Indian Godman is in jail for sexual assault

Gandhi grew up in Gujarat. He was called Bapu. Asaram grew up in Gujarat. He is also called Bapu. Gandhi was hugely popular among Indians. Asaram has been hugely popular among Indians. Gandhi used young girls for his celibacy test, even when he was over 70. Asaram is now 72, and he rapes young girls.

image

Asaram is now in jail. But most Indians still support him and believe that he is not guilty. Most Indians support Gandhi. They believe Gandhi had the right to make young girls naked and sleep with him. Godmen exploit people for wealth and fame and sex. God-fearing people go to Godmen to get their blessings, because they are told that Godmen have a direct connection with God.

You may imprison a rapist Godman. But it will not make Godman business disappear from superstitious society. You will not be able to defeat god beliefs, god-men, superstitions by any other weapons but science. You bet.

Everybody has the right to blaspheme.

India is a country of religion and spirituality. It has a law against blasphemy.

Section 295A, Indian Penal Code: Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.— Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise], insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

The Indian Penal Code embodied some relics of English medieval ecclesiastical law.
It is high time India changes its penal code as it does not have many safeguards to freedom of speech and expression.

image
Today The Times Of India, the most prestigious, popular, and the most circulated newspaper in India published my tweet about blasphemy : Everybody has the right to blaspheme.

I believe the editors of The Times of India believe that everybody has the right to blaspheme. I believe they will do everything possible to make India abolish the law against blasphemy. If India abolished it, Bangladesh and Pakistan would be inspired to abolish their anti-blasphemy laws. The subcontinent would be a sane place.

Gandhi

I am watching Gandhi on an Indian TV. Today is the Independence Day of India. TV channels are celebrating the day. Gandhi is the father of the nation. Showing Gandhi is part of their celebration. Gandhi is an award winning well produced well directed film. The film won eight Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Richard Attenborough), Best Original Screenplay (John Briley) etc. The film also got Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

I always wonder how the film got so many awards when an important part of Gandhi’s life was ignored. Who knows why the film did not show Gandhi’s sex experiments or Celibacy tests! Gandhi’s sex life is very important to know Gandhi the person. Gandhi started sleeping and bathing naked with young naked girls since 1906. He continued to do that until his death in 1948. 16 to 19 years old young girls were forced to sleep with him every night. Manuben, one of the girls who had to sleep with him, wrote her diaries. She described how she was cursed if she ever hesitated to get naked. Gandhi got angry with her whenever she expressed her desire to marry someone. It was possible for Gandhi to do whatever he liked because he was extremely popular and also because Indian society was deeply misogynistic. There was no proof that those girls were not molested by Gandhi. The girls were asked to keep their mouths shut.

Gandhi also used the girls as his walking sticks.

Mohandas K. Gandhi ;Manilal Gandhi ;Mrs. Kanu Gandhi;Pyarelal;Sita Gandhi;Sushila Pai;Raj Kumari

Remembering those days

India got independence from the British in 1947. But the independence brought the partition, based on religion. Pakistan was for Muslims. India was for Hindus. The political leaders of India believed in two nation theory. But the war between East and West Pakistan in 1971 proved that two nation theory was a wrong theory and Muslim unity was a myth. The leaders thought that the conflicts people had would be solved if only they could divide the land where people lived for thousands of years together. But they were wrong. A million people died during the partition. Hatred increased over the years. Muslim and Hindu fundamentalism grew more than ever. And after 66 years of the partition, now we see that India and Pakistan get nuclear bombs, Indians are in constant fear of Pakistani terrorists, Pakistanis are getting killed by talibans and drone attacks, Bangladesh’s secular fabric has been destroyed by the Islamists.

If there were no partition of India, there would not have any war in Bangladesh. 3 million people would not have been killed, and 200,000 women would not have been raped.
Today I am celebrating Independence Day of India by reciting ‘September on Jessore Road’, the poem written by Allen Ginsberg while remembering all the deaths and the homelessness of Bengalis.

Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road–long bamboo huts
Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts

Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go

image

One Million aunts are dying for bread
One Million uncles lamenting the dead
Grandfather millions homeless and sad
Grandmother millions silently mad

image

Millions of daughters walk in the mud
Millions of children wash in the flood
A Million girls vomit & groan
Millions of families hopeless alone

Millions of souls nineteenseventyone
homeless on Jessore road under grey sun
A million are dead, the million who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan

image

Taxi September along Jessore Road
Oxcart skeletons drag charcoal load
past watery fields thru rain flood ruts
Dung cakes on treetrunks, plastic-roof huts

Wet processions Families walk
Stunted boys big heads don’t talk
Look bony skulls & silent round eyes
Starving black angels in human disguise

image

Mother squats weeping & points to her sons
Standing thin legged like elderly nuns
small bodied hands to their mouths in prayer
Five months small food since they settled there

on one floor mat with small empty pot
Father lifts up his hands at their lot
Tears come to their mother’s eye
Pain makes mother Maya cry

image

Two children together in palmroof shade
Stare at me no word is said
Rice ration, lentils one time a week
Milk powder for warweary infants meek

No vegetable money or work for the man
Rice lasts four days eat while they can
Then children starve three days in a row
and vomit their next food unless they eat slow.

b71-

On Jessore road Mother wept at my knees
Bengali tongue cried mister Please
Identity card torn up on the floor
Husband still waits at the camp office door

Baby at play I was washing the flood
Now they won’t give us any more food
The pieces are here in my celluloid purse
Innocent baby play our death curse

Two policemen surrounded by thousands of boys
Crowded waiting their daily bread joys
Carry big whistles & long bamboo sticks
to whack them in line They play hungry tricks

Breaking the line and jumping in front
Into the circle sneaks one skinny runt
Two brothers dance forward on the mud stage
Teh gaurds blow their whistles & chase them in rage

image

Why are these infants massed in this place
Laughing in play & pushing for space
Why do they wait here so cheerful & dread
Why this is the House where they give children bread

The man in the bread door Cries & comes out
Thousands of boys and girls Take up his shout
Is it joy? is it prayer? “No more bread today”
Thousands of Children at once scream “Hooray!”

Run home to tents where elders await
Messenger children with bread from the state
No bread more today! & and no place to squat
Painful baby, sick shit he has got.
image

Malnutrition skulls thousands for months
Dysentery drains bowels all at once
Nurse shows disease card Enterostrep
Suspension is wanting or else chlorostrep

Refugee camps in hospital shacks
Newborn lay naked on mother’s thin laps
Monkeysized week old Rheumatic babe eye
Gastoenteritis Blood Poison thousands must die

September Jessore Road rickshaw
50,000 souls in one camp I saw
Rows of bamboo huts in the flood
Open drains, & wet families waiting for food

Border trucks flooded, food cant get past,
American Angel machine please come fast!
Where is Ambassador Bunker today?
Are his Helios machinegunning children at play?

image

Where are the helicopters of U.S. AID?
Smuggling dope in Bangkok’s green shade.
Where is America’s Air Force of Light?
Bombing North Laos all day and all night?

Where are the President’s Armies of Gold?
Billionaire Navies merciful Bold?
Bringing us medicine food and relief?
Napalming North Viet Nam and causing more grief?

Where are our tears? Who weeps for the pain?
Where can these families go in the rain?
Jessore Road’s children close their big eyes
Where will we sleep when Our Father dies?

image

Whom shall we pray to for rice and for care?
Who can bring bread to this shit flood foul’d lair?
Millions of children alone in the rain!
Millions of children weeping in pain!

Ring O ye tongues of the world for their woe
Ring out ye voices for Love we don’t know
Ring out ye bells of electrical pain
Ring in the conscious of America brain

How many children are we who are lost
Whose are these daughters we see turn to ghost?
What are our souls that we have lost care?
Ring out ye musics and weep if you dare–

Cries in the mud by the thatch’d house sand drain
Sleeps in huge pipes in the wet shit-field rain
waits by the pump well, Woe to the world!
whose children still starve in their mother’s arms curled.

Is this what I did to myself in the past?
What shall I do Sunil Poet I asked?
Move on and leave them without any coins?
What should I care for the love of my loins?

b71--

What should we care for our cities and cars?
What shall we buy with our Food Stamps on Mars?
How many millions sit down in New York
& sup this night’s table on bone & roast pork?

How many millions of beer cans are tossed
in Oceans of Mother? How much does She cost?
Cigar gasolines and asphalt car dreams
Stinking the world and dimming star beams–

Finish the war in your breast with a sigh
Come tast the tears in your own Human eye
Pity us millions of phantoms you see
Starved in Samsara on planet TV
image

How many millions of children die more
before our Good Mothers perceive the Great Lord?
How many good fathers pay tax to rebuild
Armed forces that boast the children they’ve killed?

image

How many souls walk through Maya in pain
How many babes in illusory pain?
How many families hollow eyed lost?
How many grandmothers turning to ghost?

How many loves who never get bread?
How many Aunts with holes in their head?
How many sisters skulls on the ground?
How many grandfathers make no more sound?

image

How many fathers in woe
How many sons nowhere to go?
How many daughters nothing to eat?
How many uncles with swollen sick feet?

Millions of babies in pain
Millions of mothers in rain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of children nowhere to go

image

Don’t let the fanatics win.

Islamic scholar Amina Wadud’s lecture has been cancelled in India.

Amina Wadud is called Islamic feminist. I personally do not think any devout Muslim can be a feminist. The reason for my doubt is, all religions including islam are anti-Women.

Amina Wadud is a veiled Muslim. She has been fighting for the right of Muslim women to become Imams. She made her dreams come true, she led some mixed-gender prayers.

image

It is not easy to do because Islam as one of the misogynistic religions is against female leadership. Amina Wadud has so far managed to play the role of Imam in some prayers though, but obviously fanatics haven’t appreciated it. They do not want to stand behind a woman. Why should they? Allah himself placed men above women. Accepting female leadership means ignoring Allah the almighty.

Islam says:

It is preferable for women to pray in congregation, led by another woman, because the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, told Umm Waraqah to lead the women of her household in Prayer. There is some difference among scholars on this matter. (See Al-Mughni, 2/202 and Al-Majmu`, 4/84-85) The woman leading the Prayer should read aloud as long as no non-mahram man can hear her. It is permissible for women to go out and pray in the mosque with men, although their Prayer at home is better, because the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Do not prevent the women from going out to the mosques, even though their homes are better for them.”

Imam An-Nawawi, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “Women differ from men in congregational Prayer in some ways:

a) Congregational Prayer is not required of them in the same way as it is of men.

b) In case a woman leads a group of women in Prayer, she stands in the middle of the (first) row.

c) If one woman led by a man, she should stand behind him, not next to him.

d) If women are praying in rows behind men, the back rows are better for them than the front rows.” (Al-Majmu`, 3/455)

Nothing fails like prayers. If women lead Muslim prayers, Islam will not turn from misogynistic to egalitarian religion, or the fiction will not be facts. It will remain as unscientific, unequal, unethical, inhuman as it is today. But still Amina Wadud’s right to express her opinions on female leading Islamic prayers should not be violated. But her right has been violated only because some Muslim fanatics who believe in the acts of violence and no free speech do not want her speak.

Amina Wadud is not alone. Other freethinkers are also not allowed to speak their mind. I have been prevented to live in West Bengal only because some fanatics might get unhappy if I do. Once the authority fulfills their weird wishes to shut one’s mouth, they believe they have now the right to continue shutting others’ mouths. And it becomes a trend.

If you love your country and people, please don’t let the religious fanatics to go unopposed. If you want well-being of humanity, you will not let the fanatics win.

Mid-day deaths

middaymeal

I learned about poverty when I learned about school children that stopped going to schools because they were not given free mid-day meal anymore. Just a little poor quality rice, and a little poor quality lentil they could get. But that was their main meal for a day. Mid-day meal was the main attraction for children to go to schools. After the scheme was closed, there were schools, there were teachers, but there was no mid-day meal and there was no student. Then one day the scheme was reopened. Children began to go to schools for both a meal and an education.

I learned about insanity when I learned how the poor school children were poisoned. Mid-day meal was cooked with deadly pesticide. 23 children died immediately. They were supposed to become educated and get rid of their poverty. They were supposed to enlighten their society.

Mass Virginity Test

350 women were put through virginity test during a mass marriage programme organised by the Madhya Pradesh government in India. marriage-1_660_060813080135 It is not the first time. The same state forced women to have virginity tests during a mass marriage ceremony in 2009. Girja Vyas, the head of national commission of women then said, “Such a shameful act where girls had to reportedly undergo tests to prove their chastity to avail the government’s financial aid were sinful and could not be tolerated in a sane society.”

Of course the heinous crimes have been tolerated. Otherwise how could the same people commit the same crime against women in 2013? In the name of helping poor people through mass marriages the authority provides men tight virgin vaginas, so that men can loose themselves and go fuck them as much as they want. The authority has reduced women to mere vaginas. They believes in women’s chastity. Are they concerned about men’s chastity as well? Of course not. A woman must be a virgin if she wants to get married. Who she is married to is not at all important, Nothing matters if the bridegroom is a polygamous or polygynous man, or a women abuser, a dowry murderer, a trafficker!

Govt-ignore-humanity-in-name-of-social-uplift (1)

Let’s learn about virginity test.

Some cultures require proof of a bride’s virginity prior to her marriage. This has traditionally been tested by the presence of an intact hymen, which was verified by either a physical examination (usually by a physician, who would provide a certificate of virginity) or by a “proof of blood”, which refers to vaginal bleeding that results from the tearing of the hymen. The physical examination would normally be undertaken before the marriage ceremony, while the “proof by blood” involves an inspection for signs of bleeding as part of the consummation of marriage, after the ceremony.

I do not think mass marriage organizers called skilled physicians to do the virginity test. Men in authority know how to do it. They just need a proof of blood. I think they pushed their fingers, their arms, their dicks, their dickheads, their bamboos, their bottles, their iron rods into the vaginas to see how the poor girls bleed. Men like to see women bleeding and crying in pain. They get enormous pleasure exploiting, abusing, humiliating and insulting women. Nothing new.

How the extremists won

I have known Kolkata since my childhood, through children’s books and stories my parents told me. I came to know it better during my youth, when I finished reading the works of as many superb Bengali writers and poets as I could gather, and also when I published the poems of many contemporary Bengali poets from the East as well as the West while editing and publishing my poetry magazine since 1978. I remember, I visited Kolkata for the first time in the late ‘80s and it was like a dream. I felt I knew and loved Kolkata more than many native Kolkatans. In the early ‘90s, I was the first writer from Bangladesh to receive West Bengal’s most prestigious literary award, the Ananda Puroshkar. Since then I have felt closely related to Kolkata. I got the opportunity to personally meet and come close to many authors and intellectuals whom I held in great regard. I was fortunate to receive their love, sympathy and solidarity. Annada Shankar Ray, Shib Narayan Ray, and Amlan Dutta were the true secular humanist intellectuals in Kolkata.

Something else happened in the early ‘90s, too; I was forced to leave my beloved country and live in exile. I could not accept the idea that a Bengali writer had to leave Bengal simply because some ignorant, insane persons did not like my writings, and therefore, I made several attempts to return to my country, or at least, to West Bengal, which shares a common history and traditions with my country. Sadly, each time, I failed miserably, which left me no alternative but to stay in Europe or America. But whenever India gave me permission to enter, I did not waste a moment; I rushed to Kolkata and met all my friends there: a homeless felt at home, for the first time, while living in exile. I tried a lot and eventually got a Residence Permit to reside in India. No more a constrained tourist, I was a resident in this great country, and I thought that my travails were over. I received my second prestigious literary award for the first part of my memoir, titled My Girlhood (amar meyebela). But, there was to be no respite for me; just a few years thereafter, the West Bengal government banned Dwikhandito, the third part of my memoir. I personally knew Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, then the Chief Minister of West Bengal under the Left Front government. He was initially very friendly towards me, and that is partly why it was so shocking to me that he had banned my book, which was about my struggle opposing religious fanatics. Upon being asked, Mr. Bhattacharyya declared that as many as 25 intellectuals had asked him to ban my book.

But that was not the end of it. What I didn’t realize in my shock and grief was that this information, involving a few authors in Bangladesh, was a secret and not supposed to come out. The late Sunil Gangopadhaya, an accomplished writer and close friend of Mr. Bhattacharya, was the most displeased and excoriated me, saying that it was very bad form to disclose the things that happened behind the closed door between two people. Anyway, I didn’t think that the book was banned because I honestly told my life stories; some other reasons must have been given to justify banning the book. Then I found out that it was banned on the charges of ‘hurting religious feelings of Muslims’. Now Muslims got to know that a book was written by an author named Taslima Nasreen who hurt Muslim religious feelings. That was when Kolkata began to change. When the government bans your book, the fundamentalists are encouraged and enthused; they are inspired to find you a soft target. They feel the government will side with them. The Islamic fundamentalists started issuing fatwas against me; they set prices on my head. It happened in Kolkata first, and other cities followed suit.

Yes, other cities must have been inspired by Kolkata fatwa; I was physically attacked by Islamic fundamentalists in Hyderabad. The fundamentalists won’t dare touch a writer if they are not convinced they will go scot-free after such acts. To be honest, it was the politicians of the Indian subcontinent who had labeled me ‘anti-Islam’ by referring to my books as ‘controversial’ and banning them. Suddenly, everyone was concerned about the ‘feelings’ of the fundamentalists. I was a lone exiled writer, not a member of any political party or any large organization; I became an easy target of the fanatics, as well as of the governments of two countries. The West Bengal government used me for diverting the attention from the political fallouts of their dastardly actions in Nandigram and Singur, and then decided to throw me out of the state, eventually out of the country. Fanatics and fundamentalists, amongst the Muslim folks who took to the streets to protest against the killing of Muslims in Nandigram and Singur by the goons of the ruling communist party, had held up a piece of paper that said, “Taslima, go back.” This demand by the Islamic fundamentalists to deport Taslima was fulfilled with alacrity by the West Bengal government; the officials had started asking me to leave West Bengal since August, and they were desperate to make it happen by the end of November. They did get their wish: the attention of people was diverted for a few days. Ultimately, however, the CPIM could not win the election, but they did successfully send a signal to the Muslim fanatics that they managed to throw an ‘anti-Islam’ apostate like me out of their precious state.

The CPIM party used me in order to secure the Muslim votes during the past election; the Muslim fanatics used me in order to demonstrate the strength of fundamentalist faith even in a supposedly secular country. Ms. Mamata Banerjee, the current Chief Minister of West Bengal under the Trinamool Congress government, is inexplicably walking the same path as did her predecessors, the CPIM. She might oppose everything that CPIM did in this state, but agreed on one idea – that Taslima must not be allowed into West Bengal. Because both political parties do the exact same thing, that is, appease the Muslim fanatics, in order to retain their votes. Salman Rushdie was not allowed to reach West Bengal. The current West Bengal government prevented his entry into Kolkata. The Left Front parties, currently sitting in the Opposition, do not object to this decision of the government. How can they? Because what Ms. Banerjee is doing with me and Rushdie is not at all different from what they did with me just a little while ago.

I am thankful for the fact that India, as a country, has shown a degree of commendable religious tolerance in my case; I have at least been allowed to live here. Had it been Bangladesh or Pakistan, I would have been most likely dead by now. At the same time, I do believe that had my book not been banned in 2003, I would not have been thrown out of Kolkata in 2007; had I not been thrown out of Kolkata, Rushdie could have gone on to visit Kolkata, this wonderful city of intellectuals with a rich literary history. The sad fact of life is that once a government bows down to the fanatics, the fanatics are immeasurably encouraged and emboldened – and the trend is set.