Sunday, October 14, 2007

Death of a Muslim

For more than a couple of weeks I have been reading about death of a Muslim guy called Rizwanur Rehman. This 30 years old guy, coming from a poor and rather uneducated family and working as a multimedia teacher in a private company at Kolkata, allegedly fell in love with a 23 years old Hindu girl student Priyanka Todi, and married her against the wishes of her family members, her father being a wealthy and powerful businessman.

Two weeks after the marriage, Rizwanur was found dead on railway tracks. Police and CID say that he committed suicide. Communists, human rights activists, and Muslims say that he was murdered. They blame top police officials of West Bengal and Priyanka’s father for the alleged murder. The chief minister of West Bengal is more than willing to believe these guys than his own police force. Media, especially a television news channel called CNN-IBN, is hell bent upon delivering justice to this dead man. Secularism is the in-thing.

Interestingly, the Hindu girl Priyanka was contacted by West Bengal’s Women Commission and she denied any pressure or coerciveness from her father and didn’t suspect any foul play in the death of her husband. But her views don’t matter to our secular heroes, the clairvoyants know the truth, and battle for truth and justice has been flagged off.

And I confess, I see it as a battle against Hindus.

For the communist politicians, the battle serves dual purpose – it appeases their Muslim vote bank and it helps them burden Hindus with another charge of being murderer of Muslims. Of course, Hindus like me don’t treat it as a burden, rather I feel proud that I can also be as violent and brutal as Muslims and battle it out with them. But it is the fence sitters like XYZ who are cursed to carry the burden of being intolerant and murderers.

Why is this state government behaving in a manner as if it was the rarest of the rare cases? Haven’t their own policemen tortured people before? What happened in Nandigram and Singur? Did the chief minister then care to pay a visit to the aggrieved families?

And they claim to be disciplined administrators. The whole issue came into limelight because Muslims from Rizwanur’s colony (one of the several lawless Muslim ghettos of this country) got violent, pelted a police station with stones, and harassed innocent bystanders. When other Indian citizens, read Hindus, show such aggression against establishment, they are termed as anarchists and lawless, but when Muslims do it, their actions are treated with Gandhian grandeur. Is this the way a disciplined administrator allows law and order to be taken hostage by crowds?

What was really so special about this case? A daughter of a rich industrialist defies him and marries a poor man outside her social class and it results in a murder. Is this again the rarest of the rare cases? In western Uttar Pradesh, around each month a murder takes place because couples defy their parents and marry against their wishes. Why doesn’t CNN-IBN make a headline out of that?

So whose battle is it really? And against whom? I’m pretty sure, it’s one of those several attempts to demoralize Hindu consciousness and appease the minorities. But XYZ says I’m reading too much into this. As always, he is innocent enough not to believe in conspiracy theories. While Muslims get away with Godhra and 9/11 conspiracy theories, he refuses that there could be any against Hindus. It’s important that people like me exist so that one day he can see the other side of the story too.

Anyway, XYZ says that it is one of those stupid attempts by media and government to prove that they care for the citizens of this country (see, how innocently he has confused care for Muslims as care for common citizens).

XYZ thinks that an unfortunate death or murder has been used by one television channel to gain TRPs and by a government to gain goodwill. He sees Rizwanur’s case as being no better that Jessica Lall or Nitish Katara cases, where media tried to shove their socially conscious image down the throat of Indian viewers by making use of these dead names. All the time Indian news channels show crap and useless stories, they need such stories now and then for hogwash, to clean their own conscious too, while government has been shrewd enough to use the opportunity to gain goodwill. Both of them (media and government) will now conveniently ignore similar cases in future, as they would have already ‘proven’ themselves once.

XYZ tries to reason with me that it’s just happenstance that the victim this time was a Muslim. I would have liked to believe him if this whole case would have been dealt by government, media, intellectuals, and human rights activists as a law-and-order problem. But haven’t I been reading and hearing words like ‘secularism’, ‘minority rights’, ‘intolerance against Muslims’, and many other such brotherhood words in the whole episode?

XYZ, it just can’t be so simple.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Counting Communally

I would start with my first confession today, and this has been triggered by what happened yesterday – bomb blast at Dargah of Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti at Ajmer in Rajasthan. Two people died in the blast and several others were injured. Police has rounded up some people for interrogation today. Politicians and some religious leaders are calling it an attack on communal harmony of India as the Dargah is revered by both Hindus and Muslims.

As I read the news, so many thoughts crossed my mind. Some of my initial reactions were –

All these Dargahs are were just a ploy to convert Hindus to Islam, to rob us of our identity slowly and deceitfully. An attack on Dargah is just a reaction to Islamic terrorism and doublespeak.


Look at them, when police arrived at scene to help them, they started pelting stones at them. Have you ever seen Hindus doing so when they are killed in market places and temples? These Muslims consider Indian civic and administrative system as inimical. By nature, these guys are violent and secessionist.


Good! Finally Muslims are also getting to know how it is to be at the receiving end of religious terrorism. They have to be paid back in their own coins. But only two dead…


I would pick up from the last point and my first confession would be regarding that point – only two dead…

Yeah, I count communally, and I count both living and dead people.

Yeah, I count people for their religions. I count the decreasing population of Hindus in Indian subcontinent since Abrahamic religions embarked upon to harvest faith. I count the disappearing Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh and North Eastern states in India. I count the number of Hindu girls who accept Islam under romantic delusions. I count people who became non-Hindus and then anti-Hindus.

And I count dead people too, for their religions. I count the Hindus who were killed by Jinnah’s direct action. I count the Kashmiri Pandits who were massacred by Jehadis in Jammu & Kashmir. I count those Hindu youths who were killed when they tried to venture into the Muslim ghettos. I count Hindus dying in terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Delhi, Coimbatore, Godhra, Ahmedabad, Benaras, et al.

And I try to balance the above counted numbers when bomb blasts like those in Malegaon, Jama Masjid, or Ajmer take place. But only two this time…

I don’t know who’s behind the blasts. The preliminary investigation by police shows that maybe some Muslim organization based in Bangladesh could be behind it. And I’m least concerned who’s behind the blasts – Hindus or Muslims – for me, it’s just about counting. And I’m counting…

I count Muslims killed by earthquake in Iran, Pakistan or Indonesia. And I balance them with landslides in Himanchal Pradesh or earthquake of Maharashtra (I know that some of those killed were Muslims too, but for ballpark calculation, I ignore that number).

I count Muslims killed in Karachi, Palestine, Iraq or Bosnia, and try to balance them with Hindus losing their lives in inter-caste bloodbath in Bihar or in Naxal attacks in Andhra Pradesh.

I wait for a Haj stampede if a bus full of Hindu Pilgrims falls in a gorge.

Life and death is often reduced to numbers by me, and I keep counting…

Maybe by now you are already filled with disgust with my thoughts, with my confessions. Maybe you deem me to be a diseased person unfit for a civil society. But I would still advise you to have patience. This blog will reveal more of my self and maybe you can find a cure for my disease then.

XYZ says that perhaps I have pushed myself into a state of mind where I’m always in war mode. I’m on a chessboard where my opponent must lose similar and equal number of chessmen as I lose. I’m not living a life, but fighting a battle. Something they call jehadi mindset?

And why do people go into war mode? Why have the wars been fought in history? I think there were three main reasons –
  • A battle to satisfy ego or personal whims and fancies of Kings
  • A campaign to become more powerful or richer (by King or by the society)
  • A preemptive strike to counter anticipated threats to a society
Well, no Muslim has backstabbed me or made my personal life hell. I don’t have a personal enemy who is Muslim. I have not been heartbroken due to any inter-religious love affair. I guess the first point is ruled out. And I’m the King of myself, that’s my assumption.

So am I on a campaign? Hinduism is not a proselytizing religion. You are born a Hindu. There are hardly converted Hindus (unfortunately). But that word ‘unfortunately’ in bracket hints that perhaps this element is present in my mindset. I want to see Hinduism growing stronger, like Muslims pride themselves on Islam being the fastest growing religion, or Christians pride themselves as Christianity having the largest number of followers in this world. Hmmm, so I might be on this campaign.

And any threats to Hinduism from other religion? Hell yeah! Of course, there are so many things… That’s why I’m writing this blog, to help understand those ‘threats’ better…

So in my first confession, I admit that I’m on warpath…

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

About XYZ

As you can see, I haven’t disclosed my real identity here and am writing anonymously. But I exist in the real world and I have a name. Let me call my real self as XYZ as I'm just another person in this world. XYZ is a real person, and this ‘Communal Hindu’ could be an alter ego of XYZ.

XYZ doesn’t necessarily subscribe to all the views of this Communal Hindu now, but he knows that this shadow of himself once existed. With passage of time, the shadow has changed shapes and shades, but XYZ can’t disown the earlier forms. He still argues with his earlier form and tries to understand him better.

XYZ too is interested in psychoanalysis of this Communal Hindu, and he convinced his alter ego to offer himself for this exercise, and hence this blog came up!

So why is XYZ hiding his public profile? Well, I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to form any pre-conceived notions about himself after seeing his alter ego, even though he insists that it is a thing of past. Maybe he wants to be a part of this psychoanalysis by completely detaching himself from his alter ego. Maybe he doesn’t want to receive hateful or sermonizing messages, as he is pretty sure he doesn’t need or deserve either of them!

Well, it’s not really the identity of XYZ, it’s the confessions that matter here…

About this Blog

When I decided to write a blog, I didn’t know how would I structure it. There are so many things I want to say, ask, confess, argue, explain, introspect, and resolve. Where do I start?

But I guess I would structure it just like any other blog. As thoughts pass though my mind, I’ll post them. They could be triggered by some recent events or could be result of personal musings. They could as well be triggered by some comments on the blog.

I would be honest, candid, unapologetic, and maybe politically incorrect. But I would not be rash, clandestine, irrational, and downright abusive.

But why at all am I writing this blog? A part of it is answered in the very first post of the blog itself – About Me. But let me try to explain a bit further.

Well, when I talk about ‘confessions’, you may think that I’m looking for some redemption. I am not confessing any crime, but maybe I’m trying to resolve a dilemma. I don’t know. But it’s true that I want to understand myself better and talk about myself. Sorry for being such a narcissist!

Maybe I’m trying to diagnose myself. Those who scoff at communal forces and consider them a disease for Indian culture, to them I offer myself for diagnosis. Read my mind and find what the root cause of this disease is. Till now, you have only seen some symptoms and declared euthanasia (minus mercy) as the only treatment for me. That’s unfair.

I hope my blog serves some of the above purposes. I know it will be a catharsis on many occasions to write down some of the thoughts, but I hope it will be for better.

About Me

I’m a Hindu.

And I know it’s a very insufficient introduction of myself. Being a Hindu doesn’t really convey anything, except that I am not a Jew or a Muslim or a Christian. Yeah, I have deliberately chosen only Abrahamic religions for contrasting, because connotation of the word religion is mostly Abrahamic.

Well, I won’t really try to define 'correct' connotation of the word religion or the difference between Abrahamic religions and Hinduism on this blog, but I’d try to define myself.

As you can see in the title of the blog, I have already introduced a definer for myself – communal. Again, I don’t know who is a communal Hindu, but I have called myself so because so many times since I (unfortunately) started understanding a bit of politics and ideologies, people with whom I tended to agree with (to a considerable degree) in these matters were defined as communal forces.

In fact, this definition was in terms of several accusations – They were accused of carrying out a propaganda. They were accused of propagating hate. They were accused of telling lies. They were accused of being irrational. They were accused of dogmatism. They were accused of retrogression. And many more such accusations, and definitions.

The 'communal forces' were deemed to be evils, against whom the Indian society and culture had to be protected. They were to be vanquished – politically and ideologically – they were to be eliminated. Or should I say, they were to be hated.

These definitions hold as I write this post. And still I’m calling myself communal. I know I run the risk of my attempts to define myself being refuted by means of these accusations. I run the risk of being hated. But then I have used the phrase confessions before using the definer communal.

When somebody confesses, he expects to be heard patiently. I expect the same.

It’s a confession, a definition, a psychoanalysis of myself.

It's an invitation for a journey into the mind and heart of someone who has been declared to be treading an abominable path.

I write this blog in an attempt to widen the political and ideological spectrum of India, even if I'm painted with shades of gray.

I hope that my confessions would be dealt with reason rather than accusations, and I would be deemed fit to be included rather than eliminated.