The Last Man Standing – Justice Markandey Katju

The Constitution of India guarantees freedom of speech – a right mostly abused by politicians who are better served a dose of silence and online trolls who somehow don’t understand the difference between freedom and abuse of freedom. Be that as it may, what’s shocking is the same trolls attacking someone for having an opinion – probably unpalatable to some, probably absurd to some, probably offending a few but damn right needs to be said. How is the same freedom of speech which is used as a cloak of defense to justify online abuse not granted to someone because his opinions are “inconvenient”? The first amendment of the United States Constitution – grants rights to hold an opinion and there is not a reason that we have to be unanimous in our opinions but there is a reason that we have to make sure alternate opinions is heard. What is the true of the US is also true of India. This post is about why so many people want to shout down the PCI chair and very distinguished Justice of the Supreme Court – Justice Markandey Katju because they rather have someone mute, man the chair.

India has never seen so many changes all at once as it has seen in the past decade. Call it the telecom revolution or long oppression of the voiceless masses or whatever that seems a good explanation to this new zest to be heard. Everyone wants to be heard and uses innovative as well as provocative ways and means to be heard. This has changed a lot in the way we function as a system and the sudden information overload or information revolution or RTI has caused violent outbursts on the internet by people who seem to probably make different meanings of same set information. Obviously, this causes a lot of clash of opinions and it soon degenerates into petty name calling and outright hounding of minority opinions. That’s a reason why I blog, because these are my ideas and I don’t need validation from anyone. Coming back to the topic at hand; during the good old days, the Government was the disseminator of all information and it was their job to make things sound palatable to general public. The politician was the only voice and the entire machinery of Government (including Judiciary) was silent. The only way the system propagated opinions was by file noting and judgments. These were again vetted by the Government owned broadcasters and disseminated in palatable manner to general public. The system was self-healing and self-preserving because there was no alternative voice of dissent. It was expected the people manning the Government machinery (minus the politicians) are silent minions whose voice is the voice of the politician heading the Government. Their deliberations were behind closed doors and one had to wait for an ex-officio Police Chief or Judge or bureaucrat to come out with his biography to know startling facts about various ways the system is subverted by politicians.

The RTI has meant that now every voice comes out into public domain. File noting is openly discussed and judicial verdicts are openly discussed. This coupled with a 24x7 media, hungry for “breaking news” brews a dangerous cocktail, where many a time news is manufactured to feed this hungry monster of news seeking public. All of sudden the cracks in the well-oiled system start to show up. We now know which official objected to which politician in what case and which judge made what adverse remark against which Government official in which case. Once again, the media takes these innocuous remarks and builds a story – many times backed by facts – but often times backed by blowing hot air. Point being, every anchor on every media channel wants to make his opinion on the story rather than report the facts. This was unethical in good old days of print journalism. News was meant to report facts of matter and not propagate personal opinions – except the editorials- which were also balanced in their critique. So does this mean, what our media is doing is unethical and we should muzzle them? NO.  We have people working with the Government – Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Navy, Chief of Air force, Chief Justice of India, Chief Vigilance Commissioner, CBI chief, C&AG and the CEC address the media or organize press conference to voice their opinions on events that are currently under their consideration or matters of public importance. In the good old days, this was considered as exceeding the brief, but now we have learnt to expect voicing of different opinions within the Government machinery as a sign of good times. We now feel that the democracy that our founding fathers perceived will finally exist in letter and spirit in the times to come.

The other aspect of this is what we have come to understand as media trolling (online and other wise). All this openness has made attacks on opinions more prominent and vicious which degenerate to name calling and questioning personal credentials. It is one thing when politicians do it for marginal and short term benefits, it’s disgusting for the rest of us to follow suit.  This brings back the question to where we began, when we have accepted so many changes in such a short period of time, why not accept one minor thing – like I have an opinion there must be someone who has a contrary opinion and it isn’t my job to make that person change the opinion by shouting down the person with help from other like-minded people. Media houses do this on a regular basis; internet users do it even more. The case study being Justice Katju, the chair of Press Council of India. Justice Katju was never known for meek insignificant statements. While he served as Justice in the Supreme Court or Chief Justice to Madras or Allahabad High court, he always made news for his stern remarks as well as his knowledge of literature which became an integral part of most of the judgments passed by him. I have always known him for calling a spade a spade. Many a times, he does sound like an overbearing parent scolding an insolent child, but you could never call him partisan or question his integrity. When he was appointed the Chair to PCI, I must say it shocked me. How a person who never minced words could be again appointed by the same Government to whom he must have felt like a thorn in the flesh.

The moment he took up the task of making media accountable and forcefully so, the outrage against him started pouring out. The various editors started foul mouthing his impeccable credentials –while they themselves had a shady past. People began questioning why he was selected to Chair the PCI and started making innuendos that he was the man hired by Government to cut the media to size. There were several voices of restrain too – N. Ram (The Hindu) and Kumar Ketkar (Dainik Bharat) who advised the editors guild to look dispassionately at the points raised by Justice Katju rather than merely trying to shout him down. Reason and responsibility was never known to media who by then had become this behemoth who could devour people’s reputations at blink of an eyelid. Then several such instances came up which showed the dark underbelly of the media – paid news, made up stories, seeking ransom to cover-up etc. which  justified the initial concerns raised by Justice Katju. Meanwhile, Justice Katju took up cases where many State Governments used to control media in their state by controlling the Government advertisement funds. This deep nexus was uncovered – where media was forced to give glorious coverage to Government and ignore its devious details for want of the funds, which was majorly provided by Government. He made forceful arguments against such corrupt practices employed and called for dismissal of Governments which seek to control media. As a result, he stood out like a nail in the eyes of politicians – a nail that has to be hammered but they all awaited a false move.

Justice Katju also wrote columns from time to time in various newspapers. Opinions which one may agree or disagree – like the case of 90% Indians being fools or idiots. I did not agree with this column but I respected the opinion because it takes either a brave man or a fool to criticize 90% population of our country. To me Justice Katju was never a foolish person, he said things in a forceful manner –that being his mannerisms or idiosyncrasy and left it to us if we want to accept it or reject it. Another thing I always liked was his standard line – “this is my opinion. I would request you to come up with arguments to change my opinion” – true democratic style of functioning. Wonder how many politicians can claim being so democratic in approach. He also wrote a critical piece about late Bal Thackrey when most of us were still posting obituaries and most recently his post on the development model of Narendra Modi. In each case, he has the courage of going against the flow of wind – not just for foolish bravado but backing it up with solid points that cannot be brushed aside. You can love Justice Katju or hate him, but you simply cannot brush him off by calling him names or questioning his credibility. I have special mention to politicians – who while still holding constitutional posts themselves, regularly write columns – mostly propagating their own political causes, standing up to say Justice Katju should not have a voice because he holds a quasi-judicial post, just because his opinions have become politically inconvenient to them. What hurts more is rest of us following suit in condemning a man who for all I know should be preserved – because they don’t make the likes of him anymore!

So long...

Not my country – experience of being a minority or a woman in India

 

In many ways, 65 years of Independence and thousands of years’ worth civilization has failed to teach India and more importantly Indians, a few things about good human behavior. Firstly, the words – “India is my country, all Indians are my brothers and sisters……” does not ring a bell with most of us. I am not sure; if this happens in other societies and I am aiming for utopia here, but I am aware that what happens in India is wrong both on ethical as well as legal level.  The identity “INDIAN” remains a detail held only on the passport. Outside the passport, we have so many identities that our identity as Indian - the basis of which the founding fathers gave us our rights and obligations remains vague to most of us. Twice every year – on August 15^th and January 26^th – we wish ourselves Happy Independence day and Happy Republic Day as Indians and then go back to our other identities for the rest of the days.

This is not an easy topic to address, it seems like I am preaching - like holier than thou – but I am aware of so many instances where I must have behaved exactly like the rest of us – whom I am targeting here. We in India do these things routinely, so much so that it becomes part of our culture and even when someone points it out, we refuse to reconsider our approach towards fellow citizen. In most cases, we have a standard reply “It has been like this for as far as I know, so stop lecturing me”. On a TV discussion, during the famous India Against Corruption (IAC) hunger strike for a tough anti-corruption legislation in August 2011, one member casually suggested – “Do you feel, IAC would have had same traction on minds of Indians if a Muslim drove it?” He was soon shouted down by ubiquitous IAC volunteers on TV as well as other “armchair” advisors who felt this individual was Government operative who wanted to give a religious shade to the movement. Initially, I laughed at this comment. Later, I was thinking and asking myself – when was the last time a minority ran a successful movement in India? Did we ever hear about a Christian / Muslim / Sikh / Parsi leader running an anti-corruption drive or leading a movement against religious bias or movement against terrorism or any political movement for causes big or small? Think really hard. Probably rack your brains… you will find there are none. It is shocking isn’t it? In a country of 1.2 billion, with minority population of 25 – 30%, we don’t have one major movement run by a religious minority leader.  I am sure most of us would not even notice that in cases of religious violence too, it’s mostly the Hindus who champion the cause of minorities to lend credibility to the movement for religious equivalence. This is so prevalent in our society that many justify it saying- So what?  after all Hindus make for 70% of the population. So let me ask my friends a few questions today, would Jayprakash Narayan cause the same impact on India if he were a Muslim? Would Anna Hazare cause same amount of support if he were a Christian or would the Mandal politics be as effective if it was run by a Sikh? I am sure, people will say a lot of minorities took part in these events and it would be unfair to say it was run by Hindus only. I know that, I am simply commenting on the people who led these movements and why these movements got traction.

We Indians are notorious for our caste and religion divide. So much so, that it becomes very easy for any Government to kill mass movements. The simplest thing is to point out blatantly that the person leading the movement happens to be from a minority community and wants to run down the image of India at a world stage. The movement dies so fast, that we would feel it never existed. Isn’t it strange that even as we keep saying that as Indians we are all equal in front of our constitution, we have often heard people say “If he has so much problem with India, tell him go to Pakistan”; “If they think India is so bad, they are free to leave”; “We don’t want outsiders to tell us what we should do”. This monopoly of ability to criticize my country that rests with the Hindus does not rest with others. A Muslim reformer is reminded of Pakistan and a Christian of Europe or US and Sikh of Khalistani movement to shut them from uttering anything against India – even obviously wrong things. Why is it that after 65 years of Independence, the minorities have right to live in India, right to move in India, right to vote in India, right to fight and die for India but no rights to criticize and improve India? Why are valid and thoughtful inputs provided by religious minority groups lost in the storm of religious jingoism caused by the majority group politicians?  It is very sad, despite our shared past and equal stake in bright future, a chunk of Indians are not able to voice their opinions freely – at least not as freely as the rest of us.

If being a minority in India seems bad, imagine being a woman in India.  Since before her birth, a girl child starts feeling being unwanted in this world. Infanticide of female fetuses must be unique to India; at least I am not aware of any other country where we selectively kill the female fetus from preventing birth. Though it seemed a rural phenomenon at first, this misogyny is not limited to rural India. We have seen huge number of urban middleclass couples travelling to secluded towns and rural areas to get female fetuses aborted – even at advanced stage of pregnancy. Then there are cases of midwives killing the female child by drowning them in milk so that the next pregnancy results in a male child. In cases where the female child escapes these acts, her interests are always sacrificed for the male child of the family. Be it her nutritional needs or her educational needs to even medical needs, a girl child in India (mostly rural India) learns very early that she has to sacrifice for the man’s needs. Very early she is taught that a woman cannot survive alone, she needs a support of a man throughout her life – father while growing up, husband in her youth and son in her old age. While there may be a sentimental value attached to this teaching, systematic brainwash of a girl from a very young age makes sure that she never learns to stand up for her rights. At all stages a woman learns to compromise with what she has and never yearns for better life. This romanticization of a woman’s ability to sacrifice was depicted in the movies of 19^th century and it glorified a woman for the sacrifices she makes. What followed was the collective psyche of the India accepting the fact that a woman is meant to sacrifice for interests of male family members – consequently, the woman who doesn’t, invariably gets depicted as a selfish bitch or a ‘vamp’. There was nothing like a female sexuality, there was only satisfaction of male sexuality and that remained the extent of female sexuality. The movies depicted this in a worse manner. This statement made by a script writer tells the story – “The only way a woman could have sex outside wedlock was via sexual assault. Hence, the 19^th century movies mostly had a sexual assault scene – where a virtuous girl was forced into sexual ways. The other was a vamp who seduced the male lead. There was no space for a virtuous girl to experiment with her sexuality. Once the 20^th century dawned, and the scripts began having bold ladies experimenting with their bodies, the assault scenes and vamps vanished”. So very systematically over a period of last 100 years, we have pushed women in background as “service providers” to men, incapable of having desires or personal goals. This was done earlier by brainwash and later by invoking ‘culture ‘and most recently by threats. Even to this day, a woman who lives life on her terms is targeted for being against our ‘culture’ and in many cases sexually assaulted to show her – who is the boss.

A Chinese proverb describes culture as “setting up a bunch of rules and following them strictly for a long period of time”. If we over a period of last 100 years drew up a culture of religious hatred and bigotry and misogyny, could we not start now to make new set of rules – rules which mandate people to respect religious beliefs of others as one would respect one’s own. Rules to respect diversity as part of being Indian, rules to understand and appreciate that we may have different backgrounds but we have a shared future, rules that women not only mean a half of our population- they are the better half. If a country known for violent wars could make a culture of non-violence to seek freedom, nothing is impossible for INDIANS.  Let’s pledge to build a better culture for our future generations to follow, let us not seek ways to divide us but build a culture to unite us.

So long…

Spirituality – Religion in 21st Century India gets more complex

My first brush with religion was as a boy of 5 (as far back as I remember). My mother would sit me down with my sister every evening at about 7pm and ‘make us’ pray to Lord Ganesha – the first among God’s – the ‘Vighnaharata’ – the destroyer of all obstructions. I never much understood what I was saying or whom I was praying to, except I believed that my mother knew it and so it must have been right. This ritual went on for about another 7 years. The only time of the day when my sister and I would prostate before the almighty and mime words in Sanskrit and pay our obseience to our maker would be the 7pm evening prayers. I give credit to my parents for never trying to force religion on me. I always assumed it was their background as medical professionals that made them have healthy reverence on the almighty but never too clingy and over dependent. I must have been about 12 years old when religion hit me hard. On one of my visits to Bombay (Oh! How much I loved those yearly visits), I happened to notice that my cousins – who were much younger than I was, had memorized Sanskrit hymns for every occasion. There was a morning prayer; there was prayer before meals, an hour long evening prayer and a prayer at bedtime as well.  To add to that my cousins were followers of Sathya Sai Baba and attended classes to learn more Sanskrit prayers. I felt an inferiority complex for the first time in my life. I felt I was the atheist of the family who many times gave a miss to the 7pm evening prayer (my 5 minutes with God) and here were my cousins, much younger than I who spent so much time just praying. Once or twice, I even heard few relatives commenting that we (my sister and I) were not brought up well and religious culture was not imbibed in us. I did feel I was missing out on something. It was the cult feeling – everyone in the family was overtly religious except for me.

I do remember asking my mother, why we have to say the same prayer every day while my cousins know so many hymns and ‘shloka’ in Sanskrit. To which her reply was simple – Ganesha was the provider of knowledge and students my age should seek knowledge. “If you pray to him daily, you will, through him, learn about other Gods” – still remember her short reply. Needless to say, I spent most of my childhood either playing games or studying math – my mother loved math and had always aced it – I was performing not too bad, but excellent was my benchmark. As far as I remember, my sister and I were the only 2 kids in the family whose benchmark was always higher in terms of behavior and academia. It was like my parents were making up for the lack of religious enthusiasm with acute detailing of acceptable behavior and academic levels. I must give the credit where it is due, if I am of some standing today, morally or academically, the credit goes to relentless pursuit of perfection on basis of ‘active pursuit’ by both my parents. Needless to say, very early in my life, my subconscious was developed for ethical behavior than ornate display of religious devotion.

I must be biased in my views, but religion has always been personal to me. It was so, because it was fiercely personal to my parents too. I remember not having remembered what religion or caste most of my school friends belonged to. In fact, it was news to me in 8^th grade, when one of my teachers told the class that one can guess a person’s religion by knowing the name. I remember discussing the topic with my grandmother, who then gave me a detail picture of how divided we are within Hinduism – caste and sub-caste wise; and at a higher level on basis of religion. I must say, it was the day I lost my innocence. I started to read into people’s names to find a trace of the religion they belonged to. I mean – innocently- it was a new science to me and I wanted to make sure I perfected it. I don’t blame my parents or even grandparents for any caste bias they had in mind. They were after all from a different generation and these identities mattered a lot to them. I remember my father’s shocked face when I told him “I don’t like you treating Muslim patients to working in Muslim area”. Yeah, ghettoization began long before I arrived in this world, apparently. I had always known my father in two shades – smiling and happy when I was good and unforgiving when I did something bad- that day I saw a third shade- of disappointment. He sat me down and calmly explained to me how religion was irrelevant factor for a doctor to treat his patients. He went on explaining at great lengths of how we are born equal – irrespective of caste or religion and we all seek to pray to the same God whom we refer to in different forms. I must say, to this day, I try and follow those words in letter and spirit but I never really knew what they meant then. Soon we got more involved into academia and pressures of higher studies took precedence over all other issues – religion included. For the next 6- 7 years religion was wiped out of my memory… until 2002 riots came long.

I remember as if it was yesterday, I was arguing with a bunch of classmates on what happened in Gujarat. It was an emotive issue and the whole of India was divided into “pseudo-secular” and “hindutva” ideologies. I was called ‘pseudo’ secular because I believed that one must not harm others at all cost. Enforcing law and order is duty of state and not for individuals to arrogate it onto oneself. I must say the scars of what happened in Gujarat left indelible mark on my conscience because it challenged each and every doctrine of life – as I had learned from my parents. Apparently, religion had become an ornament one must ostentatiously wear and show off at every possible occasion. I could not accept universal acceptance to this new doctrine. While we were debating religion, lot many channels started mushrooming (television boom) who gave religious sermons. India was never as openly Hindu and so unabashedly too. Every channel, worth its salt had a “baba” who would preach you Hindu way of life. Not to be left far behind – Muslims had one channel, Christians had foreign English channels and Sikhs had Punjabi religious channel. In short, religion had become such a important part of everyone’s life. Everyone I knew was following some “baba” or “fakir” or “pastor” and I was left behind the learning curve with only values on humanity with no grasp of religion. I remember being outcast in many a discussion – “Which baba is God?” I had enough people telling me – this topic is not for you, you are an atheist. I was not. I would be proud of being an atheist if I was one, but my subconscious was trained to “religion is personal” not to be discussed or debated. Apparently, we had become so involved in religion that we needed to see a living, physical form of divine and not just accept the existence of a divine spirit. Religion was the most – in your face thing. Everyone, who was anyone, came out with ridiculous proposition of how we Indians need to safeguard our “religious culture”. It goes without saying that many of these involved in what women could or could not do.

We saw a spate of violence against “immoral” pub going young women or couple canoodling on Valentine’s Day or women visiting holy shrines or women having a grip of their bodies or sexuality. As an adult myself, having met my fair share of women, I knew that women were as free spirited as I was and I had no right to demand something from another human being that I would not do myself. ‘Women’ was the rare unifying force for all the various religion and caste that exists in India. All the religious leaders or caste ‘panchayat’ or ‘Khap’ were unanimous in their decree of making women freedom subject to restraint from the male members of her family. At first, people privately disagreed or refused to follow the ‘dictat’ but once the spate of violence increased targeting young women on pretext of “protecting culture”. India – I mean liberal values within India stood up and fought these fringe elements that had made their way into mainstream tagging onto the coattails of religion. “Babas” faced a unnatural prospect of being question of what they considered was Gospel according to them. As days passed by, every now and then a baba was exposed for improper sexual conduct. The skeletons started falling out – from baba of ‘puttaparthy’ to ‘Nityanad’ to several other small timers were being exposed by the day. Many others got involved in politics and were caught off guard wielding clout. Rest of Babas, were plainly using ashrams for illegal trafficking. All of sudden, so much muck was being raised on the so called “holders of Indian culture” that these pseudo vigilante movements against women morality stopped abruptly and died an unnatural death. Volunteers of these fringe groups could not justify calling a woman immoral when his baba was caught sleeping with 3.

I was once told that Indians can let go of religion but religion shall never let go of India. Sure enough, the religion struck back this time targeting free speech, literature, arts cinema and whole host of things. Today, as we speak, there are fatwas or threats being issued against some painter or film maker or writer for “hurting religious sentiments”. This time the vengeance is even stronger because in some form, the state is protecting these fringe groups. Somewhere, it seems the constitution mentions that free speech or expression can be curtailed if it happens to hurt sensibilities of some fringe element – provided the fringe element threatens violence. I would really like to read this constitution that is strictly subscribed by these states and not seen by the rest of us (including the Supreme Court). How is it, that religion which should have been a part of individual identity – a personal part, becomes so larger than life that it infringes upon people’s right to expression through their art / literature / film?  How can a State, sworn to protect individual fundamental rights of citizen under the constitution, abdicate their duties to pander to fringe elements. Why is India the only country which has more exception than rules? We must try and answer these questions in the context of importance of religion is one’s life. If I can write an article disliking a tenet of the “Holy Quran”, should I be condemned to death for blasphemy? If I write a movie script depicting fundamentalist Hindus blowing up the ‘Taj Mahal’ do I mean disrespect to all Hindus? If my friend – who has a natural talent for music has to give up her singing because its “haram” in Islam but the same Mufti is silent about several people who kill in the name of Islam, should I not question that Mufti’s understanding of religion? If in any form of art, I offend my God, who by the way has no qualms about being depicted naked, should I be persecuted in my own country? Finally, is religion the only significant thing left on which we are ready to kill/ maim / hurt fellow Indians with whom we share this wonderful history of togetherness? I do hope someone is listening to my silent prayers and sooner than later we will again defeat these fringe elements and relegate them to the fringes. Nothing can be a good reason to harm a fellow human being – not even religion.

So long…

Pressing Issues – Have we a misplaced idea of secularism and all thereof...

 

I would firstly like to say, blogging is not the same fun anymore. Firstly, because, it’s so much fun tweeting – you have to agree putting across your point of view in 140 characters is a lot less taxing than building a blog post; however, it’s not as satisfying as posting a blog. I realized tweeting about this topic was fun but not satisfying, and hence the post. I have been meaning to write extensively about this and more of such things that I feel is wrong about us – because - God as witness, there are a lot of things we saw were wrong about us in the last couple of months. In this post, I would like to focus on misplaced beliefs of secularism.

Chattrapati Shivaji Raje Bhonsle (Shivaji) had a great description about secularism – it was basically treating the subjects on merits of their petition and not on the basis of their religious beliefs. It was the hallmark of the great ruler (who ruled people’s hearts as much as the lands he controlled). He prided himself as a ‘Maratha’ and not as much as a ‘Hindu’ emperor. To contextualize -   that was the national identity then, there was no entity as India –which came into being later - on August 15 1947. Shehanshah Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar (Akbar) - the Mughal emperor who ruled Delhi in the 15^th century had the same concept about secularism and one might see a lot of similarities how these two supreme emperors ruled the realm – given the hostilities between the two Kingdoms. The point I was laboriously driving at was – a Government does not become popular by giving special status to a section of people – thereby making a distinction for a group from the rest; but by providing assistance to all irrespective of their backgrounds – keeping religion /caste / region out of the question. India, in 2013 and in the last decade or so is failing spectacularly at this – and how!

India celebrated the new millennium with the new economic liberalization and we had the entire world vouching that the 21^st century would the golden age for India. In 2013, I still feel this will be the millennium of India but that’s not why I am writing this – self-praise. No sooner, we were a couple of years into the new millennium; we had the horrific riots of Gujarat that scarred the conscience of a lot of us – young impressionable minds then. The generation before us had seen Delhi riots of 1984 – where the state conspired with rioters and let them run amok killing thousands of civilian in the process. We had even heard of the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition and the Bombay riots soon after or even the Bombay bomb blasts of March 13^th 1993; but we were too young to understand the full impact of these events. 2002 riots was a watershed event for most of us. Firstly, we had 24 hours news television coverage by then and the images travelling to us in the comforts of our living room (with all the graphic details) made an indelible mark on our collective conscience. Personally, the most severe impact that was made on my mind was one simple fact – the burning of train bogie was gruesome – I mean, imagine 60 people burned alive or suffocated to death in a train bogie locked from outside to ensure they did not escape. This detail was horrifying enough – someone was coldblooded to a point that they ensured that they all the 60 passengers died. The more horrifying fact was the Chief Minister and the state did not see the event as I did, 60 innocent civilian death that cried for  justice – they  went a step ahead and made news for declaring 60 ‘Hindu deaths’ by ‘Muslim mob’. This take by the CM and his men ensured riots for next 4 days at various locations – killing thousands of civilian (pregnant women and little children included). Riots, so strategically planned to inflict damage on ‘Muslims’ to avenge the earlier deaths of ‘Hindus’. Details of the gruesome massacre and rapes notwithstanding – I remember asking my father “Didn’t the Government in a secular country owe same responsibility towards Muslims as they do towards Hindus?” My problem was not the riots; it was the state allowing more civilian deaths to compensate for its mistake of not being able to protect one set of civilian deaths – distinction made on the religion. I admit I felt cheated by the idea of India – the one taught to me at school. A lot of people – my generation have not believed the “secular- state” bit again. 2002 riots ensured that everyone realized that, your protection by state is a qualified proposition – based on the religion you belong vis-a-vis the religion the state wants to pander to. I am forced to ask myself, are we secular like Shivaji or Akbar? Or do we like to call our self, secular?

I have seen all my fundamental rights; supposedly guaranteed by my constitution to me; as an individual born in and residing in India, being qualified. Nothing is certain anymore. My religion is the only important identification of me as an individual. Everything I do is governed by one factor – RELIGION. It was a time when social networking was booming word wide and India was not left far behind. Terrorist organizations were recruiting online by posting gruesome videos of riots and asking people to avenge hurt caused to their brethren – again qualified by religion. I would gloss over this online ‘garbage’ and mostly ignore the comments. Turns out, most people read them and did happen to bond over common misery. Soon we had successfully alienated ‘Muslims’ from the mainstream making them feel that they have to avenge for things done to them. No state will provide them justice for the fear of being caught ‘appeasing’ the minority community. The ghettoization of Muslims – like blacks in America had begun. So many places became no-go zones for Muslims and likewise for Hindus. Renting or purchasing of property had added qualification of religion and caste – apart from budget and distance from work place. India was shamelessly and openly becoming a ghettoized society with the state napping or willfully looking the other way. Then came, the theory of Muslim ghettos being breeding grounds for “terrorists”. We had online hate content urging Muslim youth to take up arms against “infidels” – meaning rest of Indians. These posts were usually made by  people outside India or maybe some crazy people in India (we do have a lot of hate mongers) – but they were usually accompanied with a spate of crude bomb blasts – in quick succession – at various locations in India. Seemed to everyone, that the online recruitment was working, “Muslims” were hitting back and killing the rest of us. What resulted was an absurd and stupid state reaction – since we had already ghettoized on religious lines, the administration went on arresting Muslim youth – again mostly believing that “Muslim ghetto is a breeding ground for terrorists”. Every Muslim had to defend his identity as “devout Indian” with no extra allegiance towards neighboring countries. That did not stop several of our ‘tall leaders’ from ridiculing them as Bangladeshis or Pakistanis. These arrests made the rest of us believe that terrorism was indeed equated to religion. The ghettos increased in size and expanded to most cities of India. It was recently discovered that these attacks were carried by fringe elements – mostly people who were Hindus  by faith, who wanted the ostracization of Muslims from the mainstream. With the cat out of the bag, the same ‘tall leaders’ are out saying – “Terrorism has no religion”. Well! Why did you not speak up when innocent Muslim youth were arrested and tortured for crimes they did not commit? Who will compensate for the trauma suffered by these citizens who like the rest of us had same right to freedom of religion and freedom of movement and freedom of speech? Why should any Muslim in India qualify his statements with a prominent ‘my allegiance is towards India’ while the rest of us- including the ones arrested for various bomb attacks have implied allegiance towards India? Why did the state administration not understand that they were discriminating citizen on basis of religion and this is violation of the Constitution that they swear to protect and defend? Why is the Supreme Court silent on this when it goes out of the way to beat the Government with any stick it can – many times exceeding its mandate? It makes me ask this again - Are we secular? Or do we like to be called secular? Me thinks, it’s the latter!

With examples of state being biased towards Muslims, let us not feel that the rest of us are spared. It’s just that Muslims are a minority in many states and they get picked on mostly. True fact being, India is a bully state that likes to pander to the majority citizen (based on religion, mind you) at the cost of the minority. We are yet to become secular. In each state the definition of minority changes and hence different sets of people are short changed in different states – whether it’s the Kashmiri Pundit in Jammu & Kashmir or Muslims in Assam or Bihari migrant in Maharashtra. All our leaders pride themselves in bullying the minority with some political organization like –Shiv Sena or MNS specialize in bullying tactics. Its simpler for politicians, they need majority votes to be elected to office.  My point is, India has enough politicians- she needs LEADERS. When we use the name of Gandhi or Bose or Shivaji, we forget the major point that these people were leaders because they had the people behind them. Political strength can be achieved by having universal backing not by alienating portion of the population because of your biased dealings. We seem to have forgotten all aspects of governance and simply move from elections to elections pandering to different sets of people in different states with no intent to uphold universal rights of citizen to all that is good. Hence we have novel concept as the “first right” over the resources, instead of universal right as Indians. Why should we feel united as Indians, when our “leaders” spend all efforts to divide us into pigeon holes? Why should a Muslim feel he is Indian when we don’t want to give him the rights other Indians enjoy? Why should a Kashmiri pundit feel he is Kashmiri when the Government fails to recognize his rights over his land? We as a country need to ask ourselves, Are we simply brewing a potion that will end up imploding India someday. Is the identity of being Indian left with any meaning today?

The Government is not only guilty of pandering to majority religion- the cynicism runs much deeper. There is regionalism too. Is this the mandate of an elected Government under the constitution of India? We have similar problem is Telangana agitation and Gorkhaland (North West Bengal). I feel bad for my country, with problems like mass depravation, abject poverty, healthcare, malnutrition and poor social indicators all around – Governments by and large try to deflect issues to regionalism and religion; we let them easily do it and jump onto the bad wagon. It takes a match to burn down a fire truck- as the adage goes, here we are sitting on heaps of dynamite (hurt feelings of citizen towards State) and yet we continue to light matches till it blows up on our face. If we are a nation – as we believe we are, the least we can do is lend our voice to our brother or sister who faces these problems and stand up for them. We are after all our brother’s keepers! I end here hoping to see a better India someday soon.

So long.....