Obama and His Crimean Misadventure: Russia has legitimate interests in the region

The Western powers have once more started behaving like cold warriors, provoking Russia and hiding their aggression in a cloak of Democracy and Human Rights, a sanctimonious combination of realpolitik and ideological assertion. Nothing typifies this new conduct of the European Union and USA than the crisis over Russian involvement in the Ukraine and the subsequent merger of Crimea with the Russian Federation. People who rail against Russia seem to have forgotten recent history. It was in the Siege of Sebastipol that Florence Nightingale earned her name and it was the same Crimean war that provided the occasion for bad poetry as well: we are all familiar with the Charge of the Light Brigade by England's poet laureate, Lord Tennyson. I am only recalling these facts to underscore the historical context of the recent events. Russia has had a presence in the Crimean Peninsula right from the waning years of the Ottoman Empire and the West always tried to thwart the legitimate interests of Russia. Now Vladmir Putin has succeeded and revered the long imposed isolation of Crimea from Russia. In fact during the Soviet Era, Crimea was handed over to Ukraine for only administrative convenience. Barack Obama, of course, has stated that the West will not recognize the "annexation" of Crimea. Russia held a Referendum in which 96% of the people of the region voted for merger with Russia. Further, where was International Law that Obama and his allies talk now, when they bomber Serbia, imposed the UDI on Kossovo, and shat about the armed invasion of Iraq in defiance of the international community as represented by the UN. Russia has now followed the example of USA and her allies. There is yet another serious problem. When the Soviet leader Gorbochev allowed the unification of East and West Germany,he was given a solemn assurance by the US President that NATO will not be expanded to cover Eastern Europe. The collapse of USSR and the rise of USA as an imperial, post-Soviet power meant that the temptation to ring the erstwhile territories of USSR with military bases was too strong to be ignored and the expansion of the NATO into the territories of the Warsaw Pact nations is really at the heart of the problem. The President of Ukariane, Viktor Yanukovitch who was duly elected and a legitimate ruler was overthrown by street mobs of rampaging neo-nazis armed and encouraged by the European Union. The overthrow of a legitimate government by rioters is always a cause of concern but not for Obama and his Merry men. Snipers who killed nearly 100 people during the course of the anti Yanukovich protests are now hailed as great freedom fighters. Russia should have intervened militarily and stopped the mayhem on the street of Kiev, but Putin held his horses.In all fairness, Russia cannot allow its security to be permanently jeopardised by Ukaraine and the EU. Yet, Vladmir Putin showed remarkable statesmanship and restraint. The fear of Ukraine joining NATO is all to real to be ignored and the European Union is following the the Nazi policy of expansion by invoking the rhetoric of Democracy and Human Rights, rhetoric that hides the war crimes of USA in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ukraine during world war II set a horrible example of collaboration with the Nazis and the same forces are being harnessed now to legitimize Western intervention. More than one million jews were killed in Ukraine during the War and men like Stepan Bandera were really Nazis not nationalists. The Russian leadership is aware of the potential for Ukraine to divide on its east-west axis with the Russian majority eastern part joining the Russian federation and the western part becoming a rump member of the NATO. Given this volotile scenario, Vladmir Putin took steps to protect the vital national interests of Russia. The merger of Crimea with Russia and the eventualbreakup of the independent state of Ukaraine can be blamed on the misguded policy of the EU of encouraing the neo-nazi natioanlists.

The Metaphysics of the Political Imagination: Why Shiv Vishwanathan is wrong about Modi

A noted Indian "sociologist" in a center page article in the Hindu (April 5, 2014) has made some bold and superficially interesting speculations abort the brand of politics Narendra Modi represents. I wonder why such eminent sociologists do not subject the Congress Party and its mascot, Sonia Gandhi to the same kind of rigorous scrutiny as many of his conclusions can with equal justification be extended to the Congress. In politics style matters as much as substance and when Indian intellectuals train their guns on one individual and suddenly find his ideological soul mates like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and l K Advani more authentic than Narendra Modi from a "civilization" point of view, then we know that something is seriously wrong about the logic behind such ideologically constructed posturing. Until not that long ago, Indian middle class intellectuals, particularly the tele intellectuals of the JNU breed were articulating their wisdom in terms of sound bytes aired on NDTV which drove home just one point: the BJP and its politics is a threat to the "secular" values of the country and by default must support the Congress party. The intellectuals found it both prudent and professionally rewarding to mouth the empty slogans of "secularism" and "inclusion", the stock in trade of high political discourse in India/. As a sociologists, the writer must be aware that in terms of social inclusion as empirically measured by voting percentages and seats won, the BJP scores much higher than it rival the Congress. At least in North India, most of the SC reserved seats and ST seats have been won by the BJP and there is no use in taking recourse to the Marxist line that such figures only represents false consciousness on the part of the "subaltern" classes. At the end of the day the tele intellectual is always right and facts be damnned. Why let facts and empirically verifiable date come in the way of a politically correct and rewarding statement. The intellectual goes on to gratuitously advive the BJP to be more "discursive" more "conversational". The discursive space in Indian politics is hogged by the Congress and its academic bandwagon who have monopolized public space in the name of secularism and nationalism. If they want to suggest that the hysterical style of ranting against electoral adversaries like the way Sonia, Rahul and other members of the First Family, the Royal Dynasty represents discursive expanse and a conversational style of politics, I am afraid that people will not accept. The electorate sees the shrill hysterical ranting of the Congress as hate mongering and it is time that the soft intellectuals like the author of the center page article recognize the political style of the dynastic fascists as divisive and fraudulent To harp on Jaswant Singh has become fashionable. Suddenly the opponents of Narendra Modi have rediscovered the virtues of Jaswant Singh after his rebellion. But the same class of tele intellectuals were berating him until the other day for the views on Partition and his analysis that Congress too was responsible for the Partition and do In need to remind my readers of what they said about Jaswant Singh when the then NDA Government released the Taliban prisoners in exchange for the passengers of the Indian Airlines flight which was hijacked to Kabul. I agree Indians do not have a sense of History, but if "sociologists" who write about the civilizational strengths of the BJP should choose tom ignore recent events then it is not oversight but deliberate distortion for political purposes. Is there anything "civilizational" about Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi. If Narendra Modi is faulted for not being "civilizational" them I wonder if the hate filled rhetoric of the First Family is civilizational. It is obvious that the writer has not followed the Campaign of Narendra Modi and therefore is unaware of the reasons why he resonates all around the country. He is not an "ersatz"version of the BJP as the writer inelegantly puts it, but rather one who has crafted his political message keeping the complex realities of an ever changing India. The fact is that Narendra Modi has jettisoned the old style identity politics and has changed the terms within which India debates its future. And "sociologists" of course are livid as he has out did them in their own game. He has crafted a message of social and economic development based on the principle that the State has to ensure that the basic structure within which resource transfers and nation building takes place is in tune by and large with the aspirations of the people. And he has successfully sold the argument that the economic downturn in India is linked to the massive and egregious corruption under the congress. What is offensive or objectionable about this fundamental message. Governemnts will be voted in and voted out not on the basis of real and invented identities but on the grounds of performance as seen by the common man. I do not see anything alarming in all this and wish the author had used the resources of his mind to reflect on the conditions prevailing all over the country. The sense of gloom and doom are there in the eyes of eveyone except the starry eyed wonder struck sociologists of JNU. The upcoming elections will mark a decisive turning point in the history of India. Under Narendra Modi, India will be able to stand and take strides towards improving its economy, living standards and social harmony all of which were ruthlessly compromised during the past 10 years.