A fatwa to rape!


A fatwa was issued.

A Wahhabi religious cleric in Saudi Arabia, Muhammed al-Arifi, who is very influential in Jihadi circles, has recently issued a fatwa (religious edict) that permits all Jihadist militants in Syria to engage in short-lived marriages with Syrian women that each lasts for a few hours in order to satisfy their sexual desires and boost their determination in killing Syrians. He called the marriage as ‘intercourse marriage’. It requires that the Syrian female be at least 14 years old, widowed, or divorced.

[Read more…]

‘Because I am a girl’

‘Over two-thirds of the world’s 793 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan). Of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions (the Arab states, South and West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa), where half of all women are illiterate.’

Kamla Bhasin, an Indian feminist, has written a poem on girl’s education. Very simple poem. Sometimes very simple and very small things can touch hearts. She encourages girls to go to schools, to live their lives with dignity and rights.

A father asks his daughter:

Study? Why should you study?
I have sons aplenty who can study.
Girl, why should you study?

The daughter tells her father:
Since you ask, here’s why I must study.
Because I am a girl, I must study.
Long denied this right, I must study
For my dreams to take flight, I must study
Knowledge brings new light, so I must study
For the battles I must fight, I must study
Because I am a girl, I must study.

To avoid destitution, I must study
To win independence, I must study
To fight frustration, I must study
To find inspiration, I must study
Because I am a girl, I must study.

To fight men’s violence, I must study
To end my silence, I must study
To challenge patriarchy I must study
To demolish all hierarchy, I must study.
Because I am a girl, I must study.

To mould a faith I can trust, I must study
To make laws that are just, I must study
To sweep centuries of dust, I must study
To challenge what I must, I must study
Because I am a girl, I must study.

To know right from wrong, I must study.
To find a voice that is strong, I must study
To write feminist songs I must study
To make a world where girls belong, I must study.
Because I am a girl, I must study.

Study alone won’t work. Most of the educated and financially independent women practice anti-women traditions, and hardly try to break the shackles of patriarchy or fight misogyny. To walk with their head held high women need other things too: consciousness and courage. Academic curriculum does not always help women to grow consciousness.

We are raped to death.

Whatever little rights the women of the Indian subcontinent have gained till now, most of it has been because of men. Men have fought with the misogyny-laden society in favor of abolishing the abhorrent practice of Sati, and facilitating the acquisition of suffrage, the ability to walk beyond the household boundaries, the rights to education and jobs by the women. That said, the number of good men are still very limited. Although some men have time and again assisted the women in their quest for progress by parting the wall of hindrances, most men have shoved women backwards. In fact, the number of men trying to force women into retreat has always been rather large.

I have been living in India for a while, because my right to reside anywhere in this subcontinent, other than in India, has been severely violated by a so-called democratic government, which doesn’t believe in democracy. By virtue of living in India for a few years, I have watched closely this country – the oldest democracy in the subcontinent, far ahead of its neighbors in education, and equality. It comes as a great shock and surprise to me when, every morning, the newspapers bring reports of rape; rape of minors, cold-blooded murders following sexual abuse – men are slaughtering women by strangling, shooting, hacking, burning and stoning them to death. What surprises me the most is the resounding lack of protests against such horrors. Thousands take to the streets in protest if the price of onions or petrol vary a little bit, but the rape and abuse of hundreds of women doesn’t motivate a single man or woman to protest. People have become desensitized to rape after hearing about and encountering such heinous incidents on a regular basis; no longer is someone shocked by the news of rape. Even the news media are no longer interested in reporting about rape. It is not considered newsworthy unless a gang-rape occurs.

A young woman in Delhi was gang-raped in a moving bus by some men just this other day. Not just a gang-rape, something even more horrific. Hurting her with their penises didn’t adequately satisfy their blood-lust; inserting an iron rod into her genital organ, they ruptured her uterus and ripped out her intestines. But they didn’t stop there. Their rapacious merriment over, they threw the almost dead woman out of the moving bus. One could not expect her to survive; indeed, the young woman, after valiantly battling death for a few days in hospitals, finally succumbed to her irreparable injuries today.

For the very first time, folks were angry. Or did it wake them up? Does wakefulness appear so easily? It is true that for the first time, thousands of men and women of all ages took to the streets demanding from their government the safety and security for the womenfolk. It has also been demanded that the perpetrators should be hanged by the neck till death. Capital punishment by hanging is not a major issue to this government – it is a rather easy, hassle-free solution. But it is a lot more difficult to take measures so that men cease to see women as sex objects, so that from a tender age, human beings learn to recognize and treat other human beings as human beings. The responsibility for this tough task should devolve upon the government, surely.

Of course, parroting lofty lines such as “men and women have equal rights; don’t treat women as subhuman beings; don’t hurt them, don’t rape them;” from an early childhood is no guarantee that the message would reach the brains. Even if it does, when children, adolescents and young adults continuously witness at home or elsewhere that men are vocal, men take charge, while women play the second fiddle and lurk in the background, that experience fills their brains to the exclusion of everything else. Experience at brothels in the youth also teaches them that anything can be done with women’s bodies, no matter if the woman is a child; that it is not largely considered an offence in the contemporary society. The same goes for one’s wife. Sexual abuse of the wife, also known as marital rape, may now well be a criminal act by law, but it’s not a culpable infraction in the eyes of the patriarchal society. This is similar to the way in which the dowry system – illegal and prohibited by law – still flourishes in the society, proving every day that women are rather inferior, powerless, voiceless, lower-order beings – that the entire lives of women are to be dedicated to bribing the menfolk into accepting them as slaves.

Married women bear various marks on their bodies to advertise their marital status. Just as lifeless photo-frames are sometimes marked with a red mark as ‘sold’, the application of the red vermilion mark on the forehead and the parting of hair suffices as a veritable purchase notice for married women; for them, from the hair on the scalp to toenails are considered property of their husbands. Married men, however, are never properties of their wives. If protests against the rape of women carry on while leaving such patriarchal traditions intact, would rapes ever stop? On one hand, ninety-nine percent of Bollywood movies portray women as sex-objects, television carries the same message, newspapers splash images of barely-clad women; everywhere the women are merely bodies – smooth, soft skin; only breasts, only genitalia; their brains are not brains – women philosophers are not philosophers, scientists are not scientists, intellectuals are not intellectuals, professionals are not professionals. Once they are within reach, are men going to discuss science and philosophy, or are they going to be more inclined towards rape? I don’t think men don’t know that whatever a woman might wear, be it a short skirt or nothing, no one has the right to rape her. I think men know it well. At the same time, they also know that they are the decision makers! Men have more muscles, more brains, more courage; they can take greater risks, and they are beyond shame and fear; men are brave, fearless, powerful, stronger both physically and mentally – there is nothing they cannot do. This is what they have learnt, this is what they have been taught every moment of every day since their birth. The act of rape, to these men, is an evidence of their virility. The truth is, however patriarchy has raped women’s bodies, it has raped women’s minds even more; it has raped their vitality, their lives and liveliness, their limitless possibilities, dreams and freedoms. A physical injury often heals, an emotional injury doesn’t.

This has been transpiring for centuries. All living organisms evolve. The human species has sustained for so long because it has adapted to evolving conditions and situations, from good to better, from better to still better. Within the same species, if one group continues to persecute another simply on the basis of different genitalia, that time may not be far when the entire species would become extinct. If men cannot control their proclivity to rape, if enjoyment continue to come from forcing oneself upon another, then the evolution of human beings would progress only towards destruction. Very few species consciously oppress or torment the female of the species. Gang-rape? No other species, barring humans, show such loathsome inclinations.

Humans are intelligent, as evidenced from their various endeavors. They have sent machines to Mars, but cannot create an equitable environment on their own planet for men and women to live together in equality, equal rights, empathy, understanding, peace and harmony – is it because they lack intelligence, wherewithal or a desire to do the right thing? I suspect the latter. Even if I accept that men rape because they are stronger, but society, state or the nation doesn’t run on merely strength. They run on intellect. Have the menfolk raped their own intelligence, conscience, and hearts to a comatose state? Ripping apart their consciousness, they are raping their own future!

Who will change the society, then? The powers-that-be. Those who made up the patriarchal society. Those who are powerless, oppressed, raped, and tortured, what can they do? The presence of the tormentor, oppressor groups at the anti-rape protests on the streets of Delhi are far more important than the presence of the tormented and oppressed. The torments shall cease when the tormentors cease operations and withdraw. If they stop for fear of retribution, the cessation may not last as much as it would if they stop because they understand, because their eyes have opened. That would certainly be a longer-term solution.

That India is the largest democracy in the world is true from the perspective of its population count. However, democracy is not restricted to mere arrangement of elections. Democracy encompasses equal rights and equal freedom of expression for men and women, rich and poor, everyone. Contemporary India has neither, let alone the entire subcontinent. In a true democracy, people live in safety and security. Would the expressed outrage of a subsection of the Middle Class be at all effective in bringing true democracy? Only solution, perhaps, is a mass uprising. Political maneuvers keep such mass uprisings in abeyance in the subcontinent. Watching and living with inequities and injustices day in and day out, human beings get used to these social evils. A majority of folks don’t know or understand what equality or equal rights means. Unfortunately, most of the deprived don’t realize they are deprived; most of the distressed can’t recognize their harassment.

Let them know, let them realize, and then wake up.

(My sincere thanks to Kausik Datta @kausikdatta22 for translating my Bengali write up)

She was brutally gangraped, tortured, mutilated and murdered. Don’t say that she ‘died peacefully’.

Dr. Kelvin Loh, the chief executive of Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore, said the Indian gang rape victim who was brought to Singapore, ‘died peacefully’. How could she die ‘peacefully’? She was only 23, her dreams to work as a paramedic or a physiotherapist did not come true. Her whole future was ahead of her, she was supposed to live her life, but she was brutally gang raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered. There is no ‘peace’ in it.

A 23-year-old gang-rape victim died. A 17-year-old gang-rape victim committed suicide other day. Thousands of rape and gang-rape survivors are ashamed of being raped. They live in a male dominated society where men are megalomaniac and misogynists, and it is considered ‘manly’ to terrorize and torture women, half of their population.

The world now knows about a gang-raped woman who died today. The world does not know about millions of women who get oppressed,harassed,abused, tortured,trafficked, burned, raped, gang-raped,murdered everyday. Here women hardly get any opportunity to live peacefully or die peacefully.

Better kill them before they are born.

I got news for you.

A man threw his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter from the top of a building because he wanted a son, not a daughter. He had been torturing his daughter after birth and tried to kill her, as he wished for a boy. He also had inflicted injuries with cigarette butt on the baby because he loved boys and hated girls. His wife was too afraid to protest the torture till he threw the baby yesterday.
The baby girl is fighting for her life in a hospital.

baby_girl_thrown_off_dharwad_295

The rates of female foeticide and female infanticide are incredibly high in India. Don’t we all know that foeticide is better than infanticide? If you hate females, better kill them before they are born. Why do you let them born into this world and then you beat them, burn them, rape them, threw them and bury them alive? It doesn’t make sense. Girls do not deserve to be tortured or killed for your stupidity. And you do not deserve to be their fathers. The human Foetus feels no pain before 24 weeks. You have enough time to abort female foetuses. Go for it. I know it is illegal. But you guys do it anyway.

India, the land of eroticism, sexism and rapism.

Once upon a time Indians had no inhibitions about expressing sexuality. They built numerous erotic temples full of magnificent art of erotic love.

Then the British brought Victorian conservatism to India. And then Gandhi, the great leader of India said sex should only be for procreation, not for pleasure. Like the followers of different spiritual leaders, Gandhi’s followers were influenced by deeply conservative understanding of human sexuality.

Now, for many Indians, sex is a taboo. There are people who do not eat meat, onion and garlic to control their sexual desires. It is not uncommon that a couple start sleeping in separate rooms soon after their child is born. Women’s pre and post marital affairs and an active role during sexual acts are socially unacceptable. Sex and spirituality, many people believe, can’t coexist. In today’s India, an unbelievable number of people believe sex is a male thing. Countless brothels have been made for giving pleasure to men. Incredible India is now facing an alarming increase in rapes and sexual abuse of women and children.

Happy Birthday, Newton!

Newton said, ‘We build too many walls and not enough bridges.’ Newton probably had asperger’s syndrome. He did not have enough bridges in his brains that worked for physics, alchemy and theology. Different areas of his brains worked independently, but each with intense local power. If his brains were integrated, he wouldn’t have been Newton., he would be just another farmer.

Thanks Eve for eating the forbidden fruit.

‘When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.’ (Genesis 3:6)

God made such a mess of everything. It’s good that Eve and Adam did not obey god.

In the video, you would see Eve and Adam made a mess by obeying God.

Don’t you ever obey God, folks!

Not celebrating Christmas the Mass of Christ

Most Christians believe December 25th is the birthday of Jesus, but some historians do not believe December 25th is the birthday of Jesus. Among Ex-Christian atheists most celebrate Christmas, some don’t. I am in favor of not celebrating Christmas. Atheists treat Christmas as winter solstice, the Pagan holiday. I am nor in favor of celebrating Pagan superstitions. Both Christians and atheists love Christmas trees, Christmas gifts, Christmas lights, Christmas songs and snow-man, Christmas family dinner. I like trees, lights, gifts, family feast too. But I can get those things any other times, I do not need a specific day for those, especially not the day when millions of non-scientific minds, superstitious souls, celebrate their religious holy day.

I have decided to celebrate some of the birthdays this week. On December 24, I will celebrate the birth of physicist James Prescott Joule, who discovered a simple law connecting the current and resistance with the heat generated, and investigated the conversion of electrical and mechanical work into heat. On December 25, German author Charlotte von Stein’s birthday, I will celebrate the day by reading her books. It’s a great great day. Sir Isaac Newton, the English physicist, mathematician, astronomer’s birthday will be celebrated with music. Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. On December 26, I will celebrate the birth of Charles Babbage, a mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer. On December 27, I will celebrate the birth of German astronomer Johann Kepler who discovered elliptical orbits and of Louis Pasteur, a French chemist and microbiologist, who created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax and invented a method to treat milk and wine in order to prevent it from causing sickness, and of George Cayley who founded the science of aerodynamics and invented gliders. On December 28, it will be Auguste Lumiere and Louis Lumiere who were twin brothers opened the first commercial cinema, and American scientist, Kary Mullis a Nobel Prize winning American biochemist, author, who developed the polymerase chain reaction or PCR technique. December 29 will be celebrated for Charles Macintosh, a Scottish chemist and inventor of waterproof fabrics (Mackintosh raincoat). And for Charles Goodyear who invented the vulcanization process for rubber. On December 30, I will definitely drink a few bottles of Coca-Cola to celebrates the birth of Asa Griggs Candler who invented Coca-Cola. And will use my photo printer to celebrate Larry Bartlett’s birthday, Larry invented black and white photographic printer. And on December 31, I will celebrate the birth of American astronomer, Robert G Aitken, who was the first to discover binary stars. Then comes New Year’s Eve. I do not celebrate New Year’s Eve because I feel the first day of a new year is just like any other day. I do not find any reason to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Are you thinking I am weird? Don’t worry, you can think whatever you like. I respect your right to have a thinking mind.

Patriarchal Mindset

Women in India have been suffering from all kinds of oppression for centuries. Finally they are angry and take to the streets. A brutal gang rape in Delhi has triggered demands for stricter laws and swifter prosecutions.


A 23-year-old medical student was raped and beaten by six men on a Delhi bus.
The sexual assault spanned several hours and left the woman close to death. Men inserted a metal rod into her vagina with so much force that her intestines were brought along when it was pulled out. The rapists saw rope like objects while raping. The woman is now battling for her life in a hospital.

[Read more…]