Reality Bites: Who’s the real enemy?

I was not one of the people who rushed out to buy a gay party hat and those silly whistles that shoot out alarmingly and knock people on their noses when Amit Shah was put in charge of fighting COVID-19 in Delhi-NCR.

Granted, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal was not as honest and as transparent with data as he should have been—but hey, he was only copying BJP states, particularly the infamous Gujarat model!

All those gullible people who bought party hats and whistles should recall Shah’s rousing speech to the BJP’s social media team: “Real or fake, we can make any message go viral.” Rest assured, if/when the COVID-19 crisis spirals out of control and NCR runs out of beds in hospitals, hotels, train coaches, stadiums, pavements, roads, etc., Shah will still be projected as the Conqueror of COVID-19. Always keep in mind that his BJP social media team spreads a deadlier virus.

I laughed out loud when Shah strode into Delhi’s LNJP hospital, and immediately ordered the installation of CCTV cameras in all government hospital COVID-19 wards. The man thinks spying is the only cure for everything!

He’s not doing this because he cares about us as much as our mothers do. Colourful secrets are revealed during delirious fits, and when Shah needs money to buy another MLA or twenty-two, these secrets may well come in handy. Also, those button-less hospital gowns are terribly revealing! Consider yourself warned.

Now if only Shah had bothered to install CCTV cameras on our borders with China instead, I may have had kinder thoughts about him. The BJP was in denial for over a month on China’s intrusions despite urgent warnings from a few army veterans.

Shah in particular has made it clear that he thinks that the nastiest enemies India has (apart from Pakistan, of course) are Indian citizens who express their dissent democratically. I’m increasingly convinced that if the BJP is presented with a Chinese soldier carrying a nail-studded rod and an Indian citizen carrying an anti-CAA placard, the Indian citizen would be punished as severely as the foreign invader.

The nation suffered a rude shock recently when news broke that a commanding officer and two soldiers were killed by Chinese troops. We gradually discovered that 20 soldiers were killed, and more were wounded (the numbers are still not clear). The BJP does not seem unduly perturbed about this, perhaps because they have earned a few more dubious “firsts” in the process (we all know how much the BJP loves being first at anything, good, bad or ugly):

1. This is the first time in 45 years that China has killed our soldiers.

2. Journalist Sushant Singh grimly pointed out that this is also the first time in the history of the Indian army that a commanding officer has been clubbed to death.

The prime minister, who had promptly tweeted condolences on the death of a Bollywood star, was silent for over 24 hours. Yes, that very same strong prime minister with the 56-inch barrel chest. When he finally deigned to speak, he warned the Chinese that any provocation would get a “befitting” reply. Sweet how he thinks the brutal murder of 20 or more soldiers does not qualify for economic sanctions or any form of punishment that is not godawful war.

So far, the “befitting” reply is just tokenism as always, on the same ridiculous level as banging thaalis and lighting diyas to fight COVID-19. Some BJP politicians want Chinese food to be banned, “educated” BJP supporters are urging people to delete Chinese apps, and the BJP IT cell is circulating videos and photographs of their uneducated supporters setting fire to dummies of Chinese phones, and throwing dummies of South Korean Televisions sets (the poor things can’t tell the difference) out of balconies and gleefully stomping on them.

Wait a minute: I think throwing television sets away is an excellent idea, no matter which country they were manufactured in. Especially when you consider the PR rubbish and divisive propaganda most of our news channels spread, and the lies they told us about Balakot and now the Galwan valley.

Call me over if you plan to hurl your TV set out of your window.

I will happily jump on it!