jabdakhata

The point which I am trying to drive here is that if Indian media in general behaves in a non discriminatory fashion, it would be easier to establish just and fair society. However by indulging in witch hunt in some cases while deliberately ignoring others, the media is making a mockery of itself. Any form of intolerance and hatred is a curse to the civil society and media should not filter out or highlight incidents based on their own bias. Any such attempt creates more polarization and hostility because everybody can perceive unfairness and lack of objectivity in evaluating current situation. Several cases in points had been in the past that of banning of "The Vinci Code" movie in response to protests from some religious groups, banning of "Satanic Verses" and the death threat to Salman Rushdie, banning of some websites because apparently they treaded on sentiments of specific communities etc. In all such cases media at best played a passive role, at worst tried j

I recently had an email exchange with Mr. Barun Roy, columnist in Business Standard, in response to my letter to one of his articles. Mr. Roy is one of the few columnists whose writings I greatly admire. Dear Sir, The article, A Prison for Mr. Husein by Barun Roy is a well written article and I can understand the author's anguish and also empathize with him on the prevalent situation. It is unfortunate that we have to lose a person of the stature of M.F. Husein owing to intolerance with the subject of his artwork. However with due respect, I would like to point out one dimension which is missing here. The Indian media have in the past raised issues pertaining to intolerance and gagging of artistic freedom, but some instances have either been deliberately ignored or been downplayed. One notable case here is that of Ms. Taslima Nasrin, who was driven out of India, was attacked in Hyderabad by MIM vandals, and is still under death threat from fundamentalists. In all these cas

Casteism is much vilified world over and rightly so and this obnoxious system is associated with only Hinduism and again rightly so, because the priestly class among Hindus usurped all privileges for themselves, ably aided by kings who in return got the favour of “god men”, misinterpreted scriptures and developed a system which only favoured their own interest and let the corrupt system continue ensuring miseries for thousands. The Hindu priestly classes were no different from priestly classes in other religions who pursued practices like burning heretics on funeral pyre or accepting Indulgence in medieval period. The power hungry priestly classes and kings (of all religions) came together depriving common people of their belief and power and keeping them poor and wretched through a system based on discrimination and fear. The caste system is a by product of thousands of years of domination by a privileged few over ignorant many, of destroying the later's self confidence and self w

The so called very important persons in India, notably high placed Government officials and politicians are the neo feudal lords (as was discussed in one of my earlier blogs). Today the honourable Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh's convoy passed by my car. Police had vacated the roads for his highness, but somehow I was left, so the convoy overtook me and I had to give way to his highness. Otheriwse he would probably have put me behind bars (hopefully this blog does not consititute a contempt of court as I have nothing personal against CJAP). Further downstream I had the misfortune of meeting CM's convoy. A huge police force was deployed to allow the convoy to pass (note the colossal wastage of tax payer's money) and one constable did his duty so well ( My wife quipped that he was almost lying down on the road to prevent any car from getting in the convoy's way). He probably got a pat in the back from his seniors for being so loyal. So much for the democratic India where