The fundamental right of a legislator to take oath in any language, as prescribed by the Constitution, was crassly violated by the MNS leaders. If the Constitution allows me a right, who are the MNS leaders to question it? They are definitely not the most popular of parties as proved in the assembly election winning just 13 seats (commendable from a new comer’s perspective). What gives Mr. Raj Thackeray and his cronies the right to threaten anyone taking their oath in a language other than Marathi? They send their own children to English medium schools. If they love the language so much shouldn’t they be sending their children to Marathi medium schools?? Is this the reason why the MLA’s did not object to leaders taking oath in English? Is this just another discriminatory tactic against the Hindi speaking population of India?

Mr. Thackeray would do well in politics if he focused his attention on the problems of the people. What will happen to the 4 constituencies whose MLA’s have been suspended, for attacking Mr. Azmi for 4 years? Are these MLA’s so efficient that they will achieve in a year what every other MLA struggles to achieve in 5 years? What about the work that could have been done in those 4 years? If these people are leaders in the true sense, then their focus should be on improving the condition of the people by representing them at state level and doing the best they can, instead of indulging in issues of language.

Agreed a leader in a particular region will work more efficiently if he knows the language of the land, but it is not a necessity. Instead of threatening or requesting in a threatening fashion, Mr Raj could have volunteered to arrange for Marathi classes for the MLAs who cannot speak the language. Instead of being proactive in popularising the language, Mr Raj has resorted to barbaric methods that do not suit an educated man like him. Will Mr Raj Thackeray please concentrate on increasing the popularity of the language by propagating it as a tool to help understand the people of the land better rather than forcing it down people’s throat?

I am a Mumbaikar since birth and I am proud to be one, but if I had lived in a land that MNS is propogating, I would be unable to find employment anywhere else in India. Knowing just Marathi, I would not have been equipped to take on the jobs that are offered by the other states where English is the medium of communication in almost all offices. Should the people of other states stoop to the level of MNS and shoo out all the Marathi speaking population?

As an individual,l I would like to see the political leaders of Maharashtra concentrate on resolving the issues of the farmers, make Mumbai a better place to live in and bring back the former glory of the state. Mr  Thackeray, please take your duties more seriously rather than concentrating on making big deals out of nothing.

- Pooja.

This incident brought an issue home to me, something which has been discussed to death – especially after the recent remarks of our Honorable Home Minister where he said we need to become better people to be a world class city.

Before I start off, I would like to say that I have done many of the things that I highlight in this article as being issues with us as a society. However, I believe that even though I have committed the same mistakes, I can point them out to my fellow citizens so that we can all move forward and act on them and try to improve ourselves.

One thing I have noticed about our behavior as a society. We take pride when we can get things done faster than usual. How we achieve this is not important as long as it is done. To achieve the ends, we may break rules/laws, incite others to break rules/laws, put people’s lives at risk, et al. But as long as the ends have been achieved, the means are justified.

Two prime examples of this would be our behavior on the roads and the ease with which we give and take bribes.

The difference between the way we behave in our own homes and once we step outside them is huge. Within our home, we are good people, keeping our home clean, everything in its place, following rules set down by our parents or our culture. But what happens to those rules when we go out on the road. We scarcely have any respect for the fellow road users – jumping signals, speeding, changing lanes at will (without indicating most of the times), hogging two lanes by driving on the lane markers, staying in the left most lane and making a u-turn/turning right when the signal turns green, honking unnecessarily, threatening to run down pedestrians (what I mean is that most of us when we see a person wanting to cross the road, we speed up so as to pass him/her before he/she has a chance to attempt the crossing – same with vehicles trying to enter the road). Don’t even get me started on all the people in expensive cars throwing paper/polythene bags out the window, spitting and a whole lot of other things they would not dare to do in their home. As has been often pointed out, these very people will observe the very same rules when they go abroad. Why is then so difficult to follow them here? The irony here is that in a closed room discussion the same person would be all for tougher rules and tougher implementation of the rules. He/she would also be the first person to say that the system has gone to the dogs.

(Pics Courtesy: Team BhP)

Similar is the case with corruption. The defense presented is that the system is that way and if one does not pay bribes, the work just won’t get done. “Political parties in India understand this and corruption is not an issue in Indian politics. Politicians, who are demonstrably corrupt, recorded on camera taking a bribe or saying appalling things, or convicted by a court, can hold legitimate hope of a comeback—unthinkable in the West.”[1] But how did the system get this way. Isn’t it our fault that we have made it this way? If the officer/bureaucrat asking for bribe had been told to go to hell/reported to start off with, this massive problem of corruption wouldn’t be plaguing our society.

Most of you would be aware of the flood situation that was prevalent in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. There have been instances reported where people are desperately seeking help to get out of water logged areas, standing on roof tops of buildings that have been submerged almost completely, only for a boat/helicopter to come along and demanding money from them to take them to higher ground. Instances where people have broken into houses that have been evacuated and stealing the money and valuables in them. We often like to take the moral high ground by highlighting our culture and heritage of thousands of years. When did a society with such great culture and heritage like ours degenerate to a level where people are trading over others’ lives and deaths? I am sure the boatmen or the helicopter owner would justify their actions by saying that the system had failed by not addressing the needs of the people and it is only proper that they be compensated for their actions. Even the thieves would come up with a justification if asked. But, in the end, does it make it right?

Instead of blaming everything on the system, we should realize that we are the ones at fault because we are part of the system and have done nothing to change it. Worse, instead of attempting to change it, most of us are only making it worse by going along with it, doing what others do.

One of the discussions I had with my friends raised an interesting point. It says that we are like this because we believe in rebirth while most other religions don’t. While other religions say that once a person dies, he/she goes to heaven or hell depending on the sum total of their actions, that is not the case with Hinduism. Hence one has to be careful what they are doing and how they are living so as to not suffer in the fires of hell. But in Hinduism, we will only come back to live another life. And the added positive is that one won’t remember a thing of their previous lives. Any mistakes one makes now can be rectified later on in future lives. Then why should they bother to live carefully now and be considerate towards other people. I don’t know how far this is true. Am not even sure if religion affects the way of life so much but it was a point worth thinking about.

Another view on whether religion affects cultures is presented in this article in The Mint, “Why Indians don’t give back to Society?” It made for an interesting reading. Please do go through it.

This was a very open ended article and I am not sure how we can solve the problem. As I have mentioned earlier, I have made several of the above mentioned mistakes and many more, but only after a close friend was seriously injured have I begun to think about it. Hopefully some of you might be able to offer solutions that can be implemented on a large scale.

- Keerti Pendyal

Flashback: Living in a very secure all-Sikh community from the day I was born, I had never thought much about how non-Sikhs view Sikhs and why we are different from them. Studying in a Sikh school never exposed me to questions like “why don’t you cut your kesh (pronounced with h silent, refers to hair on the head)?” or “why do you wear this karha (bracelet worn by Sikhs)?” My first brush with such questions was in my tuition center where a Hindu guy was quite perplexed with the fact that I had never cut my kesh. That was the time I first realized that I was different. Till then, I hadn’t questioned it because my immediate world was all Sikh and they knew and followed the Sikh rehat maryada (discipline). That was also the time when I realized that non-Sikhs don’t know much about Sikhism and react the same way human beings react to the unknown – either assume things to rationalize whatever they can’t understand and fit it within their perceptions or ignore it and hope that they will be better served by ignorance than by knowledge.  After that first brush with reality, I have seen people reacting either way to me and to Sikhism.

Present: The Vienna incident was again a wakeup call – made me realize how much the world still doesn’t understand and know about Sikhism. I hate to admit it, but I know that this is a failure of Sikh religious leaders and institutions. We are responsible for the distrust that the world shows towards us. It is all because we, as a community, faith, or religion, failed to show the world what we are and why we do whatever we do and why we believe in the stuff we believe in. For now, I will try to explain some basic tenets about Sikhism.

Facts:

A Sikh means a disciple, a chela in Hindi. Now, a chela needs a Guru to follow. So, we have our Satguru – Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji Maharaj (commonly called the SGSS in blog/web lingo) – our eternal Shabad Guru or the sacred book, if you are comparing with other religions. The only difference is that none of the sacred books belonging to other religions have the distinction of being a Guru – they are not worshipped. In contrast, in Sikhism, we only worship the Shabad Guru – Gurbani contained within the SGSS is our connection with the Akal Purakh/Almighty/God.

Now, the next question that comes to mind is who wrote the SGSS? Who wrote the Gurbani that Sikhs worship? The answer is that the Gurbani was written by our Ten Gurus before the Shabad Guru was given the throne. Our first ten Gurus were present in the human form on Earth from 1469 to 1708 (see http://www.sgpc.net/gurus/index.asp). Our Fifth Guru, Sahib Shri Guru Arjun Dev Ji Maharaj, undertook the task of collating the Gurbani from first 5 Gurus, including His Baani, into the “Aadi Granth”. This Granth also included Baani from 15 Hindu and Muslim bhagats and saints, 11 bhatts, and 4 Gursikhs. The intention was to create a Granth that goes beyond the national and international boundaries and embraces the whole humanity in its fold, like an extension of the Akal Purakh. Remember that the “Aadi Granth” has not yet been anointed as the Satguru. Our Tenth Master, Sahib Shri Guru Gobind Singh ji Maharaj, added the bani of our Ninth Guru, Sahib Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib ji Maharaj, to create the present swaroop/version of the SGSS. Also, it was the Tenth Master who anointed the SGSS as our eternal, ever-present Shabad Guru that contains Gurbani of 6 Gurus, 15 Hindu and Muslim bhagats and saints, 11 bhatts, and 4 Gursikhs. I know I have already said this but there is logic behind why I am repeating it. I want you to go back to the Vienna incident and remember the talk about the so-called “Sikh Guru” who was killed during the shooting – one of the misconceptions propagated by the media (why don’t these guys understand that whatever they report makes an impact somewhere? why don’t they take the responsibility?). I will reiterate – Sikhs worship only one Guru – the SGSS. None else. We haven’t had a Guru in the human form for the last 300 years. So, the person who died during the shooting was not a “Sikh Guru”. He was a leader of the Dera Sachkhand – this Dera follows the teaching of Saint Ravidas. Here, let me explain to you the connection between this Dera and Sikhism. Saint Ravidas is one of the saints whose Baani is contained in the SGSS. Therefore, the followers of the Dera Sachkhand worship the teachings of Saint Ravidas through the SGSS. This is how and where the Sikhs get involved in this incident.

I think I have written enough for the first post. I have taken on two major questions that people were confused about after the incident. There are a lot of other misconceptions around this incident that I may take up in further posts. I will have to think it through. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I will do my best to sort it out. Adieu, till the next post. Or should I say WaheGuru ji ka Khalsa, WaheGuru ji ki Fateh – that’s the Guru Fateh that Sikhs say to each other when they greet someone or take a farewell.

 - WaheGuru ji ka Khalsa, WaheGuru ji ki Fateh

Daljeet Kaur

Being a practical muslim who had obliged himself to the obedience of God and His messenger, prays five times a day, fasts one month a year, pays the yearly charity and having done the pilgrimage once in my life – I feel that I’m obliged to explain a bit of what Islam/being a Muslim is and is not in these catastrophic hours.

To begin with, Islam is derived from the root word sa-la-ma in Arabic which means peace/obedience/submission. Muslim in turn means the one who submits to the commands of GOD. Allah, when literally translated to English means GOD and nothing else. In short, if a man/woman submits to the instructions of God, he/she is called a Muslim and follows the religion of Islam.

The other side; if anyone says Allah is the God of Muslims, he’s wrong, because Allah is not just the name of God. Instead, it means God; that is all. The Arab Jews & Christians (for e.g. around 10 million Arab christians in Egypt) say Allah for God and nothing else. One can see the word ‘Allah’ in the ‘Arabic Bible’ wherever ‘God’ has been used.

Islam, the submission to God, is defined by two segments – the six pillars of eemaan (faith) and the five pillars of Islam (submissive obedient acts as described in the first paragraph). The six pillars of faith are: the belief in God, His messengers, the angels, the books, the Day of Judgment and the fate. In short, whoever believes in the above six pillars of faith and practices the pillars of Islam is a Muslim and whoever doesn’t have the belief and abscond to do any of the regular acts of Islam cannot be called a Muslim.

The basics of Islam rely on the Quran and the Hadith/Sunnah. Quran is the holy book revealed to Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him) and Hadith or Sunnah is the traditions of the holy prophet (that is his sayings, actions and permissions). Therefore whoever claims to be a Muslim has to abide to the principles of the Quran and Sunnah and if he fails to do so, he naturally falls out of the circle of obedience (i.e. Islam).

We witnessed one of the most dastardly terrorist attacks (26/11 – Mumbai) to have ever occurred in the world in the last couple of days and it is sad to see that it is ascribed to Islamist terrorists. By the authority of the Quran and Sunnah, I firmly believe that, such cowardly acts have no place in the dictionary of Islam, and whoever  has done these dreadful acts has nothing to do with this religion of peace and submission to God. In the Quran it is clearly mentioned that, “whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whosoever saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind” (chapter 5, verse 32). And it is proclaimed by the Holy prophet (may peace be upon him) that, “A muslim cannot steal, because when he steals he is not a muslim; a muslim cannot have sex out of wedlock, because were he to do so he is not  a muslim (or he is not in obedience to God) and so on…” let alone killing of innocents.

In other words, Islam has nothing to do with terrorism or the killing of innocents and as a matter of fact, this is an act which has nothing to do with any religion. However, different sects & groups of people in various parts of the world – who ascribe themselves to be Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews or any other ideologists – kill innocents and propagate hate agenda against their brothers in the name of religion.

No religion in the name of God teaches anyone to kill fellow innocent brethren just for him/her being born in a different sect or for practising a different cult.

At the same time, I condemn the media and the politicians who spout venom and add fuel to the fire by their half-built unverified so-called facts to instigate communal, regional and racial violence. Terrorism, be it from the part of an individual, group, state or by the self-claimed international police is a terrible scourge and it should be wiped out from this world.

Peace to all….

Salman Siddeeque Ali

Protesting Racism in wine shops

(Pic courtesy: The Economist)

The issue has been debated to no end in the national and international media as well.

There has been so much outcry over a few incidents that have happened this year or maybe in the last few years. But what of the blatant racism that we all indulge in as a country? Has anyone spoken against it? Has anyone taken a stand? Apart from a few political parties that have used the issue come election time, but have forgotten the same promises afterwards, how many of us really know of the issue?

In this post, we would like to point out a couple of such instances where we as a country have been discriminating against groups of people. (For the readers, we are counting EVERYONE including those who, though they directly don’t discriminate, but are accomplices to this discrimination because they don’t speak up against this kind of behavior – you are encouraging the ones who do it by not asking them to stop.)

The first is the case of Dalits. The depth of this problem can be understood from a recent report in the Times of India that quotes a study by NGOs supported by UNICEF. The report highlights the level of discrimination faced by students belonging to this community. These students are made to sit on floors, served food the last (that too insufficient and bad quality) and beaten up regularly (because they are Dalits – the reason given by their classmates).

In a state that is governed by a Dalit CM and by a party that claims to work for the benefit of the Dalit community, Dalit girls are not allowed to use toilets!!! The Dalit students are assigned menial tasks like cleaning the yard, filling the water buckets, and cleaning the toilets. This leads other students to treat the Dalit students as inferior people.

Also, as most of the schools are located in dominant caste localities, one of the reasons given by Dalit students for coming late to school is that they have to come as a group to avoid harassment by upper caste students. The morning assembly is conducted by upper caste students, Dalit students are made to sit at the back of the classroom and in some cases on the floor, their homework and notebooks are not checked by the teachers. Is this the kind of behavior that the government is promoting (the schools surveyed were all government schools)? Is this the kind of behavior we want to inculcate in our kids? Given this kind of attitude, does any amount of reservation in institutes of higher studies help? (Only a small percentage have the courage and the perseverance to make it to that level if faced at every step of their lives with such hurdles – According to the report, all the above factors play a very big role in the high dropout rate of Dalit students from schools.)

Let’s take another example. The discrimination practiced by us Indians was shown by the Mizoram CM in an international conference in Singapore last week. Not to mention, it stung and ashamed the officials and I hope every sensible Indian out there. We have been calling people from the North-East “chinkis” for years. And since the area is not a big vote bank, it had been neglected by consecutive governments. Is it any wonder then that there is so much secessionist activity in this region? A feeling that, according to our intelligence and security agencies, was exploited by anti-Indian groups.

Here’s another case. In some parts of AP, muslims are called ‘Turks’ (pronounced as thork, o as in lose). ‘Turks’? Aren’t these guys Indians? What do they have to do to prove their loyalty? We had fought for our independence alongside with them. Fought several wars alongside them. And this is how we treat them? In their own homeland. And to top it, whenever there is a terrorist attack, some of us Indians (these are not uneducated people, they are the brightest minds in the country studying at the topmost colleges here) even go to the extent of saying everyone should be deported.

This discriminatory behavior that we knowingly/unknowingly espouse in our daily life has had an effect on the state of affairs of the nation and brought it to its current state. It would partly explain the rise of so many regional parties that dominate in a small region (need not even be the entire state). This in turn has led to the wasteful coalition politics that the country has witnessed over the last 15 years. It has also directly affected the security of the country with anti-Indian outfits fanning the feelings of being discriminated against – actual or imaginary – to cause harm to the nation.

Maybe we can ask questions here. Ask people who are reading this to share if they have faced same kind of issues. What have they done against it? What do they think about these issues? As a nation, what can we do about this issue? How can we help change the attitudes and mentality of the educated and uneducated ones?

Note: Writing the article, I was not aiming at undermining the issue of racism and attacks on Indians in Australia. The article is more to highlight the issue in the country and seek to spur us to change ourselves into better persons.

- Keerti Pendyal

The idea for the blog germinated from an incident post 26/11. After the attacks in Mumbai, discussions were actively debating the causes behind the horrific tragedy and how it could have been averted. In this situation, one of our friends, a Muslim, tried to explain to his friends what Islam propounded and what it condemned. This attempt of his resulted sadly with some of the ‘friends’ asking him to go teach in madrasas. This shameful reaction shocked us all into silence particularly since these were students from one of India’s finest educational institutions and would go on to lead the business houses of the country as well as the country itself.

If this was the outlook of students who have had an opportunity to interact with and learn from people belonging to different cultures, what about that of the numerous others who have no such opportunity? With this in mind, the group began to think of ways to reach out to the population at large to explain and sort out the misconceptions held about various communities – be it the misconceptions Hindus had about Muslims and Christians or vice versa. In our discussion with some activists and NGOs, we realised that with out 9 to 5 jobs, it would not be possible to sustain an offline movement for very long. We would be able to keep up the tempo for a couple of months, but what happens next? It was at this point that a professor suggested to us to go online and blog about the issue. He felt that given the current generation’s presence online, if we built a good presence online trying to clear the air about various communities, then hopefully it would translate into an offline movement on its own.

So, as a result of this idea, here we are. We are a group of young people – 25 to 30 years old – who would like to see the country they live in, change. Not through a watchful eye kept on the politicians and leaders but through introspection. We believe that if we can all change ourselves into better human beings, the country would improve automatically into one that can fulfill the potential that it so clearly shows.

In this blog, we would be discussing issues relating to the different religions –

How a Muslim from Andhra has more in common to a Hindu from Andhra than a Muslim from (say) Delhi.

How Indian tradition has  over the years so successfully imbibed the practices from various other cultures to formulate a unique Indian way of life that people all over the world have come to admire and respect.

The posts will be a mix of hard hitting, thought provoking ones laced with satire . Hope we are able to live up to our promise in the coming weeks.

- Keerti Pendyal