Skyward Fire

Photo by Poras Chaudhary

India entered it’s 60th year into being a Republic on the 26th of January this year, which happens to be the Indian Republic Day. And in no time, a bunch of Talibanists working under an alias of Shree Ram Sena mobbed into a pub in Mangalore, India, and beat up women. Yes, you read right. They beat up women, reason being, they considered it unacceptable for women to go to pubs. There you have it, a bunch of morally impaired extremists who think it’s good to beat up women to force a cultural & social thought over them. And instead of taking a stern action against the eunuchs of SRR, Chief Minister of Karnataka, Mr. Yediyurappa said he and his cabinet would not allow pub culture to grow in his state. Now, anyone in a right state of mind would find it awkward that the CM is more worried about curbing the pub culture than curbing the SRR phonetics. Many other politically active individuals and organizations went on to indirectly justify the actions of Shree Ram Sena by calling the incident of beating up women as an act committed in ‘confusion’. Now, obviously no third party element is going to directly approve of what SRR did, but come the fuck on people, you are mature enough to distinguish facts from hog-wash.

Another incident that went on to support the fact that Democracy, and freedom of speech & expression in India is a big delusion was the one where an Indian blogger based in Netherlands was forced to retract a post on his blog where he flamed CCTV (fictional) & its much over rated journalist, Bakri Doodh (fictional). The post was regarding the Mumbai attacks from the 26th of November 2008, where media was subjected to honest criticism from a lot of people for obstructing commando operations at the various red zones and unconsciously assisting the terrorists to have a heads up on the procedure the commandos chose to take. Taking personal offence over facts, the very manly-looking & apparently lesbian, Bakri Doodh(fictional) & CCTV’s(fictional) legal team threatened a lawsuit against Mr. Kunte and forced him to retract his post and publically apologize for what he had wrote on his blog.

More information regarding the whole turn of events can be obtained at Desicritics, Labnol & Baltimore Sun. Such a lowly act of shame from Bakri Doodh & his/her legal team drew harsh criticism from various Indian bloggers,

• Vijayendra Mohanty
• Shripriya Mahesh
• Patrix
  

Now, I have never been a fan of Indian television media ever, since they touch a new low with every minute that passes by, but this has gone too far. I feel it is no one’s business to tell me & force me personally what to do and what not to do over the internet, since you have no idea who I am, what I do, and how I feel. It’s sad to see Mr. Kunte apologizing as a consequence of what Bakri Doodh(fictional) and her legal team wanted him to do. But it’s his decision to stay off controversy and I respect that. What I do understand, is why exactly do people take such steaming pile of bullshit from folks like Bakri Doodh(fictional) and what’s up with all the defensive fanboy-ism all over the place? It’s also depressing reality that Bakri Doodh(fictional) was awarded with a Padma Shree in Journalism only last year by the Government, which just opens doors to all the lobbying, and the corrupt criteria & the jury that is responsible for awarding the Padma Shree.