Picking up the pieces

It's now two weeks since 26/11 and now, things are coming back to what we would term "normal". The hysteria whipped up by the media seems to be dying down as the much-famed "resilience" of the nation kicks into action, and nothing indicates this more than the elections in Delhi and Rajasthan, which happened after the Mumbai attacks and yet gave thumping victories to the Congress.

In less dark times, the US would have given us the standard song-and-dance about "restraint" while "strongly condemning" the "vicious" acts of terror. But these are not less dark times, and so between the escalating tension in this region and the impending change of guard in DC, the US needs to put up a better item number. Rakhi Sawant and Bipasha won't do; what's needed is Angelina Jolie dancing to the tune of Beedi Jalaile.

Pakistan, too has been giving us more. Instead of showing India the finger, they've coated the finger with honey hoping we'll lick it. The US at this moment is doing little more than pacifying matters, knowing fully well that once the hot-headed Indians cool down, the government will be more than willing to emulate a drunk Kumbhakarna. Pakistan, on the other hand, is doing the most it can to look like it's doing a lot, while actually doing zilch.

Pakistan's prompt arrest of Maulana Masood Azhar and Lakhvi, though, does suggest one thing - the theory that the LeT is out of the control of the Army and ISI, is bogus. Lakhvi and Azhar were not at all difficult to find and catch when Pakistan needed to do it for the sake of the cameras. What this proves, in case someone was still in doubt, that Pakistan is very much in bed with the holy warriors. It may be a rocky marriage, but they're not headed for a divorce any time soon.

A lot of very interesting things have emerged in the last few weeks.

For instance, Mr Dus Pratishat's piece in NYT echoing his now oft-repeated claim about non-state actors, about Pakistan being a victim of terror and other such standard fare. Credit where it is due, Mr. Z has written very well; his piece is one of the finest examples of spin doctoring, claiming that the attacks in Mumbai were directed at his country as well. This view has received the blessings of Condi, though of course it has nothing to do with the fact that the soon-to-be Obama-nation needs Pakistan's help in Afghanistan. However, Indians would do well not to buy the snake-oil and start pining with love for our peace-loving neighboring country. There are victims and then there are victims. A country which made terrorism a cottage industry was going down on its knees and begging for trouble. A country which invested in Jihadis and Mujahideens instead of doctors and engineers is bound to get what it deserved. If someone bangs your head on a hard rock, you could legitimately be called a victim. If you bang your own head on a hard rock, then you can hardly call yourself a victim.

So let's not get into pangs of heartbreak over the fact that Pakistan is now at the receiving end too - that is a monster of their own creation. At the moment, the interest of India is indeed in working with Pakistan (if they are ready to work in a meaningful manner) and bringing down the terrorists, but for our sake, not for Pakistan's sake.

Then there is this one Gnani Sankaran who advances the scholarly thesis that the Taj is not an icon of India because most Indians cannot go there. Perhaps Gnani Sankaran therefore does not believe that the Rashtrapati Bhavan is an icon of India, since most people don't go there either.

The paradoxically-named author also goes on to expand his thesis to suggest that the coverage of the Taj was because it was the "elites" who were for the first time targeted, and that the other icon of India, CST, was ignored because the elites were not involved there. I wonder which version of the attacks coverage Mr Sankaran saw, because the countless email forwards and photos shown on tv in endless loops included grainy pictures of an area that looked suspiciously like CST, and featured one Ajmal Amir. Times Now, headed by Arnab Goswami, was repeating ad nauseam the few seconds of footage from CST with the terrorists helpfully circled in red. I personally saw this footage no less than 50 times, and I wasn't even watching it continuously.

Also, in his enthusiasm to vent his class warfare bile, the author seems to have forgotten that we just witnessed 60 hours of a live hostage situation involving (as Shivraj Patil helpfully told everyone) 200 commandos. Anywhere in the world this would have attracted media attention. The elite factor may have played a role, especially when it came to the over-coverage of the food critic who died in the Taj. but it is undeniable that what was seen in Mumbai was unprecedented and arresting. Though of course, it is hard for class warriors to appreciate that.

"This city just showed you, that it is still full of people ready to believe in good"

- Batman, in The Dark Knight

One of the good things to have emerged out of this entire affair has been the extremely responsible response of the Muslim community. It has always been a pet complaint of many (including yours truly) that they never condemned the evil acts of their co-religionists with the fervor reserved for Hindu fundamentalists. Though to be fair, the same can also be said of the Hindu leaders.

What stands out this time though, has been the strong anti-terrorist signal being sent across by the Muslim community against these attacks. First it was the refusal to bury the terrorists, which is about as strong a response as can be given. Then it was the suggestion from the Deobandi Ulema to avoid cow slaughter keeping in mind the sentiments of the Hindus. Then it was the decision not to have the Babri Masjid protests this year as a sign of solidarity. Though there is nothing wrong with protesting per se, the Masjid-Mandir issue is a surefire bet to inflame passions, and the act of exercising restraint at this juncture speaks volumes. And it continued up to Id yesterday - many Id congregations in Bangalore prominently displayed at the entrance signs condemning the acts in Mumbai.

The gesture was reciprocated too. Though the media did everything they could to whip up anti-Muslim voices, including getting some "intellectuals" on a stage to repeat the same "why do we have to prove our patriotism" arguments, they didn't succeed much. There was little attempt, if any, to link ordinary Muslims with terror this time. Even the BJP stayed away from taking an overt anti-Muslim line. There is of course a lunatic fringe which will continue to exist, but that fringe has been marginalized more than ever before.

If the aim of terrorists was to humiliate and embarrass India, they did succeed. They exposed the chinks in our armor and made it look like child's play.

Yet India did prove resilient, in a completely different way. The almost complete absence of communal tones in the aftermath of 26/11 suggests an evolving, maturing society that seems to be learning from history. So do the election results in RJ and DL, which show that we are not voting on knee-jerk sentiments. It seems Indians see through the fake claims of the BJP on terrorism, having remembered that it was a BJP Minister who escorted terrorists to Kandahar.

So if the aim of terrorists was to destroy religious harmony, they have made a major miscalculation. It seems 26/11 has just brought India closer. The only question now is how long this newfound maturity will last.

The Cult of Self-Pity

In the wake of the Amarnath agitation, a lot of people have raised supposedly poignant questions about India's democracy and commitment to secularism. Many of them belong to the Arundhati Roy category of leftist "intellectuals" who have a soft corner for anything Pakistani.

So it comes as a surprise (at least to me) when Shabana Azmi joins the brigade blasting Indian secularism in this interview with Karan Thapar. [Full interview here]

Now I'm not a great fan of secularism as practiced in India, but no matter how screwed-up it is, I don't see how it is against Muslims.

Credit where it is due. Azmi is without doubt the most intelligent and sensible Muslim voice in the media. I'd say Azmi is a far better Indian than all the gung-ho media patriots to whom Indian-ness is synonymous with saffron. She's not a puppet of the Mullahs. But the favorite hobby of the Mullahs - self-pity - isn't something she's entirely immune to.

It is her view, that Indian Muslims aren't treated well because - hold your breath,

I can’t get a house in Mumbai. I wanted to buy a flat and it wasn’t given to me because I am a Muslim.

Now that's interesting, because she apparently owns four houses in Juhu and a house in Khandala. She was rejected one flat somewhere and she concluded it was because she was Muslim? What about the other four houses she bought - why hasn't she mentioned them, is it because it's not ideologically convenient to do so?

[Times of India carried out a survey to verify Azmi's claims and this is what they found]

But let's get beyond whether Azmi's claims are true or not and look at whether they would be valid even if true, because even the Sachar report mentions that Muslims don't easily get flats on rent. There are many perfectly valid reasons why flats are denied. I have rented a flat; I know.

My ex-landlord rented us the flat on condition that we wouldn't cook or eat non-veg in the house. That being the case, it is easily imaginable that he would deny anyone who he knew would have to eat non-veg at home. Even many house owners who don't mind non-veg would mind beef, and therefore deny the house. Such people have no real problem with the tenants being Muslim as they do with the fact that it means beef might be eaten in the house.

Such concerns are not unjustified. It's the landlord who owns the house and it is his choice of parameters that should prevail. He's not committing a crime by denying the house. If tomorrow a Muslim denies me a house because I enjoy mocking Mohammad and Allah, it would be entirely justified. And bear in mind, those who say idol-worship is a sin and idols are false gods are doing the very same to the Hindus - another valid reason for denying a house.

But this house comment was probably the weakest link in her interview, and picking on it isn't really nice. So let's move on to another gem from the interview.

Karan Thapar: Shabana Azmi, I want to ask you a critical question as a former MP. Let’s talk a little bit more focussed about Indian Muslims. They are amongst the poorest, least educated and worst represented communities in India. Has Indian politics been unfair to the Indian Muslim?

Shabana Azmi: (After a thoughtful pause) Yes.

This is where things get really murky. Azmi believes Indian politics has been unfair to the Indian Muslim. I really wonder where that comes from. Which Indian politician or party is actually against Muslims getting an education or getting jobs? Forget the INC and Left, even the BJP doesn't oppose it - all they oppose is reservations.

Muslim bodies do not want a Uniform Civil Code, and so it has become a touchstone of Indian secularism that UCC is not secular. The whole definition of secularism has been twisted by the politicians and the media to suit the Muslims. This doesn't seem to be unfair to the Muslims.

Salman Rushdie's book was banned in India because it "hurt Muslim sentiments." Taslima Nasrin was disgraced and not-so-subtly forced to leave the country by the government. (Interestingly, MF Husain's paintings weren't banned). I don't support the shutting up of Rushdie, Nasrin or MFH, but its too glaring that Rushdie and Nasrin were both hounded out by the govt to please Muslims while MFH was not, and again that is not unfair to Muslims either.

In Shah Bano's case Rajiv Gandhi got the law changed to please Muslims, and again that is not unfair Muslims either.

And in the most recent Amarnath controversy, we had 40 hectares of land denied for temporary structures because a demographic change would take place there. I leave you to figure out what the demographic change is, but it doesn't seem to be unfair to Muslims either. But when the VHP talks of demographic change elsewhere in India, our secular intelligentsia and media are quick to pounce upon them.

So where and how exactly is politics being unfair to Muslims? All these indicate simply that what Muslims demand, the govt does. The last thing you can cry about this is that it is being "unfair".

The only exception is Gujarat and Babri Masjid. Heinous as they are, the fact that the culprits are not brought to book is simply because you can't touch politicians of any party in India. This fact, at least, is independent of Muslims and Hindus.

Yes, it is true that Muslims are under-represented. But as the recent movie Aamir asks, who has stopped them from doing anything? Which jobs are Muslims by law unqualified to apply for?

But Azmi does hit the nail on the head finally

Karan Thapar: But they do not get it because the politician do not think of that?

Shabana Azmi: Yes, that and the fact that the community is allowing itself to listen to the fundamentalists, who are not actually their leaders.

That's the whole point. Azmi needs to ask why is it that the fundamentalists, and not people like her, are seen as the leaders. Better still, why are there any leaders on a community level at all. There are no leaders of the community for Hinduism, Sikhism or Christianity, who enjoy any amount of comparable clout. The afro-haired Sai Baba is an exception, but he has as many detractors among Hindus as followers. No one sees him as a spokesman of Hindus.

Yes, its true that Muslims need to stop seeing themselves, and the whole world, through the religious prism. There is no worldwide conspiracy against Muslims. People are too busy getting their work done and making money to have an agenda of exterminating Muslims. Even Narendra Modi, after the 2002 riots, has focussed more on development than religion, because he realises that religious hatred won't keep him in power forever.

George Bush, Narendra Modi, LK Advani and Ali Sina are not the biggest enemies of Muslims. Self-pity is.

Refined Creationism

In the course of my debates on evolution, I have discovered that creationism is not a monolithic theory. Of course, I strongly feel creationism is not a theory in the first place in the scientific sense of the term. However, creationism isn’t just about a hypothetical supernatural creator dropping Adam and Eve down from the garden of Eden.

A more refined form of creationism that I have encountered seeks to achieve a marriage of sorts between creationism and evolution. Though the details are quite nebulous and vague, the gist of the theory is that while humans and all other organisms have indeed evolved from single-celled ancestors, those single-celled ancestors had been created by a Creator. Another version of the theory, which is called “theistic evolution”, says that evolution was ‘helped’ along the way by a Creator.

"Refined", here means just that the theory is a more nuanced version of creationism, an attempt to bring it in tune with actual science. However, something that is founded on shaky ground can never be a profound idea.

As an agnostic atheist, I am naturally wary of both the above theories. However, it would be unscientific to let my personal prejudices influence a sane evaluation of the two theories. I shall try to stick to the logical problems that the above two theories create.

The problem with both the above theories is that they invoke a god (repackaged as a “creator”). But the trouble is, the existence of god has never been proven. Also, the question arises why god is required at all to explain evolution.

Theistic evolution actually goes against the very essentials of evolution. Evolution, in a nutshell, involves genes which mutate randomly. Some genes have a positive effect on survival and reproductive chances; some have a negative impact and some have no impact. Natural selection simply is the process by which the mutations which help an animal survive and reproduce better, get propagated more to future generations. Mutations that have a detrimental impact reduce in frequency because their “carriers”, the organisms, survive and/or reproduce less.

Now if you bring in an invisible hand “guiding” evolution, the question arises: how exactly does it guide evolution? Mutations are by definition random, which is why some of them are harmful and some of them useless. Clearly, if the hand is guiding mutations, then mutations should have been only beneficial and the component of natural selection would not be needed at all. On the other hand, making the hand guide natural selection is even more absurd.

Natural selection is not a guided process any more than gravitation is. How absurd would it be to claim that an invisible hand “guides” an apple to fall to the earth?

Incidentally, this part has been parodied well by Uncyclopedia here. It’s of course not a serious site, but it shows the problems with the Intelligent Design and creationism theory quite well. The same parody can be applied to theistic evolution too.

Also, we would question the necessity of the invisible hand to guide gravity. The theory of gravity explains everything quite well without the assumption of a god; bringing god into the theory would require an explanation of why he is required in the theory. The situation in evolution is pretty similar - it can be equally well explained without god; god certainly adds nothing to our understanding of the process.

Theistic evolution, thus is essentially an attempt to force god into something that never really requires the presence of any supernatural entity. A very special explanation is required to justify bringing god into the picture here, and that justification is not forthcoming.

Coming to the other form of refined creationism, the one which says god created the first life, and then allowed it to evolve. I call this “creation + evolution”.

The more you think about it, the more you realize that “creation + evolution” is pretty well covered-up non-theistic evolution. It must be a very lazy god who created the first single-celled organism and left it to its devices ever since. The question naturally arises, what has he been doing ever since?

And of course, the same question of the need for god in this theory, arises. Why at all do we need god to create the first life? Research is progressing in the field of abiogenesis, which seeks to explain the emergence of life from non-living substances. Miller and Urey demonstrated that complex organic molecules could have come about from simpler chemicals, which means that the possibility of life originating from non-living substances is quite real.

Of course, the probability of abiogenesis is quite low. But consider this: there are an estimated 100 billion billion planets in universe¹. Even if the probability of abiogenesis were one in a billion billion, we could still expect 100 planets in the universe to have had life.

Of course, on earth itself, life is thought to have originated between 4.4 billion years ago to 2.7 billion years ago, which means that we may actually consider abiognesis to have much lower probability than even one in a billion billion. In fact, as Richard Dawkins explains in The Blind Watchmaker, we should be concerned if the probability was not extremely low, because then it would be unusual that the whole universe wasn’t teeming with life.

Evolution has been proved and requires the presence of no creator at all. Of course, one may introduce a creator. But bringing in a creator is neither required, nor does it enhance our understanding of the theory in any way whatsoever. Abiogenesis offers an interesting possibility of life arising without a god’s intervention, as a purely random process.

God, thus, remains an unnecessary, redundant and superfluous explanation forced upon perfectly natural theories that are no poorer without the imposition of the supernatural.

1. The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins.

Mazhab Nahi Sikhaata Aapas Mein Bair Rakhna?

I came across a certain video a couple of months ago, and it was extremely horrifying in what it showed. However, when I tried to get it recently to embed in this blog, the video had been removed. But the video was available as a segment in another video, which I've embedded below.




The relevant part occurs somewhere in the middle, where it shows a little girl giving a short interview. Those of you who can see the video, please ignore the Islam-bashing in the first half. It is not the point of this post.

For those who cannot see the video due to bandwidth problems, I'll describe it in short. It features a 3-and-half year old girl - as innocent and cute as a child that age can be - giving an interview to a journalist. The journo, among other things, asks her for her opinion on Jews. To which the girl replies by saying that she does not like them and goes further to call them dogs.

The intent of this post is not to question Muslims alone, but indeed, all theists.

My first reaction to this post was, keep the kids away from your f***ing theocratic hatred shit!

Is it not disturbing that children are being pumped - and I mean pumped - with such hatred at such a young age? Is it not a given that this girl, when she grows up, may become yet another of those fanatics, or that she will impart the same "values" to her children, if she lives long enough to have them?


The line from one of our most famous patriotic songs goes, "mazhab nahi sikhaata, aapas mein bair rakhna", (religion does not teach you to fight)

But is that really true? I dont see any evidence of that in this video. All it is teaching to this girl is hatred. Chances are that she might not know what she is saying. It is unlikely she would ever have even met a Jew. And yet she has a hatred for them, because it has been drilled into her.

The most common apologistic answer is, "it is a misinterpretation. Religion does not teach hatred." And that is something that is even more intriguing. If religion does not teach hatred, why do so many theists not doubt for a moment, that their belief requires them to hate and kill people of other religions? Why do they believe that to preserve their religion they must burn shops, burn missionaries and their kids, and blow themselves up?

Why do so many theists, as part of their "religious instruction" of their children, teach them such hatred?

If we cut out the pussyfooting and sanctimonious defences, what will emerge, is that, "mazhab yahi sikhaata, aapas mein bair rakhna", (religion does teach you to fight)


That might appear extreme, but it unfortunately appears to be the truth. Dont religions say they are the only true path? Dont they say that all others are false?

Is this lack or respect for other religions not the root cause for religious conflicts anywhere in the world?

Come to think of it, Why should any religion or its followers concern themselves about whether the other religion is true or not?

It should be none of my business to prove that another religion is false. Yet that is what a lot of theists go around doing. This extends even to issues of basic human rights.

Which is why some Hindus vacillate over Gujarat and invoke Godhra each time the riots are mentioned

Which is why some Muslims cry themselves hoarse about Gujarat but remain silent over the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits

At the same time, theistic organisations and their sympathisers are extremely reluctant to criticise their religion

Sample this:
The Ulema have a lot to say on subjects like sex and the skirts of female tennis players, but nothing against Osama bin Laden.

The Pope has a lot to say about Harry Potter and Da Vinci Code but nothing much to say against George W Bush and paedophilia.

Shiv Sena has a lot to say on Valentine's Day, but nothing to say against Khairlanji (or nothing substantial)

So its natural if atheists question the apparently skewed priorities of theists. Theists (or religions) bother more about "decency" and stuff like that instead of basic survival issues.

Is there any wonder why religion is being seen by some as the Root of all Evil?

Unlike Richard Dawkins, I will not advocate an abolition of religion. It certainly has positives
and they should remain. But what needs to be expunged is the blind faith, and the feeling that "only my path is right, all others are false."

If theism wants to prove itself as humane (and it definitely needs to do so now) then it must undergo reform. I mean all religions.

If that does not happen, Samuel P Huntington's theory on the Clash of Civilizations will come true, sooner or later.