Indian Interests

member_20617 · Post by **member_20617** » 24 Jan 2012 19:56

Aditya_V wrote:Jai Jai Sonia Ghandi - Does Jinx work here?

Are you Shiv's side kick?

Acid tongue = a sharp, bitter, or sarcastic quality in speech or writing

Go & check Encarta dictionary once you have attended Sonia Gandhi's bhajan party! LoL

PS: You need to follow your own advice!

member_20617 · Post by **member_20617** » 24 Jan 2012 20:33

Shiv [/quote]You just can''t resist reading my pseudosecular posts. [/quote]

You just proved what I suspected - you have a meglomaniac personality!LoL!

Hari Seldon · Post by **Hari Seldon** » 24 Jan 2012 21:03

Shankaraa,

Take it easy. Cool the steam off. No point arguing with hakim once you've fallen for his 'you farted' bait. Ignoring him via the Ignore list isn't a bad idea at all, for a few days/weeks/months/years. Some vets here have figured out his MO, are wiser now and seldom fall prey to piskotarts. Sincere if unsolicited advice from moi is all, only.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Jan 2012 03:10

Rushdie should post his speech on Youtube and break the barriers. The Indian media will paly it again and again.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 25 Jan 2012 05:30

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/2 ... lp00000003

A recent sketch by "The Tonight Show" host Jay Leno has angered members of India's Sikh community by insinuating the Golden Temple of Amritsar was one of Mitt Romney's estates.
The segment, which aired on Jan. 19, featured a clip from the CBS show "The Insider" which looked at homes of several presidential candidates, including Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul."Here's a look at Mitt Romney's summer home on Lake Winnipesaukee," the voiceover indicated before the Leno team switched out the picture of the GOP candidate's estate with a photo of the shrine. The clip caused an uproar among members of India's Sikh community who said the jab, which was intended for Romney, was insulting to their religion, the Wall Street Journal reports.
While the segment solicited a few laughs from the audience, Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi called the incident "quite unfortunate and quite objectionable," the BBC reports. Ravi, who said he has not personally seen the clip, has even called upon Nirupama Rao, the Indian Ambassador to the United States, to discuss the incident with the U.S. State Department, according to the Press Trust of India.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 25 Jan 2012 05:37

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2012 ... -in-paris/
Lumière | India in Paris

In December, Karl Lagerfeld took inspiration from India for his Paris-Bombay collection for Chanel, which included Nehru jackets, sweaters that draped like saris and opulent beading and embroidery. “Paris-Delhi-Bombay,” which examined India through the prism of 50 Indian and French artists, was the Centre Pompidou’s most ambitious exhibition of the past year. And on Jan. 27, the Petit Palais museum will display nearly 100 paintings and designs by Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Having begun to paint late in life, he created a large body of works on paper — bold, bright visions of fantasy and mystery.In fact, Paris has long contained pockets of Indian culture. The Musée Guimet, for example, houses a small but serious collection of Indian art, including sculptures of wood, clay, basalt, bronze, sandstone and schist dating from as early as the third millennium B.CThen comes lunch, starting with a lassi made with mango or rose. Southern Indian cooking features dosas (savory rice-and-black-lentil pancakes) and idlis (steamed rice cakes) instead of the naan bread of the north. Good vegetarian restaurants can be hard to find in Paris, but the neighborhood has two excellent ones. The most recent one is Saravana Bhavan. Part of an international chain, it leaves even India-savvy diners with the impression of having just been to Madras. At nearby Krishna Bhavan, five of us ate well for 46 euros..Instead of ordering dessert, stop in at Canabady Snacks. The shop offers both savories (like the spicy chickpea-flour snacks that looks like orange worms) and brightly colored cakelike desserts. They are cloyingly sweet, but that’s part of the experience. Ask enough questions of the charmingly timid men in the shop and they might pull out folding chairs, offer you samples and make you boiling black tea with milk and sugar

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 25 Jan 2012 07:55

Banning a book: when, why and what thereafter

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 25 Jan 2012 08:49

Has anyone actually read Satanic Verses?

What Rushdie does in the book is to tell a story of a guy whose life is similar to the life story of Mohammad. The central character is not Mohammad, but the life story of that character is built around a completely fictional and delusional fairy tale that is very similar to the life story of Mohammad as per what I can gather. I have no personal knowledge of how Mohammad lived his life - but apparently the book character is like Mohammad in many ways, including the visions he has from Jibreel (Angel Gabriel) and te name "Satanic Versus" is spun around a tale where Mohammad says or does something but then reverses his decision later saying that Satan had told him the earlier, wrong instruction. I do not know the details. The character in Rushdie's book does something similar. The book also features a brothel in which the women have names taken from characters in Mohammad's life - I will need to recheck that - it is over a decade since I actually read the book. The book also has some completely fantastic tales that seem to have no connection with anything else. There is a girl character from an Indian town called "Chatnapatna" where wooden toys are made. There is a teal town between Mysore and Bangalore called "Channapatna" where wooden toys are made. The Chatnapatna connection is weird - a girl is born there and butterflies appear mysteriously around her and she survives only by eating those butterflies as she gathers followers and heads towards the sea where the sea is supposed to open up as she takes her followers to meet the central character who is having those jibreel visions. The whole tale is weird. The book is otherwise quite boring.

I like some of Rushdie's books. His childrens book "Haroun and the sea of stories" is enchanting. The book "Shame" is an insight into Pakistan. But I don't know why he wrote Satanic Verses. Not only can it be construed as blasphemous, it is boring.

The content of the book is guaranteed to make many Muslims unhappy. When you think of how Jay Leno's reference to the Golden Temple as a reference to wealth upset Sikhs, you will see how this book is actually highly inflammatory. It is a book for liberals, but liberals will find it difficult to defend the book without fearing for their lives. You see, most liberals are fakes. We have seen how Indian liberals are pseudo liberal dhimmis and Pakistani liberals are complete fakes.

I would personally ask my Indian brothers and sisters Hindus, Sikhs, jains and Christians to be honest in this case. A Hindu who gets upset by a Ganesh image on underwear, or from Husain's paintings is not being "liberal". If this person gets joy out of Rushdie's book - he is showing fake liberalism. It is easy to be fake liberal especially if the fakeness is in support of someone else who has written something inflammatory when you do not have the guts (or skills) to write so boldly or take criticism about something you revere.

I think that if India openly declares itself to be a Hindu state just like Saudi Arabia is Islamic, India can then openly promote and sell Rushdie's book. In the absence of that Rushdies book is inflammatory material easy to interpret as blasphemy and difficult to judge as "liberal artistic licence". Believe me Rushdies book is as bad an insult to Islam, if not worse than Husain's paintings are an insult to Hindus.

Protection of "liberalism" is not in Indian interest if most Indians are not liberals when it comes to religious icons. If Indians changed so that they were liberal enough to take insults against every religion, then Rushdies' book would have no problem. Indian policy must keep Indian sentiment and Indian culture in mind. Not just that of a liberal elite.

JMT

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Jan 2012 09:15

Here is wiki to refresh your mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 25 Jan 2012 09:15

shiv wrote:it is boring.

I have a copy, found it boring enough that I never got around to the blasphemous part

Yayavar · Post by **Yayavar** » 25 Jan 2012 09:21

Coincidentally I brought Satanic Verses and 'Haroun and sea of stories' from the library a couple of weeks back. I had once attempted it, almost 10+ years back, and dropped it after Mahound and Gibreel farishta have a fight (and it is quite vulgar in description). Recently re-read Midnight's children which was a completely new form when I first read it (1988 ?) and still found it quite fantastic.

Satanic verses is certainly likely to make a musalman angry. So no surprise it was banned. The article by Fali Nariman lined earlier makes a good case.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 25 Jan 2012 09:36

I have no problem with people who find Satanic Verses blasphemous. It probably is. In a truly liberal society, we wouldn't have any blasphemy laws and mocking religion and religious figures would be no different than mocking Rakhi Sawant. But since we are not in a liberal society and we are going to restrict artistic and literary freedom, then everyone should be equally restricted. Instead, we have fake liberals on TV and in print who will wail incessantly about how M.F. Hussain was "hounded out by evil yindoos" while you'll hear nary a whimper about the treatment meted out to Salman Rushdie and his book from the same people who claim to represent liberal values and artistic freedom.

They are either both right, or both wrong. It can't be one of the two.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 25 Jan 2012 09:43

ramana wrote:Here is wiki to refresh your mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses

In fact another Wiki page has what i was looking for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satani ... ontroversy

in Rushdie's novel the brothel of the city of Jahilia is staffed by prostitutes who take the names of Muhammad's wives.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 25 Jan 2012 09:45

nachiket wrote:I have no problem with people who find Satanic Verses blasphemous. It probably is. In a truly liberal society, we wouldn't have any blasphemy laws and mocking religion and religious figures would be no different than mocking Rakhi Sawant. But since we are not in a liberal society and we are going to restrict artistic and literary freedom, then everyone should be equally restricted. Instead, we have fake liberals on TV and in print who will wail incessantly about how M.F. Hussain was "hounded out by evil yindoos" while you'll hear nary a whimper about the treatment meted out to Salman Rushdie and his book from the same people who claim to represent liberal values and artistic freedom.

They are either both right, or both wrong. It can't be one of the two.

Absolutely. And this is something Indian liberals need to understand before they weep for MF Hussain. But on another note I am not at all sure how the "liberalism" of the west that now allows the painting of a picture of Jesus Christ sodomizing another Jesus Christ can be passed off as art.

It's called freedom of expression. But surely expressing a wish to assassinate someone is also freedom of expression. This seems to be a perversion of the mindset of the flower power generation that said "Make love, not war" .

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 25 Jan 2012 09:56

Once we openly declare and define ourselves, that we are not liberal except for the few elites, then the least liberal point of view wins always in a shouting match, even between two liberals. In the case above liberals who support MF Hussain are more vocal than ones who support Rushdie. It just ends up reflecting or mirroring the point of view of the majority non-liberals. Bottom line is either we collectively consider ourselves liberal and behave as such or else calling liberals as fake or pseudo does not add much value.

Protection of "liberalism" is not in Indian interest if most Indians are not liberals when it comes to religious icons. If Indians changed so that they were liberal enough to take insults against every religion, then Rushdies' book would have no problem. Indian policy must keep Indian sentiment and Indian culture in mind. Not just that of a liberal elite.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Jan 2012 10:06

Shiv,
You need to go thru the debates on Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, Modernism and Post modernism to get there.

In a few words its protest against the stifling Church which brought the Dark Ages to Europe and made them lose a millennium after the sack of Rome to the Renaissance. It was thru art they found their liberation.

Any way has anyone tried to understand MF Hussain? Bodhi of India Forum wrote a couple of long essays which situate MFH in the center field on Hindu art and aesthetics.

Caution: He doesnt explain the 'bad' paintings!

Even his best supporters could not write like this:

MF Husain in a new light: A Hindu Art Prespective- Part 1

and
Part 2

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 25 Jan 2012 10:11

Bade wrote:Once we openly declare and define ourselves, that we are not liberal except for the few elites, then the least liberal point of view wins always in a shouting match, even between two liberals. In the case above liberals who support MF Hussain are more vocal than ones who support Rushdie. It just ends up reflecting or mirroring the point of view of the majority non-liberals. Bottom line is either we collectively consider ourselves liberal and behave as such or else calling liberals as fake or pseudo does not add much value.
Protection of "liberalism" is not in Indian interest if most Indians are not liberals when it comes to religious icons. If Indians changed so that they were liberal enough to take insults against every religion, then Rushdies' book would have no problem. Indian policy must keep Indian sentiment and Indian culture in mind. Not just that of a liberal elite.

Bade I have more radical views than that. There is no such thing as pure liberalism. It is a cooked up "western" concept that suits some people in the western society that cooked it up in their environs. Copy paste into India does not work. Even "western liberalism" is merely a space created by their conservatives that can be closed at any time.

I believe that India had an earlier definition of social freedom of belief and expression that allowed all sorts of thoughts and belief but under laws that were more libertarian. But Indian liberals are of the western mould. Sorry OT. Will post any further discussion in the liberalism thread.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 25 Jan 2012 10:15

ramana wrote:Shiv,
You need to go thru the debates on Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, Modernism and Post modernism to get there.

In a few words its protest against the stifling Church which brought the Dark Ages to Europe and made them lose a millennium after the sack of Rome to the Renaissance. It was thru art they found their liberation.

ramana Indian liberals are a copy paste of a people whose culture evolved in the way you describe. But they are trying to apply that copy paste in an Indian society that evolved quite differently and was "Liberal enough" to evolve polytheism, atheism, free sex, sex with gods, sexy art, etc long ago.

In India all the latter were declared as bad, and having dismissed all that we are now seeing a "modern" Indian society that is applying the rules of post modern western liberalism. I see that as a massive fake. Indian society was put through one convulsion teaching them that all that they had was wrong. And once that society was moulded and made apologetic and defensiev about its past, there is a new liberal bunch saying that some things are OK. This is a bad copy paste. India society is being turned into a monster without any insight into what we had and what we value. What we value is considered monstrous. And we are asked to adopt something else as good and right. All being done by witless and culture-free Indians.

vina · Post by **vina** » 25 Jan 2012 10:24

shiv wrote:Absolutely. And this is something Indian liberals need to understand before they weep for MF Hussain. But on another note I am not at all sure how the "liberalism" of the west that now allows the painting of a picture of Jesus Christ sodomizing another Jesus Christ can be passed off as art.

It's called freedom of expression. But surely expressing a wish to assassinate someone is also freedom of expression. This seems to be a perversion of the mindset of the flower power generation that said "Make love, not war

You atleast have to give credit to the west where it is due. When they say that freedom of expression is a right that is guaranteed it, they mean it and it is available, even if the exercise of that right is offensive to a lot of people.
For eg, there was an "art" of Mary /Madonna by a nigerian artist who made it out of elephant dung, that was exhibited in one of the publicly supported museums in NYC when Guiliani was the mayor there. He ranted about it and said that the artist was insulting someone else's faith (the nigerian was catholic himself), threatened withdrawal of funding to the muesuem, but nothing otherwise .

Not so in India because of the incredible double standards we have here. Problem is when some groups are more "liberal" /"tolerant" or simply too far and above this kind of buffoonery, you take advantage of it. That is the key to the difference in "standards" when it comes to Hindu vs Muslim issues in India . Everyone knows that they have more "license" when it comes to Hindus who have to carry the "liberal cross" and uses it artistically and otherwise and know of the reaction from the Muslim when things are barely even borderline provocative (I remember as a kid of Deccan Herald being stormed by an article they had written )

And no, this is not just a Hindu vs Muslim issue. It is basically a question of cowardice and not able to face consequence of being truthful and so try to flog an easy route.

For eg, in TN, to show "conservatism" or say an "intercaste" marriage in TV/movies, the character would invariably be an identifiable Tamil Brahmin, with mores and practices which my grandmom (okay the one alive was an army wife since she was married at 16, so very modern in most ways, the other was a matriculate in the 1930s who could speak fluent english ) and her generation would find arcane to say the least. This simply flies in the face of reality that Tam Brahms are probably the most "westernized" (ok modern might be the better word) and "liberal" and among the highest rates of inter- regional/caste/race/cultural whatever marriages among any community in India! If at all they wanted to show such rigidity,they should portray a Thevar or similar Woman marrying a Scheduled Caste man . I guarantee you that it will never happen, because all hell will break loose. Do it at your own peril. Mani Ratnam discovered it with his movie "Bombay" which did all the right "liberal" things, but one mistake , a big one , was that the "hero" was a Hindu and "heroine" muslim and not vice versa. He showed a muslim girl going off an marrying a Hindu guy and he suffered a bomb attack.

Add to this anything that is "politically unpalatable" in TN and it is immediately banned . There was a movie "Ore oru Gramathile" that was "pro" reservation and it was banned after "agitations" by the DK type worthies. There was movie by Mohanlal (I think) called "Iyer The Great" (I didn't see the movie, dont even know what it was about).. again a big agitation, how can have a title that says "Iyer The Great" , that implies that only Iyer is great and all others are not great

kind of Lahori logic. Look at the recent ban on the movie Dam 999. And of course this is just from ONE state , with only a small sliver of the politics and taboos. Now multply it all India wide and then you know the "complications" .

The moment the liberals stop defending free speech in it's absolute, but want to have "differential" standards that are a function of someone's ability to foment violence or political mobilization or the tolerance of lack of it, they become just big hypocrites. That is the fundamental problem with the Indian liberals. I would have had greater respect for the Jaipur Literary whatever pooh bahs when they stood up against those "attacks on free speech" and not just merely focused on it when the protagonists are the Shiv Sena /BJP/right wing Hindu types.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 25 Jan 2012 10:32

You atleast have to give credit to the west where it is due. When they say that freedom of expression is a right that is guaranteed it, they mean it and it is available, even if the exercise of that right is offensive to a lot of people.

Except here.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Jan 2012 10:33

See the true liberal is the one who believes in Voltaire's saying "I disagree with what he says but will defend to death his right to say it!"

In India the fake liberal will have you killed to appease his supporters. The Indian society is being turned into a monster by these fake liberals.

Not one of the literati had the gumption to walk out of the Jaipur fest in support of Rushdie is right to say it.

However they will overreach themselves to condemn Hindus.

I call those types DIE: Deracinated Indian Elite.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 25 Jan 2012 10:35

Saar, India so called liberals are not liberals but have specific agenda's. Be it aims of certain political parties or aims of certain foreign interests.

The recent incident has shown there no True liberal per se.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 25 Jan 2012 10:39

Shiv, I sort of agree with you on the western liberalism part, it can even be argued that western liberals also reflect the views of their non-liberals as can be seen in their biases. So yes, there are no absolute or pure liberals anywhere. But what has happened over time in India is the agenda has been set by extreme non-liberal points of view far far from the old indic traditions, as a result we get more dissonance trying to analyze what we see and hear from all sides.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 25 Jan 2012 10:42

vina wrote:
You atleast have to give credit to the west where it is due. When they say that freedom of expression is a right that is guaranteed it, they mean it and it is available, even if the exercise of that right is offensive to a lot of people.

Read up about the "Super Best friends" episode of South Park. They had to censor the episode wherein Muhammad had been depicted in cartoon form (along with Jesus, Krishna and others) after the the Comedy Central Network received threats from Muslims. There was nothing disparaging about Muhammad in it. Just the mere fact that he was depicted led to threats of "blowing up" Comedy Central. The network chickened out. So the cowardice factor you talk about is not totally absent there either, especially when it comes to the religion of peace.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 25 Jan 2012 11:09

vina wrote:
shiv wrote:Absolutely. And this is something Indian liberals need to understand before they weep for MF Hussain. But on another note I am not at all sure how the "liberalism" of the west that now allows the painting of a picture of Jesus Christ sodomizing another Jesus Christ can be passed off as art.

It's called freedom of expression. But surely expressing a wish to assassinate someone is also freedom of expression. This seems to be a perversion of the mindset of the flower power generation that said "Make love, not war
You at least have to give credit to the west where it is due. When they say that freedom of expression is a right that is guaranteed it, they mean it and it is available, even if the exercise of that right is offensive to a lot of people.

Vina you are welcome to give the west credit, but don't ask why India does not give the same freedom as the west in India. That is the problem I have. Why do you love a western freedom and demand that it be replicated in India? India does not promise such freedom and does not give it. What is wrong with that? Why should anyone have a problem with that? It is not necessary for India to be just like the west is it? It is not and never will be. Liberalism is not some "ultimate religion" that everyone is bound to copy and follow exactly the way the USofA does it.

Why do Indian liberals want those standards here in India?

vina · Post by **vina** » 25 Jan 2012 11:51

shiv wrote:Vina you are welcome to give the west credit, but don't ask why India does not give the same freedom as the west in India. That is the problem I have. Why do you love a western freedom and demand that it be replicated in India? India does not promise such freedom and does not give it.

On the contrary, right to freedom of speech is a "fundamental right" enshrined in the Indian constitution (okay, subject to the usual, public health, morality etc..) . The only problem I have is that it cannot be reasonably exercised. Speak AGAINST reservation , you get assaulted in TN (like happened with the lawyer who petitoned against that in the Supreme court on TN's level of reservation), make a move called "Iyer the Great", have it banned (even after it clears the censors), Dan Brown's Da Vinc code made into a movie and watched in all other places, INCLUDING Rome, but in India, after the censors have passed it,Piryaranjan Das Munshi sits together with catholic clergy to review it and see if cuts should be made.

I don't care if it is "western" or whatever. I just want whatever is guaranteed in the constitution as a right, that includes, reading, writing and watching what I want without some nut cases and some boor-o-crats and mantris of a nanny state deciding what I can or cant watch. Just the basics, nothing much.

What is wrong with that? Why should anyone have a problem with that? It is not necessary for India to be just like the west is it? It is not and never will be. Liberalism is not some "ultimate religion" that everyone is bound to copy and follow exactly the way the USofA does it.

Why do Indian liberals want those standards here in India?

I don't care if you object to the word "liberal" or whatever and use an appropriate "Sanskrit"/Hindi/Kannada/whatever word for it. But the problem with the current state of things is, it is impossible to have a person in this day and age, make and build a kind of temple like in Kajuraho or even expound some "tantric" kind of stuff (wasn't there a case of arrest of a "sex" swami in Bangalore, forget his name). The problem is that we currently have far less tolerance and freedom of thought and expression than what India had in it's past before the islamic and victorian prudery. If you don't want to label it as "western libearlism" , fine, call it ancient Indian freedom. I am okay. Buddha came and argued that there is no God. Shankara said advaita, others said dwaita, some others some said shiva, others said no vishu, some said, nastika, other said Bhakti. Tulsi Das, Kamban and a thousand others wrote Ramayan.

Today an essay by Ramanujan saying that there are some 300 versions of Ramayan are banned on the grounds of blasphemy! No way in hell, anyone can build a copy of the Kajuraho temple in Bangalore (like copies of the Meenakshi temple or Ayappa temple) without a crowd of self appointed moral police descending on the place and the builders/workers getting arrested or worse.

That is the fundamental problem . That kind of moral brigade can descend only because you can't answer the question, why only us, when the Muslims & Christians get to shut down what they don't find palatable.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 25 Jan 2012 12:28

vina wrote: Today an essay by Ramanujan saying that there are some 300 versions of Ramayan are banned on the grounds of blasphemy!

The above statement is incorrect, there were no "blasphemy" charges, and the essay is not banned.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 25 Jan 2012 12:50

x-post from EVM thread -

EVM case judgment is up on the web - http://lobis.nic.in/dhc/AKS/judgement/2 ... 792009.pdf

If interested in exploring how to take this further, please email at pranav dot brf at gmail. Thanks.

vina · Post by **vina** » 25 Jan 2012 12:55

The above statement is incorrect, there were no "blasphemy" charges, and the essay is not banned.

Indeed. Ban by "other means" is also a ban . And loud proclamations that only "valmiki" Ramayan is the anointed and true one and the others as "deviant" is calls for blasphemy in other words.

Those kind of nut cases (Ram Sene -rioters on hire, case in point the recent Pakistan flag unfurling in Bijapur, they should be banned, the valentine day rioters, the nutcases in ABVP/Bajrang Dal etc) are dumbing down the country and it's culture and sensibility down to the level of the deobandi and taliban nut cases. No thanks. We can really do without them.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 25 Jan 2012 13:38

These are exaggerations and none of these organization really pose any threat to India.
There is no need to compare with any middle east based Islamic organizations. That will be a insult to India

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 25 Jan 2012 14:24

vina wrote:
The above statement is incorrect, there were no "blasphemy" charges, and the essay is not banned.
Indeed. Ban by "other means" is also a ban .

What crock, lets not be humpty dumpty SCM here. (Words mean what I want them to mean, no more no less)

There is no "ban by other means" in fact there is no ban by ANY means.

With such clueless self proclaimed liberals, no wonder liberalism is in trouble. No knowledge and plenty opinion.

vina · Post by **vina** » 25 Jan 2012 14:52

These are exaggerations and none of these organization really pose any threat to India.
There is no need to compare with any middle east based Islamic organizations. That will be a insult to India

Sorry . Disagree totally. These organizations are a serious threat to India and the idea of India. These organizations is to Hinduism and the hitherto benign and good image of hinduism as the taliban/Pakistan/Al Qaeda/Deobandi extreme versions of Islam is to the larger muslim community and Bhindrenwale and his ilk were to Sikhs. Make no mistake about it and dont underestimate the danger there.

There is no "ban by other means" in fact there is no ban by ANY means.

Thuggery and indimidation are exactly that. Same methods that were used in the recent Jaipur Lit Fest to keep Rushdie away (obfuscation and chinacery thrown in as well, I should add)

With such clueless self proclaimed liberals, no wonder liberalism is in trouble. No knowledge and plenty opinion.

Liberalism is well and fine. Until these types came up, folks in Bangalore had no problem women wearing jeans,dressing as they pleased, going to parties, holding parties, going to bars . Do us a favor and keep them in Delhi. We don't want them here.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 25 Jan 2012 17:05

vina wrote:
There is no "ban by other means" in fact there is no ban by ANY means.
Thuggery and indimidation are exactly that. Same methods that were used in the recent Jaipur Lit Fest to keep Rushdie away (obfuscation and chinacery thrown in as well, I should add)

More crock, to hide the fact that the essay is, in fact not banned in the first place.

folks in Bangalore had no problem women wearing jeans,dressing as they pleased,

Which they do now too. Why are you making things up? OTOH jeans themselves and so on are no longer than 20 years in Bangalore.

So "oh the great Bangalore culture is going down hill by these offensive pushy folks" is what I see traditional Bangloreans say about the jeans wearing crowd if you dont mind.

This sort of laxity with facts is exactly why empty rho-dho exists in India and no one stands up for liberals. Most self proclaimed liberals have no first clue to the basic facts. Make things up as they go along. Do a equal equal between terrorists and mild mannered Kanndiga ladies asking their daughters to wear saris.

member_19686 · Post by **member_19686** » 25 Jan 2012 18:46

Do we need lectures about "liberalism" from worthies who suggested that KP's were living it up and suggested letting their women dance in some party in front of their tormentors as the way to solve their problem.

That post said it all about what kind of "liberalism" they have in mind while sitting in safety in Bangalore, cowards would probably faint at the first sound of gun fire but dole out worthless advice to victims of ethnic cleansing & worthless lectures on "liberalism".

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 25 Jan 2012 19:30

On the contrary, right to freedom of speech is a "fundamental right" enshrined in the Indian constitution (okay, subject to the usual, public health, morality etc..) . The only problem I have is that it cannot be reasonably exercised.

Due to some reason, your love for "rights" was kinda absent when BJP was trying to hoist the flag in Srinagar one year ago. At that time, you were against their rally.

Therefore, your concern/love for "rights" is not absolute. Maybe you have some other agenda.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 25 Jan 2012 20:00

viv wrote:Coincidentally I brought Satanic Verses and 'Haroun and sea of stories' from the library a couple of weeks back. I had once attempted it, almost 10+ years back, and dropped it after Mahound and Gibreel farishta have a fight (and it is quite vulgar in description). Recently re-read Midnight's children which was a completely new form when I first read it (1988 ?) and still found it quite fantastic.

Satanic verses is certainly likely to make a Musalman angry. So no surprise it was banned. The article by Fali Nariman lined earlier makes a good case.

Nothing in that book the author alludes to - is incorrect. All of those things are mentioned one way or the other in their very own texts. This anger is nothing but the rage of exposure. The founder himself described his own prior utterings at a particular period - according to a shahi hadith - were due to promptings from the unmentionable being. This was an attempt to explain away the possible deceptive and diplomatic line he took when he was militarily weaker - to pretend as if he did not mind the practices of his kin and forefathers, and that he was onlee recommending those practices while preaching.

They are explicitly dubbed Satanic Verses in many standard texts of old Islam.

Everything else alluded to in personal life by the book - is taken directly from well-established traditions like that of Ibn-Ishaq's biography or other standard hadith.

If we have not read the source books, let us not judge the author and say it is legitimate for the Muslims to feel angry - if so - they should have first banned their own Islamist narratives of the past.

The real anger I guess is the realization that if the Founder himself had acknowledged that a certian period utterings were from the Satan, what guarantees that other period utterings were not similarly from the Satan disgused as firishtas (after all Satan is supposed to be the first prime of god, the closest, highest and most beloved who turned renegade by helping out humans with knowledge by disobeying his master [or friend and brother by the Sumerian traditions from which the original story started] - and one of the highest firistas before his "fall")?

But sooner or later this question would have arisen anyway!

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 26 Jan 2012 00:30

brihaspati garu,

these need to be published in their (translated) raw form with Hadith name and number or Quran Surah and verse, along with explanations and context! I don't think fiction is the right way to go!

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 26 Jan 2012 01:19

^^^How many would read such theological tomes then? Wouldnt it be immediately dismissed by the majority of potential readers from the non-muslim? No, Rushdie, in this case was at least doing a good job. By the way, what happened to all those claims of shia-sunni fight taking precedence over everything else? After all, the first call was given by Khomeini trying to be the leader of Ummah - so by the theory of such things - the entire Sunni Arab world should have opposed it!

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 26 Jan 2012 02:37

brihaspati wrote:^^^How many would read such theological tomes then? Wouldnt it be immediately dismissed by the majority of potential readers from the non-muslim?

What Salman Rushdie did was an extremely courageous thing. I think he knew what he was setting himself up for.

My point is that not many would do so, and secondly he who wrote a fictitious piece, is vulnerable to the criticism that he made everything up, that he was only out to malign the good name of Islam. Under such a barrage of criticism and threats, it becomes difficult for him to get his message across. Sure it gives him more publicity, but the message still gets buried.

I don't know, but I can imagine that not many people are aware of the real Satanic Verses, and that Rushdie was simply sourcing his material from there!

Perhaps he himself needs to bring out a non-fiction book on these verses, as an accompaniment work, as a Glossary!

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 26 Jan 2012 03:02

Edited. My mistake. Vina has corrected it.

ramana