On My Mind

I n 2005, the Central Government constituted a committee headed by former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, Rajinder Sachar to study the social, economic and educational condition of Muslims in India. The Sachar Committee submitted its report in 2006. The report found a range of disabilities hampering the Muslim community in the country. It placed Indian Muslims below Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes with respect to backwardness. It especially highlighted the poor representation of the community in decision making positions like the IAS, IPS and in the police. [1] To understand the intricacies of the issue, we need to go back to the creation of the modern nation of India.  India was independent in 1947. At the very onset, attempts were made by the state to bring reforms in the Hindu (here it implies anyone who was not a Muslim, Parsi, Christian or Jew) personal laws. The first elected government came to power in 1952 and by 1956 it was able to g...

If you have read something about Gandhiji, you are likely to have come across the three monkeys. He had a small statue of them. One of them covered his eyes, the message being, "see no evil". The second monkey had his ears covered, urging to "hear no evil". The third monkey covered his mouth who "speaks no evil". I believe we have grasped the message well and are doing the same; the teeny tiny difference being our ignorance of diversity. The three monkey today signify the principle - see no diversity, hear no diversity, speak no diversity; else you're a racist, xenophobic, narrow-minded, et cetera. A simple google search tells that racism is "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior." Pretty simple to understand, right? Apparently not! Homo Sapiens reside in different parts of the world. Owing to the geographical conditions and lack of...

"Nah, this isn't catchy enough.Add something to it. Be a little creative Manoj!" "Ma'am, she's Muslim. Should we draw the image of a Muslim woman beating conservative attitudes?" "Isn't good, besides, it looks communal. Make her an underdog. That sells 100 out of 100 times." "Ok! Consider it done." Next day, newspapers carried the headline of a poor girl succeeding in an examination -  the story which motivates, the story which inspires, the story which unfortunately killed the girl! [1] The story I am talking about is of a girl from Kannur. She scored 1180/1200 in her HSS exam. But she committed suicide. The media gave her the kind of publicity she didn't want. She had been hiding her background from her classmates by choice. Media didn't bother about respecting her privacy, spiced the story up a bit and served a headline which grabbed eyeballs. The girl felt humiliated and committed suicide. For those who ha...

Eminent sociologist Professor M.N. Srinivas coined the term "Sanskritization" to describe the cultural mobility in the traditional caste structure of Indian society. To raise their status in the traditional hierarchy of society, lower castes imitated the ways of the upper castes and in the process, quit some of their "impure" ways to assimilate well. This assimilation continued throughout. During the British rule, several reform movements took place. When the reigns of these movements fell into the hands of the lower caste leaders, they questioned the need for the lower castes to imitate the ways of upper castes and rightly so. By blindly aping the ways of the upper rungs of the society, you also acknowledge their justification for being the upper class in the first place. I believe readers would agree with me here for the most part. Now that we have these ideas on the table, let's move to what's called westernization. With the advent of Europeans in ...

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." This quote is the focal point of liberalism which is based on the ideas of equality and liberty. There are different variants and schools of liberalism but the forementioned two ideas are more or less common to all, though to different degrees. Not anymore. Liberalism has taken a turn where ideas have to stick to the conformity of the boundaries laid by the upper echelons of liberals. The central ideas which seem to be approved are open world, no boundaries, no discrimination, appeasing minorities (religious, linguistic, sexual, racial amongst others). There is no room left for discussion, nor is any allowed. Take this for example. A recent incident in India involving Ms. Gurmehar Kaur stormed the nation. There were two sets of people, one presumably liberals who supported her call for peace and end of warmongering, and the other set which opposed her ideas. Both sides...

Much has been discussed and debated recently about Uniform Civil Code with Central Government being asked by the apex court of its response on Shayara Bano's petition. Petitioner Bano challenged the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, in so far as it seeks to recognise and validate polygamy, triple talaq and 'nikah halala'. The Union government told the Supreme Court that 'triple talaq', 'nikaah halaal' and polygamy, as practised by the Muslims in India, were not "integral to the practices of Islam or essential religious practices". This has brought the topic of Uniform Civil Code into foreground again. While a large majority approves of UCC, the critics of UCC come mainly from Islamist groups who claim this would be a violation of their Right to practice their religion. Interestingly, apart from the aforementioned fundamental right, Constitution also says that "The State shall endeav...

Mr. Narendra Modi, the person whose name needs no introduction, is in the centre of the dais now. No more debates over AAP vs BJP, no more discussions over the Gujarat development model, all we are looking forward to, is for him to deliver, to rise to the occasion and fulfil all his promises. The elections have given "him" a clean majority, the people of India gave their mandate solely on the merits of Narendra Modi. The general elections 2014, might in fact be arguably remembered as the elections when a person rose above everyone to garner the popular support. To date, it has been almost 30 days for Modi ji since he took in charge of the Prime Minister Office. This period has seen a lot of hustle and bustle in the PMO. Many decisions have been taken, some of which received a positive response while some have been criticized heavily. Modi sarkar received a warm welcome from the market which showed tremendous growth as soon as the results were out. People could see th...

I hail from India, the land with the world’s largest democracy . Despite that, I am not a big fan of democracy. This post might irk a lot of people but I can’t help sharing my views. The whole concept of allowing each and every one to have a say in every common decision, without considering whether or not they are fit enough to take decisions, is sort of an exaggeration of the concept of rights. Democracy, in its purest form, is something that looks good and promising in theory but in practical, its repercussions can easily be seen. Let’s go through them one by one. ·         1 ) Universal Adult Franchise: The present criteria of allowing every person older than 18 years, to vote is not the best way to judge a person’s eligibility to cast his/her vote. This allows so many people who simply don’t care about the ideals of democracy, to cast vote. I have personally seen people selling their votes for a bottle of liquor in broad daylig...