My fragile attempt on identifing identities that have us bounded

Identities: How different and how separated are we?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

This is the pledge of allegiance in United States. In India we have similar pledge, which has been recited in some schools and colleges every day. Maharashtra is a notable example. When someone told me about it shocked. As small as kids of six year old are made to recite this pledge every morning. Indian pledge goes as following:

India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters.
I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage.
I shall always strive to be worthy of it. I shall give my parents, teachers and all elders, respect, and treat everyone with courtesy.
To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion.

In their well being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness.

I felt more surprised to know that above idea was coined by Vivekanand Saraswati, The man who is known for calling every one brother and sisters from the stage of Chicago.

We all started from a point. It exploded and we started to expand, separate in different identities. Thus planets, starts, galaxies, etc came into existence. Also came into existence plants and animals-thus came into existence human being with highly developed brain. It took over the role of nature in separating identities. As a human being we created different identities-colour based identity, cast based identity, sex based identity, sexual orientation based identity, origin based identity, religious based identity, etc. And we started to discriminate against each other. Individual started to confound themselves within these identities, individual started to become biased and narrow.


I remember once I came back from a movie which was called "The bad education" from Pedro Almodovar where every character in the film is gay. General comment after the movie was "oh! Shit, there was not a single "normal" person in the film". Heterosexuals being in majority has taken a status of normal and identity of homosexuals are subjected to deep discrimination, similar is the case for a person given transgender identity, similar is the case for a person given low cast identity, etc.


Based on different identities we separated in boundaries. Concept of nation surfaced and with that all kind of symbols and traditions arrived. The pledge above teaches exactly the same, be proud of the symbols with which an individual identify itself like origin, national flag, culture, etc. “You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.” Malcolm X. I asked A, a French girl "How come in music and dance France has nothing to offer to the world. Italy, Spain, Latin America, North America, with salsa, flamenco, tango, samba, jive, rock and roll, etc has something to offer." In the response she attacked me back "India has nothing neither, Denmark, Sweden has nothing neither". That was a strange response, a response that seems from someone who has been blinded by origin based identity. National symbols and traditions have become everyone's pride and have taken the top stage in our life. Any remark on symbol or tradition is seen as an attack on individual even done in good spirit. One of the examples is burqua tradition amongst European Muslims which come under severe attack by European conservative. Christian identity within European identity doesnt stops questioning this Arab identity. And Arab identity within European identity doesnt stops defending this evil act that exists in the society.

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.” wrote George Bernard Shaw. We are confiding in a cocoon, cocoon of all the identities that we have created all around us. Identities that we use to identify our self , the identities that people use to separate from each other. Worst of all we have mixed up different identities to create a situation which is very complicated in nature.

"You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state." spoke Mohammad Ali Jinnah to his constituent assembly on Aug 11 1947. But that very conception of state ended with the death of Jinnah. Pakistan has become a recent victim of mixed up identities. Pakistani identity got mixed up with Islamic identity and this mixed up identity is leading it to its doom. Europe has been victim of this mixed identity, and conservative have been using it successfully to manipulate people. Recently many right wing conservative of Italy felt angered by court orders, which banned cross (symbol of catholic identity) in the schools. According to Vatican spokesperson "It seems as if the court wanted to ignore the role of Christianity in forming Europe's identity, which was and remains essential." And one of Italian ministers "the crucifix was a symbol of our tradition, and not a mark of Catholicism." "One of you is ok but when it becomes many that creates a problem." said French interior minister from UMP to a young Arabic supporter. Mr Griffin during his Question time interview said "We should ensure that, if Muslims are staying in this country, they do so on the understanding that our country must remain fundamentally a British and Christian country." That will be a shame for Britain or for France or India or any other country if it would be reduced to such narrow identity.


It’s these separation and discrimination of identities; I believe which are becoming most harmful for the world. Inequality is on rise. Nationalist, Patriotic, and Radicals have use these symbols, and these identities as their means to propagate radical ideas. And mixing up of these identities have lead to rather chaos. People like Bal Thackeray in India, Le Pen in France, Griffin in United Kingdom have been using these identities to effectively manipulate people. In many European countries conservatives have mixed up Christianity with national identity as if others identities doesn’t really make part of the country. In India BJP has done the same, Hitler of Germany did the same, Whites identity within American identity did the same against Black identity within American identity, South Africa has gone through something similar. These conservative often raises questions towards the minority asking their adherence to these national identities with which they identify them self. In Africa this mixed identity has been a reason of constant problem. Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Chad, Sudan, etc have had or is still having taste of this mixed identity.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character." said Martin Luther King. We are all still waiting for this dream to come true. I have my personal dream to go over these identities. Identify myself as a person that belongs to this universe. And I have a dream that humanity rise over these identities. France has done some good by separating religion from state matters. For the better of the world other country should follow the same path. Not only state people should have to first separate themselves from these identities.

The thing that could be better for the world would be the erosion of inequality. I have a dream to see this world very open to all. One good example is European Union where border has been opened up. Any person born in European country can work, live, travel anywhere within the Europe. Though there still exists lot of different identities with in this union, Arab, Christian, Jews, Black, Whites, etc. I see that intolerance between the different identities is on rise. And to make a better world we need to remove this intolerance. Another example that I would like to take is of Tamil Naidu Government, which last year introduced a law, making it necessary to have three sex columns, male, female and others. An important step to stop discrimination against gender based identity. Indian court took ground breaking step by abolishing article 377 which aims to finish discrimination against sexual based identities. There is a need to make people aware towards all different identities that we have created. In Europe people should be taught about Arabic and Black identity. In countries like India people should be made aware about the religious based identities. The distance between different identities has to be finished. That’s when march forward to make world a better will take place.


I would finish my article with following quote from Bob Dylan:
“I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.”

On education: Evaluation system and politics in secondry education

In this blog I intend to cover following topics:
1. An alternative evaluation system
2. Few suggestions in secondary education


In the modern times education is becoming over competitive. The process requires us to compete with each other and out do each other. And this aspect of doing better than other instead of exploring our own competitive eadge has often been disturbing for me. And I often think what can be alternative to the evaluation system which most of univesities follow at the moment. Following line from the speech forwarded to me by one of my friend gave me my Eurka moment:

"You should never try to be better then some one else"

Thats what the evaluation process in our colleges and schools teaches us today. We are always asked to work hard to get better marks then others to achieve higher grades. Its difficult for me to believe how two different people with different personalities can be judged thoroughly in this system.

In the common platform of grading, we are pushed to better the others then to achieve our best. Also, I believe the common platform prompt us to look at the best and they way she/he does, instead of how I would like do to, till what extend I would like to achieve. I mean in common platform "sucess" could be till the best not till you want it to be.

If at the end of the day I judge myself with myself at the begining of the day, it would be a better evaluation of my performance at the end of the day. Like in our education if for a samester of 4 months I take 4 exams each new exam consisting of questions from previous exams + some more questions. We can do evaluation something like following, I have not put any calculation but a system can be evolved where a person is judged completely on its own performance over the time.

1: 10 10 10 10 : AA
2: 10 8 7 6 : BB
3: 6 7 8 10 : AA
4: 7 7 7 7 : BB
5: 10 6 10 8 : AB

Above a person whoes performance is dipped over the time ended up is getting lower grade then the one whose performance is increased even if sum total is same. And person whoes perfomance has improved over the time is the most benificial.

I had written before on education changes we would need mostly in primary and secondry. I have one more point to add.

An obligatory course on political structure of country. Which should cover the political history of India, the history of political parties till present and different political thoughts in country and world. Why it is important to have this course? Since the age of voting is 18 year which is the age when we come out of school. At this point in the absence of any significant exposure to political structure, our thoughts are completely biased by the family and parents. Which can be harmfull for a successful democracy. Alternate to this voting age can be made to 20 or 21 years.

Do not use condoms ??

But what about the sex ...

The news says "disease has increased because of the previous pope's doctrine of no Condom" and also pope says "be fidel and absten from sex". So people took the theory of "no condom" and left behind the theory of "abstination and fidelity".

Well in the end follower and spreader of God's word and the concept of God is highly hypocrite ...

Fire: Men, Women, Swamiji and Sexual abstention

I saw movie "Fire" last night. Movie is not that bad but nothing so impressive, some of the characters were interesting. Which prompted me to write.

One might think that the center characters of the movie are Radha and Sita. But me, I think that center character of the movie was Mr. Swamaji. In the modern Indian society in last 5 years number of swamiji's have gone up like GDP or sensex before crisis and have become the center characters of Indian families. Though I dont see it as big problem because I beleive all these swamijis are not taking India backward in the sense that they dont teach women to stay home, do their duties and any kind of orthodoxy. What surprises me most is their theory of sexual abstention in the name of religion. I believe hinduism is a religious which has most openly talked about sex. Most of the swamijis recite Ramayana and talks about purshottam Ram and pure Sita. Well I must say Ram and Sita had happy marriade life until the dramatic turn around of events and even had 2 kids, Lav and Kush. If I think about other God, Kirshna doesnt even fit in this theory, he is one the few God on the planet who is worshipped with his girl friend, Radha and not with his wife(s). Shiva was married to Parvathi and had a son Ganesha. Many such examples can be given where Indian dieties never believed in sexual abstention but I will stop here, just think of a great mighty character of Indian mythology and related stories around him. Only Guatam Budha was the one who left his wife behind to practice maditation but here we are talking about Hinduism not Budhism. This teaching of sexual abstention makes me worried sometime. India, the modern India is known for its huge youth population, the great grand middle class which is carrier of modern India, we have at times mocked the ever decreasing population of west and have show sigh of worries of ageing population of China. I wonder if more and more people start following these false theories of Swamijis, were would it lead to us? Though population explosion is a problem but complete sexual abstention could lead to a problem of its own. And why don't kill the desire by doing it exessively ?

Other characters which can be taken as center are Radha, Sita and Julie. Radha and Sita, married to strange guys and put/forced in the family of in laws. Though my hatred towards arrange marriages has been considerably reduced but I still find it difficult to accept how a woman expted to go and live in between few strange individual, in a strange new environment. Though we are becoming more libral with our process of arrange marriages in the sense that we let couple meet alone, let them talk, discuss, if needed be in contact for longer period of time before saying yes or no. But still we do not find it important to ask a woman if she wants to live in this new family or wants to live saperately with her husband? If she wants to shift where her husband is living or if she expect her husband to shift somewhere else with her? Answer of all these quetion are by default forced on woman. She is expected to follow her husband and his family traditions.

Another character is Jatin, a weak modern thinker young stucked in Orthodox family. He was able to persuade his family for Julie but did not have courage to ask tell them that "he would like to live saperatly". Well these kind of weak youths of our society are most harmful character. In the time when youth are considered to be taking modern India forward, these timid, weak youth continues to be submisive in front of older generation. Instead of bridging the gap between older newer generation, they are like those bridges which has been broken by older, orthodox generation. Instead of pulling the previous generation with them, they have been pulled by previous generation.

Another character is Biji. A woman, a submissive woman, who has helped male chauvinism to grow. Who forces the young weak individuals to follow redicoulous traditional. An older generation who is stopping youngers to grow. Though I am not the idea, that we completely ignore the older generation but I also not of the idea that we should not oppose this older generation at all just because they are old and stubborn. They are ones who needs to be pull forward.

BJP's Khichadi

Ram Mandir seems to have become Birbal ki Khichadi for BJP. They have successfully burned the fire on ground for this Khichadi to cook and they have successfully climbed the tree to tie the Handi on one of the stem of the tree. But now for almost 16 years they are trying to cook this Khichadi. Recently Advani again put forward the idea of this Khichadi.
Whenever I think about BJP, it reminds me of a busses of Culcutta. They have a look which seems like they have not been changed ever since they have been put on the road may be since indipendence or pre indipendence time. The interior is same, seats are like wodden benches you can find in nearby chai dhabbas. Only conductor and driver changes. With BJP that doesnt seems to be a case nither. Nither conductor changes, nither driver changes nor interior.
Now that Ram Mandir doesnt have enough spark left what can BJP be do with this brigade of old comarades to burn this fire strongly. Well I have a suggestion. They should make a team with Shri Ram Sena, Bajrang Dal, RSS, Shiv Sena and etc, take a nationwide Rath Yatra towards Khajuraho on the way burning all the copies of Kamasutra wherever found. With Modi, best spark generator of the modern indian, leading the yatra and Muthalik be the ruth bearer. BJP combined with all these forces would surely give a new dimnesion to modern indian idea/identity/politics, as they have done before in 1992 and 2002.

What next !!

One might think whats the Israe's goal in his pounding of Gaza with bombs and now ground assaults knowing the history of Israel's conflict with its neighbour and U.S. engagement in middle east. Lets assume Israel successfully finish this operation. And disarm, dismantel Hamas and its infrastructure and arrest or kill rest of its leader, what next?

Well there few possibilities:
1. Israel will handover the reings of Palastine to the defeated leader Fatah party Mahmood Abbas
2. After severly hurting Hamas, Israel will leave Palastine
3. Israel will occupy the territory

Well first possibility, Israel might hand over the reign of Palestine to Fatah's leader Mahmood Abbas who is seen as the west ally. Seen as an intellectual who is against war and currently the head of West Bank. U.S. has been strengthing his men with monetry help and with Israel using it a tool to crush Hamas. Something on the lines of Saddam Hussain, who was seen a modernist and got complete U.S. support to crush the Iranian influence after Ayatollah Khomeini led rvolution dethorned the US supported monarch Shah of Iran. It must be well noted that in the past Israel has attacked Fatah atleast 2 times for firing rocket in Israel. And let the Hamas grew during 1980s to reduce the influence of Fatah which can be said to be exactly opposite of what it is doing now. Well, arises the serious questions ? Whats the guaranty of security ? What has Israel or US achieved in the history by this support one and crush other policy ? This seems to be a never ending process.

Second option is Israel will hurt Hamas in and out, kill as many as it can agree on some kind of truce and leave the territory hurt. Will that ensure peace and security ? If not Hamas, after this brutal killing of people some else will rise. A human nature is go extreme when provoked, what Israel itself is doing after getting provoked by Hamas. Where in Israel people may support attack on Hamas, what opinion will people in Palestine made after killin of number of people.

Third is Israel will occupy the territory again ? Well unlikely though but its a possibilty. It will put more blockades and make more fences around Palestinian border if there is any space left. Blockades of development will more dispera in the region like before 2005, its already 80% unemployment rate, very densly populated and higly poor region. Well would that insure security and peace ? Or it would strengthen extrimist group even more in its fight to against Jewish state ?

It would have been better if Israel and international community had given, Hamas a little space to breath when it came to power in 2006 election. A democratically elected government ought to get some kind of respect from international community specially west. One point should be noted that, in its election card Hamas had ommitted the demand of destruction of Israel and reason for its victory was seen as corruption during Fatah's rule. But what happened following their victory was the sudden agression from West, stoping of aid, internation sanction, more blockeds from Israel. Israel should have let, 1st government of unoccupied Palestine to rule and engage them in talks, negotiate the peace and scurity of the region. But it went directly other way. And might be expecting some different result from what history has given. We are all watching.

United we stand ?

United we stand ...how ?

United as a nation or Hindu united forgetting their cast and regional differences and muslims united forgetting their differences as well.

I grew up in Ghaziabad, one of the biggest industrial town of U.P. in an upper class sarrounding. There were areas where muslims they used to live. My coming to my own senses also co-insided with the nation wide Ratha Yatra of Advani. And hence rise of BJP in UP. We were told not to go to certain areas and we were told you could be even killed in these areas for showing support for BJP. As kids we enjoyed the flamatory speaches made by Uma Bharati, the concept of kar sevak, the ugly scence of voilence that we saw on TV with all of our elders and apreciation of Bal Thakeray on how he controlled Bombay and kept muslims quite and out of the city's progress. And we noded with our elders for the fact that Indian Muslims they do no support India for matches and stuff like that without ever observing such thing or without even knowing a single muslims. I find it difficult to accept today that I dont remeber a single person who dint enjoy above stuff in this residential area of Ghaziabad. I do not remember nither a single person stopping the kids from getting biased. And today I find it even more difficult to accept that same person who can be held responsible for one the biggest events of modern India for taking it 10 steps back is in a prospect of becoming the next PM. I find it even more difficult to accept the person who is stronger net to him in this party is another person who took us 20 years back and left us divided like never before. United We Stand, can we stop these two now, what we failed to do in past?

I believe ever since independence muslims have been ghettoized. And the process fueled up after demolition of Babri Masjid and 2002 communal violence of Gujrath. Today we are more divided then ever before. At certain places I tried looking for a flat to rent, the first and the foremost question being asked is my full name. Then I was reminded why my full name was asked, first to check if I am muslims as landowners doesnt allow their houses to rent to mulims. Also to check my cast, it makes a difference. Also, security is becoming a big concern for muslims. Events of 92 and 2002 have seen big spatial changes and observe movements of communities.

Another dissappointing aspects for muslims is that they do not have a political leader some one like Mayawati, Late Kanshi Ram, in UP, some tamilian leaders, Lalu Yadav in Bihar, who are/were representative of lower class or classes which are being neglected in our democracy. And have played an important role to bring about social changes.

What we need to do today to really make a statement "Stand we united". There is a need to bring about a huge social change and there is a need to reverse the process of seperation that began back in 1947. Something we tried to achieve by reservation to bring up lower cast.

The first and foremost is the change in reservation policy which should not be caste based but should depend on financial condition of an individual. Or if that is not possible reservation for financially week muslims.

There should be laws that would encourange coming together of families of different religion and caste. Like marriages can do miracles in India. There should be a law which would provide heavy incentives like life time social security and educational subsidies, housing, etc for every marriage between hindu and muslim. With all the benefits it will have power to bring together two families of different culture together. And millions financially back ward would find it lucrative to reject the idea, which at the moment is a big taboo and kind of difficult.

There should be a law to protect the rights of renter/buyer. If a person or family has police verification done, it should be made mandatory for a lanlord to engage in talks with the person who wants to rent or buy an house.

I remembre my friend telling me about a Muslims journalist who asked a question "how many pple who critisize mulims knows even a single muslims good enough to call him a friend and stay in his house?"

Yeah for all the people who talks of "United We Stand" and who talks of solidarity, time has come to think in what way we would want to stand united ?