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Showing posts with the label secularism

The political logic of Triple Talaq bill

    Loksabha has passed the triple talaq bill on 28th December 2018. It was a mere formality once Supreme court has passed the judgement pertaining the practice. It is very easy to decipher the political logic of the bill and it is also easy to predict that effectiveness of bill hinges on inclination of potential victims to come forward defying the beliefs.       What is the political logic of the bill? It is a victory through symbols for the party which has risen on the heatwaves of rhetoric around symbols. BJP has successfully constructed and peddled the theme of 'Muslim appeasement'. As per this logic, Muslims have been given undeserved benefits. One of the 'benefit', perceived by those who enforce this concept, is Muslim marriage act which allows Muslim men to have more than one wife and allows them to divorce the wife using triple talaq. BJP, which now has to take on the 'Muslim appeasement' , has to take away the undeserving benefits.    ...

Myth of tolerant and secular India: ‘ubiquitous Christmas’ edition (courtesy NYT)

NYT has run this myth peddling piece on India. It certainly reeks of very shallow journalism and even hints at some prejudiced position. I am not saying that the story is a lie, far from that. But to represent the worrisome situation, a wrong counterfactual has been provided.               The news is about ‘Christmas celebrations in India’ which are marred by fear. The news tries to capture environment of fear by developing a suggestive narrative about how Hindu right groups have been interrupting the Christmas celebrations that used to happen hitherto without any trouble. I agree with this part. There is a quasi-state apparatus functional in India for which every individual act is open for scrutiny, remedy and punishment and this apparatus serves as in independent regulatory institution, without any check from the state. In fact, current rulers owe a lot to this apparatus and hence they pretend to check this apparat...