I recently received a forwarded Power point presentation from a friend on pseudo secularism. Let me know what you think of it, he asked. I went through all the twenty odd slides patiently. They sounded very much like a typical RSS or VHP pamphlet – raving and ranting at the liberals for labeling hindus as fundamentalists and treating the minorities with kid gloves.
So why am I writing about it? And why didn’t I just label the mail as trash and send it to its right destination i.e. junk folder of my inbox. Because at a certain stage we who claim to be liberals must face these accusations and answer them. We can no longer run and we can certainly no longer hide behind the label of perversity we put on such attempts. It is time we spoke and reflected on what we stand for and proclaimed what we believe in.
So here is a rebuttal of every accusation that people who are supposedly pseudo secular have to live with. The questions are verbatim from the presentation.
Q) Show one Muslim country which provides Haj subsidy? And if Haj is to be subsidized then why are Hindus or Muslims taxed for pilgrimage to Amarnath and Kailash?
A) Being an irreligious agnostic, I care two hoots for any subsidy or pilgrimage. But the Haj subsidy in my belief began as a simple practical measure that has now snowballed into a political and judicial issue. Travel to Saudi Arabia can only be by air or sea and majority of the Muslims wishing to go may not be able to afford it. Hence, the concessions and grants. And to the best of my knowledge there is no tax on Hindu pilgrimages (the age of Alamgir Aurangzeb and Jaziya is long over). The Amarnath yatra is carried out with much fanfare and tight security with the state taking the responsibility for the safety of the pilgrims. Show me one country which stakes its reputation on one holy journey? The Kailash mansarover lies in territory under Chinese occupation, and for over a half a decade inspite of the freeze on the Sino – Indian border, the pilgrimage goes on smoothly. Show me a state that overlooks a territorial dispute to facilitate a pilgrim’s journey?
And are we to now compare ourselves with Muslim dominated nations, the religious clergy of many of which does not allow its women to go out to and work? States in which women have to be in purdah? States in which a Sania Mirza would have to step on to a tennis court wearing salvar kameez and not shorts? Have our aspirations sunk so low?

Q) Show one Muslim country where Hindus are extended special rights that Muslims are accorded in India?
A) I often wonder what are these so called rights. Apart from granting the Muslim fundamentalists the right to speak freely without rebuke, the Indian state has not extended any special rights to the community. Do our statistics show it? Muslims today rival Dalits and other backward communities on many social development indices. Education standards are on an overall basis low in the community, majority of them have low per capita incomes and their representation in higher levels of society are abysmally low. Unlike the Sikhs, they have not been able to either acquire economic muscle or agrarian prosperity. In fact in a world where even your next door neighbor could be a suicide bomber, Muslim identity is regarded with suspicion. Finding accommodation in many urban areas, as newspaper reports have proved, is downright tough if you are a Muslim. Where are those special rights? And why isn’t the community a healthy, self - confident and prosperous lot because of these rights which cause such indignation to the protectors of the majority?

Q) Show a Muslim country which has a Non-Muslim as a Prime Minister or President? Can any other country have a Muslim president and a Sikh Prime Minister?
A) The question answers itself. One of the good things about this country still is its participatory democracy. Most of the Muslim majority states do not even have a Prime Minister or a President. They either have royal families or American backed despots ruling over them. A democracy by itself is meant to provide representation and a choice to all. Do we now need to turn towards our western neighbor to realize the value of electoral franchise?
Q) Show a Mullah or Maulvi who has declared a ‘fatwa’ against the terrorism?
A) The Darul Uloom of Deoband, a respected and acknowledged centre of Muslim religious learning in India, has repeatedly remarked after each major terror incident that it is not in the teachings of Islam to kill or maim innocents. Islam’s problems today stem from a strong sense of victimization in the middle east – a feeling which has been strengthened by the Wahhabi sect of West Asia and the easy oil money which is spewing out terror factories in the laboratories of poor Muslim dominated states. The extremist religious fringe in many corners of the globe has been issuing provocative remarks or offering silent support to the violence being perpetrated by local terror groups. But if the entire clergy was extremist, then India would be a hotbed of terror today and the blame for spreading terror would not be put by intelligence agencies on rogue states and their leaders but on the clergy as a whole. And the law of fatwa cannot work both ways. The fatwa cannot be used both as an instrument to deride the Muslim clergy as well as a barometer to test its loyalty to the state. Leave it to the state to fight terror, the maulvis and the pandits should stick to what they are best at – reading scriptures.

Q) Muslims have become CMs of Hindu majority states. Can a Hindu ever become the Chief Minister of J&K?
A) People who raise this question forget that till date J&K has a Hindu king and had one for decades before Independence. He lost his influence not because his Muslim people decided to overthrow a kafir but because he ceased to represent their wishes. And what were their wishes? To join the Hindu majority but secular India and not the moth ridden Muslim majority Pakistan.
The J&K today sends five MPs to the Parliament. Only one of them, a Hindu from Jammu is a Minister in the central government.

Q) Muslim population in India risen from 10.4% to 14% since Independence while Hindu population has gone down from 87% to 85%.
A) The change in the figures is marginal at best. And if the Muslim population is rising then instead of heralding it as a sign of imminent threat to Hindu majority, it should be seen as a matter of grave concern. Simply because it reflects two hard and unpleasant truths. One that migration from the border areas of the north east adjoining Bangladesh continues unchecked and two that India’s largest minority community has been left relatively untouched by the population control measures. It is a reflection not of their growing strength but of a worsening standard of living. Even with increased numbers, Muslims have not climbed on the social indices which only means that as the number of children have increased, the families have slipped further and further into poverty.

Q) When Hindus gave 30% of their country to Muslims at the time of partition why cannot they be allowed to reclaim their holy sites at Mathura, Ayodhya and Kashi?
A) Since when did we start talking about India in terms of ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’? India does not belong to a religion or caste. Pakistan was a hand out to Jinnah and his Muslim League and not to the Muslims of India. For if Pakistan was really about protecting Muslims, then a larger number of them would not have stayed back in India. And all the above mentioned sites can be perfect examples of religious co-existence, only political interests of the so called protectors of Hindu religion have allowed them to be transformed into centres of religious tension. One may accept that the mosques may have been built to smite the defeated Hindu pride. One may also accept, that as a goodwill gesture the Muslim leadership should have offered to land adjoining the Babri Masjid to the Hindus for construction of the temple. But would a community voluntarily yield in an atmosphere of hate, tension and incrimination? Would Ayodhya have been solved peacefully by now, had the BJP and VHP decided not to pull down the mosque? And more importantly is it wrong in a modern, developing and secular state to ask the Hindu majority not to look upon the Kashi and Mathura mosques as symbols of Muslim aggression? Are Hindus barred from worshipping in these temples? Are the interests of the Hindu faithful harmed in any way harmed by these silent structures?

Q) Why are post Godhra riots blown out of proportion while no one talks of ethnic cleansing of Hindus in J&K?
A) The biggest misfortune of the Kashmiri pandits is that the pogrom against them occurred when there was barely any independent Indian media. At the time when they being persecuted, no one brought their plight alive to the nation. Today, a decade and a half later they are a forgotten lot. But why blame the media alone? The man who was Governor of the state when the migration happened and thereby was naturally accountable was not even censured. Years later, the same very political party which stands for aggressive Hindu nationalism made him a Union Minister. Which Hindu group or political party pays any attention to the Pandits, many of whom still live in one room refugee camps?
And why are post Godra riots always considered to be exaggerated? Was the burning of the shops, the rioting on the streets, the murder of innocents all a media constructed gimmick? What is spontaneous about a riot that only targets minority slums, colonies and shops? What is natural about violence which is justified using Newtonian laws by those who are supposed to protect those being maimed? Will we tomorrow say that the anti – Sikh riots of Delhi were a lie? That partition never happened?

Q) Do you consider that - Sanskrit is communal and Urdu is secular, BJP is communal and Muslim league is Secular, Praveen Togadia is anti-national and Bhukari is Secular, Hinduism is Communal and Islam is Secular, Hindutva is communal and Jihadism is secular?
A) For all I care both Praveen Togadia and Imam Bukhari are blood brothers and belong to the same gang of troublemakers. They both should have been exported to Afghanistan long back – Bukhari to support his beloved Taliban and Togadia to rid the world of jehadis. As for the BJP and the League, one wonders whether today anyone in this country apart from the BJP considers Jinnah’s party as secular.
But there is a deeper side to this. Hinduism is not communal and neither is Islam. They did not land form heaven. It is individuals and institutions that shape faiths. And if we allow ours to be hijacked by those who think they know what is best for us, then we would be laying the seeds for extremism. We should not forget that religion is about individual faith and collective identity and not the other way around. Neither Hindutva nor Jihadism has a place in a secular and democratic India. India is defined by its heterogeneity and not by a religion or identity.

Q) When uniform is compulsory in schools then why do we not have Uniform Civil Code? And why does Article 370 still persist when J&K is no different from Maharashtra or UP?
A) I wish the answer to the first question was simple as putting on a school uniform. Different religions have different personal laws and separate religious decision making bodies. Uniform Civil Code has often been mischievously used to poke at Muslim practices of polygamy and triple talaq. But the question to ponder is this? Is any religion in India free from prejudices or medieval thinking at a certain level? What of the Hindu caste system which has so bitterly created social and political divides in large parts of North India? What of the Sabrimala temple located in the supposedly progressive South India which does not allow women to be anywhere near a supposedly bachelor and virgin god? What about the rights of the Hindu daughters and brides? What of female infanticide among Hindu and Sikh families of Punjab? Would the prosperous and politically active SGPC yield space to a Uniform Civil Code? Would the RSS and VHP allow Hindu and Muslim family successions to be governed by the same set of laws?
The truth is that each of India’s religions faces serious problems, the solution of which lies in sociological reforms that must begin from within. Foisting a Uniform Civil Code would hand over the power to the state to clamp down on religious identity. It may lead to curbing of disturbing practices (which given the political interest to be milked by catering to the fundamentalists, it eventually won’t) but it will also lead to attempts to enforce religious homogeneity, which as has been demonstrated in the case of France can lead to social unrests.
Religious identities must flourish under the broad umbrella of the concept of a nation state, but the moment we start to defile a community (it was the Sikhs in the 80s, it is the Muslims now), we defy the very idea of India. An idea which has defeated the pessimism of the western analysts of the mid twentieth century, an idea that holds out inspite of all its scars and scratches, hope of co existence to a bitterly divided and fractious world. The idea of India is a lot bigger than the falsely perceived sense of insecurity possessed by some members of its majority community.

|

World Champion, Convicted Rapist, Disgraced sportsman, bankrupt showpiece. That in effect sums up the life of Mike Tyson. A man with unbridled talent now reduced to a broke. As Tyson gets ready to make displays of mock boxing in a Las Vegan casino for visiting gamblers, one cannot but feel sorry for a man for whom everything that could go wrong eventually did. Bursting onto the scene as a teenaged kid who had a streetfighter’s tenacity and the intimidating presence of bully, Tyson was boxing biggest draw. The boy who was destined to rule the ring, to be the champion, one who would reach out globally as Mohammad Ali once did.
Tyson did reach out but in the most internecine of ways…as happens in many sports but more so in the hard and mercenary world of professional boxing, too much success at too early an age coming at the back of a deprived childhood rendered harrowing consequences for Iron Mike. Within a couple of years of his great arrival, he was involved in brawls (many deliberately staged to promote his fights), was running the gauntlet with the cops and eventually found himself in prison for forcing his way on a young woman. He came out years later and returned to the ring but wasn’t the same threat anymore and had to resort to biting his opponent’s ear off to keep himself in the fight – an act for which he found his license revoked. Out of job and out of money, Mike Tyson today is a roving joker in the casinos of Nevada. A man showing his skills to a crowd…but not in the ring of boxing fight but that of a circus.

Was he a victim of too much glamour and money at too young an age? Or did he simply did not possess the strength of character to deal with what professional boxing exposed him too? Or did Mike Tyson never really grow out of streetfighter that he grew up as? We may delve and we may ponder. But the point to consider is this – Tyson today reflects the sad reality of the world of professional boxing. Where success is a flash, careers shorter than starbursts and retirement benefits something unheard of. Tyson is as much of a product of the streets as he is of a sport that at times resembles the staged world of professional wrestling. A sport that must ponder why it creates champions like Tyson…men whom the public loves to hate, men whom you would point out to your kids as examples of what not to be. Boxing must ask itself why it kills the very champions it creates.

******
I must confess I knew I was taking a risk when I bought a ticket for ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’.
‘You survived?’ a friend asked when I told her that I seen the movie. Most reactions ranged from surprise (I am a known Karan Johar baiter) to unbridled criticism from those who had seen it.
Piece of trash, said some. Gross and crap, said others. And for once I found myself doing something I thought I would never end up doing ever in life – defending poor Mr. Johar.

Has he grown up while making the movie, as he claimed to a newspaper? In parts yes and in parts no – if there ever is a thing called growing up in bits. But here’s why I actually sat through the entire three and something hours watching his New York based saga of an extra marital affair - because for some minutes in those long three hours ( by the way, ever wondered why does the length of a typical Hindi movie have to be equal to that of an examination ?? ) Karan Johar goes where Hindi filmmakers never would. He shows the courage and temerity to break up a marriage, make a working woman throw out her husband (the feminists loved this part the best…three cheers for Karan!), shows a father abandon his young son and most of all makes us believe that an aging and dying dad – in – law can ask his son’s wife to walk out of her marriage if she hasn’t found love in it.

Bold? For the surreal brand of filmmaking yes. Even the big daddy of romantic movies Yash Chopra refused to breach the moral legitimacy of marriage in ‘Silsila’.


Pathbreaking? Sadly, no.
The movie remains tacky, packages in songs like any mill of the run romantic fare and never is truly honest with itself. It is an Indian story with Indian characters. So what are they are doing in Manhattan when they all could easily have been in Mumbai? Is that because the movie is aimed for the large NRI market or does putting infidelity in a liberal America with its supposedly loose social and moral values accord it a legitimacy which always remains at a comfortable distance from the pseudo liberal Indian audiences. And why are second generation NRIs speaking in flawless Hindi without even a trace of an accent? (Can you imagine Omakara being dubbed in the Hindi which you and I city dwellers speak?) And why on earth cant Shah Rukh Khan stop grimacing all through the movie? And is crying the only form of expression of emotions? Can we have some subtlety please?

So yes, I did survive. And yes of all the Karan Johar movies this one is the most watchable and attempts to make sense. Now if only our directors did not grow up in parts.

|

There is a certain sense of sadness and inevitability when a childhood hero rides into the sunset- bidding goodbye, never to be seen again in the arena which in a certain day and age belonged to him. As Andre Agassi played his last game of tennis at the US open yesterday, one couldn’t help thinking that for once he appeared on the court as a completely honest image of the man he is. In his mid thirties, his back troubling and hindering his movements, his reflexes slowed by creeping age and an inflamed disc in the lower spine…Agassi to the layman must have looked over the hill and too old to be out there playing with the fancy new hard hitters.
But then Andre Agassi has never been what he seems. Even yesterday, he battled pain…took on injections and stretched his unwilling body to the limit. In fact, at one stage he even had a set point to carry the match into a fifth and decisive set. For the some one of his age and physical limitations (he had been playing with the inflamed disc for the last one year), he summoned mountains of will and effort to carry himself through three grueling games against men almost half his age. And when he cried at the end of the game in the centre of the court, you knew that here was a man who not only loved his sport but also carried all the emotions that it brings right on his sleeve.

And it there that the Las Vegan differed from his contemporaries. Pete Sampras was the composed, steely and dry champion. A man who possessed an unbeatable game, a man whom everyone would like but few would love. Michael Chang and Jim Courier, Agassi’s two other American compatriots from the famed generation of the early nineties, sizzled too briefly for history to capture their light. Agassi though was a man tailor made for a sport that craved a hero who could bring the crowds in. He was the extravagant, young no holds barred American who wore the latest fashions on the courts. He was the new John Mcenroe, signifying his resistance not against the referees but those who thought tennis was a game of whites. He brought in more than just color to the game; there was effervescence to his game, a certain kind of freshness as he grunted and sprinted his way across the courts in denims, headbands and outrageous looking t-shirts.

My first memories of Agassi are as a seven year old watching the final of the 1990 US open between him and Sampras. I still recall staying awake late into the night with my father. It is an age at which you are too young to understand the nuances of the game and make preferences by appearances. You choose by looks or color.. and I liked the guy in all blue with the long hair and girly earrings. Agassi lost that night (he was to loose more Grand Slam finals than any of his contemporaries… which in itself prompts a question of what might have been had he won even half of those); but for me he was a favorite from that night on. I remember egging him on through a thrilling five set French Open final that he lost to Jim Courier…feeling at top of the world when he won his first Grand Slam at Wimbledon and then feeling morose as he lost himself completely for a year or so in the mid nineties.

But Agassi was not one to fade away…he came back hungry and in the first of the many comebacks he would orchestrate, he won the US Open as an unseeded player in 1995. He was a complete contrast then to his image at the beginning of his career. He had shaved his head, sported a beard and looked more like West Asian than an American. He resembled a fugitive out on a chase who hadn’t been able to get his hands on a razor. The turnaround had begun. As he began to do justice to his talents, another slump followed which culminated in that epic French Open win in 1999. Down two sets, he came back (once again) and won when no one had given him even a fig leaf’s chance.

Growing up watching Andre Agassi’s exploits one realized the difference he possessed as compared to the others. Sampras was cool, stoic and won with boring regularity. The same is the case with Federer while Rafael Nadal looks like a kid who cant stop himself from pumping his forearms inside the gym and outside on the court. With Agassi you experienced the entire range of emotions a sport carries with it…joy when he won, despondency when he lost and sheer frustration when you saw him wasting away his talent.

At the end of his two decade long carrier Agassi stands on his own; one of the greatest to have played the game… a man who brought color and crowds to tennis…a worthy successor to the rebellious Mcenroe but also a man who refined into the graceful sportsman. But more than his eight grand slams and the fact that in the modern era he remains the only one after Bjorn Borg to have won on all the four surfaces (even Sampras and Federer have not been able to win on the French clay), Agassi will always be remembered as the man whom you would love to watch. He remained a crowd favorite from his first day on the court to his last. A respected champion who made the uninitiated and the casual follower a part of the tennis caravan… an idol kids loved to imitate without any apology. He remains an inspiration to middle aged men around the world that life’s best years need not occur in the best part of the twenties. He may leave the court but Andre Agassi’s legacy will endure long after the nets have been rolled up and balls have been boxed and kits packed. For many people around the globe he would remain the only reason for loving the game of tennis.

|