A New Dharma!

Thoughts on the rally taken out on 21 Aug in Mumbai...

Did you see the rally at Azad maidan yesterday? I literally just saw it and didn't understand since Mr Raj speaks Marathi...and I don't! 

Apparently he spoke of "Maharastra Dharma"....and nonsense of similar caliber. Maharastra dharma means speaking only in Marathi and asking schools why English is on the agenda and not compulsory marathi. I would think it self evident, seeing that there is no Marathi font in computers, or good quality medical, engineering, even law books in Marathi! And try going abroad, armed with Marathi instead of English! A fractured English serves one far better than a polished Marathi here......but then Raj doesn't want YOU becoming a global traveller. Your eyes might open with exposure and you may be able to see through his "Maharastrian dharma".

Maharastra dharma also means Maharastra for Maharastrians! Living, studying and dying in the state of one's birth! Like the proverbial 'kua ka medhak'! Learn nothing, travel nowhere, explore none, evolve none and think one has the best because one doesn't know any better! An perfectly ignorant human being!

Raj's own offspring study in Bombay Scottish (and he scared the bejesus out of that school once, when he tried to change the name  "Bombay Scottish' to the "Mumbai Scottish"! ) Intelligent, eh??

His son took up German as an alternate language! Apparently, Maharastra Dharma is not applicable for his son(s)....

Raj excels like every successful politician in dividing groups into selfish knots of people, unable to see the larger picture. First he divided the Hindus....the Maharstrians from the rest of the other states! He chased away migrant labour from Bihar, UP for a while....they are back! And doesn't explain why Mumbai comes to a halt each year when the Bihari and the bhaiya go home for a break in April-May!

Let's take the Hindu-Muslim divide.

I'm a Hindu....would I want to finish all Muslims from my community? Can I make this assumption that all Muslims are hell-bent on taking Hindu lives and we can never get along and thus, all Muslims are better off dead? What about all those Muslims who are in the Armed Forces then, who are fighting Pakistan and Pakistani terror grimly? Or those in the Police....who are kind of chasing the criminals away? (Kind of.....the Indian Police Force does not have my total confidence. I would respect them far more if they did just one thing.....thrash the rapist black and blue first and put him in hospital...I would like them even more if 'escaping rapists' were shot dead! Instead of slapping women in pubs and 'moral policing' consenting adults!) What about the Muslim who donates blood....who ferries accident victims to hospitals? What about the Muslim who wipes a tear when the Tricolour is hoisted high on some special occasion...and who sings along with the national Anthem? Who saves non-muslims during communal riots? 

Who is just weary of this Hindu-Muslim jingoism! And works hard for a living?

In so many million Muslims, will we not find what we find in as many million Hindus?

No?

Well, you must follow "Maharastra Dharma", then!

Raj also praised the "thola" or the beat constable...the lowest of the low in the policing force....the khaki clad man with the danda! And he cursed their superiors! Like I said, politicians excel in spreading discontent and stoke hatred! 

Promptly a 'thola 'gave him a rose.....and a public statement that Raj raised his morale at a time when no one else did!  He might be disciplined later...a policeman, a soldier are tied to their uniform! They cannot be individuals while on duty!  The Police Chief is meanwhile, wiping a sweaty face.....there is discontent in his ranks AND he may have to go! Danda chalo to museebat, na chalo to musebat! Rally roko to aafat, chalne do to kayamat! What will make these Janus faced politicians happy? HE would like to hold a rally and speak his mind!! But he's only the Police Chief! Inki kya aukat ki yeh sach bol de? He'll get transferred to the boondocks somewhere....or his birth certificate scrutinized...he may turn out to be a year older than he actually is...and BANG! There goes his career!

Raj also projects himself as a "Hindu" leader...here I beg to state most vociferously that woe betide us if another communal, parochial, mean spirited, malicious dung beetle like him enters the political arena on a larger scale!!! Woe betide!

The rally meant traffic horror for hard working people who would like to consign India to the Devil when they sat in vehicles in five hour jams in sweltering weather, trying to get back home to their families and dinner!

My son couldn't return home and his friend's mother kept him back. She called up and said "Tera beta kal milega! Its craziness to be travelling anywhere today! I'll keep your son home with me...at least he'll eat and sleep on time." God bless her! 

What did this rally finally prove?

It proved AGAIN that we have a long long way to go before we evolve into a 'developed' nation...and we have probably lifetimes to go before transforming into a super power.

Till hate rules us.....and we allow hatred to dictate to us our way of life, we shall remain exactly where we are...at the bottom rungs of the global ladder, with other countries fast outstripping us in the race to prosperity and a better quality of life!

We will continue to watch with an agonised, jealous fascination when other countries conquer outer space and expand frontiers of science and technology and human endeavour.....those who can shall desert in droves in search of what we never could find in India, despite our frenzied striving....we shall continue to be mute, tormented helpless souls of these goddamned rallies and political 'jalse'......doomed to be participate in acts driven purely by selfish motives....to be reduced to so very little when we could be so much more!

Will we ever find a Winston Churchill among us....a man who inspired his Nation to fight and win when the tide of war was entirely against a battered England?

Will there ever be an Abraham Lincoln here? Who united or tried to unite the seemingly impossible...the black slave with his white master?

Did a lifetime of Mother Teresa's acts of pure faith and utter selflessness not rip some of the darkness?

Or are we doomed be led by hate filled provocateurs who rip the remaining Indian fabric that holds us oh-so-very-loosely together.

Do not blame the politician always for the Indian rot...he is but a reflection of the qualities of existing society! We are not entirely blameless! The politician has seen through us to the snake that lies curled within each of us...he has recognised the unconquered devil in us...and he provokes that forth! The slumbering divine within each of us, is ignored! 

The Hindu-Muslim issue shall remain unresolved till we have a common set of rules for all....every man jack of us! Till we have "minorities', 'favoured sections', 'quota' we shall continue to reside in a private hell.

Yes, I know that the dalits were hammered mercilessly for decades, as were the blacks in the rest of the world ...is there a 'black quota' anywhere???? I know the Hindus were ravaged by Muslim invaders centuries ago.....as were over a million Jews fed into 'ovens' in Germany! Do we have jew-versus-other-religion communal riots anywhere else in the world? I know Ayodhaya is the birth place of Raja Ram...does no Muslim have the generosity to say "Yaar, bana dal wahan mandir...with my blessing! I shall take my mosque a little further away..as I have my Mecca and Medina!"  Should I desire a temple in the compound of the Kabba? That's sheer bloody mindedness and has nothing to do with religion! The whites invaded and colonised parts of the world...do they now have to make amends for their long dead ancestors? Like hell! 

The past is over! We cannot build a glorious future on the blueprint dictated by the past! The present and future must only dictate our actions....all we can do is LEARN from the past!

A scholar said "A fair society is one where anyone can enter from any point and be content!" 

Can I enter Indian society as a woman and be as content as a man?

Can I enter it as a Hindu and be as content as a Muslim? And vice-versa!

Can I enter as a soldier and be as content as a businessman?

Can I enter it as a ordinary citizen and be as content as a politician?

Can I enter it as a member of the working class and be as content as the entrepreneur?

Nishi