Why does Islamism deserve an apology?

Now Mani Ratnam wants to make a film on Muslims portraying them in a ‘positive’ light. He wants to name the film Azan- or the muezzin’s call for prayers. My question is when was the last film we made where we showed Muslims in a ‘non positive or negative’ light. If the villain was a Muslim, then you’d have a balancing character who would be Muslim, good, courageous, and if he isn’t all that big a star, then he would die mid-way in a show of bravery that would make Mahabharata’s Abhimanyu look pale.
Just recently we sat through such pseudo-secular shit in Karan Johar’s ‘Kurbaan’. The kind where Islamism is justified as a rectifying process against the oil greed of the United States.
However does any religion sanction such mindless violence as we saw on 26/11or 7/11? I don’t think so.
But the problem with Muslims can be summed up in a Malayalam saying which goes something like this- religion is like underwear. You wear it, it is comfortable, you show it, it is vulgar.
Now Muslims worldwide and India especially have ventured into an area of style that is commonly a preserve of Superman. They want to wear their underwear right above their pants. And damn anyone who tells him that it is a style that suits people from Krypton best.
Let us go back to the oil argument. Some groups have a problem with US presence in the gulf, especially in the cradle of Islam- Saudi Arabia.
But when the Americans landed there several decades ago, it was to help the Arabs get a better life from the black gold that flowed beneath the vast arid sand. The US did a good job with it and Arabs managed to create entire kingdoms where standards of living- financially mind you not socially- matched the best of the west. The US also profited but that is expected in a fair transaction. Would you pay more for your grocery if you realised the shop-keeper needed fast cash to get his daughter married? In business what it is worth is what you give.
Now Afghanistan. Well the US went there but only after the Mujahids took up arms against the Godless Russians and only when the US was assured the Mujahids would be with them to fight the demon of communism. Come to think of it what the Godless Russians were trying to do in Afghanistan might have been the best thing for them, eradicating a public God from a land where every breath, smile, tear, woman, man, camel and goat belonged to the will of God.
The US soldiers are still there fighting the same Mujahids who they once armed. Of course the demon of communism has been replaced by the ‘Satanic’ Godliness of America.
The vast majority of US military presence is after 9/11. What was that all about? Why America? For what it was doing in Iraq and to Muslims worldwide? Iraq asked for it after it took over Kuwait. An oil cartel led by a crazed Saddam would have seen you using you car just once a year at best. That needed to be downed and the US did it.
I’m sure the US President who will call back all US troops from the various Muslim theatres of war- and still ensure there would be no 9/11 ever again on US soil- would beat the hell out of the opposition in any election.
But the problem is no US president would be ever able to guarantee it. Because Islamism is no longer about right or wrong, it is about the madness of a group of demented souls who think medieval Arabia was the only place and system God created prefect. Democracy, secularism, progress, dynamism, human rights and equality as fruits of a constant churning of human minds in the pursuit of something better is alien to these Islamists. It is not the essence of Islamic teachings that they care about but the very word that they are written in. That kind of dementia has no place in this world.

We Indians I think started off their journey in 1947 thinking we will build a nation where religion and caste would gradually melt away and a huge mass of people who believed in common good would come up. A nation where God was a private being within the confines of your heart and where law and the Constitution became our religion. Where man was free to choose no God if he so wanted and where a woman was as equal to any man in whatever work that she chose to do.

Ideals very tough to follow for sure but what the heck we could still try for it. In that scenario a group of people who think as Muslims, who want to eat like Muslims and dress like Muslims should have no place in this system. I think the only way forward for India is to start a movement that would destroy religion- Hinduism, Islam or any other- so thoroughly that not a soul would ever be able to tell the difference between a man who goes by the name Jatashankar Pandey or Mohammad Shahabuddin.

Religion needs to be confined to the dustbin ASAP. And in that process, chicken-hearted pacifists and apologists have absolutely no place either.

Saffron, white and green, never say never again

The stage is set for an old drama to be played out again in the electoral theatre of Uttar Pradesh.
Friends have become foes, foes have become friends, and the inter-linked destinies of two ragged armies could put paid to the fortunes of two new lords.
One of the biggest icons of the Hindutva brigade, Kalyan Singh, walks around without a destination. His ports of call have all been sunk by the inclement weather of politics.
Maulana Mulayam, Kalyan’s greatest rival during the heady days of the Babri Masjid demolition, has finally called it quits on their ‘who could ever think of it’ friendship. Kalyan now does not know what to do. He has made the right noises about how he was always an RSS man and how Hindutva runs in his blood. But the BJP, several times bitten never shy, is reluctant to have Kalyan hop into their bed again.
However it might not be left with a lot of choice since Kalyan still has his caste card perfectly arrayed on his table.One time Hindutva cronies like Vinay Katiyar, sidelined by the party because of the like of Katiyar proving incapable of spouting anything sensible when the times demand it, are looking at Kalyan to bring back the saffron hue in a party gone pale by successive electoral defeats.
Mulayam, seething at young Rahul Gandhi taking away Fiozabad from right under his family’s nose, now wants to go back to the times when his almost bordering on anti-national Muslim appeasement earned him the sobriquet Maulana Mulayam. The first thing he wants to do is build back the Babri Masjid so that the ‘pain’ the Muslims felt when it was brought down can be lessened.
Mayawati meanwhile is proving to be a quick learner. A setback in the Lok Sabha elections meant she quickly re-arrange her caste cards and the feisty lady did just that and left Mulayam with a bloody nose.
Rahul baba and his media-heavy visits to Uttar Pradesh, especially Dalit houses - Mayawati's fiefdom, had made the UP race a two horse one.
Now with the Liberhans Report on the Babri Masjid demolition being leaked to the media, and Advani, Vajpayee and Murli Manohar Joshi, being accused of being key conspirators, the wheel has come full circle for the BJP.
It is a firm but very welcome step backwards for the saffron party, one when religion played a big part in our politics, one when Mulayam whipped up Hindutva by going crazily pro-Muslim and one when both Mulayam and BJP were the two lords of the Uttar Pradesh electoral game.
Rahul and Mayawati might have been running a two-horse race for the past few years in India's most populous state, but it suddenly seems the turf has changed and two old horses have once again got a fresh lease of life. As James Bond might have put it with a twist, in politics never say never again.

Why is Changez Khan not a prophet?

Amidst all the sound pollution over the Chattrapati Shivaji statue in the Arabian Sea, I got to know that the people and politicians of Mongolia have managed to upstage us in Maharashtra. They have taken the lead by erecting a massive statue of their homegrown legend Changez Khan or Genghis Khan as the English tongue pronounced it in their capital.To quote Wikipedia, the Genghis Khan Statue complex is located 54 km from Ulan Bator, Mongolia, on the bank of the Tuul River, in a place called Tsonjin Boldog, where the magnificent Khan had found a golden whip according to a Mongol legend. A 40 meter high statue on horseback was erected on a 10 meter high base, covered by stainless steel and surrounded by 36 columns. Those 36 columns are meant to represent the memory of 36 kings’ who descended from Khan.Mongolia of course now has the Khan on its currency notes, parks, restaurants, dishes, hotels, lobbies, offices, just about everywhere. Reminds you of Maharashtra, right?Two airports about a kilometre away from each other both named Shivaji International Airport?However my question has nothing to do with whether this statue mania in Maharashtra or Mongolia is good or bad.I just have one question to ask- Why is Changez/ Genghis Khan not a prophet? The answer is not easy nor palatable I suppose, or someone would have come forward to answer it.

Koda saheb, come on fight sir

So very happy to see a front page article in the Times of India on Monday in which Madhu Koda has declared that in good time ‘kissi ko chhoddunga nahi’. My heart went aflutter again after the DNA carried a picture of Koda saheb campaigning and all smiles.
Thank God Koda sir is back. I had started doubting my country and its ability to not recognise a genius when it sees one.
In a nation where the brute majority of people are like me –average looking, lower than average brained and higher than average jealous- it would be a shame to send Koda saheb to jail for his crimes.
It is just that some geniuses cannot except the rules framed by some other geniuses just to keep in check people like me or you. Do you ever see anyone call out to a lion when night falls so that he can tied to his post in the cowshed. No. Those rules are for cows and calves, not for lions of course.
Similarly how can we expect someone as exalted as Koda saheb to follow simple rules of ethics, morals and taxation and submit his genius to such things meant for commoners?
Now just imagine how vile it is to go after a man who has given the power of attorney of crores worth of his wife’s property to a constable who says I have no clue about it (Mumbai Mirror front page Tuesday). Does anyone care to know that this man- the politico- came into this city as a hawker and built a fortune encompassing several crores here in this city? Why should he allow your morals to dim what he is capable off? Why should anyone have a problem if he has two PAN cards?
I think we Indians must let go of our inherent streak of jealousy and allow such geniuses to flourish.
The only silver lining is that a vast majority of Indians have already begun realizing this line of thought. Look at the number of such geniuses in our Parliament and state assemblies.
I’m sure the people of Jharkhand will once again reiterate this awakening by giving Koda saheb enough votes and seats for him to become chief minister another time. At least my vote is firmly for Koda saheb.

what happened on 26/11? no clue man

The first anniversary of the terror raid of 26/11 is upon us. Some designers have gone ahead and come up with designer bags with motifs of a burning Taj and Oberoi for people to ‘remember’ the horrific event. Our police commissioner was the chief guest at the event. A passing footnote is that some part of the proceeds from the sale of these devilishly over-priced bags will be given to the police fund.
A former IPS officer has written lyrics for a song to be sung by a public relations man. Several dignitaries are expected to grace this occasion.
There are painting exhibitions to ‘commemorate’ the event on a daily basis at some or the other gallery in the city. For details please check Bombay Times.
A private advertising company and the police are making an anthem for the city and Amitabh Bachchan will most probably recite it in his baritone.
A private radio channel will get the stars of a up for release terror movie – Kurbaan- in their studios to talk about the film as part of their retelling of the 26/11 raid.
I don’t how many more are going to latch on to one of the most shameful episodes in Indian history since the Chinese whipped are bottoms in the cold dreariness of the Himalayas.
But a year later is there anything that we are doing different to stop the next Qasab? I guess not. A nation which has no capacity for retributive violence has no right to have memories. So let us forget 26/11 and celebrate it as if exactly a year ago, absolutely nothing happened except that the Churchgate-Virar might have been late by a few minutes or the BEST driver took a rash turn on some city crossroad.

To sing or not to sing when the nation is croaking

Fantastic, now Syed Shah Geelani of the separatist Jammu Kashmir Hurriyat Conference wants all Kashmiris to stop singing Jana Gana Mana and also boycott functions where the anthem is played.
This was bound to happen. When half of India is deciding whether we should sing Vande Mataram or not, someone was bound to get a little more adventurous and demand that his kin and clan not sing the national anthem.
However I see nothing wrong with it. It reminds me of an incident that happened in my native Jamshedpur almost two decades back. While we kids couldn’t understand what much of the fuss was all about, the Malayali community there was gripped by the debate and at most of the times found themselves arrayed against the other communities in the Steel City.

The immediate provocation was that one of Jamshedpur’s most loved doctors, especially among the Malayalis there, suddenly decided that sending his three school going children to school on Republic Day or Independence Day would fall a bit foul of his religion.

The school, which made it a strict practice that no student could miss the two red-letter days, promptly started the procedure to expel the three students.
If you are surmising that this gentleman was a Muslim, think again. He was a Jehovah’s Witness, a little known but staunch group of people, predominantly Malayalis.
Now the tenets of their religion forbid the break-up of humanity into religions, countries, anthems, flags and so on a so forth. It is a community that puts a lot of emphasis on education and the power of God to set things right. And despite this gentleman being a fabulous doctor himself, he respected the wishes of his family members when they refused to take any medical help for even serious ailments. Visiting a doctor is a sin according to staunch Jehovah’s Witnesses and the logic is that if an ailment is the handiwork of God, then we have no business going to a earthly mortal for relief.
This doctor, a wonderful human being who was respected by all and sundry in Telco township where I grew up, soon found himself in the eye of a storm in a place dominated by Biharis who thought singing the national anthem was one of the fundamental pillars of showing your patriotism. The fact that dowry deaths, female infanticide, illiteracy and discrimination between girls and boys were rampant among them made no difference to them.
However a judgment by the Supreme Court around that time in the famous Biju Emmanuel versus Union of India case- wherein the apex court said not singing the national anthem or not being present for such functions is no crime- came to the help of the doctor. A few weeks later the dust settled down and everything was back to normal, the doctor’s reputation and respect among his legion of patients intact. The doctor continued dispensing his medicines with a smile and some jokes that lost much of their colour when translated from Malayalam to Hindi.
The point here is that singing or not singing the national anthem does not make us lesser Indians or unpatriotic ones.
If some people believe the national anthem isn’t robust enough or that it was actually written by Tagore for a British king, then those are viewpoints we should respect and move on.
Just think about it. We have hundreds of politicians who swear by the Indian Constitution and then create Swiss bank accounts running into billions of dollars even from impoverished lands like Jharkhand.
We have thousands of lawyers who swear to uphold the law of the land and then behave like minions of gangsters and frauds.
We have lakhs of doctors who take the Hippocratic Oath and then cut out a kidney when the poor chap isn’t looking.
We have hundreds of witnesses in court who swear on the holy books to speak the truth and then speaking anything but that.
So what difference does it make whether someone wants to sing the national anthem or not.
Most of us are horrible Indians anyway, singing or not singing a song for just under a minute will not make much of a difference. Or if you don’t want to sing it, standing for it wouldn’t hurt either.

Welcome again Lord Clive

When the British landed in India as traders, no one gave them a chance in hell that they would achieve their goal of ruling this vast land. India was an amazing labyrinth of castes, creeds, colour, religion, illiteracy, ritualism, occult, a bit of learning and a lot of bluff.
The learned men said the British would just not be able to play the game well enough to keep a sizeable number of people with them. After all the British, a tiny shipload, could not have fallen back on what is commonly called the strength of numbers.
Amazingly enough one astute Lord Clive, a robber and ruffian more than an officer, for whom India was a punishment posting managed to do it.
Yes India always was a punishment posting and if you are not convinced please rent a DVD of the Mel Gibson starrer ‘Patriots’ and see for yourself where the British Viceroy is sent after Gibson’s ragtag US Army defeats the pompous redcoat.
Sometimes in a land of vast differences remaining focused on the goal is the only way to success, all affiliations and biases be damned.
I’m coming to this because for every Indian who says the days of one-party rule in India are over, and coalitions are the only way out, there is some egg waiting to hit their faces in probably under a decade’s time.
The Congress will steamroll every party in sight in the next few years to emerge as the sole ruler of this vast land, like the times of Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Their Lord Clive of course would be Rahul Gandhi.
My conviction stems from the fact that it is the only party that has mastered the art like the British of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds.
Look at how its government has been slowly using the Naxal movement to first wipe out the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram which gave strength to the BJP in the tribal pockets of India, and then used the red rascals to demolish the Left in West Bengal. The fact that a Red Rascal could tomorrow become Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and do to the present Congress leadership what his Sikh band did to Indira Gandhi is no worry to the Congress. That is called focus.
In Maharashtra, it allowed the MNS to tear into the Shiv Sena. Never mind if the MNS comes to the table with the kind of venom that could poison an ocean.
Never mind that migration is an accepted fact and more and more north Indians will come into the state.
Never mind the fact that when these north Indian bands get organised into stronger political groups, they would also come out to fight the MNS and other sons of the soil brick for brick, knife for knife, turning Maharashtra into some of the villages of Assam where Bodos, Asoms, Bangladeshis, Islamists and Biharis carry out bloodbaths like civic corporation anti-malarial fumigation.

Because the Congress knows that as long as the Sena is in a process of going downhill and the MNS’ fortunes are on the rise, the Congress will never lose a general election in this state. And that could be a minimum of 25 years.
To break whatever little stranglehold the BJP may be having on the Hindu votes- very negligible- the Congress is allowing largescale secession of castes and sub-castes and tribes from the mother religion.
Look at how it allowed missionary activity in Orissa, Jharkhand and the north-east to build up its own base there. In Assam to counter the Asom students’ movement, it allowed the entry of lakhs of Bangldeshi Muslims, enough to change the demographics of some of the areas there. Which is the biggest party in the north-east?
It is playing the same games to divide the Sikhs in Punjab and Hrayana? Who won the recent elections in Haryana?
The BJP does not know whether to be a right of centre progressive party or a left of reason Hindu party.
The Communists do not know why they are opposing the naxals when the naxals are just doing with force what the bhadralok leadership in Bengal have been doing with talks?
The Samajwadi party does not know why Maulana Mulayam’s charm is not working anymore?
The Shiv Sena any which way you looked at it was always a party made by a man who went from drawing cartoons to becoming a cartoon.
The MNS is too thin on logic and the problem with goonda parties is that they prosper only till the victim is a lamb. Remember how the Samajwadi Party lost its teeth, brains and limbs when its goondagardi was matched man to man by behen Mayawati? To day the SP cannot get a hundred people if it wants to organise a rasta roko fearing how devilishly Mayawati’s administration will come after them.
The Nationalist Congress Party is just an apology of a party which runs on the whims and fancies of Sharad Pawar and the promise that there is lot of money to be made from Maharashtra, so staying together means the loot can be theirs and staying away from Congress means they do not have to share the loot.
The Karunanidhi led DMK will soon lose out because the old man’s love for his large brood means sooner or later the mercurial people of Tamil Nadu will bring the party to its knees. Plus none of the old man’s brood has his charisma.
Jayalalitha is too arrogant to be a national player.
That leaves Mayawati and it would take at least another quarter of a century for the party to gobble up the votes being shed by the BJP and the other mainstream parties. Which leaves us with just one party and its Lord Clive. Enjoy

The end of Hinduism

‘Tum Hindu hoke beef khata hai’ I have often been asked by my very proud upper caste Hindu friends while in Bihar.
I used to tell them that I eat it because I really like the taste, especially if it is made in the Malayali style. There is this small shanty mess- Chandrans- in the slums close to the international airport where it is made quite superbly. Another one is Nityanand restaurant in the market close to PWD colony in Andheri. I’m sure there are several other Malayali joints where they make good beef but not being a culinary expert of any standard I’m unaware of them.
The problem is Hinduism is now restricted to nonsense like this. Growing up in Bihar, the Tulsidas Ramcharitamanas style of Hinduism is all around you, especially if you live in a place like I did dominated by upper caste Hindus- the Singhs, Tiwaris, Mishras, Jhas and the Kayasthas. To put it lightly it is nauseating.
The brand of Hinduism these people sported mainly included reading the Hanuman Chalisa, with which I do not have any problem with, and then not having alcohol or meat or certain types of foodstuff on certain days.
Oh today is Saturday, oh today is Tuesday, today is this fast, tomorrow is that fast.
And followers of this brand of Hinduism always start off their religious boasts by saying ‘hum logo mein’ which is an indirect reference to the elevated positions of their castes in the Hindu social hierarchy.
In a place where tribals were a dime a dozen, this ‘hum logo mein’ always brought about a sad pained expression on the face of these tribals, most of them just the first generation into the mainstream. Most of them from houses where the father/grandfather probably cleaned the gutter lines and sewage pits till subsidized education gave them wings to dream dreams for their children.
The problem is for a lot of us Hindus, it is all this nonsense that makes us feel Hindus.
The rapid way the religion is shrinking in this nation, I’m surprised Hindus are busy abstaining from beef and good food on certain days rather than making full use of the time left. We are all probably the last or maybe the second last generation who will follow this religion, as we know it now. The Ramcharitamanas style Hinduism, where Ramchandra is the Raghuvanshi upper caste king and Raavan at most a crazed Dravidian king who you can substitute for a demon if you care. All the others of course remain monkeys.
The Jains have walked out, the Sikhs have walked out, and one of the biggest mass movements slowly going on without many realizing is the preparation for the Dalits to walk out.
In Tamil Nadu the movement has become a wildfire. The state is seeing Dalits embrace Christianity by the truckloads. Have you ever noticed posters across the length and breadth of Mumbai of Prayer Festivals and Jesus Calls with reverend this Kumar or Brother that Kumar holding fort. The vast vast majority who attend these festivals are one time Hindus who disgusted and pained by the upper caste Hindus not allowing them to enter temples decided to make their way to the nearest church.
In a very moneyed Muslim organisation centered in Dongri and which follows the hardline Wahabbi sect, I have seen scholars and students in long beards sit for hours with books in a well stacked library trying to drive the final cut in the heart of the Hinduism most of my friends follow. These books are all by Dalit authors, painstakingly detailed about the insults Hinduism heaped on them, and how moving away from the shackles of upper caste dominated Hinduism is the only way. A lot many of the books they read are by Babasaheb Ambedkar.
In Tamil Nadu the police recently had to open fire at an upper caste crowd after they disallowed Dalits from entering a 100-year old temple. Something like this happened in the early 80s in Tamil Nadu’s Meenakshipuram district. The Dalits converted to Islam and made life hell for the Hindus left in that village.
As India progresses and the opportunities of getting rich become better but more concentrated, caste aspirations will once again raise their heads. All it would take is a charismatic leader to lead away a large section of a certain caste to break away and then barter its voting power for reservations in jobs and education.
And we all know that when it comes to riches, social standing can go to hell. Just look at how some groups in Rajasthan- till a generation ago proud and fierce warriors who passed themselves off as Rajputs- are today demanding Scheduled Tribe status so that their children get a easier way to that pot of gold collectively belonging to all of India.
Ambedkar did it with Dalits and Buddhism but the great visionary was left helpless at a time when the means of communication was obsolete. With the bigger but definitely not better media today, a man like Ambedkar could run through all our notions of Hinduism like a hot knife through butter.
It happened once. It could happen in a larger scale. And that would be the end for Hindus. If you look around and see the obnoxious charade of cultural arrogance and selfishness that passes off as Hinduism and of course the sheer stupidity all Hindus possess, some might say the end of Hinduism might be good riddance to bad rubbish.

beware customized history

So finally a handful of Muslim longbeards, the thinking class for the community, have decided that singing Vande Mataram is haraam. Which legally is no problem at all. As long as Muslims don’t jump, laugh or sing any other song when the song is being sung, it is fine.
That is something the Supreme Court has already stated in the Biju Emmanuel versus Union of India case. As long as you stand in silence- and respect- for the national anthem- which also extends to the national song in this case- you are doing just fine.
The problem begins when this kind of history-changing militancy takes more serious and problematic turns.
What if the Muslims of Maharashtra say they will not read Shivaji in their history books? What if the secular Congress government allows them to read ‘Tribal Justice and Navigation of Camel Caravans in the Arab Peninsula during the Medieval Ages’ instead of reading Shivaji?
What if tomorrow the Sikhs say that modern history from the period of the ascension of goongi gudiya Indira Gandhi to her death in 1984 be deleted from history books in all gurudwara schools in Punjab?
What if Mayawati and her BSP bunch ask for the deletion of Gandhiji and his works among the Dalits- at the time called Harijans- from history books prescribed for the downtrodden? To be replaced by the ‘Ideals of Kanshi Ram and Behen Mayawati’.
What if Karunanidhi says no Ramayan will be taught in Tamil Nadu and it be replaced by ‘The Dravidian Adventures of Kalaignar, Kanimozhi, Stalin, Azhagiri and the Marans’? I hope I have not left out any of the bespectacled Tamil patriarch’s brood?
Being born Hindu already bestows on the vast majority of Indians a stupidity we just cannot shake off. Hindus can go and feed a cow after buying the grass from the owner of the cow itself and think that it is going to do massive good to them. There is another bald fellow on India TV who wears velvet maxis and comes up with shit like ‘look towards the west and feed three pieces of puffed rice to a black cow to bring about peace between you and your estranged wife/mistress/neighbour/bai’ etc etc. Hindus lap it up and the ratings of these programmes go through the roof enough to make Aaj Tak, Star TV and Zee TV follow them with inane amounts of idiocy masquerading as Hindu occult.

If we allow our history to be customized by longbeards, saffron robes, cross-bearers, priests, nuns, jokers, clowns, secularists and pseudo-secularists, then we will grow up into a generation so idiotic that we would actually go to our grave thinking popstar Madonna invented Ashtang Yoga and we scratch our balls in tribute to Michael Jackson’s crotch grabbing act or that kids stammer as a mark of respect to Shah Rukh Khan’s k-k-k-k-kkkirran.
Because any other history in our schools would just be too hot to touch even with a barge pole.