Thank you DMK, K’Hassan etc for raking up #CholasAreHindus issue. It has backfired spectacularly. Today more people know about the Hindu civilisation than ever before. The 70 year commie propaganda history have been dealt a body blow. 1/n
A great job done by people like @authoramish & @dushyanthsridar in TV interviews to educate Indians and debunk the trashy pamphlets & propaganda of the left aimed at indoctrinating and deracinating Indians and alienating them from their history, culture, civilisational unity 2/n
If there is one thing I hold Modi govt guilty, it is their failure to reform the history curriculum that is taught to kids. Why can’t they get authors like Amish & others to write history books that engage & captivate kids rather than bore them to death? 3/n
Let the new books cover the accomplishments of Indians, and of course their failures & foibles. Authors can be assisted by historians of merit, not fly by night operators peddling leftist/communist propaganda to brainwash and make Indians loath themselves
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I remember in mid 1980s bureaucrats & intelligence officials from Kashmir coming to meet my father and telling him of great tumult building up in the valley, of extremism growing, of restiveness and how babus in Delhi ignored all the warnings. The attitude was that…1/n
one crack of the whip and it will all be fine. These delhi babus never understood (they were appallingly ignorant) the phenomenon of jihadism that was taking root in Kashmir. They never imagined the resonance of Afghanistan in the Valley. But it was not surprising 2/n
The people who were czars of intelligence in Kashmir were busy playing golf and partying with the who’s who. Some of them have cultivated a reputation as Kashmir experts and have journeyed around the world as such. When all hell broke loose, they didn’t know what hit them 3/n
Is Russia facing its "China teaching a lesson to Vietnam" moment? Clearly, the expectation that Ukraine will capitulate the moment Russian forces march in has been proven wrong. The Ukrainian resistance appears too have stalled, even bogged down the Russian advance 1/n
The West which was mostly expressing impotent outrage is now enthused enough & encouraged enough to back the Ukrainian resistance which will make it more difficult for the Russians who, as it is becoming clear, havent thought this "military operation" through. 2/n
A swift end - Crimea 2014 - would have been fait accompli for the West. No more. The sanctions that have been imposed, and will be imposed going forward, will cause enormous pain. Russia will be completely isolated. It's economy will be severely affected. 3/n
Nazi is what Nazi does...@ImranKhanPTI has over the last two years exposed his Islamofascist instincts and taken a leaf out of Hitlers playbook. This thread explains how...1/n
Book burning and book banning is a fascist and Islamist thing...the burning of libraries destruction of heritage comes naturally to these guys. And all this with legal sanction with laws like Tahaffuz-e-Bunyaad-Islam act under which thought policing has been sanctified 2/n
This law has been passed by the @UniofOxford educated fascist Imran Khans party’s govt in Punjab. But Imran Khan and others have called it a historic step. Heard anything from all those loonies in UK who go apoplectic over CAA? Not a peep out of them 3/n
A few years back, interacting with a Chinese delegation from their foreign office, I asked: India wants good relations with China, but does China? And if it does, what is the evidence of that? This piece by @samirsaran articulates the answer that was always staring us in the face
To my mind, the answer on how to tackle China lies in the last point he makes about unpredictability of response, or the unknown unknowns. Second, the point about ‘no way, Huawei’ and about app ban is important and not to be scoffed at. This is of course not the sum & substance
of the response, but it is a critical component as also a starting point. Finally, ‘Ekla chalo’...when India shunned BRI, I remember the Chinese no. 2 (now CG in Karachi and a CCP member, even more powerful than the Ambassador) threatening India. It was the first time I saw such
My favourite PIA story. A Pakistani columnist settled in Europe told me this. He was flying back to Lahore. The pilot of the PIA plane turned out to be the brother of his classmate from college. He invited the columnist to the cockpit and started to complain about his columns 1/n
The columnist was one of those rare Urdu writers who are rational, sensible, even secular. The pilot told him he writes rubbish and said everything in the world happens because Allah wills it. After a long spiel, the pilot said that even the aircraft was flying because Allah 2/n
willed it so. If Allah wanted the plane would crash and if Allah wanted the plane would fly even without the pilot. And then he said he could prove this. By now my friend panicked. This was just after 9/11. Terrified my friend told the pilot that he was a reformed man after 3/n
My very initial takeaways from PMs speech: 1) This is not a stimulus package but a massive structural reforms programme in which there is an element of stimulus. 2nd) the size of the package is bigger than Pakistan’s economy (sorry for adding this but can’t help it) 1/n
3) lockdown will be lifted but there will be guidelines and advisories. Probably be left to states to do the micro management; 4) the PM is taking a leap of faith on the country’s ability to bounce back. This is what Narasimha Rao did 30 years ago;
5) there will be sweeping reforms to ensure ease of business. Hopefully bureaucratic stranglehold and inspector raj will be significantly reduced; 6) there will be taxation reforms; 7) India will become self sufficient by becoming an essential part of the global supply chain;