Mediaboss Marketing

OSAKA On Sept. 2, 1945, senior Japanese officials aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay surrendered to the United States-led Allied coalition. The move came just over two weeks after Emperor Hirohito told the nation, on Aug. 15, that Japan would surrender.

The day marked not only the formal end of the Pacific War but also the beginning of the occupation of Japan by foreign powers for the first time in its history.

Led and largely directed by the United States under Supreme Commander Allied Powers Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the United Kingdom, India, Australia and New Zealand would play supporting roles in the Allied Occupation, which continued until the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed on Sept. 8, 1951. The treaty came into effect on April 28, 1952.

What was the purpose of the Occupation?

The Occupation had two immediate objectives in the postwar period.

The first was to ensure Japan would never again become a menace to the U.S. or the rest of the world. The second was to bring about the eventual establishment of a peaceful and responsible government that would respect the rights of other states and support the U.S. and the United Nations.

To accomplish those goals, the authority of the emperor and the Japanese government was subject to MacArthur, who had sweeping powers to carry out the surrender terms and institute new political and economic policies.

Japan was under occupation for six years, until it signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty on Sept. 8, 1951.

What areas of reform were pursued?

Demilitarization and breaking up Japans large industrial groups, known as zaibatsu, were two major goals.

The Occupation also enacted land reforms that gave farmers and small landowners more rights. Trade unions were allowed to operate, and educational reforms created a school system based on the U.S. model and encouraged the teaching of democratic values.

U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur took the decision not to try Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal following Japans surrender at the end of World War II. | KYODO

Occupation authorities also worked with Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, after agreeing he would not abdicate or be prosecuted as a war criminal, to encourage Japanese to view him more as a constitutional monarch along the lines of the British system than as a living god.

The Occupation also forced a new Constitution on Japan to replace the prewar document that had given the emperor far more political power. It was promulgated in 1946 and went into effect in 1947. In drawing up the new Constitution, Occupation officials often clashed with conservative senior Japanese leaders, especially on expanding the rights of the people.

In 1995, Beate Sirota Gordon, who, as a 22-year-old Occupation employee had collaborated on the provision about womens rights in the new Constitution, told reporters that it had been hammered out by the U.S. and Japan over a 30-hour period in March 1946.

She had pushed for including a clause about womens rights, and her superiors agreed it should be included and advised the Japanese accordingly.

What did the Occupation discourage?

Despite an official policy of promoting free speech, Occupation authorities exercised strong censorship over the Japanese media.

On Sept. 19, 1945, MacArthur issued a press code that prohibited the printing of any material that interfered with public tranquility, and said that destructive criticism of the Occupation, or articles that invited mistrust or resentment of troops, would not be allowed.

Detailed reports about the effects of atomic bomb radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were suppressed, and Occupation censors prohibited articles that justified the actions of Japan during wartime, defended accused war criminals or contained military or nationalist propaganda.

Articles on black market activities, starvation (a major concern in the winter of 1945) or fraternization between Occupation personnel and Japanese women were also subject to censorship.

In his 1952 book Conquered Press: The MacArthur Era in Japanese Journalism, William Coughlin notes that the actual application of censorship rules was confusing and so difficult that some Japanese newspapers set up censorship desks where about a dozen men were expected to keep the rest of the paper informed on what the Occupation was saying about censorship and what kinds of stories were allowed.

How did the Occupation change over time?

By 1949, events within and outside of Japan were prompting a rethink on the part of Occupation officials about their earlier reforms. The Soviet Union acquired an atomic bomb and the Chinese Communist Revolution took place that year.

In Japan, hyperinflation was a problem. It was brought under control with the arrival, also in 1949, of Detroit banker Joseph Dodge.

His Dodge Line of policies included balancing the national budget and fixing the exchange rate at 360 to the dollar, along with unpopular austerity measures.

The end result of Dodges policies was that Japan would concentrate on becoming an industrial export power in later decades.

By the end of the 1940s, the Occupation was cracking down harder on domestic Japanese groups it deemed dangerous. These included unions and other groups directly or indirectly associated with socialists and communists.

On the other hand, many anticommunists conservatives and right-wingers who had been arrested in 1945 as suspected war criminals were released, to serve as American allies in the global struggle against communism. These events were part of what became known as the Occupations reverse course.

Was the Occupation limited to Japans main islands?

The islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu were under the control of the Supreme Commander Allied Powers, but the U.S. had sole authority over Okinawa (which it would retain until returning it to Japan in 1972).

Former Japanese colonial possessions were divided up among other Allied nations.

Japans Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Chief of the Army General Staff General Yoshijiro Umezu attend the surrender ceremonies on Sept. 2, 1945. | U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS / U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES / HANDOUT / VIA REUTERS

China was given control of Taiwan, the Soviet Union had authority over South Sakhalin which Japan had taken from Russia 40 years previously as well as the Kuril Islands, of which the four nearest Japan were invaded by the Soviet Union after the Aug. 15 speech by Emperor Hirohito announcing the nations surrender.

The Korean Peninsula was divided across its middle. The U.S. took charge of the southern part of the peninsula, which became independent South Korea in 1948. The Soviet Union was given control of the land north of the 38th parallel, which became North Korea, also in 1948.

Islands in the Pacific, including Guam, were classified by the U.N. as Non-Self-Governing Territories, but administered by the U.S.

What is the Occupations legacy?

The early phase is usually viewed by historians as being a policy and diplomatic success, especially by American officials. On a personal level, Japanese who were children during the era still tell stories of American G.I.s passing out gum, ice cream and chocolate.

American popular culture that arrived with the Occupation troops, from movies to music, blossomed, which added to the view, especially in the U.S., that it was successful. The peaceful reaction to the presence of so many Allied troops by the Japanese people also meant the Occupation did not have to worry about putting down armed rebellions as it attempted to carry out its policies.

Historians in Japan and abroad generally agree that the Occupation accomplished many of its early goals, including disarmament, the repatriation of Japanese forces abroad, the ratification of a new Constitution rooted in democratic values, land reforms, more equal rights for women and a foreign policy that made Japan a close U.S. ally.

But the censorship exercised by the Occupation, the release and return to power of those arrested for war crimes and the crackdown on socialists and communists created problems that lingered long after the Occupation ended. The decision by MacArthur not to try Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal provoked anger among other allied nations.

Another issue that remains unresolved is that of the islands occupied by the Soviet Union and a separate peace treaty with Russia, which did not sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

Finally, mention must be made of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which would follow the Occupation.

It firmly placed Japan in the alliance of democratic nations during the Cold War period that followed, allowing Japan to rebuild its economy under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, without large defense expenditures.

But it also created questions about whether Japan, whose future international role was initially viewed by some Occupation authorities as that of neutrality the Switzerland of Asia had become too tied to Washingtons interests by the time the Occupation ended.

Read more here:
75 years on, legacy of the U.S.-led Occupation of Japan still resonates - The Japan Times

from the bow-down dept

While China-bashing is all the rage right now (much of it deserved given the country's abhorrent human rights practices), it's sort of amazing what a difference a year makes. While the current focus of ire towards the Chinese government seems focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and a few mobile dance apps, never mind the fully embedded nature of Chinese-manufactured technology in use every day in the West, late 2019 was all about China's translucent skin. Much of that had to do with China's inching towards a slow takeover of Hong Kong and how several corporate interests in the West reacted to it. Does anyone else remember when our discussion about China was dominated by stories dealing with Blizzard banning Hearthstone players for supporting Hong Kong and American professional sports leagues looking like cowards in the face of a huge economic market?

Yeah, me neither. But with all that is going on the world and all of the criticism, deserved or otherwise, being lobbed at the Chinese government, it's worth pointing out that the problems of last year are still going on. And, while Google most recently took something of a stand against the aggression on Hong Kong specifically, other companies are still bowing to China's thin-skin in heavy-handed ways. The latest example of this is an admittedly relatively trivial attempt by Activision to kneel at the altar of Chinese historical censorship.

The debut trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has been blocked in China, and subsequently edited everywhere else, after featuring around one seconds worth of footage from the Communist governments crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989. When the game was first announced last week, a trailer running for 2:02 was released to the world and hosted on the official Call of Duty and Xbox YouTube pages, along with major trailer sites like IGN and Gamespot.

On August 21, however, the videos on Call of Duty and Xboxs YouTube pages were replaced with a much shorter, 1:00 version. This isnt an additional trailer, its a replacement, which we know because...the original 2:02 video we embedded in our own story is no longer working, having been marked as private.

So here's the, ahem, tik-tok on this. Activision, which also owns Blizzard, releases a new trailer for a new Call of Duty game. That trailer includes a single second of an image from Chinese protests against the government from three decades ago. The Chinese government, true to form, flips the fuck out and bans the trailer entirely. One imagines there were also threats of banning the game entirely, but that is yet to be confirmed. Activision then, seeing the Chinese government go full carpet bomb over the trailer in its country, decides to try to out-carpet-bomb the carpet bomb by doing a delete/replace of the offending trailer worldwide.

While we're talking about a mere video game trailer here, the implications aren't as insignificant as they might seem. Games are a subset of culture and commerce. While much of the discourse over how companies do business in China is overstated to say the least, what Activision did here is something different. Indeed, it could probably be best summarized as: Activision allowed the Chinese government to censor the company's art throughout the world.

And, sinophobia aside, that is a very dangerous precedent to set. That it was an action taken on a trailer for a game called Call of Duty: Cold War, in fact, is probably proof that the universe is not without a sense of irony.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyones attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise and every little bit helps. Thank you.

The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: call of duty, china, free speech, games, human rights, video gamesCompanies: activision, blizzard

Read more here:
Activision Deletes And Replaces 'Call Of Duty' Trailer Worldwide Over 1 Second That Hurt China's Feelings - Techdirt

The major broadcast and cable networks were mighty friendly to Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden and the splashy national convention which provided his debut in the political arena last week.

Here is the question that follows: Will media coverage of the Republican National Convention be as generous, or will the networks end up censoring President Trump and his campaign message, or compromising the coverage itself?

The liberal media is already rustling with possibilities.

America is experiencing asymmetric lying because President Trumps campaign is much more dishonest, more frequently, than Joe Bidens campaign. News outlets have to acknowledge this truth imbalance, CNN media analyst Brian Stelter warns in a tweet.

Should TV networks air the Republican National Convention in full? he asked, suggesting that broadcasters consider cutting away if they believe the Republicans are offering disinformation to the voting public.

A network decision to stop covering the GOP gathering because of perceived disinformation could be a real moment of truth in the media business.

This week is a test for those in the television news business: Are they still trying to deliver news, which means letting their audience actually witness important events for themselves (albeit with analysis and commentary from the networks)? Or are they in the well-only-show-what-liberals-want-us-to-show business? Last week, CNN and MSNBC let their audiences see roughly 90% of the Democratic video show that stood in for this years national convention, without any meaningful interruptions, writes Rich Noyes, research director for the Media Research Center.

If those organizations are still in the news business, thats exactly how much of the Republican Convention youll see on those networks, too, he says.

The conservative press watchdog found ABC, CBS and NBC showed viewers very large percentages of the Democratic fare. Mr. Noyes now wonders whether they will treat the Republican National Convention equally.

By Thursday night, well see whos left in the news business, and whos abandoned it for the political advertising business, Mr. Noyes says.

6,000 MILES

Let us pause and consider the Question of the Day for Joe Biden, posed daily by Donald J. Trump for President, the presidents official campaign entity. And here it is:

Last week during your convention, President Trump traveled more than 6,600 miles to speak to voters in states across the nation, which is more miles than you have traveled in total since March 7. During the Republican National Convention this week, do you have any plans to leave your basement and actually meet voters?

This inquiry was made on Monday just as the Republican National Convention got rolling.

AOC HAS A SAY

Its not a campaign video, but it could be. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has released an 18-minute, on-camera showcase of her beauty routine, published online Monday by Vogue magazine which has yet to do a feature on first lady Melania Trump, a former fashion model with global credentials.

The video, meanwhile, has already racked up more than 1 million views on YouTube.

The reason why I think its so important to share these things is that, first of all, femininity has power, and in politics there is so much criticism and nitpicking about how women and femme people present ourselves, the New York Democrat explained.

Femme designates a distinctly feminine style that can be adopted by people of any sexual orientation, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Just being a woman is quite politicized in Washington. Theres this really false idea that if you care about makeup or if your interests are in beauty and fashion, that thats somehow frivolous. But I actually think these are some of the most substantive decisions that we make and we make them every morning, the lawmaker said.

She also revealed her color of choice for a bold lip is Stilas Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick in Beso, a bright red.

One of the things that I had realized is that when youre always running around, sometimes the best way to really look put together is a bold lip. I will wear a red lip when I want confidence, she notes.

If Im going to spend an hour in the morning doing my glamour, its not going to be because Im afraid of what some Republican photo is going to look like. Its because I feel like it, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said.

NOW THERES A THOUGHT

The Republican National Convention will be a four-day celebration of President Trump and a visceral four-day condemnation of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his party, says Fox News, in a handy and succinct description of the weeks big event.

And what does this say about Mr. Trump?

It will be his greatest performance ever, declares Lucianne Goldberg, founder of the news aggregation site Lucianne.com.

POLL DU JOUR

55% of U.S. adults plan to get a coronavirus vaccine shot when it becomes available; 54% of Republicans, 54% of independents and 66% of Democrats agree.

58% of Whites, 49% of Hispanics and 41% of Blacks, plus 59% of men and 51% of women also agree.

26% overall do not plan to get the vaccine shot; 37% of Republicans, 26% of independents and 15% of Democrats agree.

24% of Whites, 29% of Hispanics and 34% of Blacks, plus 23% of men and 29% of women also agree.

20% overall dont know whether they will get the shot; 18% of Republicans, 20% of independents and 19% of Democrats agree.

18% of Whites, 23% of Hispanics and 25% of Blacks, plus 18% of men and 21% of women also agree.

Source: A Fox News poll of 1,000 registered U.S. voters conducted Aug. 9-12 and released Thursday.

Helpful information to [emailprotected]

Excerpt from:
Inside the Beltway: Censoring the GOP convention is part of the media plan - Washington Times

Childrens Health Defense (CHD), an anti-vaccine group headed by Robert F. Kannedy, Jr., filed a lawsuit alleging that Facebooks fact-checking practices violate its constitutional rights and amount to censorship. The suit names Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well as three fact-checking organizations, Science Feedback, Poynter, and PolitiFact.

A statement released by CHD says that their suit charges them with censoring truthful public health posts and for fraudulently misrepresenting and defaming CHD.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The statement also says, Facebook has insidious conflicts with the Pharmaceutical industry and its captive health agencies and has economic stakes in telecom and 5G. Facebook currently censors CHDs page, targeting its purge against factual information about vaccines, 5G, and public health agencies.

According to Ars Technica, the suit also alleges that Facebook and the other fact-checking organizations colluded to commit wire fraud by clearing the field of anti-vaccine ads.

Additionally, they claim that these organizations created oppositional content on the CHD page, literally superimposed over CHDs original content. Ostensibly, these images were warning viewers that the content posted by CHD contained misinformation and scientific inaccuracies.

CHD also claims that Facebook deactivated the donate button on their page and used a variety of deceptive technology to keep their page and posts from reaching too many people. In short, the statement reads, Facebook and the government colluded to silence CHD and its followers.

Ars Technica reports that Kennedy, through CHD and an affiliated group called the World Mercury Project, was responsible for more than half of anti-vaccine advertisements on Facebook when they were permitted. In 2019, Facebook updated its policies and began to crack down on misinformation.

Facebooks fact-checking process led to ads with false claims being banned and pages promoting anti-vaccine misinformation being pushed down in search results and recommendations. Actual anti-vaccine posts too began appearing with a link to bring readers to factual sites so they could get truthful information about the topic.

CHD claims that these actions are violations of the First and Fifth Amendments, the Lanham Act, and RICO. The CHD statement reads, While earlier court decisions have upheld Facebooks right to censor its pages, CHD argues that Facebooks pervasive government collaborations make its censorship of CHD a First Amendment violation.

The Verge reports that CHDs lawsuit doesnt have a clear precedent for success. Much of the lawsuit simply contradicts Facebook fact-checkers claims, rather than establishing why the fact-checking would be illegal, Adi Robertson writes.

There have been several lawsuits and much disagreement about the role and rights of social media companies when it comes to free speech and censorship. Back in May, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to try to prevent online censorship.

The problem, of course, is that facts are indisputable, a fact that some do not seem to grasp. You cannot lie and then claim you are being censored when someone corrects you and provides the right information. Its not censorship to correct medically spurious advice. Lies and false information are not opinions. Period.

// Identity library (function () { var s = document.createElement('script'); s.async = true; s.src="https://js-sec.indexww.com/ht/p/183897-258872853914507.js"; document.head.appendChild(s); })();

// Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Ads (function () { var s = document.createElement('script'); s.async = true; s.src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=AW-779807651"; document.head.appendChild(s); })(); window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} window.gtag = gtag gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'AW-779807651');

// fb pixel !function (f, b, e, v, n, t, s) { if (f.fbq) return; n = f.fbq = function () { n.callMethod ? n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments) }; if (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n; n.push = n; n.loaded = !0; n.version = '2.0'; n.queue = []; t = b.createElement(e); t.async = !0; t.src = v; s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s) }(window, document, 'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '917880528564603'); fbq('track', 'PageView');

// ga (function (i, s, o, g, r, a, m) { i['GoogleAnalyticsObject'] = r; i[r] = i[r] || function () { (i[r].q = i[r].q || []).push(arguments) }, i[r].l = 1 * new Date(); a = s.createElement(o), m = s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0]; a.async = 1; a.src = g; m.parentNode.insertBefore(a, m) })(window, document, 'script', 'https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js', 'ga'); ga('create', 'UA-41650130-1', 'auto'); ga('set', 'dimension1', 'Robin Zlotnick'); ga('set', 'dimension9', '8/25/2020'); ga('set', 'dimension10', '8/25/2020'); ga('send', 'pageview');

// amazon !function (a9, a, p, s, t, A, g) { if (a[a9]) return; function q(c, r) { a[a9]._Q.push([c, r]) } a[a9] = { init: function () { q("i", arguments) }, fetchBids: function () { q("f", arguments) }, setDisplayBids: function () { }, _Q: [] }; A = p.createElement(s); A.async = !0; A.src = t; g = p.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; g.parentNode.insertBefore(A, g) }("apstag", window, document, "script", "//c.amazon-adsystem.com/aax2/apstag.js"); apstag.init({ pubID: '91667ea5-81f1-433a-99ca-8c9df5934ce7', adServer: 'googletag', bidTimeout: 900 });

// kargo var s = document.createElement('script'); var el = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.async = true; s.src="https://storage.cloud.kargo.com/ad/network/klick/klick-distractify.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el);

// overconfidentialfood !(function(o,n,t){t=o.createElement(n),o=o.getElementsByTagName(n)[0],t.async=1,t.src="https://overconfidentfood.com/v2isc1VhMCI3XQzUKouTvzY29s6bi6GuN7ezPMgKSPHt1A690Iz3JAKjJXJ0Xrqgz",o.parentNode.insertBefore(t,o)})(document,"script"),(function(o,n){o[n]=o[n]||function(){(o[n].q=o[n].q||[]).push(arguments)}})(window,"admiral");!(function(c,e,o,t,n){function r(o,t){(function n(){try{return 0

See the original post:
Anti-Vax Group Sues Facebook Because They Think Fact-Checking Is Censorship - POP TIMES UK

The distressing news that Bloomsbury India, who had printed Advocate Monica Aroras co-authored book Delhi Riots 2020, the Untold Story has recently decided to stop its announced launch and publication; and to reduce all its printed copies to pulp. The book covers the violence that erupted in the capital after the passage of the Citizens Amendment Act (CAA) by both the houses of the Indian Parliament on 11th December 2019.

Interested political and religious groups opposed this bill on mostly unfounded fears, and they organized a prolonged sit-in protest at Delhis Shaheen Bagh and other Left-controlled venues. The sit-in and the attendant protests have been covered in detail by the press and TV and it is not my purpose here to recount the entire sordid saga.

Nupur Sharma, the intrepid editor of the web journal Opindia, burnt the proverbial midnight oil to put together a report on these riots. Published as an ebook on Kindle by Amazon, An Opindia Report on Delhi Anti-Hindu Riots 2020 has been available for download from the Amazon portal. The ebook is today marked as No. 1 Bestseller in the Kindle Store and carries a 5-Star rating. For Kindle subscribers the book is available for free, while for others it costs a mere Rs. 101/-. Ms Sharma too found it difficult to get a publishing house to print her incendiary findings.

Bloomsbury India is a chicken-livered branch of Bloomsbury UK, and has acquired quite a reputation for chickening out when some extremist left-wing fringe, merely bares its teeth to show unhappiness with its choice of publications. This time it appears that the Jaipur Litfest organizer William Dalrymple (a known Hindu-hater) had shown his displeasure at Bloomsbury Indias choice of book. This information was put in public domain by none other than Aatish Taseer who hates everything about Hindu India, ever since he was caught lying that resulted in the cancellation of his OCI status.

Tavleen Singh and Salman Taseers son has never missed a single opportunity to spew venom against India, especially its Hindus. He has specifically targeted Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah in language that is not only disrespectful, but also, downright disgraceful.

Some years ago Bloomsbury India had entered into an agreement with Business Standard to publish a book The Descent of Air India written by Jitender Bhargava, former Executive Director of the airline. The book, published in October 2013, had exposed the nefarious role of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Praful Patel, as the Minister for Civil Aviation from 2004 to 2011, and held him directly responsible for the descent of Air India into extreme financial windstorms.

Immediately upon its publication Praful Patel filed a criminal defamation suit against the publishers. Incidentally, the lawyer who represented him then was the same Satish Maneshinde who is representing Rhea Chakraborty now in the Sushant Singh Rajput case. Bloomsbury chickened out and in January 2014 made an out of court settlement with the complainant.

Bhargava insisted that his book was based on existing documents, and Business Standard had said that it would stand by its commitment, but the publisher had no spine to stand up to this bullying. Bhargava subsequently published the work as an ebook on Amazon Kindle in March 2014. He self-published a hard copy in 2016, though it is my understanding that Business Standard picked up the tab for the same, honoring the agreement the newspaper had made with the author. Praful Patel withdrew the defamation suit in 2017.

The airline has not recovered from the battering it received during the Patel era, and the hole he dug for it is so deep that it is impossible to fill in. In fact, it is a mystery why this man has not been hauled in by the investigative machinery and put behind the strongest bars possible.

The social restrictions imposed by the current epidemic have reduced one to a state of mental torpor. With travel and outdoor activities on the banned list, one has had to take solace in reading books and sitting in front of the idiot box for prolonged periods. Not that these activities do not have their own rewards. I have been able to get through many large volumes; their size making one put them off repeatedly in favor of smaller and thinner books.

But once the slim ones are dealt with, there are no more reasons to keep the fat ones waiting on the shelves. I have managed to go through my entire unread library at home. Bhyrappas Crossing Over, Murakamis Killing Commendatore, Roberto Bolanos 2666, Vikram Sampaths Savarkar and Ghose & Dhars Conundrum were some of the books I had kept waiting on my shelves. With nothing unread now on the shelves, I have started re-reading some books that have somewhat faded from my memory.

Recently I re-read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns Cancer Ward originally published in 1968. An absolute masterpiece, the book is an allegorical autobiography. Solzhenitsyn was diagnosed with cancer while undergoing exile in the Kazhakastan steppes, and the experiences of his protagonist Oleg Kostoglotov, while undergoing treatment at one of the squalid hospitals in Communist Russia, must be drawn directly from his own experiences.

Cancer Ward is Communist Russia in microcosm. Not only are ordinary people the victims of the Stalinist Police state, but also the instruments of that state are succumbing to various kinds of cancerous diseases. Solzhenitsyns despair is unrelieved by some attempts at humor, and the picture he paints of Soviet Russia is one of gloom and doom. The Communist interlude in Russias history had completely destroyed its soul, and Solzhenitsyn has tried to bring home to the people their true condition. According to him the country had forfeited the entire 20th century, and only a spiritual renewal could revive the patients in the Ward.

Somewhat similar is the case in India. Not only have we forfeited the entire 20th century, but also the first decade-and-half of the 21st. Nehru and the Congress partys obsession with Communist Russia blinded them to the actual goings-on within that totalitarian state. The failures of the five-year plans; the successive disasters in agricultural experiments made Russia increasingly dependent upon the West. But Stalinist Russia did not graft any Western criteria upon the Russian spirit. On the contrary, its influence let loose violent, Dionysiac, and sometimes demonic forces.

Nehru and his daughter adopted the Russian models without even trying to think if these could be applied wholesale on the Indian spirit. A nation that had been crushed by invasive Islamic demonic and European Dyonysiac forces for 700 years was looking forward to a spiritual renewal, but Nehru and the Congress party, in their search for perpetual hegemony, instead continued to crush its spirit under a manufactured, false secularism that demonized the ancient Hindu culture and put socialism on a pedestal.

I am not sure if it was the old Roman historian, Gaius Sallustius Crispus, who said, the struggle between parties is and will always remain a misfortune for the people, worse than war, famine, plague, or any other manifestation of Gods wrath. The struggle between the Congress party, now reduced to a rump, led by a dangerous buffoon and his grasping family, aided by almost the entire political opposition in the land, on one hand, and the BJP trying to revive the ancient spirit, on the other, is resulting in all that Crispus had predicted. Crushed in between this struggle are the unfortunate people who, in 2014, had put all their hopes at the door of Narendra Modi.

When Modi first spoke to the people from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, he was aware of the expectations of those who had given him the necessary vote of confidence to lead the nation. That morning on 15th August 2014 he spoke with quiet assurance about the real tasks ahead of him and his countrymen. He wanted to put to rest the divisive agenda that had informed political discourse until then.

He spoke about the safety and education of the girl child; the urgent need to clean up the dirt and squalor from public areas; the need to build millions of toilets to avoid the indignity of open defecation. He spoke about the need to build pucca homes for the poorest of the poor; to stop farmer suicides by providing them with safety nets, crop insurance, easy and cheap credit facilities; and many other structural reforms that would make the lives of ordinary Indians more bearable, if not happy. Modi has never deviated from this script, even after signing multi-billion dollar contracts for the modernization of the Indian armed forces.

Unfortunately, from the very first day Modi has been attacked by the demonic forces unleashed by the erstwhile secular and socialist parties and not one of them has come forward to assist him in his national endeavors. In their attempt to unseat him they have coopted the mainstream media consisting of the press and television, not only within our borders, but also all over the West. Forces inimical to a rising India have joined hands with these malcontents and are destroying the very fabric of our society.

The media is particularly pernicious and bent upon proving the 19th century German philosopher, Walter Benjamin, right about his views on the 4th estate. Benjamin called the press an industry that mass produces empty phrases. The term public opinion outraged him, for as he put it, opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments. Either it is a judging public or it is none. But it is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.

The forces that hate a rising and open India have once again struck when they bullied Bloomsbury into cancelling the publication of the alternate version of the Delhi 2020 riots, while giving full attention to a false narrative written by Ziya-us-Salam and Uzma Ausaf. The hold of these demonic powers is still intact, six years after the defeat of the Congress party.

Narendra Modi, it seems, has read and internalized many of Walter Benjamins ideas. His emphasis on Atmanirbhar Bharat for promoting small industries with micro loans for Make in India vision, is fully in tune with Benjamins warning when he said that the energies developed by technology beyond their threshold serve primarily to foster the technology of warfare, and of the means used to prepare public opinion for war or for orgies of buying in the consumer society.

Undeterred by the opposition of the enemies within and without, he has quietly been applying his shoulder to the wheel in order to keep the cart moving. I am sure he must be disappointed by many of his supporters who do not possess the macro vision he has for India. Modi knows that there is an entrenched system that has been in place for hundreds of years. There is no short cut to removing each obstacle on the track. These have to be handled one by one, and at first there may not be any visible progress.

The old Colonial setup is still largely in place. Though much has changed superficially, but deep underneath the premise that the West is culturally superior still continues to inform our intelligentsia, and most of our reforms in religion, customs, values and laws are designed to meet the imperatives of Western ideas of rationality. We keep looking to the West for approval and this mindset is making the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat that more hazy.

Coming to the idiot box, I must admit that I have had some really rewarding moments while watching some classical cinema from various international masters of the art. I have seen some wonderful films from Turkey, Iran, Spain and Russia. Rams a film from Iceland, was fabulously shot the story simple, stark, and soulful. However, the film that has profoundly affected me is Paul Schraeders First Reformed. Schraeder has written some remarkable scripts that include Taxi Driver Raging Bull and Last Temptation of Christ. He wrote and directed Mishima A Life in Four Chapters that is based upon the legendary Japanese writers magnum opus The Sea of Fertility a tetralogy, at the completion of which the author committed ritual seppuku.

First Reformed is brilliantly written and directed by Schraeder, while the protagonist, Ethan Hawkes performance is outstanding, to say the least. There are some lines from this film that are indelibly etched in my memory. When I think how much despair and despondency is felt by some of those who supported Modi in the beginning, I recall the following words of Ethan Hawke as Rev. Ernst Toller:

Courage is the solution to despair, reason provides no answers. I cant know what the future will bring; we have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind, simultaneously, Hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself.

We tend to think that anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we are, yet it is a much better indication of how wicked we are. Fretting arises from our determination to have our own way.

Most of us on social media are generally part of the well-educated, well-provided elite, even though we may not belong to the Left-Liberal gangs. We tend to look at public policy through our own lenses, usually ending up with the question what does it have for me? We think that since we support Modi he has some obligation to address our particular pet peeves. We want him to reduce our taxes, especially during these distressing times. We want him to boost the economy, provide jobs and employment, as if he possesses some kind of a magic wand.

We want him to put the wrongdoers away almost instantly, and fret when these things do not happen, or happen slowly. We are impatient with the pace at which he addresses our demands. We were unhappy with his policy on education and fretted at the control the leftists had on our educational institutions.

Now that the NEP has come, we expect the entire cabal of the erstwhile controllers to go into instant and prolonged coma. Todays Bloomsbury episode would have further alienated some of his supporters, the so-called right-wingers. I have read many tweets that threaten not to vote for him in 2024. When asked whom they would vote for, theres a deafening silence. I have to remind them all that NOTA is not an alternative it is as good as a vote for the opposition that we dislike.

In his 15th August 2020 address from the Red Fort, the PM has once again reiterated his commitment to the poorest of the poor. If I have heard him right, currently, we are not in his scheme of things. Covid-19 has devastated the economy, more so the informal one. There are millions who are reduced to destitution and despair by this epidemic. Though it has not spared the well to do, its impact on the poor has been calamitous.

The prolonged lockdown has destroyed hundreds of millions of jobs, with no alternatives in sight. That the devastation has been reasonably contained is mainly due to the immediate relief and release of funds and food grains to the BPL families. The system of Direct Benefit Transfer that was put in place six years ago has ensured minimum leakage from the relief packages. Corruption may still pervade the system, but its impact is not as pernicious as it used to be.

We are still far away from safety, and it is not sure when the lockdown and other restrictions would be lifted. Many of the businesses may never reopen. Many employees may find that their employers have either gone bankrupt or have no customers for their products. Many may not have the appetite to reopen shut shops. Many will have to reskill themselves in order to find a foothold in the employment bus.

At the end of the film, Just Mercy that deals with racial prejudice that never really died in Alabama and other southern states in the US, even after affirmative action, the protagonist, a young black lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, has these profound words for us:

The opposite of poverty isnt wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice; that the character of our nation isnt reflected in how we treat the rich and the privileged, but how we treat the poor, the disfavored, and the condemned.

That, in short, is what Narendra Modi is trying to tell us. He is trying to save us from being crushed under the rubble. Are we listening?

The article was first published on Medium.

Read this article:
Lockdown musings: The Bloomsbury debacle, the legacy of the Congress party and Narendra Modis vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat - OpIndia