(1) There is an attempt from certain circles to use the outrage against killing #Aditi, the pregnant young elephant in Kerala -as a campaign point to get Safoora Zargar released from custody. With all due respects to Ms Zargar, this comparison is as outrageous as #Aditi's murder.
(2) Ms Zargar, has a right to dignity and facilities and humane treatment, like all undertrials or arrested persons deserve from the police. Instead of making an exceptional case, police reform shd be made a general campaign that benefits the thousands of hapless ppl in custody.
(3) #Aditi's case has nothing in parallel to Ms Zargar. Note that our outrage on #Aditi's murder is not just because she was pregnant, but because she was killed deliberately and deceptively in a most sadistic way using her trust or hunger and isolation.
(4) To be equivalent, Ms Zargar wd have to be without family/friends/lawyers/"civil society"/activists/political and NGO support when she was nabbed, fed an explosive diet that fatally destroyed her mouth and upper respiratory tract, and left to die slowly without medical care.
(5) To be equivalent, #Aditi wd hv to hv allegedly promoted potentially violent campaigns and demonstrations against fellow elephants, (yes the accusation by fellow elephants and its refutation by #Aditi will need tests in a court of elephants), confined to an elephant jail,
(6) provided elephant food not laced with explosives or poisons meant to fatally injure and slowly kill, deprived of all medical attention, not chased from one part of the elephant jail to another as she sought relief from pain and shelter.
(7) Ms Zargar faces none of the horrible treatments meted out to #Aditi, and unlike #Aditi, she has recourse to both medical and legal facilities fully geared to come to her rescue, activists to carry on the campaign on her behalf.
(8) #Aditi died at the hands of sadists, looking for food in what shd hv been her natural home, her needs, desires simple& limited - she didnt plan any political campaign or seen/accused of trying to organize violent protests -and she had none of the support enjoyed by Ms Zargar.
(9) From Hindu view, however in practice we may hv deviated, animals hv a right to dignity& protection frm humans (more so as they don't grow food). What was done to #Aditi is unacceptable, there is no parallel with Ms. Zargar. Its an insult to both to make their cases equivalent
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1) Jihadis have not thought out Sarmishtha case fully. They and their patrons, think they can use full state coercion to make an example out of her - to gain Muslim votes, intimidate Hindu dissenters. But they r failing to sense the deep alienation and considerable anger in ppl.
2) this is not helping jihadi cause, as some think the leader of Rashidi foundation himself had openly abused Hindus/Hinduism online (screenshots were posted but not sure they still exist) but never faced the heavy hand of law and order the way Sarmishtha is being made to face.
3) sometimes whether by design (as in Dandi March)or unintended, people are given the choice between only two options. Who takes which side, shows up their true loyalties, commitments, affiliations and priorities. This case is taking a similar psychological space in popular view.
1) Every European country that has in the past, and continues to, facilitate, protect, and enhance Islamist movements or organisations outside Europe as part of Neo-imperialist foreign policy - are defenceless against jihadis on their own soil.
2) the reasons are wide ranging, historical, and twisted by the colonial interlude. The long stranglehold of a totalitarian church has created a social psyche that runs on a dominance submission paradigm and ironically the weakening and discrediting of the church leaves a vacuum.
3) the church weakened because it was totalitarian, just like the Soviet state as it collects all the dregs and charming psychopaths as the sole outlet for their perversions and ambitions without necessarily the talents for their people to flourish under their rule.
1) Mandal might be onto something. Let’s explore RT and ancestors dalitness. RT’s grandpa was treated as untouchable by his grandma for dining and more with Europeans, and bathed every time she had to come to his proximity. She being from same casta. But it gets stranger.
2) Dalit Dwarkanath sat at separate table from his European guests since Europeans were offered plates of “forbidden meat” and he wouldn’t eat it. He also practised “Brahminical” rituals. His wife and mother were strict vegetarians and practised orthodox rituals.
3) in fact apparently the first rift between the couple happened from his association with non-veg eaters in his business circle and the suspicion that he must be contaminated by association. And yet they were a Dalit family. 🤔
1) All borders are temporary compromises in space and time. Retreats and expansions are part of the process. Identities should not be linked to physical borders, even though never give up on territorial claims, even while retreating.
2) Country and nationhood are not identical, and they don’t have to be. However, their deviation from each other over long periods can only be resolved by the dissolution of one or the other, eventually leading to dissolution of both.
3) Sometimes existing power relations in a state form itself prevent the natural fulfilment of a nationhood. It becomes a state where every force within balances and wears the other out, paralysing the state. That is when the state itself becomes the greatest enemy of nationhood.
1) Some observations. Hindus, (and all those in other identities who find themselves aligned closer to Hindus than their community leaders) should not rely only on the country’s army to stand fast against jihadi aggression. They might. They may fail. But a bigger issue remains.
2) the army is conditioned to obey superior command. Their first reaction will be to obey the order. If the order is to hold back, or retreat, bulk of them will follow. The greatest weakness in national armies before jihadis is the vacillation or betrayal of their commanders.
3) many hv argued with me on the most used defence of Indians in the British army of India, “the oath”. It’s not that oath was a novelty invented by the Brits, but Indians obviously wr not so shy about flipping oaths when they left defeated Hindu kings to join invaders.
1) The E.Pak army could easily paralyse jihadis. Two reasons it won’t: such a move can provoke jihadis inside the army to revolt, 2nd, the longer jihadis rampage, better army’s case for not handing over power to elected parties. Current arrangement works for three key players.
2) the intention of international backers of E.Pakistan is to create a weak political regime (Ghazi Yunus is excellent for this with no real networks of power in a jihadist social base) dependent entirely on the army. As long as he can be the facade, army rule can’t be blamed.
3) with Yunus in facade, the army can protect jihadis so jihadis can be reassured to do what they do best: rape, arson, massacre, generally terrorise the population and impose mullah rule at all levels of society. Both Yunus and army have plausible deniability.