I was recently asked if I would be able to participate and provide encouragement in an event, celebrating interfaith and intercaste marriages - being undertaken by an NGO called DHANAK. Latter name means &ldquo;rainbow&rdquo; in Urdu/Hindi, and champions the cause of &ldquo;Right to Choice&rdquo; of the partner in matters of marriage and relationships, and raises its voice against &ldquo;Honour Killing&rdquo; crimes in India.

Over the years DHANAK has touched the lives of over 700 couples, providing them shelter from retributive parents and society, arranged marriages for eloping adults, and counseling both the couples and parents. The counselors explain that it is easy to love, but what is more important is, to understand that marriage is not a trifling matter, it is a lifelong commitment, along with a difficult path, given the social pressures by many communities.&nbsp;

The call to me came from Shailaja Rao all the way from the USA &ndash; she, being a Hindu, is married to Mohammad Zubair, a Muslim. Why me, I wondered and then it dawned &ndash; it was consequent to an <a href="http://www.wionews.com/south-asia/opinion-i-need-to-speak-out-in-support-of-hindu-muslim-marriage-this-is-why-28060">article on inter-faith marriage</a> that I wrote for WION some weeks back. The catalyst for that article was the ghastly incident in Ghaziabad where Hindutva goons led by a local politician had the audacity to interfere - fortunately with no luck - in the marriage of a prominent Hindu businessman&rsquo;s daughter to a Muslim boy.

This incident made me sit up and reflect because my own daughter had earlier married a Muslim. I would not have brooked any interference.&nbsp;

Who gave these people the right to object or interfere in what is purely a personal matter. Victor Hugo once said, &ldquo;your liberty extends only till where my nose begins&rdquo;, but here in India anybody and everybody seems to make it their business to render advice on so personal a matter and even suggest to find a suitable boy from one&rsquo;s own flock. But looking around me I realise this is not so simple a matter &ndash; the fires of obscurantism and religious intolerance are only growing each year, despite the seeming emancipation of society!&nbsp;

The event termed as SAHAS (Strengthening Alliances for Humanity and Secularism &ndash; Convener, Asif Iqbal) is staged each year on 14 February, in coincidence with the universal day of love. Held very aptly at the Gandhi Peace Foundation, on Deen Dyal Upadhyay Road, in New Delhi &ndash; both towering and secular personalities. The building itself was a bit rundown and needed a shot in the arm (like most institutions linked to the Mahatma), but the dingy atmosphere was more than overcome by the three hundred energetic young people from across India, who had congregated there.&nbsp;

This year it coincided with Valentine&rsquo;s Day, Ash Wednesday, and Mahashivratri &ndash; could not have been a more fitting occasion to celebrate the resilience of love in the face of hate and intolerance, when people of interfaith marriages, particularly Hindu &ndash; Muslim couples face discrimination on a daily basis, in housing, in jobs, and in travel. It is a sad reflection of Indian society where tolerance has always been its greatest strength. Little do we realise, Victorian values and family restrictions are not the flavours for the younger generation, more used to experimentation and freedom of thought.

Ask any parent and he will swear that they have brought up their children with correct moral and social values &ndash; how can they then deny their children the freedom to choose when they have become adults.&nbsp;

The subject on everyone&#39;s mind was &ldquo;Love Jihad&rdquo;, the nemesis of today&rsquo;s free-thinking society. The very phrase is oxymoronic, and people targeting interfaith marriages do not know the first thing about Jihad.

It may come as a surprise to most that this word is mentioned only once in the Holy Quran, testifying to its insignificance in Muslim thought. Yet, so much hatred has been spread because of it, &nbsp;and blood of innocents shed. Good and Evil, like Ying &amp; Yang, like Dharma and Adharma, are attributes that reside inside humans &ndash; the Quran enjoins people to root out that evil and become good beings, striving in God&rsquo;s cause. The meaning has been twisted for political and communal reasons to imply forcible conversion of faith, more specifically converting members of other religions to Islam.

What have been the catalysts for increasing number of successful interfaith &amp; intercaste marriages?

&nbsp;Social mobility, better economic prospects, and desire to spurn the pernicious evils of dowry and corruption are some issues that bother the young generation. The joint family system is eroding fast and with young men and women migrating to cities, it is but natural that they would interact with members of other communities, and social status. But the biggest factor has been the increasing number of educated women in today&rsquo;s society; women who no longer wish to be shackled under the archaic patriarchal system &ndash; they choose to make their own choices with regards their bodies and to marriage.

This is not to the liking of the established order and is the root cause of conflict between the older and younger generations. In some communities in northern India, girls find boys of their own community to be mentally and educationally incompatible and naturally choose from outside the group.&nbsp;

Current backlash, particularly, where it involves a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy, is also due to vested social reasons and dilution of the religious economy (priests stand to lose the most in terms of power and influence) and the political economy that thrives through divisions in society. These power centres now feel threatened by interfaith marriages which are chipping away at their stranglehold. Honour killings are orchestrated by the patriarchal system threatened by the fact that the younger generation dares to choose on its own, and in defiance of established social practices, where arranged marriages were the norm.

In most cases narrated by the congregation, it was not the parents (who generally were won over with the passage of time) of the girl that felt dishonoured, but relatives and village panchayats, acting like kangaroo courts and ordering honour killings to protect outdated social structures. Fiery speeches by eminent social activists like Jagmati Sangwan of Sonepat, who have risked life and limb to support abandoned/cowering couples, and Sheeba Aslam Fehmi, of Rajasthan, who has taken on the powerful Muslim Ulema, made the event memorable.

Be that as it may, the Constitution of India has overarching provisions that recognise the right of consenting adults, irrespective of religion, orientation or caste, &nbsp;to marry as they will, notwithstanding any objections of society, or parents, or relatives of the couple. Unfortunately, while the law is unambiguous and protection of fundamental rights has been assured by the highest court in the land, this means little in practice, to the marauding Hindutva hordes. Sadly, these lumpen elements are egged on by the very people &ndash; political leaders &ndash; charged with ensuring compliance with the law, maintaining communal harmony, and protecting the lives of its citizens.

One thing is certain &ndash; interfaith and intercaste marriages are an idea whose time has come and no amount of &ldquo;love jihad&rdquo;, or attacks by inimical groups, can stop the tide. Indeed these mixed marriages may be the answer to inter-communal conflicts, and the &ldquo;manuvadi&rdquo; system of segregation. Social and caste boundaries are blurring with the upward economic mobility of minorities/lower castes, and greater involvement of women in daily life.

As far back as 1950, framers of our Constitution realised that nature of society would change one day, and had envisioned the Civil Marriage Act, which resulted in the present Special Marriage Act. This latter has major lacunae, and needs to be completely re-written &ndash; instead of providing protection to interfaith marriages, it paints a target on young couples and their parents &ndash; their names and addresses are advertised to the world, allowing whosoever wishes, to interfere. This is what happened in the unfortunate case of Ankit Saxena of Delhi. What logic is there in asking if anyone has an objection to the marriage, especially when the parents of the boy and girl have none.&nbsp;

Many horrific tales were narrated that day, of beatings, of confinement, and even murder by bloodthirsty goons in the presence of family members and parents. But there was an equal number of tales of courage, and of genuine love and acceptance by parents and in-laws. This gives great comfort and is a morale booster to NGOs like DHANAK, and movements like SAHAS. There were many couples whose parents had refused to accept the marriage initially, but eventually came around when they realised determination of the children and that would needlessly miss out on some great times with them and their grandchildren.

Society has to be sensitive, and realise that &ldquo;love is blind&rdquo; and knows no boundaries.

As a poet rightly said, &ldquo;Jab ishq ka junoon hadh se badh jaye, haste haste aashiq suli chadh jaye, khoob laga lo pehre aur bedhi; yehi Ishq ki marzi hai, yehi Rab ki marzi hai&rdquo;!&nbsp;

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

While there are goons interfering in love life of couples, DHANAK preaches 'Right to choice' of partner.

I was recently asked if I would be able to participate and provide encouragement in an event, celebrating interfaith and intercaste marriages - being undertaken by an NGO called DHANAK. Latter name means “rainbow” in Urdu/Hindi, and champions the cause of “Right to Choice” of the partner in matters of marriage and relationships, and raises its voice against “Honour Killing” crimes in India. Over the years DHANAK has touched the lives of over 700 couples, providing them shelter from retributive parents and society, arranged marriages for eloping adults, and counseling both the couples and parents. The counselors explain that it is easy to love, but what is more important is, to understand that marriage is not a trifling matter, it is a lifelong commitment, along with a difficult path, given the social pressures by many communities. The call to me came from Shailaja Rao all the way from the USA – she, being a Hindu, is married to Mohammad Zubair, a Muslim. Why me, I wondered and then it dawned – it was consequent to an article on inter-faith marriage that I wrote for WION some weeks back. The catalyst for that article was the ghastly incident in Ghaziabad where Hindutva goons led by a local politician had the audacity to interfere - fortunately with no luck - in the marriage of a prominent Hindu businessman’s daughter to a Muslim boy. This incident made me sit up and reflect because my own daughter had earlier married a Muslim. I would not have brooked any interference. Who gave these people the right to object or interfere in what is purely a personal matter. Victor Hugo once said, “your liberty extends only till where my nose begins”, but here in India anybody and everybody seems to make it their business to render advice on so personal a matter and even suggest to find a suitable boy from one’s own flock. But looking around me I realise this is not so simple a matter – the fires of obscurantism and religious intolerance are only growing each year, despite the seeming emancipation of society! The event termed as SAHAS (Strengthening Alliances for Humanity and Secularism – Convener, Asif Iqbal) is staged each year on 14 February, in coincidence with the universal day of love. Held very aptly at the Gandhi Peace Foundation, on Deen Dyal Upadhyay Road, in New Delhi – both towering and secular personalities. The building itself was a bit rundown and needed a shot in the arm (like most institutions linked to the Mahatma), but the dingy atmosphere was more than overcome by the three hundred energetic young people from across India, who had congregated there. This year it coincided with Valentine’s Day, Ash Wednesday, and Mahashivratri – could not have been a more fitting occasion to celebrate the resilience of love in the face of hate and intolerance, when people of interfaith marriages, particularly Hindu – Muslim couples face discrimination on a daily basis, in housing, in jobs, and in travel. It is a sad reflection of Indian society where tolerance has always been its greatest strength. Little do we realise, Victorian values and family restrictions are not the flavours for the younger generation, more used to experimentation and freedom of thought. Ask any parent and he will swear that they have brought up their children with correct moral and social values – how can they then deny their children the freedom to choose when they have become adults. The subject on everyone's mind was “Love Jihad”, the nemesis of today’s free-thinking society. The very phrase is oxymoronic, and people targeting interfaith marriages do not know the first thing about Jihad. It may come as a surprise to most that this word is mentioned only once in the Holy Quran, testifying to its insignificance in Muslim thought. Yet, so much hatred has been spread because of it, and blood of innocents shed. Good and Evil, like Ying & Yang, like Dharma and Adharma, are attributes that reside inside humans – the Quran enjoins people to root out that evil and become good beings, striving in God’s cause. The meaning has been twisted for political and communal reasons to imply forcible conversion of faith, more specifically converting members of other religions to Islam. What have been the catalysts for increasing number of successful interfaith & intercaste marriages? Social mobility, better economic prospects, and desire to spurn the pernicious evils of dowry and corruption are some issues that bother the young generation. The joint family system is eroding fast and with young men and women migrating to cities, it is but natural that they would interact with members of other communities, and social status. But the biggest factor has been the increasing number of educated women in today’s society; women who no longer wish to be shackled under the archaic patriarchal system – they choose to make their own choices with regards their bodies and to marriage. This is not to the liking of the established order and is the root cause of conflict between the older and younger generations. In some communities in northern India, girls find boys of their own community to be mentally and educationally incompatible and naturally choose from outside the group. Current backlash, particularly, where it involves a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy, is also due to vested social reasons and dilution of the religious economy (priests stand to lose the most in terms of power and influence) and the political economy that thrives through divisions in society. These power centres now feel threatened by interfaith marriages which are chipping away at their stranglehold. Honour killings are orchestrated by the patriarchal system threatened by the fact that the younger generation dares to choose on its own, and in defiance of established social practices, where arranged marriages were the norm. In most cases narrated by the congregation, it was not the parents (who generally were won over with the passage of time) of the girl that felt dishonoured, but relatives and village panchayats, acting like kangaroo courts and ordering honour killings to protect outdated social structures. Fiery speeches by eminent social activists like Jagmati Sangwan of Sonepat, who have risked life and limb to support abandoned/cowering couples, and Sheeba Aslam Fehmi, of Rajasthan, who has taken on the powerful Muslim Ulema, made the event memorable. Be that as it may, the Constitution of India has overarching provisions that recognise the right of consenting adults, irrespective of religion, orientation or caste, to marry as they will, notwithstanding any objections of society, or parents, or relatives of the couple. Unfortunately, while the law is unambiguous and protection of fundamental rights has been assured by the highest court in the land, this means little in practice, to the marauding Hindutva hordes. Sadly, these lumpen elements are egged on by the very people – political leaders – charged with ensuring compliance with the law, maintaining communal harmony, and protecting the lives of its citizens. One thing is certain – interfaith and intercaste marriages are an idea whose time has come and no amount of “love jihad”, or attacks by inimical groups, can stop the tide. Indeed these mixed marriages may be the answer to inter-communal conflicts, and the “manuvadi” system of segregation. Social and caste boundaries are blurring with the upward economic mobility of minorities/lower castes, and greater involvement of women in daily life. As far back as 1950, framers of our Constitution realised that nature of society would change one day, and had envisioned the Civil Marriage Act, which resulted in the present Special Marriage Act. This latter has major lacunae, and needs to be completely re-written – instead of providing protection to interfaith marriages, it paints a target on young couples and their parents – their names and addresses are advertised to the world, allowing whosoever wishes, to interfere. This is what happened in the unfortunate case of Ankit Saxena of Delhi. What logic is there in asking if anyone has an objection to the marriage, especially when the parents of the boy and girl have none. Many horrific tales were narrated that day, of beatings, of confinement, and even murder by bloodthirsty goons in the presence of family members and parents. But there was an equal number of tales of courage, and of genuine love and acceptance by parents and in-laws. This gives great comfort and is a morale booster to NGOs like DHANAK, and movements like SAHAS. There were many couples whose parents had refused to accept the marriage initially, but eventually came around when they realised determination of the children and that would needlessly miss out on some great times with them and their grandchildren. Society has to be sensitive, and realise that “love is blind” and knows no boundaries. As a poet rightly said, “Jab ishq ka junoon hadh se badh jaye, haste haste aashiq suli chadh jaye, khoob laga lo pehre aur bedhi; yehi Ishq ki marzi hai, yehi Rab ki marzi hai”! (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

Opinion: Love in the time of jihad

Rahul Gandhi&#39;s temple visits of late were not merely for &quot;demonstration effect&quot; but underline the fact that what was being done quietly in the past is now done openly, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said.

&quot;Many many Hindus, certainly my generation, grew up as believing and practising Hindus but never showed it outside as they didn&#39;t feel like doing so,&quot; the Lok Sabha member told PTI in an interview during the recently-concluded Jaipur Literature Festival here.

&quot;In those days, religion was seen as an intensely personal matter you practice what you like you don&#39;t have to show the outside world. And in any case, your religion had nothing to do with political affiliation; that was the assumption,&quot; the 61-year-old leader said.

However, Tharoor said now Hinduism and religion have been made the front and centre in the politics of the BJP and those supporting that are openly saying that they are the only good Hindus and everybody else is bad.

&quot;Why should we cede this narrative to them? To my mind, we may as well show publicly what we have been doing privately. This is not in my view merely for demonstration effect or appearances. It is merely that what used to be done quietly in the past is being done openly now,&quot; he said when asked about Gandhi&#39;s visits to temples during the Gujarat polls campaign. 
 
Tharoor also said he feels that Gandhi was symbolising a change in the Congress.

Noting that the Congress had performed well in Gujarat due to the effectiveness of Gandhi&#39;s campaign, he said that the Congress now has an &quot;energetic leader&quot; who does not hesitate to use wit and humour in a relaxed style, which in the past, was not associated with the party leadership.

&quot;So, when Gandhi issues a tweet after Donald Trump makes a pro-Pakistan statement, some ask what is this but many say &#39;what a refreshing style, let&#39;s listen to this guy&#39;. So in many ways I would say, our politics is changing and Rahul Gandhi is leading and symbolising that change,&quot; he said.

Tharoor also said that the Congress stands a good chance in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

&quot;In fact, we are getting more and more rumours that the government may advance the elections because it thinks it would lose the elections if these are held in March-April 2019 due to the momentum the Congress is clearly beginning to get,&quot; he claimed.

He also termed the controversy of the film &#39;Padmaavat&#39; as very unfortunate.

&quot;The classical principle of freedom of expression is fundamental to any democracy. If you don&#39;t like what I have written in my book, don&#39;t read my book. If you don&#39;t like a film, don&#39;t watch it,&quot; Tharoor said. 
&quot;At the worst, you can even encourage others to boycott it. But you have no right to threaten violence, least of all to conduct violence,&quot; the MP from Thiruvananthapuram said.

However, Tharoor said now Hinduism and religion have been made the front and centre in the politics of the BJP and those supporting that are openly saying that they are the only good Hindus and everybody else is bad

Rahul Gandhi's temple visits of late were not merely for "demonstration effect" but underline the fact that what was being done quietly in the past is now done openly, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said. "Many many Hindus, certainly my generation, grew up as believing and practising Hindus but never showed it outside as they didn't feel like doing so," the Lok Sabha member told PTI in an interview during the recently-concluded Jaipur Literature Festival here. "In those days, religion was seen as an intensely personal matter you practice what you like you don't have to show the outside world. And in any case, your religion had nothing to do with political affiliation; that was the assumption," the 61-year-old leader said. However, Tharoor said now Hinduism and religion have been made the front and centre in the politics of the BJP and those supporting that are openly saying that they are the only good Hindus and everybody else is bad. "Why should we cede this narrative to them? To my mind, we may as well show publicly what we have been doing privately. This is not in my view merely for demonstration effect or appearances. It is merely that what used to be done quietly in the past is being done openly now," he said when asked about Gandhi's visits to temples during the Gujarat polls campaign. Tharoor also said he feels that Gandhi was symbolising a change in the Congress. Noting that the Congress had performed well in Gujarat due to the effectiveness of Gandhi's campaign, he said that the Congress now has an "energetic leader" who does not hesitate to use wit and humour in a relaxed style, which in the past, was not associated with the party leadership. "So, when Gandhi issues a tweet after Donald Trump makes a pro-Pakistan statement, some ask what is this but many say 'what a refreshing style, let's listen to this guy'. So in many ways I would say, our politics is changing and Rahul Gandhi is leading and symbolising that change," he said. Tharoor also said that the Congress stands a good chance in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. "In fact, we are getting more and more rumours that the government may advance the elections because it thinks it would lose the elections if these are held in March-April 2019 due to the momentum the Congress is clearly beginning to get," he claimed. He also termed the controversy of the film 'Padmaavat' as very unfortunate. "The classical principle of freedom of expression is fundamental to any democracy. If you don't like what I have written in my book, don't read my book. If you don't like a film, don't watch it," Tharoor said. "At the worst, you can even encourage others to boycott it. But you have no right to threaten violence, least of all to conduct violence," the MP from Thiruvananthapuram said.

Rahul's temple visits not for 'demonstration effect': Tharoor

&ldquo;The year 2017 will be one of peace and love,&rdquo; Naheed Naz told me. &ldquo;There is nothing in the scriptures about it, but Jesus puts feelings in your heart about what is going to happen. It is a matter of faith and we believe in it.&rdquo;

I met Naz, in her 40s, and a nursing teacher with a Masters degree in Public Health, at the All Saints Church in the heart of Peshawar&rsquo;s old city. She sounded optimistic despite the last days of 2016 bringing more turmoil in Pakistan for Christians.

Christmas messages were received with death threats and a Christian man was arrested on December 30 for allegedly desecrating the Koran. He currently faces the death penalty.

I could feel this tense atmosphere as I approached the All Saints Church on Christmas Day. The 19th-century building of Islamic Saracenic style reflecting in the brilliantly sunny day outside.

As I entered the the church&rsquo;s hall, the faithful were taking seats in anticipation of the Christmas mass. I had to come in through heavy security. The street where the church stands was blocked at both ends by sand barriers and guarded by security personal. On 22 September 2013, a twin suicide bomb attack during a Sunday mass at the church killed 127 people.

I asked Naz how the Christmas of her childhood differed from now. She recounted memories of her childhood and her sister&rsquo;s: the letter to Santa, her mother and father who used to make their life loving and rich, and the moral values of love and peace Christmas used to bring. Naz lost her mother in the 2013 bombing.

A little later, as I sat in the church, I met Shafi Maseeh, 75, who also lost his son in the same terror attack. He had little to say. Shafi is the real prototype of a Christian in Pakistan. A janitor by trade, he had no good memories to share of anything.

Most Christians I talked to felt a loss of identity, isolation and a deep sense of alienation. There was no nostalgia for the past, nor any enthusiasm for the present.

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Pakistan is roughly 1.6% Christian. (Others)
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In the All Saints Church, I was not alone at the Christmas ceremony. The local media had come too. Father Patrick Naeem was happy to see them and thanked the government, the media and the chief of the Pakistani army, while also asking journalists to respect the parishioners as they took photos of the ceremony.

One reporter asked me what I was doing there. When I told her I was going to do a story on Christmas and would like to interview her too she angrily replied, &ldquo;I am not a Christian, do I look like one?&rdquo; I was shocked for a moment. &ldquo;There is nothing wrong with being a Christian,&rdquo; I said.

Another reporter warned me as I was leaving the place: &ldquo;Be careful, liberals are on the hitlist.&rdquo; I just kept quiet.

Pakistan&rsquo;s Christian minority

There is no definitive figure, but Christians make up roughly 1.6% of the population of Pakistan, as many as Hindus, according to the latest official statistics.

Christians mostly converted from Hinduism to escape the caste-dominated Indian society before the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. But changing religion didn&rsquo;t help: the roots of discrimination based on caste run deep in both Indian and Pakistani society.

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The Christmas ceremony is an event on its own as media gathered to film. (Others)
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The plight of Christians has persisted for decades, but there has also been a rise of hatred against Christians since the late 1980s, when the dictator Zia ul Haq introduced Pakistan&rsquo;s blasphemy law, particularly used to persecute Christians.

A double oppression

Pakistani society is still marred by racism and questions of caste, even among Muslims, despite the Qur&rsquo;an setting out radical equality for all.

Across South Asia, Muslims remain divided up by various hierarchical systems. This long trail of caste-related injustice goes back to the beginnings of subcontinental societies and seems impervious to the intrusion of other sources of identity such as the nation-state or religion.

So the Christian community reels under a double oppression of racism, based on the low castes many Christians come from, and religious intolerance towards their belief system.

But even among minorities, Christians are particularly singled out, for a number of reasons. They are visible: they live mostly in urban areas and are often employed in low-wage jobs. They are also the poorest of the community.

In December 2015, the Capital Development Authority of Islamabad submitted a report suggesting that the Christian &ldquo;ugly slums&rdquo; of the capital be destroyed to keep the city clean. The CDA, in this unprecedentedly stupid move (&ldquo;their Trump Moment&rdquo; as the English daily Dawn put it), argued that the campaign of destruction would preserve Islamabad&rsquo;s aesthetics and maintain its Muslim-majority demographic balance.

The proposal was rightly contested by political parties, activists, and NGOs and thwarted by the Supreme Court, but it was a worrying sign of just how poorly Christians are thought of by the Pakistani elite.

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The street outside All Saints Church. Poor Christians live in this quarter of the city. (Others)
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Adding insult to injury, Christians in Pakistan are also seen as representatives of the US and other Western powers who are often held to be responsible for the plight of Muslims around the globe.

Christianity in politics

The plight of Christians is linked to the political foundation of Pakistan and the much criticised Two Nation Theory which became the basis of Partition in 1947. Partition aimed to create a state for Hindus (India) and one for Muslims (Pakistan).

Christians are historically considered to have positively contributed to Pakistani statehood, thus helping the development of the Pakistani society, but today they, along with other non-Muslims, are forbidden from holding high office.

The Christian vote in Pakistan is around 1.3 million, second to the Hindu vote, which is around 1.5 million. While the Hindu vote is mostly concentrated in the Sindh and Punjab regions, Christian voters are more scattered. Since the minority vote is restricted to a few electorates, political parties are not generally interested in serving them, though there is a lot of lip service to minority issues.

Minority representatives protest the problem of segregation from mainstream politics. There is no doubt that the electoral system adds to the problems of already frustrated minority communities in Pakistan. Minorities don&rsquo;t have the right to place their own candidates in elections. They can vote for any Muslim candidate in their constituency from within the general seats, and they also have the right to vote for a minority candidate, but they don&rsquo;t have the right to choose these. They are instead given minority seats for which tickets are allotted by mainstream political parties.

Fractured communities

While talking to various Christians, I observed very little sense of community. All identity revolves around the personal and in Pakistan, that is steeped in the psychology of status.

Christians in Pakistan are faced with both victim-blaming from without and the self-loathing it generates within the individual.

Continuous repression as a community within social and political life in Pakistan has led some to blame themselves for their problems. Self-incrimination, a shallow sense of belonging to the mainstream and the loss of the social self-were often apparent in my conversations for this article.

&ldquo;Our people are not serious about their studies; they don&rsquo;t save money,&rdquo; a priest who works as a waiter at my university&rsquo;s student accommodation told me. &ldquo;I do save, though I am usually in debt, while keeping my needs to the minimum.&rdquo; When I asked if it is because of the loss of hope that some Christians struggle in school and work, he replied, &ldquo;No, I have made it from a janitor to a waiter. My boys are going to school. Isn&rsquo;t it an environment conducive to success?&rdquo;

Living with contradiction

Christians are often the recipient of local charities. &ldquo;Yes, we like them, because they grew up with us,&rdquo; a high-level political activist in Peshawar told me. &ldquo;They clean our homes and we give them our used clothes, and also food. They are good people. We also offer them gifts for Christmas. We just did this year, too.&rdquo; The activist was also a trader in the market in front of the All Saints Church.

Christians often feel the same way. &ldquo;The political parties don&rsquo;t care for us,&rdquo; the priest at Peshawar University said. &ldquo;Some politicians do, though. They offer us gifts for Christmas. I also got my package. They change the carpets of our church every now and then. This is good.&rdquo;

In the present environment of hopelessness and fear, the only option left for Christians is to learn to live with Pakistan&rsquo;s deep contradictions &ndash; discrimination from the state, but charity from politicians.

Centuries of continuous repression have left many without any sense of identity within their home country. Many Christians here just want to breathe &ndash; being able to truly live is a distant dream.

This article was originally published on&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/au" rel="nofollow" target="blank">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/breathing-without-living-the-plight-of-christians-in-pakistan-70892" rel="nofollow" target="blank">original article</a>.

Images credit: Altaf Khan (Author)

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL).

Christians' plight in Pakistan reflects the confused identity and ideologies of the country they live in

“The year 2017 will be one of peace and love,” Naheed Naz told me. “There is nothing in the scriptures about it, but Jesus puts feelings in your heart about what is going to happen. It is a matter of faith and we believe in it.” I met Naz, in her 40s, and a nursing teacher with a Masters degree in Public Health, at the All Saints Church in the heart of Peshawar’s old city. She sounded optimistic despite the last days of 2016 bringing more turmoil in Pakistan for Christians. Christmas messages were received with death threats and a Christian man was arrested on December 30 for allegedly desecrating the Koran. He currently faces the death penalty. I could feel this tense atmosphere as I approached the All Saints Church on Christmas Day. The 19th-century building of Islamic Saracenic style reflecting in the brilliantly sunny day outside. As I entered the the church’s hall, the faithful were taking seats in anticipation of the Christmas mass. I had to come in through heavy security. The street where the church stands was blocked at both ends by sand barriers and guarded by security personal. On 22 September 2013, a twin suicide bomb attack during a Sunday mass at the church killed 127 people. I asked Naz how the Christmas of her childhood differed from now. She recounted memories of her childhood and her sister’s: the letter to Santa, her mother and father who used to make their life loving and rich, and the moral values of love and peace Christmas used to bring. Naz lost her mother in the 2013 bombing. A little later, as I sat in the church, I met Shafi Maseeh, 75, who also lost his son in the same terror attack. He had little to say. Shafi is the real prototype of a Christian in Pakistan. A janitor by trade, he had no good memories to share of anything. Most Christians I talked to felt a loss of identity, isolation and a deep sense of alienation. There was no nostalgia for the past, nor any enthusiasm for the present. Pakistan is roughly 1.6% Christian. (Others) × In the All Saints Church, I was not alone at the Christmas ceremony. The local media had come too. Father Patrick Naeem was happy to see them and thanked the government, the media and the chief of the Pakistani army, while also asking journalists to respect the parishioners as they took photos of the ceremony. One reporter asked me what I was doing there. When I told her I was going to do a story on Christmas and would like to interview her too she angrily replied, “I am not a Christian, do I look like one?” I was shocked for a moment. “There is nothing wrong with being a Christian,” I said. Another reporter warned me as I was leaving the place: “Be careful, liberals are on the hitlist.” I just kept quiet. Pakistan’s Christian minority There is no definitive figure, but Christians make up roughly 1.6% of the population of Pakistan, as many as Hindus, according to the latest official statistics. Christians mostly converted from Hinduism to escape the caste-dominated Indian society before the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. But changing religion didn’t help: the roots of discrimination based on caste run deep in both Indian and Pakistani society. The Christmas ceremony is an event on its own as media gathered to film. (Others) × The plight of Christians has persisted for decades, but there has also been a rise of hatred against Christians since the late 1980s, when the dictator Zia ul Haq introduced Pakistan’s blasphemy law, particularly used to persecute Christians. A double oppression Pakistani society is still marred by racism and questions of caste, even among Muslims, despite the Qur’an setting out radical equality for all. Across South Asia, Muslims remain divided up by various hierarchical systems. This long trail of caste-related injustice goes back to the beginnings of subcontinental societies and seems impervious to the intrusion of other sources of identity such as the nation-state or religion. So the Christian community reels under a double oppression of racism, based on the low castes many Christians come from, and religious intolerance towards their belief system. But even among minorities, Christians are particularly singled out, for a number of reasons. They are visible: they live mostly in urban areas and are often employed in low-wage jobs. They are also the poorest of the community. In December 2015, the Capital Development Authority of Islamabad submitted a report suggesting that the Christian “ugly slums” of the capital be destroyed to keep the city clean. The CDA, in this unprecedentedly stupid move (“their Trump Moment” as the English daily Dawn put it), argued that the campaign of destruction would preserve Islamabad’s aesthetics and maintain its Muslim-majority demographic balance. The proposal was rightly contested by political parties, activists, and NGOs and thwarted by the Supreme Court, but it was a worrying sign of just how poorly Christians are thought of by the Pakistani elite. The street outside All Saints Church. Poor Christians live in this quarter of the city. (Others) × Adding insult to injury, Christians in Pakistan are also seen as representatives of the US and other Western powers who are often held to be responsible for the plight of Muslims around the globe. Christianity in politics The plight of Christians is linked to the political foundation of Pakistan and the much criticised Two Nation Theory which became the basis of Partition in 1947. Partition aimed to create a state for Hindus (India) and one for Muslims (Pakistan). Christians are historically considered to have positively contributed to Pakistani statehood, thus helping the development of the Pakistani society, but today they, along with other non-Muslims, are forbidden from holding high office. The Christian vote in Pakistan is around 1.3 million, second to the Hindu vote, which is around 1.5 million. While the Hindu vote is mostly concentrated in the Sindh and Punjab regions, Christian voters are more scattered. Since the minority vote is restricted to a few electorates, political parties are not generally interested in serving them, though there is a lot of lip service to minority issues. Minority representatives protest the problem of segregation from mainstream politics. There is no doubt that the electoral system adds to the problems of already frustrated minority communities in Pakistan. Minorities don’t have the right to place their own candidates in elections. They can vote for any Muslim candidate in their constituency from within the general seats, and they also have the right to vote for a minority candidate, but they don’t have the right to choose these. They are instead given minority seats for which tickets are allotted by mainstream political parties. Fractured communities While talking to various Christians, I observed very little sense of community. All identity revolves around the personal and in Pakistan, that is steeped in the psychology of status. Christians in Pakistan are faced with both victim-blaming from without and the self-loathing it generates within the individual. Continuous repression as a community within social and political life in Pakistan has led some to blame themselves for their problems. Self-incrimination, a shallow sense of belonging to the mainstream and the loss of the social self-were often apparent in my conversations for this article. “Our people are not serious about their studies; they don’t save money,” a priest who works as a waiter at my university’s student accommodation told me. “I do save, though I am usually in debt, while keeping my needs to the minimum.” When I asked if it is because of the loss of hope that some Christians struggle in school and work, he replied, “No, I have made it from a janitor to a waiter. My boys are going to school. Isn’t it an environment conducive to success?” Living with contradiction Christians are often the recipient of local charities. “Yes, we like them, because they grew up with us,” a high-level political activist in Peshawar told me. “They clean our homes and we give them our used clothes, and also food. They are good people. We also offer them gifts for Christmas. We just did this year, too.” The activist was also a trader in the market in front of the All Saints Church. Christians often feel the same way. “The political parties don’t care for us,” the priest at Peshawar University said. “Some politicians do, though. They offer us gifts for Christmas. I also got my package. They change the carpets of our church every now and then. This is good.” In the present environment of hopelessness and fear, the only option left for Christians is to learn to live with Pakistan’s deep contradictions – discrimination from the state, but charity from politicians. Centuries of continuous repression have left many without any sense of identity within their home country. Many Christians here just want to breathe – being able to truly live is a distant dream. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Images credit: Altaf Khan (Author) (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL).

Opinion: Christmas and the plight of Christians in Pakistan

Pope Francis celebrated his 81st birthday on Sunday with a massive crowd who gathered around the&nbsp;Saint Peter&#39;s Square and sang happy birthday.&nbsp;

The celebration took place on Sunday morning where twenty-five thousand children and pilgrims from many lands came to wish him, children carried balloons and bought&nbsp;statues of the infant Jesus for him to bless, as per Roman traditions.&nbsp;

The celebrations&nbsp;were followed by lunch and cake cutting ceremony.&nbsp;

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Pope Francis looking at children holding balloons shaped in the number 81 (AFP)
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The cake&nbsp;was made by&nbsp;Mauro Pallotta, famously known as&nbsp;MauPal&nbsp;- who is an Italian graffiti artist.&nbsp;

The cake is designed&nbsp;with a picture of the pope carrying the world on his shoulders.&nbsp;

The pear and cinnamon delight shows Francis in his white cassock, holding up with one hand the world, which is divided in two but stitched back together - a symbol of the pope&#39;s unifying force, Rome pastry maker Hedera said.

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The cake is decorated with a drawing of Italian street artist Mauro Pallotta a.k.a Maupal (AFP)
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Numerous children from &quot;Dispensario Santa Marta&quot;, a Vatican pediatric clinic gathered around Francis during lunch - the feast included pizzas which were decorated with candles.

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Pope Francis blowing a candle on a pizza for his 81st birthday with children assisted by &quot;Dispensario Santa Marta&quot;. (AFP)
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&quot;Be always joyful, even when things don&#39;t go as we wish they would,&quot; the pope said during the Angelus prayer.

&quot;When children see problems at home, parents that fight, they suffer. Don&#39;t make them sad. They must always grow up with joy,&quot; he said as he met disadvantaged youngsters looked after by a Vatican foundation.

The pope&#39;s birthday this year falls on Gaudete Sunday, which the church marks as a moment of particular joy as celebrations for the birth of Jesus Christ approach.

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The pope's birthday this year falls on Gaudete Sunday, which the church marks as a moment of particular joy as celebrations for the birth of Jesus Christ approach

Pope Francis celebrated his 81st birthday on Sunday with a massive crowd who gathered around the Saint Peter's Square and sang happy birthday. The celebration took place on Sunday morning where twenty-five thousand children and pilgrims from many lands came to wish him, children carried balloons and bought statues of the infant Jesus for him to bless, as per Roman traditions. The celebrations were followed by lunch and cake cutting ceremony. Pope Francis looking at children holding balloons shaped in the number 81 (AFP) × The cake was made by Mauro Pallotta, famously known as MauPal - who is an Italian graffiti artist. The cake is designed with a picture of the pope carrying the world on his shoulders. The pear and cinnamon delight shows Francis in his white cassock, holding up with one hand the world, which is divided in two but stitched back together - a symbol of the pope's unifying force, Rome pastry maker Hedera said. The cake is decorated with a drawing of Italian street artist Mauro Pallotta a.k.a Maupal (AFP) × Numerous children from "Dispensario Santa Marta", a Vatican pediatric clinic gathered around Francis during lunch - the feast included pizzas which were decorated with candles. Pope Francis blowing a candle on a pizza for his 81st birthday with children assisted by "Dispensario Santa Marta". (AFP) × "Be always joyful, even when things don't go as we wish they would," the pope said during the Angelus prayer. "When children see problems at home, parents that fight, they suffer. Don't make them sad. They must always grow up with joy," he said as he met disadvantaged youngsters looked after by a Vatican foundation. The pope's birthday this year falls on Gaudete Sunday, which the church marks as a moment of particular joy as celebrations for the birth of Jesus Christ approach.

Inside Pope Francis' 81st birthday celebrations - cake, balloons, and pizzas!

It is the time we examined the society we have created before we invoke the rather trite argument of dynastic rule to stridently criticise the Gandhis and the Congress. No doubt, the dynasty is antithetical to democratic politics. Yet, it is also true that dynastic succession is the norm outside the Indian political realm as well. Its sheer pervasiveness explains why people dismiss outright the hypocritical media outcry against dynastic succession to routinely vote paterfamilias to power, in the state as well at the Centre.

Among the media personalities, arguably the most vocal critics of dynastic succession &ndash; and the Gandhis &ndash; are two stalwarts who are guilty of what they rail against. One of them is considered the diadem of Indian journalism &ndash; he became an editor at a young age, launched a classy newspaper, joined the Congress briefly, returned to journalism and now heads a weekly newspaper in which his son is an associate editor. The other acquired from a generous industrialist, now deceased, a newspaper more than a century old. He is a member of parliament and his son is now the newspaper&rsquo;s managing editor, presumably being groomed to take over from his father.

It is true the roles of political parties are remarkably different from those of newspapers. It is also possible the children of these two luminaries are prodigiously talented. It is conceivable their fathers, immune to the irresistible tug of paternal love, saw in them qualities they couldn&rsquo;t in anyone who could step into their posts. Such arguments, though, echo precisely the ones the Congressmen mouth to justify the assigning of party leadership to Rahul Gandhi. He is astonishingly talented, even nonpareil, Congressmen declare earnestly.

In contrast to the Congress, the two illustrious editors run private operations and enjoy an unassailable right to choose who oversees them. Nevertheless, for many in the profession, it could well appear as examples of powerful fathers subverting the idea of meritocracy, given their inevitable role in the appointment of their children.

Might it not have been better for them to have designations which did not vouch for their journalistic excellence and which did not indicate to others that there is &ldquo;space for eminence&rdquo; in the two organisations, &ldquo;but none for pre-eminence&rdquo;? (The words in quotes belong to one of the two who used it to criticise the appointment of Rahul Gandhi as the vice-president of the Congress.) To what extent is the ethos of the two media organisations any different from the Congress whose members claim they are entitled to run their party as they desire? And to think the media isn&rsquo;t just a profit-making enterprise but the watchdog of democracy!

Dynastic succession dominates the realm of religion as well. As you enter through the imposing gates of Delhi&rsquo;s Jama Masjid, from the Chandni Chowk side, you will read written on a board, in a reverential tone, that the descendants of the Bukhari family have been the Imams of the historic mosque for 13 generations, beginning from 1656. Who&rsquo;s to tell them that the idea of the hereditary imam is in gross violation of Islam, which decrees his selection through consultation and consensus?

Similarly, innumerable hallowed temples of India have the tradition of hereditary priests, usually belonging to the Brahmin caste, presiding over them. In 2006, the Tamil Nadu government of M Karunanidhi issued an order abrogating the unwritten principle of hereditary, familial succession to the priesthood, which was also opened to non-Brahmin castes. Obviously, the momentous nature of the order, irrespective of its eventual efficacy, was delightfully ironical, for Karunanidhi, too, acquiesced into the dynastic principle in politics.

Or take the scions of illustrious business families. Irrespective of their abilities, children often inherit companies their fathers or grandfathers established and in which ordinary shareholders are today heavily invested. Think of a businessman, owning a substantial share in an Indian corporation, who voluntarily chose to overlook his or her children at the time of passing the baton. Are we not acquainted with the phenomenon of doctors boasting flourishing clinics paying massive donation fees to ensure their children, unable to qualify for admission to government medical colleges, acquire the mandatory MBBS degree to take over from them?

At least, unlike editor-owners, priests and businessmen, the great political families of India can claim that they have to at least periodically pass the electoral test to acquire power. It is an argument Bollywood too could cite to justify their dynasties. Though children from these families don&rsquo;t have to struggle for a foothold in the Hindi film industry, the longevity of their career depends on their ability to satisfy the audience. Nevertheless, their presence in Bollywood, as is true of all dynasties in every field, concentrates power in a few, skews and stifles competition. This is true of even classical music, whose practitioners can narrate the debilitating impact ordinary children of extraordinary parents have had on the talented.

India&rsquo;s propensity to spawn dynasties testifies to the persistence of our feudal mindset, still intact due to our unconscionable socio-economic inequalities and the inherited ethos of our caste system, consequently ensuring the raja-praja type of relationship thrives in different modern avatars. It is through the bridging of these inequalities that we can send dynasties packing, not through hurling blunted barbs at the Gandhis and others even though we are as guilty as they are.

This <a href="https://www.fairobserver.com/region/central_south_asia/pot-calling-the-dynasty-black-ajaz-ashraf/" rel="nofollow" target="blank">article</a> has been originally published in <a href="https://www.fairobserver.com/" rel="nofollow" target="blank">Fair Observer</a>.

(Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

India?s propensity to spawn dynasties testifies to the persistence of our feudal mindset, still intact due to our unconscionable socio-economic inequalities and the inherited ethos of our caste system

It is the time we examined the society we have created before we invoke the rather trite argument of dynastic rule to stridently criticise the Gandhis and the Congress. No doubt, the dynasty is antithetical to democratic politics. Yet, it is also true that dynastic succession is the norm outside the Indian political realm as well. Its sheer pervasiveness explains why people dismiss outright the hypocritical media outcry against dynastic succession to routinely vote paterfamilias to power, in the state as well at the Centre. Among the media personalities, arguably the most vocal critics of dynastic succession – and the Gandhis – are two stalwarts who are guilty of what they rail against. One of them is considered the diadem of Indian journalism – he became an editor at a young age, launched a classy newspaper, joined the Congress briefly, returned to journalism and now heads a weekly newspaper in which his son is an associate editor. The other acquired from a generous industrialist, now deceased, a newspaper more than a century old. He is a member of parliament and his son is now the newspaper’s managing editor, presumably being groomed to take over from his father. It is true the roles of political parties are remarkably different from those of newspapers. It is also possible the children of these two luminaries are prodigiously talented. It is conceivable their fathers, immune to the irresistible tug of paternal love, saw in them qualities they couldn’t in anyone who could step into their posts. Such arguments, though, echo precisely the ones the Congressmen mouth to justify the assigning of party leadership to Rahul Gandhi. He is astonishingly talented, even nonpareil, Congressmen declare earnestly. In contrast to the Congress, the two illustrious editors run private operations and enjoy an unassailable right to choose who oversees them. Nevertheless, for many in the profession, it could well appear as examples of powerful fathers subverting the idea of meritocracy, given their inevitable role in the appointment of their children. Might it not have been better for them to have designations which did not vouch for their journalistic excellence and which did not indicate to others that there is “space for eminence” in the two organisations, “but none for pre-eminence”? (The words in quotes belong to one of the two who used it to criticise the appointment of Rahul Gandhi as the vice-president of the Congress.) To what extent is the ethos of the two media organisations any different from the Congress whose members claim they are entitled to run their party as they desire? And to think the media isn’t just a profit-making enterprise but the watchdog of democracy! Dynastic succession dominates the realm of religion as well. As you enter through the imposing gates of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, from the Chandni Chowk side, you will read written on a board, in a reverential tone, that the descendants of the Bukhari family have been the Imams of the historic mosque for 13 generations, beginning from 1656. Who’s to tell them that the idea of the hereditary imam is in gross violation of Islam, which decrees his selection through consultation and consensus? Similarly, innumerable hallowed temples of India have the tradition of hereditary priests, usually belonging to the Brahmin caste, presiding over them. In 2006, the Tamil Nadu government of M Karunanidhi issued an order abrogating the unwritten principle of hereditary, familial succession to the priesthood, which was also opened to non-Brahmin castes. Obviously, the momentous nature of the order, irrespective of its eventual efficacy, was delightfully ironical, for Karunanidhi, too, acquiesced into the dynastic principle in politics. Or take the scions of illustrious business families. Irrespective of their abilities, children often inherit companies their fathers or grandfathers established and in which ordinary shareholders are today heavily invested. Think of a businessman, owning a substantial share in an Indian corporation, who voluntarily chose to overlook his or her children at the time of passing the baton. Are we not acquainted with the phenomenon of doctors boasting flourishing clinics paying massive donation fees to ensure their children, unable to qualify for admission to government medical colleges, acquire the mandatory MBBS degree to take over from them? At least, unlike editor-owners, priests and businessmen, the great political families of India can claim that they have to at least periodically pass the electoral test to acquire power. It is an argument Bollywood too could cite to justify their dynasties. Though children from these families don’t have to struggle for a foothold in the Hindi film industry, the longevity of their career depends on their ability to satisfy the audience. Nevertheless, their presence in Bollywood, as is true of all dynasties in every field, concentrates power in a few, skews and stifles competition. This is true of even classical music, whose practitioners can narrate the debilitating impact ordinary children of extraordinary parents have had on the talented. India’s propensity to spawn dynasties testifies to the persistence of our feudal mindset, still intact due to our unconscionable socio-economic inequalities and the inherited ethos of our caste system, consequently ensuring the raja-praja type of relationship thrives in different modern avatars. It is through the bridging of these inequalities that we can send dynasties packing, not through hurling blunted barbs at the Gandhis and others even though we are as guilty as they are. This article has been originally published in Fair Observer. (Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Opinion: Critiquing Rahul Gandhi is like pot calling the dynasty black

Iraqi paramilitary forces have uncovered two more&nbsp;mass&nbsp;graves containing the bodies of 140 civilians, including women and children, in an area home to the Yazidi religious minority, they said Saturday.

In 2014, IS killed thousands of Yazidis in Sinjar and kidnapped thousands of women and girls from the community to abuse them as sex slaves.

The Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance said it had found &quot;a&nbsp;mass&nbsp;grave&nbsp;with the bodies of 20 women and about 40 children in the village of Kabusi, south of Sinjar.&quot;&nbsp;

Elsewhere, &quot;in the Jazira residential complex, also south of Sinjar, 80 other bodies, mostly Yazidis, were discovered,&quot; it said.

Kurdish fighters backed by the US-led coalition against IS captured Sinjar from the jihadists in November 2015 before Iraqi security forces took control of the region in October.

As government troops have advanced across Iraq they have uncovered dozens of&nbsp;mass&nbsp;graves holding hundreds of bodies in areas that fell under the jihadists&#39; brutal rule.

Iraqi officials said on 22 November they had found a&nbsp;mass&nbsp;grave&nbsp;in Sinjar containing the bodies of dozens of members of the minority killed by the Islamic State group.

Sinjar mayor Mahma Khalil said that since 2015, around 40&nbsp;mass&nbsp;graves have been discovered in the region and that &quot;all the victims were Yazidis&quot;.

The Yazidis are Kurdish-speaking but follow their own non-Muslim faith that earned them the hatred of the Sunni Muslim extremists of IS.

Yazidis believe in one God who created the world and entrusted it to seven Holy Beings, the most important of which is Melek Taus, or the Peacock Angel.

The Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance said it had found "a mass grave with the bodies of 20 women and about 40 children in the village of Kabusi, south of Sinjar"

Iraqi paramilitary forces have uncovered two more mass graves containing the bodies of 140 civilians, including women and children, in an area home to the Yazidi religious minority, they said Saturday. In 2014, IS killed thousands of Yazidis in Sinjar and kidnapped thousands of women and girls from the community to abuse them as sex slaves. The Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance said it had found "a mass grave with the bodies of 20 women and about 40 children in the village of Kabusi, south of Sinjar." Elsewhere, "in the Jazira residential complex, also south of Sinjar, 80 other bodies, mostly Yazidis, were discovered," it said. Kurdish fighters backed by the US-led coalition against IS captured Sinjar from the jihadists in November 2015 before Iraqi security forces took control of the region in October. As government troops have advanced across Iraq they have uncovered dozens of mass graves holding hundreds of bodies in areas that fell under the jihadists' brutal rule. Iraqi officials said on 22 November they had found a mass grave in Sinjar containing the bodies of dozens of members of the minority killed by the Islamic State group. Sinjar mayor Mahma Khalil said that since 2015, around 40 mass graves have been discovered in the region and that "all the victims were Yazidis". The Yazidis are Kurdish-speaking but follow their own non-Muslim faith that earned them the hatred of the Sunni Muslim extremists of IS. Yazidis believe in one God who created the world and entrusted it to seven Holy Beings, the most important of which is Melek Taus, or the Peacock Angel.

Two mass graves found in Yazidi district of Iraq

In this day and age, whenever we read the newspaper, turn on the radio or television, log on to the Internet, or simply open our eyes and look around, we are confronted with all sorts of evidence confirming ever-present religious intolerance, which certainly raises red flags concerning the age-old perennial idea of the oneness of all religious traditions.

If this were the case, we would not have wars fought over religion, hate crimes against members of other faiths, discrimination, and so on. Instead, we would all gather together holding hands to dance happily around the campfire. It is all too easy to ignore differences at the expense of claiming some sort of illusory oneness that unites human beings across, racial, national, ethnic, and linguistic lines.

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<h5>There still are some people in the world who advocate a liberal outlook on the interaction and interpenetration of religions.</h5>
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Indeed the practices of a Roman Catholic parishioner in the Philippines or Sri Lanka might seem as alien to an Italian or American Catholic as an obscure ritual originating in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Yet thankfully there still are some people in the world who advocate a liberal outlook on the interaction and interpenetration of religions.

India, for example, has seen its fair share of communal violence over the centuries, especially since the painful years of the Partition that led to the division of Bharat into two modern nation-states based precisely on religious orientation. Much of that animosity continues today on all sides of the Indian border and recent atrocities against the Muslim Rohingya in Buddhist Myanmar remind us that intolerance more often than not flares up into mass violence on unprecedented scales. Amidst the almost daily accounts of religious tension and conflict echoing throughout South Asia, it is sobering to escape the constant attack on the senses experienced in South Asian cities and retreat to the countryside, where life slows down just enough to become quiet and even tranquil at times.

Roughly ninety kilometres south of Kolkata, lies a small, almost unnoticeable village called Naya, which is located in Medinipur District, West Bengal. I first went there in 2001, just a few months after the terrible attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. There, in the middle of rice paddy fields, along a pockmarked asphalt road with a tea stall on each side, my overcrowded bus stopped.

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<h5>I met Gurupada Chitrakar, a member of a community known as Patuas because they paint pats, narrative scrolls that tell stories about ancient lore located in the Hindu epics and Puranas.</h5>
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I alighted and immediately met Gurupada Chitrakar, a member of a community known as Patuas because they paint pats, narrative scrolls that tell stories about ancient lore located in the Hindu epics and Puranas, but also some about Sufi saints. These have been supplemented in recent decades by narratives about secular topics, such as ecological issues, environmental tragedies, and the pros and cons of globalisation. Indeed, they now dare sing about once-taboo topics such as HIV/AIDS and dowry death. They even sing about 9/11, the late Osama Bin Laden, and other such pertinent matters of global import.

Gurupada became my guide, as I pursued my studies of this remarkable community during a Fulbright Fellowship year in 2004-2005, which resulted in a museum exhibition held during 2006 in the United States and my illustrated book titled Village of Painters that accompanied the display of scrolls that I organised at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Gurupada introduced me to his teacher, the &ldquo;guru&rdquo; of the village whose poetic name was Dukhushyam Chitrakar, an individual who looked virtually twice his age but nevertheless beamed with charismatic authority. I spent many hours drinking tea and smoking bidies with him, as he told me about the Patuas&rsquo; unique position betwixt and between Hindus and Muslims, among whom his scroll-painting community lived side by side.

According to Dukhushyam, they are &ldquo;na Hindu na Musalman,&rdquo; neither Hindu nor Muslim. Instead, they inhabit a perpetual position between the two communities, acting as sorts of mediators between the two. I continuously learned about how they respected the customs of both Hindus and Muslims in their daily lives, respecting both mosque and temple. When communal violence would flare up, they would immediately take up the cause of tolerance. The best example of this that I encountered during my many stays in the village was their collective stance on the violence that surrounded the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.

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<h5>We are the human race, one mother&rsquo;s offspring. Hindus and Muslims we&rsquo;re all brothers, brothers.</h5>
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Gurupada Chitrakar sang me the following song he composed to go along with the unravelling of a scroll about the tragic incident that pitted Hindus and Muslims against each other, mostly motivated by political concerns. The song that I have translated literally from Bengali into English here goes like this:

We are the human race, one mother&rsquo;s offspring. 
We are the human race, one mother&rsquo;s offspring. 
Some of us became Hindus. 
Again, some became Muslims. 
One mother&rsquo;s offspring. 
Adam&rsquo;s wife became pregnant. 
Sabil and Kabil took birth. 
Sabil and Kabil took birth. 
Those two brothers took two religions. 
Those two brothers took two religions. 
Look, look, there is proof in the scriptures! 
One mother&rsquo;s offspring.

We are the human race, one mother&rsquo;s offspring. 
Marang Burung, say the Santals. 
And again the Christians say, they say God. 
And again the Christians say, they say God. 
Again, those Muslims say Allah. 
Again, those Muslims say Allah. 
Hindus say Bhagavan. 
One mother&rsquo;s offspring.

We are the human race, one mother&rsquo;s offspring. 
Usurping religion, politics wanders from place to place. 
Abandoning all that, sir, everyone live in harmony. 
Abandoning all that, sir, everyone live in harmony. 
In the name of religion, fighting and killing place after place. 
Abandoning all that, sir, everyone live in harmony. 
That which is God (ishvar), is nature (prakriti) itself. 
Today, though, science is giving proof. 
One mother&rsquo;s offspring.

We are the human race, one mother&rsquo;s offspring. 
Hindus and Muslims we&rsquo;re all brothers, brothers. 
But aside from human nature there is no other actual religion. 
But aside from human nature there is no other actual religion. 
How could we fight with these brothers, brothers. 
We, that is, how could we fight with these brothers, brothers.

We are the human race, one mother&rsquo;s offspring. 
That&rsquo;s why, everyone get together and worry. 
Destroy this animosity encompassing castes. 
That&rsquo;s why we should all get together and move forward. 
Destroy this caste animosity. 
Lets&rsquo; go, we&rsquo;ll all say it together. 
We&rsquo;ll all say the slogan. 
One mother&rsquo;s offspring. 
We are the human race, one mother&rsquo;s offspring.

The clever reference to the Adam and Eve creation story shared by the Abrahamic faiths here serves as a perfect vehicle to bring Hindus and Muslims together into the same parivar (family). By claiming that Hindus and Muslims both descended from Cain and Able (Qabil and Sabil in Arabic), Gurupada urges us to be sensible and humanistic; otherwise, we would be just like lower simians.

&ldquo;How can one attack and kill one&rsquo;s own brother or sexually violate one&rsquo;s own sister,&rdquo; he asked me? Gurupada and his extended Patua clan have a point. We are, indeed &ldquo;one mother&rsquo;s offspring,&rdquo; ek mayer santan in Bengali, and could learn much from this simple wisdom. Feuding like the legendary Hatfields and McCoys of American folklore flies in the face of civility. Let&rsquo;s all remember our common source of humanity, and when spurred by anger to lash out at others who do not necessarily share our personal worldview, recall Gurupada&rsquo;s chant: One mother&rsquo;s offspring.

(Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Image Credit: Frank J. Korom

Let?s all remember our common source of humanity, and when spurred by anger to lash out at others who do not necessarily share our personal worldview, recall Gurupada?s chant: One mother?s offspring.

In this day and age, whenever we read the newspaper, turn on the radio or television, log on to the Internet, or simply open our eyes and look around, we are confronted with all sorts of evidence confirming ever-present religious intolerance, which certainly raises red flags concerning the age-old perennial idea of the oneness of all religious traditions. If this were the case, we would not have wars fought over religion, hate crimes against members of other faiths, discrimination, and so on. Instead, we would all gather together holding hands to dance happily around the campfire. It is all too easy to ignore differences at the expense of claiming some sort of illusory oneness that unites human beings across, racial, national, ethnic, and linguistic lines. There still are some people in the world who advocate a liberal outlook on the interaction and interpenetration of religions. × Indeed the practices of a Roman Catholic parishioner in the Philippines or Sri Lanka might seem as alien to an Italian or American Catholic as an obscure ritual originating in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Yet thankfully there still are some people in the world who advocate a liberal outlook on the interaction and interpenetration of religions. India, for example, has seen its fair share of communal violence over the centuries, especially since the painful years of the Partition that led to the division of Bharat into two modern nation-states based precisely on religious orientation. Much of that animosity continues today on all sides of the Indian border and recent atrocities against the Muslim Rohingya in Buddhist Myanmar remind us that intolerance more often than not flares up into mass violence on unprecedented scales. Amidst the almost daily accounts of religious tension and conflict echoing throughout South Asia, it is sobering to escape the constant attack on the senses experienced in South Asian cities and retreat to the countryside, where life slows down just enough to become quiet and even tranquil at times. Roughly ninety kilometres south of Kolkata, lies a small, almost unnoticeable village called Naya, which is located in Medinipur District, West Bengal. I first went there in 2001, just a few months after the terrible attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. There, in the middle of rice paddy fields, along a pockmarked asphalt road with a tea stall on each side, my overcrowded bus stopped. I met Gurupada Chitrakar, a member of a community known as Patuas because they paint pats, narrative scrolls that tell stories about ancient lore located in the Hindu epics and Puranas. × I alighted and immediately met Gurupada Chitrakar, a member of a community known as Patuas because they paint pats, narrative scrolls that tell stories about ancient lore located in the Hindu epics and Puranas, but also some about Sufi saints. These have been supplemented in recent decades by narratives about secular topics, such as ecological issues, environmental tragedies, and the pros and cons of globalisation. Indeed, they now dare sing about once-taboo topics such as HIV/AIDS and dowry death. They even sing about 9/11, the late Osama Bin Laden, and other such pertinent matters of global import. Gurupada became my guide, as I pursued my studies of this remarkable community during a Fulbright Fellowship year in 2004-2005, which resulted in a museum exhibition held during 2006 in the United States and my illustrated book titled Village of Painters that accompanied the display of scrolls that I organised at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Gurupada introduced me to his teacher, the “guru” of the village whose poetic name was Dukhushyam Chitrakar, an individual who looked virtually twice his age but nevertheless beamed with charismatic authority. I spent many hours drinking tea and smoking bidies with him, as he told me about the Patuas’ unique position betwixt and between Hindus and Muslims, among whom his scroll-painting community lived side by side. According to Dukhushyam, they are “na Hindu na Musalman,” neither Hindu nor Muslim. Instead, they inhabit a perpetual position between the two communities, acting as sorts of mediators between the two. I continuously learned about how they respected the customs of both Hindus and Muslims in their daily lives, respecting both mosque and temple. When communal violence would flare up, they would immediately take up the cause of tolerance. The best example of this that I encountered during my many stays in the village was their collective stance on the violence that surrounded the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. We are the human race, one mother’s offspring. Hindus and Muslims we’re all brothers, brothers. × Gurupada Chitrakar sang me the following song he composed to go along with the unravelling of a scroll about the tragic incident that pitted Hindus and Muslims against each other, mostly motivated by political concerns. The song that I have translated literally from Bengali into English here goes like this: We are the human race, one mother’s offspring. We are the human race, one mother’s offspring. Some of us became Hindus. Again, some became Muslims. One mother’s offspring. Adam’s wife became pregnant. Sabil and Kabil took birth. Sabil and Kabil took birth. Those two brothers took two religions. Those two brothers took two religions. Look, look, there is proof in the scriptures! One mother’s offspring. We are the human race, one mother’s offspring. Marang Burung, say the Santals. And again the Christians say, they say God. And again the Christians say, they say God. Again, those Muslims say Allah. Again, those Muslims say Allah. Hindus say Bhagavan. One mother’s offspring. We are the human race, one mother’s offspring. Usurping religion, politics wanders from place to place. Abandoning all that, sir, everyone live in harmony. Abandoning all that, sir, everyone live in harmony. In the name of religion, fighting and killing place after place. Abandoning all that, sir, everyone live in harmony. That which is God (ishvar), is nature (prakriti) itself. Today, though, science is giving proof. One mother’s offspring. We are the human race, one mother’s offspring. Hindus and Muslims we’re all brothers, brothers. But aside from human nature there is no other actual religion. But aside from human nature there is no other actual religion. How could we fight with these brothers, brothers. We, that is, how could we fight with these brothers, brothers. We are the human race, one mother’s offspring. That’s why, everyone get together and worry. Destroy this animosity encompassing castes. That’s why we should all get together and move forward. Destroy this caste animosity. Lets’ go, we’ll all say it together. We’ll all say the slogan. One mother’s offspring. We are the human race, one mother’s offspring. The clever reference to the Adam and Eve creation story shared by the Abrahamic faiths here serves as a perfect vehicle to bring Hindus and Muslims together into the same parivar (family). By claiming that Hindus and Muslims both descended from Cain and Able (Qabil and Sabil in Arabic), Gurupada urges us to be sensible and humanistic; otherwise, we would be just like lower simians. “How can one attack and kill one’s own brother or sexually violate one’s own sister,” he asked me? Gurupada and his extended Patua clan have a point. We are, indeed “one mother’s offspring,” ek mayer santan in Bengali, and could learn much from this simple wisdom. Feuding like the legendary Hatfields and McCoys of American folklore flies in the face of civility. Let’s all remember our common source of humanity, and when spurred by anger to lash out at others who do not necessarily share our personal worldview, recall Gurupada’s chant: One mother’s offspring. (Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity). Image Credit: Frank J. Korom

Opinion: Religious tolerance in an age of intolerance

President Ram Nath Kovind said today that it was critical not to disturb the fraternity of separation of powers and maintain a &quot;delicate balance&quot; while exploring the relationship between the judiciary, the executive, and the legislature as they are all equal. The three organs of the state should be conscious of their liberty and strive to protect their autonomy, he said.

However, they should be careful about not disturbing the fraternity of separation of powers &quot;by even unknowingly intruding into the domain of either of the two other branches&quot;, the president said.

&quot;It is critical to keep this intricate and delicate balance in mind when exploring the relationship between the three branches of the state - that is, the judiciary, the legislature and the executive. They are all equal,&quot; Kovind said while inaugurating the function organised by the Supreme Court here to celebrate the Constitution Day.

He said the Constitution is &quot;not static but is a living document&quot; and the sobriety and discretion in communication between these three branches of the state is extremely advisable.

&quot;This will promote and enhance fraternity between three equal branches of the state, all of which have a certain responsibility to the Constitution. It will also reassure the ordinary citizen that the Constitution is safe - and in mature hands,&quot; the president said.

He also emphasised that high courts across the country need to take up the task of quickly providing certified translated copies of judgements to the litigants in local and regional languages.

&quot;Even the hearings in court, if possible, have to be in a language that is understandable to the ordinary litigant. The process of case disposal too has to be made faster,&quot; he said.

The president also said that it was upon the higher judiciary to mentor and encourage the lower judiciary and in this process, the cooperation of state governments was very much necessary.

He said it was for the state governments to ensure that the judges of the district and subordinate courts were not denied their due perquisites and facilities and high courts should urge the subordinate courts to be more efficient and conclude cases faster.

&quot;I am glad to note, some high courts are taking steps in these directions. As of June 30, 2017, there were about 76,000 old cases, pending for five years or more, in sessions and district courts under the High Court of Jharkhand. The High Court has set a target of March 31, 2018, to dispose off almost half these cases,&quot; he said.

He also referred to the initiative of the Chhattisgarh High Court in setting a deadline of April 30, 2018, for the subordinate courts to dispose off cases pending for over 10 years and September 30 next year deadline for disposing cases pending for between five and 10 years.

&quot;The High Court of Chhattisgarh has also started to make provision for availability of Hindi versions of judgements and orders. I commend these initiatives. I am sure other high courts are also moving ahead with a similar sense of public service,&quot; Kovind said.

He said that Constitution is not just an abstract ideal and it has to be made meaningful to the lives of ordinary people in every street, every village and every &#39;mohalla&#39; of the country.

Delivering a lecture on &#39;constitutional value&#39; at the function, former Chief Justice of India R C Lahoti referred to the historical events related to framing of the Constitution.

He said that the Constitution is the &quot;religion of all the religions&quot;.

Referring to the judiciary, the ex-CJI said that while other organs of the state may afford to fail and falter, the judiciary cannot &quot;afford to fail&quot;.

However, he also had a word of caution for the judiciary and said that it should not take upon the role of the executive and the legislature while discharging judicial functions as a &quot;judge is always on trial&quot;.

President Ram Nath Kovind said that the Constitution was the 'religion of all religions', while inaugurating the function organized by the Supreme Court

President Ram Nath Kovind said today that it was critical not to disturb the fraternity of separation of powers and maintain a "delicate balance" while exploring the relationship between the judiciary, the executive, and the legislature as they are all equal. The three organs of the state should be conscious of their liberty and strive to protect their autonomy, he said. However, they should be careful about not disturbing the fraternity of separation of powers "by even unknowingly intruding into the domain of either of the two other branches", the president said. "It is critical to keep this intricate and delicate balance in mind when exploring the relationship between the three branches of the state - that is, the judiciary, the legislature and the executive. They are all equal," Kovind said while inaugurating the function organised by the Supreme Court here to celebrate the Constitution Day. He said the Constitution is "not static but is a living document" and the sobriety and discretion in communication between these three branches of the state is extremely advisable. "This will promote and enhance fraternity between three equal branches of the state, all of which have a certain responsibility to the Constitution. It will also reassure the ordinary citizen that the Constitution is safe - and in mature hands," the president said. He also emphasised that high courts across the country need to take up the task of quickly providing certified translated copies of judgements to the litigants in local and regional languages. "Even the hearings in court, if possible, have to be in a language that is understandable to the ordinary litigant. The process of case disposal too has to be made faster," he said. The president also said that it was upon the higher judiciary to mentor and encourage the lower judiciary and in this process, the cooperation of state governments was very much necessary. He said it was for the state governments to ensure that the judges of the district and subordinate courts were not denied their due perquisites and facilities and high courts should urge the subordinate courts to be more efficient and conclude cases faster. "I am glad to note, some high courts are taking steps in these directions. As of June 30, 2017, there were about 76,000 old cases, pending for five years or more, in sessions and district courts under the High Court of Jharkhand. The High Court has set a target of March 31, 2018, to dispose off almost half these cases," he said. He also referred to the initiative of the Chhattisgarh High Court in setting a deadline of April 30, 2018, for the subordinate courts to dispose off cases pending for over 10 years and September 30 next year deadline for disposing cases pending for between five and 10 years. "The High Court of Chhattisgarh has also started to make provision for availability of Hindi versions of judgements and orders. I commend these initiatives. I am sure other high courts are also moving ahead with a similar sense of public service," Kovind said. He said that Constitution is not just an abstract ideal and it has to be made meaningful to the lives of ordinary people in every street, every village and every 'mohalla' of the country. Delivering a lecture on 'constitutional value' at the function, former Chief Justice of India R C Lahoti referred to the historical events related to framing of the Constitution. He said that the Constitution is the "religion of all the religions". Referring to the judiciary, the ex-CJI said that while other organs of the state may afford to fail and falter, the judiciary cannot "afford to fail". However, he also had a word of caution for the judiciary and said that it should not take upon the role of the executive and the legislature while discharging judicial functions as a "judge is always on trial".

Critical not to disturb the fraternity of separation of powers: Ram Nath Kovind on Constitution Day

Fewer Americans may be asking for God&rsquo;s blessing of their Thanksgiving meal this year.

Religious participation is declining among Americans even though religion is still very popular. According to the latest Religious Landscape Study by the Pew Research Forum, the percentage of Americans who believe in God, attend religious services and pray daily has declined significantly during the last eight years, especially among adolescents. The drop in religious participation is larger among whites and less among blacks. One group bucking the trend is political conservatives, who show no decline.

The Pew surveys document the rise in secularism but don&rsquo;t attempt to explain it.

Psychologist Jean Twenge and her colleagues have cited a rise in narcissism and self-centeredness among young people, but in truth, there is no hard data scientifically linking narcissism to the decline in religious participation.

Could something else be behind this important shift?

As a researcher who has spent 30 years studying human motivation, I believe we embrace or reject religion based on our values. I see four possible psychological reasons for the recent rise in secularism in America based on decades of studying what makes people tick.

Surveying 100,000 people

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false"><img alt="" draggable="false" src="http://s.wionews.com/photos/image-20151123-18271-9b6ncl-20171121110132.jpg" />
<div class="media-description">
Up or down? (Others)
</div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="javascript:void(0)" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

Decades ago, we began by creating a list of every possible goal or motive we could think of. We then asked people to rate the extent to which each goal motivated them. The respondents indicated how much they love to learn, for example, play sports or do things their way. We have surveyed about 100,000 people from many cultures in North America, Europe and Asia.

As described in my book Who Am I?: The 16 Basic Desires That Motivate Our Behavior and Define Our Personality, we discovered that humans share 16 basic desires.

They are&nbsp;acceptance, curiosity, eating, family, honour, idealism, independence, order, physical activity, power, romance, saving, social contact, status, tranquillity and vengeance.

My colleagues and I now believe that everything that moves us &ndash; all human motives &ndash; express one or more of these 16 basic desires.

For the past 10 years, we have been learning how these desires play out in religion and spirituality. In my latest book, The 16 Strivings for God: The New Psychology of Religious Experience, I suggest that virtually every religious belief and practice expresses one of the 16 basic desires, or two or more of them acting together. Your most important desires may be curiosity and social contact, for example, but your partner&rsquo;s most important needs may be acceptance and order.

We have a choice of satisfying our desires through religion and spirituality or through secular institutions. The believer may satisfy his or her need for acceptance by embracing God-as-savior, whereas the nonbeliever might embrace, say, positive psychology. The believer may satisfy a need for status by embracing the idea of having been created by God, whereas the nonbeliever might pursue wealth and materialism to feel important.

Religion rises and falls in popularity depending on how well it satisfies our needs versus the secular alternatives. Viewed in this light, four major shifts in secular culture may be behind the decline in religious affiliation.

1. Organised religion versus spirituality

Philosopher William James, whom some consider the &ldquo;Father of American psychology,&rdquo; and psychiatrist Carl Jung, who developed the idea of the extrovert and introvert, were among those who embraced mysticism, or a sense of the Absolute but had little use for organised religion. James taught us to search for the mystical, personal God that meets our needs as individuals. Jung wrote that organised religion gets in the way of the true religious encounter. 
Historically, mysticism &ndash; or what some call &ldquo;spirituality&rdquo; &ndash; has been associated with disinterest in organised religion.

More Americans than ever are saying that they are &ldquo;spiritual, but not religious.&rdquo; In the 2012 survey by the Pew Religion and Public Life Project, nearly a fifth of those polled said that they were not religiously affiliated. That number has increased to 23 per cent in the latest study.

People seem to be shifting their search for meaning by looking within rather than to the heavens. This may be motivating a decline of interest in organised religion.

2. Tribalism versus humanitarianism

A common way of honouring one&rsquo;s ancestors is to embrace their moral code and religion. Historically, loyalty to the tribe and clan has motivated participation in organised religion. Freud called attention to the tribal roots of religion in his essay Totem and Taboo. 
French sociologist and philosopher Emile Durkheim observed the role of religion in communal bonding.

The global economy may have significantly increased social contact among people from different cultures and religions. As we learn the similarities of people everywhere, I suggest that many of us may be less inclined to think of people as Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jews, and more inclined toward thinking of people of faith as similar regardless of religious affiliation.

Globalism may be driving a rise in interest in interfaith activities. As we relate more to people globally, we may realise as never before that ours is not the only true religion.

3. Traditional versus nontraditional families

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false"><img alt="" draggable="false" src="http://s.wionews.com/photos/image-20151120-439-e7exab-20171121110244.jpg" />
<div class="media-description">
Thanksgiving prayer. (Others)
</div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="javascript:void(0)" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

Historically, organised religions have relied heavily on the family to raise religious children and recruit new church members. Today we have a major restructuring of the family, with fewer than half of US kids living in a traditional family. This change in family structure may be responsible for less successful religious training and recruitment of young people. 
Organised religion may put forth myths and symbols less relevant to children growing up in nontraditional families versus traditional ones.

The Bible, for example, does not address children of divorced parents. These children may feel uncomfortable with certain religious teachings, such as God&rsquo;s disapproval of divorce. They may think God disapproves of their parents or them.

4. Trust versus loss of confidence in institutions

The internet has given us unprecedented access to information about our institutions, many times exposing their darker sides.

As we learn more about our society and its institutions, we sometimes become painfully aware of hypocrisy and scandal. That may be one important reason that confidence in many of our institutions, from business to schools to government, is below historical norms.

Confidence in religion, in particular, is at an all-time low, partly because of religious scandals in the Catholic Church and elsewhere. Such scandals encourage cynicism among many observers regardless of their religious affiliation. Interestingly, the confidence of Catholics seems least affected.

I believe these four factors have played a role in making organised religion less adept at meeting people&rsquo;s basic desires. That doesn&rsquo;t mean this will always be so. Religion may change and adapt &ndash; as it has before &ndash; to better meet our basic human needs.

Whether it will remain&nbsp;an open question.

This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" rel="nofollow" target="blank">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/giving-thanks-but-to-whom-fewer-americans-embrace-organized-religion-51079" rel="nofollow" target="blank">original article</a>.

(Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Twenty-three percent of Americans say they are not religiously affiliated. Our core values may be encouraging us to reject organised religion

Fewer Americans may be asking for God’s blessing of their Thanksgiving meal this year. Religious participation is declining among Americans even though religion is still very popular. According to the latest Religious Landscape Study by the Pew Research Forum, the percentage of Americans who believe in God, attend religious services and pray daily has declined significantly during the last eight years, especially among adolescents. The drop in religious participation is larger among whites and less among blacks. One group bucking the trend is political conservatives, who show no decline. The Pew surveys document the rise in secularism but don’t attempt to explain it. Psychologist Jean Twenge and her colleagues have cited a rise in narcissism and self-centeredness among young people, but in truth, there is no hard data scientifically linking narcissism to the decline in religious participation. Could something else be behind this important shift? As a researcher who has spent 30 years studying human motivation, I believe we embrace or reject religion based on our values. I see four possible psychological reasons for the recent rise in secularism in America based on decades of studying what makes people tick. Surveying 100,000 people Up or down? (Others) × Decades ago, we began by creating a list of every possible goal or motive we could think of. We then asked people to rate the extent to which each goal motivated them. The respondents indicated how much they love to learn, for example, play sports or do things their way. We have surveyed about 100,000 people from many cultures in North America, Europe and Asia. As described in my book Who Am I?: The 16 Basic Desires That Motivate Our Behavior and Define Our Personality, we discovered that humans share 16 basic desires. They are acceptance, curiosity, eating, family, honour, idealism, independence, order, physical activity, power, romance, saving, social contact, status, tranquillity and vengeance. My colleagues and I now believe that everything that moves us – all human motives – express one or more of these 16 basic desires. For the past 10 years, we have been learning how these desires play out in religion and spirituality. In my latest book, The 16 Strivings for God: The New Psychology of Religious Experience, I suggest that virtually every religious belief and practice expresses one of the 16 basic desires, or two or more of them acting together. Your most important desires may be curiosity and social contact, for example, but your partner’s most important needs may be acceptance and order. We have a choice of satisfying our desires through religion and spirituality or through secular institutions. The believer may satisfy his or her need for acceptance by embracing God-as-savior, whereas the nonbeliever might embrace, say, positive psychology. The believer may satisfy a need for status by embracing the idea of having been created by God, whereas the nonbeliever might pursue wealth and materialism to feel important. Religion rises and falls in popularity depending on how well it satisfies our needs versus the secular alternatives. Viewed in this light, four major shifts in secular culture may be behind the decline in religious affiliation. 1. Organised religion versus spirituality Philosopher William James, whom some consider the “Father of American psychology,” and psychiatrist Carl Jung, who developed the idea of the extrovert and introvert, were among those who embraced mysticism, or a sense of the Absolute but had little use for organised religion. James taught us to search for the mystical, personal God that meets our needs as individuals. Jung wrote that organised religion gets in the way of the true religious encounter. Historically, mysticism – or what some call “spirituality” – has been associated with disinterest in organised religion. More Americans than ever are saying that they are “spiritual, but not religious.” In the 2012 survey by the Pew Religion and Public Life Project, nearly a fifth of those polled said that they were not religiously affiliated. That number has increased to 23 per cent in the latest study. People seem to be shifting their search for meaning by looking within rather than to the heavens. This may be motivating a decline of interest in organised religion. 2. Tribalism versus humanitarianism A common way of honouring one’s ancestors is to embrace their moral code and religion. Historically, loyalty to the tribe and clan has motivated participation in organised religion. Freud called attention to the tribal roots of religion in his essay Totem and Taboo. French sociologist and philosopher Emile Durkheim observed the role of religion in communal bonding. The global economy may have significantly increased social contact among people from different cultures and religions. As we learn the similarities of people everywhere, I suggest that many of us may be less inclined to think of people as Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jews, and more inclined toward thinking of people of faith as similar regardless of religious affiliation. Globalism may be driving a rise in interest in interfaith activities. As we relate more to people globally, we may realise as never before that ours is not the only true religion. 3. Traditional versus nontraditional families Thanksgiving prayer. (Others) × Historically, organised religions have relied heavily on the family to raise religious children and recruit new church members. Today we have a major restructuring of the family, with fewer than half of US kids living in a traditional family. This change in family structure may be responsible for less successful religious training and recruitment of young people. Organised religion may put forth myths and symbols less relevant to children growing up in nontraditional families versus traditional ones. The Bible, for example, does not address children of divorced parents. These children may feel uncomfortable with certain religious teachings, such as God’s disapproval of divorce. They may think God disapproves of their parents or them. 4. Trust versus loss of confidence in institutions The internet has given us unprecedented access to information about our institutions, many times exposing their darker sides. As we learn more about our society and its institutions, we sometimes become painfully aware of hypocrisy and scandal. That may be one important reason that confidence in many of our institutions, from business to schools to government, is below historical norms. Confidence in religion, in particular, is at an all-time low, partly because of religious scandals in the Catholic Church and elsewhere. Such scandals encourage cynicism among many observers regardless of their religious affiliation. Interestingly, the confidence of Catholics seems least affected. I believe these four factors have played a role in making organised religion less adept at meeting people’s basic desires. That doesn’t mean this will always be so. Religion may change and adapt – as it has before – to better meet our basic human needs. Whether it will remain an open question. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. (Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Opinion: Fewer Americans believe in God on Thanksgiving

The United Nations Security Council will hold an urgent meeting to discuss violence churning through western Myanmar, after the UN&#39;s rights chief warned that &quot;ethnic cleansing&quot; appeared to have driven over 300,000 Rohingya Muslims from the country.

Rakhine State was plunged into crisis after Rohingya militants attacked police posts in late August, prompting a military backlash that has sent nearly a third of the Muslim minority population fleeing to Bangladesh.

Exhausted Rohingya refugees have told stories of running from soldiers and Buddhist mobs who burned their villages to the ground and killed civilians indiscriminantly, while the government blames militants for the arson.

International pressure tightened on Myanmar&#39;s government Monday, as United Nations rights chief Zeid Ra&#39;ad Al Hussein said the violence seemed to be a &quot;textbook example of ethnic cleansing&quot;.

Hours after the warning, the Security Council announced it would meet Wednesday to discuss the crisis, which has heaped global opprobrium on Myanmar&#39;s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

A Nobel peace laureate, Suu Kyi is the focal point of anger from rights groups and a stream of fellow Nobel laureates for her failure to speak up for the Rohingya minority, who are denied citizenship and have suffered years of persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Late Monday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which she heads, said Myanmar &quot;welcomes the statements issued by the United Nations and a number of countries firmly condemning the terrorist attacks,&quot; without referencing the UN&#39;s charge of ethnic cleansing.

The statement also defended the military&#39;s operations as part of their &quot;legitimate duty to restore stability&quot;, saying troops were under orders &quot;to exercise all due restraint, and to take full measures to avoid collateral damage.&quot;

Britain and Sweden requested the urgent UNSC meeting amid growing international concern over the ongoing violence.

UN diplomats have said China, one of Myanmar&#39;s top trade partners, has been resisting involvement by the top UN council in addressing the crisis.

The announcement came after the White House broke its silence on the clashes, saying it was &quot;deeply troubled&quot; by attacks by both sides, including the militant ambushes in Rakhine.

Blame game

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has said the latest violence may have left more than 1,000 dead, most of them Rohingya.

Myanmar says the number of dead is around 430, the majority of them &quot;extremist terrorists&quot;.

It says a further 30,000 ethnic Rakhine and Hindus have been displaced inside northern Rakhine, where aid programs have been severely curtailed due to the violence.

The exodus of Rohingya, which so far tops 313,000 refugees, has saddled Bangladesh with its own humanitarian crisis, as aid workers scramble to provide food and shelter to a daily stream of bedraggled refugees.

The UN-run refugee camps in its Cox&#39;s Bazar district were already packed with Rohingya who had fled from previous waves of persecution.

Most of the new arrivals are in dire need of food, medical care and shelter after trekking for days through hills and jungles or braving dangerous boat journeys.

Dhaka is providing them temporary shelter.&nbsp;

But Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was due to visit a Rohingya camp on Tuesday, stressed it was up to Myanmar to &quot;resolve&quot; the issue.

&quot;Rohingyas are Myanmar&#39;s citizens. Now they are snatching their citizenship away in phases and forcing them out of the country,&quot; she told lawmakers on Monday night, according to local outlet bdnews24.com.

Earlier in the week Myanmar&#39;s army chief reiterated the stance of his powerful institution on the Rohingya question in a Facebook post, denying the group have ancestry inside Myanmar.

Although many Rohingya have lived in Rakhine for generations, the 1.1-million strong minority was stripped of its citizenship in 1982 by a law that did not recognise the group as an official ethnicity.

The Rohingya&#39;s failure to be &quot;scrutinised&quot; by this law is &quot;the root cause of the current problem,&quot; the army chief&#39;s post said.

&quot;The term &quot;Rohingya&quot; was not present in the country&#39;s history,&quot; the post added, a refrain often trotted out by ethnic Rakhine and Buddhist nationalists who insist on calling the Rohingya &quot;Bengalis&quot; -- or foreign interlopers.

Hatred of the Muslim minority has swelled in recent years, with Buddhist hardliners fanning fears of an Islamic takeover.&nbsp;

The latest violence has tweaked religious tensions across the country, with different ethnic groups trading allegations of who is behind the atrocities.

Dhaka, which has refused to permanently absorb the Rohingya, said it plans to build a huge new camp that will house a quarter of a million refugees.

But it remains unclear if or when they will be able to return.

Plumes of smoke continued to rise on the Myanmar side of the border this week despite the militants&#39; announcement on Sunday of a unilateral ceasefire.&nbsp;

There was no direct response from Myanmar&#39;s military, though government spokesman Zaw Htay tweeted: &quot;We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists.&quot;

Rakhine State was plunged into crisis after Rohingya militants attacked police posts in late August, prompting a military backlash that has sent nearly a third of the Muslim minority population fleeing to Bangladesh.

The United Nations Security Council will hold an urgent meeting to discuss violence churning through western Myanmar, after the UN's rights chief warned that "ethnic cleansing" appeared to have driven over 300,000 Rohingya Muslims from the country. Rakhine State was plunged into crisis after Rohingya militants attacked police posts in late August, prompting a military backlash that has sent nearly a third of the Muslim minority population fleeing to Bangladesh. Exhausted Rohingya refugees have told stories of running from soldiers and Buddhist mobs who burned their villages to the ground and killed civilians indiscriminantly, while the government blames militants for the arson. International pressure tightened on Myanmar's government Monday, as United Nations rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said the violence seemed to be a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing". Hours after the warning, the Security Council announced it would meet Wednesday to discuss the crisis, which has heaped global opprobrium on Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. A Nobel peace laureate, Suu Kyi is the focal point of anger from rights groups and a stream of fellow Nobel laureates for her failure to speak up for the Rohingya minority, who are denied citizenship and have suffered years of persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Late Monday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which she heads, said Myanmar "welcomes the statements issued by the United Nations and a number of countries firmly condemning the terrorist attacks," without referencing the UN's charge of ethnic cleansing. The statement also defended the military's operations as part of their "legitimate duty to restore stability", saying troops were under orders "to exercise all due restraint, and to take full measures to avoid collateral damage." Britain and Sweden requested the urgent UNSC meeting amid growing international concern over the ongoing violence. UN diplomats have said China, one of Myanmar's top trade partners, has been resisting involvement by the top UN council in addressing the crisis. The announcement came after the White House broke its silence on the clashes, saying it was "deeply troubled" by attacks by both sides, including the militant ambushes in Rakhine. Blame game The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has said the latest violence may have left more than 1,000 dead, most of them Rohingya. Myanmar says the number of dead is around 430, the majority of them "extremist terrorists". It says a further 30,000 ethnic Rakhine and Hindus have been displaced inside northern Rakhine, where aid programs have been severely curtailed due to the violence. The exodus of Rohingya, which so far tops 313,000 refugees, has saddled Bangladesh with its own humanitarian crisis, as aid workers scramble to provide food and shelter to a daily stream of bedraggled refugees. The UN-run refugee camps in its Cox's Bazar district were already packed with Rohingya who had fled from previous waves of persecution. Most of the new arrivals are in dire need of food, medical care and shelter after trekking for days through hills and jungles or braving dangerous boat journeys. Dhaka is providing them temporary shelter. But Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was due to visit a Rohingya camp on Tuesday, stressed it was up to Myanmar to "resolve" the issue. "Rohingyas are Myanmar's citizens. Now they are snatching their citizenship away in phases and forcing them out of the country," she told lawmakers on Monday night, according to local outlet bdnews24.com. Earlier in the week Myanmar's army chief reiterated the stance of his powerful institution on the Rohingya question in a Facebook post, denying the group have ancestry inside Myanmar. Although many Rohingya have lived in Rakhine for generations, the 1.1-million strong minority was stripped of its citizenship in 1982 by a law that did not recognise the group as an official ethnicity. The Rohingya's failure to be "scrutinised" by this law is "the root cause of the current problem," the army chief's post said. "The term "Rohingya" was not present in the country's history," the post added, a refrain often trotted out by ethnic Rakhine and Buddhist nationalists who insist on calling the Rohingya "Bengalis" -- or foreign interlopers. Hatred of the Muslim minority has swelled in recent years, with Buddhist hardliners fanning fears of an Islamic takeover. The latest violence has tweaked religious tensions across the country, with different ethnic groups trading allegations of who is behind the atrocities. Dhaka, which has refused to permanently absorb the Rohingya, said it plans to build a huge new camp that will house a quarter of a million refugees. But it remains unclear if or when they will be able to return. Plumes of smoke continued to rise on the Myanmar side of the border this week despite the militants' announcement on Sunday of a unilateral ceasefire. There was no direct response from Myanmar's military, though government spokesman Zaw Htay tweeted: "We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists."

UN to discuss Myanmar after Rohingya 'ethnic cleansing' claim

Historically, the universities in India have reproduced hegemonic social values and perpetuated social hierarchies. Yet, on its margins, university and college campuses provide spaces where the young minds can get exposed to a multiplicity of perspectives &minus; including oppositional and counter-hegemonic perspectives &minus; on various social, cultural and political issues. This makes universities a contradictory space.

Much more than classroom learning, the broadening of the horizons of critical thinking happens outside the classroom through activities like seminars, theatre, film and documentary screening, and participation in political activities. Most of the times, the political content of these activities is not to the liking of the votaries of the Hindutva. Alongside, in recent times, the university campuses have also seen the political assertion of historical oppressed identities that provide a powerful challenge to the established social hierarchies. This happened partly due to the changing demographic composition of the university students in the last couple of decades due to the constitutionally mandated socially inclusive policies.

For example, in many university campuses a movement like Pinjra Tod has been gaining popularity in last couple of years. Pinjra Tod began as a movement against oppressive hostel rules curtailing women students&rsquo; freedom of movement, but now has become a movement taking up many issues concerning women students. There are also events and activities around the issues of gay and queer rights and expressions. Both these movements have become sources of paranoia and anxiety for the culture of masculinity that Hindu nationalism has always promoted.

Then there is the emphatic assertion of dalit-bahujan politics on college and university campus that challenges and inverts Hinduism&rsquo;s religious myths, as we saw in the controversy around the celebration of Mahishasur on the JNU campus. In addition, There are also left ideological groups active in various campuses, which, in their own ways, continuously challenge the narratives of culture, politics and economy promoted by Hindutva politics and present strong counter-narratives of their own. They often organise programmes related to human rights record of the Indian state; in the process raising isuues related to Kashmir, Bastar, AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act), the displacements of people by various development projects.

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<h5>The right wing groups try to control the debate in the public sphere by presenting it as nationalism versus freedom of speech, as if there is a necessary contradiction between the two</h5>
</blockquote>
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&nbsp;

All these activities cause serious paranoia and fear among Hindutva groups. Unwilling or unable to respond to all these political challenges, the ABVP has often resorted to violent means in recent past. One strategy that is frequently used by the ABVP for justifying its violence or threats of violence against groups and activities it doesn&rsquo;t approve of is of naming them &lsquo;anti-national&rsquo; or &lsquo;anti-Hindu.&rsquo; The artificial binary of nationalism-&lsquo;anti-national&rsquo; works well for them as a strategy as it puts the opponents on the defensive. In this way, in most such cases, the right wing groups try to control the debate in the public sphere by presenting it as nationalism versus freedom of speech, as if there is a necessary contradiction between the two, wherein the latter faces its ultimate limit at the frontier of nationalism. In this construction of a binary between the two, it is largely forgotten that nation is a continuously changing entity and the limits and scope of the freedom of citizens can never be fixed at any given point in time. Thus it is either outright stupid or a willful pretense of ignorance to say that words like azadi/freedom used in students&rsquo; slogans can only mean advocacy of secessionism.

Nations and nationalism cannot forever limit the possibilities inherent in human freedom and human becoming. The actually existing relation between nationalism and the rights of citizens at any given point defines what kind of nationalism should be acceptable. It is only in the extremely oppressive and claustrophobic version of Hindutva nationalism that citizens&rsquo; freedoms are sought be continuously limited and constricted. But it would be wrong to frame the debate over rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution in the narrow liberal framework of a defence of abstract formal rights of individuals or groups. The freedom of speech should be taken as the very precondition on which depend the possibility of politics as an instrument of social and cultural transformation as well as an enabling condition for the contest over the definition, form and content of nationhood. Thus, another important part of the same strategy of the right-wing groups is to continuously keep invoking the spectre of external and internal enemies threatening the nation, thereby reducing politics to the question of unity of the nation against enemies.

&nbsp;

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<h5>For right-wing groups, the obsessive invocation of the unity against external enemy is nothing but a strategy of perpetuating existing social hierarchies and dominance</h5>
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&nbsp;

In this way, right-wing politics, in India and everywhere else, tends to divert attention away from the issues of social divisions, dominance, hegemony and oppressions within the nation. The democratic politics, on the other hand, brings these into view and makes possible the articulation of counter-hegemonic struggles. Thus, for right-wing groups, the obsessive invocation of the unity against external enemy is nothing but a strategy of perpetuating existing social hierarchies and dominance. The democratic political contest continuously keeps the internal social composition of the nation open to question and transformation through counter-hegemonic struggles.

The debate or clash, then, is really between various possibilities of collective national existence. Why can&rsquo;t, for instance, we ask for a more federal India wherein the states have much more power than in the existing constitutional arrangement? Is that also anti-national? Because of its extremely oppressive and dark record of nationalism in the last century, particularly in the inter-War years, but also in the 1990s, nation as a desirable form of political community is being questioned in the contemporary political-theoretical discourse all around the world. The argument that its best defenders put forward in its defense is that it is the only viable form of political community that can secure and guarantee a framework of universal rights. However, nationalisms that continuously threaten to limit the scope of rights and freedoms are recipes for totalitarianism.

The question of freedom of speech and expression in India should be considered in its multiple aspects. One is its formal-legal aspect as a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution. The other aspect is political. To what extent this right can be exercised in different situations depends on the balance of political forces on the ground. Historically, in the continuously evolving political culture of democracy in India, the value of individual rights and freedoms is yet to take deep enough roots for it to have a prominent place in this culture. In any case not all freedoms are protected equally. For instance the freedom to criticise and raise voice against caste and gender based oppressions does not find protection on the ground in most situations.

The most disturbing part of the political culture of democracy in India is that, not only the executive organs of the state like police and administration, but also the political parties &ndash; an essential component of any modern democracy &ndash; have not shown the willingness to take a stand for the defence of individual rights. And there is no exception to this, including the record of the left parties in West Bengal and Kerala.

Yet, there are reasons why it can be argued that, with respect of protection of rights of individual freedom and of autonomy of academic institutions, the BJP, as a political party, now the party in power, is different from other political parties in India because of its connection to the RSS. The RSS as a cultural organisation desires total interpretive control over culture and education. The RSS seeks to establish, as part of its agenda of Hindu rashtra, an exclusive interpretative control over the meaning of nationalism, a definition of the nation&rsquo;s culture, and also over the nation&rsquo;s past and history. This is what makes the RSS-BJP-ABVP as a combined political force far more interventionist in the academic and political spaces of universities and colleges than most other political parties, if not all.

Nationalism that continuously threatens to limit the scope of rights and freedom-- is recipe for totalitarianism

Historically, the universities in India have reproduced hegemonic social values and perpetuated social hierarchies. Yet, on its margins, university and college campuses provide spaces where the young minds can get exposed to a multiplicity of perspectives − including oppositional and counter-hegemonic perspectives − on various social, cultural and political issues. This makes universities a contradictory space. Much more than classroom learning, the broadening of the horizons of critical thinking happens outside the classroom through activities like seminars, theatre, film and documentary screening, and participation in political activities. Most of the times, the political content of these activities is not to the liking of the votaries of the Hindutva. Alongside, in recent times, the university campuses have also seen the political assertion of historical oppressed identities that provide a powerful challenge to the established social hierarchies. This happened partly due to the changing demographic composition of the university students in the last couple of decades due to the constitutionally mandated socially inclusive policies. For example, in many university campuses a movement like Pinjra Tod has been gaining popularity in last couple of years. Pinjra Tod began as a movement against oppressive hostel rules curtailing women students’ freedom of movement, but now has become a movement taking up many issues concerning women students. There are also events and activities around the issues of gay and queer rights and expressions. Both these movements have become sources of paranoia and anxiety for the culture of masculinity that Hindu nationalism has always promoted. Then there is the emphatic assertion of dalit-bahujan politics on college and university campus that challenges and inverts Hinduism’s religious myths, as we saw in the controversy around the celebration of Mahishasur on the JNU campus. In addition, There are also left ideological groups active in various campuses, which, in their own ways, continuously challenge the narratives of culture, politics and economy promoted by Hindutva politics and present strong counter-narratives of their own. They often organise programmes related to human rights record of the Indian state; in the process raising isuues related to Kashmir, Bastar, AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act), the displacements of people by various development projects. The right wing groups try to control the debate in the public sphere by presenting it as nationalism versus freedom of speech, as if there is a necessary contradiction between the two × All these activities cause serious paranoia and fear among Hindutva groups. Unwilling or unable to respond to all these political challenges, the ABVP has often resorted to violent means in recent past. One strategy that is frequently used by the ABVP for justifying its violence or threats of violence against groups and activities it doesn’t approve of is of naming them ‘anti-national’ or ‘anti-Hindu.’ The artificial binary of nationalism-‘anti-national’ works well for them as a strategy as it puts the opponents on the defensive. In this way, in most such cases, the right wing groups try to control the debate in the public sphere by presenting it as nationalism versus freedom of speech, as if there is a necessary contradiction between the two, wherein the latter faces its ultimate limit at the frontier of nationalism. In this construction of a binary between the two, it is largely forgotten that nation is a continuously changing entity and the limits and scope of the freedom of citizens can never be fixed at any given point in time. Thus it is either outright stupid or a willful pretense of ignorance to say that words like azadi/freedom used in students’ slogans can only mean advocacy of secessionism. Nations and nationalism cannot forever limit the possibilities inherent in human freedom and human becoming. The actually existing relation between nationalism and the rights of citizens at any given point defines what kind of nationalism should be acceptable. It is only in the extremely oppressive and claustrophobic version of Hindutva nationalism that citizens’ freedoms are sought be continuously limited and constricted. But it would be wrong to frame the debate over rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution in the narrow liberal framework of a defence of abstract formal rights of individuals or groups. The freedom of speech should be taken as the very precondition on which depend the possibility of politics as an instrument of social and cultural transformation as well as an enabling condition for the contest over the definition, form and content of nationhood. Thus, another important part of the same strategy of the right-wing groups is to continuously keep invoking the spectre of external and internal enemies threatening the nation, thereby reducing politics to the question of unity of the nation against enemies. For right-wing groups, the obsessive invocation of the unity against external enemy is nothing but a strategy of perpetuating existing social hierarchies and dominance × In this way, right-wing politics, in India and everywhere else, tends to divert attention away from the issues of social divisions, dominance, hegemony and oppressions within the nation. The democratic politics, on the other hand, brings these into view and makes possible the articulation of counter-hegemonic struggles. Thus, for right-wing groups, the obsessive invocation of the unity against external enemy is nothing but a strategy of perpetuating existing social hierarchies and dominance. The democratic political contest continuously keeps the internal social composition of the nation open to question and transformation through counter-hegemonic struggles. The debate or clash, then, is really between various possibilities of collective national existence. Why can’t, for instance, we ask for a more federal India wherein the states have much more power than in the existing constitutional arrangement? Is that also anti-national? Because of its extremely oppressive and dark record of nationalism in the last century, particularly in the inter-War years, but also in the 1990s, nation as a desirable form of political community is being questioned in the contemporary political-theoretical discourse all around the world. The argument that its best defenders put forward in its defense is that it is the only viable form of political community that can secure and guarantee a framework of universal rights. However, nationalisms that continuously threaten to limit the scope of rights and freedoms are recipes for totalitarianism. The question of freedom of speech and expression in India should be considered in its multiple aspects. One is its formal-legal aspect as a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution. The other aspect is political. To what extent this right can be exercised in different situations depends on the balance of political forces on the ground. Historically, in the continuously evolving political culture of democracy in India, the value of individual rights and freedoms is yet to take deep enough roots for it to have a prominent place in this culture. In any case not all freedoms are protected equally. For instance the freedom to criticise and raise voice against caste and gender based oppressions does not find protection on the ground in most situations. The most disturbing part of the political culture of democracy in India is that, not only the executive organs of the state like police and administration, but also the political parties – an essential component of any modern democracy – have not shown the willingness to take a stand for the defence of individual rights. And there is no exception to this, including the record of the left parties in West Bengal and Kerala. Yet, there are reasons why it can be argued that, with respect of protection of rights of individual freedom and of autonomy of academic institutions, the BJP, as a political party, now the party in power, is different from other political parties in India because of its connection to the RSS. The RSS as a cultural organisation desires total interpretive control over culture and education. The RSS seeks to establish, as part of its agenda of Hindu rashtra, an exclusive interpretative control over the meaning of nationalism, a definition of the nation’s culture, and also over the nation’s past and history. This is what makes the RSS-BJP-ABVP as a combined political force far more interventionist in the academic and political spaces of universities and colleges than most other political parties, if not all.

Hindutva nationalism, democracy and fear of university speech

South Asia, rich in culture and tradition, has a unique character of its own. Cohesion of ethnicity in the region, lends it some of the most absurd-sounding customs. 
 
Here are 8 such bizarre traditions you didn&#39;t know about: 
&nbsp;
<ul>
	<li>Baby tossing</li>
</ul>
Newborn babies are dropped from a 50 ft high temple in southern Indian state of Karnataka India to &quot;bring health and prosperity in their lives&quot;. 
 
Couples who are blessed with a child after taking a vow at the Shri Santeshwar temple take part in this bizarre practice every year, in the first week of December. The infants are caught by onlookers waiting with a blanket.
<div class="media-description">
<div class="media-description">&nbsp;</div>
</div>

<ul>
	<li>Deuki: Sacred slave</li>
</ul>
Deuki is a girl slave in Nepal who is offered to the local Hindu temple to gain religious merit. Historically, the girls served as temple slaves who were engaged by the priests to give sexual services to male worshippers at the temple. The tradition has been formally abolished but continues to be practiced in some villages by those who seek favour from God or sell their girl child to wealthy couples for the same. &nbsp;

<div class="media-description">
<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="http://s.wionews.com/photos/nepal%20temple-20160914080853.jpeg" />

<div class="media-description">
A Hindu temple in Nepal 
&nbsp;

<ul>
	<li>Sky burial&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Buddhists in Tibet follow a sacred ritual called Jhator or Sky burial. 
 
As the name goes, dead bodies are taken to open fields at a very high altitude, to be left behind for scavengers. The tradition looks to provide resources to earth, even after death. Sky burials have been made illegal now but it can still be observed with the permission of the family.&nbsp;
<div class="media-description">
<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="http://s.wionews.com/photos/000_mvd872391-20160914081040.jpg" />

<div class="media-description">
A flock of vultures 
&nbsp;
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<ul>
	<li>Fire walking festival&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Firewalking festival is observed in some countries like India and Sri Lanka where walking on burning embers or stones is considered to ward off evil spirits and is used as a purification ritual. Some tribes in Pakistan also use this as a justification system to prove the innocence of guilty. If the guilty walks over it without any burns, they are deemed innocent otherwise proven of guilt.&nbsp;

<div class="media-description">
<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="http://s.wionews.com/photos/thimithi-20160914080745.jpeg" />

<div class="media-description">
Thimithi festival in Sri Lanka 
&nbsp;
</div>
</div>

<ul>
	<li>Isolated labour</li>
</ul>
According to some families in Pakistan, women giving birth are considered to be impure and unclean. They are sent off to an isolated building called Bashleni to carry on with labour. Only those women who are menstruating can enter the building as they themselves are considered impure and messy.&nbsp; 
 
&nbsp;
<ul>
	<li>Love burglars&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Under Bomena,&nbsp;a traditional Bhutanese courtship ritual, boys roam during the night looking for houses where they know that girls, who are eligible for marriage, are sleeping. They then climb up the walls to the girl&rsquo;s bed. The idea is to stay the night, with her approval. 
 
In Bhutan, however, it&rsquo;s not so easy as young girls usually sleep with the entire family and any protest from her gets the boy thrown out. At present, the custom is seen as backward and laws have been enacted to stop it.
<div class="media-description">
<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="http://s.wionews.com/photos/bhutan-20160914080335.jpg" />

<div class="media-description">
Girls in the northernmost valley of Bhutan where love burglars are found 
&nbsp;
</div>
</div>

<ul>
	<li>Polyandry system</li>
</ul>
In some parts of Nepal, a woman is made to marry more than one man simultaneously. Adopted by the Himalayan region, polyandry has been continuing for many years, much to the dislike of younger generation. It&rsquo;s present in two forms: fraternal and non-fraternal. Fraternal polyandry has brothers of a generation share a wife whereas in Non-fraternal type, a group of like-minded men from different households get married to one woman.&nbsp;

<div class="media-description">
<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="http://s.wionews.com/photos/nepal%20bride-20160914080456.jpg" />

<div class="media-description">
A young Nepalese bride at the ceremony 
&nbsp;
</div>

<ul>
	<li>Marry a tree</li>
</ul>
</div>
Some girls in India are considered to be born cursed, according to astrological readings in Hindu tradition. Those born under the period when planets Mars and Saturn are both under the seventh house, are known as &#39;Mangliks&#39;. 
 
According to belief, she brings early death to her spouse and the curse can be broken only after she gets married to a tree before she ties knot with her fiance. She could also marry a clay urn.&nbsp;
<div class="media-description">
<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="http://s.wionews.com/photos/tree-20160914080609.jpg" />

<div class="media-description">
A Hindu lady praying to a tree 
&nbsp;
</div>
</div>
 
(Contributed by: Zeba Khan) 
 
&nbsp;

We live in a strange world and it promises to keep us entertained...

South Asia, rich in culture and tradition, has a unique character of its own. Cohesion of ethnicity in the region, lends it some of the most absurd-sounding customs. Here are 8 such bizarre traditions you didn't know about: Baby tossing Newborn babies are dropped from a 50 ft high temple in southern Indian state of Karnataka India to "bring health and prosperity in their lives". Couples who are blessed with a child after taking a vow at the Shri Santeshwar temple take part in this bizarre practice every year, in the first week of December. The infants are caught by onlookers waiting with a blanket. Deuki: Sacred slave Deuki is a girl slave in Nepal who is offered to the local Hindu temple to gain religious merit. Historically, the girls served as temple slaves who were engaged by the priests to give sexual services to male worshippers at the temple. The tradition has been formally abolished but continues to be practiced in some villages by those who seek favour from God or sell their girl child to wealthy couples for the same. A Hindu temple in Nepal Sky burial Buddhists in Tibet follow a sacred ritual called Jhator or Sky burial. As the name goes, dead bodies are taken to open fields at a very high altitude, to be left behind for scavengers. The tradition looks to provide resources to earth, even after death. Sky burials have been made illegal now but it can still be observed with the permission of the family. A flock of vultures Fire walking festival Firewalking festival is observed in some countries like India and Sri Lanka where walking on burning embers or stones is considered to ward off evil spirits and is used as a purification ritual. Some tribes in Pakistan also use this as a justification system to prove the innocence of guilty. If the guilty walks over it without any burns, they are deemed innocent otherwise proven of guilt. Thimithi festival in Sri Lanka Isolated labour According to some families in Pakistan, women giving birth are considered to be impure and unclean. They are sent off to an isolated building called Bashleni to carry on with labour. Only those women who are menstruating can enter the building as they themselves are considered impure and messy. Love burglars Under Bomena, a traditional Bhutanese courtship ritual, boys roam during the night looking for houses where they know that girls, who are eligible for marriage, are sleeping. They then climb up the walls to the girl’s bed. The idea is to stay the night, with her approval. In Bhutan, however, it’s not so easy as young girls usually sleep with the entire family and any protest from her gets the boy thrown out. At present, the custom is seen as backward and laws have been enacted to stop it. Girls in the northernmost valley of Bhutan where love burglars are found Polyandry system In some parts of Nepal, a woman is made to marry more than one man simultaneously. Adopted by the Himalayan region, polyandry has been continuing for many years, much to the dislike of younger generation. It’s present in two forms: fraternal and non-fraternal. Fraternal polyandry has brothers of a generation share a wife whereas in Non-fraternal type, a group of like-minded men from different households get married to one woman. A young Nepalese bride at the ceremony Marry a tree Some girls in India are considered to be born cursed, according to astrological readings in Hindu tradition. Those born under the period when planets Mars and Saturn are both under the seventh house, are known as 'Mangliks'. According to belief, she brings early death to her spouse and the curse can be broken only after she gets married to a tree before she ties knot with her fiance. She could also marry a clay urn. A Hindu lady praying to a tree (Contributed by: Zeba Khan)

8 bizarre customs practised in South Asia

Pope Francis said today that a string of recent attacks, including the murder of a priest in Normandy, France yesterday was proof that the &quot;world is at war&quot;. 
 
However, speaking to reporters aboard a plane taking him to Poland, the pope said he was not talking about a war of religion, but rather one of domination of peoples and economic interests. 
 
&quot;The word that is being repeated often is insecurity, but the real word is war,&quot; he said in brief comments to reporters while flying to southern Poland for a five-day visit. 
 
&quot;Let&#39;s recognise it. The world is in a state of war in bits and pieces,&quot; he said, adding that the attacks could be seen as another world war, specifically mentioning World War One and Two. 
 
&quot;Now there is this one (war). It is perhaps not organic but it is organised and it is war,&quot; he said. &quot;We should not be afraid to speak this truth. The world is at war because it has lost peace.&quot; 
 
About 15 minutes later, after greeting journalists individually, Francis took the microphone again and said he wanted &quot;to clarify&quot; that he was not referring to a war of religion. 
 
&quot;Not a war of religion. There is a war of interests. There is a war for money. There is a war for natural resources. There is a war for domination of peoples. This is the war,&quot; he said. 
 
&quot;All religions want peace. Others want war. Do you understand?&quot; he said. 
 
He called Jacques Hamel, the priest forced to his knees by Islamist militants on Tuesday who then slit his throat, &quot;a saintly priest&quot;, but said he was just one of many innocent victims. 
 
He thanked the many people around the world who have sent their condolences over the killing of Father Hamel, particularly French President Francois Hollande, who spoke to the Pope on Tuesday. 
 
(Reuters) 
&nbsp;

Pope insisted that he was not talking about a war of religion, but rather one of domination of peoples and economic interests

Pope Francis said today that a string of recent attacks, including the murder of a priest in Normandy, France yesterday was proof that the "world is at war". However, speaking to reporters aboard a plane taking him to Poland, the pope said he was not talking about a war of religion, but rather one of domination of peoples and economic interests. "The word that is being repeated often is insecurity, but the real word is war," he said in brief comments to reporters while flying to southern Poland for a five-day visit. "Let's recognise it. The world is in a state of war in bits and pieces," he said, adding that the attacks could be seen as another world war, specifically mentioning World War One and Two. "Now there is this one (war). It is perhaps not organic but it is organised and it is war," he said. "We should not be afraid to speak this truth. The world is at war because it has lost peace." About 15 minutes later, after greeting journalists individually, Francis took the microphone again and said he wanted "to clarify" that he was not referring to a war of religion. "Not a war of religion. There is a war of interests. There is a war for money. There is a war for natural resources. There is a war for domination of peoples. This is the war," he said. "All religions want peace. Others want war. Do you understand?" he said. He called Jacques Hamel, the priest forced to his knees by Islamist militants on Tuesday who then slit his throat, "a saintly priest", but said he was just one of many innocent victims. He thanked the many people around the world who have sent their condolences over the killing of Father Hamel, particularly French President Francois Hollande, who spoke to the Pope on Tuesday. (Reuters)

Pope Francis: Attacks show 'world is at war', religion not to blame

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras yesterday said the constitution should be revised to give Greeks &quot;direct democracy&quot;, a say in electing the president and the right to hold referendums on laws. 
 
&quot;It is time to set aside fear of the people&#39;s judgment even if the people are not infallible,&quot; Tsipras said in a televised speech. 
 
He said people should be allowed to elect the nation&#39;s president - who is currently chosen by parliament - if efforts by lawmakers fail, as they did last year. 
 
The people should also be able to reject laws by referendum - except those on fiscal matters - and propose their own legal initiatives, Tsipras said. 
 
Lawmakers should only be allowed to serve a maximum of two consecutive terms in parliament. 
 
The Greek state should also be &quot;religion-neutral&quot; and officials should take civil oaths, even if Greece&#39;s main religion remains orthodox Christianity, the leftist PM said. 
 
This last proposal is likely to raise eyebrows in Greece, where Tsipras - a self-admitted atheist - became the country&#39;s first-ever prime minister to take a civil oath on his election last year. 
 
And the PM must also sway his own Syriza party, where a sizeable faction sees no need for constitutional revision.&nbsp;He said discussion groups would be formed nationwide and deliver a report by April on public proposals for the constitution. 
 
Most opposition leaders boycotted the ceremony, held mainly before Tsipras allies in front of parliament. 
 
Even if approved, the constitutional changes cannot be set in motion by the present parliament.&nbsp;They can only be enacted by the legislative body that will emerge after the next elections, which are normally due in 2019. 
 
However, Tsipras&#39; coalition government rests on a fragile three-seat majority and it is widely assumed that he will be unable to complete his four-year term. 
 
Tsipras said decisions would be taken in a year&#39;s time and could be supported with a referendum on the issue. 
 
The Greek constitution has been revised three times in the last four decades, with the last changes coming in 2008.&nbsp;Successive parliamentary votes are required to change a constitutional article - one to nominate a specific article to be amended, and another to actually rewrite it. 
 
From the two votes to be held on each article selected for amendment, at least one must be carried by a majority of 180 out of Greece&#39;s 300 lawmakers. 
 
Tsipras can currently rely on at least 153 deputies to approve his proposals, but finding another 180 to confirm the changes, up to three years from now, will not be easy.&nbsp;Tsipras&#39; popularity has waned after he was forced last year to accept an unpopular EU bailout to keep Greece in the eurozone. 
 
Polls show he could actually lose the next election to Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the conservative New Democracy party. 
 
(AFP)

People should be allowed to elect the nations's president and also be able to reject laws by referendum, Alexis Tsipras said

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras yesterday said the constitution should be revised to give Greeks "direct democracy", a say in electing the president and the right to hold referendums on laws. "It is time to set aside fear of the people's judgment even if the people are not infallible," Tsipras said in a televised speech. He said people should be allowed to elect the nation's president - who is currently chosen by parliament - if efforts by lawmakers fail, as they did last year. The people should also be able to reject laws by referendum - except those on fiscal matters - and propose their own legal initiatives, Tsipras said. Lawmakers should only be allowed to serve a maximum of two consecutive terms in parliament. The Greek state should also be "religion-neutral" and officials should take civil oaths, even if Greece's main religion remains orthodox Christianity, the leftist PM said. This last proposal is likely to raise eyebrows in Greece, where Tsipras - a self-admitted atheist - became the country's first-ever prime minister to take a civil oath on his election last year. And the PM must also sway his own Syriza party, where a sizeable faction sees no need for constitutional revision. He said discussion groups would be formed nationwide and deliver a report by April on public proposals for the constitution. Most opposition leaders boycotted the ceremony, held mainly before Tsipras allies in front of parliament. Even if approved, the constitutional changes cannot be set in motion by the present parliament. They can only be enacted by the legislative body that will emerge after the next elections, which are normally due in 2019. However, Tsipras' coalition government rests on a fragile three-seat majority and it is widely assumed that he will be unable to complete his four-year term. Tsipras said decisions would be taken in a year's time and could be supported with a referendum on the issue. The Greek constitution has been revised three times in the last four decades, with the last changes coming in 2008. Successive parliamentary votes are required to change a constitutional article - one to nominate a specific article to be amended, and another to actually rewrite it. From the two votes to be held on each article selected for amendment, at least one must be carried by a majority of 180 out of Greece's 300 lawmakers. Tsipras can currently rely on at least 153 deputies to approve his proposals, but finding another 180 to confirm the changes, up to three years from now, will not be easy. Tsipras' popularity has waned after he was forced last year to accept an unpopular EU bailout to keep Greece in the eurozone. Polls show he could actually lose the next election to Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the conservative New Democracy party. (AFP)

Greek PM proposes constitutional change for 'direct democracy'

<div style="text-align: justify;">Only three words were scrawled on the letter from her husband and posted to her parent&#39;s home in central India, but they were enough to shatter Sadaf Mehmood&#39;s life. 
 
Using an ancient&nbsp;Islamic practice, Mehmood&#39;s husband wrote &quot;talaq, talaq, talaq&quot; or &quot;I divorce you&quot; three times in Arabic, instantly ending his marriage of five years. 
 
&quot;I was completely shocked and shattered. We had differences soon after we wed but it never looked so bad,&quot; the mother-of-three told AFP. 
 
Mehmood, who is from Bhopal, is one of the many&nbsp;Indian Muslim women whose husbands dissolved their marriage using&nbsp;triple&nbsp;talaq. The messages were delivered by everything from traditional letters to Facebook and Whatsapp. 
 
Banned in many Muslim countries, India, which is officially secular, is one of the few nations that legally permits the practice. 
 
&quot;The talaqnama (divorce letter) came without any intimation or warning,&quot; said Mehmood, 31, adding that she now struggles to make ends meet without her husband&#39;s support. 
 
Now another divorcee, Shayara Bano, has asked India&#39;s Supreme Court to outlaw it, as a backlash against the practice gathers steam. 
&quot;I understand my marriage is over but something needed to be done so that other Muslim women do not suffer,&quot; Bano told AFP of her petition filed in February&nbsp;which has encouraged at least one other divorcee to follow suit. 
&#39;Second-class citizens&#39; 
India&#39;s religious minorities, including its 155 million Muslims, are governed by personal laws that are meant to enshine their religious freedom in Hindu-majority India. 
 
Women, however, say the Muslim Personal Law Application Act, which is based on the Sharia law and permits&nbsp;triple&nbsp;talaq&nbsp;is being misused, allowing men to instantly walk away from their families. 
 
&quot;Women are generally treated as second class citizens in our society and they are further discriminated against by those misinterpreting religion,&quot; said Sadia Akhtar, who works for Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, a charity helping to empower Muslim women. 
 
A survey of Muslim women by the charity last year found an overwhelming majority favoured abolition of the practice, deeming it un-Islamic. Some 500 of the 4,000 women surveyed said they had been divorced that way. 
 
In recent weeks about&nbsp;50,000 Muslims signed a petition organised by the charity as part of a campaign to ban it. 
 
The Holy Quran prescribes a procedure for divorce to be undertaken in 90 days, starting from the first utterance of&nbsp;talaq, followed by two more but with a 30-day gap in between each one. 
 
Islamic scholars say this gives couples time to reflect on their marriage and possibly reconcile. 
 
Most Muslim scholars say the instant&nbsp;talaq&nbsp;diverts from the Quran. Although it was given official approval during the rein of Islam&#39;s second caliph, Omar, in the seventh century, it was discouraged. 
 
Akhtarul Wasey, a professor of Islamic studies, said it was only supposed to be used as a last resort when husbands were &quot;traumatising their partners&quot; by endlessly pronouncing&nbsp;talaq&nbsp;and then revoking it. 
 
&quot;(But) It has lost its essence and become an arbitrary law,&quot; Wasey from New Delhi&#39;s Jamia Millia Islamia university told AFP. 
Many Muslim majority countries, including neighbouring&nbsp;Bangladesh, have already banned it, while legislation on the same is pending in Pakistan&#39;s parliament. 
Changes unacceptable 
India&#39;s Muslim leaders are reluctant to amend the personal law, fearing an erosion of their religious identity. Some fear Hindu hardliners will use such changes as an excuse to push for the law&#39;s entire abolition. 
 
The issue comes at a time of heightened concern among minorities of rising intolerance by Hindu&nbsp;hardliners&nbsp;who have become emboldened since Prime Minister Narendra Modi&#39;s election in 2014. 
 
Modi&#39;s Hindu nationalist government is committed to replacing personal laws for all religious minorities with a common civil code&nbsp;to enhance national unity. 
 
Kamal Faruqui, member of an influential Muslim body, said Muslims have a right to practise their religion according to Sharia law and that should be protected at all costs. 
 
Faruqui conceded&nbsp;triple&nbsp;talaq&nbsp;was a &quot;problem for Muslims&quot; but changes to the personal law were &quot;unacceptable to us&quot;. 
 
&quot;We discourage Muslims to seek divorce and certainly&nbsp;triple&nbsp;talaq&nbsp;should never be used. Instead couples should go for the honourable exit route mentioned in the Quran,&quot; said Faruqui, from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. 
 
Shaista Ali, also from Bhopal, said she appealed to clerics for assistance after her husband suddenly divorced her and she was shunted from the family home, but &quot;they sided with my in-laws&quot;. 
 
Divorcee Mehmood accepts that her marriage is over, but she remains hopeful of change so that other women are spared her ordeal. 
 
&quot;We can&#39;t stop talaqs but there should be some consequences so that men think 10 times before uttering&nbsp;talaq, talaq talaq,&quot; she said.</div>

Shayara Bano, a divorcee, has asked India's Supreme Court to outlaw 'triple talaq', as a backlash against the practice gathers steam

Only three words were scrawled on the letter from her husband and posted to her parent's home in central India, but they were enough to shatter Sadaf Mehmood's life. Using an ancient Islamic practice, Mehmood's husband wrote "talaq, talaq, talaq" or "I divorce you" three times in Arabic, instantly ending his marriage of five years. "I was completely shocked and shattered. We had differences soon after we wed but it never looked so bad," the mother-of-three told AFP. Mehmood, who is from Bhopal, is one of the many Indian Muslim women whose husbands dissolved their marriage using triple talaq. The messages were delivered by everything from traditional letters to Facebook and Whatsapp. Banned in many Muslim countries, India, which is officially secular, is one of the few nations that legally permits the practice. "The talaqnama (divorce letter) came without any intimation or warning," said Mehmood, 31, adding that she now struggles to make ends meet without her husband's support. Now another divorcee, Shayara Bano, has asked India's Supreme Court to outlaw it, as a backlash against the practice gathers steam. "I understand my marriage is over but something needed to be done so that other Muslim women do not suffer," Bano told AFP of her petition filed in February which has encouraged at least one other divorcee to follow suit. 'Second-class citizens' India's religious minorities, including its 155 million Muslims, are governed by personal laws that are meant to enshine their religious freedom in Hindu-majority India. Women, however, say the Muslim Personal Law Application Act, which is based on the Sharia law and permits triple talaq is being misused, allowing men to instantly walk away from their families. "Women are generally treated as second class citizens in our society and they are further discriminated against by those misinterpreting religion," said Sadia Akhtar, who works for Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, a charity helping to empower Muslim women. A survey of Muslim women by the charity last year found an overwhelming majority favoured abolition of the practice, deeming it un-Islamic. Some 500 of the 4,000 women surveyed said they had been divorced that way. In recent weeks about 50,000 Muslims signed a petition organised by the charity as part of a campaign to ban it. The Holy Quran prescribes a procedure for divorce to be undertaken in 90 days, starting from the first utterance of talaq, followed by two more but with a 30-day gap in between each one. Islamic scholars say this gives couples time to reflect on their marriage and possibly reconcile. Most Muslim scholars say the instant talaq diverts from the Quran. Although it was given official approval during the rein of Islam's second caliph, Omar, in the seventh century, it was discouraged. Akhtarul Wasey, a professor of Islamic studies, said it was only supposed to be used as a last resort when husbands were "traumatising their partners" by endlessly pronouncing talaq and then revoking it. "(But) It has lost its essence and become an arbitrary law," Wasey from New Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia university told AFP. Many Muslim majority countries, including neighbouring Bangladesh, have already banned it, while legislation on the same is pending in Pakistan's parliament. Changes unacceptable India's Muslim leaders are reluctant to amend the personal law, fearing an erosion of their religious identity. Some fear Hindu hardliners will use such changes as an excuse to push for the law's entire abolition. The issue comes at a time of heightened concern among minorities of rising intolerance by Hindu hardliners who have become emboldened since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election in 2014. Modi's Hindu nationalist government is committed to replacing personal laws for all religious minorities with a common civil code to enhance national unity. Kamal Faruqui, member of an influential Muslim body, said Muslims have a right to practise their religion according to Sharia law and that should be protected at all costs. Faruqui conceded triple talaq was a "problem for Muslims" but changes to the personal law were "unacceptable to us". "We discourage Muslims to seek divorce and certainly triple talaq should never be used. Instead couples should go for the honourable exit route mentioned in the Quran," said Faruqui, from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Shaista Ali, also from Bhopal, said she appealed to clerics for assistance after her husband suddenly divorced her and she was shunted from the family home, but "they sided with my in-laws". Divorcee Mehmood accepts that her marriage is over, but she remains hopeful of change so that other women are spared her ordeal. "We can't stop talaqs but there should be some consequences so that men think 10 times before uttering talaq, talaq talaq," she said.

Muslim woman from India fights 'triple talaq' divorce

Prime Minister Najib Razak&#39;s government threw its support in parliament this week behind an Islamic penal code that includes amputations and stoning, shocking some of his allies and stoking fears of further strains in the multi-ethnic country.

Critics believe the scandal-tainted prime minister is using &#39;hudud&#39;, the Islamic law, to shore up the backing of Muslim Malay voters and fend off attacks on his leadership ahead of critical by-elections next month and a general election in 2018.

The government on Thursday unexpectedly submitted to parliament a hudud bill that had been proposed by the Islamist group Parti Islam se-Malaysia&#39;s (PAS).

Although debate on the law was deferred to October by PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang, its submission to parliament brought criticism from leaders across the political spectrum, including allies of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, who represent the ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.

Najib sought to ease tensions with his allies on Friday, saying the bill was &quot;misunderstood&quot;.

&quot;It&#39;s not hudud, but what we refer to as enhanced punishment,&quot; he told a news conference after meeting leaders of his ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party.

&quot;It applies only to certain offences and this comes under the jurisdiction of the Syariah court and is only applicable to the Muslims. It has nothing to do with non-Muslims.&quot; 
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<h5>Many fear such a move would open doors for other states to bring in the Islamic penal code. Hudud stipulates ancient religious punishments for Muslims who violate the law.</h5>
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<div class="share-blockquote"><a class="twitter popup" href="http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Many fear such a move would open doors for other states to bring in the Islamic penal code. Hudud stipulates ancient religious punishments for Muslims who violate the law.">&nbsp;</a></div>
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He added that the punishments would be limited and canings meted out under the law would not injure or draw blood.

Earlier in the day, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), a key party in the BN coalition, called the submission of the hudud bill to parliament &quot;unconstitutional&quot;.

&quot;As we repeatedly pointed out, the implementation of Hudud law is against the spirit of the Federal Constitution, and would ruin the inter-ethnic relationship in the country,&quot; MCA President Liow Tiong Lai said.

Arguments for and against the introduction of hudud have divided Malaysia for years. Most of the Southeast Asian country&#39;s states implement sharia, the Islamic legal system, but its reach is restricted by federal law.

Still, the hudud bill appears doomed as the UMNO-led coalition lacks the two-thirds majority needed to pass it into law.

The Islamist party PAS is pushing for a constitutional amendment that would allow hudud to be implemented in Kelantan, a northern state where nightclubs are banned and there are separate public benches for men and women. 
 
&nbsp;

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all. David Lynch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/amwriting?src=hash">#amwriting</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/writing?src=hash">#writing</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/writingtip?src=hash">#writingtip</a> <a href="https://t.co/ho15a54eLB">pic.twitter.com/ho15a54eLB</a>
&mdash; The UnNovelist (@TheUnNovelist) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheUnNovelist/status/736501099331489792">May 28, 2016</a></blockquote>

<script async src="~/platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>

Many fear such a move would open doors for other states to bring in the Islamic penal code. Hudud stipulates ancient religious punishments for Muslims who violate the law.

&nbsp;

EYEING POLLS

Critics say that Najib, with an eye on by-elections for two parliamentary seats on June 18, is seeking to appease the majority Muslim votebank with his stand on hudud and to deflect attention from a multi-billion-dollar scandal at the state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

They allege Najib was a beneficiary of 1MDB&#39;s funds, after about $680 million was deposited in his bank account before a 2013 election. Najib has denied any wrongdoing.

Some political heavyweights in Najib&#39;s party have questioned whether he can lead them to victory in the 2018 general election. However, he has consolidated power by sacking dissenters within UMNO, which has ruled Malaysia since 1957, and using a controversial and repressive colonial-era sedition law to silence other critics.

Najib seized on the resounding victory of a coalition partner in a Borneo state election earlier month as evidence that he and his government remain popular. The by-elections in peninsula Malaysia are likely to be a closer contest.

&quot;Najib did not want the 1MDB global scandal to become the issue in both by-elections,&quot; said Lim Kit Siang, parliamentary leader of the Democratic Action Party, adding that Najib has ensured the focus will now be on hudud.

People freak out as government decides to base legal code on religion instead of independent moral and intellectual principles

Prime Minister Najib Razak's government threw its support in parliament this week behind an Islamic penal code that includes amputations and stoning, shocking some of his allies and stoking fears of further strains in the multi-ethnic country. Critics believe the scandal-tainted prime minister is using 'hudud', the Islamic law, to shore up the backing of Muslim Malay voters and fend off attacks on his leadership ahead of critical by-elections next month and a general election in 2018. The government on Thursday unexpectedly submitted to parliament a hudud bill that had been proposed by the Islamist group Parti Islam se-Malaysia's (PAS). Although debate on the law was deferred to October by PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang, its submission to parliament brought criticism from leaders across the political spectrum, including allies of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, who represent the ethnic Chinese and Indian communities. Najib sought to ease tensions with his allies on Friday, saying the bill was "misunderstood". "It's not hudud, but what we refer to as enhanced punishment," he told a news conference after meeting leaders of his ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party. "It applies only to certain offences and this comes under the jurisdiction of the Syariah court and is only applicable to the Muslims. It has nothing to do with non-Muslims." Many fear such a move would open doors for other states to bring in the Islamic penal code. Hudud stipulates ancient religious punishments for Muslims who violate the law. He added that the punishments would be limited and canings meted out under the law would not injure or draw blood. Earlier in the day, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), a key party in the BN coalition, called the submission of the hudud bill to parliament "unconstitutional". "As we repeatedly pointed out, the implementation of Hudud law is against the spirit of the Federal Constitution, and would ruin the inter-ethnic relationship in the country," MCA President Liow Tiong Lai said. Arguments for and against the introduction of hudud have divided Malaysia for years. Most of the Southeast Asian country's states implement sharia, the Islamic legal system, but its reach is restricted by federal law. Still, the hudud bill appears doomed as the UMNO-led coalition lacks the two-thirds majority needed to pass it into law. The Islamist party PAS is pushing for a constitutional amendment that would allow hudud to be implemented in Kelantan, a northern state where nightclubs are banned and there are separate public benches for men and women. Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all. David Lynch #amwriting #writing #writingtip pic.twitter.com/ho15a54eLB — The UnNovelist (@TheUnNovelist) May 28, 2016 Many fear such a move would open doors for other states to bring in the Islamic penal code. Hudud stipulates ancient religious punishments for Muslims who violate the law. EYEING POLLS Critics say that Najib, with an eye on by-elections for two parliamentary seats on June 18, is seeking to appease the majority Muslim votebank with his stand on hudud and to deflect attention from a multi-billion-dollar scandal at the state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). They allege Najib was a beneficiary of 1MDB's funds, after about $680 million was deposited in his bank account before a 2013 election. Najib has denied any wrongdoing. Some political heavyweights in Najib's party have questioned whether he can lead them to victory in the 2018 general election. However, he has consolidated power by sacking dissenters within UMNO, which has ruled Malaysia since 1957, and using a controversial and repressive colonial-era sedition law to silence other critics. Najib seized on the resounding victory of a coalition partner in a Borneo state election earlier month as evidence that he and his government remain popular. The by-elections in peninsula Malaysia are likely to be a closer contest. "Najib did not want the 1MDB global scandal to become the issue in both by-elections," said Lim Kit Siang, parliamentary leader of the Democratic Action Party, adding that Najib has ensured the focus will now be on hudud.

Outrage in multi-ethnic Malaysia as government backs Islamic law

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