Three subhuman incidents...

Recently three shameful incidents have once again left us grappling with the subhuman side of our society.  

All three have been caught on camera or displayed on social media extensively...

(In all the three cases, the images/videos are too disturbing to show, which is why I have gone with a blurred out image of the first incident...)

Firstly, there is that awful molestation video wherein a pack of rabid subhumans attack a couple of hapless women, who, as in other sexual assault cases, find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong company.  

If social media reports are to be believed, all the men involved in the attack belong to a certain religion, but the mainstream media placed the blame squarely at the Chief Minister's door for the incident, and did not name these vermin.  

It is all very well to blame the government of the day, but why not also include the full details?  What is stopping the media from naming and shaming the vermin?  Isn't it the job of an impartial media house to present the whole story?  

Anyway, let's hope that the government/police/courts take suitable action and bring the vermin to justice.  I hope the authorities realise that it is the lack of appropriate response that encourages the vermin to carry out brazen attacks such as these.

Second; how about some beef, roadside?  Courtesy, the peaceful denizens of 'god's own country'; those that are also the members of the 'grand old party of the country'. 

This is just the problem with banning anything.  It creates the ideal atmosphere for subaltern subhumans such as those that slaughtered the calf to come out of the woodwork and garner cheap publicity.  Who knew about that youth leader - yes, the very same who is seen in some pictures with the 'youthful' scion of the dynasty - before this heinous act was carried out?  

In all this, I feel for the innocent animal that was literally sacrificed at the altar of sinister political machinations.  Veering as I am towards veganism, I would suggest that it is not just the cows/cattle that need our protection, but all living beings.  This is also why I am not in favour of the 'beef ban' per se.  

One also has to lament the state of affairs in the most literate and progressive southern state.  By the looks of it, it is also being painted red - literally and politically - by the subhumans, and may well end up with the tag, 'devil's own country'.

I hope the animal rights activists overcome their selective blindness, and initiate action against these subhumans.

Third, but by no means the least uncouth: public humiliation of Hindu god.  

You cannot conjure up a more ironical situation if you wanted to.  Apparently members of a certain reservation-seeking group that is named after Bhima spat on a picture of Hanuman before hitting it with slippers.  Both Bhima and Hanuman, in case you missed the point, are avataras of mukhyaprana - or Vayu, the Wind God.  

Couple of quick points on this incident: here's an invitation to the subhuman group members to do the same to the pictures of a certain black stone belonging to a certain religion.  Oh yes...they may decline the invite, because they are smart enough to realise that they will be beheaded before put on trial.  Once again, the magnanimity and tolerance of Sanatana Dharma has been taken advantage of.  

The other point is about the root cause for this evil display: caste and reservations.  When we are looking at having a uniform civil code and a uniform tax policy for the entire country, why hold on to this outdated practice of favouring a less deserving candidate over a meritorious one?  

Let's hope the present government gets rid of reservations altogether.  And somebody, please file a PIL on this subhuman group.  

I am also, in the meantime, waiting for the highly secular award-wapsi gang members to start returning their worthless awards in protest against these three subhuman incidents...  

High hopes!!    

Image source: http://images.financialexpress.com/2017/05/Rampur-Molestation-ANI.jpg

Forget IAS, here's IES

IES.  Yes, we have a new civil service establishment in the country - the Indian Evangelical Service.  It comes with the added benefit of civil servants doubling up as priests and proselytizers.

For those of you who are still in the dark, an IAS official, no less, has been proselytizing!  Not just advertising his religion, but, as reports suggest, openly denouncing other faiths in a communally sensitive area.  Apparently, this very same person had gone on record saying that it is "a sign of wrath of God on Hindu sinners" about the Uttarakhand floods.

There was a raging debate on the issue of the IAS official proselytizing last night on the News Hour on Times Now channel.  His defenders were suggesting that there is a constitutional right - Article 25 - that allows one to adhere to, believe in and propagate one's religion.  No doubt, evangelical organisations have taken full advantage of this clause to carry out their clandestine activities.

Further, another guest on the program suggested that if what the IAS official is doing is wrong, then the pooja offered to Hindu Gods in government offices is also wrong.  Two wrongs still do not make a right.  By all means ban religious activities in all public service institutions and organisations.

Then they will still cry foul, because that would mean the end of all Christian schools, colleges and hospitals, where faith is openly propagated and religious symbols and icons are prominently displayed. 

But then again, why wouldn't they propagate?  It is all part of the grand scheme of influencing gullible and vulnerable sections of populations, such as children and the sick people, so that the number of 'believers' increases manifold.

Actually, it already has increased; go to North Karnataka and East Godavari areas and see for yourself.  We are not even talking about Kerala and Tamil Nadu here, where Christianity is said to have had its origin, and, over the years, has established a firm base.

As the numbers increase, we should expect more and more of such proselytizers from prominent walks of life, brazenly advertising their religion and gaining new recruits.  Ghar wapsi, it can be argued, is a flawed response to evangelisation and conversion activities of all sorts.    

Actually, the proselytizers can't help it you see, because it is written.  The church 'rule book' has made it very clear that there is going to be a second coming of the Son of God, and when that happens, all the souls who are true believers would be saved and housed in the Kingdom of God.  Therefore it is incumbent upon every believer to propagate the faith and get more recruits.

On the other hand, if you haven't signed on to the program, well, then that's your grave error, and you will be rotting in hell for eternity.  Really?  Only because you did not believe in a notion?  I thought God was a lot more benevolent than that. 

It is this basic tenet that compels people such as the IAS officer to 'harvest' souls that can be saved from damnation.  Remember also, that merely signing on to the program is not enough.  You have to totally give up on your old practices and faith, and not just that, totally denounce them, abhor them and tear up your scriptures, which are an affront to the 'True God'.  Really?  I thought God was a lot more mature and tolerant than that.

So to fulfil something which has been decreed by the church, which of course, may never come true, proselytizers go out on their mission to create a nation of 'believers'.  

Now which of these tenets and notions are actually secular?  How can we, as citizens of a progressive, emerging, secular democracy, put up with a notion that says 'mine is the only true path, my God is the only real God, yours is demonic, therefore you should join me if you want to save yourself, otherwise you will rot in hell'?  Isn't this kind of thought process that can 'splinter' the country, Mr Obama?

We love Jesus - his life, his work, his example, is worth worshipping and emulating.  But he is not alone, as evangelists would have you believe.  India has been home to multitudes of seers of similar magnitude and spiritual aura.  Besides, Sanatana Dharma has always extolled the validity and equality of all faiths. 

The fundamentalist ideology propagated by evangelists goes against the very foundation of a secular democracy.  Worryingly, the Christian community has not so far denounced the IAS official's opinion or behaviour at all.  Therefore, the only secular alternative that we would be left with - if this continues unabated or spreads to other parts of the country - might just be banning advertising and propagation of all religions.  

In this context, there are three monumental works that clearly elucidate the issues at play, the reasons behind them, and possible solutions.  These are:

• Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dalit Faultlines by Rajiv Malhotra & Aravindan Neelakandan  
• Harvesting our Souls: Missionaries, Their Design, Their Claims by Arun Shourie
• Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan

Breaking India speaks about the funding sources of certain vested interests who are bent upon bifurcating the country.  Harvesting our Souls is a no-holds-barred attack on the lies, manipulations and ulterior motives behind all conversion activities undertaken by missionaries.  It also cleverly quotes from the Bible itself to highlight fundamental and intolerant ideas at play.  Zealot, on the other hand, tells the charming and touching story of the historical Jesus, which has been twisted, glorified and appropriated to suit the evangelical requirements of the early church.

To date, there hasn't been a convincing response to the above works from the defenders of evangelism.  All three, are highly recommended if you are interested in knowing the truth and preserving the secularism and unity of the country.


Image source: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rJxSg4dejsM/0.jpg

The Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti issue

So yet another minister has put her foot in the mouth.

It is a meaningless comment to begin with.  Even though her rhyming skills are good - Ramzada and haramzada - the very concept of haramzada is flawed within Sanatana Dharma.

Following another faith is certainly not haram for a religion which espouses the concept of Vasudhaiva kutumbakam.  The philosophers and seers of Sanatana Dharma have all propounded that all faiths are but different roads to the same destination - the One God.  

It is grating and worrying to note that a person who is addressed as a Sadhvi should be so blatant about expressing her radical thought, as well as exposing her judgmental attitude towards followers of other faiths.  

This, and a few other insensitive remarks by other ministers, have given an ideal opportunity for the pseudo-secularists, Congresswalas and the leftists to pounce upon the government.

It is rich that Congress should be accusing the Prime Minister of 'culpable silence'.  Where does that leave Manmohan Singh then?

To reiterate, everybody is welcome to live in Bharatvarsh, everybody is welcome to partake of its riches, everybody is free to follow their own religious and cultural beliefs; as long as they do not indulge in criminal, anti-state, fundamentalist, or faith conversion-related activities.

I disown the Sadhvi's statement.


Image source: http://iloksabha.in/img/gallery/full-image/uttar-pradesh/niranjan-jyoti.png

Book conversations: Aavarana

S L Bhyrappa's reputation as one of the luminaries of Kannada literature was enough enticement for me to pick this one up.  And I wasn't disappointed.

Combining facts, research, history, religion and drama, Bhyrappa weaves a complex story of a husband and wife coming to terms with the differences between them.

The title, Aavarana, which means 'to conceal', pertains not only to the main protagonist's travails as a censored wife and writer, but also to the uncomfortable historical truth that is often curtailed by pseudo-secularists and vote-bank politicians.

At one level this is also a woman's tale of a search for identity and self-fulfilment, in an environment of fundamentalism and intolerance.  At the same time, Bhyrappa manages to include a crash course in history of Hindu-Muslim interactions, going back to the period when temples all across India were desecrated and vandalised by bigoted rulers.

The story starts in Hampi, where amongst the ruins, the husband and wife team of historical journalists ponder upon the glory and the subsequent devastation that befell Hampi.  The husband, a Muslim, tends to attribute the reason to bickering local kings of differing sects within Hinduism - a view that is shared by an intrepid professor and founder of a neo-liberal movement that proposes that all notions of fundamentalist actions of Muslim kings of yore are a figment of the right wing's imagination.

Our heroine, Lakshmi, is not so sure about this.  Although she is part of the same movement, she has her own doubts, which are fully confirmed when she stumbles upon her deceased father's collection of literature.  After being estranged from his daughter as she had married a Muslim man, he would have engaged himself in a deep study of local history; in particular that pertaining to the oppression and tyranny of Muslim rule in India - so much so that his accumulated knowledge and evidence puts even scholars to shame.

Lakshmi then starts her own reading of her father's evidence and finds horrifying details confirming his and her own suspicions.  In particular, she is drawn to the destruction of the Kashi Vishwanatha Temple at Varanasi by Aurangzeb and even visits the site to find that a large mosque has been built in the place of the original temple, using the same stones that were once part of the temple.

As more and more evidence is unearthed, she becomes more and more convinced about her father's conclusions and even confronts the liberal professor in one the conferences organised by him to drive home the point that fundamentalism was not the cause for temple destruction.

Lakshmi also puts these ideas across in the form of a novel, the story of which runs parallel to the main story.  Not only that, it has parallels with her own story - the way she was made to convert to Islam after marriage, change her name, wear burkha, asked to stop working by her in-laws, and finally when she realised that her husband was not so liberal minded after all.  The Hindu prince in her story, who is captured by the invading Muslim army, is sold as a slave, raped, castrated, made to serve as a eunuch in the zenana.  He finally discovers that his wife has been made a prostitute in another zenana.

Inevitably, Lakshmi drifts apart from her husband and son, who are naturally unable to accept her theory of fundamentalism.  She also faces arrest for publishing a blasphemous book that would flare up communal tensions.

There are many font types throughout the book, which change each time Lakshmi goes into the flashback mode, or when her fictional story is narrated.  Translating from any regional language is a challenge, and Balakrishna has risen well to it.  He manages to convey the angst and the complexity of the original story in Kannada very well.

The book ends with an exhaustive list of evidence, ostensibly collected by her father, but in actuality that which the author himself would have perused before writing this book.  One has to marvel at the depth and extent of research that Bhyrappa has undertaken to get the historical facts accurate - even though this has been contested by his critics.

With a story that may be construed as 'blasphemous' by some, one wonders as to how the author, unlike his protagonist Lakshmi, managed to escape from a communal backlash at the time the original Kannada version was published.  But one has to admire Bhyrappa for the guts and gumption shown by him in telling the truth as it is and not cowering in the face of 'political correctness'.

Now is there any equally gutsy producer who can take up the challenge and come up with a film adaptation of Aavarana?  Given the extent of pseudosecularism, I won't be holding my breath.

Image source: http://www.rupapublications.co.in/sites/default/files/styles/img_style_202x266/public/books/Aavarana.jpg

The RGV tweet issue

Okay, somebody has kicked the hornet's nest with his tweets.  Actually I have admired RGV for his different style of film making in the past.  He is also a director who has not hesitated to give newcomers (who are not star-kids) a break, which is highly admirable.

He may be an atheist, that's fine.  As Amartya Sen puts it in his Argumentative Indian, there should be and there is a place for people of all faiths in a pluralistic society such as ours.  Yes, there is also the need to preserve the freedom of speech, even if it happens to be a provocative one.

RGV tweets that Ganesh was unable to save his own head.  Does he then believe that the story actually is true?  Or is he just confused?  A person's faith, Mr RGV, is as much important to him, as your atheism is to yourself.  If you do want to exercise your freedom of expression, then why not also condemn whipping yourself in public as a moronic act?  Or why not laugh in the faces of people who tell their children that a fat old man in a funny red costume is going to slide down the chimney to leave them presents?

Actually he has spoken like a true 'converter': people belonging to that cult who would denounce 'idolatry' as though it is a crime that is punishable.  Can these people say why they denounce it, or provide any proof to say it is wrong?

If killing innocent animals to fill one's stomachs as part of a religious feast is acceptable in one's faith - if distributing publicity material extolling the virtues of one's religion and seeking to get people into its fold is acceptable - then so should bringing home Ganesha and Gowri, worshipping them, and sending them off.

I dare rationalists/atheists to be impartial and also include Abrahamic religions in their criticisms; not only Hinduism.    

Anyway, I am sure Lord Ganesh Himself would have laughed it off and forgiven RGV.  

We morons already have.

Image source: https://twitter.com/jagdishpeswani/status/505346497529913346/photo/1