[Reader-list] Mourning for Varanasi

[Inder Salim]

Dear Kamalhak,

"cliche will ever lead to a serious effort required to eliminate this
menace from the country. "

i am trying to reflect back to your reflection of " mourning for
Varanasi "  from the post, One automatically stands in solidarity with
the mourning, whatever political situation.demands are there.  No
saner person on earth will justify the killing of a baby or an adult
in the name of this or that.

" Masters" are every where. The Maters  who planned the demolished
Babri Masjid are well known faces of this country, and no Law could
ever nail them.  Poor people were again caught unwittingly between
police and Medieval Monument and got killed for their sentimentality
and one can exonerate them also.  I assume your question is about
'Masters' in general?  Which sector is not run by masters?  for
example, the worst kind of masters are  in financial sector, and they
are most vicious....

Eradication of " menace from the country. " is unfortunately not
limited to  a country nowadays, we may realize also. If there is
violence in any society it is likely to affect the other. In a
globalized society, one may register the layered nature of "menace" at
world level, which leaves no society unaffected. If there is chaos in
America, it will sooner or later affect us. So, the actions of America
in the past have created these monsters which are now trying to devour
them and us at the same time.

Binaries are fake in that sense, To say that Americans as decent in
jeans and neck tie and is very sophisticate and peace loving  will
again give us wrong results about the garment which hides the so
called evil. That nectar is hand in glove with the what looks very
venomous to us.

Sadly the situation out there is not in black and white, and so to
simply it wont actually change much. The reality on the ground is
often different what we try to derive by painting this as that....

with love
is


On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 3:25 PM,  <kamalhak at gmail.com> wrote:
> Shuddha,
> I join you in mourning for Varanasi. For me any act of terrorism irrespective of the perpetrators' identity deserves to be condemned unconditionally. Having been a victim of faith driven terrorism myself , I sympathize with all sufferers of this mindless dance of death.
>
> Having said this I doubt if mere condemnation or political rhetoric and the usual police cliche will ever lead to a serious effort required to eliminate this menace from the country.  I believe the perpetrators of these dastardly crimes are mere indoctrinated carriers while their masters plan the diabolical moves firmly enconsed in the belief that the in any eventuality of accusations, civil society will lend them a moral support in the name of freedom of expression. They also feel emboldened to carry on with their machinations, confident in belief that any loud voice against them will immediately be suppressed as that of a 'bully.'
> I am also amused at the threats issued to the people who raise their voice against the Kashmiri separatists. I believe Kashmiri separatist leaders will be feeling embarrassed by being linked with the threat to a section of displaced Kashmiri Pandits. It doesn't suit their politics, which runs two contradictory streams between what runs through their minds and what flows in their hearts. In any case it would be interesting to see their response at the 'insinuation'. It be also interesting to see how their supporters in rest of the country react to the threats to Pandits.
>
> In the end I need to express we, probably, need to rise about accepted positions, biases and prejudices to dispassionately argue about the realities behind these acts of terrorism.
>
> Regards.
> Kamal Hak
> Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "shuddha at sarai.net" <shuddha at sarai.net>
> Sender: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net
> Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 01:24:31
> To: <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Subject: [Reader-list] Mourning for Varanasi
>
> Dear All,
>
> Several years ago, I spent some very intense few days in Varanasi with a
> friend, who used to study at the Banaras Hindu University. I had always loved
> the city, ever since I read about it in Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's novel -
> Aparajito, and had seen the great film version of the novel by Satyajit Ray.
> Growing up, I always thought of Apu's adventures (Apu was the boy hero of
> Bibhutibhushan's novel and Satyajit Ray's film trilogy) on the ghats as my own,
> vicariously. I also knew Diana Eck's book, Banaras : City of Light, quite well.
> It was my first excursus into imagining the geography and life of a city by
> reading from a printed page. Varanasi will always remain an incredible example
> of the durability of all things human for me. I learnt a few important personal
> things, about ephemeral and enduring realities, sitting through a winter night,
> warmed by the fires of unending cremations, at the Manikarnika Ghat, several
> years ago in Varanasi.
>
> I am especially saddened to hear that terror struck Varanasi yet again with a
> bomb placed in a milk can by the river bank, and that too at a time when the
> ghats were full of worshippers. Killing (so far) tragically, an eighteen month
> old baby and injuring several others. An email from the shadowy entity calling
> itself the Indian Mujahideen  reached several media outlets after the event and
> has claimed responsibility for the attack, apparently in order to avenge the
> destruction of the Babri Masjid, which took place eighteen years ago on the
> sixth of December.
>
> Regardless of whether or not the Indian Mujahideen is what it is thought to be
> - a terror group of home grown jihadis - and regardless of whether or not it
> perpetrated this attack - this incident of terrorism  (like all others) is only
> worthy of condemnation in the harshest of terms. Terrorism is vile, thoughtless
> and has only evil consequences, no matter who plants the bomb and for what
> cause. it can never be a force for justice, anywhere.
>
> An eighteen month old baby's life is far more precious, and sacred, in my
> opinion, than the sanctity of any mosque, temple or church, and anything that
> claims that life in the name of a place of worship deserved to be condemned by
> everybody, regardless of whether or not they are believers or non-believers.
>
> I mourn for Varanasi, Banaras, Benaras, Kashi
>
> Shuddha
>
>
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>
>
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