Talaq through whatsapp

That Whatsapp is a very popular app and one of the most widely used in daily life by most people the world over is well known. People nowadays even use whatsapp for not just personal chats but also for business communication. Besides, whatsapp is also used for networking and by groups of friends (school, college, locality, company etc) to stay in touch.
But just when you thought that people had exhausted all the possible ways in which to use whatsapp, news comes in that a novel use has been found for whatsapp, a use hitherto unimaginable. Whatsapp has proved its versatility by becoming the means of communication for divorcing wives.


To explain the background - muslims in India are governed by their own civil law, which is based on the sharia and is divergent with the otherwise progressive laws enacted in India in recent years. These muslim civil laws not only treat women as second class members of the society but also deny women many rights which are considered basic in most other communities/ religions.
One of these glaring instances of discrimination and regression is the use of the triple talaq, whereunder a muslim man can divorce his wife, without any reason whatsoever or having to explain his decision and completely free from any liability to pay alimony or other form of maintenance - by just uttering the word 'talaq' 3 times.
That is it. Nothing else needed. When you are tired of your wife, you just say talaq thrice and you can then throw her out of your house, wash your hands of all responsibility for her and are free to add to your quota of wives.
To add to the injustice and unreasonableness of it all, this only works for men i.e women cannot divorce their husbands similarly.


A well educated and fairly well to do NRI youth from Kerala divorced his wife of 10 days by using whatsapp without even bothering to come down to India. Talk of convenient divorces and transcending the barriers of physical presence, geographical distances and legal hurdles - all through the wonders of modern technology.
Link - http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/kerala-nri-man-sends-talaq-shocker-to-wife-on-whatsapp/


I have enumerated below some of the numerous points that are disturbing and unjust about this case:
1. What would you say of a religion which tramples upon women's rights in this way?
2. In a democratic country, where women are accorded equal rights, why is it that the compulsions of minority appeasement politics have allowed the existence of regressive laws which treat women like second class persons who are clearly discriminated against and considered secondary to the men from that religion?
3. What kind of mindset is prevalent amongst the men of this religion, who inspite of being educated, take advantage of such regressive laws to satisfy their carnal lust and destroy the lives of women in this manner?
4. The man also took a hefty dowry, as is the common norm. Minority religious and political leaders have been silent on this aspect as well.
5. The man compared his wife to an apple, saying that after eating an apply, why would a man east the same fruit everyday? How regressive, perverted and sadistic is this? This also highlights the fact that such regressive religious practices make women not only secondary to men, they also drive an attitude where women are looked only as sex objects (compared to fruits which a man like a variety of).


Most disheartening has been the reaction of our media and the common hindus who have completely ignored this issues, instead of supporting the introduction of a common civil code.


I hope the BJP takes up the issue of  common civil code for the betterment of women from all sections of the society and to ensure that women from all religions are accorded minimum rights in front of the law.

What happens when you hurt religious sentiments of muslims

Our secular media has been ad nauseum covering the killing of a muslim man in dadri. The criticism ranged from
1) whether people can be stopped from eating what they want and
2) whether a cow's life is more valuable than he life of a man to
3) the cow being just another animal and not everyone considering it to be holy or their mother.


A few questions and thoughts always bother me whenever I hear these foolish, biased and misleading questions asked with malafide intentions, designed to obfuscate the main issue by introducing irrelevant topics.


A few rejoinders to these questions that I have come up with and I would appreciate if you could continue adding to it:
1. The question is whether people can be similarly stopped from reading what they prefer or watching plays that they like. We had cases of books like Taslima Nasreen's Lajja and Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses being banned because they were considered unislamic and because muslims resorted to violence and destruction. Was there outrage even a fraction of what we see in the dadri case?
2. The counter question would be whether a mere book or a few pages are worth more than the lives of all those killed over the burning of the kuran. If muslims and our seculars have so far justified the killing of people over the kuran being burnt or torn (even innocent people who were not concerned with it at all or people in a country other than where the case too place), then do they have any moral right to question hindus in this case.
3. If a muslim killing people because the kuran was burnt or torn is justified on the grounds that the kuran is sacred to the muslims, isn't the same reason valid for hindus as well and shouldn't the same consideration be extended to the religious sentiments of hindus?


Considering all the above, why is it that there is outrage over one muslims man being killed and collective silence (and even support and justification) for muslims riots and violence over kuran burnings and mohammed cartoons?


Hindus should understand the entire context of these issues and controversies created by a hypocritical and pseudo secular media and stop being defensive over matters of religion.

Mulayam singhs SP to field Ranveer Sena founder’s son in bihar elections

The TOI (let) has just reported that Mulayam Yadav's Samajwadi Party has fielded the son of the founder of Ranveer Sena, in the forthcoming Bihar elections.


Wonder what happened to all the bombastic talk about being the protectors of lower castes? It seems that mulla mulayam is now doing the same thing that he has been accusing the BJP of doing.




Link - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/SP-fields-Ranveer-Sena-founders-son-from-Tarari/articleshow/49173553.cms

4 year old girl killed by her father because her head was not covered and hence was 'unislamic'

A few days back, a 4 year old girl was killed by her father for not covering her head. While having food, the little girls dupatta slipped off her head and she did not realise it, wherefore her father (should he be called a father ? ) repeatedly threw her on the ground and killed her.






Now this is the kind of news item which should draw condemnation and coverage - because religious fanaticism and regressive religious strictures have led to the violent death of poor child, that too at the hands of her own father.






But guess what - our secular media is so busy covering the dadri incident that this was just mentioned in a brief article, just once, and it has been completely forgotten ever since.






Look at the number of things wrong here - a man brain washed enough to kill his own 4 year old child (which indicates he could be a potential terrorist), a regressive religion which refuses to evolve with the times and denies women basic rights, the lack of coverage by the mainstream media, the failure of religious leaders/ ordinary people/ UP government to condemn the incident, the lack of outrage from our intelligentsia and even ordinary hindus etc etc etc.






Is it then any wonder why a large section of our population is prey to the votebank politics practised by the congress for decades?




Link to the article - http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/up-father-kills-4-yr-old-daughter-for-failing-to-cover-her-head/story-BI8kzSy9zKvcolEVnuNdTK.html

Farhan akhtar's statement on the dadri killings

As per news reports, Farhan Akhtar has condemned the dadri killings. I wonder why he has never bothered to similarly condemn the killings of thousands of Sikhs and hindus at the hands of muslims and congress mobs. Or issued statements on the numerous riots where hindus are killed.


Does he have objections only when a muslim is killed? Is the killing is hindus and Sikhs justified as per him (or explained away by making statements about both communities being equally responsible or pointing to incidents when muslims where killed)?


Incredible double standards. And sadly he isn't the exception...

Dadri killing vs genocide of kashmiri pandits and massacre of sikhs - double standards

The double standards of our 'secular' and 'liberal' intelligentsia and even the ordinary people becomes apparent when we compare their outrage over the dadri killing and compare it with their reaction (or lack of it) over the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Kashmir pandits and the massacre of Sikhs in 1984.
One man is killed and all these secular guys and media have been shouting for days altogether but there was hardly any outrage over the atrocities on Kashmiri pandits or Sikhs.
Even our intelligentsia, comprising of renowned liberal writers, academicians, artistes etc who have been prompt to return their awards in protest against the dadri killing were remarkably silent in the two analogies mentioned above or during other acts of communal violence.


We need to think about the reasons for their double standards by trying to analyse the differences between the two cases. One was the scale of violence and destruction - what the Kashmiri pandits and Sikhs faced was of unimaginable magnitude and the killings numbered thousands while in dadri, one person was killed - but the outrage, instead of being a thousand times more, is hardly a fraction of what we are seeing now.
The one other difference between the two analogies, and one which will explain the selective outrage, is the perpetrators and the victims.
In dadri, the victim was a muslim and the killers hindus. In the other two cases, the killers were muslims and the thousands of people killed were Sikhs and hindus.


This clearly demonstrates the bias prevalent amongst our secular and liberal countrymen and should make us question them on whether they consider one muslim life more valuable than the lives of thousands of hindu and Sikh lives.


A question no one is asking them and one they are not willing to answer...

India beats USA and China in FDI - another feather in Modi and BJP's hat

http://time.com/4055183/india-fdi-greenfield-top-rank-u-s-china/#4055183/india-fdi-greenfield-top-rank-u-s-china/

India has now overtaken traditional economic powerhouses like US and China and become the top global destination for foreign direct investment in greenfield projects.

This is yet another feather in the BJP governments hat, under the capable setwardship of our honourable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi - a testament to the excellent work done by Narendra Modi in just over a year and a major achievement, one which sadly has been given very little coverage in Indian newspapers.

If the BJP government could achieve so much in just over a year, just imagine where our country would have been had they (or the erstwhile Jan Sangh) ruled the country since independence.


 

Selective outrage over killings in the name of religion

A couple of days back, a muslim man was killed by a mob for allegedly eating beef. The incident occured not far from the capital and has generated a lot of media attention, with the usual suspects using this as an excuse to claim that religious discrimination and communal violence has increased multifold since the BJP formed government.

Whilst the killing of this person (or any other innocent person) is of course wrong, we need to ask why the media selectively covers such news items and also why there is outrage only when a muslim is attacked/ killed and collective silence when hindus are the affected community.

To highlight this, i will share a couple of examples:
1. The world over, we have seen numerous instances when muslims have killed people for buring the kuran or 'insulting' islam (drawing cartons, criticising islam etc). There has been no outrage about this and most muslims in fact even justify the killings (there were many posts defending the recent Charlie Hebdo killings).
2. There have been numerous instances in pakistan where minorities have been falsely accused of insulting islam and lynched by mobs.
3. Even in India, there have been numerous instances where muslims have started riots, killed hindus and the government then imposes martial law and deploys paramilitary forces, which ensures that there isnt any retaliatory violence. After sometime, the situation calms down and things resume as before; untill the next riots when the same cycle is repeated. Why isnt there any widespread condemnation of the repeated violence committed by muslims?
4. Another point about the media coverage is that usually when muslims start violence, the media usually balances the reporting by suggesting (sometimes wrongly) that both parties were equally culpable and highlighting previous instances of hindus attacking muslims - all in an effort to underplay muslim aggression and demonstrate that hindus are equally violent. However in cases where Hindus kill even one person, the whole stance changes to portraying muslims as victims of unbridled hindu aggression.


While we should not justify violent actions committed by anyone, we do need to call out and expose the intellectual hypocrisy and ideological double standards, whereunder numerous instances of minority aggression are swept under the carpet (and dismissed as minor/ routine incidents) but even an isolated instance of hindus resorting to violence is blown out of proportion and depicted as being part of a wider pattern of state sponsored progroms and hindu atrocities against minorities (when in reality it is the other way round).

As intelligent and thinking individuals, we need to question why this is so.