[Reader-list] Fwd :François Gautier does it again

[Aishwarya Iyer]

On the other hand, I totally stand by François Gautier's view of Hussain's
hypocrisy. Would he have represented his own religion in this manner?
Freedom is not an absolute entity. Freedom must recognise its sister,
responsibilty. Look at what Rushdie did for instance, and invited the fatwa
upon himself. He was conscious of his own transgression, but Hussain did it
for cheap thrills.

It is interesting how one can unwittingly fall in a trap.

Aishwarya


On 6/12/07, inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It is very interesting to see how one can unwittinlgly fall in a trap...
>
> You begin to criticize the politicians for all the ills in India...
> and also highlight the fact that they are terrible manipulators...
> fine.... but suddenly you criticize the aritsts choice for being
> creative.... and forget the the fact that the politicians are ther
> real culprits...( if they only are )
>
> for Hussain ( whether he is a genius or not ) i can quote Salman Rushdie
> for you
>
> There is no Freedom of Expression if it does not provoke, it is
> meaningless...
>
> with love
> indersalim
>
>
>
> Democracy Hijacked
>
> François Gautier
>
> Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven by
> the lust for power are destroying all that is good and
> true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at and
> persecuted while Government is busy devising ways and
> means of dividing the nation along caste and communal
> lines
>
> India prides itself as the greatest democracy in the
> world. But actually, there are very few places where
> democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. Nothing
> demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring going on
> at the moment to find India 's next President.
>
> President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular
> President in the history of India . Yet he will not be
> re-elected, because he was the people's President and
> not a stooge of political parties.
>
> Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive
> him, as he was the one who stopped her from becoming
> Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of his
> chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two
> passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for many
> years (she is not the only foreigner who did so after
> obtaining Indian citizenship).
>
> Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously because,
> although he is a true Muslim, he respects other
> religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita and
> Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus Mayawati,
> partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away from
> him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did not
> always do its bidding.
>
> How else is democracy perverted in India ?
>
> Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which has
> been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years,
> came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh
> Assembly election, and sprung to power at the Centre
> by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra
> Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal .
>
> Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment and is
> dividing India more and more along caste and religion
> lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy -
> witness the recent strife in Rajasthan.
>
> You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities
> -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an
> elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules as
> the supreme leader of this country, one whose word can
> make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be
> possible for an Indian to become a de facto President
> or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ?
> Absolutely not!
>
> Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak man,
> is not elected: He was defeated the last time he
> contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP from
> Assam , where he has no roots at all.
>
> Democracy in India has also been hijacked by cynical
> mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of the
> Muslims; who remain the most backward community in
> India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen
> Congress Governments since Independence; and how to
> manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share of
> benefits and have had one of them as President and
> many of whom are politicians in power.
>
> Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical
> mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes =
> Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the
> Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did in
> her three previous stints as Chief Minister?
>
> It seems doubtful, the way she has started, wasting
> hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous projects,
> including the Special Economic Zones and transferring
> hundreds of officials.
>
> In the name of freedom of expression, Indian
> intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who
> denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. Would
> he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner?
> Certainly not!
>
> When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish newspaper
> - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's derogatory
> portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world erupts in
> flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would
> have been dead today.
>
> Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV or
> publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's
> derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely available
> and have been reproduced in a coffee table book
> sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi Modi.
>
>
> India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by clever
> lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook,
> thanks to judges who go by the book without adapting
> their judgements to the Indian context, or by bribing
> witnesses as has been allegedly done in the BMW case.
> But poor people go to jail and it takes seven years to
> get a case cleared.
>
> India's socialist system, which is still enforced,
> pretends to tax the rich to subsidise the poor. But in
> reality, the rich have smart chartered accountants who
> twist the law, while the less fortunate have to pay
> taxes on small savings and salaries. And, of course,
> most of this money never reaches the destitute.
>
> Finally, here you have a country of 850 million
> Hindus, a billion worldwide, one of the most tolerant,
> law-abiding communities in the world. Yet, Hindus in
> India are made fun of and their beliefs riled at. They
> are persecuted, as the four lakh Kashmiri Pandits have
> been, without raising finger in defence - their men
> hanged, women raped, children disembowelled. They have
> become refugees in their own country and the media is
> mostly silent.
>
> Yes democracy is needed, and a free and democratic
> India definitely has (in the long run) an advantage on
> an undemocratic China . But the way things are going
> now, India seems on the verge of losing all that is
> good and true and valuable within the nation, thanks
> to cynical and self-serving politicians.
>
> Cry O my Beloved India . Look at what Thy children are
> doing to Thee.
>
>
>
> --
>
> http://indersalim.livejournal.com
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