The Brave Pedestrian

I had this conversation with a Hindu friend who wanted every Indian child and adult to compulsorily say, "Bharat Mata Ki Jai". "If they don't say it, then it means they are unpatriotic, and they don't love India. Anybody who doesn't love India should get out and go to Pakistan or wherever," she said. And so we had an argument, which went like this: I: For Sunni Muslims, bowing before or even imagining any deity other than Allah feels sinful. So the idea of saying "Bharat Mata" makes them very uncomfortable. You know that, right? She: Since when does an atheist like you sympathize with people's religious feelings? And what is the harm if Hindus, Muslims and everyone else is compelled to express love publicly for our motherland? We must all be patriotic and love and respect India, who is like our mother. I: Personifying India is a very Hindu thing to do. We tend to personify and worship anything, and it comes natu...

Every time someone tries to force you to respect an inanimate object, a dead person, an ideology or an institution, they indirectly steal your self-respect from you. By making you "respect" the dead and the non-living, they make you respect yourself less. And they make you respect other people less -- people who are alive. Respect is a currency in our social lives. It is a scarce and precious currency. This is a diversion of respect from those who are alive, to those who are dead, or those who were never alive in the first place. I object to such diversion. When I talk about respect, I talk about all the forms of respect.  Respect for the non-living and non-existent manifests itself in many forms. It manifests as worship and devotion. As fear and awe. As blind following and blind faith. As a refusal to think and question. As a refusal to act rightly, or speak out, when violence is being inflicted upon the living. Without thinking, without questioning, people say ...

On New Year's eve, Modi-ji will make a surprise announcement, ordering that every Indian should be publicly spanked by the police. Bhakts will be seen lining up with bare bottoms in front of police stations, and advising us that it is every Indian's patriotic duty to accept their spanking gracefully and gratefully, so that the corrupt black-money hoarders get a spanking. Every patriotic Indian must stand in line and accept a public spanking for the good of the nation. "No other leader since Independence has had the great vision or the daring to spank the black-money hoard ers," the bhakts will proclaim. "Surely, after this spanking, nobody will dare to accept bribes or hoard black money again," they will argue, telling all of us khangresis , sickulars and leftists to take our pants off. After three days, our great prime minister will appear on television, shedding tears of joy and pride about how millions of Indians with reddened and bru...