Pak and is just not a regime induced thing. it has support from underlying Islamist networks who see it as their traditional tool to clear an area of pre-Islamic natives, subjugated into serving jihadis lust and greed.
1) Seemingly rational. But one has to be careful in giving rationale publicly to policies that help exactly what the enemy want. Here’s a long list of things here that range from wishful thinking to the dangerous. First is the line of appealing to reason in Islamic countries.
2) the two primary arguments of appeal to reason to jihadis here is that (a) absence of Hindus among them will lead to intra-Muslim conflict destroying Muslims as a whole. (b) modern technological progress doesn’t come from Quran, and Hindus among them can provide that.
3) this is a futile delusion that refuses the reality that all jihadis think of Hindus as Untermenschen, as prey, and internal conflict among Muslims can go alongside preying on Hindus, and is desirable to refine Muslim society to one pure imagined 7th c desert jiahdotopia.
1) Such clarity does emerge in India too, but can only be expressed from outside India. There is an internal problem in Indian society and state because of its colonial derivative nature that deliberately sides with the jihadi simply out of fear and hatred of the majority.
2) the colonial intervention created a fundamental disruption between the majority common Hindu and the political, military, admin Hindu elite who inherited and adopted the world view of colonial masters that saw the common Hindu as the primary threat to their hold on state.
3) the societal memory of colonial abuse of power, reinforced by the post independence Hindu elite in power means the common Hindu still see their current state as effectively the same as the colonial one with no recourse left for them even through the judicial route.