Of Wogs, Gollywogs And Bhakts

The term Wog- an acronym for Westernised Oriental Gentleman, was popular in the last stages of the Imperial Age, aka the first part of the 20^th century. By which time in the continuum, numbers of Wogs had access, not only to Western ideas, but to the West itself. This covered all the Brown and slant-eyed races – regarded as orientals and exotics one and all. India had its caste system, its untouchables, its notions of pollution and purity, its ancient tyrannies. China tied up and crippled the feet of its women.

The other currency-Gollywog, popularised by Enid Blyton is being challenged lately by the Black Lives Matter Movement. It’s been a long road. There was the highly musical and entertaining Black & White Minstrels Show, now expunged, from every browser, even on the Dark Web. There was the common or garden Hollywood of the 1940’s with the maid, butler, driver, pool-cleaner parts reserved for coloreds, the blacker the better. There was apartheid.

All such racial slotting, its horrible history, and its implied slurs are mostly gone from plain sight now. There is racism and ethnic hatred, obdurate as ever, but under the surface. The once oppressed have also taken to hitting back. But there are also laws against it in most of the West. It recently sent a policeman who killed a young and innocent Black, George Floyd, to jail for 22 years in America.

Today you have Hollywood films in which Blacks and Whites routinely make love, even marry, and procreate. There is talk of a black James Bond. A black Anne Boleyn has already essayed the role. The Klu Klux Clan and organisations of White Supremacists merely exist alongside.  

But who were the Gollywogs of Enid Blyton fame? They were Blacks, who did not look like Masai Tribesmen, or Hottentots for that matter. These  dressed up in Western clothes- Top Hats, Spats, watches on chains, extravagant cravats. But they were always painted in as rogues.

Enid Blyton’s Gollywogs were thieves, fences for stolen goods, confidence tricksters, black marketeers. In her books they weren’t pimps inclined to violence, but that is probably only because she wrote for children.  Gollywog Town, a separate district in Toy Town, partied all night, bottles held aloft in white gloved hands. It might have been all too much for Noddy and Big Ears, but sounded sublime to the young reader.

The spread of  Asian & Oriental Woggery, and the snickers it elicited, was mostly thanks to the advent of commercial passenger steamship cum cruise vessels. These were put on the sea by the likes of Cunard and the P&O -The Peninsular And Oriental Steam Navigation Company.  Early cruises went from an English port to the Iberian Peninsula. Soon they were sailing to Bombay, Singapore,Shanghai, Sydney, New York.

The Oriental Wogs, which included the mixed races, quite often knew how to dance to In The Mood. That WWII rage by Glen Miller and his Band did not call for the formal training of ballroom dancing. Though there was that too, at the weekend dance halls where men met women. Our Wogs were desperate to be accepted, at least to a workable degree. They were willing to be more White than White. In the way, of course, was the tar-brush, the distressing reversion to sing-song in speech, fleshier faces, fuller lips, a certain shortness at the shoulder.

But then, the Wogs, came to encompass travelling Arabs, Turks, Armenians, Jews, Malays, Chinese. It was one thing for Roman Catholics to convert a swarthy, curly-haired, black-eyed Yesu into the blond blue-eyed saviour on the cross. But altogether another to make sense of hordes, smelling of strange foods, and speaking in tongues.  

MK Gandhi tried his hand at being a Wog while studying to be a lawyer in London. He dressed the part and took dancing lessons. But he changed course after being heaved off a South African first-class train compartment. His days as a Wog started to transform into that of a political activist. The sartorial effect was completed in India, some years on, with a loincloth and a chaddar. It was the dress of a a poor Indian peasant in the hotter parts of the subcontinent And it was handspun Khadi, made on his 0wn wobbly charkha. All of it was a big hit. It made a potent economic and political p0int. There were bonfires of mill-made Manchester cotton.  And MKG turned into a Mahatma, a Christ-like general striking Apostle of Peace.

His disciple, Jawaharlal Nehru, also changed out of his Harrow and Lincoln’s Inn suits. And later, the tropical gabardine too. Now it was  white cloth astrakans, churidars, sherwanis and a rose-bud. The look of a future secular prime minister, one part Moghul, one past homespun. Less emphasis on the Kashmiri Hindu Brahmin except for the title of Pandit.

But, Nehru’s was a woggery of the mind that even MK Gandhi could not erase. He kept his Englishman trapped in an Indian body airs and graces intact till his dying day. Overlaid, of course, with fashionable Socialism and a post-colonial but very impractical internationalism. After all, the gifted amateur was revered above the mundane professional in English sporting circles.  

And the entire ICS and IAS/IFS permanent bureaucracy followed suit, with its brown sahib ways, the citizen be damned. This, for the seven decades since 1947. It wore a little thinner with time, and more so after liberalisation in 1991. Suddenly, India stopped being basket-case poor and squalid and began to grow its economy  at more than 6% per annum.

Today’s IAS/IFS aspirants have a changed profile. They are less privileged people, often from the provinces rather than the metro cities, content with government salaries, perquisites and power. This even as the sons and daughters of the brown sahib bureaucrats mostly emigrated abroad or went into business or the multinational private sector.

The phenomenon today, of a ‘committed bureaucracy’, demanded first by Indira Gandhi put paid to the original intent of integrity and service. It came to be composed of left-leaning people willing to do the bidding of their political masters. These, as a crawling sub-species of the body politic, not averse to aiding and abetting all forms of corruption. But fortunately, these people too are retiring, as they are in the judiciary and academia. Thus, making space at last for the phenomenon of the Bhakt.

The Bhakt is a committed nationalist but eschews corruption. Ditto his political masters. So the time for both has come.Since 2014, a very different dispensation came to power at the Centre and in a number of the States. These new people speak better in Hindi and other regional languages, notably Gujarati, and wear saffron and red Raj Tilaks. They don’t generally come from the big cities. They speak in Ramayan and Mahabharata inspired allegories. They tend towards vegetarianism and don't drink alcohol, but are quick to step away from annoying any in the fold who differ.

 To the earlier order, this is the invasion of the hordes from the hinterland. The ingress of unsophisticated Bharat into the corridors of power and legislation. Overwhelmingly Hindu in composition, they are harbingers of a Hindu Rashtra to come.

A clash of civilisations has ensued almost immediately, as the minorities cannot be convinced that such a government will also look after their interests. That the legislatures apart, the judiciary, academia, the bureaucracy, the police, perhaps even the armed forces are being saffronised means a very different future awaits India. It is likely to be prosperous, nationalist, somewhat militarist, confident of its place in the world, and uncaring of illegitimate or motivated criticism.

As yet, the Bhakt is still emergent. It is depicted in caricature by the established mainstream media and parts of Bollywood. The voter could always be ignored once elections were over, but this time  it has thrown up its own into parliament and the state assemblies. To fight the Bhakt is clearly a losing battle. A losing battle as long as the voters stay loyal to the saffron surge.

This alone will see to it, even in a slow and chaotic democratic process, that the old certainties are discarded. Indeed some of it as accomplished is evident in the six years. More will change, just as securely as the end of Article 370 and 35A in J&K. Even its most ardent votaries do not seriously expect its return.

One day soon, just as the Wog and Gollywog have been discarded, the false secularism and inadequate, unproductive socialism will also be relegated to the past. India belongs to the Bhakt now. It is no use calling this a communal phenomenon, or the action of narrow-minded revanchist chaddiwalas fond of cows, bovine urine and faeces.

There will be many changes made, despite the desperate howling of those who no longer matter, to make this abundantly clear. Symbols are revered because they translate into expressions of reality. They create new narratives, new assumptions, aspirations, facts. A new history is uncovered, with links and pride in a hallowed past.

Ridicule won’t stop Ayurveda, Yoga, a Uniform Civil Code, Population Control, a military industry, the identifying of real citizens from illegals, an economic prosperity never envisaged or seen before. Ancient Indian wisdom from the Vedas will guide this country in place of Marxist importations and distortions of history, and be admired afresh by the world. Right now, the Bhakt phenomenon is still a work in progress. If 2024 and 2029 belong to it after the national delimitation exercise, it will mean the change that has come cannot be reversed.

(1,588 words)

June 26^th, 2021

For: Sirfnews

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Red China’s Pandemic Crime Will Wreck Xi’s Ambitions 

The noose is finally tightening. China has presented a golden opportunity to the US. For long years the US has appeased Red China despite its sharp trade practices, its espionage, the one-sided trade deficits, its diplomatic belligerence, its military sabre-rattling. All this because of its reliance on a profitable supply chain. It was a win-win situation for which some irritants were best ignored. But now, the world has lost 3.5 million dead to Covid of which the US accounts for over 591,265.

The world’s first global Bio-warfare indemnities and reparations are about to fall due. But only sovereign executive action by the US can make them stick. Even US based law suits are unlikely to yield enforceable results.

China, said Biden recently, is fixing to ‘eat our lunch’. The President, with decades of experience in government, knows a calibrated confrontation with China cannot be avoided, or put off any longer.

The decision to fix responsibility for Covid was taken soon after a two-hour conversation between Biden and Jinping, with the latter conceding nothing except a willingness to cooperate on climate change.  And like the ‘thug’ Biden called Xi informally, Jinping warned of a ‘disaster for both’ if penalised for Covid.

China may well be running scared under the bluster. It is already reeling under massive internal and external debt, large scale unemployment, food shortages, simmering domestic discontent. Its GDP and exports are sharply down.

Former President Trump imposed tariffs and a trade war but the indemnities were waiting till the pandemic could be managed. Germany wanted to impose $160 billion for itself, but Trump was thinking in trillions.

China is also hard-pressed to continue financing its external infrastructure projects. However, with massive censorship, repression, propaganda and ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy, China strives to presents a business-as-usual façade. Course correcting a little lately, Xi has asked his diplomats to become ‘lovable’ and reach out to international media. 

Biden has tasked the US ‘intelligence agencies’ including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This is in supercession of all the doctorly opinionating so far, and is a clearcut geopolitical move. 

In the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) centenary year, the foregone conclusions in the intelligence report will be submitted, unless Biden wants to absolve the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), of all blame. This, in less than 90 days from now.

Assuming the report says Covid-19 is a Chinese-made virus developed at the WIV that deliberately combined bat viruses with the as yet incurable AIDS virus so that it could transmit to humans, what is to be done?

China will have to pay for accidentally or deliberately leaking the virus. And then spreading it via at least 400,00o infected or carrier Chinese travelling from Wuhan, not to Beijing or Yunnan, but to the US, Europe, and other parts of the world, for over 90 days. Three months of spreading the virus before China announced the existence of Covid-19.

First, there will be formal indictments. Then, massive demands by way of fines and reparations. Avoiding the International Court of Justice that China does not recognise, and which has no power to enforce its decisions, is desirable. Ditto the UN where China has compromised many of its agencies, including the WHO. And where it possesses a veto in the UNSC. 

If China refuses to pay, as is expected, the economic sanctions, confiscations and bans will have to begin. Both Chinese exports and imports will have to bear the brunt. Chinese services and infrastructure companies will probably also be banned.

The American actions taken will provide a template for countries the world over. The effort will be to severely punish China economically. Sovereign or diplomatic immunity will not be infringed upon to avoid retaliation.

Visas to Chinese nationals may be denied. Chinese organisations, often used for spying, may be expelled. Ditto, Chinese students and academics. Chinese assets and investments in the US can be seized as compensation. Share values in all Chinese companies listed on US bourses can be captured.

India’s imports from China were at under $67 billion before most, plus services and companies were banned after Chinese aggression in Eastern Ladakh.  That too was trying to take advantage of the Indian preoccupation with the pandemic.

The US imported almost $500 billion worth from China in 2020. Many countries, on their own initiative, including India and Canada, have banned Chinese 5G firms like Huawei, fearing espionage.

There will need to be a series of economic actions and sanctions to compensate for the trillions of dollars in US damages. America could redirect all imports from China to other countries. It supplies the US with electrical machinery, other machinery, furniture, bedding, toys, sports equipment, plastics, food and snack items. Services from China are worth $ 20 billion.

In retaliation China will probably ban $125 billion worth of US imports. Compared to the damage done to America, this loss would be miniscule. Besides, this pandemic as bio-warfare was planned by the Chinese military two years ago. This is documented.

While up-to-date figures are still being compiled, the US economy contracted 3.5% in 2020, something not seen since 1946. The US budget deficit at nearly $3.5 trillion was at 16% of GDP. To bounce back, huge stimulus packages are being processed as part of an unprecedented $ 6 trillion annual budget by the Biden administration. 

America has suffered over $ 12 trillion in losses during 2020, plus equivalent indirect losses. That is almost two years US gross domestic product (GDP). Half way through 2021, a third wave or more only has the massive and costly vaccination drive to stave it off.

The US unemployment rate in May 2020 was at 14.7% up from just 3.5% before the pandemic. This has not been seen since the Great Depression.

Many countries, led by the US example, will not buy Chinese despite temporarily increased costs. This will create new trade linkages outside Chinese influence. This will be awkward at first, because China has long been a supplier of raw materials, manufacturing parts and finished goods. It will also be monitored and prevented from channelling its goods via proxies.

China has penetrated the sovereignty of many of its debtor nations like a latter day East India Company ruthlessly seizing territory. It has inadvertently shown the way on how to deal with it. Seizing Chinese assets seems eminently fair.

All this, while checking and curbing China’s military and diplomatic attempts to wiggle out of the situation, and its pursuit of world domination.

In the end, it must be remembered that a prosperous Red China was created by the Nixon-Mao entente in the Seventies. But China only began its double-digit growth under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. 3o years later, China was a US fuelled powerhouse and 2^nd biggest economy in the world. But this prosperity turned its head and changed its attitude. 

The CCP, its militant generals and supreme leader now think it is time to topple the US. However, the unseemly haste of this pandemic, engineered to bring the world to its economic knees, may be China’s Pearl Harbour moment.

To check any military adventurism, coalitions of battle-hardened military checks by multiple countries will indeed be active in the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific. There will be an unprecedented policing of all the possible flash points in the land and seas of the region, and heightened alerts elsewhere. China’s belt and road, silk route, and string of pearls initiatives will be constrained using diplomatic pressure on its junior partners. Those who supply China with raw materials, petroleum and even access, will be asked to stop if necessary. The Straits of Malacca, a main conduit for Chinese supplies to its Pacific ports will be watched and monitored. Along with Hambantota, Gwadar, Chabahar, Djibouti, and elsewhere where China has bases or access.

China could, in turn, menace non-nuclear states in the Pacific/South/ East China Sea region such as Vietnam, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan. It could also move against India knowing that nuclear weapons cannot be used. 

However, once China undertakes any overt military action, it will allow others to retaliate, and possibly expose it’s lack of battle experience.

There has been a grave miscalculation on Xi Jinping’s part. It is the failure of megalomaniacs throughout history who underestimate their adversaries. This hubris will, instead destroy the hold of Xi Jinping and the CCP over the hopefully titled Middle Kingdom.

(1,397 words)

June 3rd, 2021

For: The Sunday Guardian

Gautam Mukherjee