The dillemmas of a questioning mind

Source: The dillemmas of a questioning mind

The dillemmas of a questioning mind

What is it that makes it a taboo to criticize the horrible things that religions preach?

Why do “liberals” not do it?

Is it the threat of violence?

If I state the fact the Hinduism is the most vile of religions when it comes to dehumanising and disenfranchising a subset of it’s own followers, particularly women… Should this statement cause the religious to reconsider what is written in their scripture and realise the damage those scriptures have caused to countless humans? Or should they kill me for saying it?

Similarly, If I say, Islam is the most violent of religions and the doctrines are directly responsible for deaths of millions of people around the world, should the Muslims look directly at their scriptures and realise that the fact is, their scripture does indeed ask them to kill those who do not believe the same and discard such scriptures as cruel and idiotic? Or should they proclaim that Islam is the “religion of peace” repeatedly while holding placards, rioting around the world damaging the property demanding that I be beheaded for suggesting that Islam is not a religion of peace?

And should I say that Christianity was equally or more cruel than Islam in it’s prime, and Christians will do better to not go back to those dark ages and drag millions with them. Should this prompt them to consider the bloody history of Christianity and work towards not taking the world back through that kind of bloodshed? Or should they consider me as third world savage who needs some democracy and converting (saving).

What would you do?

Are you religious? If yes, will you look at yourself in the mirror and see the horrors of your religious ideology reflect back? Think about how many death threats you have issued, and rapes and killings you are complicit in by encouraging such a behaviour in more virulent criminals within your fold to uphold your notion of sansakr.

Are you a “liberal”, leftist (like the trendy, some JNU types), You too look at yourself, and ask yourself, why you do not condemn bigotry equally, why don’t you stand for the freedom of expression for everyone, why don’t you see your failure to question all religious ideology equally, and Islam in particular, is the reason the right wing fundies are taking over every corner of civil society.

The larger issue:

 

The issues plaguing India today are.
1. Poverty
2. Casteism
3. Oppression of women
4. Dismal healthcare system
5. Dismal education system
6. Inept and corrupt political system

There are other equally important issues, however, let us consider the above problems and how they contribute to a vicious cycle of oppression, poverty and societal failure.

This is our legacy, and the vicious cycle is perpetuated by the anti-poor, and pro rich economic policies like tax incentives, lower interest rates to corporate sector and waiving of corporate debt on one hand and reducing amount for education, primary healthcare on the other.

The total bail out cost for this current year stands at 87 Billion Dollars, a whooping 4.4% of GDP of India, where as the budgetary allocation for healthcare stands at 0.25% of GDP.

The tax forgone from corporate houses this year stands at 62000 crore rupees, when the total allocation for education is not even half of that.

These are the economic policies that are truly anti national and anti-dalit, anti-poor.

They want to open up public education, healthcare and agriculture to WTO regulations and want to consider these as salable services.

What this means is, education will no longer be affordable for economically poorer sections of the society, the nightmare in this hellish situation is this, 90% of the economically oppressed and marginalised people belong to SC/ST communities.

Out of pocket spending by the poor on healthcare (more than 80% of healthcare is already privitised in India), is the leading cause of poverty and perpetuation of the poverty as per national statistics.

Now, about the social evils like oppression of women, dalits, and imposition of one idea of nation, culture, history, religion.

This effort by the right wing fundamentalists has been in place from even before the political independence of India.

The RSS has been re writing the history to project all muslim rulers are oppressive and have made great inroads in villages, educational institutes across the country. RSS (Hindu mahasabha) sided with the British during the freedom struggle, since it is shameful now, they are rewriting the history.

They killed Gandhi because Gandhi was fighting these very same people for dalits and oppressed castes.

The ugly untouchability is still very much in practice all over the country.

But the Brahmanical imperialists want caste system to continue because they don’t want dalits to get education, economic freedom, sexual freedom, they want uneducated slaves to work for them and make them rich.

So to achieve this, they have to make sure every voice of reason, every voice of the oppressed is shut down.

They can achieve this only when the universities that always have stood for the rights of the oppressed, marginalised and downtrodden, and have fought against the state oppression, to be defamed, vilified and finally shut down.

The effort against the universities has been a long one, and now since they are in power, they are taking the next step, actually try and shut them down.

This is the real issue behind what happened in JNU, HCU, FTII, IIT Madras, Lucknow Univerisity, Jadhavpur University, BHU, Ambedkar University.

We can not de-link what has been going on at other universities from JNU.

You may have other opinions, but after very careful study of events, the modus operandi of RSS over the years, it is very evident to me that I am not mistaken.

The RSS and BJP really want to end education of poor people and dalits, they truly want to make sure no voices of dissent are heard.

The Tragic Comedy of Democracy

sarahatherblog

Do you also feel paralyzed when you look out from the window and see the world tearing into pieces? Ashes falling from the sky on the death of a star, on the death of a mind and on the dormancy that will follow for centuries. The ghosts of the past who fought for the azaad streets visit in silence and mourn over the sheer mockery of the same principles they stood for, all their lives. The saffron flames engulfing each and every shred of truth, burning on a hollow fuel of pride, and murdering every thing that appears different . The pathetic conceit in an identity becomes the worldwide wisdom and teaches its followers to fight for it, to lie for it and to kill for it. The clever orator is the new God of this land. He lies with conviction, lies with anger, lies with power. While the television…

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