[NICnet] Fwd: [IAC#RG] Baba Ramdev to communalise politics

Sat Mar 9 19:49:56 PST 2013

Dear Shailyji,

Persons like you who have been in IAC during the period we were not in it
certainly have every cause to be angered at Kejriwal and Anna for the way
they allowed the anti-corruption movement to be hijacked / derailed. These
rootless wonders who were banking upon Sri Ravi Sankar's promised magical
crowds which never materialised  were reduced to begging for bodies to put
before the media camera from every source possible including RSS, VP
Singh's morcha, HRA  and of course Ramdev.

Frankly I have no idea what Ramdev stands for exactly, or what he
propagates or has done on the anti-corruption front. Merely raising a
hullabaloo over black money stashed abroad and asking for it to be brought
back does not constitute fighting against corruption.  This is one of the
oldest issues in India since at least Bofors days and nothing has come of
it.

Mr. Baig has a valid point that Ramdev is beleaguered with the Congress in
power in his home turf of Himachal Pradesh. Now the screws can be put on
him over his land deals and most importantly over the licencing and quality
and taxes of his ayurveda pharmacy empire. In other words he will be as
much under the control of Congress Party  as Mr. Mulalyam Singh Yadav is in
UP and as such is undependable. No wonder the 2 Yadavs have met repeatedly
to work out a joint strategy to counter Congress imperialism. No wonder
also that Ramdev is publicly scrambling to confabulate with ex-babus like
Shailaja Chandra known for her powerful Congress and Health Ministry links
(see attached photos).

At the end of the day, despite all issues,  Bharat votes along lines of
religion, caste etc. Intellectuals are deluding themselves if they feel
they have any role to play outside their urban areas.  The rural areas are
in any case going over to LWE (Left Wing Extremism) which is another issue
IAC has to seriously discuss.

For all our members, please be assured that the day Ramdev becomes openly
political, we shall ask his followers/supporters to delink from our
apolitical movement, since the only thing Ramdev and IAC seem to have in
common at the present time is  our demand that citizens be allowed to bear
arms legally.

Sarbajit
National Convenor
India Against Corruption, jan andolan

On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 6:30 AM, CyberTec Solutions <shailyji at gmail.com>wrote:

> Anybody who is against corruption and against this rotton system should be
> on Baba ramdev's side. He is the only hope one which India can survive for
> betterment. He is a deciding force in India and whole India has seen what
> values Baba propagate.
>
> This fourm and the whole country has seen  kejriwal and Anna has done
> nothing but wasting time and precious efforts to Indian volunteers in the
> name of Anti corruption. Because of them movement against rotton system has
> been derailed and thousands of volunteers who wanted to clean the system
> are now in a state of distrust and are demoralized.
>
> Whereas Baba ramdev is still standing tall with his mission and his
> values. He have shown many times that what ever method of oppression govt.
> adopt he is defiant as before.
>
> We all Indians who really want to change the current pathetic condition of
> India should support Baba Ramdev in his efforts.
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 7:00 PM, M Baig <raaz.baig at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Sir
>>
>> India Against Corruption members should be kept aware of Baba Ramdev's
>> active entry into politics. He is already in trouble for his products, his
>> land deals, his foreign associates and his murky financial affairs.
>> Recently the Himachal government took over his prime land where he has
>> carried out massive illegal constructions but the High Court gave Baba a
>> stay.
>>
>> With his massive money power and SaiBaba like ability to win friends and
>> influence people, Ramdev is desperately attempting to garner support from
>> intellectual classes to give him respectability. To appear secular he is
>> touring the country with maulvis, fathers and jain munis. He may even try
>> and infiltrate the IAC movement.
>>
>> The Indian Express has this to say today.
>> Is Baba Ramdev now fair game?<http://www.indianexpress.com/news/is-baba-ramdev-now-fair-game-/760035/0> Shailaja
>> Bajpai <http://www.indianexpress.com/columnist/shailajabajpai/> : New
>> Delhi, Wed Mar 09 2011, 15:02 hrs
>>
>> The curious case of Baba Ramdev says as much about the nature of
>> television in India as it does about his abilities as a yoga guru and
>> televangelist. Last week, you would have found him on the mat – where else
>> – striking poses he's unaccustomed to, and letting off steam rather than
>> breathing in and out 'om vilom' style. He was Breaking News on many news
>> channels, especially the Hindi news channels, after Congress' Digvijay
>> Singh asked him to reveal the sources of his money and donations. This
>> follows Baba Ramdev's campaign against black money which he often launches
>> into between 'kapalbhati' lessons and his recent confrontation with
>> Arunachal Pradesh Congress MP Ninong Ering who allegedly abused him during
>> a yoga session for attacking the Congress Party on the issue of black
>> money.
>>
>> Baba Ramdev has made no secret of his political ambitions in the last one
>> year. For those of us who have been watching his progress on the tube (not
>> youtube but the television tube), this is no surprise. His drive to cleanse
>> politics and the country of corruption, are integral to his discourses on
>> healthy living now. Having spent years administering to our bodies and
>> souls, he's turned his attention to the ills in the body politic. This is a
>> logical progression; if watch him conduct one of his innumerable TV
>> sessions, you'll soon discover that he has been repeating himself and now
>> that millions of Indians seem ready to contort themselves into his shapes
>> and sizes, it's time for him to move on. Where else will he go but
>> politics, given the kind of countrywide popularity he enjoys?
>>
>> If there is one person who has grown along with with the phenomenal
>> spread of television throughout the country, it is Baba Ramdev. He is a
>> creature of TV, if not its creation. I have been told stories of viewers
>> who have forsaken the comfort of their sofas watching saas-bahu serials, to
>> genuflect before him on TV. It's been an incredible success story and
>> nobody should doubt the standing he enjoys with his yoga followers.
>> Television has done everything it possibly could to increase their tribe.
>> Baba Ramdev holds yoga classes on Doordarshan, most news channels, on Astha
>> and then on Sanskar spiritual channels; regional language channels tune
>> into these sessions too and there are live broadcasts of his trips across
>> the country, and abroad. Nobody else in any field comes even close to him
>> terms of television exposure.
>>
>> Increasingly, Baba Ramdev talks about issues far below the high-minded
>> discourses that elevated him to a guru. (Coca Cola, for instance, which he
>> once described as worse than a toilet cleaner). And that's the rub: if he
>> finds himself attacked by politicians today, it is because he's descended
>> to their level. He's using the platform he ascended with the power of yoga
>> to propagate his views on policies, on governance; he's advocating the
>> death penalty for corruption and pointing fingers at political parties and
>> their leaders. He's playing politics, not the first guru to do so. Remember
>> the power Dhirender Brahmachari exercised during Mrs Indira Gandhi's
>> prime-ministership?
>>
>> However, once he's into politics, it becomes dirty, as he has now
>> discovered. And he's being forced to appear on TV, not as a spiritual
>> guide, but as one more person who must defend and/or explain himself. This
>> could dim the TV-Teflon-coated protective sheen he has acquired from his
>> televangelism. As everyone has found out, even a TV personality like Barkha
>> Dutt after the Radiia tapes, breaking news, news channels do not
>> discriminate on the basis of anything, not even the spiritual; anyone and
>> everyone is fair game in their insatiable hunger for news and
>> confrontations.
>>
>> As he becomes more and political in his discourses leading up to the
>> general elections of 2014, Baba Ramdev may find it difficult to maintain
>> the lofty heights he's accustomed to, and the television that has helped
>> make him who he is, could also break him.
>>
>>

Post: "indiaresists at lists.riseup.net"
Exit: "indiaresists-unsubscribe at lists.riseup.net"
Quit: "https://lists.riseup.net/www/signoff/indiaresists"
Help: https://help.riseup.net/en/list-user
WWW : http://indiaagainstcorruption.net.in
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/nicnet/attachments/20130310/fa06fccf/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 8527715354_a1c42e720f.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 104026 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/nicnet/attachments/20130310/fa06fccf/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 8526599869_87cb0a1dc6.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 120551 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/nicnet/attachments/20130310/fa06fccf/attachment-0003.jpg>