The Olympics provided another opportunity for us to assess the two political options we face today. The differences are stark and consequential
In the last 14 days, the PM was the loudest and most prominent cheerleader for our players (for both winners and almost-winners)

Rahul Gandhi meanwhile spent the week working hard to turn a horrifying gangrape of a child into an opportunity to create inter-caste discord
Modi’s message has always been that our best days are ahead of us

Our new heroes – the ones building the unicorns, the medallists in Tokyo, the ones making chowmein of the enemy at Galwan all belong to this viewpoint

Lot’s of work to do. We will do it and build a great tomorrow
Rahul and the old elite have a very different message. Our best days were the days of old and we need to go back there

The tool they have chosen to persuade us is to clinically exploit India’s oldest and deepest fault lines. To make us feel afraid and misremember the past
Rahul will fail to persuade many – especially those who don’t suffer dementia and remember life in old Bharat

He will be successful with the young, vocal citizens of United States of India. Kids who were zealously protected from India’s realities by their resourceful parents
India’s future depends on ensuring that people who believe our best lies ahead easily outnumber those who feel that we need to go back to the utopia of 1970s India

The more heroes we have like the ones created in the last 10 days, the better.

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More from @IndiaSpeaksPR

25 Jul
Imagine the following

BJP wins a state election - then goes around methodically targeting the opposition
People get murdered all around, women get gangraped. Evidence begins to emerge that particularly Muslim women are being targeted
Now imagine the resulting domestic AND international narrative. The daily headlines, the op-eds abroad, the protests in front of our embassies, the petitions, the short-films, the Insta posts.

Antony Blinken would only talk about this with Jaishankar
Read 6 tweets
27 May
Imagine where Jack Dorsey's ego is after slaying Trump. You think he will comply with our laws?

My naïve view is that India should suspend Twitter operations immediately (by direct/indirect means) & then let Twitter negotiate

Landing a punch on the bully first is important
Out of all the tech giants, Twitter is the least important to the people of India. Smallest user base and almost zero commercial implications

Just shut them down and tell them "We are busy now, check for an appointment in October"
Mumbai ka Joe Rogan is wrong. You do slow and steady for problems like China. For Twitter, you do fast and arbitrary

"Building a case" is futile when India's courts are less predictable than a Bay of Bengal cyclone's path

Read 6 tweets
22 May
Mani Shankar Aiyer has just begun a room on clubhouse to discuss how Rajiv Gandhi built digital India. Please join and record for use in 2024. Pretty sure he will end up insulting all kinds of people
Sam Pitroda has also joined. He is speaking very slowly. As if every word is being first approved by 10 JP first
Jai ram Ramesh has now joined. Jai ram has no profile picture. Is he losing his famous hair?
Read 49 tweets
16 Apr
Thrilling conversation on Clubhouse right now - some disco Khalistanis from America alongside some desi Woko Haram trying very very hard to subtly justify the Hindu deaths in the Delhi riots
An American lady EXTREMELY confidently claiming BJP will lose Maharastra if elections are held today. Not sure about Bengal
A lovely lady from Tamil Nadu confidently claims - Dalits are not Hindus. Her argument slightly diluted by the 5 mins she took to pronounce Hindutva
Read 34 tweets
26 Mar
The famous pic from 1971 - Pak soldier checking if the genitals are Bengali.
This is the book Tripathi uncle asks everyone to read to understand how Bengali Hindus were not targeted

See what the book says

Telegram from the US consulate in March 1971

Very high casualties, Hindus the main focus of the campaign
Read 6 tweets
3 Feb
A carefully planned long-term campaign of disinformation creates a fertile ground for justifying extreme acts of violence which otherwise would be indefensible
Since 2019, there has been a well-coordinated and consistent international effort to paint Modi as a tyrant – in 2019 the reason was Kashmir, in 2000 it was CAA and this year the farmers protest
The features of the narrative building have been remarkably similar every instance – untethered from facts, present anti-Modi operatives as neutral experts, out of context visuals and use of democratic freedoms to paralyze the host country
Read 7 tweets

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