02-04-2005, 09:52 PM
From ToI blogger called "Offstumped"
link
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Truth about Godhra - The Hindu Exposed
First a note of condolence to all the lives lost in the deadly Tsunami incident. Second a note of regret that âAmmaâ did not in a moment of honest self introspection in the wake of the Tsunami deaths would have reflected on how her arrogance continues to blind her. Well in incident one would have expected to look honestly within yourself and re-assess the rights and wrongs of your actions, but apparently not for her.
Be that as it may, that is not what this post is all about. This post is all about 2 Political Tsunamis, one that is past us and another that is upon us. I am referring to the out of place and out of time post mortem of the Godhra incident and the brewing war by the Naxalites. Two apparently unrelated issues but as you will see joined at the hip.
First things first, when you see the invincible Laloo Yadav who has survived election after election is leaving no stone unturned in reiterating his Minority Credentials to the point of exorcising Godhra's Ghosts it tells you something - Laloo is fighting the political battle of his life and is worried sh1t of anti-incumbency and fragmentation of his political constituency. One would not have expected anything better out of Laloo, given the political low life that he is, but when The Hindu devotes its centerpiece Sunday Editorial to this issue it has to draw a response from this column. There are two pieces in The Hindu this sunday. The first according to it is â<i>a coherent picture</i>â and the second is its answer to Arun Jaitley's questions.
Let us examine the first http://www.hindu.com/2005/01/23/stories/...901400.htm. The usual suspect is Mr. Siddharth Varadarajan who we have seen in the past has barely concealed his ideological moorings or political biases. Let us examine in detail the so called truth he has uncovered and the puzzle he has pieced together.
Mr. Varadarajan claims in his â<i>News Analysis piece</i>â that Only the Hazards Center report is a complete body of evidence while the others suffer some deficiency or the other. However this does not stand in his way to come up with a conclusion upfront in his piece that
<i>the burden of evidence gathered so far definitely does not seem to support the pre-planned conspiracy theory of the police</i>
a curious conclusion even before he has presented to us his analysis. Let us examine the rest of his analysis for how he comes up with his conclusion. Its a common and establish practice to logically draw conclusions by analysing raw âdataâ to summarize âfindingsâ which leads to âconclusionsâ. There has to be an irrefutable factual and logical link between all the 3. Let us see how well Mr. Varadarajan bears the burden of establishing this factual and logical link.
In the next 2 paragraphs following the premature conclusion Mr. Varadarajan presents no facts or findings but mere speculation. In the 3rd paragraph following the conclusion Mr. Varadarajan makes another speculative conclusion that the fire started before an alleged stoning again based on an assumption.
Next Mr. Varadarajan presents a section Titled âThe Platformâ where again we dont see any facts or findings, instead we see some highly loaded statements. First is about fracas between âaggresive Kar Sevaksâ and âMuslim Vendorsâ. Note the adjective âaggressiveâ for the Kar Sevaks which curiosly Mr. Varadarajan has freely used all through his report and again curiosly we dont have any adjective for the âMuslim Vendorsâ. A great example of the subtle manipulation of language to prejudice a Reader without presenting any facts or being fair to the facts. What is amazing is the rest of the paragraph where Mr. Varadarajan refers to âMuslim Vendorsâ stoning the coach and Kar Sevaks collecting stones to stone back. Something doesnt quite make sense here. âMuslim Vendorsâ are stoning the coach where the Kar Sevaks are. The Kar Sevaks are inside the Coach. So how in the hell were the Kar Sevaks collecting stones from inside the coach. Perhaps they have Robotic Arms or even perhaps there was an invisible hand of god here which helped collect stones. Mr. Varadarajan's narrative fails the basic minimum test of logic here. We are then told that the train was flagged 7:48 am. A curious statement of fact given that in a surcharged atmosphere of violence a frightened station master who frantically flagged the trained also remembered to take note of the exact time he did it. Curious indeed.
The next section Titled âThe First Stopâ I was hoping was where we would see some irrefutable facts and that elusive logical link to Mr. Varadarajan's premature conclusion. We are first told of the Train Guard's testimony. Next what do we have lo some solid facts being quoted. Coach Numbers where chain had been pulled - 4 of them and then mysteriously there is talk of a possible 5th coach and no mention of coach number. So how pray do we know such a 5th coach was pulled a record in the ASM's book, how pray is this a reference to a different coach other than the 4 whose numbers we know of me. Beats me coz no number is mentioned. The rest of the section attests to nothing more beyond reiterating stone pelting.
The next section âThe Second Stopâ. This section starts in a very curious fashion. It reports the Train Stopped at a point 1km away but then again rather curiously goes on state that there is no written record of a chain pulling. Now that really is mysterious, how in the hell did the train stop ? And what do we hear here from Mr. Varadarajan well something along the lines of the conspiracy theory we keep hearing in the Kenneddy Assasination, the grassy knoll and the magic bullet. So Mr. Varadarajan comes up with the âMagic 5th Coachâ Theory which magically allowed the train to drag on for a KM. before bringing it to a halt. Brilliant stuff. Do you see what just happened.
1. Mr. Varadarajan first talks of a hypothetical 5th coach whose chain is pulled
2. Then Mr. Varadarajan talks of a written record of a ASM stating a 5th coach has to be rectified but no coach number
3. And then magically as if to explain why the Train stopped a kilometre away we have the connection to the 5th coach while at the same time the claim that there is no written record of a chain pulling.
Folks this one takes the cake. What do we see here, a carefully constructed conspiracy theory no less brilliant than the Kennedy Assasination. Why does Mr. Varadarajan pay so much attention to this flight of fantasy, because he bears the burden of refuting what he later on alludes as testimony given by an individual claiming he pulled the chain, which somehow Mr. Varadarajan doesnt consider to be very important.
The next section Titled âTime The Keyâ defies all known equations of motion and is perhaps is a new vista in Physics that Mr. Varadarajan has unravelled. He claims that at a speed of 10 km/hr the train would reach a point a Kilometre away around 7:55 and 8:05 am. How in the hell is this possible when 2 sections before he quotes the train started to move after the first stop at 7:55 am according to ASM's watch and 8am according to the Guard's watch. So by elementary equations of physics the earliest the Train makes the second stop is 8:05 am and the latest is 8:10 am. So Mr. Varadarajan's key section starts off rather disastrously and ends equally disastroulsy when Mr. Varadajan's makes a leap and talks of the police theory and Railway Records. Mr. Varadarajan claims that the Railway records of fire or smoke at 7:55 am does not square with Police theory. Well 7:55 am by who's watch Sir ? You have already shown us two watches with a time difference of 5 minutes. Now who's watch is this that this time was recorded by, how can you square two theories all of which allude to events occuring within a span of 10 minutes when you have 2 watches with a 5 minute difference. I guess we are talking of Theory of Relativity and observers travelling at the speed of light I guess.
The second last section âFireâ starts of with the claim that the second stoppage and the reports of fire were simultaneous, how in the hell is this possible. This is the worst piece of analysis. Mr. Varadarajan claims that the ASM reported fire at 7:55 am based on info passed by the Guard. Now this is the same ASM and the same Guard who obsrerved that the Train started after the First Stop at 7:55 am by ASM's watch and 8:00 am by Guards watch. How in the hell is the Training Leaving from First Stop at 7:55 am and Stopping at the second stop at 7:55 am and simultaneously being reported on Fire. How in the world is this possible ?.
And Mr. Varadarajan goes for the kill in this section trying to establish why it is impossible for the police theory to be valid stating that 17 minutes was not enough time with a very curious closing remark.
<i>Even this improbable scenario becomes possible only because of the 8-10 minutes additional delay caused by the first stoppage. If the guard's testimony is correct, the first stoppage was because karsevaks on board pulled the chain. How could the conspirators, assuming they ran from the platform at exactly 7.43 a.m., have known the karsevaks would pull the chain? </i>
This assertion however flies in the face of the previous assertion a few sections earlier
<i>Satyanarayan Varma, the train guard, told the Nanavati Commission that the chain had been pulled because some passengers had been left behind. </i>
How pray does Mr.Varadarajan square two of his own assertions which are at odds with each other. Well apart from this contradiction Mr. Varadarajan's so called analysis doesnt present any new findings in the last section titled the âMobâ instead he goes on to quote the ASM's testimony to claim there was no mob.
So what conclusions do we draw from this:
1. Mr. Varadarajan truly has pieced together a puzzle
2. So puzzling that it defies logic, reason and laws of physics (Theory of Relativity Notwithstanding)
3. Mr. Varadarajan starts with a Conclusion and then does a pathetic job of force fitting facts often in contradiction to each other to leave us wondering at the end where in the hell are the facts which lead to the findings which lead to the conclusion. All we have is one open ended question - How did the perpetrators know the Train would stop a kilometer away to plan on burning it ?
This folks is the ammunition with which the Congress/Communist Combine with their Chief Jester Laloo Yadav are going to town exorcising the ghosts of Godhra and for what to blunt the likely anti incumbency in the upcoming elections. Well The Hindu, Mr. Varadarajan and these political low lifes all stand OffStumped. They will not think twice about stoking communal flames and elevating fiction to the level of fact for their political ends all at the same time they are caught napping mortgaing internal security by propping a flawed peace process with the Naxalites and then botching it up.
It all demonstrates a disturbing trait in the ruling political dispensation. That its hatred for the BJP is so strong that it blinds them to the extent of manufacturing controversies where none exist to endgaer internal security and at the same time when it comes to dealing with real issues of internal security betraying naviety and getting suckered up in the process.
History will never forgive the Congress/Communist Combine for the Naxalite blunder they have commited. The Naxalite issue is a Political Tsunamic waiting to strike, it remains to be seen who will be swept away and who will survive. OffStumped will be there to observe.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
link
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Truth about Godhra - The Hindu Exposed
First a note of condolence to all the lives lost in the deadly Tsunami incident. Second a note of regret that âAmmaâ did not in a moment of honest self introspection in the wake of the Tsunami deaths would have reflected on how her arrogance continues to blind her. Well in incident one would have expected to look honestly within yourself and re-assess the rights and wrongs of your actions, but apparently not for her.
Be that as it may, that is not what this post is all about. This post is all about 2 Political Tsunamis, one that is past us and another that is upon us. I am referring to the out of place and out of time post mortem of the Godhra incident and the brewing war by the Naxalites. Two apparently unrelated issues but as you will see joined at the hip.
First things first, when you see the invincible Laloo Yadav who has survived election after election is leaving no stone unturned in reiterating his Minority Credentials to the point of exorcising Godhra's Ghosts it tells you something - Laloo is fighting the political battle of his life and is worried sh1t of anti-incumbency and fragmentation of his political constituency. One would not have expected anything better out of Laloo, given the political low life that he is, but when The Hindu devotes its centerpiece Sunday Editorial to this issue it has to draw a response from this column. There are two pieces in The Hindu this sunday. The first according to it is â<i>a coherent picture</i>â and the second is its answer to Arun Jaitley's questions.
Let us examine the first http://www.hindu.com/2005/01/23/stories/...901400.htm. The usual suspect is Mr. Siddharth Varadarajan who we have seen in the past has barely concealed his ideological moorings or political biases. Let us examine in detail the so called truth he has uncovered and the puzzle he has pieced together.
Mr. Varadarajan claims in his â<i>News Analysis piece</i>â that Only the Hazards Center report is a complete body of evidence while the others suffer some deficiency or the other. However this does not stand in his way to come up with a conclusion upfront in his piece that
<i>the burden of evidence gathered so far definitely does not seem to support the pre-planned conspiracy theory of the police</i>
a curious conclusion even before he has presented to us his analysis. Let us examine the rest of his analysis for how he comes up with his conclusion. Its a common and establish practice to logically draw conclusions by analysing raw âdataâ to summarize âfindingsâ which leads to âconclusionsâ. There has to be an irrefutable factual and logical link between all the 3. Let us see how well Mr. Varadarajan bears the burden of establishing this factual and logical link.
In the next 2 paragraphs following the premature conclusion Mr. Varadarajan presents no facts or findings but mere speculation. In the 3rd paragraph following the conclusion Mr. Varadarajan makes another speculative conclusion that the fire started before an alleged stoning again based on an assumption.
Next Mr. Varadarajan presents a section Titled âThe Platformâ where again we dont see any facts or findings, instead we see some highly loaded statements. First is about fracas between âaggresive Kar Sevaksâ and âMuslim Vendorsâ. Note the adjective âaggressiveâ for the Kar Sevaks which curiosly Mr. Varadarajan has freely used all through his report and again curiosly we dont have any adjective for the âMuslim Vendorsâ. A great example of the subtle manipulation of language to prejudice a Reader without presenting any facts or being fair to the facts. What is amazing is the rest of the paragraph where Mr. Varadarajan refers to âMuslim Vendorsâ stoning the coach and Kar Sevaks collecting stones to stone back. Something doesnt quite make sense here. âMuslim Vendorsâ are stoning the coach where the Kar Sevaks are. The Kar Sevaks are inside the Coach. So how in the hell were the Kar Sevaks collecting stones from inside the coach. Perhaps they have Robotic Arms or even perhaps there was an invisible hand of god here which helped collect stones. Mr. Varadarajan's narrative fails the basic minimum test of logic here. We are then told that the train was flagged 7:48 am. A curious statement of fact given that in a surcharged atmosphere of violence a frightened station master who frantically flagged the trained also remembered to take note of the exact time he did it. Curious indeed.
The next section Titled âThe First Stopâ I was hoping was where we would see some irrefutable facts and that elusive logical link to Mr. Varadarajan's premature conclusion. We are first told of the Train Guard's testimony. Next what do we have lo some solid facts being quoted. Coach Numbers where chain had been pulled - 4 of them and then mysteriously there is talk of a possible 5th coach and no mention of coach number. So how pray do we know such a 5th coach was pulled a record in the ASM's book, how pray is this a reference to a different coach other than the 4 whose numbers we know of me. Beats me coz no number is mentioned. The rest of the section attests to nothing more beyond reiterating stone pelting.
The next section âThe Second Stopâ. This section starts in a very curious fashion. It reports the Train Stopped at a point 1km away but then again rather curiously goes on state that there is no written record of a chain pulling. Now that really is mysterious, how in the hell did the train stop ? And what do we hear here from Mr. Varadarajan well something along the lines of the conspiracy theory we keep hearing in the Kenneddy Assasination, the grassy knoll and the magic bullet. So Mr. Varadarajan comes up with the âMagic 5th Coachâ Theory which magically allowed the train to drag on for a KM. before bringing it to a halt. Brilliant stuff. Do you see what just happened.
1. Mr. Varadarajan first talks of a hypothetical 5th coach whose chain is pulled
2. Then Mr. Varadarajan talks of a written record of a ASM stating a 5th coach has to be rectified but no coach number
3. And then magically as if to explain why the Train stopped a kilometre away we have the connection to the 5th coach while at the same time the claim that there is no written record of a chain pulling.
Folks this one takes the cake. What do we see here, a carefully constructed conspiracy theory no less brilliant than the Kennedy Assasination. Why does Mr. Varadarajan pay so much attention to this flight of fantasy, because he bears the burden of refuting what he later on alludes as testimony given by an individual claiming he pulled the chain, which somehow Mr. Varadarajan doesnt consider to be very important.
The next section Titled âTime The Keyâ defies all known equations of motion and is perhaps is a new vista in Physics that Mr. Varadarajan has unravelled. He claims that at a speed of 10 km/hr the train would reach a point a Kilometre away around 7:55 and 8:05 am. How in the hell is this possible when 2 sections before he quotes the train started to move after the first stop at 7:55 am according to ASM's watch and 8am according to the Guard's watch. So by elementary equations of physics the earliest the Train makes the second stop is 8:05 am and the latest is 8:10 am. So Mr. Varadarajan's key section starts off rather disastrously and ends equally disastroulsy when Mr. Varadajan's makes a leap and talks of the police theory and Railway Records. Mr. Varadarajan claims that the Railway records of fire or smoke at 7:55 am does not square with Police theory. Well 7:55 am by who's watch Sir ? You have already shown us two watches with a time difference of 5 minutes. Now who's watch is this that this time was recorded by, how can you square two theories all of which allude to events occuring within a span of 10 minutes when you have 2 watches with a 5 minute difference. I guess we are talking of Theory of Relativity and observers travelling at the speed of light I guess.
The second last section âFireâ starts of with the claim that the second stoppage and the reports of fire were simultaneous, how in the hell is this possible. This is the worst piece of analysis. Mr. Varadarajan claims that the ASM reported fire at 7:55 am based on info passed by the Guard. Now this is the same ASM and the same Guard who obsrerved that the Train started after the First Stop at 7:55 am by ASM's watch and 8:00 am by Guards watch. How in the hell is the Training Leaving from First Stop at 7:55 am and Stopping at the second stop at 7:55 am and simultaneously being reported on Fire. How in the world is this possible ?.
And Mr. Varadarajan goes for the kill in this section trying to establish why it is impossible for the police theory to be valid stating that 17 minutes was not enough time with a very curious closing remark.
<i>Even this improbable scenario becomes possible only because of the 8-10 minutes additional delay caused by the first stoppage. If the guard's testimony is correct, the first stoppage was because karsevaks on board pulled the chain. How could the conspirators, assuming they ran from the platform at exactly 7.43 a.m., have known the karsevaks would pull the chain? </i>
This assertion however flies in the face of the previous assertion a few sections earlier
<i>Satyanarayan Varma, the train guard, told the Nanavati Commission that the chain had been pulled because some passengers had been left behind. </i>
How pray does Mr.Varadarajan square two of his own assertions which are at odds with each other. Well apart from this contradiction Mr. Varadarajan's so called analysis doesnt present any new findings in the last section titled the âMobâ instead he goes on to quote the ASM's testimony to claim there was no mob.
So what conclusions do we draw from this:
1. Mr. Varadarajan truly has pieced together a puzzle
2. So puzzling that it defies logic, reason and laws of physics (Theory of Relativity Notwithstanding)
3. Mr. Varadarajan starts with a Conclusion and then does a pathetic job of force fitting facts often in contradiction to each other to leave us wondering at the end where in the hell are the facts which lead to the findings which lead to the conclusion. All we have is one open ended question - How did the perpetrators know the Train would stop a kilometer away to plan on burning it ?
This folks is the ammunition with which the Congress/Communist Combine with their Chief Jester Laloo Yadav are going to town exorcising the ghosts of Godhra and for what to blunt the likely anti incumbency in the upcoming elections. Well The Hindu, Mr. Varadarajan and these political low lifes all stand OffStumped. They will not think twice about stoking communal flames and elevating fiction to the level of fact for their political ends all at the same time they are caught napping mortgaing internal security by propping a flawed peace process with the Naxalites and then botching it up.
It all demonstrates a disturbing trait in the ruling political dispensation. That its hatred for the BJP is so strong that it blinds them to the extent of manufacturing controversies where none exist to endgaer internal security and at the same time when it comes to dealing with real issues of internal security betraying naviety and getting suckered up in the process.
History will never forgive the Congress/Communist Combine for the Naxalite blunder they have commited. The Naxalite issue is a Political Tsunamic waiting to strike, it remains to be seen who will be swept away and who will survive. OffStumped will be there to observe.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->