We all blog in gated communities. Not by choice, but it happens that way. We mostly read those people whose views we agree with. As a result on most personal blogs, the comments on each post read something like this:
- You’re so right!
- I couldn’t have said it better!
- I agree completely
- etc etc…
But what are we doing really? A lot of us blog on issues that matter to us. And I’d like some change to come about as a result of that. But it can’t happen if the only people I engage with are those who already agree with me! I need to go out, and talk to those who disagree with me. That way, I can learn how they really feel and get to understand them.
Fundamentally, I believe that everyone is decent and wants to do the right thing. I won’t go and take a superior attitude. I go with the intention to talk – with the understanding that we’re all decent folks. That way, I hope to not only get some of my main ideas across, I seek to understand why they feel the way they do. If I do that, perhaps some of my own opinions will change. And I’m willing to let that happen if it’s a better opinion based on logic. So here goes…
I started with this right wing post. The basic idea of the post is that Muslims and Christians are ganging up on Hindus to fight them. I made an honest attempt to engage in dialogue with those who commented in an attempt to understand where they’re coming from. It wasn’t easy – there were lots of ad hominem attacks on me questioning my education, my character, my motives etc.
One person even asked me why my blog has posts from 2006 when my domain name was registered only in 2008! When I explained that I was blogging on blogspot and migrated all my posts, this was the reply:
“That explains it man. The seeming timing mismatch of your blog posts is wonderfully explained just as I thought it would be. Though if I were you I’d have retained blogspot also, for record’s sake.”
54 comments later, I’m still trying to reach a proper dialogue with those are interested. But in spite of this, there were many cogent responses and some were partially cogent. From what I was able to understand these are the main points (I’m not passing judgment on any of these opinions as of now – I just want to understand):
- They feel that Muslims and other minorities are a threat to Hindus
- Minorities are trying to eradicate Hindu culture
- They feel that the “Liberals” and the “sophisticated intellectuals” forgive the Muslims anything but severely criticize any violation by a Hindu group
For my part, I kept finding these recurring themes:
- A willingness to generalize. The word “Muslims” encompasses every single Muslim with no allowances made for the vast majority of non violent members
- Many refuse to discuss a particular incident against Muslims (like the Godhra riots) and bring in all the other incidents of violence by Muslims they can remember. They do this because they feel that Muslims are getting a “free pass” by the press and society in general while any violation by Hindus is decried strongly.
I want to dispel some of the paranoia here. If those on the right are reading this, let me set the record straight:
- No violence is ever excused. If the violence is committed by a Muslim, they will be criticized as much as possible. Many bloggers have dedicated posts talking about injustices by the Taliban and how stupid fatwas harm soceity etc…
- We have nothing against Hindus and Hindu culture. We all have the right to follow any Hindu tradition we like as long as it’s in accordance with the law and the Constitution. Our Constitution is an expansive one. This means that you can do almost anything you want and no one has the right to stop you. If someone tries, all of us “liberal” bloggers will back you up and roundly denounce those who want to stop you from following your traditions irrespective of whether they’re Muslim, or Christian or any other religion.
- Our biggest concern is that innocent people will get caught up in any acts of retaliation against a particular community. That is why we denounce statements against “Muslims” in general – it’s because there are lots of innocent and non violent Muslims who don’t deserve hatred.
- Importantly, none of us are trying to downplay incidents of Islamic terror. Everyone cannot focus on everything. You have our deepest respect and admiration if you wish to address injustices to Hindus or Sikhs – like the 1984 Sikh massacre. Let’s use our strength in numbers to fight everything and not to bring in other incidents of violence when we’re discussing one particular incident. Let’s bring all the guilty people to justice without getting in one another’s way!
And most importantly, let’s not be at cross purposes. We all want to address injustices to everyone and anyone. Let’s have a dialogue instead of abusing one another. I assure you, we want to do what’s right – and I’m sure you do too. We’re in the Internet age and have the tools of communication. Let’s use this communication to achieve something that has never been done before – achieve harmony, or at least an understanding of where the other side is coming from.
I’m going to be commenting on your blogs from now on and I encourage you to read those written by liberals. Let’s put in some effort to understand where we’re coming from. I suggest tools like guest posts where you can air your views and we can do the same. Let’s be creative.
What say?
Exactly Bhagwad!
As You say freedom is an important aspect. I did not say development or humanright, those are your words. I said a minimal life style for the family of every working person. A minimal life style has to include freedom to criticize government etc. Freedom or democracy are part of minimal life style.
But I do not see freedom or democratic process in the style you claim to be liberal or you want to propagate. Liberalism or freedom is not singing just Godhra -riots- songs or anti -Modi -songs. What you are saying amounts to essentially sort of a lynching rule — “Look I decided that Modi was responsible for Godhra riots so he is responsible. or “Look I decided that Muslims in our country are being troubled by Hindus so they are” — “if you do not accept it then you are not liberal.”
For example many Hindus and people from other communities were also killed or troubled during riots after those brutal burning in train in Godhra. Their number was not that small. But rarely I have seen that being mentioned by people whom you call liberal and whom you want to follow (not that they do not mention at all- if they mention anti Modi song or killing of Muslims in the riots 100 times then they may mention once about others.
While in this style of liberalism the main focus seems to be just to accuse this guy that girl of communal, to me this style looks to be much more communal and feudal than any thing else. In fact during this onslaught of riots they ended up accusing practically whole of India ( a rare country in which almost every major religion, every race has been followed by millions peacefully for years) accept themselves as communal.
You claim that you fear that violence might erupt soon if your style of liberalism is not followed by every one. There is a trace of feeling in this thought –“look I am intelligent and wise but you are not, you should adopt to my style – that is the only right style”. I do not see in this style much liberalism or freedom. This is more like feudalism.
Lebralism and freedom also means respecting others – every one whether they follow some god or not, whether they follow any system or not. Why do you not have respect and faith in silent majority in India. For thousands of years they have been living peacefully in 1000’s communities, systems. This is the country where people like Charwak who propagated what you call atheism more than 2000 years back, were respected as rishi. Where people like Akbar tried to build up a new religion just to rule better. I do not see much reason why one should not respect and have faith in intelligence of silent majority here.
Our criminal justice system is not working well. That causes riots like Godhra or those killings in train or anti Sikh riots after killing of Indira Gandhi. I could have understood if you were pleading “Let us improve our criminal justice system so that such riots do not happen again” But that does not seem to be your line of argument. Your line of argument is more like “Look we liberals have decided that Modi is a criminal so he is”– (at one time the followers of your brand of liberalism even supported manipulating of commission -by Lalu and Congress to declare that brutal train killing was an accidental or self burning of passengers in train — how many people do you think will agree with that ? Don’t you feel that supporters of this style of justice themselves also did not faith in such arguments?
I did not see at that time so called liberals arguing “Look let us not manipulate a the system of commissions in India so much” — “let us have proper criminal justice system instead of making accusations and Lynching or showing disrespect to the dead”
As I said earlier we have strong democracy. But we also have parties and media and press controlled by feudal family rulers. What you are proposing with the color of liberalism looks more to me to be tools created by some of these feudal bosses – by Lynching or branding people who do not follow their style, where as Kadir says “do nor look at just Godhra — we have had many riots” or in other “words need to imporve criminal justice system” To me that looks more liberal than your style.
In reply to soumyasrajan
Soumya, I’m puzzled by a lot of things you’ve said. You seem to think that I hold certain opinions and then you attack those things. This is a strawman argument.
For example:
“What you are saying amounts to essentially sort of a lynching rule — “Look I decided that Modi was responsible for Godhra riots so he is responsible.”
But where did I say that?
“Look I decided that Muslims in our country are being troubled by Hindus so they are” — “if you do not accept it then you are not liberal.”
I was never interested in “Hindus” and “Muslims.” I don’t care about religion. Just violence.
But rarely I have seen that being mentioned by people whom you call liberal and whom you want to follow”
Why do you say I wish to “follow” anyone? I’m not affiliated with any party or group. I’m just me.
“While in this style of liberalism the main focus seems to be just to accuse this guy that girl of communal”
I’ve never supported punishing anyone without evidence. Why do you think I feel otherwise?
“You claim that you fear that violence might erupt soon if your style of liberalism is not followed”
What is my style of liberalism? For that matter, what do you think is liberalism?
“Why do you not have respect and faith in silent majority in India. “
Why do you think I don’t respect the majority of India?
“For thousands of years they have been living peacefully in 1000′s communities, systems”
But what is “peacefully?” India’s history has been as full of violence as many other countries. There were many barbaric practices that were prevalent. There wasn’t any “golden age” any more than other countries had theirs…
“Your line of argument is more like “Look we liberals have decided that Modi is a criminal so he is””
Where have I said this? We need to investigate him and if the courts find him guilty he must be punished accordingly. There’s nothing wrong with that surely?
“at one time the followers of your brand of liberalism even supported manipulating of commission -by Lalu and Congress”
There’s no “my brand of liberalism.” I don’t associate myself with any group and don’t take responsibility for anyone else’s actions. If you feel the Congress or anyone else has done something wrong, don’t take it out on me! What have I got to do with them?
“But we also have parties and media and press controlled by feudal family rulers.”
There are many newspapers in India. Do you have reason to believe that certain political parties are paying them to report favorable news? If so, why?
“What you are proposing with the color of liberalism looks more to me to be tools created by some of these feudal bosses – by Lynching or branding people”
I’d really like to know why you feel I support lynching.
Please let’s let go of misconceptions and preconceived ideas about each other’s views. I may have many preconceived ideas about you, in which case I will be grateful if you will disabuse me. At the same time, I would not like to be judged beforehand – only by what I personally say.
One of the things I find happening in such discussions is labeling those we disagree with. So if you dislike violence – you are a liberal and then you automatically fit into some other labels too, like you support modern western ideas, you do not know the real India, because, you have lived in cities and studied in expensive English schools, and of course you do not know about Indian culture, traditions etc, and hence you don’t care how much danger they are in.
In reply to Indian Homemaker
That’s totally true. I’ve had many adjectives thrown at me in the past few days including:
1. “Intellectual”
2. “Urban Elite
3. “Armchar Intellectual”
4. “Cocktail Sipping Intellectual!”
5. Fashionable
6. Wannabe
7. Modern Secularist
8. Western
etc…
It’s difficult to stay on track when the other person uses these words because they give the impression of saying something without actually saying anything!
In reply to bhagwad
I wonder what these armchair, traditional, rural downtrodden, conservative commentators are doing about their beliefs other than commentating in English sitting in armchairs in ac rooms…
Hi! bhagwad
First of all let me say that I did not try to convey that you follow this or that. But what I have written above is from the impressions your articles and link give. Ask any one what view your articles convey. I think most people will say that it gives the same impression as I have mentioned.
But of course impressions can be wrong from articles. If it is wrong, I am as happy as you may be, not so much because these views may be wrong but more because at least you are open to different style of reasoning.
I am also not attacking any opinion. I am only saying that some of these opinions are similar to those being propagated in a feudal manner by some people, who control some powerful political parties and some powerful media and press organizations and some of their ideas may not be exact facts. It is not very difficult to trace that, if you carefully go through news etc. in our media channels and press.
I liked your idea of making some effort to understand what is happening and to do some thing about it via your blog. Hence I was only trying to make you see that one has to be careful about these aspects.
I do not agree with several statements you expressed in the above. But I have already written too much, let me just point out about two of them
1. You say in one of your articles mainly on Modi “We must never forget that the government is for the people. The government is the servant of the people and not its master. How can a state serve its people by killing them? Those who excuse Modi’s involvement in the Godhra riots by pointing to the “development” of Gujarat are committing the terrible blunder of forgetting history and ignoring the purpose of government.”
I do not know what you felt but to me this is essentially lynching not just Modi but our whole government machinery and law and order system. When I wrote Lynching I did not mean just physically harming some one. Harming a person’s or government’s reputation (For example your sentence “How can a state serve its people by killing them?”) is also for me lynching without going through not just legal process but also in a bit irrational manner.
There is no need to defend Modi, he is strong enough to defend himself if he is innocent but let me just give for arguments sake some possibilities — I wonder whether you have thought about them. I have at least not seen these possibilities mentioned in media and press or in articles written by the so called liberals (in India some times they give certificate to themselves of being secular also )–
When Gujarat riots happened Modi had just become Chief Minister. If I remember correctly it was just a few weeks of time. He did not have before this as far as I know much experience of administration at that high level post. It is quite possible he was a little taken back by sudden eruption of riots and initially he may not have made so strong statements as he should have perhaps made about law and order. With in one of two days he was a bit in control and did handle quite ok after that. There is certainly enough evidence to see that after one or two days, way army and police was used is much better than earlier handling of riots in India.
If his crime is only above that initially he could not handle properly, I do not see any reason that he should be lynched and hounded as he has been the so called liberal media and press and by you also with statements like one above. This kind of lynching Modi has become almost an industry in our country’s political media and press space today and is quite harmful. It does not allow even an inquiry to be conducted in a proper manner. So far I do not see much evidence that his involvement was more than this. It is quite possible that he may have handled in worse manner than this.
This just to give you an example to try to look at other possibilities also than just one directly visible. I am sure you may also see many such examples not just about Modi
2. You say “But what is “peacefully?” India’s history has been as full of violence as many other countries. There were many barbaric practices that were prevalent.” and then “There wasn’t any “golden age” any more than other countries had theirs…”
I find interesting that while for the barbaric practices you want to make in absolute statements about India — the second one you only want to make comparative statement with respect to other countries. I am not so sure to judge some thing in past by today’s measures how right it is. It is quite possible people of that time may consider today’s time barbaric.
I do not want to go through too much details, there is enough info available on internet to see these ideas may not be so right (which were again propagated quite a bit by the so called liberal group who controlled our history academic circle quite a bit for decades – there is nothing wrong in their propagating their ideas but what they managed was not to allow even study of other styles for decades — only now when even western countries have started studying in a different style atmosphere has changed a little but srill in our country not as much as desirable).
Let me give just one example – I feel that does imply the possibility that these ideas may not be up to that much mark as impression your statement gives. I do not see in our country evidence of much violence with religious motivation before Muslims came to India. You your self gave one example in your articles about Hitler in Europe. In USA whole races of several red Indians tribes have been wiped out. Earlier crusades were also examples. In our country such violence of trying to wipe out whole races or cities is almost not there (except things like Taimur declared Katle aam in Delhi). In fact there is enough evidence to suggest that people followed different religious ideas more as parallel thoughts. There is enough evidence that during Buddha’s time or Shankaracharya’s time people were converted to another format more by winning battles by arguments (shastarth) and not by killing.
Chandra Gupta Maurya after being a Hindu emperor for practically whole of India for a long time adopted to Jainism, spent several years as a simple Jain monk in Karanataka. Such examples are very rare in other countries.
If you look around us practically all countries have Muslim majority. There must be some strength in our style and culture after all that despite such attacks Indian style and culture still survives. Even Muslims changed their style in India. They adopted to local style of accommodating others. Akabar’s style and Barelvi sects of Muslim religion which depend on Sufism are examples.
I do not see much evidence of violence in India which disturbs you so much? There have been occasional riots in recent times. But most of it is because of not having proper law and order machinery. In any case average people are not much involved in it. I was trying to follow during last riots in Mumbai with Shah Rukh khan’s movie, happenings in Mumbai on daily basis and tried to analyze the situations in several articles, in my hub. If you are interested do go through them.
Please note that I am not trying to refute your ideas or trying to have an argument duel with you. I am writing more out affection generated by your efforts. All I want to do is point out to you that there can be other views which should not be neglected just because of some ideological difference. To me liberalism means that. After all right path has to be towards truth.
In reply to soumyasrajan
Thanks for taking the time to reply Soumya – I appreciate it. Let me say you have some valid points and I can see why you feel the way you do. It’s unfortunate that my motives are so unclear and I’ll try and clear the air.
To quickly address your issues:
I see where you’re coming from. If you take my sentence about Modi, development etc, it indeed seems like I’m unfairly targeting Modi. But I was responding to a TOI comment that said something like:
“After Godhra train carnage whatever happened was not Modiji wish but wish of more than 1 billon Hindus in India and worldwide”…etc
In that context, I was merely replying to this gentleman’s point of view. If you read his comment, he gives the strong impression that even if Modi is guilty, development is a more important factor. Hence my statement saying “How can a state serve it’s people by killing them.” At that point, I’m not talking about Gujarat anymore. My objective is to tackle the issues that arise irrespective of Modi’s guilt.
I hope you believe me.
I’m the last one to feel that anyone should be punished without evidence. Even Kasab who everyone knows is guilty has to go through the court system.
And this investigation of Modi isn’t my responsibility. It’s not my job to sift the evidence. Things are never what they seem in a political scenario and there are far more competent people than me. I leave that to the courts. I don’t know if you feel that the courts are controlled by the government. If you do, why do you feel that?
About our county’s past – it’s quite possible that “Religious” violence per se was not a huge factor. But why look at that? After all, the situation is what it is now, and Islam and other religions are an integral part of our country.
And about riots. I don’t care so much about riots by themselves. For example, the recent riots in Kashmir don’t interest me much. What I care about deeply is politically motivated violence and riots. Like the Shiv Sena and guys like Pramod Muthalik. These people are dangerous and even small riots have to be roundly condemned cause I’m terrified if these guys come to power.
Soumya,
I completely agree with your analysis of the mindset of BJP. The twists and turns of the arguments are quite fascinating. The questions that he poses are what? Let’s say it – innocent!
He says – “I think only about individuals, not groups.”
My response – Ignorance is bliss!
Shutting oneself from uncomfortable questions is the road to peace of mind!
He says – “India’s history is full of violence.”
My response – Ignorance is bliss.
You may get a short history lesson here-
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/hindus_jews_and_jihad_terror_i.html
He says – “There are many newspapers in India. Do you have reason to believe that certain political parties are paying them to report favorable news? If so, why?”
My response – Ignorance is bliss.
For educating himself, he can refer to some of Sandeep’s previous posts. He may try to find which channels are being funded by whom.
Last but not the least – Why the Bareilley riots were blacked out by the media. No outrage. No hue and cry. Compare this with Gujrat. There are enough videos on Youtube to get to know the truth. Enough tweets and blogs of ordinary people to know what happened. I have first hand accounts of what happened. BJP can also find out if he really tries to do so. And yes, did you blog about it? And what did you say? Show us.
What gives away his dishonesty is – selective outrage and patronizing advice to those who confront him with hard facts. And not replying to those facts but come out with feel-good statements about ‘all religions are equal’, ‘I am atheist’, ‘I don’t care for religions’, ‘India too has a violent past’, etc.
Lastly I will lament on the mindset of we Indians – this is perhaps what kept us under foreign rule for 1000 years: That is the slave mentality. Not having the Courage to stand up for your own interest. And easily falling prey to the wily and clever arguments of the ‘other’, which make you apologetic and reduce your anger to ‘meow’.
I wish you peace of mind BJP!
In reply to GyanP
Hi GyanP – nice to see you here.
I’m sorry you feel I would rather be ignorant. There is some knowledge that isn’t actionable. For example, even if we assume that following a certain religion predisposes a person to violence, what can we do? We can’t ban a system of thought and we can’t condemn everyone in that religion. That is why I choose to ignore groups and only look at individuals.
And do you really feel that the media is being controlled by the government? You’ve asked me to look at some posts, but do you have hard evidence for this conspiracy theory?
I just read up on the Bareilley riots. From what I’ve seen, there’s no evidence that those riots were politically motivated – and though people were injured, no one seems to have been killed. You can’t really compare that with the Gujarat riots can you? For me to get involved, I must see that the riots were politically motivated.
I’m also sorry to know you feel I’m dishonest. I hope I can convince you otherwise…
Hi! GyanP
Thanks a lot. Actually it is not his fault so much. The dominating elements of our politics, media and press have indeed caused a lot of harm. Very few people of this type are ready to see in all directions. But I hope our comments make him see that it is much more interesting and illuminating to try to assess truth oneself first.
Trying to lead others is not so interesting as have confidence in others. In any case , one’s views should be reassessed several times for truth, before you try to change others. It will be disastrous if you lead others in some direction and later find out “Oh! I was wrong.” It will be very hard for a good person to get out of guilt of such kind. He seems to a young guy. I hope he will learn to see that trying to lead others to certain path is involves a lot more responsibilities.
In reply to soumyasrajan
One thing I’ve noticed is that you feel there’s a huge conspiracy brewing involving the media, politicians etc to suppress a certain way of thought and hide certain facts. You’ve hinted at this conspiracy quite a few times now. Do you have any evidence of this conspiracy, because if it’s true I would be most interested to know more.
But before believing such a thing, one needs more than just opinions. One needs a testable and falsifiable theory that can make predictions about how certain things will happen in the future. Would you like to elaborate on this?
In reply to bhagwad
Bhagwad, I didnt fully go through the other post that you are refering to here.. or the entire comments.. I am a staunch hindu .. I believe in God.. am not agnostic or atheist.. my neighbours are Christians and muslims.. I look forward to Ramzan (for their lovely dishes) as much as I look forward to Diwali.. I call myself a liberal.. well those are the labels I give myself..
What prompted me to comment was the discussions here about media.. liberal.. right .. left.. 'intellectual english' dailies or 'worthless regional' language ones.. I have had a good exposure to the business of media because of my family backgrounds.. and know pretty well what happens in the background.. I cant give you details as am not supposed (remember these happen in the background).. but something that I can say is I Know for myself that media is as corrupt and as dishonest as any other profession around.. Gone are the days of noble men carrying a cloth bag and pen as their arsenals in search of truth.. No one cares about the truth nowadays..
Well thats my 2 cents..
In reply to Sakthi
Thanks for chiming in on this Sakthi. Its nice to have an input from someone on the inside.
So is it really true that the media selectively ignores Muslim violence and hypes up Hindu violence as is being claimed?
Oh! bhagwad!
You twist words and put words in mouth of others often and in a wrong way. Perhaps you understand wrongly, what others express.
I did not say any where conspiracy. I have said often in above comments that many of our dominating political parties and many of our dominating media and press organizations are being controlled in a feudal manner by certain people and opinions news styles are affected by this feudal control.
There is no conspiracy in it. It is very open and fact of life. Finding out this, is not such a big big job as GyanP above has also said. After all you are an internet expert. Just search yourself and see who owns what and who are controlling anchors and editors etc.
In reply to soumyasrajan
Soumya, when you (and others) say:
“many of our dominating political parties and many of our dominating media and press organizations are being controlled in a feudal manner by certain people and opinions”
and
“Why the Bareilley riots were blacked out by the media. No outrage. No hue and cry. Compare this with Gujrat”
and
“I hope you realize that even though we have strong democratic traditions, most of this space in our media, press and politics is being controlled in very feudal manner by a selected few who own them or rule over organizations. It is they who are dragging our country to these issues, partly to keep discussion away from mess they were responsible to create.”
and
“affected by this false propaganda and unnecessary confusion”
These are textbook definitions of a conspiracy theory. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I just want evidence to support these assertions. And it’s not so evident at all because I know a very very large number of highly intelligent people who don’t feel this way at all!
Soumya,
Yes, true, he is a young guy and needs to imbibe more hard facts of real life to understand the undercurrents. Today even the history has been falsified. I will refer him to keep a track of the following site maintained by extremely sharp lady Radha Rajan-
http://vigilonline.com/
He needs to read her book on NGOs, available online for free .
Somewhere he has said why should we keep on remembering past events again and again. I wanted to reply to this point in my previous post but forgot. My reply is as under.
As human beings and as individuals we are the product of our past. The past not only consists of the events that came to pass, but also consists of our interpretations of what happened. What happens to a person when a person falls sick psychologically? He goes to a psychotherapist. He goes through the past events again and again, until he re-interprets them, finds peace, and then moves on. He re-gains his strength and courage and starts living his life in the truest sense.
The same is the case with countries – they are also like individuals, they have histories, and it’s (country’s) own – logical or illogical – reactions to those events. When there are the signs of disturbance – as is the case of India presently – then it starts looking towards the past to understand – hey, what went wrong?
Then it goes through the past ad nauseum till it gets to understand yes, here we went wrong.
This is exactly what is happening now. We are trying to understand where we went wrong. What caused us to remain under foreign rule for such a long time. Why Hindus are living under the shadow of fear even though they are the majority. Thinking of one’s own interest and survival is essential – doesn’t matter if the ‘others’ call me selfish. I know I am not. I am taking corrective measures. Saving your own life, sanity and society is not selfishness. This is your moral duty. This is your Dharma.
If I start to understand the strategies of the ‘other’,then , obviously, ‘they’ will feel nervous and will start calling me all sorts of names. OK, fine, I am just doing what I should be doing.
To understand with some examples from history –
1. The great Prithviraj Chouhan, after the battle of Tarain in 1191, pardoned Ghauri, not understanding his true nature. He had to repent in 1192, when Ghauri defeated him, captured him and got his eyes pierced, and kept him as a prisoner for several years.
This happened because he assumed that since he was good hearted and brave the same is true of Ghauri also. What lesson do you learn here?
2. Japan learned its lesson from WWII and came out with a new Japan. Now it doesn’t need to remember that period because it has outlived it and overcome the past and has moved ahead.
3. Jews learned their lesson, and created Israel. Now they are not hounded by the past. Yes, they remember it, but use it to renew its strength. Here I am not taking any side, but just showing how lessons were learned by some nations from their histories to use it for their own betterment.
In India, it seems this country is always going through some kind of hysteria, – it has to understand it, and learn its lessons — unless they are learned there are complete chances of its falling again prey to the old problems. It has still not learned its lessons. That’s why – the constant remembering of past – which is only to understand the present. But that ‘light’, that ‘enlightenment’ is nowhere to be seen. It is still ‘sick’.
And in the end, I may remind you BJP- the final solution may be good for all. Only, some may have to change their habits, that’s all.
That’s where it rubs!
There is no right, far right, left or far left, or center of it. Once you start labelling – you loose touch with your real quest – which is the quest for truth. That is the only thing that matters.
In reply to GyanP
“Yes, true, he is a young guy and needs to imbibe more hard facts of real life to understand the undercurrents.”
Let’s leave the ad hominem arguments out eh? Let’s discuss ideas and not people. Please don’t do this again or I will need to edit that part of your comment. Incidentally, I’m almost 30 and don’t think I can be considered “young” anymore!
“The same is the case with countries – they are also like individuals, they have histories”
Unlike individuals, countries are made of people who die and new ones replace them. This allows us to get over the past and not be bogged down by it.
I agree with that part of your comment where you say that we should learn from history 100%. But to allow long ago historic events to prevent us from seeing the situation as it is now is counterproductive. For example, when an incident of violence takes place, we shouldn’t say “But in 2007…etc etc). What is important is that violence has taken place now and the instigators need to be punished end of story.
History has it’s place, but we should know when to make use of it to guide us and when to throw it away before it hinders us.
In reply to GyanP
A very good analysis Gyanp! You express so well! There is no link to your website etc. Do you write in a blog or hub. Please do send me address. The link you sent earlier of article by Andrews G. Bostom was also very illuminating.
You and me have given enough information to him if he wants to see reality. All he has to do is to make a little effort. I hope he does take that much trouble. After all he aims at teaching lot of people. But if he just wants to sing songs about proofs, evidence etc. and play with words to indulge in just a game we can not help much. Nor is it interesting to get into such useless games.
I remember long back once Gandhi had expressed very nicely — one can wake up a sleeping guy but you can not do much with a guy who is awake but closes his eyes and pretends to sleep.
In reply to soumyasrajan
You’re being unfair. I don’t think it’s asking for much to require proofs of what is obviously a quite serious allegation – namely that the media is being manipulated by a few powerful people.
What would you do? Wouldn’t you ask for the same?
Well as I said in previous post manipulated or conspiracy or allegations are your words, not mine. All I am saying is that many of our dominating media and press organizations and political parties are being managed and controlled feudal manner by family rules. Managing such organizations does include selection and editing of news, opinions etc. There is no conspiracy or manipulation or allegation in this. It is a fact which is visible every day. To see the effects of this all you have to do is
Find out who owns and runs these organizations and what type of opnion or policy these organizations stand for and propagate. Just try it with open mind you will be able to see the reality. It is not a hidden fact that you need proofs etc. Just see/read news daily carefully.
For example just today’s papers have one main headline about advertisements being given as news items and paid by one of the chief ministers. Election commission has set up an inquiry about it, a case is also in court. This is just an example of what can go on.
There are a lot of discussions in news and media “whether paid advertisements can be passed on as news items without telling a reader that these are ads.” These discussions are quite open. Just try to find out about it. These are just very minimal examples to start.
Such news and discussions appear daily in our news and media. You have to make an effort to go through such news items daily and try to understand what they imply to form your opinions. It is not a one or two line job.
Just try. There is no need that your opinions should be the same as mine or that of GyanP. But at least try to see reality in your style, in all directions not just one.
In reply to soumyasrajan
“Find out who owns and runs these organizations and what type of opnion or policy these organizations stand for and propagate.”
I just did this. I couldn’t draw conclusions of the type you’re referring to. Perhaps my research skills are not good enough. But if you have the answers, why not tell me in terms I can understand?
For example you’ve mentioned more than once that the train burning incident in Gujarat didn’t get enough attention by everyone including the media. If you know, tell me why this happened, and who suppressed it…was anyone controlling the media? If so, who?
I assure you no one is reading my blog waiting to catch someone who says something dangerous. If you have information, share it. Give me names of political parties, names of leaders, and how it’s demonstrable that the media is not doing a fair job! And if you’re right, you can be assured that I’ll spread the word to as many people as possible and work hard to see that it gets maximum exposure.
About advertisements as news, that’s a very important topic. But I also see that an inquiry is being set up and in fact, there are even laws on the anvil meant to stop this. The current government has introduced many great pieces of legislation and I have no doubt that this will be take care of by the courts.
In reply to bhagwad
Hi! Bhagawd
This is not some game which you win by words. As GyanP lso wrote to you idea is more to try to see truth. Way you write comments it looks like you just want to play a game of twisting selectively sentences, words etc. and be satisfied with it.
You have to learn to see reality your self up to some level instead of playing such games. Only after than one can understand or analyze things together. Nobody can help you to move towards truth if you do not want to see even primary facts your self
In reply to soumyasrajan
But Soumya, asking for proof is not playing games! What you say is obviously not so clear as you think it is since not everyone agrees with you.
You can’t say “It’s so obvious” when it’s not obvious to most people. I’m not dismissing your ideas out of hand. I’d like to know what you know – so tell me!
In reply to bhagwad
Hi! bhagwad
Let me give you here two examples from your articles and comments you wrote to make again the point I and Gyanp were trying to help you understand but you are either unable to see or are not ready to see it.
1. in comment number 20 you wrote “But what is “peacefully?” India’s history has been as full of violence as many other countries. There were many barbaric practices that were prevalent.”
then in comment 24 you accepted that it is not true “About our county’s past – it’s quite possible that “Religious” violence per se was not a huge factor.”
2. In your comment 20 you quoted my sentence “What you are saying amounts to essentially sort of a lynching rule — “Look I decided that Modi was responsible for Godhra riots so he is responsible.”
then asked
“But where did I say that?”
When I quoted in comment 23 your sentence
“We must never forget that the government is for the people. The government is the servant of the people and not its master. How can a state serve its people by killing them? Those who excuse Modi’s involvement in the Godhra riots by pointing to the “development” of Gujarat are committing the terrible blunder of forgetting history and ignoring the purpose of government.”
and wrote
“I do not know what you felt but to me this is essentially lynching not just Modi but our whole government machinery and law and order system. ”
You accepted it in comment 24 by saying
“If you take my sentence about Modi, development etc, it indeed seems like I’m unfairly targeting Modi.”
but tried to explain that why you had to do it.
Are these examples not enough for you to at least consider that when you write so quickly you tend to make mistakes (you almost accept it also).
There is nothing wrong in making a mistake in one’s thinking, if you are not ready to make initial mistakes in thinking you may not be able to go much further.
But it is a different matter when after some understanding you want to express. One has to make some commitments –
It does not matter whether you do science, arts, engineering, marketing, politics or even write a free blog one has to see that
a. I will try my best to express nothing but truth. My goal is to find out the truth and understand it further. Even teaching, research or writing a blog is not just for others, it also helps much more oneself to learn and understand his/her own ideas and those of others better. This requires an infinite commitment to “nothing but truth”
Even when you feel you are 100% right one should assess and reassess 100 times “oh! what I am expressing has no mistake.”
b. One has to be 100% sure that what ever you are doing is not going to hurt others physically, reputation wise or in any other way.
(now look at what you were doing — in this light? Here you almost say you had some excuse to lynch not just a person our whole government machinery and accuse it of being a killer- you say you did not mean it but surely you must have felt how it may be taken? Is it enough to express regret later by such sentences or give an excuse for causing hurt to some one?)
Of course there are millions, may be even billions, who do not follow such principles. But choice is with you, whether you want to be one of them or a good blogger, engineer doctor or what ever or just play games, more than any thing else it is of being a good human-being (that does not require one to have religion or atheism- it is one’s own basic instinct. A good person does not need any body else for himself/herself to be taught these principles.
Once you see things in this light I am sure you yourself will try to assess why you made such errors. You will find many other similar errors in your blogs and above comments itself.
Perhaps you may want to even assess what were the causes which led to such errors (you already did a little bit of that in above comments). It is difficult to guess a person to guess thinking of another person. But from general observations one can infer that such mistakes one makes when one is blinded by one fact or one goal and blinds oneself to see reality coming from other directions.
Now look at public figures from politics, media and press.
1. Just try to see that in a free blog where you have all the freedom and no money involved you can err so easily and with a motivation to prove some thing go to the extent of hurting reputation of the whole government machinery by almost declaring that it may be a killer, what happens to those whose profession is to pass through such events in hourly basis. If they do not follow the above principles they can be much more blind aqnd become quite helpless. They can not easily accept mistake as you can do in a free blog. They can loose their job, their reputation. Once they make one such mistake, it may start a never ending cycle.
It has happened in India to even top editors. Some years back one chief editor of the top news paper or magazine lost his job because it turned out that he allowed a false news item to be published motivated by similar blindness of going in only one direction and ready to nail or lynch some body who had different ideas then his own. He expressed regret later. But questions raised then were also is a regret enough for such motivations?
If you do not know about it just try to find out more details about it. It should not be difficult to find on internet this incident even though it was a few years back. Don’t try to find it as evidence but try it more as a learning process.
When systems are managed in a feudal manner by some people or family, one obviously needs full loyalty from people in the organization. The choice of getting managers is then limited. The same person was appointed again as a top person after a few months.
2. Let me explain to you since you are not ready to understand yourself, why I have said in my comments that you seem to be not interested in truth that much but in just playing some games.
You asked several times evidence, I wrote to you just look at news paper of any day to learn and as an example I gave you from yesterday’s news papers. The news items say that
a. Chief minister of one of the largest states accepted that he has paid for news items to appear in news and media ( he says he paid for an ad to appear as a news item – but does it not amount to the same) .
b. Top representatives of editor’s guild want government machinery (election commission) to control some basic questions of ethics about news item since they can not control it. Editor’s guild is one of the bodies which is supposed to keep control on ethics and discipline of news organizations but here it wants government to get into controlling it?
Don’t you feel that these are serious enough items. In most countries itwill create a furor. In India also it appeared as headlines. You live in USA, if you unable to see seriousness of such events ask some people there. If you do not want to see that these are serious enough incidents to at least start exploring how our media, press and politics are being managed then nothing can be serious enough. Again this exploration has to be not for searching for scandals, conspiracies or allegations, it has to be a self learning process to understand what is happening in our country.
Such self learning is need first if you want to lead others or write good blogs or follow two principles I mentioned above. Choice is yours whether you want to do this or just play games. I need not say going to second choice is much easier.
In reply to soumyasrajan
Thanks for your careful reply Soumya. You rightly said that I can make mistakes in a personal blog and I accept them when it's pointed out. And of course, blogs are different from newspapers in that they're essentially personal opinions. Unlike a newspaper, I have to be less careful about being impartial.
You've also accurately summed up the problems newspapers face. You're quite right and I agree with everything you say. No contradiction.
My question was: is one single party (say the Congress) controlling more of the media than another? (say the BJP?)
To be more specific – Is the press suppressing one type of violence violence and enlarging other types of violence? This was the question that started this entire "media" discussion. I'd like us to focus on this specific question and proofs of it.
In reply to soumyasrajan
In comment 20 he stated that there was violence
In comment 24 he stated that maybe the violence simply wasn’t based on religion
Where is the contradiction?
He had to ‘unfairly target modi’ in order to properly respond in the context of what someone else said.
An editor’s guild cannot control individual editors if they don’t give a damn, and if their newspapers and backers don’t give a damn. It’s not unreasonable for government to get involved in the circumstance that they don’t give a damn and are publishing lies or…you know, whatever. It would help if you mentioned the specific issue?
You know, a lot of the time people hire people they know and know are capable of doing the job, even if they’ve made mistakes, because they are afraid that someone new might not work out. To use a more personally relevant example, many National Basketball Association teams will fire coaches (usually meaning they didn’t think they were doing a good job), then re-hire them years later. Why? Well, because they are a known quality and familiar. Someone new could be anything, and you have no idea what it is. Do you think that NBA teams are some feudal conspiracy, designed to control the NBA as a whole to convey some political message? Possibly, but it seems more likely that they just want to win games, and don’t want to make costly mistakes.
If the ‘article as advertisement’ phenomenon is part of a conspiracy, why are the newspapers getting paid for it? If they’re so motivated to further one belief system and hurt the others, wouldn’t they do it for free? If the newspapers want money, then more than likely they’d do it for anyone, if they paid enough.
Bhagwad, Soumya has given you enough reason for lots of – yes, not a little – a lots and lots of introspection. I cannot go on and on, when it is obvious that nothing meaningful is coming out of it.
Hi, Soumya, Thanks for your kind words. Do you have a blog or a website? I can contact you that way.
I may contact you through hub pages, though so far I do not have hub pages.