This is so funny that we almost fell out of our chair. (via Asia Pundit)
As it prepares to send its first astronaut to space next October, Muslim heavyweight Malaysia is seeking answers to important questions on determining prayer times and the qiblah (direction Muslims take during prayers).
Ha Ha HA!
Now an interesting question, since all religions(correct us if we are wrong) accept that Dear God lives somewhere in the outer space, does that not mean that when we are travelling in the outer space we are actually closer to HIM. Pray(pun intended), then why do we have to bother about the Earth?
Meanwhile in India the nonsense continues
The always readable Vir Sanghvi writes about the Argumentative Indian.
Such idiots!
We say ban all religions, but wait, so much fun would be missed if not for religion.
Progressive demands like opposing privatization of higher education? Heh! Maybe, if they read this guy, they would change their minds and realize how much of a swindle Nehruvian Socialism really is!
mmm, On second thoughts, they wont. Too much self interest masquerading as progressive ideas.
Filed under: Links
LOL!!
May be they should pray continuously a few days in advance to make up for lost time when ….up thr!!
I am going to participate in the conf with this brilliant idea
Cant resist writing about this: In Bangalore the apartment next to ours was bought by a muslim family. They found one thing a problem. The commode was facing east, or rather if one sat on it one would be facing east. Mecca, being to our east…., ahem , you know, you are not supposed to…..well, they asked the builder to turn it round to face north. But that would involve a major blumbing job and he did not agree. So they got it turned by a small angle,about 20deg. I do wish they had looked at the map once before they went into all this trouble. Because, now they would sitting facing Mecca absolutely directly! What should one do in space? Make sure to use the toilet when on the other side of the earth?:))
Amartya Sen, who wrote ‘Argumentative Indian’ would strongly disagree with Mahajan and Sanghvi. Sen writes that Indians have a lovely history of tolerance. We love to argue, yes. But it means that Indians are ready to listen to arguments against their beliefs and opinions, have always been ready to take in new ideas into their culture. Sen laments about the new trend of intolerance brought in by the Safron brigade which is infact foreign to us.
@Chandni,
Heh! Actually that is not a bad idea.
@Anu,
Haha! The joys of living in an apartment. And I had thought only people who believe in Vaastiu are idiots.
Much as I hate to disagree with Sen and I acknowledge the Atlantic size gap between our intellectual capabilities, I think Sen does get a tad simplimistic at time. To blame the Saffron gang only for the rise of intolerance is like blaming only Gandhi for rise of religion in Indian politics-Khilafat movement. It ignores our ''rich'' history of religious strife.
How the hell do you manage to dig up these articles dude?? I don’t have any luck finding articles that are this good a laugh!
I thinkthe scripts ain bollywood don’t improve because of these jackasses! I mean, Aamir was expected to apologise to the DM for Rang De Bansanti….which he did’nt of course but anyway..madnes I say!
@Confused: A good chunk of human life owes more to habits than thoughts… And some habits are hard to change immediately… I guess, I will leave it that…
@Anu: As much as I enjoyed Sen’s ‘Argumentative Indian’ and even accepted his six arguments in defence of Secularism, I have to agree with Confuse… Though, he calls it simplistic, I tend to call it political correctness… Especially his chapters on Indian History
Sen as a writer has a huge western following and most probably doesn’t want to hurt their feelings… But the truth is Western Explorers, Missionaries and Politicians played a huge role in the creation of post-colonial Indian Culture… (His chapter on ‘Indian Traditions and Western Imagination’ was too soft)…
For example, take the British… They entered India as Traders and Missionaries (T & M) and later turned colonialist…
As T & M, they attacked Hindu Religion with the hope of converting the blue-collar workers (majority in any nation) into Christians ( But Language and Polytheism became speed bump here)… Some Indian Intellectuals from upper-class saw this and were able to do quick reforms to convince these people not to convert…
Then as Colonialists, they attacked their own Missionaries and favored orthodox hindus and gave them white-collar jobs & education… Why? Simple… Create hatred between blue and white (And if you buy into my “human life owes more to habits than thoughts” argument, a good chunk of Orthodox hindus those days had a very time hard time accepting changes to caste rules)…
India’s population being a national problem is well known… Again, British have to take a little credit for this…Why? Because they came and executed a failed British experiment (aka Queen Victoria’s Culture) in India…
In England, Queen Victoria’s reign from 1837 to 1850 is best known for these three things:
(1) Inverted Woman Concept (Get Queen Victoria to keep saying “Women should stay home and raise kids, dress conservatively or men might get distracted)
(2) Prudence
(3) An Increase in Population and Poverty… (the main reason for British Colonialism)
After 1850, the British slowly turned Liberal (Liberals taking over from Tories), but still promoted Conservative ideas in countries like India (often misinterpreting and banning ancient Indian literature…
The main reason for India’s huge population has to do with going and telling the poor “Woman should stay at home” because the poor will keep producing and reproducing looking for the “Golden Male Child” to be the bread-winner… (And the people promoting this scheme usually come from Middle and Upper Class)
As far as, Safron brigade goes… They have existed in India for several decades under different names (appearing and disappearing)… But the new trend came after the constitutional changes made in the late 70s ( after someone had a little confusion between Personal & National Emergency)… By giving States more power, the doors opened for a whole bunch of unholy alliances during the 80s ( the formation of the family (One member treats Hindu as a race, another as a religion and the third one as History) which now operates as a dysfunctional family blaming each other for the collapse)… And this generation is paying the price for that…
mmmm
You know..I wrote a long comment out here..But deleted it as I realise tht my studies on tollerance, religions, invasions are way too deep n will sound awfully philo here!!!
Never the less, why are we comparing now. Did we compare when the Danish cartoons were published or when the guy who converted into Christanity was going ot be executed or when mass conversions happen in India? Everyone has a right to not tollerate and if the medium is through religious movies , so be it!
@Reflextion,
hehe. Too much time, too less work?
Yo, inane as I find most of Aamir’s comments, he owes no one an apology.
@babez
mmmm
@Mohan,
Largely agree.
Two points-
1. The rise of Hindu Right can be linked to the Shahbano case, remember even in 1984 BJP had just two seats.
2. I believe we do need to give states more, not all consequences are good but it will make India a more cohesive state.
@Scribblez,
Of course, we complained. This blog has always stood for freedom of speech-for whatever little this voice is worth.
Whether is Danish cartoons or execution in Afganistan. I can only speak for myself here.
@Confused: As much as Shahbano case did play a role, but I think there were a lot of other things that contributed towards the emergence of Hindu Right In India… And I will add a few here:
(1) Televising of the Ramayana and the Mahabaratha on National Television…
(2) Dr.Frawely’s book “God, Sages & Kings” and TOI opting to print excerpts from the book… Something that contributed to “Gandhi Bashing” becoming a national past time and most probably why another American wrote this book:
http://www.markshep.com/nonviolence/Myths.html
(3) Farmers affected by Globalization during the early 90s
(4) 1995 Ganapathy Baba Milk Miracle
Going by freedom of expression and standing for it- Is DaVinci code just not freedom of expression n we know for sure about the cartoons tht was a freedom of expression and we know the paintings of Hussain being freedom of expression. So why the cry?? Let everyone express and let some have a laugh and some burn their A@#$% over it as I remember that “freedom of expresssion” is what almost everyone at the previous discussions wanted!
confused, Mohan, A few words in defence of Sen. I brought him into this, because Confused had used the title of Sen’s book to link to an article which concluded the exact opposite of what Sen meant by an ‘Argumentitive Indian’, which I found ironical. Sen does not attribute the increasing intolerance in India only to the Saffron brigade, though he does express his disgust at their festering communal disharmony. I mentioned only them because the article by Vir Sanghvi talked about Mahajan….and afterall the issue being discussed here was not who caused religious intolerance.
I dont know about Sen being soft on westerners, but I do rememeber him discussing at length about how the so called western principles of freedom and democracy and tolerance were present in India centuries ago. Ofcourse you are right in saying the British played a major role in shaping our culture in later years.
I find your analysis of the T and M a little different from my understanding (I am no expert on the subject, but I just refer to what I have read) When the first wave of traders came to India, many of them were only too happy to be indianised – intermarrying, adapting indian ways,etc(‘White Mughals’-by Dalrymple). When the missionaries started coming, they were infact looked at as threats to their ‘Indian way of life’ by these traders and so, were ridiculed, and attacked and the Indians were taught to do the same. When the need to completely control India arose, (after the Sepoy Mutiny?) all those leaving England to serve in India were required to study the book on India by John Stuart Mill who had never visited India but did not hesitate to write in detail about how backward, ignorant and uncultured Indians were. After that there was no question of intermingling, they were the rulers , we wre the subjects, and these colonialists were perhaps quite happy to work along with the fresh wave of missionaries who arrived. Ofcourse after that they used every nasty trick in the trade to subjugate, divide, and plunder India.
@Anu: I’m on the same boat as far as knowledge on History goes… Apart from one semester of Indian History at post-secondary level (that too from an Institution in Canada), the rest is from reading books for just time pass…
But History itself is very speculative subject… And the British version of their role in India and the Indian version on same topic would most probably differ…
Now there a certain things in the British Version, I have a hard time believing (Esp. their account of events prior to Mutiny):
(1) Traders and Explorers rarely brought female companions along with them… And Missionaries most probably brought nuns with them… For sure there would have been intermarriage, but most of it being between White men and Indian Women… After the Mutiny, there acted more like settlers, bringing in their entire family… So I’m curious to know the actual numbers on Indian Men marrying White women… I mean, this was a period of history, preserving race and caste was high… Even Sarojini Naidu had a hard time in India (based on her own letters) during her times…
(2) After, Charles Lyell published his first volume on Principles of Geology in 1830… The Religious (Based on Old Testament) influence on British Politics started declining… And with Darwin’s The Origin of Species being released in 1859 (eventhough excerpts began appearing as early as 1848) the Victorian Culture declined (i.e. casting doubts on ‘The Original Sin’ concept)… So the new wave of conservatives (including missionaries) in Britain had to find new ways to promote Man>Woman equation, so they started meddling with Indian Literature… I remember reading a British Translation of “The Hitopadesa” done during the 1870s which had story called “The Woman With Two Lovers” starting off like this: In Dvaravati there lived a cowherd whose wife was a whore. (And I don’t want to even mention the next line)…
(3) I have a lot of respect for Sen the Economist and even Sen the Intellectual… But when it comes to History, I’m far more comfortable with a Historian’s version of Indian History… And I would have the same attitude if a Historian wrote a book about Indian Economics or if an American Journalist who specializes in Middle East Politics wrote a book on Globalization (i.e. The World Is Flat by Friedman)…
People are always going to be stupid when it comes to religion. Good collection of articles
…
Cheers,
Swapna
Dear Confused:
We had posted on similar stuff earlier.
We would be careful about Mr. Sanghvi for he is a fence sitter who conveniently ignores facts if it does’nt suit him. He does’nt mention that movies such as “The Last Temptation of the Christ” got bombed in some European countries. The Church while opposing Da Vinci Code nonetheless cheerleaded “The Passion of the Christ” which was found to be offensive by some Jewish people.
btw, nice blog you have there. Let me take some time to go through your posts.
best,
CN.
Mohan, Definitely there is a difference between the British version of events and the Indian version. I have been reading Nial Ferguson’s “Empire’. I quite enjoyed it till I reached a page which made me so angry for its attitude that I have not been able to continue. I will, eventually, out of curiosity, but….
Having said that, (and assuming that he has his facts right even if his attitude is not), according to this book, there were hardly any marriages between Indian men and white women.
@Mohan,
While I agree with points 1, 2 I am not sure about points 3, 4. First I dont agree with this bit about globalization affected farmers…How?. Second, the milking drinking episode was taken with a lot of pinch of sat by a lot of people….
@Scribbles,
Of course, it is . That is why we support that the movie should be shown.
@Anu,
Yes, you are right, our linking to Sanghvi’s post was ironical because we don’t agree with a lot of arguments Sen has made in Argumentative Indian.
First, he has used history selectively. He quotes Ashoka as model of religious tolerance but forgets to point out the strife which existed during those times. His ideas about the Mughal empire are also a little simplimistic, he sees Akbar as a beingn ruler while Aurangzeb was all bad, though it must be pointed out that during Auranzeb’s rule, the Mughal empire reached its zenith. Third, he ignored to a large degree the modern British influence on India and how it has shaped it our ideas including secularism.
No one can diagree with central tenet of his book that without democracy and secularism, modern Indian state cannot survive. However, I am not sure he proves the case about such traditions in India have existed since along time and only Hindu Right is to be blamed. That wont explain partition, will it? For all its muscle flexing, RSS was aweak organization during those times, and so where Hindu Mahasabha and others such.
The basic idea behind partition was that Muslims could not live in a majority Hindu India because a loss of political power was inevitable.
@Swapna,
Thanks, Adn welcome.
@Cynical-Nerd.
Thanks for the link. I know, what is being touted as moderation is so lame that it is about 50 years behind the rest of the world or make it 100.
About Mr. Sanghvi, its not that we agree with everything he says, but at least he seems to make and point and does paint a larger picture.
Please do keep visting, we do check your blog regularly and after the demise of secular-right, you along with Nitin and Atanu make the most sense to us.
hmm…..really gud collection of articles!
@Confused: One of the reasons as to why India got involved in Globalization was to break the habit of borrowing from IMF… So if we were going to any ‘Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul?’ stuff, it was going to be done locally… For us to succeed in the Initial phase Globalization (whole Papa Bush’s New World Order) we had to attract a lot of investors… But there were far too many events in India between 1992 – 1996 (riots, explosions, earthquakes, etc) which sort of discouraged potential investors…
Farmers in India were told during the initial phase of Globalization, they were going to produce crops for exporting…
With Globalization, you can’t really regulate prices on seeds and chemicals… As soon as global corporations like Monsanto and Cargil made their way into India, they started setting prices based on Global Market…
With the production cost being high, the farmers weren’t going to be able to sell within the country, so they had to export… But when export wasn’t really going well, thats exactly when BJP announced “Swadeshi” and the farmers got attracted…
Unfortunately, “Swadeshi” cannot just be suggested, it has to be executed (force it on people, a total ban on imports)… But if you execute it, then you have kiss Globalization good bye… So BJP re-started the Globalization process…
I once used spend time at this time:
http://commerce.nic.in/eidb/default.asp
Trying to figure out what we were importing and exporting (even knew a few product codes by heart), but now I sort of lost interest…
And with BJP promising this:
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Village, Poor and Farmer
75 percent of India’s population lives in villages. Agriculture is the mainstay of our economic development. In spite of that the Indian farmer is leading a life of want and misery. Thousands of farmers have committed suicide. The situation is so alarming that over 500 farmers from a village in Vidharba, Maharashtra, plagued by bad debts wrote to the Honourable President of India seeking permission to end their lives. 40 percent of farmers want to quit agriculture and engage themselves in other professions. UPA government policies are completely anti-farmer. In recently concluded WTO meet at Hong Kong, UPA government buckled under the pressure of developed countries and sacrificed the interests of Indian farmers. This government apparently lacks the will power to protect the interests of farmers.
.
.
.
I wish to call upon the activists:
Pahuncho Khet aur Khalihanon tak
Gaon, Gareeb aur Kissanon tak
Source:
http://www.bjp.org/Press/jan_2006/jan_2006_p.htm
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Wait! In 2004 it was UPA Campaign and in 2009 it will NDA Campaign…
Instead of giving loans to small scale farmers and false hope, just tell them small scale farming is out under globalization… Please stop with this whole loan buisness or just give them enough money to buy a bottle of poison…
About 1995 Ganapathy Baba Milk Miracle
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The educated folks can sit and argue about Science vs Religion… But the poor need something to believe in (a hope to escape from poverty) and if God doesn’t deliver they turn skeptic…
I mean, 11 years later this might not seem much, but as it was happening back then, I still remember the reaction…
http://theory.tifr.res.in/bombay/leisure/trivia/ganapati-milk.html