Interview with U. Narayanadas

Today at your Adda we have someone who is absolutely fascinated by the world of politics. A person who writes blog posts that are true to every word. As a college student, he assisted his father who was a newspaperman and saw that politics was the dominant theme in newspapers then. His interest in writing always stayed, even while he took up a different career. U. NarayanaDas is someone who has very insightful views on the current political scenario of the nation. Here’s an exclusive interview with him, the person behind Voxindica, the winner of the Best Blog Award in the Politics category at WIN ’14.

Q: From where did your interest in Politics generate?

A: As a college student, I used to assist my father who was a ‘newspaperman’. In those days, the dominant themes of newspapers were politics, followed by sports and culture. For youngsters like me there was another attraction, of course: ‘wanted columns’. I could have probably followed in my father’s footsteps, but circumstances determined I choose another career. But the urge to write was there; it never dried up. A few years after I could find a firm foothold in the chosen profession, I tried my hand at writing and began submitting pieces to newspapers, but the pressures of work had a limiting effect. Writing remained at a hobby level.

The first pieces I tried my hand at were not political articles, but what in the Indian newspaper parlance are called ‘middles’. The idea of the pieces is to rib human foibles and tickle the funny bone. Emery Kelen and Art Buchwald were masters of the genre also known as ‘loose sally’. The genre is probably less read than political opinion pieces, but writing them involved a lot of creativity. It appears, today space is at a premium and you rarely come across a loose sally that has the quaint Kelen or Buchwald quality.

They were probably an inspiration, but the inspiration was rather limited to the format. My early pieces, which were in the loose sally format, though, had politics as an underlying theme. The editors of The City Tab, a Bengaluru tabloid which published them gently reminded me to move away from politics as it was not essentially a political paper. In that phase I have also contributed a piece or two to The Indian Express. For a time I edited a house magazine for a local chapter of the Indian Junior Chamber (then known simply as JC or Jaycees). I titled it Credo and it was a hit.

The answer to your first question has probably become too long, but I must mention about the next phase of my writing, which too had nothing to do with politics at all. I came back to writing after I quit a regular job. This time I was into academic writing. I wrote in various disciplines including sociology; literature and language teaching; management and marketing. I have also for a time edited a magazine for HIV-AIDS professionals. It was a science magazine, published by a reputed pharmaceutical company for medical doctors, paramedics and counselling staff.

Finally, although a major part of VOXINDICA’s content is political, there are other subjects in it including creative pieces and book reviews.

Q: Presently, how would you summarize the political condition of India on the whole?

A: Today politics is at its lowest ebb. The independence struggle attracted the cream of our society. People joined the struggle with an altruistic motive. For them, politics was a noble pursuit. For leaders in the post-independent India power has become an end in itself. The high ideals of the freedom fighters have evaporated.

Q: What is it that inspired you to start a blog with politics as its backbone?

A: If there is a monumental failure of the Indian polity – it includes the political class, the intelligentsia and the media – it is its inability to bring about national unity, forge a national spirit and inculcate a national pride. It is a misfortune of this nation that even sixty years after independence, we still think of ourselves as belonging to a caste, creed or linguistic group and not as Indians.

A nation that does not have pride in its ancestry and achievements will be doomed to fall. During their 250-year rule the British did their best not just to downplay the splendour and grandeur of our civilisation, but to ridicule it and negate it. The achievements of our ancient civilisation were portrayed as external imports. The Aryan Invasion Theory was invented and all achievements are credited to it. Only negatives – social ills – were credited to us.

First the Britsh and then the left-liberal social thinkers who came to dominate opinion-making bodies were/are responsible for this. Other nations have recognized the greatness of our civilisation, but it cannot be whispered here in India. There is a concerted effort to transpose a fabricated construct called the composite culture. All this is to placate one section of our people who vote en bloc. In the end it is down to vote banks and electoral politics; the pursuit of power. Nothing else matters! VOXINDICA is a small attempt to correct the imbalance. See Why VOXINDICA and First Person Singular: ‘Thank You!’ (The latter was a thanks-giving piece written after winning the Blog Adda award.)

Q: You have been blogging for almost a decade now. Tell us your whole experience.

A: I am aware of my limitations as a blogger. For one, I cannot compete with the mainstream print medium. Therefore, I have to be choosy about what I write. Then, I remember my father’s advice to writers: ‘read more; write less and write only when the urge to write is overwhelming’.

There would be no point in writing about a subject that is thrashed threadbare in yesterday’s newspapers. Your readers would be interested in what you write only if you have something new to tell them. So I research and try to find evidence that supports my viewpoint to present it to the reader in an angle he hasn’t already viewed elsewhere.

As an example, please see my articles on the subject of ‘freedom of expression’. I critiqued both the issue of ‘freedom of expression’ and court judgements in the M. F. Hussain case. When I researched the subject, I’ve found a similar case that was adjudged by the Austrian courts and which went up to the European Council of Human Rights.
While on the subject of ‘freedom of expression’, I haven’t seen any other writer point out that while the American First Amendment strengthened freedom of speech the first amendment to the Indian Constitution did the opposite: placed limitations on the ‘freedom of speech’. The amendment was piloted by Jawaharlal Nehru just eighteen months after the Constitution was adopted.

Similarly, while researching on some subject for an article I was writing for a newspaper, I thought I would look up, which article in the Constitution enabled the institution of the Planning Commission. To my surprise, I found that it is not there in the Constitution at all. It is another of Jawaharlal Nehru’s quirky imports from the erstwhile Soviet Union, along with its Five Year Plans. Has anybody in the mainstream media mentioned that the Planning Commission is an extra-constitutional body? I don’t mean to say that I am the first person to discover the fact, but just that nobody mentioned it earlier. If Jawaharlal Nehru himself instituted an extra-constitutional body that diminished the stature of the Union Finance Minister, can anyone blame the present political leaders for instituting the office of the Chairperson of the UPA and the NAC?

In my various pieces on the Gujarat riots of 2002, on how the Gulmarg Society seize came to a head where there was no turning back, on the Naroda Patiya case judgement et al., I have brought to light details which were not discussed elsewhere in the mainstream media.

In my latest piece, I have panned Congress party’s 2014 election manifesto. I felt it my duty to point out to my readers that for a party that boasts of a 125 year history, terrorism was no issue at all!

Q: What are three important changes that you wish to see in India’s political scenario at the earliest?

A: The Constituent Assembly which was responsible for writing the Constitution envisaged reservations and Article 370 as temporary measures. Similarly very few people today remember that ‘Uniform Civil Code’ is a part of the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution. Addressing these issues will go a long way in fostering national integration. The UCC is unfortunately viewed as a religious issue, but bringing it about will be in the interest of gender equality.

Minimum government; maximum governance. Government should exit business and focus on administering. The polity should work for the eradication of corruption and crony capitalism. Parliamentary oversight committees should be appointed to monitor the performance of industries.

Most important, we must find ways and means to do away with dynastic rule in politics. A family (the definition of HUF as clarified by the Supreme Court should be the unit for this) should not have more than one member at a time in public office. And limit the tenure of public office. No person should be allowed to more than two terms in public office.

Q: Tell our readers 5 things that they can do on a personal level to improvise the present situation in India.

A: Take politics seriously; don’t fail to vote. Vote for the right candidate.

Don’t tolerate corruption in public life.

Demand accountability from governments and government servants. It is your right. Remember Mahatma Gandhi’s dictum that you are not dependent on a business or government; on the other hand they depend on you. They exist to serve you. Government servants are paid to serve you. They are your servants.

Express your views as vigorously and often as possible. Writing letters to newspapers is not enough. Even the most liberal newspapers screen them and publish them only if they suit their political philosophy. Organise local committees to voice public opinion.

The only way we can make the media accountable is by withdrawing patronage. Social media has done much to tame wayward, self-centred commerce-oriented media.

Q: For all the wrongs happening in the nation, the blame is conveniently put on the politicians. Is this right? What are your thoughts on this?

A: The politicians are only a part – although a major part – of the problem. It is the society that throws up the politicians. There is truth in the adage that a ‘people get a government they deserve’.

It is for the society to reform itself. There must be an overhaul of our education system.

Q: Do you agree that Social Media would be able to play an important role in the change that India requires since it gives freedom of speech a whole new meaning?

A: The social media plays an important role in bringing social transformation. I have written about it on my blog at Are Sonia & Rahul more venerable than Sita & Saraswathi?

Q: Do you think newspapers and other media channels are becoming biased, vehicles for advertising, etc. forgoing their main duty of providing credible news? What is your take on this?

A: Absolutely. This is VOXINDICA’s raison d’etre!

Q: What is the funniest thing or comment you have heard about politics and from whom?

A: The left hemisphere of the brain helps us to think logically and the right brain about the artistic / emotional parts of our thinking. I have heard this quip about the leftists/communists: ‘For the leftists there is nothing right in the left and nothing left in the right!’

Q: Do you agree that blogging as an important communication tool should be used more effectively by the political parties? Not many politicians are willing to come out and talk to the common people. What do you have to say about this? 

A: No. I don’t want the blogosphere to become the propaganda arm of political parties. Let blogs and bloggers be!

Q: What other genres do you like to experiment writing about?

A: I have experimented in the following genres: biographies, book reviews and creative fiction. There is an indexed list of posts on the left of my blog. At the moment I am writing two non-fiction books, one educational and another, a biography.

Q: What according to you is the future of politics based blogging in India?

A: There will be politics based blogging as long as there are politics!

Q: You won the Best Blog Award for the Politics Category by BlogAdda at WIN. How did you and your loved ones react to this?

A: It was a very happy and proud moment to win the award. I have written about it on my blog.

Q: What new and special can we expect from your blog in the near future?

A: I strive to bring novelty in every post of mine.

Connect with U. NarayanaDas: Blog, BlogAdda, Twitter, Facebook, Google+.

Thank You NarayanaDas for a great interview!

For all those who missed #WIN14, you can relive it through the photos!

Bloggers, we hope you enjoyed reading this Interview with U. NarayanaDas where he tells us everything about his interest in politics and blogging.

We look forward to your feedback about this interview.