The protests against ‘pk’ bring up the question: When the people themselves don’t mind, why are self-appointed people’s representatives getting all hot and bothered?
Centuries ago, a Hindu named Vatsyayana wrote a treatise that, if filmed, would never clear the Censor Board today. The erotic imagination of another Hindu named Jayadeva, whose Gita Govinda depicts an intensely physical aspect of Lord Krishna, is something you want to introduce to Alok Sanjar, the BJP MP from Bhopal who recently remarked that frequent sex can drastically reduce a person’s lifespan. And yet, here we are again, having to defend Hinduism from those who seem to think that the slightest hint of humour or heresy can bring crashing down a religion that has stood strong for millennia. I refer, of course, to the controversy around the Hindu director Rajkumar Hirani’s pk. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad wants it banned, and its members, along with those charming chaps from the Bajrang Dal, have taken to tearing up the film’s posters and halting screenings. The reason? According to VHP spokesman Vinod Bansal, pk “keeps making fun of Hinduism.”
For a moment, let’s forget pk. Let’s talk about a stretch in 3 Idiots, Hirani’s earlier blockbuster with Aamir Khan. Anxious about an exam, students of an engineering college resort to prayers. The narrator tells us sarcastically, “Today was Results day… time to make a deal with God.” And indeed, “deals” are made. One student performs an arati, to the accompaniment of a tinkling bell, in front of a wall filled with pictures of Hindu deities, and mutters, “God, take care of my Electronics paper. I’ll break a coconut.” Another student bows before a cobra, promising a litre of milk a day if ‘Nag Devta’ will help him clear his Physics paper. A third is seen stuffing a handful of grass into a cow’s mouth – he wants ‘Gau Mata’ to help him pass his exams. Another student halts in front of an idol and pledges Rs. 100 per month. The narrator stifles a laugh and remarks, “Rs. 100 won’t even bribe a traffic cop, let alone the Almighty.”
This is exactly the kind of “mocking of religion” that pk is being criticised for, but there’s more: the narrator in 3 Idiots, the one whose mocking commentary underscored those visuals, is named Farhan Qureshi. And where is that film’s “hero” through all this? Blithely asleep. Even the sounds of the mantras muttered during that arati, even that tinkling bell can’t wake him up – which is just another way of saying that he is beyond all this. So one has to wonder why no one made a noise, then, about a Muslim narrator’s amusement at what are legitimate Hindu rituals, practised in many parts of the country, and why no one brought up the fact that the Muslim actor at the film’s centre, the film’s messiah, was shown not needing the crutch of rituals. Not a word was heard, either, about the seeming lack of Christian, Sikh and Muslim students praying hard to their gods, participating in rituals that might have seemed similarly strange, perhaps even amusing, to Hindu eyes. Why, one might have asked, are only Hindus shown to be following practices that the rational/secular mind would find ridiculous?
But no one brought it up – probably because 3 Idiots was not overtly about religion. As the stretch depicting the blind adherence to rituals was such a small part of the film, which was about the ills in our education system, maybe no group thought it worthwhile to protest. But pk is much more obvious about its intent. It is a brazen attack – though “attack” is too strong a word for such a sweet-natured film – on religion, and therefore it announces itself as an instant target. In all likelihood, the film also became the focus of all this attention because it’s a big movie, with a big star, which means big attention when you speak up against it. It’s like what happened with Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam. The Muslim outfits that protested against it seemed oblivious to the fact that the film’s hero was a namaaz-performing Muslim who saves the world by foiling a terrorist plan hatched by other Muslims. You’d think those Muslim outfits would have celebrated the film’s choice to make the hero a Muslim – most other films with a similar theme would have opted for a Hindu hero performing these heroics. But no. The radicals almost always miss the point.
The other charge against pk is that it promotes “Love Jihad,” with a romantic track that revolves around a Pakistani man named Sarfaraz and a Hindu woman with the goddess-like name of Jagat Janani, the “creator of the world”. But the romance plays out neither in India nor Pakistan, but in the relatively neutral Belgium, just like My Name is Khan set the romance between a Muslim man and a Hindu woman in the US. The women in both these films are educated, liberal – there’s no evidence that they will convert to Islam after marriage, and neither did the strong-willed Hindu heroine of Jodha Akbar renounce her religion. Even in earlier decades, you can find films like Muqaddar ka Sikandar, where the hero is raised by a Muslim woman and is in love with a Hindu. And if you consider interreligious love stories with the gender polarities reversed, you have Gadar (Muslim woman-Sikh man), Veer-Zaara (Muslim woman-Hindu man), Raanjhanaa (Muslim woman-Hindu man), Ek Tha Tiger (Muslim woman-Hindu man). Did you hear many protests against these films?
WARNING: Hindu-Muslim making-out in the clip below…
All the movies mentioned above are hits – 3 Idiots, in fact, was the first film to gross over Rs 200 crore at the box office. You don’t make that kind of money without love from all sections of the audience, especially from Hindus, who make up most of our nation. And if they don’t mind this light-hearted mocking, then who are these others, from opportunistic political parties, to take up cudgels on their behalf? Don’t they realise that movies are like elections? People wait patiently in line, go to the counter, and cast their vote by buying a ticket. So when a film like pk becomes this kind of a blockbuster – it’s practically guaranteed to cross the Rs. 300 crore mark, the first Indian film to do so – then it means that it has been approved by an overwhelming majority. The people have spoken. On the one hand, you hear that the Maharashtra government has asked the police to “look into” the content of the film. On the other, the boxofficeindia site predicts that pk may the first film to collect Rs. 100 crore in the Mumbai circuit alone. You have to ask the question: Who’s really being offended here?
Once a film has come through the Censor Board, no one has the right to demand that it be pulled from theatres because it has offended them. Everyone is sensitive to something, and if you begin to factor it all in, you’ll never make a movie. You know this, I know this, and the outfits doing the protesting know this. Why, then, do they continue to get all hot and bothered? Is it because of the increasing “saffronization” of India, as some claim? Because the cultural climate is certainly different. In the 1970s, a film like Hare Rama Hare Krishna could get away with yoking the names of the gods in its title to scenes (and a smash-hit song, Dum maaro dum) that featured uninhibited pot smoking and pre-marital commingling. But a bigger reason is that our 24×7 TV channels and Internet portals need news, and when this news is related to a blockbuster film, then it becomes bigger news. And sensational, viewership/readership-attracting news as well – when protesting organisations, in their quest for cheap and easy and guaranteed publicity, proffer up such incendiary images of rioting and poster-burning. The sad news is that you know this, I know this, and the outfits doing the protesting know this.
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2014 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
brangan
January 2, 2015
This is turning out to be a week of articles on ‘pk’. I wrote my regular column on that whole formula thing we discussed in the comments section of the review, and then they asked me to do this for the op-ed page.
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Neha (@Neha_Madrasi)
January 2, 2015
Thanks for this, sir! Brilliantly written!
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rothrocks
January 2, 2015
Heh, there was clapping for some of the lines in the theatre where I watched the film…with, needless to state, a predominantly Hindu audience. I do want to point out though that the Maha CM, who is an RSS ideologue, said categorically that the govt would not interfere with a film that is cleared by the Censor Board, quashing his own home minister’s speculation about a probe. The Central Govt also took the same position. That is, even a right wing govt backed by radical Hindu elements has passed the test better than Jayalalitha did w.r.t Viswaroopam. If we have to return to the more permissive climate of the 70s, then freedom of expression in art cannot be a battleground for flexing religious muscles and the govt must be seen not to be overly anxious to appease minorities. Already some people, even though they enjoyed PK, have questioned whether Hirani would dare to make a sequel to PK criticising Islam as blatantly as he did Hinduism or rather its self proclaimed representatives. They are empathetic when I tell them we should feel proud of our ability to take on board such criticism with a broad mind. But they think this is a case of “the baby that cries shall get the milk” and it has started to sting. Neither the people or the artists are to blame here; politicians and self same representatives of God have succeeded in dividing the people.
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uniquebluerose
January 2, 2015
That was great wirte-up and well thanks for warning for you tube clip!!!! lol!!!
Sometimes i wonder if the “people” who are offended are the first in line of offending others!!!
In this case good film-making and entertainment sector…pretty much like the moral policemen who set about trashing people…
I mean who is offended here (in case of PK)….the people who protest or rather the audience and all those were involved in this project…. Esp the audience as these people end up deciding for audience!!!
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sigloxx
January 2, 2015
Sweet-natured naive piece just like the film.
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YK
January 2, 2015
@brangan – brilliantly written, as usual.
Had wanted to throw open the debate to some points but @rothrocks has already covered some of those.
A disclaimer though – I had watched PK first day first show, had generally enjoyed the movie, even though I find it weakest of Hirani movies, even though they claim otherwise. I do not condone the vandalism at all, and while I do want films to introspect superstitions, unhealthy practices etc, some of the observations do touch a cord somewhere –
– Why do those who object to Viswaroopam (showing some bad muslims) or SINS ( a priest having an affair) manage to have their way when they should not ?
– Why media is willing to either overlook or not hype objections raised by muslim or christian lunatics while while magnifying objections of hindu lunatics.
– While the story-tellers are free to tell what they want, should they not be slightly more’responsible’ and ‘sensitive’ enough to bring in some sense of proportion / balance rather than giving an impression that ALL hindu godmen are manipulators. Think just a line or even a less-than-a-minute shot of some ashram or influential guru who actually does social service too ( schools, hospitals, water facilities etc) might have helped.
– The sense I got from some of the twitter feeds I read was that while generally maulas and priests are good ( who raise abandoned kids, for example) while pundits are usually bad guys. Do you feel this has been an arc since 1960s ?
But after having written all the above, I do feel that there were some other generalizations which never raised any hackles earlier, for example –
– In 1970s it was usual for smugglers to have christian names ( Robert, Peter etc). Ditto drunkards who would most probably be D’souzas or D’costas.
– In last 15 -20 years we have had no trouble showing muslims as terrorists…
– In OMG we had no issues either for some of the same things that PK is being objected for ?
So, touching upon the same point you touched in your last para – Why do some movies get picked up and others dont?????
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Karthik
January 2, 2015
Great Write-up.
Funnily enough, there doesn’t seem to be one thing that people are pissed at. while, for some it is the fact that the hero is a Muslim in real life, for some it is the scene in which the guy playing Shiva is shown running from PK. And, when I say people, I mean common folks who also appear to be taking an objection to the movie, not the gentlemen on the paychecks of VHP/BD/Ramdev.
This kind of competitive intolerance – If A can be offended by something silly, I have the right to be far more offended by something far sillier – would have been funny as hell if it wasn’t sad.
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Ravi K
January 2, 2015
Baradwaj Rangan wrote: “And if you consider interreligious love stories with the gender polarities reversed, you have Gadar (Muslim woman-Sikh man), Veer-Zaara (Muslim woman-Hindu man), Raanjhanaa (Muslim woman-Hindu man), Ek Tha Tiger (Muslim woman-Hindu man). Did you hear many protests against these films?”
In a patriarchal society it’s probably seen as acceptable for the Muslim woman to be subsumed into the Hindu household, hence the Hindutvadis not protesting the depiction of such relationships.
rothrocks wrote: “That is, even a right wing govt backed by radical Hindu elements has passed the test better than Jayalalitha did w.r.t Viswaroopam.”
A friend of mine speculated that Jaya TV wanted the TV rights to Vishwaroopam, but Sun TV got the rights, hence her not doing anything to quell the furor, and possibly even fomenting it. I don’t know how much truth there is to that, though.
It wasn’t too long ago that Ram-Leela was ordered to be released as “Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram Leela,” so I wouldn’t get too complacent about the way films are treated.
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Just Another Film Buff
January 2, 2015
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uniquebluerose
January 2, 2015
@YK excellent points….Just one more point that comes to my mind….weren’t the Vamps in 60s and 70s having Christian names…
heck the practice still continues Cocktail had the “good” Meera and “wild” Veronica…
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Krish Ashok
January 2, 2015
The outrage isn’t actually bigger. It’s just more magnified. It is a bit like when Arnab Goswami tells us that “the nation demands to know”, it’s some 0.03% of the middle class, TV owning, english news watching part of the nation that doesn’t vote.
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rothrocks
January 2, 2015
Ravi K: In fact, as long as some of the particularly draconian restrictions on freedom of expression in our Constitution are not deleted, our right to express will always be under threat so there’s no room for complacency. THAT seems to be a pipe dream given our propensity to get offended. Manish Tewari in his stint as I & B minister did say one should have the right to offend and talked about examining the need to amend the Constitution but nothing came of it.
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Raghav
January 2, 2015
Well thought out and nicely articulated BR. But also-at the cost of being pessimistic here-we really cannot separate the marketing gimmick from the ground reality.I mean :
a)there’s no doubt that political outfits such as Shiv Sena and its ilk exist only for nuisance value which can be exploited by the movie’s marketing folks.(remember when “My Name is Khan” released there were Reebok sweatshirts & shoes in support of the movie out in no time!)(http://fillum.com/movies/news/my-name-is-khan-reebok-launches-sports-shoe-collection/).
On the flip side Shiv Sena also had a problem with Mani’s “Bombay” but that didn’t save it from tanking.
b) The last time the same team met (VVC-RH-AK-Abhijat Joshi) there was this plagiarism controversy..so when these guys create a product-it is not new to controversies..
c) If the fringe groups really had to take offence then “Oh My God” would probably have never got a release.
This is not to take away anything from the movie itself..I enjoyed it immensely..its just that the truth is somewhere out there in-between.
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Raghav
January 2, 2015
oh,and if these ‘Hindu defenders’ watched the movie closely they would observe that
a) the third act’s turning point -the train blast was caused by some extremist islamic outfit( as informed by a VO in the movie)
b) Aamir’s character chasing Shiva finally discovers the location of his ‘remote’ ..so where are they getting this ‘anti-hindu’ message?
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Bunny
January 2, 2015
@YK:
“While the story-tellers are free to tell what they want, should they not be slightly more’responsible’ and ‘sensitive’ enough to bring in some sense of proportion / balance rather than giving an impression that ALL hindu godmen are manipulators. “
Isn’t the idea of having Godmen against the tenets of Hinduism (or any religion for that matter)? How can a mortal be deified in this age?
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YK
January 2, 2015
@ Bunny
No.
Well, think God-man is a wrong, even if commonly used word. But the concept of a “Guru” or a spiritual guide is instrinsic to Hinduism whether you pursue Gyanamarg or Bhaktimarg or Rajyog ( probably Karmayog too).
Kabir in fact, in a simple couplet, advised us mortals choose to touch the feet of a Guru first and God later.
But yes, the idea is to find a right Guru
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Rahini David
January 2, 2015
1) Well, not every movie that shows a corrupt policeman or politician balances them with honest poilcemen or politicians in the same narrative. Then why shouldn’t godmen be given the same treatment? It isn’t as if policemen and politicians do not have feelings at all.
2) If a movie-maker starts to think “We have three muslim men who are terrorists and two christian women who drink, so let us quickly insert 5 characters who balance the equation” then may God have mercy upon us. Balancing Carbon and Oxygen atoms to attain that stable equation was far easier than this.
3) The D’Souzas (and the Ritas) of the Sub-continent probably could not have cared less about all this.
4) They got away using names like Rita and Helen anyway. They never attempted names like Sahaya Mary or Jeba Rani (somebody please suggest Hindi variations of these Goody-two-shoes Christian names)
5) The name Veronica is famously used for this wild girl trope. See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BettyAndVeronica
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burcidibollyreview
January 2, 2015
I agree that it’s unnecessary to demand a film to be pulled down. If people don’t like it, they won’t watch it. People can make their own decision on what they prefer. Enforcing one’s views on another is called fascism and we certainly don’t want that.
On another point, I have many issues with the way that Muslims are portrayed in Indian films. I find it far from realistic and I hate films with Muslim characters where the main topic is terrorism. Vishwaroopam stereotyped Muslims while trying to do the exact opposite. And like most other Indian films about Muslims, it sends the sub-conscious message that Muslims are secret polytheists with the namaz-praying Muslim hero asking questions like “which God?” Just look at some of the most popular films with Muslim characters. Muslims are either terrorists or radicals, or they’re hypocrites who don’t mind breaking the main tenants of religion like worshiping the one and true God, not drinking alcohol or not marrying non-Muslims. Same goes for Bol Bachchan where that line is repeated over and over again by the main character who is a decent regular Muslim otherwise “na Allah boore manange na bhagwan.” So our decent Muslim hero just committed the biggest sin in Islam– shirk– about 5 times in the film. The main characteristic that separates Muslims from all others — the belief in one God. Do you see where I’m going with this? There are very few Indian films where Muslim characters are portrayed as they are– normal but still strongly attached to their faith and traditions.
Similarly, Muslims may not see an issue with PK or similar films where Hinduism may be criticized but Hindus may see many issues with them. Religion is a very sensitive topic and it’s difficult to make a film about it without upsetting someone. But those who are upset shouldn’t see the film. There is no point burning down posters and whatnot.
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Nikhil
January 2, 2015
This comes across as a bit of a forced piece – something you wrote because you were asked to. Not saying that you don’t sincerely believe everything you’ve written, but surely the futility of pointing out the obvious to people who are determined to look the other way must have irritated you.
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Lord Labakudoss
January 2, 2015
While I completely agree with the conclusion “Pk should not be banned; Groups indulging in violence should be severely dealt with”, I am disappointed with the general content and lines of argument.
1) The decision to ban SHOULD NOT be predicated on whether a majority of a group feels offended; the fact that most Hindus did not feel offended is irrelevant. You seem to be leaving a backdoor of an excuse to ban works that offend the more sensitive groups.
2) History of freedom of expression as permitted by the Indian and State governments in the recent past – Isn’t that the real reason for the increasing intolerance?
Regards,
LL
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Prakash
January 2, 2015
@YK
You voiced my exact thoughts. It is the double standards of the secular media (I now find Rangan in their midst) that I find more disturbing than any so-called antics of the Bajrang Dal or VHP.
@rangan
Since you mention the Censor Board as some ultimate authority who knows what is good for us, I have to disagree. The CBFC, under Leela Samson, has been “secular” in that uniquely evil way that secularism is defined in India. Case in points:
Compared to Leela Samson, who also secularly ordered removal of Lord Ganesha from Kalakshetra logo and premises when she was heading it, Bajrang Dal and VHP are apostles of innocence.
“The protests against ‘pk’ bring up the question: When the people themselves don’t mind, why are self-appointed people’s representatives getting all hot and bothered?”
I think you miss the point here. The “dharmic” view of things is that right and wrong stand on their own merit; ergo, the question of “let’s see if anybody is taking offence and standing up against what i am doing” is not even the right question to begin with. After all, this is a civilization that stood watching while Draupadi was being stripped and even today routinely ignores critically injured people lying on roads and railway tracks.
Secondly, they are not entirely “self-appointed” either. The entire nation knows they are part of the larger “Hindutva” ideological family and still chose to give them around 33%(including shiv sena) of the voteshare and 300 seats in Lok Sabha. A recent poll from Times Of India also showed around 30% of the people supporting the view that Hindutva should be one of the primary focus areas of the Modi govt. 70% did not mention Hindutva but hey, most of these jerks are the ones who never voted for Modi in the first place anyway and are now trying to somehow make it sound like Modi was voted in “to bring development, not Hindutva”.
Interestingly, I think you are aware of all this which is why, in the very next para after mentioning “self-appointed representatives”, you had to bring in a BJP MP; Yes, a man elected by the people. It is as if you secularists cannot reconcile to the fact that the Hindutva brigade has won and you are the losers.
Coming to the next piece of dubious argument you put forth:hindus shouldn’t find PK objectionable because the lady isn’t likely to convert to Islam because she is a modern educated liberal woman.
All I can say is: please read the novel “Aavarana: the veil”(english translation) by the great Kannada writer S.L. Bhyrappa. It analyses the situation you refer to more honestly than you have ever tried to in your laboured and contrived attempts to gloss over everything with such ridiculous lines like “neutral territory”(seriously, who gives a fuck whether it is Belgium or India or Pakistan).
All in all, a very weak and poorly written piece from you. And from the writing, I also guess that your heart isn’t quite in it. You have been commissioned to do a hit job on behalf of the rabid secularists at The Hindu and you seem to have, rather half-heartedly, obliged.
No problems though. Your readers will likely know you are answerable to N.Ram and may take care not to take your more “political” prose at face value.
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Utkal Mohanty
January 2, 2015
Ashok: “You have been commissioned to do a hit job on behalf of the rabid secularists at The Hindu ..”
” Rabid secularist”? Isn’t what we need more of in this world right now? As against say ‘ rabid communalists’?
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YK
January 3, 2015
@ Rahini David
Points taken but when I talked about balancing I was not referring to mathematics or balancing a chemical equation.
Before I elaborate on my point let me make it clear – I am neither a right winger nor a left winger, just a person who loves watching and reading about movies. I liked PK overall, and will watch it again if and when it comes on TV, but I can , at the same time, connect with those who have issues with the movie and want to have a civil debate ( am not with vandals at all ) and here is why –
1) Let me combine your points 1 & 2. You ask why godmen should be treated differently than say policemen.
Well, we have seen bad policemen but we have countless movies where we have good, honest and patriotic cops and secret agents. So it is not that police is just vilified and not shown in good light at all.
Now let us ask ourselves a question (lets not google ) and think of one hindi movie where we see a good guru. Can we count even one movie? Those who can, have they gone beyond their little fingers ?
Now let us ask another question – how many hindi movies have shown a hate spewing maulavi or a paedophile priest ? Same result??
So, why is it that in last 3-4 decades we have had only bad pundits and gurus who rape, molest kids, spread communal tension but only good maulavis ( not talking about terrorists, but maulavis) and good priests?
So while we have had good cops and bad cops, we have only had only bad hindu gurus.
Yes, we do have Rampals and Baba Ram Rahims etc but we also have Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Amma, and Sai baba and Ramdev, who, irrespective of what we think about them, successfully run schools, hospitals, research centres, irrigation system, have followers who help during floods…etc. Why this never gets reflected in movies? In even one or two or three movies in 40 years?
For this reason I can see the point of those who want to have a civil discussion without resorting to boycotts or breaking chairs.
2) Hirani himslef did feel obliged to ‘balance’ the movie. Lets visit the ‘wrong number’ sequence. We have a 5 second clip of a small muslim girl who opines that Allah cannot be so small so as to be offended by a school going girl. We have another 5 second clip of a person who refuses to become a christian under inducement, saying that Jesus would have made sure to make him born in a Christian family if thats what He wanted.
But was there any 5 second clip on non-controversial gurus ? Why no 5 second ‘right number’ clip ??
3) Agree, it is too much to ask a film maker to ‘balance’ things. However, some topics are more sensitive than others. Religion – even though meant to be a private and intimate thing – lets accept, does cause a lot of concern and outrage. A common hindu, who is fine with sculptures in the temples, can still get offended about a nude painting of a goddess. We have seen common muslims creating worldwide outrage over a cartoon but relatively silent over brutality of Boko Haram or ISIS. A common christain is more likely to get more worked up about damage to a neighbourhood church than about paedophile priests.
So lets not be naive and agree that religion does become a sensitive matter and when you have a movie like PK which talks about religion or related rituals or those who preach religion – would it have been too much too add a couple of seconds more to make it more balanced – especially when you are tying to balance it any way as mentioned above ?
When Bollywood has been balancing other things, including egos of the superstars ( see the fight scene between Amitabh-Shashi in Trishul or Amitabh-Shatru in Kaala Patthar where blows are perfectly balanced) why casualness on a sensitive topic?
4) Why PK ? Why not Singham Returns ?
Very recently we had Singham Returns where the main antagonist was a criminal, rapist hindu godman. We did not see much activity there except for some chatter on twitter. Well @brangan has covered this in his subsequently post when he compared Subhash ghai and Hirani.
Hirani is an important film maker. We cannot put him in the category of Rohit Shettys or Sajid Nadiadwalas or Sajid Khans or Prabhudevas. They can get away with whatever. I personally dont care about their movies. But I will have issues with, say, POLITICS of Haider or Machis ( irrespective of story telling) or casualness of Hirani or inertness of Motwane or an ‘average’ Kashyap movie.
5) Yes, more power to Mona darlings, Helens, Veronicas, Roberts, Peters, D’costas……
My comments was actually in the context of broad generalizations – why no one cared about them earlier and why some of those may be an issue now?? I dont know frankly.
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Arjun
January 3, 2015
An entirely unnecessary disclaimer- I haven’t seen the movie, am unlikely to watch it and highly unlikely to be offended by it.
That out of the way, the anglophilic desi pretend secular lib is such a predictable specimen. What better opportunity to play to the gallery and burnish one’s sec-lib credentials, eh?
As Prakash noted, there are pertinent concerns about the double standards of the censor board and its current chairperson, Leela Samson. A honest piece would also address these points rather than imply that the CBFC in India must necessarily have the last word and its decisions not be subjected to scrutiny. It is this very perception that one can attack (in the Indian context) Hindu gods and godmen to heart’s content but must refrain from depicting Mohammed or Jesus as anything less than pristine that is responsible for much of the current Hindu/Hindutva discontent with FoE and other such lofty ideals. And the continuing whinging, manufactured outrage and patronising op-eds, whether in this case or the Wendy Doniger non-issue only further expose the Indian libs for what they are – a bunch of self-righteous, irrelevant, toffee nosed bandwagon jumpers.
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brangan
January 3, 2015
YK: Why media is willing to either overlook or not hype objections raised by muslim or christian lunatics while while magnifying objections of hindu lunatics.
There were many, many pieces written around the “Vishwaroopam” controvery. IIRC I wrote one too.
Raghav: I see what you’re saying, but somehow the ‘marketing gimmick angle’ doesn’t look right to me. If anything, I’d think a smaller film would need to resort to this sort of thing.
BTW, did “Bombay” tank? I thought it was a big hit in Hindi. It’s “Dil Se” that tanked — though, again, something else to think about. How no one raised a voice against the depiction of “troubles” in the North East, showing the militia as rapists etc.
Nikhil: Yes, there is an element of pointing out the obvious here, but that apart, I felt the “3 Idiots” point and the points about films/elections added a bit of freshness.
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Madan
January 3, 2015
BRangan: Right you are. Bombay was a blockbuster in Hindi. It apparently made Rs.14 cr in Hindi, which was a big deal in 1995.
Coming to the question again of one group apparently getting away with throttling artists’ freedom while the other stays mum (this is not necessarily always true, see M F Hussain), the simplest solution is to take the freedom to harass artists out of the hands of such people by amending the Constitution. You cannot stop a law and order problem erupting even post such an amendment but it will at least allow the police to do their job and stop vandals from inflicting damage on theatre owners. I think we can all agree there is simply no justification for that?
Somehow this position doesn’t seem to get the ringing endorsement it deserves. Maybe on a thread like this, one may find lot of people who agree but you are not going to find NDTV’s op-ed secular brigade endorsing it. They may hold forth ceaselessly on the importance of freedom of expression but without ever referring to the need to amend the Constitution, when it is the oppressive powers granted by the Constitution that is at the heart of the problem. Does that then mean that….?
And why did so much politics get into the discussion? Because it is political and the reason for the violent protests may also be political. Maybe people didn’t cotton onto it, but there’s a line where the fraud Godman refers to his desire to build a temple at Rama’s birthplace and asks what is wrong with it. It’s a none too subtle dig at, well, the ruling party itself. I don’t see anything wrong with Hirani taking a dig at the BJP but frankly I would have been even more surprised had it actually gone down quietly and unnoticed without protests of any sort. If anything, the govt has thus far shown maturity in allowing the film to be screened, perhaps realising that banning a well loved film would only burn up tremendous political capital at a time when they still have a few more assembly elections to win :D. It may not be your brief as a film critic, of course, but the full contours of this saga cannot be understood without reference to the underlying politics.
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Arjun
January 3, 2015
Madan: It is all about politics and ideology. Basically the (anglophilic) literary types need to constantly flaunt their secular creds to their echo chamber to remain assured of their collective progressiveness. Sad to see BR has joined the bandwagon. Reading his blog over the past year or so I could guess that this was more or less inevitable.
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Madan
January 3, 2015
I don’t get what is so progressive about infinite minority appeasement actually. 😀 They should have rights equal in every respect to that of the majority community, yes, and their unique customs and practices recognised and accommodated to the extent they are not legally and morally abhorrent, but no more. By the by, when I was in the US, I noticed that our temples do not have that naamam symbol on their wall and gurudwaras don’t have domes….because it is frowned upon. This may not be a uniform trend across that very vast nation but it was what I noticed in Chicago and NY which are very much progressive strongholds by the way. Indian places of worship are a little ‘tucked away’ while churches proudly adorn the kerbsides of the arteries. I am not saying for a moment we should have that kind of subtle discrimination here in India because people practicing religions other than Hinduism have been as much a part of our country as the Hindus for hundreds of years at the very least, if not older in some cases. But I do find myself at a loss to understand what the secular brigade desires through their double speak…for instance, on the ghar wapsi scheme. Do they want to divide the nation a second time, not being satisfied with British efforts to do so?
We ourselves were once unwitting recipients of the big bang, well advertised Power to Change campaign to spread Christianity…which, in its adverts, does not anywhere state its true intent and purpose (so much for honesty). It has ambassadors like Johnny Lever and Naveen among others describing their journey to salvation through Lord Jesus. In some of these narratives, the persons incidentally or otherwise even criticise the religion they were originally a part of. Not quite playing with fire but close enough. How is it that such a campaign attracted next to discourse, much less criticism, but the secularists are immediately up in arms against ghar wapsi? I am not in favour of an anti conversion law, mind (Prashant Perumal has written a great article for livemint which is near identical to my position). But the logic that defends conversion by other religions but cries wolf at similar attempts by Hindu bodies is imo perverse.
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venkatesh
January 3, 2015
Great comments and a great article.
But , India _does not_ have Freedom of Speech.
What does that mean ? It means that not _all_ speech is constitutionally safeguarded and if not all speech is safeguarded it means nothing is.
Why is this important ? This is important because all sorts of extra-constitutional authorities can jump onto the “offensive to me” bandwagon and create noise. Irrespective of how bad it sounds to us legally, they have a valid position, so till we have guaranteed Freedom of Speech , everything else is moot.
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Prakash
January 3, 2015
@utkal mohanty
” Rabid secularist”? Isn’t what we need more of in this world right now? As against say ‘ rabid communalists’?
If Swami Vivekananda was alive today, he would have been termed a “rabid communalist” by people like you. So…..No. We definitely need more “communalists” and less “secularists”. If you are so worried about secularism in “the world”, try selling it in places like Syria and Pakistan where it is in short supply. Of course, the “secularists” in India lack the brains as well as the balls to do that.
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Arjun
January 4, 2015
Madan: Re Gharwapsi, see eg. http://swarajyamag.com/politics/why-no-outrage-over-conversion-of-tsunami-victims/ I am not a big fan of the “why no outrage about this” line of counter-argument, but in this case it is clear that there is an agenda at play and the media and libs are acting to build a certain narrative, so it becomes important to recognise this. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as missionary aggression goes. The church and western missionaries of course have a glorious track record in inflicting population and cultural genocide, justifying and encouraging slavery and racism, preparing the ground for Europe (and in this century, the US) to further their colonial and geopolitical agendas – read about the failed and successful Xtianisation project of Japan and South Korea respectively and the role of the CIA and various American thinktanks) and of course routinely indulging in their favourite pastime- spewing venom against polytheists and idolators. To put it bluntly, (America based) evangelists and NGOs are a nuisance today who at the very least, cause social disruption and confusion wherever they go – tearing families apart, creating fear and subverting native traditions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LCcIZ-Gqus8) . Yet there is an unwritten rule among the gutless MSM that these issues must not be part of mainstream discourse.
But when a bunch of ragtag Hindutva clowns throw a tantrum about a silly Bolly movie and the debate about FoE and saffronisation and secularism and “Idea of India” seem to go on and on and on till every intern at the Hindu and NDTV get in an opinion piece.
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AC
January 4, 2015
The concept of the movie is too shallow, and can be ignorantly portrayed only by an alien who has not lived on this planet, PK is the right person to do so. The movie shows only one side of the religion, which probably the protagonist has not understood,that religion is full of irrational practices and painted religion (name not to be spoken) as taboo in the society. I would like to bring the attention of CFBC that this view point is highly malicious, irrational, false, and detrimental to the viewers and society at large.
Religion is the most scientific concept that has stood test of time and also envisages that every person on this earth is physically, mentally, socially and spiritually healthy. The Vedas, Upanishads, Shahstras, and several other literature explain the healthy way of living. The yoga, restriction on food habits, living a addiction free life, living a astute life, maintaining mental stability, and always live a spiritually guided life are all elements of living a successful life that every person society can live if they follow what is explained by religion.
We can not deny that we have not experienced the invisible hand of god in our life-span. We can not also deny that we find many scientific facts have found answers in religious traditions. refer WHO definition of health, Maslow’s hierachy of need or Adam Smith’s invisible hand who have taken bits and parts from religion preaching to come up with a theory.We have always tried to find rational justifications for our deeds in someone else.
It is true that people have don’t have time to read the original form of religion and may not be able to tell you the rational for following it but that does not mean it is not true. We have adopted several traditions through learning from parents, religious gurus, and society , and may have lost the true concept but that does not mean it is not true. We follow many western traditions, scientific facts, and commercial propaganda too without understanding but always believe that it is scientific. Being scientific or just the word “scientific” has been the single most powerful tool for west to rule countries all over the world.
The commercial interest of companies in west recognize that several traditions in India are barrier for their market in the region, and have been attacking our strengths under the pretext of being unscientific by using several tactics to embarrass us for our strengths; recent cartoon strip in US newspaper on our Mars mission is one such example where cow was shown to brand India. India has been one of the biggest exporter of animal products, at a time when Indians dont have sufficient milk for their internal consumption and now relying on soya milk, skimmed milk ( most of time made by some western company), and worst relying on tea, soft drinks, and alcohol.
Presently the youth of India is facing mental turmoil whether to adopt western lifestyle or retain Indian lifestyle. In this situation, a movie like PK that attacks originality of Indians would result in losing our identity, faith and our strengths. The song propagating “waste of time” is itself a good enough reason to ban the movie. I question the justification of the movie going tax-free in several states.Why CFBC is so adamant and reluctant to review its approach ? What stops CFBC to adopt or balance a ethical way of decision making rather a utilitarian way?
When the propagandist of such detrimental views can charge Rs.500 for a movie and become biggest grosser of all time in Bollywood than why not Indians donate Rs 10 to a religious institution or a Guru who is telling you to lead a healthy life, have patience, be good to others, be kind to all life forms, be cautious of words, deed, stay healthy and stay away from addictions ! if the stakeholders of the movie are really concerned of the society , will they return the entire money collected in the box office and donate it to a school , hospital, a free rest place for poor or any cause they think is good for society? In their justification to tax-free, Government thinks that movies have great influence in society, than Government should also again introspect before using public money to support such commercially driven agendas through movies.
Best Wishes on New year , and God bless you.
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Utkal Mohanty
January 4, 2015
Prakash: Dont you realize that Syria and Pakistan are in the mess that they are in because of of rabid communalists? If they had rabid secularists their fate would be different for sure. In other words, India is what it is because of rabid secularists. If the rabid communalists had their way, they would turn India into a Hindu Syria or Pakistan. And no Vivekanada was not a rabid communalist.
“The Hindu may have failed to carry out all his plans, but if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time, which will be infinite, like the God it will preach, whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development, which in its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and finda place for, every human being, from the lowest groveling savage not far removed from the brute to the highest man towering by the virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity and making society stand in awe of him and doubt his human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope will be centred in aiding humanity to realize its own true and divine nature.
Offer such a religion, and all the nations will follow you. Ashoka’s council was a council of the Buddhist faith. Akbar’s though more to the purpose, was only a parlour-meeting. It was reserved for America to proclaim to all quarters of the globe that the Lord is I every faith.
My He whi si the Brahaman of the Hindus, the Ahur Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, and the Father in Heaven of the Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble idea.”
That was Vivekananda reading a paper at the Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in 1893.
Rabid? Comunal? Far from it, as anyone can see
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Prakash
January 4, 2015
@utkal mohanty
Vivekananda, like many others before and after him, said a whole bunch of things of which “secularists” always quote selectively as you have done and see what you have been conditioned to see. Such a partial reading does gross injustice to the breadth and candidness of his views.
I could easily throw back some quotes of his back at you if that is what you really want(and you can get over your confirmation bias).
Here, have a look:
“Now, the Muslims are the crudest in this respect, and the most sectarian. Their watch-word is: there is one God (Allah), and Mohammed is His Prophet. Everything beyond that not only is bad, but must be destroyed forthwith, at a moment’s notice, everyman or woman who does not exactly believe in that must be killed; everything that does not belong to this worship must be immediately broken; every book that teaches anything else must be burnt. From the Pacific to the Atlantic, for five hundred years blood ran all over the world. That is Mohammedanism (Islam)!”
[The speech delivered at the Shakespeare club of Pasadena, California, USA, on February 3, 1900].
“The more selfish a man, the more immoral he is. And also with that race which is bound down to itself has been the most cruel and the most wicked in the whole world. There has not been a religion that has clung to this dualism more than that founded by the Prophet of Arabia (Mohammed), and there has not been a religion (Islam) which has shed so much blood and been so cruel to other men. In the Koran there is the doctrine that a man, who does not believe these teachings, should be killed; it is mercy to kill him! And the surest way to get to heaven, where there are beautiful ‘houries’ and all sort of sense-enjoyments, is by killing these unbelievers. Think of the bloodshed there has been in consequence of such beliefs (Islam)!”
[The speech delivered by Swami Vivekananda in London on 18th Nov.1896].
In fact, your own fellow modern-day “secularists” have this to say about him:
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/His-Inclusiveness-Is-A-Powerful-Myth/283498
The interview is of Jyotirmaya Sharma, a fellow “secularist” of yours, who after a bit of research, found, to his deep dismay, that Vivekananda was not the cuddly teddy bear that he was popularly made out to be. He has since written an entire book “cosmic love and human apathy” on what Swami Vivekananda truly espoused.
The second link is particularly enlightening, casting, as it does, some terrific light on what really went on in his head. Here is an excerpt:
“While talking about Vivekananda, I had stated in my piece, “The great saffron saint, Vivekananda, stated in the World Parliament of Religions that he hails from a civilization which holds all religions as true but astonishingly, the same Vivekananda while answering a few questions of the Editor of Prabuddha Bharat said, “Every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy the more.” Vivekananda did not even hold Prophet Muhammad in high regards. He said, “He (Muhammad) was not a trained yogi and did not know the reason of what he was doing. Think of what good Muhammad did to the world and think of the great evil which has been done through his fanaticism.”
Seeing the ghar vapasi being taken up in a large way by the VHP et al., I am sure Swami Vivekananda would have approved.
Lastly, i brought up Syria and Pakistan because you talked blindly about secularism in the world as if it is some global phenomenon when it isn’t. What we need is a tolerant culture and Hinduism is already that, without the unnecessary passivity foisted by an artificial “secularism”. There is a reason why islamic cultures are intolerant and not secular. It is not ISIS or Taliban. It is Islam itself. Sometimes slowly, always inevitably, it will destroy tolerance in its followers. Even Turkey, long cited as an exception, has started sliding down this path.
You need not worry about India because Fundamentalist hindus and fundamentalist muslims are false equivalents, due to the simple reasons that underlying ideologies are different and motivations for the former need grievances while the latter thrives on mere religion.
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Madan
January 4, 2015
Sorry Utkal, but in all likelihood, rabid secularists would not have a life, let alone a voice, in Pakistan or Syria. To claim rabid secularists have kept India from getting torn apart is to give them too much credit. It is the tolerance of the common man, the so called working class or neo middle class as our current FM calls it, that keeps the country going. And this tolerance has remained intact over the long history of the country. It is obviously not the British Raj who taught Indians to live with each other; if anything they were more interested in dividing India on religious lines. So the genesis of a tolerant Hindu outlook is much deeper and older than the introduction of democracy in this country (which was a much more ‘recent’ event).
I am not convinced that the Lutyens elite has any great degree of sympathy for the plight of the working class. I mean, to even begin to understand their condition, they would have to use the same humble public transport that the working class does. Instead, by attempting to impose an imagined idea of India, they only compound its problems. Rajiv Gandhi’s govt overturning the Shah Bano verdict was what provided fodder for the right wing to ride high on the Hindutva agenda in the first place. This was one of several moments in the IG-RG (not to be confused with Rahul) legacy where the umbrella coalition was torn apart in their overzealousness to capture the minority vote. I don’t even know if that is secularism of any sort; more like terrible, horrible cynicism.
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Madan
January 4, 2015
When I used to work at Nariman Point, the original business district of Mumbai, I regularly used a short cut that passes through Azad Maidan to reach CST station. It was bad enough when the Amar Jawan memorial was damaged by rioters in a 2012 incident but even innocent commuters at CST were at their receiving end. One of my colleagues was there on the fateful day and had a close shave. As a Mumbaikar, I venture out fearlessly at all sorts of ungodly hours and the thought that such a prominent location in Mumbai could become unsafe sickened me at the time. As much as the so called secular media may have tried to hush hush over such incidents, they did not go unnoticed among the people and this was one of the inflexion points of India’s sharp right turn that caught the media by surprise. The media should talk to people on the ground level to understand the roots of this discontent instead of painting it in broad brushstrokes with lazy stereotyped phrases like soft Hindutva. Whether valid and rational or not, these perceptions are real and we can pretend they are the figment of a small lunatic fringe of society at our peril. The change at hand has profound implications for the future of the country and typical pseudo-secular arrogance will only serve to polarise the nation further. I am hopeful that won’t happen because even Aurangzeb’s puritanical excesses (to put it mildly) did not destroy the nation.
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Madan
January 4, 2015
Well said, Prakash. One of the most curious write ups I have read was by a Maulana Wahiduddin for TOI’s Speaking Tree section in the aftermath of the Peshawar blasts (ostensibly condemning them, of course). Therein, he repeated one of the most unsettling Islamic positions (for, well, somebody who is not a Muslim) which even the most erudite among them seem to cling to: that revenge is acceptable if extracted only to an equivalent extent. So whatever happened to “an eye for an eye will make the world blind”? It is possible that somewhere in the multitude of Hindu sacred texts, there is a portion that does justify revenge, I wouldn’t know. But neither do I quote it to justify taking the law into my hands nor do I know anybody else among my friends who does. This is an aspect that needs to be recognised and its implications grasped; wishing it away as a bad dream won’t make it go away. Whether the practice of Islam is brought more into the mainstream or it becomes even more hardline could be the subject of much 21st century strife, I am afraid.
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Kainattu
January 4, 2015
I don’t believe in banning films/books.I feel very strong about freedom of expression and utmost should be done to protect and celebrate that right given to us by the constitution.Judging from the reviews and previous films of the director i know exactly what to expect.
Comparing the freedom that we have with countries that are unapologetic theocratic or quasi democratic is setting the bar low in order to justify the habit we have internalized in the last 2 decades to get offended at the drop of a hat
I still maintain as i said in the “Haider” response section that films made reflect the context of the time and the response to this film suggests the same. In my opinion the intolerance to artists/authors/film makers by religious groups started with the knee jerk reaction to the ‘The satanic verses’. From then on it has been a dangerous slide from ‘”tu tu main main” to murderous rage on anything that is perceived anti Hindu/Muslim/Christian.If i can ban a book so that it offends X without no one ever reading it then Y will have his own axe to grind to extract a similar favor. And then it will not stop. People have seen Periyar smashing idols and might have expressed outrage.This is freedom of expression designed to provoke,offend and insult believers.The reason why that action did not boil over was because it was not institutionalized just for the simple reason that even as Tamils voted for the supposedly rational DMK they were deeply religious and still remain so. Had this freedom of expression translated in to a govt policy/order and got institutionalized then the reaction from the people would have been very different. In my opinion the importance of the Rushdie book ban cannot be overstated in the issues we are dealing with freedom of speech.
I will also not get offended if it is “anti-Hindu” because my understanding is shaped entirely from reading of books (after college graduation) and exposure to other peoples cultures across countries/continents with regards to religion,history and social mores. I am sure i can judge by myself that what is being portrayed is genuinely correct or completely offensive. Last thing we need in this is any form of institutionalized intervention.
@Madan,
Not only that. Meenakshipuram,Khalistan insurgency,Babri Masjid,Rushdie book Ban,Assam Insurgency due to immigrants, Kashmir Insurgency…phew… i think 80’s was the decade that changed the Hindu Outlook..All things that we see in the religious intolerance,Idea of India debate,freedom of expression can be traced to this only single decade.
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burcidibollyreview
January 4, 2015
“There is a reason why islamic cultures are intolerant and not secular. It is not ISIS or Taliban. It is Islam itself. Sometimes slowly, always inevitably, it will destroy tolerance in its followers. Even Turkey, long cited as an exception, has started sliding down this path.”
No. But I don’t blame you for thinking that. There isn’t much else to think for most non-Muslims who don’t understand the teachings of Islam and think that these terrorists and fanatics are Muslim. They’re not. Islam doesn’t preach intolerance or murder. It preaches just the opposite. These people use the name of Islam for their own selfish ends but unfortunately, this religion and its followers have been defined by them. I’m sure some of you have some Muslim friends. You must have met good Muslim people that were kind and honest and regular people. Can you believe that these psychopaths can belong to the same religion as your friends?
I understand that this is a difficult concept to understand. But I urge anyone who is open-minded to read the Qur’an, a good translation like the abridged version of Tafhim al-Quran and learn for yourself what Islam truly is. Please don’t form ideas about Islam by looking at terrorists. They are not Muslim. I’m a Muslim and my religion preaches tolerance, kindness, forgiveness, respect and righteousness. My religion says that killing an innocent is like killing all of humanity and saving an innocent is like saving all of humanity. My religion teaches me to fear God and to treat others with justice and do good deeds. I just hope that more people understand this. Labeling true Muslims as fanatics or terrorists is truly an injustice. And I’m sure none of you would want to call your Muslim friends these things. Life is not black and white like that. It’s shades of gray. We can’t label people so easily and generalize based on their faith, nationality or anything else. And I’d like to remind that the word “Muslim” is “one who submits to God.” I have met people who call themselves “Muslim” but don’t act so. And I have met people who call themselves other things and yet they are Muslim. They have submitted to God, worship God and do righteous deeds. These things are not as they seem. I just wish more people would see this. And if you are to generalize about Muslims, I wish you would generalize them based on people like me. I’m a good person whom all of you would like and consider a friend, rather than those monsters and hypocrites who use the beautiful name of my religion to do such evil deeds.
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Madan
January 4, 2015
Kainattu: I did want to mention Khalistan but omitted it as it was redundant as far as making my point goes. I am also in complete agreement with you on the importance of freedom of expression and have myself argued that the Constitution should be amended once and for all to remove specious grounds like offence caused to public etc. Right to express without the right to offend is quite meaningless. If I call a spade a spade, it is likely to offend someone. I don’t think anybody is comparing the freedom in India with that of Pakistan or Syria, though. Rather, the comparison is of secularism in India vis a vis those countries.
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Madan
January 4, 2015
burcidibollyreview: I can very well believe not all Muslims are fiends because I count some Muslims among my friends too. Since you seem more receptive to constructive debate, I would like to put forth the same question to you as well about the eye for an eye principle. This is the article link:
http://www.speakingtree.in/spiritual-articles/new-age/tribal-barbarism-in-the-name-of-islam
And this is the quote that I, as a Hindu, find disturbing.
“Revenge may be permissible, but strictly on one condition, that is, one should take revenge only from the person who has caused harm.”
I am not going to say anything this time. I simply want to ask you if you consider this a valid interpretation of Islam and if you believe in this stated principle.
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burcidibollyreview
January 4, 2015
I’m not an expert on Islam. I can answer to the best of my knowledge and I hope God will forgive me if I say something wrong.
Islam always encourages forgiving. It teaches to ‘repel evil with good.’ So it is always best to forgive and forget rather than seek revenge. The only exception to this is when a group declares war upon the believers or repeatedly crosses limits such as forcibly taking land or torturing innocents. In this case, Muslims are to declare war, inform those people of their intention to fight and fight them directly under the rules of just war. This is the same idea if a country were to declare war on India, India would prepare its military and fight the enemy soldiers. Muslims cannot stab behind the back, use trickery, kill innocents or attack people preemptively or without just cause. Muslim or non-Muslim, people who do not cause trouble in the sense I described are under the protection of Islam and cannot be harmed.
In regards to the Peshawar incident, how can revenge even be mentioned? First of all, terrorism is not allowed in Islam. Secondly, Muslims cannot kill anyone (Muslim or non-Muslim) unjustly, and they can certainly never kill other Muslims. In just war also, innocents cannot be harmed. Just war is only against the enemy soldiers in battle.
The issue with interpreting the Qur’an or any other religious text is that people can interpret it wrongly or only understand what they want to understand. I think it’s called “selective cognitive bias.” A lot of these terrorists pick certain lines from the Qur’an to support their ideology and ignore the exceptions and rules applying to that or they interpret it wrongly. Like I said, they use and misrepresent Islam to recruit for their selfish and evil ends.
I don’t want to turn the thread completely into a religious discussion. But God that Muslims believe in isn’t a foreign thing that only Muslims can understand. God is perfect. He is just, kind, compassionate, merciful and forgiving. He doesn’t like those who cross boundaries and cause mischief. He loves those who treat others justly and forgive. Only he has the right to judge among us. It’s us humans who have made life on this earth so difficult for one another. It’s also the fault of true Muslims, we are not doing enough to explain our faith correctly to the world and Muslim countries are not doing enough to fight terrorism. If this has clarified any of your doubts about Islam, then I will be very happy about that.
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Madan
January 4, 2015
Thanks for clarifying. I only wish more Muslims went along with this interpretation. Because the article I quoted was not written by a terrorist or even a fundamentalist but a scholar. I have met perfectly sane and reasonable Muslims who would justify the eye for an eye principle and this was the basis of my question. Personally speaking, if a bunch of Hindu elders asked me to practice an act of bigotry on the grounds that I was subservient to the mores of my religion and I didn’t find support for my side from family (impossible but I am just hypothesizing), I would renounce my religion before one could say blink. Yup, I really would. I remember one UK-based Muslim saying he could not endorse an FB post that condemned discrimination against homosexuals because that would be going against Islam. I may like the sense of belonging and community given to me by my religion but I do not consider it more important than my values. I could swear that many city bred Hindus only feel comfortable in identifying themselves as such because our priestly class has long since stopped trying to thrust their agenda on us. As long as an atheist removes his footwear before entering the temple, he is welcome…even if he doesn’t fold hands before the idol.
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burcidibollyreview
January 4, 2015
Unfortunately Madan, ignorance doesn’t always go away with education. Sometimes people cannot tell apart the difference between right and wrong. We all need to learn more compassion. I don’t have to agree with others’ beliefs, but I have to respect them. All of this is there in the teachings of Islam, I don’t know why some people are not understanding this or choosing to become extreme in their thoughts and attitudes. I just want you and everyone to know that not all Muslims are like this. I have nothing to say about Muslims who encourage violence and intolerance. I don’t know how they justify their thoughts and actions. I can only pray that God shows all of us the right way. And thanks for a very positive and constructive discussion.
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Prakash
January 4, 2015
@burcidibollyreview
First of all, I have nothing personally against you, and apart from your untenable defense of an indefensibly diabolic religion, you seem to be a perfectly good egg. 🙂 Otherwise you would have called me an islamophobe right away, which would be deeply unfair to the term “phobia” which means unreasoned fear. So I’ll deconstruct my views a little bit and hope that you may eventually look at the truth right at the face.
It starts like this: there are two kinds of “mass” religions in this world: abrahamic and dharmic. Abrahamic religions are more like cults, which means that the primary emphasis is on “belief in our God” and “submission to our God”. Dharmic religions are more like philosophies like the ones found in Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha or even Confucius. They may or may not have God or gods, but your belief in them is secondary. The primary emphasis is on “Dharma”, or living righteously, which can be broken down into resolving moral dilemmas by seeking to know the “most righteous” course of action when the choices are difficult to make and summoning the necessary will to pursue that course(there, I just summarised the Bhagavad Gita for you 🙂 )
I am not a big practitioner of any religion, but I do find the concept of dharma as the lodestar far more sensible and rational as opposed to a creator-God(whose existence cannot be proven and frankly, I don’t care) as the lodestar for leading my life.
Coming to Islam, for every “peaceful” quote that you put forth, there are a dozen evil, violent quotes I can attribute(or you can google if you really care to) and this is doubly complicated by two distinctly Islamic characteristics:
1)Naskh
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Abrogation_%28Naskh%29#Misinformation_Spread_by_Apologists
2)Taqiyya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya
I have read the Koran and frankly, I think it is a load of invented nonsense which is particularly evil in the way it wraps itself completely around the human mind and closes it off to any sources of genuine spiritual or rational thought. Again, I would need to correspond in detail with you to explain as this is hardly the appropriate forum. I don’t know whether there is a God, but I know for sure that it is not somebody named Allah or Jehovah.
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burcidibollyreview
January 4, 2015
Allah is just the Arabic word for “God.” It’s not a name. I’m willing to discuss my opinions but from where you are standing, I don’t think there is anything to discuss because you have clearly already made your mind up about this topic. I am not someone who blindly follows what she is told. I have come to the realization of God and faith through my own journey and long rational contemplations. And I believe that everyone should do the same. Everything I have said until this point is about understanding and compassion and arguing about the existence of God or which spiritual tradition is the best or right one is hardly suitable to my position and point.
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Prakash
January 4, 2015
@burcidibollyreview
You do realize that there are plenty of religions other than Islam whose religious texts are not “collectively misinterpreted the exact same way” to somehow lead to a lot of headless bodies and raped, mutilated or forcibly converted “unbeliever” women.
You are suffering from cognitive dissonance, my friend. Like all apologists, you are in denial of the patently obvious and your thinking is chained by a conditioned “fear of Allah”. Rise above, my friend. Think objectively and dispassionately. There are plenty of numb nuts in this blog(and in the world, in general) who will merely “like” your feeble sentences of defense as they themselves cannot stomach cold hard truths.
Just realize this incredible fact:
Tibet and Xinjiang are both under Chinese occupation and demographically assaulted by Han Chinese.
Tibetan Buddhists show their opposition by burning themselves.
Xinjiang muslims show their opposition by murdering innocent civilians via terrorist acts.
Reality speaks a simple language. If you can set aside the blinkers of your religion, you will understand the truth it tells.
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venkatesh
January 4, 2015
@Prakash: I don’t know whether there is a God, but I know for sure that it is not somebody named Allah or Jehovah.
As opposed to a God called Mahaveer, Buddha or Ram.
Dude, for Fucks sake, this is neither the time nor the place. Take this shit elsewhere.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Arjun
January 5, 2015
@burcidibollyreview
From reading your post, I am sure you are a fine person and a good human being, as I might add, are most muslims, and every Muslim I know personally.
However, it is simply not true that Islam teaches unconditional love or tolerance or forgiveness and it is a fact that violent JIhad to spread Islam has been a core tenet of the religion for as long as it has been in existence. The later Medina verses (which take precedence over the relatively milder Mecca verses) and several hadiths form the theological basis for this doctrine. The Sharia also prescribes, among other things, stoning and killing of apostates. This is undeniable.
The Koran (Medina verses) and Hadith teach, among other things, to hate, among others, disbelievers Jews, idolators and polythesists. It has explicit exhortations to strike off the necks of idolators and strike terror in the heart of disbelievers, which are NOT in the context of war. It allows and indeed encourages enslavement (including sex-slavery -hhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_slavery#Sexual_intercourse) of non-muslims and Mohammed himself was a slave owner who took a coptic Christian slave girl as his wife. It is precisely these instances and verses that the ISIS or Boko Haram or Al Qaeda cite to justify their actions against those they deem disbelievers, including other peaceful fellow Muslims who disagree with their extremist views.
People who are more eloquent and well-read than me have written extensively about the topic. So let me end by linking one article on the subject, which pretty much mirrors my thoughts.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/an-open-letter-to-moderat_b_5930764.html
Peace.
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Olemisstarana
January 5, 2015
It really bothers me that I have to rise to the defense of what is but a violently average movie. It’s like all the bros trumpeting freedom-of-speech and puffing their chests over “The Interview.” Worthy cause and all that.
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rothrocks
January 5, 2015
@Arjun: That way, I am sure the vast compilation of sacred texts of just about any religions assert positions that are difficult to maintain in modern times or can no longer be considered moral. The outlook reflected in the practice of religion is probably more by the example set by its leading lights. We see that Islamic and Christian civilisations indulged in foreign conquest and this must have partly been dictated by the difficult terrain in which they originated. Hindu kings were less wont to invade foreign terrain as India itself was blessed with abundant natural resources and a largely hospitable climate. I am no expert on history but I wager this is at the heart of the placid, passive temperament of Hindus as well as, and this is important, other people living in India. Even the Mughals did not hunt down tigers in the large numbers that the British did because there was enough to feed man and beast.
It is difficult to ‘update’ sacred text because it is supposed to be the word of God. What has to be more flexible is the extant practice of the religion. I don’t see an easy path to that in the case of Islam because even some educated Muslims seem intent on deriving Islamic practice from a literal reading of the text.
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Utkal Mohanty
January 5, 2015
Prakash: That exactly is the problem with Vivekananda. He said many different things at different times. And one can find many holes in his utteraances, like you have done.
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Rahini David
January 5, 2015
YK:
1) I was not talking about PK specifically but about the general topic of this balancing act. Yes, even in Tamil movies Samiyaars are often shown in a bad light. I haven’t the slightest clue why this should be so.
2) I understand that religion is a different topic and it can touch nerves like nothing else can. But then again, I haven’t the slightest clue as to why this should be so either. I confess that I am naive in that topic.
Burcid:
1) Hindus do not intend to depict Muslims as “secret polytheists”. They are polytheists and they think with polytheism in their mind, so the “Which God” dialouge creeps into movies. That is all.
2) Regarding the other topic of terrorists: We do not think muslims as terrorists. But when a terror attack happens in India, it is often Muslim names(like Ajmal Kasab) that are implicated. I used to think that this is because our strained relationship with Pakistan. I just assumed that Pakistani newspapers will have an equal number of Hindu names and so will other countries. After the advent of Internet, I have come to understand that this is not as simple as that. Any way, if some thing often is depicted in our newspaper and TV coverage, it will soon be shown in movies too, right?
3) I hope this question is not offensive. It is not meant like that. Apparently there are some people who call themselves muslims who recruit and brain wash illiterate poor boys and make them do unspeakable things. Are muslim organisations doing enough to stop this from happening? Are there helplines these boys can turn to? Are there awareness programs warning them that they will be first offered food and then it will end in their suicide mission? If this is available, who is doing this? If not, then why not?
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Prakash
January 5, 2015
@venkatesh
“As opposed to a God called Mahaveer, Buddha or Ram.”
Ironic that these were the first names that came off the top of your mind…because none of them proclaimed themselves as God!
“Dude, for Fucks sake, this is neither the time nor the place. Take this shit elsewhere.”
Venkatesh, Rangan, Rahini David and that other random guy who liked this:
You do realize that this post is about the need for “Freedom of expression”? You are the shameless hypocrites here. Not me.
And no, I shall not stop expressing my thoughts here. If that irks you, then bully for you. I don’t give a whit.
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brangan
January 5, 2015
Prakash: Uh… “Shameless hypocrites?”
Okay, you seem to be living in a black-and-white world where liking venkatesh’s comment (and by extension, what he says) is tantamount to asking you to shut up. That’s not the case. Please feel free to carry on.
Believe me, I’d dearly like it if you were to shut up about some of the issues you’ve raised, but I also believe that you have the freedom to express yourself.
I mean, dude, I am the effing moderator here. If I didn’t believe in freedom of expression, don’t you think I’d have edited or censored every single comment on this thread that did not conform to my beliefs? (And there have been some pretty incendiary comments here.)
There’s nothing either shameful or hypocritical about my stance.
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Rahul
January 5, 2015
“The issue with interpreting the Qur’an or any other religious text is that people can interpret it wrongly or only understand what they want to understand.”
burcid, the problem is not that Quran can be misinterpreted , any text can . The problem is that there exists a dominant narrative of Islam that an average Joe will follow over his common sense ethics. This leads to stakeholders trying to control that dominant narrative. It is impractical for every single person to read Quran and make up their own mind. The dominant narrative of religion will be hijacked in proportion to its dearness to , and eagerness to submit to of , people .
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Prakash
January 5, 2015
@rangan
“liking venkatesh’s comment (and by extension, what he says) is tantamount to asking you to shut up. That’s not the case”
Let’s see. In YOUR world of infinite grays, if someone says to you “Get the hell out of here” and the guy next to him adds, “You heard him. Now scram!!”, the second guy really means “You are welcome to stay here. I just liked the sound of his voice”. Right. Whatever.
It would have been so much better if you had come clean, but no…you just had to spin an even more convoluted justification.
“I mean, dude, I am the effing moderator here. If I didn’t believe in freedom of expression, don’t you think I’d have edited or censored every single comment on this thread that did not conform to my beliefs”
Dude, you are the one talking in black-and-white here. You are trying to play all naive by trying to pose a false dichotomy between allowing dissent and crushing it. It isn’t exactly new to allow dissent and then indirectly cheer on, as you are doing, as fellow subscribers to your worldview gang up to chase away the dissenter. But I did hope you would try to engage in serious debate when I confronted you with facts instead of stooping down to such cheap tactics. I guess that was too much to hope for.
And just FYI, I don’t reciprocate your desire to see me shut up about my views. I would love to see you(or anybody else who disagrees with me for that matter) meaningfully argue based on whatever logic, reason and facts you can come up with, but you are firm in keeping your head buried in the sand. It is unsettling that, as the author of this piece, you should even harbour a desire for people with opposing POVs to shut up, even as those very same people are game for a debate. I am sorry, but that is hypocritical of you, and your attempts to defend this double-speak entirely shameful.
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Olemisstarana
January 5, 2015
@Prakash.
And yet you still have a venue to vent and I continue to read your words. Freedom of speech rah. rah.
Freedom of speech =/= condoning your speech. Essential and not so subtle difference.
Why are you so hung up on approval – likes? LIKES? Really? Is that what you are going on about?
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rothrocks
January 5, 2015
Ahem, freedom of expression includes the right to ridicule, bully, gang up, etc.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Gradwolf
January 5, 2015
Need some lessons here I guess
http://xkcd.com/1357/
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Ashutosh
January 5, 2015
All those Gods who have been approved by Prakash can come here and provide further information on why Islam is total bullshit… sarippadathavanga konjam office roomla poi wait pannunga 🙂
@Prakash: I think it is difficult to engage with you; not because your arguments are terrific, but because you have loaded so much hate and condescension into your argument that to dignify it with any response would mean that one has to get sucked up into the hate-vortex … or worse… it might prompt further pseudo-scholarly blither from thy goodself. You have made free use of your freedom of speech by saying shockingly prejudiced stuff like “First of all, I have nothing personally against you, and apart from your untenable defense of an indefensibly diabolic religion, you seem to be a perfectly good egg. :)” Because you have been freely sarcastic in your references to others, I take the liberty of saying that to utter such smug drivel and complain that people are not coolly engaging with you on a point-by-point basis is akin to a murderer complaining that the victim isn’t helping him pull the trigger.
I know by saying the above I have unleashed on to the internet (and myself) a mini-wave of hate backed by rock-solid unscholarliness. May one of the Gods approved by Prakash shower their protection over this pseudosickular soul.
LikeLiked by 5 people
venkatesh
January 5, 2015
@Prakash: This forum is not intended to be used for spreading truths, lies, facts, digressions, untruths or anything of that sort about any religion, i don’t care which one.
The fact that BR allows you to still post your comments speaks volumes about his views on Freedom of Speech.
My point was simply this – You want to talk Freedom of Speech with regards to the movie or cinema or Art or even religion without degrading this to a Islamic or Hindu or Christian piece of propaganda you are more than welcome, else as i said before
“Dude, for Fucks sake, this is neither the time nor the place. Take this shit elsewhere.”
LikeLiked by 3 people
Prakash
January 5, 2015
@olemisstarana
By the word “condone”, you have made it clear you consider my utterances criminal. If you have a problem with what any of what I have told, by all means tell me why you don’t agree. This is what I have reiterated time and again (and which, in your blind hurry to put me down, you seem to have conveniently ignored). Neither have I asked for approval from anyone nor can such an insinuation be made out from a fair reading of whatever I have written. As you have targeted me personally in spite of all this, I can only surmise that you are a frustrated troll with no substantive counter-arguments.
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Prakash
January 5, 2015
@ashutosh
Brother, I am saying what is in my heart. Some of it is hate and anger, i freely admit. My point is that hate too is a legitimate response to some issues, and not a knee-jerk reaction to events. Just like the old saying “truth hurts”, truth also inspires us to hate(and love). Now you can challenge my perception of truth but how can you ask me to speak it differently? I would be dishonest to my conscience if I did that and dear Ashutosh, my conscience is the closest approximation to God I have.
You may not have noticed that nowhere do I endorse a ban on PK or even a boycott. All i have questioned is the hypocrisy of so-called secularism advocated by some. And I shall continue to do that even if it gets the goat of people like you as I believe you “secularists” should be consistently called out on the duplicitous nature of the product you peddle. I will always give my voice when I see what I perceive as unfair and no, I will not whisper meekly. I will speak up and speak bluntly, especially in an open forum that is supposedly “free”. My intention is not to be heeded but to be heard, and seeing you “freedom of expression” votaries squirm at my exercising that freedom…I believe I have done some excellent work.
I do respect many(but not all) of the thoughts thrown up by my Indian traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism but they are just that…respect. I don’t follow all their tenets blindly or worship their Gods. Anything but. If indeed they exist(and i would never bet on that), i don’t think they are going to judge me by my belief or lack thereof.
To understand all this is to look beyond Hindutva caricatures you have been fed by the world around you. I hope you can do that instead of resorting to infantile ridicule.
And since you have taken up the cudgels for Burcidi’s cause, let me clarify I was not being sarcastic towards her. Her defence of Islam was pathetic but that does not detract from the fact that she really did seem to be a good person.
Attacking one’s faith is very different from attacking the person who happens to follow that faith. Why do you conflate the two?
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Olemisstarana
January 5, 2015
@ Prakash:
I’ll still say that the most tiresome part of this entire back and forth is that it’s been spawned by PK, most average movie that it is.
That being said, you are really the type of commenter that I would cross the road at rush hour blindfolded to avoid. Serves me right to try and engage you. That also being said, being called a troll by the ilk of you is… I don’t know, high praise?
Here is why I won’t engage you any further. You display a shocking lack of self awareness. You could be making the most sound theological and religious argument ever (which, just in case you think I’m saying you are, think again), but you jumping in and telling the host of this discussion that he mustn’t even THINK about you shutting up is just too much bait for me to let go. Do tell me how Baradwaj must think. Do tell me how I must think. Do tell all of us the degree and intensity to which we should agree with you.
“By the word “condone”, you have made it clear you consider my utterances criminal.”
How’s the painting going, George Bush?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_either_with_us,_or_against_us
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Olemisstarana
January 5, 2015
@Prakash
“Dude, for Fucks sake, this is neither the time nor the place. Take this shit elsewhere.”
I’ll “like” your comment if that helps things any.
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Prakash
January 5, 2015
@venkatesh
“This forum is not intended to be used for spreading truths, lies, facts, digressions, untruths or anything of that sort about any religion, i don’t care which one.”
This article by Rangan is about a film that claims to criticize religion. Yet you ask, nay order me to desist from bringing religion into it. Sorry bro, no can do. If you don’t like what I write, don’t read it. You are nobody to dictate to me.
And no, I don’t particularly care whether you welcome me or ask me to get out(that choice, as you have framed for yourself, is itself pretty obnoxious and intolerant). By trying to silence me, you are only exposing your own hypocrisy. All the better.
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Arjun
January 5, 2015
I must say I respect BR for letting dissenters such as me freely air their views without any censoring. Which is more than I can say for the Hindu comment space. So thumbs up for that.
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Ravi K
January 5, 2015
“In the 1970s, a film like Hare Rama Hare Krishna could get away with yoking the names of the gods in its title to scenes (and a smash-hit song, Dum maaro dum) that featured uninhibited pot smoking and pre-marital commingling.”
That movie also had a song in which Dev Anand piously sings, “Dekho O deewano tum yeh kaam na karo/Ram ka naam badnaam na karo.” So perhaps that balanced it out for the censors. But, of course, it’s Dum Maro Dum that everyone fondly remembers.
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Ram Murali
January 5, 2015
By the word “condone”, you have made it clear you consider my utterances criminal.
–> Coundamani baashaila, “Tenson tenson…orey tenson…”
Prakash, I am not about to question your rights or freedom of speech…but I think I can humbly request you to consider putting an end to this chain by simply restating your views on BR’s original post if you want…I think this whole thread has digressed a lot from the original post…which is okay if it didn’t get so abusive and combative that too on a personal level…I am not saying that you are solely responsible for that at all…
Namma KB baashaila, “Life is short…iniki seththa naalaiku paal!” Vidunga bass…
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Abhirup
January 6, 2015
A much-needed article in this fundamentalist era. Keep it up, Mr. Rangan.
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Prakash
January 6, 2015
@rothrocks
“Ahem, freedom of expression includes the right to ridicule, bully, gang up, etc.”
You forgot the disclaimer: “unless done by VHP and Bajrang Dal when we will cry foul and whine on and on about “freedom of expression” ‘ 🙂
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Olemisstarana
January 6, 2015
@Baradwaj Rangan:
I think you can close shop, the question has been answered. Freedom of speech is an alien concept.
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Govardhanen
January 6, 2015
Hello Prakash,
Even if there are quite a few of us readers who may even agree with your view point, this is BR’s blog and it is his perogative to allow you to post or not.
I am surprised Bharadwaj has allowed you to post as many comments as you have.
When I read your posts, I just remember reading the commenting policy of one of my favorite bloggers Barry, it probably applies to your rants too.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/comment-policy/
“Therein lay the problem: A small group of trolls somehow confuse these sites for a town square. It is not. This blog is not a forum where I am obligated to give equal time to every crackpot conspiracy theorist, birther or intellectually lazy wanker out there. To be blunt, I don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about these jackhole’s opinions. These folk need to rapidly disabuse themselves from believing other people’s blog’s are an open invitation for whatever ignorance or ill thought out nonsense they are peddling.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
ssubramanian90
January 6, 2015
Oh look, yet another piece hijacked into Hindu-Islam contest of one-upmanship. Why am I not surprised?
LikeLiked by 2 people
KayKay
January 6, 2015
Prakash, so long as you were arguing about the double standards of the Indian Censor Board, you were firing on all cylinders! You presented your arguments cogently and your points of rebuttal rationally. I can’t comment on the situation in India, but there are definite parallels to how the Censor Board operates in Malaysia, where I live. It too is perennially held hostage to the vested interests of fringe groups with political clout. The choice is to either bow down to the ultra-sensitivities of all parties (an impossibility) or grow a pair and establish CLEAR guidelines to which they need to stick by. It all goes towards my pet peeve, frequently stated in numerous other posts, that this whole concept of a bunch of Retired Civil Servants sitting in a dark room, tasked with the responsibility of vetting what an entire country can or cannot see is hogwash. Rate the films (clearly and responsibly) and let the audience decide. Governments cannot and should not police morality and regulate taste.
But then…………..you drop some serious acid and go on this right-wing, anti-Islamic rant culminating in this absolute doozy of an argument: “It isn’t exactly new to allow dissent and then indirectly cheer on, as you are doing, as fellow subscribers to your worldview gang up to chase away the dissenter”
So…let me get this right: It was B’s Master Plan to let you invoke your right to a freedom of expression in a forum that quite possibly has people who have embraced and practice the Islamic faith, and to allow you to post, unexpurgated, comments like ” indefensibly diabolic religion”, “evil and violent quotes”, “I have read the Koran and frankly, I think it is a load of invented nonsense”, “numb nuts in this blog”, JUST SO a bunch of his loyal acolytes (we’re all activated by a secet password delivered by phone) can gang up on you and show you up for the bigot that you are, while he smirks in satisfaction sipping his morning Bru. Riiiiiiiiiiight. Whatever.
All texts are open to interpretation as long we realize these are MAN-MADE; amended, over-written, added to and deleted over centuries. We read and we interpret and we make our choices to how we want to react to the messages within. The Koran, a sacred text on a religion’s fundamental tenets and a guide to living OR a hate-mongering screed of exhortation to kill and pillage: take your pick. The Bhagavad Gita, a philosophical treatise on the transitory nature of the human soul, or a war-manual: Take your pick.
Those without education and access to basic necessities have always been fodder for those with an agenda, ALMOST ALWAYS political. And religion their most potent weapon.
The idea that a billion plus followers in this world are in thrall to a tome that is a “load of invented nonsense” and nothing more than a detailed “hate pamphlet” is just………bullshit. Not to mention depressing.
LikeLiked by 7 people
Srinivas R
January 6, 2015
BR , fuck the freedom of speech. The last thing I need in your blog is rediff and first post level of hatred and counter argument. This is a topic that has come up many times before, but I really think you should moderate better when mutual discussion in a forum stops and all we are left with is raising levels of hatred and stupidity. If people want to aggressively propagate their religious and political agenda, this really is not the place.
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rothrocks
January 6, 2015
@ Prakash I did think the tone of your comments to burci was pretty condescending. I didn’t want to butt in then, but if you are going to claim you were not condescending… 😀 . Also the first rule of internet flame wars is you got to be able to cop as good as you give. Er, if you think pseudo secularists are hypocrites, you are not far off. I am sorry I expressed agreement with some of your comments but then I didn’t know you were going to self pawn, as they say on the net.
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Prakash
January 6, 2015
@ram murali
“Prakash, I am not about to question your rights or freedom of speech…but I think I can humbly request you to consider putting an end to this chain”
Fair enough. My main aim was to voice my dissent and vindicate my views and I think I have done that successfully. In that process, if I have ruffled a few feathers, so be it.
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venkatesh
January 6, 2015
BR: Oru vendugol sir …. at some point , you do need to enforce _slightly_ stricter moderation controls.
As someone else so eloquently said , this is not a town square where every lazy ass wanker can come in and spout of a bunch of bullshit and completely derail the discussion.
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Ashutosh
January 6, 2015
@Prakash: Those who squirm here are squirming not because they are uncomfortable *about* what you are saying. They squirm because of *how* you are saying it: with an uncritical finality that precludes any rational argument; you invite someone for dinner and then load a gun as they enter your house, and when asked why you tell them that you will fire *only* if your conscience demands it, you also condescend them saying that they wouldn’t squirm if their consciences were clear.
Those who care more for ideas than for being right also squirm when you self-indulgently play a martyr who patiently bears the slings and arrows of narrow-minded folk and still smiles because he has done something for the good of the world and that is good enough for him.
LikeLiked by 3 people
burcidibollyreview
January 6, 2015
I apologize to everyone and especially Mr. Rangan for contributing to making this thread go off topic. It was not my intention to propagandize my faith, I’m sorry if it came off that way. When there are inciting comments that attack people’s ideas or beliefs, it’s very difficult to not respond and I was only trying to inform. If we can avoid insulting and labeling one another, this can be prevented in the future and the thread will remain on topic which is films and only that. I personally won’t contribute to such discussion from here on.
LikeLiked by 1 person
KayKay
January 6, 2015
“Those who care more for ideas than for being right also squirm when you self-indulgently play a martyr who patiently bears the slings and arrows of narrow-minded folk and still smiles because he has done something for the good of the world and that is good enough for him”
Ashutosh: Bravo sir ! Couldn’t have said it better.
In fact, given his MO = Post incendiary shit-stirring stuff + get increasingly sarcastic and condescending when faced with differing opinions + turn belligerent when further challenged + cry victim when people call you out on your bigoted and insular views…..led me to suspect this was our Banned Commenter posting incognito, albeit one who’s mastered the finer nuances of spelling and grammar 🙂
burcidibollyreview: Nothing to apologize and nothing to forgive. You put forth your views rationally without a shred of condecension nor a dollop of venom. In other words, you showed class which is an alien concept to some, as Prakash so ably demonstrated here 🙂
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Ashutosh
January 6, 2015
@KayKay: This is I think the third time in these threads that I am hearing about Banned Commenter… I have never been able to figure out who that might be or muster up enough courage to ask, just in case people are too harrowed to talk about it 🙂 When the mythology in this blog is codified by future alien archeologists, they might argue (understandably) that the underlying theme of this blog is the Eternal War between BR and BC 🙂
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venkatesh
January 6, 2015
@Ashutosh : The “Banned Commenter” is a hallowed chapter in this blog 🙂 , if you go back in history to the top commenters from 2 years before , i suspect he would be number 1 by a fair margin.
The late lamented “Banned Commenter” .. may he RIP.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Olemisstarana
January 6, 2015
@Ashutosh
Well, you should have been at the lunch.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gradwolf
January 6, 2015
Well while we are at happy digressions, I am going to be hipster and say what Banned Commenter? What about Blocked Stalkers and the ilk? Those were the real golden days.
BR, you must restart bitty ruminations I say.
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Rahini David
January 7, 2015
Ashutosh: That is easy to find if you know where to look. Just look at the number of comments considering that he was kicked out midway.
BR: To tell the truth, at the end of 2012 I honestly thought that the number of hits in the blog was going to drop because of this. I thought that people were visiting the blog so often only as the comment section was a sort of WWF with words. But there is a significant increase in hits. A few arguments on religion, caste or H.Roshan may be there. But it certainly doesn’t resemble a circus anymore and still people come here so often. Congratulations.
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Ashutosh
January 7, 2015
@Rahini David: Thanks… I still haven’t found him but I am doing the research as per your advice.
But, when I was looking at your 2012 report link, I saw the following stuff in it:
Some visitors came searching, mostly for baradwaj rangan, blogical conclusion, bharadwaj rangan, brangan, and dr ahmadi assassination.
Is this analytics thing working right?
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Ashutosh
January 7, 2015
Oh OK… I now see… comments for Vazhakku En wistfully nostalgize the antediluvian days when he roamed free and was “at least was trolling on-topic” and “delivered shock value but […] usually had a point, like southpark.”
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KayKay
January 7, 2015
Ashutosh: BC was my Achilles Heel, the guy who made me abandon all rational responses which resulted in numerous slanging matches between us, mostly in threads involving Raja or Rahman (not my finest hour, I must admit). So the eternal war was between BC and KayKay, most of the time 🙂
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KayKay
January 7, 2015
Venkatesh: Late lamented??? Is it true? The guy could be a pain, but I wished him no ill and am am genuinely shocked and saddened at his passing. He was a young man if my assumptions are correct
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Ashutosh
January 7, 2015
@KayKay: haha… I have to dig those threads up 🙂
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brangan
January 7, 2015
Ashutosh: Just checking… you do have a job, right? The kind where you have to actually, you know. work? 🙂
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Ashutosh
January 7, 2015
@brangan: but, come on, an ounce of flamewar is more nutritious than a litre of well-constructed prose.
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Ashutosh
January 7, 2015
hm… OK wrong comparison… the ounce is a measure of weight. anyway.
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Rahini David
January 8, 2015
BR: Well, what is life without an occasional Archive Binge?
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Raj Balakrishnan
January 8, 2015
Contrast the protests against PK to the violent reaction against Charlie Hebdo. In PK’s case we had some harmless protests which our pseudo secular brigade promptly condemned. Why is this gang silent on the ‘protests’ against Charlie Hebdo?
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brangan
January 8, 2015
Raj Balakrishnan: Let me try to answer your question rationally.
(1) I think the news just broke, so I do hope people are going to write about this in the opinion pages — though I doubt I’ll be asked to write anything as this isn’t exactly “film”-related.
(2) With media, in general, local news trumps foreign news. So protests against “pk” are likely to bring on more articles in Indian media than what happened in Paris.
(3) My facebook feed is filled with people who’ve shared the buzzfeed link below:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/heartbreaking-cartoons-from-artists-in-response-to-the-ch#.cpwy5LDWV
This is also a form of protest.
(4) The pieces written about the protests against “pk” aren’t to say that these protests shouldn’t happen. The piece like the one above conveys the author’s opinion — and “freedom of speech” includes the right to criticise the piece above, or the film itself for content, write response-pieces about how it is a blatant piece of Hindu-bashing, and so on and so forth. All sorts of opinion should be there — that’s what a democracy is about.
What most of us don’t care for is the disruption to public life, threats to theatre owners, holding up traffic, and so on. It is your right to protest, yes, but it is your DUTY to do so in a manner that doesn’t cause a problem to others.
Which leads me to…
(5) Some earlier comments asked why we should protest things like ghar-wapsi when Christian missionaries did the same thing en masse? That was WRONG, and because THEY did wrong it’s no reason to say we should do the same wrongs.
Plus, the ghar-wapsi scenarios we’ve been hearing about seem rushed and money-driven. If someone genuinely wants to change one’s faith, then they should be welcomed to the new faith. But we don’t get that feeling here.
All of which is another way of saying that in a Hindu-majority nation, it is to be expected that the wrongs that Hindus do are criticised a tad more than the wrongs of others (but this doesn’t mean the latter won’t be written about — journalists from these other faiths will and should write pieces pointing out why these other wrongs are… well, wrong too).
But if we are bigger, more powerful, then it’s up to us to set an example. Then again, I’m a “pseudo secular.” What do I know?
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Raj Balakrishnan
January 8, 2015
Thanks Baradwaj for your comments. I completely agree with waht you are saying. My problem is with the people who come out in full force to condemn anything that the Hindu Right does (such as the PK protests) but completely go missing when it comes to the minorities – like the Viswaroopam, Thuppakki, Da Vinci Code protests. The leading light of the pseudo secular brigade, Mahesh Bhatt, in fact took part in the protests against a movie call ‘Sin’ as it hurt the religious sentiments of the Christians.
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Utkal Mohanty
January 8, 2015
Raj Balakrishnan: “Contrast the protests against PK to the violent reaction against Charlie Hebdo. In PK’s case we had some harmless protests which our pseudo secular brigade promptly condemned. Why is this gang silent on the ‘protests’ against Charlie Hebdo?”
Instead of pintung out who is silent and who is not, why dont you express your indignation at Charlie Hebdo? Wont that be better use of your words? And what makes you think they are silent? There is worldwide support for the Charlie Hebdo heroes.
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Utkal Mohanty
January 8, 2015
In a much-retweeted post on Twitter, Mr Rushdie stated, “Religion, a medieval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. (Paris Attackers Shouted ‘We Have Avenged the Prophet’: Police)
“I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.” (France Puts Paris on Highest Alert Status After Shooting)
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/salman-rushdie-s-powerful-statement-on-charlie-hebdo-attack-645636?pfrom=home-latest
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Silverambrosia
January 8, 2015
Prakash: I don’t know if you’re still around reading the comments section. I think it’s very unfair to call Brangan and other commentators “Shameless hypocrites”. You were given space to air your views, and Brangan didn’t censor or delete a single word you wrote. You could have made the same points but said it in a different, less potentially inflammatory way, and that is what is making people here uncomfortable.
I don’t think you’re a bigot or ‘Islamaphobe’ or anything like that.What you’re saying is a response to what you’re seeing. I’ve been a fairly religious Muslim all my life. I still believe strongly in one God (an omnipotent, omnipresent responsive God), the power of prayer, and continue to see value in several of the norms I was brought up with. Yet some of the points you have raised have been plaguing me almost everyday for over a year now. It’s impossible to feel otherwise given the horrific things that are happening in the world. Some of these things really have little foundation in core Islamic texts (e.g. the laws governing apostasy and the treatment meted out to apostates in some Muslim countries). Other things that are happening I know are not just the byproduct of illiteracy, poverty, response to neo-imperial machinations etc, but have a direct correlation with religion. It would be self-deception for me to try and convince myself otherwise. I don’t have any defense to present to you.
I know very little about Dharmic belief systems, and can’t engage with you on that. I also don’t regard Abrahamic religions as ‘cults’ in the sense you describe it. Pernicious enough practices have existed in societies prescribing to Dharmic belief systems, caste, how widows were treated etc. I don’t know if these practices are directly sanctioned by religious texts or whether they sort of evolved as established custom over the centuries. But the biggest difference between the two belief systems is that Hinduism is amenable to reform. For Muslims to say that Islam requires reform is almost blasphemous: It’s like you’re challenging the final word of God. Many Muslims are not, or at least don’t want to be hypocrites. They openly and vehemently express disgust and outrage at what their co-coreligionists are doing; whether its ISIS, or Boko-Haram or Pakistan’s atrocious treatment of it’s religious minorities etc. They are, however, profoundly uncomfortable when it comes to criticizing the content of the core text of Islam. I would count myself among this category. It is partially fear as you suggest; I’ll acknowledge that. To be honest, there is always a trail of self-doubt and fear that you may be courting eternal damnation. But, if religion or Islam was just about fear, it wouldn’t have lasted so long. It’s adherent’s would not have continued to stick to it. In my own case my religiosity was a product of both my upbringing and certain life experiences.
However, the situation as it is is untenable. The process of Islamic reform is fraught with difficulty given the potential right-wing backlash which will almost inevitably accompany it. I think that the most effective (and perhaps least bloody) means of improving things, may be emphasizing the need for separation between Mosque and State. Pushing for a secular state, and secular institutions rather than calling religion evil, and or slamming Islam in absolute terms. The latter will not yield the desired results. Of course, this has to go hand in hand with an Islamic reformation. There are methods postulated as a basis for reform in contemporary Islamic scholarship. I think few Muslims can deny the desperate need to actually try and apply them now. I don’t see how there is any other way.
As for Indian Muslims, I think that the huge amount of anger that is directed at them in the comments sections of news sites or blogs isn’t fair, because most of it is anger by association (in terms of their religious identity), rather than anger at what they have actually done. It is unfair to be presumed guilty or have opinions ascribed to you which you have never held or entertained, but I guess Indian Muslims have to try and reassure their non-muslim friends, neighbours, colleagues that they too are decent, fair minded people. And this entails also espousing causes that extend beyond your own community, or taking sides where the perpetrators are your co-religionists. I would love to see fellow Muslims take up the cause of e.g. Kashmiri Pandits. I hope to be able to do something useful in that line myself. I don’t know if this lengthy comment was called for, but this comments section gave me the opportunity to put down thoughts which have been lingering in my mind for a long time.
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venkatesh
January 9, 2015
KayKay : Looks like sadly its true – it is indeed the late lamented Banned Commenter.
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Raj Balakrishnan
January 9, 2015
Utkal, I of course do condemn this.
It is the double standards of the pseudo seculars that gets to me.
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brangan
January 9, 2015
silverambrosia: Since you mention reform, am sharing this piece from Huffington Post that I shared on my FB timeline yesterday:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/an-open-letter-to-moderat_b_5930764.html?ir=India
“The book of the Jews is not much different from my book. How, then, are the majority of them secular? How is it that most don’t take too seriously the words of the Torah/Old Testament — originally believed to be the actual word of God revealed to Moses much like the Quran to Muhammad — yet still retain strong Jewish identities? Can this happen with Islam and Muslims?
Clearly from the above, the answer is a tried-and-tested yes. And it must start by dissociating Islamic identity from Muslim identity — by coming together on a sense of community, not ideology.
“
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Utkal Mohanty
January 9, 2015
Raj Balakrshnan: ” Utkal, I of course do condemn this. It is the double standards of the pseudo seculars that gets to me.”
You are doing so, after being prodded to do so. But all pseudo seculars including Rushdie had condemned it much before you and many have reprinted the cartoons many have twitted Je Suis Charlie Hebodo. So ask yourself how much have you been standing for free speech.
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Karthik
January 9, 2015
“All of which is another way of saying that in a Hindu-majority nation, it is to be expected that the wrongs that Hindus do are criticised a tad more than the wrongs of others”
I think this is what most people don’t get. In any society, it is always on the majority to take pro-active steps in the direction where the society is expected to go.
Also, though I’m pretty much an atheist now, Hinduism is still a part of my identity since I have been brought up in traditional households and have grown up reading and trying to understand what this religion actually means. Therefore, it is extremely disturbing for me to see these wretched right wingers position themselves as custodians of this belief system only and only for narrow political mileage. I think then, that it is natural for me more vocal or even noisy about voicing my reservations than, say Muslim/Christian/Zoroastrian right wingers. This has to do nothing with hypocrisy, it is more of a reaction to seeing one’s identity maligned.
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Ashutosh
January 9, 2015
. In any society, it is always on the majority to take pro-active steps in the direction where the society is expected to go.
@Karthik: That is an excellent point. I guess the main problem with right-wingers (apart from wanting to extract political mileage by setting up a straw man) is that they capitalize on the inability/lack of clarity in most people to distinguish responsibility as a majority and guilt as a majority. Once you make it about guilt, it is inevitable that the backlash is going to be driven by excessive pride. Hindus in India must take extra care, not because they have to guilty of their heritage but because they have a responsibility today (along with the minorities) to maintain a harmonious society. Because they have strength in numbers, they can afford to be more patient and measured in their response to extremism; it makes no sense to get worked up and start acting crazy about a 2% drop in the number of Hindus or some such thing.
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Silverambrosia
January 9, 2015
Brangan: I think Ali Rizvi’s article is an insightful one and he understands how Muslims think. My position is somewhat different from his. From some of his other articles its clear that he is an atheist, thinks religion is bunkum, and wants it only to be retained only in a very loose cultural sense. My views on Islam are more conflicted and less clear-cut. I think religion is something that will continue to have an important place in my life. But I want it out of PUBLIC LIFE. Several Arab countries were formerly secular, and are now in thrall to these bloodthirsty fanatic movements and militias. Just secularising public spaces won’t do the job. This is why religious reform is also crucial. I don’t want women and religious minorities to continue to be second class citizens in most Muslim States.
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Filistine
January 9, 2015
Despite the occasional name calling, this has been a great thread. Thanks for opening this up, BR.
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rothrocks
January 9, 2015
While most of us would agree that it falls on the majority to be more responsible in their actions, this issue also goes deeper than that. We have great people like a Mamata didi who can’t even tolerate cartoons lampooning her or KCR who thinks non Telangana Telugu people should go back to Seemandhra projecting themselves as secularists. I think the word pseudo secularist is intended particularly for the self styled experts who hold forth every evening on primetime television and who will paint the BJP in 50 shades of communalism but won’t call KCR’s bluff. If you don’t want secularism to die in the country, then it has to be rescued from such politicians who have hijacked it for votebank purposes. Crying hoarse about the right wing will only further polarise the climate. Already Asaduddin Owaisi has begun to respond to the fringe in their own language and this movie has just begun. But constant breast beating about secularism is only going to make people very cynical with unintended consequences that could be deadly. In France they have attacked mosques in retaliation to the shootout. How can this happen in a first world nation and a cultural magnet? Whatever happened to two wrongs don’t make a right? It can safely be said that for all their prosperity they are no better than us when it comes to tolerance. Please don’t take the patience of the common man for granted. Broad mindedness is a virtue but it is not a duty, not for those who struggle to make ends meet. All communities have to work jointly to maintain harmony. To pretend otherwise would be as bigoted as the right wing extremists are.
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venkatesh
January 9, 2015
Silverambrosia: What a great comment. Kudos sir/madam.
“I think religion is something that will continue to have an important place in my life. But I want it out of PUBLIC LIFE”.
This while a very worthy sentiment is unfortunately not possible with Islam. It is and has never been _just about_ private life. It lays out explicit rules of conduct for public life, removing the public aspect of Islam will involve changing the very core of the religion.
“Several Arab countries were formerly secular, and are now in thrall to these bloodthirsty fanatic movements and militias….This is why religious reform is also crucial.”
Yes, they are and this will continue to expand. Religious reform might be an answer but this cannot be external it has to come from within the community and that is not going to happen in this generation. While we might look at the Salman Rushdie’s and a few other chosen names and point them out as examples of “Muslims oppose violence”. The reality is that the vast majority of Muslims consider it acceptable to kill cartoonists, journalists or anyone else if their religion is “insulted”. (Check the double-blind polls done by Pew Research in 2010). And almost anything can be considered insulting if you look hard enough.
This is a fundamentally broken position and simply cannot be squared with a free and liberal society.
All religions are schemes for social control and extracting money from credulous people.
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Karthik
January 9, 2015
@silverambrosia
“I think religion is something that will continue to have an important place in my life. But I want it out of PUBLIC LIFE”
Right. It is in this context that the events of France become such a crucial vantage point. France is one country which has managed to keep religion and state separate and yet continued to be secular, as against Indian method of throwing religion, power, politics and money one giant cauldron and hoping it doesn’t explode in our faces.
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Ravi K
January 9, 2015
Karthik wrote, “I think this is what most people don’t get. In any society, it is always on the majority to take pro-active steps in the direction where the society is expected to go.”
Agreed. If a movie like PK was made in India by Hindu filmmakers that criticized Islam or Christianity more than any other faith, it would be people of the majority criticizing the minority. And the best satire is typically about telling truth to power. However, a movie that criticized Islam even a little bit wouldn’t be allowed to be made at all in a majority Islamic nation.
Silverambrosia, WRT reform, I suspect that the closest Islam will get to reform (in my lifetime, at least) is not so much actual reform, but people being convinced that what the Qu’ran says about women’s rights, gay rights, non-Muslims, etc. is something other than what they think it says. People will have to be convinced that, say the Qu’ran itself supports what we call women’s rights. Convincing them that what it says about the topic is wrong/irrelevant and should be ignored or discarded is an approach that will likely fail.
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Iswarya
January 9, 2015
I’m glad this thread has come to a rational exchange of views instead of random shooting from the hip. I think Ali Rizvi has a great point to make. It’s only who-bells-the-cat that’s going to be extremely difficult for the very reform-minded Muslims involved in this process. That reform, of it ever happens, is going to claim at least as many innocent Muslim lives as terrorism has ever claimed non-Muslim lives, on the whole. And the worst part is that these reformers may not even get sympathy from a large body of otherwise peaceful Muslims. I’ve seen this happen.
I’m obviously better read in European religious history (crusades, Martin Luther, Jesuits, Darwinism, Oxford movement, etc.) than any full-length Islamic history. But acknowledging that handicap, I am still surprised that no significant history of reform within Islam forms a part of common knowledge, leading me to believe that reform attempts must have been sketchy, unsuccessful or even non-existent, meeting with resistance enough to smother the isolated attempts of a few individuals. The only instance I can recall from the top of my head is Akbar, who tried something radical with Din-i-Ilahi and failed. With ask his power then, if it didn’t catch on, the resistance to change must have been spectacular then, as it still is, in many places I’ve seen.
Having studied in a Muslim college (as an acknowledged indifferent-to-religion rebel), I’ve sat through enough Religious Instruction classes to note how the R.I. teacher who was surprisingly moderate and tolerant, who took every chance to find good things to say about Christians and Hindus, was secretly jeered at. I’ve seen her made fun of, condemned and even labeled a “kafir” (infidel). And the sad part is, even this meek-as-a-lamb lady used to hold forth proudly that the very greatness of Islam lay in the fact that it was a closed, sealed and unalterable religion, with the perfect and final word of God having settled all debates once and for all. Woe unto anyone who tried to alter any little thing there.. And so forth.
So much as my sympathies are with the victims of Charlie Hebdo and all other liberals outside the Muslim community, I think what they go through is only external persecution. The worse sufferers would be those who attempt reform from within the Muslim community, for they would have a conflicted conscience to handle, in addition to all the external and real threats to their lives.
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Silverambrosia
January 10, 2015
Venkatesh: I know that the public/private distinction becomes very blurred in the Islamic context, but something in that direction has to be attempted. Islamic reform is going to be a tortured and very difficult process, but it has to happen. As I said earlier, I don’t see how there is any other way. The need for this is now being increasing felt amongst Muslims themselves (difficult as it may be for them to openly acknowledge it). It is not easy even for me to talk about this stuff: I feel utterly compelled to because of what is happening in the world and the kind of despair I feel almost everyday over it. I am sure that these questions are occupying the minds of all reasonably well informed Muslims of my generation. Even 10/15 years ago these questions would not have been as pervasive. For my parent’s generation, political Islam and its repercussions were not things that occupied center stage. The preoccupations, day-to-day concerns and challenges my parents faced were of a wholly different nature. Their concerns and challenges were probably quite similar to those faced by your parents or anyone else’s parent here. As for the present situation, many Muslims continue to be in denial, but it is difficult for them to continue to be in that condition with the events that are unfolding before us all.
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Shalini
January 10, 2015
@Gradwolf and silverambrosia, I seriously considered registering with WordPress just so that I could like your posts. Fortunately, laziness won out, but I loved both silverambrosia’s posts and the FOE schematic cartoon posted by Gradwolf.
Silverambrosia, if you’re ever in the Wash DC area, you’re welcome to come by this KP’s house for a cup of sheer chai anytime.
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dey
January 10, 2015
The Colonial Native Vs The Hindu
Dr. David Frawley, (American Institute of Vedic Studies, New Mexico)
There is probably no other country where: The majority religion, however enlightened, mystical or spiritual, is ridiculed, while minority religions, however fundamentalist or even militant, are doted upon. The majority religion and its institutions are taxed and regulated while minority religions receive tax benefits and have no regulation or even monitoring. While the majority religion is carefully monitored and limited as to what it can teach, minority religions can teach what they want, even if anti-national or backward in nature. Books are banned that offend minority religious sentiments but praised if they cast insults on majority beliefs.
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RK
January 10, 2015
Let’s wait for the day movies like “The Last Temptation of Christ” or a biopic on Prophet Muhammad gets made in Bollywood. That will be the day I will truly adhere to secular ideals and be an advocate of full freedom of expression.
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Ashutosh
January 10, 2015
An article published in Caravan by Zaid Hassan today highlights the identity crisis Muslims living in the “Western” world are straightjacketed into:
http://www.caravanmagazine.in/blog/%E2%80%9Cje-suis-charlie-est-tu%E2%80%9D
I live in a world where for some, the image of an Arab man sodomising a pig posted on Facebook represents a stand for freedom. For me, as a Muslim man, born and living in the West, this raises difficult questions about the type of society I am a part of. The implications of the statement are troubling.
Does it mean that to qualify as a “human” I must renounce my belief in the sacredness of beards, books and “silly” hats? If I don’t do that, then what does that make me? Not human? More importantly, what does that mean for Muslims in Europe as a demographic?
It further begs the question, what does “Je Suis Charlie” want from me as a Muslim man? Denouncement of murder, sure that’s easy, but what more? What must we as community renounce to be recognized as human? And will we be believed? Where am I to stand in relationship to the grievances raised by those who turn to insurgency?
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venus2414
January 10, 2015
@brangan wrote: “But if we are bigger, more powerful, then it’s up to us to set an example.”
I cannot agree more as this is what I exactly tell my friends. At the same time I cannot disagree with them either when they say things are only getting worse since our independence.
How do you think that Hindus can set an example? For instance, what can Hindu do to stop conversion of Hindus to other faiths? BTW, I don’t endorse Ghar Wapsi.
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venkatesh
January 10, 2015
@BR: “But if we are bigger, more powerful, then it’s up to us to set an example.”
Actually, no. There is an automatic assumption here that the minority must have _special_ privileges. Whatever happened to _equal_ privileges, why must someone be treated specially because they are less in numbers ?
This I believe is a slippery slope and the only way to go is down from there.
To me, it doesn’t matter if you profess faith in Allah, Ram, Buddha, Jesus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster , you follow a uniform civil law and thats it.
@Ashutosh: I read that article. These are not hard questions.
“I live in a world where for some, the image of an Arab man sodomising a pig posted on Facebook represents a stand for freedom. “
It does.
“For me, as a Muslim man, born and living in the West, this raises difficult questions about the type of society I am a part of. “
It shouldn’t. You are either for Freedom of Speech (which includes the right to offend you) equally for everyone or you are against it.
“What must we as community renounce to be recognized as human ?”
Accept that the society you live in has rules that supersede and contradict your faith.
These are absolute, non-negotiable positions and have to be. Its like being pregnant – you cant be just a little pregnant.
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Silverambrosia
January 10, 2015
Shalini: 🙂
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Madan
January 10, 2015
@venkatesh: As such, I don’t disagree with any of what you said regarding the need to commit to freedom of expression. However, ambivalence towards the concept is not restricted to Muslims. A lot of Hindus too don’t understand why should somebody be given the right to offend. I think such people cannot visualise that unless you give the right to offend, you open the door to the State to impinge on several freedoms as such. Because what is offensive is subject to multiple interpretations. The only difference I can see is Hindus are less prone to want to actually kill someone and declare a price on his head for causing offence. However, as we have seen with, for instance, Shiv Sena, they are also not above taking the law into their hands and damaging property instead of registering their protest peacefully.
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brangan
January 10, 2015
venkatesh: No, I didn’t mean special or preferential treatment, which I agree is ridiculous. I was just reacting to the they-did-this-so-we-can-do-this-too tone of some of the discourse around things like ghar-wapsi — and saying that sometimes, being the majority, you can choose to take the high road and lead by example.
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Ashutosh
January 10, 2015
@Venkatesh: Without disagreeing with you strong, I’d like to point out a nuance… showing an Arab sodomizing a pig does indeed represent a stand on freedom (and the author agrees). But we must remember that what we critique is a choice, and this choice is not always made in a cool vacuum, it is often a product of politics and the general social narrative. So, Writer’s point was not whether people had a right to criticize Mohammed, but that he is uncomfortable living in a milieu where X mocks Mohammed, Y gets offended and decides to kill X, and simply because Writer belongs to the same sect as Y, he has to frequently reassure that he is on X’s side–he’s caught in the crossfire and he cannot remain passive.
Its like being pregnant – you cant be just a little pregnant.
That is not the point he is trying to make. He’s making a meta point. Free speech is an abstract ideal. We have to instantiate that ideal in concrete actions. The author is raising an important question of whether criticizing Islam has become mechanical, an easy way to instantiate our values. If Muslims in the West have to constantly reaffirm their commitment to Western values just to make the West feel that it is sufficiently virtuous, then it must become a little irritating for the Muslims.
Anyway, I’m merely trying to outline what the author was saying while reminding that it’s not that simple interpreting the Muslims experience in the Western world. Not all simplicity is clarity and sometimes by trying to be simple and lucid we might unintentionally ignore data points that don’t fit into our “rational” theory; sometimes we do worse, we pigeonhole the data into our theory until it looks like utter nonsense, and when that happens, it is natural that we feel apathetic, or angry, or disconnected from the person who has generated that data point. A lot of Western Muslims must be victims of his thinking error.
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Iswarya
January 10, 2015
@Ashutosh:
The nuance you point out is better made by this writer, I believe:
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/15/7394223/muslims-condemn-charlie-hebdo/in/7271890
He’s straightforward in saying it’s not fair to keep bringing pressure on western Muslims to prove their commitment to liberal ideals. But, the Caravan writer goes much further and somewhere insinuates that the western public need to take responsibility for the wrong-headed politics of the West in having created this insurgency movement. That, I guess, is as much a folly as indicting all Muslims as terrorist-sympathisers, unless constantly reassured to the contrary.
In fact, this article tries to pack in too much and the impression at the end is a sort of challenge. The “less than human” part seems definitely interpolated and polemical. There is an overall question-begging tone to his writing that makes you suspect him of being disingenuous, while he might not actually be.
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Ashutosh
January 10, 2015
@Iswarya:
Thanks for the link. I hadn’t read it.
Right, this one is a more straightforward article. The Caravan article does indeed try to go a little further and throws a challenge, which is why I found it interesting. I agree it is not as clear as it must have been for what it is trying to raise and it does seem like the writer is trying (not sure how successfully) to channel some of his indignation rationally. But, in his defense, he doesn’t go so far as to say that the Western public need to take responsibility. I concede that he makes one cautious step in that direction, which is something well worth examining without prejudice, even if we don’t go all the way like the extremists do and hold the West culpable. He is actually not trying to say that the West triggered and deserves the extremism it gets. He is only saying that, for a Muslim who is moderate and shares Western values, it is a bit annoying when he has to constantly prove his commitment by not being offended by satirical opinion. He says he has nothing to prove and finds it condescending to be tested often. But, I guess one can argue that he is acting a bit precious. Charlie Hebdo, for example, mocked all religions (and politicians) equally. You don’t find Christians complaining they live in a culture where their religion is not central; but then again, they are not the Other in Europe.
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venkatesh
January 10, 2015
@Madan: “ambivalence towards the concept is not restricted to Muslims”
I agree.
“The only difference I can see is Hindus are less prone to want to actually kill someone and declare a price on his head for causing offence. “
Possibly but more importantly I don’t care. It doesn’t matter if you want to actually kill someone or simply stand outside raising slogans. The right to offend is and should be absolute.
@BR: “and saying that sometimes, being the majority, you can choose to take the high road and lead by example.”
I have a problem with this. This places an explicit expectation on the majority to take the high road leading to the next question:
In majority Muslim/Christian nations how come Muslims/Christians do not take the high road. So why should we ?
I realise its a circular argument but its the most obvious. I am more Ayn Randian in this specific instance, take and give no quarter. Stick to a civil law that is uniform across all denominations. If Christian conversions are permitted by law then so should be Ghar-wapsi (or whatever its called).
@Ashutosh: While you do not disagree with me strongly, I suspect we are possibly on other ends of the debate. @Iswarya made a very telling point “the Caravan writer goes much further and somewhere insinuates that the western public need to take responsibility for the wrong-headed politics of the West in having created this insurgency movement.”
Having lived in the West for the majority of my life , I cannot agree more with this.
You however, made one very valid point
“If Muslims in the West have to constantly reaffirm their commitment to Western values just to make the West feel that it is sufficiently virtuous, then it must become a little irritating for the Muslims……
we might unintentionally ignore data points that don’t fit into our “rational” theory; “
Let me bring you some data points
Wikileaks :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340599/WikiLeaks-1-3-British-Muslim-students-killing-Islam-40-want-Sharia-law.html
Center for Social cohesion :
Click to access IslamonCampus.pdf
The above PDF was removed, detailed study here:
Policy Exchange:
Click to access ShariaLawOrOneLawForAll.pdf
45% believe mockers of Islam should face criminal charges (38% said they should not).
12% of Muslim-Americans believe blaspheming Islam should be punishable by death.
43% of Muslim-Americans believe people of other faiths have no right to evangelize Muslims.
32% of Muslims in America believe that Sharia should be the supreme law of the land.
Company running the survey : Wenzel Strategies: http://www.wenzelstrategies.com/opinion-research-company/
Details :
http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2012/10/31/sixty-percent-of-us-muslims-reject-freedom-of-expression/
3.
78% of British Muslims support punishing the publishers of Muhammad cartoons
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/many-british-muslims-put-islam-first/
http://www.webcitation.org/5xkMGAEvY
4.
84% of Egyptian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
86% of Jordanian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
30% of Indonesian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
76% of Pakistanis support death the penalty for leaving Islam
51% of Nigerian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
http://www.pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2014/11/young-dutch-turks-radical-views-worry-mps-call-for-more-research.php/
“Writer belongs to the same sect as Y, he has to frequently reassure that he is on X’s side–he’s caught in the crossfire and he cannot remain passive.”
Unfortunately, data bears that while individual in question might be on X’s side, the majority community actually sympathises with Y.
This is the reason the image of an Arab man sodomising a pig posted on Facebook represents a stand for freedom and this is the reason why Western Muslims have to constantly reaffirm their commitments to Western ideals because the majority in fact do believe that their religious values (however abhorrent to the society at large) supersede anything else.
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Ashutosh
January 11, 2015
@Venkatesh: WOW… seriously thanks, I didn’t know (didn’t make the effort to do) all this research. So, from what you show me I think it’s perfect to phrase it as you have:
[…] data bears that while individual in question might be on X’s side, the majority community actually sympathises with Y.
… Western Muslims have to constantly reaffirm their commitments to Western ideals because the majority in fact do believe that their religious values […] supersede anything else.
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Madan
January 11, 2015
@Venkatesh: Great comment, that’s a lot of effort. I was discussing the France episode with some Muslim online friends and they were distinctly uncomfortable about freedom of expression and wondered why it should be so unbridled. I said even religious sentiment is worth sacrificing to preserve liberty. Our freedom fighters didn’t win freedom from the British just so we can hand it over again to state machinery. With that said, I agree with the views expressed here and in the Caravan article that the West have played a role in suppressing the growth of democracy in several Central/West Asian Islamic nations. However, there is no ‘Western hand’, invisible or otherwise, stopping Malaysia or Indonesia from getting more free. They are both classified as partly free while India is slotted in the free zone in the map here. You can see even Turkey has gone ‘yellow’ now and it is often held up by defenders of the Islamic side as an example to dissuade Western commentators from ‘generalising’.
Click to access MapofFreedom2014.pdf
There doesn’t seem to be a Muslim majority country in that map that’s in the green zone, i.e, free. This cannot be only coincidence and conspiracy. I hope this will be the subject of more of such constructive debates, online or otherwise, rather than torches and gunfire.
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Iswarya
January 11, 2015
@Venkatesh:
Bravo! I wouldn’t have been able to find so much evidence to support what I know to be true from firsthand experience. Frankly, I quoted that Vox.com article only because I can’t speak for western Muslims, not having personally interacted with them.
But I’ve spent 3 years in a closed echo chamber of unapologetically conservative Muslim women in India to many of whom the Sharia represents a self-evidently perfect system. I’ve been equally shocked by their unquestioning endorsement of fanatically religious positions. Indeed, some of the defences I recall are deeply disturbing: “what Bin Laden did, in terms of killing, was of course wrong, because innocent people died in the 9/11, but you should also think whether all American people are really innocent..”
And as Ali Rizvi points out in the earlier article, there was much hand-wringing over who is a true Muslim, measured by the level of their adherence to the very letter of law.
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Iswarya
January 11, 2015
BR: There’s some funny problem with the up-vote button. Some comments seem to be “more equal than” others. If I vote up for one of silver ambrosia’s comments, the counter stays at 0. Is there any way of finding out how this works?
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Arjun
January 13, 2015
““All of which is another way of saying that in a Hindu-majority nation, it is to be expected that the wrongs that Hindus do are criticised a tad more than the wrongs of others.”
“If we are bigger, more powerful, then it’s up to us to set an example. ”
All fine and dandy and under normal circumstances, I would agree. But not when the dominant narratives of the minority religions (read Islam, Christianity) in the country promote such an irrational and dangerous fear, even hatred, of some of the most cherished majority practices – Murti pooja and polytheism, plant the idea that these idol worshippers will burn in hell for eternity, and make that very fear (besides financial allurements, fake miracles and myths such as St.Thomas) the basis for converting those who are poor, uneducated, and therefore ill-equipped to make informed decisions about matters like changing faith. If their religious leaders didn’t rail against idol worshipers as devil worshippers and agents of satan in every sermon, didn’t aggressively condemn, mock, ridicule the way of life of the majority and try to subvert it at every given opportunity – often with the able support of anglophile liberals. Then I would fervently support this stance.
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Siddharth
January 13, 2015
This bog seems too delightful to not wade into, so here goes.
@ BR:
“(5) Some earlier comments asked why we should protest things like ghar-wapsi when Christian missionaries did the same thing en masse? That was WRONG, and because THEY did wrong it’s no reason to say we should do the same wrongs.”
I think you’ve got that the wrong way around. Of course, two wrongs never make a right. The question being asked here is simply this: “Why aren’t there similar scale protests from the champions of human rights when Christian missionaries convert by fear/inducement/bribery?” (as I recall PK spent about 3 seconds on that question)
I think it is frustration on issues like these that is spilling over into, of all places, Bollywood!
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Iswarya
January 13, 2015
Arjun:
“If their religious leaders didn’t rail against idol worshipers as devil worshippers and agents of satan in every sermon, didn’t aggressively condemn, mock, ridicule the way of life of the majority and try to subvert it at every given opportunity”
If I’ve understood it right, this whole discussion has been about all ideas, including religious ideology and practices, being open to criticism. I think that’s what the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo died for. I don’t think giving a sort of diplomatic immunity to any set of ideas (irrespective of whether they are held by the majority or minority) is going to ensure free speech, and a liberal outlook in the larger sense.
… irrational and dangerous fear, even hatred, of some of the most cherished majority practices – Murti pooja and polytheism, plant the idea that these idol worshippers will burn in hell for eternity is pretty much fair game when practices of other faiths are open to criticism too. The problem is with not when anyone has an ‘irrational and dangerous fear, even hatred, of some of the most cherished majority practices’ but of the ‘… majority population’ which would basically be hate culture against the Hindus. That is, of course, unequivocally to be condemned.
So, as Venkatesh said here before, Christian missionaries converting people, or counter efforts of Ghar-Wapsi are all welcome, as long as they observe what is allowed by the law. Threats of violence and suchlike associated with these conversions are a strict no-no, because then it’s no longer about Hinduism or Islam or Christianity (all abstract ideas open to attack) but about the followers of these. I believe it’s the same freedom that you’re exercising when you used a casual phrase like “fake miracles and myths such as St.Thomas” which is again, as I said, fair game.
But, what you said about “…converting those who are poor, uneducated, and therefore ill-equipped to make informed decisions about matters like changing faith” basically reeks of condescension. Alright, it’s fair to assume these people who convert are not great theologians. So what? All human beings know what they want in life, either this one or afterlife (assuming for a moment there’s one, since we’re talking about hell fire and all that.)
And who is to decide whether they are competent to make any decisions that are going to directly affect their lives? I don’t believe this snootiness is to be found even in the attitude of “anglophile liberals” at least in this question. (Of course, there are other occasions when many of them are insufferably condescending. Again now, I’m not defending these people, but their idea that your religion or sexual orientation is best left to yourself to make choices about.)
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Iswarya
January 13, 2015
BTW, what I said now represents an absolute stand on the question of freedom of speech, and not entirely addressing the problem of how much it is practised in India. The law, in that respect, is an ass here, with its timorous hyper-sensitivity to “hurting religious sentiments,” which is basically a way of making thin-skinned and fanatical people feel privileged. I recall Gnani once articulating my long-standing grouse asking the lines of “Why is it that only religious believers possess ‘sentiments’ that must not be hurt, while putting forth a potentially-offensive view? Can’t I complain that my ‘rationalist sentiment’ is hurt by the propagation of your irrational religious views?”
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Rahini David
January 14, 2015
Isn’t this a wonderful thread? I find myself agreeing vaguely with both sides of the argument but my own main stance still continues to be “I just don’t get it”.
Iswarya: You may find this interesting.
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Arjun
January 14, 2015
“The problem is with not when anyone has an ‘irrational and dangerous fear, even hatred, of some of the most cherished majority practices’ but of the ‘… majority population’ which would basically be hate culture against the Hindus. That is, of course, unequivocally to be condemned. “
Iswarya,
You seem to have omitted the line where I said they are routinely condemned as devil worshippers and the worst of creatures (there is a verse in the Koran which calls disbelievers that too). But anyway, you know what I don’t really care what Hindus or other infidels get called. All I am saying is don’t then expect the majority (Hindus) to be open to the idea of being subjected to disproprtionate criticism and scrutiny, which is what BR’s comment clearly stated.
“I believe it’s the same freedom that you’re exercising when you used a casual phrase like “fake miracles and myths such as St.Thomas””
Yes, it’s a fact that there exists no scientific nor medical basis for faith healing. Likewise there is no historical evidence for the St Thomas in Mylapore story. Sai Baba’s miraculous healings were patently fraudulent just like Mother Teresa’s. I notice though that many liberals are quite enamoured of the Albanian nun and are reluctant to criticise her and her church for peddling fake miracles while they lose no time in (rightly) calling out people like Ramdev who make wild claims about curing aids and such.
“But, what you said about “…converting those who are poor, uneducated, and therefore ill-equipped to make informed decisions about matters like changing faith” basically reeks of condescension.”
Ok that was carelessly phrased. The earlier Swarajya article I linked articulates my concerns well. I was basically referring to missionaries preying on the young, sick and suffering and enticing them with material allurements besides poisoning their minds with dangerous exclusionary ideology such as:the following statement by Mohan Lazarus in the aftermath of the tsunami:
“On December 26 2004 the earthquake that occurred in the sea near the island of Sumatra in Indonesia created tsunami the giant tidal waves which caused huge disaster in the countries like Indonesia, SriLanka, India, Thailand and Malaysia. More than 11/2 lakh people have died…Two grave sins grieve God the most. One is Idolatry and the other is Adultery. These two sins alone will bring curses and disasters to the nation. Look at our nation the land is grieving due to the curse of sin. …Instead of worshiping the God who created heaven and earth they worship demons and evil spirits as their God.”
Free speech? Absolutely.
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hari
January 14, 2015
Iswarya:-
“But, what you said about “…converting those who are poor, uneducated, and therefore ill-equipped to make informed decisions about matters like changing faith” basically reeks of condescension. ”
“Why is it that only religious believers possess ‘sentiments’ that must not be hurt, while putting forth a potentially-offensive view? Can’t I complain that my ‘rationalist sentiment’ is hurt by the propagation of your irrational religious views?”
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venkatesh
January 14, 2015
@Rahini: “I just don’t get it”
Oh, I do get it but i don’t see the point of it. Its no better than arguing which poison is better.
It is all about attempting to control you anyway.
I am happy to argue about absolute freedoms but this “Mine is better than yours” just doesn’t work with me.
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Iswarya
January 14, 2015
Arjun:
Neither of us seems to be too enamoured of any religion in particular. If you’d attempted a passionate defence of any one religion, I’d have probably bothered to come up with a point-for-point rebuttal or something, but as such I guess it hardly matters. Of course, a little factual correction, “worst of creatures” didn’t appear in your earlier comment. (There’s a difference between calling someone evil and what they believe in evil, the idea being that if I were to call you a devil-worshipper, you take offence by proxy. If I call you a devil straightaway, you could sue me for libel, or whatever.) Anyway, as for BR’s comment, he clarified that “you can choose to take the high road and lead by example.” I think the crucial word there is ‘choose.’ Being gentlemanly or high-minded is a choice. BR recommends it, without forcing it on anyone. So far, so good, I think.
As for that Swarajya article, I feel it’s as much a piece of powerful propaganda as what it sets out to oppose. Well, as long as both sides carry on peaceful dialogue (mind, I don’t say pleasant) without threats or acts of destruction, let them use their lung power, time and ingenuity as they will. As for the quote from Mohan Lazarus, he’s expressing what his religion tells him, and his opinion is open to challenge, criticism or condemnation. This is precisely what I’ve been advocating.
Hari:
I don’t want to go through the rigmarole of ideas vs. people here once more. Frankly, it’s become boring. But playing the devil’s advocate for a moment, I think what you summarise as the missionaries’ teaching is first, an attack on idolatry; then, a condemnation of the ‘idiocy’ of the till-then-idolatrous people and finally an invitation to quit such idolatrous practices (which they have apparently convinced their listeners by now as evil or whatever) and join their fold where they can now participate in the totally intelligent hallelujah-hysteria. Fine. Whatever.
Now, is this condescending towards Hindus? Or worse, insulting? Very much. But do they have the right to say such things? OF COURSE. Do you or some other Hindu have the right to contradict/expose/argue against/reject their ideas? Again, OF COURSE.
All that I’m saying is that a speech/cartoon/piece of propaganda doesn’t lose its right to exist merely because it offends me or you or 200 million people. As the beaten-to-death American quite goes, not-agreeing-with-what-you-say-but-defend-to-death-&c.
And then “people who are religious are irrational”? Did I ‘infer’ it? Seems to me that you mean I implied/insinuated it and therefore you ‘inferred’ it. Anyway, you say, “I’m religious and I’m rational and I’m logical and I’m practical.” Fine. I believe you. There’s nothing really for me to contradict here. I don’t say a religious person can’t be rational. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. But, just in case anyone says, (you haven’t said it and I’m not going to assume that you did) that religion is rational, that I’d say is moot.
Phew.. End of rant.
Venkatesh: Wish I learnt not to bother, as you do.
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Iswarya
January 14, 2015
And Rahini: Thanks for the link. (Another reminder to me that I should start writing in my blog instead of expending all my energy on filling up column spaces here on BR’s blog.)
Hmmm.. 🙂 at least one post for 2015!
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Siddharth
January 15, 2015
Iswarya,
“There’s a difference between calling someone evil and what they believe in evil.”
There are a lot of people, across faiths, who would heartily disagree with you on that. Beliefs tend to make for some very prickly skins.
“If I’ve understood it right, this whole discussion has been about all ideas, including religious ideology and practices, being open to criticism.”
Fully agree with that statement. However, in the popular press and media in India, there seem to be far more free speech vigilantes around when it concerns the Hindus than when it concerns other religions.I will admit that conversely, in the comment columns of India’s popular press and media, the situation is completely the opposite.
And for both of these cases, I don’t buy BR’s argument that this is to be expected because the Hindus are greater in number. IMO, defence of free speech (all legal caveats included) shouldn’t be by proportionate representation, it should be absolute and impartial.
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Arjun
January 15, 2015
“Of course, a little factual correction, “worst of creatures” didn’t appear in your earlier comment. (There’s a difference between calling someone evil and what they believe in evil, the idea being that if I were to call you a devil-worshipper, you take offence by proxy. If I call you a devil straightaway, you could sue me for libel, or whatever.)”
Iswarya,
Well, if you insist, I can provide you links to several missionary websites that peddle atrocity literature about India, painting Hindus as depraved, sans morals or compassion, always oppressing women and lower castes, mired in the “evil” of idolatry etc etc. Here are a couple of samples that I got from random googling. Note, I am not complaining about this, just an FYI.
http://www.missionindia.org/about/whyIndia
Click to access Knees2War_PrayerGuide.pdf
There are hundreds of such websites if you care to trawl the net. One may note that atrocity literature has been the time-tested strategy adopted by western colonial powers to gain general sympathy for their colonial ventures in Africa, the Americas and Asia. And Christianity, prescribed as the antidote for uncivilised heathens, has for long served as a convenient tool for western imperialism or to further their geopolitical agendas. Here is Arun Shourie recording Vivekananda’s observations of the calumnies spread by the American missionaries against Hindus – http://upasanhar.acrutiapps.com/mr/chapter_mr_77_4221.html. And it continues to this day, beyond the glare of the liberal watchdogs.
And FYI, I am quite fond of the Upanishads and Tamil Bhakti literature and sympathetic to more than one Vedantic tradition, but I pick and choose. Again, just an FYI since you put me down as irreligious.
“Anyway, as for BR’s comment, he clarified that “you can choose to take the high road and lead by example.” I think the crucial word there is ‘choose.’ Being gentlemanly or high-minded is a choice. BR recommends it, without forcing it on anyone. So far, so good, I think.”
As I said, it doesn’t make any sense from an evolutionary survival POV to be so gentlemanly and highminded when those on the other side indulge in such systematic de-humanisation and subversion. A cursory glance at history tells me that the Hindu spirit of magnanimity and openness towards the Abrahamic religions has rarely been reciprocated on a similar scale.
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Arjun
January 15, 2015
While I am at it, let me also recant my earlier recantation and attempt a defense of the following:
“make that very fear (besides financial allurements, fake miracles and myths such as St.Thomas) the basis for converting those who are poor, uneducated, and therefore ill-equipped to make informed decisions about matters like changing faith.”
A crude analogy is a game of chess. A casual player, an amateur that is to say, even a very good one, will get his ass whooped nearly every single time he plays a grandmaster, even a very low-ranked one. And why is that? Because the amateur does not know the standard replies and refutations for tactical questions and simply can’t match a GM in positional debates. Missionaries, especially those financed by wealthy churches and NGOs in US, come trained in evangelism and specific strategies to convert unreached peoples. It might be condescending, but I daresay a poor, uneducated person” especially one going through other difficulties in life, simply doesn’t have the resources or energy to defend his belief system and such people are specifically targeted by the evangelists, This is what the Swarajya article also highlighted.
“And who is to decide whether they are competent to make any decisions that are going to directly affect their lives?”
So why is this all bad, you ask? The problem is in the exclusionary zeal of Abrahamic religions which often leads to uprooting of a convert from his moorings, causing severe familial strife and friction as I have witnessed firsthand (a newly minted Pentecosal forcing his wife to throw away the idols in her altar because it is evil and demonic).This is quoting Gandhi – ““If I had the power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytising… In Hindu households the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink.”
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FunnyGyan
February 1, 2015
You rock man. I think you’re the most matured film writer in India. You analyze every dimension of the film, give your personal opinion without any annoying rants. Commenting for the first time here, read many of your awesome reviews.
About pk, I feel it was an oportunist controversy. And these fringe groups are experts in creating controversy. I don’t associate them with any religion, because they’re omnipresent. The biggest irony is that these controversies prove how true the film is. The film in fact replied sharply to these ‘protectors of God’ even before they vandalized it. Yes, the film was lame in parts but the points which they made are really true!
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