‘You said it’that famous cartoon of common man in daily news paper’The Times Of India’ by R.K.Laxman which has made him a living legend,i had been seeing from more than 40 years,is the work of a genius.Recently i saw a play also titled ‘The Common Man’which was based on cartoons of common man by R.K.laxman and common man was the hero of that play,which i thoroughly enjoyed.
I have read that late Bal Thackeray also had started his career as a cartoonist in a newspaper Free Press Journal in 1947 alongwith R.k.Laxman and both of them were inspired by a british cartoonist David Low and used to follow his style of drawing.Later on Thackeray started his own marathi weekly cartoon’Marmik’which could be popular only among marathi manoos.Bal Thackeray called himself a political cartoonist but actually started politicising regional centiments of local marathi people against Dangey and other communist leaders of mumbai that time.He instigated them against the trade unions which suited the industrialists,corporate houses that time and so thackeray got favour from them.Indian national congress that time faced challenges from communists in mumbai so Bal thackeray got soft corner from congress party also.Politics that time was divided between left and right,so in a way thackeray aligned himself to the right wing politics.Left parties were completely marginalised with the help of Bal Thackeray who openly became pro-rich and anti-poor in mumbai.
Bal Thackeray formed his own political party ‘Shiv Sena’ in 1966 and till 2012 he maintained that he was not a politician but a political cartoonist which proves his authoritarian nature.Nobody in India knows Bal thackeray as a cartoonist,and everybody knows him as a militant hindu politician.He openly admired Indira Gandhi when she declared emergency in 1975,against the wishes of all indians who were opposing her and her draconian emergency.He openly praised Hitler and his politics.It was part of his politics to beat muslims as anti-nationals,south indians and north indians as out siders.With this kind of divisive politics he found a natural ally in the form of Bhartiya Janta Party and together they played havoc with the nation which is now a history.After aligning with BJP he openly played politics with the public,like making all sorts of promises which could never be fulfilled.He promised all slum dwellers of mumbai to shift them in to high rise buildings once given the power.In a sindhi hindu township named Ulhasnagar,a nearby suburb of mumbai,he promised to rename it as ‘Sindhu nagar’.Lately all of them realised after giving SS-Bjp the power that his all promises were false and empty and he is not going to do anything for them.It was heard during their tenure that shiv sena goons were extorting large sums of money from buisiness people of mumbai and this was all going in to the coffins of shiv sena.Finally this fanatic combo has lost power and mumbaikars took a sigh of relief.Slowly his party members realised that his kind of divisive politics will get them nowhere,so one by one they started leaving him.Chhagan Bhujbal,Narayan rane,Sanjay nirupam and finally his nephew Raj Thackeray.It seems he did not trust anybody also otherwise how could he make his son Uddhav thackeray a political novice,heir to his throne,ignoring all those senior colleagues.So a divisive politician ended up himself as brutally divided.
RIP…Bal Thackeray saheb,my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family members and duped shiv sainiks,may god give them courage and peace to the departed soul….
Today is the polling day for the election of president of united states of America.The incumbent president is Barack obama,the first black president in the history of America,who is contesting for the second term as president.I whole heartedly supported him during his campaign for his first term in 2008 and challenged my friends that he will win the election cent percent although they had doubts that americans having killed Martin luther king an earlier black leader,can never elect a black leader.I was damn sure about Obama because i knew that americans were disgusted with the foreign affairs of George Bush,the earlier president,specially his blunders and vindictive actions in Iraq.George bush destroyed Iraq and Saddam hussain because of personal vendetta.United nations also were not convinced by republican president George bush’s actions on Iraq,in fact the entire world was not convinced with what George bush junior was doing that time.So democrats and Barack obama seized the opportunity with the help of Clintons and defeated George bush convincingly.Initially Obama’s own party Democrat’s ally Ms Hillary Clinton posed a challenge to him but later she was convinced that Obama was the better candidate.
This time Barack obama’s main campaigners are Clintons,specially Bill Clinton two time president elect democrat whose views are not like George bush about middle east and Afganistan. Republican policies during George bush were disturbing the world peace and America being the world leader in this unipolar world after soviet disintegration,could not afford to continue them.Mitt Romney is republican party candidate who is contesting against Barack Obama and surely at a disadvantage because of his party line.Americans will never like to see those days again when George bush was the president.Barack obama also has an edge over Romney because of his efforts to help the victims of superstorm Sandy.
Therefore Barack Hussein Obama seems to be all set to become the president of United States of America second time and i wish him best of luck for that.Pollsters also are showing him having slight edge over his republican contestent.I wish politics in India also improves taking clues from american elections,since both are democratic republics,but India has to improve on many counts specially on communalism and corruption to become at par with America.
He is the current president of Bhartiya Janta Party and is surrounded by so many controversies lately.Firstly a girl was found dead in his premises and the relatives of the dead girl are insisting to police authorities that gadkari be made co-accused for the murder of their daughter.Then it was alleged that there were many irregularities in his buisiness dealings like several investers of his companies are fake,his drivers and astrologers are made directors of his companies,so on and so forth.Now we have heard him saying that swami vivekanand’s IQ was same as of Dawood Ibrahim.This last one is the biggest shocker for all of us Indians.And he said that he is speaking on the basis of science.There is a proverb in sanskrit’Vinash Kaley vipreet Buddhee’which we can apply for nitin gadkari as well as Bjp.
Since he has referred to the science,so we should first of all elaborate on IQ as to what it is and where from it came.IQ is an abbreviated form of Intelligence Quotient which is calculated by dividing one’s intellectual age by chronological age and multiplied by 100.This is a german concept and one’s intellectual age is calculated by various parametres like education,professional conduct,general knowledge etc but there are no scientific methods to measure spiritual content of a prophet or a saint,this fact west also recognizes.Therfore western countries calculate the IQ of presidents or other professionals but they never measure their saints by their IQ because there is something beyond these calculations where only saints like swami vivekanand can reach,that is higher plane of super-consciousness.Swami vivekanand’s greatness was well recognized by western countries but our own indian and that too the president of a political party which is famous as a party of saints and peers has compared one of the greatest saints of india with a smuggler and on top of it the other Bjp leaders are shamelessly supporting gadkari.Nitin gadkari should have compared his own IQ with that of Dawood ibrahim,then there would not have been any issue but now he will have to either apologise from all indians,which quality Bjp politicians dont possess,or he should be ready for some serious backlash.
Coincidentally the other militant leader of Bjp,Narendra modi nowadays is doing sadbhavna yatras displaying swami vivekanand’s hoardings alongwith his own equally sized hoardings as if comparing himself with swami ji.One fanatic is comparing swami vivekanand with Dawood ibrahim,another fanatic is comparing swami ji with himself.What is this going on?Where are the conscience keepers of the great nation India?Are we really going to be a banana republic?
Narendra Modi the chief minister of gujrat has ramarked about shashi tharoor’s wife as’50 crore girl friend’ during an election rally.Narendra modi always talks of character and gives references of gita and religion.This is what he has learnt from gita and religion.what regard he has for the institution of marriage and women of india,any body can understand.Shashi tharoor’s reply in response to modi’s stupid remark was fitting and graceful when he said that his wife is priceless and modi will not understand that since modi did not know what is love.Sant kabir so nicely had written’pothi parhh parhh jagg mua hua na pandit koi,dhaai akshar prem ke parhey so pandit hoi’.Shabash shashi tharoor,you have tried to teach a lesson to this murderer of humanity named narendra modi.
I was hearing the debate on various tv channels about the abovestated incident.When bjp spokespersons were asked that should narendra modi not apologise from mrs shashi tharoor for what he has said about her.Their pat reply as in all other such acts and outbursts was that there was no such need since modi was referring to corruption charges on tharoors.Calling somebody’s wife as 50 crore girl friend is not corruption charge but it is a character assasination.Where is narendra modi’s wife today and i have heard that he has abondoned her?why?Was she not of a sound character according to modi ji.Which lady in india or in the world is of a sound character according to modi ji.Common man of india would like to know all this from him.He never apologises for any of his acts of omission and commission.About gujrat riots of 2002 he said that he should be hanged if he was found guilty.If he is such a honest politician then first of all he should have resigned from the chief ministership as soon as the doubts were raised about his direct involvement in the riots.Being the head of a state he can definitely influence the legal process of the state and there were several instances when the state government was found siding and protecting the culprits of riots.So his behaviour about gujrat riots can be summed up with the proverb’chori aur upar se seenazori’.
Shashi tharoor compared to narendra modi is an indian who can be called an achiever.He is a reknowned Indo-american writer who has written several books,represented India in united nations,well known in literary circles.Even about twitter i read yesterday that more than 50% of narandra modi’s followers are fake and more than 30% inactive.What is it for which modi is bragging about except hindu fanaticism,and come to think of it that bjp and rss are backing him in all his idio-syncrasies.
Perhaps bjp is trapped in its own chakravyuh and it does not have any other option except to toe the line of militant hindus like modi,kalyan singh,varun gandhi etc.
If we study post independence politics in india then it becomes clear that indian national congress was the only national party which enjoyed absolute majority in indian parliament.This party was formed initially to fight british rule in india and to make india a free independent democratic republic.Its founder members were many freedom fighters like Mahatma gandhi,Jawaharlal nehru,Mohammed ali Jinnah,Sardar Patel,Maulana Abul kalam Azad,Acharya Kriplani and many more who went to jail for many years fighting british rulers and finally succeeded in liberating india from the clutches of british. But they had to pay a very heavy price in the form of partition of india and formation of another country named Islamic Republic of Pakistan headed by Mohammed ali Jinnah an erstwhile prominent congress member.Mohammed ali Jinnah was a very tall congress member and wanted to become the president of indian national congress but Jawahar lal Nehru and Sardar Patel were interested in organizational elections and an elected president.So the differences cropped up between senior hindu and muslim members of congress resulting in Jinnah leaving congress party and joining another party named Muslim League.After that Jinnah demanded a separate nation for muslims on the pretext that muslims can not be safe in hindu majority india.The result was partition of india at the time of freedom of india.
Other parties which were active that time were communist parties and Janasangh(political representative of RSS and Vhp)which were not a serious challenge to congress party.The first serious challenge to Indian national congress was posed by Jai Prakash Narain an erstwhile freedom fighter who challenged the then prime minister and congress chief Mrs Indira Gandhi in seventies when emergency was declared in India. Jai Prakash Narain first time offered Indian voter a third alternative forming a political party named ‘Janata Party’.Before this Indian politics was divided between left and right.Left was represented by communist parties of India and right was represented by Indian National Congress which was having majority of upper caste Hindu leaders although they followed Indian constitution and believed in secular democratic India. Jai Prakash Narain’s Janata Party defeated Indian national congress headed by Indira Gandhi in 1977 and that was the emergence of third front in India.But its life was short-lived due to the internal differences between socialist leaders who believed Ram Manohar Lohia and Jai Prakash Narain and right wing Hindu leaders Atal bihari Vajpayee,L.k.Advani who were card carrying members of R.S.S.Soon Janata party disintegrated and so was the third front and Indian National Congress headed by Indira Gandhi came back to power.
Time to time socialist leaders tried to revive the third front and every time right wing hindu leaders became the party to break it. Janata party was literally hijacked by Hindu communal leaders in the form of Bharatiya Janata party which is nothing but a militant religious Hindu outfit backed and supported by RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal etc.BJP headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to power also and during this regime we saw the worst kind of communal riots.
Major problems of our country still remain the same,poverty,literacy,unemployment,communal harmony but it seems that rightist parties Indian national congress,BJP have not been able to tackle these issues and instead they indulged in corruption and communal-ism. Leftist parties have not been able to make a dent in most of the states may be because of their non belief in religion and India’s majority being firm believer in one or other religion.Therefore as in the past during Indira Gandhi’s regime,today also there is a solid scope for a Third front which can cater to the needs of vast sections of poor,needy,under-privileged who can prosper only when given the power.
Majority of the world population follows one or other religion.There is a section which does not believe in god and the persons belonging to this section are called atheists and there are among them communists also who believe in the ideology of Karl Marx or Mao tse Tung.To be an atheist or a communist is not blasphemy.Blasphemy is when somebody is disrespectful or wicked or making a mockery of god,prophets and their believers.Recently i heard one famous Indo-pak American writer,Salman Rushdie who has written a blasphemous novel’Satanic Verses’which is disrespectful to Quran and prophet Muhammed,saying that blasphemy is a freedom of expression and good for the world.I totally disagree with this statement.
Freedom of expression is with human responsibility attached to it.If our expression is hurting the beliefs of millions of people all over the world then it is better not to express.Salman Rushdie is an indian born writer whose family migrated to Pakistan and he was educated in and migrated to west.We can under stand that he was influenced by western culture and comfortable lifestyle and security and protection bestowed upon him.But all this luxurious life style at what cost?He used to call himself an atheist(non believer)in the beginning and later he said he converted to islam(perhaps out of fear when Fatwa was declared to kill him by Ayatollah khomeini of Iran)and now again he is talking in favour of blasphemy when some film’Innocence of muslims’ is being shown on you tube,a vulgar film disrepectful to prophet muhammed,made by some criminal.This kind of conduct by a famous indian born writer raises questions about his character.When an offspring of muslim parents settled in west is hurting the faith of billion+ muslim world then the person is definitely not having a sound character.I admire our late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who had banned his book ‘Satanic Verses’in India.
After Salman rushdie’s book was published in west,there were so many blasphemous articles,cartoons and films published and exhibited in europe and america in the name of freedom of expression.America’s gun culture also is a form of freedom of expression which Salman rushdie seems to be liking.Average common man of the world does not like these acts of blasphemy,hooliganism and Salman rushdie seems to be interested in creating disturbance,chaos in the world,so the muslim world is right in trying to stop him from these blasphemous acts.
There are lot of disturbances all over the world due to various reasons,religion being one of them.Major population of the world is divided among 5 0r 6 religions i.e Christianity,Islam,Hinduism,Budhism,Judaism and sikhism.Among these also first four cover the larger chunk of population of the world which is around 7 billion+.Hinduism and judaism are among the older religions and christianity,Islam and sikhism came later.Prophets Moses,Jesus christ,Muhammed came in that order and their followers are jews,christians and muslims.Jews follow old testament of bible and worship prophet Moses who is referred in Quran sharif(The holy book of muslims)as hazrat Moosa.Jews also believe that their prophet moses will come again on earth to bless them.Christians believe in Jesus christ,who as i read it was born as a jew and had spiritual qualities of prophet and hence worshipped by western world as jesus.Jesus christ is referred in Quran sharif as Hazrat Isa and next prophet according to quran sharif is hazrat Muhammed(Prophet Muhammed).There is a conflict among jews,christians and muslims who are faithful to their own prophets but differ about the prophets of other faiths.During 1st and 2nd world wars since jews did not believe in jesus christ,they were persecuted in America and Europe specially by Hitler of germany and generally disliked by western world due to which they had to vacate europe and america and relocate themselves forming a separate country named Israel.The third prophet(Prophet muhammed)has also 1billion+ following and time to time differences crop up among christians and muslims and during these differences jews generally join hands with christians.Lately some of the christians and jews have started criticizing islam and prophet muhammed,by writing derogatory books,making cartoons and films showing prophet muhammed as a bafoon and characterless person which is not a healthy development.Muslims of the world also have over reacted violently to this ugly development. Several disturbing scenes are witnessed all over like attacking U.S and european embassies,killing western diplomats and ordinary citizens who are no way connected to those books cartoons and films derogatory to prophet muhammed.This sense less frenzy from both sides should stop thats what we pray because communal conflicts can have dangerous consequences,we know this from our past experiences.
Political scene in India is quite fluid after the prime minister’s announcement about new reforms such as foreign direct investment in multi brand retail section,which actually the indian industry has welcomed and were overdue from some time.Foreign investment in china is 10 times more and far easier than india.If we have to compete with China America and Europe then we have to continue the process of liberlisation and reforms started by p.v.Narsimharao government and there is no going back.All this hue and cry by BJP is just political opportunism for which they are well known now.Now the latest development is that Mamta Banerji the chief minister of west bengal and an important ally of ruling UPA has withdrawn support from central government and announced that her ministers will submit their resignations on fryday 21st sept 2012 after namaz,at about 3 pm.Personally i feel that there is no serious threat to the government because at the time of the election of president of india also Mamta banerji alongwith Mulayamsingh yadav opposed UPA and announced her own names for presidential election but finally UPA’s candidate Pranav Mukherji has won with handsome marjin and even Mulayamsingh has ditched Mamta at the last moment.The important point is that Mamta,Mulayam,Mayawati and even jd(u)’s Nitish kumar who are all regional leaders and prime ministerial aspirants can not come together and form a third front,so they are open to manoeuvring by bigger national parties.MulayamSingh has daclared that he wants to keep BJP away from power at any cost,so who is the beneficiary in this scenerio ? Indian National Congress and nobody else.BJP is all the time dreaming about congress downfall and in this madness it can not see its own house in disorder and shambles.Congress has 200+ seats in present coalition government of UPA whereas NDA has only 114 members of BJP and very few allies among which the biggest ally JD(u) is also not averse to join congress if Bihar is attended specially economically.So where does that leave BJP ? Nowhere actually,but this hindutva brigade never realizes that the common man of India despises its communal agenda.Mayavati the dalit leader has so far kept mum over the latest developments but she also supported congress and UPA during the election of president of india.
LKAdvani the senior most leader of Bhartiya Janta Party has stated recently that the conditions in India today are worse than emergency and he said this commenting on the arrest of cartoonist Aseem trivedi on charges of sedition.When i read this,immediately the dubious character of BJP and its leaders was exposed in front of me,because the arrest was made by congress government,so the act was comparable to emergency.I remembered that sometime back Dr Binayak sen was arrested by BJP government of chhattisgarh for a long period on sedition charges declaring him a naxalite.I saw dr binayak sen’s daughter and wife weeping on television,filing a case in the court to fight against mighty chief minister and BJP government which finally they won and BJP lost the case after torturing dr sen and treating him as a naxalite,the judge declared that dr sen was not a naxalite.Where was LKAdvani then,he did not feel that dr sen’s ordeal in jail was worse than emergency,not a single word of sympathy.When some tear gas shells were fired in the air during baba ramdev’s sabha in ramlila ground,Lkadvani has declared this incident as jalianvala baugh,insulting hundreds of freedom fighters who were shot dead by british army ruling India then.Aseem trivedi was released soon after his arrest and congress has realised the mistake but BJP had never realised its mistake in the case of Dr Sen.BJP and sangh parivar has no past record of fighting with british when all indians were involved in freedom movement and fighting with british the then super power of the world,to free our mother india from their clutches.Sangh parivar has all the records of inciting communal riots,leading rath yatras culminating in demolition of religious places unlawfully and inciting large scale riots and bomb blasts,leading processions in support of shankaracharya arrested for murders,spreading hatred between religions,so on and so forth.We indians should see through their games now and stop them thus far and no further.
I read in one of the novels of salman rushdie that corruption and communalism are the two most potent forces in india and i tend to agree with him.But the problem is that whereas there is so much hue and cry about corruption,there are andolans and dharnas by civil society against corruption,there are hardly any movements by indian civil society against communalism which is a very dangerous force and capable of playing havoc with our beloved nation.It is high time that we indians treat communalism at par with corruption and communal leaders or persons as corrupt and fit for rejection by the public.Republic of India was formed as a democratic and secular nation where all religions and all persons are respected and treated equally and this is written in our constitution.But our constitution is defied by communal leaders of the country who time and again play with the sentiments of the common men,disturb the secular character of the nation,for their petty political interests.There have been several communal riots in the country due to the wrong doings of these communal leaders for which innocent persons have suffered their life and properties to no limit.Who have benifited out of these miseries? These communal leaders and nobody else.So are these communal leaders belonging to a particular religion and spreading hatred for the other religions not corrupt?I feel that law and order in our country also is communally biased and therefore corrupt.Several culprits of communal riots in india are unpunished and are enjoying the power and patronage due to their political parties communal agenda.Why the right wing hindu fanatic groups like rss,vhp,bajrang dal,shiv sena can not be banned in india knowing pretty well that they have a communal agenda which is totally against the indian constitution.Under the garb of corruption and economic progress they can not hide their communal designs.Therefore we have to treat communalism as a corrupt practice and deal with it as sternly as we are dealing with corruption.