Being a half-Mangalorean, I am aghast at the incident. Mangalore used to be a calm and cosmopolitan place.
In the last few years it has become a communal hot-spot. This transition has been engineered by political parties working hand in glove with their non-party partners.
The clothes people wore, their social events and the religion they follow were never an issue in Mangalore. It was a peaceful town, and now, it's ruined.
In the desperate lurch for votes and attention, the right wing extremists of India have launched an offensive on the very Idea of a secular and progressive India.
This disease is pan-Indian and its effects are frightening and long-lasting. Whether it's the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra disrupting Valentine's Day or the 'Ram' Sena in Mangalore, the strategy remains blatantly effective and simple.
Choose obvious and vulnerable targets, out-number them, use violence and then turn on the 'religious Hindu sentiment' garb. However, in the pursuit of the obvious target of the 'Hindu' extremist right wing, we should also mention and protest against the moral policing by every party in India...whether it is RR Patil in Maharashtra shutting down dance bars in Mumbai for moral reasons, and throwing thousands of working women on the street or the Islamic groups in J& K that seek to talibanise the region by enforcing suffocating dress codes and pulling girls out of schools.
India is a story of opportunistic moral policing and we, the ignorant & silent common citizen, are their secret well wishers.
There is no intellectual tradition that justifies the moral police of today. They are located nowhere in the history of Indian culture.
The only place they are located in is the quicksand of their own ignorance and brutality. I am a frequent reader of the Bhagwad Gita and the Vedas and Upanishads and have failed to read any paragraph that even remotely justifies acts of violence against women, or random acts of violence against any human being.
I have read the Bhakti poets, reflected upon Tukaram, and have yet to read an Abhang that justifies violence against women and innocents. In fact, the whole 'Hindu' Bhakti tradition empowered women saints like Meerabai to transcend the socio-cultural system they inhabited. Centuries ago, the HINDU Bhakti tradition taught all of us how to live in perfect harmony with god, womankind and nature.
The moral police are a contemporary parody, a moral joke. They need to be opposed by all the secular citizens of this country and punished very severely. They need to be debated with, made to feel isolated, arrested, if they turn violent, and shunned from our democracy. The men of Mangalore need to come out and make a strong statement. They need to stand in Hampankatta, the centre of Mangalore and oppose the systematic rape of a beautiful town by the dregs of society.
FIGHT-BACK, No More Gender Violence, will keep standing up against the Indian Taliban, we have started a poster campaign, we are brainstorming with members, we will not step down, and like every sane Indian, we will not let our country be hijacked by criminals cowering behind the façade of religion.
(FIGHT-BACK is India's fastest growing movement against gender violence and terror.
In the last few years it has become a communal hot-spot. This transition has been engineered by political parties working hand in glove with their non-party partners.
The clothes people wore, their social events and the religion they follow were never an issue in Mangalore. It was a peaceful town, and now, it's ruined.
In the desperate lurch for votes and attention, the right wing extremists of India have launched an offensive on the very Idea of a secular and progressive India.
This disease is pan-Indian and its effects are frightening and long-lasting. Whether it's the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra disrupting Valentine's Day or the 'Ram' Sena in Mangalore, the strategy remains blatantly effective and simple.
Choose obvious and vulnerable targets, out-number them, use violence and then turn on the 'religious Hindu sentiment' garb. However, in the pursuit of the obvious target of the 'Hindu' extremist right wing, we should also mention and protest against the moral policing by every party in India...whether it is RR Patil in Maharashtra shutting down dance bars in Mumbai for moral reasons, and throwing thousands of working women on the street or the Islamic groups in J& K that seek to talibanise the region by enforcing suffocating dress codes and pulling girls out of schools.
India is a story of opportunistic moral policing and we, the ignorant & silent common citizen, are their secret well wishers.
There is no intellectual tradition that justifies the moral police of today. They are located nowhere in the history of Indian culture.
The only place they are located in is the quicksand of their own ignorance and brutality. I am a frequent reader of the Bhagwad Gita and the Vedas and Upanishads and have failed to read any paragraph that even remotely justifies acts of violence against women, or random acts of violence against any human being.
I have read the Bhakti poets, reflected upon Tukaram, and have yet to read an Abhang that justifies violence against women and innocents. In fact, the whole 'Hindu' Bhakti tradition empowered women saints like Meerabai to transcend the socio-cultural system they inhabited. Centuries ago, the HINDU Bhakti tradition taught all of us how to live in perfect harmony with god, womankind and nature.
The moral police are a contemporary parody, a moral joke. They need to be opposed by all the secular citizens of this country and punished very severely. They need to be debated with, made to feel isolated, arrested, if they turn violent, and shunned from our democracy. The men of Mangalore need to come out and make a strong statement. They need to stand in Hampankatta, the centre of Mangalore and oppose the systematic rape of a beautiful town by the dregs of society.
FIGHT-BACK, No More Gender Violence, will keep standing up against the Indian Taliban, we have started a poster campaign, we are brainstorming with members, we will not step down, and like every sane Indian, we will not let our country be hijacked by criminals cowering behind the façade of religion.
(FIGHT-BACK is India's fastest growing movement against gender violence and terror.
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