Taslima Nasrin's Blog, page 26

Is anyone listening?

It is an interview.

It’s hard to miss her in Calcutta these days. She beams at passers-by from king-size hoardings at several busy junctions, anxiously marking her “return” to Bengal after six years.

But Taslima Nasreen is not returning to the city. Not in person, certainly — thanks to embargoes on her travelling and living in India. And not on television either, which had been promoting her as the writer of a mega serial that was to have been aired from December 19.

Despite the grand announcements, the show has been stalled. And Nasreen is furious. “Hating Taslima is an essential part of politics in the subcontinent. I feel pity for those who need to violate a writer’s rights to get votes,” she tweeted. “Whatever I write is hated by ignorant anti-women, anti-human rights bigots. Because they are afraid of the truth and the power of the pen,” said another tweet.

She walks into the drawing room-cum-study of her apartment located in an upmarket area of Delhi, where she has been living since 2008, full of misgivings. Just days before the serial was called off, she’d heard that the Calcutta police had met the producers of the serial.

“Some bigoted individuals asked for a ban and the state acquiesced — I don’t think this will happen even in Saudi Arabia,” she says. “But fundamentalists are anti-women and anti-freedom of expression, and for political reasons the government might side with them. But why are the people in Bengal silent,” she asks.

Dressed in grey winter pants, a black sweater and a blue embroidered stole, the maverick writer looks younger than her 51 years with her bright eyes and dishevelled short crop. She sinks into a reclining chair with a blue iPad in her hand. All around her are bookshelves, all packed with books. Stickers screaming messages such as “Atheism cures religious terrorism” are pasted on the shelves. Honorary certificates bestowed by foreign institutions, framed beautifully, adorn a whole wall in the study.

It has been almost 20 years since she was exiled from Bangladesh for “anti-Islam” writings and six years since she was ousted from West Bengal following communal disturbances in Calcutta’s Ripon Street. It was thought that she would return — in the shape of the serial called Dusahobas or unbearable co-existence, which was to be aired on Aakash Aath and promoted as a serial radically different from the regular saas-bahu stories.

This is the second time the soap has been stalled. She began writing it in 2006, when several episodes were also shot. “But then the 2007 drama happened and I was summarily thrown out of the city on November 22 that year,” she says, referring to the Ripon street violence. “That brought the production to a standstill.”

She had then urged her producers not to give up on the series merely because she had been ousted by the Bengal government, which cited her as a problem for law and order. “Why should the producers, or any creative person for that matter, be afraid of negative forces? These are just fringe elements who would oppose anyone who talks about gender equality and social change because they are misogynists.”

She cites the treatment meted out to reformists Vidyasagar and Raja Rammohan Roy by “anti-progress groups” for their pro-women measures. “The same thing is happening to me — I speak about new ideas, changing society, gender equality and humanism.”

What riles her more is the lack of protest in Calcutta. “This is a dangerous sign — if writers, intellectuals and other creative people keep quiet after this, something is wrong with society. Society is on the path of decline — this is what the silence signifies.

“But intellectuals do not keep their mouths shut when Hindu fanatics attack writers or artistes, or even when Muslim fanatics attack male writers such as Salman Rushdie. Misogynistic society shows solidarity towards victims, provided the victims are male, macho or anti-feminist,” she says.

Nasreen alleges that her ouster from Calcutta was premeditated. “Few people know that I was actually put under house arrest for about four months before the November incident,” she says, adding that she had to leave her 7 Rawdon Street residence in Calcutta with just her laptop and a one-way ticket to Rajasthan.

“From August that year, I was repeatedly asked by the Left Front government to leave the country. They even used to send the then police commissioner to coax me; he asked me to go to the jungles of Madhya Pradesh.” Nirbasan (Exile), the seventh part of her autobiography, documents her ouster from the city where she lived from 2004 to 2007.

She stresses that the Ripon Street incident was not a “Muslim uprising” against her. “The original plan was to agitate against the violence in Nandigram,” she says, referring to the 2007 police firing in which several villagers were killed. “The outburst was actually against the government for doing little for the community. The CPI(M) was losing popularity at that time — so they wanted to use me to score some political brownie points.”

She says she was “deeply hurt” by the then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s behaviour. “I tried to meet him at that time, but he didn’t meet me. But Jyotibabu (ex-chief minister) supported me right through the end. He was also against banning my books in Bengal,” she adds.

Nasreen believes that the present state government is also following in the footsteps of the Leftists. “It never criticised the way the Left Front government wronged me.”

The author believes that her “persecution” in West Bengal began in 2003 when her book Dwikhandito (Split into Two) was banned by the state government. The book, it was alleged, was “anti-Islamic”, which was the brush that she was tarred with in Bangladesh.

Nasreen — who fled Bangladesh in 1994 after threats to her life — is, however, happy to have found a platform for her views in her motherland. She has been writing for a daily called Bangladesh Pratidin.

“I write a bimonthly column for the paper. I write generally on women’s issues, politics, etc. But I have been requested by editors not to write anything on religion,” she says. “For 20 years or so, they were afraid to touch me. But now I can reach out to my fans in Bangladesh.”

However, Nasreen is worried about Pan- Islamists, believers in Muslim brotherhood, who, she says, have been “growing at an alarming rate” in Bangladesh. “They are far more radical than what they were in 1971,” she says. At the same time, she is concerned about the path being taken by the “secularists” of Bangladesh.

“They are rejoicing at Abdul Kader Mullah’s death,” she says, referring to a Bangladeshi Islamist leader who was hanged earlier this month for war crimes in 1971. “But my point is that death penalty to such people won’t solve anything unless a forceful attempt is made to secularise society.”

Her “secularist fans” in Bangladesh, she adds, are “shocked” by her opposition to the death penalty. “They say these are the same kind of people who drove you out of your homeland. So how could I write against the death penalty,” she says. “But I forgive these fundamentalists — I want them to change and be better human beings. I want jails to be classrooms where such people could learn humanism.”

She, however, is in favour of banning the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party because she feels it works “exactly like a terrorist organisation” in Bangladesh. “They kill people — take blogger Rajib Haider’s death,” she says. Haider was a Bangladeshi anti-fundamentalist who was allegedly killed by a group associated with the Jamaat.

She is critical of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s “so-called anti-Islamist” stance. “If Hasina was truly anti-fundamentalist, she should have first brought Taslima Nasreen back to Bangladesh,” she says.

These days, Nasreen has found new a forum for her views — the Internet. “I rely on Twitter to update myself on developments around the world. You see, I don’t really have many platforms to express myself these days,” she rues.

She also blogs on topics that range from violence and politics to science. She has been spearheading an atheist movement in Calcutta. “It’s called Dharmamukto Manabbadi Mancha and it’s unique because all its atheist members — 400 or so — are Muslims working for gender equality and other issues,” she says, adding that her blogs sometimes attract 1-2 lakh readers a day.

Her tweets too have landed her in legal wrangles. Two cases — one in Uttar Pradesh and the other in Bihar — have been lodged against her. “The complaint from UP was against a tweet saying those who issue fatwas and rewards on beheading were anti-Constitution, anti-women and anti-freedom of expression,” says Nasreen, who has had three fatwas issued against her in Bangladesh and five in India so far.

“What have I said wrong? These people who issue fatwas are roaming scot-free while I am the one who is confined to one place,” she says, adding India’s home ministry has helped her with the cases.

She hasn’t stopped tweeting, though. “I will write more tweets. Let me see how people can stop me.”

Does she ever feel like giving it all up in India and settling down in the West? “I travel to Europe and America frequently. But I want to stay in India for the sake of this country,” she says. “I want to tell the world I can stay in India because this country is a true pillar of secularism and a standard bearer of freedom of expression in the subcontinent.”

Is anyone listening?

Finally, Banned.

The drama series or mega serial are banned.

The story of three sisters who are struggling to live with dignity and honour is banned.

The truth is banned.

Lies won. Insanity won. Fatwas won. Threats won. Barbarism won.

A bunch of faith-heads, hate mongers, anti-freespeech, filthy misogynist fanatics won.

The government of West Bengal in India made them win. On the 19th of December, 2013.

>

Some news are here:

1. West Bengal minister says: No place for people who hurt Muslim sentiments in Bengal.

2. The story of three sisters who struggle to live with dignity and honour in Kolkata is now banned.

3.State of free speech: Taslima Nasreen-scripted TV serial Dusahobas’ telecast deferred after Muslim groups object

4.Telecast of TV serial with Taslima’s script deferred.

5. TV serial on Taslima’s writings scrapped after Muslim protests.

6. Al Jazeera appointed a known Muslim fanatic as their correspondent. His version is different than all other version of Indian newspapers.

Not a single episode was not telecasted, but the government banned the TV drama series, the project that could continue for more than a decade.

Liberal intellectuals are silent about the banning of my serial in India. They protest when Hindu fundamentalists violate a writer’s freedom of expression. They even protest when Muslim fundamentalists attack on a writer’s free speech. But only when that writer is a male, macho, anti-feminist, Salman Rushdie.

We, the ordinary people protested on twitter against the banning of the mega serial. Many people criticized India’s vote bank politics. The politicians are accused of appeasing Muslim religious leaders in India in order to get Muslim votes. This vote bank politics is destroying the democratic principles of the world’s largest democracy.

Banning and censorship

The ads of the mega serial that I am writing for TV are all over West Bengal, India.

TV channel had telecasted ads every few minutes. One of them was about my return to Kolkata after 6 years. The return was not about me, but about my mega serial.

I was thrown out of West Bengal 6 years ago. The channel was giving people a pleasant surprise by saying Taslima the abandoned would come back to the city.

People were happy.

Richard Dawkins was also concerned about the serial. He tweeted:

But suddenly everything is dead. Everybody is silent. The channel, the producers, the artists all are shocked.

The police and a bunch of Muslim fanatics both asking the channel to ban my TV serial. The funny thing is that the serial has not started going on air but fanatic Mullahs started claiming that my serial ‘could hurt the sentiments of the community’. Mullahs don’t know about the story of the serial but they want to ban it because I have written it. They not only want to vanish me physically, they want to make all my ideas and thoughts vanished. I think they learn the trick from the West Bengal government. The West Bengal government banned my book in 2003 by claiming that my book could hurt the sentiments of Muslims. Mullahs have learned from the government that Muslim sentiments are very precious, their sentiments must not be hurt. So Muslim fanatics have the right to ban films, books, or whatever they like before they even read or watch those, to protect their so called sentiments.

Muslim fanatics opposing my script for mega serial.

Kolkata: Various Muslim organizations of West Bengal have opposed the broadcast of the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen’s script for a Bengali TV serial ‘Dusahobas’ (Living Difficulties) which, according to them would hurt the sentiments of the Muslims.

Dusahobas’ is slated to be telecast on an entertainment Bengali TV Channel “Aakash Aath” from December 19. According to sources, the serial is based on the travails and experiences in the life of the controversial Bengali author, who has been living in exile in India.

With a slogan of `Go back Taslima’ Shahi Imam of Tipu Sultan Mosque Maulana Nurur Rahman Barkati is Idris Ali, the member of the West Bengal’s legislative assembly holding a press conference

In a press Conference Shahi Immam of Tipu Sultan Mosque of Kolkata Maulana Nurur Rahman Barkati and All India Minority Forum president Idris Ali said on 14 December that they are opposed to the Bengali channel broadcasting serial on the controversial author’s life.

Maulana Nurur Rahman informed that he has also spoke to the West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on the issue. Extolling the WB CM of being symbol of communal harmony, the Shahi Imam appealed to her to intervene and immediately stop the broadcast of the serial.

Idris Ali said that there are so many writers even within the country and we don’t necessarily need to follow the controversial Bangladeshi author.

Muhammad Kamruzzaman sent a letter on behalf of 22 Muslim organizations to the Police Commissioner of Kolkata Mr Surajit Kar Purkayashta on 13 December to stop the broadcast, which according to them would disturb the communal harmony in the state.

They have threatened to take to streets if the administration does not stop the broadcast.

The 22 Muslim organization are: 1. All Bengal Minority Youth Federation. 2 West Bengal Sunnat Al Jamat Committee. 3. Magribi Bangal Anjumane Wayezin. 4. Ulama Parishad. 5. All Bengal Muslim Think Tank. 6. Jamiat-E Ahle Hadith West Bengal. 7. West Bengal Aminia Jamiate Muttakin Committee. 8. All India Ahle Sunnat Jamat. 9. All Bengal Minority Council. 10. All Bengal Minority Association. 11. Bangiya Imam Parishad. 12. Jamiatul Ayemma Al Ulama. 13. All India Imams Council. 14. All bengal Imam-Muazzin Council. 15. West Bengal Imam-Muazzin Association. 16. All Bengal Imam Muazzin Samity. 17. Ittehadul Ayemma. 18. Maktab Imam Association. 19. Ittehadul Ayemma and Muazzin Seva Samiti. 20. Tajpur Jamaul Ayemma. 21. Biswa Manabkalyan Islami Society. 22. Jamiat-E Ulamaye Bangla, Furfura Sharif.

Now all the TV ads about the mega serial with my name and videos are censored. My name and pictures are erased from all the ads. My name is deleted in their Facebook page. The channel is probably trying hard to compromise with violent fanatics.

They are going to remove all the billboards. But will they be able to make fanatics happy? I do not think so. They will go as far they can go. They know very well that nobody would come to support me in India.

These fanatics are very good friends of the government. The politicians appease Muslim fanatics because these Muslim fanatics lead a very big group of ignorant Muslims. Who doesn’t want to get Muslim votes? They are 25% of the population.

The channel is now giving this statement:

The statement says :

All the characters of the serial are fictional. The writer of this serial is NOT coming to Kolkata. The serial has no purpose to hurt anyone’s sentiments. This serial is not going to hurt sentiments of any religion or any community. It will definitely show respect to all communities.

The producers are trying everything to telecast the serial. Ordinary people are eager to watch it. The channel already invested a lot of money for the serial. They are now in a very bad situation. They are not getting government’s supports. All the intellectuals are silent. Many are leftists, they believe I am not worthy to get their supports because I criticize Islamists. Some think it is an Muslim issue, they should not be involved. The rest are just coward.

Bangladesh’s new secular generation celebrating the killing of a war criminal

I got abused by the secular people of Bangladesh on social network sites because I opposed the death penalty of Kader Mullah the war criminal. Many boys and girls of the new generation are confused people. They call themselves secular without knowing the meaning of the word. Many of them are against war criminals, but not against Islamism or Islamists. They hate feminism and are very fond of the death penalty. They do not know the reasons why a person is against the death penalty. They do not understand even the differences between the Islamic terrorists who are against the death penalty of a fellow Islamic terrorist and the anti-Islamists-anti-war criminals who are for the abolition of the death penalty. To the hangwarcriminal-generations, both are bad and both should be cursed.

The truth is if you want to solve problems wickedly, you would use violence against violence. If you want to make your society violence free, you would try build a secular classless casteless equal society and give proper education to every child so no one becomes a religious fanatic. If you really believe death penalty deters crime then I don’t understand why don’t you behead criminals in public like Saudi Arabia? Don’t you think it would make the death penalty more effective?

This generation read books, watch movies, theater plays, listen to poetry and music about 1971 war while growing up in Bangladesh, so their conviction against the war criminals is strong. Almost all of them believe that Islam is a religion of peace. They believe it because they have not learned from anywhere that Islam like other religions is not a religion of peace.

All war criminals were Islamists. They killed people during the war in 1971 in the name of Islam. They did not want to be separated from Pakistan, the Muslim nation. They believed in Muslim unity and pan-Islamism.

The number of Islamists increased today because of Islamization that started in 80′s. These new Islamists brutally slaughter secularists, atheists, anti-Islamists. These Islamic terrorists are not any less dangerous and murderous than the 71′s war criminals. Jamaat-e-Islami is a political party full of Islamic terrorists. They have been terrorizing the country since they got the opportunity to re-run their political party in late 70′s. Numerous charity organisations like Islamic banks, Islamic schools-colleges-universities, Islamic NGOs, clinics & hospitals, Islamic radios,tvs,newspapers etc. have been created by the Islamists. One of the agendas of Jamaat-e-Islami is to indoctrinate children with Islam. They follow Maududi the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami who dreamt of making the world Darul Islam. Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was inspired by Maududi. Jamaat-e-Islami as a party is far more undemocratic and violent than Muslim Brotherhood.

Islamist war criminals have been trying to kill me since 1993. But I don’t want them to get killed. I want them to be better people. Hundreds of thousands of Kader Mullah were born in Bangladesh through Islamization. How many Kader Mullah would Bangladesh kill? It is better to stop Islamization. It is always better to secularize the state and society.

Jamaat-e-Islami has been slaughtering people after Kader Mullah was hanged. If you agree to ban terrorist organizations, you should agree to ban Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh. Let the country survive.

India banned love. But love must not be banned.

India celebrated Human Rights Day on December 10 and passed the verdict against Human Rights to have consensual sex next day. India re-criminalized homosexuality. Some countries love to remain backward.

Fresh water lake on Mars!

Life on Mars may have existed 3.6 billion years ago. I don’t want to think of the life of Mars today. I am now thinking of the lake. NASA’s curiosity rover discovered the evidence of fresh water lake on Mars.

I celebrated the discovery of the evidence of lake today by reading Yeats.

‘I will arise and go now, and go to Mars,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.’

Fatwas. Court cases. Now an FIR against me for telling the truth.

An FIR was registered against me last night. They do not like my tweets that I posted on November 6.

LUCKNOW/KOLKATA: An FIR has been lodged against controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen for allegedly hurting religious sentiments following a complaint by a prominent Muslim cleric of Uttar Pradesh, a charge which the author said shocked her.

The case was lodged at Kotwali police station by Hasan Raza Khan Noori Miyan, son of the “sajjadanasheen” of Dargah-e-Ala Hazrat Maulana Subhan Raza Khan Subhani Miyan, who objected to certain tweets by Nasreen against clerics on November 6, police sources said here on Thursday.

In the complaint, it was alleged that with her remarks against clerics on Twitter the writer had hurt the feelings of the Muslim community.

Noori Miyan said a fatwa has been issued in the light of Hadees and Quran. It was demanded that the passport of the writer should be seized and she should be arrested.

Taslima said she was shocked to hear about the FIR as she had only spoken the truth.

“I do not know what wrong have I done with those tweets. I only spoke the truth and once again they are after me,” Taslima told PTI from New Delhi.

“I am shocked to hear this. How can this happen in a democratic country like India where the Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech and expression,” wondered the 51-year-old author who was forced to flee from Bangladesh after threats from fundamentalists for hurting religious sentiments.

After Arvind Kejriwal sought support for his Aam Aadmi Party from controversial UP cleric Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, Taslima had criticised the meeting on Twitter.

In 2007, the Maulana had announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh on the author’s head if New Delhi did not restrict her entry to the country.

Following violent protests over renewal of her visa later on, she was bundled out of Kolkata by the authorities to Delhi.

Noting that her freedom of speech and expression has always been in danger, the author said, “Fundamentalists do not believe in human rights and so I am never allowed to speak even the truth.”

Mr. Hasan Raza Khan Noori Miyan did not at least say that a fatwa was not issued or a price was not set on my head. He said that the fatwa was issued ‘in the light of the Hadith and the Quran’.

Here are some old fatwa-news:

Times of India.

The Hindu

DNA

Nobody is allowed to set price on anyone’s head in India. The fatwas are illegal here. It is against the Indian constitution to ask people to kill anyone in the light any damn thing.

But Noori Miyan is angry at me for me being unhappy with their fatwa. He wants me to accept fatwa gracefully as the fatwas are based on hadith and the quran.

The cleric is wrong if he claims that I am wrong, because I say he is anti-freespeech. Didn’t he already prove that he was anti-freespeech by issuing a fatwa against me in 2007? Am I a criminal because I have told the truth?

They claim I hurt religious feelings of the entire Muslim community. Did I commit a crime or hurt Muslim community by telling the truth about Tauqeer Raza Khan that he was against my free speech, and he issued a fatwa? The cleric set price on my head. I tweeted that the cleric set price on my head. They now claim that my tweet hurts their religious sentiments. Religious sentiments are very dangerous things. These sentiments go against individual freedom and plurality of thoughts.

The truth only hurts liars and hypocrites. All Muslims in India are not afraid of truth, nor are all of them liars, hypocrites or fundamentalists. Some are. And they always use the name of whole community for their own political interests. Should this trend be continued? Should fatwas continue to be issued, Court cases continue to be filed and FIRs continue to be registered against writers, artists, and women, specially courageous women?

FN actually said it right: “FIR against Taslima for being alive”.

Come what may, my struggle will carry on, through my writings. I shall keep on dreaming of a society free from religious fundamentalism.

Sweden is closing its prisons. What about a prisonless world?

Swedish prison uddevalla.

Swedish Prisons are for rehabilitation, not for punishment. Sweden is now closing its prisons, due to lack of prisoners.

The Swedish prison population has dropped by nearly a sixth since it peaked at 5,722 in 2004. In 2012, there were 4,852 people in prison in Sweden, out of a population of 9.5 million. The US has a prison population of 2,239,751, equivalent to 716 people per 100,000. China ranks second with 1,640,000 people behind bars, or 121 people per 100,000, while Russia’s inmates are 681,600, amounting to 475 individuals per 100,000. Brazilian prisons hold 548,003 citizens, 274 people per 100,000; finally, India’s prison population amounts to 385,135, with a per capita rate of just 30 inmates per 100,000 citizens.

Swedish prison Sollentuna.

Swedish prison cell.

Swedish prison cell.

Sweden doesn’t have the Death Penalty, neither it has any real punishment or real prison for criminals. But Sweden has less crimes than other countries. It is because Swedish society is an equal society, there is no big gap between rich and poor, obviously Sweden is a good welfare state and needless to say that there is more equality between men and women in Sweden than most countries in the world. Sweden has been experiencing less violent crimes than before. Theft and drugs offenses still exist though.

We have learned from Sweden that if we can create equality in society, the crime rates will go down. If we can create equality in the world, there will be no crime, and there will be no prison. I am dreaming of that crimeless prisonless beautiful world.

Why and how a Hindu Brahmin became an atheist.

Arun Njanappilly Madhavan is a medical doctor in Kerala, India. He is an atheist and feminist. We hear a lot why Christians or Jews or Muslims become atheists, but we do not hear much about Hindus, why a Hindu becomes an atheist. I requested Arun Madhavan to write about his story for my blog. The busy doctor kindly wrote why he became an atheist. His twitter account is @charakan.

‘How I became an atheist?

Actually I do not remember much about my Theist life.

Was I ever a Theist?

Probably yes.

I was born into an upper caste Hindu family in Kerala, in south India. My family was not very religious, and routine visits to temples and special offerings to gods to get something done were rare. My parents did ask me to pray to gods, and I must have done that till I reached the age of 14-15. But my overall impression was my parents did not really believe in a typical Theist god, who controls everything in your life. They encouraged us children to work hard in school , and made us think that its your work that counts more than your offerings/prayers to gods. We celebrated the usual Malayali festivals like Vishu, Onam and Pooja.

My earliest introduction to Hinduism was through Mahabharatha and Ramayana , the big Hindu (Indian) epics. I liked the Mahabharatha very much because it was a gripping tale with huge variety of characters, umpteen number of sub plots and a mega scale. My mother encouraged me to read alternate view points about the epics in which the ‘good’ guys like Pandavas and Rama were not that good and the ‘bad’ guys like Kauravas and Ravana clan were not that bad.

Gods like Rama , who readily sends his wife to the forest, because there was a doubt about her chastity,and cunning Krishna with 16008 wives never deserved worship from me.

Curious about Hinduism, I read some selected verses from its holy grail, the Vedas.

Vedas probably were created between 1500 and 500 BC. They are a collections of hymns of Aryans, a clan of pastoralists. Rig Veda is considered the oldest. Vedic literature was preserved for hundreds of years by reciting and remembering orally before it was written in Sanskrit, the language of the Aryans.The Vedic hymns are mostly verses recited in praise of Aryan gods, which they called devas.At the sacrifices where Rig Veda hymns were recited, the devas were invited to come and sit around the sacrificial fire, to receive the hospitality of the Aryans who sacrificed animals in their honour.

Apart from verses praising gods, Rig Veda also has verses which are used to ensure the social inequality of the society.

Here is an example from Purushsooktham from Rigveda 10.90 about creation of humans and caste system.

11.1: What did the Purusha (i.e. Virat) hold within Him? How many parts were assigned in His Huge Form?

11.2: What was His Mouth? What was His Arms? What was His Thighs? And what was His Feet?

12.1: The Brahmanas were His Mouth, the Kshatriyas became His Arms,

12.2: The Vaishyas were His Thighs, and from His pair of Feet were born the Shudras.

I can’t see how some one can believe in such stupidities about origin of human beings. We can easily see through it as a vain attempt to justify and perpetuate cruel caste system.

Then I turned to Bhagavad Gita, the book some Hindus consider as The Holy book. There also I could not find anything inspiring. It is just a collection repetitive, incoherent and many a time self contradictory verses.

The whole Hindu system of beliefs looked very shady. I had no difficulty in realising that a religion which wholly supports the oppressive caste system and Patriarchy is a sham.

By the time I was 15, I started standing outside when our family visited temples. Still I used to take part in religious family rituals, so as not to offend the elders. When some one smeared sandal paste on my forehead, I used to clean it off as soon as possible!

My feeling initially was all those who believe in gods were weak minded and could not survive without god belief. So I never questioned their beliefs , though I never allowed them to impose it on me.

Later, in last few years , I realised that no one needs a god-belief , and such a belief is so prevalent because of childhood conditioning. Propagation of reason and rational thinking can help in de-conditioning. I realised it is ok to offend family elders so that one can drive your point of view of logic and reason forcefully.

Humans created god myths as an explanation for the things that they could not explain. Religions were created by the powerful to retain control on others using god myth. As more and more things are being explained by Science, the space for gods are shrinking fast. There may be still a lot of things which we cannot explain, but that does not mean we should invent an illogical answer of god for the gaps in our knowledge.

The way things are progressing, atheism may become the default position of all human beings. The question of why some one became an atheist may be irrelevant soon. Then the more logical question will be for the theist to explain why some one believes in a myth without any evidence.’

Where is Hamed Abdel-Samad? Is he killed because he is critical of Islam?

Hamed Abdel-Samad is disappeared.

Police in Cairo are investigating the disappearance of an Egyptian-born German author and critic of Islam, security sources said on Tuesday, months after a cleric declared him an infidel and called for his death.

Hamed Abdel-Samad, author of “The Downfall of the Islamic World: A Prognosis”, went missing in recent days, according to a missing person’s report filed by his brother, police sources said. An Egyptian newspaper report said he had been abducted.

The German ambassador in Cairo has asked Egypt’s deputy prime minister, Ziad Bahaa El-Din, to do everything to secure his “personal freedom and physical well-being”, a German Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

He added Abdel-Samad, 41, had been in contact with the German embassy in Cairo regarding his personal safety, without giving further details. His whereabouts were unknown and the German authorities were working hard to solve the case, he said.

In a television show broadcast in June and posted on YouTube, an Egyptian cleric, Mahmoud Shaaban, called for the killing of the author, who frequently appears in German media as a speaker on Islamic affairs, saying he was an infidel.

If you criticize Islam, you will be harassed, imprisoned, abused, killed or thrown out of your country. No other people face the brutality and hatred of Muslims more than critics of Islam with Muslim background. Should ex-Muslims continue to be killed? When would faith-heads stop the silent genocide of anti-theists, atheists, rationalists, humanists?

We are not living in the 7th century, or are we actually living in the 7th century?