I’m not going to presume to tell Mr. Modi how to do his job, especially given the alacrity and efficiency with which he seems to have woken the upper echelons of bureaucracy from their sinecure siestas.

But...

I’m sort of wondering why Big Mo hasn’t had a word with the Appropriate Authorities about the egregious use, by leaders – read, demagogues – of organizations that voice their opinions violently. If hurting the sentiments of those groups can be grounds for authority abetted censorship, then surely those same hurt sentiments can be prosecuted for exhibiting their anguish by murder most foul.

Why, I’m wondering, is Mr. Modi remaining so deafeningly silent on the current spate of Religious Arrogance initiated crimes?

And I just read a report on the fear in Pune’s minority community. Surely, it is worthy of Prime Ministerial mention when a section of his constituency are afraid to wear the symbols of their faith. Maybe he will get the message if we, the majority religion, follow the lead of the Danes in WW2, when the entire population, of whatever faith, wore the Nazi mandated yellow star that marked those of the Jewish faith. It may be instructive to not that the King of Denmark started the movement. Oh, wait, I’m forgetting Mr. Modi’s aversion to skull caps.

Never mind. 

 

It gets unnerving, sometimes being a returned son of the soil, rss, lower case. All that native blood (nb) and genetic coding(gc) having to contend with elsewhere grown, age-ed, flesh, sensibility, and muscle memory. Quite exhausting.

Take this business  Of Rajya Sabha and its composition. 

Okay, I can, if I use slightly skewed tools, draw parallels between the RS and the US Senate but India's way of getting bums on lordly seats seems silly, to my admittedly small understanding. I mean, moving superannuated luminaries to party strong holds at party convenience, hmmm. Now I'm not saying that US senate is not Ruling Party heavy but the best a senate aspirant can hope for is Party-in-power BigButt - PBB  (hey-we're talking about the US here - #1 on the World's Fattest Nation list, ok? Although it might be instructive to note that India is #3 on that list, just behind - heh-heh - China. - just sayin') anyway, back to BigButts, all the aspirant can expect is for PBB to show up at election time and say nice things To represent a district the aspirant has to be actually known to the local political structure and money, it must be said. Not just be awed into acquiescence by the Prime Minster and his/her myrmidons. Anent which, that title itself, Prime Minister to which Higher Power? Smacks of Royalism, and ministerial obsequies, to my 'We, the People Sensibility'.

Phew, that feels much better.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Let's Make India A Better Place - Police and Judicial Reforms - Community - Google+

Let's Make India A Better Place - Police and Judicial Reforms - Community - Google+:



'via Blog this'

This has been an itch in my brain for a while now and i guess this is as good a place as any to scratch that itch.  Here goes.
I’m thinking that India will be a much better place if we stop referring to the police forces as law enforcement agencies. The police, a peace keeping force, cannot be enforcers of the law in a system that presumes innocence and places the burden of proof of guilt on the State. The sole function of a policing agency is to take the ACCUSED breakers of the Peace to a place of Judgment. Law enforcement happens only after that judgment. Enforcement of any Law needs the imprimatur of a Reasoned Judgment. Anything other sounds, and is, like jackboots and armored fists on village doors.
Neuro-linguistic programming is a thing. Look it up if you want to. Telling a child something is hard rather than difficult, has a cognitive affect on maturation. Telling a peace keeper that he is an enforcer leads to the Napoleonic Code with its concomitant shift in the burden of proof. Vide: Iran, any number of African ‘Governments', and increasingly, the 'United' States of America.

Google News

Invoking god during election amounts to
cheapening divinity – read the headline, encapsulating the opinion of the
Honorable Justice Rajinder Sachar. Sadly, for India, the good
Justice is retired and his opinion is just that, lower case, and does not carry
the weight of an Opinion from the bench. From the Delhi High Court, his
erstwhile Office, that Opinion would have brought a much needed breath of cool
rationality into the present hormone driven teenage phase of the maturing
Indian Democracy.

 Bummer.

‘Cuz, you speak truth, Mr. Justice; if not
the whole truth.

The whole truth is that relig… I beg your
pardon, Religion cheapens divinity. That which started out as philosophy, with
its questions, curiosities, and conundrums, seems to have devolved into
rigidities. Hindutva, defined as the practice of the Hindu Way, a super
highway, lane markings, toll booths, speed traps, and exit signs into perfidy
and retribution included, has taken the place of hindutva, a far less insistent
passage from here to There. Or, so it seems to me. That upper case demand for respect
seems so at odds with the hinduism 
taught to me by my very Tulu, very hindu, grandmother. She wouldn’t eat
beef but she had no problems with a grandson who did. She’d shudder at the
thought of banning anyone, of any faith, or no faith, from entering a temple.
She’d be incensed to hear of Hindu Temples that bar the entry of non-Hindus. Most
certainly she’d not countenance the tearing down of a Mosque.  Her hinduism, her hindutva, was a meandering,
stop -and - smell - the - flowers; eschew ritual in prayer, path through the
spiritual life. The gods she worsh… respected, were the ones who didn’t mind a
question or two about dicta and their interpretations, an altogether amiable,
if argumentative, sort of relationship. My way, her hindutva said, or, your own
way. She would not take it upon herself to find fault with a way other her own,
whatever her thoughts might be. Pitfalls will be found and dealt with, or not,
she might have said, had she spoken english.

I should probably add that I use Hindutva v
hindutva merely as illustration. Okay and also because I sense the stench of
Religion rising from the body politic, here in India, a nation in which there
are those who have made names for themselves proclaiming the Right of Way based
on numbers of Hindus in Hindustan. Not unlike the system in Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, Iran, Israel, and the United States. [What? You don’t think Big Money is
a Religion? Check out Bechtel’s head quarter building while browsing photos of
Winchester Cathedral, Tirumala Temple, et al. Interesting architecture, no?

You know what? – Toad asked, expectantly.

I’m afraid to ask – said Mrs. Toad, hopelessly.

Nevertheless, USians – boy, pronounce that as a word and all sorts of national characteristics start popping up, don’t they? – anyway,  USians may have a point when aspirants for public office have to open their books, all of them, to public scrutiny. That means we of the inquiring minds get to know, legally, if wives, extra or impaired, are tucked away, children have gotten tattoos and piercings, whether pets ride on top of the SUV, or if First Ladies have substance abuse problems; all this notwithstanding the privacy protection constitutional enshrinements – said Toad, trampling hope.

And what would the relevance of any of that be, especially in Indian Politics? – Mrs. T asked before she could stop herself, her need for relevance, once again, trapping her – Not to mention the Right to Privacy issues – she continued, her tongue betraying her will.

Toad’s joy was palpable. Mrs. Toad tucked her hands into the folds of her pallu. She watched as his pontification glands expand. Rapid response was, she realized, the order of the day.  Toad – she said, raising an admonitory finger – before you start, why don’t we wait and see what how the e-universe responds to your assertion, ok?

Urk – said Toad.

There is the ignoble part of me that envies the youth in India. More particularly the youth in Bengalooru. They are living in a world that I thought Iwould never see again and they are living it brimming with the youthful energies that I once had. In the words of the song, it smells like teen spirit all up in here.
A heady scent, that. It is one that I and my generation, encountered, experienced, infused into ourselves, better than half a century ago. And in so doing changed the course of human social history. I believe for the better. The Youth of B’loor (Yo...) – no wait, that’s an unfortunate acronym – Youth in B’loor (YiB), stand on the threshold of doing the same.
There is that dusky undertone of Travel, Adventure, New Experiences, and Unpredictable Delights that happen when strangers start living next door to each other. In B’loor that happens because of all the cities in India, B’loor ranks among the newer ones. India’s older cities, the large ancient ones, grew over the centuries. With their various sectarian and ethnic agglutinations domiciled in enclaves of sameness, those older cities perpetuated, and still do (to one degree or another), the mildly xenophobic attitudes of the rural and traditional backgrounds of the denizens. B’loor, on the other hand, exploded into city-dom. Young Information Technology worker bees swarmed B’loor from all parts of India, bringing with them bits and pieces of their ‘native’. Without Mom, Dad, and the parivar looking over their shoulders these youngsters, Youngistan, to give them their generational label started mingling. The huge advantage to mingling is that in its Brownian motion it knocks of those edges that don’t fit, leaving a well rounded organism that merges into the larger whole of Modern India, or MoIn, as I prefer. (Get it? I did, it is a close relative of a pun). Next thing you know, and to quote Bobby Darin, you’ve got 2 butterflies, casting their eyes, both in the same direction with the resulting butterfly collection. That’s what happens when you’ve got young singles living in close proximity to each other. In MoIn, in B’loor, it is getting increasingly difficult for the ‘native’ to be identified by physical feature. Ask the children of the YiBs for their ‘native’ and you’ll get as confusing an answer as you would from any USian of my generation.
“Let’s see now. We started out in Syracuse, and then moved to McHenry, but I went to school in Iowa, California, Montana, New York, spending considerable amount of time in Amsterdam and Haight Ashbury.”
Except, of course, the names will be Indian. The music, the laughter, the love, the heady scent of The Possible, will have a B’loor accent.
World peace may not be that far away.