"Asia Reborn"

[Sin Hombre]

Good one PKB on that Q&A

[sameerph]

Good one PKB there. I also got it one of the whatsapp forwards in India today. So, probably it will make rounds on whatsapp now.

What Rahul Gandhi seems to be alluding to is they were indirectly calling the shots when Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh were PM. While that is true politically, I think it will be wrong to give credit to the economic success which mainly MMS achieved to the family.

[rajitghosh]

So PKB is on every Indian news channel now with different versions of the same video - original, doctored, fake, semi doctored etc. The TRPs of these channels are assured thanks to PKB. Anyway we are all enjoying the fun.

[rajitghosh]

Would definitely like to hear from PKB how it feels dealing with Indian TV journalists and the shouting matches on national TV.

[Peter]

PK, Congrats on the book! Always found your posts keenly insightful even when we have had our differences.

i can't seem to find a copy here in the US (either paperback or audiobook, not a fan of eBooks). Anybody know?

Just got back from a month long trip to Kerala. Much water has flowed in the Periyar during the 9 years since my last trip. India can be exhilarating and overwhelming, both at once!

[Observer]

Woah PKB went hard at RG. Respect for the fearlessness and confidence!
Also this was a rare occurrence where RG handled a difficult question quite well!

[Saniapower]

Needs to write a new book lol
I initially thought RG got the upper hand but PKB on Republic claimed the video was doctored.

[PKBasu]

I haven't been active on the forum in a few years but found this interesting link today where PKB questioned Rahul Gandhi. Interested to know if there was any exchange post the Q&A session.

https://www.thequint.com/videos/news-vi ... -on-family

And Congratulations on your book, PKB!

This is the doctored video put out by Congress.

[Sin Hombre]

Can someone share the actual video?

[jaydeep]

Can someone share the actual video?

Check this one which PKB shared on the facebook.

PKB's question to Rahul Gandhi

[PKBasu]

Thanks Jaydeep. (I'm still a bit technologically-challenged when it comes to moving attachments from one media to another -- Twitter to FB to sports-india.com for instance).

In 48 hours, the Congress has failed to come up with a response to my key point -- that, in the years of Nehru family rule (1947-89), India's per capita income grew less than the world average, but that in the years since 1990, India's per capita income has grown much faster than the world average. (Since RaGa's claim to any sort of political career -- leave alone the prime ministership -- rests on his lineage alone, this is a very relevant point; we can go into why this is the case: I think that minions are scared to speak truth to monarchs, so bad policies get entrenched and stay unchanged for generations -- witness Congress' reflexive support for bank nationalisation, because Indira did it).

Congress tried to show a chart of the period from 1961 to the present, and said India's per capita income growth had crossed the world average in 1980. Of course it has -- as I've said in the book. But the mild out-performance in the 1980s doesn't make up from the large underperformance in the 1960s and 1970s (upto 1976; the following two years were the only two consecutive years of above-world-average growth in the 1950-80 period, and unsurprisingly a non-Nehru, the estimable Morarji Desai, was the PM then).

But the Congress should look at their own chart. The out-performance since 1990 is dramatic -- and such a complete contrast to the previous period. I did not say that Congress was responsible for the slow-growth decades, but the family was. Narasimha Rao was completely free of the family, and he transformed the economy (and also solved the long-festering Punjab and Assam problems). Shastriji brought in the massive institutional reforms in agriculture that ushered in the Green Revolution. Desai did so much better than the Nehru family (having also rescued the economy from the 1957-58 BoP crisis, brought in specially by Nehru to deal with it as FM). And then of course Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh have also done substantially better. What was interesting is that RaGa didn't even try to defend the 1947-89 record, only tried to take credit for MMS's stewardship in 2004-14. MMS steadfastly refused to resign despite the many provocations he faced (and many open hints from the family retainers). Thank god he didn't budge!

[PKBasu]

PK, Congrats on the book! Always found your posts keenly insightful even when we have had our differences.

i can't seem to find a copy here in the US (either paperback or audiobook, not a fan of eBooks). Anybody know?

Just got back from a month long trip to Kerala. Much water has flowed in the Periyar during the 9 years since my last trip. India can be exhilarating and overwhelming, both at once!

Thanks Peter. Unfortunately the book isn't available on Amazon outside India. I will try to fix that in the next couple of months.

[Sin Hombre]

Good article in the Atlantic about Xi's total grab of power in China

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... nt/554795/

[Sin Hombre]

Thanks Peter. Unfortunately the book isn't available on Amazon outside India. I will try to fix that in the next couple of months.

PKB, what do you make of China's treatment of Uighars? About a million being held in detention camps in abysmal conditions but not a whisper from the western media (who engage in India-bashing continuously).

I read this on a different forum and it is scary how confrontational newer generations of Han Chinese will be, especially given their opinions are formed in isolation

Han Chinese supremacism/dominion is well represented in their mainstream as well as internet/youth culture, there are generations brought up on animosity toward Japanese, disdain towards Koreans, Vietnamese, Indians, Phillipinos, and their own Muslim (Uyghurs) as well as Manchurian/Mongolian population. They believe in exercising control over anyone and everyone within their desired sphere of influence, as their dysnasties of old.

[PKBasu]

Mao was the ultimate Chinese imperialist, and his approach is being taken to its logical extremes by the Chinese media today.

I have demonstrated conclusively in my book that Tibet was NEVER part of "China" before Mao's October 1950 invasion, and that the only brief periods in history during which there were political links between Tibet and the regime in Beijing were when the Buddhist Mongols (Yuen dynasty) and Manchus (Qing dynasty) were in power. The Great Wall marks the boundary of what was "China" through most of history; ironically, the empire that brought the southern regions (Guangdong, Yunnan) and the western frontiers (Xinjiang which means frontier/border, Tibet, Inner Mongolia) into Beijing's control was the Mongol dynasty, which called Beijing "Khanbaliq" and considered itself a foreign regime ruling the Han Chinese.

I call the region that the Uighurs live in "East Turkestan". We dignify China's imperialism by succumbing to calling the region "Xinjiang". And of course Inner Mongolia at least retains that name to the outside world despite the fact that Han Chinese outnumber Mongols 5:1 in that region.