(This is a serious post and I do apologize for its strong content. But sometimes, you have to vent your feelings. Please skip this one if you don't want to read a post from a secularist.)
Priya Verma-ji,
I have been amused by many, many of your moving missives over the last several weeks, aimed squarely at the 'crocodiles'. Your theories of East meeting West and the lucid examples you threw at your 'crocodiles' were enlightening. You finessed the whole discussion with your pinpoint accurate explanation of why you are an American citizen and yet change India from the outside, whatever that means. By the way, now that you are calling people 'crocodiles', can I please, please call you a 'goon' or perhaps something more fashionable like 'Squirmin Vermin' ? Thanks. Also, can I give you some reality checks so that you can see the world beyond your little 'kuan' you now live in ? Let me keep this post naively simple so that something permeates to you.
First of all, Vermaji, understand a very simple fact. We, the silent majority on the net and in India are the real Hindus. You are slightly different. People of your kind are called Hindu fanatics. Let me explain some of the differences between the two groups of us. For example, fundamentalists like you, Vermin - oops Verma, invent imaginary concepts like 'Hindutva'. But for the majority of India, for the mainstream Hindus, such pseudo concepts are irrelevant and we don't give a damn about Hindutva or Christiantva. We have no quarrels with the Muslims. Such drastic differences in attitude distinguish your cult-like groups from the normal, mainstream folks like us.
You, the fanatics, are merely trying to hijack Hinduism from the mainstream. Too bad, your tactic will not work, because there are too many of us good folks. We are proud to be Hindus and we don't feel compelled to avenge a supposedly historical episode, after a zillion years. We believe in the common good of people and we believe that most Muslims, like most Hindus are decent, honest people trying to eke out a living. You, my friend are the terrorist, exactly isomorphic to the Kashmir terrorist that you so eloquently write about. We, the mainstream Hindus, have absolutely no problems practicing what we believe is Hinduism in our privacy and we also believe that at the governmental level, secularism and democracy are wonderful and fair ideas. There is no contradiction or pseudo-secularism. You are the pseudo Hindu. Sure, India can implement secularism in a much better fashion, but nothing warrants or excuses the events of December 6 th or the Bombay riots. You are not a spokesman for the Hindus, because what is happening is not a Hindu vs Muslim thing, but a Hindu fanatic vs all Muslims and Muslim fanatic vs all Hindus thing. You are a fanatic and who knows, if you hadn't become an American citizen but stayed back in Ayodhya, you could have been one of those saffron robed fanatics and may have even been called Swamy Virendrananda.
Let me teach you some arithmetic. You cry foul in all your posts that "40 % of the Hindus want the mosque demolished and so it is okay to demolish the mosque." That opinion poll you quote so often, was compiled in the northern states of India. If you take the whole nation, including West Bengal and the south (and for some reasons, Hindus there seem less interested in mosque destruction) the per centage is probably around 25. If you include the opinions of people of other religions like the Muslims and Christians and Sikhs (remember they too are Indians, just like you. Oops, forgot you are NOT an Indian) the number goes down even more. If you subtract this number out of 100, the result is greater than 70. So a majority DOES NOT want the mosque destroyed. So don't go around whining that the 'Majority opinion is not respected'. In fact, the Hindu fanatical goons are the ones who did not respect the majority opinion and went around destroying the economy, lives and a nation's pride.
Would you stop writing on the SCI if a majority of us asks you not to write ? And should you ? You have no idea how a pluralistic, secular, democratic country should function. You will probably flunk the American citizenship test. A democracy does not mean that whenever 51 % of the people wants to do something, they go ahead and do it. Fortunately, we have a long way to go before the 'fanatics' population reaches 51 % in India. It never will.
And also, Verminji, you don't have an inch of remorse for what happened following Ayodhya and in Bombay, even though it is a crying shame. I and the rest of the mainstream guys are willing to pledge to my countrymen that we will work for the harmony, collective good and national integration of India and be a watchdog so that my secularism and democracy are not trampled. Would you ? Even now it is not too late for reconciliation and emphasizing the common Indianness of all of us. The economic good of the country and brotherhood between various religions are of higher priority for us than building a temple, whose only purpose is to enforce fanaticsm.
We, as Indians and Hindus, feel very ashamed of what happened in the name of Hinduism, because the Hinduism we, (the majority) know does not preach hatred. I apologize to all the people who were brutalized, whose loved ones got killed and pillaged. If you are man enough, Virendra, you ought to apologize too. Would you ? Remember, your own heros like Advani and Vajpayee DID apologize on the day of the Ayodhya plunder. If you don't apologize, I surmise that you don't see anything wrong with the killing and looting and tacitly support it.
Next, you and your fellow rabid fanatics like Kuram Narayana and Mohan Sekhar would turn around and label me as a communist. Unfortunately, I am as capitalistic as it gets, because I work for a corporation and try to improve its bottomline and I have also invested thousands upon thousands of dollars in stocks. And there is nothing wrong if the communists ask the right questions. Thanks to the Hindu fanatics' stupid actions and now silly rhetorics, archenemies like the communists and the capitalists have actually united in condemning you.
In fact, the international community is unanimous in condemning you. More than ninety per cent of the newspapers and magazines in India and abroad have condemned the Ayodhya episode. The media has also taken pains to differentiate between 'all Hindus' and 'Hindu fanatics'. You are in a very, very small minority. Wake up and realize your Hitlerisque ideas of grandeur. It is not too late to check with a psychiatrist and get rid of your schizophrenia and the illusory world you live in. People like you, unfortunately for India, have infested India and are the root cause of all the evil that is going on, when country after country is rejuvenating itself with new economic policies and hope. There ought to be a Nuremberg like trial of people like Advani, Joshi, Deoras, Thackrey, Singhal, Dalmia, Islamic Seva Sangh goondas, for their crimes against humanity and all the lives lost.
A word to all the young, newcomers from India - you may be shocked, angered and saddened by all the rabid, fundamentalists' posts on SCI and their Carrolian 'black is white and white is black' logic. Just remember that you are the majority and most of India and the world opinion is solidly behind you. You have nothing to be defensive about. Be proud of being a Hindu, Indian, secular and human. Go ahead, express your feelings and feel free to ridicule these fundamentalists.
And the only way to deal with people like you, Verma, is not to reason with you, but to just ridicule you and your silliness. This is what people like Subbarao, Kannan Subramaniam and Narayan Raja sometimes do. This is not to take any credit away from Kumar, Deepak, Ajay Diwakaran, Shyamala Parameswaran, Sanjeev Mahajan et al who still haven't given up reasoning with you goons.
End of venting. Now lets have some more 'Hindu fanatic' oneliners.
Yusself (Virendra Verma, that is), the resident sophist Raj Bhatnagar, the 'constipation of the brains, diarrhoea of the mouth' guy Prabhu Ambatipudi and Ajay Shah (with apologies to the 'good' Ajay Shah in USC) are in a room when the light bulb goes 'phutt'. How many of them are required to change the light bulb ?
Ans: None. Because, mentally, you all live in the dark ages, when there were no light bulbs.
Here is another one: When your Muslim friend gave his wedding invitation to you, Mr. Virendar Verma, (I know it sounds far-fetched) why did you count the invitation ?
Ans: Because, Vermin wanted to see if there were four of them, because you, like the other fanatics, always thought that all the Muslims always married four wives.
Namaste, of course. And Croc-croc-croc-cooo.
Ramesh,
the real Hindu and secularist.