politics

On the Movie Chhaava

Harpreet Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Folks, sharing some thoughts on the movie ‘Chhava’. I watched it about three weeks ago with my elder one. The Missus and the younger one had watched it a few days earlier. I normally stay away from films, however this one pulled me. Glad that it did.

Let me try & explain ..

Before moving ahead, just a gentle reminder that earlier this month was the 336th martyrdom anniversary of Sambhaji Maharaj. Here’s a tribute thread in his honour. May have a look : Dharmveer Sambhaji Maharaj

Coming back to Chhaava, I don’t intend to talk about the movie itself, except for exhorting you to go & watch it with your kids It is one part of our history that they will NEVER learn in their school textbooks unless GOI makes a concerted effort to do so.

Instead, I intend talking about the use of the popular medium of movies to subtly and at times, blatantly, peddle narratives and shape opinions. To that end, @vivekagnihotri hits the nail on the head here.

(Link to above tweet : https://x.com/vivekagnihotri/status/1902359513438810554 )

If you think the Indian film industry has NOT been used as a tool to peddle propagandas / narratives, then I have a white coloured building in Agra to sell to you!

Btw, if the movie poster in the above tweet looked to you like reinforcing my statement in the tweet, they you are perfectly right!

For those who missed it, let me introduce you to the film ‘Youngistan‘! (Wiki Link : Youngistaan)

Check out the film plot in the Wiki page.

Check out the release date – March 2014.

Now check out the hero.

Tell me if he doesn’t seem based on a Youth Leader who was leading a major national political party in the elections that were due shortly after the release of the film!

Of course, if you say I am reading too much into what is a matter of pure coincidence, I won’t blame you. In fact, I will share yet another piece of pure coincidence with you. It is popularly called ‘Chennai Express’! (wiki link : Chennai Express)

Release date : 09 August 2013.

Key Dialogue used widely in promotions : Never Underestimate the Power of a Common Man!

A wonderful dialogue indeed. Especially when later that year, the Common Man Party contested Delhi elections and came to power!

Of course, the above two examples can be dismissed as benign coincidence. I won’t contest you if you say so. I might even agree with you to some extent. But then, the element of doubt will always remain.

Now let us look at some movies based on nationalist / patriotic themes made some two decades ago, that came to be really popular. What immediately come to mind are Border, LoC Kargil, Lakshya and Gadar.

Of these, Lakshya was the last one, released in 2004. After that I don’t recollect any films on such themes that gained popularity till the time Uri and Kesari came about in 2019.

Check out the years mentioned in the above tweet and relate them with the political winds prevalent within the country in those times. I won’t say more on this because aim of this blog post is not to make any political statements, but instead, concentrate on the topic of narratives.

The thing is that the battle of narratives and counter-narratives is well and truly underway, with Bollywood being a major medium being utilised. Of course, commercial considerations will always be there due to the huge amounts of funds required for producing a film.

That a @vivekagnihotri could make films like Tashkent Files and Kashmir Files and make profit out of it as well, speaks volumes about the times that we currently live in .. times where talking about parts of our history hidden in plain sight are no longer taboo. On the contrary, I would even say that there is a huge, emerging demand for such stories to be told by popular media. And going by that, I am pretty sure there will be more movies such as Kashmir Files and Chhaava that will come by in the months and years ahead.

Along with that will also come the ‘outrage’ by those who will take it as a personal insult for movie makers daring to tell the truth without coating it in political correctness, just like Chhaava.

The ‘liberal’ ones will continue to beat their chests on every such occasion, while defending violence committed by the ground soldiers. @NAN_DINI_ Ji puts it in perfect context, so instead of writing more on this, I’ll just leave this tweet here.

(Link to above tweet)

As @NAN_DINI_ Ji says in her tweet above, ‘they’ don’t want our kids to know our unvarnished history. And they will go to any extent to make that happen. Talking about ‘them’, I just remembered this tweet of mine.

As per the biography of Ramanand Sagar Ji, Shri Bhaskar Ghose Ji wanted him to ‘reduce Hindu content in Ramayan and make it more secular’. Yes, that is what the son of Ramanand Sagar Ji writes in the book! Check out the screenshots in the tweet above!

In fact, telecast of Ramayan and Mahabharat in the late 80s spurred the political movement that ultimately resulted in current day leadership steering the Motherland today.

‘They’ know the power of narratives.

Hence they try to scuttle unfavourable narratives either thru bureaucratic means, or else by street-level violence, even if the ‘narratives’ are merely about people daring to tell the true history as it happened. Talking about the lengths ‘they’ will go to obfuscate truth, I’ll just leave this video here. ‘Yudhishthira got idea of renunciation From Ashoka’, says the ‘renowned historian’ Romila Thapar Ji.

No wonder they don’t want our children to know about the evil side of ‘Great’ Dynasties. And they will relegate truly great indigenous rulers who actually fought these ‘Great’ dynasties to barely a paragraph or mere footnotes in history books, if at all.

Heck, they don’t even teach our kids about the contemporary military history of our Motherland. Shared some thoughts on that as well some weeks back. Replugging that thread here all over again :

In fact, Battle of Saragarhi is taught in France of all places, as a story of exceptional valour while our own school textbooks remained (and continue to be) perfectly silent on it.

The movie Kesari that told the story all over again, but then, the coming generations will still have no idea about it. Unless we as a Nation make a conscious effort to tell these stories to our future generations, that is.

(Link to above tweet. MUST watch the video embedded in it)

I want my kids and my grandkids to know about Lachit Barphukan, Rani Tarabai, Ram Prasad Bismil, Banda Singh Bahadur, Rani Abbakka, Kakathiyas, Satavahanas and the countless other heroes and heroines who have fought fearlessly for the sake of our lands.

As I conclude this thread, I’ll plug this chain of thoughts here as well. Left to ‘them’, Shivaji will never be ‘The Great’ and instead be relegated to the nomenclature of ‘Mountain Rat’ in the textbooks our kids study from.

Coming back to the movie Chhaava, I made both my kids read this blog post of mine before going for the movie : Dharmveer Sambhaji Maharaj. The violence visited on the captive Sambhaji Maharaj was depicted in all its evil ‘glory’ by the director, yet it remained greatly underplayed in the movie. I take it that any more gore / violence and the movie might not have been cleared by the censors.

Yet, it depicted enough and importantly, unapologetically and without trying to colour it in secularism.

THAT is what seems to have riled the ‘ecosystem’ – this hard-hitting and unabashed telling of truth.

The movie is a MUST WATCH, if you haven’t seen it thus far.

As for my kids, the younger one was silent at the end of the movie (just as he was when he watched Kesari). From the theatre, my wife and he had already planned to go to a nearby Shiv Mandir and they did so. The elder one too was moved. Yet, being the young adult that he is, he merely said in his typical understated, ‘cool’ way – Ekdum Badhiya Movie Thi.

The entire theatre was dead silent towards the end of the movie, which says a lot about it.

With this I conclude this chain of thoughts. I hope it made some sense. If not, then .. well .. so be it!

Thanks for your patience.

Go watch the movie if not done already!

On the Current Situation in Bangladesh after Arakan Army capture of Muangdaw

Harpreet Uncategorized , , , ,

(This chain of thoughts was tweeted on the night of 16 Dec 2024. Link to the thread on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CestMoiz/status/1868683636066939125 )

Sharing some thoughts on the recent moves by the Arakan Army on the Bangladesh-Myanmar Border.

Let’s see how this one goes ..

Let me just begin with this bombastic video of Bangladesh Army veterans threatening to capture Kolkata within four days! Very bombastic, I’d say .. especially when their own generation got the blunt end of the stick from Pakistanis in 1970-71 and couldn’t do anything about that!

Unfortunately for these geriatric idiots, while they were turned towards Kolkata, right behind them came the Arakan Army which established control over Bangladesh-Myanmar border. As always, these erstwhile East Pakistanis got totally surprised from behind (PS: All Possible Puns Fully Intended!)

It is still open to debate whether the Arakan Army did that with the backing of the Chinese or the Americans (I personally bet on Chinese hand, but that is just a gut feeling). But regardless, that border is now sealed for the immediate future atleast.

Implications of that on poor old Bangladesh are a tad unfortunate. It means that the only land border that still permits import of essential goods such as potatoes, sugar, COTTON FOR THEIR TEXTILE INDUSTRY, refined petroleum products etc, is the Indian border!

Oh, and electricity too! On that note, I wonder whether the amount payable to Adani Group for electricity supply has crossed $1Bn yet! Of course, the Bangladeshis threaten to import electricity via Nepal but unfortunately that too would depend upon Indian benevolence for transit!

Why I wrote the above is that if you noticed, the open anti-India rhetoric of Bangladesh in the immediate aftermath of their August ‘Revolution’ has scaled down immensely over the past few days. On that note, I will just leave this tweet here before moving on!

(Link to above tweet : https://x.com/CestMoiz/status/1821003841254408320 )

Adanis have already reduced electricity supply by 50% and Tripura too has nearly cut down entirely, the electricity they were supplying to Bangladesh due to non-payment of dues.

Aur karo revolution!

But coming back to the happenings on the Myanmar-Bangladesh Border .. The first thought that came to my mind when I first heard about the capture and sealing of the border by Arakan Army some days ago was SYRIA.

Seriously.

Let me try and explain why.

Ever since the August ‘Revolution’, people in India have been talking about retaking Indian territory lost to Pakistan in 1947. To be fair, I too added a lot of fuel to this fire, especially when it comes to the Chittagong area.

(Link to above tweet : https://x.com/CestMoiz/status/1828448057689809315 )

And this is why the Arakan Army moves in Muangdaw become so interesting.

What are the odds that if and when India actually decides to make a move in that area, the Chinese(?) backed won’t try and beat us to it, especially to the strategic port of Chittagong?

Mind you, I write the above merely as a hypothetical scenario, but still, one that has been playing on my mind for some time now.
What makes this thought more interesting is this :

(Link to above tweet : https://x.com/NepCorres/status/1868598478320075103 )

Depending on who you listen to, the Arakan Army have been shelling areas in Bangladesh from across the border or as per some, they have already invaded Bangladesh territory and taken over the town of Teknaf!
But regardless, things are not too happy for the clown in Dhaka.

I totally agree with Col Hunny Bakshi below that one thing is for sure – Refugee influx in India in large numbers.

I will come to that in a while. But first let us get to the geography of the area.

It is rightly called the Bay of Bengal. The underlying context is that whoever controls Bengal, controls it.

You may want to mull over the above thought for a moment before moving ahead.

Moving on, it is India that controls not just Bengal but also both points of entry into Bay of Bengal – the Malacca Straits as well as the Indian Ocean route.

I say India controls Bengal, keeping in mind the relatively recent reality of a country called East Pakistan / Bangladesh.

There have been reports of the USA looking for a base in St Martin’s Island in Bangladesh and the Chinese looking at the Sittwe Port.

Needless to say none of these will be viable without Indian support or atleast an Indian nod.

Feel free to disagree with what I wrote above.

What I am coming to, is the fact that if things continue to fester, there will soon be a Syria type situation right on our borders. With too many stakeholders rushing to fill a power vacuum inside erstwhile East Pakistan, something is bound to give way.

Despite the facade of a Nobel Laureate in control, fact remains that there is still a lot of ambiguity in the power structure in charge of Bangladesh. The 84 years old geriatric ‘Advisor’ can very easily be discarded by the real power, if needed.

Link to tweet : https://x.com/CestMoiz/status/1865723952452309330

However, that still does not solve the problem of the true face behind the mess that Bangladesh is in today. Of course, it is quite well known to be General Waker uz Zaman, with the backing of Pakistan to boot, but he is still not the ‘Face’.

Link to tweet : https://x.com/CestMoiz/status/1828452899699015992
(Link to tweet : https://x.com/CestMoiz/status/1828452899699015992 )

Of course, when things go further South, he can suddenly and magically come forward as the ‘Saviour’, aka his heroes Musharraf, Zia ul Haq, Yahya and Ayub Khan and of course the countless Bangladesh Army Coup makers as well!

https://twitter.com/CestMoiz/status/1828452316296450543

But the big question to ask is, who will he save Bangladesh from?

And HOW?

Will it be from India?

Of course, it will be from India!

But HOW is the big question!

The simple answer is – No Way!

At best, the Bangladesh Army can be a pinprick. At worst, they can just fold and surrender, just like their heroes, the Brown Panted Ones of Pakistan. Btw, greetings on Vijay Diwas ye all!

The yahoos in charge of Bangladesh with Pakistani blessings are the sons and grandsons of these very unfortunate women. Cynically speaking, these bastards are just yearning for the love of their fathers and grandfathers sitting in Pakistan. (Do read the snippet below. I INSIST)

Carrying on, let us see the similarities between the current situation and 1971.

1. Democratically elected govt NOT permitted to be in power.

2. Looming threat of refugee crisis.

3. Superpower rivalry in Bay of Bengal (Apart from US and China, Russian Navy too visited recently)

 

4. Chaos on the streets of Bangladesh.

5. Rampant persecution and killings of minorities.

6. Economic stress due to non-existent law and order.

7. NO FRIENDS IN VICINITY TO SEEK HELP FROM.

We can keep adding to this list, but I think you get my gist.

As the wheels of history move faster and faster, there will be more and more chaos.
But remember, new Order can only emerge from Chaos. This is what happened after WW2, after 1971 and if we play our cards well, this is what will happen after 2024 as well.

We may do it tomorrow,

Or we may do it in a couple of months,

Or in a couple of years’ time ..

But fact remains that if we don’t, someone else will. I’d much rather see Feni / Chittagong and Rangpur in Indian map instead of someone else’s.

In any case, Bangladesh as we knew prior to 05 Aug 2024, no longer exists and will not come back either.

They made their bed. Now they sleep in it.

Unfortunately for them, they decided to sleep with the Pakistanis in this case. The result will be another break-up of their country.

Bangladesh is not merely landlocked with India on 95% of its borders, it is also at the mercy of the Indian Navy across its shores. The Indian Navy has had a free run of Bangladesh ports earlier, destroying targets at will, thanks to the mighty Vikrant. If it ever comes to a race for Chittagong and other ports of present day Bangladesh, I am sure they would just as brilliantly complement their Indian Army counterparts in 2024-25 as they did in 1971.

As a further exercise, just plot the Indian Air Force bases around Bangladesh!

What will Shri Waker uz Zaman and his fauj of geriatrics do?
Answer – Nothing.
They might beg the world for help.
But that won’t change their fate.

Begging for US and Chinese aid didn’t help their illegitimate fathers in 1971 when India was relatively much weaker than it is now. Further, state of relations of present day India with most world powers is much different, as also current Indian heft in international geopolitics.

On that note, I will also share a personal view : Most Indians still remember the decidedly inimical US actions against India in 1971, but have mostly forgotten about the post Pokharan-2 sanctions of 1998.

Here’s why, in my opinion : 1998 is forgotten ‘coz sanctions were a foregone conclusion since we deliberately acted against established norms. But in 1971, we were the morally correct side & US sided with the ‘asuras’. Hence the continued memory of that event. Feel free to disagree!

(Link to above tweet : https://x.com/CestMoiz/status/1201018602712756225 )

As I come to close this thread, I will give you one more thing to do.
Just open a map of India and focus on Bangladesh.
See if that strikes you as an unnatural entity, nearly cutting off the Motherland from her North-Eastern children.
To me, it surely does

(Link to above tweet : https://x.com/CestMoiz/status/1821589668665741440 )

As I mentioned earlier, Bangladesh of 04 Aug 2024 is finished.

Let me also add that Bangladesh of 16 Dec 2024 too has no future unless they accept the fact that it is only India that can help them out of this mess that they have created for themselves.

Do mull over it for a moment

With this, I conclude this thread. Today is too momentous a day to ignore the happenings in Bangladesh. On that note, I will just leave this short thread on the occasion of #VijayDiwas here as well.

Jai Hind .. and goodnight!

https://twitter.com/CestMoiz/status/1868472667587899622

Adding my previous Blog Posts on Bangladesh here, for those interested: 

On the Events Currently Underway in Bangladesh (As on 08 Aug 2024)

On the Events in Bangladesh (As on 26 Aug 2024)

On the Role of the Bangladesh Army in Recent Events (As on 27 Aug 2024)

On the Current Situation in Bangladesh (As on 08 Dec 2024)

On the Current Situation in Bangladesh (As on 08 Dec 2024)

Harpreet Uncategorized , , , ,

Folks, sharing some thoughts on the current state of affairs in Bangladesh.

Let us see how it goes ..

First and foremost, let us call it for what it is currently – An attempt at re-establishing East Pakistan.

Yup, that’s what it is. Pakistan attempting to return to its erstwhile colony via proxy.

Come to think of it, conditions in East Bengal today are quite similar to what they were in 1970-71:

1. Interim Govt in place.

2. Democratically elected Govt not allowed to function.

3. Widespread and blatant atrocities against minorities and those that the current ‘govt’ doesn’t like.

The only (nominal) difference is that in 1971 it was more of a ethnic divide between the Punjab dominated rulers from West Pakistan and their Bengali subject in the East Pakistan. Now, however, it is about the Jamaat gone wild under the nominal cover of a geriatric Noble Laureate.

Make no mistake; the religious fanaticism seen during the Direct Action Day has remained very much alive in Bangladesh. For those who are not aware of the Direct Action Day, here are some (disturbing) visuals to tell you the story: 

Even in 1971, despite the ethnic origins of the situation, it was the religious minorities that bore the brunt of violence. Same was the case in 1991 post the Babri demolition as well, for those who aren’t quite aware of that fact too.

Screenshot 2024-12-08 214729

Suffice it to say, religious fanaticism in Erstwhile East Pakistan never quite went away. Instead, it was kept under a tight leash by the govt of Sheikh Hasina, which of course, was ‘conveniently’ overthrown by riotous ‘revolutionary’ mobs on the streets of Dhaka.

Of course, the sheep too participated wholeheartedly in the ‘revolution’ right alongside the wolves, not realizing that they were the ‘main course’ for the ‘revolutionaries’! Par for the course, I’d say. Sadly, they are paying for it with their blood now.

Here’s yet another sad example of sheep happily running towards their own slaughter.

MUST WATCH, I’d say.

But what I find interesting to note is the sheer outrage all these atrocities against minorities in Bangladesh by the rabid yahoos has caused within India.
Indian Media has been covering it ceaselessly.
Further, even politicians cutting across political lines have denounced it.

Why might that be so?

IMO, it gives a glimpse to atleast a few of the sheep on our side of the fate that they themselves have avoided thus far, thanks partly to the Partition of the Motherland in 1947. Also, the fate endured by our own ancestors in 1947 and before that as well.

The visuals coming out of Bangladesh every single day have definitely had an impact on the psyche of MANY within our own borders as well, either consciously or sub-consciously. I will leave it at that for the time being.

Let us instead come to the question of WHO THE HELL IS HEADING THE INTERIM GOVT IN BANGLADESH??!!

It is most definitely NOT Yunus, because he goes by the title of CHIEF ADVISOR to the Govt of Bangladesh!

Interesting, no?

I would go out on a limb and say that this gentleman is the one who holds the real power in Bangladesh.

https://twitter.com/CestMoiz/status/1828454317633708295

The bumbling old Yunus is just the Fall Guy who will take the blame when the Army is ‘forced’ to take over direct control of Govt.
#JustSaying

Of course, being heavily dependent on the yahoos of the Jamaat ‘e Islami, having a lesbian daughter who drinks alcohol and dresses like this, is definitely a valid excuse to not just throw out Yunus at a convenient time, but also hang him if needed!

Here’s the video of the daughter of the ‘Chief Advisor to the Govt of Bangladesh’ getting arrested for drunk driving after her girlfriend left her, for those interested!

Talking about Yunus .. he himself is as rabid a Leftist as they come .. the only difference is that he has a Nobel Peace Prize, which itself has lately come under a cloud as a tool for rewarding promising stooges!

 

Of course, it was no surprise when links with Hizb ut Tahrir emerged .. because .. well .. why wouldn’t there be such links!

(Link to above report: New advisers of Bangladesh interim government linked to terror group HuT

The plan of the ‘Deep State’ with respect to the Bangladesh Coup was perfect, except for the fact that it was Trump who ended up winning the US Presidential elections hardly a couple of months later!

And he remembered the Nobel Laureate clearly!

So what comes next ..

Well, there are two important dates that are fast approaching which I am keenly watching out for.

Firstly, 16 December, which marks 53 years of liberation of Bangladesh by the Indian Army. Secondly, 20 January, which is the day Donald Trump will be in power.

Let’s talk about 16 Dec first. It is an emotional date which is just about a week hence.

It is a part of Bangladesh history that cannot be wished away, no matter how much they try or how much they blow their own trumpet wrt Indian Trained and Indian Equipped Mukti Bahini.

Period.

This is where it will get awkward for the Bangladesh Army as well as their Brown Panted ‘brethren’ in Erstwhile West Pakistan.

https://twitter.com/CestMoiz/status/1255876445697716224

The annual celebrations of this epochal event in Bangladesh will be interesting to watch out for this year for sure!

One way to avoid that would be to trigger an incident or a chain of events that would divert public attention, right? It could vary from an internal disturbance within Bangladesh to even threats / attacks on Indian diplomatic missions in Dhaka and elsewhere.

(^^ Disclaimer: JMTs)

I that regard, I really hope that tomorrow’s visit of Indian Foreign Secretary will result in a word of caution for the rabid rulers that are presiding over the pogrom of minorities in Bangladesh currently.

In fact, before moving ahead, there is one more similarity between Bangladesh of today and East Pakistan of pre-1971 vintage that comes to mind. This is about the insurgency and violence in the Indian North-East.

When East Pakistan existed, NE Insurgents had readymade bases, training and equipment available across the border. And as soon as Pakistan was thrown out, the Mizo insurgency ended in 1973. Fast forward to events leading up to the Aug 2024 coup and transpose it on the levels of violence in North-East and see if you find a pattern. I’ll just leave it at that for the time being.

Coming over to the next important date, i.e, 20 Jan. I get a feeling that the yahoos are trying to inflict as much damage as they can, before their Democrat benefactors in USA remit office.

To be fair, this is happening everywhere, including Ukraine.

They are expediting the influx of Pakistanis within Bangladesh while at the same time making the processing of visas for Indian citizens that much more difficult. Meanwhile military hardware too is already being shipped in for the chaos that awaits.

 

 

https://twitter.com/NepCorres/status/1857134685287334383

Well, either way, their goose is well and truly cooked.
The recent tweet by the handle of the ruling political party in India about the US Deep State has much more of a meaning behind it than just the words tweeted.
They know it too, hence their ‘rush’.

What Bangladesh refuses to see is that their destiny is well and truly linked with India. If a Pakistan could be broken up in 1971 when circumstances demanded it, so also can a Bangladesh when it becomes inevitable.

Here’s an 11 year old tweet for context.

It was a much weaker India that faced off the USA in 1971. Relatively speaking, Pak Army of 1971 in East Pakistan too was a much more dangerous enemy than the Bangladesh Army of today.

https://twitter.com/CestMoiz/status/1828446303073730836

The yahoos, as always, still dream of a ‘Greater Bangladesh’.
Of course, this is the opium that the Bangladesh Army feeds them to keep them away from the increasingly desperate situation that the country is rapidly hurtling into, with their sovereign ratings going down to JUNK!

 

But what they don’t realize is that thus far it is only they who have been ‘kinetic’ when it comes to actions whereas India has been keeping its cards close to its chest. That does NOT mean that India doesn’t have any cards to play with.

https://twitter.com/NepCorres/status/1865502577565049071

Heck, even without going Kinetic, India can cause disaster for Bangladesh economy. All that is needed to be done is to cut-off road, rail and air links. The Yahoos, already crying for Indian Visas will do the rest.

https://twitter.com/CestMoiz/status/1828464126491754901

Of course there is the inevitable question of Bangladesh plunging into darkness, literally, in case they don’t cough up the money they owe. But the newly ‘martial’ quom of Bangladesh are still running around with their chests puffed, having learnt from the best, i.e. Pakistan!

 

 

Heck, they have even put in a deal to import electricity from Nepal as a contingency. But what the idiots leave unsaid is that this electricity too will travel via the Indian grid, unless the Nobel Laureate has created some magical means of electricity transmission!

Bottomline: There is a great opportunity for India to set right yet more historical wrongs that have been permitted to continue thus far. What, when and how, remain to be seen. I am sure the GOI would already have contingency plans in place in any case.

Let me just get to the map from @NepCorres that I quoted a few tweets above.

Now relate it with the situation in 1971.

Some people say that the original plan in 1971 was limited capture of territory to compensate for the refugee issue and establish a Bangladesh govt. In that context, I will also share this tweet of mine just hours after the Bangladesh coup:

At this point, I would like to reiterate the phrase ‘Pig’s Neck‘ that was tweeted not too long ago!

https://twitter.com/CestMoiz/status/1821581944406364433

And then there is the ‘small’ issue of Feni that is the hub of all surface connectivity with Chittagong and thereabouts.

Bottomline: There are a multitude of options available to Indian in case the situation in Bangladesh continues to fester as it is today. Add to it a relatively friendly regime in the USA even though it would not matter when it comes to national interests, just like 1971 and 1998.

If a much weaker India could brush off the economic sanctions after the nuclear tests of 1998, the India of today can afford to do so many times over. That is in case the ‘world’ dares to sanction India at all.

The ideal end case scenario that I would like to see is Indian borders expanding to protect the minorities in Bangladesh. And the Bangladesh Army cut down to size commensurate to their circumstances, no more than 30,000.

Dare I say, things are fast moving to a stage where kinetic action by India would become inevitable and inescapable. Statements by GOI as well as political parties and private citizens are increasingly calling out the blatant murder and rape of minorities happening in Bangladesh.

Those bastards can deny all that they want, but fact remains that GOI has never been this direct about such issues in past. THIS is something that Govt of Bangladesh would have already taken note of. Yet, in their hubris, they will end up losing parts of their country yet again.

They have chosen their friends.

And they have chosen their enemies as well.

In fact, they have forcibly made enemies out of not only benefactors, but those that actually made their own country a reality when they were being raped and slaughtered mercilessly.

Events of the coming weeks and months will be the history that our grandchildren will be taught in their schools. I have no doubts we have the stronger cards in this ‘game’ and this time, we may or may not be as benevolent as we historically have been.

With this, I conclude this thread. 16 Dec and later, 20 Jan are the inflection points I will be looking at. In any case, even if the current regime in Bangladesh survives a bit longer than that, they will still end up ruining their country for good.

JMTs

:fin: 

Above blog post on my Twitter : Twitter Link

I will just add my previous three threads on Bangladesh here as well:-

Blog 1: On the Events Currently Underway in Bangladesh (As on 08 Aug 2024)

Blog 2 : On the Events in Bangladesh (As on 26 Aug 2024)

Blog 3 : On the Role of the Bangladesh Army in Recent Events

On Big Tech and Social Media Giants

Harpreet Uncategorized , , ,

Folks, sharing some thoughts on Big Tech that has become an integral part of our daily lives as individuals as well as collectively. The trigger was the massive outage of Microsoft devices some weeks ago. Have been having some thoughts since then. Let’s see how it goes..

First and foremost, here is a link to the outage of Microsoft devices due to some issue with CrowdStrike, for those who might have forgotten it : Microsoft Crowdstrike creates worldwide outage: Life across the globe comes to a standstill

So many parts of our lives came to a halt, because someone somewhere screwed up!

It was a major news headline for atleast a couple of days. And then, we moved on once things were back in order, dismissing this as a temporary hitch in our day-to-day existence.

Of course, it was inadvertent.

Such things happen at times and computers crash. Nothing more to it, even if this event let to a massive number of computers to crash near simultaneously!

Hence, no outrage.

However, given the fact that life in so many countries came to a grinding halt across various sectors due to this unintended outage, one question that bothers me is what if next time there is an INTENTIONAL outage??

When I say ‘Intentional‘, I don’t necessarily mean by some evil geniuses running the large corporations of the world, but also governments who have a lien on the day to day functioning of such companies by the virtue of they being geographically located there.

Why I say this is because, if I as a govt had the power to disrupt or monitor lives of people and countries who are of interest to me, why the hell would I NOT do that?

In fact, a prime example of that landed up on my TL not very long ago: This is RFK Jr. revealing that 37 hours after President Biden was installed into the White House, they opened an illegal portal between social media giants and the FBI, CIA, CDC, etc, to begin the rampant censorship of Americans! Arm-twisting / threatening by Govt forced them!

Of course that doesn’t mean that atleast some of the owners of Big Tech / Social Media Giants were not already on a ‘trip’ of their own! Remember, one Social Media Giant deplatformed Trump even when he was STILL the President!

By the time Trump was out of office, he had been banned by FB, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and the likes. Reddit even banned some Pro-Trump forums! (Source)

Mind you, FREE SPEECH is basically what the platforms deem to be ‘free’ as per their own policies. And of course, what the host govt deems to be ‘free’! The aftermath of Twitter acquisition by Elon Musk was their for all to see. I’ll still share two snippets of Vijaya being questioned:

Before moving on, you MUST see the two videos above. One phrase that the lady in the second video used to address them was ‘You all as the Sinister Overlords’. Nothing could explain it better! And to think that these platforms actually shape narratives around the globe!

Just as another example, during the 2024 Indian General Elections, YouTube approved 48 advertisements in English, Hindi, and Telugu that violated YouTube’s OWN policies about advertising and elections misinformation! (SOURCE)

Talk about Sinister Overlords!

The thing is that even though the platforms themselves just are a source code running on its own, doing what it is supposed to do, but the people who created that damn code are still humans. Humans, with their own biases and leanings.

Humans who don’t even know they are biased!

Humans, who think that anyone who doesn’t think like them is a liar and NOT deserving of free speech.

Why?

Because they hold the power of denying them free speech just because they happen to have a divergent view from those who control the platforms!

(LINK TO TWEET SCREENSHOTTED ABOVE)

If they could do it to a Donald Trump, folks like Op India are pretty ‘small’ fries, no?

And the Sinister Overlords already have a bagful of templated replies to any queries seeking the rationale behind their decision to censor your or my voice!

Of course, outright banning is too ‘extreme’ and more than that, too ‘visible’! So there are also other means such as Shadow Bans and simply hiding access to information! I don’t know the reason behind these, but sharing two examples from Google:

(Link to tweet screenshotted above)

Talking about Shadow Bans, that term seems to be a wrong one, atleast as far as Twitter before Elon Musk went. Apparently, the correct terminology was : VISIBILITY FILTERING!

V.E.R.Y innovative of the SINISTER OVERLORDS of ‘Free’ Speech, I’d say!

But sadly, even after Shri Elon Ji took charge of the ship, the Shadow Ban .. err .. sorry, VISIBILITY Filtering goes on unabated! I have already ‘yelled‘ at Elon Musk Ji, as he suggested. Let’s see what comes of it!

So intimately involved have the Social Media giants become with life and politics around the globe, that even removal of a Blue Tick signals (to some), the beginning of the downfall of a hero or a leader!

Then there are the in-house AI algorithms who need data and material to train on. And guess who chooses what databases they shall train on .. well, HUMANS of course! Such scenarios are NOT at all surprising in such a situation!

As I mentioned in the beginning of this blog post, govts have ways and means to ‘influence’ behaviour of Big Tech / SM Giants. Here is the European Union that wants to control the flow of information within their own borders!

 

Yup, ‘FREE’ speech indeed!

And how can one forget the recent arrest of the founder of Telegram App in France!
His ‘CRIME’?
Not submitting to demands of some govts to give them a ‘peep’ into his App!

You get my drift, don’t you?

Being a ‘popular’ Social Media giant comes with its own perils at the hands of govts that decide that they will get to decide what constitutes ‘Free’ Speech!

Then there are govts who will punish their own citizens for as much as posting a meme!

Bottomline is that at the end of the day, even the ‘Cloud’ the we talk about when talking of the www, is actually a server farm located on a piece of land governed by the sovereign govt and administered by humans who are prone to their own biases and govt pressure. What we don’t realize is that by giving so much access to them into our daily lives, individually as well as collectively, we make ourselves potential targets for manipulation.

They may try to be ‘smart’ about that, but it does not change the fact that there is pretty much NOTHING that one can do to them because they are ‘merely following their own policies’!

The only way out from this vicious circle is to have indigenous platforms to ensure free speech to own citizens under the existing laws of the land. And with a population of 1.4Bn, we are already far far too late for this.

Beginnings were made. But they fell by the wayside.

Regardless, we need to keep working towards indigenous platforms to form the backbone of social media within our borders and accountable to the Govt of the day. Else, these things will keep happening, and with absolutely nothing that we can do about it.

(Link to tweet screenshotted above)

There will always be govt biases as well, when it comes to foreign social media giants. Biases from govts that may not be very ‘friendly’ to us at the same time.

Implications are potentially disastrous.

Screenshot 2024-09-10 210202

(Link to tweet screenshotted above)

Of course, the founder of Facebook had an epiphany and an awakening, but so much damage has already been done and is irreversible by now. What we can definitely do is to limit the damage going ahead.

 

Of course, the founder of Facebook had an epiphany and an awakening, but so much damage has already been done and is irreversible by now. What we can definitely do is to limit the damage going ahead.

As I wind up this blog post, I will leave this thread of my very personal experience of Visibility Restriction at the hands of Twitter! This, by itself, lays out the case which I have built in the thread so far.

I’ll close this blog post now by going back to the accidental Microsoft Outage of last month.

What if the next outage is NOT accidental?

What if the next outage is deliberate and focussed?

What if such things have already happened?

Food for thought, no?

Before winding up, I will share two more tweets from Op India itself.

Let me just reiterate in the end that there is absolutely no alternative to indigenous social media platforms in the current world scenario. One hopes it fructifies sooner rather than later!

With that hope, I conclude this chain of thoughts.

:FIN: