After getting picked for yet another “random” search at one of the busiest airports in America, it seems so ironic that I watched “My Name Is Khan” a few hours ago with an American friend. I would have become a billionaire till now, if they had the same criteria of random selection for lucky draws and lotteries here.

Anyhow, as the dust settled on the Shiv Sena – SRK battlefield, there no question about who bite the dust and who prevailed. But we are still left with some questions that are important and worth pondering over. First, why did we have this controversy at the first place, and second, who was justified and who was not?

First things first, many of us think that the cause of this yet another useless controversy was Shahrukh’s statement supporting Pakistani players for IPL. Some of us might consider Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in India as the real cause. In my view, the real reason was this question of who actually controls Mumbai. As Bheekhu Mathre yells in Satya, “Mumbai ka king kaun…?” this was a self-gratifying war cry from toothless cub of an ailing tiger.

This wasn’t a war between Shahrukh Khan and Shiv Sena as it appear on the surface. Interestingly, this started as a war between Shiv Sena and MNS and ended as a battle between Shiv Sena and Congress. Since MNS surfaced on the political map of Maharashtra, both Uddhav and Raj Thakrey are competing in a dangerous rat race. Race to pick up issues “concerning” marathi manus. MNS scored some points by beating up north Indian taxi drivers, by forcing Karan Johar to apologize for using the name Bombay instead of Mumbai his last movie and many more. As a result, MNS was rewarded in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. On the other hand, Shiv Sena was wiped off from Mumbai-Thane region, one of their traditional strongholds. This was Shiv Sena’s desperate attempt to reclaim their territory and influence over the marathi vote bank. Both these parties who claim to champion the cause of Maharashtra and marathis have no vision or constructive plan for the state’s development. All they have is Taliban-style destructive agenda and goonda forces on the ground to implement it. Burn the valentines day cards, beat couples at Chaupati, don’t let this movie release, boycott Australian players, dig the cricket pitch at Kotla, issue derogatory and inflammatory speeches is all they know.

Congress, later on had to jump in as Rahul baba was dragged into the whole issue and Shiv Sena threatened to not let the Congress yuvraj visit Mumbai. How can the Maharahtra congress government tolerate any attack on its first family. Their crack down on Shiv Sena would also mean stronger MNS and as marathi votes split further, benefit to the Congress in long run. So the underlying reasons were purely political.

Lets come to our second question of who was right. I don’t think we need a Karan Johar movie to remind us that there is no difference between a Hindu and a Muslim. The only difference that counts, is that is between a good person and a bad person. Even if some of us disagree with Karan on this or some of us agree with the government of India’s discrete suggestion to IPL franchises not to recruit Pakistani players to keep up the pressure on Pakistan Government; there should be no compromise on an individual’s freedom of expression in a democratic country. Who is Shiv Sena to decide who should say what, who is patriotic and who is not, who should watch a particular movie and who should not. Look at this statement from Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut calling all the people who went watch My name Is Khan despite Shiv Sena is diktats as Kasab-lovers:

“These are Kasab-lovers and Pakistan-lovers. They will definitely go, but the country is with us. The Congress has created a mini-Pakistan in India and will shower flowers on a ‘Khan.’ The andolan is 100 per cent successful. The film was only released under Chief Minister Ashok Chavan’s pressure. At least 150 men were guarding the theatres with AK-47s. If so many stood guard at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus during 26/11, we could have prevented the attack. If a terror strike were to take place now, who would be responsible?”

And guess what, a terror strike did take place, in Pune just days later. According to recent media reports, police is suspecting the hand of a ultra Hindu nationalist group Abhinav Bharat. The organisation is led by Himani Savarkar — daughter of Gopal Godse, brother of Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram.

In the end, people of Mumbai did decide who is indeed King of Mumbai. It is the aam janta of Mumbai. Aam janta or mango people as Saif puts it in Love Aajkal, that has very little to do with politic, that wants to ride the local train without fearing a bomb blast, that wants to enjoy a good game of cricket and yes, wants Pakistan to loose, that wants to watch a good movie on a weekend with the family, that do not want the inconvenience of additional search each time on the airport because their last name is Khan or they have a brown skin. This aam junta is same everywhere. Be it Mumbai, Delhi, Karachi or New York.

I thought, I would end this post with this sher from Nida Fazli:

Insaan mein haivaan yahaan bhi hai vahaan bhi

Allah nigah-baan yahaan bhi hai vahaan bhi

Hindutva or fanatic Hindu nationalism is not a new phenomenon in India. It was always present in some form or the other during the freedom struggle and even before that. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the primary organization that promotes this ideology, has been quite active for a long time. Lately, Hindu extremism saw rejuvenation in the late 80’s and came to the center stage of Indian political landscape in the 90’s. And from there on, we have seen it reaching new proportions.

This re-emergence of Hindtuva started primarily after the demolition of Babri mosque in Ayodhya in Dec’ 92. After subsequent events, we have seen dramatic rise of communal tension and as a result of that more and more riots. Hindu-Muslim riots have always happened in India and unfortunately the “secular” police and state have most of the times helped Hindus to kill Muslims. Also, using religion as a tool to win election has never been a taboo for any community. So what is new in Moditva?

Moditva – Hindutva practiced with the help of organized terrorism and supported by large scale manipulation of democratic process.

What happened in Gujarat in 2002 was blatant state terrorism being inflicted upon its own innocent civilians. There can be no excuse to justify it in any way. It’s much worse than Muslim terrorism as organizations such as Lashkar-e-Toiba or SIMI are banned and no longer part of the society or political process. They are criminals and terrorists by definition. But Hindu extremist organizations such as RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, BJP are very much part of the society and are intact using society and political process to unleash terrorism. And we as civil society are watching the show helplessly. All our constitutional safe-guards have largely failed. Hindu extremism is growing and sadly getting more and more acceptability in the society.

It really frightens me to the core when I think about Muslim youth in India hearing venomous speeches by people like Praveen Togadiya and Narendra Modi. How much anger they would have felt, while watching the news about Gujarat massacre! How disillusioned they must be feeling, when India as a country failed to bring those responsible, to justice and people of Gujarat reelected the man who we all know, was the main culprit for massacring thousands of fellow Muslims.

I am amused by the amount of restrain shown by the Muslim community in India. At the same time, the thought troubles me a lot, when I think of the day when all this rage would spill over. And, it would be more unfortunate if that doesn’t happen. The legitimate grievances of an oppressed community should be expressed in some form or the other. In the end, I would like to say that India has to be an egalitarian society and a secular country not only because we want to be but because we would crease to exist if we don’t.

What an irony that the proponents of “Akhand Bharat” are working so hard to validate two-nation theory and make Jinnah’s doubts a reality!

PS
There is no real irony here as the two-nation theory was first proposed by Sangh Parivar's ideologue Savarkar in a session of the Hindu Mahasabha in 1937 - three years before the Muslim League's Pakistan resolution in Lahore. Thanks to a friend for pointing this out.

"What is your aim in life?" asked one of my best friends while we were enjoying 'free lunch' at work.

"Umm..., I don’t have any aim..." was my frank reply.

"What do you mean you don’t have any aim? You gotta have some purpose to your life..." he shot back as if I was the only guy in the world who didn’t have any defined aim. This was one of those rare occasions, when he probably saw an opportunity to win an argument with me.

I started eating my sweet dish before finishing the meal just to get some time to think. "I take my life one stride at a time and don’t think beyond 5 years. I set new objectives when I have achieved what I earlier aimed for" was my reply.

"I am asking about your overall objective" he was relentless.

"I don’t have any overall objective and I don’t think that it is necessary" I replied as if I knew that I was right and found the discussion completely useless.

"What is _your_ overall aim?" this was my turn now and I expected to catch him on wrong foot.

But he was well prepared for the question and probably was expecting it. "I wanna go into space." he said looking at me with eyes filled with strong determination and face lit up with confidence.

We went on to argue until we finished eating and as usual didn’t reach any conclusion. As a last ditch effort to convince him that I have a valid point, I later sent him this sher written by Allama Iqbal on chat:

Har makaam se aage makaam hai tera
Hayat zauq-e-safar ke siwa kuchh aur nahi

Frankly, I myself wasn’t sure of what I was arguing for and I now realize that I had no idea of what we were talking about.

(To be continued...)

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

How true is this statement by Salman Rushdie! I have neither read Lajja nor Dwikhandito. I am also aware that that these works of art might offend some Muslims or other people in general. If that is so, we should protest in peaceful and civilized manner like grown up gentlemen. A work of art or a book is just a version of the world by its writer's perspective. Truth is one but everyone sees that truth differently. If you don't like someones views, come up with your own version, argue and show the world how your perspective is better. That is how a progressive and open civil society should work.

But the actual point here wasn't the views expressed by Taslima Nasreen in her books that she even took back after those planned demonstrations. The point is that how these communal forces (read CPIM and Congress) used these religious sentiments to divert media attention from a public movement in Nandigram and then in Kolkata. The real tragedy is that Muslims allowed them to manipulate their religious sentiments and we as a "secular" civil society watched the show helplessly. Worse, those who did this, are now claiming to be the champions of Muslim cause. This, according to me, is a complete and collective failure of the system and society.

Both her books have been in print for long and she too has been living in India for a some years now. So what happened suddenly? Answer is Nandigram (see The Ugly Face of Communism in India). When people started protesting in Kolkata against violence in Nandigram and media stated reporting it in a big way, CPI/CPIM staged these protests against Taslima Nasreen and drove her out of Kolkata. Our central government wasn't war behind. She calls the place she was kept in as "the chamber of torture and death" and has accused government officials and our revered foreign affairs minister and second in command after PM, Mr. Pranabh Mukharjee of mental harassment. GOI made mockery of even basic spirit of human values by not even allowing Mrs Nasreen to see a doctor by citing security reasons. And this ultimately forced Mrs Naseen to take the step that they wanted.

Incident after incident, governments in India are bowing to communal elements and our constitutional institutions have failed to up held the secular spirit that our forefathers enriched in the constitution. Be it Gujrat riots or this latest episode, we are just serving the interest of extremist elements of different communities. We are undermining moderate voices. This not secularism, not even schudo secularism, this is blatant communalism, religious extremism, right on the face. The interesting thing is that we just change our sides based on our interests and our cowardice. Sometimes we align ourselves with Advani and co to bring down Babri mosque and never take any action and at some other time we harass, torture and throw out a liberal writer out of the country.

You took the right decision to leave India, Mrs Nasreen. India is no longer an open and progressive society. We are now becoming a model failed state that doesn't follow its own laws but is governed by diktats of fundamentalist of every religion and cast. She herself described the situation after leaving India as:

"A person who couldn't be scared by fundamentalists has been defeated by cold-blooded state terrorism inflicted by the Indian government. My terrible experience has shattered all my notions about a secular, democratic India.”

So has mine! Sadly, I no longer consider India a secular country after watching and analyzing the political developments in last 15-20 years. Right from Shah Bano case to Babri demolition, and from Gujrat massacre to Taslima's exile. It is a shame for all those who call themselves secular and liberal but don't have the guts to take a stand to defend it. Shame on you CPIM, shame on you UPA and shame on you India for being such a spineless communal state.

In the end, instead of Ghalib, I would like to quote actor Nana Patekar's dialog that captures my rage and frustration more appropriately:

Saala ek machhar aadmi ko hijra bana deta hai.

The finals week is finally over and I am feeling so relieved, free and bored! I was feeling so bored that I had to watch 5 back-to-back episodes of "Sex and the City" to get myself in the mood....to write. People, specially Indians, often ask me this question "Why don't you believe in god?". My response to this is so big and blunt that most people would get offended and yes, bored. But during past three months, I actually promised at least two friends to compile my thought about this. So here I go.

Lets first warm up a bit! In the following video, you can replace "fool" with "kafirr" if you are a Muslim and with "adharmi" if you are a Hindu. You would be at home, in case you are Christian. Wtch the video to know, what I am talking about.

The next video is really funny and is not for people who feel too strongly about their religion/faith. So don't watch it if you can not take some light hearted humor.

This video is hilarious but in fact, raises some very fundamental and obvious questions about the existence for god. We often overlook these basic questions and start debating (and preaching) on complex topics without addressing the basic premises for these topics.

Although I have so much to write on this issue. But the idea of god seems so much fundamentally flawed to me that I think, I don't need to go into gory details of holy scriptures to present my case strongly. I would like to make just three points to present my thoughts on the subject.

First, I am an atheist because I was born an atheist. In fact everybody is born innocent, lovely and atheist. When we are born we have absolutely no idea about god or religion or our culture or language or world. So why some people become Muslims, some become Christians, some Jews or Hindus. So, instead of "why I am an atheist" the real question should be why have "you" become a Muslim or Christian? Why do most people believe in the religion they believe in? Think about it. You are a Christian Protestant not because you were born a Christian Protestant or liked that belief and got converted, but simply because your parents were Christian Protestants. Because you have been told right from the beginning that it is the only right way. Because you were told not to ask question about it. You must have asked questions like why a table is called a table or why does "B" comes after "A" why not "C". Your parents like my parents would have replied that its the way it is and then we never asked questions about these things. We only ask question in areas where we are allowed to questions or where we expect to get some answers. Our parents didn't know the answers as they never got any answers from their parents. The questions about table and ABC are trivial but the question about god or religion is not. Think about it, my Muslim friends. You believe that Allah is the only God and Muhammad is his messenger. You are deeply religious, pray five times, fast during Ramadan, don't eat pork. Its good. But think, if you would have born in country side in Italy in a orthodox Christian family, you would have been believing in "father, son and holy spirit", would have been praying in Church in front of idols and would argue that Muslims are mistaken people who would go to hell on judgement day because they don't believe that Christ was son of God.

Forget about any irrationalities in the details of your religion. For five minutes, I believe what is written in Koran is true. I am ready to believe in Bible, old testament, new testament, Gita (Hindu scripture) and all other holy books and beliefs. Even in the belief of some tribe living in jungles of Africa, who worship a stone god for rain and food and offer human sacrifice in return. But I can not believe in each of them simultaneously because they all contradict each other and I have no way to choose between them and say that this religion is the only true religion. I would not claim that my religion is the only true religion because everybody is claiming that and I should have something concrete if I claim that too. And everybody is claiming that because they really believe that it is true. But wait, something is wrong here. You could have been arguing in favour of those African tribals with equal zeal if they would you would have born in that tribe. Simple. So you and I have no moral right, whatsoever to proclaim the superiority of our religion or belief. So I have no reason to believe in one religion or the other. Suppose I got ride of my backlog of religious faith imposed by my parents and society, which religion should I choose then. Try to think with open open mind why do you follow you religion and would you have believed in god the same way that you currently believe in if you had born to different parents in a different part of the world? Would you have been wrong then or are you currently wrong. Try to write down the reasons in favour of our answer.

Second, I really miss god. I seriously wish I could believe in god. Life would have been much easier. Before you start preaching from your holy scriptures to save my soul, let me first clarify my stance. People turn to god in their hour of distress and pain. Their belief, even though false, helps them to coup with their troubled lives. If something bad happens, people believe that what happened was their fate and was the divine plan. They go on to the next task without any guilty feeling of the faults they had committed earlier. They would pray to god and would have faith that god is with them and that gives them tremendous confidence. So is this a bad thing? I think, yes. Its like taking drugs to relive the mental pain and provide you that euphoric feeling. This is escapism. This why Marx calls religion "the opium of masses". And at least I don't need opium to live my life. I would like to face life by looking straight into its eyes like a man. If its hard I will face it. If I make mistakes, I would admit them or at least try to learn from them. If I fall flat, I wont put the blame on someone else. If I make a plan, I wont count on god's helping hand in it. Believe me, this make life tough. But I don't have any other option. I am open to the idea of god and spend a lot of my leisure time studying different religions and schools of thoughts. But more deep I look into a religion more ugly it becomes. But please, I am sick of those people who wants to save my soul. I would be more than happy to debate the issue but I don't want to listen the preaching that assumes the existence of god. All this becomes a waste of time because everything scriptures say is based on the very fact that I don't believe in.

Third, What I think, is the real battle? Science vs religion is not the right issue to discuss. Nor is eastern vs western civilization the main conflict point. I don't think there is any fundamental point of difference between Abrahamic religions vs rest. To me, this conflict is basically between irrational blind faith and the modern rational, logical mind. To me, this is a conflict between modernity and anti-modernism. While some people want to go forward, others are trying to go back. It is a conflict between the future and the past, between innovation and tradition, between those who value freedom and those who do not.[1] The real battle is reason vs blind faith, its backwardness vs modernization, its intolerance vs inclusiveness, its extremism vs moderation, its logic of power vs power of logic.

The battle is going on and I am optimistic that forces of reason would prevail. As Bertrand Russell puts it:

"Reason may be a small force, but it is constant and works always in one direction, while the forces of unreason destroy one another in futile strife. Therefore every orgy of unreason in the end strengthens the friends of reason, and shows afresh that they are the only true friends of humanity."

But again, before we become extremist atheists and launch some kind of crusade or witch hunt, there is another unanswered critical question. Is religion in its moderate form really an evil thing? Is even the concept of a personal god really harm full? Should we let people worship stones unless they don't throw these stone at us? I think, religion in its moderate form is still unreasonable, but not that bad. Religion, if treated as a personal issue and is not binding might in fact help the society in some ways. After all, even drugs are beneficial as painkillers, if taken with care and advise. I personally have no problems in going along with people from different faiths and backgrounds and in fact like religion a lot. But as I said before, I cant adopt it. Its just so illogical to me.

But having said that, the concept of religion and god seems too dangerous and primitive to me. Religion is fundamentally based on blind faith and false assumptions. Lack of reason is at its core. This is the prime reason that religious fundamentalists are able to muster support from the moderate masses. That is the reason that rulers have used religion as a tool to suppress masses. Faith is one thing that nobody can reason about because it is fundamentally unreasonable. Every religion has exploited and fooled people in the name of god. And people become fool again and again simply because they ARE fools. They are fools because they believed in false concepts at the first place.

Anyways, we actually don't have a choice. Religion is so much intermingled with our culture, society and value system that we cant really imagine a godless world in the near future. So I like it or not, I will have to learn to live with god in the society and follow its culture. But I would continue to live my life in the rational way. What would happen in the future is hard to predict, but I think, religion would become largely meaningless if not obsolete in the years to come.

I know that I am an ignorant fool in the eyes of most people। I am an infidel and would go to hell. All I would like to say is that:

हाँ वो नहीं खुदा परस्त जाओ वो बेवफ़ा सही,
जिसको हो दीन-ओ-दिल अज़ीज़ उसकी गली में जाये क्यों?

I, too have some unreasonable habits and quoting Ghalib is just one of them.

References:

[1] - Taslima Nasreen on Islamic Fundamentalism http://humanists.net/nasrin/harvard%20lecture.htm"