Taslima's Struggle in India is reaching its Nadir
Mar 17 2008 | Views 393 |
Comments (22)
Tags: Taslima secularism in india tattered reputation Hypocrisy of monumental proportions taslima nasreen
Tags: Taslima secularism in india tattered reputation Hypocrisy of monumental proportions taslima nasreen
"Exiled Bangladeshi author, Taslima Nasreen, is contemplating leaving India in order “to be able to live.” Life in confinement in this country for “the past seven and a half months has left me half-dead,” Hindu March 18, 2008.
The above news item is a matter of genuine shame to India and its tattered reputation of being above religion or secular, Secular means not taking sides on religion. That the main religion of India can be excoriated by the likes of Karunanidhi and his ilk, assorted Muslims and Christians and still not cause any reverberations, has been a matter of pride to me until we find that ONLY Hinduism is treated in that fashion. Nobody dares attack any other religion in this so called secular land without facing personal danger and worse adverse action by the government.
In a free society free speech is one of the bastions of freedom and one of the pillars that make it a free society. What has happened and is happening to Taslima proves that
secularism in India is built on shifting sands of hypocrisy. The governments that have committed(as these are acts of commission, not omission) acts, both the West Bengal Government(the greatest hypocrite of them all, being of Marxist coloration) and the so called Congress government and its cohorts in the center who are acting as if the emperor with no clothes.
Taslima would most likely find a home in the West, but to me by hounding Taslima out of India for fear of losing the Muslim vote is an act of cowardice of monumental proportions. I am not a fundamentalist Hindu, and believe in full equality of all religion and also freedom of speech so that a Muslim or a Christian should be able to verbally attack Hinduism which many of them do, if the converse is also true, What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander: if it is not and what is happening to Taslima indicates clearly it is not which should make all decent people to hang their heads in shame.
The founding principles of the Indian constitution has echoes of the American constitution as stated in America's Declaration ofI independence , Thomas Jefferson's " life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as' inalienable rights'. With further echoes of Tom Paine's "Rights of Man".
I suspect founding fathers of the Indian Constitution knew the meaning of liberty and of the freedom of religion, BUT this lot ruling India today do not have a clue of its true meaning.
In the vital area of freedom of religion India is mutating in dangerous directions away from the principle that Caesar and God must be clearly separated and whatever is God's is not in the purview of Caesar and vice versa. This is an area where the laws should be clear and not wishy washy as they appear to be here, because of there being one preponderant religion and several other important faiths. Thus the freedom of religion was based on the acceptance of the primacy of equality of religions, by preponderant majority, that is the Hindus.With this kind of unequal application of this vital principal the Indian majority I fear will ultimately not take kindly to the prejudiced way the present government handles the equality of religions: both freedom of religion and freedom from religion should be bastions protected and scrupulously followed in India. That it is not is a matter of great sadness and outrage.
The above news item is a matter of genuine shame to India and its tattered reputation of being above religion or secular, Secular means not taking sides on religion. That the main religion of India can be excoriated by the likes of Karunanidhi and his ilk, assorted Muslims and Christians and still not cause any reverberations, has been a matter of pride to me until we find that ONLY Hinduism is treated in that fashion. Nobody dares attack any other religion in this so called secular land without facing personal danger and worse adverse action by the government.
In a free society free speech is one of the bastions of freedom and one of the pillars that make it a free society. What has happened and is happening to Taslima proves that
secularism in India is built on shifting sands of hypocrisy. The governments that have committed(as these are acts of commission, not omission) acts, both the West Bengal Government(the greatest hypocrite of them all, being of Marxist coloration) and the so called Congress government and its cohorts in the center who are acting as if the emperor with no clothes.
Taslima would most likely find a home in the West, but to me by hounding Taslima out of India for fear of losing the Muslim vote is an act of cowardice of monumental proportions. I am not a fundamentalist Hindu, and believe in full equality of all religion and also freedom of speech so that a Muslim or a Christian should be able to verbally attack Hinduism which many of them do, if the converse is also true, What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander: if it is not and what is happening to Taslima indicates clearly it is not which should make all decent people to hang their heads in shame.
The founding principles of the Indian constitution has echoes of the American constitution as stated in America's Declaration ofI independence , Thomas Jefferson's " life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as' inalienable rights'. With further echoes of Tom Paine's "Rights of Man".
I suspect founding fathers of the Indian Constitution knew the meaning of liberty and of the freedom of religion, BUT this lot ruling India today do not have a clue of its true meaning.
In the vital area of freedom of religion India is mutating in dangerous directions away from the principle that Caesar and God must be clearly separated and whatever is God's is not in the purview of Caesar and vice versa. This is an area where the laws should be clear and not wishy washy as they appear to be here, because of there being one preponderant religion and several other important faiths. Thus the freedom of religion was based on the acceptance of the primacy of equality of religions, by preponderant majority, that is the Hindus.With this kind of unequal application of this vital principal the Indian majority I fear will ultimately not take kindly to the prejudiced way the present government handles the equality of religions: both freedom of religion and freedom from religion should be bastions protected and scrupulously followed in India. That it is not is a matter of great sadness and outrage.
© Girdhar Gopal., all rights reserved.
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