The Silly Case of Laal Chowk Flag Raising Ceremony

Kashmir is without any doubt an integral part of India and as I have always stated, one of my stated aims and objectives is the re-unification of the entire Indian Subcontinent from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka and from Baluchistan to Burma into one thread..... there is no question of my accepting hence any attempts at secession....

However, the recent Yatra undertaken by the BJP youth wing has completely flummoxed me by its time and tenor.... the wounds of the last intifida have not even died out, but the BJP has decided to engulf the country into one more conflagration.... there are already a thousands of issues that the current government is incapable of handling, on top of it, the main opposition, having abrogated it's position as the watchdog of democracy has decided to take part, and that too, gleefully in the rape of the country's prestige and authority...

I do not seem to really understand what is the problem with the BJP..... is it really as stupid as it tries to show itself? Does it not understand that it's chauvinistic attitude is impacting the nation more than the status quo attitude of the Congress and it's allies? Is it so foolish that it really thinks patriotism is a vocal chord match and all of us are back in ancient Sparta where issues were decided by the virtue of who would shout the loudest, by virtue of who could out-shout the competition?

Does it really think of the irreparable damage it is doing to the nation's fibre by it's insistence on a march that has no sense, no logic, no future thought, except to embarrass the ruling party? Does it even comprehend that by using vocal denunciation of the Congress at every available opportunity, it's actually playing into the hands of the Congress by proving itself as a distant number two? Why can't it pay more attention to the logics of the situation? Why does it have to always use the principle of the Shout as against the principle of the Debate?

Anybody who has lived in India of the 1990's knows of the irreparable damage Murli Manohar Joshi did by his Flag Yatra at Lal Chowk in 1992..... The premise was the same, that we need to prove ourselves by putting up the flag but in the process, MM Joshi managed to do the impossible... he actually got all the extremists to unite and put up a united front, lead to an increased spurt in violence and secessionist activities in the valley which took a decade to abate.... What did we gain from this show of patriotism? Nothing, except deaths of our valiant soldiers who fought and died for the sake of the unity and integrity of our India..... It could have been avoided. But then BJP is not exactly known for subtle diplomacy and statecraft.... and that too from the party, which when in power took Navin Jindal to court for his right to raise the Indian flag...

The BSF itself has clearly stated that there is no need to raise the flag at the Laal Chowk... it's also true that it has been raising the flag in the chowk every year and had stopped it since it has no more political significance.... Secondly, the Chief Minister of Kashmir would definitely be raising the flag in the senate as would all the Govt offices, army services etc... where then is the need for one more?

The BJP has put out an interesting statement that if the flag of Pakistan can be raised in Kashmir, why not the flag of India? I have two counter-questions to this:

Question No. 1: If this is true, what were they doing about it for the 6 years they ruled India? At that time, the NC of Omar Abdullah, which is in power in the state of J&K today, was a part of the NDA, the BJP-led coilition

Question No. 2: Can the BJP, which is used to a language of obfuscation provide documentary proof of when the local administration of J&K, including the office of the Chief Minister was guilty of raising the Pakistani Flag on the Republic Day?

Talking about secessionists raising the flag is stupid because they are secessionists and indeed if they raised the Indian flag, they would cease to be secessionists, of course they should not be tolerated but that does not mean that the state is guilty of the same ... what is important is to ask, if the local government did the same? And if it did, why did the Govt of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, one of the greatest leaders of recent time did not speak of it? Why did the Iron Man, L K Advani who speaks so much on the issue today, remain silent then? Or is it just a case of out-of-power syndrome?

The BJP, using it's policies of division and victim play has already created a rift between Jammu and Kashmir, when will it learn to start behaving like a responsible opposition? Does it really think, this is good for the state and the country in the long run?

An interesting anecdote of the time is that the great leader that MM Joshi is, he was not even aware of the colours of the Indian flag and managed to do the impossible task that even does not happen in Kindergarten - he hosted the flag upside down!

BJP..... we need you to become a responsible opposition - the time is running out.... is the will too?

A Call to Muslims

Salman Taseer was assasinated in Pakistan on January 4, 2011. His crime was that he spoke against the Blasphemy Law as contained in the Pakistani Constitution. His assassin, Malik Mumtaz Qadri assassinated him because he firmly believed that Salman was denigrating the state and humiliating the creed of Islam by such a contrarian stand on an issue that he considered as a matter of faith.

Today as I listen to both the parties on the issue, the charges and counter-charges, the points of discussion and rebuttals, I feel much more disillusioned on this entire issue then I ever was... Have we as humans, divorced ourselves so much from Reason that we even need to see the obvious - that Blasphemy Law is wrong, that the use of the gun to silence an opposition is wrong, that Human Intellect has a right to speak? Hence, Today as I speak on this issue, I shall speak not as an atheist which I am but as a Muslim for that is what I was  .... the reason being simple, Islam needs to free itself primarily from it's own custodians..... and if a Muslim won't speak, albeit an atheist, who will?

Jammat-E-Islami has tried to pretend that there is no issue, that this is an internal matter within the ranks of Islam, an issue for which the punishment has been decided long ago and hence there is no need for discussion, no need for introspection, no need to talk... for them, it's a closed issue!

But is it a closed issue? Is it really a crime to speak of such things as the law of blasphemy? Is it being-anti Islamic if one tries to reason out the tenets of the religion, or to ask questions, however uncomfortable, they may be? Was not ijtehad supposed to be the cornerstone of the Islamic fiqh as opposed to taqlid?

In a civilization and system that prides itself on it's inclusive nature, that first spoke of the Brotherhood of Men, when did the right to speak on behalf of one's brethren become a rallying-cry for the demise of Islam? Are these custodians of Islam doing Islam a duty by being contrarian to the very principles of Islam or are they plotting it's downfall by destroying the very essence of it's existence? Time will tell....

For the time being, the power of the Gun and the Fear inherent from it's barrels has cowed down the majority to silence.... For the time being, the tongues that should speak are tied down by their duties to their near and dear ones.... For the time being, the droning of the machine gun of the extremist has silenced the common man to a state of imprisonment, but the question is how long will it be able to contain the anger within his breast that shall not be silenced even by the explosion of a million atom bombs and it's these voices of silence, which when spoken will shake the edifice of Islam as it stands today ...... Islam has a lot to fear from it's custodians within it's boundaries than from it's enemies that are battling the religion from outside.

Since the time of the Prophet, the doctrine of ijtehad (analytical reasoning) was upheld and promulgated and taqlid (imitation), though accepted in matters of one's personal relations with God, was not given the same emphasis as Ijtehad, till finally the Sunni fiqh went ahead and closed the door to ijtehad in the 10th century. It's no major coincidence that the closing of doors on Ijtehad lead to hardening of stances within the community leading to major repercussions, as the Islamic world lost it's preeminence in worldly matters post the 15th century and turned insular and insecure.

If Islam needs to re-invent itself, it's time for Islam to go back to the early days of it's existence not in terms of the external forms or observances as the orthodox may point out, but in terms of the openness of thought and reason that gave it the vitality to stand back in times of it's adversity.....  What were those parameters? If one needs to know them, one needs to travel back in history and understand why Islam could strike out on it's own, while others failed.....

Islam took roots in the human subconsciousness in the 7th century due to it's simple creed and methods of  connecting the human with the humane and divine. Historical evidences abound that speak for the humaneness that was the cornerstone of the Islamic creed. Equality of Men before God irrespective of colour, creed or station; Right of Women to property and life as opposed to being subjected to feminine infanticide as was the norm in Arabia, No place for Racism in the context of human differences, Absence of a priestly class and many more such reasons that were a revolutionary thought in those days of human endeavour, of course today the world is much more enlightened and better off than those days, but when  we compare a particular ideology to others, we need to look into the times to understand and decipher it ...... The gun was never the choice weapon of Islam even in the days when the existence of Islam was threatened by such powerful enemies as the Meccan Confederacy and even though Islam fought three wars in it's early days of existence, the gun was always secondary to the olive palm... so then today when Islam is in a strong position worldwide with more than a billion adherents and many Islamic nations, what place does the gun have in the normal discourse?

Why can't the champions of Islamic jurisprudence come out and speak out on this issue in an open debate? Why does the gun have to answer for every query that's put to Islam? That was not the way of the Prophet, why is that the way of the follower? What Islam are you following when you put up such conditions as can destroy the spirit of Islam?

Prophet Muhammed allowed the Christians and the Jews to reside peacefully in the nation of Islam and even forgave those hands that fought against him, including the one we know as Hind, the one who mutilated the body of his favourite uncle, Humza and ate his liver raw on the battlefield.... If you declare that you follow the principles as stated by him, what wrong did Salman do to pay with his blood?

An Anti-Blasphemy Law, as a law, goes against the creed of Islam; it was introduced in the Christian countries to prevent one sect speaking against the other, what place does it have in a Islamic society?.... The Quran explicitly states that the Muslims are not allowed to abuse the religion of the other for the reason that it may give unto the other the right and the opportunity to abuse Islam... the action of Malik has ensured that today, even those who would not speak against Islam have spoken.... aren't you, the leaders of Islam, then responsible for this repercussion? By what right do you dare to call yourself, the defenders of the faith them....?

And coming to the main point, what exactly does the law of Blasphemy achieve? How does this law ensure a better place to those living in your society? Can you force people to change their views about your religion by forcing them under threat of life and property or can you try and reach out to them via dialogue? The biggest massacres in Islam were not perpetrated by the foreign element unto the followers of Islam but by those who called themselves Muslims... examples can be made of Yezid and later the Abbasids .... are you the next link in the names of those who mouth Islam and kill it by actions?

So if you want to know who killed Salman, it's not Malik who killed him.... it's you who killed him ... you, the men and women of Islam who dared not speak against those who hijacked our religion for their purpose.... it's you, the men and women of Islam, who suffered silently when Islam was being chained by traitors within .... it's you, the men and women of Islam, who gave away the key of your religion to those who transfigured it and destroyed it beyond recognition .... and it's you, the men and women of Islam... who forced rational men and women out of Islam to wherever they found the right to be themselves  ..... Think why Islam which gave Avicenna to the world has given nothing in an entire millennium and you will know what I talk about.... Silence is a good thing, but not when your life is being threatened with extinction....


A lot has gone down the plains of Mount Arafat since those days and today, the religion that taught of enlightenment is a refugee of it's own thoughts and a prisoner of it's own conscience. Today, in times when the doctrine of Islam is in mortal threat from the world at large, Islam is not doing good by itself by being a ready supporter of it's demise by the ways of it's followers.... It's time for Ijtehad, it's time for a new reasoning.... It's time for a new Jihad... against those who claim to speak for your religion but take it away from your grasp.....

There is a Cat among the Doves, remove it from the doves or there shall be no more doves.... and conversely once there are no doves, there shall be no Cat either.... so act quick.... and remove the Cat before any more innocent doves face death from him....

Evidences of the Prosecution

MMXI is here .... and we are all watching it with a lot of hopes and expectations, but will anything change... I guess not, for one thing that I have really learned in life is this: the more things change, the more they remain constant ..... and maybe that's the reason why it's stated that those who fail to study their History tend to become History....

I will still continue speaking on Dr. Binayak Sen's curious case .... the last blog was all about why sedition should not be anymore a cause of treason for any person in any of the civilized or should I say, democratized nations of the world... Had it been treason, I would have understood and accepted the conviction - but the very nature of the case makes it difficult for me to suggest any reason why it even was fought - it should have been thrown out of the judicial window, considering the flimsiness of the case....

I took time off to post the second part of the blog because of the many threats and admonitions I received for my last blog.... It was not fear that stopped in my tracks but a feeling that the shriller the voices that condemn, the calmer should be the response....

Prima facie, the entire case is a stack of cards that cannot stand scrutiny even by the worst standards that can be applied .... Here is a guy, a pediatrician of repute from one of the best institutions of India, who has been working selflessly for the downtrodden, going where even the might of the state machinery fails..... a guy who has openly spoken against the Maoists and their tactics, has deplored the methods of warfare and criticized it's leadership.... It's indeed strange that this man has been singled out to be a Maoist....and on grounds that are as shaky as the plains of the Sunderbans after a cyclone.....

If tomorrow, one of my friends asks me to carry a letter to his friend who happens to be in another city, do I by the virtue of having carried a letter become a suspect in the eye of the law? When did an act of genuine humanitarian effort become a barometer of crime by guilt of association? If this be taken as the proof of wrong-doing, I do not know how many of us can avoid falling into this trap at one time or the other?

My critics would point out to the fact that these letters spoke of rebellion and unrest in the country.... that's a plea that's as irrational as it can be.... Going by the attestations of the police manning the jail, there was not a single instance wherein Dr. Binayak met the Maoist leader alone.... they must have been real masters of subterfuge and hypnosis if they were able to carry out such a brilliant piece of planning, all by themselves, in a cell, separated by irons and in presence of officers who kept on looking ... What were the officers discussing while the planning took place - the last Shahrukh Khan movie or the rising price of foodstuffs?

To the best of my knowledge, not a single officer has been accused of dereliction of duty... so it transpires that they were alert and brave soldiers of the motherland - so how could two individuals, who have neither been trained in subterfuge and camouflage carry out such a brilliant operation, not once but many times....

The jailor has also attested that all letters carried the official seal of the prison - in other words was pretty harmless - maybe the good jailor was not trained in the art of cryptology and the Chattisgarh government should make it compulsory on the incumbent and the ones that follow that he should have an advanced knowledge of the subject in the future to save such embarrassments .....

Another major point of contention for the security agencies is that, in one of the letters Dr. Sen was addressed as the Comrade, thus making him a Maoist! I am surprised by the gall of the prosecuting attorney, the stupidity of the defense and the irrationality of the Bench that such an interesting observation was allowed to go unchallenged in the court of Law!

Thank God, the leter did not have such terms as 'Saala' or else, we would have had a more powerful alliance - I mean Dr. Sen and his 'comrade' friend could have been brothers-in-law, we should really thank God, for small mercies..... I am thinking though, going by this particular logic, how many girls have I been married to and how many guys have become my brothers-in-arm.... I  hope none of them is a terrorist or else I am on my way to the prison, thanks to this brilliant piece of art.....

Mahatma Gandhi had once, when asked of the keystone of Indian legal system commented that he preferred a system wherein, even if a thousand guilty could be saved from their just punishments, even one single person should not be punished for the crime he did not commit.

Dr. Binayak Sen may or may not be a Maoist... I am no one to hold a brief for him but I do state that as a concerned citizen of this nation, that the charges framed on him should not seem framed and the evidence brought against him should be found lacking and flimsy.... Neither of the above contentions hold water in an intense cross-examination of the facts.... It's high time Judiciary redeems itself from the clutches of 'guilty by prosecution' syndrome....

Its time we thought deeply about the entire issue. And before I start getting threats again, let me reiterate, I am not a Maoist but I am not a Quisling either ....