Moral Police Strike In Goa
By Fr. Desmond de Sousa CSsR
16-02-2009
By SARNEWS
PANAJI, Goa(SAR NEWS) --The horrific pictures of the Mangalore pub attacks on young women by the Sri Rama Sene activists and the brutal attacks on hapless north Indians in Mumbai by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activists, are deplorable in a civilised country like India. What is despicable is these homegrown terrorists and their leaders like Pramod Mutalik and Raj Thackeray operate with impunity, much like the Pakistans ISI and the jihadis who attacked Mumbai in November last year.
What is most revolting is that the very protectors of the people (the government and the police) turn a blind eye to this wanton display of dadagiri and goondagiri by hooligans, jobless thugs and antisocial hoodlums who pose as moral police. .
Good governance, the common good, law and order that provide the bedrock of denizens security in a democracy are sacrificed at the altar of political expediency and parochial ideology. .
The last straw of democracy was thrashed when the Congress chief ministers in Rajasthan and Maharashtra and the BJP chief minister in Karnataka by their comments against pub culture and mall culture openly espoused the fascist ideology of the goondas and hooligans because it reflects their own personal antediluvian mindset. .
In Goa, the Hindu Janajagriti Samiti and Shiv Sena attacked the Inox Multiplex Cinema on the opening day of the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Though they vandalised the theatre front, the owners refusing to be cowed down, continued screening the movie. They issued a threat to lovers on Valentines Day. The strong-arm tactics of the Shiv Sena are well known for years. But the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti is the vanguard of the hardline Hindutvadis in Goa. .
The agenda of these Hindutva terrorists is to polarise the majority, tradition-minded Hindu vote into a bank against the minorities on the one hand, and the westernised, urban elite on the other, so that they can win the coming elections. .
. Growing chasm between India and Bharat.
It is now passé to highlight the economic development chasm between the roughly 20% of the urbanised elite that constitute India and the roughly 80% traditional, rural masses that make up Bharat. .
The yawning cultural fissures between the westernised, modern India and the traditional, religious cultures of Bharat, is tearing the nation apart. Pramod Mutalik and thugs of his ilk are only the overt symptoms. .
Chief ministers like Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan and Yeddyurappa in Karnataka are culturally uncomfortable with westernised, modern Indian culture and lifestyle. .
Whereas urbane leaders like BJPs Vasundara Raje and Congresss Sheila Dixit are products of it. For Yeddyurappa to intolerantly impose his Sangh Parivar inspired traditional religious cultural mindset on all, through the strong arms tactics of Rama Sene, Bajarang Dal or Vishwa Hindu Parishad betrays his parochial, fascist outlook: What is good for me must be good for all! .
This is the revered tactic of the hard Hindutvadis. Col. Purohit, of September 08 Malegaon blast infamy, wanted to convert India into a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation). He mooted the idea of setting up NGOs like Save Tigers, Save Environment, Save Forests, as a cover for pursuing the Hindutva agenda. .
Modernisation vs. Westernisation.
Every country wants to improve, to develop, to become better. It wants to modernise. Westernisation is the Wests process of modernisation and not the only form of modernisation. Rather than follow westernisation uncritically, the Indian path of modernisation should be carved out of its own ethos. It may imbibe some aspects of westernisation, but not slavishly imitate it, as some hybrid, middle-class Indians do. .
In rejecting pub culture or mall culture or the moll culture of Valentines Day, these tradition-bound Congress and BJP CMs are not only betraying their discomfort with westernisation, while conniving with the antediluvian mindset of the self- appointed moral police. They idealise the traditional hierarchic structure of the past as the golden age of Hindu Rashtra, because they are comfortable with it. .
The Hindutva election agenda.
The hardline Hindutva agenda is to maintain the traditional rural social structure, stratified according to caste, cocooned in the gender subjugation of women to men and encrusted in the traditional class system. They are infuriated by independent-minded, liberated urban women; revolted by the disintegrating traditional class structure of westernised pub, mall and moll culture; woefully insecure with the breakdown of the characteristic caste structure. .
While the hardcore ideologues of Hindutva are embracing a more centrist position, for the coming elections, the Sangh Parivar is imploding. Splinter groups like the Sri Rama Sene are right-wing, fringe factions of the Sangh Parivars extremist fundamentalism like the Bajarang Dal, VHP and RSS, who are no longer radical enough. .
