society

India v/s Pakistan. Today's cricket world cup semi final match goes life in less then two hours. Roads have virtually no traffic, offices are half closed, businesses are closed! We've made plans to watch the match at a friends place with roughly 20 people. TV has had nothing but cricked for the past 5 days (since we beat Australia).

However, this makes me wonder why such a fervor for India v/s Pakistan match? Would it have been the same for India v/s Australia or India v/s South Africa? I doubt. Besides the fact that thousands of corores in illegal betting are at stake and media has hyped up the match as the biggest thing after World War II, what is driving this frenzy? read more »

There is a great debate happening on "Rare Book Society of India" group on facebook. Some one has come up with a book detailing how western powers are financing identity politics in the garb of humanitarian work for dalits and Dravidian folks in India. All this to undermine India's growing clout using human rights violations and cast / identity issues. Debate goes into conversion etc...

Some things I said on a FB group debate:

I do not believe Indian dalit is a radicalized, strong, united, and of ambiguous identity group. Its not even strong enough to protect its members getting raped, killed, humiliated on a daily basis. Even when in power, say in UP, dalit members of our society have not shown signs of "making them pay of historic injustices" type of behavior or conduct. So by clubbing them with terrorist movements be it Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Isai (i.e. christian) and not to mention Maoists, we are doing more harm then good. It will add another section of our society to our righteous list of enemies.

--------------------------------- read more »

This is taken from a post I wrote on Facebook group debate:

Religion is / has been a divisive force. Always was and will forever be. Our founding fore fathers recognized this and tried to keep it out of polity (eg. the constitution). They firmly believed (at least most of them) that religion is a weapon of mass destruction and partition amply showed this. It is again wake up call to all of us who soft peddle religion saying religion is a great but its usage by some is the problem. Na!

Lets wake up and realize / acknowledge ill-effects of religion are not external but deeply internal to it. Its a wake up call for us to make ills of religion a main stream public discourse. Have you noticed how there are no, not even one, main stream platforms to focus on the ills of religion? No government sanctions such studies let alone encourage these discussions! We've left this subject to fringe groups and radicals for too long. This needs to change. Frank public debate will lead to a more congenial environment where we can actually ask people to keep their religion to themselves. Imagine people who are incapable of following unambiguous clearly enunciated traffic rules are expected to practice religion in a non-partisan, moral, honest way, while understanding and avoiding all its ills at the same time. Not gonna happen. Hasn't happened anywhere yet in history (I've been hard at it to find even one instance). read more »

Last week made me realize the rabid frenzy of the crowds in the colosseums of Rome. Gleeful debates on how to kill Kasab, why to kill Kasab and should we kill Kasab on TV channels seemed almost medieval. The complete lack of somberness or restrain while talking about taking a human life, even if its Kasab was shocking! It was as if a frenzied mod had been picked up from the streets and directly transported to the newsroom. Killing a human being is a grave matter and should not be taken lightly. After all we are supposed to be a little better then the Kasab clan. read more »

So the other day i was wondering what is a Hindu? Until recently people of the Indian sub continent were Vaishnavites, Shivaites, Shuktos etc... etc... but not Hindu. Every one had their own religion and we happy enough. The idea of having millions of gods and goddesses was so right back then. 

But some where down the line we clubbed ourselves or were clubbed by some one else into a unified religion call Hinduism. Weather it was done to facilitate census by the British or by the Indian's them selves for political gains, or both is not very clear. What is clear is that this miss-appropriation or usurping of the religions of the past into a unified religion has resulted in a less tolerant and assimilative society. A culture of many religions could have diluted the fanatic zeal with witch we practice (or protect) Hinduism today.  read more »