On this Winter Solstice, I am a Gujarati

To be posted when published by Rediff. This is part I

On this Winter Solstice, I am a Gujarati

Rajeev Srinivasan on how the Gujarat elections mark a high point in the year’s news The Gujarat election results were announced on a very appropriate day: the day after Winter Solstice, the beginning of the movement of the Sun towards the north. Uttarayanam is auspicious, a time of new beginnings; this is the time for which the aged Bhishma waited, in excruciating pain on the sara-sayya, bed of arrows. If we are lucky, we will be seeing a new beginning in the Indian political scenario as well.

John Kennedy said famously in cold-war-era, besieged Berlin after the Wall was built: Ich bin ein Berliner. He meant to say, “I am, metaphorically, one of you Berliners, and I stand by you”. Today, the Gujarati feels besieged by an unrelenting barrage of negative propaganda that portrays them all, collectively and individually, as monsters. All decent people must stand by Gujaratis, because unprincipled rogues are demonizing them willy-nilly.

This demonization is a major reason why Gujaratis turned out in droves to elect Modi; the second reason is the UPA’s obvious antipathy towards Hindus, which is coming back to haunt them.

.... deleted