Secularizing The Religion

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Secularizing The Religion

Mahatma Gandhi said: “If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern!”. But what is happening in India is that instead of keeping one's religion personal, every politician is using it for his own benefit. They fail to see that alternative to their bad religion or their take of religion, is not secularism, which every bad religionist is using for playing hide and seek. Just as leftists used ideology as opposed to values, the pseudo secularist is using secularism to cover bad religion. Has any one of them put religion behind him? Scratch any of them and you can see communalism under their skin.

The religionists need to be reminded that you can secularise your religion with or without spiritualizing your life. Instead of waiting for that happening to you, you should seek it to happen in you. One should gradually start synchronizing the thinking ,beliefs, commitments, and practices to the pattern of this age rather than to the medieval. It is easy for the Hindus but may be not so easy for the semitic religions who believe that each one of theirs is the God's word, unalterable., For them the universe is no democracy as it is for the Hindus, it is a monarchy. Only Hindus have nothing like the last word, but instead have the principle of universal dynamics where there is no finish..

The Persians had no sound or letter for  'S' but used instead 'H' for these in their language, so they called the great riverine Sindhu people and civilization, world's earliest culture, as Hindu. That got wide currency in rest of the world west of Bharathavarsha that is India now, and whoever came from the west used the name known to them already. Later on, Sindhu river was known in Greek as Indus from which came the English name, India.This was in a way good because the earliest civilization got a name for itself; the earliest civilization had no use for a name, it was indeed  the mankind and the world. Christ never created any religion; Christianity was created by others in his name. By the time of Christ there were plenty of others, but in Sindhu people's rather primordial times only they were there as the Manu, the thinking animal, ( Manu>Man, Adi>Adam, all came from sanskrit ), others being  not far away from having come from the stage of brachiation from tree to tree.

That is why you don't find the term for this way of living, or the word Hindu in the Vedas, although there are references to Sanathana Dharma. Dharma, not math, mind you. It was the life one should do, his duty, not one of the ways, the math. Get it?

So when we say Hindutwa, it is actually Sindhutwa or Indianness. In order to be a complete or even better Indian, one has to synchronize oneself with this Indian ethos. Reactionaries are attacking this concept, turned in to demand, under open skies and broad daylight shining bright in India unlike in many theocratic nations. Reactionaries who have treated their own kinds in the most despicable way wherever they hold the sway. And our working -class heroes are no exception who behave like so many dogmatic idiots..

The pseudo secularist should learn that secularism is not loss of faith. It is a loss of political interest in the world of faith. they should also understand that in the  Indianness, religion is irrelevant in the common way of life. It is only the Indian ethos all the way.

The Super Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Goddess.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

The Super Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi, the Congress      Goddess.

The then Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Kantilal Bhuria, in February 2010, received a letter from Congress party president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, offering some suggestions on the Forest Rights act then under formation and asking for his response. Bhuria did not respond with alacrity to this extra-governmental source of instructions and when he was bombarded with reminders, he finally in June responded negatively, not accepting the suggestions. The knave Minister who foolishly deluded himself that as minister he had the authority to take decisions in matters concerned with his portfolio, even in recommendations by the Madam, was soon to pay dearly for his gall to reject the 'recommendations'. In the Cabinet reshuffle the next month, Bhuria was unceremoniously sacked. In his place was appointed V Kishore Chandra Deo, who knowing what was required of him, promptly took on board the “suggestions” from on top, which eventually made it into law.

These happenings have been revealed from documents obtained under R.T.I. ( by Economic Times) which go to show to what extent Sonia Gandhi is involved in minutiae of policy matters and with what exertions she imposes her will in pushing them through the government and also punishing whoever offends her in the way. It also exposes to what mockery the prime Minister is reduced to and who really rules the roost. The R.T.I. documents also showed that in that year, Prime Minister got bombarded with 25 N.A.C.letters and individual Ministers with not less than 17 letters, all urging the recipients to toe her line. Although the letters are purported to be from NAC and signed by her as its chairperson everyone knows that they in fact embody Sonia's commandments couched in more civil form as "recommendations'.


All the revenue guzzling grandiose social security schemes are Sonia's flagship schemes designed to be populist even at the cost of national exchequer, and by riding on them to secure votes in elections. Whenever the next election is looming  in the horizon, there is bound to be a flurry of such populist bills, and schemes, - only this time, the game had started much earlier. Food Security Bill is one such, toppling the budget and widening the fiscal deficit at a time when the nation can ill afford it.

National Advisory Council is nothing but Sonia Gandhi's backyard kitchen where such fast food items are cooked up.  From the leafy bungalow, 2 Motil Lal Marg nestled inside the Lutyen's zone, the Council quietly operates under her matron-ship giving her an aura of tenability, and most conveniently, without accountability. Such arrangement affords her the escape facility to remain anonymous if things go awry  and send her son and heir to throne, Rahul Gandhi to land on the scene with Jupiter's velocity and bomb out her own government, which had merely done what she had said, but now the wrong-doer before the people ( but mind you, not she).

Of course,it was from its pantry during UPA 1 that NREGA, RTI, Prevention of Domestic Violence and Forest Rights Bills were conceived. It did set the social political agenda of the UPA. It gave the UPA 1 a pro-poor image and edge, which ultimately won them the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. But then, NAC of UPA 1 was  very different from NAC of UPA 2. There was a Common Minimum Programme and lot of committed people were in the body and the allies had a say. Allies monitored the suggestions. But now, none of the sort. ,NAC has turned in to solely an extra-constitutional body impacting the sovereignty of the decision-making process of the Union Cabinet. The PM has voice which he seldom uses, but no power -perhaps the reason why he seldom says anything.

The power behind the throne, the Super Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi, the resident behind the high walls of 10, Janpath is the ultimate authority who must be obeyed, but who hovers beyond all notions of accountability.

The Theater Of The Absurd

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 The Theater of the Absurd

 

 

 With a dogged resolve of a crass politician, Sonia Gandhi presides over the political decision making  core group of Congress party, and much against the wind of public sentiments and also much against the sane opinion of a minority inside the group (that included  Veerappa Moily), and aided and abetted by hustlers like Kapli Sibal, triumphantly decides to defy the Supreme Court, and to bring in an ordinance on the bill  to save the convicted MPs marauding in her party and in  UPA as law makers.  On July 10, the Supreme Court had ruled that an MP or MLA would be immediately disqualified if convicted by a court in a criminal offense with a jail sentence of two years or more The immediate imperative was that Lalu Prasad, her staunch ally might meet his nemesis and  be consigned to the cattle manger of a hefty term of imprisonment that could call curtains for his political life. Greatly concerned, her core group decides to rescue Lalu the ally by proclaiming hurriedly an ordinance on the bill and thus outwit the court verdict. Prime Minister and his cabinet carried out the core group's directive to the letter, and gave shape to The Representation of the People (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2013 allowing convicted MPs and MLAs to continue in office if their appeal is admitted by a higher court within 90 days and the conviction stayed, which was then dispatched to the President for signing.

The  BJP who initially had gone along with the bill, now sensed the strong ground swell of public sentiments that had already turned into a whooping gale against any such move to protect criminal politicians, simply backtracked and  tried to stall the bill by causing it to be sent to a standing committee. They then proceeded to oppose  the totally untenable ordinance tooth and nail, and even met the President urging him not to sign it. Then came the blow which the dynasty never reckoned with. The President,-their erstwhile man of all seasons - however  gave clear indication that he is not happy with either the ordinance, or the proposed bill.

For the first time since Indira Gandhi's confrontation with the "syndicate", the dynasty's might was shaken and the Congress party  embroiled in another devastating doldrums, this time almost fatal. The dynasty decided to jump out of the sinking boat on to terra firma and leave the captain and the crew to its fate. The jump was as sudden and dramatic as the criticality of the situation demanded. The prince hates being caught wet and soiled. So he shook himself dry and declared to the effect that having watched the whole episode through a pair of binoculars from a long distance in Delhi," my opinion is that the ordinance is nonsense and it should be torn up and thrown away" ..[ ie. before the President  does so ].

Fair-minded people may ask even if the dynasty found that the ordinance which they chaperoned is backfiring, it could have quietly pulled the strings on the govt. to withdraw it. They should realize  that the dynasty saw the resultant fiasco back lashing on them more than the govt and the PM, who are already discredited anyway.  They were scared to their wit's end that people will see that the dynasty is prone to blunder. How that it could be; the dynasty can never be wrong - or else everything is lost. Drastic situations require drastic remedies The Prince took leave from his extracurricular activities and decided to shoot from the hip. He did and came out like a Rambo and a hero, the gun smoking profusely and leaving every one flummoxed, some to the point of consternation. The prince thus proved that he is much above all that muck even after wallowing in it all along.. Let the world behold and be thrilled.

The prince is now prim and prime,spick and span; it is the PM and his team wet and sick. It seems there is great future for jumping jacks in the Congress theater of the absurd

 The man who makes merry on the sly here is Nitish Kumar of JD(U). Whether or not  he tantalizingly held at a 'jumpable' height a half ripe banana of his chance, or even offer, of joining the UPA, which contributed to the spirited acrobatics of the young scion, might remain a part of the mysterious palace intrigues. One should see the obvious fall out of enormous potential of a  Lalu-devoid battle ground to fight the resurgent BJP in Bihar. In this Wild Life week the thought arises that one of the abundant species in the Indian jungle is the jackal.