Ten Issues - 3

1- The Dance of Indian Democracy covers about a democratic form of governance, a liberal constitution, and secular public institutions in India since 1947.

2- The email Interview with Anupama Rao is largely about her new book, The Caste Question: Dalits and The Politics of Modern India. Anupama Rao is an Associate Professor of South Asian History at Barnard College, New York.

3-The Southasian Idea debates intensly on Development and Violence: Some Clues? : How does one characterize the Indian state and understand its actions on the issues of development.

4- Over at An Academic View of India, Vikram highlights key differences between the US and India in the way their higher ed institutions interact with the community at large . Extending the discussion with more opinions by Prof. Abi at nanopolitan and Rahul Siddharthan at Universities and cities ;

5-Contract Workers at IITK: A Response to Commonly Held Misconceptions : Rahul Verman is attempting to understand various aspects of the problem about Contract Workers at IITK and what can be the possible ways of addressing them as have understood personally with all its biases and limitations.

6-One Country, many Worlds..and a forgotten Manipur: There is a state in India that is hit by 60 days blockade and government is unable to do anything. And our fellow patriotic countrymen haven't even noticed this issue seriously. Also check Living in a Blockade: A first-hand account from Manipur for getting a non political view on the problem faced by Manipuri people. Added Late: Economic Blockade In Manipur State.

7- Sick Man Walking: Satyam’s Raju has been in hospital for nine months, evading trial even via video conferencing. Pushp Sharma got himself admitted into the same hospital and found the former IT czar ill, but fit for trial.

8- David Brooks voices his opinion in History for Dollars on the positive side of study of humanities. Studying the humanities will give us a wealth of analogies....

9- Britain: The Disgrace of the Universities: Author has an argument that Slow scholarship—like Slow Food—is deeper and richer and more nourishing than the fast stuff. But it takes longer to make, and to do it properly, you have to employ eccentric people who insist on doing things their way.

10- The Global University in Crisis-I: Knowledge Struggles in Europe and USA : This is the first part of on the politics of global higher education today. In the first part, it is a discussion of the Euro-US movements against the University.

The Necessity of Blasphemy - 1

I try to understand the phenomenon constituting of violence, power, truth and justice in the daily happenings. Blasphemy is must for progress of the civilization. Ideas behind traditions must be challenged to know if they are true and relevant — and if we cannot challenge an idea, we cannot know validity of following the traditions in the society. Today, I want to publish without fear or favour and look at the world without the filter of 'faith'.

USA administered Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Soviet suppression through Gulag, Hitler's cruelty in the Holocaust, Islamic persecution of Bahai faith, Ahmadiyya community and non Muslims, discrimination in hindus on the basis of caste, Israel's action against Palestine, South African apartheid with root of racism, fight of Christianity against evolution theory and countless other struggles shows the dark side of the world in last 60 years only.

They are the recent events existing in the minds of last generation. They are still not tampered enough or vanished out by the propagandist of religion or patriotism. Milan Kundera was spot on in observing this: The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. It's a pity though that argument doesn't cut it - we have to wait for inhumanity to reach its crescendo (Spanish Inquisition, Slavery, Holocaust, Apartheid, Guantanamo) before the scales fall from people's eyes and they recognise the error in their dogma.

There can be no democracy without secularism, since only under secularism can one free oneself from religious or sectarian mentalities, and as a consequence think and choose with one's mind. What is happening is that extremist leaders who have absolutely no clue about solving the country’s problems are promising a heaven that they cannot deliver, on condition that a certain section of the country is either eliminated or pushed into the ghettos.

Any statement or work of art may be good or bad, the essential test is whether they are worth seeing or not and the authority to decide lies with the viewers and not with any self proclaimed leaders of the society, state or religion. Its not one cause which makes one a terrorist but ones method which makes one a terrorist.

The plea that nobody should offend the conservative elements’ sensibilities should be thoroughly discussed. Up to a point the argument is valid, then its used to drag down backwards to the society where power dictates. There is a ridiculous 'respect' demanded by religious people for their unsupportable superstitious beliefs.

Take the Burqa case only. Societies having people with diverse religious backgrounds are bound together partly by informal chance relations between strangers – people being able to acknowledge each other in the street or being able pass the time of day. The anonymity of the burqa takes the uniqueness of face away from the woman. That is my greatest objection to it. Burqa is a symbol of submission in the eyes of progressive religion (progressive on the basis of emergence of people who questioned authority of religion over an individual);

Women's choice should be governed by their own will. And the right of choice comes through free and rational thinking. And a person avoiding rationalism due to belief in an unquestioned faith is harmful for society, be it christian or any other religion. And don’t justify anything because its written in the religious books thousand year ago. The rational education given to you has led for this ability to question own’s logic, experience and prevailing circumstances. A decision should not be governed by the blind faith and ideological enslavement to a society, state or religion of the birth and upbringing.

I don’t see this as a ban but the freedom of woman to overcome a barrier thrown by a stone age society; We all owe Europe for its secular notion and rational thinking. And they had history of bitter fight with church and life of many good people were ruined along the way in order to define for human rights, equality, freedom and other cherished values of European enlightenment. And, That's why these value are precious; The organic growth and spreading of European secularism happened through out the world due to its universal appeal. I will end this part of essay with a dialogue from the movie Agora : You don’t question what you believe, or cannot. I must.

In the age of reason

We defend peoples right to say something, it doesn't mean that you have to agree with it or even respect it. Culture and religion is much too important a matter to be disposed of in ritual routine or lost in an inconclusive debate. This post is dedicated to the Indianhomemaker conclusion on the free speech demand : Whenever we think we are stopping someone from hurting our sentiments by curtailing their freedom of expression (right or wrong), we also empower someone (e.g. the government, extremists, or even religious leaders) to shut our own mouths.

1- Olivier Roy is professor at the EHESS and I was quite impressed by his insight on the religious issues in this article . It emphasize that everyone is faced with the need to invent, define, and objectify what religion means to them. Olivier points out some interesting facts on the dependence of religion on the culture.

Today's religious revival is first and foremost marked by the uncoupling of culture and religion, whatever the religion may be. This explains the affinities between American Protestant fundamentalism and Islamic Salafism: both reject culture, philosophy, and even theology in favour of a scriptural reading of the sacred texts and an immediate understanding of truth through individual faith, to the detriment of educational and religious institutions.

In the countries of origin, religion is always embodied in a culture, and it is difficult, for the believer, to distinguish between what belongs to the cultural tradition – and to some extent to social conventions – and what belongs to dogma. A distinction between religion as a corpus of beliefs – as theology – and culture is not usually made by the man in the street, that is, by ordinary believers. But immigration has suddenly created a divide between religion and society, between religion and culture, to the extent that religious belief is lost sight of.

The first significant aspect of this phenomenon of people moving from one country to another, therefore, is the uncoupling of religion and culture, and the need to define a religion with criteria that are purely religious, and totally internal to the religious domain.

The real question is not an intellectual or a theoretical question about Islam; the real issue here is about the tangible practices of Muslims. What forms and religious beliefs are in circulation among young Muslims today? The forms of religiosity witnessed in Islam today are transversal, they are more or less the same as the ones found in the most popular Western denominations: Catholicism, Protestantism, even Judaism. In our contemporary world we are now witnessing the uncoupling of religion and culture, in other words, contemporary believers put far more stress on faith, on spiritual experience, on individual and personal rediscovery of religion, than on legacy, culture, transmission, authority, and theology.

Religion is easy to define: the corpus, the revealed texts, the interpretations, the theological debates, the dogmas, and so on. As for religiosity, it is the manner in which the believer lives his relationship to religion. And, today, religiosity, everywhere, is far more important than religion.

For example, in the United States, 80 per cent of Americans say they are believers and practicing churchgoers. At the same time, preachers, be they Protestants, Catholics, or Muslims, all say the same: "We live in an atheistic, materialistic, and pornographic society...", a society where 80 per cent of the people say that they are believers. Thus, either there is a contradiction, or they are right. And in my opinion they are right. In fact, societies are no longer religious, even if believers represent a majority in society. Societies are built on other forms of cultural representation, of modes of consumption, of norms, of values, of economy, of anything we care to think of. There is no religious evidence any longer, even in societies with religious majorities.

2- Let's Keep God out of Ethics have very good reason to support their view on morality:

There are two reasons behind dismissing religion in general and theology in particular from ethics: 1) there is no reason to think religion, god, holy texts are necessary for morality (indeed, I think they are often retarding of ethical deliberation) and, 2) religion only clouds already diluted waters.

Further Christopher Hitchens give us a challenge: Name an ethical statement or action, made or performed by a person of faith, that could not have been made or performed by a nonbeliever.

3- The Pope, the Prophet, and the religious support for evil by Johann Hari: It debates on this enforced 'respect' that has now extended from ideas to institutions.

Only you, the religious, demand to be protected from debate or scrutiny that might discomfort you. The fact you believe an invisible supernatural being approves of – or even commands – your behaviour doesn't mean it deserves more respect, or sensitive handling. It means it deserves less. If you base your behaviour on such a preposterous fantasy, you should expect to be checked by criticism and mockery. You need it.

One life can change the world.

Motivation is the factor that keeps us going in hard times. I am not good in writing on serious topics with metaphorical sentences. I work hard on compiling an article, when I have something to say. It’s a hybrid of response to a moment of the life with what I read, heard or viewed previously to what I want to express. There are so many thoughts to tell. That’s why I edit the writeup may times until it make any sense. But an urge to improve content and flow is taken to engage readers in the reading process. There should be continuity and increasing depth as the article proceeds. Not everyone knows how to express creativity, but everyone has the capacity to be creative.

Now, turning towards real heated issues. Always in the human history, the sense of realism is overtaken by popular notion of mindless entertainment and belief system. Until, we realize the truth by questioning the popular practices, we are bound to be caught in the circle of violence and intolerance. We use religion, culture and tradition to justify anything that common sense might refuse to accept in first place. And, the habit of taking orders without questioning has further dampened the human spirit.

We simply do not realize that simply ignoring serious issues as boring topics will not make the inequality and unjust practices go away. We deal with serious issues by ignoring them until they happen, and then overreacting. We tend to regulate for that very specific event and close the eyes towards the root cause. Rare are the events that raise opportunities to look at whole systems and get the will and public support to do something about it. That's why I write like mad person to give all a glimpse of the darkening culture of our times.

I have to look at a frightening thing head-on to defeat its ability to cause fear in us. I rely on the double edged sword of reason and love to enlighten myself and others. Reason is the question & love is the answer to all the existing problems in the world. Hoping that you got my point. One life can change the world.

Thought of the Day: All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. - Buddha

Lets end with a YouTube video. Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Ten Issues - 2

I am not interested in sensationalism in these sensitive times. I talk about phenomenon in the state of cultural stagnation and political apathy. Reading and education is do ours bit to build democracy as effectiveness of democracy depends on the awareness of its citizens.

1- Indianhomemaker tells us: What do men need liberation from ?

2- Half of India doesn’t even have access to the judiciary. what do courts mean to them? Lawyer Prashant Bhushan speaks to Amit Sengupta of Tehleka on Who is a public intellectual, who can pass for one in India?

3- Amrita Preetam Imroz : A love Story of a Poet and a Painter. Just read to understand the intimacy of the love and poetry.

4- Dubai for a common purpose: to make money as smoothly and painlessly as possible, even if that means turning a blind eye.

5- Greg Satell explains: The Difference between Social Media and Social Networks.

6- From fields to a BPO in 6 months : A first-of-its-kind women-only BPO started by 'Harva' in a Haryana village is all set to harness the rural talent while changing the rigid mindset of the people, transforming rural economy, writes Hemlata Aithani.

7- Author of this post said - If truly good cinema is what survives the test of time, then these three were my first encounter with good world cinema that subsequently attracted me into the good world of cinema! Go on and read - World Cinema : Dark is Mine.

8- By mollycoddling their charges and telling them how to fix each problem, coaches end up creating players who can't think or act for themselves. Is that what has happened to RP Singh and Ishant Sharma? Go figure it out yourself by Harsha Bhogle

9- The Envelope, Please: From Eight Great Innovative Tools, Which Ones Are the Winners? published by April 22, 2010 in India Knowledge@Wharton

10- Who is easily manipulated? A valid question asked by Seth Godin on advertisements.