South Asia Citizens Web

The problem with the clergy is that they are caught in a seventh century time — and tribal Arabia space — warp

Edward Snowden speaks at TED2014 about surveillance and Internet freedom. The right to data privacy, he suggests, is not a partisan issue, but requires a fundamental rethink of the role of the internet in our lives — and the laws that protect it. "Your rights matter,” he says, "because you never know when you’re going to need them."

I see around me a massive failure of memory. Narendra Damodardas Modi headed the pack of which the Supreme Court of India said, in April 2004, “The modern day Neros were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent children and helpless women were burning,...” The man is now considered by some to be good enough to be the country’s prime minister. He is called a “Vikas Purush”, the many large stains of blood on and around him having been painted over by his expensive public relations team.

Blaise Pascal, the famous 17th century philosopher and mathematician, observed that “men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it for religious conviction”. His words could apply to Muslim-killing Hindus of Gujarat, 2002. Or to today’s Pakistan, where your religious affiliation—whether by birth or conviction—can land you in your grave. The killers do their job fearlessly, frequently, and often claim credit. The police and army have little sympathy for those who, in principle, they are supposed to protect. Even as streams of venom directed against religious minorities pour out from a battery of powerful mosque loudspeakers, a desensitised Sunni-majority Pakistani public prefers to believe in the destabilizing "foreign hand".

Save Hinduism From Hindutva is an illustrated artwork series by concerned Hindus