Dwarves flinging dung

This is a particularly distasteful post on Netaji;
Traitorji Subhash Chandra Bose, the premise of the post is that since Netaji supported the axis power, he betrayed country. Although it is fashionable nowadays to disparage the famous, this diatribe lacks any sense.
First a little perspective, during second world war there were broadly (and when I say this, I really do mean it) two camps, one which adhered enemy-of-enemy-is- my-friend school of real politics and favored aligning with Nazis and Fascists, Netaji belonged to this, so did a lots of educated Indians. There was another school which supported allied war efforts for many reasons, Guru Aurobindo belonged to this, he saw Nazism for the monster it was and decided that even at its worst English imperialism was better than German Reich. There was promise of independence, but considering the English habit to break promises, it wasn’ worth anything.
Here I don’t have anything to say about Congress or Communists. Congress at usual was at its bungling best, but I will admit that they had a reason for being distrustful of English. It is hard to believe that English will grant independence when someone as imperialist and racist as Winston Churchill was at helms.
Communists were, not for the first time and not for the last time either, doing bidding for their fatherland, i.e. USSR.
Here a thing about Nazism and fascism. System wise fascism was not that different from communism. Today we may find it hard to believe, and yet it is true that early part of 20th century lots of people most of them intellectuals believed in totalitarian state as a valid form of governance. Communists believed in it, so did nationalists, even socialists were not above state control. Nazism was another fish of course, it did espouse totalitarian state, but what made much more virulent was idea of master race.
I know we in present times consider it a ridiculous idea (which it is), but in those times intellectuals believed in eugenics. The idea that Europeans have superior genes to “savages” was principle of this “pseudo-science”. Nietzsche, as all 19th century philosophers misappropriated Indian symbols to propound an “Aryan Race”, Hitler in turn like other cunning demagogues perverted further for his invidious ideology. The point of this is to show that for whatever reasons leaders and elites in west did not realize the horror of this monster.
What is more the horror of holocaust was not realized until end of war (This is not completely true, west knew of atrocities against Jews before war, but decided to look other way, when the war commenced, the Jews who survived the horror told the story, but disinformation are not uncommon in war, so there was no agreement on how much credibility to put at this)

No wonder than Netaji decided that alliance with Hitler was “useful”for purpose of Indian independence.

My views on this, I respect and admire Netaji for his selfless love for India. However I do not agree with his ideology, just as I do not agree with ideology of Veer Savarkar or Bhagat Singh. I admire Guru Aurobindo for his clear belief that Nazi Germany posed a greater threat to world than Imperial English. Only a true patriot and courageous man could do that.

As an aside I was going to comment on Desipundit on this, but desisted from this.
(I have tendency to lose my marbles). But this comment left a bitter taste in my mouth. As disgusting as the post was, it was not “Anti-Bengali” in my view,
First I like to think Netaji is an icon for India not just Bengal, I hope my coming generations are inspired from his sacrifice.
Second I am aghast at such tendencies of few misguided Bengalis to take every issue as an offense against Bengal. I think this is just an indicator of the sorry present state of what was once a fertile ground for intellectual giants.
Last I amused comparing Sourav Ganguly to Netaji. As much as I admire Dada square cuts, I consider a sign of idiocy to compare Netaji to him, even as “Bengali Icons”.

Mark

Kilroy was not here.....

What ?

Mr Mittal takes over Arcelor

This was supposed to be a second part of this post.

Now Mittal bid to takeover Arcelor has raised a furor in Europe and there is a resulting reaction from India also.

First the reason for Europeans reaction, Mr Mittal has a reputation for turning around sick steel mills by restructuring and cost cutting, now the Europeans have since the turn of the last decade or probably even before taken a turn towards left. All the member states of EU have some form of welfare state. As such any downsizing is anathema; the governments in Europe are against it for the fear of downsizing. It shouldn’t be foreign ownership as “Ispat” owned by Mr Mittal is registered in UK very much a part of EU.

One of the charges against EU is of racism, I agree with it but it is subtle and only of marginal importance. The important issue here is that French and other politicians are afraid of any downsizing, which Mr Mittal might be doing.
In other words business wise Mr Mittal is a different texture than Europeans.
In my opinion Europeans idea of “Economic patriotism” is foolish and God’s way of eliminating the ignoramus.

However I don’t understand how Indian government comes into the picture.
I appreciate Mr Mittal acumen and entrepreneur skill. But the fact remains that he is a British citizen and as such it should be their responsibility. Moreover, I do not see any tangible or even intangible benefit to Indian government from this.

The only beneficiaries are stockholders of Ispat and Arcelor, while I do not grudge them their profit, I do not see why Indian government should sweat for him. Just because Mr Mittal was born in India, it doesn’t amount to anything.

He started business for sake of self interest (a fact I approve of) and so far in his business transactions he has pursued his interest only and not India’s interest. Certainly India doesn't owe anything to him.Why should Indian state work overtime for him?

Phobias and Debates

It is difficult to argue, I say it seriously. Many times I find myself unable to rebut something someone because either I am wrong or I am dumb, and no way for me to tell which. However I have found out a way to trump over all the arguments. The way to put down your opponent is to accuse him of being X-phobic, where X can be anything as long as it fulfils following conditions1) It is in minority
2) It occupies the lower rung of society.
3) Historically it has got the short end of the stick.

Now in my case it is a little difficult.
First I belong to upper caste (one of the infamous one in fact).
Second I am from middle class so I occupy the middle rung (If truth be told then at my present salary I may be somewhere around the upper middle class, but I never feel it)
Third I am a Hindi speaker, so it makes me automatically imperialist.

However not everything is lost, I have two (dis) advantages.
First being a south paw I have been the subject of many curious and sometimes uncomplimentary inquiries and stares (I won’t mention the first question I was asked in Hostel). But at any rate I can brand anyone as laevo – phobic to gain swift victory.
Second is my complexion. By virtue of it I can use the weapon of “melanin-phobia”.

Yes it may seem a bit silly, but I stress that stupidity of common man can not be over emphasized. Manipulation always wins over truth in long run.

Gender: On Demand

In no so recent news a man was apprehended in Texas for using ladies washroom, apparently ladies felt uncomfortable sharing shower space with a man. But there was a controversy for the reason that the “person” who was arrested was a “female mind imprisoned in male anatomy”. This brings many complications, it is obvious that it is this regressive society bounded by oppressive social customs, which seeks to pigeonhole human into pre-conceived stereotypes of genders based simply on the basis of biology. This is clearly unjust and contrary to values of freedom which modern society seeks to champion.
For example why a “person” should be forced to be straight jacketed into a life of male purely because of the minor genetic facts like presence of Y chromosomes?
Similarly to expect someone to respond to “female gender” because of the anatomy is in itself a sexist and atavistic idea.
It has been well established by the high gurus of post – Freudian philosophy that gender is decided by the mind; to be precise that portion of mind which is molded by the latest dictates of what is “cool”.
I envision a future where genders are decided by latest fashion and not by biology which considering it’s arbitrary nature is not a way to decide human roles.
The natural step will be common washroom for ladies and gentlemen.
The very segregation of the toilet facilities goes against the equality we so cherish.

Spirituality

A prevalent wisdom which one encounters nowadays is “I do not believe in organized religion”, apparently there is something called “disorganized religion”!
One of the indispensable aspects of life is organization, government, society, civilization all are some form of organization. Organization is useful; organization provides security, safety and comfort. Organization is also the medium through which knowledge can be transferred to next generation; it is also through organization that it is possible to acquire any non trivial knowledge. But organization is also the medium for dominance and power trips. Therefore there is a tradeoff with more benefit than harm.
Therefore religion or philosophy or any equivalent body of non trivial knowledge to exist, organization is inevitable.
I understand people mean that they do not believe in dogma, but dogmatic belief has less to do with religion than with inherent nature of organization.
Organizations have inbuilt dogma or rigidity. The amount changes from structure to structure.

I like to think that Hinduism is less rigid, which means it can be “worked around”, I may be wrong. I also think that “People of the Book” religions will be inherently more rigid, I may again be wrong.

This doesn't mean that one has necessarily to belong to a religion, far from it. The only point is that in order to first reject something, it has to be understood. I am afraid "I do not believe in organized religion" crowd is rejecting religion beforehand, without any effort or comprehension.

I also do not mean that religious dictates have to be accepted 100%, I think every premise has to be judged and then accepted.

There is another wisdom which makes even less sense than the first wisdom, this is “I believe in
spirituality but I don’t believe in God”.

What is spirituality? It is belief in spirit. What is spirit, then? It is popularly described in terms of force or consciousness. What is the nature of this force, this consciousness? Again according to popular wisdom this “spirit” transcends reason, it is supposed to pervade universe and be on some higher level than mere sensory perception. At this point of course it is difficult to tell “Spirit” apart from “God”, but for the fact it is considered cooler to be spiritual and superstitious to be a believer. Essentially the objections against spirituality are same as objection as existence of God.
In my view this is intellectual dishonesty, feebleness or both.

There is yet another wisdom that God can not “exist” because it can not be “observed”. But that is the point, what is observation? What is reality? What is existence? What is the assumption behind all the science and the philosophy? What is matter and what is energy? What is self? God is a concept, just like point or line. Point doesn’t exist, line can not be observed, yet they are valid, as they explain the nature of Geometry. Same way is the belief in God, it explains the nature of existence, it is useful metaphysics, but please don’t expect God in a Petri Dish.

Hinduism and Modern Science

This is my tentative theory; I may be incorrect in the assessment.

Many times the lack of scientific progress in India is blamed on the cultural make up of Indians. The fatalistic indifference towards of misery and poverty is held as a proof of Hindu ethos which are stagnant.
This in my view is unfair assessment of India, it may sound as an apology, but the effect of colonial period is underestimated by us.The colonization is pernicious not only because of loot of material wealth, but because it establishes a class of elites, who think like the (former) masters, who are unable of original though and instead evaluate any idea with the instrument of the erstwhile rulers, emulating anything which is endorsed by the dominant clique regardless of it's merit.

However there is a valid point which is that Europeans were able to rule over other civilizations because of superiority of their science and technology over rest of the world. Africa or Asia there was no match for their scientific advances. And yet India and Europe were at same level of technology and science till late 13th century. If we were to go back further 200 years back then Europe was no match for India as far as science was concerned. So what can explain the reversal of fortunes?

There are two aspects of this, First Islamic conquest of India. Despite the attempt to whitewash that period of time by our secularist historians, the period was a setback to Indian learning. Great institutions like Takshila and Nalanda were destroyed; the intellectual class was ruthlessly wiped out. The second factor was renaissance. The Europe saw a turn around with the resurgence of ancient Greek culture, the evolution of the medieval Europe was so drastic that from a backwater civilization, it became the leader of the world, which it remains to this day (I am counting US as a European civilization of course).

But there is another point of view. Indian civilization was facing a crisis, and in the words of John F Kennedy crisis means danger as well as opportunity.This meeting with Islamic and later European civilizations could provide an opportunity for a Hindu renaissance. This is not just a conjecture Europe rediscovered its Greek roots only after crusades and its familiarity with Islamic empire, indeed it would not be exaggeration to assert that Europe owes its current status to that period of conflict. This did not happen with India.

One of the reasons was political disunity of India. And yet, I think there may be a deeper reason behind this of which the political disunity might have been a most visible factor. Since the ascendance of Buddhism (or may be even before that, I have read that Buddhism derived from earlier schools) the Indian philosophy took a turn away from temporal matter.

Indian thinkers placed less emphasis on the material progress than on spiritual progress. The concept of Maya meant that Indian school of thought shunned "this world" (by which I mean the world which is manifest, which can observed, and which can be deduced by observation).

Here I confess my understanding of Maya is hazy, but approximately Maya to me translates into a phenomenon which is not the absolute truth, any statement which, to be meaningful or consistent, is dependant on a higher level of abstraction, and lastly any account which is subjective. Now I think it is clear that temporal world is not a self contained phenomenon, hence it is Maya. I do not think that at philosophical level this posits a problem, however for scientific progress it is a recipe for disaster, the reason being science demands engagement with the real world, a world which can be observed, property which can be deduced and to analyze logic which may not absolute. Even language which is required for everyday transaction is not a perfect medium, its symbols approximation to various degrees. This means that a scientific mind must deal with a world which is imperfect.

But Maya came to be understood as untruth and unreal, whereas in my opinion its correct translation should be partial truth and incomplete reality . In other words Maya became Mithya, such interpretation meant that any engagement with facts of lower order (that related to human perception and which are manifest) became incompatible with Indian philosophy.

This meant that India could not go far on rationalism and did not progress on empirical science.
On the contrary Europe which was descendant of Greek philosophy, which accepted dualism that is validity of both mind and the matter, this meant that there was inherent compatibility with development of modern science.

Does this mean that Indian philosophy is inherently incompatible with modern science? I do not think so. Again going back to what is written in Gita and Vedanta, the instruction is for engagement with real world. In fact, the call to follow Dharma relates very much to this world. The way to acquire knowledge (Jnana) or devotion (bhakti) is routed through the manifest world.
This is why so much emphasis was placed on the Karma. This is also the reason Indian religion do not prohibit worship of symbols, as symbols provided the real world form to behold Brahman. This was also the reason for proscribing four stages of life. The Karma Yoga is possible only by pursuing the material world.
The path to true wisdom goes very much from the reality, however incomplete it is and this is what should be followed.

Hinduism evolved because it is very much connected to this world. It was accepted because it demonstrated relevance to material life. In order to resurge it has to shun obscurity. Our spirituality has to be harmonized by science if Hinduism has to have future relevance.

This is why I have in so many previous post insisted that Hindus need to develop a scientific outlook if Hinduism has to progress.

The model of Europe is erroneous because European religion is incompatible with European science, such civilization no matter now great its achievement remains in eternal dilemma.


Here I will stress

1) I am not an expert on Hinduism much less on subject of Maya and Vedanta, my post is more or less a result of imperfect knowledge and speculation.
2) In that same way I am not an expert on Greek culture and renaissance, again it is speculation.
3) Ancient India made many technological advances in medicine, astronomy, metallurgy and ship building.
4) Modern science requires institutions, for that Hinduism may have to come up with something Nalanda and Takshila again. It can be called Vedic Maha Vidyalaya
5) Modern science requires temperament, which will mean something other than present education system has to be formulated.
6) Progress means nay requires dissent, Hindus have to argumentative or else Hinduism will ossify.
7) I have used Hindus and Hinduism, but that doesn't mean that it is closed to other religions or philosophies.
8) I will quote this again for those who think that empirical science is sufficient.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"
Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)

Categories : Religion , Hinduism , India , Science , Civilization , History , Culture

Evolution and Avatar

Sometimes one gets to receive mail tinged with patriotic fervor during what can be called for lack of better term "season of national euphoria". This is usually around Independence Day and republic day.
While it deals with usual speech about how "India has never invaded other countries in last 1000 years", sometimes there are others interesting assertions.One such assertion is that Hindu scriptures describe "Theory of evolution". This I am afraid is incorrect, even more than that it confuses the subject.

The theory of evolution is correlated with Dash avatar, one of the most abiding example of the concept of Avatar.

Dash avatar describes the ten avatars of Bhagwaan Vishnu from Matsya(Fish) to Kalki , from what I remember (very hazily ) the avatars are supposed to be in ascending order of gunas(or kalas) . This means that Bhagwaan Ram has more gunas then Matsya and Kalki will have more gunas than Ram, the perfect avatar having 64 gunas (as far as I remember Kalki is supposed to have around 30 gunas).

The progression from first to last avatar loosely mirrors the stages of evolution from aquatic to human through amphibious, mammal and primate.This is a striking coincidence and has led many well intentioned Hindus to proclaim that ancients knew about theory of evolution.

I don't think it was a case like that. The similarity between incarnation and evolution can be explained by the similarity in thinking process. To wit, to the ancients striving towards making sense of life, the complication of progressive life- forms presented an elegant solution, to be precise that of gradual evolution of life - form from simple to complicated. Later it might have become embellished with concept of Avatar.

But isn't it a contradiction here? On one hand I am saying that Avatar is not theory of evolution and yet speculating that ancients had some sense of evolution.

It is not, for the reason when ancients posited the idea of Avatar; it was at best a hypothesis, a philosophical model to explain life, an intellectual curiosity. Interestingly I have read that there were other cultures, with naturalistic view point (but of course) who had similar myths. This is understandable, given that an organic religion will tend to derive explanations from nature.

But after all even theory of evolution is just a theory! And here the common place error occurs.
The evolution as imagined by ancients was a hypothesis, insightful yet unverified, it was an intelligent speculation based on every day observation.

Theory of Evolution as proposed by Darwin and even Lamarck goes beyond mere speculation. Theory of evolution is based on rigorous empirical science. It is a work of centuries of observations of nature in various fields.

Data was collected and validated in countless ways before it became an acceptable theory. In short theory of evolution is a result of painstaking effort. Therefore it is incorrect to confuse the two. It doesn't mean that the thinking of ancient is trivial or something to be laughed at, it only means we should try to appreciate the intellectual effort of our forefathers in its own context.
The other moral is that we should learn to appreciate power of empirical science

Categories : Science , India , Hinduism , Religion

Lunacy continued

In the beginging a fatwa was issued for Danish cartoonist,

now it has become a fatwa fest

Via Rediff,

The Hindu Personal Law Board on Wednesday announced a Rs 51 crore reward for eliminating artist M F Hussain.

".. Anyone who kills Hussain for making obscene paintings of goddess Sarswati and Bharat Mata, the Danish cartoonist, those in the German company printing pictures of Ram and Krishna on tissue paper and the French filmmaker desecrating Lord Shiva will be given Rs 51 crore in cash," Ashok Pandey, board president, said in a statement in Lucknow. ..."

This is not the end however,

Meanwhile, a Congress minority cell leader offered Rs 11 lakh to any 'patriot' to chop off the painter's hands for hurting Hindu sentiments.

".... Madhya Pradesh Congress committee minority cell vice-chairman Akthar Baig, in a statement in Indore, said the painter had 'played with the sentiments of the people and tried to disrupt communal harmony in the past by painting nude pictures of Hindu gods and goddess and now of Bharat Mata'......"

This would have been funny, if it wasn't a sad reality of Indian politics.
Some how democracy has become pandering in a most abject way. There is no level to which politicians can not stoop.Whatever the hue of the political ideology, the recurring motif is demagoguery of vilest kind.

India and Sci - Fi

If science fiction is considered as a reflection about future, Indians have a reason to be uncomfortable. In most of the works, Indians are consigned to periphery, only to acts as exotic characters. One notable exception is Arthur C Clarke, but that is because his place of living. While Chinese, Russians and Japanese have found mention in stories as competitors, India is seldom mentioned.
I think the priority of Indians should be to ensure that India finds mention in science fiction.
I am feeling positively smug that I have made a splendid contribution in development of India.

Visiting Asimov

Isaac Asimov is one of the earlier authors that I started reading, and since then he has been one of my favorite. I was introduced to science fiction by reading his books and his treatment of the subject was most entertaining.

Here, I must say that I am not a great admirer of science fiction. Science fiction at one level is fantasy and fairy tale repackaged in scientific jargon, never my idea of literature.
on second level despite being related to science, sci- fi in general is a poor judge of the future. There are exceptions to this ofcourse, for example prediction of communication satellites by Arthur C. Clarke in his earlier works, but by and large science fiction misses the future .

This is understandable, as future is irrevocably shaped by unforeseen technological breakthrough.

For example, it is always embarrassing to read about vacuum tubes in 21st century in the Asimov’s novel, but there was no way Asimov or anyone else could have predicted about discovery of semiconductors and use of transistors in computers. Even if technology is not considered, the assumptions behind future of human society are many times quite erroneous.
For example, in almost of Asimov’s books it is assumed that Soviet Russia survived along with capitalist America, again one of the peripheral themes of many of his robot related novels was acceptance of central planning and strict regulation of market supply and demand.
Again in “3001: The Final Odyssey”, Arthur C Clarke has remarked that communism is the best system of governance, the only problem being that it is “too good” for human society.

The delight of Asimov’s work is not his able to predict future, rather it is the logical exploration and deconstruction of a set up, which is intellectually stimulating.
Most of his interesting works are not a guesstimate of future but a commentary on broader themes such as human psychology and social interactions in various situations.
His popular work on Robots while apparently dealing with “robotic psychology”, actually deals with humans, as robots in Asimov's work are just a reflection of humans.
Asimov was a rationalist and as such considered any discussion on existence of God outside the realm of scientific method.
Yet in “The last answer” (one of his best works in my opinion), he has written skillfully on this subject.

He was one of most prolific writer ofcourse. In fact I have hardly read any science fiction except for his works
It is only recently that I have decided to read other science fiction authors. Just finished odyssey series, while the sequels are interesting, they fall by a wide margin of “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

As an aside I do hope that something equivalent to hyper atomic drive is invented, the arbitrary restriction of light speed makes one feel so uncomfortable.

Nasty about secularism

This is a mean post. It doesn’t kick ass ofcourse, but just has a pungent taste to it.

Anyway recently, J wrote a post about UPA government efforts to create division in Army on religious lines. I have already written about it, I don’t feel anger or sadness, I am simply in a state of denial that even Indian secularists will stoop to such levels.
Even though I am not an expert on Indian politics, this attempt to exploit army for vote bank politics has never been done before.

But point is not that, a certain gentleman (call him P) who is a secularist could come up with a lame “Yes it is bad, but what about RSS?” I am still shaking my head, to best of my knowledge even RSS, as stupid as it is, has never done anything like that.
Even taking into consideration the fact, that I am biased against Congress (in fact any secularist) and biased in favor of BJP, the issue is much grave than indulging in “dodge and distract” tactics.

This is also the reason that I am against secularism, even its best is found to be insignificant.

Luckily UPA has chickened out, but I hope no one is under any delusion that it acted decently; the government could not handle the outrage plain and simple.
But it does not mean that it will not try dirty tricks in future. Most of the times the civilization ends not from outside but from inside. Because of political expediency, because of intellectual feebleness, a general rotten idea , once unleashed it creeps and destroys the system from within, it is like a cancer which is ignored in the beginning and ends up killing the body.
Swapan Dasgupta has written about it and as usual hit the nail on the head.

On related note there was one apt description of Danish cartoon riots, "cartoons were like pin prick, what they did was to puncture the boil".
While cartoons were distasteful, they served a useful purpose by highlighting the rot in Islamic civilization.
People who are looking for roots causes in poverty and Israel will end up as disappointed.
This post relates to this

My belief in God

All scientific theories, all philosophical models build on some axioms, some fundamental truths which are supposed to be manifest and can not be proven.

Unlike theorems, there is no logical way to arrive at axioms, it can not be deduced, it can only be the result of inductive reasoning, what is more it can only be disproved but never proved, alternatively it can be superseded by more consistent axioms to base the world view upon.

Belief in existence of God is such. For me God is the first cause and God is the last purpose. Our knowledge is limited, so are systems of logic and language. Any human system is not self contained. An outside explanation is essential; God as the cause and purpose gives me that base for humanity.

This is not unquestioned; philosophers have since time questioned the validity of cause and effect as an acceptable scientific or philosophical concept. Many philosophers have argued that cause and effect are just human illusions, a sort of way to rationalize random origin of human intelligence. Others have argued against trying to find an outside agency as the explanation behind existence. Many have remarked, perhaps with merit, that God exists only because humans do. God can not be proved, God can not be disproved. God is outside the purview of empirical science. God is justification for science, morality and civilization.

God can be superseded by another axiom which is more consistent with the human logic.

Nietzsche refuted any claim of cause behind humanity, to him there was no cause behind nature and yet he endowed a purpose of evolution, from fragile man to an exalted superman. Ayn Rand did not even give a purpose, she assigned a value to work, to her the reality was self – explaining, self admitting of no further causes, individual the centre of philosophy.

And yet, despite the sincerity of atheists, the explanations become more and more convoluted and self contradictory. In the end non believers despite dragging God from the pedestal could not elevate another idea. The attempt to establish genetics as the purpose is amusing and sad at the same time, someone is sure confusing medium with the message! The Godless has same future as God-man. My belief in God explains to me the reality.
As an aside I just finished “3001: The Final Odyssey”, one of its interesting presumption is that religion will cease to exist. I do not know whether it will or not, I hope it remains.

Belief in God however doesn’t mean belief in miracles, my version of God is perfectly comfortable with laws of gravity and evolution. I do not find any merit in intelligent design. Nor do I find that idol drinking milk is a sign of God.

God is my version of GUT. God is the final answer to what or why.
My belief is hardly perfect, I am playing by the ear as Yankees will say.

Shunyata and Brahman

No, I have nothing to say about this.

But I can direct to two interesting commentaries.

One by Sandeep

Another by Jaffna in response to Sandeep.

Revisiting Temple of Doom

Via Sepia Mutiny

Kali’s video game debut

"...Kali is appearing in the forthcoming Emperor Ashoka … which recreates battles from the life of a legendary Indian king who lived in the third century B.C. The game allows players to engage in bloody historic battles based in ancient temples and other antique environments. Some mythical creatures are also thrown in — in addition to Kali, there are gargoyle-like interpretations of the voluptuous female statues that adorn sacred buildings in India, who come alive and fight. “We wanted to have an edge,” says Indiagames CEO Vishal Gondal. “It’s a storyline that hasn’t been seen before” [Link]..."

Once again there is an example which reinforces the negative stereotype of Hindu dieties as Satanic/Demonic. Maa Kaali is a symbol of evil to be slain by the protagonist of the game.
However, the difference this time is that instead of being a foreigner, it is the work of Indians only.

Indiagames which is producing and distributing the game is an Indian company.

That educated Hindus will indulge in such vilification of Hinduism is just an example of wrong
with Hinduism.

The company can be contacted at info@indiagames.com, I have registered my protest,
I think everyone should do it.

Society

In my post about freedom, I had speculated that freedom by itself does not ensure the continuance of civilization. There is a piece which is missing, that which fits into freedom to form a base on which civilization can rest.

Before this a little bit of analogy.

First one the phenomena of resonance, in short this happens when the frequency of the external force is in phase with the natural frequency of the medium result is formation of waves with large amplitudes. For most of the structures too much of resonance is a bad thing. So is for most of the dynamic systems, hence dampeners, which absorb this excessive energy and the result is a more benign state of vibrations.

Other example, for a nuclear fission (essentially disintegration) of an atom requires bombardment by neutrons, since every disintegration of an atom results in expulsion of excess neutrons which will initiate fission in more atoms resulting in what is known as chain reaction, this is clearly undesirable (unless the idea is of a nuclear bomb), so special materials called inhibitors are placed in the fissile material to stabilize the rate of nuclear fission.

Point of these examples is that evolution of life is an indefinite point somewhere between chaos and stability. And if the aim of civilization is evolution then it must be located at this point.

Freedom by itself is not capable of reaching the balance, indeed freedom acting alone will tend towards chaos. The balance for freedom is provided by notion of responsibility. Now responsibility is a value. In other words it is the value system which provides the correcting mechanism. And this value system is enforced by concept of society.

That is why social interaction is an essential condition if civilization has to progress. And this is why I am skeptical of Individualist, in his zeal to promote individual, he deliberately belittles society. Any ideology which presumes society as redundant or evil construct is bound to fail after it has finished its quota of coolness.

Society in reality is a complicated organism, its purpose is moderation. Therefore it is a useful instrument. Society is good when it engenders respect for elders and fellow humans. It is bad when it promotes segregation. It is good when it teaches a man to respect justice and equality. It is bad when it promote discrimination and greed.

In short society is what its underlying value systems are.

If I may continue with my silly comparative, society is Rajas, so is freedom. However I will prioritize freedom over society. In a way modern man is wary of social contract, the reason long history of oppression perpetrated by society on dissents.

Modern philosophers were not very agreeable to society acting as an influence, therefore individualistic streak of the modern age. If west unravels it will be because it let social structures wither away

Here I make a distinction between Society and State. Although state is founded upon society , yet they have different existence and different functional values.

Dissonance

The first amendment of American Constitution gives the citizen right of expression.
Americans are free to express themselves, no matter how crazy their views are.

The second amendment gives right to possess firearms.

The intersection of this is a crazy guy having guns, not a comfortable thought.

Seeds of division - II

I can not write any more than this post at this subject, I am aghast about this issue.

In fact, even in glory days of secularism, such an exercise was never thought of.
I think it is understandable, as appeasement always follows a downwards spiral.
Congress has to compete with new custodian of secularism such as Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and the party. The only way to do this is to up the stakes even further, where will this lead to is obvious, tragic but obvious.

At any rate

Nitin and Sandeep have written about it.

Rediff, Indian Express and Pioneer have articles on it

Update: Atanu is also not pleased

Categories : Secularism , India , Security , Politics

Sex: A commodity

Via rediff,

'Prostitution is like any other job : Sushmita'

It is these kind of statement which make my blood boil.
It is just a sign of superficiality and decadence which is a result of mindlessly aping the west.

Prostitution is not a profession,

Because sex is not a commodity, and act of copulation not a service.
The intimacy of intercourse is bond which holds the human relationship and society.
A society which put very foundation of its, as something to be sold in a market, had internalized cynicism. This is a sign of decadence and inevitable decline.

Not to say this is an insult to working women whether a teacher or a modest maid.

The age of trivia

“I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it.”

When Voltaire allegedly said this (it might have been Lady Macbeth for all we know)
Did he reckon with a time where popular culture will be defined by Paris Hilton and Christina Aguilera. I have a feeling that if he was alive, he would have either turned sociopath or religious.

Oh ! The ancients had it right when men were men, women were women and decadent babble was just that.

Not like present where modern concsiouness is tangled in the latest whims of chattering classes and coherence is lost between markers like metrosexual, retrosexuals or contrasexuals indicative of intellectual feebleness and superficiality.

Stupidity TV

Via Asian age

Lucknow local stands a few votes from stardom

One of the most pernicious imports in recent times Reality TV to be more specific Reality based music competitions.

Before they become democratized these Music shows were entertaining to watch.

Sa Re Ga Ma on Zee was a show appreciated for its presentation as well as talent.

For people like me who didn't have access to cable Meri Awaz Suno on DD was one of the better shows.
The programs showcased the musical talent of participants rather than X factor.

However since present format of voting by public got introduced, it is going downhill.

To quote from above news report

" .... There are no elections round the corner but posters saying "Vote for Vinit" are up all over the Uttar Pradesh capital. The scroll on cable networks now has no room for advertisements — it is "Vote for Vinit" all the way.
Meetings are being organised in local degree colleges to muster support for him. Government employees, shopkeepers and teachers can be seen furiously working on their cellphones to the best-known destination — 7575. Even the Valentine messages this year have come with a tag line: "Vote for Vinit".
Lucknow suddenly seems to have woken up to its newest talent — 17-year-old Vinit Singh — who is just a whisker away from the winning post in Zee TV’s reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa.
Vinit, a Class 12 student from Lucknow’s Rajajipuram locality, is one of the two finalists in the Zee TV show. Hailing from a modest background, this young boy is pitted against Debojit from Assam, who is allegedly being supported by Ulfa.
"We have heard that Ulfa has asked people in the Northeast to support Debojit and suddenly there were 30 lakh votes in his favour. We do not know the truth but we do know that despite being a versatile singer, Vinit needs votes to emerge a winner. Earlier, we thought that he would reach the winning post on the strength of his talent alone, but it is the votes that also apparently matter. Hence we are going all out to seek votes for him," says Aarushi Khanna, an intermediate student who lives in Vinit’s neighbourhood ......."

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa has been in news earlier because of tiff between various judges and alleged threats to Producers from ULFA. There was an article in rediff which covered this issue.
The article in questioned the motive behind displaying the number of votes received by Debojit from North East and implied there was prejudice involved. I think it was more a case of whipping popular interest by making things interesting than a prejudice.

This is ofcourse a result of the abomination called Indian Idol (I wish Sony will stop copying phirangees program). Although I do claim to be fastidious, yet the participant in Indian Idol make me throw up.

Here I will not even say anything about Fame Gurukul.

I have seen this program (Sa Re Ga Ma Pa ) only once and happened to listen to Debojit and I enjoyed his performance. I have never watched the performance of the other guy though.

However while raising such regional fervour is good for popularity of program, it just defeats the purpose of holding Musical progams, which is to appreciate musical talent.

I come from Lucknow (proudly if I may so), and am behind no one in plugging for Lucknow.
However, I do not understand why my love for Lucknow should extend to unrelated areas like Musical shows.Similarly for North East.

Let the best singer win immaterial of he/she is a Punjabi or Madrasi or Gujrati or whatever.

BackFlip to Glory

Via rediff

India's postal department plans to ban private courier companies from delivering letters below 500 gms

Government is invoking a antique law (of 1898 vintage to be precise). The reason is ofcourse to allow government to monopolize courier service, this will earn much needed profit for Indian postal services.

This will be mean gain for few sarkari babus but a loss for India.

That UPA government is going back to regime of control and monopoly inch by inch since it came to power is obvious.

And yet our educated elites continue to absolve Dr Manmohan Singh.

Frankly speaking this kind of ignorance and indifference justifies the sorry state we are in.

The idea behind Pakistan

In previous posts I explored the idea behind nation states and their idea behind India.
(Also read 58 years old anguish)

In this post I will try to establish idea behind Pakistan. This may be biased because of general state of hostilities between India and Pakistan and as a result negative perception. But unlike Pakistan this bias is not institutionalized in India.

The popular perception of partition in India is as a tragic end to the Indian Freedom Movement. The villain of this tragedy is of course Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the heroes are Mahatma Gandhi/Jawahar Lal Nehru. In this perception then the idea of Pakistan is a great betrayal of Hindu-Muslim utopia, and as usual British is the serpent who brought the evil of discord.

Reality in my view is a little more complicated. The chain of historical events is little tangled than popular perception. But it was not until British had colonized and institutionalized a system of oppression that the Indians begin to realize their identity as Indian which until then had existed in subconscious as a cultural aspect rather than a political unit.

Here I am differing from conventional wisdom of resident anglophiles because for them the very concept of India as a concept came only because of British.

In my view unification of India as a political entity in some form was inevitable once traditional monarchies had declined.

This realization of a unity was a major revolution in Indian psyche. The struggles which had started in various parts of country started to coalesce as one freedom movement. There was a related development, beginning of reform movement's .19th century for India was truly a period of reawakening, great souls like Swami Vivekananda, Guru Narain Swami, Ramachandra Paramhansa brought a upheaval in a stagnant nation. The identity of a future political India was being defined by these movements.

When patriots like Bhagat Singh, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaq ulla Khan and Rajendra Lahiri sacrificed their life it was for this identity, a very real India.

This movement attracted people from all religions, caste and creed.
However at the time when this was happening, there was another churning.

This was of Muslim intellectuals, similar to Hindu counterparts they also came from either land holders or newly emerging middle class. For them there was a dilemma. There were various reasons for it.

One was the realization that a future democracy will inevitably mean preponderance of Hindus as opposed to the past where it was Muslims who held the absolute power. Other view was which was ready to share power, but which could not reconcile that even after 800 years of Islamic rule, India remained Hindu (Mohammad Iqbal lamented about this in one of his couplets).
There was yet another suspicion about the Hindu reform movements, which were also reawakening not only Hindus but influencing Indian freedom movement as well.
These reasons made Muslim intellectual from identifying with the main stream movement, for them the Hindu influence on movement meant sub ordination of Muslim element. Therefore the earliest proponent of a separate homeland for Indian Muslims were not fundamentalists or demagogues but moderates like Sir Saiyyad Ahmed Khan ( who advised Muslims to adapt English customs to the extent of drinking alcohol and eating pork ) and Sir Mohammed iqbal (who ironically wrote one of the most patriotic song).

This group sought to establish a separate political constituency of Indian Muslims.

And therein lies the fallacy viz. what is an Indian Muslim and how is an Indian Muslim different from Indian or how is he different from a Muslim to entail a separate nation.

In my view it is not possible, either Indian Muslim had to learn to adjust within India, or submit to doctrine of Ummah.

Ironically Sir Iqbal wanted to release Islam from clutch of "Arab Imperialism",

However by rooting for a ill thought demand the intellectuals ensured the opposite.
Ofcourse the reason Pakistan was created was because for one a coalition of diverse interest joined the intellectuals. For example Landlords in UP and Punjab went with Muslim league as they were against policy of land distribution. However in East Bangla Muslim peasantry joined Muslim league precisely to grab land from Hindu landowners.
Similarly while Barelvi school of Islamic thought rooted for partition Deobandi was against it. Similarly Aligarh Muslim University was centre of partition movement.

For another myopic policy of appeasement pursued by Mahatma Gandhi led Congress. By supporting Khilafat Movement and ignoring repeated acts of violence by radical Muslims in Bengal and Kerala, he only ensured that separatist elements will be emboldened.Whether Pakistan was possible without Jinnah is a matter of debate ofcourse, in my view it would have been created no matter what, this is however against the conventional wisdom.

The result was creation of a Mothballed Pakistan, Lucknow, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bhopal which were major centers of Muslim influence remained in India. So did a majority of Muslim population. It was ironic as the demand for Pakistan had originated from Muslims of UP.

The Pakistan that was created was doomed to be in eternal dilemma. In order to assert it's distinction from India it adapted a negative mindset. The results are hilarious (asserting that Pakistan represents Indus civilization which is distinct from Gangetic civilization ) to ridiculous (christening missiles after invaders who looted Pakistan ) to tragic (continuing talibanization).

The solution, I am against reunification, Partition was a messy divorce and as Indian I want to
leave it behind. In fact I am more interested in relationship with Japan and USA.
With one billion Indians, I do not feel any compulsion for Bhai – Bhai sloganeering either. In short, Pakistan is free to join Caliphate, India has to go forward and that will mean each and every Indian irrespective of the caste and creed.
For this to happen, Indian Muslims will have to come out of mental ghettos.

Categories : Religion , India , History , Civilization , Culture , Society , Secularism

BJP backs Government

Via Indian Express

BJP stands by Govt on Iran vote

and

BJP welcomes Bush visit but cautions on N-deal


This is a good news, I hope this trend continues. The way for BJP to recover is to act as a responsible opposition rather than play traunt.

Cartoon Brouhaha - II

One of the best quotes is from Instapundit

http://instapundit.com/archives/028567.php

"..When people riot over cartoons as tame as these, you'd think it would be news.."

And

"....As I've said, when you reward violence and efforts at violent intimidation, you'll get more of them.I also think that if the press is this scared of Islamic extremists, claims that Bush is manufacturing an artificial climate of fear regarding Islamic extremism ring rather hollow ....."

and from this

http://instapundit.com/archives/028442.php

"... Once they see how easily media and government officials are intimidated by such threats, of course, that may change -- which is yet another reason why appeasement is a bad approach..."

Also his video of CNN appearence

As I have said western media had failed by its timid response to the controversy.

Meanwhile this link (http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/810) from LGF,

We are being pissed upon

I think it was the long departed H.C. Hansen, one of the great Danish statesmen of the last century, who – as the communists were demonstrating in front of Christiansborg [the Danish Parliament] – cast his gaze across the palace square and remarked: "I will not be pissed upon."
Then he did what was necessary.
I feel that currently my beloved country is being pissed upon rather too much. Denmark has not been neglecting its duties on the international stage. We have supported poor people with acts and advice, we have worked for peace, we have sent soldiers, policemen and experts to all the far flung corners of the world. We have democracy, a rule of law and a welfare state. Not all is perfect, but we harbor no malice towards our fellow men.
And yet Denmark is being pissed upon. The spokesman of the US State Department is pissing on Denmark, the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs is pissing on Denmark, the President of Afghanistan is pissing on Denmark, the Government of Iraq is pissing on Denmark, other Muslim regimes are pissing on Denmark. In Gaza, where Danes for years have provided humanitarian aid, crazed Imams encourage people to cut off the hands and heads of the cartoonists who made the drawings of Mohammed for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
Excuse my choice of words, but all this pissing is pissing me off.
What is going on? I am not referring so much to the threats against Danish citizens and Danish commerce. Nor to the burnt down Embassies. I am thinking of a word that keeps popping up whenever the Mohammed cartoons are mentioned.
That word is BUT. A sneaky word. It is used to deny or qualify what one has just said.
How many times lately have we not heard people of power, the Opinion Makers and others say that of course we have freedom of speech, BUT.
They have said it, all of them, from Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, to our own Bendt Bendtsen [a Danish Politician]. Once we had to be sensitive to the easily hurt feelings of the Nazis, then came the Communists, now it is the Islamists. The reason I say 'Islamists' is that I do not for a moment believe all the world's Muslims are pissing on us. I think we are dealing with thugs, fools and misled people. Those are the ones we have to deal with, and then the chickenshit politicians.
The cartoons are no longer something Jyllands-Posten can control. They have already been manipulated and misrepresented to the point that few know what is going on and fewer know how to stop it. This affair is artifically being kept buoyant in a sea of lies, suppressions of the truth, misconceptions, lunacy and hypocrisy, for which this newspaper bears no blame. The only thing Jyllands-Posten did was provide a pin-prick which has made a boil of nastiness erupt. This would have happened sooner or later. That it happened more than four months after the publication of the cartoons, raises a question of its own. Are we dealing with random events or with a staged clash of civilizations? One might hope for the former yet be prepared to expect the latter.
That is why I say: Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech. There is no but.
Initially I was doubtful of the timeliness of publishing the cartoons. Later events have convinced me that it was both just and useful to do so. That they are consistent with Danish law and Danish custom seem to me less important than this: that we now know that remote, primitive countries deem themselves justified in telling us what to do. Unfortunately we must also note that governments close to us are agreeing with them in the name of expedience.
It was right and just for this newspaper to launch an offensive for Freedom of Speech, and useful, as we have now acquired new knowledge. Welcome to a brave new world where even our Prime Minister – in spite of his laudable firmness – must gaze out upon a scorched political landscape. True, his friend in Washington, George Bush, has uttered the customary condemnation of the torching of our embassies, but his State Department alludes to us as being the guilty ones in this case. The suggestion that Danish troops might contribute to democratization is buried under the charred remains of our diplomatic representations in Beirut and Damascus.
Perhaps it is time we started mopping up this mess. Perhaps Editor-in-Chief Carsten Juste ought to remove his apology which has gone stale sitting so long on the front page of our internet edition and which does not seem to interest the madmen. Perhaps our government ought to announce to Mona Omar Attia, the strange Ambassador of Egypt, that she is persona non grata.
Perhaps the ambassadors that have been called home to fictitious consultations in the Middle East should be told that they may spare themselves the cost of the return ticket.
In so far as possible The Lying Imams probably ought to be expelled. And then we ought to make an effort to support those Muslims who in a difficult situation have proven themselves to be true Citizens.
We, for our part, have no wish to be a burden to the Arab governments. We will happily withdraw our soldiers, policemen and diplomats. If they think our money smells, we will retract our aid. Our trade must make do as well as it can. We promise to not bear a grudge and, in time, we will be glad to return, but we are through with the hypocrisy. We have better things to do than being pissed upon at our own expense.
Cut down our activities in the Middle East. The world holds plenty of other opportunities.

Categories : Society , Civilization , Media , Politics , International , Secularism , Religion

Seeds of division

This will explain why I am not a fan of Congress or Communists.

(Via Indian Express)

In Jan, Army HQ said: such data bad for morale

".. On January 9 this year, the Army Headquarters put on record its objections to the UPA Government panel's questions on Muslims, their ranks and their roles in the armed forces. ...."

"...Sending the list of Muslim officers and their ranks, Army Headquarters wrote to the Defence Ministry that collation of such data could affect troop morale as it could play into the hands of those who wanted to give it a particular political flavour.
Army Headquarters also underlined that the force followed an open, merit-selection system without quota or reservations on the basis of caste, creed or religious denominations...."

Defense forces remain one of the few institutions which inspire Indians irrespective of creed or caste.

However, UPA government in order to pursue narrow minded political interest is trying its best to undermine it.

What is more disheartening BJP which should be pinning UPA government for this, is in a comatose state.

              Categories : Secularism , Politics , Security , India

Cartoon Brouhaha

Originally posted here, but the formatting is going wrong so reposting it

Recent controversy over publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammed have raised questions about freedom of speech and whether publishing the cartoons was an appropriate action. This post is not intended about freedom of speech, freedom of speech is a complicated subject and I am not yet able to formulate a coherent view on it. This is also not about if there can be a reasonable limit to free speech. This is limited to discussion about cartoons in questions.

There were twelve cartoon in all published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. In addition there were three cartoons which were circulated by Danish Imams during their tour of middle east, one of which depicted Prophet as a pig,these however have been proven as forgeries with a aim to provoke Arab street by Danish Imams.

Out of the twelve cartoons(Which can be seen here) , I found two (or may be three?) of them tasteless, even derogatory.However others were harmless if irreverent. In fact two of the cartoons did not depict the prophet at all. In my view the mature response would have been to limit the protest and censure to the aforementioned newspaper.

The other aspect is that, how the exercise of publishing cartoon is being painted as bigotry. I don't think it is correct, though in normal circumstances I would have preferred if the cartoons were published with some circumspection.

However, the circumstances were not normal .

To understand the circumstances , From Wikipedia "On September 17, 2005, the Danish newspaper Politiken ran an article under the headline"Dyb angst for kritik af islam"[5] ("Profound fear of criticism of Islam").
The article discussed the difficulty encountered by the writer Kåre Bluitgen, who was initially unableto find an illustrator who was prepared to work with Bluitgen on his children's book Koranenog profeten Muhammeds liv ("The Qur'an and the prophet Muhammad's life").
Three artists declined Bluitgen's proposal before an artist agreed to assist anonymously. According toBluitgen: One [artist declined], with reference to the murder in Amsterdam of the film director Theo van Gogh, while another [declined, citing the attack on] the lecturer at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute in Copenhagen[5]. In October 2004, a lecturer at the Niebuhr institute at the University of Copenhagen was assaulted by five assailants who opposed the lecturer's reading of the Qur'an to non-Muslims during a lecture[6].The refusal of the first three artists to participate was seen as evidence ofself-censorship and led to much debate in Denmark, with other examples for similar reasonssoon emerging. The comedian Frank Hvam declared that he did not dare satirise the Qur'an ontelevision, while the translators of an essay collection critical of Islam also wished toremain anonymous due to concerns about violent reaction."

It is clear that considering the rise of muslim population and the growing Islamic radicalism there has been significant tension in Europe. Already due to declining birth rates of Europeans and rising immigration, there is a widely held belief that coming decades may see a shift of balance towards immigrants.

The adjustment with immigration group who are orthodox creates insecurity in minds of Europians who are accustomed to a much more open culture and moral value system.
In addition there is hardly any attempt from immigrants to integrate with the society, this tendency result in formation of ghettos.
This is ofcourse not unique to Muslims communities ,however this does tend to amplify the effect of radical elements.
Here I think it will be proper to say that from what I read the European attitude to immigration is not without hostility, however that shouldn't distract from the fact that somehow Muslims immigration communities have difficulty assimilating societies worldwide.
It may be said that this is not unique to Muslims, however considering the growth of radical Islam it is of much more serious concern.Also , immigrant communities are recipient of welfare in Europe.
In Europe it was felt that prominent opinion makers and main stream media were shying awayfrom discussing this issue at all, for fear of offending muslim sensibilities and provokingbacklash .
This however was not limited to media or politicians. Due to Van Gogh incident, FrenchRiots and London Bombing an atmosphere of fear was created, combined with increasing incidents of assault and threats many intellectuals were finding it difficult to express any opinion, some times critical on Islam.

People were threatened against translating Quran or depicting Prophet.In particular an opinion was forming that self censorship was being practiced inEuropeeowing to strong arm tactics by radical elements.
There was also opinion that political correctness in effect has become appeasement against the violent mob. In the quoted article,there were incidences where artists were hesitant to draw prophet.
It is in this context that the decision by newspaper must be seen.

By publishing the cartoon the newspaper was asserting the right to be critical ofIslam, in fact right to have critical opinion even if it is offensive to others. The news paper did not do it just for malicious pleasure so it is wrong to attribute ulterior motives to it.

Any second guessing is just a futile exercise to establish moral equivalence. In other words it was a test case for muslim immigrants in particular and adherents to faith in general.

However more than that it was test case for so called liberals in the west.

However considering the consequences I do not think that either managed to pass the test. While muslim countriess indulged in the usual saber - rattling, International media out ofsheer mortification failed in their duty to cover the issue.People have not failed to note that on past occasion liberals had no compunction in covering issues which can be considered downright offensive toChristians (examples like piss Christ or dung Mary).

This is sheer hypocrisy, what is more this is a policy doomed to fail as pastexperiences havee shown that appeasement never works.

The conclusion, liberals must grow some spine, if they want to have relevance.
To theMuslims First It is immaterial if depiction of Prophet is considered as blasphemy in Islam,pictures are considered perfectly normal in the world outside islam, so it is better to become used to it.
As an aside prophet has been depicted in Islamic history, so it is not something which is unparalleled in History. Second Even if the cartoons were offensive it is unavoidable during a debate in a free society, so it is better to grow a thicker skin. What is more protest should be in proportion to perceived offense. Third By acting in this manner,Muslims are exhibiting what they criticize that is idolatry.

Here, I would like to give my stand.As a Hindu I consider cows to be sacred, in fact I consider all life to be sacred.That doesn't mean I will expect everyone to turn vegetarian. I do not have the right to force anyone to become vegetarian.In fact it would be foolish for me to hold demonstrations for this.
A second more serious example, I am offended by nude pictures of Hindu Gods and Godesses.If I protest this, it will not by using physical violence but by other means. For example, I can hold demonstration in front of the painter house or the gallery, but I will not use threat of physical violence.

Update: Following Blogs have posted on this issue

Secular Right Here, Here and Here

Deesha Here, Here and Here (Recommended)

Sepia Mutiny Here and Here

Patrix Here

Ashish Here

Here I must mention that Secular Right and Sepia Mutiny seemed to be circumspect and trying to establish moral equivalence.

Another Update:

"Here I must mention that Secular Right and Sepia Mutiny seemed to be circumspect and trying to establish moral equivalence. "

Here by moral equivalence my implication was not justification of violence, but sidestepping the real issue in my opinion.
 

Categories : Society , Secularism , Religion , International , Civilization , Politics

 

Root cause idiocy

[Categories : Civilization , History , Religion , International , Secularism , Society , Politics]

This is easily the one of the most stupid post I saw.

I realize the personal tone is hardly commendable, but it maddens me to see delusional rhetoric on the web, not to say find people who think that Chev Guerra is still cool.
Or that Naxalism is a valid ideology.

At any rate, the blogger in question is making a case for clash of civilization, which is not unusual , however his narrative is highly specious and prejudiced.
To quote from the post

"…Deus lo volt!" (God Wills It!). Said, Pope Urban II about a thousand years ago. This speech, delivered in central Gaul (modern France), started a series of attacks by Christian Europe on Middle East. The soldiers were mostly french but the armies included soldiers from almost all of european christiandom. The purported purpose of these attacks on middle east was to make the christian pilgrimages to the holy land safer. But soon it transformed into a general attack on Arabs and Jews in the area. These attacks, now called the "crusades" collectively, succeeded in planting a small christian kingom in the heart of the middle east….."

In above paragraph a case is made out that Christian Europe was aggressor. This is true, but this is the partial truth. The implication of the above paragraph is that Islam was the victim.
And yet this is misleading, for the reason that Islam itself in middle east spread by edging out Christianity and Judaism sometimes by political alliances sometimes by sword.

Indeed speed at which Islam spread was unparalleled in history of religions so far, while it took Christianity more that seven centuries to spread in Europe, Islam in 50 years had conquered and subordinated Egyptian and Persian civilizations.

Again the Levant owing to being birthplace of Christianity held a special place for Christians as a pilgrim center and it was Islam which usurped the place from Christians by power of sword. Further at the time of first crusade it was a Christian empire (Byzantium) which was under threat from Islamic invasion. In fact the request from Byzantine for protection was one of the reasons (along with desire to recapture Levant in fold of Christian Dom ) which prompted Pope Urban II to declare Crusade.
So it is inaccurate to portray crusade as a quasi - national struggle.

if any thing Christianity had a prior claim to levant

(Indeed the history of crusades is complicated and the above description does not any justice to it. For reference see Wiki)

But apology of introduction is not the worst of it. The description goes downhill from here


1. Western colonism over arab countriesThis includes not only the middle east, but north africa too. Other regions that have arab influence and suffered from western hegemony, include Iran, central asian countries, south eastern asian countries. The colonial era was replete with economic exploitation and mass murders (eg: Algeria). The mass murders may be over now that colonialism is over. But western companies still dominate key industries (Oil, of course) and sustain tin-pot dictators and "kings". The western hypocrisy is so obvious when it talks about democracy and liberty when convenient and then hobnobs with regressive governments and gives strength and legitimacy to these. I dare say that without western props, many countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan may be having democracy now.

First before petroleum was discovered, there was not much for western colonials to loot from middle east, so I am at loss to understand what can be meant by economic exploitation of middle east which will justify present anger. While it is true that Algeria saw one of the worst crimes against humanity , the present tension has little connection with it.
This is not to say that west did not exploit after discovery of oil, but they did it by controlling the despots/sheikhs and at any rate it can not justify current rage in Arab Street.
Second Iran and central Asia were never under western hegemony. Iran was a independent state and Central Asia for most part of 19th and 20th century remained under Russian control. Indeed the only reason Britain went to Afghanistan was because she was apprehensive of Russian ambitions in Indian subcontinent, this was of course so called great game.

Again it can be said that during the cold war west took some steps which it could have avoided, (by this I mean it shouldn't have supported various despots)

However to say that democracy has not flourished in Middle East due to western hegemony is a falsification of the worst kind. If anything without western props Saudi Arabia will be a theocracy and in hands of crazy wahabist.
Similarly lack of democracy in Pakistan has less to do with western interference and more to do with vested feudal and religious interest. Parvez Musharraf like his predecessors did not come to power due to western support but with the help of military and tactic support of various power centers.

And if someone thinks that current terrorism has anything to do with lack of democracy, then I think there is some serious problem in the thinking.

But the biggest mistake that blogger makes is in assuming that western colonialism was directed against Islamic countries only. If anything Africa, India, China and Indo China were more affected by economic exploitation and brutalities. Vietnam was more ravaged by America than Iraq and still there is no terrorism from Vietnam.

To stress the point While west can b e accused of economic exploitation, and political manipulation, it can not even begin to explain current rage.


2. Breakup of Ottoman EmpireAfter the industrial revolution in europe, Ottoman empire started losing its power and started shrinking - first from europe, then in middle east itself. The WW-I was the final straw for the Ottoman empire. The loss of Khalifa was something many grudged back then (and started a "Khilafat movement" in India too).

Ottomon empire was on the wrong side of war and it was broken from inside itself.
Kamal Ataturk who was a visionary and by bringing down the Caliphate he ensured that Turkey is at present a rarity in this world being a Muslim majority secular nation.
I can not fathom when Turks had no love of caliphate, why should others pine for ottomon.

Khilafat movement was a sham, started by Mahatma Gandhi in naïve belief that it will integrate muslims into main stream of freedom movement, but ended up as one of the significant events leading to partition (ironically Jinnah was not pleased by Khilafat movement)

3. Creation and western sustenance of Israel after WW-III always wonder if it is a coincidence that the map of Israel is almost identical to the crusader kingdom established a thousand years ago. No need to discuss what the creation of this country (and its later land acquisition in 1967) did to relations between the arabs and the west. We can read about the affects of this in the newspaper everyday.

Arguably this is one of the most quoted reason for terrorism. Here I am amused to find the way blogger is trying to connet Israel (which is a Jewish nation) with Chritians Crusades.
Truth is that since its creation arabs are trying to wipe Israel off the map (as the leading light of Iran Ahmenijabad said),1967 war was started by the arabs to destroy Israel however the blogger in question is displaying his ignorance or perhaps deliberately supporting destruction of Israel, inspite of the fact Israel has made sincere efforts for reapproachment only to be rebuffed by arabs.

4. East Timor independenceThe world meditated independence of east Timor was seen by many in islamic nations as an interference and similar reciprocal interference is not there in cases like palestine, kashmir, chechnia etc. (These are not my opinions - but this is how many in islamic nations see it)

Again east timor was a matter of Indonesia, I do not find what is the reason for Muslim counteries to feel aggrieved as . Christians did not support serbs afte break up of Yugoslovakia.

5. 9/11 and War on TerrorThe hundreds of thousands of civilians that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since the so called War on Terror started, pale the 9/11 casualties (with all due to respect to those who died in 9/11 - they certainly didn't deserve to). The US may find the war justified but the other side almost uniformly sees it as an unjust war doing more damage than good.

Again it is deliberate case of falsifying the history, most of the civilian casualities in Iraq and Afghanistan have occurred due to terrorist attacks by Baathist and Al Qaeda.
Also terrorism was very much alive before 9/11, just not noticed by west.
By blaming US for casualities the implication is that Afghanistan and Iraq were better under Taliban and Saddam respectively. Also I am puzzled by what blogger means by other side , because if it is meant to be Iraqi and Afghani citizens, they seem to approve of American efforts.Again I do not understand when Iraq and Afghanistand do not have problem with American action why should Muslims in general should feel aggrieved.


6. Cartoon controversyAgain, it is being seen as a general western attack on muslim sensibilities. While I am all for freedom of press, it is hypocritical to jail someone for an anti-semitic remark while allowing gross insult to Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). Keep a single set of rules for everyone on all issues. I am not condoning the violence conducted by protesters in Syria but western countries are not blameless.

First the limits to freedom in Europe are hardly balanced as Ashish posted here.

However to compare the case of Jews who were threatened with extinction in Europe to current controversy is unjustified in my opinion. If anything the comparision should be made with attitude towards Christianity, and Europeans are hardly forgiving of christians either.

And yet the deranged ramblings of the blogger miss a very crucial point.
That this jihad is not againt west only. It is also against Kashmiri Pundits, Hindus of Bali, Buddhists of Thailand and Christian of Indonesia and Phillipines .

So present situation is not a direct result of west

Others counteries besides Islamic were colonized. Hindus and Buddhists also faced brutality and ruthlessness of the west. Even today, they may harbour ill feelings against "gora log" and yet it does not translate into terrorism.

To paraphrase Shakespeare "there is something rotten in state of Islam "

I have pointed towards it earlier and I will like to come back to it at some later time.

My fear is that Bush administration and such other brainless western regimes will take the world towards another series of wars akin to the original crusades.

It is this falsification and equivocation for ideological oneupmanship by apologists of terrorism which aggravates situation, pushing it towards a frightening scenarios.
As long as the attempts such as above are made to whitewash Jihadi terrorism as an exercise in victimization, any attempt to solve the menance will fail.

I will like to add that I find it disappointing that DesiPundit which claims to represent best of blogosphere linked to this tripe

And yes it can not be Crusade 2.0 as there were already six or more crusades, some directed against heretics and jews as well.

Cartoon Controversy

Recent controversy over publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammed have raised questions about freedom of speech and whether publishing the cartoons was an appropriate action.
This post is not intended about freedom of speech, freedom of speech is a complicated subject and I am not yet able to formulate a coherent view on it.
This is also not about if there can be a reasonable limit to free speech.
This is limited to discussion about cartoons in questions.

There were twelve cartoon in all published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
In addition there were three cartoons which were circulated by Danish Imams during theirtour of middle east, one of which depicted Prophet as a pig,these however have been proven as forgeries with a aim to provoke Arab street by Danish Imams.

Out of the twelve cartoons(Which can be seen here) , I found two (or may be three?) of them tasteless, even derogatory.However others were harmless if irreverent. In fact two of the cartoons did not depict the prophet at all.
In my view the mature response would have been to limit the protest and censure to the aforementioned newspaper. The other aspect is that, how the exercise of publishing cartoon isbeing painted as bigotry. I don't think it is correct, though in normal circumstances I would have preferred if the cartoons were published with some circumspection.

However, the circumstances were not normal .

To understand the circumstances , From Wikipedia,
"On September 17, 2005, the Danish newspaper Politiken ran an article under the headline"Dyb angst for kritik af islam"[5] ("Profound fear of criticism of Islam"). The article discussed the difficulty encountered by the writer Kåre Bluitgen, who was initially unableto find an illustrator who was prepared to work with Bluitgen on his children's book Koranenog profeten Muhammeds liv ("The Qur'an and the prophet Muhammad's life"). Three artists declined Bluitgen's proposal before an artist agreed to assist anonymously. According toBluitgen: One [artist declined], with reference to the murder in Amsterdam of the film director Theo van Gogh, while another [declined, citing the attack on] the lecturer at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute in Copenhagen[5]. In October 2004, a lecturer at the Niebuhr institute at the University of Copenhagen was assaulted by five assailants who opposed the lecturer's reading of the Qur'an to non-Muslims during a lecture[6].The refusal of the first three artists to participate was seen as evidence ofself-censorship and led to much debate in Denmark, with other examples for similar reasonssoon emerging. The comedian Frank Hvam declared that he did not dare satirise the Qur'an ontelevision, while the translators of an essay collection critical of Islam also wished toremain anonymous due to concerns about violent reaction."

It is clear that considering the rise of muslim population and the growing Islamic radicalism there has been significant tension in Europe. Already due to declining birth rates of Europeans and rising immigration, there is a widely held belief that coming decades may see a shift of balance towards immigrants.
The adjustment with immigration group who are orthodox creates insecurity in minds of Europians who are accustomed to a much more open culture and moral value system.In addition there is hardly any attempt from immigrants to integrate with the society, this tendency result in formation of ghettos. This is ofcourse not unique to Muslims communities ,however this does tend to amplify the effect of radical elements.
Here I think it will be proper to say that from what I read the European attitude to immigration is not without hostility, however that shouldn't distract from the fact that somehow Muslims immigration communities have difficulty assimilating societies worldwide.It may be said that this is not unique to Muslims, however considering the growth of radical Islam it is of much more serious concern.Also , immigrant communities are recipient of welfare in Europe.In Europe it was felt that prominent opinion makers and main stream media were shying awayfrom discussing this issue at all, for fear of offending muslim sensibilities and provokingbacklash .This however was not limited to media or politicians.

Due to Van Gogh incident, FrenchRiots and London Bombing an atmosphere of fear was created, combined with increasing incidents of assault and threats many intellectuals were finding it difficult to express any opinion, some times critical on Islam.
People were threatened against translating Quran or depicting Prophet.I
n particular an opinion was forming that self censorship was being practiced inEuropeeowing to strong arm tactics by radical elements.There was also opinion political correctness in effect has become appeasement against the violent mob.

In the quoted article,there were incidences where artists were hesitant to draw prophet.

It is in this context that the decision by newspaper must be seen.By publishing the cartoon the newspaper was asserting the right to be critical ofIslam, in fact right to have critical opinion even if it is offensive to others.

The news paper did not do it just for malicious pleasure so it is wrong to attribute ulterior motives to it.Any second guessing is just a futile exercise to establish moral equivalence.

In other words it was a test case for muslim immigrants in particular and adherents to faith in general.However more than that it was test case for so called liberals in the west.

However considering the consequences I do not think that either managed to pass the test.
While muslim countriess indulged in the usual saber - rattling, International media out ofsheer mortification failed in their duty to cover the issue.People have not failed to note that on past occasion liberals had no compunction in covering issues which can be considered downright offensive toChristians (examples like piss Christ or dung Mary).

This is sheer hypocrisy, what is more this is a policy doomed to fail as pastexperiences havee shown that appeasement never works.

The conclusion, liberals must grow some spine, if they want to have relevance.

To theMuslims First It is immaterial if depiction of Prophet is considered as blasphemy in Islam,pictures are considered perfectly normal in the world outside islam, so it is better to become used to it. As an aside prophet has been depicted in Islamic history, so it is not something which is unparalleled in History.

Second Even if the cartoons were offensive it is unavoidable during a debate in a free society, so it is better to grow a thicker skin. What is more protest should be in proportion to perceived offense.

Third By acting in this manner,Muslims are exhibiting what they criticize that is idolatry.

Here, I would like to give my stand.As a Hindu I consider cows to be sacred, in fact I consider all life to be sacred.That doesn't mean I will expect everyone to turn vegetarian. I do not have the right to force anyone to become vegetarian.In fact it would be foolish for me to hold demonstrations for this.

A second more serious example, I am offended by nude pictures of Hindu Gods and Godesses.If I protest this, it will not by using physical violence but by other means. For example, I can hold demonstration in front of the painter house or the gallery, but I will not use threat of physical violence.