Understanding the Godmen syndrome

It is true that Hinduism has survived centuries of invasions to throw enough evidence of its strength however, PK has indeed highlighted one of the rare weaknesses of Hinduism for which Hindus very easily fall for Godmen. While in other religions, the final word is awaited only from their well identified and organized places of worships, Hindus are quite unorganized in this regard. In all other religions only the pre-identified religious heads are in a position to use or misuse their status, but in Hinduism anyone can occupy the place of religious authority. This unorganized character of Hinduism allows its followers to look, on their own, for the one who can directly address to their problems/doubts. Godmen look to fill up this void existing in this peculiar religious set up of Hinduism. As a natural consequence to this, many genuine thinkers and several ace social reformists of Hinduism have often been historically pushed to the place of Godmen/God while on the other hand some cunningly exploit this weakness of the Hinduism to fool their gullible followers. The scope of having acceptability of a Godman has helped Hinduism to carry out several great reforms successfully. Therefore while asking the followers to test the genuineness of their respective Godmen must be encouraged but forcing them against having Godmen altogether will make this great Hinduism also as narrow and as rigid as other monolithic beliefs like Islam, Christian and Communism.

In addition to above, it seems to me that this 'weakness' of Hinduism is directly linked with a typical Hindu outlook wherein they can see God literally in everything – sun, moon, earth, mountain, animals, trees, stones and idols. Hindus can worship anything and therefore anyone who is able to win their heart easily become yet another object of their faith and worship. It is exactly this attitude of Hindus that make them bow even before the tokens and emblems of other faiths and religions - with highest respect and that too as almost in a reflexive manner. Developing respect for other religions comes almost natural to Hindus. It is no nonsense that while even neighbouring countries with identical background as ours chose to become non-secular state in their complete senses, Hindustan preferred 'secularism' by heart. This idol-worshipping attitude that makes Hindus prone to falling prey to even those Godmen who try to take undue advantage of their honest beliefs – also help them in becoming 'true seculars'. While there is indeed a need to caution gullible Hindus to test a person completely before accepting him/her as a Godman, it is even more important to ensure that idol-worshipping is neither underestimated and nor ridiculed ever as it helps in producing truly 'secular' persons in abundance to keep the secular character intact of this country.

PK - pure entertainment or hidden intentions?

Both OMG and PK deals with the same subject and both of them intend to convey similar messages but their treatments are entirely different. OMG was a constructive criticism but PK is out and out a destructive and derogatory in nature. In OMG, the storyteller very intelligently pits God Himself against the Godmen and God wins convincingly – fair enough. While OMG forcefully placed the point of view of non-believers, with that it also encouraged believers to go for introspection.

I just saw a panel discussion on IBN7 where everyone argued that Hinduism is so great, so tolerant, it has such a rich history of reforms and unmatched treasure of philosophy that extends much beyond any set of narrow rituals that those who are asking for a ban on the film actually do not understand Hinduism. What hurts hard is actually this – that the opposition for the film is being sought on a ground that film ‘intentionally’ refrains from conveying about Hinduism. Hinduism is equated with idol-worshiping and following Godmen only. While following mindlessly a book and its interpreters may be others’ approach but certainly not of Hindus. Very cleverly, on this ground Hinduism is ridiculed excessively as compared to other religions. The rich Vedic philosophy of life that extends beyond idols and the attention that even ‘atheism’ has received in our ancient culture of Hinduism has been completely ignored ‘intentionally’. The film puts monolithic ‘religions’ and our plural ‘culture’ on the same line – and that is what hurts those who believe in plurality. The stupidity in the treatment would become obvious when someone would ask us to avoid meeting a doctor just because a few of the doctors are caught in criminal acts. Will it be acceptable to ask people to do research themselves and invent medicines instead of going to a doctor and giving him a chance to victimize you?

There is nothing wrong till the film is taken purely for its entertainment value but when the support is given for the message that the film intends to spread then Hinduism would certainly find itself at a great disadvantage in this film. That the average film-goers in India is not as aware of our rich cultural heritage as those who are against it – thanks to our ‘secular’ approach – it only works against Hinduism. That a Hindu needs to go to a far off temple to seek solution of his problem is not universally acceptable in Hinduism and was only an advice by a Godmen, but one needs to go to Haj to book a place in heaven - is a religiously accepted norm in Islam. It was also strange to witness an unrealistic open atmosphere in a Pakistan embassy for an Indian girl. To prove a point the film goes on to show even a secular India in a poor light as compared to an out and out Islamic and terrorist state of Pakistan – and this alone raises many questions on the honesty of the filmmakers.

Just as ‘3 Idiots’ worked wonders in disorienting students and encouraged them to take studies non-seriously, this film also has similar targets against Hinduism. I just wish that the success of this film (unlike 3 Idiots) does not get translated in spreading its message against Hinduism and gets confined only against ‘dishonest’ Godmen.

A Last chance for Development

The undeniable success of Modi in putting the issue of development right at the centre of all discussions in this country is lauded even by his adversaries. The country has got after a long time a leader who undoubtedly is able to generate positive energy and hope among the general mass. It goes to his credit entirely that he could generate positivity in majority of Indians who were feeling dejected, demoralized and were facing a bleaker future ahead. Continuous discoveries of cases of corruption, each followed by another bigger one, was breeding unrest among us and an impression that the then government was unable to take measures to arrest this dangerous trend was only blowing our woos and despondency to dangerous proportions.

Recently this newly discovered energy that was able to unite our country across all perceivable internal boundaries and reservations has started showing some real signs of strain. Modi had urged us to put all other issues on the backburner to ensure that India is placed on the right track of development. The opposition like behavior of a few outfits of RSS and BJP needs to show some maturity and restraints after they have acquired a status wherein now they are seen as having a say in the government. Before it reaches a disturbing level Modi needs to arrest the trend at once otherwise his herculean effort may meet a Kejriwali-fate. The failure of Kejriwal in controlling his own urge to behave as opposition leader had started the trend of his downfall and a similar display by those 'friendly' outfits that are perceived as favorable to the present government may do the same for Modi this time.

History and time is however is on the side of Modi. Just the way he had handled these elements in his own state he needs to repeat his performance at the centre and show that he can control this undesirable trend of some of his 'sympathizer' outfits without them feeling insinuated. If true secularism means an attitude where "India comes first" then true nationalists must give up all of their other concerns to pave a way for the real and possibly the last chance to put this country on the development track.

Brahminic way of Left-thinkers

Secularism as a tool for conflict resolution

Hinduism is known to have successfully able to resolve many of its ancient conflicts amicably by reciprocating favourably to several social-reforming movements. However, conflict of Hinduism with some of the recent singular beliefs and religions like Islam and Christian that came from outside this country are showing no signs of getting resolved. This is understandable as these religions have been inherently opposed to the idea of coexistence of multi-faith and have invariably fallen way short of responding adequately to the one sided willingness of Hindus to show respect towards their beliefs. To tackle this deadlock a new 'belief' emerged in the name of 'secularism' and started gaining ground. The idea of 'secularism' that primarily got spread within Hindus has failed miserably by now to deliver any satisfactory result in this regard. The failure of 'Indian secularism' thus far can be explained with the realization that its approach is biased heavily against Hinduism and asks Hindus to offer a solution by shrugging off their belief in 'multi-faith'. More than three-quarters of a century has been spent on this effort that has resulted in building an army of Left-leaning thinkers who primary focused their attention to somehow force the society to compromise on its Hindu-identity in order to make way for a one-sided solution.

Emergence of left-thinkers as new Brahmins

The leftists' prescription for the still unresolved conflict of Hinduism with the recent singular-beliefs has been to convert the multi-faith 'Hindu' culture into a community having 'no-faith' outlook. They are well aware of the fact that there is hardly any scope of spreading 'atheism' in the hard-liner singular beliefs but at the same time they were hopeful of a positive result among the overwhelmingly large section of Hindus who are known to have a non-rigid attitude towards their faith. At this point the left-thinkers miscalculated the hidden strength behind the apparently vulnerable look of Hindus. The left-thinkers had obviously erred in their expectation that 'atheism' would counter 'Hinduism', which would in turn create a stage for promotion of 'communism' - as this strategy has failed to deliver the desired results for them. The primary reason for the failure was that 'atheism' and 'communism' are actually akin to narrow singular-beliefs and therefore could not attract the large-hearted Hindus who could never compromise on their unwavering faith in the 'multi-religion' Hindu-approach. To get the Hindus rid of their 'multi-faith' belief the left thinkers tried to counter the rich haul of ancient Hindu texts by devoting enormous time in painstaking efforts to develop a huge treasure of anti-Hindu reading material. With the financial and logistical state support they engaged themselves in fancy research ideas and developed an intellectual army to attack Hinduism. They pointed out several inadequacies, flaws, shortcomings and fished out presence of some unforgivable derogatory remarks in the ancient Brahminical texts in particular and then (mis)used them to create an anti-Hindu brand of 'intellectuals'. Texts like 'manusmriti' that had lost all relevance in modern India were utilized by this brigade of pseudo-intellectuals to spread anti-Hindu feeling in the name of 'secularism'. In this immaculately executed exercise they erred in identifying Hinduism with Brahminism. They also wrongly considered the lower caste Hindus and Hindu-women to be potentially vulnerable section of Hindu society and thought that they would be able to evoke an anti-Hindu upsurge among them. Unfortunately for them those sections were actually the real strength of Hinduism. Their blunder instead worked as a favourable catalyst for the nationalist forces who had identified this strength of Hinduism and had started putting all its attention on building up a vision to develop Hinduism by spreading the lower caste vision of Hindus.

Remained oblivious to all these essential aspects of Hinduism, Left-thinkers emerged as the new Brahmins of modern India. They overlooked the enormous strength with which the Hindu-mass believed in their 'multi-faith' approach and tried imposing their 'red' agenda by attacking 'Brahminism' to denounce 'Hinduism'. Just like Brahmins the 'Left' with the help of the ruling class thought that with the power of their acquired knowledge, developed this time with the help of their 'imported' and 'self-accumulated' left-literature, they would be able to establish their supremacy. With this they hoped of dislodging Hindu-thinking out of the Hindu-minds. They hoped that this would give them a perfect ground to rule the class and mass of India. The contemporary arrogance of Left-thinkers almost matches with what once Brahmins exhibited after acquiring knowledge. Hindu-mass comprising largely of the lower castes could never identify their Hinduism with Brahminism. While Brahminism probably remained close only to the fringe upper caste section of Hindus the lower castes happily kept following their reflexive multi-faith approach towards life. Hinduism, much to everyone's surprise, has survived not because of the upper castes but has actually survived despite them. Historically, all the pluralism and multi-faithism that Hinduism boasts off are courtesy these large hearted and peace loving, uncelebrated and semi-discarded lower caste Hindus. Even in the past, while upper castes kept fighting over narrow faiths and pseudo-singular beliefs the lower castes kept enforcing peaceful solutions with their natural instinctive belief in the approach of 'multi-faith'. When upper castes were fighting over supremacy of Shiva and Vishnu, establishing the validity of Dwait and Adwait principles, lower caste Hindus provided the solution by worshipping both the idols and respecting both the contradicting theories. When there was a war waged for and against spreading beliefs of Buddhism, Aryasamaj and many other such reformist thoughts they got finally resolved when only this section of Hindus showed the way of respecting each others' beliefs with exemplary ease without a sign of unease or contradiction. Recently the useless furore created by the same class of Hindus over worshipping Sai-Baba in Hindu temples has further exposed them in this regard as Sai-Baba has already been being worshipped in many temples by a reasonable section of the middle, lower and lower-middle class Hindus. It is remarkable to notice that the lower caste Hindus have always remained indifferent to the intellectual debates in which the 'well read' Hindus (read upper castes and especially Brahmins) engaged themselves and instead kept on resolving all issues of conflicts successfully using their inherent pluralistic attitude towards life. The credit for survival of Hinduism can not be attributed to the so called learned, intellectual, knowledgeable and enlightened section of Hindus but only to the lower caste 'experienced' Hindu inhabitants.

Alas, to the utter disappointment of leftists, their mammoth post-colonial efforts are failing to yield the result as envisaged by them.

Unfolding the Hindu-puzzle

Just as it is intriguing to find out who are Hindus it is all the more puzzling to find out the reasons how Hindus survived the onslaught of invasions and conversions for centuries together. To uncover the mystery the more you would read the ancient Hindu-texts chances are that the more you will be left perplexed. Ironically, after reading many of the ancient Hindu-texts one is left wondering at the failure to get a valid and understandable reason for the lower castes Hindu-majority to still identify themselves as Hindus. The manner in which they have been treated in the past and to an unreasonable extent are still being treated by the upper castes Hindus - defies all logic for them to call themselves as Hindus. To me, it is only because our ancient texts are heavily biased with the upper castes' viewpoints whereas the puzzle gets unfolded only when Hinduism is explored from the often overlooked perspective of the lower caste Hindus.

Horror Serial continues

(Published in the Millennium Post in the December 11 issue that can be visited using the following link http://www.millenniumpost.in/NewsContent.aspx?NID=88295 )

Yet another gruesome incident and yet another exposure of bundle of serious lapses by some government and a private agency but followed again by yet another series of avoidable attempts to score intellectual (read political) brownie points on this shameless incident. The media must avoid their temptation of (mis)using these horrifying incidents to settle scores with the “parental” mindset who starts advising the victim and also stay away from encouraging the overtly “unrealistic and confused” freedom activists who resort to defying even genuine concerns and expect the system to take care of the entire responsibility.

This incident does have a similarity with the last December's event in the sense that the victim in this case too had taken enough precautions normally expected from an aware working girl. The lapse in this case was clearly committed by the taxi service who had not observed the prescribed checks and the police who gave the serial offender a “character certificate” that eventually helped him in getting this job. While in the earlier incident the girl was with her male friend looking for a public transport, this time the victim had chosen a 'reputed' taxi service to get back her home. In both the cases the culprits were nabbed promptly by the police thanks to the media hype on the incident. It is also a fact that all the culprits of the last incident (except the one who took shelter under a serious flaw in our law) have been convicted by now.

Besides the ritual bashing of the government and the police after such incidents what goes missing generally is proposing innovative ideas, suggesting proper planning and enforcing their timely execution. Instead of beating drums and shouting slogans asking why the incident happened, it would serve our purpose in much better way if we suggest an effective strategy and ask these (ir)responsible agencies that why have they not been implementing these proposals in a time bound manner. Having more women in the police and creation of a section fully devoted to act on issues related to victimization of women are a few of such steps that should be put in place in a time bound manner. Provision for free mobile applications to raise alarm and alert patrolling are other valid expectations. And of course all these efforts will not have the desired effect if the rate of conviction does not improve and are not delivered fast. With all these in place, we can expect that similar crimes by 'unknown' criminals would be effectively controlled. Similar crimes however, by males who are 'known' to the victims can be tackled primarily through social activism and of course by educating everyone of us on 'moral values' for respecting a NO at any cost.

Indian Education - a fresh approach

The present education system – an assessment

The present Indian education is designed to produce persons with

• Good mathematical skills.
• Good instruction-following capacities.
• Average analytical skills.
• Not so inspiring writing abilities.
• Poor reading habits.
• Hopeless self learning attitudes.
• Poor citizen habits.
• Missing national pride.
• Individualistic outlook.
• Missing concern for the society.
• Flawed attitude towards opposite sex.
• No idea of the law of land.
• No idea of financial discipline.

The system is apparently fighting to survive the pressure of dealing with unmanageable number of candidates right from the beginning. Our education system has become an instrument primarily to provide some mechanical way to shortlist candidates. To select candidates for any avenue, students are therefore judged more on their reproducing abilities and less on their understanding capabilities. Interest in a discipline and passion towards a skill are often sacrificed and the candidates are expected to discover and even generate these qualities within themselves after they get selected.

This has forced our education system to get built up apparently on a flawed premise that an academician or a researcher is suited best for any kind of profession. With this basic premise our education attempts to produce only academicians. And only during this process students keep on shifting to other avenues at some stage or the other out of frustration from the mainstream education to learn skills that are required to earn a living.

Examination side-effects

The education system has got evolved in such a manner that understanding a problem, innovative thinking and failed attempts go hopelessly unevaluated and hence get discouraged in the present system. On the other hand, mere having Information about solutions or an attitude for mindlessly following a beaten path and only successful attempts most often get rewarded in the present system.

That one will be able to get a profession of one's own interest depends completely on the reproducing ability of a person. And the system thus encourages students to fool others through rote-learning. Only rote learners are sure of getting 'success' in this system. In our society, 'Success' is a name given to the event of getting into your choice of profession. Ironically in our country it is another bitter truth that the 'choice' is always guided by the expected financial returns from the profession and not driven by any passion for that profession.

Our education system fails to realize that if someone has understood a topic/concept then that never means that the same person will also be able to reproduce the same. To be able to reproduce the same one needs to waste valuable time in revisiting the same again and again. Unfortunately even those who have not understood can reproduce the same through rote learning. Too much importance on examination-results forces even innovative thinkers and visionaries to waste their time in preparing them for useless reproduction.

Misplaced sense of achievement

Another serious fall out of the present system is that a degree is invariably mistaken as an ultimate achievement and a final license to get (not earn) money. To get into a system that would fetch them a 'financially relevant and socially respectable' job, students often get exhausted while handling the cut-throat competitions and consider their job as already over once they get placed in a desired environment. They then expect the government to start paying him/her for this 'false' sense of achievement.

Our society has an enviable (unreasonably skewed) liking for only a few types of professions. These professions come with a deadly combination of high returns with astonishingly lesser challenges. Beginning from the colonial era these jobs have continued to evolve as offering more and more of these attractive features. People find those select jobs so glamorous and paying that the entire society runs after only those selected few professions. We acquire degrees and percentages only to get hold of one of these jobs. However the anti-climax is that we consider acquiring degrees as the end of the purpose to get education and a government officer's job ('corruption' renders the returns entirely de-linked from any pressure to perform) epitomizes the sense of getting rewarded in return of education.

The main problem of our education system is therefore that our society considers only a handful of the 'jobs' as 'financially relevant and socially respectable' options. This is exactly the reason that our society looks up to getting a job only as a doctor, engineer, manager, officer, administrator, academicians. There is an urgent need to expand this base. Jobs associated with several other kinds of skills should also be made financially relevant and hence socially respectable. In our society the difference between the social status of a pathological technicians, a nurse and a doctor is unreasonably enormous; difference between a construction worker, a labor contractor, a junior engineer and an engineer is unreasonably huge; difference between a car mechanic, a technician and an automobile engineer is too large to be justified; difference between an electrician and an electrical engineer is completely unjustified; difference between a University professor and a school teacher is not understandable; difference between the status of a plumber and a civil engineer is outrageously huge; difference between a hotel waiter and a hotel manager is inexplicably large. This brazen attitude stems from our age-old disrespect towards dignity of work. It is true that this change is not easy to affect but the absence of effort in this direction has already magnified the problem to an extent that an avoidable 'reservation race' has found its relevance in the system.

The way ahead

Let us try to move inch by inch towards a state wherein financial considerations will take a back seat in favor of an inherent interest in a profession. When a student can take up a profession out of his own personal interest in the same and not because the skill can provide an unreasonably better financial status and a respectable lifestyle – then only we will be somewhere near to our destination.

As long as these differences would stay in our society the mad rush to get into those few professions would continue. And as long as the rush would continue the method of examination to shortlist the unmanageably long list of candidates in a blind and mechanical manner will find no alternative. And as long as this examination system will exist no innovation can be nurtured or encouraged in this process.

Education should aim at producing persons with

• Good reading, writing, analyzing and debating abilities.
• Necessary sensibilities.
• Some job fetching skills/attitudes.
• Attitude of a self-learner.
• Concern towards society.
• Knowledge of law of the land.
• Temperament of observing rules.
• Courage to point out deficiency and injustice.
• Having national pride.
• Vision of an innovator.

Conclusion

Education means development and it must be provided to all without exception.

Primary education should aim primarily on building values and personality development,

Secondary education should be utilized to help students identify their interest/inclination and

Higher education should be aimed at building those skills.

To achieve this we need to dump two avoidable misconceptions that obstruct our march towards achieving this:

• We must be realistic and never think of de-linking Higher education from jobs/profession.
• And secondly, we also must stop daydreaming that the government will be able to provide Higher education to all without the help of private investment.

The government should focus on framing policies to encourage private players to help in enlarging the set of 'financially relevant and socially respected' professions by modernizing more and more job-providing avenues/skills.

Scope and Hope

The numbers are so large that there is no other way but to depend heavily on internet-based education. Uploading of skill-training demonstrations by real professionals should be encouraged and must be given utmost priority. Computers and automation by machines should be encouraged in those skills that are hitherto not financially paying to make them financially attractive. Use of automatic machines in furniture industries, washing and cleaning industries, repairing industries, construction industries and waste-management industries can do wonders in making them of some financial worth. Use of computerized approach in hair-designing, jewellery designing and fashion designing can make them attractive too. Besides these, imparting the attitude required on the issues of Sexual Harassment, Gender sensitization, Driving rules, Anti-drug laws, developing a balanced understanding on the other sex, issues of national pride, national concerns on population, poverty and environment should also find desired attention in the nursery and primary education curricula.

The misguided Kissers of Love

Please enlighten me on what exactly they want to achieve. What is the aim of those who are supporting the movement of “Kiss of Love”? Supporters of “moral policing” are at least not hypocritical in their approach. One class of the “moral police” in their own way admit that open expression of love often spark urge for sex in them and therefore seek others' help in avoiding such occasions. The other class of supporters of “moral policing” unilaterally assumes the responsibility of their parents and feel equally concerned. But what are the supporters of “kiss of love” looking for?

If the demand is that their open expression should not create any urge for sex in the onlookers then it would imply that they want to “control” the events that should become irrelevant for sparking desire for sex? If that is so, then how is this different from their own definition of “moral policing”. Are they trying to teach morality while projecting that they are actually against it? Isn't that an attempt only to expand the list of 'morally acceptable acts'?

Or do they want only to hurt those who admit that they get sexually aroused when they witness an open act of expression of love? Then this act for me falls under the category that includes 'rape' - where sex is misused to hurt someone – physically, mentally and psychologically.

And lastly if it is to make that class of “moral police” behave 'sensibly' who unilaterally assumes parental concerns upon themselves, wouldn't it be more effective to hit the root of the problem. Would it be misplaced to ask them to “show their expression” before their own parents to make their point. That way they would slap those elements of the “moral police” by making them understand that they must stop having unnecessary concerns for them as their own parents do not feel insecure even after having witnessed the act?

Before you start loading your answers with questions and start hurling towards me let me submit my own understanding on the issue. In my view, both the attitudes are misplaced. While one is a spontaneous reflex action out of rural innocence while the other is planned with motives much beyond what is apparently visible. Disappointedly though, both talks only on an issues that is less relevant in our society and point towards the events that can potentially spark an urge for sex in individuals. It is only stupid to assume that in a country as vast as ours, it could be identical in each one of us as it depends mainly on our individual experiences and the environment around us. But, both the sides want to have a control on that. “Moral police” wants to avoid the fire by asking us to place the matchboxes at designated places whereas the “immoral police” wants to control the fire itself.

Just as a crime even if done in isolation can not be excused by terming it as 'personal' or 'traditional', an act involving two individuals does not remain 'personal' if it is done in full view of public. And then it must be subject of public scrutiny. 'Decency' and 'morality' is neither absolute nor fixed but any claim that it does not exist for someone only confirms that he/she is being blatantly hypocritical.

  

Ironically what India requires is not a control on the urge for sex. Instead what we need to learn is to understand, accept and respect a 'NO' from an unwilling partner. We need to learn that as soon as the partner hints at an objection it is criminal to still think of 'enjoying' your act.

A TRUE ACCOUNT OF OUR KASHMIR VISIT

On July 16, 2014, a day before we were to return from our visit to Srinagar, we went to see Gulmarg on a hired taxi. We were four – I, my wife Maneesha, Dhananjay Gadre and his wife Sangeeta. We enjoyed our rope-way ride to Gandola and then returned to our waiting taxi to get back to Srinagar. We noticed that our driver was visibly upset. On enquiry he shared with us a disturbing news. He told us that on the same Srinagar-Baramulla road that we were to take for Srinagar and only ten kilometers before the Lal Chawk, an army truck had crushed a civilian car near Noora Hospital that very day (certainly after we must have crossed the place while coming to Gulmarg) making the area very volatile and tense. About six of the commuters were suspected to have died in the incident. He further informed us that locals in the nearby area got agitated, staged a massive anti-army protest, attacked the jawans in the truck and later even clashed with police. He feared that as the area could still be tense, we will have to be careful while our way back.

(http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/clashes-srinagar-north-kashmir-accident/)

We obviously got worried. To confirm the news I searched the internet and facebook and I found the news to be true and his apprehensions valid. However, for all this while, I noticed that our driver repeatedly tried to emphasize that the army crane had 'intentionally' crushed the vehicle to kill the passengers in the car. I read several news related to the incident on the internet but did not find any reference having any scope of such misinterpretation. Nowhere, this kind of conduct by driver of the army vehicle was even hinted. I shared this opinion with our driver and tried to correct him that the incident was reported as an accident everywhere. But he refused to believe us. He was convinced and offered several other incidences wherein he claimed to have witnessed the mindless aggression of Indian army showing no humanitarian considerations towards Kashmiris. He said that he has already received calls from many reliable sources confirming his conclusion. Even after our repeated insistence to see reasons he said that the Indian Army is like that and believed in his conviction that Indian army always felt happy in killing Kashmiris. He said, we only pelt stones but they shoot us dead in return.
I probed further to know that do they fear Indian Army more than the Pakistani Army. “Kashmiris fear none” he replied “we are only in favour of freedom”. I modified my question slightly to know that who do they feel closer, India or Pakistan to which he replied admittedly on the religious lines.

While on our way back, the area looked to have calmed down after the protests. We could see pelted stones everywhere on the road, people cautiously peeping out of their houses, but there was enough police presence and thankfully nothing looked out of control. Inside the car too, the air was heavy. Sangeeta asked the driver finally, “You think that the speeding army crane crashed with the car head-on with a clear intent to kill all those who were sitting inside. You are convinced also because according to you the Indian army enjoys killing Kashmiris. But tell me one thing that isn't this also true that these days there are so many tourists visiting Kashmir and even pilgrims are moving in cars. How could they have ensured that in the crash they would be killing only locals in this accident." She went ahead with "Don't you think that it is improper to attach such motives at least in this accident?” He could not reply to this convincingly. His helplessness and inability to offer arguments in support to his conviction was visible. It looked like that the question worked in initiating the desired thinking process in his mind. And if the doubts were still left, they must have now got eased out after witnessing the way army is carrying out the gigantic and massive relief work unstopped for the past several hours on a scale never heard before in India.

Exposure, Sex, Rape and Sex-education - in Indian Context

Let us stop behaving hypocritically

Sorry, I refuse to be a hypocrite. I can not project myself as normal human and yet claim that I am not interested in the opposite sex. I can not ask others not to conclude the obvious even if I am in a live-in relationship. I would never ask anyone to believe in the honesty of my relationship if I prefer spending my nights with another. I can not be hypocritical in claiming that we are 'just' friends only to convey that we are not into any physical relationship but meaning thereby that so what as friends can also have a physical relationship.

I also refuse to stop advising women not to bother about their safety. I would prefer to be called as someone possessing a 'rapist's mentality' for expressing concerns for them and by asking them to take precautions if it can help saving even a single one of them. Those who are in a habit of provoking innocent women to participate in 'slut-walks' and other similar reactionary activities must be satisfying their sex-laced intents to see them walking like sluts but sorry, I will never approve this for the reason that these activities achieve little towards the real cause but serves enough to make many enjoy the show and thereby defeating the very purpose of organizing these 'shows'. I am also a male and so don't even dare to fool me by claiming that 'real men' do not feel sexually aroused at the glimpse of 'appropriately' exposed women. Even if the 'popular' Menaka-Vishwamitra episode is rejected by terming it as 'myth', the world-wide booming prostitution industry, success of 'peep shows' and 'relaxing massages' in attracting tourists to boost tourism in many countries, ever-increasing madness to attend 'rave parties' and an increasing popularity of porn sites on the internet are enough examples to expose these hypocritical claims hollow. It is patently dishonest and hypocritical to claim that an 'appropriate' exposure do not initiate 'a desire to have sex'.

Does 'exposure' invites rape?

But hey, hold on, both who think that 'exposure' invites rape and those who think that rape has nothing to do with how one carries herself need to wait and pause for a while. As 'a desire for sex' initiated by an exposure never gets automatically transformed into an 'intention to rape'. The fact is that 'a desire to have sex' is also an innocent human-reflex. However, one's background and upbringing then helps in preventing this 'desire to have sex' to get morphed onto 'forcing sex in an extreme way on other'. The reason for this transformation to occur are many including their acquired ideological understanding of a good/bad, moral/immoral and forbidden/acceptable sexual behaviors and past experiences. In many cases, statistically speaking, this transformation is also affected when the person is in a drunken state when their acquired sense of acceptable behavior, if any, through their background or the manner in which they were brought up failed to stop their natural beastly (read manly) reflexes. And come on, whom do we fool by participating in a candle march against a rape incident demanding police action to stop 'all' rapes? When in most of the cases the accused are known to the victims is it not hypocritical to still claim that it is possible for the 'police and government' to take care of them instead of them themselves.

Enough is enough

Enough is enough. Let us now at least, stop fooling women. we have fooled them enough – first by setting up a patriarchal system and now by creating a mirage-like claim that this system can be destroyed without actually showcasing a better alternative. First by forcibly trying to pull 'sari' off 'Draupadis' and now by making them shed clothes on their own in the name of 'slut walks' and 'liberation'. First by exploiting them at home only and now at all other places including home. Isn't it time now that 'women' must understand that males are males and will always remain beasts? Women are better species and they need to protect themselves and stop 'downgrading' themselves attempting to ape males. It is a crude fact that males with their beastly reflexes can find even an innocent openness in women's attitude as conducive of finding innovative ways to exploit them.

Need of sex-education with Indian perspective

Our society badly needs sex education. There is an urgent need to sensitize ourselves through an 'Indian-ized' sex education as our problems are completely different from other countries. Much before we start educating the youth on how to indulge in sex and yet avoid pregnancy we should first start with how to behave with the other sex. Sex-education weaved with spiritual/moral education is what should be prescribed for us. To start with, given our prevalent conservative attitude towards sex we can even think of providing online education on this aspect. In our country, parents would make the best teachers on sex-education if they can somehow be 'educated' to come out of their initial inhibitions in response to the need of the hour.

Conclusion

Believe me, it is 'males' who need to be reigned in while women just need to take their normal individual care. As a matter of fact, while women are family oriented by instinct males should be forced to become family-oriented. Our society further needs to be thrashed, reformed, shaken and turned upside down to make it accept rape victims only as 'victims' so that they do not face any rehabilitation problem that becomes absolutely impossible for them. On the other hand, the society must also be pushed to think of some extreme measures of tackling the accused too so that we do not have to witness another horrifying experience where the beast in males dares to attempt at 'enjoying' rapes with hapless victims. 
Instead of women asking to be treated as men, I see an immediate need to force men behave socially like women.

Can we render the Reservation Policy ‘useless’

The myth of Merit?

Many years ago, I used to find myself at a loss whenever I tried to dig a meaning out of the statement often offered by a certain set of people that 'merit' is a 'myth'. Those days this statement used to agitate me, as I always wanted to enjoy a sense of superiority that I logically associated with the marks that I used to score in the examinations. That my hard earned marks could worth less than its arithmetic value, usually drove me mad. When I would see that those who scored less than me; did not work as hard as me and were never as serious in studies as I used to be; are being preferred even after getting lesser marks, it used to push me into being engaged in extreme thoughts. I could never notice a reason worth any attention and was never able to appreciate any argument that wanted me to accept that whatever I scored in an examination was not because of the hard work only that I had painstakingly put in but the environment where I was born also had its contribution in it. I was convinced that these arguments were being manufactured by those who wanted a short cut to success and I used to feel as being cheated, being denied my due and always felt devastated at the feeling of being left out because of this ‘injustice’.

The reason in the arguments

To me, the only criteria that one could probably make some weird sense for justifying valuing a low score higher than its numeric worth was the factor attributing to 'the different financial background of the candidates'. This belief also stemmed from all the arguments that often people offer in support of the caste-based reservation system. All the arguments used to assume that the candidates associated with lower castes were necessarily of lower financial status too, despite several examples that existed before us in its contradiction. It was only when I encountered a pro-reservationist's remark that the 'policy of reservation' is not a 'poverty alleviation program' that made me analyze the issue from other aspects. By that time probably the maturity I had earned through my experiences made me ask myself what actually did that 'foolish' looking statement mean? I must admit that being brought up in a family influenced by RSS ideology I could never imbibe any attitude of hate towards others on the basis of caste. On some occasions, despite having knowledge about the caste of others I was unable to discriminate against them since I was taught to respect our elders and to extend love to youngsters irrespective of their origin. I feel it took some time for me to understand the thought behind the policy of reservation only because of my RSS influence that made me refuse to make use of anyone's origin to build up an impression about him/her. It is true that I believe that it was only the reservation policy that served the purpose for me to develop a 'caste vision' in my thoughts in order to understand the perspective behind the implementation of the reservation policy. In this limited sense the policy did attempt to serve the opposite of what it claims to aim for.

Worth of the Merit-lists

However now I am convinced that merit is indeed a semi-myth and it has a very weak correlation with someone’s performance in a career. With time and experience I have now witnessed that if given an opportunity many of us posses the ability to rise to an occasion. I have been teaching undergraduate students for more than two decades and I have noticed even those of my students making ultimately big in their life who were not as bright if they were measured only through their marks earned by them in their exams. I have seen an IAS who was 50 places below in the final 'merit list' doing a better job; an MBBS who was ranked 200 below finally excelling more; a teacher initially shaky becoming more popular teacher than those who showed initial confidence. Reason behind these facts is that the person possessed adequate urge to excel in the career. In view of the above it is clear that denial of opportunity to someone in our country has to do more with the lack of availability of the opportunities rather than the merit reflected by the marks scored in the examination conducted to select some among many of the interested candidates. The method adopted by us to select required number of candidates only reflects our collective helplessness in finding a process better than following a mechanically way of rejecting candidates using a merit list that is often prepared after an examination. These examinations are often conducted to judge a mixture of the memorizing power and understanding capabilities of the applying candidates. This process of examining candidates (excluding interaction with candidates) is generally completed in our country without revealing their identity. This is just to insulate the assessment from any possible influences and prejudices. It is only for this reason that when some candidates figuring lower in the merit list are preferred on the basis of their caste-identity, others rightly feel as cheated. Having said this however, to conclude that those who got the opportunity because of their caste can never prove themselves as better than those who were placed higher in the merit list will be yet another and a bigger blunder. It is so because who would prove their ultimate worth gets decided finally only by the urge within them to excel and has to do very little with their rank scored by them at the time of their selection. At the same time to ignore the hurt feelings of those who think that their hard work was being unjustifiably devalued for no fault of theirs would also be a mistake.

  

The vision

The only way to handle this scenario is to look for ways to expand the avenues and opportunities to include all. It seems to me that India has been ignoring an important aspect of this issue while looking to implement this policy. The policy unintentionally aims at maintaining the 'hierarchy' of the opportunities and careers and merely provides a way to replace beneficiaries of the system. Undeniably the 'reservation policy' is addressing one aspect of the problem of our society but don’t we need to ponder as to why the youth of India looks to get absorbed only in a countable few selected careers? Is it not because we ‘rate’, ‘respect’, are ‘ready to associate a handsome pay’ and accept the 'undue administrative power attached with careers that are primarily meant to serve people' only for some careers and have kept on ignoring several other avenues resulting in inspiring students to run after only those select few careers. As long as we as a country would keep on running after becoming Engineers, Doctors, IAS, Government services and for grabbing jobs in PSU, we would be trapped in the policy of reservation that merely achieves ‘replacement’ as against 'inclusion'. ‘Reservation policy’ is poised to create a fresh caste definition that would be basically classified by those who could get into these careers and those who were left out in the process. If India is looking for a satisfied youth generation then it needs to develop career options in many skills that are hitherto considered as untouchable and are disrespected probably because of the financial returns that those career can provide and more than that the social stigma that automatically gets associated with those careers. There lies a huge scope of improving the lifestyle quotient and social-acceptability factor that are usually attached with many careers that require great skills but are invariably considered worthless: such as career in different kinds of farming, career in manufacturing and productions, career in waste-management, career in cleaning and managing household activities, jobs in construction and labour oriented careers, career in repair oriented careers, career in small scale industries, career in designing and production of leather-product (shoes, bags and files), jobs as hair-stylists, career in jewellery designing, career in marketing and career in food products etc.

The challenge before us is to work towards making these careers financially attractive and socially at par with those that are being sought after by the youth today. We must simultaneously work towards balancing out the undue 'administrative power' that we improperly associate with the careers meant for serving people. Let us come out of the colonial mentality of accepting bureaucrats as our kings. It would be then that we will be able to inspire youth towards other career opportunities of comparable worth in areas such as mentioned above so that people will begin to take up careers not merely by the financial security or the administrative power that those careers can offer them but by the inherent interest and urge that they posses to make them excel in those careers.

Instead of myopically fighting for larger and fresh shares in the fixed or limited career options using the reservation policy on one ground or the other, we must work with an idea to expand the choice of careers so that we can render the reservation policy itself as useless.

Let the opportunities outnumber the takers.

A Case of Misplaced Autonomy

After the setback of the collective failure of teachers' movement in stopping the semesterisation process, some of us chose to become wiser and accepted the existence of a mutated definition of autonomy and freedom. The apparent freedom and an enviable royal power that the university authorities blatantly exhibited before the teaching community had by then left an everlasting impression on some minds that chose to welcome a twisted sense of autonomy. These people seem to have convinced themselves that the only set of people who can enjoy any kind of autonomy are the university authorities. They preferred to get associated with the University authorities and in the process willingly handed over the responsibility of carrying the flame lighted by 'Rathi' to the other sensible breakaway group. Any trace of doubt in their mind was entirely wiped out when Dr. Bhim Sen Singh, the Principal of Kirori Mal college was shown the door for his dare to impress the university with the autonomy of colleges and the academic freedom of individual teachers through the College Staff Council. A perfect stage was built up to blow another hammer on the real stakeholders of the University to implement FYUP after an illegal salary-cut order was forcibly implemented and an environment was created wherein a simple letter by a hitherto unnoticed post of Registrar could make University Professor shiver, could turn College Principals into mechanical implementer shunning all their urge to behave as advisers and transform other lesser mortals into entities that only waited to obey orders to please the University authorities.

Recent letters from UGC has only helped in showing these University authorities their true place. Suddenly the terror that was being continuously experienced by the teachers shifted on to new targets in the university system. The scare of getting the taste of their own medicine is staring in their faces when conspiratorial denial of retirement benefits by them to a retired teacher on a flimsy ground of misappropriation of funds seems to have been threatening them to choke their own necks. The system has only shifted the target from Bhim Singh/Rajesh Mohan to Dinesh Singh and his team members with UGC replacing the University authorities in the new scenario.

I pity those who are still in their deep sleep and are continuing with their misplaced understanding of the terms such as University autonomy and freedom. They have become so used to the blatant misuse of these terms to crush the popular concerns of teachers and students that they have gone blind and are refusing to see writing on the walls of the university. I wish they come up with some sense in their future pamphlets.

FYUP episode and its after-effects

First the haste with which FYUP was implemented and then the even hastier manner in which it was unceremoniously abandoned has made the teaching community and the students believe that probably this is also a way 'reforms' can be brought about in the University. I am witnessing that a group of well meaning teachers and sincere students have been fooling themselves with a hope that reforms can be rolled out with the 'rollback'. They seem to have got too much used to the bulldozing way of affecting reforms. We must understand that 'rollback' is only an effect of the 'FYUP attempt' that was made in the name of 'reforms'. It is high time we realize that 'reforms' can neither be a clandestine agenda designed by an elite group of individuals to bring about changes to suit their interests nor they are freebies that can be distributed to those who are asking for it. The dumped FYUP may have some features that can be recommended while asking for reforms in the Indian education sector but just for that it should never be mistaken by anything as 'reforms'. FYUP was a mercurial change that was destined only to experience such a reactionary response. The way it came into being, FYUP itself had asked for this end.
Let us not misread the 'rollback' as a reform. Rollback was at best only meant for a temporary relief and in no way can show a new strategy to be adopted for bringing about reforms. It seems we have spoiled our understanding of 'reforms' so much that we think that 'patience' is not required to be observed for affecting reforms. We must now realize that 'reforms in education' is a serious issue and requires some time to reach a stage at which a gradual attempt can be made to affect changes. A genuine feedback mechanism with a grievance redressing system need to be put in place to serve this cause that has awaited a meaningful attention for so long a period. Widespread consultations and a suggestions drawing exercise need to adopted to overhaul the Indian education beginning from primary education to the higher education for addressing the issue in a comprehensive manner. Let us not forget that 'steroids' (with unavoidable side effects) are used only as life saving drug and now since 'rollback' has been able to save the academic-life of this University, let us not get used to taking it. Let us work together to make meaningful changes in an acceptable way.