This is Rape Culture

The untold story of how a culture of shame perpetuates abuse. I know, I was a victim:

It was with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes that I read about the horrific cases of abuse and neglect revealed in the Rotherham report this week.

Much of the media coverage has focused on how men of mostly Asian descent preyed on vulnerable young white victims. The details of this abuse are awful. But what has largely been ignored is the report’s finding that sexual abuse has been systemically under-reported among Asian girls due to deeply entrenched cultural taboos – obscuring the reality that there is a similarly rampant problem of minority girls being abused by members of their own community.

I have first-hand knowledge of this problem. I’m coming forward to publicly share my own story in the hope that I can encourage others to do the same and help tear down the wall of silence that perpetuates further abuse.

I grew up in a small community of a few hundred British-Pakistanis in Skipton, less than 60 miles from Rotherham. When I was 10 a neighbour started sexually abusing me. Paralysed by shame, I said nothing. ... It was only after a decade away from Skipton that I was finally able to garner the courage to return and testify against my abuser. When I first told my mother about the abuse I’d suffered, she was absolutely devastated. The root of her anger was clear: I was heaping unbound shame on to my family by trying to bring the perpetrator to justice. In trying to stop him from exploiting more children, I was ensuring my parents and my siblings would be ostracised. She begged me not to go to the police station.

I don't need to get into details with the audience of this weblog to know where this attitude comes from. Readers will be aware that it transcends religion and religiosity, though it is bound within the cultural matrix of which religion is part and parcel. My mother, who condemns Western immorality and libertinism, has expressed sadness that a pedophile who preyed upon girls within her social circle had to flee to Bangladesh, because of the shame it brought upon his family. That's a culture for you.

Babri Masjid Redux (just say no)

....Ram Pal who raises pigs, said, “We celebrated Holi and Diwali along with Christimas.....people were asking....If you’re a Christian, how can you be a Dalit?”.....danger is that the re-converts will seize the church and put up a temple.....“We will not let another church come up....there is no Christian left,” said Rajeshwar Singh....
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Just say NO to any C21 sequel of Babri the horror movie. The powers that be are of the opinion that beating up on minorities will help win elections. This is from the Gujarat playbook but the success there was more out of a sense of Gujarati asmita than Hindu pride. Already there is evidence (recent by-polls in Uttarkhand, Bihar, and Karnataka) that a backlash is taking shape. Finally, people who live by the sword must be prepared to die by the sword as well...a number of ruling party leaders/workers in UP have been murdered in the past few weeks.

As far as the Valmikis (Dalits) are concerned, the important question is how they survive in difficult conditions not their status as Hindus or Christians or Muslims. Religious status is not helpful for improving social status....otherwise there would be no need for separate Dalit Christian burial grounds and Dalit Muslim Mosques.

Religious conversion is a dangerous game and we are ambivalent about the ways to deal with this "problem." A true liberal will be for the freedom to convert (and re-convert). Also if we were truly disadvantaged we would be happy to take money from all of them buggers and adopt a new religion every week (that will teach them).

As an aside, we would love to hear Prof. Kancha I-laiah defending pork eating as a millenium old Dalit tradition and his plans to support the cause of the pig-farmers - the Valmiki community - by launching a national pork festival (just like the beef festivals he supports with so much enthusiasm).
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The doctor has no heart

....the Indian-American physician....describes how the medical profession has become pitiless, mercenary.....money ripping vocation where doctors treat patients as revenue generators....keep patients in hospital longer than necessary....order needless tests....helping predatory pharmaceutical companies sell dangerous drugs......doctors are suffering from a "collective malaise" of discontent, insecurity, and immoderation..... 
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No no no no, we did not say that....we still hero-worship doctors..for us it is the ultimate noble profession.

But then according to Dr Sandeep Jauhar,  things are very wrong with the medical community in the USA. He speaks as a person from within the belly of the beast, and he claims to speak on behalf of the many outstanding doctors from the Indian American community (and the medical profession as a whole). Who knows if there is any substance in his (devastating) allegations...common people will tend to think that no smoke can result without fire.
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The growing discontent has serious consequences for patients. One is a looming shortage of doctors, especially in primary care, which has the lowest reimbursement of all the medical specialties and probably has the most dissatisfied practitioners. 

Try getting a timely appointment with your family doctor; in some parts of the country, it is next to impossible. Aging baby boomers are starting to require more care just as aging baby boomer physicians are getting ready to retire. The country is going to need new doctors, especially geriatricians and other primary care physicians, to care for these patients. But interest in primary care is at an all-time low.

Perhaps the most serious downside, however, is that unhappy doctors make for unhappy patients. Patients today are increasingly disenchanted with a medical system that is often indifferent to their needs. 

The United Colors of India

.....I am a Hindu, but that is an absurd thing to say....there is nothing like a Hindu.....I am a Brahmin....that doesn’t describe me either.....I am a Hindu in a broad way....Ganga is sacred, Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Upanishads have deep spiritual insights....All this I believe.....I believe what my ancestors believed, that is, there is not one God.... Hinduism is also difficult because it is based on hierarchies.....
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We are largely in agreement with UR Ananthamurthy - hero of the left-liberals and a (Brahmin) disciple of (Shudra Socialist) Ram Manohar Lohia - that India should find a common path forward based on harmonizing Gandhian and Ambedkarite principles. Except that the true devil is in the details...Gandhi disliked Western societal mores...Ambedkar was passionate about the American way.

We would like to expand the pantheon by borrowing a liberal lion from the West, such as John Stuart Mill or Thomas Paine. If there is a demand for a C20 inspirational figure then we propose Vaclav Havel...because of his life experiences under a non-liberal regime. Next, a humanist/atheist like Richard Dawkins (or Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens,...) because we would like India (and Indians) to move away from religion and towards humanism.  

Finally as one of the great Indians (re: Ramchandra Guha, see details below) and as a woman, we would recommend Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (or Sarojini Naidu), the freedom fighter and social reformer.
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Earlier this year, Udipi Rajago­pa­la­charya Ananthamurthy (URA), the Jnanpith award-winning Kannada novelist, educationist and public intellectual, had declared that he would not live in an India run by Narendra Modi. This had provoked lacerating responses from right-wing Hindutva supporters. URA breathed his last on August 22, 2014, before the Modi government completed 100 days in office. ....

Love Jihad: problem resolved

...recent case of Tara Shadeo...deceived by Ranjit Kumar Kohli into marriage....real name Raqibul Hasan Khan.....suggestion for the Muslim community....advocate a court marriage in the case of mixed couples....if a girl from another community is to enter a Muslim home....genuine effort to have a more enlightened approach....
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We are in complete agreement with Saba Naqvi Bhaumik (a Shia Muslim married to a Bengali Hindu) that civil marriages will go a long way to help resolve the love-jihad problem....but why not suggest civil marriage for every one? Especially as she (correctly) notes that personal marriage laws "diminish women."

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As SNB explains there are enough morons (to borrow the language of Ram Gopal Varma) like Raqibul Hasan Khan to bring to life (and keep alive) the "love jehad" theory. Fact remains that Muslim boys/girls will be falling in love with Hindu girls/boys. We imagine that the social barriers today are a bit more tightly drawn around muslim girls, hence the Muslim boy-Hindu girl match is more likely...hence all the poisonous confusion.
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"Its a jungle out there"

.....“You can’t see anything here at D-Chowk. The tear-gas is overwhelming......I have my shirt tied around my face, as do most of the other people who are still here.....This is madness, it’s a jungle out here”.....a Dawn reporter on Constitution Avenue described the melee that took place on Saturday night.....
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Its actually a war out there. People are drowning in tear gas, women are fainting. The Prime Minister has abandoned his palace (residence). Every one is issuing threats, deadlines and what not.

So this is what happens when the civilians try to go up against the khakis - their nose gets really really rubbed into the ground. Lost of pawns (people) get shoved around. The polio vaccination drive in Sindh comes to a full stop. The economy goes into a tailspin. The rupee tumbles against the dollar. The international agencies and the diaspora (and even the neighbors) pray that ultimately there will be stability.

Mission 5000

Everything in life needs a mission (and a vision) statement, even a humble blog like BP.

When the old brownpundits "crashed and burned" we were very sad that such a wonderful meeting place of ideas is lost forever. We must thank the proprietors for bringing BP back into our lives.

At that time the thought occurred that something must be done - an initial spark - that leads to a solid foundation from which further progress (incremental) is possible.

This is how Mission 1000 came into being. The question was: can we ramp up fast enough, can we put up stuff which is interesting to a broad spectrum of readers? The focus would (naturally) be on browns and their (global) affairs.

So here we are, 200+ days young, 1000 posts on the score-board and 200,000+ page views. Mission 1000 is well done (if we say so ourselves).

Saving the Incompetent Sharif Brothers and this Rapacious Unfair System

We know from history that the skill, wisdom and effort (and oodles of luck) needed to build and sustain a working democratic system (whatever you may think of the pros and cons of such a system is a separate and interesting discussion) in one of the ex-colonial countries is orders of magnitude greater than the skill needed to just run a functional government for a few years. Saddam, Gaddafi, Ayub Khan, they all ran functional regimes and even made their Universities conduct their examinations on time. But none had a system with adequate checks and balances or the mechanism to transfer power smoothly from one elite clique to another without having to shoot the other clique first.
It may be possible to repair the effects of poor governance by this or that democratic regime in a few years, but if the system as a whole is undermined and devalued, then it may never get working again, or may take decades to repair. Political authority (like money) is a shared (useful) illusion. Puncture the illusion and what is left is naked force (or, if enough of asabiya exists, a monarchy; whether called a monarchy or under some other name).

Old age homes (not just for politicians)

....Dwivedi's statement reflected that Congress wants to follow BJP...creating "old age home" for senior leaders.....a taunt directed at the ruling party by Congress when it dropped Advani, Joshi and Vajpayee from parliamentary board.....
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When the revolution comes it can take off in so many uncertain ways.

We did not quite imagine that a Hindutva flavored govt that is in love with the concept of a 5000 year old civilization and making policy based on (age-old) scriptures would launch a movement (admittedly for self-serving reasons) for pushing youngsters to power (well OK 50+ aged youngsters, but then we are talking about India).
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Continuing on this theme, we should not be limit the action to politicians only. Scientists, entertainers, technocrats,... all those who continue to feather their nests and do not let young talent come forward should be asked to retire post 70. One outstanding example that comes to mind: long after her nightingale as a girl days were behind her, Bollywood would stick stubbornly with Lata Mangeshkar (we mention this with all humility and as an ardent admirer).
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The "Disney" God and Blasphemy

....“The guy who couldn't save his own head from being cut, how he will save others heads is my question?....Happy Ganpathi day to morons!”....“Can someone tell me if today is the day Ganesha was originally born or is it the day his dad cut his head off?”.....“love to know from devotees a list of what obstacles he removed” ......"All tweets I put on Ganesha....unintended to hurt anyone's sentiments...but if they did I sincerely apologize"....

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Best wishes on Ganesha Chaturthi to all believers and fans. We have to admit, we do think of Ganesha as a cutie pie. Also he is mama's golden boy and you know that no one crosses his mom and lives to tell about it (ask the demon Mahisha-Asura).
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Incidentally this reminds us of the Tamizh commandment: kakaikku than konju pon konju....literally my crow is a golden crow....figuratively, the love a mother feels for her child who is not blessed with the best of appearances...
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India is a "sinful country"

.....families came forward after the cops approached them with the information provided by Arif's father.....his idea of Islam and how the religion should be followed.....admonish those who listen to music and watch television.....frowns upon women who don't wear a veil and work with men......
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Not just Arif Fayaaz Majeed who is reportedly killed in action in Mosul, but as many as 19 youths from Mumbra and Bhiwandi have joined the army of the Caliphate. Mumbra and Bhiwandi are satellite townships north-east of Mumbai, and are noted for being hot-beds for Islamists.

Thus it is likely that many more families will be devastated as more and more boys become cannon fodder. It is hard to judge them harshly....after all they are barely adults...and they have been brainwashed by people whom they trusted implicitly (the culprit must be given exemplary punishment, see below). 

But stepping away from the human tragedies for the moment, this question seems to be of great interest and significance: why is India sinful?

Now we can think of several legitimate answers to that and they may even have a specific resonance with Indian muslims...mostly pertaining to human rights of young muslim males and the entire civilian population of Kashmir (valley).

But please note why Majeed (supposedly) considers his country to be a sinful place: The note does admonish those who listen to music and watch television. He also frowns upon women who don't wear a veil and work with men.

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False Dawn?

.....Suzuki Motor has shifted the technology transfer paradigm into reverse, importing transmission technology developed in India and installing it in the new Carry commercial vehicle in Japan......Auto Gear Shift...automated manual transmission with an electro-hydraulic actuator.....Unlike computer-assisted automatic transmissions, Suzuki's relatively low-cost technology is structurally simpler and improves fuel efficiency by around 5%......
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The Indian economy is finally showing signs of life. After such a long time in coma, it will take a considerable amount of nursing to build things back up. We are not close to any industrialists but we see mostly relief at the end of ...uncertainty. In that sense what Narendra Modi is to India, Pakistani Army is to Pakistan.  

The problem with dictatorships however is that .....in the words of one famous person....it creates a nation of cowards. The global system run by the elites would love to have countries filled with political cowards and economic consumers. The freedom to eat..but not to talk. Ask no questions and ...Jiyo Life. What is not to like?
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Egypt shows the way

....Khan is unpredictable....proudly calls his supporters junoonis -- or "crazies"....The military might enjoy the troubles Khan gives the prime minister, but it is unlikely to tie its institutional fortunes to Khan....Pakistani democracy continue to muddle along as it has in the past. Pakistan optimists will be disappointed....But things could be worse.....

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The American establishment and its paid interlocutors (not meant in a derogatory sense) have now responded to the soft coup in Pakistan. Short answer: after observing what happened in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, the focus is back to stability over anarchy. Shorter answer: "but things could be worse."

We are not sure why the veil of modesty is required though. The whole world and his uncle knows now that Nawaz Sharif is finished. In Pakistan (just like in Egypt and in Thailand) it is clear that Army rule (as the most trusted institution) is preferred over mob rule (politicians are hated for cronyism, inefficiency,...).

One of the primary reasons for Army putting down Sharif is that he desired better relations with India (and acted on it by not meeting with Kashmiri separatists/nationalists). In this way Kashmir is shown up as the third rail of Pakistani politics, you touch it, you die. 
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Soft coup-

I think the Army has emerged as the comprehensive and legitimate winner of this Pakistani imbroglio.

Democracy has been defanged until the next election but at the same time the fiction of it's legitimacy has been maintained.

Compared to the results of the Arab spring (Egypt, Libya, Syria); a stable military is very good for unsteady democracies. Kudos to GHQ for steering an optimal outcome for all parties concerned.

Zone One

In addition to a fairly exhausting travel schedule I've been consuming a fair few iBooks.

I'm currently trying to finish my trilogy of Zombie Apocalyptic novels (Zombie survival guide, World War Z & Zone One). Now of course the first two are written by the same author (Mel Brooks's son, Max Brooks) and thankfully I saw the film before I read the book because that way I didn't have to complain.

Nonetheless I came across Xone One in some tendentious article complaining about the lack of colored people in Sci-fi (right now the main divide being address is the gender one, my book club just had an interview with Ms. Leckie of Ancillary Justice) but while I simply zoomed through WWZ & even ZSG, Zone One tends to be less easier as a read. It's simply more elaborate, less plot driven and doesn't have the pace that Apocalyptic novels demand.

The age of Multi-culti is fast waning to an end, the hidden rise of Indo-China is soon shaking West out of its stupor and complacency as the World's greatest hegemon (LA-LON is a good axis but it's not insuperable) and so we pass an age where somehow the colour of ones skin someone incurs automatic advantages. Race will have a novelty factor but the counter-stereotyping of Hollywood (which is still stuck in a black-white dynamic as the only real operating one) sooner or later will have to align to reality..

Soft genocide?

......by the 1990s, genocide had a “super stigma,” ....as the international court for Rwanda put it, it was the “crime of crimes” .....When it came to the Khmer Rouge, this development was only complicated by the peculiar political usage of “genocide” in Cambodia.....In 1999, the UN Group of Experts announced...not take a position on“whether the Khmer Rouge committed genocide with respect to part of the Khmer national group.” ......
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Cambodians are enthusiastic about play-acting to honor the memory of the victims of Pol-pot and company. We can sympathize as we sense that there will be a fuller sense of closure that way.  

As far as justice is concerned...unfortunately all we have (again) is a lot of play-acting and word-playing and a bit of fore-playing (but much more expensive to enact at $220 mil...all those lawyer fees....).

We love international law. Majority community killing their own is not considered genocide. However, majority community killing minorities is appropriate for the g-tag.

Thus Chicoms killing 45 mil Hans is not considered suitable for the worst of the worst tag. Neither is the 30mil killed by Stalin and company. Not even the 3 mil Khmers killed by Pol Pot qualifies as genocide.

As a saving grace the 20k Vietnamese and 90k Cambodian muslims (Cham) killed by the Khmer Rougue may finally see some justice. Regardless of definitions, evil men need to be taken down by other (righteous) men on earth, not any supernatural agency.

Incidentally something which aroused our curiosity is the Cambodian word for genocide: prolai pouch-sas. We are no linguists but "prolai" in Sanskrit (used in Bengali as well) denotes a state of crisis (at the end of times level). Perhaps a person who knows will step forward and clarify?
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August 7 was supposed to be judgment day for the last two leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Thirty-five years after the end of Pol Pot’s calamitous agrarian revolution, a United Nations-backed court in Phnom Penh found the movement’s chief ideologue Nuon Chea and the former president Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced them to life in prison.
 

We have a deal!!!

.....as per the proposed agreement, the armed forces would control strategic policy areas, such as relations with the United States, Afghanistan and India...promise of freedom for former president (retd) General Pervez Musharraf and that Sharif's government had secretly agreed to let Musharraf go abroad after a symbolic indictment over treason......
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When Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said we are here to stay he was actually trying to convey a message.

Poor Imran Khan, Sharif senior has reportedly managed to strike a deal with the Army after all. Actually that is not quite correct, the Army has used Khan to soften up the Sharif brothers. Ayesha Siddiqui calls this  a "soft coup" and that Nawaz will remain a Prime Minister in Name Only (PiMNO, our words). The chance of PTI riding the protest horse to the throne now appears remote.
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Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is close to making a deal with the Pakistan Army, in the backdrop of the political events that are unfolding in the federal capital, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The report suggests that as per the proposed agreement, the armed forces would control strategic policy areas, such as relations with the United States, Afghanistan and India.
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COPS. Oh America!

Another one. A producer of the show COPS is shot by....a trigger happy cop. 

 The rate at which cops kill unarmed people (mostly black people, but occasionally others as well, as in this case) is too damn high. In fact, the rate at which Black people get killed by cops is higher than the rate at which they were lynched by the klan in most years..... I avoid a lot of news stories because i have become irritable in my old age and for peace of mind I avoid news that tends to trigger elite left-lib bs, but even the paranoid can have real enemies and in this case the leftlibs have the right target...out of control copishness is an awful problem in this country. If someone could somehow dial that down and stop the war on drugs, this would be a great country. I wish I knew how to do it within my lifetime. On the other hand, I remain a man of faith....i think we will eventually get there. WHEN will we get there? that is the issue...probably not soon enough.

 Of course its not just cops. The fetishization of guns and the desire to shoot them extends well beyond militarized trigger-happy cops. 
If I was a hard hearted cynic, I might say this instructor had it coming, but imagine the burden this poor 9 year old girl will carry for the rest of her life. Her parents may be idiots for taking her to a gun range to shoot automatic weapons, but she is still a child and deserves sympathy...


Look at what police officer Sunil Dutta has to say about this topic...and weep.
btw, as some of the above links show, the libertarian magazine Reason has long had the right idea about the war on drugs, the prison mafia and militarized overbearing copishness in the land of the free...

Letter to India: what soldiers wrote in the first world war

A very interesting piece in caravan

http://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/what-indian-soldiers-first-world-war-wrote-home-about

To commemorate the centenary of India’s service in the First World War, the British historian David Omissi collected the letters of Indian soldiers away from home in Indian Voices of the Great War, published this year by Penguin. These eloquent letters offer a poignant glimpse into the lives of these Indian soldiers, whom history forgot.

Examples:

A wounded Sikh to his father
[Gurmukhi]
Brighton Hospital
18th January 1915

Tell my mother not to go wandering madly because her son, my brother, is dead. To be born and to die is God’s order. Some day we must die, sooner or later, and if I die here, who will remember me? It is a fine thing to die far from home. A saint said this, and, as he was a good man, it must be true.



Ram Prasad (Brahmin) to Manik Chand (c/o Sikander Ali, Bamba Debi Bazar, Marwari Water Tank, Bombay)
[Hindi]
Kitchener’s Indian Hospital, Brighton
2nd September 1915

And send me fourteen or fifteen tolas of charas, and understand that you must send it so that no one may know. First fill a round tin box full of pickles and then in the middle of that put a smaller round box carefully closed, so that no trace of the pickles can enter. And send a letter to me four days before you send the parcel off. [Letter withheld]

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The "Great" is no more in Great Britain

.....This week the British embassy in Washington decided to hark back to Blighty’s glory days....picture of a sparkler-bedecked cake “commemorating the 200th anniversary of burning the White House”....embassy quickly retracted: “Apologies for earlier Tweet. We meant to mark an event in history & celebrate our friendship today …. Today UK-US celebrate #specialrelationship”.....
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Whichever way the September 18th vote goes for Scottish independence, one thing is for sure: after 112272 days (starting 01 May, 1707), Scotland will no longer count as a willing partner in the Union. Truth be told, this breakdown started during the Thatcher years triggered by the hated poll tax. However from what we read in the papers and based on accounts by friends, even most of Northern England (Yorkshire and even the Midlands) is in a different planet compared to London and the South-East England.

There is essentially a sense that London- a truly global city and home of the super-affluent - does not care much about the poor cousins "oop north" and imposes out of touch policies and unwanted migration on the rest of the country. 

Thus while the upstart (and popular) parties are polar opposites - Scottish National Party (SNP) is left-liberal and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) is libertarian-paleocon - they are in agreement that London is bad for the country and harmful for the future. In the words of the wag, there is no better-together (pro-union campaign slogan), only bitter together.

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How should we feel about all this as Indians? We note that the article gives credit to the British for giving Indians the gift of democracy. There are other folks who would say that India would not even exist as a nation but for the British. Thing is, if you choose to take credit for the good things, you need to own up to  the bad things as well (the Victorian holocausts, the Bengal famine,...).

Also something which is almost never emphasized, it was the British-Indian army that helped maintain order in the far reaches of the empire and which also played a significant role in the World Wars and countless other wars. If Britain gave birth to a new India, the British empire was sustained through Indian blood, sweat and treasure. Not for nothing, India was known as the crown jewel of the empire. The moment Britain lost India, the empire gig was up.
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During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Britain had dominion over so many portions of the Earth it was said, famously, that “the sun never set on the British Empire.” Since the end of World War II, however, that sun has been steadily dipping toward the horizon. Today, sundown is truly at hand.
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"We are here to stay"

...."I visited him (Imran Khan) in the hospital and he congratulated me....he will play the role of a constructive opposition...Imran invited me to Bani Gala.....assured me he is with the government in all steps taken in good faith" ..... 

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After a long, long wait....hopeful (wise) words for Pakistan (from Pakistan). We want to see a decisive leader, not a fire-breather, neither a passive observer.
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Amid mounting pressure from protesters to quit as Pakistan's Prime Minister, a defiant Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday refused to resign saying the country has survived "difficult times" and the current political crisis too shall pass.

Where are all the good men?

...imagine the talk among Asians in Rotherham.....Good people will feel shame..... Lots instead will blame the victims.....girls from disadvantaged backgrounds.....lured with cheap gifts and false affection....children seen as trash, by rapists as well as the authorities, including the police......
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It seems all our societies are struggling to deal with angry young men. Earlier there used to be epidemics, wars, and famines that helped in "mowing the lawn," to reduce the burden of young men who have nothing to live their lives for, nothing to look for in the future. Simultaneously, women are now coming out of the shadows and they are also less willing to tolerate nonsense. Hence the men are facing a crisis situation: you may still take out your frustrations at work by beating up the lady at home, but society (not just the law) is much less forgiving these days.

We have never thought much about the love jihad narrative, but the role of society in trampling the wishes of men over women must not be under-estimated. Why should men (all communities) today get social sanction for multiple marriages?

Even worse, why should men be allowed to get away with abusing women for decades as the men in charge look the other way? Why did the courageous few fathers who attempted to rescue their daughters get arrested instead? Why did the victims themselves get arrested for drinking problems? Why did it take four reports over ten years for the police to acknowledge serious problems? Why was there no community outreach to the women (whites as well as minorities)?
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Given powerful evidence of industrial scale sexual abuse, why are there still no public naming and shaming of the responsible officials? Why does it have to be women such as Prof Alexis Jay and Yasmin Alibhai Brown (see below) to stand up for other (all) women?
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How the smallest reflects grand ideas

Pakistan as a spoil of war

So the PTI, an urban Punjab party, marched from the heart of the Punjab, Lahore, to the north of the Punjab, Islamabad, to demand power from PML-N, a rural-industrial Punjab party while the Punjabi dominated Army looks on. Where does Pakistan actually come into this highly entertaining Punjabi spectacle?

It all comes crashing down

How extraordinarily offensive?

Moshe and his (new) Imma

....candles mark the spot where Rabbi Holtzberg was shot dead....pictures adorn the stairwells......Rabbi Kotlarsky helped rebuild the centre....."You can overcome challenges, even the most horrific of challenges.....You can and must rebuild....hope that evil will not prevail"....
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Six years have gone by, in the blink of an eye. Today (August 26) is the grand re-opening of the Chabad House, in Colaba, downtown Mumbai (same location where the 26/11 attacks took place). It all looks quite gorgeous and we do not doubt the sincerity of the folks involved. Having said that, it does seem that these people have some sort of a death wish.
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An all-weather friend

.....Pakistanis will not countenance infringement by India of their sovereignty....imposition of conditionalities....exactly the kind of whimsicality and bullying that led to the Austro-Hungarian Empire attacking Serbia a hundred years ago.....
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Pakistanis have a long running complaint about India....the Indian Press is unreasonably jingoistic. The expectation is that (just like in the West) Indian journalists should be speaking in multiple voices and be open to a broad range of viewpoints.

Thus, for example, while Israel has formidable champions amongst neocons, the denizens of Gaza draw a lot of sympathy from the left-liberal side. There are even opinion makers who back the regimes in Iran and Syria, urging accommodation from a realist standpoint (they may not be our bastards, but we need them on our team to fight other bastards).

Given that there is so much unfinished business from Partition I and Partition II, we feel that it is unrealistic to expect much in the way of fair and balanced journalism when it comes to coverage of South Asian politics. This can be traced back to the (massively influential) two nation theory: for every Hindu truth, there exists an equal and opposite Muslim truth. For Partition II and the events leading up to the 1971war, there is a further tweak- a Hindu truth, a Bangladeshi Muslim truth, and a Pakistani Muslim truth!!!
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Chilling hypocrisy

...."The moment I realised that the illustration had created a controversy and had hurt many people, I deleted the tweet for having inadvertently hurt their feelings"....
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We do not question the right of Teesta Setalvad to tweet vile pictures....freedom of speech must work (and seen to be working) for offensive speech. We are miffed because she considers all of us to have the IQ of a.....we are unable to point to a living organism that would be stupid enough to fit....who will find nothing improper or bizarre in her explanations (see detailed statement below).

We inadvertently hurt feelings of others when we are not sufficiently aware of how they think and if we do not understand (and appreciate) their beliefs. This is how we get Ganesha Toilets to be marketed in the West. But come on...a jihadi Kali...AND a jihadi Krishna?  
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The man loved by (all) women

....."I want to create new Pakistan not only for you but also for me...once Naya Pakistan becomes a reality, I will marry".....62-year-old Khan said to thunderous applause..... 
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What do women want? Do they blindly, madly fall in love with a 62 year old man, who is still described as a ...heartthrob? Your child will be 18 when your man reaches 80!!! We are not ill-wishers of anyone, but what if he does not reach 80? What then??
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We are agnostic on the WDWW question, but it is our sense that women want exactly the same things as men. They want power, money, glory (we are talking of ordinary people, not saints). In our opinion, most men want a loving family just as much as women. Once we reach true equality in society we would expect a much higher number of risk-taking, balls-busting women villains (not just the sly, manipulative ones).

But for now, it is a man's world and the path to glory, money, and power is usually channeled through men. This is perhaps a major reason why women feel attracted to men, especially those who (as they know in their hearts) would not have much time for them, who cannot relate to them, who may like them (as we like any of our possessions) but cannot love them.

Thus a twenty year old girl may not mind marrying a 60 year old man (even if he is married), and dream of having babies and creating a clan where SHE rules (as opposed to the old hag who is unceremoniously pushed off stage).

As for the men...well what can we say? Your ego may tell you that a girl, young enough to be your daughter, loves you for your special qualities...well think about it. Would you marry an old lady for p-m-g (surely there are some men who will do so)? Would you honor her and respect her...and even love her? Could you??
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‘are we reading or writing tonight?’

...Raju guarded his crate of Hercules Rum like a sentinel......clank the latch on the gate a specific number of times in a peculiar rhythm that only Raju and his regular clients knew....and this he kept changing every week....Raju would emerge from the dark, the bottle cradled in his arms.....
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As Arun Ram explains: "reading" is code for rum, "writing" for whisky.

We have mixed feelings on this, we dislike the booze culture, but we dislike prohibition even more. The pressure has to come from society, through education and via persuasion. Yes, we admit that religion has a role to play as well. Else all you will do is drive the business under-ground and bring forward more death and suffering.

Still there is one bright aspect of prohibition (apart from the fact that it has never worked..despite trying hard)...the escapade stories are really good...this is one more...enjoy.
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I have been away from Kerala, my homeland, for almost 20 years now. The thought of returning for good never crossed my mind — till last Thursday, when the government spelled out its plan to make Kerala alcohol-free in ten years.
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Suicide Tourism

...611 people not resident in Switzerland had been helped to die between 2008 and 2012....all but four of whom had gone to Dignitas....ages ranged from 23 to 97....over half of the 'tourists' were women.....
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Unlike the Caliphate-bound, hip-hop artists lusting after head-less homies, these Switzerland-bound folks are the gentle and thoughtful type. They kill themselves, presumably because they feel guilty of being a burden on their near and dear ones.

Indian patriots should be pleased...as of now the score reads: India: 1, China: 0. But this should be no ground for complacency, as they say, a good start is only half the game.

Switzerland (Canton of Zurich to be precise) is the primary beneficiary of suicide tourism because of Dignitas, the NGO foundation, which performs/advocates for euthanasia of unfit people - the old, the infirm, the tired and the sick (see link below). Just as Irish women travel to the UK for terminating pregnancies, scores of British (and German) tourists are traveling to Switzerland for terminating lives.

It is not our place to comment on public policy but we observe that tourism in India is facing some head-winds (lack of safety for women, lack of alcohol...even in God's own country). Just like surrogacy tourism, suicide tourism can be a potentially new line of business. And unlike Dignitas, in India you have an infinite ways to end your life.

It is our understanding that this is very much in line with Indian (Hindu) culture and tradition. In Vedic times, a person's life was divided into four phases or the Chatur-Ashram: Brahmacharya (study time as a child), Garhasthya (family time as a couple), Vana-prastha (literally escape to the forest, leaving the family behind) and finally, Sanyas (live your life out in the forest). The average age of the suicide tourist today is 69, which is exactly following the Vana-prastha/Sanyas mode.

The message (then and now) seems to be clear: do NOT trouble your family or the larger society with your old age problems. This concept of a life without value is also applicable to youth with health problems (presently as young as 23). It is surely a matter of great pride that people world-wide are appreciating (and following) age-old wisdom about old age.

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"Jihadi John" from Maida Vale

Do you have to be rich (or merely middle-class) to own a 1 mil pound home in Maida Vale, West London (W9)? It is part of posh Westminster and if you are a BPeep looking for a villa in St John's Wood (just east of Maida Vale, home of Lord's Cricket Ground) it is likely to cost you upwards of 10 mil pounds!!!
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Maida Vale was founded in the 19th century and is named after Sir John Stuart, Count of Maida (1759–1815), who was a British Lieutenant-General during the Napoleonic Wars. Maida is a town in the Calabria region of southern Italy, 31 km west of the provincial capital Catanzaro. The British (under the leadership of Sir John) routed the French in the Battle of Maida in 1806 [ref. Wiki].
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Maida Vale is primarily known for Little Venice bordering Regent's Canal, but it has a new reason to be famous. It is the residence of Jihadi John, also known as Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary. John is a hip-hop artist whose rap music has featured on BBC. He is also a "person of interest" in the beheading of the American photo-journalist James Foley.
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Mardaani

For a person who started out in adverts and jingles, Pradeep Sarkar is not half bad as a director (his photography is exquisite). We loved Parineeta (and we fell in love with the heavenly Vidya Balan).
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Compared to the (slow cooked) celebration of (old Kolkata) nostalgia in Parineeta, Mardaani is a rough and tough thriller which zips through the jungles of Mumbai. We are not much of a Rani Mukherjee fan (her cousin Kajol is truly wonderful). However in Mardaani she (and her support cast) is very good.

This is a movie which show-cases strong women (Rani as Inspector Shivani Shivaji Roy and Priyanka Sharma as the street girl Pyari) in memorable roles and that is always a plus point in our book. Finally (and most importantly) the villains are authentic bad-ass and arouses just the right amount of revulsion. Good show!!!
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Mardaani is a marked departure from convention. For one, the film is inspired by dire newspaper headlines and alarming United Nations reports about India’s missing girls. 
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Lion vs. porcupines

...Ananthamurthy said he would not want to live in an India where the prime minister is Narendra Modi...."I would get phone calls asking me, 'when are you leaving'?...I would like to visit Pakistan! I have friends there who love India"....“Modi wants India to be a lion but as a Gandhian I can tell you that Gandhiji wanted India to be a porcupine”.....
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As a metaphor it feels appropriate for now....a proud porcupine is any day better than a cowardly lion. Growing up in tiger-land, we know that even big cats are wary of the prickly little creatures. But why stop there? As India grows in strength and sheds its physical (and mental) shackles, she should aim to be an elephant- social, gentle (if you do not harm them), intelligent, and loving, welcoming of orphans (refugees) and quite capable of defending against vicious beasts.

Speaking of elephants and orphans, here is news (fairly typical) from the animal kingdom last week.
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A six-months-old male baby elephant which had got separated from its mother and was partially drowned in a river got its new mother in a captive female elephant at Rajaji National Park (RNP). The female elephant too accepted the calf by cuddling it.

According to Nitishmani Tripathi, division forest officer of Lansdowne forest division, the calf was found struggling to float in the Rawasan river at 5pm on Tuesday. The calf was rescued and was taken to a forest camp.

DVS Khati chief wildlife warden told TOI, "The elephants are social by nature. In an elephant herd, when a calf is separated or its mother dies then other female elephants accept and nurse the calf. In common parlance, it is known as 'auntie syndrome' where other female elephants become mother or aunts of the motherless calf. " 
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Now the lion of Gujarat has a (well deserved) reputation of crushing challengers without even bothering to shake his mane. However there are still a few porcupines who have no fear, who keep shooting thorns at the king (just like them Hamas rockets??). One example is the classical dance exponent Mallika Sarabhai, daughter of Mrinalini and Vikram Sarabhai (the father of  the Indian space program).  

Another one is the celebrated Kannada author Udupi Rajagopal-Acharya (UR) Anantha-Murthy (21 December 1932 - 22 August 2014). Please note below the excellent profiles by Sudheendra Kulkarni and Ramchandra Guha as well as a very special AIR Mysore interview with URA himself.

The reflections are mostly about Mysore - where bananas and giant pumpkins are abundant and people are generous, where oceans of knowledge are to be explored in the Maharaja's college, and the bitter-sweet memories of marrying a Christian girl - as it was half a century ago.
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Don't cry for me Yezidi

Like everyone else I've pretty much been inundated with issues from the Ummah (Iraq, Pakistan etc).

It sure seems a lot easier when we had the triumvirate of Ottomania, Safavid & the Mughals (who were at the vanguard of syncretism fwiw).

It's pretty obvious that the world is at an inflection (or reaction) point to Western globalising tendencies. Much as English will emerge as a lingua franca, it's instructive to note that it hasn't yet murdered any other languages (apart old Celtic rivals from centuries ago) and remains a real primacy in the Old Commonwealth.

While English in the Old Commonwealth has started to standardise to various varieties, which remain somewhat intelligible with Her Majesty's Speech (which after all seems to be the central standard for this incredibly inchoate & ever-expanding medium) in the African & Asian New Commonwealth English has begun to evolve into different varieties (in Uganda, the language elides with Luganda to form Luglish, High standard English is an upper-class / educated phenomenon).

My point being is that analysts need a geo-historical perspective when analysing the world. I don't write nearly enough these days (even the start of BP represented the last high tide of my writing) but then I'm rather occupied with harnessing my perspectives towards a corporate-commercial end (in my ever-ending war for this Bobo between the Bourgeois & Bohemian, as an aside the Ugandans use "ever" for when they mean "never").

For instance people may agonise over ISIS but at the end of the day when have Sunni Arabs ever gone beyond deserts and plains? When have they gone into the mountains, that domains is for Persians, Turks & shi'ites. The nice tweak of geography is that it's still salient, Israel 2000yrs later captured the wrong part of Palestine and actually is in Philistia instead of Judea.

As a final comment I see the unity of the British Isles so clearly in Uganda. The Irish may stayed apart because of Catholicism (which is no longer as determinant an identity) but the Celtic nations have so inter-mingled with the English that the boundaries are as faint & soft without disappearing. Ironically the United Kingdom is what the European Union dreams to be.

Kerala aims to be Gujarat (2025)

....The Congress-led United Democratic Front government, proposed to make Kerala alcohol-free in 10 years.....The cabinet has also decided to shut down 700 bars by cancelling their bar license.....from April 1, 2015, only five star hotels will be granted bar licenses....Apart from the existing dry days, which include the first day of every month, all Sundays would be dry days...
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The first question that came to our mind: will no one think of the tourists? Not all tourists stay in 5-star accommodations (which will also run dry in 10 years).

And shock horror!!! We hear the proud denizens of Tamizh Nadu making unheard of demands: why cant we be like Mallus (and...Gujjus...more shock horror)?

There are liberal and conservative arguments for prohibition (and liberal arguments in opposition). Then you have blood-less economists who will focus on jobs and tax revenue- bars with dancing girls generate well paying jobs and huge money for the exchequer.

The push for a ban-on-bars is also a tale of women vs. women:  women in low-income families have long complained of husbands wasting their pay-packets on evil women (and the devil drink). This was the argument that convinced Maharashtra govt to shut down girls in bars. Many girls (primarily from Eastern India, Nepal, and Bangladesh) were then forced to become prostitutes.

The bigger argument is about full-on prohibition of drinking and here there is a morality play (backed by the religious lobby) as well as a public health one (doctors are for it). It is well known that prohibition failed in the USA, we have just not learned the lessons well enough.
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"A small incident of rape"

....'He calls (the gangrape of my daughter) a small incident bcos such things never happen to people like him.' ~ Asha Devi, Nirbhaya's mother....Jaitley speaks out his mindset: 1 "small incident of rape" advertised world over is enough 2 cost us billions of $ in tourism.....@arunjaitley laments about one 'small' incident of rape, @PIB_India deletes small from speech text......
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It is a fact that people have in-built expectations about how public figures will behave. We expect the (senior) Leader to be business-like (and dictatorial) in thought, speech and action. We expect the (junior) Leader to be a fire-breather: our Hindu sisters and daughters are in danger and we should take revenge. We expect Madam to stay silent on pogrom I (against Sikhs in 1984) and talk non-stop about pogrom II (against muslims, 2002). We expect Arundhati Roy to be cursing the super-castes and hero-worshiping the Maoists.

Arun Jaitley is a more complex character. He was the person who admitted (ref. Wiki-leaks) that for  the BJP, Hindutva is not a matter of conviction....just a ploy to win elections. Yes, we believe that is indeed the case (but it does not make us feel any better about the BJP or the tactics it chooses to use).
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"Pressed on the question of Hindutva, Jaitley argued that Hindu nationalism 'will always be a talking point' for the BJP. However, he characterized this as an opportunistic issue," Robert Blake, the Charge at the US Embassy, said to his government after a meeting with Jaitley on May 6, 2005.

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The (tiny) knife

....agree that jihadists are the villains, but remain deeply uncomfortable with the idea that Americans are the heroes.....My imagination is in thrall to the tiny knife....how difficult it would be, to sever a man's head with a little knife like that, and how painful....can't help feeling that the knife was chosen for that reason.....to provide a contrast with the air strikes of the military industrial complex.....message: "I may not have many weapons at my own disposal, but look what I'm prepared to do with whatever comes to hand".....
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Deborah Orr is a fantastic journalist and a clear-eyed leftist. She is no Arundhati Roy....no unquestioning ideology or blind America hatred for her. Yet when push comes to shove she betrays her own instincts, ignores the truth that stares her in the face, and....she is also wrong on  the facts. The Caliphate does have access to a whole armory of advanced weapons either left behind by the vanquished Iraqi army or purchased with funding from Qatar and Saudia.
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One thing people will be puzzling over while perusing the last email the Caliphate wrote to John Foley (father of James): who is this woman...."our sister"....Dr Afiya Siddiqi? What are the circumstances behind her imprisonment by the Americans? Why is she such an inspirational figure for the Caliphate??
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Deborah is clear on this point: the ambivalence that Europeans feel about condemning the Caliphate is tied to the fear that it would make heroes out of Americans. She is worried as to how the ISIS is poisoning minds which leads to islamo-phobia amongst common (white) people and blind prejudice against muslims and arabs.
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So...it was Hamas after all

....Arouri told the conference that Hamas "did not have the intention at this time to ignite a large battle".....his group did not believe Israel wanted a war either"...."But Allah has chosen and willed that a large battle would be ignited"....
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One thing we never understand and never will. All revolutionaries claim that in order to achieve utopia heavy sacrifices will be called for. But why is it (to take the Israel-Gaza war as a template) that while the fighters and leaders are protected deep inside tunnels the civilians have no choice but to take it on the chin.

So far the biggest complaint against Hamas was that they use Palestinians as human shields. The response to this is, well...they are a guerrilla army and this is how they fight. But this is a much more serious charge...they provoke the Israelis...and knowingly put their own people at risk. It is as if they consider their own flesh and blood as mere pawns (more dead children = better PR).

Hamas is just so relaxed about the outcome- they were able to shut down Tel Aviv airport for two days...is that it? A show of force, two thousand martyrs who will help prod the memories of the next generation, and the fight goes on. From the Israeli side...same story...they call it "mowing the lawn." And of course they have their martyrs as well.

There is a problem with such continuous, calibrated, calculated, cruelties imposed on both sides. This much is true...when you create martyrs.....you also create monsters. There may come a time in the future when all the people on all sides will be devastated....imagine a Hiroshima on the Mediterranean. An ocean of bad blood...and suddenly not a drop of blood to spare (and to share). Think about it.
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A senior Hamas leader has said the group carried out the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank in June — the first time anyone from the Islamic militant group has said it was behind an attack that helped spark the current war in the Gaza Strip.
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Hussain Haqqani

....Sharif could have handled the protests better...Imran Khan and Tahir-ul Qadri....egged on by the military to clip Sharif’s wings....Pakistan similar to Thailand....urban middle class, gang up with generals and judges to undermine those elected by the people.....
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The ex-Ambassador and current Professor of International Relations, Boston University speaks his mind.
It is difficult to say what is the truth. HH is expected to be biased against the Army which banished him from his homeland. That said, there is not much evidence that Imran Khan has made any impact with the non-stop drama-bazi.

Indeed, just like Arvind Kejriwal in India, IK seems better suited as a protester than a ruler. Kejriwal and the Aam Admi Party should have focused on governing Delhi and gaining the confidence of the people. Large sections of Indians from al backgrounds would have loved to vote for a non-BJP, non-Congress, secular, left-liberal platform (rather than cast a vote against the Dynasty or Hindutva). Even the neo-Gandhian, Irom Sharmila was sympathetic to the cause. She would have guaranteed an AAP seat in Manipur - a 25% increase from the current tally of four.

The key issue is if and when self-confidence (constructive) morphs into hubris (destructive). After having destroyed the seemingly invincible, four-term Chief Minister Sheila Dixit in Delhi, Kejriwal thought he could repeat the magic by defeating Narendra Modi in Varanasi. Admittedly it was a gamble not devoid of merit - the Sunni Muslim vote-share (15%) roughly equals that of the super-caste vote. But it was the Shia Muslims, the non-Yadav OBCs and the non-Jatav Dalits who contributed to a complete annihilation of the "secular" coalition in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere.

Instead of insisting that people do not pay their power bills, Khan should focus on better governance and better access to power, which is the primary reason why the Pakistan economy is suffering so much. It is not power for himself but power to the people that is the need of the hour.
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Nawaz Sharif’s 1999 tenure ended in a military coup – are the protests, led by Imran Khan and cleric Tahir-ul Qadri, an attempted civilian coup? What will the impact on Pakistan’s democracy be?
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The father of Hamid (Dabholkar)

....Dr. Dabholkar’s greatest victory — a law against superstition and black magic — came posthumously.....One day after he was killed, the Maharashtra government cleared an ordinance, and in December 2013, a law against superstitious practices..... 
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To the untrained ear, Hamid Dhabolkar may sound a bit like Amar Akbar Anthony, an iconic Bollywood movie from 1977 (re-made as Ram Robert Rahim in Telegu and John Jaffer Janardhanan in Malayalam)- a khichdi that symbolizes all that is supposedly secular and syncretic about India.  
In this case however, the reality outpaces fiction in depicting the truth.

Traditionally, for Hindus it was the gotra (not surname) that was the principal identifier. We are not fully informed on Maharashtrian practices but here is an interesting factoid: If the surname has a -kar suffix, the prefix usually suggests the ancestral village or locality of origin.

Thus for example, Revan-kar - a title from the Daivajna family with common ancestry in Goa (hence termed Gomantak, the ancient name of Goa). The ancestral village for Revankars is Rivona (probably a Portugese adaptation). Other Gomantak Daivajna titles include Karekar (from Karai), Pednekar (Pedne), Haldonkar (Haldona)....

Looking elsewhere, we find Aurangabadkar (Aurangabad in Western Maharashtra, the capital city of Aurangzeb, then Mughal vice-roy of Deccan, in 1653) and Amalnerkar (Amalner, 200 km due north of Nashik, in the north-west corner of Maharashtra where Azim Premji of Wipro spent his childhood, his dad was the proprietor of a local dalda factory). We are a fan of the astro-physicist Jayant Vishnu Narlikar and when we looked, sure enough, there is a village named Narli in Sangli district in south-western Maharashtra.

The family name of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is Sakpal (father: Ramji Maloji Sakpal) but the family took the surname of Ambawadekar, after the village Ambawade (Ratnagiri district, south Maharashtra). In a brief autobiographical account, Baba-saheb tells us how a school teacher (a Brahmin, who shared food with him) got the name to be shortened to Ambedkar. Incidentally, there are allegations (see link below) that Ambedkar's followers helped erase the contributions of his wife in his life (Savita Mai, a Brahmin), we wonder why?
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Finally, we have Dr Narendra Achyut Dabholkar, who died for the cause of rationality one year ago in Pune (1 November 1945 – 20 August 2013). The Dabholkar title is from the Chitpavan family with common ancestry in the Konkan (hence termed Konkan-astha). Dabhol is a sea-side village on the Konkan sea-coast, 250 km south of Mumbai, near Chiplun, Maharashtra.
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Minds trapped in "metal coffins"

The multiple partitions in South Asia makes a powerful case for co-existence (which is, sad to say, lost on the extremists). Tactics which lead to polarization between (and ghettoization of) communities must end, else we will be well on our way to create a Middle East in our midst.

Take one instructive example. EMS Namboodiripad is an all-time great amongst Indian politicians. But even as a man of the left he was not averse to playing communal games. It was in 1969 - only two decades removed from Partition I - that EMS promised and delivered a "muslim district" in Kerala by merging together the Muslim majority areas of Thrissur, Palakkad and Kozhikkode districts. This was done at the behest of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in return for short-term political support for the CPM led Left Front (IUML has long back ditched the CPM and is now partnered with the Congress).

Now the IUML is demanding for a separate Muslim state by bifurcating Kerala and capturing some land from Tamil Nadu (good luck with that). So...the next logical step will be a Muslim country...right? Not to worry, people already refer to Malappuram as mini Pakistan.
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Recently Malappuram district secretary of Muslim Youth League demanded the division of Kerala. He demanded a new state named Malabar with Kozhikode as the capital city. It is reported that they want a new state including “7 districts, right from Thrissur, along with the inclusion of Mahi and the Nilagiri district of Tamil Nadu.". The justification for the demand is that "it will be the sole solution" that will "help in the progress of the region." 
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All this political skullduggery has predictably led to a backlash and "hindu" organizations have now joined forces- for example, the Nairs (NSS) and the Ezhavas (SNDP) who were once separated by bitter caste barriers. Once the Left collapses, the BJP will be ready to take over (just like how it is happening in Bengal).

No good comes out of creating divisions within people (usually done for winning political power). Neighbors should not have to meet purity tests. And when one identity (religious) becomes too strong, then people will suffer, minorities for sure, but even people from the dominant faith.  

The stowaways who were just now rescued from a "metal coffin" in England have been identified as Afghan Sikhs. Sikhs and Hindus have been living in Afghanistan for centuries. With the rise of the Taliban (again), these communities face the choice of conversion or death. If and when the Taliban comes back to power (again), only muslims will be left to face the beatings, hand choppings and be-headings, while muslim women will disappear into home-prisons.
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Thirteen years in exile

Our history-myths (TM) tell us that once upon a time, the darling of the people, Yuv-raj (prince-in-waiting) Rama was ordered by his father Raja Dasharath (actually step-mother Kaikeyi) to leave Ayodhya and spend fourteen years in the forest (van-vaas).

Irom Sharmila Chanu is a commoner but she is equally a darling of her people. She was imprisoned on the grounds that she may commit suicide. Now after thirteen years of time spent in the concrete forest, a court has finally ordered her to be set free. She has promised to continue her fight for justice. Perhaps one day, an epic will be composed in honor of this ordinary woman.

It is people like Sharmila (also Binayak Sen, Baba Amte, Medha Patkar and others) who give us hope that India will, one-day, be ready to give the gift of dignity to people who have no belongings, no land, no water, no rights whatsoever. We have been fortunate enough to meet Sen and Amte and what inspires us so much is how gentle they are, and how firm is their spirit and their stead-fast commitment to (non-violent) action.

To give credit where it is due, the Press has helped to highlight the plight of Sharmila and her fellow travelers. In these times when majority coalitions are firming up all across the country, it is important that the Press continues to play its role as the guardian of minorities (can be Hindu...the wrong type...see the inquisition going on in Telengana, against "thieves and looters" from Andhra), to be able to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Also, now that the Indian left is on its death-bed and the Press is being corrupted by corporate money, we the people will need to stay extra vigilant.
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A Manipur court ruling directing the release of Prisoner of Conscience Irom Sharmila because there were no grounds for charging her with attempted suicide is a legal and moral victory for the activist and her 13 year-long hunger strike, Amnesty International India said on Tuesday.
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OSO for BKS

That would be Om Shanti Om (TM) - our brand new modi-fied version of Rest In Peace - for Bellur Krishnam-acharya Sundara-raja Iyengar (December 14, 1918 – August 20, 2014).
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He is the Guru-ji, who single-handedly created the world-wide Yoga brand (though some naughty people attribute the popularity to Christy Turlington). We are not passionate about Yoga, however it is impolite to say so in academic, left-liberal circles- both in the USA and in India.

We do believe that Yoga provides health benefits...but only for the true believers. Of course, the good thing about Yoga is that believers come in all shapes, sizes and ages. We have been amazed to see seventy year olds doing asanas with ease, the ones we had to work hard over in our teens. Today, Yoga is a multi billion dollar enterprise and Indians are not doing too poorly as new-age entrepreneurs (example: Baba Ramdev). Soft power and all that.
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All in all, BKS was an inspiration to countless folks, a good man who said "Physical health is not a commodity to be bargained for....Nor can it be swallowed in the form of drugs and pills - it has to be earned through sweat. It is something that we must build up." Right on, dear sir, and may you enjoy your brief moments of peace up in the stars before you recycle back to this nasty old earth.
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BKS Iyengar, the Indian yoga guru credited with helping to fuel a global explosion in the popularity of the ancient spiritual practice, has died aged 95. Iyengar started his yoga school in 1973 in the western city of Pune, developing a unique form of the practice that he said anyone could follow.
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