Review: The Silent Coup by Josy Joseph

A riot of conspiracy theories

There are conspiracy theories, and then there is Josy Joseph. His book Feast of Vultures was rooted in real stories, often backed by personal experience or sometimes even by facts. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about his latest book. Josy seems to have lost the plot when he treats his sources differently when they feed him ‘stories’ which suit his narrative and when they don’t. At the beginning of the book he mentions how the intelligence officers often feed false stories to journalists, and hence he mistrusts them to a great extent. But when these ‘stories’ suit his narrative, Josy readily accepts them and gleefully boasts of having access to ‘insider’ and ‘sinister’ plots which have been conjured up in the minds of the ‘evilest’ top-brass.

He raises questions about how Afzal Guru was an innocent bystander and was a scapegoat after the Parliament attacks of 2001. However, one only has to read Rahul Pandita’s book to get to the truth. Rahul has clearly presented the facts when he presents the links of Afzal Guru with these Islamic terrorists hiding in plain sight in Pakistan. But that’s too much to ask of Josy because he is clearly blinded by the blinkers.

Josy writes about how ‘hindu terror’ or ‘saffron terror’ was unearthed by NIA during UPA regime, and then posits this theory that because this does not suit BJP, all the accused were let go of lightly. Would, say, Sadhvi Pragya be so naive that she would use her own two-wheeler for carrying out attacks? But such simpleton questions would baffle Josy so he does not even bother to ask them.

He mentions in his book the chapter of Kasab and other terrorists attacking Mumbai on 26/11, but comfortably ignores how the stooges of Congress / UPA had released a book after 26/11 which claimed that 26/11 was an RSS plot! Josy, as expected, does not write a word about this. Not even a hint. Of course Josy won’t because when you have an agenda at the back of your mind, incovinient facts are to be ignored and brushed aside.

As per Josy, the two dozen or so intelligence agencies are an evil manifestation of bad State actors, who can’t think of anything else but to create havoc in the state. Josy, as would be apparent to the reader by now, is a typical journalist who sits in his ivory tower and keeps pointing out how the armed forces, police, politicians, intelligenc officers, informants are not only imperfect, but even conniving at each breath on how to fool the public, the journalists, and the world at large. One would infer from Josy’s criticism, that when a terrorist enters Kashmir with a gun, the military should present the law book to the terrorist, outling what the terrorist’s rights and duties are. And in case the terrorist crosses the line, which would be a rare occasion as per Josy, then the military should take recourse in the laws of the land and go through a ‘proper’ process through the judiciary.

I am glad that people like Josy are confined to the journalistic world, having no real-world experience dealing with terrorists, gangsters, anti-nationals etc. Because only the theorists and purists can revel in their own utopian principles of ethics, equality, and kindness. It is because of this parasite called “fourth pillar” that India as a country has been weakened from the inside, like a moth-infested beam. It is not journalism but disguised-journalism that is the real enemy of India. What exactly are these so-called journalists upholding? If India fails to avert a terrorist attack, these journalists gleefully roast the security establishment and political masters of being a failure; but when the security establishment / politicians are able to nip terrorism in the bud, these ‘journalists’ smell a fish and suspect foul-play.

My disgust for journalism and especially the holier-than-thou attitude of those in this ‘establishment’ has grown by leaps and bounds over the years. Noam Chomsky could not make an iota of a difference in this world for a reason. Arundhati Roy likes to go on ‘explorative naxal’ trips and then write books and articles but cannot dent an inch of the government, and that’s like this for a reason. And the reason is that these people and ‘thinkers’ are stuck in their textbooks of ethics and morality. They scored 90% percentage in their written exams and think they can change the world and fight the enemy based on their 90% score! Welcome to the real world, folks!

I would not recommend this book as it is full of hypotheses, fact-less pronouncements, personal disgust, political agenda, and even laughable, if not derisive, conjectures. His first book was way better, but somewhere Josy seems to have lost it. I will wait till he veers back to the track.

Review: The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur by Rahul Pandita

“Lover Boy”

Rahul Pandita is someone you can trust as a journalist. His previous books were on the Maoist insurgency in India (which, essentially, is tribals fighting for their own lands against an usurping State), also called Naxalism.

To call Umar Farooq a “lover boy” is a stretch of imagination: he neither has the looks nor the persona. But appearances belie true colours. This Umar (aka Idrees bhai) was the ‘mastermind’ behind the Pulwama attacks. He already was involved with multiple girls in Kashmir, and hence the monicker “lover boy”.

Pandita’s book is quite detailed in how it deals with history of Kashmir, especially the 80s and 90s, which saw increased cross-border support for terrorism from Pakistan and different groups fighting amongst themsleves in Kashmir for dominance and legitimacy. The book gives a detailed account of how intelligence operatives develop their sources in a troubled region like Kashmir, and what all entails finding clues to solve a case. It’s a cat-and-mouse game.

Pandita also proves another important point, which the blind left-wing bigots have not been able to accept: the link of Afzal Guru with the Parliament attacks.

I would recommend this book for various reasons: the inside sources the author has developed and the information that is presented in the book; the operations of intelligence operatives and how they crack a case; the risks the intelligence community takes to take on these terrorists; the operational details of various counter-attacks and neutralizing operations conducted in Kashmir by Indian forces; the riveting details of the 2019 Pulwama attack and the ‘luck by chance’ that lead to the unearthing the people behind it.

A well written book which focuses on the essentials: the language is not flowery or sophisticated, but who needs these when there is a bearded, fat, ‘lover boy’, eh?

Review: Remnants of a Separation by Aanchal Malhotra

We were sitting by an outdoor cafe in one of Europe’s wealthiest countries, when the gentleman passed by us. He overheard us taking in Hindi and stopped to say hello, told us he had lived in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, gave us his card and left. Few weeks later, I rang him up and fixed an appointment with him at this home. I was curious to know how could he have lived in all the three countries? Was he a spy? Or a diplomat?

Holding a book written by his friend in Bangladesh

I went to his home one winter evening, and he had already prepared fish for me, not knowing beforehand that I was a vegetarian! He apologized for assuming my dietary preferences and quickly took out a packet of sliced vegetables and prepared it for me. My request to not prepare any food for me were not paid any attention, and he told me, rather sternly, that it was dinner time and I was his guest. And over the next couple of hours, he told me his story. He said, “My life was a very sweet life”.

Certificate from Shah Jahan, probably in Farsi

Translated in English

He was born in the 1940s in undivided India, in a large Bengali-speaking city (I can’t put  here the exact year of birth and name of his birth-city as it might get him in trouble for some legal reasons). In 1956, nine years after the partition of India, his father, a Congress party member, took his family to Bangladesh for good. However, as a young boy, this gentleman had no inclination towards studies or any formal education. He wandered from one classroom to another for some time, and then totally gave up on it. Though, as he was from an educated family, with every cousin and friend well versed in different languages, he engaged in self-education whilst reading from books in libraries and temples. Though his religion is Islam, he has an interest in Hinduism as much in Islam. He has read the Vedas, and other mythological works like the Mahabharata as well as the Quran. He possesses formidable knowledge about history and historical facts.

Probably his family tree, written in Bengali

His grandmother was a Hindu Brahmin and grandfather was a Muslim, and they had engaged in an inter-religious marriage back in those days! The times were such that when borders were porous between India and East Pakistan, he regularly used to travel between Calcutta and Dhaka. Due to lack of formal education, finding an office job would have been difficult, and he veered towards volunteering with aid and welfare organizations. In 1967, he got a visa to go to one of the wealthiest countries of Europe to work as a volunteer. He was in Sri Lanka at that point. So he left the three countries [India, Pakistan (East and West), Sri Lanka] behind. Four years later, East Pakistan was separated from West Pakistan and became Bangladesh. As history would have it, he had lived in undivided India, Pakistan (East), and had later traveled to Bangladesh as well few times. He had held citizenship of three countries of the Indian subcontinent (and had held passports of all those countries), and that too without being a spy as I had conjectured in my mind!

Engrossed in a book

He could trace back his family lineage to more than 400 years ago as senior court members of Akbar, Jehangir, and Shah Jahan. In fact, there are many documents with him which are written in Persian. Some of these documents are now not original as they are stored away in libraries, and many were taken away by the British, while others would have been lost in transit whilst moving between India, East Pakistan, and Europe. When I ask him how he feels about his life in Europe, he said, “I miss the shadows behind the bright lights”. About the partition of India and the religious fanaticism driving a schism between Hindus and Muslims, he says, “Our arrogance has divided us. The Hindu prejudice and the Muslim arrogance..these have divided us”.

Remnants of a Separation is book deeply awash with melancholy. It brings forth the stories lost in time, the stories about belongings which one hurriedly carried along after the partition. The men and the women in the book tell us not just about their possessions which remind them of lands long lost, but more so of the lives which they could have had if not were for partition. There is a strange ‘what-if’ sense of direction in each subject’s narration on what all they could have been or could have done, had they not been forced to migrate across the lines. It is people’s history that is covered in those pages, not through ghastly statistics, or distant commentary, but with immense affection.

(Below slideshow shows copy of an article published in East Pakistan, seemingly about lineage of Mughals)

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Review: Black Wave by Kim Ghattas

Black Wave

The recent spate of articles about the assassination of Qassem Soleimani has made many, like Thomas Friedman, to write that his image was being blown out of proportion and he wasn’t that important a man in geopolitics and he was getting undue press coverage way out of proportion. However if one were to read Soleimani’s profiles before his assassination, one would inevitably conclude that he indeed was deeply entrenched in conflicts across the Middle East, from supporting Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, groups in Iraq and Syria against ISIS. But Friedman couldn’t see all of this.

Kim Ghattas’ Black Wave is the latest addition in the plethora of books about the quagmire in Middle Eastern politics. Her focus is on the year 1979, when three epochal events took place: the Iranian Revolution, the siege of mosque in Mecca, and the onslaught of Russian forces on Afghanistan. First half of the book is hinged around this pivotal year, and how these events shaped the future of the region: the rift in American-Iranian relations, the rise of mujahideen and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan fed by CIA money, the strengthening of the grip of the state in Saudi Arabia. The author covers a vast region in the chapters: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan (briefly), Saudi Arabia, Yemen (again briefly), Pakistan, Afghanistan. It is an achievement to weave a common thread through such a vast region, rather than to paint everything in the colours of Sunni-Shia conflict (which does form the basis of the narrative in the second half).

However, the subtitle “Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the forty-year rivalry…” seems to be slightly misleading as the focus of book is a general, accessible history of the region, rather than a focus on the Saudi-Iranian animosity hinged on the centuries’ old Sunni-Shia divide. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in modern history of the region without delving too much into the theoretical. You would meet Soleimani, Jamal Khashoggi, Ruhollah Khomeini, Musa al-Sadr, Saddam Hussein, Ahmadinejad, Baghdadi, Mohammad Bin Salman, and many others; but you would also read about the struggles of writers, columnists, actors, philosophers and anyone with a rebellious streak against oppression. The author focuses not only on the men in power, but also commoners who suffered due to their policy-making.