Ananth Venkatesh

In the final part of the Indo-Pak story, Ananth says that India ought to not believe in words of peace and make concessions or promises till the proven industry of terrorism is annihilated by Pakistan.

Any Indian government, which negotiates with Pakistan when no tangible action has been adopted by Pakistan to incarcerate the terrorist, Hafeez Saeed, is a dishonorable government.

Any Indian government or think tank or media house, which even contemplates negotiations with Pakistan for the ‘resolution’ of Siachen/Sir Creek/J&K disputes, is a hopelessly unrealistic and inexcusably idealistic entity. This vision of talking is unpardonably utopian as the terrorist industry in Pakistan has mushroomed in the last 15 years.

The dangerous battlefield [source]

There have been murders of prominent Pakistani politicians such as the Pakistani Punjab’s former Governor, Salman Taseer, and the former Pakistani Federal Minister, Shahbaaz Bhatti. The ISI and the Pakistani military have demonstrated no concrete sign to India and to the global community of their full breakaway from these macabre terrorist groups who carried out the killings. No convictions of the detained Pakistanis have occurred in Pakistan in order to provide justice to the casualties of the 26/11 barbarities in Mumbai. The ISI and the Pakistani military will be the final deciders of the Pakistani relationship with India, not the democratically chosen feeble Pakistani government.

There have been mammoth instances of Pakistan fomenting ghoulish terrorism in India, with some help from some indigenous Indians. Temporarily, the Indian government is outraged and appalled and desists from having conversations with Pakistan. But then, with the passage of time, everything is forgotten and India is conversing with Pakistan again and issuing homilies in support of Indo-Pak tranquility. Indian PM Manmohan Singh emits commendations of the ‘Pakistani intentions of peacefulness.’ But the terrorists are there on that country’s soil planning their next atrocity on India, the laboratory of Islamic terroristic experimentation.

Shahbaz Bhatti: A cardinal has called for the Church to consider declaring 
the murdered Pakistani politician a saint [source]

It should be an Indian governmental principle that India will not negotiate with a Pakistani government that doesn’t deliver an onslaught on terrorism. Sagacious and realistic diplomacy doesn’t mean that India should continue to have unfettered dialogue with the Pakistanis even if anti Indian Islamic dragons in Pakistan continue to envenom themselves untouched. Talking to this Pakistani government and even mulling over any ‘peace deal’ with them is an affront to the thousands of casualties in India. These Indian casualties, who have been exterminated in crowded trains, buses, marketplaces and outside temples, deserve an Indian government that doesn’t compromise with a Pakistani administration that doesn’t whip terror on its soil.

The bottom line is that Pakistan will continue to adhere to the policy of making India bleed gradually. This policy was embraced by the Pakistani State after the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh by India during the Indo-Pak battle of 1971.

This Pakistani policy is likely to continue at least till Pakistan attains its prime goal of annexing J&K. The question is, should India let that happen for the sake of ‘peace’ with Pakistan? For any kind of ‘durable’ peace and for a wholesome ‘resolution’ of Indo-Pak ‘disputes’, as stressed by Pakistan, India will have to make territorial and administrative concessions on Kashmir to Pakistan. India will have to make some territorial concession to Pakistan on the strategically important Siachen Glacier.

Then only, Pakistan will be satisfied and there may be ‘peace.’

[source] Still not solved. Not cared.

• Should India make these concessions and thereby scorn the sacrifices of its military personnel in J&K, who have sacrificed their lives to continue J&K’s association with India?
• Should India make the Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh minorities in Kashmir additionally vulnerable by making concessions on Kashmir to Pakistan? What about the miserableness of the condition of the dispossessed Kashmiri Hindus, millions of whom are not in their Kashmiri hometowns and are, instead, in piteous refugee camps and in other parts of India?
• Should India lose the strategic advantage it has currently by demilitarizing Siachen in the absence of any foolproof guarantee from the Pakistani military that it will not try to reoccupy Siachen clandestinely?
• Can Pakistani ‘tranquil’ intentions be trusted by India in the presence of such terrorist sectarianism in Pakistan, in the presence of copious anti-Indian Islamic terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan (and in Pak-possessed Kashmir)?

Illogical sentimentality with Pakistan will make India appear to be a friend of foolhardiness and idiocy. Indian military potency and an indefatigable resolve to place terror in an unrecoverable comatose condition will be India’s savior, not comical emotionalism. A nation that indulges in comical emotionalism on security matters will be ridiculed by the world. India can start off by executing some of the convicted terrorists in India jails, who are with the death penalty.

Ananth Venkatesh

Ananth does not trust the peace talks of Imran Khan and charts out the path he may be taking to oust India from Afghanistan, thereby creating worse conditions for India, the West and international peace. The real messengers of peace like Burhanuddin Rabbani are being murdered while the politicos are making pacts with the murderers. Part two of three in his story on India-Pakistan peace relations. (part one)

The infrastructural robustness and the ideological verve of these Pakistani terrorist groups are largely unstained and unbroken, notwithstanding the outlawing of some of them periodically by the Pakistani government. The outlawing is so passive and ineffective that these groups regroup and rename themselves and their aims to make themselves more palatable to the global community. They reincarnate themselves as outfits of philanthropy. Pakistan can then conveniently express its incapacity to crack and illegalize these ‘charitable outfits.’

The Jamaat-ud-Dawa is the humanitarian wing of the 
Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group (source)

Essentially, these ‘charitable outfits’ have the same demoniacal aspiration as their terrorist founders. One needs to look at the ‘transformation’ of the proscribed Laskhar-e-Toiba into a ‘philanthropic outfit’, which has meant that the Lashkar has circumvented the proscription on it by adorning the guise of a ‘charitable outfit’, which it may very well be, but its intentions and infrastructure, as well as finances for funding terror, still are healthy. Lashkar, LeJ and Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami were involved in the many unsuccessful endeavors to bump off Musharraf, which led majorly to their toothless banning in the first place. Of course, these terrorist groups have indulged in bloodthirsty bellicosity against Western interests as well, such as the vehicular bombing in June 2002 near the American Consulate in Karachi. The LeJ is also accused of participation in the loathsome homicide of the former Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007.

The menace of these extremist Pakistani outfits hasn’t faded away, with many of their members forging ultra-orthodox political alliances, whose mammoth congregations have been attended by the functionaries of Imran Khan’s emerging political party, Tehreek-e-Insaaf. Imran Khan has promoted himself as the bringer of a better future for the Pakistani populace. He is, apparently, a stainless candidate unlike Zardari and some of the other conventional Pakistani politicians, who have been encircled by allegations of subornment and nepotism. Imran Khan does represent a new political fragrance for the Pakistani electorate as he is untested administratively and, hence, bereft of the grubbiness of allegations of corruption. But his standpoints on Afghanistan, on the Taliban, on the Pakistani political ultraconservatives, on the Pakistani terrorist outfits, on the international military presence in Afghanistan, etc. are fundamentally worrisome for Indian interests and strategic wellbeing.

Imran Khan advocates a dialogue with the Pakistani and Afghani Taliban to procreate orderliness in Afghanistan. Talking to these terrorist outfits, which have not hesitated to murder prominent Afghan messengers of peace such as Burhanuddin Rabbani, is a catastrophic idea, which will eliminate whatever democracy and tolerance that exists in Afghanistan today under the presence of the ISAF. Talking to the Talibani outfit will mean compromising with them if success has to be accomplished during the talks. That means that the Talibani demand for political power in Kabul will have to be accommodated. The cultural, religious, sectarian and gender bigotry practiced by the Taliban will come to the fore more openly if the Taliban acquires political potency. The objective behind the justifiable liberation of Afghanistan by the ISAF in 2001 was the extermination of the poisonous infrastructure of the Taliban. To accord the Taliban political power in any form would be to infringe the core principles upon which the invasion of Afghanistan was implemented in October 2001 by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the 9/11 carnage on American soil that was thickly assisted by the Al-Qaeda leadership safeguarded on Afghan earth by the then governing Taliban.

Burhanuddin Rabbani was the former head of the High Peace Council before he was killed in September 2011 [Reuters] [source]

The Talibani penetration of political potency in Kabul, as a part of any ‘peace pact’ arranged by the Pakistanis and even by the reluctant Americans, would be devastating for the stabilizing Western influence in Afghanistan. The Talibani access to the Afghan governmental corridors would be a blow that incapacitates Indian influence in Afghanistan, which has been beneficial for Afghan infrastructural development since 2011. The Taliban entrance into the Afghan government would mean an increased likelihood of sanctuaries being provided in Afghanistan for Taliban terrorists, who are opposed to the West and to India (non-Islamic India/Hinduism). An Afghanistan without the ISAF, even under a national coalitional administration consisting of the Taliban, will be forced to depend on Pakistani tutelage. Pakistan can take advantage of its meaningful connections with segments of the Taliban (terrorist Haqqani network) to exert considerable pressure on Afghanistan after 2014, 2014 being the year of the intended disengagement of American troops from Afghan soil.

Pakistan will then block any Indian attempt to gain a toehold in Afghani matters such as Indian investment in the Afghani economy, Indian training for the Afghani military, etc. Pakistan will subdue Afghani strategic independence to such an extent that India will be regarded as a pariah in an Afghanistan that is devoid of the ISAF and that is, subsequently, under the coercive counseling of the Pakistani State (ISI, Pakistani military). An Afghanistan, which has a central coalitional government with the Taliban as one coalitional component, will be a nation fractured by political unsteadiness, administrative procrastination and obdurate inter-ministerial divergences. In the event of a coalitional government in collaboration with the Taliban, a few ministries will have to be handed over to the Talibani hands. Such a government will be forever under incapacitating political paralysis of different degrees.

Afghan National Police officers, seen training with mock guns during a session with ISAF soldiers from the German Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) at the German army camp in Fayzabad, northern Afghanistan, Monday, Sept. 29, 2008. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
ISAF benefitted the Afghan police and civilian administration in training activities.

The Taliban, on acceding to the democratic political process in Afghanistan as part of a ‘serenity accord,’ may ensure the temporary deactivation of their armed cadres to gain international succor. However, after the ISAF withdrawal from Afghan soil in 2014, the Taliban, even if it is a part of the political process in Afghanistan then, can effortlessly reactivate the militariness of its cadres as there will be, at best, an inconsequential global military presence in Afghanistan after 2014. Reactivation of its armed cadres will not be difficult for the Talibani political wing then.

After the ISAF disengagement from Afghanistan in 2014, the whole geopolitical and geo-strategic scenario vis-à-vis Afghanistan will alter. Pakistan, through means such as its endorsement of the deadly Haqqani network, may become the major foreign player in Afghanistan and the weary West may relent. This means that anti-Indian Islamic terrorist factories could reopen in Afghanistan after 2014 and function more freely. Terrorists could be pushed from Afghanistan to Pakistan, their border being unmanageably unlawful and unruly. These terrorists could then infiltrate Indian Kashmir from Pakistani soil i.e. vintage cross-border terrorism. Anti Western terrorists could house themselves in Afghanistan after 2014 with the guarantee of receiving safe havens from the Afghan government, which has the political Taliban as its part. If the moderate pro-Indian Afghani parliamentarians protest against Talibani dictatorialness, then the Taliban could disengage from the Afghani political process and threaten to instill anarchical bloodshed on the streets.

Will the West intercede militarily then to terminate the Taliban threat?

A Taliban blast in Kabul (source)

Another full-fledged Western military intercession is highly improbable considering the Western tiredness on account of the current Afghan conflict. Pakistan will be the only country that will then trumpet to the world that it has the power to stabilize Afghanistan and kill the prospective anarchy there. This will mean, at least, that Pakistan will ‘arrange’ a very strong Talibani presence in the national Afghan government, which will represent the sidelining of other relatively broadminded Afghan political parties, with strategic conviviality towards India. Pakistan, in order to assert itself in Afghanistan, may desire and come up with a heavily Talibani Afghan government. This will typify the termination of the meaningfulness of the Indian diplomatic presence in Afghanistan as the Taliban will not aspire to do any business with India.

Pakistan shares a border with Afghanistan and India doesn’t. India currently doesn’t have a military existence on Afghan soil. It will be difficult for India to penetrate Afghanistan militarily after 2014 if the Talibani virulence for India manifolds. India will be a tragic loser.

This is the reality that Imran Khan desires, despite knowing the thick connections between Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other Pakistani Islamic terrorist groups. Negotiations with the Taliban represent a core strategy of Imran Khan to heighten the Pakistani influence in Afghanistan after 2014 and to decapitate Indian influence there after 2014.  [Photo:"By 2014 Afghans will be fully responsible for their security' [source]]

Imran Khan aspires to see the ouster of a constructive Indian presence in Afghanistan. His sugarcoated talks about Indo-Pak peace being one of his primary goals must not make India position blind trust in him.

His alliances with the Pakistani political ultraconservatives, who have zero respect for India, his advocacy of discussions with Pakistani extremist groups to create orderliness in Pakistan and in the lawless Waziristan, his disparagement of the stableness that the Western military presence and the Indian diplomatic presence have brought to Afghanistan, etc. embody his political personality, which is unpalatable and indigestible for the idea of peace in South Asia.

He has not spoken at length about the measures that he would take to dissect the Islamic terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan. He probably never will speak at length on this matter since he doesn’t intend to do anything of this sort. India, at this stage, can derive no comfort from the electioneering and sloganeering of Imran Khan and his allies.

Ananth Venkatesh

Pakistan is unable/unwilling to stop the mushrooming terror camps at home, though their leader speaks of mutual peace in India. In this multi-part series on India-Pakistan relations, Ananth Venkatesh talks of the condition of peace in Pakistan, the threat to their populace from home-grown terror groups, the effects of America’s troop withdrawl from Afghanistan on India, and the need to be wary of Imran Khan’s peace talks.

“If the American troops and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) withdraw from Afghanistan as planned, 2013-14 are going to be crucial watershed years for India as far as the security of our western border is concerned”  -  Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne

“It is Kabul now we are dealing with. The moment we resolve that, we will take over the next phase to liberate Kashmir from Jammu & Kashmir state” –  Hafiz Saeed

The recent spiritual voyage of the Pakistani President, Asif Zardari, to India recently, which also had a Pakistani political presence enmeshed in it, epitomizes yet another measure in the tempestuous diplomatic history between India and Pakistan. In his journey to the respected Mohammedan shrine in Rajasthan’s Ajmer, known as Ajmer Sharif Dargah (ASD), Zardari had company in the form of his young son, Bilawal Bhutto, who is, at the tender age of 23, the occupant of the post of chairmanship of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), despite having exiguous active political experience. But possessing the Bhutto surname and having the Late Benazir Bhutto as your mother unburdens Bilawal from the requirement of hands-on political experience in Pakistan’s stormy, sectarian and toxic politics in order to become the chairman of the PPP. Zardari arrived in India with the prominent Pakistani Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, who is quite adept at offering the Indian political media access to him. Zardari sought connection with divinity on arriving at the ASD, which was, by then, surrounded by a high hill of security presence. Zardari’s fairly substantial grant of $5 million to the ASD, seemingly for the welfare of the ASD, was a gesture that must have been heartwarming for the ASD’s management.

There was a get-together in the Indian Prime Ministerial residence between the Indian PM, Manmohan Singh, and Zardari while the latter was en-route to Ajmer. As has become customary during such visits, the statements by the two leaders and the two nations’ delegations were symbolized by insipid and docile declarations of tranquil intentions. The two leaders pronounced that they had congeniality in their minds and hearts for the Indian and Pakistani populace. While such proclamations of warless intentions are indeed welcome from the Pakistani State’s head, one needs to refrain from forgetting that such idyllic pronouncements have been uttered in the recent history by Indian and Pakistani leaders.

There has, however, been no extermination in the Pakistani terrorist infrastructure despite these rosy and blissful statements of peace emanating from the Pakistani governments and political parties in the recent past. In fact, the numerical and infrastructural strength of Pakistani terrorism has only strengthened in the last few years, with a miscellany of outfits sprouting on Pakistani soil.

Pakistani school girls and pedestrian move away from the site of a bomb blast in Peshawar on January 3, 2012. Two separate bomb blasts in Pakistan’s troubled northwest on January 3 killed five people and wounded 26 others, police said. (1/3/2112) AFP/Getty Images 

…Sunni-Shiite bloodshed

‘Organisations’ such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahedeen, which are conventional and ill-famed, have been joined by other Islamic fundamentalist outfits such as Sipah-e-Sahaba (SeS) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). Each of these is characterized by virulent inimicalness towards India, towards non-Muslims in India and towards secularism in India. The aspiration of these Sunni terrorist outfits is to ground an Islamic Sultanate/Caliphate in India with the decapitation of non-Islamic religions in India. The lethality and depravity of these outfits are so copious that they have limitless hatred for Shiite Muslims’ ideological structure as well. They regard the Shiites as unworthy heretical Muslims, who deserve the kismet of subjugation and extinction. The long-standing and grisly history of the massacres of the Shiites in Pakistan has been caused by militant outfits such as SeS and LeJ.

Afghani Shiites too have not been spared by these Sunni terror groups. The LeJ is strongly believed to have been involved in the terrorist assaults on Afghani Shiites on December 6 2011, when three macabre terrorist atrocities demolished Afghani urban areas simultaneously on the auspicious Shiite Ashura, which terminated 63-80 Shiite pilgrims. The frequent murders and pulping of Pakistani Shiites, more so during the Shiite sacred ceremonies in Pakistan, is a testament to the sectarian murderousness of these outfits’ philosophy. These terrorist organizations are there intact and are mushrooming, with charitable arms sprouting out of these terrorist outfits (Jamaat-ud-Dawa). The robust popular presence at the rallies of the Pakistani Islamic extremist leaders in different Pakistani cities demonstrates their healthy base. India can’t ignore this gruesome and insidious reality in the name of peace. India can’t let ignorant, self-destructive and illogical emotionalism dictate the course of her relationship with Pakistan.

The organized systematic genocide of Shiite Muslims in Pakistan
has claimed 58 lives and injured 67 during the month of January 2012 in 32 attacks. (source)

The perilously ultraconservative Islamists in Pakistan, with political ambitions, are led by the likes of Hafeez Saeed, against whom the Indian government and the convicted terrorist, David Headley, have presented intense evidence in relation to the insidious role of Saeed in the mastership of the Islamic terrorist atrocities in Mumbai in November 2008. The Pakistani ultra-conservatism is recognized for its straightforward and tacit compassionateness for the additional terrorist outfits like the Pakistani Taliban.

…leaders themselves under threat

The Pakistani ultraconservatives have even declared their antipathy for the likes of the former Pakistani autocrat, General Musharraf, for his ‘strategic proximity’ to the West in the ‘global conflict against Islamist terrorism.’ Musharraf is despised by the Pakistani Taliban and other acidic Sunni (Punjabi) terrorist outfits for various reasons, one being that he is a Mohajir i.e. an Urdu-speaking immigrant with Indian birth, who then migrated to Pakistan in the aftermath of the horrific British Indian partition. Of course, Musharraf’s dexterous positioning of Pakistan in alliance with the West in the ‘war on terror’ generated vitriol for him in the minds of these Pakistani terrorist outfits. Musharraf did cooperate, to a certain extent, with the West by handing over certain sinister anti Western terrorists to the Western authorities. These terrorists were related to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. No meaningful action was taken by him, however, to oust and cripple primarily anti-Indian terrorist outfits on Pakistani soil. Also, the substantiation that is emerging gradually demonstrates that the global Islamic terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, could have been dwelling in Pakistan from as early as 2005-2006 itself, at a moment when Musharraf was in power. Musharraf, being the dictator and the lord of the Pakistani army, ostensibly failed to notice the presence of this terrorist monster on Pakistani soil.

Hardline Islamic opposition against Musharraf (source)

The Pakistani espionage and intelligence community also failed to detect bin Laden hiding on Pakistani territory. It is difficult to swallow this proposition for many observers. Musharraf and his government repetitively assured the international community that bin Laden was not present on the Pakistani earth. But that was the case in May 2011, when bin Laden was liquidated on Pakistani soil by an outrageously gallant operation implemented by the American special military forces, much to the dismay of Pakistan. The operation to extinguish Laden was a surreptitious one.

Next Part: ‘Chartable Outfits’ or terror groups? Plus, Imran Khan’s plans analysed.

Ananth Venkatesh

I profess that there is immense admiration and fascination in me for Hinduism and for the many divinities that epitomize this faith.

The sacred books such as the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita and many others provide this religion with its seductively cerebral foundations. The duration of the survival of these pious treatises illustrates their attachment to the psychology and mentality of the Indian State.

The gorgeousness of Hindu treatises is that their applicabilities is not confined to the Hindus alone. Sage standpoints are enshrined in the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas, etc., which offer suggestions to the individual humans as regards apt and judicious fashions of administering and directing any human life. The advices of these visionary Hindu tomes are not exclusivist. None of these books have been awarded the most paramount position in the Hindu scriptural hierarchy.

The Bhagavad Gita is not exclusivist and does not speak ill of other religions. Photo Source

Christian and Islamic sacred books are defined, at times, by their inferences linking foreign religions to heathenism or incivility or unenlightenment or primitivism. The connotation – displeasingly – in certain pages of these books is that these uncouth foreign religions have to be Muslimized or Christianized with muscularity if necessary. One will struggle to find the same sinful intolerance in the Hindu texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Vedas and even the monumental Hindu epics like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Also, the Gods and Goddesses of Hinduism represent sundry stories, lives and messages that have ample relevance for humankind today. The multifarious stories of Hindu deities thrill me to a beefy extent and are so pertinent in the modern world. Their pertinence will always remain.

My respect for Hinduism is unordinary probably as I have never really felt any attachment to the ‘specialty of the purity’ of Brahmanism. I never will.

I have regarded Brahmanic preeminence in ritualistic Hinduism as a concept that wholly mars the vast intellectual extraordinariness of Hinduism. Brahmanic absolute supremacy should be a concept that should be abolished by the Hindu society itself. The theological, cerebral and scriptural richness of Hinduism can survive even in the absence of outright Brahmanic ascendancy.

Brahmin: A person who is literate in Vedas and Vedic Science

Kshatriya – A person who protects and fight for the a kingdom/country

Vaishya – A person involved in running in trade, agriculture.

Shudra – A person who works for others.

From Here.

My cherished mission is to see comprehensive Hindu unity in India, which covers politics, culture and social order. This goal of unity cannot afford senseless, pejorative and preposterous caste hierarchies in Hindu society, which only assist the internal and external foes of Hinduism.

Thus, while I will unendingly venerate and propagate the mammoth knowledgeableness and visionariness of the Hindu faith, its epics, its books, its scriptures, etc, I will never be able to associate myself with the Brahmanic stream of Hinduism. Brahmanic presence may be kept at the same social level as that of other communities.

Vishwamitra (bearded) was not born as a Brahmin. His Brahminism was a result of his work. Photo Source  

On a more lighthearted note, another Hindu issue, which appeals to me immensely, is the issue of Hindu interlingual matrimony. The idea of a Rajasthani Hindu male wedding a Malayalam Hindu female seems such an enticing one. Of course, the Rajasthani man needs to be in a condition of romance for the Malayalam female and vice versa.

I visualize that it would be idyllic socially if interlingual matrimonies were run-of-the-mill affairs in India. But there is strong resistance in some Hindu quarters to the thought of interlingual/intercaste marriages between Hindus. This is simply detrimental to the extraordinary status of Hinduism in the Indian soul.

We need to reach a point where interlingual nuptial ceremonies between Hindus are par for the course. Even now, lamentably, there are Hindu parents, who hesitate to wed their daughters and sons to Hindus of another language. Isn’t this inexcusably senseless?

There are Hindu parents, who are unnerved on realizing that their daughter or son is in a romantic state for a Hindu of another linguistic community. For example, there would be some Hindu parents in Gujarat, who would baulk at the idea of making their son marry a Hindu Telugu female. The hesitation would be not because of the personality of the girl, which may be delightful, but because of her ‘Teluguness’.

Similarly, Tamil parents may worry on comprehending that their daughter has been smitten by a Punjabi Hindu male. The Punjabi boy may be a topaz as regards personality i.e. he may be a pleasant and responsible man. His parents may be immensely lovable. The Tamil girl and the Punjabi boy may have steady compatibility and will want to tie the knot. But the Tamil parents may exhibit procrastination as regards the marriage because of the Punjabiness of the boy. That he is also a part of the miscellaneous Hindu community is overlooked.

Such parents exist in every linguistic Hindu community. I hope that this nervousness about Hindu interlingual marriage vanishes one day in the future.

Inter-caste marriages are becoming increasingly common. Photo Source 

As regards me, I say that, if I am involved in an interlingual (love) marriage with a Hindu female (who is of Punjab or Kashmir or AP or Kerala or Maharashtra or Gujarat or Rajasthan or Karnataka or of other non-Tamil blocks), it would give me copious contentment for several reasons. I would feel that (what I am going to say now may seem heavy…..) I have played a tiny part in strengthening interlingual Hindu unity.

Obviously, I would also be happy that I married the female, for whom I had romance and respect, and who had love and esteem for me. I would be contented that I wedded a woman with whom I had fair compatibleness.

Also, I have to voice this. If I am in a state of love for a female of my linguistic community and the same sentiment is experienced by that female, obviously, matrimony would be one of the next steps for all intents and purposes.

In any case, I firmly feel that certain Hindus will have to gradually stop giving regal status to terms like Brahman, Yadav, Kayastha, Jat, Iyer, Thakur, Iyengar, Nadar, Shetty and Patel among others. This regal status cannot come at the cost of injury to overall Hindu cohesion, especially politically and as regards marital intermingling.

 Sikh-Rajput weddings have strengthened ties between the cultures and helped national integrity. Source

The inward-looking Hindus need to embrace interlingual Hindu marriages for the solid preservation of Hindu structure in the future. Also, they need to embrace it for the sake of sanity.

Another attitudinal transformation wanted in some Hindu minds desperately is the stoppage of female feticide/infanticide. This is a grisly act not worthy of mercy, especially considering the powerfulness of Hindu female divinity and the venerable status that they have in our religion.

May be… may be…… the paucity of interlingual Hindu marriages was one reason behind a mainly Hindu India being molested and disfigured by foreign religious forces in the past. The more comprehensively unified Hindus in India become, the better it would be for Hinduism’s durability here and for its ability to combat effectively mortal perils to its existence.

I was in a condition of emotionless disquiet on hearing the news of Roebuck’s suicide. When I became acquainted with the events triggering his suicide, my thought immediately revolved around the Hindu/Indian notion of ‘Kali Yuga.’

Eminent cricket writer Peter Roebuck’s suicide in a South African hotel in the paradisiacal city of Cape Town has been a source of copious astonishment for the cricketing society in general, which includes present and historical cricketers as well as writers of the game. Roebuck, whose wordsmithery about cricket was polished, thought-provoking, informative, and learnedwas present in South Africa recently in order to provide coverage for the Australian media of the ongoing exhilarating Test series of cricket between South Africa and Australia.

Suicide of such a prominent observer and communicator of cricket is, in itself, a development that rattles the mental steadiness of cricket followers. But what makes the suicide by Roebuck additionally sordid, unpalatable and tasteless is the circumstance allied to his suicide. Roebuck had been the recipient of an inquisition by the South African police over his supposed participation in an act of coercive carnal strike against the unwillingness of another male, whom Roebuck had supposedly befriended on Facebook. That Roebuck was, apparently, endeavoring to perpetrate homosexuality is not relevant here as that is a matter of personal preference. But what embitters the situation is the accusation of the South African police that Roebuck tried to implement carnal assault on the abovementioned Zimbabwean man despite the refusal of that man. This, of course, is tantamount to legal illegality, which is the source of his inquest by the South African detectives.

Roebuck seemingly couldn’t countenance the inquisitional sessions with the South African police force over his supposed forcible sexual strike on the abovementioned male. He probably deemed that the ramifications of the divulgement of his investigation would be acutely catastrophic for him and his career, which would be equal to an unwholesome public skinning of his personality. Hence, unable to countenance this possibility, he chose the path of suicide.

I was in a condition of emotionless disquiet on hearing the news of Roebuck’s suicide. When I became acquainted with the events triggering his suicide, my thought immediately revolved around the Hindu/Indian notion of ‘Kali Yuga.’ Roebuck’s demise and the bawdy determinant of his demise made my mind an even stronger proponent of ‘Kali Yuga.’ ‘Kali Yuga’ i.e. the epoch of behavioral impiousness, dissoluteness and contamination, is what exists today. Simply eye the case of Roebuck’s decease. ‘Kali Yuga’ also symbolises the capitulation of the civility in human persona to the malicious seductresses linked to behavioral pollution. Roebuck’s case epitomises this too from the looks of it.

The murders of the blameless individuals by their ungodly kith and kin over frivolous issues, promiscuous terrorism mutilating innocents as manifested by the poisons of terrorist outfits, unmitigated carnal crimes (in certain corners of India) committed mostly by persons known to the victims, carnal maltreatment and battering of bodily impaired children, traitorousness, etc. that exist in the world today are reflective of the liquid of malevolence that has seeped into human behavior. These behavioral corruptions in humans have existed ever since the era of the fascinatingly complex ‘Mahabharata’, a vital event in the Hindu/Indian history. ‘Kali Yuga’ has definitely existed since the time of the ‘Mahabharata’ and, perhaps, even before that. As per the accounts of several evaluators of Hindu scriptures, we are living in the ‘Kali Yuga.’

‘CWG Scam’, ‘2G Scam’, ‘Cash-For-Votes Scam’, demonisation of Hinduism that is labeled as ‘intellectual modernity’, sympathising with foxily hideous terror in the name of human rights, persistent vilification of the national armed forces that safeguard our national borders from the toxic fangs of national neighbors, etc. are all embodiments of the ‘Kali Yuga’ in India. This depravity in India today, which can be seen in newspapers and news channels, is in addition to the outright degeneracy that exists in certain quarters of the entertainment community. This degenerateness is provided to the audience here as entertainment, which can only serve as the contaminator and corruptor of the popular psyche here.

Globally also, the genocidal behavior in history commanded by national autocrats such as the Holocaust, the Stalinist genocide in the USSR, the Ottoman extermination of millions of Armenians in the 20th century, etc. suggest the operational efficiency of the ‘Kali Yuga.’ WW 1, WW 2, countless other barbaric international wars, invidious ethnic depopulation, etc. that were features of the 20th century also indicate the potency of the ‘Kali Yuga.’ The wicked ethnic depopulation affected badly the Kashmiri Hindus due to the barbarousness of Islamist terror while ethnic cleansing also bloodied the Bosnian Muslims because of the poisonous zealousness of Christian Serbia. 9/11, the savageness of Islamist terrorism, the gory tribal warfare, horrendous atomization of Japan in August 1945, the nuclearization of certain nations, etc are examples of the hardship and devastation that the belligerence of ‘Kali Yuga’ has caused.

Roebuck was an able English cricketer, who represented the Somerset cricket squad in English county cricket in the 1980s. He had residence subsequently in Australia. His slimy personal past may or may not be revealed in the coming days. But, already, a radio jockey named Gus Worland, who was a younger teammate of Roebuck in the 1980s in the Somerset squad, has stated that Roebuck’s behavior with him was highly unbecoming and unpleasing on one occasion. It is still difficult to accept that Roebuck has been accused of carnal assault. But the assertions of the South African police seem to be based on credibleness. Roebuck seemingly became a prisoner of the perilous deficiency of uncontrollable lustfulness.

So, the belief in ‘Kali Yuga’ continues to grow for me.

Ananth Venkatesh

It is good that Colombo was victorious in 2009 in its fight against the poison of the LTTE and that LTTE’s terror has ended. 
Ananth Venkatesh gives us a brief account of Tamil-Sinhalese conflict that has plagued Sri Lanka.

The inability of the Indian state to execute the convicted assassinators of Rajiv Gandhi, despite the repeated judicial green signals, is a perilous and worrisome indicator of the political irresoluteness that exists in the national government.

Rajiv was an ex-PM at night on May 21, 1991, when he was pulped by the ferocious explosives triggered by the LTTE’s hardened female suicide bomber, Dhanu. Rajiv, of the Indian National Congress Party (INC), had arrived in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu that month to participate in the national electoral campaigns, during which it was broadly predicted by political observers that he would reoccupy the Prime Ministerial position after the electoral results were announced. The national coalition governments, after the electoral ouster in 1989 of INC’s Rajiv from the national political arena, were headed by the impactful VP Singh, and, then, by the rustic pragmatist, Chandra Shekhar.

Rajiv’s handling, as PM, of some significant subjects such as the national religious situation related to Ayodhya and the administrative corruption personified by Bofors was dangerously mediocre. The overturning of the secular Supreme Court (SC) verdict on the Shah Bano case by his administration in 1986 riled several segments of even the moderate Hindu population, apart from giving teeth to the campaign of the ultraconservative Hindu outfits. Rajiv’s subsequent surrender to the unrighteous demands of Islamic fundamentalists by additionally constitutionalising Islamic personal laws only partitioned the public opinion in India further on communal lines

The monumental Bofors scandal, which had created questions over the integrity of the Gandhi family, had generated a political wave against the INC, which led to its defeat in the 1989 general elections.

As the King of the INC, one of India’s oldest political entities, Rajiv made no substantial effort to stem the unpalatable sycophancy that had penetrated the members of the INC during the headship of Indira Gandhi.

However, in my view, one of his few achievements as PM was his assertive and hard-nosed foreign policy, which was evident in his authorization of a military intercession by India to undo the coup in Maldives in 1988 against the Maldivian President, Abdul Gayoom. The coup was backed by the Sri Lankan Tamil insurgent organization, PLOTE. Rajiv always believed that South Asia was a zone, in which no foreign power can be allowed to wield disproportionate influence. It was his opinion that India, being the largest country in South Asia, must take the initiative in resolving political disputes in this region instead of allowing the foreign armies to enter South Asia to end the standoffs here. As per Rajiv, an inept and lethargic India, uninterested in its immediate neighbourhood, would only lead to foreign nations acquiring a strategic toehold in this region, which could then, at a later date, have put India under discomfort.

His foreign policy as regards the ethnic disorderliness in the gorgeous Sri Lankan island was a balanced one. The civil strife between the minority Tamils and the majority Sinhalese had grilled Sri Lanka ever since Ceylonese liberation from British colonialism [Photo: Tamil population in blue]. The secessionist Tamil outfits (PLOTE, LTTE, EROS, TELO, etc.) were recognized for their efficient barbarousness in their pursuit of their primary objective: the secession of northern and eastern Sri Lanka and the formation of a sovereign Tamil nation, Tamil Eelam, there. The north and east were sectors of Sri Lanka that were inhabited by Tamils conventionally.

The response of the ‘Sinhalese Sri Lankan state’ to the Tamil secessionism was largely domineering, which produced ghoulish repercussions. For the Sinhalese, the oneness of Sri Lanka had to be maintained at any cost as surrender to Tamil terrorism would inevitably have meant the breakup of Sri Lanka. The possibility of Sri Lankan division infuriated the ordinary Sinhalese nationalists, who were endorsed by the two prominent Sinhalese opposition parties, the SLFP and the UNP. As terrorism become deadlier gradually in the 1970s and 1980s with clandestine international branches opening up for acquisition of weapons, Sinhalese Sri Lanka responded even more domineeringly.

The roots of this burning ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka had begun during the era of British administration of Sri Lanka. The unilateralism of Britain in colonial Ceylon, absence of meaningful British consultation with the locals and shortage of adequate British understanding of the potential inflammability of the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka made Britain adopt some measures, which were deeply disliked by several Sinhalese. One such measure was the transfer of millions of Indian Tamils to Sri Lanka by Britain to work in the Sri Lankan coffee and tea plantations. This measure increased the Tamil presence in Sri Lanka and strengthened their clout. For the average Sinhalese, however, the Indian Tamil was nothing but an alien colonizer of Sri Lankan land. However, the economic, administrative, political and educational welfare of numerous Indian Tamils, due to their realistic cooperation with British colonialism in Ceylon, were looked at unfavourably and unkindly by the Sinhalese.

Also, the native Sri Lankan Tamils were able to stitch up a favourable relationship with the colonial British that led to the Tamils filling up several seats in the Ceylonese civil service and in other departments of the Ceylonese state.
In addition, the wars between Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms had been occurring for ages in Sri Lanka, with each side claiming righteousness was on their side.

Yes, after Ceylonese independence in 1948, the Sinhalese were able to organize and unite themselves effectively to espouse the Sinhalese cause. There was cohesiveness between the Sinhalese politicians on issues central to the Sinhalese identity and its preservation in a self-governing Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese had no Tamil kingdoms, with which they had to deal. The Sinhalese could utilize their numerical dominance to push through legislations to institutionalize Sinhalese domination of the state. That is what happened. The SLFP and the UNP, during their control of Sri Lanka respectively, after being mandated by the Sri Lankan electorate, ratified several legislations that alienated sections of the Tamils. Sinhalese was made the solitary official language of Sri Lanka, with Buddhism being pronounced as the official religion. The Sri Lankan Tamils, of course, were predominantly Hindus.

Tamil Settlement in Central Sri Lanka

Considerable Indian Tamils were disenfranchised politically by contentious legislations that had the unspoken support of some native Sri Lankan Tamils besides the vocal backing of Sinhalese political parties. Reservations in higher academic institutions designed to favour Sinhalese students agitated the Tamils, who interpreted these reservations as a malicious Sinhalese tactic to undercut the Tamil dominance in the Sri Lankan public sector. Even the native Sri Lankan Tamils slowly began to view the electoral disempowerment of the Indian Tamils as a signal from Sinhalese Sri Lanka that the Sinhalese would always receive an extraordinary place in a free Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese attitude was that the Tamils would simply have to adjust to the new ground realities.

The Sri Lankan Tamil parties were alarmed by these legislatorial moves, which weakened the Tamil position in the island. The moderate Tamil parties requested the federalization of Sri Lanka with reasonable linguistic, cultural, administrative and religious autonomy for the Tamils. But in sovereign Sri Lanka, some Sinhalese parliamentarians were severely distrustful of Sri Lankan Tamil intentions in general and considered even Tamil demands for reasonable autonomy as a step in the direction of Sri Lankan partition in the future. The geographical proximity of Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka placed fear and suspicion in Sinhalese minds that India, through the province of Tamil Nadu, could provide shelter to Tamil autonomists and agitators and exert influence upon Sri Lanka.  Sizable Sinhalese politicians were opposed to the ceding of any ground to even flexible Tamil parties.

As legislatorial means were not achieving the aim of even Tamil autonomy, Tamil terrorism was born. Outfits such as LTTE denounced the Sri Lankan democracy and labelled the Sinhalese parliamentarians as bigots, who would never give dignity to the Tamils. Bellicosity against Colombo was the only method to attain Tamil Eelam. Terrorism commenced, which led to the murders of moderate Tamil politicians as well as of the nationalist Sinhalese administrators. The Tamil terrorist outfits were responsible for these murders as well as for attacks on Sri Lankan security personnel. The rejoinder from Colombo to contain Tamil secessionism was stormy. Unfortunately, the Sinhalese rage was such that thousands of innocent Tamils were pulped in this state rage. The detestation among the Sinhalese parliamentarians for the Tamil terrorism became so strong that even requests from moderate Tamil parties for autonomy within one Sri Lanka became anathema to Sri Lanka.

Rajiv Gandhi’s active intercession to resolve this crisis in India’s neighbour demonstrated to the world that India was, at last, embracing assertiveness in its foreign policy. India intervened militarily in June 1987 to terminate the humanitarian disaster in Jaffna when it was under Colombo’s military blockade during Colombo’s struggle against Tamil separatism. However, the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord of July 1987, formalized by the then Sri Lankan President, Jayewardene, and the Indian PM, Rajiv Gandhi, was an apt example of proactive diplomacy aimed at tranquilizing a searing Sri Lanka, conserving Indian strategic interests there, preventing a foreign power from emerging in Sri Lanka to get a foothold there.

Of course, the Accord also laid down the conditions explicitly for the reinstatement of ethnic tranquillity in Sri Lanka. The Accord had provisions that expressly granted considerable autonomy, federalism and democracy to the Tamil areas in Sri Lanka. It was an accord that had the ingredients of peace and success provided there was political will on both sides. The Accord also assured Sri Lanka that its territorial integrity would not be diluted in any way and that its oneness would be intact. The principal Sinhalese demand that there be no disintegration of Sri Lankan unity was also assured by the Accord. It was a fairly model Accord for sowing the seeds of sereneness in a violent region.  Also, the Accord was legislated by the Indian Parliament and was given the go-ahead by Jayewardene.  The Accord also permitted a large number of Indian soldiers to travel to Sri Lanka to carry out military operations to curb the Tamil militancy, to disarm the terrorists and to create conditions agreeable for the democratization of the mainly Tamil northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The merger of northern and eastern Sri Lanka into one administrative unit was also enshrined in the Accord. The Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) was in Sri Lanka with the presidential consent of Sri Lanka to kill the menace of Tamil terror and to bring about tranquil contact between the Tamil secessionists and the largely Sinhalese Sri Lankan Parliament to create a peaceful solution of the ethnic war.

The writer supports the IPKF and its military activities in Sri Lanka. The IPKF was, on several occasions, trapped by the bloody slyness and disingenuousness of Tamil terrorists and, on other occasions, by the inharmonious ultra nationalism of sections of the Sinhalese population. The ultranationalist Sinhalese, on occasions, cooperated surreptitiously with the LTTE cadres to bring about the downfall of the IPKF. These ultranationalists wanted the ouster of the Indian military from Sri Lankan soil. Sinhalese ultra nationalism was convinced that Tamil terrorists and autonomists have to be defeated heartlessly by the Sri Lankan military alone devoid of foreign intervention. The IPKF, therefore, inadvertently, maimed certain innocent Sri Lankans, who were callously utilized by the LTTE, at times, as shields in their battle against the IPKF.

The IPKF wasn’t a unilateral military venture by a domineering India. It happened with the unambiguous approval of the Sri Lankan executive, headed by Jayewardene.  But the IPKF performed certain commendable tasks such as the enhancement of the damaged infrastructure in the embattled zones of Sri Lanka, the provision of assistance to Tamil victims of the civil war, democratization of the Tamil areas and the induction of reasonable serenity in the erstwhile gory areas of Sri Lanka’s north and east.

The LTTE targetted Sri Lanka’s main international airport and the adjoining military base in July 2001, destroying 13 aircrafts. Photo Sena Vidanagama / AFP / Getty Images

That Rajiv didn’t back the cause of Tamil Eelam was right. The writer believes that independence for Sri Lankan Tamils and the breakup of Sri Lanka on account of Indian military conduct would have only emboldened the LTTE. The LTTE was a dictatorial organization, which had systematically annihilated all the opposition to it. Moderate as well as fundamentalist Tamils, who disagreed even slightly with the LTTE, were bumped off by the LTTE. Through this mercilessness, the LTTE had emerged as the ‘champion’ of the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka. There is a serious possibility that the LTTE would have institutionalized its autocracy in a sovereign Tamil Eelam. An independent Tamil Sri Lanka would have forged strong bonds with Tamil Nadu, which could have increased the numerical strength of the admittedly tiny Tamil secessionism in India. The dormant Tamil secessionism in India could have been inspired by the LTTE’s attainment of a sovereign Tamil state and may have advocated aggressively the merger of Tamil Nadu with Tamil Eelam or independence for Tamil Nadu. The LTTE, in all probability, would have been the autocrat of Tamil Eelam and could have extended nefariously its support for Tamil secessionism in India. India would then have had to deal with a potentially serious linguistic problem. Also, in the 1980s, the Indian forces were bravely battling against the venomousness of Khalistani secessionism in Punjab, which had clandestine Pakistani endorsement. So, India couldn’t afford another secessionist disturbance, small or large.

The writer deems that an independent Tamil Eelam in the north and east of Sri Lanka would have been a calamity for Indian strategic interests. If the Indian military had broken up Sri Lanka, ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ would never have forgiven India for partitioning Sri Lanka. India would have lost all its influence in the ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ then and would have no strategic toehold there today. China would have inundated Sinhalese Sri Lanka militarily, strategically, economically, etc. ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ would be taking advice from Chinese diplomats on how to deal with the ‘Indian enemy.’ Pakistani espionage agents and Islamabad would have seduced ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ that would have been seething with victorious Indian military aid for Sri Lankan Tamil secessionism. A battered, bruised, furious and humiliated ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ would have thrown itself in the arms of India’s foes, China and Pakistan. China and Pakistan, with their invidiousness, would have been at our doorstep as ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ in Sri Lanka’s west and south is closer to the Indian mainland geographically.

It is good that Colombo was victorious in 2009 in its fight against the poison of the LTTE and that LTTE’s terror has ended.  The LTTE was culpable for scores of political assassinations in Sri Lanka, killing of blameless Sinhalese and destruction of Sinhalese Buddhist sites. LTTE was a frighteningly barbarous organization. Peace has come back to Sri Lanka. It would be prudent if the moderate Tamil parties arrive at an agreement with Colombo on the devolution of administrative powers to the Tamil areas in the Sri Lankan north and east. Again, this provision is enshrined in the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord.

The assassins of Rajiv deserve zero mercy from the Indian executive. Our judiciary has gifted them the death penalty. The verdict must be honoured. Anti national and base politicking over this issue, as has been observed, is a sorrowful reminder of the parochialism that can emerge in India’s polity. India lost its PM because of a gruesome assassination. The LTTE plotted and carried out it. It had the depravity to assassinate our PM. Monstrous behaviour merits no clemency.
 

Ananth Venkatesh

[ Other recent stories by the author: The Double Standards of ‘Freedom of Speech’, Hindus in the Netherlands, The Failure of Islam in Multicultural Europe]

Another related issue that comes to mind relates to the extent of artistic and creative autonomy that should be granted to writers and painters.

In a state like India, what has engendered considerable Hindu unhappiness is that the paintings of the Late MF Hussein, which depict unclothed Hindu Gods and Goddesses, are regarded as a manifestation of his artistic awesomeness. Some public figures in India, who specialize in distorting liberalism, have vehemently asserted that Hussein had the right to paint undressed Hindu divinity, even though some of these paintings had a carnal foundation. Their argument is that the Indian constitutional text endorses artistic self-governance.

Per se, I, as an India citizen, don’t have any problem whatsoever with the unclothed portrayal of Hindu Gods and Goddesses, even if there is carnal suggestiveness in them. I believe that religion mustn’t restrict our minds and intellect. We must explore the diverse facets of religion to obtain a better picture of it. Divine nudeness is not to be denounced straightaway. There is, per se, nothing incorrect in associating divinity with human emotions or humanizing divinity. Though I consider some of his paintings profoundly offensive to overall Hindu sentiments, I deem that he has the right to paint those mages, which he claims, depict the pureness of Indian divinity. While I certainly disagree with this description of his offensive paintings, I grant him the right to paint them.

If any Hindu organization is offended, as was the case in India, it can approach the court demanding penalty for the painter. The judicial verdict needs to be respected. There are provisions in the Indian constitution, which state also that no means can be employed to increase animosity between religious units or to decapitate the feelings of one religious entity.

However, I also support the right of painters to depict images of Islamic terrorism abstractly, subtly, directly or in any other way. Paintings can be made, in which the focus is on Mohammedan violence, and on indoctrination in the madrasas, which is, in several cases, directed towards the Islamic youth to make them virulent and irrational opponents of non-Islamic faiths. No voice of objection should be raised if paintings in an artistic exhibition talk about the subjugation and secondary status of numerous Islamic women in general and, more so, after matrimony. No one should complain then that these paintings hurt Islamic sentiments and that we need to be sensitive to Islamic feelings during the era of the ‘War On Terror’.

Hussein paints nude Hindu divinity and he is eulogized. However, any painter, who paints the harshness of certain provisions of the Islamic culture and jurisprudence, is dubbed as a detester of Islam. Such a painter is condemned, hounded and persecuted by the media, especially in a nation like India, where the media and intelligentsia are famous for kowtowing to Islamic fundamentalism. This is unjust and hypocritical.

Personally, I, as a Hindu, have no issues with films, cartoons, newspapers, online debates, video debates, etc. thrashing out vigorously the corruptions of contemporary Hinduism. My religion, for which I have sizable respect and admiration notwithstanding the dearth of rituality in me, has always told me about the need to be open-minded and ready to undergo changes to improve the functioning of my religion. The discussions on Hinduism in India for many decades have been symbolized by flexibility, profundity and paucity of rigidity and intransigence. I am all for openness as it only enables the removal of any dirt, which exists in Hinduism.

In the previous century in 1998, there was an intense film called ‘FIRE’, which produced a lot of heated anger among some ultrasensitive Hindu socio-political outfits. The two female protagonists in ‘FIRE’ were in a relationship of lesbianism. Their names were Hindu names deeply connected to Hindu spirituality and religiosity. The ultrasensitive Hindu outfits demanded a ban on the film as it depicted lesbianism within a Hindu marital household. But I don’t have any opposition to ‘FIRE.’ Its screening should have been allowed.

The problem begins when Islamic fundamentalists are appeased, mollycoddled and when their stubborn and illogical demands are satisfied e.g. the banning of Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ in India in the 1980s. It was a senseless, shameless, cowardly and impotent move by the Indian national government then, headed by the Congress (I) with a thumping majority. It was the first glaring and dangerous example of corrupted secularism being practiced by the Indian government. On seeing the unreasonable demands of extremist Muslim organizations being met by a shamefully indecisive Indian polity, it was only inevitable that the ultraconservatives among the Hindus would be bolstered. I have no reservations about the ‘Satanic Verses’ or Tasleema Nasreen’s ‘Lajja’, or about James Laine’s tome about the valiant King Shivaji, in which Laine contentiously alleged that Shivaji had Islamic bloodline too. None of these books should have been banned.

One saw how Nasreen was harassed and intimidated in secular India by the wretchedly intolerant Muslim outfits in 2007 and 2008. There needs to be one governmental voice that expressly condemns bullying and intimidation by any religious group, which wants to strangle free speech and expression. No politics of electoral banks!

[This concludes Ananth’s series on multiculturalism and freedom of speech.]

Ananth Venkatesh

[Previously written by the author: Hindus in the Netherlands, The Failure of Islam in Multicultural Europe] 

I have to declare that Europe, especially after overseas decolonization, has been a society very ready to discuss the ills that plague modern Christianity. Certain facets of Christian history and the invidious Christian role in European imperialism abroad have been denounced firmly and, at times, with certain ruthlessness. Therefore, Wilders has the right to decry the bellicosity that exists in certain clauses of the Islamic holy book. He is well within the rights and liberties that the Dutch constitution provides him. He hasn’t surpassed any boundary set by the Dutch law.

Robustness, dispassionateness, comprehensiveness, deepness and candidness have characterized socio-political debates in the Dutch society in the last 25 years. Religion, even Christianity, hasn’t been permitted to subdue the Dutch intellect and reasoning. Therefore, it is inevitable that Islam in the Netherlands and some of its degenerations will also be scrutinized profoundly by the Dutch intelligentsia. If any Muslim is dissatisfied with the depiction of Islam in a cartoon, article, TV show, etc. he can approach the Dutch courts for resolving his grievances.

Belligerent infringement of the Dutch law was done in 2004 when a Muslim Dutchman of Moroccan bloodline, Mohammed Bouyeri, killed Theo van Gogh, a notorious but impactful Dutch media personality. Theo, along with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the female Somali writer, made a divisive short film, ‘Submission’, which conversed about the subdual of women in certain Islamic societies.

Consider this; if Indian artist M F Hussein has the right to paint the undressed ‘Bharat Mata’ without respecting the sentiments of innumerable Hindus, then the Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard [seen in photo], has the right to show, via cartoons, that Islamic extremists derive inspiration from a number of aggressive passages in the Islamic holy tome.

Westergaard did this in September 2005. Then, his cartoons depicting the scriptural violence in Islam were published in a prominent Danish broadsheet, Jyllands-Posten. One such famous cartoon was the one, in which the Islamic Prophet was wearing a bomb in his turban. I find nothing wrong in these cartoons. There needs to be an honest debate everywhere on the bigotry and antagonism that have permeated sizable Islamic populations in Europe.

This is despite the European continent providing them with wonderful healthcare, first-rate academic institutions, excellent residences, employment, etc. Praying that Europe undergoes Islamization is a manifestation of the ungratefulness of certain immigrant Muslims in Denmark, France, Britain, Germany, etc. Individual European countries will pursue their national interests in Islamic lands militarily or economically. But that doesn’t offer immigrant Muslims in Europe a license to slay blameless Europeans. Such an attitude, which prevails in certain Muslim quarters in Europe, is a demonstration of outright thanklessness by the radicalized Muslims to the advantages the European life has given them. European democracy is extremely liberal in several ways. The Muslims need to understand that and comply with the European principles such as freedom of speech, expression, free press, etc.

It is only natural that refusal to integrate with the Dutch language and Dutch way of life by certain Muslims will naturally lead to political calls for a ban on Islamic immigration.

Westergaard has had to endure two attempts by Islamists to slay him. Westergaard is not alone among the European political commentators, who have highlighted the dangerous degradation and violent autocracy that have crept into Islamic societies in Europe. Geert Wilders generated and discharged a contentious short film titled ‘Fitna’ in 2008, which speaks about Koranic segments being responsible for the emergence of Islamic terrorism and Mohammedan universalism that have blighted Europe and countries such as India.

‘Fitna’ was again the subject of global media scrutiny and Islamic ire due to its relentless criticism of the hostility and backwardness of Islam that is wholly incompatible with the pluralism and liberty of the 21st century Dutch society.

Again, if the Iranian media can organize a pejorative and depreciatory competition of cartoons about the Holocaust, then European commentators have the right to raise uncomfortable queries about Islam. [Photo Left: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the ‘holocaust’ and calls it a conspiracy.]

Certain segments of the Arabic media regularly write and publish anti-Semitic articles, publish anti Jewish cartoons and legitimize the killings of blameless Jews in Israel and globally. It is not that uncommon to read references in the Muslim media that label non-Muslims as heathenish, as kaffirs, as infidels, as nonbelievers. There is not much condemnation of that in the Islamic world.

Close to none.

[Next: In the final part of the series, Ananth considers the duplicity of ‘freedom of speech’ in India]

Ananth Venkatesh

[Follows “The Failure of Islam in Multicultural Europe”]

Note: The Dutch people are native to the Netherlands. Holland is a region in the western part of Netherlands. Though commonly accepted, Holland is not the same as Netherlands.

It isn’t as if Wilders is anti immigration outright. One hasn’t heard Wilders excoriate the Hindu Dutch citizens i.e. the Dutchmen and Dutchwomen of Indian bloodline.

Most of the Dutch inhabitants of Indian lineage currently have Indian ancestors, who immigrated in the 20th century to the Netherlands from Suriname, a former Dutch colony in South America that attained independence from the Dutch in the 1970s. The Dutch colonial administrators in Suriname had, via an accord in the 1860s and 1870s with the colonial British rulers in India, imported millions of North Indian indentured labourers (slaves) (chiefly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh).

These Indians were ordered to work in the Surinamese plantations as slavery, which maimed black Africans, had been abolished in the 1860s in the Dutch Suriname. The labour market had to be filled by labourers in the absence of the uninhibited supply of Black slaves. These Indian labourers integrated themselves wonderfully with their Dutch environment in Suriname while simultaneously getting a pittance for toiling in the Surinamese plantations and improving the Surinamese infrastructure. They gained knowledge of the Dutch language and participated actively in the Surinamese self-rule movement, which led to the Surinamese liberation from Dutch governance.

Today, the Indians are the largest racial community in Suriname, with Hinduism being a significant religion there, with several temples dedicated to Hinduism. Politically too, the Surinamese Indians are potent.

The point that is being made is that Dutch Indians or the Hindu Dutch have never tried to impose their value systems upon the wider Dutch society. The Hindu Dutch have accepted the supremacy of the uniform and secular Dutch laws and haven’t demanded hostilely the enactment of Hindu laws meant to govern only the Hindu community in the Netherlands.

The Hindus have been allowed to openly practice their faith by the Dutch constitution. There are beautiful Hindu temples in the Dutch cities, where the Hindus go to express their reverence for the manifold Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The Hindus are aware of the Dutch language and haven’t attempted to terrorize the Dutch society with chauvinist demands.

The mainstream Dutch political parties have Dutch Indians amongst their members and have committed themselves to protect the Hindu Dutch. Again, the fact that, by and large, Hindu Dutch are not the target of rightist Dutch political parties, unlike the Islamic Dutch populations, illustrates the message of tolerance, harmony and coexistence that has been instilled into the Hindu mind-set in any foreign land. Again, there may be lunatic fanatics of the far right, who may target the Hindus in the Netherlands. However, mostly, the Hindus are a respected lot in the Netherlands and the ire of the Dutch Right is for the Muslims.

• The largest Hindu Temple in Europe is being constructed in Holland. It will be open to people in 2014. Watch videos about Hindu Schools in Netherlands here

Next part: Ananth writes about ‘Freedom of Speech’ and its application – without exception – to all religions.

Ananth Venkatesh

The news of the judicial exoneration of Geert Wilders, the far-right Dutch MP, has re-energized the debate on the degree of multiculturalism in the democratic and pluralistic Western half of the European continent.

Ananth writes that Muslims from the middle-east countries are interested in the better living conditions provided by European-Christian nations. However, if the Muslim intention is not to assimilate but to impose their way of life upon the host nation, then their immigration to Europe must be put to a stop.

[A multi-part story. Kartikey’s story on feminism and male-ego will resume after this series.]

Wilders is the leader of the rightist ultra-nationalist Dutch political party, Party For Freedom. Wilders, who has dynamically directed his party in the last few years, has, recently, been absolved of the accusations of encouraging hatred against the Dutch Muslims via his anti Muslim statements in various fora such as the political campaigns, Internet, broadsheets, films, etc.

Wilders has accused sections of the Islamic immigrants in the Netherlands for being culpable for the distortion, corruption, mutilation and decapitation of the traditional Dutch socio-political principles of liberality, tolerance, liberty, broadmindedness, egalitarianism and uninhibited speech.  The dread of offending the voluble Islamic minority in the Netherlands has, in the recent past, resulted in the Dutch polity following the path of the appeasement of the Muslims.

Subconsciously and, in a growing number of cases, consciously, certain Dutch, Danish, French, British Muslims, etc. are sympathetic to the chief demands of the Islamic fundamentalists, one of which is that Islamic laws like the Sharia govern the Islamic existence in the European continent. 

There is a general Islamic resistance in European societies to integrate and assimilate in public life with the European way. After all, Wilders has only assailed certain portions within the Islamic theology, which prevent Muslims from integrating with the crucial values of their adopted homeland (non-Muslim homeland).

At the centre of this obdurateness, is a sentiment among these European Muslims, which is that Islam is the best and truest religion in the world. This sentiment is seen in Internet fora, mass media, mosques, political campaigns, Islamic movies, etc. where the concerned Muslims constantly blabber about the intellectual supremacy of their religion. This sentiment is, unsurprisingly, even expressed by the Muslims educated in the most liberal colleges of the West.

This view is articulated nonchalantly even in general discourses among certain European Muslims.

Their reference to non-Muslim faiths as practitioners of heathenism or as infidels is well-known. It is another glaring example of the deep-seated intolerance, with which the ordinary Muslim mind, even in Europe, has gone to bed.

The roots of this intolerance and narrow-mindedness again go back, to a fair extent, to the ‘sacred Islamic texts’, which promote, in certain passages, a brand of chauvinism, which is wholly incongruous with the modern world, and which is more amenable to the cultural darkness of the Middle Ages in Europe and the Middle East.

It is necessary to disparage the audaciousness, with which influential Muslim theologians, in Christian Europe and in Hindu India, mock, belittle and berate the faiths of their host countries. Instead of expressing gratitude to the Christians in Europe and to the Hindus in India for permitting the Muslims to live with dignity and practice their faith openly, what is observed in certain voluble Islamic quarters is the assertion of the desire that Muslims in Europe be fully segregated from the rest of the Europeans with the introduction of the Islamic penal code.

This is undeniably condemnable.

This is already the case in a nation like Hindu India, which, despite clear constitutional mandates and judicial declarations, due to its supine politicians, continues to let the Muslim personal law administer several segments of the lives of Indian Muslims.

It is the duty of the Muslims to follow the secular laws of secular European nations and India.  The Muslims have to respect the constitutional secularism of these nations. If the Muslims are keenly desirous of adhering to the Islamic way of life, the option of relocating to the Islamic Middle East exists.

Europe is not Islamistan. Also, it would be difficult to witness any Middle Eastern national government sanction the creation of new churches, which is an attitude that differs from the presence of numerous gorgeous mosques in European nations.

It is true that the Muslims in the European ghettos, which are European citadels of self-enforced Islamic segregation, look at certain demands of Islamic extremist outfits sympathetically. There is no option for these Muslims but to assimilate with their host nations. If the Muslim intention was not to assimilate but to impose their way of life upon the host nation, then they should halt their immigration to Europe.

Obviously, the European life is attractive for these Muslims as it offers higher salaries, enhanced standard of livelihood, better education, superior infrastructure, etc. It is the responsibility of every right-thinking Muslim to integrate with the country that offers them these benefits. Integration needn’t mean releasing yourself from your faith in your religion. It is just that you need to respect your host country’s constitution. The problem is that the liberalness of the European constitutions is indigestible to sizable Muslims there due to their intercourse with the ultra-orthodox chapters of Islam.

Wilders has urged that the Dutch Muslims amalgamate themselves with the core Dutch political and intellectual principles, which are, in any case, not opposed fundamentally to the presence of diverse religions in the Dutch society. Wilders is entitled to seek a restriction on Muslim immigration to the Netherlands. It has been mentioned by numerous non-Muslim Dutch citizens that considerable Dutch Muslims don’t even know to converse in Dutch fluently. Knowledge of Dutch is essential. It needs to be remembered that the European continent includes States that are dominated by a solitary language i.e. French in France, Spanish in Spain, Portuguese in Portugal, German in Germany, etc. Of course, there also exist linguistic minorities in European nations. Numerous Dutchmen complain that not many Muslim Dutch can communicate in Dutch as their primary language. The Dutch, similar to other Europeans, are passionate about their language and really honour those immigrants, who are aware of the Dutch idiom.

[Next part: immigration and the Dutch Hindus]