Let the Poet Speak: Ghalib, Satire and the Valve of Free Thought

In those luminous afternoon sessions at Sita Ram Goel ji’s office in Daryaganj — just a short walk from Jama Masjid — in the late 1980s, ideas were exchanged with quiet intensity. The room lined with books and manuscripts of Voice of India often resonated with discussions on Islam: its doctrines of jihad, its view of the kafir and the long arc of Islamic imperialism in India. Yet for Goel ji it was always about the ‘battle of ideas’. And in that intellectual skirmish he sought glimmers of hope. He often spoke of a quiet renaissance within Islamic societies — one not led by reformers or rulers but by poets and the intelligentsia. Among them Mirza Ghalib stood out. For Goel, the rare freedom enjoyed by Ghalib and his ilk was “perhaps the only valve to let out the steam of free thought.”

Ghalib wrote:
Sharab peene de masjid mein baith kar Ghalib
Ya woh jagah bata jahan khuda nahi hota
(Let me drink inside the mosque, O Ghalib
Or show me the place where God does not reside)

Akbar Allahabadi too captured the emptiness of ritual without spirit:
Maikhane mein jo kuch bhi mila, woh masjid mein kahan tha?
(What I found in the tavern, I never found in the mosque)

And Sahir Ludhianvi dared to question even paradise:
Jannat mil bhi gayi to kya hai?
Wahan bhi ghulamon ka rivaaz hoga
(Even if we attain Paradise, so what
Slavery will still be the norm there)

These were huge theological assaults but they were seen as ‘poet’s rebellion’ — a subtle simmering dissent against authoritarianism.

The Medicine of Laughter at the Expense of the ‘Soviet Paradise’

This quiet resistance echoes another world: the Soviet Union. Under Lenin and Stalin, speech was policed, art was censored and satire became the only escape route. Dissidents turned to jokes—not just to survive but to resist:

Q. What happens if the Soviet Union takes over the Sahara Desert?
A. Nothing—for 50 years. Then there’s a shortage of sand.

Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev are on a train. It breaks down.
Lenin demands it be fixed. Stalin shoots the driver. Khrushchev blames the rails.
Brezhnev says, “Close the curtains and pretend we’re moving.”

A man in Red Square shouts, “Brezhnev is a fool”
He’s sentenced to ten years—five for insulting the leader and five for revealing a state secret.
In totalitarian systems, humour is rebellion. Satire is treason. Truth is criminal.

The ideological framework of Crimson Crescent – The Last Quarter draws from this very legacy. Just as Soviet dissidents used wit and verse to expose tyranny, this work seeks to revive the time-tested method of subtle resistance: poetic irreverence as a doorway to rational reform.
Ghalib didn’t desecrate the sacred. He elevated it by breaking the walls around it.
Crimson Crescent belongs to that tradition. To question. To challenge. To awaken.

The Ideological Engine of Radical Islam

The great mystic & ideologue Ram Swarup said, “Do not live in the world of men—live in the world of ideas.” My documentary, Crimson Crescent – The Last Quarter, is rooted in that conviction. If Bangla Crescent–ISI, Madrasas & Infiltration (2005) was an early warning about radical Islamism, Crimson Crescent is an ideological audit. It interrogates the doctrinal foundations of radical Islam—not as a private belief but as a totalitarian idea that normalizes violence against non-believers. The irony is hard to ignore. Radical Islam declares Hindu Gods false and mocks their worship. Yet, when Hindus protest or assert their faith, they are branded ‘Islamophobic’. Islamist theologians are not interested in defending pluralism; they want to deflect scrutiny. It declares an emergency on freedom of speech for raising a logical query. This is not just about what extremists do, it’s about what they believe in. Those claiming madrasas are secular are evading the truth. These are ideological hubs where radicalisation takes root under religious cover.

The film travels across India, recording testimonies from madrasa students, clerics, scholars and common believers. The patterns are chillingly consistent: a worldview where the non-believer isn’t just misled but is worthy of divine punishment. Man is the same everywhere—Hindu, Christian, Shia, Sunni, Ahmadiyya, Jew or Zoroastrian. Importantly, it’s the ideology that weaponises man, moulding him to see the ‘other’ as a target. Radical Islam, like all supremacist ideologies, turns its people into tools of its hegemonic ambition. Crimson Crescent calls to the Muslim conscience, questioning the theology justifying jihad, the indoctrination fuelling violence and the silence sustaining it. It shows how love jihad, riots and ideological violence are rooted in systemic teaching and training.

Radicalisation and Its Expanding Victims

The radicalisation degree is so advanced it seems paralysed under scrutiny. Not to talk about the common Hindu on the street, even the flag bearers of Hindu mobilisation—VHP, RSS, and Bajrang Dal—faced hostility during the Ram Mandir donation drive:

• December 25, 2020, Ujjain: Procession assaulted.
• December 31, 2020, Indore (Chandan Khedi): Stones hurled at a rally.
• January 17, Kidana, Gujarat: Arson by mobs.
• February 10, Mangolpuri, Delhi: Rinku Sharma, a Bajrang Dal activist, stabbed to death—allegedly for supporting the Ram Mandir campaign.

These attacks stemmed from indoctrinated hostility nurtured in theological ghettos where Hindus are painted as enemies and their resurgence as provocation. In Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, on March 20, 2024, a barber named Sajid allegedly lured two boys—aged 11 and 8—to a terrace and hacked them to death, wounding a third. Sajid was killed in a police encounter while his brother, Javed, remains at large. These horrors underscore how ideology can inflict some of the most brutal attacks against fellow human beings which may include even innocent children.

Daring to Know: When Technology-driven Free Thought Breaks Chains and Dogma Falls

Data confirms that when censorship is bypassed resulting in free flow of information, hearts change. A 2020 GAMAAN survey found 47% of Iranians identify as non-religious, 72% oppose compulsory hijab and 86% reject theocracy, driven by 94% internet penetration.

A TIME report showed Pakistan’s support for suicide bombings dropped from 41% in 2004 to 3% by 2014, thanks to smartphones and YouTube. Arab Barometer reports 46% of Tunisians, 25% of Algerians, and 20% of Egyptians as non-religious.

On Reddit, r/ExMuslim boasts 4,50,000 members, and ex-Muslim YouTube channels generate millions of views.

Arif, an ex-Muslim interviewed for the film, cited Iranian rationalist, Mariam Namazie: “what the printing press did to Christianity, the internet will do to Islam.” Interestingly,  AI has the capacity to accelerate this rationalist revolution at light speed. If 1.5 crore (15 million) Muslims were influenced by the internet in 15 years, AI could reach 15 crore (150 million) by 2025. Young Muslims in North America, Europe, Iran and Pakistan question maulvis on platforms like TikTok and X, challenging radical narratives. Reformers like Maajid Nawaz and Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama amplify this shift.

Hinduism’s pluralistic ethos contrasts with radical exclusivity, offering coexistence. Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS)—embrace tark, vitark and Shastrarth, honouring debate in the Upanishads, Buddhist viharas, Jain councils and Nyaya philosophy. Just as reason transformed dark-age Christianity, these traditions fuel reform. The printing press broke knowledge monopolies in 1440. By 1610, Galileo’s heliocentrism challenged Church dogma, birthing the Age of Reason with Voltaire, Locke, and Rousseau. Yet, the printing press aided in the fast spread of Communism, Maoism and Stalinism too, brutalising millions. Truth found defenders. In 1973, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago exposed Lenin’s decrees birthing gulags, challenging the inviolable Lenin. Khrushchev eventually exposed Stalin. By November 9, 1989, the Stalinist-Leninist empire lay in crumbles as the Berlin Wall was torn apart, proving never to underestimate an idea whose time had come.

The Last Quarter: Radical Islam’s Rendezvous with Reform

Ex-Muslims, reformers, and youth challenge dogma on YouTube, X, and podcasts. Crimson Crescent captures this awakening, focusing on ideas that fuel violence. Fieldwork from Delhi to the Bangladesh border in West Bengal and Assam, reveals madrasa students calling Hindus kafirs and jihad a duty, citing Dars-e-Nizami, fiqh and Maududi. But surprisingly, the 2024 BAPS Swaminarayan Temple in Abu Dhabi, inaugurated with Gulf Sheikhs, challenges iconoclasm. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman declares only 10% of Hadith authoritative, and his $1.5 trillion NEOM project diverts resources from Wahhabism—a theological revolution. Yet, Islamist terror targets Jews near Washington, D.C.’s Holocaust Museum, echoing Nazism’s alliance with radical Islamism. 

The Voice of India movement by Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup ushered a rationalist-spiritualist revolution. Koenraad Elst joined in the late 1980s, followed by David Frawley. Rajinder Singh, author of Sikh Itihas mein Shri Ram Janmabhoomi, was an associate of Vaidya Gurudutt and Goel. Swami Dayanand Saraswati’s Satyarth Prakash opposed ideologies of aggression in Christianity and Islam, predating Goel. 

Crimson Crescent – The Last Quarter has sparked engagement. Intellectuals—Neeraj Atri’s academy, PGurus (Shree Iyer), Vibhuti Jha’s Jaipur Dialogues USA, Rahul Dewan’s Sangam Talks, Ashutosh Pathak’s Qvive TV, Sudarshan TV, and Rajesh Rana’s forum—have interviewed me, garnering over 100,000 views. The film would be released soon to a global audience.