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Venu K.M
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MAY BE WE ARE BADLY IN NEED OF A RE-BOOTING WITH THE IDEAS OF MODERNITY
Posted by
Venu K.M
MAY BE WE ARE BADLY IN NEED OF A RE-BOOTING WITH THE IDEAS OF MODERNITY
Review of
A FORGOTTEN LIBERATOR:
The life and Struggle of Savitribai Phule
(Editors: Braj Ranjan Mani & Pamela Sardar)
(Pages:100; Price: Rs 200.00)
Published by:
Mountain Peak
Kanu Chamber,
C-2, Sanwal Nagar.
New Delhi-110049
Email:
office@mountainpeak.biz
Perhaps we get hold of the much sought after stuff in this tiny
edition . This is a few remarkable accounts by six authors on the
unique aspects of the lives and thoughts of the Phules , differently
highlighted in each essay . Some of the essays also tell us about a
few women and men without whose active support , the struggles might
not have taken the course as they did. Names of Jyotirao Phule and
Savitri Phule, the great fighters for causes linked to human
dignity and reason, not unheard by people outside Maharashtra
though, we seem to have had very little access to the details of their
personal-political lives. This volume helps in a big way to fulfill
the gap.
Certainly, Savitribai Phule is in focus in all these essays .
Translation of three letters penned by Savitri to Jyotiba in Marati
in 1856, 1868 and 1877 with the caption “Love Letters Unlike Any
Other” and a matching introduction by Sunil Sardar is one of them.
There is a section comprising few photos and illustrations depicting
Savitri Phule’s personal and public life. In another, entitled as
‘Poineering Engaged Writing’, Sunil Sardar and Victor Paul present
the translation of Savitri’s five poems written in Marati. These poems
show the fervor with which early reformers of modern era greeted the
agenda of education , particularly English education which had a
refreshing content entirely different from which constituted the
traditional idea of learning. There is a brief chronology of
Savitribai’s life , bibliography of her writings and a suggested list
of readings appended to the book. A wonderful essay authored by
Muktabai, a eleven year old dalit girl who studied at the Pune
school for girls set up by the Phules, is also part of this volume .
The essay first published in 1855 , is translated from Marati and has
been introduced by Braj Ranjan Mani under a separate caption.
In his detailed introduction to the book, the editor Braj Ranjan Mani
observes: “It is indeed a measure of the ruthlessness of
elite-controlled knowledge- production that a figure as important as
Savitribai Phule fails to find any mention in the history of modern
India. This is not to deny the works by Marati authors….Her life and
struggle, however, deserves to be appreciated by a wider spectrum, and
made known to non-Marati people as well..”
Commenting about the relevance of the Phule struggles, the editor
rightly points out : “..Their distinct brand of socio-cultural
radicalism was based on uniting all the oppressed, whom they would
call stree-shudra-atishudra”.
.
.
Questions initiated by extra ordinary visionaries would look so casual
and even ridiculous as they emerge in the first place. Nevertheless,
it is not until much later on a time scale that we are able to see
more to them; that what had happened was nothing less than history.
We then learn to ask similar questions by ourselves sometimes with
much lesser confidence and more or less in a timid voice .In a course
of time we even forget that these would never have reached our mundane
thoughts had them not been asked earlier with much personal courage
and strength of conviction by the markers of milestones in history.
The unrelenting nature of day to day struggles through which
Savitribai Phule together with her beloved life partner Jyotirao Phule
could almost upset an entire system of institutionalized privileges
and deprivations are amply highlighted in this compilation . The
Brahmanical village hierarchy was disproportionately more powerful and
firmly rooted in its ideology of exclusivity as against the modernist
interventions by Satyasodhak Samaj toward its reform. Through the
kind of educational activism motivated by the great values of
social inclusion and egalitarianism, Phules had to undergo moments of
the toughest challenge in their personal lives. Nevertheless, they
could sustain the extremely precarious dynamic of these struggles.
In these days of ‘post modern’ thinking, we often fail to look back
to the painful historical process through which major chunk of
population of this country comprising sections of Sudhras, Atisudras
and women could successfully voice their demands for inclusion as
dignified human beings.
Pamela Sardar in one of the essays gives a touching account of how
Jyotiba’s cousin , Sagunabai Kshirsagar played the role of great
mentor of the Phule couple.
As Jyotiba’s mother died when he was too young, Sugunabai who was a
child widow played the part of both his mother and mentor. There is a
narration about how Sugunabai intervened positively to change the
entire course of life of Jyotiba. Thanks to the help of her employer
Mr. John (a missionary ), an English Officer and another person called
Gaffar Beg(a Muslim scholar), she succeeded in reversing the
decision of Jyotiba’s father Govindarao to take back Jyotiba to the
family business of selling flowers even before completing his
schooling. Only Sugunabai’s foresight and timely intervention in
getting him readmitted helped. The persuasion by a Brahmin clerk
working in his shop was too strong to ignore for a shudra those
times: “..Your son would be of no use for business, and more
important, our Hindu Dharma does not allow a shudra to get education.
An educated shudra and his whole clan suffer in hell for seven
generations!”
In another essay penned by Gail Omvedt, equally interesting and
touching touching account related to Savitribai’s mission of
educating girls of the lower castes is given. Savitribai suffered not
just constant verbal abuses from the Brahman women in the
neighborhood, but also had to carry two sets of clothing as she went
to teach in the school for girls in Pune (which was founded by the
couple in 1851). Brahmin women regularly threw dung at her and men
occasionally stoned her as she walked up to her school.!
Similarly, Cynthia Stephen writes in her piece: “The young couple
faced severe opposition from almost all sections. Savitribai was
subject to intense harassment everyday as she walked to the school.
Stones, mud and dirt were flung at her as she passed”. Cynthia goes
further to describe how the perseverance of the Phules succeeded in
spite of all these malicious deeds by representatives of the
Brahmanical mainstream. By gaining the goodwill of people from
different walks of life including a distinguished Muslim gentleman,
few scholars, officials and educationists the schools run by Phules
got firmly established in a short period of time. By 1852 November,
the educational department of the government even organized a public
felicitation of the Phule couple.
In the same essay, there is another interesting narration about how
two dalit men hired by the local Brahmans appeared with swords to
assassinate Phule at his home, and how terribly they were impressed
by the great personality. Following a brief course of dialogue with
these misguided people, Phule ultimately had these dalit men joining
the revolutionary plank of social reform..
The bold strides marched by Savithribai and her husband through the
Satyasodhak Samaj, in providing the most needed social space for
widows , children of unwed mothers subjected to ostracizing by the
Hindu culture, remarrying of young Hindu widows sans ceremonial
service of Brahman priests, educating women and the underprivileged
etc, would perhaps be unthinkable even for the present day reformers
in spite of being equipped by the unique constitutional mechanism of
Independent India.
Victor Paul in the essay titled ‘A Relentless Truth seeker’ lashes
out at the Brahmanical nationalists while juxtaposing their typical
attitude with that of the Phule couple’s preceding agenda of social
reforms in the pre independent India:
“(Nationalism in India….)While depicting the British period as a
shameful and forgettable episode in an otherwise glorious historical
and cultural saga of their nation , the nationalists conveniently
overlook the fact that they themselves were the great beneficiaries of
the plunder of the colonial era. Not surprisingly, almost all
nationalist intellectual exercises of the period, appear to be an
attempt to hoodwink the masses by blaming the British for all
uncomfortable and nefarious internal issues..”
Many of the vital aspects of reforms taken up by Jyotiba and
Savitribai remain to be fulfilled these days , despite the heightened
awareness on caste and Hinduism thanks to the teachings of Babasaheb
Ambedkar and by many others later. Unfortunately for many of us, this
state of affairs is much likely to continue as long as the agenda of
social reforms that constantly fails this country is far from being
acknowledged at a wider level. It is precisely at this juncture this
book has to tell us a lot both in first person accounts and otherwise.
It would be worthwhile to quote Gopal Guru :
” ..Dalits are expected to take the initiative in giving moral lead to
doing theory in the country. This orientation would thus remove the
cultural hierarchies that tend to divide social science practice into
theoretical brahmins and empirical shudras. Ultimately social science
in India would fullfill the fondest hopes by expanding the social base
of its conceptual landscape...”(How Egalitarian Are Social Sciences In
India?- EPW Article,2001)
- K.M.Venugopalan
Venu K.M
MAY BE WE ARE BADLY IN NEED OF A RE-BOOTING WITH THE IDEAS OF MODERNITY
Review of
A FORGOTTEN LIBERATOR:
The life and Struggle of Savitribai Phule
(Editors: Braj Ranjan Mani & Pamela Sardar)
(Pages:100; Price: Rs 200.00)
Published by:
Mountain Peak
Kanu Chamber,
C-2, Sanwal Nagar.
New Delhi-110049
Email:
office@mountainpeak.biz
Perhaps we get hold of the much sought after stuff in this tiny
edition . This is a few remarkable accounts by six authors on the
unique aspects of the lives and thoughts of the Phules , differently
highlighted in each essay . Some of the essays also tell us about a
few women and men without whose active support , the struggles might
not have taken the course as they did. Names of Jyotirao Phule and
Savitri Phule, the great fighters for causes linked to human
dignity and reason, not unheard by people outside Maharashtra
though, we seem to have had very little access to the details of their
personal-political lives. This volume helps in a big way to fulfill
the gap.
Certainly, Savitribai Phule is in focus in all these essays .
Translation of three letters penned by Savitri to Jyotiba in Marati
in 1856, 1868 and 1877 with the caption “Love Letters Unlike Any
Other” and a matching introduction by Sunil Sardar is one of them.
There is a section comprising few photos and illustrations depicting
Savitri Phule’s personal and public life. In another, entitled as
‘Poineering Engaged Writing’, Sunil Sardar and Victor Paul present
the translation of Savitri’s five poems written in Marati. These poems
show the fervor with which early reformers of modern era greeted the
agenda of education , particularly English education which had a
refreshing content entirely different from which constituted the
traditional idea of learning. There is a brief chronology of
Savitribai’s life , bibliography of her writings and a suggested list
of readings appended to the book. A wonderful essay authored by
Muktabai, a eleven year old dalit girl who studied at the Pune
school for girls set up by the Phules, is also part of this volume .
The essay first published in 1855 , is translated from Marati and has
been introduced by Braj Ranjan Mani under a separate caption.
In his detailed introduction to the book, the editor Braj Ranjan Mani
observes: “It is indeed a measure of the ruthlessness of
elite-controlled knowledge- production that a figure as important as
Savitribai Phule fails to find any mention in the history of modern
India. This is not to deny the works by Marati authors….Her life and
struggle, however, deserves to be appreciated by a wider spectrum, and
made known to non-Marati people as well..”
Commenting about the relevance of the Phule struggles, the editor
rightly points out : “..Their distinct brand of socio-cultural
radicalism was based on uniting all the oppressed, whom they would
call stree-shudra-atishudra”.
.
.
Questions initiated by extra ordinary visionaries would look so casual
and even ridiculous as they emerge in the first place. Nevertheless,
it is not until much later on a time scale that we are able to see
more to them; that what had happened was nothing less than history.
We then learn to ask similar questions by ourselves sometimes with
much lesser confidence and more or less in a timid voice .In a course
of time we even forget that these would never have reached our mundane
thoughts had them not been asked earlier with much personal courage
and strength of conviction by the markers of milestones in history.
The unrelenting nature of day to day struggles through which
Savitribai Phule together with her beloved life partner Jyotirao Phule
could almost upset an entire system of institutionalized privileges
and deprivations are amply highlighted in this compilation . The
Brahmanical village hierarchy was disproportionately more powerful and
firmly rooted in its ideology of exclusivity as against the modernist
interventions by Satyasodhak Samaj toward its reform. Through the
kind of educational activism motivated by the great values of
social inclusion and egalitarianism, Phules had to undergo moments of
the toughest challenge in their personal lives. Nevertheless, they
could sustain the extremely precarious dynamic of these struggles.
In these days of ‘post modern’ thinking, we often fail to look back
to the painful historical process through which major chunk of
population of this country comprising sections of Sudhras, Atisudras
and women could successfully voice their demands for inclusion as
dignified human beings.
Pamela Sardar in one of the essays gives a touching account of how
Jyotiba’s cousin , Sagunabai Kshirsagar played the role of great
mentor of the Phule couple.
As Jyotiba’s mother died when he was too young, Sugunabai who was a
child widow played the part of both his mother and mentor. There is a
narration about how Sugunabai intervened positively to change the
entire course of life of Jyotiba. Thanks to the help of her employer
Mr. John (a missionary ), an English Officer and another person called
Gaffar Beg(a Muslim scholar), she succeeded in reversing the
decision of Jyotiba’s father Govindarao to take back Jyotiba to the
family business of selling flowers even before completing his
schooling. Only Sugunabai’s foresight and timely intervention in
getting him readmitted helped. The persuasion by a Brahmin clerk
working in his shop was too strong to ignore for a shudra those
times: “..Your son would be of no use for business, and more
important, our Hindu Dharma does not allow a shudra to get education.
An educated shudra and his whole clan suffer in hell for seven
generations!”
In another essay penned by Gail Omvedt, equally interesting and
touching touching account related to Savitribai’s mission of
educating girls of the lower castes is given. Savitribai suffered not
just constant verbal abuses from the Brahman women in the
neighborhood, but also had to carry two sets of clothing as she went
to teach in the school for girls in Pune (which was founded by the
couple in 1851). Brahmin women regularly threw dung at her and men
occasionally stoned her as she walked up to her school.!
Similarly, Cynthia Stephen writes in her piece: “The young couple
faced severe opposition from almost all sections. Savitribai was
subject to intense harassment everyday as she walked to the school.
Stones, mud and dirt were flung at her as she passed”. Cynthia goes
further to describe how the perseverance of the Phules succeeded in
spite of all these malicious deeds by representatives of the
Brahmanical mainstream. By gaining the goodwill of people from
different walks of life including a distinguished Muslim gentleman,
few scholars, officials and educationists the schools run by Phules
got firmly established in a short period of time. By 1852 November,
the educational department of the government even organized a public
felicitation of the Phule couple.
In the same essay, there is another interesting narration about how
two dalit men hired by the local Brahmans appeared with swords to
assassinate Phule at his home, and how terribly they were impressed
by the great personality. Following a brief course of dialogue with
these misguided people, Phule ultimately had these dalit men joining
the revolutionary plank of social reform..
The bold strides marched by Savithribai and her husband through the
Satyasodhak Samaj, in providing the most needed social space for
widows , children of unwed mothers subjected to ostracizing by the
Hindu culture, remarrying of young Hindu widows sans ceremonial
service of Brahman priests, educating women and the underprivileged
etc, would perhaps be unthinkable even for the present day reformers
in spite of being equipped by the unique constitutional mechanism of
Independent India.
Victor Paul in the essay titled ‘A Relentless Truth seeker’ lashes
out at the Brahmanical nationalists while juxtaposing their typical
attitude with that of the Phule couple’s preceding agenda of social
reforms in the pre independent India:
“(Nationalism in India….)While depicting the British period as a
shameful and forgettable episode in an otherwise glorious historical
and cultural saga of their nation , the nationalists conveniently
overlook the fact that they themselves were the great beneficiaries of
the plunder of the colonial era. Not surprisingly, almost all
nationalist intellectual exercises of the period, appear to be an
attempt to hoodwink the masses by blaming the British for all
uncomfortable and nefarious internal issues..”
Many of the vital aspects of reforms taken up by Jyotiba and
Savitribai remain to be fulfilled these days , despite the heightened
awareness on caste and Hinduism thanks to the teachings of Babasaheb
Ambedkar and by many others later. Unfortunately for many of us, this
state of affairs is much likely to continue as long as the agenda of
social reforms that constantly fails this country is far from being
acknowledged at a wider level. It is precisely at this juncture this
book has to tell us a lot both in first person accounts and otherwise.
It would be worthwhile to quote Gopal Guru :
” ..Dalits are expected to take the initiative in giving moral lead to
doing theory in the country. This orientation would thus remove the
cultural hierarchies that tend to divide social science practice into
theoretical brahmins and empirical shudras. Ultimately social science
in India would fullfill the fondest hopes by expanding the social base
of its conceptual landscape...”(How Egalitarian Are Social Sciences In
India?- EPW Article,2001)
- K.M.Venugopalan
Article by George Monbiot on Denial of Climate Change
Posted by
Venu K.M
Monbiot.com
Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it.
Tell them something new and they will hate you for it.
Death Denial
Posted November 2, 2009
Why the sudden surge in climate change denial? Could it be about something else altogether?
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian, 2nd November 2009
There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere which cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.
A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there’s solid evidence that the world has been warming over the past few decades has fallen from 71% to 57% in just 18 months(1). Another survey, conducted in January by Rasmussen Reports, suggests that, due to a sharp rise since 2006, US voters who believe that global warming is the result of natural causes (44%) now outnumber those who believe it is caused by human action (41%)(2).
A study by the website Desmogblog shows that the number of internet pages proposing that manmade global warming is a hoax or a lie more than doubled in 2008(3). The Science Museum’s Prove it! exhibition asks online readers to endorse or reject a statement that they’ve seen the evidence and want governments to take action. As of yesterday afternoon, 1006 people had endorsed it and 6110 had rejected it(4). On Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are currently ranked at 1,2,4,5,7 and 8 in the global warming category(5). Never mind that they’ve been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers, they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on?
It certainly doesn’t reflect the state of the science, which has hardened dramatically over the past two years. If you don’t believe me, open any recent edition of Science or Nature or any peer-reviewed journal specialising in atmospheric or environmental science. Go on, try it. The debate about global warming that’s raging on the internet and in the rightwing press does not reflect any such debate in the scientific journals.
An American scientist I know suggests that these books and websites cater to a new literary market: people with room-temperature IQs. He didn’t say whether he meant Fahrenheit or Centigrade. But this can’t be the whole story. Plenty of intelligent people have also declared themselves sceptics.
One such is the critic Clive James. You could accuse him of purveying trite received wisdom, but not of being dumb. On Radio Four a few days ago he delivered an essay about the importance of scepticism, during which he maintained that “the number of scientists who voice scepticism [about climate change] has lately been increasing.”(6) He presented no evidence to support this statement and, as far as I can tell, none exists. But he used this contention to argue that “either side might well be right, but I think that if you have a division on that scale, you can’t call it a consensus. Nobody can meaningfully say that the science is in.”
Had he bothered to take a look at the quality of the evidence on either side of this media debate, and the nature of the opposing armies - climate scientists on one side, rightwing bloggers on the other - he too might have realised that the science is in. In, at any rate, to the extent that science can ever be, which is to say that the evidence for manmade global warming is as strong as the evidence for Darwinian evolution, or for the link between smoking and lung cancer. I am constantly struck by the way in which people like James, who proclaim themselves sceptics, will believe any old claptrap that suits their views. Their position was perfectly summarised by a supporter of Ian Plimer (author of a marvellous concatenation of gibberish called Heaven and Earth(7)) commenting on a recent article in the Spectator. “Whether Plimer is a charlatan or not, he speaks for many of us”(8). These people aren’t sceptics; they’re suckers.
Such beliefs seem to be strongly influenced by age. The Pew report found that people over 65 are much more likely than the rest of the population to deny that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming, that it’s caused by humans or that it’s a serious problem(9). This chimes with my own experience. Almost all my fiercest arguments over climate change, both in print and in person, have been with people in their 60s or 70s. Why might this be?
There are some obvious answers: they won’t be around to see the results; they were brought up in a period of technological optimism; they feel entitled, having worked all their lives, to fly or cruise to wherever they wish. But there might also be a less intuitive reason, which shines a light into a fascinating corner of human psychology.
In 1973 the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker proposed that the fear of death drives us to protect ourselves with “vital lies” or “the armour of character”(10). We defend ourselves from the ultimate terror by engaging in immortality projects, which boost our self-esteem and grant us meaning that extends beyond death. Over 300 studies conducted in 15 countries appear to confirm Becker’s thesis(11). When people are confronted with images or words or questions that remind them of death they respond by shoring up their worldview, rejecting people and ideas that threaten it and increasing their striving for self-esteem(12).
One of the most arresting findings is that immortality projects can bring death closer. In seeking to defend the symbolic, heroic self that we create to suppress thoughts of death, we might expose the physical self to greater danger. For example, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel found that people who reported that driving boosted their self-esteem drove faster and took greater risks after they had been exposed to reminders of death(13).
A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult for people to repress thoughts of death, and that they might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival(14). There is already experimental evidence suggesting that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption(15). Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of Western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.
If Dickinson is correct, is it fanciful to suppose that those who are closer to the end of their lives might react more strongly against reminders of death? I haven’t been able to find any experiments testing this proposition, but it is surely worth investigating. And could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the past two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it?
www.monbiot.com
With thanks to George Marshall
References:
1. http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/556.pdf
2. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/44_say_global_warming_due_to_planetary_trends_not_people
3. http://www.desmogblog.com/2008-stats-global-warming-denial-blogosphere
4. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/proveit.aspx
5. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_8?rh=n%3A266239%2Cn%3A!1025612%2Cn%3A57%2Cn%3A278080%2Cn%3A922416&bbn=278080&ie=UTF8&qid=1257145116&rnid=278080
6. Clive James, 23rd October 2009. A Point of View. BBC Radio 4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n9lm3/A_Point_of_View_23_10_2009/
7. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/14/answers-come-there-none/
8. http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5332261/an-empty-chair-for-monbiot.thtml
9. http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/556.pdf
10. Ernest Becker, 1973. The Denial of Death, pp47-66. Republished 1997. Free Press Paperbacks, New York.
11. Tom Pyszczynski et al, 2006. On the Unique Psychological Import of the Human Awareness of Mortality: Theme and Variations. Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 17, No. 4, 328–356.
12. Jeff Greenberg et al, 1992. Terror Management and Tolerance: does mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten one’s worldview? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 63, No 2 212-220.
13. OT Ben-Ari et al, 1999. The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: a test of terror management mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 76, No 1 35-45.
14. Janis L. Dickinson, 2009. The People Paradox: Self-Esteem Striving, Immortality Ideologies, and Human Response to Climate Change. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org:80/vol14/iss1/art34/
15. T. Kasser and K. M. Sheldon, 2000. Of wealth and death: materialism, mortality salience, and consumption behavior. Psychological Science 11:348-351, Cited by Janis L Dickinson, above.
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Venu K.M
Monbiot.com
Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it.
Tell them something new and they will hate you for it.
Death Denial
Posted November 2, 2009
Why the sudden surge in climate change denial? Could it be about something else altogether?
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian, 2nd November 2009
There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere which cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.
A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there’s solid evidence that the world has been warming over the past few decades has fallen from 71% to 57% in just 18 months(1). Another survey, conducted in January by Rasmussen Reports, suggests that, due to a sharp rise since 2006, US voters who believe that global warming is the result of natural causes (44%) now outnumber those who believe it is caused by human action (41%)(2).
A study by the website Desmogblog shows that the number of internet pages proposing that manmade global warming is a hoax or a lie more than doubled in 2008(3). The Science Museum’s Prove it! exhibition asks online readers to endorse or reject a statement that they’ve seen the evidence and want governments to take action. As of yesterday afternoon, 1006 people had endorsed it and 6110 had rejected it(4). On Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are currently ranked at 1,2,4,5,7 and 8 in the global warming category(5). Never mind that they’ve been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers, they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on?
It certainly doesn’t reflect the state of the science, which has hardened dramatically over the past two years. If you don’t believe me, open any recent edition of Science or Nature or any peer-reviewed journal specialising in atmospheric or environmental science. Go on, try it. The debate about global warming that’s raging on the internet and in the rightwing press does not reflect any such debate in the scientific journals.
An American scientist I know suggests that these books and websites cater to a new literary market: people with room-temperature IQs. He didn’t say whether he meant Fahrenheit or Centigrade. But this can’t be the whole story. Plenty of intelligent people have also declared themselves sceptics.
One such is the critic Clive James. You could accuse him of purveying trite received wisdom, but not of being dumb. On Radio Four a few days ago he delivered an essay about the importance of scepticism, during which he maintained that “the number of scientists who voice scepticism [about climate change] has lately been increasing.”(6) He presented no evidence to support this statement and, as far as I can tell, none exists. But he used this contention to argue that “either side might well be right, but I think that if you have a division on that scale, you can’t call it a consensus. Nobody can meaningfully say that the science is in.”
Had he bothered to take a look at the quality of the evidence on either side of this media debate, and the nature of the opposing armies - climate scientists on one side, rightwing bloggers on the other - he too might have realised that the science is in. In, at any rate, to the extent that science can ever be, which is to say that the evidence for manmade global warming is as strong as the evidence for Darwinian evolution, or for the link between smoking and lung cancer. I am constantly struck by the way in which people like James, who proclaim themselves sceptics, will believe any old claptrap that suits their views. Their position was perfectly summarised by a supporter of Ian Plimer (author of a marvellous concatenation of gibberish called Heaven and Earth(7)) commenting on a recent article in the Spectator. “Whether Plimer is a charlatan or not, he speaks for many of us”(8). These people aren’t sceptics; they’re suckers.
Such beliefs seem to be strongly influenced by age. The Pew report found that people over 65 are much more likely than the rest of the population to deny that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming, that it’s caused by humans or that it’s a serious problem(9). This chimes with my own experience. Almost all my fiercest arguments over climate change, both in print and in person, have been with people in their 60s or 70s. Why might this be?
There are some obvious answers: they won’t be around to see the results; they were brought up in a period of technological optimism; they feel entitled, having worked all their lives, to fly or cruise to wherever they wish. But there might also be a less intuitive reason, which shines a light into a fascinating corner of human psychology.
In 1973 the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker proposed that the fear of death drives us to protect ourselves with “vital lies” or “the armour of character”(10). We defend ourselves from the ultimate terror by engaging in immortality projects, which boost our self-esteem and grant us meaning that extends beyond death. Over 300 studies conducted in 15 countries appear to confirm Becker’s thesis(11). When people are confronted with images or words or questions that remind them of death they respond by shoring up their worldview, rejecting people and ideas that threaten it and increasing their striving for self-esteem(12).
One of the most arresting findings is that immortality projects can bring death closer. In seeking to defend the symbolic, heroic self that we create to suppress thoughts of death, we might expose the physical self to greater danger. For example, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel found that people who reported that driving boosted their self-esteem drove faster and took greater risks after they had been exposed to reminders of death(13).
A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult for people to repress thoughts of death, and that they might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival(14). There is already experimental evidence suggesting that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption(15). Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of Western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.
If Dickinson is correct, is it fanciful to suppose that those who are closer to the end of their lives might react more strongly against reminders of death? I haven’t been able to find any experiments testing this proposition, but it is surely worth investigating. And could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the past two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it?
www.monbiot.com
With thanks to George Marshall
References:
1. http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/556.pdf
2. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/44_say_global_warming_due_to_planetary_trends_not_people
3. http://www.desmogblog.com/2008-stats-global-warming-denial-blogosphere
4. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/proveit.aspx
5. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_8?rh=n%3A266239%2Cn%3A!1025612%2Cn%3A57%2Cn%3A278080%2Cn%3A922416&bbn=278080&ie=UTF8&qid=1257145116&rnid=278080
6. Clive James, 23rd October 2009. A Point of View. BBC Radio 4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n9lm3/A_Point_of_View_23_10_2009/
7. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/14/answers-come-there-none/
8. http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5332261/an-empty-chair-for-monbiot.thtml
9. http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/556.pdf
10. Ernest Becker, 1973. The Denial of Death, pp47-66. Republished 1997. Free Press Paperbacks, New York.
11. Tom Pyszczynski et al, 2006. On the Unique Psychological Import of the Human Awareness of Mortality: Theme and Variations. Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 17, No. 4, 328–356.
12. Jeff Greenberg et al, 1992. Terror Management and Tolerance: does mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten one’s worldview? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 63, No 2 212-220.
13. OT Ben-Ari et al, 1999. The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: a test of terror management mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 76, No 1 35-45.
14. Janis L. Dickinson, 2009. The People Paradox: Self-Esteem Striving, Immortality Ideologies, and Human Response to Climate Change. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org:80/vol14/iss1/art34/
15. T. Kasser and K. M. Sheldon, 2000. Of wealth and death: materialism, mortality salience, and consumption behavior. Psychological Science 11:348-351, Cited by Janis L Dickinson, above.
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A Bogus Campaign Against "Love Jihad" Quitely Seeks Minds for Poisoning, but Still Largely Unchallenged
Posted by
Venu K.M
HOW SAD IT IS, IF WE REALLY LOVE TO BELIEVE THAT THESE EDUCATED HINDU
GIRLS ARE HARE WITTED AND LESS BRAINY THAN THEIR PARENTS, POLICE AND
THEIR 'JEHADI' PREDATORS, TO BE CHEATED BY LOVE..!
OR ,
DOES IT RATHER SUGGEST SOMETHING LIKE AN O-C-D (Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder) ROOTED IN (lack of)LOVE, FAMILY AND SECURITY?
Protectionist attitude toward women in Kerala is now seeing the
limits of absurdity.
What is so much there to probe about love affairs between people of
different faiths?
What is there to probe into cases of conversion from on faith to other
so long as proselytizing is perfectly recognized as constitutional and
legal in secular India?
You convince me by reason (or even by giving me soaps) that Islam or
Christianity is a better faith than Hiduism; I start thinking that
Hinduism is really not good for ME and take a decision to covert as a
Muslim or a Christian.
How can then one assume that all this happen only because of inflow of
mysterious foreign funds plus destabilizing motivations linked with
it?
Why the mysterious inflow of foreign funds, rather,is not checked by
routine regulatory measures than by resorting to ways producing hypes
and instilling fears in the minds of people about forcible conversion?
True that parents of at least two Hindu girls allegedly lured by the
activists of so called 'Love Jihadis' did come up with habeous corpus
writs following the disappearance of these girls from their houses.
It may also be true that the girls ultimately decide to go back to
their parents on the basis of own choice, in a court of law.
But why should this be a reason for widespread fear about girls of
mature age being trapped into 'Love Jihad'? What is the connection
between love, choice of life partner on the one side, and the
interventions by the parents of girls,the police and the court on the
other in making out such inter religion love marriages involving
conversions as a huge security threat for the entire nation?
Would it not have made more sense for the media to take up such
stories beyond the 'user friendly' but boundlessly ridiculous new
coinage in the lexicon of hate politics like "Love Jihad"?
The hate response to the so called Love Jihad by the VHP and the obscurantist Durgavahini is also being enthusiastically propagated by a section of the catholic church, SNDP Gen Secretary and a section of the Malayalam press. Campaigning in favour of imposing more parental controls on educated Hindu girls of mature age, etc are proposed as solutions to the phantom of Love Jihad . Going by reports, moral policing perhaps even uglier than the one resorted by Sri Ram Sene in Karnataka is
to set to take off in Kerala under the patronage of VHP, Christian Churches, SNDP and similar institutions.Fortunately, it seems less probable that women will be attracted to these hate campaigns to the point of erasing whatever little assertions they try to make on citizenships
Please read two more documents here on the topic :-
1. For the past two weeks, the entire JNU community has seen an intense mobilisation against the latest MHRD circular of Sep 12. At a time when students are fighting for their fundamental right to a quality and affordable education, the ABVP has yet again shown its true colours by not just completely ignoring the ongoing student movement, but actively using its energies to build a viciously communal campaign. The ABVP’s highly offensive pamphlet yesterday was typical of its politics and ideology - revealing clearly that the sole agenda of the ABVP on campus and in society is to spread communal hatred and curb the freedom of women in keeping with its fascist norms.
The pamphlet tries to whip up a communal frenzy by revealing “evidence” of a massive well-organised racket - a “Love Jihad” - whose purpose is to brainwash gullible Hindu girls into loving and marrying fundamentalist Muslim men and subsequently becoming “Islamic terrorists” waging war against the Indian state. This entire communal campaign draws its “evidence” from observations of the Kerala High Court in two cases related to “abduction” of Hindu girls. The fantastic revelations of a massive conspiracy to abduct Hindu girls and get them married off to “jihadis” (according to the ABVP, 4000 girls have been entrapped till date) are based on the sole evidence of a single witness - a girl who was forced by the Kerala High Court to leave her husband and stay with her parents. The girl apparently revealed the modus operandi of the Love Jihad after a week’s stay at her parents’ home. We have not forgotten that in innumerable cases of inter caste/inter religious marriages, where the girl has voluntarily married, her parents have falsely accused her of being an “abducted”, “brainwashed” minor, and have pressurized her into denying the relationship. In the Nitish Katara case and Rizwanur Rehman case for instance, the girls (Bharati Yadav and Priyanka Todi) eventually refused to complain against their fathers and brothers, even after overwhelming evidence that cold-blooded murders had been committed. In several cases, girls are even pressurized into accusing the boy of abducting or seducing them under force. In this specific case, the case has not even been heard in the Kerala High Court. There is not a shred of evidence of any “Love Jihad”; it has not been established in a court of law if the girls’ accusations are in fact true or are obtained under coercion from their families. Far from being established, no investigation has even taken place. Yet the court is passing sweeping orders and encouraging communal myths. Such a travesty of justice is a shameful assault on the democratic and secular fabric of the entire state machinery.
In such a situation it is imperative that the Home Ministry take a strong position, and refute the Kerala HC orders and challenge it in the Supreme Court.
The Kerala High Court’s orders in this case are highly irresponsible, to say the very least. Let us not forget that the HC’s orders come close on the heels of another order passed by the Congress-led Maharashtra government that essentially sees any marriage between Hindu women and Muslim men as an offence. The Maharashtra Minister of State for Home has ordered a CID investigation into such marriages on a demand made by two BJP MLAs who smelt a “conspiracy to increase the Muslim population’’ in the growing incidence of such marriages in the state’s rural areas. Such “enquiries” into every Hindu-Muslim marriage – be it by Kerala HC or Maharashtra Home Ministry – will be violative of Constitutional right to privacy and choice in matters of marriage, enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.
Without the backing of even basic evidence, the Kerala High Court is feeding the communal common sense prevalent in society - thus providing the ideal justification for the likes of the Sri Ram Sene and Babu Bajrangi types to pose as ‘nationalists’ fighting ‘jihadis’! Already, Babu Bajrangi and Sadhvi Pragya project the abduction (‘rescue’) of Hindu girls who have married outside community by choice, as a ‘nationalist’ act. Why is it that there is no Court order, no action from the Home Ministry to ban Khaap panchayats and the Sri Ram Sene? How come no enquiry is ordered into every suspicious case of honour killing?
Brahminical patriarchy has for long regarded women of upper castes as ‘gateways’ or points of breach into the caste system – requiring careful surveillance to preserve caste ‘purity’ – and this obsessive concern with policing female sexuality has become a stubborn feature across caste groups. There is widespread consent within civil society to regard choice, particularly when articulated by a woman as disruptive of the whole social order. It is the existence of such consent for obsessive control of women’s sexual choice, such widespread fear of a ‘terrible tear’ inflicted by women’s free choice, that sustains and ‘naturalises’ Bajrangi’s mass abduction spree as a patriotic act. This anxiety unfortunately extends even beyond the Hindu community – all communities share it. For instance, the even some Christian groups in Kerala have unfortunately reacted to the communal bogey of a “Love Jihad” by joining forces with VHP and warning Christian families to police their ‘wards’ more closely.
This agenda of spreading a campaign of a “Love Jihad” is inherently anti-woman and communal. Note that the “enquiries” ordered by the Kerala High Court do not cover cases of Hindu men marrying Muslim girls! The whole agenda is about demonising Muslim men AND about controlling the sexuality of Hindu women. The laughable notion of ‘Love Jihad’ is a deliberate ploy to further the age-old Sangh agenda of attack on women’s freedom of choice in marriage, right to convert, and demonizing of Muslim men as ‘lustful’. The likes of Babu Bajrangi and Pramod Muthalik openly advocate attacks on women who wear jeans, choose their partners, visit pubs and dare to challenge patriarchal strictures. During the previous Vidhan Sabha elections in UP, the BJP had distributed shamefully communal CDs that were carefully engineered to create the bogey of the ever-deceitful, violent, anti-woman Muslim youth whose main agenda is to coerce, deceive and rape gullible Hindu women.
It is high time that we tell the ABVP: we have seen through your ‘jihad’ bogey. “Love Jihad” is merely the new brand name of your old agenda of ban on jeans and Sri-Ram-Sene-type assaults on young women’s lifestyles and freedom to form friendships and love. It is high time women not just in JNU but all over the country tell the ABVP: we will love and marry according to our choice. We defy your diktats – just as we defy the khaap panchayats who tell us we are whores for marrying according to our choices. We will resist any attempt be it by Court or any government to police our freedom, or to bring our loves and marriages, irrespective of community, under any scanner. We demand a law against coercion in marriage, a law that will
declare it illegal for any group or individual, be they khaap panchayats or Sangh outfits or parents like D P Yadav or Ashok Todi to coerce adults in matters of marriage;
spells out punishments for diktats and death sentences issued by khaap panchayats, and also for justifications of such ‘executions’;
that spells out punishments for concerned police and administration authorities who fail to protect couples and take preventive action against those who issue death sentences
that orders a magisterial enquiry to be ordered in every case of suspected honour killing
that spells out punishments for parents who falsely accuse women of being ‘minors’
spell out punishments for those who impose ‘dress codes’ on women or indulge in any kind of threats or violence on women in the name of ‘culture’ or ‘honour’
Forces like the ABVP and the YFE have made it a habit to bring out such communal and casteist pamphlets at regular intervals, particularly when the student community is engaged in a struggle for its basic rights. AISA warns the ABVP and the YFE that such attempts to vitiate the atmosphere of the campus through such obnoxious pamphleteering will be robustly resisted tooth and nail by the democratic sections of the JNU community.
2."We have witnessed such inhuman acts in the form of propaganda in
Gujarat in the wake of carnage, that Muslim boys are luring Adivasi
girls. There Babu Bajarangi, who was also a major participant in
carnage, formed a goon-gang. This gang attacked couples and forced
them to separate if they belonged to different religions. All this is
presented as defense of religion! We have the case of Rijwan Ur Rehman
where Priyanka Todi, daughter of an affluent and powerful business
magnate also turned around under emotional blackmail from parents and
relatives. Later Rijwan Ur Rehman was forced to commit suicide. In all
such cases the role of police, state machinery, has been totally
against the spirit and provisions of law, the protectors of law acting
to support the things totally against the law."
(article by Ram Puniyani):-
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/11/myth-of-love-jihad.html
Venu K.M
HOW SAD IT IS, IF WE REALLY LOVE TO BELIEVE THAT THESE EDUCATED HINDU
GIRLS ARE HARE WITTED AND LESS BRAINY THAN THEIR PARENTS, POLICE AND
THEIR 'JEHADI' PREDATORS, TO BE CHEATED BY LOVE..!
OR ,
DOES IT RATHER SUGGEST SOMETHING LIKE AN O-C-D (Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder) ROOTED IN (lack of)LOVE, FAMILY AND SECURITY?
Protectionist attitude toward women in Kerala is now seeing the
limits of absurdity.
What is so much there to probe about love affairs between people of
different faiths?
What is there to probe into cases of conversion from on faith to other
so long as proselytizing is perfectly recognized as constitutional and
legal in secular India?
You convince me by reason (or even by giving me soaps) that Islam or
Christianity is a better faith than Hiduism; I start thinking that
Hinduism is really not good for ME and take a decision to covert as a
Muslim or a Christian.
How can then one assume that all this happen only because of inflow of
mysterious foreign funds plus destabilizing motivations linked with
it?
Why the mysterious inflow of foreign funds, rather,is not checked by
routine regulatory measures than by resorting to ways producing hypes
and instilling fears in the minds of people about forcible conversion?
True that parents of at least two Hindu girls allegedly lured by the
activists of so called 'Love Jihadis' did come up with habeous corpus
writs following the disappearance of these girls from their houses.
It may also be true that the girls ultimately decide to go back to
their parents on the basis of own choice, in a court of law.
But why should this be a reason for widespread fear about girls of
mature age being trapped into 'Love Jihad'? What is the connection
between love, choice of life partner on the one side, and the
interventions by the parents of girls,the police and the court on the
other in making out such inter religion love marriages involving
conversions as a huge security threat for the entire nation?
Would it not have made more sense for the media to take up such
stories beyond the 'user friendly' but boundlessly ridiculous new
coinage in the lexicon of hate politics like "Love Jihad"?
The hate response to the so called Love Jihad by the VHP and the obscurantist Durgavahini is also being enthusiastically propagated by a section of the catholic church, SNDP Gen Secretary and a section of the Malayalam press. Campaigning in favour of imposing more parental controls on educated Hindu girls of mature age, etc are proposed as solutions to the phantom of Love Jihad . Going by reports, moral policing perhaps even uglier than the one resorted by Sri Ram Sene in Karnataka is
to set to take off in Kerala under the patronage of VHP, Christian Churches, SNDP and similar institutions.Fortunately, it seems less probable that women will be attracted to these hate campaigns to the point of erasing whatever little assertions they try to make on citizenships
Please read two more documents here on the topic :-
1. For the past two weeks, the entire JNU community has seen an intense mobilisation against the latest MHRD circular of Sep 12. At a time when students are fighting for their fundamental right to a quality and affordable education, the ABVP has yet again shown its true colours by not just completely ignoring the ongoing student movement, but actively using its energies to build a viciously communal campaign. The ABVP’s highly offensive pamphlet yesterday was typical of its politics and ideology - revealing clearly that the sole agenda of the ABVP on campus and in society is to spread communal hatred and curb the freedom of women in keeping with its fascist norms.
The pamphlet tries to whip up a communal frenzy by revealing “evidence” of a massive well-organised racket - a “Love Jihad” - whose purpose is to brainwash gullible Hindu girls into loving and marrying fundamentalist Muslim men and subsequently becoming “Islamic terrorists” waging war against the Indian state. This entire communal campaign draws its “evidence” from observations of the Kerala High Court in two cases related to “abduction” of Hindu girls. The fantastic revelations of a massive conspiracy to abduct Hindu girls and get them married off to “jihadis” (according to the ABVP, 4000 girls have been entrapped till date) are based on the sole evidence of a single witness - a girl who was forced by the Kerala High Court to leave her husband and stay with her parents. The girl apparently revealed the modus operandi of the Love Jihad after a week’s stay at her parents’ home. We have not forgotten that in innumerable cases of inter caste/inter religious marriages, where the girl has voluntarily married, her parents have falsely accused her of being an “abducted”, “brainwashed” minor, and have pressurized her into denying the relationship. In the Nitish Katara case and Rizwanur Rehman case for instance, the girls (Bharati Yadav and Priyanka Todi) eventually refused to complain against their fathers and brothers, even after overwhelming evidence that cold-blooded murders had been committed. In several cases, girls are even pressurized into accusing the boy of abducting or seducing them under force. In this specific case, the case has not even been heard in the Kerala High Court. There is not a shred of evidence of any “Love Jihad”; it has not been established in a court of law if the girls’ accusations are in fact true or are obtained under coercion from their families. Far from being established, no investigation has even taken place. Yet the court is passing sweeping orders and encouraging communal myths. Such a travesty of justice is a shameful assault on the democratic and secular fabric of the entire state machinery.
In such a situation it is imperative that the Home Ministry take a strong position, and refute the Kerala HC orders and challenge it in the Supreme Court.
The Kerala High Court’s orders in this case are highly irresponsible, to say the very least. Let us not forget that the HC’s orders come close on the heels of another order passed by the Congress-led Maharashtra government that essentially sees any marriage between Hindu women and Muslim men as an offence. The Maharashtra Minister of State for Home has ordered a CID investigation into such marriages on a demand made by two BJP MLAs who smelt a “conspiracy to increase the Muslim population’’ in the growing incidence of such marriages in the state’s rural areas. Such “enquiries” into every Hindu-Muslim marriage – be it by Kerala HC or Maharashtra Home Ministry – will be violative of Constitutional right to privacy and choice in matters of marriage, enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.
Without the backing of even basic evidence, the Kerala High Court is feeding the communal common sense prevalent in society - thus providing the ideal justification for the likes of the Sri Ram Sene and Babu Bajrangi types to pose as ‘nationalists’ fighting ‘jihadis’! Already, Babu Bajrangi and Sadhvi Pragya project the abduction (‘rescue’) of Hindu girls who have married outside community by choice, as a ‘nationalist’ act. Why is it that there is no Court order, no action from the Home Ministry to ban Khaap panchayats and the Sri Ram Sene? How come no enquiry is ordered into every suspicious case of honour killing?
Brahminical patriarchy has for long regarded women of upper castes as ‘gateways’ or points of breach into the caste system – requiring careful surveillance to preserve caste ‘purity’ – and this obsessive concern with policing female sexuality has become a stubborn feature across caste groups. There is widespread consent within civil society to regard choice, particularly when articulated by a woman as disruptive of the whole social order. It is the existence of such consent for obsessive control of women’s sexual choice, such widespread fear of a ‘terrible tear’ inflicted by women’s free choice, that sustains and ‘naturalises’ Bajrangi’s mass abduction spree as a patriotic act. This anxiety unfortunately extends even beyond the Hindu community – all communities share it. For instance, the even some Christian groups in Kerala have unfortunately reacted to the communal bogey of a “Love Jihad” by joining forces with VHP and warning Christian families to police their ‘wards’ more closely.
This agenda of spreading a campaign of a “Love Jihad” is inherently anti-woman and communal. Note that the “enquiries” ordered by the Kerala High Court do not cover cases of Hindu men marrying Muslim girls! The whole agenda is about demonising Muslim men AND about controlling the sexuality of Hindu women. The laughable notion of ‘Love Jihad’ is a deliberate ploy to further the age-old Sangh agenda of attack on women’s freedom of choice in marriage, right to convert, and demonizing of Muslim men as ‘lustful’. The likes of Babu Bajrangi and Pramod Muthalik openly advocate attacks on women who wear jeans, choose their partners, visit pubs and dare to challenge patriarchal strictures. During the previous Vidhan Sabha elections in UP, the BJP had distributed shamefully communal CDs that were carefully engineered to create the bogey of the ever-deceitful, violent, anti-woman Muslim youth whose main agenda is to coerce, deceive and rape gullible Hindu women.
It is high time that we tell the ABVP: we have seen through your ‘jihad’ bogey. “Love Jihad” is merely the new brand name of your old agenda of ban on jeans and Sri-Ram-Sene-type assaults on young women’s lifestyles and freedom to form friendships and love. It is high time women not just in JNU but all over the country tell the ABVP: we will love and marry according to our choice. We defy your diktats – just as we defy the khaap panchayats who tell us we are whores for marrying according to our choices. We will resist any attempt be it by Court or any government to police our freedom, or to bring our loves and marriages, irrespective of community, under any scanner. We demand a law against coercion in marriage, a law that will
declare it illegal for any group or individual, be they khaap panchayats or Sangh outfits or parents like D P Yadav or Ashok Todi to coerce adults in matters of marriage;
spells out punishments for diktats and death sentences issued by khaap panchayats, and also for justifications of such ‘executions’;
that spells out punishments for concerned police and administration authorities who fail to protect couples and take preventive action against those who issue death sentences
that orders a magisterial enquiry to be ordered in every case of suspected honour killing
that spells out punishments for parents who falsely accuse women of being ‘minors’
spell out punishments for those who impose ‘dress codes’ on women or indulge in any kind of threats or violence on women in the name of ‘culture’ or ‘honour’
Forces like the ABVP and the YFE have made it a habit to bring out such communal and casteist pamphlets at regular intervals, particularly when the student community is engaged in a struggle for its basic rights. AISA warns the ABVP and the YFE that such attempts to vitiate the atmosphere of the campus through such obnoxious pamphleteering will be robustly resisted tooth and nail by the democratic sections of the JNU community.
2."We have witnessed such inhuman acts in the form of propaganda in
Gujarat in the wake of carnage, that Muslim boys are luring Adivasi
girls. There Babu Bajarangi, who was also a major participant in
carnage, formed a goon-gang. This gang attacked couples and forced
them to separate if they belonged to different religions. All this is
presented as defense of religion! We have the case of Rijwan Ur Rehman
where Priyanka Todi, daughter of an affluent and powerful business
magnate also turned around under emotional blackmail from parents and
relatives. Later Rijwan Ur Rehman was forced to commit suicide. In all
such cases the role of police, state machinery, has been totally
against the spirit and provisions of law, the protectors of law acting
to support the things totally against the law."
(article by Ram Puniyani):-
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/11/myth-of-love-jihad.html
Friday, November 6, 2009
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