Being Sickular Pseudo-Liberal

Just when the ‘ghar bapsi’ movement was settling down, a maharaj declared that every Hindu woman should ‘produce’ four kids. The maharaj actually became an MP even though he was accused of rape. But then he did not rape, he was only trying to make sure that every Hindu woman ‘produce’ four kids. These ‘Child Manufacturing Machines’, who are often eliminated before they are even able to ‘produce’ their first smile, have suddenly become important. Yes we need them dearly, as long as they are not ‘produced’ by my wife, to correct the statistics. No not the statistics of skewed sex ratio of this country, but the Hindu to Muslim population ratio that is on a decreasing trend ever since independence. Someone actually warned me few days back that if we pseudo-secular Hindus do not act now, our future generation will cease to exist… a scary thought. But then again, as another great personality claimed, every child is born a Muslim. We probably need ‘ghar bapsi’ as the first ceremony after the child birth, because I am sure before birth every soul was a Hindu. Wasn't it Babas? 

[ARE YOU SICKULAR PSEUDO-LIBERAL? PLEASE ANSWER THE QUESTION ON THE RIGHT COLUMN OF THE BLOG. THANK YOU>>>]

Clash of Ideologies

We start this New Year with rising intolerance all over the world- School boys massacred in Pakistan and somehow Indians blamed for that, free speech eliminated in France and all Muslims blamed for that, mass murder in Nigeria by Boko Haram, and no one cared. I am Charlie, I am not a Nigerian, aren’t they black? But when a same black man was killed by a white police man in USA, people did protest. Protests in-fact was a common thing by pissed off people all over the world last year; from Hong Kong to USA, from Venezuela to Thailand. India also had its fair share of protests. There have been protests against moral policing, and counter protests against protests against moral policing. Here pissing in public gives us peace of mind, but kissing in public and you will get a piece of our mind. In another event students protested against a molestation incident in Jadavpur University. The seculars and liberals kept raising their head in times of rising intolerance.

Intolerance, however, would not be left behind. Angry mobs, who likes to think they are the ultimate representatives of the endangered religion called Hinduism, protested against the movie P.K.. Supposedly a Muslim actor ridiculed Hindu gods, the movie also promoted ‘Love Jihad’ between a Hindu Indian girl and a Muslim Pakistani boy. To top that, .pk is the internet country code top-level domain of our all-time favorite enemy Pakistan. There is obviously a conspiracy somewhere, and according to someone’s reliable source the movie was funded by ISI and Dubai. Infact it is claimed that Bollywood has always showed Muslim men snatching our women by making them fall in love with them. Look at movies like Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, or Veer Zara (where a Hindu Indian marries a Muslim Paristani girl). Isn’t that what they always promote? Bollywood, and specially Amir Khan who acted in films like Sarfarosh (where he fights against Muslim terrorists) and Earth (plays a Pakistani Muslim villain), never have the guts to show the Muslims in negative light. Why else will a ‘terrorist organization’ like ARY group of Dubai promote PK? By the way, ARY is a called terrorist organization just because some agency is investigating many top companies including them for links to terror funding. PK insults the god men, like Asharam Bapu, Swami Nityanandya, Gurmeet Ram Rahim, who have direct connection to god instead of terrorists. Insulting them is insulting god himself. There are two kinds of god, one who made us and the other whom we made. The first almighty can take care of itself, but it is the second one who must be protected with all our might. PK stands for the first god, a god that represents all people, but no religion.

To a liberal being ‘majority’ religion does not give them the power to be a ruler, nor should the tag of ‘minority’ give anyone political immunity. India represents its people bound by its constitution, not their religion, and laws should be uniform for all. A India where a Hindu can as easily be the Chief Minister of a Muslim dominated state as a Muslim be for a Hindu dominated state. A wild thought indeed. Not surprisingly, many of these saviors of Hinduism are part of the ultra-right communal organizations like RSS or Hindu Mahasabha. They are yet to develop into a dangerous terrorist groups like Maoists, LeT or IM. But sure has the potential to be one. The Hindu Mahasabha, which was started in 1914 as an answer to the communal organization called Muslim League, wants the image of Gandhi removed from Indian currency and replace it with Shivaji and Maha Ranapratap. Gandhi, the idol of non-violence and secularity, should be replaced with fighters who fought the Mughals. They also want the text book to stop calling Gandhi ‘father of nation’.

Gandhi, indeed, was never a good father. Neither his sons nor independent India took the road he wanted. Patel would have never united India had he followed Gandhigiri, nor would Goa be liberated. India, with the fourth largest military in the world, would never have been a nuclear power if it followed the path of Gandhi. Gandhi’s anti-modernization ideology had no place in modern India. But to a liberal Gandhi represents an ideology above all this, infact the ideology is above the person himself. Gandhi represents not just the person, but the idea of peace and non-violence. It represents the courage of a fragile old man taking on the mighty British Empire without any weapons. That is the reason why Gandhi was called Mahatma by Rabindranath Tagore, a person who was against the cult of Gandhi, and not by his blind followers. Gandhi was called ‘father of nation’ by Subash Chandra Bose who went against the very idea that Gandhi stood for, and again not by his blind followers. Gandhi, thus, transcends all boundaries of right or wrong, or so the liberals claim.

The question is, if as a nation we do not follow the ideologies of Gandhi, and often rightly so, should we shift our ideologies from Gandhi to Sarvarkar? Sarvarkar was a freedom fighter and a poet. Unlike Gandhi, and much like Bhagat Singh, Sarvarkar was and atheist. That might come as a shock to many because he was the person who coined the term, and promoted, Hindutva. He fought against the British imperialism; he fought against the Indian caste system, and was instrumental in uniting the different fragment of Hindus. According to him Hindus are ‘people who live as children of a common motherland, adoring a common holyland’. His anti-Muslim feelings grew during Khalifat movement when he saw many Muslims showing more loyalty to a Muslim Caliphate outside India than their own motherland. His personal experience did bias him and made him ignore the numerous Muslim freedom fighters who gave their life for India’s freedom; he ignored all the Muslims in Subhas Chandra Bose’s army. It is the ideology of Sarvarkar, that made Godse kill Gandhi. After his brutal act Godse surrendered himself with pride. Smiling, he went to his death bed. He called himself a martyr who gave his life to protect Hinduism. Again, it is not about a person being good or bad, because that is just a perspective, it is an ideology that goes beyond that. The terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo, also called themselves martyr by the same logic Godse gave. Is killing people with different ideologies from us the right path that we as a nation want to follow? The secular liberals will probably say no. The great irony is that, many people who condemned the Paris attack were the same guys who wanted PK banned. But, then again there were a couple of Indians who supported the barbaric act and even declared reward for the murderers. 

In insecure and intolerant world liberalism, secularism and free mind will be seen as a disease. Some people claim that we have to stop the conspiracy by the terrorist organizations to brainwash our youths and make them so secular and liberal that they no more remain Hindus. There will probably be centers open soon at various places of India to cure this ‘sickular’ disease, along with LGBT. The fear that Hindu religion is in danger is probably true. We survived the invasion of Greeks, Sakas, Kushans, Muslims and Europeans, because of our unique strength of secularism. Today that strength is in danger, today Hinduism is indeed in danger.

That reminds me of a wild dream by another sickular and pseudo-liberal Indian and his famous poem:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

We, the sick people of India, will keep raising our ugly heads in our struggle for that heaven of freedom.