Break Up America into Red & Blue? – Jagannathan vs. Zakaria

 

This Blog has been both diligent & strenuous in exposing the deeply embedded Anti-Hindu convictions in American media. The more elite the medium, the deeper the contempt in our experience. Though it is now increasingly disguised, we can feel it from time to time. 

There is also a deeply embedded Anti-American contempt inside Indian media, or BrIndian media to be precise. Almost all of today’s senior media people have been educated in the BrIndian system with British textbooks & with a focus on training students to be British-like. That also means teaching contempt of America, American thought & American ideals. 

In elite BrIndian company, the kind you meet in entities like The Willingdon Club in Mumbai, you consistently hear Americans described as “uncouth”. It is not done in anger but with a deploring sigh. The commonly uttered phrase is “Americans are rich but Indians are intelligent“. When pressed, they can’t even give a single example of where Indian “intelligence” has proved better & more far-reaching than Indian intelligence. But it doesn’t matter to them. They know Americans are rich but not intelligent and they keep waiting for America to fall. 

These convictions drive them to lecture America about what America should do. This began with the ultimate BrIndian of them all, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian prime minister & then the world’s sensation as Shanti-Doot, the messenger of peace. Nehru had contempt for America, deep contempt he was taught by the British left of the 1940s & 1950s. That contempt led him to lecture America about what America should do for almost 15 years right until China attacked his pathetically unprepared India. Sorry to be impolite but that Nehru ran like a crybaby to JFK begging for military & financial help against China. 

 

1.Jagannathan’s prescription for America

Nehru’s contempt of America continues to run deep inside BrInbians as we found in an outrageously smug & stunningly stupid message to America from R. Jagannathan, the editor of a “right-wing” magazine named Swarajya. What is his message from his lofty editorial pedestal?

• Red And Blue, Right And Left: Why America Should Become Two Different Countries

Jagannathan, or Jaggi as he is called, is almost equally contemptuous of both the Fox-viewing Americans and of CNN. The Fox group he called “gun-toters, Bible-thumpers, White supremacists, and a broader base of the less-educated, less-skilled working class“. He described CNN as a network “that often refers to genuine terrorists as unnamed or masked gunmen” without using the same terms for “#BlackLivesMatter and Antifa mob violence“. Then he wrote, not unsensibly, that “It takes two unreasonable groups to create polarisation, and the anti-Trump Left-liberal elite cannot be absolved of the blame.”

Having shown his “even-handedness”, Jaggi , the self-proclaimed Plato of today, gave his prescription for the American Republic:

• “The truth is America is a deeply divided nation, perhaps two different nations forced to live in the same space. Just as India had to accept a partition based on Muslim intransigence before 1947, maybe – just maybe – the US should become two or three different states, or a confederation where Red and Blue (Republican and Democrat) states can go their different ways even while remaining in the same trading bloc.”

 

2. Was Lincoln Right or wrong?

Then Jaggi stepped back into history and told his readers how stupid Abraham Lincoln was:

• “Maybe, again maybe, America would have been better off had it allowed the confederate south to secede in the civil war, instead of forcibly trying to unite two irreconcilable forces into one unhappy union. Contrary to what liberals would like to believe, the only thing that would have changed was the pace of abolition of slavery in the south, not its final elimination. Being conservative does not mean no reform, just a more evolutionary approach to it.”

Poor Abraham Lincoln. He just can’t catch a break these days. Since Jaggi brought up India’s partition in 1947, we wondered what an Indian Muslim leader thought of Lincoln, one who lived through the 1947 partition as a young man of 27. Read what Dr. Rafiq Zakaria writes about Lincoln in his book Jinnah the Man who divided India:

• “… main issue of preservation of the Union. Lincoln was absolutely uncompromising on it; he was often pressured by various vested interests in the north to agree to the separation of the south … even his cabinet wanted him to conceded separation. But Lincoln was unbending; he declared that regardless of the price that the north would have to pay, he would not permit the Union to be dismembered.” 

What about Jaggi’s line “…. India had to accept a partition based on Muslim intransigence before 1947 … “? Rafiq Zakaria writes in his book:

• “Unfortunately at a critical juncture in India’s history there was no Lincoln with the vision, foresight and determination, who could have saved off the dismemberment. Nehru and Patel lost nerve; they could not muster courage to face the possibility of a civil war between the Hindus and the Muslims.” 

What must Lincoln have gone through before & during that civil war? Millions of Americans died and finally Lincoln himself was assassinated. Was it worth it? No according to Jaggi.

So let’s ask what would have happened had Lincoln lost his nerve like the Indian leaders? Rafiq Zakaria answered that in his book:

• ” .. the Union was preserved, with the result that America is today the mightiest superpower in the world. Had Lincoln takes a soft line and agreed to the separation of the southern states from the north, it would have resulted in the emergence of independent states in the same way as in Latin America which is always in a mess.”

We think Dr. Rafiq Zakaria is 100% correct. It is tragic that Jaggi & his BrIndian cohort don’t think so.

Now read what Jaggi advises for today’s America in his perfectly BrIndian manner:

• “Today, America is at the crossroads again, and separation of the conservative parts of the country from the liberal parts would allow both to find their own paths to change and reform. There is nothing wrong in being a conservative or a liberal, just that both need to allow for safe places for the “other” to evolve at their own pace. It’s called pluralism.”

You have to hand it to Jaggi. We don’t think even the New York Times could have achieved such perfectly supercilious drivel. Heck, even The Economist would applaud Jaggi if they bothered to read it.  

 

3. Jaggi’s extreme slur against America

Remember Jaggi is not British, He is a BrIndian. So he has an additional weapon to use in defense of “pluralism”, today’s code word for secular humanism. With that weapon, he not only justifies his legitimate historical right to lecture America but he also engages in a slur against America’s tolerance of religions:

• “India, with its 5,000-year-old civilisational continuity, is far better placed to accept pluralism as its guiding principle than Abrahamic America (my way or the highway). Maybe, it is time to change the Abrahamic binary and accept difference as acceptable in a democracy. This is the only idea that can prevent dissent from becoming disunity and disorder“.

Oh my! How many falsehoods & insults are embedded in this slur! 

First things first. An older friend, who is a Hindu activist in America, has said to us on a couple of occasions that he feels much safer as a Hindu in America than in India. We tend to concur. We don’t think we could write in defense of “Hindu Dharma” in India as we write in America. Challenging NYT’s past slurs against “Hinduism” would have subjected us to emotionally angry ridicule in India especially from Brit-servile Hindus. 

Secondly, we are not familiar with Jaggi’s “my way or the highway America“. Yes Twitter & Facebook are almost there now but not American society as a whole. We have lived in Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Georgia & now the NY-CT-NJ area. We have never experienced the “Abrahamic binary” that Jaggi mentions. In fact, we don’t even have a clue what that slur-like term means. 

The “Abrahamic” term as used by Jaggi was created by “Hindu” activists to describe the uni-iconic religiosity of Judaism, Christianity & Islam, This tag was invented by some as a means to separate Hinduism from these three Middle Eastern religions. It was partly in defense against the far worse slurs the US, British & European media have hurled against “Hinduism” for decades. So we can understand Jaggi’s anger. 

But why bring up religion in this political dispute? And how would separation of Red & Blue American states help address the religious nature that is common to both these groups? To us, it merely shows the depth of Jaggi’s anger & contempt towards America. And we abhor it. 

Semi-finally we are sick of this “India’s 5000-year” this & that gloating. Let us be absolutely clear. Today’s “Hindu” India has NOTHING in common with the earlier “Sindhu” or “Indian” India that ended in 998 CE. That India, at its peak around 900 CE, was what America was after WWII – 38% share of global GDP, dominance in Science, Mathematics, Astronomy & Fine Arts. 

That “Sindhu” or “Indian” India got complacent & turned inwards. Then Muslim invasions from Central Asia began in 998 CE and the defeated “Hindu” India was born. This “Hindu” India began accepting Jaggi’s “pluralism” and preferring a servile peace & order over long arduous conflict. India lost territory to every single Afghan & Uzbek tribe over 600 years & then lost to Portuguese & British. And Indians justified their forced servility in the name of peaceful order.

Heck, Indians did not even fight for Independence from the British. Yes, they debated a lot with the British colonizers. But the Indian people never fought as a group against the tiny number of Brits. In fact, their freedom (& Asia’s) was a unintended gift of Hitler’s destruction of the British war machine & economy.

And then new India’s leaders surrendered again to the Brits as they were leaving & to Muslim rioters and gave away 1/3rd of India in 1947. In Jaggi’s terms the “Hindus” did not want the “disunity & disorder” that fighting for a united India would bring. So they surrendered. 

Now Jaggi wants America to surrender to our polarization & divide ourselves. No thanks Jaggi. We would rather fight than accept a breakup. 

 

4. Why care about Mr. Jagannathan & his magazine?

The answer is very simple. Modi’s India is on its way to becoming a major power. Ian Bremmer is no fan of “Hindus” or India. But even his GZero Media wrote recently that India could actually rise to equal China in power. And America-India have now established a major partnership in defense of freedom in the world. 

So it is time for all of us to stop a few rotten BrIndians from continuing the 70-year old expression of Brit-influenced contempt of America. BrIndians must finally accept that their demi-gods, the British liberals, have moved on and so they should move on as well. 

What would be the reaction in India if CNN’s Fareed Zakaria wrote a similar piece arguing for another break up of India into Muslim areas & “Hindu” areas? India & the Indian establishment would go bonkers & rightly so. Many may not realize that, while Mr. Jagannathan is not at Fareed Zakaria’s US stature, he is a serious figure in Indian Journalism and his magazine, Swarajya, is a serious publication. 

That is why we find it necessary to condemn his article strongly but with reason & facts. His prescription for a breakup of America into Red & Blue areas is not just stupid but actually defamatory to American history & the American people. 

Shame on Mr. Jagannathan. 

 

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