Sunday, August 01, 2004

Shadow Warrior: Why?

In the spirit of the Akira Kurosawa film, "Kagemusha". There the shadow warrior is a warlord's alter-ego, and is hired to rally the troops when the warlord is seriously ill. The point I wish to emphasize, though, is that when the enemy is strong, it is important to avoid head-on battles, but to take diversionary tactics. Thus, you have to be fluid, phantom-like: difficult to pinpoint, appearing and disappearing at will, wearing the enemy down. Guerillas, if you like. Forcing the enemy to fight shadows. That is the sense I use the term in, as opposed to the other sense of someone tilting at shadows or windmills. Nizhal yoddha means shadow warrior in Malayalam.

Another example is that of the shadow warriors of Linux as compared to the imperial legions of Microsoft. Unlike its normal foes, whom it can vanquish through well-established means, Microsoft has found it frustrating to deal with the phantom warriors of the GNU/Linux world. See an old column of mine as well: http://in.rediff.com/news/2001/jan/01rajeev.htm

Speaking of Kurosawa, he would have appreciated the element of surrealism about the way history is handled in India. Each protagonist interprets history in ways that are self-serving, "Rashomon"-like; and each insists that his own point of view is the only one that is authentic. None are more prone to this than the Marxists of India.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seems like Mr. Swoosh himself is a coward.
He conveniently hid behind a non-existent profile and a non-existent blog.

Anonymous said...

Rajeev,

very enlightening and lucid. Ignore the comments of the ignoramuses. When faced with a higher intellect they turn to insults and character assasinations.

People with sh*t for brains usually have no problem spewing from the mouth.

nizhal yoddha said...

guys,
thanks for the support! but really, there are plenty of shoot-and-scoot scam artists like mr. swoosh around, and it doesnt pay to be concerned about them. i'd say, ignore them!

Anonymous said...

one more suckers spot to spend their time. Good luck Rajeev does RSS pay you for this?

Anonymous said...

Nizhal Yodha,

Feel free to ignore the Swooshes, but since I have some time on my hands, and Mr. Swoosh has not responded ...

There was this loser Mr. Swoosh
Who thought brevity was "Khush"
He tried to spit and run
but the rest of us killed his fun
And he slunk away clutching his tush!

Anonymous said...

Rajeev,
I have been reading your writings for the past one year. A thought just struck me; your nickname "shadow warrior" derives motivation from a japanese movie but you are so passionate about Hindu culture. I am surprised you did not find motivation in there.

Anil said...

Please get in touch with me we need to discuss lots of things..

I am at http://koshur.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Very inspiring. I hope some day we can pack mallu Maos from keralam to Shanghai "gulags".

Anonymous said...

Rajeev,

Great! Keep up the good work. God bless you.

Anonymous said...

rAJEEV
Go ahead, stop not till rvery convert is reconverted back to Hinduism.
G.S.K.Menon
THE RECONVERTER.

Anonymous said...

Hi Rajeev,

Happy VijayaDasami!

Is it alright if I post comments as before? Honestly,I still feel scared.I would not want to create problems for you too.

Anonymous said...

Hi Rajeev,

Could you post this on your blog. It is a protest petition against M.F. Hussain.

http://www.sanatan.org/en/05/Protests/MFHusain/petition.php?vtm=1132313026

S. Raman

srikanth-nalla said...

By the way Osama Bin Laden and many other islamic terrorists are also shadow warriors. No one knows for sure whether he is still alive or not. Whenever people tend to be accepting that Osama might be dead, is is alleged that al-qaeda uses past (before Osama's death) video recordings to confuse everybody into thinking that he is still alive. There are allegations against communists also for using similar tactics.

Considering that Islamic fanatics and Communist fascists had been the perpetrators of biggest crimes against India, it is high time we learn our enemies' "shadow warrior" tactic to defeat the same enemies.

However a word of caution from Friedrich Nietzsche.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Regards,
Srikanth.

srikanth-nalla said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketman
Ketman (Arabic kitmān كتمان "secrecy, concealment") is the act of paying lip service to authority while holding personal opposition. It is a sort of political or religious camouflage, for the purpose of survival, because, if you said publicly that you are against those in power, the consequences for you and your family would be immediate and catastrophic. So you can teach your children, in deep secrecy, to practice ketman exactly the same as you, but never to forget the real truth, as you see it. This can go on through many generations, and erupt one distant day in the form of revolutions, uprisings, etc.

Though the term was originally used exclusively in regards to Islamic authority, the term is most frequently encountered in reference to Communist authoritarianism.

Unknown said...

Hi Rajeev,

This is owrth outting on the blog:

Church of Scientology Could Be Dissolved in France Over Fraud Lawsuit

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,521678,00.html

srikanth-nalla said...

Hi Rajeevji,

Did you watch this video?
Nandan Nilekani's ideas for India's future
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cYDyMnL4M8
I didn't appreciate his notion that our unsustainable population is an asset.
But what surprised me is that, @ 10:16 in the video, he displays a slide where some young girls are displaying placards which read
1. Now do we say "Vande Mata-Rome"?
2. India for India born. Amend the constitution.

We have noticed that NR Narayanamurty was a strong Congress supporter. He gave a strong endorsement of Manmohan Singh before 2009 election.
Also he was angry with BJP because of it's protests to his playing instrumental version of national anthem in order not to embarrass foreign audience.
More about the controversy here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._R._Narayana_Murthy#Controversies

So does it prove that Nilekani is anti-congress OR esp anti-Sonia?

Regards,
Srikanth.
PS: I didn't know how to mail the blog writers. So I am leaving a comment since I believe Nilekani's speech merits the blog's attention.

Anonymous said...

http://dailypioneer.com/185109/In-India-people-ask-if-Im-Indian-Mizoram-chief-minister.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu_Lalthanhawla
Here the congress guy is spreading the propaganda overseas that Indians are also very racist and this works as justification for assaults against Indians.
Outlook was running cover story with rhetorical question "Are we not racist too?". Ofcourse Sonia and Rahul don't want to let their white race identity enter the consciousness of the masses. They might even be afraid whether the racist attacks on Indians in Aus provoke any backlash against Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka.

Anonymous said...

Warning about impending "Learned Helplessness" among Hindutvavadis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/opinion/09kristof.html
Here Nicholas Kristoff explains some psychological workings of human mind.

What I found relevant with the article here is that just like bleeding heart liberals who parade the horrible images of poverty and destitution in Africa to elicit support & donations from Americans and Europeans, many aggressive Hindutva websites parade the horrible injustices being committed against Hindus civilization.
But just like rich whites becoming indifferent sensing the African poverty problem is too enormous and one's individual contribution is too small to make any significant change, many patriotic Hindus also may get depressed and indifferent unless they are made aware of the progress made by all this online Hindutva movement.

In short many bloggers are coming across as "Bleeding Heart Hindutvavadis".

Over time I have been realizing similarly that the problem of Hindu Civilization is too enormous to for one individual like me to make any significant +ve difference.
There are many reasons for me embracing such helplessness.
Here I list few major ones.
1. BJP seemed totally incompetent and insincere in it's commitment to Ram. Incompetent because forget about building Ram temple it almost couldn't stop the demolition of Ram-Setu. Insincere because it seems be trying to whip us Hindu emotions to get votes by shouting Ram only to later ditch the Hindu concerns after getting power.
2. Besides post-2009 election analysis by Kanchan Gupta reveals that BJP is using Hindutva sentiment to gain power, whereas it should be considering attainment of political power as just another means of implementing Hindutva goals.
3. Most depressing is the way BJP leaders are complacent to make alliances in states like Andhra Pradesh, Orissa etc rather than actually working hard to widen their base there. It is doing so in order not to have too many contenders for top jobs at the center.
4. While BJP tries to whip up angry sentiment over Bangladeshi immigrants, Vajpayee actually proposed citizenship cards for illegal immigrants and even a common currency b/n India and Bangladesh. Can there be anything more criminal than that?

Anyway my point is that I suspect all these "Bleeding Heart Hindutvavadi" bloggers are preaching dangerous suicidal behavior called "learned helplessness".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
It is a condition of a human being or an animal in which it has learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity is restored for it to help itself by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance to which it has been subjected.

Eg. When a baby elephant is tied up in it's childhood, it struggles a lot to break out of it. But over time it learns that resisting is useless and when it grows up it no longer resists even though now it is strong enough to break out. True Story.

So my suggestion is just like Kristoff pointed the need for donors to be made aware of the improvements made possible by their contributions, Hindutva bloggers also should let their supporters know of the improvements made by all this online activism. Unfortunately I didn't see any improvement. It was all downhill ever since Vajpayee took over as PM in 2nd term. But may be, I hope I am wrong and being cynical.

trailblazer82ak@gmail.com
trailblazer82ak at gmail dot com

Anonymous said...

Jante Law -- This Law explains the snobbery and intolerance of Armies of Pseudo-Secular Media against anyone they don't agree with.

1. Don't think that you are special.
2. Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.
3. Don't think that you are smarter than us.
4. Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.
5. Don't think that you know more than us.
6. Don't think that you are more important than us.
7. Don't think that you are good at anything.
8. Don't laugh at us.
9. Don't think that anyone of us cares about you.
10. Don't think that you can teach us anything.

Further in the book: 11. Don't think that there is something we don't know about you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jante_Law

Anonymous said...

Evgeny Morozov: How the Internet strengthens dictatorships
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hFk6FDrZBc
This applies to Congress pseudo-secularist pseudo-democracy also.

More about the speaker:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Morozov

manipadma said...

This is a news update from a perceived conservative, republican and mormon state of US - Utah.

more than 15 thousand americans attended the Holi festival celebrated at an Iskon temple!

http://utahkrishnas.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=100&Itemid=190