Book Review - Forces of Production by David F Noble

This book was written by David F Noble about the 'Automation Era' of the middle 20th century. David F Noble presents a series of interlinked case studies of how the Scientist- Entrepreneurial class collaborated with the US Military to give birth to what is now known as the proverbial 'Military Industrial' Complex. Though one of the avowed aims of the Military Industrial complex that influenced the US federal government was 'containing' Communism and 'anti-American' activities' internationally, Noble goes on to argue that there were other, even more significant goals to achieve.

The chief aim was to counter the working class unity which was getting a filip in all the industrial countries especially in the US during the booming Soviet era. The case studies chiefly centre on the famed MIT which kept pressurising the federal government to pump in millions of dollars towards funding 'Research'. And the research was focussed on developing technology that soon will enable mankind to enter the era of the 'Automatic Factory'. The automatic factory was projected as the ultimate stage in the evolution of science and technology, which if attained could totally eliminate the 'error-prone' human component out of the process of production. The MIT and related corporations were successful in manoeuvring the govt to pump a significant percentage of the annual federal budget into the research towards the final 'automatic factory'.

In other words, these institutions were bent on extracting a major share of taxpayer money in order to develop technology that will in turn render the taxpayer totally 'jobless'. Noble highlights the extreme absurdity of the entire process which after a point assumes evil and irreversible implications. The expensive research work carried on in these institutions which initially were centred on reducing 'manual errors' and producing perfect output so as to suit other important industrial needs, rapidly drifted into areas of cost cutting and economising production. And cost cutting, so obvious in the way it means, implied elimination of human wage labour even if the new sophisticated machinery developed by these institutions were extremely expensive and unaffordable to many small and medium scale industries.

The book also reflects the working class reaction to these new developments, the challenges it faced under ineffective trade union leadership and how significant these seemingly minor events had a huge bearing on the course of later, more remarkable developments.

Noble not only records the events but also daringly puts forward the impressions they left on him and does not shy away from making future predictions. The book goes on to make a huge statement that might be summed up as follows - 'No aspect of a capitalist society is independent or meaninglessly preordained. And the aspect might even be as seemingly innocent as Technology. Technology as long as it is in the hands of capital, shall serve only the purposes of its master and any assumptions about its service to mankind in the journey towards overall human prosperity, is nothing more than a dangerous illusion'.

I would recommend the book only to those who are wholly interested in the subject and not certainly for others. There will be a vast amount of dreary statistics and numbers which might be off-putting. But I am sure it is an extremely enlightening work when you really want to know your place in the long chain of human historical phenomenon.

Book Review - Fascism and Social Revolution by RP Dutt

This book was written in 1936 by veteran Communist theoretician, Rajani Palme Dutt.

Dutt tries to trace the roots of Fascism in the gradually 'decaying' branches of capitalism with the help of a wealth of anecdotal evidence. He emphasizes that fascism is just a variant of capitalism, and is the last resort of the big bourgeoisie to save the economy from passing into the hands of the proletariat.

Dutt expounds at length, how the so called Centre - Left movements, in the name of Social Democracy work hand-in-glove with the big bourgeoisie to quell working class insurrections and channelise all their resources at their disposal to betray the interests of the exploited.

The activities of the Social democratic parties in Italy, Germany and even Britain(Labour) are parallelized by Dutt to illustrate how they functioned in very similar ways during the Capitalist Crisis of the late 1920s. These parties are accused by Dutt of complicity in bringing about Fascist Revolutions in their respective countries, often refusing to join ranks with their local Communist parties to form strong political alliances. Dutt contends that there is nothing to be surprised about this, since both the Social Democratic parties and Fascist-Conservatives represent only the interests of the same class - the big bourgeoisie.

The reader can draw similar conclusions about the workings of the Congress party in India whose policies of crony capitalism and soft Hindutva have often fuelled the rise of the Fascist Hindu Right, represented by the Sangh Parivar. Both the supposedly opposite parties have involved themselves in clinching massive governmental deals for their big cronies (Reliance, Tata) thereby betraying the interests of millions of voters, most of whom belong to the working class.

Dutt, sounding like an eternal optimist, reposes so much faith in the potential of the International Proletariat whom he predicts will soon blow the Fascist offensive into smithereens and establish their own dictatorship, bringing the bloody battle to a very fine end.

The book written soon after the ascension of Hitler to power does not enjoy the comfort of looking into later events such as the German Holocaust, WWII and the much later dissolution of the Soviet Union.Also the cultural aspects informing the development of Fascism in each country are ignored altogether and hence the book fails to give a comprehensive analysis of Fascism, as it proclaims to do.

However, Dutt very much succeeds in establishing that no movement other than the Proletarian Left has a proper understanding of the Fascist danger and hence the only weapon to ward off these evil forces of reaction is the ever reliable weapon of Communism. Fascism, in Dutt's perspective is a practice, totally without the backing of a proper theory, a fact which even Hitler acknowledged. One may be reminded of the development of Eugenics, during the time of Hitler, which was nothing but a State funded research endeavour to develop a Nazi theory of evolution to counterbalance the well rounded Darwinian theory.

I would recommend the book certainly to those who want to know the economic origins of Fascism including those who are alert enough to spot similar signs in India.

2.O, Shankar and his 'Vision'

I loved the title sequences. It has been long since I had a seen a full 3D film that 2.0 was working for me very well. As long as the novelty of the visuals lasted, what I was seeing on screen was 'escapist' fun.

But my social media exposure, I realised was slowly spoiling the film for me. I was being assured that I knew the story already and the biggest intended surprise that Akshay Kumar's character, the Shankar's version of Salim Ali, was the antagonist/protagonist. But the film arrives at this point only at the interval.

And the second half has a very ordinary flashback but the story's core looked very honest that Pakshirajan's (Akshay Kumar) untimely death did feel a bit tragic. And soon the film shifts to the much publicised final 'stadium' showdown and all trademark imagination of Shankar is let loose.

When the end credits started rolling, it felt nice to have passed more than a couple of hours really well and I thought I would recommend the film to families in my neighborhood. A large portion of the first half had made good use of the 3D device, as a result of which even normal scenes looked fun. The possessed Vaseegaran- Chitti conflict on the road was also very well imagined, reminding me of my favourite Anniyan climax.

But nearly an hour after the film ended, I tried to recall something special to write about the film and to my surprise, there was nothing at all to be found. The 500 crore budget and the three year heavy technical stuff, I realised, had failed totally to leave any deep impressions on me, which was not quite an unfair expectation when you talk about Shankar's films.

Shankar, over his 25 year old career, has made just 11 films. The amount of technical effort that goes into the making is often said to explain the very long gestation period of every film of his. He is often said to be a great imaginator, Tamilnadu's version of say, a James Cameron. But if you try to do a very cursory analysis of his oeuvre, you may find that the magnificence of his imagination has always been restricted to the film's song-and-dance portions. Otherwise, the intense impact his movies have left upon us are solely because of the core strength of his stories and the efficiency of his screenplays. Shankar's films can easily be called 'political' films, working very much within the masala format, as a result of which these films must not be analysed very 'seriously'. His films, if anything are the reel equivalents of our much beloved pulp stories, which do have a strong emotional-political core, though the solutions they offer to the 'political' problem need not necessarily be practicable.

To simplify, we need to acknowledge that Shankar stays in our minds mainly because he has made genuine films on contemporary political issues and these issues, in turn, have served well as robust engines to propel the racy thrillers which he had always wanted to make, at the end of the day. And only as adjuncts to this masala-thriller construct, the so called 'Shankar Imagination' products have served and much of them can be spotted only among his totally disparate, yet exotic song-and-dance sequences.

Endhiran was the first and only film where his 'imagination' neatly dovetailed into the story's premise and as a result of which the film, for all its flaws, looked very much like one of a piece. No sequence could be recalled without sensing the technical wizardry involved in its realisation and this is how, as a film buff I want Shankar's work to be remembered.

But strangely, the same cannot be said of 2.0. Though there is so much CG work involved in every scene, none of the 'wizardry' is impactful to be remembered even though the scale of the film is almost three times that of its predecessor.

Shankar's inability to write crisp and flavorful scenes that might serve as a proper scaffolding for the visual effects to stand and speak for themselves, is so evident throughout the film. Even for situations that sound so juicy and are innately exciting, much of them borrowed from the first film, Shankar struggles to ground them properly and hence none of them manage to create the desired impact. To give an example, when Chitti is ordered by Vaseegaran to be upgraded to the rogue 2.0 version, I expected the scene to explode with long bottled up energy brimming with naughty nostalgia. But nothing other than ARR's music works during the scene and Rajni is left all alone to fend for himself, when actually he is expected to be sashaying through his predatory duties, having gotten morphed into his favorite beast avatar.

All this could be attributed, in retrospect, to Shankar's failure to find a proper writer post the demise of his long time associate, Sujatha Rangarajan. I now find myself more comfortable to contend that only Sujatha was supplying ammunition to Shankar's tanks and hence his campaigns before and after the legendary writer's death differ so much in terms of intensity and achievement. One may be reminded of how bloated and exhausting, Vikram's I was, even if the cast and the crew were in top form.

I have been seeing reviews of 2.0 with some of our Tamils thumping their chests for having surpassed the Telugu speaking Bahubali franchise, in terms of imagination and accomplishment.

To illustrate the indispensability of Amarendra Bahubali to the existence of Magilmadhi kingdom, even if the king was the powerful and menacing Balvaldevan, Rajamouli conjured up a magnificent, largely dialogue-less sequence at the interval block. As one of my friends described it, that sequence at exactly the half way mark of the film felt very much like the peak, a roller coaster is supposed to touch, where the rider can no longer help feeling dizzied and breathless. I am wondering how many reams of paper Shankar would have needed to illustrate the same scenario, had he been sentenced to direct a timeless magnum opus like Bahubali, which a high net worth 2.0 is nowhere near.

Why Politics is Important?

I see a lot of FB posts against 'politicising' the suicide of Anita. 'Politicising' does not mean mere shifting of blame on one another for an issue. It means looking at an issue through the 'prism' of Politics. Every single problem we face in our lives is either directly or indirectly related to the kind of 'Politics' we are thrust into. When you try to 'depoliticise' an issue, i.e peel the 'political' layer off it, during an attempt to solve it, you immediately begin losing way. You digress, you find yourself astray inside the dark, meaningless thicket of confusion. As a result, you find false and temporary solutions which when put into practice, create more and more issues.

This is the reason, why a lot of 'depoliticised' societies i.e, societies which have lost the ability to interpret contemporary phenomena in 'political' terms, quickly lose all their hard-won rights and privileges and spiral into lawless ruin. The recent trend of high percentage of Cancer incidences, the attainment of premature puberty by today's girls, the increasing number of acid attacks on women, frequent occurrences of farm suicides, recent emergence of 'extreme' global weather conditions, rising infertility among men, increased importance attached to box office 'value' of a movie instead of its artistic equivalent, emergence of Corporate Godmen, unsustainable levels of traffic jams and urban pollution, neglect of academic courses in favour of professional education, increased obsession of educated middle class over gadgets and luxury items, etc. Not one of the aforementioned issues can be addressed without understanding the current 'political' climate in India, even though these issues appear to be completely 'apolitical'.

This is why I have been howling from over rooftops for quite a long time urging people to follow, debate and analyse politics as much as they indulge in cricket/cinema. People especially the middle classes assume that there is a well-defined 'division of labour' existing between the government and the governed. 'It is your duty to govern properly as much as it is mine to pay taxes'. But actually it doesn't work that way. A sharp 'division of labour' can apply only to monarchical or dictatorial forms of society. You leave everything to the ruler in full recognition of the assumption that 'He knows better', just like you don't interfere when an electrician is fixing your faulty motor pump. 

The ruler taxes 'salt', orders farmers to surrender one-third of the year's grain to the State, calls for a needless war on a neighboring country, bans divorce and so on. You unquestioningly abide reposing blind faith on the infallible logic and supremacy of the ruler. Even if you want to question him, you cannot do much to make a difference. This mindset made sense during primitive and medieval days. But have we managed to grow out of it even after these many of years of democratic rule?? 

When the government asked us to submit our personal details such as Iris patterns and fingerprints to them, did we at least once try to question the logic behind the decision? Or verify the validity of the explanation that was offered?? Didn't we all take a day's off and queue up like ants for hours together to surrender our privacy to the authorities? When it was told that the Biometric system was introduced solely to weed out fake beneficiaries of state welfare schemes, we blindly believed. Later when the government asked us to surrender our LPG subsidies to help the poor, some of us complied. Later when they announced that the subsidies would be removed altogether from next year, did we bother to ponder over the futility of so much time and effort to set up the Biometric system? 

We remain silent either because we still believe that the government knows better or because we don't think we can make a difference by questioning it. The systems of governance have changed from Monarchy to Imperial Dictatorship to Liberal Democracy. But did our collective mindset keep pace with these drastic changes? 

When, in 1947, we were entrusted with the power to choose our ruler at the end of every five years, did we realize that it was a privilege that none of our forefathers enjoyed? How much effort did we put in to make ourselves worthy of it? Some of us say that today's state of politics is too obnoxious to follow and too nauseating to keep in touch with. Politics is akin to bringing your child up. If you stop dealing with your child because he is too stubborn to change his ways, he will grow even more thick-skinned and impenetrable to care and advice in the future. And no one but you will have to carry the blame for allowing a problem-child to grow up into a totally incorrigible brat. And no one but you will have to bear the brunt of whatever he does.

Politics is as crucial to man as much as his math, hygiene and morality to survive in a civilized society. And remember no society can grow as long as it has a dormant, easy-going middle class. The lower classes, though they form the majority in any society do not have access to proper and full-fledged education so as to think and make ideas. The upper classes, the dominant minority, have always wanted to bend the State in order to fatten at the expense of the rest of the society. Hence the role of the middle class becomes crucial in applying their education to understand and analyse contemporary phenomena, create informed opinion, leverage the modern tools of communication to propagate their ideas and the bear the torch towards creating a better and inclusive society.

Velai Illa Pattadhari -2 Movie Review

It was declared a flop. A huge disaster for fans of the first part. I usually love to see fans getting disappointed with their idols, because my idols do not have so many fans. Also, I love to watch a super-hyped film, soon after it is thrashed by fans because such a verdict usually lowers my expectations thereby bettering my viewing experience.

I was not a huge fan of VIP. It was a huge hit, the reasons for which I am still trying to find out. When the second part released, I somehow had managed to gather interest since I was told that it was written by Dhanush ( I loved his Power Paandi ). Apart from that, my idol Baradwaj Rangan had given it a very favorable review akin to his previous ThangaMagan which I happened to like very much.

But right from the opening scene, VIP 2 could not avoid looking lazy. Lazy not in terms of pace, but in writing and direction. Kajol walks slowly over to the dais from the hall entrance while her subordinates receive awards for excellence and attribute everything to her and she finally, gets a chance to know about Raghuvaran, for the very first time. I am not saying it is a bad way to introduce the 'Hero'. But the staging of the sequence is very flat, something which I would attribute to lack of 'detail'. Why doesn't the writing devote some more time to establish the 'what' and 'why' parts of the award ceremony, give the awardees something else to say other than the bland, repetitive 'I dedicate the award to Vasundhara madam'?

Even the 'family' scenes are not written well. There is no arc as to explain why such and such character transforms into such and such ways. Shalini's character is kept annoying so as to give Raghuvaran a chance to sing the standard Tamil Cinema 'booze' song and to make 'housewives' the butt of easy jokes.

And the much-hyped idea of Kajol playing Dhanush's counter-weight also doesn't help. She walks around in designer clothes and mouths her lines mechanically with her wide-open eyes making it so evident that she does not know the language. I admit that it is such a badly written part that has no potential to generate even a decent performance. But I can see standard Tamil Cinema Shrews like Ramya Krishnan and Vijay Shanti doing something for the role just like how Dhanush manages to do for his. Yes, he manages to soar over the film's blandness and tries to keep his fans happy. In the scene where he announces news of his company's first project acquisition, he hops in the air pumping his fists howling like a Shoaib Akhtar who has disturbed the holy stumps of Sachin Tendulkar. The infectious energy he gathers during these masala moments and the saintly poise he acquires during his tense ones are the only reasons why we remain invested in the movie.

Inspite of all the laziness, the film managed to surprise me towards the end. It is quite a great idea to insert 'Chennai Floods' into the screenplay and the way the film arrives at this point is quite nicely done. The righteous Hero and the menacing Villain forced to know good things about each other, slowly understanding the reason behind their differences and getting reconciled only because they don't have a choice, are all interesting ideas inside a masala movie setup. I would have loved to see MGR and Nambiar of the 'Enga Veetu Pillai' age do similar things. Here we have a very charming Dhanush, but an utterly charmless Kajol and hence their 'warming up' to each other does not work as much as it must have. 

Such endings are quite dangerous if not handled properly and I am sure that it left a lot of fans quite unhappy. But I would want to point out that the last scene makes more sense if you trace the story from the first part of the franchise. The whole family, on account of the floods, vacate their totally inundated house and move to the safe 'Yellow' tent of Raghuvaran located on the terrace. The tent, if you may remember the first part, symbolised Raghuvaran's defiance towards the 'hateful' society which was wholly embodied by his father. And hence the ending, where the family is left with no other choice than to accept Raghuvaran's style of living is nothing but some sort of a 'sweet' revenge for our much-despised Hero. 

The Rant of an Anti-National

We have history books. Philosophical works. Research papers on culture, economy and religion and their impacts on society. Artistic works on the exploitation of the ruled by the ruler. Field workers who themselves have borne the brunt of excesses of our enemy. Dialecticians splitting their hairs to interpret the course of society.

With all these weaponry in place, whom do we propose to fight? Those who believe in fake  images and unverifiable bits of history and myths, those who have no patience for well- researched evidences and facts, those who believe in daggers and guns and lathis, those for whom listening to the learned is some sort of pain, those who love emotional platitudes, rhythmic expressions of kitsch and over-blown sentiment.

How is the battle going to be won?

Do we at least have such hopes or have we resigned ourselves to the whims and fancies of Providence?

US vs THEM:

When we are ready to allot time for listening to what our enemy speaks and wait to expect the same kind of decency from the other end, what do we get in response?

A loud, peremptory howl of accusation that signals the end of ‘discussion’.

When we are ready to accept our historical missteps, apologize for the errors of our allies and wait to expect the same kind of decency from the other end, what do we get in response?

A series of vehement chest-thumps that identifies all their blunders and cruelties with the interest of something larger-than-life, something totally infallible and supremely sacrosanct, often called ‘The Nation’ in their language.

When we are suffering from the disease of magnanimity that forces us to acknowledge even the rare, accidental good that our enemy had unwittingly done to our nation, a disease which forces us to respect the icons and forefathers of our enemy, what disease do they suffer from?

A disease that makes them spout slews of unpalatable sentences that are indistinguishable from crude ‘name-calling’ of our ideological forefathers associating each one of them with every kind of obnoxious crime or conspiracy conceivable to the barbaric imagination of our enemy.

In this battle between brains and empty emotions, does the former stand any chance?

With every instance of recent historical development pointing to the victory of emotional loud-mouths that are bent on dividing humanity on artificial and obsolescent identities, does the side that stands for universal human integration still have any strength left over to stand its ground on the battlefield and carry its noble cause?

How many more scars do we need to sustain?

How many more years of patience do we need to muster to fight till the end?

How much gallons of sweat and blood do we need to sacrifice more?

With every reversal that we face on the battlefield, we pull millions of hapless, innocent, toiling masses down with us whose lives keep becoming more awry and chequered with every passing second.

BATTLE FOR THE PAST:

The Present seems untiring in deceiving us and in depriving us of all our self-invented chances. The Present seems dogged in its diabolic endeavors to create a bleak, uninhabitable, dystopian Future.

With every natural element underlying the Present working against us, whom do we have to fall back upon?

The Past? The omniscient Oracle who has seen all, felt all, and guided all. Does he have anything valuable to tell us? Do his words mean anything at all against the gush of Fleeting Time?

His calm face seems to inform us that he has seen the Slave who fought and won over his Master.

His calm face seems to inform us that he has seen the Serf who fought and won over his Landlord.

His calm face seems to inform us that he has seen the Woman who fought and won over her shameless Possessor.

Can us soldiers afford to ignore the message of this immortal Oracle who owns the power to subsume both his children- The temporal Present and The Blind Future?

With so much to gain from the words of The Past, do we soldiers realize how valuable is such a man to the enemy? If the enemy manages to seize the all-knowing Past from us, he will end up distorting and confusing him. He will rid the Oracle of all his healing powers. He will succeed in turning the noble Oracle into a Wizard who could conjure evil spirits and black magic to haunt the hapless multitudes.

Let us fight with everything at our disposal, my dear soldiers, the battle that is as much a battle for The Future as it is for The Past!!

Ignorance is not an excuse

‘Sasikala releases first list of ADMK candidates for the Assembly Elections’

‘Jaya expels Sasikala from Poes’

‘Sasikala returns to Poes Garden’

All the above sentences ruled the regional headlines of our newspapers in the beginning of this decade.

Those who had followed Tamilnadu politics for quite a while, had they not forgotten these incidents, will have no reason to be surprised on Sasikala's elevation as CM.

'How can a servant maid turn CM within a day, that too without people's mandate ?'

'I am thinking about moving out of Tamilnadu because I cannot accept Sasikala as my CM'

The above are some of the reactions that I have been seeing on social media soon after news of Sasikala's elevation became public. 

First let us talk about the validity of these reactions to this sudden development in Tamilnadu.

With respect to the accusation that a ‘servant maid’ is ascending the throne, let me hasten to add that Sasikala had ceased to be a servant maid to Jaya for almost a decade. One of her relatives had won contracts from the TASMAC soon after the inception of the Government Corporation, for his multi-crore Midas Distilleries. The relationship of Midas with TASMAC continued even during the days of DMK regime and lasts to this day. 

Various authentic sources also confirm that Sasi's cronies own lot of companies that are directly in control of the State's natural resources with the active, legal co-operation of the Tamilnadu government.

That Sasikala had control over Jaya's selection of MLA/MP candidates is proven by the fact that she released a list of candidates for the 2011 Assembly polls ignoring the roles of ADMK’s alliance partners- DMDK and the Left. The alliance partners then, appealed to Jaya immediately after the incident, that she had to declare the list 'unofficial' within a day, replacing it with a fresh one subsequently.

A lot of newspapers reported that during every election, Sasikala was very much part of the 'Election interview process' through which she kept firming her hold over the party by selecting candidates who were amenable to her.

Sasikala's grip didn't remain confined to the legislature alone. She and her cronies had penetrated even into the State's Executive and many top bureaucrats of Tamilnadu including those in the Police Department had close associations with Sasikala and her family.

Many industrialists in Tamilnadu, had been subject to severe 'extortion' from Sasikala family which had, by the beginning of Jaya's third term, transformed into what is now known as the 'Mannargudi Mafia'.

All the information I have furnished above did not take much time and effort to be gathered, and anyone who had even a very sparing interest in TN politics would already be knowing all this.

And let me also add that even most of them who knew enough of the 'Mannargudi Mafia' and who knew very well that the Mafia had been running the ADMK for quite a while, continued to vote for the party because Jaya was its leader.

This practice of voting for a leader, however corrupt a party is, is one of the biggest mistakes that we, as an immature electorate, have been committing from time immemorial. Voting for a leader, instead of voting for a party or its ideology, has done more harm to the country than good, right from our Independence.

In 1984, we voted for the Congress after the assassination of Indira Gandhi and inspite of the subsequent Congress-sponsored Sikh genocide(more than 10000 Sikhs killed), only because we loved the slain leader and badly wanted his son to succeed her.

In 1998, we voted the BJP to power at the Centre, quite aware of the fact that the party was solely responsible for Babri Masjid Demolition and the subsequent riots, only because the leader was a moderate Atal Bihari Vajpayee. We ended up having 2002 Gujarat riots which killed more than a thousand Indians.

In 2014, we voted for the BJP overwhelmingly inspite of its dubious secular credentials, only because a single man named Modi promised that he would deliver India out of corruption. The Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh and the Sahara Birla Diaries stand testimony to the fact that a single man, however honest and efficient he may sound, cannot accomplish anything if his organisation, by nature, is wholly corrupt. 

One of my friends, very recently told me, to my surprise, that he hates RSS but adores Modi. He added that he abhors Hindu extremism but loves Modi’s brand of politics.

RSS is an organization which believes in and works towards the formation of a Hindu Rashtra where minorities are bound to be second-class citizens. This is the core principle of the RSS and none can be an RSS pracharak if he doesn't believe in this. If Modi doesn't believe in RSS principles, there is no reason why he should have joined the organisation. Nobody joins an organization if he is at variance with its core principles. Hence if you are voting for Modi, it is implied that you are endorsing communal politics. If you argue that you voted only for his anti-corruption agenda and not for his communal politics, it means you did not do adequate research about him and his organization.

The RSS and it's offshoot BJP would lose their identity if they stop being communal. And this is the reason why the BJP, all these days speaking about bringing ‘development’, have picked their 'communal card' back for the upcoming UP assembly elections, openly promising to build the Ayodhya temple in their manifesto.

Now let me come back to the Sasikala saga. If you were responsibly following TN politics over the decade, and thereby knew very well that the Mafia was controlling the party, but still kept voting for ADMK because Jaya was the face of the party, you have no reason to feel shocked or disillusioned at Sasikala's elevation. You people were completely responsible for this sad state of TN politics. All these days you people kept voting for the Mafia directly whose nominal head was Jaya. In other words, for every cent that the Mafia earned under ADMK rule, Jaya bestowed the much required legitimacy and you people were approving it through the ballot each and every time.

Or if you weren't following TN Politics properly but kept voting for ADMK innocuously, it is another kind of a crime you people could not help committing on your fellowmen. Following politics is as important as casting your vote. If you are entrusted with a right, make sure you are worthy of it. 

If Sasi could summon all the MLAs on a single night before Jaya's death and make them sign blank sheets of paper so that they don't switch allegiances, imagine how much effort she had put in getting them elected as MLAs.

Please remember that our country is a Democratic Republic where only parties contest each other in the elections and not individual leaders. Ours is not a Presidential form of Government like the U.S where you vote for your leader directly. Hence, it is perfectly fine if the majority of the legislators whom you voted for, choose someone as their leader and anoint them as the Head of the Government. Manmohan Singh never contested any elections in his lifetime and served as PM for nearly a decade. Please remember that Pugazhendi in Mudhalvan became one-day CM without contesting any elections. If all this is fine, then Sasikala's case shouldn't trouble you at all.

There is only one solution to this. Let us first try to come out of our 'Masala Movie Mindset'. No single Sivaji or Anniyan or Ramana is going to save us from exploitation and poverty. Even if someone like that emerges on top, he will be eliminated immediately by the all-powerful System before he tries to move a stone. John F Kennedy, the youngest President of the US was assassinated by the CIA and the all powerful Military- Industrial lobby when he tried to alter the country's questionable foreign policy. Same happened to Martin Luther King.

Hating a party but loving it's leader is fine as long as your preferences don't translate into votes. If you vote for Modi, you are actually voting for the BJP whose primary ideology is Hindu nationalism. If you vote for Sitaram Yechury, you are voting for the Communist party whose ideology is Socialism. Vote for Yechury only if you want socialism. Not because he is individually clean or speaks well in public meetings. Same applies to your Narendra Modi.

Before you cast your vote, please go through a party's history and it's positions on various important issues. Records of individual leaders come secondary. 

Nothing destroys our country more than our apathy towards politics. Our grandfathers evinced so much interest in politics and took an active part in them that they won us freedom from colonialism. Our fathers too were sufficiently interested in politics that they ended up having good leaders like Anna and Kamaraj. Now look at us. Just try to examine the relationship between our declining interest in politics versus declining quality of our leaders. We were once ruled by a freedom fighter, then by an outstanding scholar. The quality began to decline when we voted a cinema-writer to power. He soon gave way to a cinema actor, then to a dancer-cum-actress and now..