Terrorism is religious.

The BJP recently objected to the use of the phrase ‘Hindu terrorism’ in the Parliament by P.Chidambaram :

While talking about government approach towards any form of terrorism cause by any group irrespective of its religious colour, Chidambram said: “The government maintains zero tolerance for terrorism inspired by religion, may it be Islam or may it be Hindu.”

Chidambaram was immediately pointed out by BJP’s Prakash Javadekar and SS Ahluwalia and other BJP members for his repeated usage of the word of “Hindu terrorists” during his statement on internal security issue.

“When the investigation is on how could you say it would reveal the Hindu terrorists”, Javdekar asked Chidambaram over his Hindu terrorist remark.

Another BJP leader Ahluwalia questioned Chidambaram how could he generalize the entire community over an alleged act of a few individuals.

I am with the BJP on this one; I believe the correct neologism is Saffron terror. But that’s okay. We are going to take a while adjusting to such new words. It would be too obvious an irony to mention the BJP’s use of the ‘Islamic terrorism’, so I’ll skip past that.

One thing we can agree upon : if one form of terrorism is always termed religious, we have a right to call any other form that uses religion as its basis with its associated religion. Else we should agree that terrorism has no religion.

Which brings me to the oft-repeated sentence, ‘Terrorism has no religion’. I disagree. Whenever terrorism is inspired by religious ideas or in defense of a religion, it makes perfect sense to associate it with the corresponding religion. When they call themselves religious terrorists, who are we to disagree ? And let’s face it, every religion today has violent fundamentalists. Period.

The only difference in my association : I’d put together the religion, terrorism and the perpetrators in the association. That would just be fair on the innocent fellow followers.

If that is confusing, the gist is thus : We cannot decouple religion from terrorism, else we’re not looking at the larger problem.

Snakes in an assembly.

Guess what stalled the Orissa assembly yesterday ?

A debate on some bill ? A walkout by the opposition ? Chair/mic fight ?

Try a cobra in the assembly.

An elusive, three-feet cobra that slithered into the Orissa assembly on Thursday led the proceedings to be stalled for the entire day.

The serpent was spotted near Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s desk by Bhisma Nayak, an assembly employee, when he entered the House to clean it in the morning, assembly sources said.

The cobra must be swelling with pride at the “elusive, three-feet cobra” description.

Either way, I know from sources that the tiny opposition BJP has immediately sprung into action and demanded tougher terror laws, “This incident again proves that the state government is toothless when it comes to attacks on the parliament and assemblies.”

The BJP is now just one away from the record for maximum repeats of a sentence.

Gujarat Chief minister Narendra Modi was quick to cash on to the news, “Gujarat is the first state to have an act against rogue cobras. We have already renamed the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Bill (GUJCOCA) to Gujarat Control of Organised Cobra Bill. Did I also tell you that Gujarat is the number one state in India ?”.

Meanwhile, the Sena chief has asked for a public hanging of the cobra. When reminded that it wasn’t a Brahmin they were referring to, he kept mum, a personal first.

Elsewhere, the VHP finally understood the meaning of the word ambivalence. They couldn’t say anything against the cobra, as snakes are worshipped in Hinduism, but they wanted to say something.

Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik again proved that he is foreign returned and watches Hollywood movies by mouthing the famous line, ”Enough is enough. I’ve had it with these mother******* snakes in this mother******* assembly.“

I do agree with the last couple of words.

Disclaimer.

Link separately by Nachiket D.

Plight of sexual minorities.

I find immense irony in the fact that while frogs and trees are married to each other to please the rain gods in all religious glory, sexual minorities aren’t even recognized, forget being allowed to marry.

Where else can you find such bizarreness ?

There were quite a few gay pride parades in India this weekend, which were moderate successes. Meanwhile, the issue over 377 lies pending in the Delhi HC and should be coming up for hearing in July. The law minister M. Oily (or Moily) was initially in favour of a review of the archaic law, but later chickened out as reactions started pouring in.

The government has, instead, called for a debate on the issue :

On Sunday, Moily sounded more cautious. He told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram that concerns of all section of society, including religious leaders, will be taken into account.

This makes as much sense as Sidhu’s metaphors.

Now among vocal protestors are religious and political conservatives :

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has opposed any dilution in section 377. The VHP’s Delhi unit spokesman, Vinod Bansal, said: “It [homosexuality] is against the culture and family system in India. It will result in the spread of a number of diseases.”

and death by diease, as we know, is a strict no-no. Death, however, by a trishul during riots is kosher.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, a leading body of Muslims in the country, said the repeal of section 377 would create “sexual anarchy” in society.

Given the current plight of Muslims and the percentage of terrorists being Muslims, I would be glad if such distractions were introduced.

The Church has also opposed the move. “The Church’s stand on the issue has always been clear. For us it is an unnatural act, against the divine law. We will definitely oppose it,”

unless, of course, sodomy involves religious figures.

The BJP also voiced its reservations. Party leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said: “We are living in India, not in an European country.”

and as we know, humans in India are altogether different from those in Europe. Find irony in the fact that 377 was a product of the British rule, who have proceeded to saner laws.

CPI(M) politburo member MK Pandhe said his party “doesn’t support homosexuality”. But he refused to comment about section 377, saying “our party has not discussed the matter [yet]“.

to be read as, “We are not yet sure what China’s stand on the issue is”.

Just like I have proven time and again that you don’t need to be a woman to be a hardcore feminist, it is time we voiced our opinion on this issue (assuming the opinion makes sense) even though it may not concern us.

The bottomline for a law should be this : If you don’t bother anyone, the government shouldn’t bother you.

Darkness and demolition.

As I had speculated a couple of days ago that if Kalyan Singh could distance himself from the Babri Masjid demolition, so could anyone else. Uma Bharti quickly follows suit :

After former BJP leader Kalyan Singh’s claim that he was kept in the dark about the Babri masjid demolition, another temple movement leader Uma Bharti on Monday said that “everyone” was in the dark about the demolition.

“We still don’t know who did it,” she told PTI at Atrauli near here.

Ok fine I’ll give it to ya. Everyone was in the dark.

P.S. : Wasn’t it done at night ?

VHP spy in Obama team !

Heard of Sonal Shah ?

She is currently India’s only superwoman who leads a double life; Barack Obama’s economic adviser by day, and a VHP fundamentalist leader in India by night, which of course is day again in India. Wiki says :

The confusion arose because of Shah’s involvement in a humanitarian relief effort to raise funds for the victims of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake.

Shah was a lead speaker of Ekal Vidyalaya. Recent reports describe alleged links between Shah’s parents, the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Shah’s link with Vishva Hindu Parishad of America.

Yeah, and her dog mated with the pet of a VHP leader too. 

Although the claim didn’t even deserve a reaction, as expected she rubbished the rubbish claims. Oh, and one of the organizations that started the protests,

Non Resident Indians for a Secular and Harmonious India.

?!?!?!

Indian Priory of Sion returns.

The Hindus have been insulted again ! Make way for the Indian Priory of Sion !

Heidi Klum Upsets Hindus with Goddess Kali Halloween Costume.

[ .... Hindus welcome Hollywood and other entertainment industries to immerse themselves in Hinduism, but they should take it seriously and respectfully, and not just use the religion for decoration or to advance their selfish agenda .....]

I couldn’t agree more. This is a sacrilegious act and deserves condemnation in the strongest possible words that English language allows (Mr. Shivraj Patil, I need your help here). Reports also indicated that a couple repeatedly dressed up as the divine couple of Ram-Sita despite warnings. I have no details about their current whereabouts except a candid snap taken by the paparazzi : Link

Indian politics goes geeky !

Maybe the supporters of Free and Open Source Software geeks might vote for the BJP this time around : Link

BJP announced its goal to become one of the most high-tech political parties in the next two years, and free and open source software (FOSS) will play an essential role in this project. BJP plans to use CentOS as its server operating system and Ubuntu on desktops.

Some of the innovative uses of Linux that probably appealed to the BJP :

-> You can come out with your own distribution of Ubuntu and call it Hubuntu.

->Mass mailing program for “We want POTA back”, integrated with an RSS reader subscribed to a news website which uses machine learning to detect a bomb blast in news items (which of course will be countered by Shivraj Patil’s own Muhahahaha “” spam mailer directed at the terrorists, which obviously will change its UI automatically 5 times daily !!).

-> You can hack into the kernel and make it crash if the user is away from his PC on Valentine’s day.

-> Integrating the POTA package into the kernel (I have no idea what I am talking about).

-> When you try to install Islamic software, prompts the message “You do not have enough sense or privilege to install this software. Please contact your local RSS leader”. NOTE : Do not confuse between RSS reader and RSS leader.

-> And lastly, but most importantly, the brightness levels of your monitor will be set to a very low value and you would not be able to change it till the elections. Their way of saying “India NOT shining”.

Wouldn’t it be totally cool see cyber warfare between our political parties someday !

Link by Salil.

P.S. : Of course, most of the above points have nothing to do with FOSS or Linux, but what the heck.

Hindu terrorism.

In a completely unexpected move, the BJP has taken serious objection to the use of the word “Hindu terrorists” for the recently arrested Hindu terrorists in the Malegaon and Gujarat mosque blasts. It must be hard to accept for someone who always assumed that terrorists were born with a tattoo on their hand which said “Mera mashab ….. hai”.

Respected Mr. Sinha,

Change the words majority to minority, Hindu to Muslim, and read back the article aloud to everyone.

Sincerely,

An interview with Rahman.

.. makes for a thoughtful read, even if you are not a fan : Link
Says he,

I find we are living in such violent times that it becomes almost necessary to break the clutter, to get associated with products that can offer hope, that can offer a sense of melody…a harmony.

Every time I create a melody I wonder if there is a way this song will reach out and prevent a bloodbath.

Compare that to our leaders, who hope that a whole state burns for their cause. While using music to achieve this might seem idealistically simplistic, in Rahman’s words : It is, but you see, music is all that I know.

He sure makes a mark as a person, even if you are not influenced by his music.

Ban, baby ban.

Some recent headlines :

(Glossary : SS – Shiv Sena, MNS – New Construction Sena, SP – Samajwadi Party, RJD – Rastriya Janta Dal, VHP – Vishwa Hindu Parishad, RSS – Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, BSP – Bahujan Samaj Party, LJP – Lok Janashakti Party)

The SP and RJD demand a ban on VHP, Bajrang Dal.

The BJP and SS want a ban on SIMI.

The RJD wants a ban on the MNS.

The Congress wants to ban VHP, Bajrang Dal.

The SS wants a ban on SP.

The LJP wants a ban on VHP, Bajrang Dal.

The SP wants a ban on SS.

The VHP demands a ban on the missionaries.

The BSP wants a ban on BJP, VHP and RSS.

In an unofficial survey conducted/answered/analysed by me, here are the most popular news items that you get to read in India, in descending order :

1. XYZ demans a ban on ABC (where XYZ, ABC – organizations).

2. XYZ fell into a pit. (here XYZ – child often with a fancy name like Prince, Rehan, Sonu).

3. Police arrest the ‘mastermind’ (in such a news, the mastermind is ‘always’ in quotes for unexplained reasons) behind XYZ blasts. (here XYZ – city/locality name. This news is often repeated without anyone realising that the mastermind should atleast be unique !)