"What's in a name?" Try Denali and Aurangazeb!

"What's in a name?" wrote the Bard.  If he were around now, perhaps he will sue me for abusing it in this post about controversies over names--one in the old country and another here at home.

As always, the Indian story is complex.  Is anything ever simple back there? ;)  Therefore, the local story first:

President Obama will announce Monday that his administration is officially redesignating Alaska's Mt. McKinley as Denali, the original name for the 20,237-foot-high mountain given by the area's Alaskan native population.

As always, the feds are the last one to the party though.

The state of Alaska changed the mountain’s name to Denali, the native Koyukon Athabascan word for “The Great One” or “The High One,” in 1975. But the federal government retained McKinley’s moniker.

The mountain is in Alaska, and Alaskans had changed the name to Denali forty years ago.  So, did the word get to DC by Pony Express only yesterday?

Ohio's congressional delegation, among others, has opposed removing the name of McKinley, who had been an Ohio governor.

Excuse me, oh master storyteller, you ready to change your "what's in a name?" line? ;)

Giving a name for geographic feature, or renaming it, is always a political act.  Remember the controversy about the Persian Gulf/Arabian Gulf?  In this case, McKinley was the President from Ohio, which is why Ohioans protest the change:

Ohio Rep. Bob Gibbs, a fellow Republican who has introduced a House bill aimed at retaining McKinley’s name on the peak, could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday.
Gibbs’ measure would prevent the U.S. Board on Geographic Names from considering Alaska's attempts to change the mountain's name under a policy that says no landmark titles can be considered if related legislation is pending before Congress.
Ohio representatives file such a bill every two years to essentially stymie Alaska's efforts.

That is a simple story, compared to the one from India, where Aurangazeb Road in Delhi has been renamed after a former president, Abdul Kalam.

Source

That is one heck of a political complication.  Why?  Was Aurangazeb any beloved guy?

Aurangzeb was a despot.

Can we have some examples, please?

He not only imprisoned his ailing father, the Fifth Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, but had all three of his brothers—the heir-apparent Dara Shukoh, Shah Shuja and Murad, murdered. ‘Murdered’ is to put it mildly.
Both confident and insecure, Aurangzeb then went on to ensure his hegemony as the Sixth Emperor by having Dara’s son Sulaiman, imprisoned and poisoned in a slow and tortuous procedure that made the future Crown Prince mad before death claimed him.
He also set an example to all dissenters by having the free-thinking mystic Sarmad beheaded at the Jama Masjid, Delhi, for blasphemy, the Sikh Guru Teg Bahadur executed for objecting to conversions and the leader of the Maratha Confederacy, Sambhaji, caught and killed for just being what he was.

By now, I have perhaps lost the couple of American readers who were struggling through the names! ;)

So, if he was a despot, then changing the road name to that of the beloved former president is a good thing, right?

Re-naming roads is about the most immature and least convincing sign of authority. It is invariably the accoutrement of new power.

Denali was the original name that is now being restored. Was Aurangazeb Road, similarly, the original name?  Of course not; it was from the time when the British Raj opted for Delhi as its capital and designed buildings and roads that would be imperial enough.  Does it mean that the political act is to erase that British Raj's evil designs?  Nope. It is a political act by the ever scheming Hindu nationalist party that figured out a way to delete Aurangazeb, put Muslims in a corner by naming it after the popular former president, and make the Hindu fanatics happy.  A political trifecta:

The Muslims cannot object. How can they ? If they do they would be both un-faithful and un-patriotic. The Hindus will never object. And after a while all will be using A P J Abdul Kalam Marg as if the road has always been named after that honest son of Rameshwaram. How utterly clever!

One final question: what is the urgency to delete Aurangazeb anyway?  It goes back to the populist one-thousand-year slavery rhetoric that Modi and his Hindu nationalist party spew.  Perhaps you are shocked about 1,000 years as a slave nation, right?

The conventional view is that it lasted 200 years—those of British raj. So where did the remaining 1,000 years come from? Clearly, Modi was propounding what Mridula Mukherjee, former professor of modern Indian history at JNU, described as the “standard Hindu communal view of history”, which regards the period of Muslim rule also as a period of slavery.

 So, we will kick the ball back to Shakespeare.  "What's in a name?"  ;)

Aurangazeb's tomb
I was there more than three years ago

One nation under Jesus. Hindus, shut up and get back to where you belong!

I imagine a day when there will be nothing to comment about.  The world is a happy place.  Rainbows and unicorns and pots and pots of gold all over!

When that comes true, there will be nothing to blog about.  Until then, it is party time at this blog ;)

Today's festivities sponsored by a few idiots in the Idaho legislature:

Seven Idaho senators remained outside the state Senate chamber Tuesday morning as guest chaplain Rajan Zed delivered the chamber’s first Hindu invocation, then took their seats immediately after it was done.
Three said their absences were unrelated to the prayer – they were just running late from other meetings. But three said they stayed away on purpose, and a fourth questioned why a Christian prayer wasn’t offered as well.

Wait, here comes a juicy quote from one of them, Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll:

she believes the United States is a Christian nation and that “Hindu is a false faith with false gods.”

I love that. False faith with false gods.  Good thing then that my Pascal's wager is not on one of those false gods!

How about her colleagues?

Sen. Lori Den Hartog, R-Meridian, said she didn’t feel comfortable personally taking part in a prayer of a religion different from her own.

Oh, of course, not comfortable.  Is that better or worse than her colleague,

Senator Steve Vick, who walked out of the Senate chamber before Mr. Zed’s invocation said that Hindu prayers should not be allowed because the U.S. was “built on the Judeo-Christian, not only religion, but work ethic, and I don’t want to see that undermined”, the Statesman reported. Hindus “have a caste system,” he added. “They worship cows.”

They worship cows and Senator Vick eats them. So, there, we are all even!

What a bunch of morons who get elected to govern!

BTW, Al Jazeera adds one more that Senator Nuxoll said:

I think it's great that Hindu people can practice their religion but since we're the Senate, we're setting an example of what we, Idaho, believe.

Yes, the "Hindu people" can practice whatever they want as long as they do it back in "Hindu people country" eh.  Because this sets a bad example of what Idaho is.

Ah, if only those who so fanatically believe in their religions can understand that they are infidels according to the fanatics in other religions.

Source

Why do they even have prayers in the legislature, at city hall meetings, and other government spaces?  And why have chaplains?  Oh well, remember the US Supreme Court ruling a few months ago, in the case where "Two women — one atheist, one Jewish" sued the town of Greece in New York?

the high court held that the council was using prayer for "permissible ceremonial purposes," not as an "unconstitutional establishment of religion."

Yes, that case, too, was a 5-4 vote.  Interestingly (I think this is no coincidence) the Jewish justices dissented.

Oh well ... I will have to wait a long, long time for unicorns and rainbows and pots of gold.  I will simply imagine!

A Sikh, a Hindu, and a Muslim walked into ... wait, they live there

Do I remember the contents of each and every blog post in order to quote them verbatim?  Of course not.  But, when I am reading/watching something of interest, am I reminded of related posts in my blog?  You betcha!  Like in the post yesterday, right, about this absurd life?  I am reminded of whoever it was who said that knowing what matters is a lot more important than knowing a whole lot--to which I would add that knowing what matters is contextual.

You are thinking, "what the heck are you talking about?"  I agree that it was too long a preface for a short blog-post.  So, here it is.

I was reading this in the Wall Street Journal (ah, how this should thrill my socialist colleagues!) about the few Sikhs and Hindus left in Afghanistan feeling increasingly insecure about their lives there and, therefore, exiting the troubled nation.  Which is when I was reminded of a Sikh who was a candidate in the Afghan elections.  So, I tracked that down--it is a post from September 2010 in which I quoted one of them, Pritpal Singh Pal:

Pal says it is a common misconception that all Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are Punjabis who moved to Afghanistan from India years ago. In fact, many members of this community consider themselves to be the original Afghans who never converted to Islam. And this sense of rootedness only gives their pursuit of governmental representation in Afghanistan more zeal....

It was heart-warming to read about Sikh candidates in Afghanistan and their patriotism and rootedness.  And now I am depressed reading that WSJ piece:

Otar Singh, the head of Afghanistan’s Hindu and Sikh community and a former member of parliament, said conditions are worse under Afghanistan’s democratic government than they were during the Taliban’s severe rule in the late 1990s, when the minority group had to wear yellow arm bands that singled them out as second-class citizens.
“Under the Taliban our rights were clearly defined, and people were not cruel to us,” he said.

Makes me want to echo that line from Rodney King: "Can we all just get along?"

What the hell is wrong with us humans, right?  We are so fixated on what makes us different. Language, religion, skin pigmentation, ... seriously?

Since last spring, around 400 more Sikhs and Hindus have left, according to community leaders. Most joined the swelling Afghan community in India, their spiritual home, while some turned to people-smugglers in a bid to reach the West.
Such voyages have ended tragically. In August, 35 Afghan Sikhs of all ages were discovered in a ship’s cargo container in the British port town of Tilbury. One of the migrants, a man, was found dead. The U.K. government is currently considering the asylum applications of the others, said a spokeswoman for the British Embassy in Kabul.

How terrible!

Despite the challenges, Rawail Singh, the community leader, says he is proud of being Afghan. “I love Afghanistan because it’s my country. We Sikhs and Hindus aren’t from somewhere else,” he said. “This is where we belong.”

I wish them well.

I will end this with the same video that I had embedded in that September 2010 post, which features a popular Bollywood actor who was of Pashtun stock himself:

The Hindu defenders react on Twitter!

Without comments ...

@HinduIDF No its something even of lesser importance . Sold their souls to $ . Twist facts to get paid . #Shame @congoboy
— Sundance Bunch (@sanjatpatnaik) March 2, 2014

@sanjatpatnaik @HinduIDF >> @congoboy << His Lingam fell off after his got AIDS from his mother while playing Jesus, hence the obsession.
— No Banana 4 U (@amitkriit) March 3, 2014

@sanjatpatnaik These idiot just don't get it @congoboy .Bible is a mixed book of semi literate concepts of God and Social Justice
— Hindu IDF (@HinduIDF) March 2, 2014

@sanjatpatnaik All the Abrahmic Religions are about Social Justice .Rich Vs Poor @congoboy .While Hinduism is about GOD ..How to see him
— Hindu IDF (@HinduIDF) March 2, 2014

@sanjatpatnaik Vedas = Reaching God , to see him face to face @congoboy .For problems of Society we have smirti's ..
— Hindu IDF (@HinduIDF) March 2, 2014

@sanjatpatnaik @merasandesh1 @HinduIDF @congoboy those who don't like hindu its culture beliefs free to leave our country they are aliens
— DabanggHindu #HDL (@DabanggHindu) March 3, 2014

@sanjatpatnaik @merasandesh1 @HinduIDF @congoboy none can attck on our gods goddesses religious beliefs cultures de bastards be shot in ass
— DabanggHindu #HDL (@DabanggHindu) March 3, 2014

@sanjatpatnaik @merasandesh1 @HinduIDF @congoboy Its not abt SocialJustice also,if so how can it b hijacked(onlyNewTestament)by ColorRacists
— sreenivas (@sreeniv51294598) March 3, 2014

Updated:

@HinduIDF @congoboy Jesus was a Vedic yogi but was rejected by Pauline theocracy and idolatry into modern Christian hierarchy.
— Manjul Agarwal (@bmcowl1) March 3, 2014

@hinduidf first thinG camE n my mind ON the blogpost of @congoboy on wendy doggy HE GET JOB BY LICKING WHITE ASS & STILL DOING IT HAHA !
— हिन्दु आगे (@cgmagia) March 3, 2014

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls

My cousin and her son came to say hi to us.  After a few minutes, he got ready to bike down to his coaching class.  "Plus, I have an exam coming up on the 26th" he said.

"On Boxing Day?  On the day after Christmas?"  I am sure everybody there understood how shocked I was.

He nodded a yes.

"But, what about the students who are Christians?  I mean, there is no way they will come prepared."

"Oh, I think we have only one Christian student in all the sections together" he replied.

"Only one Christian?"  I was even more shocked, recalling my own experience in high school. I can easily recall quite a few Christian names from my class: Gigi, Sarah, Joy, Alex, Mariamma, Willy, Thomas, ... and more if I paused to list them all.

Further, so what if there is only one Christian.  Does it matter?  Would the school have made any special arrangement for that student to take the exam another day?  If there are no Christians, would the school hold classes on Christmas day?

I talked about this with a couple more.  One other cousin's daughter thought there was no Christan student at all in her class.  It is a school run by a Hindu religious organization.

But then, the city has quite a few old schools that are run by Christian missionaries and not only have they been favored even by Hindus, I know of at least two Hindus who taught at those Christian schools.  In contrast, no Christians at Hindu schools?

This kept bugging me.  When I sought clarification, the typical explanation was that it is difficult anymore to gain admission to good schools and the pattern that has evolved is very much religion based.  As one person put it, "Hindu children mostly go to Hindu schools, and Muslim children mostly go to Muslim schools."

If that is indeed the case, then it is an awful development.  Kids not even having an opportunity to spontaneously interact with classmates from religious backgrounds that are different from theirs!  If that kind of socialization does not happen when young, wouldn't cross-cultural understanding become even more difficult when older?

Was it always like this in India and I hadn't known about it only because I grew up in a bubble that my town was?  Just because I had Christian and Muslim classmates, I assumed it was the same everywhere?  All of us did not come from Tamil-speaking families either.  My world when I was young was way more cosmopolitan than I ever knew?

After the undergraduate years, I moved to California, which was even more diverse than the old world that I knew.  For the first time in my life, I met a Pakistani in flesh and blood.  Siddiqui. We were so much alike in the way we thought.  He was also the first to ever taste my cooking.  I became friends with Chinese, Greeks, Koreans, Syrians, .... The diversity at my university was so wonderful that when I moved to Oregon, it felt like I had moved into a very parochial world!

Perhaps all these are also reminders that I am way too disconnected from the reality of India anymore?  There is no more a "mera" in "Mera Bharat Mahan Hai" and nor is "mahan" anymore in that phrase?

Why do I get so pissed off at religion in India's public spaces?

Every trip to India, the country appears to be less and less secular in the public space than how it ever was.

While at Chennai, every morning I took off to the nearby Panagal Park, typically between 5:10 and 5:20 in the morning.  Yes, being on vacation doesn't mean that I sleep any much more than during regular days.  In fact, according to this research report, going significantly off the workday schedules can create something like a jet-lag effect when the weekend or vacation gets over.

So, an easy five minutes after leaving my parents' home, I reach the park.  Without fail, every single day, the park was far from quiet that early in the morning--the loudspeakers in the park blared out music.  Hindu spiritual music, that is.

And only Hindu spiritual music.  Nothing Islamic, or Christian. Only Hindu.

Panagal Park is no private space either--it is owned and maintained by the Corporation of Chennai.  Yet, music of the majority religion was always played there, by the corporation itself!

I worry that this is merely yet another, and recent, example of the lack of a wall separating religion and government in India.  It is even odder that it should be the case in Chennai, given the land's political history of anti-religion and atheism.

When I casually mentioned this, the response was that I could shut myself off by using an iPod/earbuds.  There was no way I was going to argue about individual freedoms, the role of the state, and the state not favoring any religion.

As we got closer and closer to Christmas, I wondered whether I would get to listen to at least one or two seasonal tunes.

Irreligious that I am, I suppose I missed the festive atmosphere of Christmas time.  Which is why I went to a couple of local bakeries in order to get fresh plum cakes.

Artisanal was what I was looking for, but, much to my disappointment, mass-produced industrial varieties were the ones the neighborhood bakeries carried.  Perhaps I was looking at the wrong places.

Finally, I bought one, which was not all that great to look at, from Hot Breads. It was not that exciting to taste either.

It was Christmas eve. As I left home for the walk, I thought perhaps I might hear a Christmas jingle or two.  But, I had overestimated the conditions.  The same old Hindu spiritual music greeted me as I neared the park.  And the same old music throughout the entire hour.

Christmas day arrived.  Surely, there would be a break from the Hindu music, was my thought.  I suppose I never learn!

When in India, I rarely ever talk religion or politics, lest I offend the people there.  I wish I freely could.  Do religious minorities feel they are equals when there appears to be an overwhelming Hindu culture, even at a public park in the morning hours?  Will Hindus, for example, accept loudspeakers blaring Islamic or Christian spiritual music at public parks?  Is there any movement at all to ban religion at publicly owned facilities?  Should I dare to engage people in these topics the next time I am in India, or merely be a passive observer?  Am I being too much of a wuss under the guise of not interfering with local practices?

Crap, if only I weren't so pedantic!