Dheeraj Kalgutkar

While AAP lost to BJP, Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia were also defeated in their respective constituencies      Many, especially people in Delhi, saw this coming. In a way, it is good. Or as someone mentioned, it was inevitable. Just like how it was important to defeat UPA at the height of their powers and ego trip in 2014, equally, it had become important and necessary to defeat the politics of Arvind Kejriwal. He was thinking that a mini-version of BJP's politics was the strategy to go by. He repeatedly projected himself as the better version of BJP's divisive politics - as if he could hate Muslims but continue to also provide free public services. At every step of the way in recent times, he projected himself as more religious and narrowminded than the BJP. He even avoided supporting his own Muslim legislator and rallied against admitting children of migrants in schools. Forget about his actions concerning Shaheen Bagh and CAA. And of course, he had grown hubris that he ...

Yesterday, Indian Parliament headed by BJP which enjoys brute majority declared Article 370 which gave Kashmir special status in Indian union revoked, it bifurcated the Jammu and Kashmir state into two parts, and it also declared both the parts as Union Territories. The reason why they did this is one part of a debatable story; the manner in which they executed this is another. Kashmir was never a federal state like others. It was and continuous to be a military occupation (with increased troops now, one gunman to 10 civilians). But now it has lost even the facade of being an independent state. And we are told Kashmiris are real people. If they are real people like mainland Indians, why does military occupy civilian spaces there? When are we scrapping AFSPA? You have numbers now. You can do anything. Democracy, those who have read would know isn’t about numbers but doing what is right even when what you want to achieve is wrong in the eyes of the majority. It i...

Can I ask you something? Will you listen to me without any prejudice or malice or a quick label for me? Will you? I'm feared where we are heading. Are you? Just tell me what sort of protests are allowed? What pranks are allowed? Can I make fun of the ruling class? I ask this for I'm feared and worried. If a student leader in JNU can be arrested, I too can and you too. Everyone one of us is potentially at risk. Do you realize this? Do you realize where we are heading? Do you know what differentiates a India from Pakistan or Arab countries? Is whats happening today point to that difference or are we becoming one of them? Everyday someone or the other comes with, if you had done/said it there, they would have done like that! Now, have we scooped such low to compare ourselves with them? Are they our yardsticks now? I'm worried. I'm worried for you and me. I'm worried for this nation of ours! Leave everything aside, think. Think what is going wrong. JNU has always b...

Forget ‘How often’, when in history have we seen head-of-the-state sitting on  dharna  for change in his own state? When newspapers and electronic media dubbed AamAadmi Party ‘s rise as ‘history in making’, I personally giggled, for it was mere an entrant cracking exams in first attempt! Where was that‘new’ or ‘alternative’ in it? Yes, the idea of Swaraj (self-rule) which our constitution has laid out already but we never felt it, but then, it was just a talk, a manifesto to woo impatient voters. Such innovative, out-of-the-box manifestos were not new to Indian voters; each new election year, with old promises, we are sold for a few new ones and as-fast-as-that they are forgotten once they start travelling under VIP red beacons. Just as simple as that! Okay, AAP ended the VIP culture with no red beacons and put an end to ‘You-know-who-my-father-is’ dialogue- baazis . This was new for the state but then again, not the one to dub history-in-making,for we already ha...

There was a time when some pundits used to provide vague theories of rape, one was - Gen Y wear what's provocative so man gets weird thoughts of lust and it just happens. As simple as that! Is it?   Let us not waste hours in discussing what India must year and what not to, what should they eat or at least not on how should they behave in here or anywhere else on this planet. At last the recent tales of rapes from Delhi and Madhya Pradesh silences their theories where a four and five year old little children have been inhumanly raped by men of horrific age gives us more often a sense of how beleaguered and senseless society we have become. Just remember when in last year, a bench of HC had said, they find themselves clueless how a baby sleeping at home could incite lust in the mind of a thief who came to burglar but went on to rape and and dump her in drainage. No words of shamelessness could well aptly describe or shame those indulged in such crimes. There even doesn...