Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup
The Award Return Drama: Politics by Other Means.
Many observers of the debate on intolerance in India, have scoffed at the melodrama of returning the awards by, first, the Sahitya Akademi clan of favored writers, then by the historians, then by Bollywood and other-wood film directors, and now incongruously, of all people, by scientists. Of the latter, being one belonging to the fraternity, I am flabbergasted to see eminent scientists like Bhargava forsaking the scientific method of testing their contrived hypothesis of prevailing intolerance in India by proper analysis of data.. Let them analyze the supporting data and establish the hypothesis before others follow suit. Having betrayed the scientific community by hastily and unscientifically drawing from unsubstantiated data such a momentous conclusion, it is for him and his ilk to prove and establish their misconstrued contention. Others can act emotionally but scientists cannot and should not.
What are the evidences for an unprecedented state of intolerance now in India which can be solely attributed to acts of commission or omission by the Modi government, so that these people shed their medals at its doorstep? They have not particularly enumerated the episodes of "intolerance' but prefer to be vague by design, using the term "climate", inappropriately because climate is not man-made. So, judging from the general phobia that can be seen in media one may list them down to 3 murders of writers, the Dadri lynching, the Dalit children burning, Shiv Sena shooing away the ghazal singer Ghulam Ali, black-painting the face of erstwhile BJP loose cannon Sudheendra Kulkarni. and the independent MLA of J&K, Engineer Rashid, eight in all, but, by any means, add 2 more and make it a round figure of 10.
Even if these are 24 karat incidents of intolerance, which they are not , do they form a big deal? The glaring fact is that they have nothing to do with the Modi government, in fact not even with the respective state governments, all non-BJP. They are all fundamentally criminal acts the likes of which have happened sporadically in the past and are likely to occur in future too as anywhere in the world. They should be dealt with as such. Let us take them one by one...........
The murders of writers:The rationalist Mr. MM Kalburgi was shot dead in Karnataka, a Congress ruled Government. Mr. N. Dabholkar, another rationalist, was shot down on 20th August 2013 in Maharashtra at that time ruled by the Congress and the NCP; where were these writers at the time? Both incidents need to be condemned in no uncertain terms. It is the responsibility of the State government to maintain law and order and provide security to a vulnerable target of attack. .....Bleach no. 1 for the intolerance brigade.
Similarly, the Dadri incident took place in Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by the Samajwadi Party. UP police in its interim report says that Dadri lynching was a spontaneous, isolated, case, and they do not see any conspiracy. ....Bleach no. 2 for the intolerance brigade.
Then the Dalit children burning case: The forensic division of the Haryana Police has in their report to CBI, revealed their findings that the fire was an inside job The house was found locked, and empty fresh kerosene bottle was retrieved from under the cot and matchstick from window sill. So it was not even the upper caste to blame for the arson, least of all any government. ....Bleach no. 3 for the intolerance brigade.
Now the Gulam Ali blocking. It was Shiv Sena at it and the BJP took steps against it, offered security for smooth running of the function. The BJP fought its alley to protect freedom. ....Bleach no.4 for the intolerance brigade.
Inking episodes: Well known that it was the work of misguided Shiv Sainiks, BJP condemned it and arrested the culprits. On Engineer Rashid, it was by an obscure Hindu Sena and the culprit was booked. In fact ink throwing and slipper throwing at leaders have been galore in the past.across parties: Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Lal Krishna Advani, Ex PM Mohan Sing, Sharad pawar, ex Finance minister Chidambaram, Omar Abdullah, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, AAP leaders Kejriwal,Yogendra Yadav, Kumar Vishwas, all have been the targets of either ink throwing, shoe throwing or even downright slapping of face. ....Bleach no. 5 for the intolerance brigade.
So it is total bleaching of the Intolerance brigade, lock stock and barrel!
Even without all these glaring facts staring at every one with eyes to see, one can leave aside the writer-historian section of the brigade. Because writers are, if any thing, highly subjective people where stark objectivity takes lesser precedence. History is always his or her story of history. But not the scientists, for whom the empirical factor must be proved and repeatably provable. How 'Dr' P M Bhargava is going to escape from his self-closed closet of a bloomer political commitment and remedy his self ejection from the real scientific community is something he has to grapple with the rest of his life.
And now pit these few unreal, nonissues, with the 5000 sikhs who were massacred in the one and only genocide in Independent India in the wake of Indira Gandhi's murder, the hundreds who perished in riots during Congress regimes, the more than 30 books banned, including the Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, and An Area of Darkness by V. S. Naipaul and The Lotus and the Robot by Arthur Koestler, the thousands of Kashmiri pundits driven away from Kashmir, the hand chopping of TJ Joseph in Kerala, and a lot lot more, all in Congress led regimes! And speaking of bans, the cow slaughter and beef eating were banned by the Congress much earlier. Were these hypocrites hiding their conscience in their pockets to conveniently take it out now?
"Politics by other means" now dictates an alternative strategy. Combine the three crimes, camouflage the truth and throw all of them in the basket of present Central Government," - so aptly and succinctly summarized Arun Jaitley.
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The Award Return Drama: Politics by Other Means.
Many observers of the debate on intolerance in India, have scoffed at the melodrama of returning the awards by, first, the Sahitya Akademi clan of favored writers, then by the historians, then by Bollywood and other-wood film directors, and now incongruously, of all people, by scientists. Of the latter, being one belonging to the fraternity, I am flabbergasted to see eminent scientists like Bhargava forsaking the scientific method of testing their contrived hypothesis of prevailing intolerance in India by proper analysis of data.. Let them analyze the supporting data and establish the hypothesis before others follow suit. Having betrayed the scientific community by hastily and unscientifically drawing from unsubstantiated data such a momentous conclusion, it is for him and his ilk to prove and establish their misconstrued contention. Others can act emotionally but scientists cannot and should not.
What are the evidences for an unprecedented state of intolerance now in India which can be solely attributed to acts of commission or omission by the Modi government, so that these people shed their medals at its doorstep? They have not particularly enumerated the episodes of "intolerance' but prefer to be vague by design, using the term "climate", inappropriately because climate is not man-made. So, judging from the general phobia that can be seen in media one may list them down to 3 murders of writers, the Dadri lynching, the Dalit children burning, Shiv Sena shooing away the ghazal singer Ghulam Ali, black-painting the face of erstwhile BJP loose cannon Sudheendra Kulkarni. and the independent MLA of J&K, Engineer Rashid, eight in all, but, by any means, add 2 more and make it a round figure of 10.
Even if these are 24 karat incidents of intolerance, which they are not , do they form a big deal? The glaring fact is that they have nothing to do with the Modi government, in fact not even with the respective state governments, all non-BJP. They are all fundamentally criminal acts the likes of which have happened sporadically in the past and are likely to occur in future too as anywhere in the world. They should be dealt with as such. Let us take them one by one...........
The murders of writers:The rationalist Mr. MM Kalburgi was shot dead in Karnataka, a Congress ruled Government. Mr. N. Dabholkar, another rationalist, was shot down on 20th August 2013 in Maharashtra at that time ruled by the Congress and the NCP; where were these writers at the time? Both incidents need to be condemned in no uncertain terms. It is the responsibility of the State government to maintain law and order and provide security to a vulnerable target of attack. .....Bleach no. 1 for the intolerance brigade.
Similarly, the Dadri incident took place in Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by the Samajwadi Party. UP police in its interim report says that Dadri lynching was a spontaneous, isolated, case, and they do not see any conspiracy. ....Bleach no. 2 for the intolerance brigade.
Then the Dalit children burning case: The forensic division of the Haryana Police has in their report to CBI, revealed their findings that the fire was an inside job The house was found locked, and empty fresh kerosene bottle was retrieved from under the cot and matchstick from window sill. So it was not even the upper caste to blame for the arson, least of all any government. ....Bleach no. 3 for the intolerance brigade.
Now the Gulam Ali blocking. It was Shiv Sena at it and the BJP took steps against it, offered security for smooth running of the function. The BJP fought its alley to protect freedom. ....Bleach no.4 for the intolerance brigade.
Inking episodes: Well known that it was the work of misguided Shiv Sainiks, BJP condemned it and arrested the culprits. On Engineer Rashid, it was by an obscure Hindu Sena and the culprit was booked. In fact ink throwing and slipper throwing at leaders have been galore in the past.across parties: Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Lal Krishna Advani, Ex PM Mohan Sing, Sharad pawar, ex Finance minister Chidambaram, Omar Abdullah, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, AAP leaders Kejriwal,Yogendra Yadav, Kumar Vishwas, all have been the targets of either ink throwing, shoe throwing or even downright slapping of face. ....Bleach no. 5 for the intolerance brigade.
So it is total bleaching of the Intolerance brigade, lock stock and barrel!
Even without all these glaring facts staring at every one with eyes to see, one can leave aside the writer-historian section of the brigade. Because writers are, if any thing, highly subjective people where stark objectivity takes lesser precedence. History is always his or her story of history. But not the scientists, for whom the empirical factor must be proved and repeatably provable. How 'Dr' P M Bhargava is going to escape from his self-closed closet of a bloomer political commitment and remedy his self ejection from the real scientific community is something he has to grapple with the rest of his life.
And now pit these few unreal, nonissues, with the 5000 sikhs who were massacred in the one and only genocide in Independent India in the wake of Indira Gandhi's murder, the hundreds who perished in riots during Congress regimes, the more than 30 books banned, including the Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, and An Area of Darkness by V. S. Naipaul and The Lotus and the Robot by Arthur Koestler, the thousands of Kashmiri pundits driven away from Kashmir, the hand chopping of TJ Joseph in Kerala, and a lot lot more, all in Congress led regimes! And speaking of bans, the cow slaughter and beef eating were banned by the Congress much earlier. Were these hypocrites hiding their conscience in their pockets to conveniently take it out now?
"Politics by other means" now dictates an alternative strategy. Combine the three crimes, camouflage the truth and throw all of them in the basket of present Central Government," - so aptly and succinctly summarized Arun Jaitley.
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