The great danger in our age is nationalism

One of my early memories of Hindi, from my early years deep in peninsular India, was from when mother asked the gurkha why he was coming by way early in the night to check on the property, when he should be coming much later.

As a kid, I was shocked.  Mother knew Hindi?  And, like most kids, I was impressed.  Mothers do know everything!

I never bothered to learn the language, other than during the mandatory couple of years of Hindi language in school.  The older I grew, the more I hated the very thought of learning Hindi--because, by then I had learnt a little bit about the long and rich history of Tamil, and about the politics of imposing Hindi upon us non-Hindi people.

So much was the anti-Hindi sentiment inside me that even in graduate school, if a couple of Indian students spoke in Hindi when I was also with them, I would remind them that I didn't know Hindi.  The assumption that anybody from India knows Hindi--and should know the language--has always pissed me off to no end.

Decades have gone by since those years in Neyveli.  And I have become more fanatical about this issue.  Because, understanding the world a lot more has also made me realize that forcing a new language upon people is one of the oldest successful strategies that bastards have always employed.  The stories echo all over the world--from the native peoples in the Americas who were systematically forced to learn alien European languages and, in the process, render dead their own languages, to the Russification in the old Soviet bloc, to the Uighurs, to ...

Six years ago, almost to the very date, I quoted this:

A single generation of English education suffices to break the threads of tradition and to create a nondescript and superficial being deprived of all roots

Forcing a language upon people is one of the easiest ways to erase history and tradition.

I have ranted about this issue for a long time.  Perhaps all the easier for me, not because I have been an American for a long time, but because I have always believed that "Indian" is an artificial construct.  I even go to other blogs and write about this!

Thus, I am not surprised at the intense opposition that continues to grow against the Hindu Raj's Home Minister and his push for Hindi.

Speaking at a public meeting organised by ally MDMK on the 111th birth anniversary of former Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai in Chennai, Mr Stalin said, “If we close our eyes for a second, they will impose Hindi and completely discard Tamil. We have been protesting against this since 1938. We protested in 1949, 1950, 1953, 1963 and 1965. We have once again arrived at a stage where we have to protest.”

Nationalism is a danger, especially when coming from the likes of politicians "ruling"* governing India now.  I will quote, again, Mario Vargas Llosa:

I believe that the great danger in our age is nationalism, it’s no longer fascism, nor communism. These ideologies have become completely outdated. But in contrast, nationalism is a defect that is always there under the surface and above all, at moments of crisis, can be very easily exploited by demagogues and power-hungry leaders. Nationalism is the great tradition of humankind; unfortunately it’s always present in history.
And so, I believe that it’s the great enemy of democracy. It’s the great enemy of freedom and a terrible source of racism. If one believes that being born into or forming part of a particular community is a privilege, then that is racism. I believe that one must fight nationalism energetically if one believes in democracy, in freedom, especially in this age of mixing and the building of great blocks.

If only the ill-informed and malicious Hindians will spend a few hours reading about Tamil, for instance.  If only they even half-understood that "to know Tamil" can also mean "to be a civilized human being."

* A few years ago, Vijay Nambisan wrote about how Indians continue to think of parties in power as "rulers" when they are merely elected to govern.  It is more than mere semantics.  I am not able to track down his commentary.

Click here for the backstory about this

Hare Krishna!

I had no idea about Leonard Bernstein until I came to the US for graduate school.  I watched West Side Story on a rickety old television set, and was hooked.

Bernstein, whose centenary was this year, was a music giant, and a public intellectual and a social activist, who spoke up on important issues of the day.   A deep thinker he was, as much as he was a musician.  When artists like him, with their broad and deep knowledge, speak, society listens.  Even when they point out to the uncomfortable truths.

Back in the old country, TM Krishna continues with such a tradition of the public-intellectual-musician.  He is not new to this blog, of course.

As a musician, Krishna is one of the best; even my father, who after listening to the jambhavans of old the days rarely ever elevates any of the contemporary young artistes to the stratosphere, has a favorite story about how Krishna moved him to tears at a homage to Musiri.

As a public intellectual, Krishna is turning out to be equally accomplished.  From the other side of the world, it seems to me that Krishna's activism are about injustice, of which there is plenty in India.  The latest incident was no exception; he has pumped up his activism:

Performing today at 6.30 pm at the Garden of Five Senses, New Delhi with RK Shriramkumar, Praven Sparsh and Anirudh Athreya. pic.twitter.com/ZFicBCuaVp

— T M Krishna (@tmkrishna) November 17, 2018

"Krishna sings, Krishna is heard", reports The Indian Express.  "A soiree on the art of politics," reports another outlet.

The political overtones of this musical soiree are surely difficult to miss. Ranged on one side are dogged opponents of the values and politics Krishna and AAP stand for. This fusion of politics and music – Carnatic music and north Indian politics – sends out a signal of the political direction that could take place in the days and months ahead. ...
The 2019 Lok Sabha elections are just five months away. If the routine silence of the ruling BJP is a way of endorsing the intimidation and threats made by right-wing social media trolls, swift retaliatory tactics by its opponents are also a way of getting back at the party.

Critics telling Krishna to shut up and simply focus on his music are no different from the right-wing nutcases here in the US who tell football players to shut up and simply play ball.  Krishna is ballsy; a lesser man would have quit being an activist a long time ago.

Again, one can learn from Bernstein's life:

Bernstein was named in Red Channels, a publication from 1950 that targeted people in the entertainment industry who were suspected of having Communist affiliations. Since he was prominent, and a lot of people around him had leftist affiliations, the FBI paid attention to him. He kind of slid past the McCarthy hearings. Copland and Robbins were called to testify, but he was not. He lost his passport for a time in the 1950s, but that was it.

I am thankful that there have been, and are, people fighting these good fights.

Carnatic music is not a Hindu fundamentalist art

Listening to the South Indian classical music--carnatic music--was a serious passion among most elders in the extended family.  Appreciation of the music came quite naturally to me and I was beginning to get really good in recognizing the ragas even from the first couple of notes.  It was wonderful until ... I started questioning religion.

Rare is a composition that is not about any one of the Hindu gods.  For all purposes then this classical music is also devotional music. To borrow a word from Christianity, it was ecclesiastical. 

Into my teenage years, as I started questioning religion, the agnosticism spilled over into the appreciation of this music as well.  I suppose I was consistent in my approach in questioning whether one could be into the music without being in the religion.

I was provided with a wonderful real example of this puzzle--following some of controversies related to the musician KJ Yesudas.  Born into a Catholic family, Yesudas took up carnatic music and was a student of one of the most accomplished musicians.

Yesudas' involvement with this Hindu music drew ire from the Catholic religious leaders, who even threatened him with excommunication.  The Catholic logic was that by singing bhajans and carnatic music compositions in temples, Yesudas was straying far away from the monotheism of Christianity.  The excommunication never happened, but all those developments made me think that much more about religion and carnatic music even as I was questioning the concept of "god" itself.

In fact, one of the compositions by Thyagaraja clearly lays out the relationship between carnatic music and devotion:

Sangeetha gnanamu Bhakthi vinaa,  San margamu  kaladhe , Oh Manasa
(The knowledge of music, without devotion (bhakthi) is not the right path, oh mind)

The lyrics further note that this music is a mode of worship. 

The more I moved away from religion--not merely Hinduism, but any religion and god--the more I was naturally disconnecting from this classical music as well. 

Over the decades, I have pretty much lost any interest in carnatic music, and it is only the intellectual curiosities about the music that remain within me.

Every time I visit India, which is almost always in December, I am often presented with opportunities to think about this question of bhakthi in carnatic music--it is also in December that Chennai hosts the huge music festival, and there are programs on television as well.  One of the TV programs features Q/A sessions with musicians.  Without fail, there is always a question about the role of bhakthi in the music, and every musician who has taken that question emphasizes that without bhakthi there cannot be any music.  It is like listening to baseball players responding to questions when you know exactly what their response is going to be. 

Maybe someday there will be a body of secular carnatic music that was borne out of the rebellion against Hinduism?  You think? Nah!

All the above is a part of my post here from seven years ago.

After reading that post, an old high school friend wrote to me about TM Krishna. I then emailed him.  In his lengthy reply (July 17, 2011) Krishna wrote about his experiences when questioning the bhakthi: "reactions have varied agreements to very upset emails etc."

All that was before modi and the BJP came to power in Delhi and in a number of states.  Since then, the emboldened hindutva has gone after anybody who they deem to be a threat to Hindu traditions.  Singers like Krishna and O.S. Arun who have broadened the scope of carnatic music are now under fire; such a huge controversy that even NPR reports.

What's worse is this: Indians living outside the US are some of the big money drivers for such Hindu fundamentalism in carnatic music:

[The musicians] been called "disgusting cretins." Arun has received threatening phone calls.
Much of the vitriol has come from Indians abroad, who've emigrated to the United States or Australia.

It is not a surprise by any means, especially when there is a lack of domestic financial support for carnatic music.

modi and the BJP recognized early on that many of the Hindus living outside India and earning a lot of money are a lot more fanatical than their peers back in India.  The Hindu diaspora is heavily influencing India's politics thanks to its money power, as The Economist noted:

For years Indian politicians paid little heed to the diaspora. But in the 2014 general election the diaspora, some 30m people strong, proved to be influential. Mr Modi made best use of them, realising the diaspora, especially in America, is wealthy and increasingly interested in politics generally

The Hindu diaspora forced the cancellations of concerts that Krishna and Arun were scheduled to perform!

One by one, Hindu temples in the U.S. that had been scheduled to host concerts this fall by Arun and another Carnatic star, T.M. Krishna, have said the singers are no longer welcome. Concerts have also been canceled in India.

I love Krishna's response to all these maniacs: "Krishna vowed to release a new song each month about Jesus or Allah."

Moronic Monday!

Today is Charles Darwin's birthday.  Darwin Day!

It is time to showcase the anti-evolutionists. You know, those creationists.

But, it is no fun anymore to write about such ignoramuses in the GOP here in America.  It is so boring.

So, instead, on this Darwin Day, I turn to my old country.

A minister in modi's cabinet created quite some interesting moments a few days ago:

 Union minister Satyapal Singh has claimed that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution of man was “scientifically wrong” and it needs to be changed in school and college curriculum.
Mr. Singh, the Minister of State for Human Resource Development, said our ancestors have nowhere mentioned that they saw an ape turning into a man.

Yep, the moron did not come across any reference in the literature of an ape turning into a man.  Ergo, Darwin is wrong.

“Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, have said they saw an ape turning into a man,” he said, adding “No books we have read or the tales told to us by our grandparents had such a mention.”

The moron stood by his profound words of wisdom:

Satyapal Singh stood by his comments on Monday, saying his ministry was ready to host an international conference at which “scientists can come out and say where they stand on the issue”.
“I have a list of around 10 to 15 great scientists of the world who have said there is no evidence to prove that the theory of evolution is correct,” Singh told a crowd at a university in Assam state, adding that Albert Einstein had agreed the theory was “unscientific”.

I know what you are thinking.  This is a moment when we witnessed an Indian politician man turning into a monkey! ;)

What is even more shocking is that this monkey is credentialed:

The Minister is a retired IPS officer, a student of science who has M.Sc and M.Phil degrees in chemistry, and has obtained a Ph.D He is the author of several books and papers and, according to the Lok Sabha website, is working on four more books.

I suppose it is true--at some point, the randomness of this cosmos means that a monkey could end up writing the Hamlet or earning a doctorate in chemistry! ;)

Chances are that the monkey minister has no idea that even the Rig Veda is a lot humbler about Creation:

There was neither non-existence nor existence then.
There was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
What stirred?
Where?
In whose protection?
Was there water, bottlemlessly deep?

There was neither death nor immortality then.
There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day.
That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse.
Other than that there was nothing beyond.

Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning,
with no distinguishing sign, all this was water.
The life force that was covered with emptiness,
that One arose through the power of heat.

Desire came upon that One in the beginning,
that was the first seed of mind.
Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom
found the bond of existence and non-existence.

Their cord was extended across.
Was there below?
Was there above?
There were seed-placers, there were powers.
There was impulse beneath, there was giving forth above.

Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced?
Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen
- perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not -
the One who looks down on it,
in the highest heaven, only He knows
or perhaps even He does not know.

I will now step outside to see if any die-hard-creationist is evolving from an ape ;)

Free speech is for losers!

My father had a question for me.  "You have a flair for writing.  Why don't you write for the paper here?"

I told him only one half of the truth.  "I am not familiar with the nuances of India's politics for me to write about issues there."  He was convinced.

I did not share with father the rest: I have given up on the old country.

It is not that I don't follow the news about the country where I was born and raised.  I do.  But  ...

No wonder the courts always require "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."  Half-truths don't tell the entire story.

As I commented even here, I deeply value free speech, which is increasingly a endangered species in India.  The latest victim for speaking freely was a female journalist, Gauri Lankesh.

Gauri Lankesh was the editor of a weekly tabloid published in Kannada, the main language of the southern Indian state of Karnataka. She was murdered on the fifth of September at the gate of her house in Bangalore, shot in the head and chest at close range.

Back in my younger years, free speech was severely curtailed during the dark two years of Emergency rule under Indira Gandhi.  She threw journalists in jail, and heavily censored the publications that were critical of her. It seems like free speech is way more a risky proposition now in India!

From the moment she died, the press reported her death not as an individual event but as the fourth in a sequence of assassinations; to the names Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, and M.M. Kalburgi, journalists now added Gauri Lankesh. Politically they were all left-leaning, strongly rationalist, hostile to Hindu orthodoxy, and convinced that right-wing majoritarianism was the mortal enemy of republican democracy. They were also public intellectuals who chose to write in their mother tongues: Dabholkar and Pansare wrote in Marathi, Kalburgi and Lankesh in Kannada. They spoke to a vernacular readership beyond the reach of the country’s English media, with its pan-Indian but paper-thin Anglophone audience. Each of them was shot dead by men on motorcycles with homemade pistols who got away. 

And these are no isolated cases.  They fit into an overall theme:

The intimidation or murder of inconvenient journalists is part of a much wider violent tendency. Since Narendra Modi became prime minister, India has seen a spate of targeted assaults on poor Muslims and Dalits, plebeian groups who deal in hides and skins and cattle and meat. Dalits dealing in cow hides have been systematically thrashed by vigilantes, encouraged by the present regime’s commitment to cow protection. Muslims have been dragged from their homes and beaten to death on the suspicion of having eaten beef. Muslims involved in the cattle trade have been bludgeoned to death on public highways as they begged for their lives, or strung up on trees and lynched.
The deaths of Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi, and Lankesh weren’t just murders; they were lynchings, no different from the killings carried out by cow vigilantes.

Shikha Dalmia, who is a libertarian-conservative Indian-American journalist, whom I have been reading for years, writes about Lankesh's assassination.

To say that Gauri, whom I met in journalism school in New Delhi 34 years ago, was a remarkable woman would be an understatement. There was just no one I knew that was packaged quite like her. She combined a gentle warmth, profound compassion, easy forgiveness with a steely, unwavering, moral conviction. She was also preternaturally humble and honest—a hero who didn't have the vanity to imagine being one.

From years of reading Dalmia, well, her high praise means high praise.  Dalmia does not bullshit.

She made mistakes and had her blind spots, to be sure. Unlike me, she had a strong socialist streak. She didn't condemn Naxalism—a militant Maoist movement in India that fights for lower castes and farmers against feudal, upper-caste landlords—as forcefully as she should have. She called for the "rehabilitation" of its members because she saw them as more misguided than dangerous—and also because, whatever their excesses, they paled in comparison with those of a violent state that without any due process killed real and alleged Naxals in fake "encounters" (confrontations), including one with our journalism school senior, Saket Rajan, whose death profoundly affected Gauri.

I will end this with Dalmia's line:

Gauri's assassination shows just how far India's once-proud liberal democracy has fallen.

Vox populi when religion takes over the secular public space

Voting and democracy require responsible voters and responsible politicians.  The old country and the adopted country alike seem to be regressing in these! :(

The patchwork quilt that India has been ever since it was created as an independent country by the departing White supremacists, forging an "Indian" identity has been a difficult task.  Religions, languages, castes, history, and everything else together presented one huge challenge.  In such a situation, perhaps the worst development ever was the Indian voters electing to power a party and its leaders who always flexed their Hindu muscles.

The open "Hindutva" in the secular public space has put religious minorities on the alert.  The cold-blooded murders of thinkers who wrote against religion, especially Hinduism--even though they were not from the "other" religions--has not only made the minorities worry about their place in the country's quilt, but has also catalyzed the intellectuals to returning the government bestowed honors.

The latest to speak about all these is one of my favorite musicians right from my younger days in the old country:

Sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan on Sunday said writers and artistes, who returned their awards “are not mad” but pained at the situation in the country, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should rein in people responsible for it

An honoree himself, the Ustad is "watching the situation":

They are also concerned with the present situation, therefore they are returning their awards. We have freedom of expression. It seems that there is something wrong somewhere.

Meanwhile, the founder of one of India's most visible companies behind the IT revolution there, Narayana Murthy, whose name could not be any clearer that it is Hindu, is worried:

A country can only make economic progress when there is no strife, no fear, and when the majority community stops oppressing the minority community. It doesn't matter which govt is in power,

Businesses usually do not care about human rights and morals as long as they can make profits.  But, they begin to shift uneasily in their seats when they sense that the business climate is being negatively affected.

Narayana Murthy is the lone voice from Corporate India who has expressed his concern over rising intolerance in the country.
On Friday, Moody’s Analytics, a research arm of the Moody’s group, had advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep party members in check, or risk losing the government’s domestic and global credibility.

Meanwhile, from across India's borders comes this commentary:

Prime Minister Modi has failed to discourage and punish extremists and guard India's great democratic values. ...Pakistan does not have a success story to teach India how to grapple with religious intolerance. Nonetheless, India can still learn from Pakistan where we experimented with mixing religion and politics. And, in a nutshell, it sucks! People do have the right to believe that their religion is awesome but that awesomeness should not come at the cost of someone else's freedoms. India will remain a great model for the rest of the world as long as it stays a democratic, pluralistic and secular society. With no religion, should India, or any other country, trade precious values like democracy, tolerance and individual freedoms.

But, hey, unlike Pakistan's military dictatorship under Zia ul-Haq which led that country's transformation into a theocracy, it was India's voters who elected Modi and his toadies.  I think this makes India's ugly turn even worse.  However, it is not late to get back on to the secular track.  There is hope that the majority Hindu will act on the understanding that "Vaishnav people are those who":

Feel the pain of others, Help those who are in misery.

Holy cow! No eggs for you!

I come from a long line of people who were not all too healthy when young.  I will spare you details about my childhood ;)  Not because my people back then were poor and starving.  On the contrary, for generations, my people have always been among the economic and intellectual elites within their spheres of influence.

My father, for instance, had his own childhood health issues.  So much so that at one point the physicians they consulted told my grandmother to make sure her son ate eggs.  Asking a traditional Tamil Brahmin woman who lived in a village to serve eggs to her son is, for all purposes, like asking an observant Jew to eat bacon.  But, my grandmother did.  My father had eggs; even now he does.  The traditional man that my father is, he says he worries less about the life of the chicken now because these are unfertilized eggs anyway.

The doctor's advise was based on the scientific understanding of nutrition, about the protein in the eggs.

eggs — a superfood that is about 10 percent fat and extremely high in protein — are the most nutritional way to improve the children’s health, more so than a cup of milk or a banana

My traditional and orthodox grandmother who lived in a village was ok eighty years ago with her son eating eggs, almost always the fertilized ones at that, but the old country appears to be regressing in ways that even my grandmother would say "chee-chee":

Earlier this month, the chief minister of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, struck down a proposed pilot project to introduce eggs in free government nursery schools in districts populated by economically disadvantaged indigenous groups. The proposal came from the state’s own officials, but was dismissed by Mr. Chouhan on the grounds that eggs are a nonvegetarian food. Mr. Chouhan, like many Hindus, is a vegetarian and avoids eggs because they may be fertilized and are seen as a life force.

India's public policies are increasingly getting tied up in knots due to the political threads getting intertwined with fanatical Hindu interpretations.

How are things in Madhya Pradesh?

In Madhya Pradesh, many of the poor communities survive on government-subsidized grain and foraged plants. According to the last National Family Health Survey, indigenous children were the most malnourished of any community in the state. Even across the state, 52 percent of children under 6 — the age up to which they may attend government nurseries — are underweight, says the National Institute of Nutrition. Indeed Madhya Pradesh, the economist Jean Drèze told me, “is far worse than even the Indian average.” It is in the grip of a “nutritional emergency,” he said.

Yep, this is the latest version of let them eat cakes!

Another staple food was taken from the plates of the poor in the neighboring state of Maharashtra, after it banned the possession and sale of beef. It is enforceable with a prison term of up to five years. Hindus consider cows to be sacred, but Hindu nationalists, emboldened by the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have lobbied aggressively on the issue, not out of concern for the animals — which are typically bone-thin and live on garbage — but to force their religious beliefs on non-Hindus. The ban, implemented in March, was a body blow to the poor. Beef, unlike mutton and chicken, is cheap. It is an important source of protein for low-caste Dalits, and for minority communities like Muslims and Christians.

At least eggs can be easily transported to where the demand is.  What will happen to the cows if their owners cannot sell them for the meat?

The Indian Express newspaper reports that farmers don’t know what to do with dying cattle. Since they can neither sell nor butcher them, they are letting the animals loose to fend for themselves. Surely, there is nothing sacred about starving cows.

Fend for themselves by eating plastic bags, I suppose!

So, where is India going?

Privileged politicians are imposing their will on underprivileged people, who do not share their beliefs and also do not have the luxury of rejecting cheap sources of protein. By injecting religion and caste into politics, the B.J.P. is preventing India from moving forward by reinforcing the prejudices that have kept it back.

Oh well, India's undernourished kids ought to be happy that got to do suryanamaskara on International Yoga Day, even if they are all mere skin and bones. :(

A kiss is just a kiss ... unless it is in the land of the RSS

Growing up in a traditional Tamil Brahmin family, I easily gravitated to the classical music that was the cultural lifeblood in the immediate and extended families.  A favorite of mine was a Bharatiyar poem set to music in the classical style, and the following lines when talented musicians would get into a jam session, as we might refer to it:

கன்னத்தில் முத்தமிட்டால்-உள்ளந்தான்   கள்வெறி கொள்ளுதடீ 
உன்னை தழுவிடிலோ- கண்ணம்மா  உன்மத்த மாகுதடீ. 

In this movie clip, that verse is when the male voice kicks in (at 2:25)

Those lines are about how the lover's heart feels intoxicated with a kiss, and about an embrace that is sensual.

The strangest aspect was this: as a kid, I had never seen in real life lovers kissing or passionately embracing.  Yet, here were these lyrics by Bharatiyar, who was a Tamil Brahmin himself, and whose hometown was not far from my grandmothers'.  There was no kissing in the public, or anything even remotely passionate an embrace, not only among the Tamil Brahmins but pretty much by anybody.  Those days, movies did not show kissing either.

To think that in my young days in the old country I had missed out on all the kissing and embracing, and the getting to first and second base that is all the norm for American teenagers!!!  What a loss! ;)

Kissing is in the news in India.  For the wrong reasons though:

To assert their right to love following an attack at a coffee shop in Kerala's Kozhikode district last week by the BJP activists, a group of youngsters in Kochi have decided to observe the next Sunday as 'Kiss Day'.

Yep, when a religious-nationalist is elected to power, then moral policing automatically follows.  To fight back, they have come up with a wonderful idea:

The event named Kiss of Love has been organised by a group of youngsters and invites everyone, old and young, to gather at the Marine Drive on Sunday evening and express their love in public. There is an air of excitement in the city and the social media is awash with youngsters confirming their participation. More than 2,500 people have registered for the event, while the likes have crossed 7000 and going up, something which even the organisers never expected. 

Source

While the initial trigger--the attack in the coffee shop--was led by Hindu activists, the "Kiss of Love" is opposed by the Muslim moral police too!

The "kiss of love" protest has been opposed by both hardline Hindu and Muslim groups in Kerala who say the event is against Indian culture.

Yep, the kissing version of Bootleggers and Baptists!

Of course, it being the India where there are taboos in plenty against young men and women socializing, it should not surprise anybody that:

Many others on the net, boys and girls included, have expressed their willingness and excitement to take part in the event, but alas they are without partners.

The old country is beyond anybody's understanding.

Is holy cow an udder waste?

Over the years, my parents and my sister have gotten into an interesting way to mark birthdays and other events--they donate money to institutions whose missions they are passionate about.  One of those is a goshala that is a little outside of Chennai.

Cows are, of course, sacred animals in the Hindu faith.  That upbringing is also why when I was walking around in Costa Rica, I was reminded of the kamadhenu. Despite my atheism! 

The reverence for the cow is more than for any utilitarian calculations of milk and manure. The belief is that the animal represents life itself. The mother of life.

When we impose an utilitarian calculation on such a value for a cow, well, of course we might then conclude that a cow is not worth the investment:

India is home to more than a sixth of the world’s population and also more than one quarter of the world’s estimated cattle population. The study’s authors Santosh Anagol, Alvin Etang and Dean Karlan analyzed data from a sample of households in northern India that were asked questions about livestock, farming practices, land holdings, assets, household consumption and income history, savings, borrowing, and shocks. The survey data also provided information on the costs of milk production and data on animal outputs such as milk and calves.
The researchers found that when valuing labor at market wages, these households earned a negative 64% average return for holding cows and a negative 39% return for buffaloes. If the household’s labor is valued at zero, these estimated average returns increase to negative 6% for cows and positive 13% for buffaloes.

Yes, we might want to highlight such a result to those thinking of buying a cow or a buffalo (water buffalo, for you Americans reading this!) with a calculation that selling milk from these animals will lead them to unimaginable riches.

A goshala, on the other hand, is not about making money at all. It is simply a sanctuary of sorts for the cows.  And, yes, the cows are milked as in any other dairy.  But the enterprise is not to make money from the milk.

What I like about the concept of the goshala is that it is a voluntary effort.  If people like my parents want to contribute to it, they do. If they don't, well, there is nothing to force them.

And then there is the insane Indian politics.  Which makes a mockery of anything!

Rajasthan’s right-wing Hindu administration is set to establish a government department for the preservation and protection of cows and to start research institutions, or cow science universities, focused on the rearing and health of the animal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which came to power in the desert state, India’s largest by area, in December, is fulfilling a key pledge from its manifesto and plans to declare the cow as the state animal.

Seriously?

Doesn't Rajasthan have a lot more pressing problems, like this one?

In Rajasthan, where cow slaughter is banned, the ruling BJP wants to review and toughen up the existing laws governing cow smuggling for slaughter and plans to give up to 3.5 billion rupees ($57 million) every year to nonprofits and government agencies running cattle smallholdings for feed and upkeep.
To protect cows reared in cowsheds, there will also be a state-wide  campaign to provide them proper health care with clinics held twice a month for cattle, according to the states’ animal husbandry department’s plan for its first 60 days in office.

In other words, government subsidized goshalas. Which will then slowly become government run goshalas. Which will eventually lead to government ill-treatment of the cows themselves!

India is one strange place!

Bal Thackeray, Hitler's admirer in India and SS chief, dies.

Even as a teenager, I never liked Bal Thackeray.

Over the more than three decades that I have known of Thackeray, I have only wondered how much life will be better without thugs like him!

Thackeray personified most of the vile of politics and politicians at that time.  He was against the non-Marathi population migrating to Maharashtra, especially to Bombay.  He favored bullying, brought commerce to a stop whenever he felt the need to do so, made Muslims feel unwanted and unsafe, and ... well, there is a lot one can add to this list.  A pompous, arrogant, SOB Thackeray was:

[His] “Maharashtra First” agenda often translated into extreme pro-Hindu, anti-migrant policies that saw Shiv Sena over the years mount numerous campaigns against Muslims and those flocking to Mumbai from other parts of India in search of jobs and a better life.
Shiv Sena’s repeated threats to shut down Bollywood productions if they didn’t hire more locals were often seen by his many critics as little more than a shakedown.
Analysts said his attacks on "outsiders" and minorities had a certain resonance among urban middle-class Mumbai voters even as he imprinted a negative legacy on one of the world’s great cities. “He was a bundle of extreme, even brazen contradictions,” said Dileep Padgaonkar, a consulting editor with the Times of India newspaper. “He destroyed the cosmopolitan ethos of Mumbai.”

While I don't have any evidence to cite--at least, not now--I don't think it was a mere coincidence that Thackeray's outfit was called Shiv Sena, which was often shortened to SS.

Yes, for those of us who shudder at the horrors that the Nazi SS carried out, we will cringe even more at how much Thackeray was a fan of the mustached monster that Adolf Hitler was. In noting his demise, this news report underscores Thackeray's fascination for the Nazi leader, and his preference for anti-democratic actions:

The murder of Krishna Desai, a Communist Party leader in Parel, sent a chill of terror through the city and the party succeeded in setting up Sena unions everywhere, often supported by employers who were only too glad to have someone on their side.
“In December 1967, the CPI headquarters of Mumbai at Dalvi Building in Parel, which is situated in the very midst of the textile area, was savagely attacked by SS hoodlums and almost destroyed. Organised attempts were made to break up Communist public meetings and several leaders and activists of both the CPI and the CPI(M) were physically assaulted. The climax was reached on June 6, 1970, when armed goondas of the SS murdered the sitting MLA of the CPI, Krishna Desai. Krishna Desai was a popular and militant mass leader in the textile belt and had been elected municipal corporator four times before he was elected to the state assembly in 1967. This was the first major political assassination in Mumbai since Independence, and it sent shock waves through the city and State. The leadership of the entire opposition along with thousands of incensed workers, marched in Krishna Desai’s funeral procession. Opposition leaders directly accused the Shiv Sena and the Congress State government in general, and Bal Thackeray and Vasantrao Naik in particular, of being hand in glove in the perpetration of this heinous crime.” 

But, Thackeray gained power and prestige, like mafia dons and third-rate politicians often do.  It is no surprise that the leaders of the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, have nothing but the highest praise for the deceased destroyer of good:

It is rare that I have seen in these 65 years of independent India a political leader who has left such a deep and abiding imprint on the country’s events as Balasaheb Thackeray. Uncompromising in his patriotism, he possessed remarkable qualities of leadership and abundance of attributes of head and heart,” [Advani] said.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said “Balasaheb Thackeray was an epitome of courage and valour. He was full of life. He fought like a warrior. I’ve lost someone who always guided me.”

Yes, of course, a warrior who guided Modi, whose wish is to become India's prime minister.  If that happens, I hope the US government doesn't grant Modi visa to enter this country, and treats him like how we treat Ahmadinejad.

Oh well ... Thackeray, to paraphrase Shakespeare, "is an honorable man;. So are they all, all honorable men."

The tragedy at Ayutthaya. Yet again! And at Ayodhya too :(

As has become my habit, I picked up the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times from the library's newspaper shelves and got myself a comfortable seat by the window and, predictably, I reached for the WSJ first. I was saddened to look at this photo:

It is one giant statue of the Buddha in Ayutthaya (a UNESCO World Heritage site,) sometimes referred to as the reclining posture, while a few others describe this as his enlightened state as he breathed his last.

The floods are making quite a mess of Thailand, with more than 260 dead and quite a bit of destruction to property.  I am able to relate to the area, its peoples, and to this Buddha statue thanks to having been there--the photo below is from my trip a couple of years ago:

I liked this photograph because the humans standing there gives the viewer an idea of the size of the statue.

Now, all these areas are flooded.

Death and destruction at Ayutthaya are, however, not anything new. If at all, humans have caused a lot more destruction, which, ironically, was because of the wars between the Buddhists in Burma and the Buddhists in Thailand!  I was almost teary when I saw a row of Buddha statues--beheaded by the invading Burmese.

Ayutthaya is, yes, named after Ayodhya. It was founded in 1350, and served as the capital for more than 400 years before it fell to the invading Burmese forces. It is a cruel irony that many a devastating wars have featured in the history of these two neighbors, which are home to millions of followers of Buddha, who preached non-violence!

Ayodhya is one of the holiest places in Hinduism. It is located in northern India, not far from the Nepal border, and is believed to be the birth place of the Hindu god Rama—to whom I owe my name!

Like most religious Hindus, my grandmothers immensely valued making a pilgrimage to Ayodhya. Though they were born in villages far away from Ayodhya, my grandmothers made it, unlike their previous generations who could only dream of going there in their lifetimes, but never did because of resource and transport constraints. After all, it is almost a three-thousand mile round trip between their villages and Ayodhya, and travel before the advent of modern transportation would have been extremely challenging.  My grandmothers would have been ecstatic if I had visited Ayodhya—but, visiting Ayutthaya may have been good enough for them, given my atheism :) 

Anyway, after the fall of Ayutthaya, Bangkok has been Thailand's capital since 1782. The king assumed the official title of “Rama I,” thereby further cementing the symbolic association with Ayodhya.

Ayutthaya is about 85 kilometers—about 50 miles for the metric-challenged—from Bangkok. The contrasts are profound. Bangkok is modern, bustling, congested, noisy, dusty, and crowded. Ayutthaya, on the other hand, is everything that Bangkok is not—calm, and with lots of ambulatory space, and feels a tad cooler too. After spending a few hours walking through the ruins, it is not difficult to imagine the life that once flourished in Ayutthaya during its years of glory.

At least Ayutthaya’s days of battles are over. Ayodhya, on the other hand, continues to be a flashpoint because extremist Hindus claim that there ought not to be a mosque—the Babri Masjid—in the piece of land where, it is believed, a temple for Rama once stood.

The spread of Islam, and the arrival of Central Asian Muslim warriors, who founded the successful Moghul Dynasty, resulted in the destruction of more than a few Hindu temples in India, and some that did not face destruction were converted as mosques. The Babri Masjid is from that era, and its name is in honor of Babur, the first of the Moghuls.

The destruction and alteration of property was not anything unusual—historically, it is something that humans have done pretty much in every culture across the planet. Rare would have been the case when the invading forces did everything possible to preserve the “enemy’s” life and property.

However, and unfortunately centuries later, Hindu extremists launched a holy war to restore the temple of Rama. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), through which the extremist Hindu concerns are politically represented, decided to make the converted mosque a big part of their politics. Thus, despite India’s Supreme Court warning against any vandalism and destruction of Babri Masjid, the fanatics from the BJP ended up destroying the mosque in 1992—a horrific act, that severely escalated religious tensions in the country.

I am confident that my grandmothers would never have supported the destruction of a mosque, despite their devotion to Rama and, therefore, to Ayodhya. It is a tragedy that throughout history we humans have intentionally destroyed our fellow beings and their settlements and, along with that, traditions and cultures. While we might be vaguely familiar with the adage that “Rome was not built in a day”, we do not seem to truly understand that it takes only a short time to destroy that which took years, perhaps even centuries to build.

Modi begins his campaign to become India's PM. I wish him defeat!

Blogging about Gujarat's Narendra Modi means only one thing: I am worried about his increasing popularity--I have been doing this since this in March 2009! 

First came this news that a "US report lauds Modi"

Identifying Gujarat as perhaps the best example of effective governance and impressive development in India, a congressional report has showered praise on Chief Minister Narendra Modi, saying the State, under him, has become a key driver of national economic growth. ...

“Perhaps India's best example of effective governance and impressive development is found in Gujarat, where controversial Chief Minister Narendra Modi has streamlined economic processes, removing red tape and curtailing corruption in ways that have made the State a key driver of the national economic growth,” said the report.

An independent and bipartisan wing of Congress, the CRS prepares periodic reports on issues of interest to lawmakers.

Typical American perspective, I thought to myself.  After all, it is the same America that appreciates China, while conveniently sidelining human rights issues most of the time.  The Chinese model of controlled political expression with relatively free economic expression is becoming a favored model.  This itself is not that different from a pioneer's--Singapore's development model, led by Lee Kuan Yew.

The American blessing of sorts was immediately echoed in India, where the current government led by its silent and figurehead prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has to deal with scandals mushrooming by the hour, it seems like!

Former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani has startled the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership with an apparent endorsement of Gujarat Chief Minister's claims to be the party's candidate for Prime Minister in the next general election.

In an article posted on his blog on Friday, Mr. Advani wrote: “Now, American lawmakers and the State Department are being primed for the return of the BJP to power in New Delhi, with [Mr.]Modi at the helm as Prime Minister, following what U.S. analysts say is a precipitous decline in the Congress party's fortunes due to a string of corruption scandals.”

For his assessment of United States official opinion, Mr. Advani has relied on a recent report of the Washington DC-based Congressional Research Service.

Holy crap!

The Indian electorate voting for fascists maniacs like Modi is not unimaginable--they are sick and tired of scandals and corruption, and voting for a guy with a track record of fiscal integrity will be way tempting, even if they know well Modi's guilt in the communal violence when he was the chief minister.

Modi is all too ready to seize the opportunity:

Fighting hard to remove the taint of 2002 violence, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday began a three-day fast for peace and communal harmony vowing to end votebank politics but said nothing directly by way of regret for the post-Godhra carnage.

Buoyed by the Supreme Court’s refusal to pass any order against him in the Ehsan Jafri murder case and words of praise from a U.S. Congressional report, Mr. Modi sat on fast on his birthday in the air-conditioned Gujarat University Convention Centre flanked by top BJP and allied party leaders.

“I had said at that time (2002) these riots should not have happened in a civilised society. At that time I had felt the pain and now also I am feeling the pain,” he said in his speech to an audience that had a sprinkling of Muslims, Christians and Sikhs among others. 

Hmmm ... a 'sprinkling" of minorities :(

Source

India's Hindu-mullah wannabes

Valentines Day in India: what a stupid controversy!

Don't they have better things to do in India, than to come up with some Hindu version of the fashion mullahs?  These nincompoops are carrying out god's tasks?  Bizarre!  Read this:

BANGALORE: After their recent attack on young women at a Mangalore pub, the Sri Ram Sene has now announced an action plan to target couples found dating on February 14, Valentine’s Day.

At a press conference here on Thursday, Sri Ram Sene leader Pramod Muthalik, who is now on bail, said Sene activists across Karnataka would not only hold protests outside colleges, hostels and hotels, where Valentine’s Day celebrations are held, but also forcibly marry off couples found dating in public.

“Our activists will go around with a priest, a turmeric stub and a ‘mangal sutra’ on February 14. If we come across couples being together in public and expressing their love, we will take them to the nearest temple and conduct their marriage,” he said. If the couples resisted the move, the girl would be forced to tie a ‘rakhi’ to the boy.

Mr. Muthalik said his outfit would ensure that Valentine’s Day greeting cards were not sold. Activists would check out stores that sold such cards.