Why selective outrage outrages people
Congress and the Elite: Comrades-in-arm?
November 6, 2015
M.D.Kini *
The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and, God fulfills Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
· Lord Tennyson.
I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it till death. - Voltaire.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. - Arthur Schopenhauer
I remembered these words of wisdom uttered by some of the best minds of the world when I read in the newspapers and heard the news channels about the number of writers, historians, scientists, film-makers who have returned their awards conferred by the State and its various bodies. All of them have mentioned "the climate of intolerance" and " a rash of bigoted acts" as the reasons for this act. Some of them have said "the recent incidents were being seen as an attack on core values of science, scientific temper and rationality."
They have specifically mentioned the killings of intellectuals like Narendra Dabholkar and M.M.Kalburgi, and a Muslim, Mohammad Akhlaq for allegedly eating beef. All these atrocities are law and order problems and they are under the jurisdiction of the states. If the state administration is not fast enough to act against the criminals, it is the legacy of long Congress rule in these states. It is time the police is equipped with man-power, tools and functional autonomy to deal with these issues. The police should be given autonomy and held responsible for maintaining peace without political interference. One wishes the intellectual elite had asked police reforms rather than return the state awards.
"If there is one thing that the writer's revolt has proved, it is that freedom of expression in India," observes veteran journalist, Tavleen Singh, "never been more robust." She recalled how writers and poets shared prison cells with the politicians during Emergency declared by Shrimati Indira Gandhi. How family planning programme was executed, especially on Muslims, and the how the Muslim quarters like Turkman Gate in old Delhi turned into rubble by bulldozers under the leadership of her son. Singh also mentioned the innumerable Hindu-Muslim riots happened during the Congress regime and the killings of Muslims.
All these ghastly things never stirred the heart of these intellectuals to return their awards. In reply, one of the writers said, "no writer can be directed when he should express resistance." Another writes, "The country cannot afford Dadri and Babri. The government insults intellectuals, does not want to give us a right to speak against them." Their views and comments are all over the media, and there is no 'emergency' in the country. It is not clear what is it they are complaining about.
The well-known economist and Niti Ayog member, Bibek Debroy, has mentioned how Jagdish Bhagwati, University Professor of Economics, Law, and International Relations at the Columbia University, and Dr.B.R.Shenoy, member of Planning Commission for the Second Five-Year Plan, and he himself was treated by the Congress-Leftist establishment, during days of the Congress regime in an interview to the Times of India (Nov.5,2015). Jagadish Bhagwati migrated to USA, and Dr.Shenoy went to Sri Lanka. He has also mentioned how he was questioned by Mrs.Sonia Gandhi when he invited Sheshadri Chari, editor of the Organiser, a weekly newspaper, was invited for a seminar. He observed that intolerance always existed.
Congress treated BJP, RSS and the associated organizations as 'untouchable'. It is the Sangh parivar which had different worldview than the Congress and all the other so called opposition parties. While the Congress had a vague western-oriented worldview Sangh parivar had India-centric worldview. It has been rightly called conflict of ideologies. It is the same as Labour Vs Conservative in UK or Democratic Vs Republican in USA.
What is the motivation of the intellectuals?
The action of these intellectuals can be interpreted in two ways - the awards were the patronage extended by the Congress regime, and they want to support the previous ruling party which has been conclusively defeated by the people of the country for not keeping its promise to abolish poverty (garibi hatao) made in 1971, and, repeated again and again. Now, almost 400 million people are below the poverty line, devised by the Congress government, which is supposed to be around Rs.30 per day. The achievement of the Congress rule of 60 years was summed up by a newspaper headline recently; "For 368 posts of peons advertised in Uttar Pradesh, as many as 17.50 lakh people applied so far. PhD holders, engineers line up to become 'chaprasi'. They are complicit in the regime that was thrown out by the people, and they want to resurrect the same before Modi government establish his credentials to the people.
The other meaning of their action is their hostility to the NDA government headed by Narendra Modi in spite of the popular mandate. One wonders whether these people are democrats or just fundamentalists of socialist and secularist variety. Of course, everybody has to accept their definition of these concepts, as Alice found it in the wonderland. Their commitment is to their brand of ideology rather than to the welfare of the people and the democratic system enshrined in constitution.
The British Vs Indian world-view
We can also discern a deeper meaning. It goes back to the year 1831 when the famous minutes of Macaulay were published, and enforced later in India. Macaulay said, "that a single shelf of a good European library is worth the whole national literature of India and Arabia." He also added that the British should train a class of Indians who can transmit and interpret European literature and culture through them - as he put it, " a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect." The English have succeeded in their mission to a large extent. Their agenda is being carried on by 'brown sahibs' trained by them, and they find nothing worthwhile in Indian culture, languages and literature. Our education is full of western ideas, ideals and concepts.
The British historians first mooted the idea of Aryan Invasion of India which has now been proved to be untrue. It is the British who promoted the theory of conflict of Aryan and Dravidian races which is also now been disproved - Indians have the same DNA. The British propounded these theories to justify their rule in India and divide the people. The British world-view was accepted by most of the Indian historians after Independence, and they did not pursue any Indian approach to our history and literature. Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature was neglected and all Indian literature was called myth. The appreciation of Indian history, culture and literature by European and American intellectuals made no difference to the ruling secularist-marxist elite in the Indian academic world. Consequently, Indian students knowledge of their own history and culture was next to nothing. Our children had to learn about our culture and history through Amar Chitra Katha.
"India, "wrote Will Durant, well-known Philosopher and Historian of USA, in his book, the Case for India (1931), " was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit, the mother of Europe's languages; she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all."
The British legacy and its acceptance by the Indian elite has been explained well by the famous US linguist, Edward W.Said, University Professor at Columbia University of New York in his famous book, Orientalism, Western conceptions of the Orient. "The relationship between Occident and Orient", he wrote, "is a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of complex hegemony, and is quite accurately indicated in the title of K.M.Panikkar's classic Asia and Western Dominance." No wonder, there has been no research on Ancient Indian history and culture during the Congress regime. The satellite pictures of the Saraswati River and the Ram Sethu at Rameshwaram, or the discovery of submerged Dwarka in the Gujarat coast does not evoke any curiosity among these Indian historians.
These intellectual elite promoted by the Congress regime have internalized the Orientalist worldview which gives the Western scholars the right to interpret and define Indian culture and literature. It is no surprise they hailed and celebrated the book, The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger. That it had many factual mistakes and distortions did not matter to them. It was withdrawn by the publisher only after the educationist Dina Nath Batra took it up with the court of law.
Development agenda of Modi
2014 is the year of destiny for India. Narendra Modi, who changed the face of Gujarat in 10 years, with his development agenda, swept the polls, belying the predictions of pollstars' and the elite journalists, soothsayers and politicians of a hung house. Modi's words of development were backed by deeds. Gujarat was the first state to have 24-hours of power and water to all its villages. He wooed industry with passion to create more employment. He regularly organised Investment Conferences of Indian and foreign businessmen. He is the first Chief Minister who sent an sms to Ratan Tata inviting him to Gujarat for 'nano' factory which was unceremoniously driven out of West Bengal by Mamata Banerjee - a graveyard of industry created by CPM. - He had the imagination to provide solar panels on Sardar Sarovar canals to save water and to provide power to the villages. He invited the agricultural experts from Israel, a country which made desert bloom, to provide advice to the farmers on the crop, seed, fertilizers and soil fertility. He encouraged farmers to conserve water with water-sheds and bunds. And Gujarat, a semi-arid state, was able to notch almost 10 percent agricultural growth for 10 years.
After winning the general election, Modi has embarked on a mission to involve and encourage people to join his vision of a prosperous and peaceful India. He has initiated programmes such as Jan Dhan (every Indian to have a bank account), Jan Suraksha (Insurance), Atal Pension scheme and many others for the poor. The Mudra Bank seeks help small businesses. Give up subsidy for LPG has received overwhelming response. 'Make in India'and Skill India will create employment. Digital India can provide easy access to government services. Smart City programme and AMRUT ( rejuvenation of cities) can change the urban scene. 'Swachh Bharat' programme has multiple benefits - health, tourism and employment. Modi and his ministers are striving to complete these schemes in every possible way. The stagnant railways has now plans to expand with investment from India and abroad, thanks to the Railway Minister, Suresh Prabhu.
These and other initiatives take time to fruictfly. UPA and their friends in politics and academia know that if these programmes succeed, they will be in the dustbin of history, and that is why they try to catch every straw in the wind to halt Modi express. People are awake and they know consequences of the Congress-Socialist-Communist policies of the last 60 years. They want education, skills, jobs, houses, roads, and they will support NDA and BJP for this to happen.
* The author is a commentator on current affairs.
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An English translation of a very good article that appeared recently
in THUGLAQ--a Tamil weekly edited by CHO Ramaswamy --
The President has complained that the people of India be more tolerant and understanding – Fantastic and very commendable.
Let us analyse our tolerance levels and find out where we are lacking.
1. Politicians have improved from their corruption target of a few lakhs to 1.76 - 2.0 lakh crores and we tolerate them.
2. Election time – self declaration wealth of 1,000 crores, and we never ask them from where they got this, when their previous statement showed only a few lakhs 5 years back. Not only that, we accept the many privileges given to them along with everything subsidized given to them; from idlies to plane tickets and "Z plus" security and traffic snarls because of their movement.
3. We also tolerate that sons and relatives are the natural choice of becoming their successors in positions like CM, Ministers etc. We justify this by saying that we are used to Rajahs and Zamindars and we accept them as a right.
4. Parliament and assemblies have become a circus arena and a fish market with shouting, counter shouting, flinging of objects and hurling of abuses. We appreciate their heroic sense of responsibility and praise them with poems and lectures on their achievements.
5. For 50 years now, each successive government has promised to bring in the black money and they are still trying. Endless lists of offenders, bank cheaters & fraudsters are published by all media with proof, but they still continue to live the same lavish lifestyle and are very well taken care of by the Politicians. They scratch each others back. We just don't bother and ignore saying "nothing is going to happen anyway" and just get on with our own miserable life.
6. Fake doctors, fake lawyers, fake teachers, fake medicines, fake everything - many times they look better than the originals. Do we complain – No, Mr President.
7. Our pride, the "excellent" condition of roads, water contamination, power cuts, lack of hospital hygiene - we never complain and we learn to live with them and adjust to the realities.
8. Doctors steal kidneys, teachers help students to copy (even a DIG was caught copying recently), bank officials loot the bank cash in their own way, police help the criminals. What happens – nothing. It is all TV entertainment news for us. We sit and enjoy the loud talk shows and debates and forget everything the very next moment. We are not ashamed that the rest of the world is laughing at us and we are jeopardizing the values of our institutions and students.
9. Government lavishly throws money meant for development for freebies like tv, mixies, grinders, goats, cycles and laptops (only to their party affiliates) and call it their achievement. We admire them and make posters, cutouts 50-60 ft high, right in the middle of roads and garland them.
10. Corruption at all levels and our bureaucracy is brilliant in devising ways to collect money from the public. Any alternate or improvement is shot down promptly, by devising methods to subvert and bypass them. No one can ever beat them in short circuiting the system and make it ineffective.
11. Pakistan crosses our border and beheads our soldiers and China tells us to vacate from our own land. Do we object – NO. We only warn them, because we are tolerant.
12. There is Power Shortage, Rape, Farmers Suicides, Drought, River Water Fights between States. Do we bother? We are only concerned with why Dhoni did not score a century in every test and why Salman Khan did not smile at Sharukh Khan when they met !!
We all know nothing happens to anyone who violates any civic or/and traffic rules or for that matter any rules !!
So Mr. President, where did you find us intolerant and please be specific so that we can "mprove" further.
On 04-Nov-2015, "Ronnie Mendonca rpmdxb@hotmail.com [TheBecoming]" <TheBecoming@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
How about the intolerance of Islam and Islamists to all things secular and non-Muslim, as soon as they gain a sizeable minority/majority, like in Kerala, west Bengal and very soon in Karnataka?
how about the insults and hatred against non-Muslims being preached by islamists like zakir naik in his media programs, madrassas and Islamic research institutes in India, financed by Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern countries ?
How about the other beef murder in moodbidri? Why this is ignored by the media? Why no outrage here? Is it OK for islamists/Muslims to kill/decapitate/chop limbs of non-believers/non-Muslims/apostates/blasphemers in India? Are they also "fringe elements" or mainstream..... ?
It about time to stop being tolerant on these issues.....and stand up and raise our voices..... regardless of the presstitutes....let the so called "fringe elements" become mainstream....
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On Monday, November 2, 2015, "Sanjeev Patra sanjeevpatra@gmail.com
Why selective outrage outrages people
A group of intellectuals, writers, journalists, activists and artists of late have been outraging about the "increasing level of intolerance" in the country, whatever that means. To add some spark to their outrage some of the "eminent" writers, filmmakers and scientists are even returning their awards that they got from various academies like the National Film Academy or the Sahitya Kala Academy. They are returning the awards to register their protest against the voices of dissent being throttled and people not being allowed to make dietary choices (vis-à-vis the recent beef- related lynching and related politicking).
Some of the protesting artists, historians and writers say that the situation is worse than even the emergency days. There is no freedom of expression. People are not allowed to say what they want to say. In fear of retaliation people have to keep quite. They constantly refer to rationalists and anti-superstition activists being threatened and attacked and even killed. You can see blaring headlines on some of the TV news channels that minorities no longer feel safe in the country. Majoritarian views are being imposed on them. The extremist elements in the majority Hindu community, the protesting "eminent" folks claim, that was so far lurking at the fringes, are threatening to become mainstream due to the present government's alleged silence over the rising extremist voices. If you believe them, all hell has broken loose and people are being chased and killed on the streets. Hence the outrage.
Why is this selective outrage and why people are outraged at this selective outrage?
It is being labelled as selective outrage because one, the situation is not as bad as it is being projected by these people and in fact things are far better now than they were a couple of years ago, and two, these people never outraged when there was really a reason to outrage. More than 1000 riots have happened under the Congress rule and thousands of people have died due to them. In fact, the 1984 Sikh genocide happened under Congress's guidance and support — the party even used Doordashan (khoon ka badla khoon) — the state owned television broadcasting network — to incite violence against the Sikh community. Not even a single arrest was made and in fact, many Congress politicians including Sajjan Kumar, Tytler and HKL Bhagat kept enjoying the patronage of the Congress high command even till the present days. Awards were not returned. People were not shamed. No one threatened to leave the country forever. There were no signature campaigns. No country was urged to ban the entry of Rajiv Gandhi who refused to take the calls during the 1984 killings from the then Sikh President, Giani Zail Singh. Collective outrage among intellectuals, writers, scientists and artists was conspicuously missing.
This is just one incident. All limits were crossed during the emergency. Millions were castrated without their consent and most of the people who were castrated belonged to the Muslim community. Government employees were punished for not bringing in more people to be castrated. I remember one of my school teachers was recalling that her father had to go underground because he didn't believe in herding people to the castration centers and government-appointed goons were looking for him. The family was threatened with dire consequences if he didn't produce himself and they too had to leave in the dark of the night and remain in hiding during the whole of the emergency days. Whoever opposed lost his job. Many people vanished without a trace and never returned to their homes. One call from Idira's or Sanjay's office would make noted journalists and editors piss and shit in their pants actually, not literally. The opposition Leader LK Advani famously criticized the editors and journalists by saying, "When you were asked to bend, you crawled".
Renowned singer Kishore Kumar was banned and none of his songs were allowed to be played on TV and radio just because he had refused to sing in one of the functions being organized by one of the architects of emergency, Sanjay Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi. No protest marches were organized in his support. People were jailed for simply articulating their discontent.
Noted lyricist and poet Gulzar, who thinks the current situation in the country is worse than the emergency days, himself bore the brunt of a dictatorial government when one of his films based on the life of Indira Gandhi was banned — he seems to have forgotten those good old days of "freedom of expression".
And of course who can forget the genocide of Kashmiri Pundits in Jammu and Kashmir right under the nose of the Congress government? These people whose ancestors had been living in the valley for more than 5000 years were butchered, raped and chased out of their own homeland, in their own country, and no intellectual and public figure in the mainland India was outraged enough to raise his or her voice or even write an article or an essay about the monumental human pain this unfortunate community had to go through.
The "eminent" people who are returning the awards and vociferously speaking out for not being allowed to speak out, say that it's their right to be selective. "Besides," protested one of the filmmakers on TV who has returned his award, "we haven't protested in the past doesn't mean we cannot protest in the present!"
One of the "senior" journalists wrote, "Why can't we be selective? Isn't it our right to be selective?"
To these people I would like to say that yes, it is your right to be selective. This is because you people wear your causes as normal people wear their clothes. These causes are just fashion statements for you guys. You guys will scream for animal rights but you will eat cow just to prove a point. You people will cry blood and "fanaticism" for an unfortunate incident of a Muslim man being lynched but you have no problem in the Congress party being instrumental in the massive backwardness, illiteracy and poverty among the Muslim community. You guys get your panties in twists due to some stray gharwapasi and "love jihad" incidents but you don't mind Assam and West Bengal being turned into Muslim-majority areas for political gains. You people want to organize marches for the cause of the Palestinians but in your own neighbourhood when a sustained genocide of Hindus happens in Pakistan and Bangladesh you brush it off as those countries' internal matter. When police raids a canteen where it is suspected that beef is being served despite it being an illegal activity you start beating your chests but when the same police but in a "secular state" arrests youngsters for organizing a pork party not a whimper is raised. You guys have become so used to not thinking that recently when Nayantara Sahgal was asked why she never returned her award when atrocities were happening under the Congress rule she said that even if the atrocities were happening under the Congress rule, at least we had a "secular" government at the Centre, so things were different. You see, you people are so used to being patronized by a friendly Centre that you can't even give logical replies to your illogical actions.
Finally, just as you people have the right to outrage selectively, the others have the right to call your selective outrage bullshit. Just because suddenly you have decided to selectively outrage why do you expect the rest of the country to accept your version of the truth as gospel truth? Yes, there used to be a time when every sort of malarkey from you went unopposed but that was because people had no means to express their opposition. Now they have. Selectively outrage as much as you want because fortunately for you, the Constitution of your country and the civilizational ethos of our society give you ample space and rights to do so. But the same sort of ample space and rights — to which of course you cannot relate to — are also afforded to the rest of the population. If they think what you are saying or what you're doing is bullshit, they have all the right to say so. If selective outrage outrages people, this is their right. Learn to live with that. The society is much freer now than it was during the times you claim were freer. Those times might have been freer for your literary and artistic rackets but not for people. Now it's the other way around.
https://medium.com/@AmritHallan/why-selective-outrage-outrages-people-efb81cd8973d#.8fvo0q4np
Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury
Dean, Amity University, Mumbai.
Academic Consultant, Amsterdam Film School.
Former Director, Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication & Dean, SIU, Pune.
Former Dean, Whistling Woods School of Communication, Mumbai.
Former Media Adviser, Textiles Ministry, GOI; The Nippon Foundation; and WHO, India.
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From: Dinesh Agrawal [dinesh1234@gmail.com]
Sent: November 6, 2015
Subject: Must watch video of Gadkari on secularism and @awardwapsigang
https://www.facebook.com/vivekshettym/videos/1305383166154066/
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