The Benefit of Hindsight

May be 'it' is human nature and therefore pervades this globe but I am sure that 'it' is present in large parts of India. This 'it' is the tendency of Indians to pass judgements with the benefit of hindsight. You may do well to remember how people were hell bent upon castigating M S Dhoni over his decision to promote Ravindra Jadeja. Now we all are admiring M S Dhoni for his captaincy in finals of Compaq cup. Virtually every bowling change he made worked (even listless R P Singh got Jayasuriya to cut one straight to Virat Kohli). Not just in cricket but look at any other walk of life. People were critical of the UPA before the elections, criticizing their failures to get partners in UP and Bihar. Rahul Gandhi was said to be too involved in Amethi and not venturing out in other areas of Uttar Pradesh. Now he is being credited with wooing voters from all sections of society. It may well be the case that Rahal was active in other areas or that the candidates won it on their own but no; we will pass our judgement because we have the benefit of hindsight.

Before the elections Advani, Modi and even Varun Gandhi were charismatic. Now, even the BJP holds them responsible for this debacle. The Indian government was a butt of ridicule for going slow on deregulation. Now we see all the virtues in this policy after India escaped the global financial crisis to a large extent. More recently a national newspaper carried an article on 'shifting political wind' in Gujarat. Now that the BJP has done very well in just conclude bypolls I want to look at their analysis.

Hindsight offers us more information to analyze situations but we should be magnanimous enough to acknowledge our shortcomings while passing judgements.

Jinnah and the Pseudo Secularists

Last few days we have seen a huge interest in media about Jinnah. This interest has been triggered because of the contents of a book written by Jaswant Singh, who used to be a prominent leader of the BJP which is seen as the right wing party of India.

I am surprised at two things: first, why did Jaswant Singh is so eloquent in praise of Jinnah. I am not talking of his book because I have not read it but of his interviews. Second, why some sections of media are hell bent upon showing Jinnah as a moderate Muslim who was secular and would have never approved of the atrocities meted out to minorities in Pakistan.

Of many ghettos surrounding the Muslim community in India one is that they admire Jinnah or for that matter Pervez Musharraf. Do you remember that Bus during 2004 elections with painting of Vajpayee and Musharraf on it? That was also the time when we had uproar over Advani's remark on Jinnah. This was ostensibly done to win good will of Indian Muslims for the BJP. What happened in that election is history now. My personal experience (because I had interactions with a lot of Muslims in my school days and with some in college days) is that there is no admiration for Jinnah in majority of Muslims. But people like Jaswant Singh think otherwise. And for the second thing I will say so called 'liberals' or more appropriately the 'pseudo secularists' of India think that they are being progressive by showing Jinnah in 'true' light. I want to know if Jinnah did only one thing wrong in instigating partition riots and so is a secularist because of of what he did rest of his life why do this same section castigates Narendra Modi? Mr. Modi has done nothing wrong other than not controlling Gujarat riots. Is he a secularist?