[Reader-list] Gujarati 'pride' hurt once again

[radhikarajen at vsnl.net]

Hi all, 

 it is very nice to find flaws with BJP and gujarathis at the drop of a hat even after Modi asserted time and again that he is administrator and chief minister with the difference of of governance of all in the same state without favour or fear as per the oath he has taken to administer the state. Times of India and its media group is owned by Bennet group which traditionally has been political and supporting sycophants of Congress and media generally feels if it has to be "secular" it has to bash hindu sentiments and encash its trp and circulation, Times group is never fair and free in its journalism and always favoured Congress and its employees have to toe the line of media bosses and pritish is no exception to the rules of survival of the fittest in journalism by sycophancy. 

   The worst part of it is this "secular"media can not digest the fact that hindu society is slowly and steadily getting out of caste conundrums and beginning to gel as one homogeneous society, while muslim community is being systematically divided by christian missions to achieve its divide and rule game, into smaller forms of shias, sunnis and other denominations with terror as subtextt  just as the vote banks are getting divided between good governance and sycophancy and secular media keeps on playing old footage of "carnages so that they remain in the ghettos and wounds are never allowed to heal.The ultimate goal of Sonia and her mafia is to divided and rule with rome as its remote control which hindus have understood except for a few handful of sycophants in Congress of all faiths who have no mass base or electoral prospects and have to live on doleouts of the mafia queen. These along with christian mafia in the kitchen cabinet have used all those "journalists" and "int
ellectuals" of modern day to devise the spins to bring back the old lost horse of Congress in new avtar as christian brigade for the crusade, while in comity of nations it is seen that Bush uses- the terror and weapons of mass destruction as excuses to bring in his form of democracy in the nations of muslim faith, first by attack of shia dominated Afghanistan and then on Iraq for the imaginary weapons of mass destruction.?---- Original Message -----
From: Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>
Date: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 8:04 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] Gujarati 'pride' hurt once again
To: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>

> An organisation in Ahemdabad called National Council for Civil
> Liberties has filed a case against Ashis Nandy for his article in The
> Times of India in January after Modi's election victory. The case has
> been filed for for 'promoting enmity between different groups on
> grounds of religion, race, place of birth and language' [Sections 153
> (A) and (B) of IPC].
> 
> 178 academics and intellectuals have signed a statement in protest,
> which is available at
> http://www.sacw.net/FreeExpAndFundos/defendNandy16June08.html
> 
> Given below is the 'offending' article:
> 
> o o o
> 
> 
> Blame The Middle Class
> 
> By Ashis Nandy
> 8 Jan 2008
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/LEADER_ARTICLE_Blame_The_Middle_Class/rssarticleshow/2681517.cms
> 
> Now that the dust has settled over the Gujarat elections, we can
> afford to defy the pundits and admit that, even if Narendra Modi had
> lost the last elections, it would not have made much difference to the
> culture of Gujarat politics. Modi had already done his job. Most of
> the state's urban middle class would have remained mired in its inane
> versions of communalism and parochialism and the VHP and the Bajrang
> Dal would have continued to set the tone of state politics. Forty
> years of dedicated propaganda does pay dividends, electorally and
> socially.
> 
> The Hindus and the Muslims of the state — once bonded so conspicuously
> by language, culture and commerce — have met the demands of both V D
> Savarkar and M A Jinnah. They now face each other as two hostile
> nations. The handful of Gujarati social and political activists who
> resist the trend are seen not as dissenters but as treacherous
> troublemakers who should be silenced by any means, including
> surveillance, censorship and direct violence. As a result, Gujarati
> cities, particularly its educational institutions are turning cultural
> deserts. Gujarat has already disowned the Indian Constitution and the
> state apparatus has adjusted to the change.
> 
> The Congress, the main opposition party, has no effective leader. Nor
> does it represent any threat to the mainstream politics of Gujarat.
> The days of grass-roots leaders like Jhinabhai Darji are past and a
> large section of the party now consists of Hindu nationalists. The
> national leadership of the party does not have the courage to confront
> Modi over 2002, given its abominable record of 1984.
> 
> The Left is virtually non-existent in Gujarat. Whatever minor presence
> it once had among intellectuals and trade unionists is now a vague
> memory. The state has disowned Gandhi, too; Gandhian politics arouses
> derision in middle-class Gujarat. Except for a few valiant old-timers,
> Gandhians have made peace with their conscience by withdrawing from
> the public domain. Gandhi himself has been given a saintly, Hindu
> nationalist status and shelved. Even the Gujarati translations of his
> Complete Works have been stealthily distorted to conform to the Hindu
> nationalist agenda.
> 
> Gujarati Muslims too are "adjusting" to their new station. Denied
> justice and proper compensation, and as second-class citizens in their
> home state, they have to depend on voluntary efforts and donor
> agencies. The state's refusal to provide relief has been partly 
> met by
> voluntary groups having fundamentalist sympathies. They supply aid but
> insist that the beneficiaries give up Gujarati and take to Urdu, adopt
> veil, and send their children to madrassas. Events like the
> desecration of Wali Gujarati's grave have pushed one of India's
> culturally richest, most diverse, vernacular Islamic traditions to the
> wall. Future generations will as gratefully acknowledge the sangh
> parivar's contribution to the growth of radical Islam in India as this
> generation remembers with gratitude the handsome contribution of Rajiv
> Gandhi and his cohorts to Sikh militancy.
> 
> The secularist dogma of many fighting the sangh parivar has not helped
> matters. Even those who have benefited from secular lawyers and
> activists relate to secular ideologies instrumentally. They neither
> understand them nor respect them. The victims still derive solace from
> their religions and, when under attack, they cling more passionately
> to faith. Indeed, shallow ideologies of secularism have simultaneously
> broken the back of Gandhism and discouraged the emergence of figures
> like Ali Shariatis, Desmond Tutus and the Dalai Lama — persons who can
> give suffering a new voice audible to the poor and the powerless and
> make a creative intervention possible from within worldviews
> accessible to the people.
> 
> Finally, Gujarat's spectacular development has underwritten the
> de-civilising process. One of the worst-kept secrets of our times is
> that dramatic development almost always has an authoritarian tail.
> Post-World War II Asia too has had its love affair with developmental
> despotism and the censorship, surveillance and thought control 
> that go
> with it. The East Asian tigers have all been maneaters most of the
> time. Gujarat has now chosen to join the pack. Development in the
> state now justifies amorality, abridgement of freedom, and 
> collapse of
> social ethics.
> 
> Is there life after Modi? Is it possible to look beyond the 35 years
> of rioting that began in 1969 and ended in 2002? Prima facie, the
> answer is "no". We can only wait for a new generation that will, out
> of sheer self-interest and tiredness, learn to live with each other.
> In the meanwhile, we have to wait patiently but not passively to keep
> values alive, hoping that at some point will come a modicum of remorse
> and a search for atonement and that ultimately Gujarati traditions
> will triumph over the culture of the state's urban middle class.
> 
> Recovering Gujarat from its urban middle class will not be easy. The
> class has found in militant religious nationalism a new self- respect
> and a new virtual identity as a martial community, the way Bengali
> babus, Maharashtrian Brahmins and Kashmiri Muslims at different times
> have sought salvation in violence. In Gujarat this class has smelt
> blood, for it does not have to do the killings but can plan, finance
> and coordinate them with impunity. The actual killers are the lowest
> of the low, mostly tribals and Dalits. The middle class controls the
> media and education, which have become hate factories in recent times.
> And they receive spirited support from most non-resident Indians who,
> at a safe distance from India, can afford to be more nationalist,
> bloodthirsty, and irresponsible.
> 
> [The writer is a political psychologist.]
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