Some of my views on certain controversies

So this was an angry email I sent to someone in the middle of the night. I was hopped up on caffeine and was quite annoyed - the product ended up being this email. Here goes nothing....

Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul praised Hindu Nationalists for
"reclaiming India's Hindu heritage" and the repatriation of
the Ramjanmabhoomi was a "welcome sign that Hindu pride was
re-asserting itself"

He was born in Gorakhpur, and lives in Trinidad.
I am so sick of hearing about the loss of Hindu  pride..
I don't think Hindu pride went anywhere that it needed to
be 'reclaimed'...also, in a secular nation why should
something like Hindu pride even exist...if anything, it
shouldbe Indian pride. It is shameful to admit that if
something like the demolition of the Babri Masjid had happened
to a temple,and was lead by a Muslim mob, people like V.S.
Naipaul(among others) would call it a resurgence of the
mentality of the oppressor that apparently every Muslim has,
or even better, it would be labeled a pro-Pakistan action to
indicate that all Indian Muslims are Pakistani at heart and
tote around photos of Osama Bin Laden with them.

I am absolutely outraged, I thought the intellectual quarters
of the country could see the Babri Masjid crisis for what it
actually is, a rampant, violent, most importantly,
inappropriate and criminal move by the Jan Sangh/BJP to widen
their vote bank, regardless of how many lives get trampled
under their feet. But apparently not, V.S Naipaul, a freakin
Nobel Laureate, has been quoted describing the destruction of
the Babri Mosque as a "creative passion", and the invasion of
Babur in the 16th century as a "mortal wound." Most
disappointing is the fact that this man writes beautifully
on the dangers of misplaced political passions yet he did not
for a second stop to think what quotations like the ones
mentioned above could do to inflame the political passions of
certain groups.  He is an academic, a writer, an intellectual,
his job is to enlighten society, to lift society towards a
better, more aware existence - not to further thrust them into
the fires of hatred and intolerance.

On a more personal note - I am worried that my rampant outrage
against the BJP and consequent support for the Congress (who
are not blameless in any way shape or form) might just be me
following trends. Just supporting the party currently in power,
because I remember back in '96 I thought Atal Bihari Vajpaee was
God's gift to mankind and that he would lift India out of the
mess she was in. And now I support the congress because apparently
they are better than the BJP? Maybe I am just a fair weather
political agitator. Yet regardless of the party I support, I can't
help but think that what the Jan Sangh/BJP did with Babri Masjid
and then Godhra was wrong on a fundamental level, on a level that
is higher than death and killing, possibly on a moral level.

Then again, morality is an extremely tricky word, especially
when used with regards to religion. For all I know, the
demolition of the Babri Masjid was a moral act in the eyes of
some people. Is there a morality above individual morality? If
there is then who decides what it is and what makes that person
capable of doing so? If there isn't then how is a country like
India able to survive as a cohesive unit? I have all these
theoretical questions but on a practical level I still feel
that I am right, that using religion for political gains is
wrong, and if it is then the Congress has also exploited
religious and communal rifts, so what gives them the moral right
to turn around on the BJP and accuse them of religious fanaticism?
Isn't that another political ploy? But then again, I guess I
am just being stupid, for who has heard of morality and politics
ever going together?

However isn't my condemnation of the BJP just an example of me
forcing my morality on a group of people? How I think they should
have behaved?


I strongly believe that after independence there was practically nothing stopping
India from going down the path of other Commonwealth nations like Ghana,
Uganda and even South Africa that suffered (and are still suffering) years of
civil war, racism and violent dictatorship. India on the other hand is still a
thriving democracy and an emerging economic powerhouse, I mean a country
whose people are capable of regularly electing a communist government has to
be something special, eh? The reason India didn't fall into the commonwealth trap
was simply because of its secular nature. Secularism was India's saviour and should
be its most cherished heirloom, yet we continually try to destroy it and in doing so
jeopardize the very existence of India as a nation.


Self Destructive, much?

TBC

P.s. please excuse the lack of grammar or structure...