Variety Of Muslimness

INDIA THAT IS BHARAT

LIFE is getting harder by the day for soft-brained Satiricus. Having recently explained how he is too much of a wretched retard to be either a Muslim or a Christian, he now finds that even being just a Hindu, and leaving it at that, is getting to be an excruciating exercise for the intelligence that he does not have. This was forcefully brought to him the other day when he read a distinguished writer’s article on “Being Hindu Indian and Muslim Indian”. Satiricus was frankly flummoxed. Why can’t Satiricus be just a Hindu and just an Indian, both at the same time? Is not a Hindu’s Indianness taken for granted? In fact, deplorably dumb that he is, Hindu Satiricus wouldn’t know what he is if he is not Indian. His Indianness is the only “ness” he knows. Fortunately for the Muslim Indian the choice is not so rigidly restricted, assures this writer. Rather, he dwells at learned length on how the Muslim Indian is in the happy position of having a wide variety of non-Indian-nesses to choose from at his disposal. He asks the Muslim of India that is at least officially Bharat—would you like to be a Muslim of the Turkish variety at one end or of the Arab variety at the other end? Well, now, being an ignominious ignoramus, Satiricus does not know if these two varieties of Muslimness are basically different or it is a difference of degrees, but he cannot help wondering why an Indian Muslim (or Muslim Indian) can be certified as a sufficient Muslim or disqualified as a deficient Muslim only by Arab and / or Turkish measurements. Is that because an Indian Muslim and a Muslim Indian are two different people? Satiricus is all at sea. He wonders….why can’t there be Indian varieties of Muslimness? To make a stunningly shocking suggestion, how about a Hindu variety? MC Chagla once observed that the French, noted for their “sense of precision”, consider Indian Muslims to be Hindus. When Subramanian Swamy once went to China, a Chinese Mullah asked him, what is your religion? When Swamy replied, I am a Hindu, the Mullah said, I am asking about your religion, not your nationality. And the celebrated self-exiled Pakistani Muslim Dr. Anwar Shaikh had called himself a cultural Hindu in one of his letters to Satiricus. Then there are those Mewati Muslims who sing Mahabharat and the Mumbai Muslims who celebrate Ganesh festival and Durga Puja. Why, believe it or not, there are even Muslims who join the RSS. Does all this make for a Hindu variety of Muslimness? Satiricus cannot say, but he would not be surprised if it proves a failed product in our thriving secular market. On the other hand we have some top-of-the-shelf varieties of made-to-Muslim-measure Indianness on display in the wonder world of fabulous fatwas decreed by Deoband. And they are so easy to adopt and convenient to carry. For according to them the essence of being a Muslim Indian is to be against anything Indian. It ranges from being against singing Vande Mataram, applying bindi and performing Surya Namaskar to being against having insurance and using mobiles for men to wearing ear-rings and touching a banana for women. See? That seems to be the defining difference between a Muslim Indian and an Indian Muslim. Does all this make sense to Satiricus? No. Why? Because he has no sense.

Economics Of Selling Ganesha

WHAT should secular Satiricus learn from Ganesh, Lord of Learning? That God Ganesh is a factory product, and how much we make him for the market determines the state of our economy. At least that is what an Indian professor of a subject called Indian Political Economy at an American university teaches him. This professor says according to newspaper reports Rahul recently asked Indian industrialists “why we should have to import Ganeshas and Rakhis from China”. So the said professor recently wrote in an Indian newspaper an open letter to “dear Mr. Rahul Gandhi” explaining to him—and in the process to Satiricus—the economics of selling Lord Ganesh. Frankly the long and learned piece left Satiricus confused, as his knowledge of economics does not go beyond the earthly limits of roti, kapda, makan. But what surprised Satiricus was this professor sadly saying to Rahul, “Alas, your government (is) confused”. How can that be when Rahul’s “my government” is headed by an economist pretending to be prime minister but exulting in being an underling under Rahul?

The professor warns that India simply does not make enough Ganeshas to meet the communal Indian demand. But isn’t that exactly the point? If India makes as many Ganeshas as people want, would that not be unforgivable pandering to communalism? Fortunately this Indian professor abroad goes into the details of the profitable economics of Ganesh-manufacturing but completely ignores the silly idea that Ganesh is our god and we would like to worship him rather than import him from godless China. So the professor ends with the warning—“India can ill afford to lose even the market for Ganeshas at home to the Chinese.” See? Indian economics has nothing to do with stupid notions like Ganesh-Bhakti, it is all about the market. Maybe it is time for the Lord of Learning to learn some secularism.