Unilever Stinks! Now, Get Out Of Asia

Unilever needs to make money, but that doesn't mean it can get away with doing anything for that. A senior executive at the company has alluded - in fact stated it unequivocally - in an interview that Asians stink. It is easy dismiss this as just politically incorrect talk with the aim of creating a market for the company's deo products. However, beneath this inocuous characterisation lies the fact that the statement is more about the arrogance of a white colonialist (or in this case a developed-world imperialist) about all things and people he deems as lesser mortals, who are only good and useful for the money they have to buy his cheap deodarants.
How shameful that such a statement has escaped the attention of most poeple in this continent. Asia is once place where a lot of religions and empires were born, the cultural and spiritual cradle of the world. And here is this imperious white-skinned business executive who thinks the people of this continent is no good without his cheap mix of ethanol and some smelly chemicals.
It wold do well for Russel Taylor, Unilever’s global V-P for Axe deodorants, to remember that Asians were the most advanced people in the world, and the best in personal hygiene, when his ancestors did not even care to wash, let alone brush their teeth.
There should be a mass boycott of all Unilever products by Asians till this haughty neo-imperialist is forced to apologise for his intemperity.

A Case For Limiting Media Freedom?

The media scene in the country is full of fizz now, what with new newspapers, channels and magazines either hitting the market every day, or slated to hit the market soon. Well, for once I hope this will put an end to the dominance of the few traditional media players who knew how to play politics with their media clout to get what they wanted from our political leaders.
If professionalim is ushered into the media by this boom, I am only too happy about it. And from the frenzy that some of the traditional players are working themselves up into, I guess they are very much threatened.
The sad part may be that all this new media may not mean much for our democracy. The freedom of the press enshrined in our Constitution is there so the media can help keep a check on those in power. However, our media players invoke that right only to dish out the sleazy and seamy side of human life. They have consistently forgotten their political duties, while clamouring for their constitutional rights. And I don't doubt the new players will be much different either.
Media is a business and every player here thinks of it as a business. That brings us to the question: do we still need that clause about media freedom? It would be draconian to just delete it from the Constitution, but it would be equally diabolic to let these profit-focused media houses enjoy that freedom - and use it - only for making money, while giving the go by to their primary duty as conscience keepers to the nation.
Is there a way out? There could be and we need to find one. Media houses worried only about making money should not enjoy the benefits any other business does not enjoy - whatever guise they may give it to cling to it.

The BJP Has Won, But...

The BJP has stormed the South Poll, say the newspapers. Well, I am wondering if that will help the party in the 2009 general elections. Because there is many a slip between the cup and the lip, and there is still a few months left before the votes are cast. How will the party deal with the Gujjar violence, and how will the other parties exploit it in the cow belt, and how the issue will pan out, along with many other already live and yet-to-be-live issues - all these make it too premature to say if the Karnataka victory will be a precursor to such a victory at the Centre.
The fact is, whoever comes to power, it isn't going to change the lot of the poor millions or the state of the environment much. Apart from paying lip service to these causes, our politicians aren't going to do anything concrete about these.
Things are going to get worse, the gap between the rich and the poor is going to get wider, the environment will be ravaged even more by greedy businesses, and communal and casteist differences will be exploited with elan. It seems there was never a better time to be a politician in India!

The Pied Pipers Of India

Where is this nation heading? Every one and his community now wants to be on some privileged list. Yes, I am referring to the Gujjars clamouring for Scheduled Tribe status. While I don't know the merits of the demand and I am not going to comment on it, I am worried about where this state of affairs will lead to.
This is more like the proportional representation on the basis of religion that the British once held out to Indians and was rejected by Gandhi. But today's Congress and other parties are clamouring for, in essence, the same thing.
Women's quotas, SC/ST quotas, Muslim and Christian quotas, OBC quotas... we are heading for quota raj. It would be politically incorrect to criticise this competitive votebank politics, but I am pained for the nation.
These corrupt, greedy, and shortsighted politicians are presiding over the dismemberment of this once-great nation called Bharat. Hell, even that is politically incorrect now - India is more correct!
Our politicians, intellectuals and idealogues have taken up western notions of political correctness. And without an educational system that can show us our real greatness we are just following those peddlers of misery, like the children following the Pied Piper.

A Welcome Move, But ...

The Muslim clergy in the country, reports say, are now mobilizing against terrorists from the
community. It is a welcome change, considering the Deoband school which is considered to provide the ideological underpinning to the extremist Wahabi brand of Islam, is at the forefront of the new movement. But then, there are other clergymen opposing them. Their argument: terrorism is not something which only the Muslims should be ashamed about. True, but those intellectuals who parrot the arguments of these clergy forget that all these new-fangled arguments are just a way to cover the extremist intentions of some Muslims at least. Leftist intellectuals have already bought into those arguments, and allowed Islamic extremism some amount of respect, in a trade off for votes.What is disturbing this time around, is the extremists and their intellectual backers are back at a time when there is a serious introspection within the community. Remember, these are the same people who opposed some films saying they were against Islam, when in truth they wanted to suppress a film showing a Muslim girl falling in love and marrying a Hindu boy. If it would have been the other way round, they wouldn't have minded. So much for their secularism! It is time we called the bluff of these wolves in sheep's clothing.

I have nothing against the Muslim community; many of my friends are from the community. What I am against is the competitive appeasement politics that is allowing these preachers of
violence to thrive under a garb of secular respectability.The earlier such idiots are put behind the bars, their intellectual backers exposed, and the moderates in the community given a chance to reasser themselves, the better for humanity and India!