As the year draws to a close, I’m back again with the annual ritual of this blog. 2013 has truly been a year of several revelations, each one tumbling rapdily after the other. Most of them have, needless to say, been nauseating. However, the biggest positive revelation has been the emergence of Narendra Modi as a pan Indian leader. But then given how the loathsome people have continued to remain in important positions, and continue to give a dogged fight against the positives, the list has to be made.
And so, without much ado, here’s the list of the Most Loathsome Indians of 2013. As always, do write in the comments of people you think deserve a place in this list.
9. Nitish Kumar
Charges: 2013 was truly the year of Nitish Kumar’s unraveling. In reality, he’s a 2-bit regional politician with just 20 seats in Lok Sabha but harbouring the impossible dream of becoming Prime Minister. Indeed, Nitish’s is a case of elevating wishful thinking to the status of fait accompli. Forget Lok Sabha, he can’t even form the state Government on his own strength but needs allies. And his skulduggery this year has been as petty as it has been ugly. If anything, Nitish seems to be on a determined course to reduce the JD(U) to a footnote in contemporary politics. His antics in the quest for his unrealizable ambition, which led to his party’s split with the BJP, resembles that of a child whose toy is taken away–except that the toy didn’t belong to him in the first place. Equally, his political instincts during 2013 steadfastly rebelled against even basic commonsense–nothing explains his desire to shift to the leaky, sinking ship called the Congress party. Perhaps Nitish assumed that the BJP of 2014 is the BJP of 2009–a costly assumption as he will realize post the 2014 polls.
Exhibit: Every single tantrum and volte face that he did during the year.
Sentence: Life-size poster of Narendra Modi in his bedroom.
8. Barkha Dutt
Charges: The queen of shrillery. The Isabella of the Indian media. The Duchess of self-righteousness. She was missing from this list last year but this time she’s more than made up for it with the Dehati Aurat episode (follow the complete episode here). Barkha’s is one of the more enduring names in the Hall of Shame of media ethics given how she let her hubris dictate her sense of journalistic propriety on at least two major occasions: the Radia tapes and the 26/11 attacks. And now, the Dehati Aurat case. These however, haven’t prevented her from continuing to take politicians and other public figures to task on precisely the grounds of ethics, morality, public interest, etc. The latest: her posturing in the Tarun Tejpal affair.
Exhibit: We the people, every night, and the buck stops here.
Sentence: Being awarded Dehati Aurat-e-Pakistan by Nawaz Sharif.
7. Ramachandra Guha
Charges: It appears as if Ram Guha has made it a habit to feature in my Most Loathsome list year after year. This self-described lapsed Marxist took to 2013 with a vengeance. He was all over the place–in the mainstream media, in seminars, conferences, on the Internet, and now on Twitter (I won’t link to his Twitter profile as a matter of principle). And it was in 2013 that he accelerated his practiced Narendra Modi trolling. Oh, and Twitter seems to be his newest toy gun, which he has taken to with a gleeful enthusiasm that’s hard to match. Except that his toy gun is coloured Red and is programmed to shoot at everything coloured Saffron. Yet when others try and pay him back in his own coin, he throws a mighty fit. Case in point: me. He got so upset with just a sentence I had written critiquing him that he dedicated an entire article to explain why only his candy is the sweetest. Of course, his Nehru-worship on Twitter and elsewhere continues with the same sycophantic reverence as ever: after all the Sun rises from Nehru’s posterior.
Exhibit: Guha’s Twitter timeline
Sentence: Invited to Narendra Modi’s oath taking ceremony as Prime Minister.
6. Desi Feminazis
Charges: This breed is a new entry on this list not merely because it revealed its true colours in all ugly glory in 2013. It is also because it distinguishes itself for supreme self-righteousness and an intolerance that matches–if not exceeds–that of the Communists. The world of Feminazis is divided into two camps: men and women. The former are always the Kaffirs, the Heathens, and the latter the Mumins, the Believers. Except that in this case, the terminology is “Oppressed” and the “Oppressors.” Every single issue is “analyzed” through just this prism no matter the fluff that surrounds it, dressed up as discourse. And yet while it’s true that women have been historically oppressed and were in need of what’s known as liberation, the Feminazis version rests on an ultra-exaggeration of this oppression. This exaggeration admits no deviation from the Accepted Line and makes no room for alternative perspectives. Newer laws are always needed because newer forms of female oppression are invented every season (on a related note, two books are highly recommended: A Nation of Victims and Saving our Males) by these very Feminazis. In India however, this has morphed into a dangerous phenomenon, which is as hypocritical as it is dangerous. Outrage over rape is selective and so is the reason and the roots and motivations that “encourage” it. While Nilanjana Roy “traces” the roots of “Indian” rape to our epics, a Marxist lunatic named Sanjay Srivastava tries to bring in Swami Vivekananda in the context. What was also notable in the Tarun Tejpal episode was the number of Feminazis who remained silent over the plight of the poor intern. It is unmistakable that much like everything else in India, the subject of women’s rights, etc is directly linked to secularism–you will get support only if you are sufficiently anti-Hindu.
Exhibit: The hypocrisy of this breed on various instances of injustice done to women.
Sentence: Deported to Saudi Arabia.
5. Siddaramaiah
Charges: Perhaps the vilest Chief Minister Karnataka has ever seen. Barely six months into his tenure and he’s showing all indications that he treats the state like his personal fiefdom. From taking unilateral decisions on almost everything to hurtling the state on a dangerous economic road, Siddaramaiah seems to be a man in a hurry to wreck Karnataka in the shortest possible time. He also holds the dubious distinction to introduce a phenomenon that was restricted largely to states like Tamil Nadu: the culture of freebies. The various “bhagya” schemes he has mooted are designed to keep the poor masses beholden to state dole forever. This is almost the exact replica of Tamil Nadu, which has created an entire generation of unemployable youth who are content to laze around because the state literally takes care of even feeding them. Siddaramaiah’s other venal ideas include openly targetting the Hindu society, its traditions, and institutions. And he has compensated to the same measure on the other side by mooting an avowedly communal scheme for only Muslims. His loutish behaviour with the bureaucracy deserves an entire volume in itself. Expectedly, he has generated massive outrage and has shot up the unpopularity charts in barely six months, and deservedly so.
Exhibit: Too numerous to mention.
Sentence: Stripped of his Chief Ministership to be replaced by D.K. Shiva Kumar.
4. Sanjay Jha
Charges: Another new entrant to this list. In reality, his name should’ve been on a list made for the Most Retarded Indians. However, Sanjay Jha’s retardedness is redeemed to the fullest by his loathsome servility to the Congress party. He’s also the perfect example to disprove the time-honoured proverb that there’s no such thing as a willing slave. If the Sun rises from Jawaharlal Nehru’s posterior in Ramachandra Guha’s world, it rises from Nehru’s great grandson’s posterior in Sanjay Jha’s world. In effect, Sanjay Jha is the massively dumbed down version of Ram Guha–call him Ram Guha for Dummies if you will. His apparition as a human being is the only obstacle preventing him from becoming Rahul Gandhi’s underwear.
Exhibit: His Twitter timeline and his nonstop TV appearances.
Sentence: Made to appear on TV and/or in public wearing a dog collar henceforth.
3. Arvind Kejriwal
Charges: Last year, I said no one knows what this freak is really up to. He revealed that a few months ago by doing a volte face about his intention to stay away from politics. Formed party. Won handsomely, a victory that came to him thanks to a combination of the inability of the middle class to think critically about crucial issues plus the “novelty” of his “idea” plus his penchant for using and dumping people. Now that he has a shot at power, he doesn’t want to sit in the hot seat because that would mean his complete unravelling as an opportunistic ignoramus who doesn’t understand the basics of governance. Would prove dangerous if he does become the Chief Minister thanks to his vacuous sloganeering and more thanks to the bunch of anti-national Naxals who surround him.
Exhibit: Dumped RSS. Dumped Baba Ramdev. Dumped Anna Hazare. Surrounded by lunatic Communists like Yogendra Yadav and Binayak Sen. Suspected to be in bed with the Congress.
Sentence: Bound, gagged and transported, standing in a crowded and stinking bus to Ralegan Siddhi and then tied to a tree and flogged as per the orders of Anna Hazare.
2. You
Charges: Your loathsomeness ranking has plumetted which is a good sign because you’ve come out overwhelmingly in support of a leader with an impeccable record of decisive governance, development, security, transparency, and non-corrupt. Yet, you need to improve because you are responsible for the emergence of a dumb sloganeer like Arvind Kejriwal. You’re unwilling to go the whole hog. You continue to watch dumb shouting matches on discredited and corrupt TV channels mistaking them for meaningful debates instead of choking their business by switching over to Cartoon Network. You are responsible for Barkha Dutt’s 11 Lakh Twitter followers, and likewise, a high number of followers and fans for airheads like Sagarika Ghose, Rajdeep Sardesai, Shashi Tharoor, Ram Guha et al who strut around like geniuses.You don’t know what GDP is. You think a country’s economy is its stock market and/or the Reserve Bank. Worse, you instill the same ignorance in your kids. You think who said something is more important than what was said. You uncritically swallow, accept, believe, and endorse tripe like what for example, Gurcharan Das says in his shallow book on the Mahabharata. You need to improve your loathsomeness ranking.
Exhibit: Kejriwal’s superb victory in the Delhi polls. Still dilly-dallying over support for Narendra Modi.
Sentence: A year in West Bengal under Mamata Banerjee’s rule.
1. Tarun Tejpal
Charges: The Sultan of sleaze. The Emperor of extortion. The Badshah of blackmail. The King of corrupt journalism. Failed paedophile–indeed that is quite an apt description of the act that finally unmasked Tarun Tejpal for what he really was. The young victim, a lady who was his daughter’s age might be an adult as per law. However, there is such a thing as obedience to the unenforceable: just because a lady is old enough to have sex doesn’t mean a 60 year old pervert can go ahead and do it with her. In Tejpal’s case, he forced himself–well, his fingers–on her not once but twice. Of course, he “recused” and tried to “lacerate” his soul for six months in his own court of law. In any case, everything that needed to be said about this third-rate sleazeball has already been said, and is public knowledge but in passing, Tarun Tejpal is in many ways an epitome of the ultimate, disastrous consequence of forgiving or overlooking even one act of corruption in any sphere in public and private life. Tarun Tejpal is India’s Most Loathsome Person of 2013.
Exhibit: Is any needed given what has happened?
Sentence: Made to undergo the full experience of fingering–among other things–in jail. Castration would be a welcome bonus.
Tags: Congress, Indian Media, Indian Media Watch, Indian Politics, Pseudosecularism Hall of Shame, Most Loathsome People of India 2013