Monday, 7 December 2020

The Unusual Conversation

 Through the aisle's of the beautiful heaven, passing through the garden's stretching farther ends of the world, with its withered fountains a slim, tall man passed through the pathway to reach a huge mansion situated in the clouds.

The door opened, a thin man with spectacles opened the door.

"Namaste! Jai Shree Krishna" the spectacled man greeted his guest with a grim smile.

"Come in Jinnah" he said with his feeble voice, As he walked past his huge corridor in heaven, leading the way for his guest.

"Kem Cho!!?", the host asked his guest, while going back to spinning his khaadi charkha.

Jinnah sat down on the swinging chair close to Gandhi, removed his A. Craven cigarette, while moving on his chair.

"So, your country does another Barbaric Act!! it gave the Babri Masjid land to the Hindus, when will the fundamentalist mindset of your country stop?" he questioned his host in his sauve british accent.

"First your country repealed the Article 370 in Kashmir and now this", he continued.

"You know this is the reason, I supported the two-nation theory, we would've never survived together!!", he exclaimed while breathing out the smoke in his lungs.

"I remember my friend Justice Abdur Rehman had once told me,The Hindus and Muslims are not two religious sects like the Protestants and Catholics of England, but form two distinct communities of peoples, and so they regard themselves. Their respective attitude towards life, distinctive culture, civilization and social habits, their traditions and history, no less than their religion, divide them so completely that the fact that they have lived in the same country for nearly 1,000 years has contributed hardly anything to their fusion into a nation... Any of us Subcontinent Muslims travelling for instance in Afghanistan, Persia, and Central Asia, among Chinese Muslims, Arabs, and Turks, would at once be made at home and would not find anything to which we are not accustomed. On the contrary in India, we find ourselves in all social matters total aliens when we cross the street and enter that part of the town where our Hindu fellow townsmen live", he spoke with a sense of despair in his tone and a sense of pride in his concept of brotherhood.

Gandhi heard him patiently while spinning his charkha", I would've agreed with you if Bangladesh had not been created", he answered in his humble tone.

"You see, the world has'nt changed much since we left it, no matter how much i tried, i could not make religion a personal matter to the 175 Crore people who call the subcontinent their home" he continued while looking at Jinnah through his Charkha.

"Universal Brotherhood is useless if it is confined to a certain religion, it creates the You vs Us belief. Spirituality binds people beyond the barriers of the society, religion unknowing to people sometimes creates unseen barriers. I see more inter-mingling of thought and religion in India than in Pakistan and that for me is the biggest win for my values" he uttered with a sense of unconditional pride in his tone. 

India despite its varied demographics, traditions and the 560+ princely states around 1947 had kept its Father of the nation by keeping its fabric united. The diversity is so unique that a Ladhaki from Zanskar, would be completely distinguishiable from a native of the coast of Kanyakumari who in turn would not understand a word of Kutchi spoken by a native, who would not relate at all to the culture of Arunachal Pradesh all because of its outlook and the fabric of unity.

Jinnah who was both angry and restless by now, wanted to get back at Gandhi on his jibe of spirituality. "So if that was the case, why do you have so many insurgents in your society? Why are there such ethnic religious tensions in your society?", he questioned Gandhi with a grim on his face.

"Because that is human nature, we look at the differences first instead of similarities. We categroize and create labels, stereotypes and think we ourselves are superior to those labels, certain muslim's relate to the Arab culture more than the Indian culture who in turn treat them as "Mawalis", people have similar prejudices against other communities and cultures" Gandhi spoke with a sense of resent in his tone signifying how uncontrollable things can be sometimes.

"And does your human nature characteristic also justify razing down a mosque?" he questioned Gandhi with his gazing eyes.

"Masjido tamara desama pan todi padavamam avi che Jinnah!!, Lal Masjid was demolished in your country aswell, highly unfortunate but atleast the mosque was'nt active and the values i've imbibed in my children compensated a larger bargain" he replied with a unconditionally unapologetic tone.

Number of followers or adherents do not make a religion big, if they did football and cricket would be a larger cult than religions.

"I've always admired your oratorship skills Bapu, but all this Gyan and you still got killed by your own children!!, What have you really achieved in life?, atleast I am revered by own children" he questioned Gandhi.

"The shots were fired at Mohandas Gandhi, not my Values, i tried my level best to persuade Hindus to stand along side their Muslim brethern during Khilafat movement, a cause that had nothing to do with the Hindus, the Moopla riot followed, i even called for muslim scriptures being read in hindu temples, maybe while trying to bring two individuals under roof i created demons while trying to please one at the stake of the other and those demons keep revitalizing till date" Gandhi answered while looking through his window at the beautiful sunset over heaven with birds of tranquility flying over the horizon.




Sunday, 2 February 2020

CAA-NRC View vs Counter View



   So the country has been going through an intensive debate on CAA for the last two months, people have been protesting and counter-protesting the Act, social media has been abuzz with views, violence has been reported on all ends and Adnan Sami gets Padmashree Award for his contribution to the field of music. People anticipate that the protest will go on for months just like Hong Kong protests and the India is divided on the lines of "Bhakts vs Libtards".


First things first, I come from a family with ancestral roots to Undivided Punjab, I have heard stories of my own close relatives not being able to make it to India and most probably never survived. Therefore I believe I am in a better position to at least comment with a better view on the Pakistan Scenario.

Minorities in South East Asia :

 Unlike India which has been a successful sovereign democracy, our friendly neighborhood isn't as friendly to its minorities. India has had three Muslim presidents, several Muslim chief ministers in Hindu majority states and several intellectuals, Businessmen, academicians, artists who have made India proud.

On the contrary, a Non-Muslim can never become a leader of the state unless he is one, Pakistan has a separate electoral for Hindus and Christians , and the representation in mostly Nil. Apart from the representation, they are generally persecuted on religious grounds. During 1993 Babri Masjid and 2002 Godhra riots, several temples were razed down by mobs as a back lash to something that was not even their fault.  During 1971 three lakh hindus were killed for no fault of theirs. Taliban regime killed several non Muslims for just being Kafir.

A simple Google search on " Conversion Pakistan" will give you an average 2-3 news articles depicting forced conversion on Minorities (Just try it yourself).

Counter View : Aren't Muslims persecuted as well? 

Maybe they are, on account of not being Muslim-enough as can be seen in several countries. Maybe that's the reason you see several Pakistani cricketers resort to presenting themselves as more pious to be able to survive in their society.

But is that persecuted minority? The answer in "NO". One can't be a persecuted minority part of the majoritarian religion in his own country.  People who left Iran post 1979 and Afghanistan post Taliban occupation can not be termed "persecuted minorities" but part of a civil crisis. And as seen a lot of Iranian's and Afghan's did go their respective homeland's when the situation was favorable.

What is CAA?

So what exactly is CAA, if one had to read it without the labels of Right wing or left wing implementing it, It provides citizenship to people whom the Government of India deems as Persecuted Minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.


The Humanitarian Liberal View:

There are a lot of people I came across who consider themselves as Liberals, believing in no religion but Humanity which is a very noble concept. But because you believe in Humanity does not imply the persecutor also believes in Humanity. So if you oppose CAA, one should really ask or at least be able to answer the following with close ended answers

i) Are minorities persecuted in Afg-Bang-Pak?. Yes/No
ii) If they are persecuted and wish to move outside their respective countries, should they be supported ? Yes/No.
iii) Should India do something for them, if they come to India and seek citizenship?. Yes/No.
iv) Are you against CAA or you want CAA to be implemented with amendments?.

If all your answers are No, you aren't a humanitarian but just Anti-Right.


Counter View : The Government is Anti-Muslim for implementing CAA.

View : The Right Wing labelled BJP Government granted 3753 Visas including Citizenship's between 2014-2019, but only 1854 were Hindus. This includes the likes of Adnan Sami, Pernia Qureshi, who have been associated with India. Now if there are really Muslims persecuted in Pakistan, they can apply citizenship directly through India's Asylum policy.

P.S Citizenship through CAA takes 5 years, Citizenship through Asylum is less than two years.



The CAA-NRC Whatsapp fiasco.

People have received news of the BJP Government building a 1.5 Million capacity refugee camp across India. But has anyone ever filed an RTI to verify if its true? If the camp is big enough, are there any pictures of its construction or its presence?

NRC states one is required to show at least one of the nineteen listed documents (including PAN, Adhar, Passport, Land records, Jail records for the least ) to unify and sanitize a unique record of Indian residents. Since census does not cover certain areas in Nagaland, Assam, Manipur and Kashmir, the Government has the right to quantify a record all the individuals living in this country.

Stats : Just for the record, India has 123 Crore Aadhar card holders
                                                           93 Crore Voter Id's
                                                          157 Crore bank accounts (Current and Savings)
                                                            38 Crore PAN Cards
                                                          26 Crore children enrolled in schools
                                                           6 Lakh Villages with Land records (92%)
                                                           4,33,033 Prisoners in Jails
                                                           21,000 people in Mental Asylum's

Population : 135 Crores.                                                           

So the only people who would not have a single record out of the one's listed above would be a very minuscule percentage of the population. Those not a part of NRC can still provide details of three known Indian individuals and register as part of NRC, and that individual can be of any faith.

The Curious case of Tukde-Tukde

If its the left wing breaking this country or the right, its India that suffers.
Both the left wing and the right wing tries to scare you of World War Two type consequences.
Both the wings share old videos on Social Media depicting themselves as the Victim.
Both the wings speak about the other breaking the country when both are equally responsible for dividing the society.