I had a look at the 'Bharat: The Mother of Democracy' booklet issued during the G20 summit and was quite appalled to see the sophistry, fabrications, and outright lies contained in it. I am sorry to say but this is an assault on intelligence. Some thoughts. #Thread This document opens with PM Modi’s statement in which he says that the country has “the distinction of being named as ‘Mother of Democracy’”. Who named it so? The current regime. Nobody else calls India the “mother of democracy”. If at all there is one, then it is ancient Greece.

#Thread 🧵It was Laal Singh Chaddha yesterday; it is Pathaan today; tomorrow, it will be something else. The names will change, but what will not change is the Hindu Right's appetite for boycott campaigns fuelled by hate and bigotry, lies and deception. Anybody speaking the language of love, empathy, and inclusion will become the target of such campaigns. And every such campaign will be justified in the name of ‘parampara’ and ‘sanskaar; every ‘boycott Bollywood’ trend will be presented as a clarion call to defend the faith.

#Thread Yesterday, I came across a Twitter thread put out by a foot soldier of Hindutva that claims the Mughal fort in Delhi was not built by Emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century but by Anangpal Tomar in the 11th century. It has over 12,600 likes and over 4,800 retweets. It isn’t original. There are YouTube videos and other right-wing websites made between 2014 and now that make the same claim and cite the same “evidence”. I traced the source of all these claims and found it to be the guru maharaj of Hindutva School of Historical Forgery—PN Oak.

#Thread When we hear BJP leader Diya Kumari's claim about the Taj Mahal standing on her family's ancestral land, we must ask how the Kachhwahas came to be in possession of that plot of premium real estate. Who was Mirza Raja Jai Singh? A top-ranking Mughal mansabdar. Before their alliance with the Mughals propelled them to greater heights in the 16th century, the Kachhwahas of Amber had a smaller kingdom with much less influence—the top two kingdoms in Rajasthan were Mewar and Marwar.

These days any effort to point out Subhas Chandra Bose’s dealings with the fascists is being met with reactions like “don't forget he was secular and against the communalists”, “he presented an alternative vision of free India”, “don’t play politics over a national icon”, etc. Essentially, the message is: don't play a spoilsport in our celebration of a nationalist leader. Let us be clear about a few things. Hindu communalists don’t like Bose because of his secular credentials; they deify him because of his militarism and his nexus with fascist powers.

Many good people on Twitter have shared with me their stories of grief and also tried to comfort me. But there is a disturbing trend: the tendency to blame everything on karma, destiny, fate, god. Death in a pandemic isn't natural. It wasn't our destiny to lose our loved ones. In history we learn that there is nothing "inevitable". You take a step, you make a choice, and that decides how your future is going to be. Your deeds in your "past life" haven't pre-decided things for you in this life. Nor is God interested in making you suffer to prove a point

After a while, the Covid tide will ebb. While the country will be left to pick up the pieces, the narrative that will be set by the regime, with a lot of help from its minions in the press and elsewhere, will be a triumphalist one. They will say that nobody else could have organised the Kumbh Mela at the height of a pandemic other than Mr. Modi. They will say that nobody else had the guts to look the virus in the eye like Mr. Modi.

I read this highly ridiculous article in Asomiya Pratidin this morning by one Ranjushree Barman. Wow! I really wonder why this piece was commissioned and what the news editor was doing. Do you guys even read what you publish? @pratidintime @pratidinasomiya Assamese people do treat their cattle as 'gau dhan', but they, at least the ethnic Assamese, don't use 'Gau Mata' to refer to cows as mentioned in this article. People in the Northeastern states don't worship cows and call it 'Gau Mata' as claimed in this article.

I was reading the petition against Dr Audrey Truschke and was quite taken aback by the infantile claims made in it. But one particular claim caught my attention — that she has "whitewashed Hindu genocide" by Emperor Aurangzeb in which 4.6 million Hindus were killed. 4.6 million! What is the proof for that claim? A graphic published by New York Times in 2011. While citing this "evidence", none of them actually read what NYT had said. This graphic was based on claims made in a 2011 book called 'The Great Big Book of Horrible Things' by one Matthew White.

Remember one thing, people: the rags to riches tales that you come across in mass media are exceptions, not the norm. To use outliers to claim that hard work can really alter your circumstances is just plain hogwash. Most people are hard-working. Most people have some talent. But most people don't make it big. There will always be examples of pakoda-sellers becoming owners of multi-million dollar food chains.

And just to add to Bahu's point: Delhi is an Islamic city that became the jewel of the Muslim world towards the end of the 14th century. It was built by Muslims and it became the most important city in India because of Muslim rule. There is no pre-Islamic Delhi. We must know this

https://twitter.com/Mughal_imperial/status/1347851435959066625

*13th century.

I watched the debate on secularism being essential for democracy in India on NDTV. It was quite disturbing to watch. Old Right-wing falsehoods about India's founding parents not wanting to build a secular state in India were repeated. This will only help the Hindu Right's cause. I was also disappointed to hear the arguments of Pavan Varma. He pointed out Nehru asking Rajendra Prasad not to attend Somnath inauguration as a "distortion" of secularism. Really? Never seen a more warped argument made in "defence" of secularism. Nehru understood what it meant.

There has been such promotion of militarism in India that in the last few years, Independence Day has been reduced to the celebration of the armed forces only. A nation needs its armed forces to protect its sovereignty, but the armed forces should not symbolise the nation. Sadly, the deification of the military is what we are seeing increasingly, which has resulted in a culture that scoffs at anyone raising any questions about the armed forces. The result is a thin-skinned military that takes umbrage at its depiction in movies and web series.

It's a tad surprising to see Indians cheering Turkey's decision to reconvert Hagia Sophia into a mosque. I also see claims that the Ottoman Sultan and not the Mughal emperor was the spiritual and religious leader of Indian Muslims. No, he wasn't. The Mughal emperor had that role. Emperor Humayun had sent a diplomatic letter to Sultan Suleiman ‘the Magnificent’ in which he had recognised him as the Caliph of his lands but stressed that he was the Caliph of India and as great as Suleiman. Obviously, this was disliked by Sultan Suleiman. He never replied.

Assam erupts in rage over #CitizenshipAmendmentBill. BJP offices are being attacked. Posters of Narendra Modi and Sarbananda Sonowal have been torn and their effigies burnt. Police have lathicharged, fired tear gas and rubber bullets. Slogans of "BJP go back" are being raised. Looking at people through the prism of Hindutva is what will prove to be BJP's undoing, as the situation in Assam has shown right now. Religion can never be a binding factor. If you didn't learn that from Pakistan breaking into two countries, you will never get it. #BharatBandh

The targeted attack on former VP Hamid Ansari is very unfortunate. Just shows how difficult it is in India today in this Hindutva environment to express ideas and opinions. A few things need to be said on Partition, though, and I hope my readers will be kind to me. #HamidAnsari The Hindutva forces and their votaries present a strange contradiction. On one hand they want to squarely blame Congress for Partition, but on the other, they get worked up if someone says Indians were also responsible for it. They blame Nehru but get angry when Patel is named.

The unfurling of the Tricolour at Red Fort yesterday to mark 75 years of the formation of #AzadHindGovernment was a sorry spectacle of political opportunism. Half-truths, falsehoods were used to tar the memory of national icons. So I want to say a few things about Netaji & INA. It's a patently false charge that Netaji or INA have been forgotten or that they were never treated kindly or honoured. In all our schools, colleges and universities, we read laudatory accounts of Bose and INA. We read hagiographies. There was no criticism, only hero worship.

This morning's Asomiya Pratidin newspaper has front-paged a disturbing news. Some group has been illegally constructing a 'Ram-Janki' temple within the historic Shiva Doul (or Sivadoul) at Sibsagar, which is protected by ASI. How did it happen under ASI's watch? @ASIGoI Assam does not have a Ram-Sita temple tradition; only in the Bhaonas are Ramayana episodes enacted. As the report also suggests and is palpable to any local reader, this clandestine operation is possibly the handiwork of some Hindutva group from outside Assam.