Fauji & Lawyer

Dear Sandeep @SandeepPathak04 I was listening to your press conference today. Among the three options, if there is no way you can continue working with AAP, you could have left AAP and resigned from your MP post. Joining the BJP is not just gaddari to Arvind Kejriwal who trusted in you and other AAPians who believed in you; it is gaddari to 1.4 billion Indians. Others may have reasons to bend under pressure, but you do not have any reason to bend to any pressure. You should never be seen as a gaddaar in the eyes of your daughter. Joining BJP is an insult to every single day of your life so far, which you have led with relentless hard work, facing hurdles at each step. As you yourself said, there are many other ways of nation-building. Let us work on those options. Please do not go to BJP. This country needs more people like you to fight for restoring the normal functioning of institutions. It is okay to not know the art of politics. It is okay to not always have common sense. Our education has taught us humility - to accept our failures and to accept what we do not know. But doing gaddari is not at all a solution to this. If you cannot stand internal politics within AAP, imagine - you may not be able to sustain even one day in BJP. They will swallow you in no time. We are just ordinary people (read that 100 times). It is okay to lose 10 years of your life fighting for a rightful reason and not succeed. But please do not go to BJP. It has only been a few hours since you joined, and 1.4 billion people are counting on you. This was the donation I made to AAP Chhattisgarh last May after knowing that Sandeep was the Chhattisgarh Prabhari. I do not have visibility into what is happening on the ground, but I could sense that something was off. Sandeep was someone I truly looked up to. In many ways, I saw myself in him - an educated person who genuinely wanted to bring change in the system, who sacrificed his career and worked very hard during the Punjab elections. I know I wanted to be like that one day, but I am still not sure if I can move back to India due to my own constraints. So I wanted him to succeed in his goal of bringing REAL CHANGE on the ground (after learning from his past lessons). That is why I made this donation. I could not post it then, as I felt he may not have been comfortable with it at that time. I am posting it today along with the original message I had shared with a few leaders internally while sending this donation certificate to them. I took reference of Manoj’s Daadi in 12th Fail movie. We all knew that the hard-earned life savings of Manoj's Daadi were stolen. But Manoj did not turn into a traitor in his Daadi’s eyes. I am hoping for a miracle in this real-life story too, even as I watch these dramatic events unfold today 🙏 ------------ This is the original message I shared with AAP leaders last year 👇 An ordinary middle-class girl from a small town in Andhra Pradesh, is donating her hard earned money to Aam Aadmi Party Chhattisgarh unit today, because she believes in the power of opportunity as she has lived what opportunity can do. In India, the arc of our lives is too often written before we can even dream - by our birth, our gender, our caste, our class. I happened to be lucky, being born into a middle-class family that valued education, I was given that one opportunity that can break all barriers - learning. That education led me to a job, to independence, to a voice - and today, that voice says- 'every child deserves the same shot at life, no matter where they are born' AAP is the only political force that hasn’t just talked about education - it has transformed it. In Delhi, 18 lakh government school children have been given dignity, hope, and opportunity through education that matches private schools. They weren’t chosen for their privilege or wealth - AAP chose to believe in them. Just them. That’s why, just like Manoj’s Dadi in 12th Fail movie, who gave him her life long savings so he could chase his dreams of becoming an honest officer and serve the country, today I am contributing to AAP for its mission in Chhattisgarh. I dream of a day when New York Times headlines speak of government school children from Chhattisgarh rising to global heights - because someone dared to believe in them. Because AAP will dare to change their future. And why to AAP Chhattisgarh ? Because, this same education has made a huge difference in one man’s life who now sacrificed his career to be part of AAP in order to bring BADLAAV in this country and is currently prabhari of Chhattisgarh. He is a huge inspiration to me and I am contributing my hard earned money, because I have complete trust in his integrity, and he will start a powerful movement in Chhattisgarh. Now is the time to build something strong, rooted, and visionary in Chhattisgarh. This is why I hope my donation fuels the upcoming local body elections in CG - the stepping stones for solid support base to form for AAP

Dear @ShashiTharoor , I enjoyed your spirited defence of Rahul Gandhi. Alas, it does not address the central thesis of my column and interview—his dismal leadership record. The facts speak for themselves.The Congress suffered heavy defeats in three successive General Elections fought under his leadership. Meanwhile, the number of Congress MLAs has come down by almost 50% under his watch. In 2013, the Congress was in power in 14 states. That was the party Rahul Gandhi inherited. Now the Congress is in power in just 5 states. As the countrywide footprint of the party shrinks, surely its principal leader should be held accountable? Or is that a question too uncomfortable for the Congress to face?

Writing this without an iota of hate of ill-will toward @Ram_Guha , @HartoshSinghBal , Harish Khare, @tavleen_singh @waglenikhil and many other Gandhi family baiters who have repeatedly targeted Rahul Gandhi and his politics of opposition to the Modi led BJP. I now understand that most of you are still fighting the @INCIndia of 1975 and 1984 among others just as the Sangh is fighting the Congress of Gandhi and Nehru. Much of legacy media and social media are dominated by these two groups. But here's a third group which became politicised in 1992 with the rise of Hindutva- the pro- Rahul Gandhi voice on social media is roughly this group of Gen X ers and a motley mix of a new millennials and GenX. We are disturbed by the repeated attacks on Rahul Gandhi not because we are members of the Congress party or are blind followers of any cult- we are disturbed because the anti-Congressism of the earlier groups is blinding most toward the clear and present danger that stares before us - the existential threat to our Republic. Rahul Gandhi is among the very few of our politicians who has been able to consistently articulate that danger by his fearless attacks on the Sangh and its agenda of destroying the secular fabric of this country. He might never become Prime Minister of this country - but history will be kinder towards him than many of you would like to believe.