Backdoor Sharia

Come election season and the skillfully engineered controversies surface; particularly where it concerns the minority community. It has come to such a pass that people largely do not think of Parsis, Jews, Sikhs or even Christians as minorities. Minority is now consistently understood to mean ‘muslims’. All fake arguments by politicians and media in defining minorities any other way can now be safely flushed down the drain. It practically means muslims! Period! This syndrome is not unique to India but a universal phenomenon wherever the muslim population has steadily increased over the years. Naturally, after the initial announcement of 4.5% quota to muslims in Central jobs, Salman Khurshid was emboldened to announce a 9% quota if Congress was voted to power in UP. Although not stated, it would be naïve to believe Khurshid’s statement doesn’t have the support of his party. Suddenly, in this climate of muslim appeasement comes a fatwa from Deoband. The mullahs want Salman Rushdie banned from entering India to attend a literary festival at Jaipur. A well-timed, well-engineered shot if you like.

So no political party wants to comment on this outrageous fatwa but instead Salman Khurshid and the Rajasthan CM, Ashok Gehlot, advise Salman Rushdie to stay from the event. Gehlot, whose cabinet included murder accused, went on to even state that Rushdie’s visit could create a law and order situation. And the media? Oh well, instead of condemning the fatwa and the govt’s inaction goes into another orgy of debates. Yes, sick and mindless debates on an issue that they should have been strongly protesting. This is neither about Satanic Verses nor about hurting religious sentiments. First and last this is an issue of a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) who was born in Bombay and has the legal right to visit India. This is an individual’s right guaranteed by our laws which our govt is obliged to protect. The govt is failing in that obligation and the media is party to the crime.

Typically, A. Owaisi, the MP from AP had to be on the TV debates. He who recommends all Indians convert to Islam stated: “we are not against criticism but will not tolerate blasphemy”. It would need Einstein to discover how criticism of the Quran will not be treated as blasphemy by a mullah in any country. Such is the nonsense peddled in the media in the garb of debate. And cleverly the queen of Telly trolls Barkha Dutt states in a tweet: “If this nonsense controversy keeps @SalmanRushdie away from Jaipur we should all be ashamed as Indians. The culture of intolerance abhorrent”. Oh really sweetheart?  Instead of directing any protest or anger at the mullahs of Deoband or other intolerant cowards in the Congress she wants ‘Indians’ to be ashamed. Think about it every time these ‘sickulars’ find their friends committing horrors they want ‘Indians’ to be ashamed. That is pretty much like Rahul Gandhi’s silly statement: “I am ashamed to be an Indian” (At Bhatta Parsaul). Of course, any issue concerning freedom of speech for the telly trolls would not be complete without raking up M.F.Hussain. The painter’s works were neither banned, nor was he forced into exile as the media constantly propagates. He was a fugitive of his own choice.

Contrast this with the United Kingdom where Rushdie lived when the fatwa on his life was issued after Satanic Verses was released. His adopted country went all out to protect him and provided him complete security from would be killers willing to act on the fatwa on his life. That was in the late 80’s. Things have changed since then in the UK too. Since then the UK has also fallen into the trap of appeasement through failed multiculturalism. Since then there are now over 85 Sharia courts in the UK. Since then, over 50 churches have been converted to mosques in the UK by real-estate purchases. Living conditions and habits of the other residents were forced to be changed due to such pandering to muslims. There are muslim ghettos where other residents do not venture often. As for home-grown Islamic terror in UK, that is another topic altogether.

Three years ago the UK denied entry to Dutch MP Geert Wilders to screen his movie FITNA in the UK. Fitna is a short documentary on the Quran made by Wilders quoting verses he claims spread hatred and violence and for which the Quran should be banned in the Netherlands. He advocated that if Mein Kampf by Hitler is banned then the Quran should be banned as well. Now, Wilders wasn’t invited to UK for a private literary festival. He was invited by members of the House of Lords to screen his documentary in the upper house of the British parliament. Yet he was denied entry and later allowed only after a court allowed him to proceed. All signs of an increasingly Sharia-compliant democratic Britain. Imagine, this is the UK with a much more liberal freedom of speech and expression which has plumbed to such depths in appeasement of muslims. That’s a far cry from the days when Rushdie’s freedom was so strongly protected by the UK.  Geert Wilders was also prosecuted in his home-country of Netherlands for hate-speech and spreading hatred against muslims but later acquitted. Ring a bell? Well, closer home there is an attempt to prosecute Dr. Subramanian Swamy for a strong article against Islamic terrorism. Swamy’s courses that he taught at Harvard were also cancelled owing to petitions by vested interests. Oh, should I say Sharia-compliant lobbies? Once again, instead of strongly standing behind Swamy’s freedom of speech the Indian media was thoroughly delighted and announced “Harvard snubs Swamy”. It is increasingly clear that the Indian media doesn’t stand for freedom of speech or expression but for the ideologies they pursue. Does Indian news media really stand for freedom of speech? Bluntly, most of them qualify to be in the harem of some Arab prince with his Persian gloves on.

Okay! Suddenly we have Vinay Rai, a new crusader for protecting religious sentiments and other mental cavities. He is a journalist with some remote Urdu publication called ‘Akbari’and covers politics. He has filed a petition in a Delhi court against Google and Facebook. Let me quote him from WSJ: “The content I have submitted to the court deeply offends several religions including Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. It involves pages and groups where users have mocked Hindu gods and goddesses, Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ. Such content can create communal riots across the country. These are just a few examples…My intention is to ensure that the sentiments of any religion or community are not hurt”. Well, religions of the world must be so frail and fallible that it takes the Vinay Rais of the world to protect them and people’s sensitivities. In response to his petition the Delhi court even told the ISPs: “…if immediate steps were not taken, the websites would be blocked the way it happened in China”. We're used to a lot of Chinese goods, now our courts will deliver China-style bans too. Of course, our freedom loving UPA has approved the prosecution of Google and Facebook. And yes, it calls for another round of TV debates.

This time around you have Vinod Sharma of Hindustan Times referring to some video of Pakistan PM Gilani and Sherry Rehman on Youtube which according to him is tasteless and abusive. Well, maybe tasteless to him but it’s a silly incident, maybe unintentional, but the video has been viewed by over 2.5 million people. I guess all of those people must be idiots according to our media. People, out of curiosity, watch content and move on and not crib like politicians or journalists. And the panelists recommend a concept called “Self-censorship”. Laugh if you will, but that’s true. Why self-censorship for putting up stuff on the internet? People are smart enough to know what to access on the net and that freedom to choose is also self-regulation. I have serious doubts if Vinay Rai gives a damn about Hindu or Christian sentiments and the nature of his journal suggests he might have received mostly complaints from muslims, if any at all. And in cases like these there are usually far bigger powers that seek to score a larger political goal as censorship. Why wouldn't Sibal be willing? 

Slowly but surely the govt seems bent on making everything sharia compliant. The sheer size of abuse our media hurls on Hindus and Hinduism is testimony to the fact that Hindus don’t get offended too easily. The only ones that do are muslims and appeasing them by being sharia compliant is the best way for the Congress and much of our news media. Sharia is already practiced in Kashmir but there is backdoor sharia through the Congress and media in the rest of India as well.

To Kapil Sibal, With Love - Deep Throat

In a couple of days from now (on December 15) Kapil Sibal is scheduled to hold a round-table conference with Internet giants Google, Facebook, Microsoft and maybe some more. Let’s just call these companies ISPs. Sibal’s stated purpose is have these companies develop new guidelines that will keep obscene and abusive content off the internet. He also has problems with such content being posted by anonymous people. CNN-IBN and NDTV through their interviews with the minister have helped defend his actions and deny that he had called for “pre-screening” of content, although the whole world is now quite clear that what he attempted was a grand scheme of ‘political censorship’ mainly to protect Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi from being criticised or made fun of on the net.

KaranThapar’s ‘massage’ can be read here at the CNN-IBN site. Like I mentioned in my previous post the Indian media had blacked out news of various meetings Sibal had with the ISPs and it took the NYT to ‘leak’ the news. Karan Thapar even went to the extent of asking Sibal if NYT was “getting at him”! Getting at him? Getting at him for what? Here, a journalist is implying that there might be motives for the NYT article even when Sibal himself hadn’t suggested it. That’s Indian media for you. Here’s the answer for Karan Thapar: Reporting news of devious plans of the govt. is called “news reporting” and reporting it is the only motive. There need not be other motives to report news as may be the case for some Indian media outlets and journalists. Heather Timmons who broke the news in NYT seems to have jokingly told Sibal's office they were just keeping them on their toes.Well, that's what media is supposed to do, unlike CNN-IBN which searches for "motives". Thapar further asks if NYT confirmed the story with Sibal before publishing. That is truly the height of stupidity by Thapar. Are newspapers supposed to confirm stories with wrong doers when they might have “reliable sources”? Haven’t the greatest stories come from “reliable sources”? Importantly, nowhere in the whole interview with Thapar does Sibal deny or refute the story of NYT. To top it all Kapil Sibal responded stating he doesn’t want to attribute motives but the “circumstantial evidence” is clear. Aha! Circumstantial evidence that Sibal was about to commit a major offence was pretty much exposed.

 

Here’s another exchange:

Karan Thapar: Let's then come back to what you say was your central focus, blasphemous and offensive content on these Internet platforms. When did you first raise this issue with the Internet platform?

Kapil Sibal: Way back on the September 5 we raised this issue and we circulated some of the content that was blasphemous, that you mentioned, and demeaning. They agreed with it and we said let’s start a dialogue and come back to us within four weeks.

Needless to mention, Sibal had started out this venture by showing off dirty pictures of Sonia Gandhi to the ISP heads and had then turned it around to dangers of “communal violence” owing to content on the net. Laughable! There is an important term Sibal uses for which it would be even fair to hang him. He says he circulated content that was “blasphemous”! Blasphemous? Against whom or against what religion? India does not have a blasphemy law so how in the world does Sibal make such statements. Is this some Islamic country? People may be killed in Pakistan and other Islamic countries but India definitely does not have blasphemy laws. This is what the honourable minister would like to bring into India?

Then again, Sibal has a problem with ‘Anonymity’ on the internet for the objectionable content that he cites. Okay! On the night of June 4 thousands of innocent protesters were assaulted by the police at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi. These were not anonymous rodents. These were humans in flesh and blood. The protesters were neither violent nor threatened violence. Will Sibal answer why these dissenting voices were dealt with so violently? Karan Thapar did not ask him that question. This Congress govt simply wants to shut out any kind of dissent. The attack on Ramlila crowd resulted in the death of an innocent woman. Did any head roll for it? What happened at Ramlila is symbolic of a govt that wants to shut out dissent everywhere. It is not pornography or obscenity that really bothers Kapil Sibal. The fact that people are angry and trashing this govt and their secretive Gandhis on the net does bother him.

Following the exposure of Sibal’s grand scheme to shut off dissent Outlook magazine published many of the pics that have floated on the net for quite a while. There might be more. If you look closely, these pics are humorous and funny rather than offensive. Sure, one might say some are in ‘bad taste’ but surely, bad taste is neither illegal nor punishable. The one pic that Outlook missed was “BhrashtAchar” (Referring to Corruption by politicians with Sonia Gandhi’s image) and that humorously conveys the corruption that has so become synonymous with the Congress. And usually such pics and content generally fade away after a few laughs but Sibal has made sure these will be saved and circulated a lot more than before. Such is the stupidity of his action. As far as anonymity goes there is a brilliant post by RealityCheck India, titled “Thank you Google” which completely destroys the premise on which Sibal partly makes his arguments.

Sibal then talks about child pornography being a serious problem on the net. I dare him to name even one ISP he met which allows child pornography. Every ISP has strict rules and guidelines against child pornography and does not allow such content. If they come across such content the user is permanently banned. Even regular adult content comes with a warning of the content being so. So Sibal doesn’t really fool anyone. Even so, in the US pedophilia is not a free speech issue. In fact, Amazon.com was selling a book titled "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct". This was withdrawn due to consumer protest and not because it broke any law. So Sibal must rest assured people have a better sense of the limits and what to reject.

Finally, on the issue of porn and anonymity let me assure Sibal that even porn stars mostly carry screen names and not their real names. Believe it or not, the title of the first commercially successful feature porn film in the USA was also involved in a way in bringing down Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal. The deep source from the FBI that fed important leaks to Bob Woodward was nicknamed “Deep Throat” by one of his group editors as he was a deep source and at the time the porn movie of the same name was commercially doing well. For over three decades that anonymous source was the greatest secret in the world. It’s only the late W. Mark Felt, former Deputy Director of FBI himself revealed that he was deep throat. Have a laugh Mr. Sibal, there might be deep throats in the Congress who are leaking information to the NYT and other journals. As for the Congress, trying to silence the Internet won’t help. Honest governance might help!

How Indian MSM Blacked-out Sibal's Grand Scheme

It is hard to imagine that almost a whole generation of kids in Kashmir may have grown up without watching a movie in a cinema theatre. That is what religious extremism brings about. The Kashmiri Hurriyat separatist leader, Syed Geelani, even considers it “immoral” to watch movies. No wonder kids in the valley find stone-pelting such a thrilling and rewarding experience. Geelani is not the only one who believes censorship and bans make for a healthy society. The latest one to join the moral brigade is union minister Kapil Sibal. Much has been already said and written about Sibal’s move to censor social networks so I won’t add to it. It was enough for the hashtag #IdiotKapilSibal trend for nearly two days on Twitter. Not surprisingly, Sibal’s stupidity was exposed on the same day that an Islamic cleric residing in Europe said that women should not be close to bananas or cucumbers, in order to avoid any “sexual thoughts.”

Sibal’s anger is understandable, if you were Sonia Gandhi's protector. The mainstream media (MSM) in India have for long resisted any form of regulation but they have successfully managed ‘self-censorship’. The social networks refuse to self-censor themselves. And at the centre of this all is Sonia Gandhi. The MSM won’t publish anything remotely critical about SoniaG or question any of her actions. The secrecy of SG’s illness and surgery or whatever it was can only be protected by a servantile MSM as that in India.

Two previous posts on this blog detail the manner in which our MSM suppresses any mention of Sonia Gandhi: “Why Is Indian Media Scared Of Sonia Gandhi?” and “Rajdeep Sardesai : "No Wild Allegations Against Gandhis, Please...." Far from talking about or questioning Sonia Gandhi, our MSM actually protects her against such acts. To speak about SG is a sin! To question her, to ridicule her, to paint funny ugly pictures of her is blasphemy for Kapil Sibal.

What most of us totally missed in the whole episode was that Sibal was meeting the heads of Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft etc. over the last six weeks or so. Yet there was no mention of these meetings anywhere in the Indian media or the transactions. Most of these internet giants are huge advertisers and would have thought our media would have spoken up for them. None! Even the last meeting by Sibal with these networks was not reported by the Indian media. Yes indeed, they blacked out the news! It took the New York Times to report the meeting and demands of Kapil Sibal.

Once the NYT broke the news the Indian MSM had no option but to relay the story and then all the editors and anchors of our spineless news media start moralising and sermonising about freedom of speech. This is once the Twitterati collectively put Sibal on their lap and spanked him. This is a senior minister we are talking about. One can rest assured that many journalists hang around his office for bits and pieces of sound-bites and yet none reported the meeting with the network heads. One prominent Congress friendly channel even had an exclusive interview with the Indian head of Google during the same period and yet remained silent about Sibal’s grand plan.

NYT reports about the first meeting six weeks ago: “At the meeting, Mr. Sibal showed attendees a Facebook page that maligned the Congress Party’s president, Sonia Gandhi.  “This is unacceptable,” he told attendees, the executive said, and he asked them to find a way to monitor what is posted on their sites”. But once this news got out both Kapil Sibal and the Indian media weren’t talking about the SG factor. It was all about SG and objectionable content that create communal tensions. Trust Sibal and the Congress to give it all a communal twist and colour.

I doubt Sibal can ever stop freedom on the internet. He might well take a warning from the kids in Kashmir. If the youth and all the people who vent their anger in various forms on the net are stopped they might be out on the streets and pelting stones too. Far from creating tensions the net allows people to let off steam and keep violence off the streets. As for dirty pictures or obscene content there are enough laws in the country to prosecute offenders.

At the time of writing, Google has already received an IT notice. More might follow. Ironically, and I say this with deep sympathy and not out of sarcasm, Kapil Sibal was hit on his eye in the parliament on the next day the news about his censorship plans broke. His eye was injured accidentally by the sharp edge of a folder flipped by a colleague. So at least for a while Sibal will not see evil comfortably on the net. But the manner in which Indian MSM suppresses any news concerning the deceptive and nefarious plans of the Congress does stand exposed again. Maybe 100% FDI in media should also be considered along with other reforms.