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August 15th. A day associated with flags, flag hoisting, and a general level of celebration.
So, what is so very special about this day ? What is it that we are celebrating ?
Freedom is an obvious answer – but freedom from what? Theoretically, it is freedom from the rule of the British Empire or Independence from the British Empire.
So what is it that Independence means – it means the right to run your own life. But, as we all know, as human beings, we can’t ever be totally free. There are too many bonds and obligations. We cannot do what ever we want, in any society that we live in. For example, you cannot run naked down your street without being arrested for obscenity. You cannot increase the size of your home without a zillion permissions. you cannot marry more than one person simultaneously. Infact, most of our lives are determined by all those things that we can’t do, rather than all the things that you can. All that we can do is live within a certain set of laws, rules, norms and regulations – that hopefully, allows you maximum flexibility in leading your life without too many constraints.
What does Independence or indeed Freedom mean to nations? The ability to be free of ‘outside’ interference. But, we live in an interconnected world. (Unless, of course you live in North Korea). The UN, theoretically, ensures ‘good’ political behavior; the World Bank ‘good’ financial behavior; the ITU ‘good’ telecommunications behavior and so on. Most nations cannot get away with murder – unless of course you are the USA led by George Bush or Pakistan under any leader.
So, I come back to my question – what is it that we are celebrating, and should we really be looking at how we define that day – so that in a modern world, it doesn’t just become another day marked by cards and revelry without any substance ?
Is it freedom that we ought to be celebrating or the Right to Self Determination
If it is the latter, then what happens if one part of the Nation wants the right to self determination by itself ? Should there be force used to keep this part back in the whole or should the people be given the chance to exercise their right to determine their future ?
Maybe we ought to be celebrating interdependence rather than independence. A day where most people in this country choose to be part of the whole rather than being part of various fragments. Where each part of that whole is important, is treated with dignity and respect. And, where the nation lives up to the promise of allowing us the freedom to be.
For me, freedom is the ability to live my life with a certain sense of security – economic, political, religious, legal – where I can live my life without interference or threat of interference; without braving bullets to get to work or to get home; where my little savings grow steadily without fear that it will disappear down some rabbit hatch; where food is not a luxury; where medical care is available for all, not just those who can afford it; Where learning is accessible and not forbidden; where i don’t get beaten up for breaking rules written a couple of thousand years ago …
For me, Independence Day actually means all these. And, i have benefited from most of the things that i have listed. I am lucky that I don’t live in a community with a Khap panchayat or a state where the Armed Forces Special Provisions Act is in force; – I am lucky that my home does not adjoin hills rich in minerals that are gifted away to prospectors; and I count my blessings that my desire for education was neither hampered by my gender, or religious rules, or societal norms or abject poverty. But, a large chunk of people who became free on the same day as I, do not enjoy those freedoms.
Maybe – we all collectively, rather than converting 15th August to a Hallmark card and a shopping discount day, ought to keep this day contemplative and work towards ensuring that Independence is not just a term.
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Today is Bharat Bandh…. at least Mumbai Bandh. The road outside my house is deserted. All the building kids are out playing football. There isn’t a rick to be seen. Buses are few & far between …. And, I have nothing better to do than catch up on reading.
Amongst the old headlines that I read, in my poor inflated google reader, was one that struck me as being the panacea to all problems. It was, of course, my favorite body – the Khap Panchayat – coming out with another gem. They advocate the lowering of marriage age – from 18 to 15 for girls – to prevent elopement and therefore honour killings!
Om Prakash Mann, Haryana president of All India Jat Mahasabha, said.
“By lowering the legal age of marriage, young couples can be prevented from eloping. A girl brings shame to her family when she runs away. Parents kill the guilty children in a fit of rage,” he said.
My first response was WTF, and my second was ‘what a brilliant idea’ – if we take this kind of thinking to its logical end, think of all the social problems that we can solve. I have jotted down a few, please feel free to add your thoughts to this
- Rape – Men Rape. If men are castrated (chemically, we don’t want to cause the poor dears any pain) they can’t rape. So castrating all men – whether or not they are potential rapists will prevent rape.
- Widow remarriage is against our custom. If we didn’t get married, we won’t get widowed/widowered … abolishing marriage, therefore, will prevent widows. and therefore prevent the socially delicate problem of widow remarriage.
- Female Foeticide - If men are castrated, and marriage is banned, then there can be no children and therefore no female foeticide
- Dowry – if there are no girls there should be no dowry. But, to be on the safe side, let’s ban all goods and services. And, while we are at it – let’s ban money.
- Pollution – Industries cause pollution. Get rid of industries then most pollution will disappear. Also, since industries produce goods, and people ask for goods as dowry – banning industry will also stop dowry …
finally, even if there are only one boy and one girl from the Jat community renaming after all our strictures are followed, we will still oppose intercaste marriage — because it is against our culture 
And finally, to all my friends who were embarrassed by the Maulvi’s and their idiot fatwas, don’t worry the Hindus have caught up
Got this mail from Patrix in the wee hours of this morning
We are shutting down DesiPundit effective midnight (CST) June 15th, Tuesday. It has been a fun five years and we have enjoyed every moment. We wish to thank all Community Members for sharing your content with our readers and I hope we managed to win you some readers.
Over at DesiPundit, people have moved on to other things and time & resources haven’t been as plentiful for those who have remained. The Indian blogosphere and presence on other social media networks has expanded greatly and in our experience, it is no longer possible for human-powered aggregators to keep up; at least on a part-time volunteer basis.
We all will be around on our respective blogs and Twitter accounts and will continue to reading your excellent blogs.
Thank you for reading and contributing.
regards,
DesiPundit
It was a long journey from the blogmelas from almost a decade ago, to Desi Pundit… and now, like all good things, it comes to an end.
i personally, made some good friends. read some interesting blogs – and finally moved away from MSM.
Good luck to all that put Desipundit together. and thank you for all the effort.
btw that (mis) quote is from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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Not the problem facing a third of Indian districts – but the colour. It is quite fascinating, how much of red pops up when you decide to see India through a view finder.
When i first began working in television, one of the no-no colours was red (the other was white) – both were supposed to cause video noise on telecast. But, later I understood that it was a problem with the way the colours were lit, and the expertise of the cameraman – not the colours in themselves.
when you travel India and neighbouring countries, you see a lot of variants of red – and i love the contrast with the browns and the greens, and click. Here are some of my favourites
This is a Laman woman, somewhere near Ahmednagar – Maharashtra. The Laman’s were traditionally salt selling nomadic. But post independence they were given land and became settled. Their costumes tend to have coins sewn into them, as well as mirrors.
a farm worker in Nepal.
A women’s group in Himachal Pradesh that was gathering that day to work out how to get a road to their village.
A sadhu outside the Kizhaperumpallam temple – one of the sacred Navagrahas, plus a temple to the Lord of the Universe Mahadeva.
Tail lights reflected in the rain, Mumbai !
a woman going to work – Mumbai
A tomato seller, Mumbai
and the little flower girl – selling roses in the rain, Mumbai
Of course, no post on red will be complete without one of my favorite ads of all times – the Coke ad from the 1996 world cup – the colour of passion is red, with Nusrat on the music track – what more can you ask for ?
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Cogito Entertainment’s first Marathi Feature Film “Jhing Chik Jhing” releases on the 11th of June 2010.
Promotion and Publicity are in full swing. The partners are all over Maharashtra holding Press Conferences. The promos will hit the TV channels by the end of this week, and the theatrical trailer is running across theatres in Maharashtra
Here is the theatrical trailer:
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Every year, at around this time, I trudge down to Mumbai University – Kalina to correct/moderate papers.
I, for my sins, am the chairperson for one of the papers. When asked the first time what does the chairperson do – I was told, quite seriously, ‘woh na, paper submit karta hai, aur reciept leta hai‘ .
As usually, the papers were a mixed bag – some good, some pass mark quality, some that have you chuckling, and some that have you shaking your head in sheer wonderment and asking ‘who taught this’. When you have paper after paper that spouts out the same garbage – you know that it is not student error, but teacher error !!
In any case, here are some of the best responses:
a) Educated people in India live in the cities and speak and read English. We (as in these) watch English channels. The rest of India that is illiterate speak their mother tongue or vernacular languages. They watch regional language channels because they don’t understand English because they are illiterate.
b) Hindi is the mother tongue of India. Over 99% of India understands and speaks Hindi except South India which speaks Dravidian and North East that speaks Chinese.
c) Rajiv Gandhi is the grandfather of Rahul Gandhi and is the farmer prime minister of India
d) Indira Gandhi’s daughter Sonia Gandhi is the chief of the Congress Party
e) The British started the AIR in 1757 and DD a few years later to keep the Indian people subjugated
f) The Gandhi family fought for India’s Independence – Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi all went to jail when the British wanted to stop them from attaining independence
g) Hindi is the National Language of India.
h) People who don’t understand Hindi are anti National
i) Hindus speak Hindi. the non Hindus speak other languages
j) People in villages are poor and illiterate
h) villagers like to watch music, dance and soaps. City people like to watch news and IPL
k) the BBC was used by the British to keep Africa and India under control. That saved the expense of having a big army
l) People who are poor do not have television sets and hence do not know what is happening
m) poor and illiterate people in villages cannot afford DTH and do not know what is happening in IPL
I can see these nameless, faceless students anchoring news – not very long for now….
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Two very different instances of religious/caste patriarchs intervening in civil society have come to the fore in the last couple of days. Both are Anti Constitutional. And, its about time the Government and the System said religious oppression in the name of Religious freedom be damned – the Constitution comes first.
The first instance was the Khap Panchayats that has been flexing its muscles for quite some time – excommunicating and killing without consequences. They have got Navin Jindal to tow the line now.
Mr. Jindal has said –
“I and my whole family respect the years old traditions and rituals of khap panchayats. My house is their own home and they can come there any time. I am just like their own child and I can never go against them; rather I always need their blessings.”
Navin Jindal, if you remember, is the man who went all the way to the Supreme Court for the right of Indian Citizens to fly the Indian Flag, and won .
Mr.Jindal has forgotten that the Indian flag represents the Indian Republic. And, the Indian Republic is enshrined by the Indian Constitution . The Indian Constitution states:
14. The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.
15. (1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.
If the Khap Panchayat had its way – it is not just same gotra marriages that will be nullified, but there will be penalties to anyone who breaks caste rules . And, as all of us know, these rules – if applied to their logical conclusion – will lead to the Hindus getting their equivalent of the Taliban.
I wonder if a Member of Parliament who is so ready to violate the Constitution has the right to be in Parliament !
The second instance of the Constitution being violated, is the Deobandi’s – who have declared that it is haram for women to work
“It is unlawful (under the Sharia law) for Muslim women to work in the government or private sector where men and women work together and women have to talk with men frankly and without a veil,”
If the fatwa is followed through to its logical conclusion, it would mean that Indian citizens who are Muslim women cannot be the President, Prime Minister, Member of Parliament. They can’t work in a Hospital, a Call Centre, a Hotel. They can’t teach in a co-educational school, they cannot work for a NGO, they can’t work as engineers…. This essentially means that women are barred from most professions except sweat shops where they can sit with other women and sew stuff at cut price rate.
In both cases a bunch of patriarchs want the world to bend to their interpretation of religion, and honour …. I hope that in both cases this is the straw that breaks the back of an communities that have kept quiet — and rise up to delegitimise both the Khap Panchayats and the Deobandi’s. The best way to destroy them is to stop listening to them !!
And finally – i hope everyone remembers that the reason Krishna wasn’t invited to Rukmini’s swayamwar was because he was a Yadav and she was a Kshyatriya princess.
Let us also remember that the Prophet Muhammad’s first wife was Khadijah bint Khuwaylid – a merchant who employed him.
Those who have proclaimed themselves as guardians of religion and tradition seem to have forgotten their own religion and tradition 
–
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There is a time to talk about how this Fundamental Right can be implemented better. And, there is a time to celebrate the fact that it is a fundamental right !
For now, i will feel good about the fact that a system cares enough to make this a Fundamental Right !
One of the things that you notice when you travel into India, is that communities that have traditionally been deprived formal education, bend over backwards to ensure that their children get educated. Often this is a daily struggle.
a child outside a balwadi in Udgir, Maharashtra – waiting to get into school. The child is from a Dalit family and faced discrimination in the main school. Dalit women set up a SHG and from their profits set up a school where their children can learn without discrimination.
This is the Pardhi school – the yellow plastic bag in the foreground contains all the educational material. Pardhis are a tribe in India who traditionally hunted for a living. However, in a more modern setup with the kings owning land – Pardhi’s were declared as criminals – hunting from the kings’ land. Ostracized they began to survive through minor crimes – poaching, making away with livestock and so on. Very often caste, class and social systems ensured that the Pardhi’s could not assimilate with main stream society, and their dependance on crime increased. The British Raj declared the Pardhi’s to be criminal tribes.
Post independence the term cirminal was dropped and attempts were made to bring the tribe in line with mainstream society. However, it hasn’t been easy. Even today the police will look for a Pardhi at the first hint of a crime. Villages don’t want Pardhi’s settling down near them – because of their past. Many settle illegaly on Forest Land and their settlements are torn down at regular intervals. All this leaves the children in dire straits. A nomadic lifes tyle is not condusive to education, and social ostracization means that they are wary of going to the local schools. NGO’s have set up a number of projects that help educate Pardhi children, Using volunteers it ensures that basic education skills are imparted to these children.
Hopefully, the fundamental right to education means that getting access to education is no longer a struggle. Now, all that remains is to put the teachers and infrastructure in place ! Given that this is now a Fundamental Right citizens can be more empowered to demand the supply of education in their neighbourhood…. What i would like to see now is a military like campaign that drafts teachers to give the new law a leg up. Maybe the State can start with those who have retired over the last 10 years and see if they can teach again !
It is not often that one has the opportunity to laud the Government – here is one. Well done !
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And, finally that day has arrived …. the day we were all waiting for with bated breath. The day entertainment and news jointly mutated to become a completely different entity … newtertainment, perhaps ? As the name suggest Newtertainment , a term i just coined out of sheer boredom, to describe the heady mix of sensationalist headlines, fluffy features, and celebrity mutterings that are shown on most 24 hour news channels – that ends to end up neutering the senses and possibly the brain !
Star News is conducting a national hunt for news anchors .
From their FB page
STAR Anchor Hunt is first ever talent hunt on news platform. Star News will choose best talent of the country to anchor news shows on STAR channels through STAR Anchor Hunt
The eminent judges are:
Deepak Chaurasia – from Star News :
“one of the smartest political minds in Indian television who would often offer the most provocative take on the day’s news from the campaign trail and beyond.”
Tisca Chopra.
Kushwant Singh’s niece, is an actress who has worked in theater, television and movies.Tisca Chopra topped Hindu College, University of Delhi in English Literature.
Chetan Bhagat
the author of four blockbuster novels, Five Point Someone (2004), One Night @ the Call Center (2005), The 3 Mistakes of life (2008) and 2 states-the story of my marriage (2009).
(all the descriptors are from the Star Site )
I guess if the world’s largest selling English Language daily can have a car shaped hole through its masthead, a news channel can hunt for anchors !
I am hoping that April 1st has come early, but i fear that it is not the case !
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