Secularist’s Chronicle – Different Parameters
There was a huge ruckus in India couple of days back, led by
the ruckus-par-excellence inside the Newshour studio. Apparently, some fringe
Hindu groups successfully converted around 200 Muslims to Hinduism in Utter
Pradesh. I didn’t use the word ‘allegedly’ like what NDTV routinely does with
every news since, the men accused of this conversion were all present at the
Darbar of justice Arnav Goswami to testify and were seen quite openly admitting
their achievement with swollen chests.
Now there are two-or-three things to it.
- Why there was this ruckus when the matter involves the personal beliefs of few individuals
- If at all this demand for ruckus is necessary since most of us are jobless people, does it really required an hour long heated debate
- If at all the debate was necessary, one can’t help but ask, where was Arnav Goswami till today when we have got thousands of tribal and poor Hindus who get converted to other religions daily
But before we ponder on these three questions, I feel, the
need of the hours is to understand our constitution, very specific to religious
conversions. Firs-and-foremost – our constitution never objects religious
conversion. But there is a caveat. Though it never opposes but it clearly
outlines that no religious conversion may be allowed under duress, provocation,
force or hoodwinking. It is fine as long as those converting are doing it on
their own and with a clear mind.
This leads us to the first question that I have listed
above. Was there a need for this episodic outrage, both in our media and academia
for something which is still as murky as one can get. Does anyone from the
outraging lot know even one name from the 200 of those converted? Is anyone sure,
either way, if the conversions were as per our constitution or exactly opposite
to it? If no, which is the most likely answer, then what is the point in
outraging when we are not sure if we should outrage or not? That is like
working towards a solution when we are not sure if there actually exist a
problem in the first place. But we people are a bunch of
done-nothing-doing-nothing creatures, who love to get involved for the heck of
it. So there goes the outrage.
That said, for a moment we can forgive the masses for going
nuts without validating the facts on the ground. But what about the media, the so
called intellectuals or even the state government of UP? The state government
took the onus on their own to file an FIR and start investigating on the whole
matter. I am not sure how it looks from a distance but for the life of me, I
can’t comprehend, why a state should lose its sleep over something when there
is no apparent danger to the law-and-order situation. Even if there is a
potential danger of things getting out of hand in future, shouldn’t the state
be matured enough to investigate it first than doing grand standing and
communalizing the whole issue? Has the highly secular SP government had any
conclusive evidence of constitutional violation in this conversion drama for
them to behave the way they behaved? But irony, none in our media or the
intellectuals ever cared to debate on this very point yesterday. This was
rather surprising for me when people like Arnav can discuss the role of every
possible individual in the matter at hand but conveniently sidestepped the role
of the state. Was it deliberate or was the point missed by accident? Now this
leads us to the second question of mine.
There were at least a dozen people in Times Now studio to
debate. And as per practice, AG himself has concluded through his own justice
system that the Hindu groups did the unpardonable and deserve his divine intervention
to short the matter. And, those who have seen the show would agree with me
that, the wrath of great AG fell squarely on the lone BJP representative, the
two Sanyasies and a malnourished looking individual addressed as the secretary
of some Hindu organization. Arnav Goswami, who has even left absurdity bankrupt
a long time back, was in full swing to deliver profane to these four guys as if
there is no tomorrow. ‘Who are you to talk on behalf of Hindus’, he thundered
while remaining silent on who he is to talk on behalf of an entire nation. And
who all were there as sidekicks of Arnav ‘Nation Wants To Know’ Goswami? The
likes of Asaduddin Owaisi, Kamal Farooqi, the Samajwadi party’s own Arnav,
Gaurab Vatia and couple of Ulemas. Lest we forget, the secular characteristics
of these panelists have stood the test of time and are legendary. But this is
the beauty of Arnav that only he can see that these highly secular people are
the best minds in India to debate on harmony and constitution? As expected, the
overtly aggressive crowd in the studio turned the debate to complete chaos with
none caring an ounce to listen to any other. A dozen people shouted for one
complete hour but nothing noteworthy came out of the debate. This is perhaps
why I asked, if we really require a debate to ponder on this.
Even if we accept the fact that nothing fruitful ever came
out of any TV debate, the manner in which BJP’s pet ‘Anti-Conversion Bill’
given a miss gave me some raised eyebrows. The ones who were taking high moral
grounds were never asked – if they feel so strongly of this conversion then
what on earth was stopping them when they thought to oppose BJP’s proposed
Anti-Conversion bill by tooth-and-nail? Or is there something that I am missing
here? Anti-conversion bill could have been instrumental in sabotaging the
nefarious agendas of many Vatican sponsored conversion factories mushroomed
across the tribal belts of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. This is
something which is unwelcome with our ultra-secularists. For them, it hardly
matters if millions of Hindus are converted but when the tides flow the other
way, there it becomes communal. In one hand they will oppose something because
that would be Hindu friendly but when things get paid back in the same coin
with respect to non-Hindus, the secularists would cry wolf. Now this logic of
convenience is beyond me. This Ostrich attitude precisely drives us to the
third question in the list.
Where was Arnav when thousands of poor were getting
converted to Christianity in every corner of India? I never saw him debating on
them. Now Arnav shouldn’t claim that the poor tribal were getting converted on
their own wish. If people, who may not be aware of the capital of the state they
belong but quite aware about Christianity and the beauty of it, then it can’t
be any less than the biggest miracle of 21st century. Now if the
argument is the uncertainty (if forced or suo motto) of the nature of
conversion by the Christian zealots then it isn’t certain either in this 200
conversion of Muslims to Hinduism. Then why jump the gun and have a debate so
insinuating against the Hindus for one complete hour? As correctly stated by
the BJP representative, the state should complete the investigation first and
then arrest people if they are found violating our constitution. Where is the
role of Arnav Goswami in all of this? Why he shouted like a werewolf unstopped?
Who gave him the liberty to speak on behalf of an entire nation?
Taking advantage of their own shoddy so called investigation,
these media houses seem to have that license of both commission and omission to
destroy and degenerate anything and everything that stands for Hinduism. Who
gave these filthy doormats that liberty? How the testimony of someone, who is
alleged to have changed his /her religion for money and a BPL card, can be
taken on face value? If someone doesn’t have the basic moral toughness to stand
by his/her religion in time of crisis then how can he/she be trusted with
his/her words? Why I as an individual won’t believe that the person shown
admitting taking favors for religious conversion would also have greased
his/her hand by money from Times-Now to spew against Hindus? And most
important; does these Arnav Goswami’s of the world know that such media stings
stands to naught in our court of law? How something that doesn’t have the
authenticity to stand in our courts can be used to blast Hindus and Hindu
organizations for day’s altogether? But sanity is farfetched from these media
goons when it comes to Hindus and Hindu bashing.
I am sure, the same media morons would have shouted for
proof, had there been a conversion the other way. This is precisely the reason
why none in our media ever ran programs spanning over a week to debate on the ghastly
murder of Swami Laxmanananda. They didn’t because the Swami was running a
program in Kandhamal district of Odisha to reconvert all those tribal to
Hinduism, who were once converted to Christianity in exchange of a bag of rice.
They won’t run a program to deeply analyze the deplorable actions of Dara
Singh. Because, if they then it would expose the involvement of entire Stains
family in dubious mass scale conversion in and around Koraput and Kalahandi.
But ask them to run amok on Dara Singh, they would deliver justice, in
connivance with a handful of secularists passing of as political panelists. But
strange – they would self-adjudge as the voice of the nation and custodians of
truth and honesty. If only we could change the definition of truth and honesty
in our dictionaries.
Whenever there is concern of Hindus, these self-styled jokers go into a hiding only to pop their ugly heads in the name of pseudo secularism when it deals with Muslims. I doubt if these jokers would ever change.
ReplyDeleteHi BC,
ReplyDeleteI am glad that u gave voice to the silent majority.i am sick of this PRESSTITUTES spreading Hate campaigns against hindus day after day and directly targetting our PM Modi for all moronic reasons. I would also like you to do an article on the latest rant of rajdeep sardesai on modi at odisha lit fest 2014 .Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRCC49K6evo
Thank you
can you get this printed in any english daily, at least this would give our secular parties that they no longer represent Indians
ReplyDelete