do read...

Narendra Modi is a good administrator.

One side of the political spectrum harps on this point.

The other dismisses it.

But the point is out there to nibble on doubts or provide ammunition to those who have none.

So let's turn it around.

Let's say Narendra Modi shall not go unpunished.

Not because he isn't a good administrator.

But because he is one.



The Armenian Genocide was carried under the government of the Committee Of Union And Progress In Turkey. This committee was the result of a radical revolutionary movement that bore the seeds of what Kemal Attaturk's government was to later fertilize. They were the stalwarts of the new and great administrative regime put into place by Attaturk. They were good administrators. The massacre on the other hand was the first of one of the greatest massacres modern politics was to stand witness to.

"Who after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
A much quoted, and contested statement made a generation gap later by a gentleman named Adolf Hitler. It comprised the culmination of his speech ordering the attack on Poland, with instructions to "send to death mercilessly and without compassion men, women and children of Polish derivation".
Whether the historians who stand by the documents recording this statement are refutable or not is beyond the point. That Hitler was known to use the above reference to order many other racial attacks is spoken about, likely, and with it. The above quoted statement was the last one in his speech. The second last read thus: "Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need."
Hitler too was a good administrator. Documents stand testament to this as much as to his cruelty.

"Hitler, the Supremo" and "Internal Achievements of Nazism" are the names of chapters in the class 10 social studies textbook published by the Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks

"Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government within a short time by establishing a strong administrative set up. He created the vast state of Greater Germany. He adopted the policy of opposition towards the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of the German race. He adopted a new economic policy and brought prosperity to Germany.

He began efforts for the eradication of unemployment. He started constructing public buildings, providing irrigation facilities, building railways, roads and production of war materials. He made untiring efforts to make Germany self-reliant within one decade. Hitler discarded the Treaty of Versailles by calling it just 'a piece of paper' and stopped paying the war penalty. He instilled the spirit of adventure in the common people".

This excerpt is taken from the same textbook. A sub-section in a chapter from the same textbook - "Gandhian Era And The National Movement" - is headlined thus: "The Negative Aspect".

One cannot use excerpts of speeches and school textbooks as platforms for any assumption, other than thought. But since so much of that commodity is being used presently, let's buy into the market.

Everyone remembered "the annihilation of the Armenians" at the time of the Fuhrer's momentous speech. That is why he chose to refer to it. What he meant then, with his renowned penchant for sardonic sub-text, was:

Even if everyone remembers the annihilation of the Armenians, who will do anything about it?

But the Fuhrer's penchant for sub-text was renowned for more than witty word jugglery (and thank god his emulators in today's India haven't learnt more than that from his speeches...). A further subtext in the same statement, rooting itself far deeper in psychological subconscious, ran thus:

Even if everyone remembers the annihilation of the Armenians, who will do anything about it, because the same movement which massacred and humiliated them, also uplifted another tribe of people... who happened to be in majority.

:-) (for those intellectuals not in the know... that's a sarcastic smiley) I feel sorry for the West. It doesn't matter whether we're deliberating on the Al Qaeda or the Holocaust... they will always find themselves on the wrong end of the intellectual pole. They've just thought too much. So they have much to be refuted (and considering belief in one's mind has always been more blinding than that in one's faith, who, pray, would glance therein?).

Reason for such railing:

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number"

Copyright Jeremy Bentham, English jurist, reformer and social reformer. Otherwise known as "influential utilitarianist".

Humanity was born within a 'tribe'. Then they re-discovered the 'other' and regressed. Every tribe leader subscribed to the principle of the protection of his lot, and delivered results towards this designated 'people' to deviate dissidents from the reason of their existence in the first place.

This goes on cyclically... so much so that some thinkers ascribe it to a 'process of purging'. Non-thinkers ascribe it to faith.

Copyright Thought. This means the obvious will not be stated because then it would become propaganda - which would be self-defeating.