The new Dark Ages??

For the past few weeks, all that the newspapers have been reporting is the heinous "Talibanised" statements and acts by the self styled "immoral" police in Karnataka. The goons have claimed to be the upholders of the Hindu law in India and even plan to get the couples out on valentine's day married!!!

The actually appalling part is not that some idiot is saying stuff like this, but it is the fact that it makes for front page news in the print media. The electronic media is no better- at the Mangalore pub, according to one eye-witness account, the cameras had reached before the goons did. There was someone who called "action" before the ruffians entered the pub!! So much for the "activist" role of the media.

Next, which culture or religion's tradition are these men trying to retain? If they really mean Hinduism, they are surely misguided. Ravana in Ramayana did not molest Sita when he abducted her- he upheld his dignity. Draupadi's was the character with immense strength in Mahabharata- it was the insult to her that actually led to the war of Kurukshetra. Do they even know one shloka from the Gita? And I am not even asking them to recite the Vedic Ruchas!!

The Sriram sene workers should be registered as sex offenders for molesting the women in the mangalore pub, and should not have been allowed to go free on bail. They just need another pretext to harass and molest innocent young women, and not safeguard our "culture".

And whose culture is it anyway? Hinduism in the Vedic ages never talked of the subjugation of women. At some point between the Vedas and the Upanishads, came the scriptures of Manu, which sowed the seeds of the lower status of women by men in the Hindu society. It was only after the invasion of Islam in India that the concept of Ghoonghat and Zenana came into existence in the Hindu social fabric. So who's values are they actually guarding?

The most outrageus part is the non-action on the part of the state and central machinery on this issue. What kind of justice is it to release these men on bail? Why aren't the state as well as the central ministries-the ones that the same public, which is being held to ransom by a pack of bestial bigots, voted- aren't taking any action to ensure security to the citizens? Why aren't these outfits being banned for terrorising common people? Why aren't the police making precautionary arrests so that people can do as the please without fearing their for their dignity or their lives?

Why do I read Muthalik's atrocious statements on the front page instead of Yedyurappa's and Manmohan Singh's assurances of safety and security?