churumuri Profile picture
Jun 19 20 tweets 19 min read
🪡@narendramodi will take part in the International Yoga Day show in #Mysore on June 21.

In a nation that buys ‘The Daily Spectacle’, this is just another dot in @PMOIndia’s diary.

But what goes into an event like this—for hashtags to trend for a few hours on Tuesday? #YogaDay
2️⃣ Modi doing #Yoga in #Mysuru is a big deal.

All three great gurus of the 20th century—T.Krishnamacharya, B.K.S. Iyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois—grew under the patronage of the Maharajas of Mysore.

UN designated June 21 as #InternationalDayofYoga only after Modi became PM in 2014.
3️⃣ Still, a one-hour show led by the PM at Mysore Palace takes some doing.

Coverage in Mysore’s local dailies #StarOfMysore and #Andolana gives a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes.

It is a sobering lesson of how a partipatory democracy can be a made-for-TV spectacle.
4️⃣ Fourteen committees including a core committee were formed to oversee @PMOIndia’s visit.

Union minister @JoshiPralhad flew from Delhi for a recce.

In last 20 days, all attention of central, state and city personnel has been on the 15 hours Modi will spend. @Star_Of_Mysore
5️⃣ Naturally, with so many committees around, there had to be a “high-level meeting”.

So, Karnataka’s chief minister @BSBommai—reeling under charges of 40% corruption and 100% communalism—forms one more committee with 23 members.

Naturally, @CMofKarnataka is its chairman.
6️⃣ Mysore City Corporation sent an estimate of Rs 15 crore to the BJP-run government just for the few roads @narendramodi’s entourage will use on his 15-hour visit.

All other expenses—flight from Bangalore, flight to Delhi, hotel, security, publicity, etc—are easy to imagine.
So desperate is the urge to put on a good show that less than 36 hours before @narendramodi descends, work is still on.

For a change, bulldozers and excavators are being used for the purpose they were meant to.
7️⃣ L.K. Advani famously called @narendramodi a “brilliant events manager”.

#Andolana reports the Centre has employed an “event mangement company” to handle the stage for the Yoga Day show at #MysorePalace.

Costs, method of selection: unknown. @moayush #YogaForHumanity
8️⃣ Since every event in #AmritKaal is also an induction programme, each of the 15,000 participants who will join Modi to twist and turn for the world to see, will get a free breakfast, a yoga mat, a mobile pouch, and a shoe bag.

Cost, method of selection: unknown. @moayush
9️⃣ How Modi’s co-artistes were chosen is a story.

As can be expected in a small town with a big rep, people were falling over each other to be with Yogi No.1. But SPG, which guards the PM, dashed some hopes.

As always, Aadhaar solves every problem—and meets its key objective.
1️⃣0️⃣ Who should be on the dais with @narendramodi has resulted in a tug-of-war between Mysore’s artless MP Pratap Simha—and everybody else.

S.A. Ramdas, BJP’s rape-accused MLA from K.R. Constituency, where Mysore Palace is situated, is miffed that he is being kept out. #Andolana
1️⃣1️⃣ Because Mysore’s MP suggested that Yaduveer Wadiyar—the adopted son of the late scion of the erstwhile kingdom—might not get to be on the main stage with Modi, folks held a protest, and organised an online campaign, against the “insult”.

He will have post-yoga ‘thindi’.
1️⃣2️⃣ Incredibly, Saraswathi Jois—the daughter of K. Pattabhi Jois, one of Mysore’s three great gurus who took ‘ashtanga yoga’ to the west—and who has herself taught the art for 45 years, has not been invited by the petty minds handling the show.
@PMOIndia @narendramodi @moayush
1️⃣3️⃣ Notwithstanding the internal politics—and befitting a reality show on TV—there have been two “rehearsals”.

One ooru, one asana.

The rehearsals were flagged off by local mutt heads, one a Lingayat, the other a Brahmin, one of whom @PMOIndia is slated to visit. #YogaDay
1️⃣4️⃣ As with everything in #NewIndia, the stick comes before the carrot.

Police have been told not to take leave till @PMOIndia leaves.

And staff at the temple atop Mysore’s immoveable treadmill, Chamundi Hill, have been warned their wages will be cut if they bunk work.
1️⃣5️⃣ In the midst of all the preening, #Andolana boldly asks if Mysore’s ‘vikas’ can only happen if @narendramodi visits.

And, the former deputy chief minister Dr H.C. Mahadevappa reminds @mepratap to ask @narendramodi what happened to his promise to make a Paris out of Mysore.
1️⃣6️⃣ Oh, and one final thing.

Narendra Modi will not stay at the Lalitha Mahal Palace, which was built incidentally, and ironically, for a Viceroy’s visit, and was once one of ITDC’s most magnificent hotels.

He will spend the night at a Radisson Blu. #InternationalDayofYoga
1️⃣7️⃣ So why did @narendramodi wait 8 years to grace #InternationalDayofYoga in the ground zero of yoga?

Answer: elections in Karnataka are due in 2023. BJP is on the backfoot. Last week, the party resoundingly lost in an election to the legislative council.
1️⃣8️⃣ The stage-managed event and the expenses—all for a few minutes—reveals what goes on every day at every event.

It can be argued this is for a good cause, that it unites people. But what is the point of yoga if its practitioners return to anger, hatred and venom soon after?
An advisory issued by the Mysore City police suggests that at least 498 buses have been deployed to ferry crowds for @narendramodi’s events in Mysore.

What are the costs and who will bear them: unknown, but easy to guess.

#InternationalDayofYoga

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More from @churumuri

May 11
🪡 Taunting and tormenting Muslims has become India’s national bloodsport, post-2014. Barely a day passes without #Muslims being hectored by bigots on how they should live, love, eat, dress, pray, work, marry and procreate.

How would the 24th Maharaja of Mysore have viewed this?
2️⃣ ‘Nalvadi’ Krishnaraja Wadiyar was the Maharaja of Mysore for 39 years. He presided over a golden period of progress in health, education, industry, infrastructure, arts, culture, literature—i.e. vikas.

Gandhi called him ‘Raja Rishi’ (sage king).

Read: tinyurl.com/2p8stzzp
3️⃣ In 1902, when he formally ascended the throne at the age of 18, he committed himself to “social care without discrimination”.

Like his parents before him, he said he would “continue to promote the welfare of all classes and creeds among my subjects.”
deccanherald.com/opinion/the-co…
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Mar 12
“Not now North Korea and India”

On the front page of the British tabloid @dailystar, India’s schoolboy claim of a supersonic missile being “accidentally” fired 124 km into Pakistan, gets equated with the epitome of nuclear madness: Kim Jong-Un. Image
“Asian nuts’ weapons games ‘will start a World War’”

British tabloid @dailystar’s strapline may be aimed at Page 3 gawkers eyeing a playmate. Still, India’s mind-boggling missile “cock-up” is not half as small an issue as a pliant media would have us believe. ImageImage
“The missile incident has exposed the grave weakness in India’s technology and its safety systems. For a nuclear-armed country to be so shoddy with its technology and so weak with its command and control systems is cause for serious alarm across the world”: ‘Dawn’ edit. @dawn_com Image
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Feb 21
Has India become a corruption-free country already? Or, are the crooks getting smarter? Just one dot from Madhya Bharat in the @guardian expose of “criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians” holding £80 billion worth accounts in the notorious Swiss bank @CreditSuisse.
“We can reveal today how #CreditSuisse repeatedly either opened or maintained bank accounts for a panoramic array of high-risk clients across the world”: How the @guardian showcases its expose of “criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians” over 7 pages.
On 9 Jan 2014, four months before he became PM, @narendramodi promised to bring back money “stolen” from India and deposited in foreign banks: “If we bring that back, each poor Indian will get Rs 15-20 lakh just like that.” @PMOIndia #CreditSuisse

Watch:
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Feb 9
🪡 A cute question on the #HijabRow in #Karnataka is: “Why can’t the CM stop it when it’s ruining the State’s image?”

Answer: “Have you seen @BSBommai’s record?”

He was home minister for 23 months from Aug 2019. It was because he met all the KPIs that he was made @CMofKarnataka
2️⃣ @BSBommai was home minister when school children in #Bidar were charged with sedition, for a line in a play that “insulted” @narendramodi during the anti-CAA protests. Bommai had the temerity to say: “It is a very serious and sensitive case.”

Read: tinyurl.com/2p8vnuc9
3️⃣ @BSBommai is an “educated” politician, an engineer. In #Bidar, the school children charged with sedition were between 9 and 12 years of age. Najumunissa, 35, a single mother, spent a week in jail because police under Bommai’s watch charged her Class V daughter. @IndianExpress
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Feb 8
🪡 Much of the outrage on the #HijabRow asks the naive question: “Why is it happening in #Karnataka?”

Answer: “Why are you surprised?”

The startup state was an early-stage investor in #Hindutva. Its reputation as a #Hindutva laboratory precedes #Gujarat and #UttarPradesh.
2️⃣ #BJP’s political quest for the Babri Masjid only began in the late 1980s. In #Karnataka, the ground to reclaim Baba Budangiri, a Sufi shrine in #Chikamagalur district, had been laid a decade before #Ayodhya became common parlance, in 1978.

Read: tinyurl.com/49frfruk
3️⃣ In 1990, when L.K. Advani’s ‘Rath Yatra’ passed through #Karnataka, seven people died in Bidar in communal riots. But 600 km away, in and around #Bangalore, at least another 33 people died in clashes in 5 locations. It was not an accident.

Map: courtesy Prof Mushirul Hasan
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Feb 6
“When Sunil Gavaskar was introduced to Noor Jehan on India’s 1982 tour of Pakistan, she said: ‘I don’t know him. I only know Imran Khan and Zaheer Abbas.’ When she was introduced to him, he retorted: ‘I don’t know her. I only know #LataMangeshkar’.”: commentator Sushil Doshi. Image
In 1988, #LataMangeshkar sang with #SPB for the Tamil film ‘Satya’. The composer @ilaiyaraaja has often explained how the lyrics were tailor-made for her. #ValaiOsai

Listen:
Greatness in every language: how newspapers salute and celebrate the life of #LataMangeshkar. Several front pages are in all black, and at least one of daily lowers its masthead.
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