Choose le Choose Le .. Life ki bhaag le - Black Monkey - D6

Yeah yeah Okie Yeah Okie

Hey kala kala kala bandar
Bahar hai ya andar
Hey kala kala kala bandar
Jo dhundhe sikandar
Its was'nt me I swear
Everybody looking for da monkey out there
Hey kala kala kala bandar
Jo dhundhe sikandar
Its was'nt me I swear
Everybody looking for da monkey out there
Bring da kala bandar
Bring da kala bandar
Everybody looking for da monkey out there
Aao Hum shisha dekhe
Apna sandesha dekhe
Apna Ghayal Hissa dekhe
Apna asli kissa dekhe
Ghonghat ki gehrai mein
Par Phailai kaun
Jhak Safed Libason mein
Kala sa sach maun hai
Choose le Choose Le choose Le choose Le
Life ki bhaag le
Choose le Choose Le choose Le choose Le
Life ki bhaag le
Thak jhank thak jhank thak jhank
Dil mein bhi jhank le
Its was'nt me I swear
Everybody looking for da monkey out there
Bring da kala bandar
Bring da kala bandar
Everybody looking for da monkey out there
Kasmein to mumfhali
Jab jee chahe hum khaten
Upper se na na kartein
Par thali aage sarkaten
Ek thali ke chatee bateein
Armaan hai hatte katte
Natak yeh natak natak
Band kar do jhoot ka fatak
Choose le Choose Le choose Le choose Le
Life ki bhaag le
Choose le Choose Le choose Le choose Le
Life ki bhaag le
Thak jhank thak jhank thak jhank
Dil mein bhi jhank le
Saare rit rivaz hata kar
Dekho apne ghar ke anadar
Shyad kahin kisi kone par
Ghoom raha hai Kala bandar

Pakistan - Taliban

Islamabad’s surrender to the Taliban in Swat is terrible news. A moribund Islamabad cannot stop Islamic terrorists from attacking India even if it wants to.
It’s another matter that Pakistan has long nurtured groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba to target Kashmir. It’s now learning what India learned in the 1980s — you can be devoured by monsters you create to wound others.
Indira Gandhi nurtured two monsters — Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in Punjab and Prabhakaran of the Tamil Tigers. When the monsters got out of control, she (and later Rajiv Gandhi) tried quelling them. Result: Indira was killed by disgruntled Sikhs, and Rajiv by disgruntled Tamil Tigers. The lesson for Pakistan is clear.
The Taliban’s rise in Pakistan has something in common with Bhindranwale’s rise in Punjab. A religious preacher, he sought to purge Sikhism of modern evils and return to pristine Sikhism. He was outraged by reformist Sikhs like the Nirankaris, and his followers killed many Nirankaris including the Nirankari Baba.
Religion and violence make a very dangerous mix. Yet, both Indira and the Akali Dal, sought to use Bhindranwale rather than jail him. Indira supported his candidates against official Akali ones in the 1979 gurdwara elections. And the Akalis sought to use his inflammatory Sikh rhetoric — including a demand for an independent Khalistan — to garner votes in state elections.
The Akalis let him set up a terrorist fortress within the Golden Temple. This ended only when the Army overran the Temple and killed Bhindranwale. But this attack enraged many Sikhs, creating ever more militant groups.
No politician or analyst initially viewed the Bhindranwale challenge as a law-and-order one, to be put down with a firm hand. All felt that Sikh sensibilities had to be assuaged with political compromises. My editor at the time thought peace could be bought by giving Chandigarh and more river water to Punjab. Alas! the terrorists dismissed such peace offerings with contempt.
Rajiv Gandhi struck a peace accord with the Akali Dal, enabling it to win the 1985 state election. Yet, his attempt to use the Akalis to curb extremism failed — it only emboldened the militants, whom the Akalis had no will to control. Rajiv also struck a deal with Bhindranwale’s nephew, Jaswant Singh Rode, and made him Akal Takht chief. But militancy only increased.
He then tried Army rule, but that too failed. The militants became ever stronger, and soon constituted a quasistate. They sent out hukumnamas (religious commands) ordering the closure of meat shops and cinema halls, and a terrorised populace obeyed. Policemen who tried to tackle terrorism were initially thwarted by politicians of the Congress and Akali Dal. Later, militants assassinated several police officers and their relatives.
In sum, all compromises with religious terror failed. So did Army rule. What finally succeeded was democracy with an iron fist. Fresh state elections in 1992 were boycotted by the Akalis, in line with terrorist warnings. Beant Singh, the new Congress chief minister, gave his police chief KPS Gill a free hand to crush terrorism. Gill unleashed state terror to counter Sikh terror, replicating tactics that the militants themselves used. In barely one year, he crushed a decade-old problem.
Only when Sikh policemen took on Sikh militants, with no interference from central or state politicians, was terrorism curbed. Earlier attempts at a Punjab-Delhi compromise or Hindu-Sikh compromise failed. The solution lay in reformulating the issue as one pitting Sikh liberals against Sikh fundamentalists.
This has lessons for Pakistan. Attempts by Islamabad to placate or strike deals with extremists will fail, emboldening militants and lowering the state’s stature.
In elections, Pakistanis have repeatedly voted for liberal Muslim parties, not Islamic ones. Yet, these liberal parties — including the Awami National Party, which won the state election in the North West Frontier Province — have no stomach to take on the Taliban. Islamabad has sought compromises with militant Baitullah Mehsud in the tribal areas, but only succeeded in strengthening Mehsud. The new compromise in Swat will surely fail too.
To succeed, Pakistan needs a Beant Singh. Muslim liberals will have to take Muslim extremists head on. The task has to be done by a state government using police skills, not the Army. Terrorists cannot be subdued by US planes or troops.
This is a battle for Pakistan’s soul. It must be fought by Pakistani liberals against Pakistani extremists, without regard to Indian or US interests or urgings. Once Pakistani liberals grasp this hard reality, as Beant Singh did in Punjab, they will find that victory over extremism can be surprisingly quick and complete.

We, The People

We - collective noun ; a common noun. A word signifying togetherness, oneness, we is us, reading this piece.The people - my fellow citizens, citizens carrying the fellowship of this oneness, of this unity. So it is, We - The People. The people of the greatest democracy on this planet, the people of India. A unity we all thrive on. A unity which was noticed during the 92 Mumbai riots, the united India of the Babri Masjid massacre, a secular India which saw what happened at Godhra.

An average Indian can be called a dumb human. A human who boasts his short term memory. A memory which forgets everything and by everything I mean everything. An average Indian mind which does not care about how women are treated but will bomb places if his temple is demolished. A temple resided by the goddess, a women. An average Indian mind which glares at a women s breast like a pervert and bows down at the goddess`s temple. An average Indian politicians mind who thinks about the Valentines day and not about illetracy. !!

To be continued ...

HATE

Who defines Indian culture? As liberal lifestyles come under attack in the land of Khajuraho and the Kamasutra, We ask Should we go back to the future?




Which society could be more liberal than that of India, ask some credulous foreign tourists, as they observe Indian men openly holding hands in public? Here, no one looks twice at men hugging each other. Such expressions of male bonding — immortalized by Bollywood’s dosti songs — are considered normal in India. To uninformed foreign eyes, India may appear an egalitarian paradise, where no one has to hide their sexual orientation in the closet. But, trouble begins to brew and the police and lumpen vigilantes swing into action if a man and woman display affection in public. A couple holding hands on a street draws more attention than a beggar’s body on the sidewalk.
This February, as winter gives way to spring, the commercially sanctioned season of love is upon us and the hate brigade is waiting in the wings to attack people, particularly women, who dare to wear their hearts on their sleeves. From Jammu to Jabalpur, Mangalore to Mumbai, threats have been issued to “those who denigrate Indian culture”. Hooliganism by the Hindu right has become an annual feature of Valentine’s Day parties in India but this time the warning signs are particularly ominous. The Sri Ram Sene’s assault on girls in a Mangalore pub is fresh in everyone’s mind.
With Sene chief Pramod Muthalik out of jail on bail and the state and central governments failing to censure his threats and rein in his men, it is time to ask:
Who decides what is Indian culture?
Do consenting adults need sanction from the rest of the world to share a kiss in public?
Does it mean nothing that the Indian Constitution gives us the right to life and liberty?
For the likes of Muthalik — and there are many of them up and down the country — there is no room for discussion. Muthalik, who has been in the news since his goons stormed into a pub and molested girls in front of TV cameras, offers a bizarre reasoning for his opposition to Valentine’s Day celebrations: to save women from sexual assaults. He claims to have proof that 38 girls were raped in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata on Valentine's Day last year. “Many of them have committed suicide. Besides, this is nothing but the Western world imposing their capitalist values on Indians,” he says.
Muthalik’s Sene has a new slogan for Valentine’s Day: tie-or-die. The group is busy firming up plans to marry off couples found dating on February 14. Muthalik’s ideas on the relationship between men and women may sound absurd but the echoes of his reactionary views can be heard even in the nation’s most cosmopolitan city, Mumbai, where Valentine’s Day attacks on amorous couples have become routine. “So far our leadership has not issued any aadesh (order) in this regard. But we will definitely object if there is any indecent behaviour or harassment of girls under any pretext. We are bound to react if there is any obscenity,” says Neelam Gore, spokesperson for the Shiv Sena, whose activists have routinely vandalized shopping malls, card and gift shops and pubs full of romancing couples.
But the Sena, which claims to be fighting a cultural war against what it calls Western influence, has got away with it many times. Now, its footsoldiers are seen to be prepared to attack anyone, anywhere, who “shows disrespect to our culture”. Nilesh Pandey, a Shiv Sainik in Lucknow, says, “Pubs, discotheques and Valentine’s Day have never been a part our Indian culture. On the contrary, they drive us away from our roots. It’s not only our call but the responsibility of the entire nation to check the cultural erosion”. Justifying the public humiliation of young couples, Pandey insists: “This is the only option we have. No one listens to us otherwise.” Clearly, all is fair in love and cultural war.
The premise of this war is simple: Indian culture is basically Hindu culture as depicted by epics like Ramayana and texts like Manu Smriti; it’s beyond discussion; and violence is justified in defending this culture.
But, even as the space for discussion shrinks, people are daring to speak up. “Who are these people to decide what others should do? There is no reason to impose his (Muthalik’s) culture on others. The world over, youngsters have found their own way of expressing their freedom. Valentine’s Day is a way of expressing freedom. We won’t let these groups dictate to us. If they try to disrupt peace, we will kick them and hand them over to the police,” says Bangalore writer Agni Sridhar.
“When did our culture say that one should not celebrate love? If Muthalik says Valentine’s Day is akin to Christian culture, in ancient Hindu culture, loving someone was not a crime. It was a more liberal society than the Victorian era. We will not let Bangalore go the Mangalore way, we have a strategy in place,” says Rajesh Gundu Rao of Bangalore’s Citizens for Secular Society.
Though Bangalore may be getting ready to resist the threatened onslaught, Mumbai appears to be sunk in despair. “There has been a dramatic shift in the city’s tolerance levels since its name was changed to Mumbai in the ’90s,” says filmmaker Rakesh Sharma, whose Final Solutions documented the 2002 Gujarat riots. Sharma says, “The aim of these groups is to completely destroy the identity of anyone who is different, whether it’s a woman in a pub or a man who thinks differently.”
Despite multiple acts of mindless violence by the Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and now, Sri Ram Sene, the state has shown no will to arrest the trend. “All these attacks on our freedom are not possible without the silent consent of the government. If it can ensure that the oil companies do not go on strike across India, it can also ensure that such incidents do not take place,” says Roshan Peerzada, an MBA student in Lucknow who counts himself lucky to have escaped unhurt when Shiv Sainiks stormed a stationary store where he was buying a Valentine’s Day card last year.
Mumbai lawyer and former IPS officer Y P Singh agrees. “If the state is serious it can ensure that no attack on women or couples takes place on Valentine’s Day. It is just a question of police rounding up the usual suspects in advance. But sadly these days it rarely gets done.”
It’s not just the state that fails us again and again; ordinary citizens rarely take a stand. Dipankar Gupta, professor of sociology at JNU and author of Mistaken Modernity, has an explanation. “The way tradition is projected in our country, there is a groundswell of sympathy for these people. Our attitude towards gender and age has not changed despite westernization, which is quite superficial in nature.” He says, “Generally, we understand tradition in terms of a few conservative texts and the other books which give a more liberal view of our tradition and culture are just taught in patches.”
It’s this thinking, says the professor, that makes people look at a woman sitting all by herself in a pub in a suspicious way. That’s the point. Renuka Chaudhary may be planning a “pub bharo” to win this culture war, but before this battle is taken to trendy watering holes, it has be fought — and won — in the mind.