“Totalitarian regimes are …paradoxically pluralistic. This permits the masses to identify with or distance from the regime as needed. However when a totalitarian regime breaks apart, the majority can then shuffle the atrocities off themselves as what ‘they’ committed and by renouncing horror and bad conscience, while it is much easier for them to keep faith with the advantages the regime offered.
— Theodore Adorno in 'Guilt and Defense'.
The problem with this quote is that all regimes- or none at all- are paradoxically monistic or pluralistic or anything else you care to assert. When any sort of regime 'breaks apart', everybody- not just the majority- says 'those shitheads fucked up. That was nothing to do with us.' On the other hand, nobody acknowledges or 'keeps faith' with any 'advantages' the previous regime offered. This is sensible. It is better to believe that the good things you have came to you by your own efforts, not the benevolence of some fucking broken-down regime.
Will we listen to a young fellow Indian patiently
No! The guy is young- i.e. ignorant- and Indian- i.e. as poor as shit and with shit for brains. Even if he weren't either of those two things, why listen to anyone at all patiently? How would it benefit us?
as he asks us an uncomfortable question with care or will we hound him to death for his audacity?
We won't give a toss either way.
I am assailed by this question as I see that Hindtuva leaders have invented a new villain for Hindus.
Muslims who believe they are at war with Hindu society are old villains from the Hindu point of view.
After demonising student leaders Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam,
and Apoorvanand whom the Police thinks played a criminal role in the Delhi riots
Hindutva leaders are now after another youth campaigner, Sharjeel Usmani.
The police are after him in the same manner they were after Apoorvanand.
They claim that he insulted Hindus in his speech at the Elgar Parishad event in Pune on January 30.
I think, the claim is that he broke the law by indulging in a particular type of hate speech aimed at promoting enmity between people of different religions. However, more significant is his contention that India is in a state of war- i.e. is dar ul harb- against Islam.
Before going into the details of the case, it would be correct to say that they are assuming (or hoping) that Hindu sentiments will be hurt by his remarks.
I don't think this is the case. Nobody thinks that a person of another religion is obliged to harbor sentiments of respect for one's Faith or for the conduct of one's co-religionists. It would scarcely be news that a Muslim dislikes idol worshipping Hindus. On the other hand, the Sangh Parvivar ought to highlight remarks by political opponents who claim to be Hindus but who say things which are defamatory about Hinduism. In this way, the BJP gains support from Hindus who might otherwise have voted for another Party. Currently, any time a TMC goon says something nasty about Lord Ram, the 'bakhts' will tweet about it. But there is no point drawing attention to a Muslim or a Christian who says 'Hindus are following a satanic religion. That is why they behave in a horrible manner. They should convert to my religion so as to be able to join me in Paradise.' After all, there are some Hindus who say to us 'my dear, you are following a satanic path. Kindly give up such and such irreligious practice and convert to my Sect. Then you and I will enjoy Moksha together.'
What is alarming about Usmani's speech is that he is saying a section of the Indian population will support him in the War he believes is already being waged.
First, a criminal case was registered against Usmani in Maharashtra, which is ruled by the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party. After an appeal by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders to their Uttar Pradesh counterparts to put Usmani behind bars, another case has been lodged in Lucknow.
This is rather strange. UP is ruled by the BJP. Nobody thinks Yogi Adityanath is a 'dove' who needs to be prodded by anybody else to take this sort of action.
The question is, why did Maharashtra launch a police case? The answer is that the BJP had threatened to launch an agitation on this issue.
Some Muslim leaders have already distanced themselves from Usmani, lamenting that fact that he has allowed himself to be pushed to an extremist position by fascist forces.
His dad is a Professor of Geography at Aligarh Muslim University- where he studied. It may be that the author thinks the boy's daddy and his Professors were 'fascist forces' who pushed him or prodded him or interfered with him in some other way.
It is becoming clear that the young man will have to fight a lonely battle in the coming days.
But his jail cell won't be lonely. Overcrowding is a major problem in Indian prisons. The senile nutters who organized the Elgar Parishad gave a silly young man enough rope to hang himself. He says India is at war. He does not trust the police or the judiciary. This means that from being externed from his District under the 'Goonda' Act- i.e. being treated as a campus ruffian or hothead- he will get the tag of seditionist at war with the Government of India and 'Hindu Society' which he describes as 'rotten'.
At this point, anyone with a heart would help get the kid out of India. Let him go be a 'dissident' in Europe- the Saudis and Emiratis won't have him- or Amrika, or better still- Canada. Meanwhile, in India, Owaisi will build a pan Muslim party.
What exactly did Usmani say that caused Hindutva leaders to be so outraged? He said that a rot has set in India’s Hindu society. He explained his disappointment with this society. How could a crowd stab a 14-year-old child 31 times? What do people do after lynching someone? They go back to their usual business, do their daily chores. Do they use some purifier, something to wash their hands? How do they eat peacefully, love their near ones, touch the feet of their elders? How do they comfortably move from one lynching to another? This is the part of Sharjeel Usmani’s speech making the rounds.
Usmani says he is at war with India- more particularly its 'Hindu Society'. Killing those at war with you may involve lynching if the police or armed forces can't get to the spot fast enough. This guy just justified the practice.
Should these words be an occasion for the BJP leaders, or for us, the Hindus they claim to represent, to take offence?
Yes. Why? Because we kill people who try to kill us. We aren't really non-violent at all. By taking offense at 'fighting words' we send an eusocial signal. Suppose you are in the habit of coming up to me and telling me I'm a rotten fellow and that you are at war with me. One day you try to stick a knife in me. But I smash your head in first. Your friends might, with justice, reproach me for not having let you understand the consequences of your threatening behavior. It is sensible to take offense at a guy talking shit about you if you will in fact beat him to death the moment he has worked himself up sufficiently to try to knife you.
Shouldn’t we pause to ask what makes a young, educated fellow Indian who happens to be a Muslim say this?
Stupidity and hunger for publicity. The kid is just 23 years old. Give him a break. But what happens when we pause to ask why big jar of poo- a Maithili Brahmin whose own OBC colleagues find his arrogance enraging- is writing this? The answer is the bigot is an upholder of his imaginary Caste privilege. He hates Modi and Yogi because they are 'lower caste'. He waxes poetic about Muslims because his people were too cowardly to either harm or protect Muslims. Mithila's Dalits, however, may tell another story.
This is the clash between Hinduism and Hindutva. The former is about preserving anachronistic distinctions by cunning hypocrisy. The latter is about getting rid of hereditary entitlement and embracing meritocracy so that the country can rise up. But, if that happens, people like big jar of poo will have to admit that only the genuinely productive- not the cunning, not the mischievous, not the cowardly- should be honored and rewarded regardless of birth or some soi disant 'education'.
Before going further, let us ask those who want Usmani jailed if the reason for their anger is solely the religious identity of the questioner or the actual content of his question.
It is solely his religious identity because, experience has taught us, Hindus who talk that stripe of shite are merely virtue signaling cretins or mischief-mongers like this big jar of poo.
When a young Muslim talks of India being at war with Islam- and hence a dar ul harb- he is under pressure to match his deeds to his words. In this case, the guy was already facing criminal charges albeit under a less serious Act relating to hooliganism. Now he will be under the radar for seditious conspiracy or waging war against the State.
You'd really have to hate young people- which, I suppose, many professors do- to want to make trouble for a 23 year old hot-head who comes, after all, from a good family and who hasn't actually killed anybody- yet.
Isn’t the question relevant? Usmani was forced to ask it because we never cared to ask ourselves how a society could be at peace with itself after the mass killing of Sikhs in 1984.
We don't care to ask ourselves stupid questions about shite which only exists in the wooly head of a guy who teaches Hindi for a living. On the other hand, we do ask ourselves 'does my ass look fat in these jeans?'
Why didn’t we as Hindus demand that the people responsible for the murders to be brought to book?
For the same reason we don't, as Hindus, demand that our own heads be chopped off and shoved up our pooper. To be clear, that reason is that it is not in our interest.
How is it that justice for the victims of 1984 has remained a concern only for Sikhs?
Because Sikhs were killed. Hindus weren't. So, quite sensibly, Hindus don't really give a toss about this issue- though no doubt a few may pretend otherwise for some more or less transparent reason.
Why aren’t we alarmed that the murderers and those complicit in the mass killing are living as honourable fellow citizens?
Because they didn't kill Hindus. This is an 'uncorrelated asymmetry'.
They could be our uncles, neighbors, colleagues.
or catamites
Were there no Hindu witnesses to the killings?
After that Bhagalpur. And before that Nellie. Many more. How can we forget Gujarat of 2002?
We haven't. But that was a case where Hindu blood was avenged and then some. Guess who is P.M of India today?
In the uprising of the farmers in the Western Uttar Pradesh, the painful memory of the mass killing and displacement of Muslims in 2013 has resurfaced. Can you have farmers’ unity without assuring justice for Muslims who were wronged by their Hindu neighbors?
Of course you can! Rakesh Tikait is going great guns precisely because, as we all learned in 2013, Jats like killing lower caste agricultural workers- more particularly those of a different Sect. Also they want more money. Money is cool.
The souls of Mohammed Akhlaq, Pehlu Khan, Tabrez Ansari, Afrazul Khan, Junaid and scores like them who were lynched ask how is it that their killers are enjoying their lives after depriving them of the gift of life that was bestowed on them by the Almighty. Why should it not be a debate for Hindus? Weren’t the killers from within Hindu society?
But the victims weren't. Does this cretin really not get that shit that happens to others because they are different from us is shit we don't give a toss about?
The rot to which Usmani referred runs deep in our society. It is not confined just to killing Muslims or persecuting Christians. We have turned the invocation “Jai Shri Ram” into a slogan that is shouted when Muslim localities are ravaged. Should not we think about it?
No. Hinduism has been at the receiving end of Muslim and Christian violence. That sucked ass big time. By contrast, killing Muslims is correlated with better, not worse, life-chances for Hindus. Don't kill Christians, though. Their Schools and Colleges are great. Also the nicest countries to immigrate to tend to be deeply Christian.
It was only after the defeat of Hitler that the question of the complicity of ordinary Germans in the genocide was asked seriously.
Because Germany was shorn of a lot of territory and forcibly occupied by the victors. By contrast, Portugal and Spain were admitted to the UN. Nobody asked about the 'complicity' of Franco's or Salazar's people in any type of crime.
The message is simple. Only if you are being held down by your enemy do you need to start soul-searching and pretending to repent.
Should they have felt offended when Jewish people asked them, even if you did not kill us, why did you allow us to be killed?
The Germans had spent a lot of time explaining to the Jews that they were hateful. Smart Jews got the fuck out of Germany. Some Germans may have realized that getting rid of Jews is a bad idea coz Jews be hella smart. But nobody has ever suggested anything similar about Indians of any description.
As a study by the philosopher Adorno demonstrates, when confronted with questions about their role in the preparations for the Holocaust, the majority of Germans tried to shrug off any responsibility.
To be fair, the vast majority succeeded in shrugging off any responsibility. Also, under 'Operation Paper-clip' any Nazi with useful scientific knowledge got a wonderful new life working for NASA or whatever.
Adorno persisted with his interrogation.
He was as stupid as shit. That's why the US didn't want to keep him- unlike the Nazi scientists they recruited in droves. So Adorno went back to Germany- till the radical students made his life miserable. Apoorvanand may be hoping his own female students will bear their breasts in rage at his bourgeois tendencies. I may be wrong. What the guy may really relish is golden showers galore from hunky students with or without circumcised cocks.
When victims find the tormenter brushing aside the issue of murder, they want to shake him into consciousness. It is a desperate attempt.
It is an impossible attempt. Victims of murder can't shake shit.
Yes, Hindus do need to get hurt by Usmani’s question.
in the same sense that they need to give Apoorvanand golden showers galore while he writhes in ecstasy
We need to hang our heads in shame
to auto-fellate?
that a young member of a community that has lived side by side with us for centuries now looks at us as potential murderers.
Potentially, everybody is a murderer who will give Apoorvanand golden showers galore
We know that Sharjeel Usmani will be scolded for using the term “Hindu society”.
I think the guy faces something worse than a scolding.
He could have been more circumspective by saying “some Hindus” or he could have avoided the word “Hindu” altogether, those criticising him will say. Was not he blaming all Hindus for the foul act of some elements?
He said he was at war with India. That was clear enough.
Another objection will be that a Muslim does not have the right to criticise Hindus.
A Muslim Health Specialist is welcome to criticize Hindu practices from a Scientific point of view. We won't praise him but will quietly steal his ideas and then claim that we found them in some Brahmana or Aranyaka.
It is alright if a Hindu does it. Muslims should mind their business, worry about the ills that plague Muslim society and not pontificate to Hindus.
But there is a problem with this demand.
Apoorvanand won't get golden showers galore.
Muslims have every reason to question Hindus because those persecuting Muslims come from their fold.
Unless they live in a Christian country which Islamic terrorists have attacked. Then they have to show loyalty and a willingness to abide by the law. Questioning shit won't help.
Because Hindus have elected a party that has made it very clear that Muslims hold a secondary status in the national life.
To have a reason to do a thing is to get a reward for doing it. Nobody has any reason to do stupid shit. Muslims got a second class status wherever they did not get a first class status. This outcome could be overturned by war. Usmani has stated that this war now prevails in India, as far as he is concerned. The problem with wars is that some people end up incarcerated without firing a single shot. It is enough to be identified as a hostile combatant to be put behind bars. If you aren't an actual soldier, your treatment will be worse, not better.
Hindus seem obsessed with Muslims and their lives.
Nonsense! We are obsessed with the Kardashians or other smart, rich, cool people.
We want to protect Muslim women,
No we don't.
we want to drag them out of backwardness,
Why? We're pretty damn backward ourselves.
we want to modernise them, we want to school them about nationalism. We want to choose for them their food, their attire, their ways of greeting so that they look agreeable to Hindu eyes.
Sheer nonsense! We don't give a toss about people as stupid and backward as ourselves. We are interested in richer countries with better looking people and a more sophisticated porn industry.
It is not that Hindus are indifferent to Muslims. It is this that gives Sharjeel Usmani the right to lament the corrosion of the soul of Hindu society.
Is that what he was doing? Perhaps, but only in the sense that he was actually giving Apoorvanand a golden shower.
Similarly, Umar Khalid has every right to ask Hindu journalists about the lies that they spread about him and ruined his life.
His lawyers can certainly subpoena whom they like. I suggest they start with Siddhartha Varadarajan.
The students of the Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University have every right to ask the policemen who came from Hindu society why they used communal slurs while attacking them.
Presumably, Apoorvanand accords equal importance to the right of a person being raped to ask the rapist why they keep using homophobic slurs while sodomizing them.
The dead Faizan has a right to ask the chief of the Delhi Police why he was humiliated and assaulted by his men, all Hindus, for his crime of being Muslim.
This is where I part company with Apoorvanand. It may be that in Hindi literature, dead people routinely exercise their right to ask questions but, in English literature- or at least Agatha Christie novels- no such right obtains. Why? Rights are linked to remedies under a vinculum juris- a bond of law. Unless Apoorvanand knows of a way to bring a corpse back to life, that corpse has no right to ask questions since the remedy- viz. being brought back to life- does not exist.
Of course, it may be that this big poo is speaking rhetorically.
These are not rhetorical questions.
In which case this big poo is a cretin.
We should not complain that by doing this, Hindus are being forced into a state of guilt and that such an expression of guilt is unhealthy. We should not ask why the multitude of Hindus should feel guilty for the acts of a minuscule, wayward section.
But we should listen to a cretin who thinks dead people can exercise a right to ask questions of all and sundry.
We need an Adorno to examine the collective mind of the Hindus
Why? Adorno failed in Germany. Anyway, collective minds don't exist. Adorno didn't have much of a mind. But, like Apoorvanand- who thinks Elgar Parishad is only important in the context of 'Aryan' v 'Ashraf', with himself as the former hypocritically patronizing the latter- Adorno did have a mental block against seeing darker skinned people as being as creative and as important as people like himself- or rather, the sort of person he imagines himself to be.
that identifies with the regime, enjoys the advantages it gives them and yet does not own up to the atrocities that are being committed under its watch and in the name of Hindus.
Apoorvanand identifies as a teacher of Hindi. He enjoys the advantages this gives him yet he does not up to the atrocities committed by Hindi teachers both now and in the past.
One atrocity he is himself testimony to- viz. the turning to shit of the brains of those who study Hindi at University- unless, of course, they are Russian or Chinese rather than Indian. Of course, the same thing could be said about any native English speaker studying Eng Lit at Uni.
The angry reaction of the Hindus demanding criminal cases against Sharjeel Usmani is in fact an expression of the defensiveness of the Hindus about the question he has put before them.
No. Hindus want not just terrorists, but Muslim nutters working themselves up to become terrorists, to be locked up forthwith. Funnily enough a lot of Muslims- indeed some Islamic regimes- feel the same way.
Any reference to the crime is seen as an attempt to defame the criminal.
Interestingly, this big poo has not referred to the other criminal charges facing Usmani.
Again, to use Adorno, the hangman gets upset when reminded in his own home of the noose.
He also gets upset if you shit on the dining table. Indeed, everybody does- whether or not they are a hangman. The fact is, nobody likes being treated in an insulting fashion in their own home. Big Poo may be an exception. He may express great delight if I barge into his home and start making fun of him for being a fucking cretin teaching an utterly worthless subject to people who should already be able to study Hindi quite sufficiently just by reading books and using dictionaries.
It would be good for our collective health
on the assumption that getting golden showers galore is good for our health
that we listen to Sharjeel Usmani instead of being defensive. We must effect an urgent course correction to save ourselves and the nation from a greater tragedy.
What greater tragedy? The fact is Hindus benefit economically if the non-Hindu population is reduced and vice versa. This is the law of diminishing returns at work. Overpopulation, sadly, is associated with ethnic cleansing. Once that starts, nobody has any choice but to support their own group and to run away from where the other group has the upper hand. This, at any rate, is the lesson taught by, if not Hindi Literature, then actual Indian History. Shame, but there it is.
On the other hand, India gains if Dalit and other productive communities rise up. That is something we can all get behind. Virtue signalers, however, can go fuck themselves. They bring nothing to the table.
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