My ‘Indianness,’ my own making

Given India’s multicultural diversity, how can one define Indianness? Could it be defined as patriotism and devotion towards one country, or a person’s cultural identity in their society?

I believe that our “Indianness” is most certainly imposed upon us to an extent. Indians are expected to dislike Pakistan and its people. If a person so much as attempts to voice their opinion in favor of Pakistan’s claim that Kashmir belongs to them, he or she is met with strong opposition.

Taking into consideration an issue, or opinion on a subject that has countrywide support, people are expected to go along with popular public opinion. This was clear when Anna Hazare’s crusade against corruption was at its heights, and regardless of what their opinions on the subject were, there weren’t many who were willing to voice their views against his “my way, or the highway” approach to getting what he wanted done.

Also, seldom are girls seen clad in a pair of jeans and short t-shirts when in a temple, mosque or other places of worship. They are expected to dress in “traditional” Indian clothes when in such places.  Even in the 21^st century, women do not have the freedom to wear what they want to.

I was born into a Bengali family, but by nature, I’m as non-Bengali as one can be. My family moved to Chennai in 1997, and having lived there for nine years, I was brought up in an environment that is poles apart from one that we may find in Bengal.

There have been innumerable occasions where people have tried to force me into behaving more like what they believe a Bengali should behave like. They have tried their hardest to force me to respond in Bengali, which, in spite of being my mother tongue, is a language I’m not comfortable conversing in. I detest Bengali food; yet my family never ceases to force it on me. I consider Durga Pooja, the main festival of Bengalis, an extremely noisy celebration—These are certain things that often upset other Bengalis who expect me to speak a certain way or even think a certain way.

M.F. Hussain was exiled for depicting Hindu goddesses in the nude but similar such portrayals can be seen in the famous Khajuraho temples; Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” was banned in the country for hurting Muslim sentiments, but Taslima Nasrin was welcomed even though she was accused of much the same; political parties which are known for pushing their religious beliefs, the Bharatiya Janata Party for instance, which is widely popular for its “Hindutva” (Hinduism), are voted for in a country that claims to be secular—These are just a few instances among countless others which reveal the hypocrisy present among Indians. It makes me wonder if their frequently violent reactions are genuine, or do they merely go along with “accepted” outlooks?

Even though such conformist attitudes continue to exist in India, it all comes down to whether a person is willing to give into this kind of pressure in their everyday lives. An individual’s “Indianness” or Indian identity is something that should come from within, and not one that is forced upon them.  Conducting yourself a certain way because you feel obliged to do so does not make that your own identity. A person may believe that a lot can be accomplished by setting up a farce of an identity, but ultimately, this does nothing but creates another clone of what societies believe is an ideal Indian.

I most certainly will never understand why people assume that it is their duty to attempt to “mend” others’ mannerisms and way of thinking. I’m headstrong by nature (if I may say so myself), and quite stubborn as well, and cannot be easily pressurized into doing anything against my will. With absolutely no patience for people who are oblivious to their own bigotry, I could really care less about what others may have to say about me, as my identity, is of my own making.

Ever loving, never loved

Amidst the vast population of the country are an enormous number of ill-treated, unhealthy and injured street animals, with dogs constituting the majority of them. These street dogs face a great deal of cruelty in the hands of Indians. They are kicked, stoned, abused, run over and often tortured among other forms of brutality.

The ardent dog-lover that I am, loyal, friendly, loving, compassionate, endearing and plain adorable are the first thoughts that cross my mind when I think of dogs. Domestic or stray, they are all the same to me. However, given the way they are treated in the country, they clearly are not as loved as they deserve to be.

These animals face abuse in the hands of children and adults as well. Seen a lot with the uneducated population, we often find that there are those who gain some kind of sick, twisted pleasure by afflicting torture on these animals. There are better ways to achieve such feelings with having to resort to such barbaric means. One can only wonder how such sadism can make anyone feel good about themselves.

Civic bodies no different

Such abuse occurs at the hands of not just the general not-so-animal-friendly public, but from civic bodies as well. We frequently hear news of street dogs being neutered without being given sedatives or anesthetics. These reports are often heart wrenching stories of neutered dogs being left in a bloody mess after they are done being operated on. Such civic bodies are expected to watch over the welfare of these animals but instead, special institutions need to be set up to keep a check on their cold-blooded acts.

Founder of Voice of Stray Dogs and animal rights activist Rakesh Shukla believes that even in developed cities like Bangalore, street dogs are harmed and ill-treated, with civic bodies too, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike in this case, indulging in such misdeeds. He believes that the BBMP’s Animal Husbandry Department is especially dedicated to illegal relocation of street dogs.

According to their Animal Birth Control program, which was adopted to maintain the population of street dogs in the city at a manageable number, they need to capture the dogs, neuter them, and once they are operated on, drop them back in the same locality that they were taken from. However, these dogs are more often than not dropped off at an entirely different locality. Given their territorial nature, these dogs fight amongst themselves, and in the process, not only do they injure themselves, but are also termed a nuisance by residents as a result of the entire ruckus they create.

People’s rush, their doom

Being stoned and kicked out of the way are common everyday occurrences in the lives of street dogs. But these are in close competition with them being run over and either getting injured, or losing their lives altogether. These animals go unnoticed and are often ignored by people on the roads who are always in a hurry to get to places. Their negligible regard for their lives is evident with their refusal to slow down even a wee bit.

Does it cause people such a great deal of pain to simply slow down a tad just so these animals can move away from their approaching vehicle? The degree to which people can extend their heartlessness is purely mind boggling.

There is no law against treating street dogs with compassion, nor is there one against feeding them or giving them a place to stay. No matter how many times they are pelted at with stones or harmed in any way, the nature of dogs is such that they would go wagging their tails at the very same people if they are approached with kindness. It pains me to watch them run away at the slightest twitch of a limb from even those who truly care about them, as cruelty is all that they have faced their entire lives.

Their sad plight is being dealt with by several animal rights organizations and NGOs taking up their cause and looking out of their welfare as well. There are institutions which provide them with homes and also battle for their rights in cases of intolerable cruelty.

There isn’t much that I care for as much as I do for these creatures. By no means can I even begin to comprehend how one can bring themselves to being nasty to these dogs. An urgent change in attitude towards them is needed. People need to reach out to their humanity and bring an end to such brutality towards these hapless animals.

Where’s the ‘garden’ in the Garden City?

In April 2008, an anticorruption NGO called on the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike to stop hacking down trees in the city under the pretext of development. But nearly four years later, there has been no visible change in the BBMP’s incessant destruction of the city’s greenery, which it seems, is at least partly driven by greed.

In an open letter to then BBMP Commissioner S. Subramanya, the chairman of Transparency International India (TII), M.F. Saldanha, a former Mumbai High Court justice, pointed out that the city’s greenery had been reduced from 15 percent in 2000 to 8 percent in 2008 with the felling of over 19,000 trees. With the large number of road-widening projects that have begun since then, it is obvious that that figure has shrunk considerably.

Timber from each tree that is cut down is worth between Rs. 300,000 and Rs. 500,000, but contractors purchase them for a measly Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 3,000. TII believes that BBMP officials sell the timber and pocket the huge profits, which motivates them to carry on their merciless destruction of the city’s trees.

Though much of this relentless tree-felling ostensibly has been done to widen roads to improve the flow of traffic, little or no difference has been made in that regard, and the city has lost thousands of trees in the process.

The BBMP fails to realize the importance of striking a balance between what it believes is “development” and the ecological requirements of the city. Sacred trees like the peepal, economically  significant trees like sandal, teak and pongamia as well as exotic ones with large canopies that provide shade and help reduce pollution have been chopped down for road-widening projects.

The Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act of 1976 made it mandatory for both local people and civic bodies to get permission from the Karnataka Forest Department before felling trees. But the passage of this act has done little to prevent the large-scale felling of trees. The Forest Department seems to have turned a blind eye toward the BBMP’s war on the city’s trees.

The city is fast turning into a concrete jungle, and the effects of this are unpleasantly evident in the climatic change that Bangalore is experiencing. Commuters need to bear the scorching summer heat without the shade that trees once provided.

In November 2011, in a case that the BBMP won, nearly 5,000 residents in Malleshwaram and Yeshwanthpur protested against the cutting of the last two of the 19 trees on either side of Sankey Tank Road. In this proposed project to widen the traffic corridor to Yeshwanthpur, the BBMP was asked to plant saplings to compensate for the trees that will be lost in the process. But there reportedly are no records of where the saplings that the Forest Department is adamant it gave to the BBMP have been planted.

Road-widening projects have faced strong opposition from the citizens of Bangalore, who have protested loudly against such unthinking destruction of trees across the city.

In spite of promises to restore the city’s greenery, with the current state of affairs and the BBMP’s indifference toward the issue, it seems certain that urban deforestation will continue apace.

Originally published in The SoftCopy

The end of al-Qaida, or just another beginning?

On May 2nd, 2011, al-Qaida lost its only commander for 22 years, Osama bin Laden. Though his death had been celebrated by people world over, it was a day of great loss for al-Qaida itself.

The assassination of bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, has triggered several questions regarding the safety of the world which feared retaliation by loyal and enraged members of al-Qaida. The most pressing matter of them all has been: With the death of its commander-in-chief, is it the end of the al-Qaida?

Even though it was believed that bin Laden’s authority over the activities of the terrorist group was gradually diminishing the Obama administration continued with its efforts to end his “reign” and his ability to attract violent jihadists. These efforts were based on the belief that al-Qaida relied, to a great extent, on the guidance of their former leader.

Juan Zarate, a top counterterrorism official under former American president George W. Bush said: “Clearly, this doesn’t end the threat from al-Qaida and its affiliates. But it deprives it of its core leader and ideological cohesion that bin Laden maintains.”

Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy was declared the new leader of the terrorist organization though according to a report in the New York Times, the delay in this announcement, which was made known in June, 2011, “led some counterterrorism analysts to see signs of a power struggle at the top of al-Qaida.”

Other reports in the New York Times state that in spite of being was second in command to bin Laden and also the organizational brains of the Islamist group, al-Zawahri has “little of the iconic stature of bin Laden.” They also say that he is not an uninspiring model for young militants and describe his mannerisms as “abrasive” and his speeches, “pedantic.”

Such reports lead us to believe that al-Qaida may not have a very bright future without a leader strong enough to guide them along.

As with every story, this too has its own opposing side. In the largely ungoverned terrains of Pakistan’s tribal borders, the al-Qaida set up terrorist training camps and other such groups where it continued to train militants in the “art” of explosives and automatic weapons. An instance of this would be the young Moroccan man, named Abdeladim K. by The Telegraph, who, along with two other supporters, was accused of “taking his orders from a higher official in the terror network based on the Afghan-Pakistan border.”


The decline of al-Qaida’s influence can also be seen in the Arab Spring, which indicates a change in their attitude towards democracy and freedom. These revolutions seen in the Middle East have shown the world that the “change” that the al-Qaida believe in can be achieved peacefully (with the exception of Libya). Though the group had tried to gain from the commitment that could be seen in the protests, their efforts were largely ignored as they believed that violence and destruction were unnecessary means to achieve their ends.

In another New York Times article, Juan Zarate, commenting on al-Qaida and the Arab Spring, said: “al-Qaida has been struggling on the sidelines of the Arab revolution. Its popularity in Arab and Muslim countries has been declining and there are internal divisions about the direction of the movement.

In the same report, the same outlook was echoed by a senior Obama administration official: “Although al-Qaida may not fragment immediately, the loss of Bin Laden puts the group on a path of decline that will be difficult to reverse.”

Even though the most plausible conclusion would be to believe that with Osama bin Laden’s death, it is indeed the end of the road for al-Qaida, but the world still needs to be on alert in case al-Qaida supporters feel the need to avenge bin Laden’s death and make themselves and their continuing movement known.

India and its artistic intolerance

“ The best way to avoid getting offended is to shut a book… The worst thing is that artists are soft targets… We don’t have armies protecting us.” – Salman Rushdie

In yet another occasion of artistic intolerance in India, organizers of the Jaipur Literature Festival were “persuaded” by the Rajasthan state government to call off Salman Rushdie’s visit to the event.

The author had been scheduled to speak on the opening day of the event, but all plans had abruptly changed when intelligence sources had received information about paid assassins en route to Jaipur to kill him. Rushdie withdrew from the festival after Muslim organizations threatened his life if he did indeed make an appearance.

In 1988, Salman Rushdie ignited a furor among Muslims world over for the “blasphemous” verses in his his book “The Satanic Verses.” Following this, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomein, issued a fatwa calling for his death which was backed by the Iranian government till 1998.

It has been two decades since Rushdie had to go underground for the controversy his book created, but Muslims continue to harbor ill feelings towards him. This is made evident with them opposing his participation in the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Many deem it a disgrace that the Indian government failed to provide Rushdie with protection when rumor was first heard. This leads us to believe that there could be possible political motivations behind keeping him away from the festival.

Critics claim that in the wake of the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh next month, no political party has stepped forward to curb the Muslim opposition in the fear of losing out on their votes.

“That Rushdie might need protection in India reflects poorly - not on him, but on India," writes Soutik Biswas, Delhi correspondent for the BBC.

Extending an invitation to Rushdie, the artist activist group, Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, believes that it was the state’s “cowardly unwillingness” to stand up against communal forces.

After the fatwa was issued against Rushdie, many Islamic authors had been targeted for their works: Farag Foda for speaking out against censorship in Egypt, Taslima Nasrin for her book Lajja, Naguib Mahfouz for the controversy surrounding his novel Children of Gebelawi, etc.

A similar such case of narrow-mindedness was also seen in India when the late artist M. F. Husain was literally driven out of India in 2006 by Hindu dogmatists. They sabotaged his artwork and also attacked his home in Mumbai for painting Hindu deities in the nude.

Such intolerance towards artistic expression raises several questions concerning literary freedom in India. Works of fiction too are not free from opposition.

With reports pouring in about officials in Rajasthan objecting to what was decided would be a video address by Rushdie, the nation’s image of a progressive democracy has once again been tainted.

It seems as though the more India progresses economically, the more intolerant it becomes towards art. The Jaipur Literature Festival is one that the country should be proud to host, but instead, as with everything else, it has been turned into a political soup.