Every year in Pakistan, hundreds of young Christian and Hindu girls are forcibly converted to Islam, but our media very rarely highlights their stories. However, many of these stories can be easily found on social and in the international media. The stories of Zeba Masih and Pooja are among the few on the BBC website, but today I wish to share with you the very unfortunate story of the hearing and speech disabled Christian girl, Asma, who is from Sialkot. According to her lawyer, Hafiz Ateeq-ur-Rehman, she was kidnapped a few months ago by her neighbour, Ghulam Hussain, a very influential person. Despite knowing who the abductor of his daughter was, Gulzar Masih knew he was helpless as he did not have the resources to fight for his daughters. Masih had lost hope of seeing his daughter again, but Asma somehow managed to escape. Now her captors are demanding that her father hand her back to them, but she has refused.
Pradhan Mantri ji, Yeh Dil Mange More
The Prime Minister should take his government’s recent pronouncements on terrorism to its logical conclusion.
That many international terrorist organisations not just operate from the Pakistani soil, but are also supported by institutions belonging to the state, is an open secret. One of Pakistan’s paymaster, the United States of America, which has until recently turned a blind eye to the shenanigans of the Pakistani army has started to bitterly complain about the state of affairs. The supposedly all-weather friend, China, is also said to be most unhappy that those which it has determined to be terrorist organisations are operating camps in Pakistan. But when it comes to getting Pakistan to act against the Islamic terrorist organisations that have made a life mission to conduct war against Bharat, both the countries demur. For them hypocrisy is the hallmark of their foreign policy.
Exclusive Monotheism and Perpetual War
Monotheism may have only one God but it has two humanities, the believers and the non-believers, the saved and the damned – who are eternally pitted against each other.
The first effect of this dualistic monotheism is not to unite but to divide humanity in the name of God, which is to cut humanity in two, to make believers distrustful, disrespectful and unkind to non-believers – not necessarily for anything they may have done, but for not bowing down to monotheistic beliefs.
Who killed Dahi Handi?
I remember as an 11 year boy in 1989 when our family moved to Mumbai, I witnessed my first Dahi Handi celebration during Janmashtmi. Belonging to a middle class Hindu family from North Bharat, my exposure to festivals till then was limited to Deepawali, Holi and Raksha Bandhan.
Maybe it was my exposure for 4 years in Convent missionary run schools or the lack of knowledge imparted at home about Hindu Dharma, but I had no clue as to why Janmashtami was celebrated or what the Dahi Handi represented. I remember being surprised at the fervent excitement over Dahi Handi all around the suburb of Ghatkopar, Mumbai where I lived. It was then that I learnt the Dahi Handi/Janmashtami festival celebrated the birth of Bhagwan Krishna, who as a child used to mischievously steal curd & butter along with friends in his village of Vrindavan.
Why the Higher Judiciary Appointment Process Needs Urgent Reform
CJI Thakur on Independence Day expressed disappointment with the PM over ‘not speaking’ about appointment of judges in his I-Day speech and ended his statement sarcastically.
CJI TS Thakur has hit out at Modi govt saying that he was expecting PM to say something about judges appointments pic.twitter.com/VvrFDvSg1L
— News18 (@CNNnews18) August 15, 2016
Ever since Modi government has come into power, the strain between the SC Collegium and the government has become more evident. It may be noted that President is ultimately the one who ‘appoints’ the judges. It may also be noted that citizens and parliament in general (except PMO, law ministry and AG of government) are still far away from not only having any say in the appointment of judges, but also in terms of the knowledge of the names that get selected for appointment of judges. Neither the parliament, nor the public witness or participate in any debates over the appointment of judges to SC and High Courts. The system and process is just not transparent enough. The summary of all court judgments on the issue of judicial appointments can be read in this write up . There have been three judgments on this issue.
Islamist Radical Murdered 8, including BJP’s K Raju & Other Hindu Activists
Abid Pasha, a 34 year old carpenter associated with the Islamic fundamentalist group Popular Front of India (PFI), has been arrested by Karnataka police for the recent murder of BJP worker K Raju and for 7 other murders over a span of 6 years, besides being involved in other deadly attacks on BJP/Sangh parivar activists.
Is Rajdeep Sardesai Dumb or Playing Dumb?
During the Independence Day, 2016, speech, the PM said that many people from Balochistan, Gilgit, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) have thanked him to express their gratitude (PM Modi had raised the issue of Pakistani state atrocities against its own citizens in Balochistan and PoK during a recent all-party meeting on Jammu & Kashmir). Rajdeep Sardesai, now at the India Today group, tweeted as follows:
Sardesai: When Manmohan Singh allowed Balochistan in a joint statement in Sharm-el-Sheikh, he was attacked by Congress and BJP. Now ‘B’ word part of I day speech.
Internet has democratised the process of debate and given voice to those who appeared to be voiceless. It is no longer possible for the mainstream media to censor thoughts and information. Sardesai seems to be oblivious of the heightened awareness of people at large about what exactly is the national interest, and that they are able to express their opinion to a large audience.
In the recent past, this phenomenon is restricted not just to the so-called Internet Hindu community. Probably the first comment came from one Rohit Pradhan, a USA based person, and one who would think it an insult to be labelled as an Internet Hindu. (Disclaimer: I, the undersigned, proudly use the label of Internet Hindu for myself.) He tweeted:
Rohit Pradhan: Sardesai, that is a nonsensical argument. Balochistan was referred to (earlier) in terms of India orchestrating terrorism there.
To this, one A.B. (do not know the background), asked: Pradhan, do you think Rajdeep is dumb or playing dumb?
And Rohit Pradhan responded: A.B., latter.
The dictionary meaning of dumb is: Lacking intelligence or good judgment; stupid; dull-witted. And of playing dumb is: To pretend that one has no or little knowledge (of something); to act ignorant or uninformed (about something).
Maybe, just maybe, it could be said that it is better to be labelled as being dumb – at least one can get oneself educated and learn to correct oneself. But playing dumb is also the equivalent of pretending to sleep. Playing dumb means that one is deliberately lying, with the expectation that the reader will not know any better. Playing dumb means that one will refuse to factor in data and interpretation that does not suit one’s political agenda.
The internet has enabled the people of the nation to actively participate in discussions and debate, and not merely vote at election times. And because Sardesai is being continuously exposed, he wants this democratic system to be strangulated, so that he can have the freedom to continue to tell lies. Clearly, the fact that the India Today group continues to employ him is a very poor reflection on the Managing Editor, Aroon Purie. But, I guess Purie just does not care.
Just to remove any doubt that Sardesai wants to play dumb, a few minutes before the above tweet, Sardesai had tweeted:
Police in Congress ruled Karnataka files sedition FIR against Amnesty for organishing Kashmir meet in Bengaluru on ABVP compalint. No outrage?
To which, Kiran Chandrashekar had responded: Saredesai, please get your facts right. FIR was for making anti-India statements in the Kashmir meet and not for organising Kashmir meet itself.
Sindhu’s glory linked to her studying in Christian Institution: Dalit Christian Federation
In one of the more bizarre statements to be made in the wake of badminton player PV Sindhu’s silver medal winning performance in the just concluded Rio Olympics, the Dalit Christian Federation convenor Jerusalem Mathaiah said, “She (Sindhu) could achieve the glory only because she studied in Christian institutions.” PV Sindhu has studied in Auxilium High School, Hyderabad, which is a Christian Catholic missionary run school.
But such feelings in fundamentalist Christians of being God’s chosen ones are not bizarre if one understands the Christian (and Islamic) doctrine of Exclusive Monotheism. Pandit Vamdeva Shastri (Dr. David Frawley) explains this dangerous superiority complex in practicing Christians –
“Monotheism – in spite of its name – is a highly dualistic system, not a unity based approach.Monotheism has divided humanity into hostile camps of believers and non-believers, which easily results in misunderstanding and conflict.
An inclusive unity consciousness is not the prime concept behind the monotheistic mind but rather a sharp duality that leads to the need to convert or eliminate the heretic, heathen, kafir, enemy, sinner or idolater – for which many negative terms have been created over the centuries. Monotheism is authoritarian, often intolerant, and poor at dialoguing with other spiritual persuasions, which it tends to dismiss on principle as wrong and dangerous.”
Such delusional thinking is more rampant in the recent converts to Christianity, as compared to the cradle of Christiantiy, Europe, where people are turning away from such fundamentalism after a couple of centuries of dominance by science and reason.
Incidentally, in Jan 2015, the very same Dalit Christian Federation convenor Jerusalem Mathaiah had lashed out at the Catholic Reddy Association (CRA) for organizing the ‘tricentenary celebrations of Global Catholic Reddy families’, terming the event as regressive and casteist in nature. Mathaiah had said Dalit groups would stand in protest outside the venue, if the programme is not called off. “Though we have embraced Christianity, caste issues are still haunting us. We already feel wronged by the fact that not many dalit Catholic Christians have been elevated to high posts,” he had rued back then.
But when it comes to explaining the glory won by a non-Christian, the monotheistic indoctrination forces one to clutch at straws to justify the so-called divine grace showered on the heathen. At that point, all sectarian, race, caste and class differences are forgotten – Christianity must be proved superior to the heather, pagan faith.
Not to be left behind by Mathaiah’s disgraceful comment, Telangana deputy CM Mohammed Mahmood Ali delivered another shocker: “Pullela Gopichand is good, but we will find a better coach for PV Sindhu.”
Christianity and The Rights-based Approach to Global Evangelization
“…the Church’s social teaching is itself a valid instrument of evangelization. As such, it proclaims God and his mystery of salvation in Christ to every human being, and for that very reason reveals man to himself. In this light, and only in this light, does it concern itself with everything else: the human rights of the individual, and in particular of the ‘working class’, the family and education, the duties of the State, the ordering of national and international society, economic life, culture, war and peace, and respect for life from the moment of conception until death”.
(Centesimus Annus, 54)