WEBVTT - Part Two: Narendra Modi, And India's Weird Nazi Obsession 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.560 What's blowing jobs my party. Thank you. That was wonderful. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:09.160 Thank you. There's a good lead into part two of 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.440 our new so pleased with an intro. I know, I 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:16.720 really now don't wonderful. Thank you. I crave on prep. Yeah, 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:18.600 I think I like it enough to make him treasurer 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:20.880 of the b JP. I got your treasure of the 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.880 b j P. Also our guests, if you Alexandra, Hi everyone, 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:27.400 I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me back. 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.120 Thanks for coming back minutes after we finished the first episode. 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.199 But yeah, I mean I almost took off. This has 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:39.960 been a rough one. I mean it's it's not a 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:42.680 lot of dead children. It is, but we don't talk 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.199 about all of them. Yeah, that's yeah, we don't detail it. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.560 That's a silver lining, but it stay in just a 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.880 silver lining. A lot of dead children, but we don't 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.000 have to talk about them specifically. We could just say 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:57.840 two or three thousand dead and not get more specifically 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:03.760 that friend Yeah, sometimes the truest form of friendship is 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.119 not going into more detail about horrible ethnic cleansings than 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.000 you need to. I mean, it's what I put on 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.840 our T shirts. But it's a lot of words. Yeah, 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.000 it has to go all the way on the sleeves 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.319 and the back, but a lot hop onto behind the bastards. 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.440 T public for our new ethnic cleansing is horrible, but 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.000 there's only a certain amount of detail that's really necessary 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.639 to get across the key facts of what's happening without 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.400 getting into you know, uh, what's the word when somebody 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:33.880 like looks at a car crash that sort of thing. 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:36.800 A lot of words on those T shirts, but that 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.640 shirt also has you saying of five times in a row, 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.399 like it's quoted. Yeah, it's not. We should have edited 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.280 the shirt at some point. No, But honestly, we were 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:49.000 going for realism. We were cinema verite. That's what that means. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.880 It's putting ums on a T shirt on fiance miles 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:59.960 and I call that a transparency bonus. Oh nice's intentional. Yeah. 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.520 In the wake of the Gujrat riots, Narendra Modi was 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.440 shunned and marginalized and broader Indian society both in Gujrat itself, 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.760 his popularity grew. Some of this may have had to 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:10.919 do with the fact the Muslim population of the area 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:14.240 had been beaten, murdered and ghettoed into political irrelevance bad 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:19.760 sounds tight we had at most of it had to 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.000 do with the fact that violent bigotry is actually super 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.240 fun when you're on the side of the majority. See, 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.120 Moody is a very intelligent man, and he grasped instinctively 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:29.680 that the most important lesson that any would be tyrant 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.280 can ever learn, which is never ever apologize. So instead 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:35.680 of that, he followed up this nightmarish blood letting with 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.800 a Hindu pride march across the state. Ranks and ranks 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.840 of uniformed RSS members celebrated their violent oppression of the 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.720 Muslim minority and were met by cheering crowds. He was 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.560 careful in his actual language, always delivering the message that 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.080 without exposing too much of his ass, saying things like 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:52.960 if we raise the self respected morale, a fifty million 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.680 gujratis the schemes of Ali's, Moli's and Jamali's will not 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:58.920 be able to do us any harm. Those are all 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.640 like stereotypical of Muslim names in India. Do you see 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.920 what he's saying? I just he doubled down on the genocide. 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:11.680 He sure did, which is a real power move, a 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.280 white power move. White power move. You might say Airy 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.400 in power. Let's let's get a little more specific. Yeah, 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.160 wal Nor Render solidified his base of power. The rest 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.840 of the b JP suffered a series of electoral reversals. 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.240 This also wound up working out for Moody. The more 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.640 liberal wings of the party crumbled in the wake of 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:32.079 these defeats, and while they flailed, Moody pressed forward in 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:34.320 guj Rot and made deals with the biggest businessmen in 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.560 the region. He made life easy for them and they 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.120 pumped more money into guj Rot's economy, allowing him to 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.000 brag that he developed Gugrot into a financial powerhouse during 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.120 his time in office. That's a real trump yep boast. 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.680 Kind of sounds like they're all working from the same 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.520 play book. Over time, Moody seized control of the b 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.520 JP and married it's hardline racist, fascist DNA with the 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.120 financial interests of the business class. And I'm gonna quote 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.160 now from an article in the News Statesman. The turning 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.160 point came in October two thousand and eight when Tata 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.600 Motors moved its car plant for its much publicized new 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.960 budget hatchback the NANO from the leftist dominated West Bengal 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.360 to the pro business guz Rot. In two thousand eleven, 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.240 Ford invested one billion dollars in setting up another car plant. 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.200 Before long, Gugrot started to make headlines not for riots, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.840 but for its new image as an economic powerhouse. From 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.680 to that just like mine com really wasn't about no, 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.479 it's about business tilling. It was really just a self 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.880 help business kind of yeah, exactly. From two thousand three, 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:33.840 Modi began holding an annual summit Vibrant guz Rot, which 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:39.120 cumulatively generated investment pledges of NWY billion. All the prominent, Yeah, 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.440 all the most prominent Indian captains of industry, from Matan 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.760 Tata to the Ambani's and the Mittal's rallied behind Mody 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.320 and declared him India's most business friendly chief Minister. Guzrot 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.640 now enjoys double digit growth and there's no question that 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.520 Mody has run an economically successful administration. However, his claims 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.599 to have made the state's economy and ideal for the 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.000 rest of India is disputed by economists to point out 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.360 that the gouge Rot model has done little to alleviate 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:06.039 poverty or improve indexes of education, malnutrition, or healthcare because 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:10.240 the money does not people down because Drick gold Down 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.560 Thery is not a real thing. But if you can 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:15.440 make the numbers look good on paper, you can get 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:17.160 people to vote for you because they think they'll get 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.279 some of that money, and then genocide it gets to happen. 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.320 It's cool. It's cool that it always works. When the 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.640 wealthiest men and goug Rot saw how good Moody could 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:28.920 be for business, they put their money into making sure 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.920 the few thousand people have gotten murdered were forgotten. There 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.279 was an investigation, of course, but the Indian Supreme Court 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.760 decided there wasn't enough evidence to charge Moody himself of anything. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.200 That's so crazy. It's like, we tried, but like there's 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.200 nothing to tie you to the genocide. So it's like 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.159 so weird. There's no evidence but you're basically free. That's 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:51.480 so crazy. That's wild. Yeah, some officials within the government 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.120 did try to take action against Moody. Hern Pondia, a 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.520 can't minister, gave sworn testimony about the riots, claiming that 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.200 on the night it all began, he had attended a 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.640 meeting at moody home and heard the Chief Minister tell 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.280 police officials to allow people to vent their frustration and 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:07.479 not come in the way of the Hindu backlash. Yeah, 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.800 it's a good switchblade moment. Sanjiv Bought. A police administrator 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.400 also testified to hearing Moody express similar sentiments, discussing his 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.040 hope that the Muslims be taught a lesson to ensure 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.640 that such incidents do not recur. The evidence was there, 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:22.960 but most of Moody's political rivals were too frightened of 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.400 the consequences of pursuing him to the fullest extent of 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.880 the law. They decided to take their chances with the 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:34.280 electoral system and the hope that you really never should 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.760 you never decide not to fully pursue criminal charges against 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.920 a fascist because you're worried about the backlash socially and 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.839 decided to just trust in voters. Turns out that doesn't 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.239 ever work. Yeah, gotta be on the right side of history. 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:52.800 Gotta throw then you can't wait until someone else is 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:57.960 like this is bad. So uh. Meanwhile, Moody and his 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.159 followers set to work eliminating the men who test to 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:02.520 fight against them, but was quickly charged with the death 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.080 of a suspect and police custody and sentenced to life 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:07.440 in prison. Hira and Pandya was found dead in his 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.120 car in two thousand three. His wife insisted this day 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.320 that his death was a political murder. So that's cool. 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.240 There's allowing to be a lot more of those. Moody 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.000 angrily ignored questions about the riots for years. One of 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.480 the most direct responses he actually did make came in 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.560 two thousand thirteen, when a reporter asked him if he 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:25.600 felt sorry for all the Muslims who'd been murdered by 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.720 those mobs he enabled. Moody responded, if someone is driving 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.960 a car and we're sitting behind, even then, if a 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:34.480 puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful? Of 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:41.400 course it is. What what if you're sitting by someone 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.560 in a car and they hit a puppy? Does it 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.360 hurt you to see? Yes, But that's the same as 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:48.960 him enabling this mob that killed three things. Not even 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:52.560 an analogy. It's it's pretty great. That's like sentences that 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.720 don't form a whole story. I mean, there's definitely like 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.360 some translation makes no sense stuff here like that he 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:00.880 originally said it. I'm guessing and like Karatti or whatever. 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.480 So it's like, you know, there's probably maybe it made 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:05.920 more sense than the original language, but like he did 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.760 it though, because it doesn't seem to address the fact 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:11.880 it was always a bullshit response. I just think the 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:13.960 phrasing is a little weird, not just mean. There's no 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.800 part of it where he's like what he's saying is 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.080 that like his role in letting the letting it enabling 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.800 these models? Why are the Muslims though the puppy where 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.880 and he's like still a human in the analogy, why 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.439 are the Muslims? And a good boy is just confusing. 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.439 He's like, I am a man, but in this story, 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.800 the Muslims are a puppy, and sometimes puppies get hit 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:41.920 by cars and you don't like to see it, so 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.440 you don't care driving the car which he's behind. Yeah, 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:48.800 he was totally sense and like, no, you're the driver 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:51.959 and they're not a puppy, they're a man, and you 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:57.320 just ran over the man. So I don't really understand why. 0:08:57.800 --> 0:08:59.440 I get what he was trying to make it different 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.560 because think of Muslims as people. But it's like that 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.560 Simpson's bit where Liona Huts is like, yeah, this judge 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.720 doesn't like me because I hit his dog with my car. 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.719 Only replaced the word dog with the words son and 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:15.320 replaced the word hit with repeatedly that's a good bit, 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.760 oh boy. Moody's popularity was further augmented in two thousand 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.360 five when Gut police announced that they had shot dead 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.080 a terrorist they believed had been planning to assassinate Neurindra 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.360 sa Buddin Chic. The dead man was said to have 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.200 been a member of an Islamic terrorist cell collaborating with 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.000 the I s I Pakistani intelligence. Gujarati police claimed sar 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.199 Buddin had opened fire on them when they had caught him, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.120 and they've been forced to fire back and kill him. 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:41.480 None of this was true, and it soon became clear 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.400 that the whole affair had been blatantly orchestrated by the authorities. 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.319 And I'm gonna quote now from scroll dot Ian and 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.800 Indian News website. Those were the years when Gujat was 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.320 scarred by several such encounters. The police killed more than 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.440 twenty people claiming they were trying to murder the Chief 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:57.719 Minister or commit other acts of terrorism, and a few 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.000 of these cases was the police's version effectively challenged. Shake's 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.920 killing would have become just another statistic and forgotten police records, 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.560 except for two interventions. First, Rubba Buddin Shaik wrote to 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.000 India's Chief Justice that he did not believe the police's 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:11.920 version of his brother's killing and that he was worried 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.560 for the safety of kawser B s A Buddin Shake's wife, 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.840 who disappeared since her husband's killing. In response, the Supreme 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.000 Court told the Gugrot police to find out how Shake 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.560 had been killed and what had happened to his wife. Second, 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.040 Preshant Daal, a journalist for the Dba Vashgar Paper newspaper, 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.440 published a sensational report claiming senior guz Rot police officials 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.160 had deliberately killed Shake and then rape and burned alive 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:37.680 his wife. Holy shit, Yeah, it's fucked. So a thorough 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.160 investigation would eventually secure the admission of the Gujrat government's 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.199 legal counsel that the whole shooting had been a fake encounter. 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.080 The motorcycle that police claimed Shake had been writing at 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:48.839 the time of the shootout turned out to be owned 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:50.800 by a relative of one of the cops who killed him. 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.320 As the crime was dug into. That's not even a 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.520 good cover up, No, it was not a good guy. 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:59.679 You gets someone who's not directly involved with what is 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.280 one of the frustrating things about fascism is how lazy 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.120 they're allowed to be and can still get away with it. Yeah, 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.080 it's very frustrating. So as the crime was dug into 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.720 ultimate blame for planning all this eventually settled on the 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.400 shoulders of Ahmed Shaw, a government minister in Narendra Moody's 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:19.680 right hand man. The state investigation eventually revealed that Shaw 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.880 had been running a massive extortion racket through the Gujrati Police. 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:24.760 Shake had been a part of this racket, and for 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:26.960 one reason or another, Shaw had decided that killing him 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:28.920 would be good for business. And since he was going 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:30.800 to commit murder, he figured he might as well make 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.360 the murdered man's death work for his political patron. So 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:34.760 he was like, oh, we'll just say this guy was 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.319 planning to kill Moody. It'll buffer Moody's popularity and we'll 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.720 get rid of this guy. All of this took years 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:42.679 to properly dig up, though, and the slow drip of 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.319 unimpeachable evidence of Moody and Shaw's shameless violent corruption had 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.719 no impact on their political futures. Instead, Moody grew more 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.720 popular year after year. He was reelected as Chief Minister 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.400 of Gujrat in two thousand seven. During his campaign, he 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.200 deliberately mocked his political opponents for trying to prosecute him 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.880 from murder, saying at one rally, congress people say that 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.400 Moody is indulging in encounters, saying that Moody killed Sora Buddin. 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.120 You tell me what should I do with Sora Budden. 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.920 He asked, kill him. The crowdared killed him, so kill him. 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.760 They said, yeah, that's cool. By two twelve, it really 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.080 is like Trump rallies. It's very much the same, insanely erie. 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.880 All of them are the same person, just in different bodies. Yeah. 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:25.880 By two thousand twelve, this guy had a nicer body 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.400 than Trump. It's not a high bar, That's what I 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:31.439 was about. It was like, uh, that body is failing 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.400 on every level. It's not doing great. It's like a diaper, 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:41.160 but a person good time. By two thousand twelve, and 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.000 a dramody stood at the very top of the b 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:44.760 j P, and the b j P was one of 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.240 the most powerful parties in the country, with tens of 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:51.400 millions of members. Moody announced his campaign for Prime Minister 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.640 near the end of two thousand thirteen, and I'm gonna 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.360 quote again from The New Yorker. Here he sold himself 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.360 not as a crusading nationalist, but as a master manager 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:01.679 at the visionary who had presided over an economic boom 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.600 in Gujrat. His campaign slogan was the good days are coming. 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.680 A close look at the data showed that Gurot's economy 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:13.040 had grown no faster under his administration. The dog days 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:17.840 are over and he's saying it, yeah, a little bit yeah. 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.360 A close look at the data showed that Gurot's economy 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.080 had grown no faster under his administration than under previous ones. 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.760 The accelerated growth was a fantastically crafted fiction, even so, 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.160 many of India's largest businesses flooded his campaign with contributions. 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.599 Moody was helped by an overwhelming public perception that the 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:35.439 Congress Party, which had been in power from most of 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.120 the past half century, had grown arrogant and corrupt. Its 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.680 complacency was personified by the Gandhi family, whose members dominated 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.720 the party but appeared diffident and out of touch. Rahul Gandhi, 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.040 the head of the party and Nehru's great grandson, was 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.599 dubbed the reluctant prince by the Indian media. By contrast, 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.160 Moody and his team were disciplined, focused and responsive. The 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.920 Gandhi's would keep chief ministers who had traveled across the 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.320 country to see them waiting for days. They didn't care. 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:01.920 An Indian plitical commentator who has met with the Gandhi's 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.319 as well as Moody, told me, with Moody's people, you 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.680 got right in. So, like Moody, number one, access and 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:15.440 availability trumps yep, trumps being an out of touch political 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:17.880 elite who just tells, trust me, I know what I'm doing. 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.680 We've been at this for a while. Um yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:23.720 It turns out that works. And also, you know, when 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.360 you're trying to get elected for the first time as 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.520 a fascist, you you you button down a little bit 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:30.880 on their racism and focused on I'm a good manager. 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:36.000 I'm gonna be good for the economy. I'm a good businessman. Yeah. 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.160 A huge amount of the b JP success had to 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.160 do with the casual corruption and elitism many Indians perceived 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.680 from the Congress Party. Most of their highest officials came 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.280 from families who had dominated Indian politics since the nation 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.040 got its independence. The actors of power was there's by 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.160 right of birth. The men of the b JP, however, 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.600 portrayed themselves less as aristocrats and more as humble warrior monks. 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.560 They were cheap, simple clothing and avoided displays of wealth. 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.120 There and Drew Moody talked regularly about the hour of 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.240 yoga he did every day and repeatedly emphasized his simple 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:10.280 life and noble refusal to fuck anybody. So that's good. Yeah, 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.120 this may seem odd, but Moody's refusal to have a 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.400 family meant that he had no distractions from work, and 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.880 that's the image, the hard working, religiously dedicated aesthetic that 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.640 played for Indian voters. It's anyone's guess as to whether 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:22.760 or not Moody really is the man he portrays himself 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.280 to be, but it's possible that he actually is. One 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.040 political commentator told The New Yorker, when you have that 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.400 kind of power, that kind of adoration, you don't need romance. 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.040 I mean, I just feel like the members of the 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:41.320 b j P should really have exploded on the scene more. Yeah. Sorry, 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:46.400 they should have come into power. Yeah, you're better at 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:52.680 this than me. They should have ejaculated on Parliament no, 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:58.560 that didn't work. They should have really focused on stimulating 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.280 the head of their party, stimulating the head and sort 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:10.000 of making a cream pie of the different branches. So 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.520 many people, we do, we do? We do? We do? 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:16.280 Where the hell was I here? The b JP won 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:18.800 the popular vote and Moody, it's leader became Prime Minister. 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.040 He immediately set to work dealing with problems the prior 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.600 government had ignored. Chief among them was public defecation. This 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.160 is like this is but the India's like fucking huge. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.440 It's like the biggest, It's one of the biggest countries 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.360 on the planet. And like this is not just like 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.320 a sort of because of the lack of a lot 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.000 of like good plumbing and stuff, it's often a lot 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.000 of people consider it cleaner to go out in public, 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.880 but like then you wind up like this stuff spreads disease. 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.400 Like it was a big problem. And I was mostly 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:49.040 just laughing because I thought that it would be amazing 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.520 if that problem only circulated around the b j P headquarters, 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:57.880 because people were like fuck you and just around it 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.480 and they're like, we have this really weird public defecation problem, 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.080 and like the rest of the city is totally clean. 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.159 They're like, yeah, but it's just like ships running in 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.000 the streets. People are like, no, no, it's no, it's 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.480 not just fortunately not. It was a problem and they 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.359 decided to deal with it um and again in the 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:20.600 traditional way that you see with this. They like launched 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.600 a thing that looked really good but was less effective 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:24.480 than it actually wound up being, but allowed them to 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.480 like publicly claimed that they were making great strides. So 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.119 in one of his first speeches in Delhi, Nedromodi promised 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:32.760 to launch a nationwide campaign to build public toilets and 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.520 every school. In sixty months, hundred and ten million toilets 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.560 were constructed, serving more than sixty million Indians. It was 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.160 probably the largest fastest toilet building program in world. Are 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.199 just fascist building? It also does that too, yeah, building, 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:49.720 And it's hard to fault Moody on at least the 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.440 idea of adding more public toilets to India, but its 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.440 execution and its efficacy were distinctly mixed. And I'm gonna 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:58.200 quote now from a Voice of American news right up. Quote. 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.199 Critics however, charged that over zealous government workers may have 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:03.359 inflated the number, since a deadline had been set for 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:07.320 declaring India open defecation free by October two hundred, fiftieth 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.240 birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India's independent struggle. 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:12.600 The entire movement happened in a mission mode. There were 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.280 targets to achieve, according to Nazarka, Lead, a New Delhi 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.320 research fellow at the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, a 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.080 nonprofit that works on child and sanitation issues in India. 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.920 He charges in some places, people were coerced into building 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.080 toilets by local authorities who wanted to demonstrate progress. A 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.240 study conducted last year by the group and four of 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.000 India's biggest states found that access to household toilets increased 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:36.439 from thirty seven percent into this in fourteen to last year. However, 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.879 roughly one quarter of people who owned a toilet continued 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.560 to defecate in the open. They considered it wholesome and 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.760 healthy and an opportunity to get some fresh air or 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:47.000 see their fields. So I thought that was going to 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.679 be in see their friends. I was like, damn, just 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.879 pooping and talking. That's pretty ann P and T, A 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:55.520 little bit of P and T for the b j P. 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:01.360 That's a that's a merch shirt, that's for sure. We're noticed. 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.240 How how good I slice this like you did? You 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:06.560 sliced it great. We're playing with knives when we talk 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.440 about fascism, and I really did a great job with mine. 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.800 I'm very proud of you. And you know what else, 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.160 I'm proud of these goods and services. Absolutely, I am 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.920 so proud of these goods and services. I have no children, 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:21.600 but in a way, all of the products and services 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:25.000 that we advertise are my children. And by in a way, 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:27.520 I mean in a literal way, and that I I 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.199 have fucked the parent companies in order to produce the 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.480 products that you can now buy. So you are purchasing 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.680 the spawn of my alloyance when you buy what Sophie, 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:44.840 this is how you sell sofiellos wine. I never needed 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:49.480 to hear this. This podcast is built on freedom time 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:59.680 for ads. We're back. We're back after that flawless ad break, 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:04.080 and so Fia is now holding two knives. The very 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:11.320 ready to continue here. So the toilet building project had 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.280 a debatable impact, but it achieved its real purpose, which 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.240 was to give Moody a strong out of the gate 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:18.800 win that made him look like a decisive and powerful leader, 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.480 and since it was impossible to make more toilets into 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.600 a partisan issue, there was nothing his opponents could do 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.119 but kind of hand him that win. Uh. And Moody 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.199 scored another early victory when he attacked India's massive problem 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:31.600 with gang rape. In two thousand twelve, twenty three year 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:33.640 old woman had been raped and tortured by six men 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.080 on a public bus. She died of her Oh yeah, 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.520 it was it was this. It was a huge story internationally. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.159 It happened like right before I went there. Um And 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:44.359 it was still like the big topic of discussion in 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:45.960 Delhi at the time. And it was this kind of 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.600 like horrible, horrible crime that catalyzed the fact that like 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.199 India had a major problem with gang rape. Um. And 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.720 so this is like this makes the international news. India 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.280 gets like criticized for it worldwide, and like it is 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:00.840