Kargil Day

July 26 is Vijay Divas, the day we celebrate our victory in the Kargil War.
The day the Indian soldiers helped us hold our heads high.

The Indian Army lost 600 soldiers. Six hundred families lost sons, husbands, fathers.

But, The country won back its pride.

The country owes each one of these families. We Salute you. Jai Jawan

- Murali

India needs to be ruthless in its vengeance

Guys,

Here is another one.. I know I am bombarding you with similar messages. I may be boring you with the same feelings... But, neverthless, it had to be done. It had to be said. Unless we do it, it will become like what zidane told yesterday.

Zidane told that, if he keeps quite, if he feels sorry, then, whatever the italian told about his mom and sister will become true. So, he is not gonna feel sorry, he is not gonna apologise...

So, no matter what everyone feels... it had to be said. ..

Look at what Israel has done yesterday. They have bombed Lebanon. Why lebabnon? Weren't they at hostility with Palestine? Yes, the palestine terrorist organisation, Hamas is hiding in Lebanon using civilians as shield. They took 2 army men from Israel as hostages. What did Israel do? Negotiate? No. They don't negotiate with words across the table. They negotiate with bombs in war front. They take the war to the enemy ground. U use civilians as shield. Then, everyone is guilty. We consider everyone as military and bombed the 3rd country which gave them shelter, killed their citizens, destroyed their only good international airport.

This is how a self confident nation conducts itself. Not by taking about peace and tellign that, we should go to the roots of the problem to wipe out terorism.

How on earth can we wait on the shores to reside for the waves to take bath ? Is it ever possible? From time immemorial, there have been devils. You can't wait for all of them to turn good.

Talkign about war is highly unfashionable now a days. So, when I say this 3 letter word, people look at me with distaste. But, How on earth can you create terror in the terrorists mind? Everyone is talking about peace, about dialogues, about sending more busses, more business, more bla bla bla..

There is no single prominent voice to take punitive strikes. No voice to use the UNSC's announcement yesterday to get Dawood Ibrahim back here and punish. I feel so ashamed of our political leaders.

When hamas thought that, "Ok, Sharon is gone. Israel has become meak. Now is the time to strike them and bring them to knees." And look how Israel has responded? They have take punnitive strikes and have given a clear message that, don't mess with me with terror. You are the one to suffer the most. Do it at your own risk.

What is wrong in admiring such self-respecting people, huh ? No amount of Vedanta will help here.

Murali


India needs to be ruthless in its vengeance

Shishir Bhate

July 13, 2006


As a child, I rarely fell asleep without listening to my grandmother narrate 'good-over-evil' stories from religious scriptures. Her dramatic story-telling ability held me enraptured as she described how gods took on the demons and crushed them. With 330 million gods to choose from and a near-perfect memory, her bank of stories was inexhaustible. At school, I learnt 'moral science,' which primarily consisted of religious tales of divine domination over wickedness.

I was in love with these godly heroes as they vanquished the forces of evil, mercilessly mowing them down. It took me slightly longer to realise that the magnitude of violence that lurked in religious anecdotes could hardly be matched by anything human. Yet I continued to be enamoured of Krishna and Christ alike.

For, to an impressionable mind of a child what mattered most was a sense of fairness, of justice. My mind, then, could not fathom what made people malevolent; all I believed was that the evil-doer pay the price for his sins, dearly.

Many moons have passed since then, but my love for Krishna and Christ is intact, and I still believe that evil should never go unpunished: the more severe the punishment, the bigger the deterrent it is for future violent acts. Or, I should say, the inevitability of punishment is the biggest deterrent.

However, there is nothing inevitable about India's resolve to wipe out terrorism.

But let me come back to the present. A day after the blasts, I boarded the first-class compartment of a Mumbai suburban train. It wasn't bursting at the seams with passengers, like it normally does, but I couldn't discern fear on the faces of my fellow passengers, only a weary cautiousness. Their voices, however, were laced with anger.

The snatches of conversation that I could hear centered on the Indian State's 'impotency' at fighting terrorism and what it should do to destroy terrorists. But the common man does not have the right to influence the State's policy towards matters as important as these, does he? So what if he has the right to vote governments to power.

India, time and again, has failed to wield the hammer against the lowly terrorist, often letting its citizens down. And despite what our leaders would have us believe, we are a soft State: a fact fully understood and exploited by terrorists.

After every such attack, the political establishment makes some threatening noises, hails the spirit of the civilians, holds aloft the pennant of peace, even launches buses to inimical nations, and then sits tight on its backside till the next wave of bombs rips the stuffing out of its citizenry. Then it is back to the same idiotic idiom.

But the common man, who actually bears the brunt of terrorism, has a different view, as that train ride told me. India needs to hit them where it hurts the most: squeeze the breath out of their networks, starve them for funds, take out their leaders (who we claim to know are hiding in this country or that), smash their hideouts, terrorise their associates.

No sooner is such an opinion voiced than human rights groups, 'saner' elements in the political firmament, self-styled negotiators and strategists jump into the fray to say: 'No, no, we should engage these 'people' in a dialogue. We are a peace-loving nation and terrorism needs to be resolved through peaceful means, through tolerance, through negotiations, abiding by international laws.'

We are told: 'We need to fight terrorism by understanding what triggers it and then remedying the situation. And by making 'them see reason.' Reason, my foot! The next thing you know' that bloke will be stuffing a dynamite stick down your throat and lighting the fuse.

Many people agree that international terrorism cannot be brought to an end only by the use of bombs and military might, but neither can it be ended with mere talk. What is needed is a heavy dose of ruthless action to go hand in hand with tactical and strategic negotiations.

The nation should be ready to negotiate, with the underlying condition that if there is any terrorist act against its citizens, there will be hell to pay.

This is not some original thought. We hear it all the time. The common man says:


Strengthen the infrastructure and the intelligence network.
Educate the society on how to remain alert and control panic.
Set up crack commando groups -- comprising snipers, specially trained and equipped assault teams, state-sponsored combatants -- who will engage in unconventional warfare.
Dry up the terrorists' sources of funding: drug trafficking, robbery, extortion, playing on international stock markets, donations.
Keep a hawk's eye on hostile locations and smash them up.
Take out leaders of these organisations, no matter where they take refuge.
Tighten the nation's borders even more, except maybe for trade.

Not an easy task, but not impossible either. The might of the Indian State is hardly something to scoff at. Disuse of power is worse than its misuse. It is time for Indians to roll up their sleeves, spit on their hands and get to work.

The one-track 'mature, gentile, peaceful' way of unraveling this menace only ends up in making the nation appear impotent. Just because the citizens are brave and spirited doesn't mean they have to keep suffering.

The common man wants a strong message be sent out: if any Indian is harmed in any manner, we will hunt you down and exterminate you, no matter how fast you run or where you hide.

The terrorist has no human rights; he loses them the instant he points his gun at humanity. He is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention and international laws of war should not apply to him. Since he chooses to live by the gun, he deserves to die by it.

Sounds uncivilised? Like out of a trashy thriller? Maybe. But ask the newly-wed girl whose husband was blown to pieces in the blasts, ask the old widow whose only earning son will walk no more...

India needs to be ruthless in its vengeance. The inevitability of punishment could nip many a hostile intent in the bud.

Which brings me back to grandma's tales. Not one of those stories ended with the demon getting away unpunished. Not once was justice denied. But since then, the concept of justice has changed for me. No one wants justice, everyone wants a decision in his favour. So why not the common Indian? It is time we were given our slice of justice.

But can we do it? Or will the nation have to wait for divine assistance: a Krishna or a Christ to deliver us from terror?

Anti-Brahmanism should stop!

We need a foreigner to tell us the truth ... Read on... This is from one of my most favourite journalists, who won the natchiketa award for investigative journalism.

Anti-Brahmanism should stop!


June 15, 2006

The first article published by rediff on Brahmins as an underprivileged community, brought a flurry of reactions, mostly of surprise: "What, Brahmins as toilet cleaners, coolies, rickshaw pullers, priests earning less than Rs 150 a month... How is it possible, we always thought that Brahmins were a rich, fat, arrogant community?"

Many Brahmins and other upper castes expressed online their relief that someone was speaking about their plight, that for once they were not attacked, made fun of, ridiculed. Of course there were also a few hostile e-mails, accusing the author of upper casteism, of anti-Dalits bias.

One would have thought however, that at a time when reservation was the hottest journalistic topic, the media would have seized this story and made it its own. After all, isn't impartial journalism to show both sides of the story?

Don't you think, for instance, that the discovery that all 50 Sulabh Shauchalayas (public toilets) in Delhi are cleaned and looked after by Brahmins -- traditionally the task of the lowest of the lowest caste -- and that this noble institution was started by a Brahmin, Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, makes a wonderful story, both for the print and electronic media?

That is what I believed, at any rate. So when I discovered that the Art of Living Foundation was conducting workshops for all coolies, irrespective of their religion and caste of the Delhi railway station -- and that quite a few of them were Brahmins -- I thought I could share this story and the Sulabh Shauchalayas scoop, with a few journalistic acquaintances, who would jump on it with glee. Unfortunately I was very wrong.

Initially, some young journalists were enthusiastic and joined us in our investigation. We expected the story to hit the headlines soon and be taken up by the entire press, hungry for something different than the strike of the medicos, or Arjun Singh's adamant attitude. But nothing happened.

We called them day after day, proposed some more data, but still no story came out. Then one of the young journalists, working for one of the largest media outfits in India told us off the record that the sub-editor, backed by the editor, had killed the story in true journalistic freedom.

The second scenario we encountered was stone silence: the star anchors, bureau chiefs, editors of national English newspapers whom I personally contacted, either did not return my calls or were evasive.

Third scenario: Downright hostility: "You're a right winger, a pro-BJP-RSS journalist" etc. What does truth and investigative journalism have to do with the BJP (who by the way did no more than the Congress for the Kashmiri Brahmins, for instance, when it was in power)? I don't know.

Some journalists, initially willing to do a story, backed out after some time under the pretext that the data was not solid enough. Not solid enough? Does flimsy and unchecked data ever stop the Indian media to publish slanderous stories in the recent past?

Then, I came to the conclusion that more than fifty years later, the Nehruvian culture which directly brainwashed two generations of Indians in certain thinking patterns, has survived today. Actually, you have to go farther back than Nehru. For Jawaharlal was a true end product of Macaulay's policy of creating Indians who would be Indians by the colour of their skins, but British in their thinking. Thus, the English outlook on India survives today in India's intellectual class, particularly the journalists, who often cast a Westernised, anti-spiritual, pro-minority, anti-majority, un-Indian, anti-Brahmins and other upper castes -- look on their own country.

It is true that Nehru started from a positive volition: How to solve India's huge class and caste disparity? How to appease a Muslim minority which ruled India ruthlessly for ten centuries and was not ready to be ruled by those who were for a long time Islam's pliant subjects?

But Nehru went overboard. He made the paupers of yesteryear the saints of modern India, allowing some states to literally hound out Brahmins and other upper castes. He twisted history and thanks to docile historians, made of cruel Muslim invaders and rulers, the benefactors of medieval India.

He went to the extent of excusing the razing and sacking of thousands of exquisite temples all over India, by saying that Muslim invaders such as Babar did it because these temples were full of hidden gold and jewels, damning again indirectly the poor hapless Brahmins, who were beheaded by Muslim invaders, crucified in Goa by the Portuguese Inquisition, vilified by British missionaries, and morally crucified today by their own brothers and sisters.

It is true that Brahmins may be paying today for the excesses of yesterday. In ancient times, as Sri Aurobindo wrote: 'A Brahmin was a Brahmin only if he cultivated the spiritual temperament and acquired the spiritual training which alone would qualify him for the task.'

But once Brahmanism became hereditary, arrogance, complacency and casteism became rampant, ultimately bringing the downfall of Brahmins, a downfall which the Dalai Lama defines (for his own people) as Black Karma.

Thus, thanks to the lingering influence of Nehruvianism, 'Brahmins' remain today a dirty word, even in the face of reality: that Dalits have considerably come up since 1947 in Indian society, that no nation in the world has done so much for its underprivileged (India had a Dalit President -- did the US ever have a Black President?). But the intellectual elite of India, which never mentions these facts, continues to hide its face in the sand like an ostrich, refusing to see the reality.

And rampant anti-Brahmanism and upper castes, first used by the Muslim invaders, then by the British colonialists and missionaries, is still in vogue at the hands of Nehruvians, Marxists, Indian Christians and politicians in search of the votes of Dalits and Muslims, which combined together make and unmake prime ministers.

Yet, Brahmins and other upper castes have played an invaluable role in Indian history, as Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, the founder of the Sulabh Shauchalaya Movement remarks: 'Society sustained the Brahmins and other upper castes earlier, who upheld the Hindu scriptures and Hindu culture. Today Hinduism is on the decline day-by-day. There is a lack of ancient knowledge. No political party has objected to reservation thanks to vote-bank politics. People have a very short memory. They have forgotten the contribution made by Brahmins to our society.'

And who says that Brahmins and other upper castes are anti-Dalits. Some of India's top avatars, saints and gurus were of low caste and are still worshipped today by all upper castes. Valmiki, the composer of the Ramayana, was a fisherman; Ved Vyasa, the epic poet of the Mahabharata, which also contains the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible of Future Humanity, was the son of a fisherwoman; Krishna was from the shepherd's caste. And are not today's Amritanandamayi or Satya Sai Baba of low caste birth? Don't they have millions of Indians, many of them from upper castes, bowing down to them?

Anti-Brahmanism has to be stopped!

This inter-caste war, triggered by the politicians' greed for votes, has to be defused.

FACT, my Foundation, which conducts exhibitions on persecuted minorities, whether the Kashmiri Pandits, the Christians, Buddhist Chakmas and Hindus suffering in Bangladesh at the hands of fundamentalists in Bangladesh, or the Tibetans facing a cultural and spiritual genocide in Tibet, decided to take things in hand.

We started, with the help of a few dedicated friends, a film on Brahmins and other upper castes as an underprivileged community. This film will lead to a photoexhibition and hopefully to a book. All testimonies and documents are welcome.

The future of this country lies in a unified India, where all castes will find their just place, where all will feel Indians first and belonging to this caste or that one, after.

Nenju Porukku dillaiye

What is it that can justify the killing of scores of innocent civilians ?

What is it that they are trying to proove?

This is what I call a LATENT HATRED !!!

When I say, you guys think that I am a Hindu fanatic, a fascist etc etc etc and what not...

I wrote sometime back ... after the Gujarat riots !!!

[[[ machan, Riots are a mere symptom of antagonism against a community *perceived* to be getting more than the rest. Hindu rioters could be created by politicians -- but no politician can create the required fury without the ammunition given by the repugnant mullahs and the loathsome "secularists." You can throw into jail the entire Sangh Parivar for Gujarat. But what next? Can you arrest every Hindu who resents the inequality in laws and vents his ire in his own devious ways...? ]]]

This is how people like me are getting antagonised. There is no point in telling that the masterminds were far away from our shores. Why blame them, when the logistics and the execution was done by the locals. How were they able to do it without the support of the locals? I am not telling that they were all muslims. But, they MUST have been predominantly MUSLIMS. I have to use this word... Yes.. I have to...

On January 13, the Anti Terrorism Squad arrested Maulana Ghulam Yahya, the imam of Haj House masjid on the charge of harbouring three militants from Jammu and Kashmir with links to the Lashker-e-Tayiba. The ATS alleged that the imam was a link between Salauddin, the Lashkar commander in Kashmir, and the three arrested militants -- Mohammed Ramzan Abdul Wahab Haji, Kurshid Ahmed Abdul Gani Lone and Arshad Hussain Badru Hussain. So, how can I Ignore it like the GOI !!!


Nenju Porukku dillaiye Inda Nilai ketta Manidarai Ninaithuvittalal.
Anji anji vaazhvaar ivar anjaada porulilai ulaginile !!!


Idu namma ellarukkum daan. Unmaiya pesardukkum, mathavangala punpaduthiduvomonnu bayappattukittum irukkardu naala kadaisila anubavikkardu yaar theriyuma? Naama daan.

Prevention is better than cure.

You guys may again hate me for this.. But who cares !!!

In the whole of Mahabharatha, One shakuni was enough for the downfall of all the other good souls. And One surpanaka was enough to bring down the whole good hearted Lankans. But, it had to be done. They had to be killed. Good souls too have to be killed for the survival of the DHARMA.

And in the whole Mahabharatha, One Krishna was enough to assertain DHARMA.

Inda puraanatha ellam sonna manasula yearaadunnu theriyum... enna pandradu... Manasu kekkala !!!

I am not giving any solutions.. Its just an outrage ... once its ok.. twice... its acceptable.. but, not like this.. year after year ... What the **** are we doing?

Its not just the GOI or the GOM that has to be blames.. Each one of us has to be blamed. The govt reflects the aspirations and the ambitions of the majority of its citizens.

Now you see what we will be doing? We will again be giving statements.. that the perpetrators of this heinous crime won't go unpunished... bla bla bla.. ya ya.. I know.. like the perpetrators of 1993 are still being punished right !!!

Its not enough that we build our economic might. We need to build our security too.

Utterly devastated,
Murali