In Denial Part-2: Covering-up Muslim Violence...

You would have heard the story of why a huge elephant refuses to break its relatively tiny chains and seek freedom. The reason is the elephant has been chained since it was a baby when it was difficult to break it. The baby elephant tried hard but couldn’t break away. By the time it grew to its mammoth size it was mentally a prisoner to that chain. It was convinced it’s futile and believed it’s not possible. Its mind had been trained to the falsehood that when it’s chained, it can't break free. Our MSM and most historians are no different. They are chained to falsehoods by the institutions that created them and cannot break free. Our school history books chain children to falsehoods too (Aryan invasion, anyone?). Most remain like the elephant but some are now managing to break free. This is the reason the new alternative media bears an important responsibility in spreading facts and truth. Some are already doing a great job of it and thousands more should join in.

Negationism is defined as denial or distortion of historical facts, especially those relating to crimes against humanity. Dr. Koenrad Elst, a Belgian, is a Hinduism scholar who has written much about this negationism and concealing of Islamic record in India. In the first part of this article I talked about history books in school. Here’s what Koenrad Elst has to say (Wiki): Historians of the Aligarh school (e.g. Irfan Habib) or Indian Marxists (e.g. Romila Thapar) have resorted to history-rewriting: "Therefore, in 1982 the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) issued a directive for the rewriting of schoolbooks. Among other things, it stipulated that:"Characterization of the medieval period as a time of conflict between Hindus and Muslims is forbidden." Under Marxist pressure, negationism has become India's official policy”. It actually recommends dumbing down of students. Effectively, it meant the horrors of Indian Islamic history must be hidden from our students. Students who cared were able to get to the real history but our MSM still follows that diktat. So is it a surprise that Muslim violence is covered up and mostly turned into ‘victimhood’ or an Anti-Hindu rant?

Most of us who believe in freedom of speech admire the First Amendment of US Constitution and are inspired by it. The inspiration for ‘free-speech’ for our MSM seems to be the ‘Sharia’. Hey, what the hell, let’s celebrate! It’s the Ganesh festival. You see, Gujarat has been free of communal riots for a decade now and that’s a great sign. But was it free of certain communal incidents? And it’s not just Gujarat alone. Ever wonder what is so wrong about the Ganesh “Visarjan” or the immersion procession that can be annoying to any religious community? At the most someone might complain of loud noise for a while. But in Godhra, the very epicentre of 2002, Muslims stoned a Ganesh procession in 2010. Saw a report anywhere in the MSM? No? Okay, here’s another from Miraj and Sangli in Maharashtra in 2009. No? Okay, here’s a recent one from 2012 this month from AP: Communal clashes over Ganesh idols. No? Okay, here’s another one from this month from Coimbatore Deccan Chronicle. Some have been arrested too. Are you sure you didn’t hear TV channels screaming about it? No? Then recently, online magazine The Onion , in sarcastic response to the violence over the recent anti-Islam movie, carried a very vulgar cartoon of Ganesh, Buddha, Jesus and Moses with the title “No one got murdered for this”. I’m not even going to reproduce it for obvious reasons. The Onion used it to prove a point to Muslims and not the unintended offence to other religions.

Back in January 2011 the Delhi HC ordered the demolition of an illegal mosque in the posh Jangpura locality in South Delhi. Law abiding Muslims protested, agitated and rioted and created havoc in the area. Politicians from the ‘secular’ parties rushed to pacify and promise the Muslims everything will be done to protect that illegal plot. You remember those TV images of this incident, right? Oh come on, rack your brains and recall those images! No? Oh wait! I recollect now. Just as NCERT sanitises school books, the ‘Union of Snakes’ sanitises TV where it concerns Muslim violence. Yeah, the NBA is the comic, laughable self-regulatory “union” of our TV media propagandists. That union decided: Other violence good for you, Muslim violence bad for you! Need confirmation? There’s the tweet from Barkha Dutt.

Alright, so if you’ve not heard of all of those on TV or major newspapers I’m sure you have at least had the pleasure of meeting Deganga. No, Again? Well, that’s because Deganga is not a media celeb but a small town somewhere in Bengal. If you read the CNN-IBN website report (see image) you wouldn’t know what the story really was. And, interestingly, at the bottom, there’s a disclaimer: “This is an automated feed. The contents have not been selected or edited by IBNLive”. Voila! So a robot does that and CNN-IBN doesn’t even have the time to verify the story or report it properly. Do they? That’s a smart way of covering up Muslim violence. Need more facts? Read this blog post. Don’t go by just that one blog. Please do cross-check this post with other searches on the net to assure yourself that you have the full corroborated story. The list could go on and on but let's stop with this much.

In the first part I quoted a rationalist, satirist Bill Maher. In this part, let’s read  Richard Dawkins, a rationalist, on the recent episode of the offensive movie which has spawned so much violence and deaths (this was in response to a letter by one Terence English):

“Terence English makes the all too common liberal error of patronising Muslims by assuming that their bigoted intransigence is a fixed fact of life which cannot be criticised, but must be accommodated like the laws of physics. It is a dubious application, not to say misapplication, of the classic limitation on free speech where “It’s like shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre.” Well yes, I see the point but no, there is an important difference. Fire is a chemical reaction that presents huge danger to everybody in a crowded theatre. That danger follows inevitably from the laws of physics. The danger from Muslim over-reaction to trivial slights to their prophet is entirely man-made and inexcusable.  As Nick Cohen points out, in You Can’t Read this Book, the real offence is to assume that Muslims are incapable of civilised behaviour. This patronises and insults Muslims in ways that – if the liberal apologists would only think it through – goes right against their deepest liberal convictions: “Poor dears, they don’t have civilised ways like us, it’s part of their culture.” That’s the ignominiously coded meaning of “respect” in this case”.

A Muslim MP makes a statement threatening a “third wave of radicalisation” in parliament. Instead of condemning his act our TV channels hold stupid debates about it. There cannot be a debate about mindless violence and mindless threats. They deserve nothing but severe condemnation. But our little “Miss Indias” will not only suppress news reports but will identify “Victimhood” as the cause of all this Muslim violence. Victimhood justifies violence? The only real “root cause” of all the chronic violence is ignorance, illiteracy, lack of education, intolerance and most of all, lack of sane leadership. On CNN a Rabbi made a valid point today. In most Islamic countries people can be jailed or even beheaded for offending their political leaders or Kings. And so it’s imaginable why they cannot tolerate criticism or satire about their religion. Does that ring a bell? We are close to that! Our cowardly media can abuse Hindus for anything but will not dare ask a single question about Sonia Gandhi’s illness, whereabouts or how, when and where she travels abroad. That’s our courageous, fair and balanced media for you.

The root of any good or bad ideological practice is usually found in the precedents set by the founding fathers of a nation. India doesn’t really have founding fathers except her Hindu culture. But post-independence some like to give that honour to some people. Jawaharlal Nehru is often referred to as the ‘Architect of modern India’. In his book on Negationism, Koenrad Elst recalls Nehru’s admiration for Mahmud Ghaznavi

The best-known propounder of negationism was certainly Jawarharlal Nehru… his writings contain some crude cases of glorification of Muslim tyrants and concealment or denial of their crimes. Witness his assessment of Mahmud Ghaznavi, who, according to his chronicler Utbi, sang the praise of the temple complex at Mathura and then immediately proceeded to destroy it. Nehru writes: "Building interested Mahmud, and he was much impressed by the city of Mathura near Delhi". About this he wrote: "There are here a thousand edifices as firm as the faith of the faithful; nor is it likely that this city has attained its present condition but at the expense of many millions of dinars, nor could such another be constructed under a period of 200 years." And that is all: Nehru described the destroyer of Mathura as an admirer of Mathura, apparently without noticing the gory sarcasm in Ghaznavi's eulogy. Moreover, Nehru denied that Mahmud had committed his acts of destruction out of any religious motive: "Mahmud was not a religious man. He was a Mohammedan, but that was just by the way. He was in the first place a soldier, and a brilliant soldier."  I recommend that you read the whole book by Elst which is available free online.

The fountainhead of the rivers that run through most of our institutions, universities, education boards and the media lies in the nearly two decades of Nehruvian era. Communist and socialist ideologies have made sure Hindus are blamed for everything and the worst of Muslim violence is covered up. So what about the Muslims? As long as they keep providing evidence that they can be provoked easily into anger and violence there will be jokers who will keep cracking silly jokes to annoy them. Immediately after the latest movie, a French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, carried another round of cartoons about the Prophet. There were protests in France but fortunately no violence or deaths. The day they stop reacting to these cartoons they will find the cartoons disappearing. Aseem Trivedi came to prominence because some idiots got provoked, else nobody would have even heard of him or seen his cartoons. The outcome is there for all to see.

Finally, what about the MSM? In 1991 the adult elephant was compelled to break free of the Nehruvian chains and bring in some reforms as far as economic policies are concerned. Though many faulty socialist policies continue, much of Nehru’s economic, political and international ideologies have been dismantled. One good thing: Nehru was never accused of financial corruption which his party has now taken to exceptionally intolerable levels. Our media is partly a player in that corruption. The MSM is an adult elephant but still a mental prisoner of the chains of the negationism that Nehruvian era brought along. Many of the media people come from the hotbeds of Nehruvian negationism, the universities and institutions that produce them. Does that explain why they cover up Muslim violence or intolerance more often than not? In the 21st century, baby elephants in the alternative media have broken free of the chains. If the MSM chooses to be a mental prisoner the baby elephants are not going to merely watch.   

In Denial Part-1: Cover-up Muslim Violence With Anti-Hindu Rant

This is in context of a movie “Innocence of Muslims” by an American. The movie, a satire on the Prophet, has angered Muslims in around 20 countries. It has driven many to violence, destruction and deaths in protest. Most have trashed the movie as stupid, badly made and tasteless satire. But does that really matter? Would the consequences have been any different if it were historically accurate or more tasteful? Your guess is as good as mine.

If you had the good fortune of going to a school but the misfortune of being taught sanitised history here’s a small KBC quiz for you, and you have to answer this off-hand: Name 7 prominent Hindu Kings. That’s easy, isn’t it? You can choose to scribble the list in your writing pads or in the comments section on this blog. If, for some reason, you didn’t manage that list then try this: Name 7 prominent Mughal rulers.

If you couldn’t easily name 7 prominent Hindu kings it’s not really your fault. It’s how our communist text books were designed. Imagine, in a line of marauding invaders, a somewhat compassionate Akbar is considered the greatest secularist by Nobel Prize winner and Bharat Ratna Amartya Sen. If the communist text books left any job unfinished we have most Commie Fiberals in our MSM continue their propaganda and distortion of Indian history. If I were to ask the Social Genius to name 7 Hindu kings off-hand, I estimate she would have to use the “call a friend” option. And Oh, in case you forgot, SG is a “devout Hindu”. Why? Because her ‘uncle’ joined the Ramakrishna Mission.

In a recent post I had attempted a fun review of interviews with Salman Rushdie (SR) by two media celebs, Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose (SG). Here are a couple of questions from one of the interviews. First SG asks: “But in your mind religion is wrong? Is it untrue? Are gods unnecessary and irrelevant?

SR: Yeah I think so…”. She follows it up with this:

SG: But why were you sad when Babri.. was demolished if you're not a believing Muslim?

SR: Because it was beautiful and an important part of Indian history. I am trained as a historian… I would feel the same way if someone knocked down the Taj.. And by the way, everything is built on top of something else… Probably even under a Hindu temple, there are Buddhist temples.

The stupidity of the question reflects the poverty of the brain and the bigotry of SG, her channel and their agenda. By her logic why would we be sad or annoyed if Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed in Afghanistan if we aren’t Buddhists? We have nothing to do with Afghanistan either. Why would we be upset if the Twin Towers were destroyed on 9/11? We aren’t Americans, are we? Those who didn’t lose any friends or family have even lesser reason to be upset, isn’t it? That’s the kind of Moronery she brings to the table. Motive: To somehow get a few sound-bites that would tar Hindus as extremists. She did twist a quote to create the headline “Hindu intolerance as bad as Muslims’” for the interview. If that wasn’t crooked enough, try this: “Hindu temples were built over Buddhist temples”. That could have been her back-up headline.

There are many who believe that the TajMahal was built over a Shiva temple. Some have provided pictures as evidence too. But nobody is asking to take down the Taj. It doesn’t occur to the social genius that Babri is a dispute raging over hundreds of years and cannot be equated with other incidents. Without condoning the incident, the particular significance to Hindus of Ram Janmabhoomi is not the same as Taj. I’m sure everyone’s heard of ‘RamRajya’ but there isn’t a concept called ‘ShivaRajya’. Is there? This is true for a couple of more historic Hindu sites and temples.

Now, let’s take up SR’s answer: “Probably even under a Hindu temple, there are Buddhist temples”. Should we challenge him? Should we ask him to prove it? No, not really. He just made an off the cuff, generalised remark and he clearly qualifies it with “Probably”, indicating he doesn’t know and can’t be sure. But others do make such remarks seriously but have never produced any evidence that Hindus conducted a religious-campaign to replace Buddhist temples. I haven’t seen any authentic evidence yet. And Hinduism is a lot older than Buddhism. But why is there such a clamour to tarnish Hindus when Muslim violence is so all pervading? Let’s not pick on SG, she is just the visible and voluble symptom of the disease that afflicts much of our MSM, communist historians and most political parties. SR claims to be “trained as a historian”. Ironically, even SG is a History graduate. Isn’t that surprising?

So if you look up our school textbooks you won’t find what historian Will Durant said about the Islamic invasion of India. He called it the bloodiest in human history. You will only find those books glorifying all the Mughal rulers. It’s only since the Internet that some of the real history is being disseminated more accurately. The historians, as with MSM now, have chosen to turn a blind eye to real history. Why is that so? If our media talked honestly about Muslim violence most of them would have burnt offices and dead bodies.

After his interview with that anti-Hindu celeb, SR has spoken to a few more. This time around he’s a lot more honest. To Fareed Zakaria he stated India is close to “no longer an open society” and in an interview to Le Monde (TOI report) he mentions “Something’s gone wrong at the heart of Islam”. To balance the stupidity of Muslim violence Rushdie points out certain incidents. He points out Rohinton Mistry’s book being removed from the University course. That had nothing to do with religion but more with a darker view of Mumbai which the Sena permanently gets worked up over. The 300 Ramayanas being removed from University courses had no violence involved. It was a decision by the managing authorities and removed by legal protests. The book itself is not banned. And yes any sensible man would condemn violence surrounding a book on Shivaji. There was no need to ban the related book either. The SC has overturned that ban. But our cowards in politics play the appeasement game instead of protecting the writer and publisher. But there is no way Rushdie or anyone should ever equate these incidents with chronic Islamic violence. If India ever was and still largely remains an open society it is simply because of Hindus and Hindu culture. Period.

Here’s a question for Rushdie and the Social Genius: Reverse the population of India. Let’s say 70% Muslims and 30% Hindus+others, what do you think will happen? It doesn’t need an Einstein to answer that. For all the whining that Rushdie does he still gets to come to India and go back when political and election temperatures aren’t hot. Now I wonder if he would dare a trip to Pakistan, BanglaDesh or any other Islamic county. So some of his utterances about India are filled with as much nonsense as SG’s about Hindus. Rushdie didn’t blame the last Jaipur LitFest crap on Hindus fortunately. He doesn’t blame them directly in anyway. He rightly blamed a criminal govt that abdicated its responsibility to protect him. What Rushdie now admits openly (something gone wrong with Islam) he could have done during the many interviews he did earlier.

SR has proclaimed himself to be an atheist or a rationalist. He did briefly claim to be a Muslim after the Fatwa. So why not see another rationalist talking about religion, particularly to Muslims? Rushdie has appeared on many shows with comedian and satirist Bill Maher. I can quite appreciate the humorous way rationalists look at religion and even ridicule it. Here are edited excerpts from Bill Maher’s Religulous. I am willing to wager Rushdie has seen the movie: (8:52 mins)

Some observations from the video:

(00.50): Talk about the name. Ahem! He calls himself ‘Propa Gandhi’ and he’s a Rapper. He is of Pakistani origin and is British. His lyrics for the infidels:  “… easy to use a mobile trigger.. Blow them all to hell for a million dollar figure”. Of course, he says it’s a satire and doesn’t reflect his intentions. Okay, accepted! Question: what satire is acceptable to the believers? And then he says Rushdie insulted and provoked intentionally. (02.35): Maher then ridicules Propa Gandhi: “You have the truth, I have the fiction”! (03.14): Dutch Imam: “Islam is peace, peace, peace”. (03.22): When asked about Islamic violence, everyone uniformly says: “No,No,No” “ It’s politics, it’s politics, it’s politics”. (04.05): Dutch Muslim politician Fatima Elatik states those passages in the Quran were in the context of the time they were written in. Maher points out, that’s not how people read holy books; that God’s word is forever. (04.30): Maher talks about how Islam conquered many parts of the world. The Imam says “not conquered, but spreading Islam”. And Maher laughs and says maybe but they weren’t spreading it by singing Kumbaya (a spiritual song).

Now this is interesting: (05.17): The site of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, the holiest site for Jews. The Muslims built a dome on top of the Jewish temple and Jews are not allowed into that place anymore. That has been so for a very long time. That’s like “under new management”. Couldn’t that be true for Babri or Taj Mahal? Couldn’t that be true for a lot of other temples too? I leave that to the historians and SG and Rushdie. The next one gets even better at (05.31): The holy Mount of Olives. Orthodox Jews want to be buried there because they believe when the Messiah comes he will raise the dead and march them through Golden Gates to the Temple Mount. But guess what the Muslims did? They walled up the gates to keep out the Jewish Messiah. Maher asks the hilarious question: “If He (The Messiah) has the power to raise the dead, He’d have the power to jump a fence”? Oh yes, wouldn’t he? Haha! But that’s Faith for you.

Now here’s something about the movie Religulous that most people would have missed: It’s 1Hr 41 minutes in duration. Bill Maher talks about Christianity, Judaism and Islam and even Scientology. He travels across the US, Europe and UK. He shows a glimpse of Hare Krishna followers dancing in the opening titles. That’s it! But there’s not one word, I repeat, not one word ridiculing Hinduism or Buddhism in the entire movie. You and I can wonder why but maybe the Social Genius has that answer. It’s not as if there aren’t enough Hindus and Buddhists in the US or UK. There are more Hollywood Buddhists than Scientologists.

In the 2^nd Part we will attempt to examine why so much Muslim violence is being tolerated and covered up by media for all the wrong reasons. In the meantime, if you managed, off-hand, to name 7 Hindu kings and 7 Mughal rulers, you’re a winner!