Try to Understand-Hinduism -Rationally & dispassionately-

UNDERSTANDING HINDUTVA

-    Averthanus L. D�Souza.

 

 

 

Ramesh Rajaram Vispute, a former Secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) once remarked: �The enemies of the Hindus are the Muslims, the Christians, the Hindu intellectuals and the media.�   It is very significant as well as intriguing that Vispute included the Hindu intellectuals and the media in his category of the �enemies� of Hindus.   It does not take great intellectual acumen to interpret the meaning of this statement by a very prominent Hindutva promoter.   It is quite obvious that  Hindu intellectuals (nor any other reasonably educated person for that matter) will refuse to  swallow the confused gibberish  which is churned out by the Hindutva propagandists to arouse anger and hatred  against Muslims and Christians,  for which the VHP  is so notorious.   Any thinking person (including Hindu �intellectuals�) will see through the falsity of the arguments which the VHP advances in its hate campaigns.  It is precisely because the position of the Hindutva campaign is irrational  and untenable that the propagandists prefer to recruit uneducated and unthinking followers who can easily be manipulated to believe anything that is fed to them.    The Bajrang Dal,  which is considered to be the front-rank of the storm-troopers  of the VHP  is a good example of uneducated youth, with more passion than reason, who are willing to blindly follow orders without thinking, and who are conditioned to believe that heroism consists in slaughtering helpless women and children, and burning innocent people alive.   In this respect the Bajrang Dal is no different from the Hitler Youth of Nazi Germany or the youth brigades of the other fascist movements in Europe who were used to terrorize the population into submission.   With their saffron head-bands and wielding �trishuls�, and screaming full-throated war-cries,   these rampaging gangs can cause terror anywhere � which is precisely what they are trained to do.  They are �programmed� to follow orders, irrespective of the morality of the orders or the consequences which follow.  B.S. Moonje, a prominent RSS leader, personally met  the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini in Rome on 19 March, 1931, visited some important military schools and educational institutions and became acquainted with the Balilla and the Avanguardisti organizations.   Moonje wrote in his diary that the keystone of the fascist system is the  �indoctrination� of youths, rather than education.  This is the foundation on which the Bajrang Dal is built.

 

While cultivated ignorance of the youth is one facet which is promoted by the Hindutva  ideologues,  deliberate falsification of current facts as well as of History is another method of indoctrination used.    Lal .Krishna. Advani  closely studied the system of propaganda developed by Nazi Germany.  He says:  �In Nazi Germany, fascism in action developed two other distinctive characteristics: firstly, adoption of propaganda as a key instrument of State policy; and secondly, the systematic  development of a demonology to keep the masses in a mood of perpetual tension and hysteria.� (L.K.Advani- �A Prisoner�s Scrap Book� )   Advani and his colleagues have tried hard to refine and improve upon the propaganda-cum-terror machinery  which was developed by Nazi Germany, specially by Hitler�s most trusted lieutenant Paul Joseph Goebbels, whose name has now become synonymous with high-voltage mendacious propaganda.    

 

One of the more prominent falsifications which the Hindutva protagonists are propagating is that Hindutva is an integral part of Hinduism.   No sensible person, (including thinking Hindus) accepts this claim.   In fact, the vast majority of Hindus are aghast at this identification of Hinduism with Hindutva.     Hinduism is a highly respected religion of long standing.  It is recognized (even by non-Hindus) as being, perhaps, one of the oldest religions in human history.  It outlived the ancient religions of the Sumerians, the Etruscans, the Mesopotamians the Greeks and the Egyptians.  Hinduism has always been associated with �sanatana�         which denotes timelessness or ancientness.   Hinduism has never been associated with any particular political system;  nor has it ever shown a preference for any particular cultural context.   In the broadest sense of the word, Hinduism is �heterodox�  and embraces a vast variety of rituals, beliefs, popular practices and dietary preferences.   In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna: �Through whatever path men come to me, I accept them through that very path.�

 

 In sharp contrast to Hinduism as a religion,  Hindutva is a clearly distinguishable �political� ideology which is straining to concoct a �national� identity  based on the Hindu religion.    Hindutva is a clearly fascist political movement, which has drawn much of its inspiration from European fascism and German Nazism.   The most prominent protagonists of Hindutva,  Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1902 � 1966),  Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906 � 1973) and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1901 � 1953)  among others, have derived their ideologies from European fascism and modified it to suit Indian conditions.   In fact, Pravin Togadia the �International General Secretary� of the VHP explicitly says that India is a Hindu Rashtra since millennia, and that Hindutva is not a religion but a synonym for Hindu nationalism.   It should be quite clear, therefore, that the rejection of the claims of Hindutva cannot be construed as being anti-Hinduism.   In fact,  it is precisely because of the distortion of Hinduism by the Hindutva brigade that the Hindu intellectuals have rejected it.   The Hindutva fanatics thrive on spreading this confusion between Hindutva and Hinduism.   They have been able to increase their  popularity because they repeat the (false) propaganda that the promotion of Hindutva is the promotion of Hinduism

 

There are many distortions which the Hindutva fascists have wrought on Hinduism.   Suffice it to indicate only a few blatant contradictions in their propaganda.  

 

One:  Hindutva is supposedly  a movement to create a Hindu �Rashtra�.   The secularism enshrined in the Indian Constitution is violently rejected by the Hindutva protagonists.   At the same time they have made a conscious and vigorous effort to create an �international�  Hindu community.   The formation of the �World Hindu Council�  and the creation of the post of an �International General Secretary� of the VHP is a clear contradiction of the claim that Hindutva is limited to the objective of creating a Hindu �nation.�   This contradiction is obvious to every sane person, except, of course, the rabid Hindutva ideologues.

 

The claim made by Pravin Togadia that  Hindutva as a �Rashtra� has existed since millennia is patently false.  By all historical accounts, whether in ancient or mediaeval India,  there were several �kingdoms� or �empires.�   Among the more well-known ancient empires were the Mauryan empire of Chandragupta Maurya ( approx. 326 B.C. to 184 B.C.)  and the Asokan empire  (approx. 269 B.C. to 232 B.C.)  There were also other lesser kingdoms like those of Kushana.  In the south there were the numerous kingdoms of Adilshah, the Pandyan and Chola kingdoms, the Chalukyan dynasty and the Vijayanagaran kingdom (1336 to 1567 A.D.)  and the better known Maratha Kingdom whose best known figure is Shivaji.    In the course of history, all these kingdoms were in conflict with one or another with a view to expand their fiefdom or to retrieve lands which had been taken away by force.   There was never a �nation� called India.  Even after the gaining of political independence from  Britain in 1945,  it was left to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to consolidate the various major and minor kingdoms into a unified Nation.  It is indisputable that it was under Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel that the so-called �Princely States� were abolished and integrated into the State of India, which, for the first time in its entire history adopted a Constitution which was to govern the �Nation.�   The falsity of the VHP�s claim that India was always a Hindu �rashtra� is proven by the very fact that it is still seeking to �create� the Hindu Rashtra of its dream.     

 

Two:  the VHP claims that people who profess and practice other religions cannot be part of the Hindu Rashtra.   This is in stark contradiction to the repeated statements made by the Hindutva leaders that Hindutva is a �secular� concept.  In fact, they claim that they are secular precisely because they are Hindu.  They accuse non-Hindus of being �pseudo-secular.�   They continue to trumpet this obvious contradiction that only Hindus are secular and the followers of all other religions are not secular.   Yet, they also claim that Hindutva is a �composite� culture which embraces a variety of religions, cults, languages and ethnic cultures.   The Hindutva ideologues have never been able to reconcile  this glaring contradiction in their position.  If Hindutva �embraces�  other  ethnic cultures, why is it that they are systematically forcing tribals (who are not, and never have been,  Hindu) to �convert�  to Hinduism?   On the one hand they have sponsored so-called �Freedom of Religion� legislation in many States; because they are ostensibly opposed to conversions by force, fraud or inducements;  yet on the other hand, they themselves are forcibly �converting� tribals, members of scheduled castes and followers of other religions.  They offer the lame and unconvincing argument that they are only bringing back these people to the Hindu fold.  They have called this movement a �ghar vapasi.�   The fact is that the tribals have never been Hindu.  They have their own culture, religion and social practices.   �Ghar vapasi�  in their case simply does not make any sense.   Former Indian Prime Minister, V.P. Singh has rightly pointed out that �ultimately what they are aiming at is authoritarian  rule.  Then not only will the minorities be targeted, but also those who do not agree with them. You will be declared an anti-national and treated thus.�

 

One of the more prominent characteristics of any dictatorial political movement is the systematic  creation  of  confusion in the minds of the citizens so that they can never be sure of what the truth is. This is done in two ways.   One is to spread rumours through the cadres of grassroots level workers, and another is to simultaneously issue �official� statements �clarifying� the official position on any particular issue.   This is a very subtle psychological game which is being played by the top leadership of the  Hindutva brigade.   Citizens need to be aware of this and not fall into the trap which is deliberately created by the Hindutva ideologues.  A glaringly example of this �double-speak� is the fact that the Bajrang Dal leaders in Karnataka have openly stated on TV channels that they are responsible for the attacks against Christian churches, institutions and personnel.  At the same time, the BJP government in Karnataka and the VHP leadership insist that the Bajrang Dal had nothing to do with the attacks.  

 

There are too many contradictions in the propaganda arsenal of the Sangh Parivar to be treated at length in a brief essay,  but this short analysis will, perhaps, help to pinpoint the contradictions:

 

Hindu Nationalism v/s International Hindu Solidarity.

 

The entire Hindutva movement is grounded on the principle that India is a Hindu nation, and that only Hindus can enjoy rights of citizenship in India.   In this view, Muslims and Christians, in particular, but also Jews, Parsis, Buddhists and Jains, are viewed as non-Indian.   Each time a violent attack is carried out against Muslims or Christians, the Bajrang Dal terrorists shout that the Muslims and Christians should either become Hindus or leave the country.   Islam and Christianity are considered to be �impositions� by foreign Muslim conquerors or by Western Christian missionaries.  The teachings of V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar are very explicit about this.  According to them, non-Hindus cannot enjoy rights of citizenship.  The Muslims are constantly warned that their continued presence in India is entirely dependent on the �goodwill� of the Hindus and the Christians are �advised� to form an Indian Church under the complete control of the Indian Government, similar to the National Church in China.   The so-called principle is constantly repeated that only those who sever their links with any international community and become entirely Hindu will be tolerated in (an Hindutva ruled)  India.  

 

The stark contradiction in this position is the fact that Hindutva is Not confined to the geographical territory of India;  it is sought to be made an international religion.  Ever since the famous Parliament of Religions was addressed by Swami Vivekananda, in Chicago  the �missionary� dimension of Hinduism was begun with the formation of the Vedanta Society in 1893  in New York.   Today there are Hindu �missions�  all over the world, in the U.S.A., in Europe, in the Pacific Islands, in the West Indies, and in South Africa.   The claim that Hindutva is a movement to establish a Hindu �Rashtra,� is, therefore, patently false.   The comparison with the expansionist movement of Nazi Germany is too striking to be missed.  First it started with the unification of German speaking countries; then it was extended to include all people of Aryan ethnic stock.  Since racial characteristics could not be �assimilated�  the Nazis began a systematic extermination, first  of the Jewish people and then of other �tainted� races.   The Hindutva claim to form a Hindu Rashtra, is, on the face of it, a huge fraud perpetrated by the Hindutva ideologues.  From a close examination of the literature available, it is clear that the Hindutva brigade wants to establish a theocratic Hindu State in India, not dissimilar to the Islamic State of neighbouring Pakistan.

 

Tolerance v/s xenophobia.

 

Another myth which has been created by the Hindutva protagonists is the claim that Hindutva is a tolerant ideology and is based on secular values.   This is far from the truth.  Hindutva is a blatantly intolerant movement which thrives on spreading hatred and fear among people.  In fact it is so intolerant that it seeks to re-write history,  which, according to it, has been written by �pseudo-secularists.�    Its distortion of history is so blatant that it has even created the myth that Asoka  and Chandragupta Maurya were Hindu kings.  This is a blatant falsification of History.  All reliable sources tell us that Asoka ruled over a Buddhist kingdom, and that Chandragupta Maurya was strongly associated with the Jaina tradition.  The Hindutva view of history is not based on scientific research, but on an imagination running wild.   The Hindutva �historians� are worthy disciples of Goebbels who taught that if you repeat a lie over and over again,  people will soon begin to accept it as the truth.  

 

If Hindutva is a tolerant political ideology which respects secular values, why is it that in all the States which are ruled by the BJP there is a systematic attack against Christians and Muslims?    Why is it that tribals, who are not, and never have been, Hindu are being terrorized into converting to Hinduism?  

 

The Hindutva fanatics claim that they are against conversion by force, fraud or by material inducements.  In fact they accuse the Christians of having converted Hindus by offering such material inducements.   Yet, the duplicity of their claims is starkly evident in the fact that wherever they have attacked the Christians,  independent Commissions of Enquiry have not been able to confirm a single case of conversion by the use of fraud, force or material inducement.    The Laws in India are very clear about such conversions. If the Hindutva terrorists have any evidence of such conversions, they should have recourse to the Law.   Instead, they resort to violence and terror against helpless, innocent and weak communities.   They themselves use force to (re)convert people.

 

The Hindutva movement is  built on the foundations of falsehood, force and terror.   In times of natural calamities, like the earthquake in Gujarat,  they prevented anyone else from assisting the affected people.  They sought exclusive rights to dispense aid, but they distributed this aid in a highly reprehensible manner.   Muslim victims were carefully and deliberately excluded.   Others were given aid only on condition that they swore to remain or to become Hindu.   There is voluminous evidence of such discrimination even in times of dire affliction.   And these very people claim that Hindutva is a humanitarian and generous movement. 

 

Citizens need to be aware of the duplicity of the Hindutva movement.   They should examine all their claims critically;  and most of all, citizens should not be beguiled into believing that the Hindutva movement has any redeeming features.  It is an unmitigated evil.

 

The battle lines are very clear.  We Indians, of all faiths, varieties of cultures and  languages,  are facing a grave threat to the secular, democratic and pluri-cultural fabric of our society.   We need to join forces to defeat the evil forces of fascism and authoritarianism.   The fight is not between Hinduism and other religions.  The  fight is really between secularism and democracy, on the one hand, and fascism on the other.  

 

 

--
Bipin Shroff

http://bipinshroff.blogspot.com/
shroffbipin@gmail.com

The plight of Freddom in21st century--

How Long we have to fight for the Freedom of Speech & Expression!

Speaking all truth to the establishment

 

Md. Anwarul Kabir

 

Speaking all truth to the establishment, especially in public, is not that easy and some time it is risky too. Here the term establishment signifies people at the power centre who run the state machineries and their cohorts.

 

The establishment, since the ancient time seldom likes to embrace unpleasant truth voluntarily. If we probe into the ancient history, it will reveal that in 399 BC, the great philosopher Socrates had to face trial and subsequent execution when he was nearly 70 as he spoke the truth following his conscience to the establishment. His unconventional attitude and expressions towards divinity contrary to the established norm of Athens at that time angered the people at the power centre. The quote from 'The lives of Eminent Philosophers', authored by Diogenes Laertius of the 3 AD supports this assertion. He explicitly pointed out that "Socrates discussed moral questions in the workshops and the marketplace." Often his unpopular views expressed disdainfully and with an air of condescension, provoked his listeners' anger. Laertius further stated that "men set upon him with their fists or tore his hair out," but that Socrates "bore all this ill-usage patiently." Eventually Socrates was tried and convicted by the courts of democratic Athens. He was charged of corrupting the youth and disbelieving in the ancestral gods as he exposed his truth that went against the belief of the establishment.

 

The history of the Semitic religion has revealed that Jesus Christ (7–2 BC—26–36 AD) had to undergo Jewish and Roman trials and was sentenced to death by crucifixion as he introduced new truth concerning religion contradicting Judaism and pagan Roman beliefs which the establishment at that time followed. The prophet of Islam, Hazrat Muhammad (sm) (570-632 AD) also had to face much struggle and hardship as he attempted to introduce monotheistic belief replacing the prevailing pagan polytheistic religion despite the fact that he was born into the Koreish, the leading tribe of the establishment in Mecca of his time. Ironically, his preaching of Islam was not accepted even by many powerful members of his own tribe and so eventually he was forced to leave Mecca in 622 AD with his followers and had to take refuge in Medina until he along with his followers succeeded to conquer Mecca in 630 AD.

 

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the great scientist also fell under the rage of the establishment of his time while he tried to reveal the truth of science observing physical reality by stating, "I hold that the Sun is located at the centre of the revolutions of the heavenly orbs and does not change place, and that the Earth rotates on itself and moves around it." In this context it is worthwhile to note that throughout Europe, the church still held the core power of the establishment during Galileo's time. And the new discovery of Galileo contradicts the biblical creed which holds the notion of earth centric universe. So, after his scientific write-up entitled "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican" containing the new discovery discarding the divine quotes of the Bible was published, Galileo was condemned to lifelong imprisonment.

 

In ancient and medieval times, religions played crucial roles in establishments and so speaking the truth cost enormous suffering for those who following their conscience revealed the truth. However, in modern age too, due to fanatic opposition of religious bigots especially in the Muslim world including ours, many free thinkers undergo miserable sufferings in their lives. For instance, we can mention the name of Araz Ali Matabbar (1900-1985), an eminent self educated intellectual who tried to judge the religion rationally and asked unpleasant questions in his write-ups, became a victim of the establishment during the pre-independent period of Bangladesh. Even after the independence in 1973, poet Daud Haider was set upon by mullahs and their thugs for a poem in which he had raged at God for allowing the massacre of three million Bangladeshis during the liberation struggle and criticized leading religious leaders including Muhammed (SM). The Government of Bangabandhu, hailed for guiding Bangladesh to the path of secularism, imprisoned Daud for 'his own protection." Later in 1979, during Zia's regime after being released from the jail he had to flee to India for saving his life from fanatic groups as his passport was impounded and later, he took asylum in German.(Still he is in German). For viewing religion through their rational lens, litterateur Ahemed Sharif (1921-1999), Humayun Azad (1947-2004) and some others in our country had to face much struggle including death threat from the religious bigots. In all cases the establishment took least interest in protecting these freethinkers showing little respect to freedom of expression.

 

Perhaps the most heinous slap on freedom of expression in the world occurred in the case of the feminist writer Taslima Nasrin who wrote Taslima some columns that have exposed how the medieval traditions of Islam have become major obstacle on the way to women emancipation and empowerment in our contemporary society. The Islamic goons of the country did not tolerate and subsequently they started agitation. Portraying her as Murtad they declared bounty for her head as it was in the case of Salman Rushdi. Instead of protecting Taslima from the rage of the Mullahs, the then government banned her book 'Layjja' and in 1993, she was charged with blasphemy. An arrest warrant was issued and Taslima went into hiding. After two months she surrendered to the High Court and immediately after receiving bail left Bangladesh. Since 1994 she has lived in many countries in exile including France, Sweden and India. However, the acts of the government on Taslima's issue did not translate that the government did all the things due to its love for Islam. Rather, in our country, all governments patronize Islamic fanatics for political reasons—for safeguarding its vote bank.

 

Religion is a sensitive issue, especially in the contemporary Muslim world and so the establishments there do not take risk to give freedom for expression that goes against long practised religious culture and beliefs. But what is the freedom of expressions in democratic secular world? Are people there free to speak all truth to the establishment? Take USA , the most powerful 'democratic' country in this uni-polar country, as an example. Are Americans free to talk all truth to the establishment? To get the answer to this question first we need to unmask the reality in USA establishment. Who represent the US government? Either Democrat or Republic? But both the two major parties Republic and Democrat are patronised by the big multinational companies. As the other political parties who stand against capitalism and who campaign for the working class including 13% of the people who are under poverty line cannot succeed in the election, mainly due to crisis in party funds. It may be noted here, in the developed countries also money is the most powerful instrument in the national electoral process most like the practice in our country. So, this assertion becomes evidential when we see that over the half of presidents of the USA came from the wealthiest 3% of the Americans while at least a dozen sprang from the loins of elitists in the top of 1%. Statistics from 2005 shows that 143 of 435 US representatives and one in three senators were millionaire. These people, no doubt, were connected to the corporate world in one way or another. Presumably, recent statistics will reveal the similar pattern of representatives in the US government. So, in reality, deviated from Lincoln's philosophy, the USA has redefined its democracy as "government of the rich, for the rich and by the rich"

 

Due to their inherent background, the representatives of US government exert strong influence in formulating policies in favour of corporate interests. If we investigate then no doubt it will be revealed that the government of US itself follows the corporate structure. In this context, we may argue that US is leading towards fascism in line with Mussolini's fundamental definition of fascism: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." The dangerous implication of this is corporatism of the mainstream media, the major tool for making public opinion. Presumably, speaking the truth that goes against corporate interest has no access to the mainstream media. So, when Bush administration imposed unjust war on Iraq, many humanitarian intellectuals who were against the war opposing the corporate interest got little access to mainstream media. Peace loving intellectuals at that time vastly relied on alternate media but due to its limitation they failed to create public opinion against fascist Bush and his cohorts. Due to this failure Bush could succeed to get elected for the second term to run the administration in a fascist manner.

 

Naomi Wolf, in her famous book 'The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (2007)', with concrete evidences revealed the fact how the US controls the press. Referring the Committee to Protect Journalists she points out that the arrest of US journalists is at an all-time high. Contemporary US historian Prof. Carolyn Baker in her book "US History Uncensored" (2006) has rightly argued that over the decades US has turned into a close society from an open one. In a close society, as we observed in the case of former communist USSR and its folds, speaking all truth to the establishment was quite impossible. So, Russian free thinkers like Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989), Boris Pasternek (1921-1999) and many other had to face much hurdles and pains for expressing truth to the establishment.

 

In contemporary West Europe, especially in the UK, the scenario of freedom of speech is relatively much better. Still the situation there in this context is not unquestionable. The Civitas, an independent think tank has expressed its observation (2006), "For centuries Britain has been a beacon of liberty of thought, belief and speech, but now the freedom of its intellectual and political life is being subjected to a subtle form of 'censorship'"

 

The world's largest democratic and our neighbouring country India although comparatively better than other sub-continental countries, restricts freedom of expression in many political and religious aspects. No political party there can boast of respecting the freedom of the press. There have been numerous instances of newspaper offices being vandalized and editors and journalists being roughed up by political flunkeys for publishing articles that were critical of their leaders. Banning of books is not uncommon by the central or state government. For instance the ban on Dwikhandito, a book written by Taslima Nasrin by the West Bengal Government can be cited.

 

Apart from the religious issue like many other countries, speaking truth on other secular issues that go against the interest of the establishment is also difficult in Bangladesh. So, for implicit reasons our writers/journalists dare not unveil the fact on Chittagong Hill Tracts turmoil or the much debated issue of 'cross fire.'

 

In conclusion, we can argue that the freedom of speech or right to speak to the establishment will not be translated into reality in this planet unless we work out for it. For this, we need to go a long way overcoming all hurdles and pains following the footstep of the free thinkers of the past. For this, we need to nurture the courage of our own conscience so that we can make our planet a place blessed with the freedom of expression.(BY Courtesy-Mukto Mona-Bangla Desh Humanist web site.)

 

 

 

 

--
Bipin Shroff

http://bipinshroff.blogspot.com/
shroffbipin@gmail.com

A Thought-Provoking Poetry-By omar

 

" If Madrasahs of those drunks
Became the educational institutes
Of teaching philosophy of
Epicures, Plato and Aristotle;

If Abode and Mazars of Peer and Drabesh
Is turned into research institutes,

If men instead of following blind faith of religion
Should have cultivated ethics,

If the abode of worships were turned into
Centers of learning of all academic activities,

If instead of studying religion, men
Would have devoted to develop mathematics - algebra,

If logic of science would have occupied the place of
Sufism, faith and superstition,

Religion that divides human beings
Would have replaced by humanism, ....

Then world would have turned into haven,
The world on other side then would have extinguished,
The world would then become full of
Love-affection-freedom-joy,

And there is no doubt about it."

Omar composed this poem long long time back, but it appears the environment that existed in his time is still prevailing in Bangladesh. I wish he revisit Bangladesh, we need him desperately- " Oh ! Omar, Come to Bangladesh, a land of superstition, blind faith and fotowabaz at least once, we need you much". 

 

BY Omar

With courtesy -Mukto Mona-Oct-Issue-08.
--
Bipin Shroff

http://bipinshroff.blogspot.com/
shroffbipin@gmail.com

Application of Sharia In Britain-rings a Death Bell for a secular British Society.-Article published in Mukto Mona-The Bangla Desh Humanist society.

Do not put Hands of Clock Back : Installation of the Sharia in UK.

Bipin Shroff

Published on October 13, 2008

 

Britain is known as the cradle of Democracy. The world owes for it to Britain. Now the same country does something which is totally against the very spirit of democracy. Who will save whom? Britain has decided to give Sharia-the Muslim Religion Legal system to have equal status & empowers this system to solve the secular problems of the Muslim society in the nation. The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Williams is the man who has provided the ground for its smooth sailing. The logic & objective behind his arguments are that though Britain has its vibrant legal system, but society is governed by its religious customs & conventions. He has gone to the extent of arguing that it is necessary to create the social cohesion in the nation. There are different social immigrants religious groups like Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians etc who are wedded to their different religions. Their daily non- economic & non- educational lives are governed by their religious customs & conventions. So why not their social & marital disputes be decided by their religious legal codes? They had been evolved throughout the ages. How by giving Sharia the legal powers the British Muslims will be the part of main western culture? He failed to explain that. On the contrary this action will pave the way for creating the Muslim residents areas as 'no go areas'. Their localities (areas) will be ghettoized.

Our discussion is in relation to Muslim Personal Law-particularly the applications of SHARIA- in the life of British Muslim Citizens. Our simple question is; Is there any difference between the Muslim Personal Law Sharia & British Law? What is the difference between the Natural Law or Just Law & Revealed religious law like Sharia? The Natural Law is evolved on the basis of Human needs. Its basic assumption is to create such legal conditions in the society under which the human being can live happily & develop his human potentialities. It provides the congenital climate, atmosphere & the frame of legal structure under which each citizen feels secure, protected & live without any personal whims of the man or the religious dogmas and fatwas. According to Thomas Hobbes the Natural Law is the creation of the people among themselves for their mutual happiness and prosperity. He further argued that the origin and evolution of the natural law by the human beings have brought the human life from the brink of solitary, poor, brutish, short lives to the present human lives. Another important feature of the Natural Law is that it evolves according to the needs of the society. It is dynamic. There are possibilities of changes in the application of Natural Laws. It is impartial and publicly knowable. As for example laws regarding slavery, hours of working for the laborers, voting rights, marriageable age of man and woman, regarding the laws of inheritance, and reformative theory of criminal punishments .we find lot of changes from generations to generations in these laws. Here the law is known as the rule of law not the rule of man. All religious laws are supported by their religious books, customs & conventions. They are considered as sacrosanct and have revealed sanctions. They are the creation of Supernatural authority and or by the prophet himself. So laws like Sharia are not amenable to modifications or amendments. We cannot make any necessary changes according to the needs of the present social order. Sharia had been created by more than one thousand years before according to that age needs. Now if the country like Britain, tries to create conditions favorable for the application of Sharia to its Muslim citizens what will be the future of coming Muslim Generations? Let us see how Sharia punishes its followers for the criminal offences. These crimes are punished by specific penalties, such as death by stoning, lashes, the severing of a hand and head etc. For the crime as adultery the punishment is death by stoning, for the crime as the theft, cutting of the hand, eye for eye, ear for ear, and limb for limb etc. We do not know what compels the liberal country like Britain to go for the Sharia Laws for its Muslim Populations. When the demand or voice comes from the Christian Clergy like the archbishop of Canterbury we smell something serious. There is a world wide demand for the revival of religious faith. Logic of the situation compels us to think that all religious zealots want to reestablish their hegemony over the secular life of their believers. Adoption of the Sharia in Britain will pave the ways for Christians, Hindus and others to demand the same in their democratic nations. Then where they we will lead to the mankind? The legal sanctions to the Sharia Laws will give free way to the Political Islam to do whatever it thinks right. Just like the lesson of our childhood story when the man allows his camel to put its one leg inside the tent because of the shivering outside atmosphere, ultimately the camel throws the man outside the camel takes the possession of the tent. Those who fail to learn the lessons of the history they will commit the same mistake. Let sane voice prevails among the people of the Britain including its Muslim population.

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Bipin Shroff, rationalist and humanist writes from GA, USA. He can be reached at bipin_shroff@yahoo.com

                              

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Bipin Shroff

http://bipinshroff.blogspot.com/
shroffbipin@gmail.com

About Nanavati Commission-Provides fuel for Fascism-

In Truth, Dark Times The Nanavati report is another depressing sign of Indian democracy's continuing free-fall TARUN J TEJPAL Editor-in-Chief DICTATORSHIP WALKS in through the front door, often without a preamble, one sunlit morning. Fascism almost never rings the bell. It slips in through the backdoor, climbs in over window-sills, pads up the basement, locates a rotten rafter to make its covert entry. Dictatorship is showy. It lodges itself in the living room, confident it commands the house. Fascism is sneaky. It quietly settles into every room, knowing it runs the house. Dictatorships can be overthrown by the people. Fascism is the people. Of course we must not be alarmist. We are a great democracy. Look at our Constitution. Look at our Parliament. Look at our free and fair elections — well, okay, prolific elections. Look at our free and fair media — well, okay, prolific media. Look at our free and fair judiciary — well, okay, our judiciary. Let us not try and list the police and the bureaucracy: we have a consensus of unhappiness about them. In a great democracy — well, okay, a great democracy in the making — these are minor flaws. No doubt, evolution will make us perfect. This catalogue of virtues is only enumerated by those of us who live inside India's charmed circle. To whose privileged lives the soaring idea of democracy can provide a glittering embroidery. It's the banquet hall view of the state — cosy with good food and fine conversation. And it is articulated only by those of us who have somehow managed to grab a seat at the table, even if it is a low one. It's useful to remember, every ruling class from Caesar to Stalin has believed it was doing right by its people. Today to read the Indian state through the banquet hall is to read a crocodile through a handbag. Only those who confront the beast know its true nature. A thousand handbags cannot tell you how mercilessly the jaws of a crocodile clamp. But all around the country there are numberless Christians, Muslims, displaced tribals, turfed-out farmers, brutalised dalits, disputing citizens, who can give you a clear idea of its brutal force. Each of their accounts tears the heart out of the idea of India. Experience is a gift for anyone. Especially for journalists. Seven years ago some of us at TEHELKA were accorded a special opportunity by the Indian state. For blowing a sharp whistle we were dragged into the entrails of the beast. How fearsome its innards were — with not a hint of the beauty of the handbag! Among the many intimate journeys we were taken on was a special starring role in a commission of inquiry. This is a special trick of the beast — an invite to a lengthy palaver at the end of which, when no one is looking, the guest is eaten. For 19 months we participated, along with more than 15 lawyers including some of India's finest, in a burlesque of lies and immorality against us. It was a rare education. We were forever cured of the banquet hall view of the state IN GUJARAT last week, a commission of inquiry has just eaten up its guests. Justice Nanavati, mandated to inquire into the Godhra tragedy and its violent aftermath, has delivered an astonishing verdict. Flying in the face of all evidence, he has perilously declared that the bogey burning was the result of a local Muslim conspiracy. At the best of times such a conclusion would have called for caution. To do so in a time of ratcheting communal tensions, with all the facts suggesting otherwise, is nothing short of disastrous. The truth of Godhra is awful, but it's not a conspiracy. All the evidence indicates that neither the state nor the local Muslims played any premeditated role in the horrific assault on the train. Once the dastardly event was over, a sinister attempt began to give it a political colour. In the pages that follow, a six-month-long TEHELKA investigation reveals how the establishment and the police broke every rule in the book to manufacture a conspiracy theory. Nanavati was meant to snooker the state's unlawful conduct. Instead he has endorsed it! The chances are he will get away with it. As it is universally, India's secure classes have a charitable view of the system they run. Breathless with carving out the pie, they have little time for distant niceties. In a country of a billion people, a few hundred Muslims mouldering in jail can arouse only so much concern. Citizens move on slogans not on details. Politicians and policemen bank on that.Terrorism is a headline; individual innocence is a nuance. And anyway all those Muslim names sound the same after a while. As do the tribal. And the dalit. Fascism keeps padding in into our rooms on animal feet. We know the answers. Enforce the law. Ensure justice. Follow the Constitution. The beast knows them too. Only too well. It knows these are the very leash by which it should be bound. But the stake anchoring the leash — public will: as represented by media, intelligentsia, civil society — has come loose. It has badly splintered, lost its sense of anchorage, and it believes the beast will maraud elsewhere and never round on it. The fables of the world are full of such foolishness. Once, a few good men had a good idea. The idea of India. It resulted in the most magical political experiment of the 20th century. It allowed a complex, ancient, trampled civilisation an enviable entry into modernity. The experiment is still on. In truth, there are dark days — increasingly too many — when it seems to be sliding towards failure. In their roster of virtues, the original visionaries had a gift that made their grand experiments possible. Like the finest literary writers they had the gift of empathy. The ability to intimately imagine the life of another. It took them to a place beyond caste, community, and religion. It made the idea of India possible. It is a gift we need to rediscover again, at every level. To imagine once again the life of one man, one woman. One people.

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 40, Dated Oct 11, 2008

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Bipin Shroff

http://bipinshroff.blogspot.com/
shroffbipin@gmail.com

Does Science make belief in Allah/God/Christ Obsolete

Does Science make belief in Allah/God/Christ Obsolete?
By-Pakistan Free Thinkers Group.
These are the three articles posted on me by e-mail from Pakistan Free Thinkers Group.
Article 1 : Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete?
Necessarily, it does - speaks a physicist
If not, we must invent a science-friendly, science-compatible fiction of Allah/God.
First, try the pantheon of available fictional creators. Inspect thoroughly. If none
fits the bill, invent a new one. The Allah/God of your choice must be a stickler for
the so-called divine principles laid down by the priests-the classical inventors of
Allah/God over the centuries. Science does not take kindly to the so-called deity
who, ignorants suppose, if piqued or euphoric, sets aside seismological or
cosmological principles and in wild dreams of many, can causes the moon to
shiver, the earth to split asunder, or, as to some stupids, such a deity may even
cause the universe to suddenly reverse its expansion. This fictional Allah/God
must, among other things, be stoically indifferent to supplications for changing
local meteorological conditions, the task already being naturally performed by the
discipline of fluid dynamics. Therefore, religious people, even if they pray
earnestly
with their buutocks elevated in the air, dance with great energy around totem
poles, shall not cause even a drop of rain to fall on parched soil. This newly
invented, rule-abiding and science respecting Allah/God/Bhagwan equally well
dispenses with tearful Christians singing the Book of Job, pious Hindus feverishly
reciting the havan yajna, or earnest Muslims performing the « special rain prayers
» in hot dry deserts as they face the former abide of idols, the so-called holy
Ka’aba.
The fact is that the equations of fluid flow, not the number of earnest supplicants
or quality of their prayers, determine weather outcomes. This is grossly irreligious
otherwise one could imagine joining the faithful of all religions in a huge
simultaneous but vain global prayer that stupids feel would wipe away the
pernicious effects of anthropogenic global climate change. Your chosen Allah/God
cannot entertain private petitions for good health and longevity, prevent an air
crash, or send woe upon demand to the enemy. Mindful of microbiology and
physiology, She/He cannot cure leprosy by dipping the afflicted in rivers or have
humans remain in unscathed condition after being devoured by a huge fish.
Faster-than- light travel is also out of the question, even for the so-called prophets
and special messengers. Instead, She/He must stay as the fictional and nominal
runner of the world according to the laws and unto the letter, closely following the
flow of Nature. A
scientific fictional Creator should certainly know an awful lot of science which the
formerly invented medieval Allah/God did’t need. To differentiate between the
countless universes discovered by superstring theory is a headache. Fine-tuning
chemistry to generate complex proteins, and then initiating a cascade of
mutations that turn microbe to man, is also no trivial matter. But bear in mind
1
that there are definite limits to knowledge, whether by man or by any fictional
creator: the fictional Allah/God can supposedly know only the limited, the
knowable. Omniscience and science do not go well with each other. The difficulty
with omniscience—even with regard to a particle as humble as the electron—has
been recognized as an issue since the 1920s. Subatomic particles show a vexing,
subtle elusiveness that defeats even the most sophisticated effort to measure
certain of their properties even when tried by a fictional Allah/God.
Unpredictability is intrinsic to quantum
mechanics, the branch of physics which all particles are empirically seen to show.
This discovery so disturbed Albert Einstein that he rejected quantum mechanics,
pronouncing that the fictional Allah/God could not “play dice with the universe.”
But it turned out that Einstein’s objections were flawed—uncertainty is deeply
fundamental. Thus, any science-abiding fictional deity we invent will be
incompletely informed on many aspects of nature. Is one being excessively
audacious, perhaps impertinent, in setting down terms of reference for a fictional
divine and non-existant entity? Really ! Humans have always invented their
objects of worship. Smarter humans go for smarter fictional versions of
Allah/God. Anthropomorphic representations— such as a Allah/God with octopus
arms—are a bit out of fashion today but were enormously popular just a few
centuries ago. As well, some people might object to binding fictional Allah/God
and the real human to the same rules of logic, or
perhaps even sharing the same space-time manifold. But if we drop this essential
demand then little shall remain. Reason and evidence would lose meaning and be
replaced by fiction, tradition, and the delusion of revelation. It would then be
wrong for us to have 2 + 2 = 5, but okay for inventing the fiction of an Allah/God.
Centuries of human progress would come to naught.
Let’s face it: the day of the mythical Sky God is long gone. In the Age of Science,
religion has been re-invented, and the medieval Allah/God of classical religions
has lost repute and territory. Today people pay lip service to trusting that rusty
Allah/God but they still swallow medicines when sick. Muslim-run airlines start a
plane journey with prayers but ask passengers to buckle-up anyway, and most
suspect that people who are falsely rumoured to rise miraculously from the dead
were probably not quite dead to begin with. These days if you hear a voice telling
you to sacrifice your only son, you would probably report it to the authorities
instead of taking the poor lad up a mountain, and if you really took your son to an
alter for sacrifice, the state will sure put you in a mental asylum, irrespective of
whether you call yourself the prophet Abrahim or somebody else. As you can well
imagine, the old trust is disappearing.
Nevertheless, there remains the tantalizing fiction of a divine power somewhere
“out there” who is blamed to run a mysterious, but scrupulously and rather
stupidly, a miracle-free universe. In this universe, the fictional Allah/God may be
dishonestly ascribed to act in ingenious ways that seem miraculous. Yet these
fictional and “never-actually- verified- miracles” do violate physical laws and seem
ridiculous. Ordinary and naturally, no supernatural interventions in the physical
world could permit quantum tunneling through cosmic holes. It would be
perfectly unfair for a scientific mind to invent a fictional Allah/God to explain the
nonlinear dynamics to explain how tiny fluctuations quickly build up to
earthshaking results—the famous “butterfly effect” to give a rather dull
explaination of the deterministic chaos theory. Nietzsche and the other
philosophers were plain right—God was never alive, but always dead. Even as the
fiction of divine habitat, the sky, shrinks
before the aggressive encroachment of science, the quantum foam of space-time
may be ascribed to create a little confused space for the crazy delusion based on
the spare universes, offering space both for self-described “deeply and spiritually
confused believers”. Many eminent practitioners of science have successfully
persuaded themselves that there is no logical contradiction between faith and
belief, by inventing a science-fiction of Allah/God, or by clothing a traditional
fiction in new terminology of science fiction. Unsure of whether they happen to
exist at all, humans are likely to scour the miserable delusion of heavens forever in
search of some sort of meaning.
(Remaining- on-part2.)
(PAK-FREE-THINKERS-PART-2)
Article 2 : Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete?
Yes, of course - speaks a psychologist
While discussing "Science" I mean the entire enterprise of secular reason and
knowledge (including history and philosophy), not just people who working in
their white lab coats,
create babies within test tubes.
Traditionally, a belief in an Allah/God was attractive because it promised to
explain the deepest puzzles about origins. Where did the world come from? What
is the basis of life? How can the mind arise from the body? Why should anyone be
moral?
Yet over the millennia, there has been an inexorable trend: the deeper we probe
these questions, and the more we learn about the world in which we live, the less
reason there is to believe in an Allah/God.
Start with the origin of the world. Today no honest and informed person can
maintain that the universe came into being a few thousand years ago and was
made by an Allah/God in six days (to say nothing of the questions like day and
night existing before the sun was created). Nor is there a more abstract role for an
Allah/God to play as the ultimate first cause. This trick simply replaces the puzzle
of "Where did the universe come from?" with the equivalent puzzle "Where did
Allah/God came from/who created this Allah/God?"
What about the fantastic diversity of life and its ubiquitous signs of design? At one
time it was understandable to name an Allah/God designer as creatoe of it all. No
longer. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace showed how the complexity of
life could arise from the physical process of natural selection among replicators,
and then Watson and Crick showed how DNA replication itself could be
understood in physical terms. Notwithstanding religious creationist propaganda,
the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, including our DNA, the fossil record,
the distribution of life on earth, and our own anatomy and physiology.
For many people the human soul feels like a divine spark within us. But
neuroscience has shown that our intelligence and emotions consist of intricate
patterns of activity in the trillions of connections in our brain thus creating the
so-called divine spark. However, relabeling the brain activity with the word "soul"
adds nothing to our understanding.
People used to think that biology could not explain why we have a conscience. But
the human moral sense can be studied like any other mental faculty, such as
1
thirst, color vision, or fear of heights. Evolutionary psychology and cognitive
neuroscience are showing how our moral intuitions work, why they evolved, and
how they are implemented within the brain.
This leaves morality itself—the benchmarks that allow us to criticize and improve
our moral intuitions. It is true that neither science nor an Allah/God can show
what is right or wrong. It's not just that the traditional Judeo-Christian God or
Islamic Allah endorsed genocide, slavery, rape, and the death penalty for trivial
insults. It's that morality cannot be grounded in a fictional divine decree, not even
on mere abstract principle. Why did a fictional Allah/God arbitrarily deem some
acts moral and others immoral? When even his existance is an illusion, we have
no reason to trust such a divine whim, why should we take this fictional being’s
commandments seriously?
Those reasons are found in the nature of rationality as it is exercised by any
intelligent human society. The essence of morality is the concept of reciprocity
and the collectivity of humans being watchful of other’s behaviour. The fact that
as soon as I appeal to you to help me when I am in need, or not to hurt me for no
reason, I have to be willing to apply the same standards to you. That is the only
policy that is logically consistent and makes both of us as well as the society in
geberal better off. And an Allah/God plays no role in it.
For all these reasons, it's no coincidence that European democracies have
experienced three sweeping trends during the past few centuries: barbaric
religious practices (such as slavery, sadistic criminal punishment, and the
mistreatment of children) have decreased significantly; scientific and scholarly
understanding has increased exponentially; and belief in an Allah/God has
decreased. Science, in the broadest sense, is making belief in God obsolete, and we
are the better for it.
(PAK-FREE-THINKERS-PART-3.)
Article 3 : Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete?
No, and yes - speaks a Christian Priest….present article :
Does the science make Allah/God obsolete as a result of reason and inquiry ? The
knowledge that we have gained through modern science, does it make belief in a
fictional and concocted Intelligence behind the cosmos, more incredible than ever
?
And, yes, science does make Allah/God obsolete, not only as a matter of
intellectual sensibility but also at the level of our deeper senses. Of course, not just
science itself but a rational "scientific mentality" that often accompanies it, along
with the power, control, comfort, and convenience provided by modern
technology, it has helped to push the concept of the fictional Allah/God into the
hazy twilight of agnosticism. Superficially it may seem that the advances of
science have made Allah/God obsolete by providing natural and rational
explanations for phenomena that were once thought to be the result of so-called
fictional divine activity. These advances have been the continuation of the
Enlightenment, liberation from the religious superstitions begun by Greeks
thousands of years ago in Athens. Eenlightened Greek philosophers were followed
by many liberal and secular scholars of Renaissance who "de-divinized (by
excluding the idea of an Allah/God)" Nature to a degree
unparalleled in the ancient world.
Summarizing an established tradition 750 years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas taught
that the wise governor ordinarily governs by delegation to competent
subordinates. In the case of Nature, the fictional Allah/God’s governs by means of
the regularities built into the natures of things.; what religious nonsense,
Cndeed…. !.
In short, the Nature we know from modern science embodies and reflects material
properties and a depth of intelligibility, surely far beyond the wildest imaginings
of the Greek philosophers of 4000 years ago. One must view all these extremely
complex, elegant, and intelligible laws, entities, properties, and relations evolved
in the universe as " facts" in need of further exploration and rest assured that the
philosophical explanation is the honorable responsibility of human intelligence ;
on the other hand, leaving all this to the religious and superstitious nonsense will
be, indeed, "an abdication of human intelligence. "
Fortunately, except for the nonsense of postmodernism, the modern mood of
iquiry is not different. In terms of modern sensibilities, the intellectual culture of
1
the Europe and the europeanized West is dominated by a scientific mentality that
seeks to explain qualitative and holistic realities through quantitative and
reductive, as well as by explaination of the workings of parts in relation to the
whole. This is not just the unlimited application of the "scientific mentality" called
the scientism, but this is essentially the philosophical belief, a secular faith that
the scientific methods and scientific explanations can lead us to grasp all aspects
of reality and nothing less. Of course, such attitude, of necessity, is accompanied
by agnosticism or atheism.
In terms of popular sentiment, scientific attitude, though not in itself sufficisnt,
seems to have carried the day. Most people therefore intuitively accept the notion
that human nature and human experience, though not reducible to what is
scientifically knowable, gives a world of feelings, opinions, and personal values
that we can better channel with the help of the science of mind and behaviour.
The increase in leisure and health brought about by our increasing mastery over
Nature has certainly resulted, despite the evil of religion, in an increase in wisdom
and the contemplation of the great, the rational, and the reasonable. On the other
hand, our technology-based leisure doesn’t really result in loud hedonism,
consumerism, and mind-numbing mass entertainment. In this milieu, many may,
still, claim belief in a fictional Allah/God, however, the course of their lives reflect
de facto agnosticism which would be expected and justifiably so in their everyday
experiences and
priorities.
In all our scientistic "knowledge" of the inner workings of things, and our
technology-based comforts and distractions, there would always be a definite
place for the voice of conscience, whereas, in a practical and existential sense,
science and technology seem to have pushed belief in a fictional Allah/God toward
obsolescence, and rightly so.
In our innermost being, we moderns remain inquistive. Sooner or later we will
achieve an existential enlightenment, and recognize in our lives something
solemn, ordered, not in need of any fiction of divine, not any more. The fact that
we can recognize disorder, brokenness and evil in a religious milieu which occur
within a larger framework of human order, reason and ethics, il is surely a sign of
our essentially human conscience. Yet brokenness and disorder are things
painfully religious, and the human soul by its very nature seeks something more
than the mere fiction of religion, it seeks a deeper humanism, a lasting sense of
ethics and morality based on historical human experience. Consideration of the
order and reason in nature can lead us to a scientific and humanist paradise of the
philosophers, sure, but consideration of the religious evil and wickedness leads us
into the religious hell and beyond.

(THE-END).

Muslims suffer disproportionately from the rule of dictators

 

http://www.nationalpost.com/story-printer.html?id=462003
Can democracy and Islam coexist?

Daniel Pipes,  National Post  Published: Tuesday, April 22, 2008

 

Abid Katib, Getty Images

There's an impression that Muslims suffer disproportionately from the rule of dictators, tyrants, unelected presidents, kings, emirs and various other strongmen - and it's accurate. A careful analysis by Frederic L. Pryor of Swarthmore College in the Middle East Quarterly (Are Muslim Countries Less Democratic?) concludes, "In all but the poorest countries, Islam is associated with fewer political rights."

The fact that majority-Muslim countries are less democratic makes it tempting to conclude that the religion of Islam, their common factor, is itself incompatible with democracy.

I disagree with that conclusion. Today's Muslim predicament, rather, reflects historical circumstances more than innate features of Islam. Put differently, Islam, like all pre-modern religions is undemocratic in spirit. No less than the others, however, it has the potential to evolve in a democratic direction.

Such evolution is not easy for any religion. In the Christian case, the battle to limit the Catholic Church's political role was painfully long. If the transition began when Marsiglio of Padua published Defensor pacis in the year 1324, it took another seven centuries for the Church fully to reconcile itself to democracy. Why should Islam's transition be smoother or easier?

To render Islam consistent with democratic ways will require profound changes in its interpretation. For example, the anti-democratic law of Islam, the Shari'a, lies at the core of the problem. Developed over a millennium ago, it presumes autocratic rulers and submissive subjects, emphasizes God's will over popular sovereignty and encourages violent jihad to expand Islam's borders. Further, it anti-democratically privileges Muslims over non-Muslims, males over females and free persons over slaves.

For Muslims to build fully functioning democracies, they basically must reject the Shari'a's public aspects. Turkey's first president Mustafa Ataturk frontally did just that in his country, but others have offered more subtle approaches. Mahmud Muhammad Taha, a Sudanese thinker, dispatched the public Islamic laws by fundamentally reinterpreting the Koran.

Ataturk's efforts and Taha's ideas imply that Islam is ever-evolving, and that to see it as unchanging is a grave mistake. Or, in the lively metaphor of Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at the University of Cairo, the Koran "is a supermarket, where one takes what one wants and leaves what one doesn't want."

Islam's problem is less its being anti-modern than that its process of modernization has hardly begun. Muslims can modernize their religion, but that requires major changes: Out go waging jihad to impose Muslim rule, second-class citizenship for non-Muslims and death sentences for blasphemy or apostasy. In come individual freedoms, civil rights, political participation, popular sovereignty, equality before the law and representative elections.

Two obstacles stand in the way of these changes, however. In the Middle East especially, tribal affiliations remain of paramount importance. As explained by Philip Carl Salzman in his recent book, Culture and Conflict in the

Middle East, these ties create a complex pattern of tribal autonomy and tyrannical centralism that obstructs the development of constitutionalism, the rule of law, citizenship, gender equality and the other prerequisites of a democratic state. Not until this archaic social system based on the family is dispatched can democracy make real headway in the Middle East.

Globally, the compelling and powerful Islamist movement obstructs democracy. It seeks the opposite of reform and modernization -- namely, the reassertion of the Shari'a in its entirety. A jihadist like Osama bin Laden may spell out this goal more explicitly than an establishment politician like Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but both seek to create a thoroughly anti-democratic, if not totalitarian, order.

Islamists respond two ways to democracy. First, they denounce it as unIslamic. Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna considered democracy a betrayal of Islamic values. Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb rejected popular sovereignty, as did Abu al-A'la al-Mawdudi, founder of Pakistan's Jamaate-Islami political party. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Al-Jazeera television's imam, argues that elections are heretical.

Despite this scorn, Islamists are eager to use elections to attain power and have proven themselves to be agile vote-getters; even a terrorist organization (Hamas) has won an election. This record does not render the Islamists democratic but indicates their tactical flexibility and their determination to gain power. As Erdogan has revealingly explained, "Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off."

Hard work can one day make Islam democratic. In the meanwhile, Islamism represents the world's leading anti-democratic force. - Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and the Taube/Diller Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. ©All rights reserved by Daniel Pipes. www.danielpipes.org

URGENT MATTERS

Dear ALL this matter requires urgent action on our part So please get active, oppose this move and send letters to Central/state govt. we are doing so soon

Punjab bans rationalist literature

Submitted by admin on 22 March, 2008 - 09:57.

In a shocking affront to freedom of expression, the Government of Punjab, India, has banned four rationalist books and threatened legal action against the authors and translators, Tarksheel Society of Punjab reports. The supposed grounds for the ban is that the books are "incorrect literature" about Hindu deities.

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Dear friends,

There is something, we want to bring to your attention.

In whichever states in India, Bhartiya Janta Party (backed by Right-wing Hindu fundamentalist organisations – Vishva Hindu Parishad and Rashitriya Swayam Sevak Sangh) or their allies are in power, there has been a common practise of attempting to crush the voices of dissent and rational thought, of banning the literature, documentary films, silencing the writers and journalists through state machinery.

Punjab, a north Indian state, is the most recent example of this undemocratic, fascist and dictatorial act. And Megh Raj Mitter, founder of Tarksheel (Rationalist) Society and a prominent Punjabi writer (honoured with the title of Shiromani Lekhak, Punjab state's highest award for writers) is the latest to bear the brunt.

On Thursday afternoon, Punjab Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal (leader of Shiromani Akali Dal, a party supported by the BJP), imposed an "immediate ban" on four books, including Sri Lankan Dr Abraham T. Kovoor's renowned 'God, Demons and Spirits', translated into Punjabi by Megh Raj Mitter and his associates in 1985. And Punjab Government is said to be gearing up to take the legal course of action (like arresting the authors, confiscating the copies of books and banning the publication) as well.

Unfortunately, the Punjab government has forgotten the vital role these books have played in the development of rational temperament among the masses of Punjab. Ironically, about two decades back, with a written letter the state government had recommended these books for the libraries of the government run schools for the scientific knowledge they imparted. Also, when Mitter was awarded the Shiromani Lekhak Award by the Language Department of Punjab government in 2001, the citation of the award ceremony prominently hailed these very books.

Today, fundamentalist forces, partonised the by the government, are threatening to attack Megh Raj Mitter and other rationalist activists. A few rationalist activists were even attacked in the last few days.

Thus, through this letter we appeal all the humanist, democratic, rationalist and secular people to come forward to defend the right of freedom of speech and expression.

It is not just a question of a few individuals or organisations, but also a matter of protecting the shrinking democratic space in the India.

We appeal you to condemn this heinous act at every possible level. Kindly forward this letter to as many people as you can, write an appeal to President, Prime Minister of India, CM Punjab and Governor of Punjab.

Regards

Surjit Talwar
(Editor, Tarkbodh)

For any queries you can contact on our Web site : www.tarksheel.com

Dear friend,

Please e-mail this letter to the Chief Minister of Punjab Prakashsing Badal & to the honorable Prime Minister of India, both separately. I have given their respective e-mail addresses.

Please use cut-Paste to send e-mail

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E-mail-Address of C.M.Punjab. cs@punjabmail.gov.in

To,

The Honorable Chief Minister,

Shree Prakashsinh Badal.

State Sachivalaya.Chandigadh,

Punjab. India.

Sub-With Ref-to your action-banning Rationalist Literature in your State.

Particularly banning the book written by Dr.Abhram T Kavoor-“GOD-DEMONS &SPIRITS.’

Respected Sir,

I the undersigned is the free citizen of India humbly request your honorable office to lift the ban which has been imposed on the Rationalist Literature including the book written by Dr Abrams Kavoor namely God –Demons & Spirits..

Sir,

Ours is a free country & we know that rationalist people just try to develop scientific attitude in the society. May I remind you sir that Article 51-H of the constitution expects from the citizen to develop scientific attitude. Your honorable office tries to reverse it.

Please lift the ban on the same & oblige.

Yours Faithfully

(your name)

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Prime Minister of India,Manmohansingjee http://pmindia.nic.in/write.htm

To,

The Honorable Prime Minister of India,

Manmohansingjee,

The Prime Minister Office,

New Delhi.India.

Sub-With Ref-to the Punjab Government Decision to ban Rationalist Literature in the state of Punjab&

Particularly banning the book written by Dr.Abhram T Kavoor-“GOD-DEMONS &SPIRITS.’

Respected Sir,

I the undersigned is the free citizen of India .I humbly request your honorable office to use your reasonable influence & request the Gov’t of Punjab to lift the ban which has been imposed on the Rationalist Literature including the book written by Dr Abrams Kavoor namely God –Demons & Spirits on 27^th of March-08.

Ours is a free country & we know that rationalist people just try to develop scientific attitude in the society. May I humbly remind you, Sir, that Article 51-H of our constitution expects from the citizen to develop scientific attitude. The Punjab Gov’t under the Chief Minister ship of P . Badal office tries to reverse it.

Please I humbly request your good office to say a few words to the Badal Government of Punjab State to lift the ban on the same & oblige.

Yours Faithfully

(your name)

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Narinder Kumar said...
LOK MORCHA PUNJAB

27349, Mohalla Hari Nagar,

Lal Singh Basti Road,

Bathinda

E-Mail: nkjeetbti@gmail.com

Ref. No. ………………………. Dated: 12.5.07.ToSh.

Parkash Singh Badal,

Chief Minister, Punjab,

Chandigarh.

Subject: REPRESENTATION AGAINST IMPOSING BAN ON LITERATURE PUBLISHED BY RATIONALIST SOCIETY,PUNJAB.

Sir,

1. We have been extremely shocked to learn about Punjab Govt’s move to impose ban on 4 books published in Punjabi by the Rationalist Societies of Punjab, titled ‘DEV PURSH HAR GAYE’, ‘DEV DAINT ATE RUHAN’, ’TARAKBANI’ and ‘ ANDHVISHWAS MURDABAD’. This move is a direct attack on the freedom of expression so pompously enshrined in the Constitution of India, and is violative of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2. It seems that the Punjab Govt has been misguided and misinformed by some disgruntled Hindu obscurantist organizations, about the contents of these books to settle their petty personal scores. It has been alleged by some BJP & Hindu Shiv Sena leaders that these books contain some derogatory remarks about Hindu gods & deities, which is not correct. There is nothing like that in these books. The authors have explained the historical events, writings and phenomenon from rationalist angle.

3. It has to be borne in mind that the first two books, namely ‘DEV PURSH HAR GAYE’, and ‘DEV DAINT ATE RUHAN’ have been authored by the renowned rationalist thinker and activist of Sri Lanka- Abraham T. Kavoor. These books have been published by reputed publisher ‘Jaico Publishing House’ Bombay in English under the titles ‘Begone God men’ and ‘Gods, Demons & Spirits’ since 1976, and have been translated in many Indian & foreign languages. Millions of copies of these books have been sold throughout the world.

4. Similarly the book ‘Tarakbani’ is authored by Sh. Megh Raj Mittar, who has been awarded ‘Shiromani Lekhak Award’ by the Language Deptt of Punjab in the year 2001. In the citation of the award these books have been prominently hailed.

5. These books have been approved by various departments of Punjab Govt such as Education Deptt, and are provided in the libraries of the schools and colleges.

6. The present move by the Punjab Govt strikes at the root of the constitutional provisions, which proclaim that the state shall endeavor to imbibe scientific temperament and outlook amongst the citizens of the country. India is not a theocratic state and the atheists also have the right to propound their views. All right thinking people have resented this move. It has rightly drawn severe condemnation from a large number of mass organizations.

7. It is clear from the above that the proposal to ban the rationalist books is illegal, undemocratic, authoritarian and strikes at the roots of freedom of expression. In view of this you are requested to kindly rethink over the matter and drop the proposal to impose ban on the above said books.We shall be highly obliged to have a positive response.

Yours Sincerely,

(N.K.JEET)

AdvocatePresidentLok Morcha PunjabDistt Courts, Bathinda
Monday, May 12, 2008 1:17:00 PM