Save Thy Lord!!Sarva Dharma Sambhavana!

I am a Hindu, and I am secular, by secular I mean that i respect all religions, I believe all ways of prayer reach the one Almighty we all want so dearly to see us with an eye of compassion and provide us a life of bliss. I have been to Mosques,Gurudwara's and also the Church. 

But recent events in India have pained me immensely, all this nonsense be it by Hindus, Muslims or Christians need to stop, we first of all need to stop killing each other, I do not understand which God, whichever you might believe would be happy to see blood spilled on the streets on his name, women raped on his name or kids butchered in the name of saving HIS teaching, following HIS preaching? 

I plead to all extremists, of all flavors, be it the evangelical christians who want to spread Christianity in India and encourage conversions, the Right wing Hindu Fundamentalists like the VHP, Bajrang Dal, or the organizations like LeT, HM or the numerous extremist Muslim Organizations calling for Jehad against India, Please Please for God's Sake, whichever one you believe it, stop this anarchy and riots, stop this terror.

As I am a Hindu, I would like to clearly state to VHP and Bajrang Dal,  specially that I HAVE NOT GIVEN THE RIGHT TO THEM TO DECIDE FOR ME. They do not hold the right to kill people, take law in their hands, whatever the provocation is.

Hinduism as such makes it easier for us to respect and also welcome all religious faiths in India because:

1) Hinduism no where claims that It is the ONLY true path to GOD. I agree that all the three ABRAHAMIC faiths do claim that theirs and only theirs is the best way to reach GOD.In fact Hinduism advocates "SARVA DHARMA SAMBHAVANA". All faiths are to be respected, every individual can have his her own own way to reach God.

2) Hinduism does not believe in conversions or reconversions, Religion is faith, a very personal thing, if any one follows any particular path, he or she should be allowed freely.

3) Hinduism does not have a Pope, does not go by any one BOOK, does not prescribe any fixed laws. The Law's of Lord Rama's era were different than what were applicable to Krishna's age. The Geeta prescribes different solutions to different problems. This flexibility allows us to respect DEMOCRACY, allow SECULARISM and gives a chance for us to have our own Judiciary which values human life.

4) Every Hindu has his own God, and this is an important thing, because, this and this only should be sufficient enough for us to respect and allow a space for an Allah or a Jesus in our midst, isn't it? I mean, if I can revere a Ram, Krishna, Hanuman , Lakshmi and so many other Gods and Goddesses, how does one Allah and one Jesus in my society hurt me?Can they also not be easily accommodated in this society?

It is precisely because of the above points that I believe, India and India alone has the natural ability to be secular in a true sense. India does not need anti conversion laws to save its Majority Religion of Hinduism, India doesn't need a draconian law like POTA or TADA to save its masses from Islamic Terror.

India has been attacked numerous times, ruled by kings and dictators of many faiths, but still 85% is Hindu population. Hinduism doesn't need the services of Bajrang Dal or VHP to save itself, Thank you and Keep off is what my message is to these people.

AND to the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Sir, please, Keep off this habit of playing victim all the time, get up and fix the issues rather than kid gloving subversive activities. You need to first declare India is Dar-ul-Islam, and that Jihad against INDIA is NOT allowed.

To the Popes, Bishops and Reverends: Sir Please, keep off the lure of wealth to give a chance to mass conversions, I appreciate the good work done in the education and health sector by most of your organizations, but using such Godly acts to hideously convert Hindus as is being done by a few of the black sheep in your ranks is highly condemnable.

IF all the great religions of the world stand for compassion, love and peace, we should not have any blood shed any where, be it Kashmir, Ayodhya, Kerala, Orissa, Palestine or Jerusalem, can the true believers stand up please? AND well BE COUNTED too :)

The INDIAN WHIRLPOOL- and the WAY OUT!

Seems like India is getting sucked in its whirlpool of religious and political contradictions. Again the same clamor for a Draconian anti Terror Law in some states, do we need these?

Do we need a law like POTA or TADA to tackle terror?
I think its the answer is not just a YES or NO. I do not subscribe to BJP's view that we just need a draconian Law to somehow get rid of Terrorism like a magic wand, and neither do i subscribe to the congress (read so called secular) view that we should not make a tougher law just because laws as such do not deter terror attacks.

We need Judicial Reforms, Police Reforms and some fine tuning of the existing laws, and if all this comes in a package in some acronym like TADA or POTA, i do not mind that.

Judicial Reforms:
1. We need to speed up justice delivery mechanisms. The common man on the street is frustrated of the delays, and the system is so outdated and slow as well as spineless that most of the times, people tend to take help from the fast track parallel justice system set up by Naxals or self styled mafiosi of a particular area.
2. Get some sort of plea bargaining thing to some of the crimes, we can not keep on filling jails which already have a poor infrastructure with pick pockets and eve teasers while we show no spine to prosecute the high flying among us.
3. what have we done to the BMW Case, the Ketan Parekh case, the fact that we couldn't convict a Sheik Omar or a Maulana Masood Azhar is testimony to the fact that the judiciary has been not up to the mark and has not shown spine when needed. We need to make sure the conviction rate goes up. Justice delayed is justice denied and we also end up paying a high moral price for the lapses.
4.Use more IT in courts and police stations, allow videoconferencing where required in sessions. There can be a whole book on these but basically bottom line is deliver justice in time without prejudice.

Police Reforms:
1. Get the police off the tentacles of the political overlords, for GODS SAKE no reform will help a set up which is used by the political class as slaves for every possible dirty clean up job possible.
2. Get a fixed tenure for these hapless police men, they may be corrupt, inefficient, bla bla, but the bottom line is they are underpaid, overused and the first line of defence, we need to get them the best equipment, increase moral standards, pay them better, have fixed duty hours.
3. Use IT again, India is a IT powerhouse, Barack Obama promises in election manifestos that he will try to keep Indian techies out, by blocking visas, USA is scared of our techies soft power, and we in India do not have a national criminal database, we don't mind if US embassy asks us to give prints if all our fingers, but balk at the idea that our own security agencies might want some form of ID to know who we are?
4. We need to urgently stop creating so called "Encounter Specialists",i again would like to stress here that i do admit that these people have been heroic, at least in the eyes of the society, but we can not go about creating Frankensteins, these people however selfless and heroic, actually represent the weakness and spinelessness of the Indian legislature, we are admitting that WE CAN NOT GET CONVICTIONS IN COURT, and hence we would resort to extra judicial killings. For God's sake, fix the system not the men.

Executive Law like POTA/TADA:

1. We do need an overhaul of existing laws, we still go by the British established system, we need to change those or fine tune, this debate shouldn't be just about an anti Terror law, it should encompass all aspects with some laws targeting terror or being applicable specifically to terror related cases.
2.We need to move form the "circumstantial evidence" way to the "forensic and technical evidence" way. We need to allow phone calls tapped, sms messages, computer disks, video recordings as evidence in court of law. We need to allow tougher remands and serum tests when we find that the probability to get evidence is slimmer.Involve more technology and allow more types of evidence is the bottom line, just circumstantial evidence is not enough always.
3.Does something called witness protection programme exist in India?If it does where is it? What kind of protection does one get? In most cases, the witness tires out or is not in a situation to remember even the chain of events by the time the case comes up for hearing. we need to sort this mess out by framing a good witness protection programme.

Only when all the above aspects are taken care of can we think of any formidable frame work to stop or at least make terrorism a costly risk for the perpetrators.

Bottom line: A single Draconian Terror Law is NO NO, a complete reform package YES!YES!