Indian democracy has space only for cattle, India’s national animal

First of all, a very Happy New Year to all Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Christians and Parsi residents of India. In case you’re wondering why I didn’t just say “Happy New Year to all fellow Indians”, well, I take my journalism very seriously. Like Android, I update it every day to reflect the latest laws. How could I, in post-CAA India, address all Indians as “Indians”? Until each one of you has proved to the government of India that you deserve Indian citizenship, you are nothing but ‘infiltrators’.

Actually I prefer the term ‘ghuspaitis’. Or is it ‘ghuspaitiyas’? Or just ‘ghuspaits’? I’m not a native speaker of Hindi, but I think I’ll go with ‘ghuspaitiyas’. I love how it rolls off the tongue, starting softly in the no-man’s land between mouth and throat, turning sibilant as it morphs into a plosive blasting off the lips, before settling down with a stern tap on the palate, as if to warn listeners that if they do not behave, they could be carted off to the nearest ISO 9000-certified detention centre. I also love ‘ghuspaitiyas’ for another reason: it rhymes with a popular Hindi term for a select breed of sub-humans found abundantly in positions of power, especially in government, politics and media.

Mass propaganda

So yes, like you, I am also alarmed by the violent protests sweeping the country. Last week, for instance, I received authentic videos on WhatsApp that showed students in U.P., many of them not even seven years old, barging into police stations and assaulting innocent cops who were quietly torturing no one in their custody. One particularly grisly video shows a three-year-old girl mercilessly beating up five unarmed cops with a teddy bear. Another shows a gang of four 90-year-old women protesters thrashing two senior police officers and their political masters with a cotton dusting cloth.

But the most disturbing footage of protester violence I’ve seen so far is of a visually challenged, hearing impaired, speech-impaired, armless and legless protester using his special powers of teleportation to damage public and private property, AND THEN, using his special powers of hypnosis to convince millions of people that it was the police that went around breaking motorbikes and cars and government property. Such powerful mass propaganda has left me with no choice but to do my best to clear the air around CAA.

Act of benevolence

Of course, like my favourite godman Jags, I too haven’t read the CAA fully. I have, however, read the full form of ‘CAA’ in the gazette notification, and fortunately for this country, I have the ability to absorb the gist of any document from its font size. The CAA is no exception. Let me assure you, the CAA is an act of absolute benevolence. It only proposes to elevate all Indians, by which I mean, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Christians and Parsis, to the status of livestock.

Tell me: How could it be unconstitutional, in the land of the holy cow, to enact a law that transforms people into cattle — a much loved, highly prized national resource?

In India, there have always lived two kinds of people: cattle and ghuspaitiyas. But after Independence, thanks to 67 years of Congress misrule, the cattle and ghuspaitiyas got mixed up.

Now, I don’t know which school you went to, but you must know that, whatever may be the practice in Western democracies, Indian democracy is governed by Indian values. Protest, dissent, and criticism of the government are an insult to Indian values, whose first and last tenet, in case you’ve forgotten, is to obey authority.

Official role model

Indian democracy has space only for cattle, India’s national animal. The official role model for anyone who wants to be an Indian citizen is the cow. Thus, all those who refuse to be cattle are, by definition, ghuspaitiyas. Fortunately, the CAA-NRC sieve is designed in such a way that the only entities that can pass through its filters are cattle. Think about it: why would anyone oppose CAA-NRC unless they really are ghuspaitiyas who cannot or will not become cattle?

After data, natural resources, and PSUs, human cattle are a nation’s biggest asset. And India, whatever its erstwhile Constitution might say, is first and foremost a business operation for its rulers. In order to run a successful business, it is imperative to count and grade one’s assets. The good quality assets will get citizenship cards. The toxic ones will be sent to self-improvement camps where they can learn how to become proper cattle.

Some commentators have pointed out that India’s human cattle have already been counted and classified through Aadhaar. But Aadhaar didn’t weed out the ghuspaitiyas. Only CAA-NRC, with the help of NPR, can do that. I sincerely hope that, at least in 2020, all Indians will develop the thick skin, passivity, and docility that cattle are known for. Once again, Happy Moo Year.

sampath.g@thehindu.co.in