Need for taking note of Dissent!

After taking into account the recent political and social violence in India, be it the extreme right groups like the Shri Ram Sene or the MNS, Shiv Sena , or even the PWG, one thing seems to stand out, there seems to be a general perception among these groups that "Clinical" and "Targetted" Violence pays in India.

• This seems to be a case where, people have lost faith in the traditional peaceful means of dissent. The usual march and assembly at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, no longer works, Governments and Society at large have been thick skinned and hence, do not give attention to such peaceful expression of dissent.
• To explain it further, its more like we deal with children at home, for example, if you look at children who break toys or are unruly at home, one could argue that, the reason is mostly to get attention of the parents to listen to their say and may be to an extent force an outcome. The same seems to extend to these groups. The more we ignore the peaceful ways of holding placards and slogans, the more we stop free thinking and accommodation of views, the more we talk about bans , this problem will become more acute.
• Most organizations at the moment seem to believe that people will wake up and listen to their "Cause" only when there is violence, when peace is disturbed. The seem to think that only a blast or vandalism will make the society and governments to listen to them and take cognizance of their existence.
  
• Of course, this is not to say that, anything and everything that these groups demand is right and needs to be given in, but there is an undeniable need to engage these groups seriously in a dialogue, the state needs to tell these groups that any kind of violence will not be tolerated and will be dealt with sternly, but at the same time, if dissent is expressed in a civilized non violent manner, the state would listen, and if possible within the realms of the constitution take measures to pacify.
• I can cite a few examples, like say underage drinking, or underage driving, irrespective of gender, underage drinking has to be avoided, and pubs need to make sure that underage patrons are not served liquor, for this we do need a national ID card for every citizen which has a micro chip with all details and just a flash of the card at the pub should tell the age and bar the patron in case he/she is underage. Similarly for drunken driving and underage driving. Please do not bash me with intricacies of how this is not fool proof :) I just gave an example and a solution, i do understand enforcement and conviction has always been India's bane.
• Colleges and Universities, should allow all groups to come and have healthy civilized debates on various issues. We should allow constructive criticism and stop banning, when we ask for banning a group, we are actually behaving at par with them. Of course, some of them will be too extreme for society to deal with and hence state will have to use power.
• Another aspect which would be helpful, is that, institutes catering to mass communication should reach out to these groups, be they religious extremists, linguistic or regional chauvinists, even regional satraps, and provide them a chance by educating and training them in creating opportunities to show dissent in a civilized way. For example, the people who have an issue with the cultural decay, could make a short ad, or movie, or slide show, and be able to air their point of view "Within Civil Norms" to the public and similarly counter arguments could also be provided air space.Let it be like ads we see for Cars or cosmetics, they are products and competing products do advertise,similarly, competing stream of ideas should also be allowed to propagate and compete albeit without giving and space to violence and vigilantism with coercion.
• This is one of the best ways to make people feel less alienated, make them understand that their voice is also heard and understood, may be we can agree to disagree, and well in due course, as with good and bad products, may be good ideas or thoughts would be accepted and bad ideas would be rejected.
  
• There is no harm in giving expression of thought a chance, its better than a ban and these organizations would also be able to gauge how many people actually support them, may be we would be able to reach a consensus at some point.

We need to make sure we listen to dissent, not to agree, but at least make sure that when we get tough, we can say, we explored all options possible.. :)

Extremist Republic Of India!

There seems to be a competition in India as to who can be more radical, the Hindu Right Wing or the Isamic Right wing or the Christian Right wing or the Sikh Right wing or ..self appointed moral police.... They come in many names and flavors, but each of them is a moronic organization wanting to turn india back to middle ages.

I am ashamed at what happened in the Mangalore Pub today, and its high time the Indian society as such starts condemning rather than condoning such acts of hooliganism. Is there no Law and Order in this country? Who the hell are these self appointed guardians of Morality? Today they beat up teenagers in a pub, tomorrow they will demand women not work, or study or wear what they want, Does India even have a Police and Judiciary anymore? I think this is criminal and actually crime PAYS IN INDIA at the moment.

We beat up people for everything, for writing sign boards in english, for naming shops in a certain way, for writing books, for making movies, for painting, for being Hindu, for being Muslim, for being Human, for being WOMAN, for being MAN for lack of it. India is going down the drain,SAVE IT NOW please, and i don't want people, i want the law to uphold its neutrality, I plead to the judiciary with folded, hands, please, for India's sake stop this nonsense hooliganism, stop these facists and self appointed guardians of morality from running parallel justice in India.

Ban these organizations for God's sake, and all those who distributed sweets when the Hyderabad police gunned down 4 alleged culprits of the acid attacks, today you are celebrating delivery of instant justice, but tomorrow you would have created a monster without accountability, we as citizens can not afford to lose faith in judiciary and take law into individual hands, for God's sake, lets not make India another Afghanistan. I am not sure, how to explain, I don't know if PIL's help, I am not sure the politicians would learn form our neighbor and understand the risks of encouraging religious extremism and moral policing by any group?

Today, on the eve of Republic day, I am once again ashamed of my country, even after so many days, this so called republic can not give freedom to individuals, to thoughts, to ideas. We need moral policing, we need groups like the Ram Sena, Bajrang Dal, The Imams who give out Fatwas in Dozens to decide how we dress, how we paint, how and what we read, how we live. Good luck to Extremist Republic of India :(

Legitimising Terror - The Liberal Way!

I think the West is self obsessed, be it America or the UK, even most of Europe,after the initial sympathy they offered to India, now they want to rationalize and legalize terror in the name of "Kashmir".

• The Liberal Arguments from the so called "Liberal", "Democratic","Rational", " First world" west is that, Kashmir is an elephant in the room for India, and if through the instrument of terror, which actually kills and maims Indians in the central India, another state can actually legitimately legalize the action of its so called "Non State Actors" in the name of terror.
• So, if 10 Pakistanis, mind you its 10 Pakistanis and not 10 Kashmiris, trained in sophisticated commando operations, attack India, and kill 178 people, the world actually endorses the pain of these "Pakistanis" for the "Kashmiris" and thinks India should talk and cede Kashmir with the gun on its head. Is this the ideology that the west has based itself on? Is this what Abe Lincoln fought the civil war on and united Americans? Is this the premise on which the British solved the Northern Ireland Issue? Is this the way, secular, democratic governments cow down and surrender their union to the wishes of "non state actors" who take the worlds largest democracy to hostage?
• The world needs to respect India for just one thing, first and foremost, it is THE WORLDS LARGEST DEMOCRACY, like it or not, and if anyone thinks, ANY ONE , they can cow India down to cede Kashmir by using the GUN, i would just say, "Bring em on!".
• Another hundred MUMBAI INCIDENTS can NOT wrest Kashmir from India, another 100 million deaths can not, any one who wants to test it is welcome.
• India agrees that Kashmir is a dispute, we were talking in every way possible to Pakistanis and Kashmiris and the west needs to understand the complications of the Issue. First of all, there is no concept of "Freedom" for Kashmir, as there is no legal base for this argument, Kashmir can either go to India or go to Pakistan, there is no third option in the UN Resolutions of 1948. Anyone questioning this can actually go to the united nations website and have a look at the PDF document online. So, those who are peddling the idea of "Azadi" for Kashmir are either stupid or naive.
• At least, the document on UN website proves that Freedom is not an option, so how can Kashmir get freedom, it can happen only when India gives up on it and allows Kashmir Freedom, like some recent west European nations did, but then, would Pakistan give up its part and allow a full independent country called Kashmir? It is not a part of state policy of Pakistan, as it has always insisted that Kashmir belongs to Pakistan and never actually supported freedom. The other option is the Bosnia way, which would be an all out war against India by International Forces to liberate Kashmir and Balkanise INDIA, well, I don't know if any realist would bet on that happening.
• So, narrow political appeasement of nations and short sighted solutions of breaking up countries will lead only to more blood shed, the only solution is to make it clear to nations that "Terror" can not be implemented as a state policy and its cost would be punitive.
  I am not surprised, for, in some societies, the length of the mini skirt decides the amount of democracy and free thinking, rather than "Neutrality" of thought and action.
• Liberals are also extremists, just because, they also subscribe to a far end view of the spectrum not supported by the majority. My message to the West, PLEASE DO NOT PREACH WHAT YOU WOULD NOT FOLLOW!