Yeh Jo India Hai Na

why are we allowing haters to gradually occupy centre stage? Why are we allowing people to think that hate is beginning to define us as a nation? Unfortunately, the evidence is piling up. 11 men convicted for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano, and for killing 7 of her family members, including her 3-year-old daughter, were freed after serving 14 years of their life sentences. Tune in! 

All of Punjab’s heavyweights lost – CM Channi, Punjab Cong Chief Navjot Sidhu, Capt Amarinder Singh, Parkash and Sukhbir Badal. Why? Voter anger snatched power from Punjab’s traditional ruling elite, and trusted a new option, AAP. Tune in to the podcast for more!

Yeh Jo India Hai Na… here, we may no longer be able to say Happy Diwali to each other! Why? Because Tejasvi Surya says so. ‘Happy’ is an English word, meaning Christian, meaning non-Hindu, and so it can’t be used before the shudh (pure) Hindu festival of Diwali.  Because if we do so, it will lead to a big, loaded, high-funda word – the ‘ABRAHAMIFICATION’ of Indian culture!  But the fact is that MILLIONS of us Indians are going send BILLIONS of Happy Diwali greetings, whether Tejasvi likes it or not. What is ‘abrahamification’? In fact, I’m surprised Tejasvi hasn’t coined the word ‘IBRAHIM-IFICATION’, because that would suit his brand of hate and bigotry even better. Simply put, according to him, it is the ‘Christianising’ or ‘Muslimification’ of Hindu culture. A culture which, according to him, owes nothing, nor should ever borrow anything from any other culture other than 100 percent pure Hindu culture. Tune in to the full podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna

Yeh Jo India Hai Na, here whoever has seen this video, has been shocked, angered and saddened.  After watching this video of Afsaar Ahmed being assaulted by a mob in Kanpur even as his child pleaded for them to stop, a viewer named Aryan wrote – “Yeh kya kar rahe ho bhai?! Main bhi Hindu hoon yaar, Sri Ram Bhagwan ka naam aise lene ko mat kaho please! Mujhe dekhkar rona aa raha hai!” (What are you doing? I am a Hindu, too. Don't force someone to chant Sri Ram Bhagwan's name like this. This has brought me to tears.) Mohammed Nadeem had this to say – “Kya Bajrang Dal kanoon se bada ho gaya hai?” (Is the Bajrang Dal bigger than the law?) Also listen to what Neelushwar had to say – “Police ke saamne, uss masoom ko maar rahe aadmi ke liye police andhi ho gayi thi. Yeh Bharat aur Bharat-vaasiyon ka patan ho raha hai!” This police inaction is a sign of decay in India and among us Indians. Tune in to the full podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna

Speaking at the 100th anniversary of the Aligarh Muslim University, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said – “Those educated at AMU represent the diverse culture of India,” that AMU is a “mini-India.” But other Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders don’t think so... In 2019, BJP Lok Sabha MP from Aligarh Satish Gautam attacked AMU for having  Jinnah’s portrait on its campus, ignoring the context that Jinnah was one of AMU’s founders. In 2015, Sunil Singh, the UP head of the Hindu Yuva Vahini, the Hindutva group founded by Yogi Adityanath, called AMU a "nursery of terror". Members of the Hindu Yuva Vahini even vandalised the AMU campus in 2018. In 2016, former Aligarh mayor and BJP leader Shakuntala Bharti made false allegations of beef being served in an AMU hostel. In February 2019, 14 AMU students were booked for sedition after a complaint filed by local BJP leader Mukesh Lodi, charges the police later quietly dropped. In 2018, both Yogi Adityanath and Central Social Justice Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot wrongly claimed that AMU was not a minority institution. BJP MP RS Katheria, Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, while demanding clarity on the issue from AMU, said – “This is not Pakistan, AMU must follow rules” – betraying his bigotry. Yeh Jo India Hai Na… it is confused. Kya hai India ki soch ki asli tasveer? Tune in to the podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna

Yeh Jo India Hai Na… yahan agar Rashid aur Pinki ne ki hai shaadi... to UP Police kyon bani hai kabab mein haddi?! Yes, the harassment has started. Rashid & Pinki got married in July, went to get their marriage registered in Moradabad last week, like lakhs of Indian couples. But instead of it being the happiest day of their lives, it ended with Rashid and his brother in a UP Police jail and Pinki in a women’s shelter home. Why? Because of UP’s bigoted, divisive, unconstitutional anti-Love Jihad ordinance! It took Pinki two days to convince the district magistrate that she was an adult, who had chosen to marry Rashid. Only then could she return to her in-laws. Rashid was stuck in jail for another X number of days! Tune in to the full podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna

Yeh Jo India Hai Na… Yahan Kangana ko… Sarkar ko… Diljit Dosanjh ki baat kyon nahi samajh aa rahi hai? It's not just because he’s speaking theth, meaning shudh Punjabi. It's also because the habit of listening, of trying to understand what someone is saying, especially when they’re disagreeing with you – that simple common art of LISTENING – has been forgotten! Tune in for the full podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna Music: Big Bang Fuzz

Yeh Jo India Hai Na... yahan par we are all talking about Arnab Goswami. But saath mein, let’s also talk about sedition and jingoism, hate speech and freedom of expression, newsroom lynchings and media freedom. Also, about how our law courts respond when confronted with some of these crucial issues. Tune in to the podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna

Yeh Jo India Hai Na… Yahan sabko Bigg Boss bahut pasand hai… We love Bigg Boss! So, why don’t we play Bigg Boss today, with the Uttar Pradesh Police! If a 19-year-old girl is brutalised in a field and brought to your police station – you should delay registering an FIR, even suggest the girl is ‘doing drama’ Even though she is found stripped of her clothes – you should not suspect sexual assault you should ensure that her vaginal swabs are NOT taken within the first few hours, so that crucial evidence to determine a rape is simply NOT there instead, you should collect samples only 11 days after the incident by which time, all evidence of rape would no longer be there UP Police aur Hathras ki District Administration se Bigg Boss kehte hain – try to persuade the family to cremate their daughter in the middle of the night and if they do not listen to your gyaan about reeti-riwaaz, burn the body in the dead of night anyway So where does that leave us? Yeh Jo India Hai Na... It desperately needs – police reform police accountability to separate law & order from the police function of investigation VO: Rohit Khanna

The ABCD of news in India has changed. A now stands for Arrogance of certain TV news anchors, not Accountability. B is for Banana Republic, C should mean Coronavirus but is not discussed. D is for Democracy, but now stands for Drama. Rohit Khanna spells out the new A-Z of News, tune in to Yeh Jo India Hai Na! VO: Rohit Khanna Music: Big Bang Fuzz

Like you, I’ve been watching the drama, the media circus around the death of Sushant Singh Rajput… Like you, I’ve watched the story of Supreme Court versus senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan unfold... Like you, I’ve watched India’s COVID death toll climb and climb… watched China grab Indian territory at the LAC… watched India’s economy crashing... And like you, the feeling I’m left with is that, Yeh Jo India Hai Na… we are not very good at dealing with the truth. We run away from the truth, we deny it, we attack it, we convert into a joke, we ignore it, we ignore glaring realities, we even punish those who hold up the mirror to us. VO: Rohit Khanna

Do you know about the Navnirman Andolan? Gujarat 1973-74? Okay, you would not know... but PM Narendra Modi, he must know... because he was a part of it... A student strike against a fee hike in hostel food, became such a massive agitation against corruption across Gujarat, that in 3 months it led to the fall of Congress CM Chimanbhai Patel and his government. In 1975 too, during the Emergency, as a student and RSS pracharak, Modi organised protests in Gujarat, spending months underground. At the same time, in Delhi, his late colleague, Arun Jaitley, then a firebrand ABVP leader and DU Student Union President, was jailed for leading anti-Emergency protests. Across India, thousands of students, many inspired by Jaiprakash Narayan, were on the streets – among them young Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Singh – all youth leaders then. So, what’s my point? The point is that for students to protest, agitate, express dissent against what they see to be wrong, is in a student’s DNA! When they are young, idealistic, sensitive, aware of what’s going on around them, and have a strong view about it, when they are full of energy, and unafraid, then, of course, they will PROTEST! Yeh Jo India Hai Na… whether it was a 100 years ago, in our freedom struggle, or 45 years ago during the Emergency, or just months ago, during the Anti-CAA-NRC protests, whether it was Modi and Arun Jaitley then... or Safoora Zargar and Meeran Haidar today... students have been India’s conscience keepers, and they must continue to do that. VO: Rohit Khanna

Yeh Jo India Hai Na… yahan perception battle ko jeetna mumkin hi nahi, aasaan bhi ho gaya hai… Even as some real battles are either being lost or just not being fought. In fact, a lot is being done to keep us looking away from some realities and to keep us glued to several carefully put together perceptions instead. Yeh Jo India Hai Na… to succeed we don’t just need a strong leader, we need a strong country. And to achieve that, we must believe only reality, and not manufactured perceptions. Tune in for the full podcast. VO: Rohit Khanna

Yeh Jo China Hai Na… it is saying to us – Galwan Valley clashes were India’s fault, the LAC is not where you Indians think it is, Pangong, ho ya Depsang, we believe the Chinese army is on Chinese soil, that’s not Indian soil, and so we’re not pulling back... Kar lo jo karna hai! Tune in for the full podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna

India’s healthcare system is completely swamped by this flood of cases, which is just not slowing down. The Quint will be in almost 100% work-from-home mode for the next 1 year. Why’s that? Main reason – India has NOT yet flattened the curve. Despite one of the world’s harshest and longest full lockdowns, despite thali bajana, candle jalana, we’re adding almost 40,000 cases a day! And barring Mexico, India is now also seeing the most deaths every day, close to 600 daily. With over 27,000 deaths, in a few days India will go past Spain, France and Italy. In April, we were calling them failed states. We were saying, thank god we’re not in Spain or Iran. But we’ve left them way behind now. To those who say our fatality rate of 18 per million is lower than Spain, France and Italy, I say, why not compare us with fatality rates of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and New Zealand or Thailand, or why not with Vietnam which has not had a single COVID-19 death! Or even, why isn’t all of India like Kerala, which has seen just 40 deaths in all these months? What mistakes did the rest of India make? And are we still making those same mistakes? Tune in for the full podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna

Yeh Jo India Hai Na… It needs a COVID-19 vaccine really urgently. With over 19,000 dead, nearly 2.5 lakh active cases, adding 20,000 cases everyday. Yes, a vaccine would save a lot of lives, would get our economy back on track. But does that mean we can simply make it happen by 15 August. The answer, unfortunately, is no. Will you and I be able to have a dose of Covaxin by 15 August? No. Is the Indian Council of Medical Research or ICMR’s plan to launch India's 'fully indigenous' corona vaccine on 15 August just wishful thinking? Unfortunately, yes. Tune in to this podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna

Did you realise that Yeh Jo India Hai Na, it has become a little smaller and China just got a bit bigger? It is now clear we have lost control of the land on our side of the Line of Actual Control at Depsang, at the Galwan Valley, at Pangong Lake in Eastern Ladakh and at least 3 areas along our border with China in Arunachal Pradesh as well. The first step to getting any of this land back, would be for the Indian government to categorically accept that contrary to the PM’s ‘no intrusion’ remarks, substantial incursions have taken place while this government looked away. How else will all this land-grab make it to the negotiation table? Tune in! VO: Rohit Khanna

Prime Minister Narendra Modi address to the nation on the Indo-China tensions seemed suggest that China had not intruded into Indian territory. A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on 20 June tried damage control, denouncing “attempts to give mischievous interpretation” to Modi's remarks. Unfortunately, yeh jo India hai na… it has been slow in recognising this strategy, and countering it diplomatically or militarily. By giving them clean chits, by ignoring blatant intrusions, by backing off each time, we’re playing into China’s hands. Tune in for the full podcast! VO: Rohit Khanna

'Bigger Quake After Mini Jolts?', 'The Big One is Coming' or 'Major Earthquake May Rock Delhi-NCR Soon'... No, these are not a satirical news headlines. They are real headlines, reflecting the question looming large in the minds of people living in Delhi-NCR; a big question a lot of the media is fanning – are we about to be hit by a really big and bad earthquake? The simple answer to that is – no, we’re not. And here is why – no one, not scientists, not politicians, not your favourite TV news anchor, not your neighbour, not your dad, not your pet cat.. No one can predict earthquakes. Scientifically speaking, no one can certify that a big earthquake will happen tomorrow, nor can they certify that it will not. Unfortunately, we’re surrounded by headlines that mislead or only half inform us and we fall prey to that. So, let’s decode some headlines. VO: Rohit Khanna

The similarities between George Floyd's death in Minneapolis and Faizan's  death in Delhi are striking. George Floyd, an unarmed man was pinned down on the road, by the knee by a police officer backed up by three other cops. Faizan and four others also unarmed, showing signs of injury, also lying on the road, being kept down by the lathis of 5-6 policemen gathered around them. George Floyd was an American-African, a community which is often at the receiving end of police brutality in the US. Faizan was Muslim a minority increasingly at the receiving end of police violence in India. But here's where the differences start. The cop who choked George Floyd to death, officer Derek Chauvin had been charged with murder in the 3rd degree, and dismissed from service along with his three colleagues four days after the incident. While in Faizan’s case, the policemen who were caught on camera assaulting and abusing him and his companions have been charged with nothings even months after the incident. What is shockingly and shamefully clear is that Yeh Jo India Hai Na, here the police can get away with anything, even murder.   While the civil society in the US is up in arms about the police brutality and implicit racial profiling that led to George Floyd’s death, urging immediate, transparent legal action, here in India, the tragic and brutal killing of Faizan has been all but forgotten.  VO: Rohit Khanna