Is being Indian not enough

This article in rediff is interesting: http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/feb/15guest.htm.
The article predictably rants and raves as can be expected by any North Indian RSS chaddi.

The author asks: "Is being Indian not enough?"
It is like someone asking "How do you say Hi! in Indian?".

What do you mean? Indian?

Winston Churchill once infamously said, "India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator." Frustrated Churchill and many men like him are dead now; we do not have to deal with them.

Irrespective of weather I am a Havyaka Brahmin living in Delhi or a UP Bhayya living in Bengalooru, I have the responsibility of integrating myself into the local culture. The first step is learning to appreciate the local culture. As long as we do not have a heart felt appreciation for the host culture we remain alienated. (what about Havyaka Brahmin living in Saskatoon)

Some wise people have told me that they like freedom and they do not want to learn the local language and they should not be forced, they think. These freedom fighters, as I call them, do not realise that there is no such thing as the absolute freedom. Freedom often is relative to surroundings. Being able to do what others do. Complete freedom means randomness. There can not be a harmonious society with its members being free. In a given setup people collectively agree to not to do some things, which is inherited through their culture or state. Freedom is restricted by law, morality, social conformity, our desire to socialise and many more. Perception of violation of freedom can be countered by convincing ourselves, issue to be part of any of the items listed before.

By the way being Indian is enough if only some one could tell me what being Indian means. Being "something" requires knowing what "something" is. When there is no such "something", being "something" definitely will not be enough! We have to be that "something" which can be hormoniously integrated into our surroundings. Difference is always appreciated along with commonalities. Difference alone is not a merit [Ragu 2008!].

Stop worrying about being Indian and start reading about dying Software Engineers:

http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/feb/14spec.htm

Woman and Liquor

The supreme court of India ruled that it is legal for women to be serving liquor (tending bar). I am pissed off at the SC. Not becase it gave freedom to women but becasue it did so preferentially.

SC has no time to direct governament to fix the ambigious Indian laws on prostitution. The judges are not bothered about women being forced into prostitution. No one cares about the women being trafficked. But they are so much caring and cautious about the freedom of the middle class women who have som ehotel management degree or diploma who want to make more money. No one needs to inform the SC; it has not given justice to the murdered bartender Jessica Lal yet.

I care more for the dignity of the women being trafficked than to the freedom and poverty of the upper middle class women who want to be bar tenders.

It is time judges stop masturbating and start using their kidneys and give balanced decisions that improves the condition of the women who are underprevilaged. I will join them in a milk bar when they have fixed the more important issues. I do not mind a young girl tendering. Do I?

~rAGU

of idols and ideals

What is the difference between faith and freedom? Not much, as many might expect. Let us dig deep.

Faith conditions us influencing what is comfortable and what is not. Faith unlike what is often argued is not just about GOD. God becomes a heading to the articles of definition of what is comfortable. In other words "life style".

Freedom is often explained egocentrically. Concept of freedom probably exists because of existence of inhibition: inhibition within and inhibition from external sources. It is this tendency to oppose inhibition that defines freedom.

Conditioning significantly influences the notion of freedom. It also uses the pretext of morals to impose inhibition. This is "right"; that is "wrong", type of notions redefine freedom. We get "comfortable" in certain set of such inhibitions. It appears that, since long, faiths have formed a frame work that can almost stand for what defines our comfort. When we are not combatable we feel our "freedom" is under attack. This is synonymous with the attack on faith.

We come to stage where attack on faith is directly interpreted as attack on freedom. Thus the faith and the freedom are two different concepts; they stand equated under the circumstances we live today. If this is not convincing some historical examples will help us understand this equation.

It appears that the Indian polity and the economy were independent of each other to a fair degree. Thus changes in polity did not affect the population to an uncomfortable degree. Why? Faith remained the same. People felt free to live their social and religious life, the way they wanted. Indian Rebellion of 1857 started when British interfered with the religion. That was really an attack on freedom.

Now, Hindus in Malaysia are protesting (read the link) against marginalization of the ethnic Indians (read Hindus) in Malaysia, a Muslim country. It is reported that thousands of temples built by their ancestors were being demolished and idols bulldozed. They now feel their religion is under attack. Freedom is under attack, is this a joke? :)

Louisiana State in USA uncharacteristically elected a brown man to the office of the governor.
Piyush Jindal is a man born to Indian parents (read Hindus, also read the link). However Bobby (his nick name) is a Roman Catholic Christian and supposedly he is considered as being to the right of the right conservatives! His life is in line, to make the audience comfortable he has to be that way, although acting otherwise was not a necessity.

I hope I have given enough proof why most think, attack on faith is attack on freedom. (I am guilty of not thinking much about inhibitions caused by economic compulsions. Which I will take up in the next write up). We look for comfort. Faith to some extent defines comfort and comfort defines our more general rules of what is acceptable, which we call ideology!

Integrity is at infinity. Ideologies are afterthoughts. What is more close to what we base our actions on are comfort and discomfort. This also applies to animals. Animals are sensitive to conditions but humans are also sensitive to concepts!

~rAGU