Rights or privileges?

As George Carlin once said, "we don't have rights, we have privileges'.

So I was reading this: http://www.anhadin.net/article89.html and realized that muslims face the harshest end of the stick which is being inflicted on all of us. None of us have rights anymore. We may delude ourselves that there is god, law, constitution etc. but non of it would protect us if we call Bombay, Mumbai. Or is it the other way round?

And the irony is, extreme ends of the society still manage to enjoy some rights due to insignificance or influence. Its the majority of us who are not part of some mob, religious righteousness mob, cultural mob, political mod, cast mob, etc mob, who are short charged and taken for a ride every day. We are loosing rights every day. Our right to speech is only till the point people don't notice us. Today if, some goonda party comes and beats me up for calling Bombay, Mumbai (or is it the other way round?), I have no where to go and no police or politician will protect me from the goonda's.

If a builder grabs my land, like in the film, Khosla ka Ghosla, we have no chance of getting it back. If I want to change my religion, I have no one to help me from the so called counsellors who will come to re-convert me. I can not call a city by which ever name I please, I can not hope to protect my loved ones when the other community decides to cleans the society. Justice, equality and liberty are at the mercy of the local goondas, police and politicians. This almost makes me embrace the UP culture, of "connection". Nothing moves without connections in Uttar Pradesh. It is so ingrained in the UP society that even to get your bi-cycle repaired one would as a friend if s/he know some one in the repair shop. How ever thats a pathetic way of living, it fosters corruption, division, bigotry and all such.

We have no rights, we never had and hopefully we never will.

The sooner we realize this the better. Amen.