The Mask Shalt Not be Named

YOU ARE WRONG NOT BECAUSE YOU SAID SOMETHING FACTUALLY INCORRECT OR WRONG, BUT SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU SAID IT.

In the mid 1980s, a petition was filed in the Calcutta High Court to demand a ban on Quran, for reasons obvious to any well-meaning informed human being with a conscience. Even the most devout and orthodox practicing Muslim knows this. In fact, they know.

The petition cited several dozen verses of the Book that, to even the dumbest mind, and the vilest soul is unbecoming of finding a place in a book, let alone finding place in a religious book.

As expected, it triggered very sharp reactions. Riots broke out in various places. 

Also as expected, the petition was dismissed without a hearing.

On a more recent note, a Television Channel exposing the dangers of having Urdu and Islamic Studies as the medium and subject for qualification to enter the Union Public Services Commission has been facing tough times from the judiciary.

Not because they are giving false information. 

The intentions of “Believers” using the Indian machinery of administration to spread the “Kingdom of Allah” is well-known. There are many leaked videos of private meetings and public talks available in the public domain that makes their intentions and agendas crystal clear.

One of my own classmates from College has been alleged of using his powers as a senior Police Officer to illegally recruit a large number of Muslims to the Police force.

The malaise is everywhere for everyone to see. Even the dumbest and the most malicious minds can not deny them.

But – you cannot speak of them. Not legally. Not officially. Not publicly. Not privately.

Some things have been declared out of reach for the mortals. They are beyond any speculation, any discussion, any debate, any argument, let alone any scrutiny, any reproach and any scope of any reform, or any transform. They have been just declared out of the bounds of any human authority, because they supposedly dropped down on the Earth straight from the Heavens.

If the government and judiciary do not bend backwards on their own, the ensuing riots make sure they bend sufficiently back to grovel their heads on the floor.

A few weeks ago, poet Manoj Muntashir released a video about the role of Mughals in Indian history. If you are not lying through your teeth, all discussion about Mughals is bound to go in one particular direction, and that’s what it did in this case.

His video was rampantly shared on Social Media with supporting comments that lambasted a “celebrity” for being so communal. He wasn’t criticized for putting across false facts, he wasn’t reprimanded for lying – he was ridiculed and discredited for choosing this topic to speak on, while a stand-up clown, Munawwar Faruqi, who had the audacity to crack jokes on the victims of the Godhra train-burning carnage, was supported by the very same people “for being targeted for jokes he didn’t crack” (whatever that flowery phrase means).

The price that Manoj Muntashir is paying for just choosing to speak on Mughals is that he has the entire troll-bazaar behind him. They come up with a new allegation against him daily, including allegations of plagiarism for his popular songs.

That is the price of speaking – not the price of speaking a lie or speaking a truth. That is the price of just choosing to speak.

A few years ago, a survey of police men all over India revealed that 60% policemen expressed that Muslims were a challenge to the task of maintaining law and order.

Every day you can see news of mobs attacking some police man. Whether it is the electricity department trying to recover its dues, traffic policemen giving a Challan, policemen accepting FIRs from aggrieved parents of kidnapped Hindu girls, cattle-smugglers, short-term encroachers and long-term encroachers – from very silly to very grave matters – using mob-strength to vandalize, injure and often kill policemen is well known to everyone who has ever opened a newspaper to read.

Even private citizens asking from their rents or money for a fruit they sold have been stabbed because they dared to take money from those dropped from the Skies.

What was the predominant reaction to this Policemen’s survey?

Do I need to say? This was discussed even in a forum of my classmates, and most of them, predominantly Hindus, unilaterally declared that it was inappropriate and unsavoury for policemen to make such a comment.

It doesn’t matter what the fact is. It doesn’t matter what people go through. It doesn’t matter what their obvious, well-articulated, well-documented, well-broadcast intentions are. It doesn’t matter what police men go through on a daily basis to make these savages fit into a civilized society.

Nothing matters. You just cannot say it. Period.

In the previous blog, The Masks Thrive By Creating Chaos, we discussed how an attempt to explain a miracle of a weeping statue of Jesus as a plumbing problem got a rationalist a permanent arrest warrant against him and he has been forced to live in Finland for a decade. 

They didn’t go after Sanal because he made a wrong analysis of the problem. 

They went after him for even wanting to question something that has been declared a “miracle”.

Last year, my childhood teacher, who taught us Geography in our High School, wished Easter to his fellow Christians and proudly declared he was so proud to celebrate a festival that is celebrated by 8 billion people of the world.

I said – “Sir, but the world population has not  even reached 8 billion… How can 8 billion people…” ?

Did the facts about world population matter to an ex-Geography teacher?

He promptly declared my statement as hateful, and after a comprehensive sermon on the need to respect all religions (funny especially when such sermons come from followers of religions which declares every other religion to be false), blocked me on Facebook.

In another incident, a classmate of mine, who always comes across as somebody who is progressive and critical of the inner mess of Christianity turned very uncomfortable with my “Masks” series of blogs. The resistance to my articles built up gradually till it reached a point where, after the last post, he asked me not to share my blogs with him.

Did he find anything factually incorrect?

Did he find anything that defamatory in my blogs?

Did he find anything that has been intentionally and maliciously being said just to defame a very sincere religion?

None of these. Some things are just not supposed to be said.

These sentiments are not very different from the interview of Mother Teresa that I referred to a few blogs ago – The Mask is a Broken Record – about she supporting the Church even for all its murders and killings.

In Kerala, the Christians have been so much targeted by the growing momentum of Islamic Jihad that the Church in Kerala has been demanding anti-Conversion laws, a ban on Love Jihad, etc.

When the Karnataka government tried to bring forth an anti-Conversion law in the state, representatives of all prominent Churches met the government to express their concern at the government’s effort to bring forth this anti-constitutional bill.

How immoral, unethical, hypocrite, murderous, conniving do you have to be to fall below a minimal threshold of being religious?

The bottom-line of every practicing member of these faiths, from the laity to the clergy is simply this – “we, and we alone deserve to exist, and we are allowed any degree of decadence to ensure our existence and your annihilation”. Both these faiths cry hoarse for their right to expand while equally crying hoarse of anybody stepping on their toes, even inadvertent.

They exist in a permanent guilt of the rot they know has been thrust upon them and it shows every single time they show up or open their mouths. Fear of hell-fire and lust for paradise can make one act a certain way, but it does prick the conscience day in and day out. It only takes one casual glance in their eyes to figure out what a vacuous and hollow conscience they have to live their lives through.

If you have found a moderate and progressive practicing member of these religions, it is only because you have probably not discussed enough, or probably not pushed sufficient buttons.

Every practicing member of these religions is a solider in the war of their Gods, who is constantly out to get you, or provide all the support they can to those who would get you.

How many practicing Christians come forward in support of the nuns or children who are victims of years of molestation, or come forward to even condemn, let alone ask for any retribution for the Pastors alleged for a wide range of sex crimes?

Nobody – I repeat – nobody loves you enough as much as to risk burning in hell-fire forever.

As I have been pointing out in several of my blog posts earlier, the biggest mistake we make is to get into a “meaningful debate” to establish the pros and cons of various sides.

Our temptation to come across as a large-hearted, broad-minded, unbiased intellectual is so annoyingly huge that we cannot resist an opportunity to discuss points on their merits and de-merits. 

The other side only has slogans and generalizations and rhetoric. It takes hundreds of facts to demolish a rhetoric, and one rhetoric to demolish a hundred facts, you often find the idiotic rice-bags, jihadis and wokes walking away victoriously in debates. For the several dozen arguments you might have put forth, they just need to throw one pseudo-dialog and walk away like a self-entitled victor.

The crooks of the world win a debate by totally avoiding debates, by totally denying you the rights to have a debate. 

This is such a huge mistake we make that this whole lust of sounding progressive intellectuals has become a huge bane for us and killing us by the day.

We need to say a clear NO to this nonsense. 

The dictum – “let them be what they are, we should be what we are” is not a virtue. It is stupidity, irresponsbility, laziness, cowardice and a total criminal behaviour. 

No one can create a strategy in vacuum. How you deal with a situation entirely depends on the strategies and tactics used by the opponent. If a batsman says, “it doesn’t matter how the opponent bowls, no matter what the stage of the match is, I will play the way I play”, he is being irresponsible to his team.

Every action, word, thought of ours should emerge out of the context of the situation around us. Debates have honesty, commitment and sincerity as pre-requisites. You cannot and should not debate with a malicious crook.

India has a rich spiritual tradition. Every act of our daily lives can be a full-fledged spiritual path leading you to total realization. There are literally millions of paths, and hundreds of thousands of scriptures with messages of real substance.

If a country that produces surplus of wheat has to import wheat, it makes sense to do so only if it finds a very superior quality of wheat that is not produced in that country. To import trashy wheat from elsewhere when you have a surplus yourself is not a very wise thing to do.

In our rich spiritual tradition, if we have at all to get an ideology, it better be worth it. We DO NOT need and we DO NOT entertain ideologies of crooks and murderers. We DO NOT entertain ideologies of political global hegemony masquerading as religion. In the land where we seek a realization of our own divine consciousness, we DO NOT need to entertain worse-than-cheap-cock-and-bull-stories of paradise and hell-fire.

We DO NOT need to import cans of garbage from outside.

The debate ends there.