Nupur Sharma: नूपुर शर्मा पर सुप्रीम कोर्ट की टिपण्णी से पूर्व जज और अधिकारी नाराज, CJI को चिट्रठी लिखकर की ये मांग

Nupur Sharma: नूपुर शर्मा पर सुप्रीम कोर्ट की टिपण्णी से पूर्व जज और अधिकारी नाराज, CJI को चिट्रठी लिखकर की ये मांग

Image Source : FILE Supreme Court and Nupur Sharma  Highlights 117 पूर्व जजों और अधिकारियों ने CJI को लिखी है चिट्ठी यह टिपण्णी सबसे बड़े लोकतंत्र की न्याय प्रणाली पर धब्बे की तरह पत्र ने लिखा गया कि सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने लक्ष्मण रेखा लांघी है Nupur Sharma: नूपुर शर्मा मामले में सुनवाई के दौरान सुप्रीम कोर्ट की टिपण्णी मामले को लेकर विवाद बढ़ता जा रहा है। कोर्ट की टिपण्णी के बाद सोशल मीडिया पर विरोध…

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Nupur Sharma did not appear before the police, Mumbai Police will soon decide on the action

Nupur Sharma did not appear before the police, Mumbai Police will soon decide on the action

Prophet Remarks Row Latest News: Suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma did not appear before Mumbai Police on Saturday to record her statement in connection with the case registered against her for allegedly making objectionable remarks against Prophet Mohammad. An FIR was registered against Sharma at the Pydhuni police station on May 28 and the police had sent summons to him through email, an…

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By: David Remnick

Date: Feb 6, 2023

Note: this is a very long article, so I won't post it in full, but I wanted to share some excerpts.

[..]

In Tehran, Ayatollah Khomeini was ailing and in crisis. After eight years of war with Iraq and hundreds of thousands of casualties, he had been forced to drink from the “poisoned chalice,” as he put it, and accept a ceasefire with Saddam Hussein. The popularity of the revolutionary regime had declined. Khomeini’s son admitted that his father never read “The Satanic Verses,” but the mullahs around him saw an opportunity to reassert the Ayatollah’s authority at home and to expand it abroad, even beyond the reach of his Shia followers. Khomeini issued the fatwa calling for Rushdie’s execution. As Kenan Malik writes in “From Fatwa to Jihad,” the edict “was a sign of weakness rather than of strength,” a matter more of politics than of theology.

A reporter from the BBC called Rushdie at home and said, “How does it feel to know that you have just been sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini?”

Rushdie thought, I’m a dead man. That’s it. One day. Two days. For the rest of his life, he would no longer be merely a storyteller; he would be a story, a controversy, an affair.

After speaking with a few more reporters, Rushdie went to a memorial service for his close friend Bruce Chatwin. Many of his friends were there. Some expressed concern, others tried consolation via wisecrack. “Next week we’ll be back here for you!” Paul Theroux said. In those early days, Theroux recalled in a letter to Rushdie, he thought the fatwa was “a very bad joke, a bit like Papa Doc Duvalier putting a voodoo curse on Graham Greene for writing ‘The Comedians.’ ” After the service, Martin Amis picked up a newspaper that carried the headline “execute rushdie orders the ayatollah.” Rushdie, Amis thought, had now “vanished into the front page.”

For the next decade, Rushdie lived underground, guarded by officers of the Special Branch, a unit of London’s Metropolitan Police. The headlines and the threats were unceasing. People behaved well. People behaved disgracefully. There were friends of great constancy—Buford, Amis, James Fenton, Ian McEwan, Nigella Lawson, Christopher Hitchens, many more—and yet some regarded the fatwa as a problem Rushdie had brought on himself. Prince Charles made his antipathy clear at a dinner party that Amis attended: What should you expect if you insult people’s deepest convictions? John le Carré instructed Rushdie to withdraw his book “until a calmer time has come.” Roald Dahl branded him a “dangerous opportunist” who “knew exactly what he was doing and cannot plead otherwise.” The singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, who had a hit with “Peace Train” and converted to Islam, said, “The Quran makes it clear—if someone defames the Prophet, then he must die.” Germaine Greer, George Steiner, and Auberon Waugh all expressed their disapproval. So did Jimmy Carter, the British Foreign Secretary, and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Among his detractors, an image hardened of a Rushdie who was dismissive of Muslim sensitivities and, above all, ungrateful for the expensive protection the government was providing him. The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper remarked, “I would not shed a tear if some British Muslims, deploring his manners, should waylay him in a dark street and seek to improve them. If that should cause him thereafter to control his pen, society would benefit, and literature would not suffer.”

The horror was that, thanks to Khomeini’s cruel edict, so many people did suffer. In separate incidents, Hitoshi Igarashi, the novel’s Japanese translator, and Ettore Capriolo, its Italian translator, were stabbed, Igarashi fatally; the book’s Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was fortunate to survive being shot multiple times. Bookshops from London to Berkeley were firebombed. Meanwhile, the Swedish Academy, the organization in Stockholm that awards the annual Nobel Prize in Literature, declined to issue a statement in support of Rushdie. This was a silence that went unbroken for decades.

[..]

Since 1989, Rushdie has had to shut out not only the threats to his person but the constant dissections of his character, in the press and beyond. “There was a moment when there was a ‘me’ floating around that had been invented to show what a bad person I was,” he said. “ ‘Evil.’ ‘Arrogant.’ ‘Terrible writer.’ ‘Nobody would’ve read him if there hadn’t been an attack against his book.’ Et cetera. I’ve had to fight back against that false self. My mother used to say that her way of dealing with unhappiness was to forget it. She said, ‘Some people have a memory. I have a forget-ory.’ ”

Rushdie went on, “I just thought, There are various ways in which this event can destroy me as an artist.” He could refrain from writing altogether. He could write “revenge books” that would make him a creature of circumstances. Or he could write “scared books,” novels that “shy away from things, because you worry about how people will react to them.” But he didn’t want the fatwa to become a determining event in his literary trajectory: “If somebody arrives from another planet who has never heard of anything that happened to me, and just has the books on the shelf and reads them chronologically, I don’t think that alien would think, Something terrible happened to this writer in 1989. The books go on their own journey. And that was really an act of will.”

Some people in Rushdie’s circle and beyond are convinced that, in the intervening decades, self-censorship, a fear of giving offense, has too often become the order of the day. His friend Hanif Kureishi has said, “Nobody would have the balls today to write ‘The Satanic Verses,’ let alone publish it.”

[..]

Rushdie was hospitalized for six weeks. In the months since his release, he has mostly stayed home save for trips to doctors, sometimes two or three a day. He’d lived without security for more than two decades. Now he’s had to rethink that.

Just before Christmas, on a cold and rainy morning, I arrived at the midtown office of Andrew Wylie, Rushdie’s literary agent, where we’d arranged to meet. After a while, I heard the door to the agency open. Rushdie, in an accent that bears traces of all his cities—Bombay, London, New York—was greeting agents and assistants, people he had not seen in many months. The sight of him making his way down the hall was startling: He has lost more than forty pounds since the stabbing. The right lens of his eyeglasses is blacked over. The attack left him blind in that eye, and he now usually reads with an iPad so that he can adjust the light and the size of the type. There is scar tissue on the right side of his face. He speaks as fluently as ever, but his lower lip droops on one side. The ulnar nerve in his left hand was badly damaged.

Rushdie took off his coat and settled into a chair across from his agent’s desk. I asked how his spirits were.

“Well, you know, I’ve been better,” he said dryly. “But, considering what happened, I’m not so bad. As you can see, the big injuries are healed, essentially. I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm. I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told that I’m doing very well.”

“Can you type?”

“Not very well, because of the lack of feeling in the fingertips of these fingers.”

What about writing?

“I just write more slowly. But I’m getting there.”

Sleeping has not always been easy. “There have been nightmares—not exactly the incident, but just frightening. Those seem to be diminishing. I’m fine. I’m able to get up and walk around. When I say I’m fine, I mean, there’s bits of my body that need constant checkups. It was a colossal attack.”

More than once, Rushdie looked around the office and smiled. “It’s great to be back,” he said. “It’s someplace which is not a hospital, which is mostly where I’ve been to. And to be in this agency is—I’ve been coming here for decades, and it’s a very familiar space to me. And to be able to come here to talk about literature, talk about books, to talk about this novel, ‘Victory City,’ to be able to talk about the thing that most matters to me . . .”

At this meeting and in subsequent conversations, I sensed conflicting instincts in Rushdie when he replied to questions about his health: there was the instinct to move on—to talk about literary matters, his book, anything but the decades-long fatwa and now the attack—and the instinct to be absolutely frank. “There is such a thing as P.T.S.D., you know,” he said after a while. “I’ve found it very, very difficult to write. I sit down to write, and nothing happens. I write, but it’s a combination of blankness and junk, stuff that I write and that I delete the next day. I’m not out of that forest yet, really.”

He added, “I’ve simply never allowed myself to use the phrase ‘writer’s block.’ Everybody has a moment when there’s nothing in your head. And you think, Oh, well, there’s never going to be anything. One of the things about being seventy-five and having written twenty-one books is that you know that, if you keep at it, something will come.”

Had that happened in the past months?

Rushdie frowned. “Not really. I mean, I’ve tried, but not really.” He was only lately “just beginning to feel the return of the juices.”

How to go on living after thinking you had emerged from years of threat, denunciation, and mortal danger? And now how to recover from an attack that came within millimetres of killing you, and try to live, somehow, as if it could never recur?

He seemed grateful for a therapist he had seen since before the attack, a therapist “who has a lot of work to do. He knows me and he’s very helpful, and I just talk things through.”

The talk was plainly in the service of a long-standing resolution. “I’ve always tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim,” he said. “Then you’re just sitting there saying, Somebody stuck a knife in me! Poor me. . . . Which I do sometimes think.” He laughed. “It hurts. But what I don’t think is: That’s what I want people reading the book to think. I want them to be captured by the tale, to be carried away.”

Many years ago, he recalled, there were people who seemed to grow tired of his persistent existence. “People didn’t like it. Because I should have died. Now that I’ve almost died, everybody loves me. . . . That was my mistake, back then. Not only did I live but I tried to live well. Bad mistake. Get fifteen stab wounds, much better.”

As he lay in the hospital, Rushdie received countless texts and e-mails sending love, wishing for his recovery. “I was in utter shock,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian novelist, told me. “I just didn’t believe he was still in any real danger. For two days, I kept vigil, sending texts to friends all over the world, searching the Internet to make sure he was still alive.” There was a reading in his honor on the steps of the New York Public Library.

For some writers, the shock brought certain issues into hard focus. “The attack on Salman clarified a lot of things for me,” Ayad Akhtar told me. “I know I have a much brighter line that I draw for myself between the potential harms of speech and the freedom of the imagination. They are incommensurate and shouldn’t be placed in the same paragraph.”

Rushdie was stirred by the tributes that his near-death inspired. “It’s very nice that everybody was so moved by this, you know?” he said. “I had never thought about how people would react if I was assassinated, or almost assassinated.”

And yet, he said, “I’m lucky. What I really want to say is that my main overwhelming feeling is gratitude.” He was grateful to those who showed their support. He was grateful to the doctors, the E.M.T. workers, and the fireman in Chautauqua who stanched his wounds, and he was grateful to the surgeons in Erie. “At some point, I’d like to go back up there and say thank you.” He was also grateful to his two grown sons, Zafar and Milan, who live in London, and to Griffiths. “She kind of took over at a point when I was helpless.” She dealt with the doctors, the police, and the investigators, and with transport from Pennsylvania to New York. “She just took over everything, as well as having the emotional burden of my almost being killed.”

Did he think it had been a mistake to let his guard down since moving to New York? “Well, I’m asking myself that question, and I don’t know the answer to it,” he said. “I did have more than twenty years of life. So, is that a mistake? Also, I wrote a lot of books. ‘The Satanic Verses’ was my fifth published book—my fourth published novel—and this is my twenty-first. So, three-quarters of my life as a writer has happened since the fatwa. In a way, you can’t regret your life.”

Whom does he blame for the attack?

“I blame him,” he said.

[..]

[ Archive: https://archive.is/uiRsY ]

==

I'll state it plainly: Rushdie was betrayed by people who not only should have known better, but did know better.

They took a faux-moralizing position in order to keep themselves out of the firing line. When the bully goes on the rampage, you side with the bully to save your own skin. One of the earliest modern day incarnations of cancel culture, joining the outrage mob so as not to be their target.

That's understandable in a way, but there's a profound cowardice in the people who took such a self-interested defensive posture in the 1980s, who scolded Rushdie and anyone who defended him, and yet still today have not admitted their contributions and collaboration with what happened. I've yet to see any of them admit "I/we got it very wrong."

Martin Luther was a controversial figure during his lifetime, eliciting strong emotions in friends and enemies alike, and his outsized persona has left an indelible mark on the world today. Living I Was Your Plague explores how Luther carefully crafted his own image and how he has been portrayed in his own times and ours, painting a unique portrait of the man who set in motion a revolution that sundered Western Christendom.

Renowned Luther biographer Lyndal Roper examines how the painter Lucas Cranach produced images that made the reformer an instantly recognizable character whose biography became part of Lutheran devotional culture. She reveals what Luther’s dreams have to say about his relationships and discusses how his masculinity was on the line in his devastatingly crude and often funny polemical attacks. Roper shows how Luther’s hostility to the papacy was unshaken to the day he died, how his deep-rooted anti-Semitism infused his theology, and how his memorialization has given rise to a remarkable flood of kitsch, from “Here I Stand” socks to Playmobil Luther.

Lavishly illustrated, Living I Was Your Plague is a splendid work of cultural history that sheds new light on the complex and enduring legacy of Luther and his image.

1856 Sermon of St. John Henry Newman on Feast of St. Monica

"And when He came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother: and she was a widow." Luke vii. 12.

THIS day we celebrate one of the most remarkable feasts in the calendar. We commemorate a Saint who gained the heavenly crown by prayers indeed and tears, by sleepless nights and weary wanderings, but not in the administration of any high office in the Church, not in the fulfilment of some great resolution or special counsel; not as a preacher, teacher, evangelist, reformer, or champion of the faith; not as Bishop of the flock, or temporal governor; not by eloquence, by wisdom, or by controversial success; not in the way of any other saint whom we invoke in the circle of the year; but as a mother, seeking and gaining by her penances the conversion of her son. It was for no ordinary son that she prayed, and it was no ordinary supplication by which she gained him. When a holy man saw its vehemence, ere it was successful, he said to her, "Go in peace; the son of such prayers cannot perish." The prediction was fulfilled beyond its letter; not only was that young man converted, but after his conversion he became a saint; not only a saint, but a doctor also, and "instructed many unto justice." St. Augustine was the son for whom she prayed; and if he has been a luminary for all ages of the Church since, many thanks do we owe to his mother, St. Monica, who having borne him in the flesh, travailed for him in the spirit.

The Church, in her choice of a gospel for this feast, has likened St. Monica to the desolate widow whom our Lord met at the gate of the city, as she was going forth to bury the corpse of her only son. He saw her, and said, "Weep not;" and he touched the bier, and the dead arose. St. Monica asked and obtained a more noble miracle. Many a mother who is anxious for her son's bodily welfare, neglects his soul. So did not the Saint of today; her son might be accomplished, eloquent, able, and distinguished; all this was nothing to her while he was dead in God's sight, while he was the slave of sin, while he was the prey of heresy. She desired his true life. She wearied heaven with prayer, and wore out herself with praying; she did not at once prevail. He left his home; he was carried forward by his four bearers, ignorance, pride, appetite, and ambition; he was carried out into a foreign land, he crossed over from Africa to Italy. She followed him, she followed the corpse, the chief, the only mourner; she went where he went, from city to city. It was nothing to her to leave her dear home and her native soil; she had no country below; her sole rest, her sole repose, her Nunc dimittis, was his new birth. So while she still walked forth in her deep anguish and isolation, and her silent prayer, she was at length rewarded by the long-coveted miracle. Grace melted the proud heart, and purified the corrupt breast of Augustine, and restored and comforted his mother; and hence, in today's Collect, the Almighty Giver is especially addressed as "Mœrentium consolator et in Te sperantium salus"; the consoler of those that mourn, and the health of those who hope.

And thus Monica, as the widow in the gospel, becomes an image of Holy Church, who is ever lamenting over her lost children, and by her importunate prayers, ever recovering them from the grave of sin; and to Monica, as the Church's representative, may be addressed those words of the Prophet: "Put off, O Jerusalem, the garments of thy mourning and affliction; arise, and look about towards the East, and behold thy children; for they went out from thee on foot, led by the enemies; but the Lord will bring them to thee exalted with honour, as children of the kingdom."

This, I say, is not a history of past time merely, but of every age. Generation passes after generation, and there is on the one side the same doleful, dreary wandering, the same feverish unrest, the same fleeting enjoyments, the same abiding and hopeless misery; and on the other, the same anxiously beating heart of impotent affection. Age goes after age, and still Augustine rushes forth again and again, with his young ambition, and his intellectual energy, and his turbulent appetites; educated, yet untaught; with powers strengthened, sharpened, refined by exercise, but unenlightened and untrained,—goes forth into the world, ardent, self-willed, reckless, headstrong, inexperienced, to fall into the hands of those who seek his life, and to become the victim of heresy and sin. And still, again and again does hapless Monica weep; weeping for that dear child who grew up with her from the womb, and of whom she is now robbed; of whom she has lost sight; wandering with him in his wanderings, following his steps in her imagination, cherishing his image in her heart, keeping his name upon her lips, and feeling withal, that, as a woman, she is unable to cope with the violence and the artifices of the world. And still again and again does Holy Church take her part and her place, with a heart as tender and more strong, with an arm, and an eye, and an intellect more powerful than hers, with an influence more than human, more sagacious than the world, and more religious than home, to restrain and reclaim those whom passion, or example, or sophistry is hurrying forward to destruction.

Look down then upon us from Heaven, O blessed Monica, for we are engaged in supplying that very want which called for thy prayers, and gained for thee thy crown. Thou who didst obtain thy son's conversion by the merit of thy intercession, continue that intercession for us, that we may be blest, as human instruments, in the use of those human means by which ordinarily the Holy Cross is raised aloft, and religion commands the world. Gain for us, first, that we may intensely feel that God's grace is all in all, and that we are nothing; next, that, for His greater glory, and for the honour of Holy Church, and for the good of man, we may be "zealous for all the better gifts," and may excel in intellect as we excel in virtue.

Granted that Aimee is a provocatrice who always wants to make the most shocking and reactionary remark she can (re: "red-blooded male" I think of the perennially jejune aesthete who once declaimed, "We all bleed the same red blood"), I will say this for the above Antipodean provocation, as someone who has for 10 years taught "Readings in the Graphic Novel" and "The History of Comics" and who is now writing an epic and controversial novel about a comic-book writer: it's a field where the gap between potential and performance is tragically wide.

I tell myself it's because we're just in the early days. The novel wasn't living up to its potential in 1723, and 1723 for the novel is 2023 for the graphic novel: Austen, Dickens, Balzac, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Melville, James—none of these have even been born yet.

If you think about it for two seconds, detaching your mind from social prejudice, you will conclude that a static sequential pictorial narrative usually accompanied by words is not an inherently juvenile art form. You can really only think it is if you dismiss or demote the visual tout court, Michelangelo right along with Moebius. But a number of social and economic factors condemned the form early to certain commercial simplicities, especially in America and Japan (less so in Europe, where it's also been taken seriously longer). The misguided rebellion against these commercial simplicities—the apotheosis of ugliness one finds in Crumb and his collaborators and successors—was to my mind a cure worse than the disease, and its legacy for the American "literary" graphic novel has been a disaster. (At least the most crassly commercial superhero artists could—what's the word?—draw.)

The form has produced a smaller handful of masterpieces than anyone wants to acknowledge, and an even smaller number of masterful oeuvres, and even these are compromised by being so shackled to indeed juvenile genres. Added to that, many of what are called masterpieces really aren't; they're flash-in-the-pan political sensations or the cult objects of ephemeral coteries. I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to ask myself: Do I like comics, really? Or do I just like Alan Moore? And how much do I like Alan Moore?

Tough love, I know, but somebody ought to say it every so often. I still believe the best is ahead. As Peter Milligan once said—and he had the talent to produce a significant oeuvre, but for some reason never did—if James Joyce and Pablo Picasso told a story together, it wouldn't be juvenile. And Joyce was interested in the form, while some of Picasso's work seems prophetic of its potential.

Finally, while writing a novel about a graphic novelist, I've felt an envy for the comic-book writer, who has a form as rigorous and rhythmic as a sonnet to work with on every page while I just canter along in prose. There's much to be done; I plan to write a graphic novel myself, in fact, sooner rather than later. The obstacles, however, are real.

In short, I believe the verdict will go against Aimee eventually, but I don't blame the jury for continuing to deliberate.

The post goes on to say, “I strongly protest against the disrespect of our beloved Prophet Muhammad [followed by the graphic meaning blessings of god and peace be upon him])”.

This image was a response to controversial remarks made by senior members of the ruling party of India (BJP) some time ago about everyone’s favourite prophet.

Clearly there is a humanitarian crisis for Muslims in India, where their relationship with the government could reasonably be described as a series of massacres. I get the context. I understand the problems but fanning Islamist flames of anger over the one thing that does zero real-world damage is not helping anyone.

There’s no nice way to tell someone that they are definitely, unequivocally wrong. There’s no nice way to say that it’s not a matter of opinion, or failing to see one point of view; that they are simply and demonstrably wrong.

While I’m sure it is a “human sentiment violation”, disrespecting a religious figure (or anyone or anything) absolutely, definitely is also freedom of expression.

Advertising how upset you are that Muhammad was insulted will not help anyone. It might be a better use of a Muslim’s time and energy to concentrate on human rights issues in their own countries. I’m not telling Muslims how to feel here. People are entitled to feel any way they like for any reason they see fit. I’m suggesting a more productive use for that energy.

I don’t know where the artist lives but I’d like to see if she regards the treatment of LGBT people in Muslim-majority countries as a “human sentiment violation”. I’d like to see her “strongly protest” the execution of apostates. If she lives in my country, Ireland, there is plenty to keep us occupied. If she lives in India, there is a list of issues a mile long affecting everyone, including Muslims, that are objectively more important than saying unkind things about a religious figure. 

I’m not interested in trashing this artist because she seems like a lovely person and her Instagram is adorable (if you’re a Muslim, I guess?) but I saw this and I was filled with the masculine urge to type an opinion. If you know where I got this, do not say anything unkind to her. Just leave her alone. She’s not the problem here. 

Indian authorities are in international damage control mode after controversial comments about the Prophet Mohammed by a senior ruling party official sparked a diplomatic spat. But inside the country, the home of a prominent Muslim family was demolished by the state in a display of majoritarian might against India’s largest minority community. 

On Sunday afternoon, Mohammad Umam watched in fear and anguish as TV cameras covered the unfolding drama at his family home in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. 

First, a massive deployment of police officers in camouflage vests and hardhats moved towards the house as news camera teams darted in and out of their ranks, recording and relaying the action live.  

Next came the bulldozers. As the police kept journalists within recording distance but safely out of the way, a yellow bulldozer appeared at the gate of the family home, extended a mechanised arm toward the outer wall and tore it down before hacking into the two-story structure, cracking walls and twisting metal rods out of the way. 

“It was all shattered within two hours. It was the only home we had. I watched it all live, the media was showing it live, they were helping the administration make the allegations. We are homeless now. Everything my Dad worked for was shattered in two hours. It was so painful, I don’t have words to explain,” said Umam, his voice breaking with the strain during a phone interview with FRANCE 24 a day after the demolition.  

Umam, 30, hails from a prominent Muslim family in Prayagraj, a teeming city formerly known as Allahabad. His father, Javed Mohammad, is a businessman, activist and member of the Welfare Party of India, a Muslim opposition party in Uttar Pradesh, a state ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). 

His sister, Afreen Fatima, made national headlines as a student leader in 2019, when protests against the Modi government’s controversial citizenship amendment law erupted across campuses in the capital, New Delhi. Fatima, now 24, has since graduated and is currently an activist and India-based research assistant at the Polis Project, a New York-based research and journalism organisation.

The latest allegations to hit the family are linked to insulting remarks about the Prophet Mohammed made by two ruling party officials in late May, sparking condemnations by several Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. 

In a cruel sequence of events emblematic of the discrimination plaguing India’s religious minorities, Islamophobic comments made by officials of a right-wing Hindu nationalist party led to the arrest of a Muslim politician and social worker, followed by the demolition of his home. The destruction was wrought by a bulldozer, an emerging symbol of the crushing might of a state shattering the rights of Muslims in a Hindu-majority nation. 

Arrests in the dead of night 

The Mohammad family’s misfortune began on Friday night, hours after police shot dead two protesters during street demonstrations across the country against the Islamophobic comments made by Nupur Sharma, a BJP spokeswoman, on an Indian TV station. 

Sharma’s remarks, which insulted the Prophet Mohammed, sparked a diplomatic storm, with the governments of nearly 20 countries calling in their Indian envoys for an explanation. It forced the Indian government into swift damage control mode. Sharma, the familiar official voice of the BJP, was suspended last week along with another party official who tweeted her comments, which have since been deleted.    

Protests nevertheless erupted on Friday in several Indian cities as well as in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh in response to the remarks. In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state governed by hardline Hindu monk and politician Yogi Adityanath, police arrested more than 200 people after the violent protests. 

Shortly before 9pm on Friday, the police arrived at the Mohammad family home. “I was not at home,” recounted Umam, who works in another Indian city. “The police came to talk to my Dad. There were no charges, no warrant, nothing. They said they wanted to talk with my Dad, so he went with the police in his own vehicle.” 

His father had not participated in the protests and had stayed home, posting messages calling for calm on social media, according to Umam. The police would later claim Mohammad was a “mastermind” of Friday’s violent protests. But on Friday night, after a day spent mostly indoors, the 57-year-old Muslim politician had no idea about the allegations that would be levelled against him, and so he duly complied with the police request to accompany them to the police station. 

Hours later, at around 12:30am on Saturday, the police once again arrived at the family home to arrest Umam’s mother and youngest sister, 19-year-old Somaiya Fatima, in the dead of night.  

“They took my mother and younger sister into custody, there was no notice, no allegations. They just intimidated my mother and sister to come with them and they were detained for 30 hours. When the police released my mother and sister, they took them to a relative’s home and told my family not to go home,” said Umam. 

His father remains in detention and has been placed on a list of 10 main “conspirators” of Friday’s violence, which include prominent Muslim activists and leftist politicians. 

‘It was all illegal, and it was all so fast’ 

The family’s physical and emotional destruction was unleashed at a dizzying speed over the weekend, when courts are closed and access to legal injunctions and stay orders is difficult.

The morning after Mohammad’s arrest, Prayagraj’s police chief informed reporters that the activist-politician was the “mastermind” of the previous day’s violence. “Police will take action against gangsters,” said the city’s top police officer in Hindi, adding, “bulldozers will also be used on illegal constructions”.

Hours later – while Mohammad, his wife and daughter were still in detention – the police pasted a notice issued by the city’s development authority on the family’s home. The notice stated the construction of the two-story structure was illegal and it would be demolished the next day at 11am local time. 

“They put the notice on Saturday night. It was the weekend, the courts were closed, there was no time to go to court. My Dad, mother and sister were detained, the main people were in custody. It was all illegal, and it was all so fast. My family members were all frightened, the police were coming every two or three hours, threatening us,” recounted Umam.

Terrified and in shock, the family had no time to recover their belongings before the bulldozers arrived on Sunday afternoon. 

The official harassment of Muslims accused of crimes, followed by the demolition of their homes before the justice process can take its course, is a familiar pattern that has emerged in several Indian states and territories ruled by the BJP. 

It is a strategy, many experts say, conceived by a right-wing politician who has embraced the symbolism of the bulldozer for electoral gains in a country gripped by populist Hindu nationalism. 

‘Bulldozer Baba’ sets a national trend 

The bulldozer made a spectacular entrée on the Indian political stage in the run-up to local elections in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, considered a political launching pad for future prime ministers.

The stakes were high for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath as he campaigned for reelection early this year on a tough-on-crime platform, promising to “bulldoze thugs and mafias”. By the time the BJP swept the polls in March, Adityanath had earned the moniker “Baba Bulldozer” [Papa Bulldozer] as the construction tool became a ubiquitous feature at rallies, bearing candidates and supporters – some even buying plastic toy bulldozers for the occasion.

But it was not fun and games in Muslim neighbourhoods in BJP-ruled states.    

As chief ministers of other BJP-controlled states got in on the Adityanath brand of populism, demolition squads went to work in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. In April, for instance, authorities in Madhya Pradesh razed dozens of homes and shops in a Muslim neighbourhood a day after riots erupted when supporters of Hindutva – or a Hindu nation – held a provocative religious procession through the area.

Condemning the move, Rahul Gandhi, leader of the country’s largest Congress opposition party, tweeted an image of a bulldozer juxtaposed with a screenshot of the Indian constitution, declaring the state’s actions “a demolition of India’s constitutional values”. 

Meanwhile in the capital, New Delhi, a series of demolitions ripped several areas, including Shaheen Bagh, the site of a peaceful 2019 sit-in, when mostly women demonstrated against a citizenship amendment law discriminating against Muslims.

'Collective punishment' for speaking out 

The demolition drives tend to follow a pattern that Seema Chisti – a leading journalist and co-author of the book “Note by Note: The India Story (1947-2017)” – calls a “bulldozer moment” in Indian history. 

Under politicians such as Adityanath, Chisti explains, “all points of contact between Hindus and Muslims – eating, love, burial, religious rights – are turned into moments of conflict requiring the implementation of justice”.  

While there are no provisions under Indian law to demolish the home of anyone accused of a crime, a pattern of “extrajudicial” justice has emerged, where “the political power is the judge, prosecutor, executioner and implementor of the law,” according to Chisti. 

“These are homes where several lives are lived. In India especially, it’s a space shared with the wife, children, grandparents, cousins…and so this is a form of collective punishment that goes against the standards of international law and Indian law,” she explained. 

Gautam Bhatia, a scholar of Indian constitutional law, traced the pattern of a protest turning violent, followed by the police identifying individuals as masterminds. “Immediately after that, the municipality declares that these individuals are residing in unauthorised buildings,” he wrote in a post on the legal website Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy.

Typically, Bhatia noted, “the time period between the police declaring that it has identified the masterminds behind the violence, the municipality declaring that the buildings are illegal, and the actual demolition, is under twenty-four hours.” 

That’s precisely what happened to the Mohammad family over the weekend. The process was so swift, Umam explained, the family did not have the time to detail obvious discrepancies in the allegations before a court of law. 

The house, Umam noted, was in his mother’s name, since it was part of her dowry from his maternal grandfather. “Our house was registered with the municipal corporation. We lived in the house for 20 years, we paid all the tax bills – property, water, electricity bills, everything. Suddenly they said it was an illegal structure,” he said.  

The demolition notice, he explained, was issued in the wrong name, since his father did not own the property. City authorities also claimed the family had been given a notice on May 10, which the family denies.

A lawyer for the family has filed a case with the city high court, a time-consuming process that, in India, is an ex post facto phenomenon for families already rendered homeless and often helpless by the state. 

The intent of the state authorities, according to Umam, is clear. “My Dad is a social activist who was helping poor people in impoverished areas. He had no criminal record and everyone knew him for his social activism,” he said. “They just wanted to defame him. They don’t want good leaders who help society. They do not want these people to have a voice, they want to silence them.” 

6.29.22 Headlines

WORLD NEWS

India: Udaipur state on alert after Prophet Muhammad row (BBC)

“The murder of a Hindu man in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan has sparked religious tensions in the area. The victim, a tailor named Kanhaiya Lal, was killed in Udaipur district on Tuesday by two Muslim men, who filmed the act and posted it online. They claimed the act was in retaliation for the victim's support for controversial remarks made by a politician on the Prophet Muhammad. The government has suspended internet services and banned large gatherings.”

Mexico: Journalist is shot to death; 12th so far this year (AP)

“A journalist was shot to death Wednesday in northeastern Mexico as he was leaving his house with his 23-year-old daughter, who was seriously injured, according to state prosecutors and the newspaper that employed him.”

Japan: Swelters in its worst heatwave ever recorded (BBC)

“Japan is sweltering under the hottest day yet of its worst heatwave since records began in 1875. The blistering heat has drawn official warnings of a looming power shortage, and led to calls for people to conserve energy where possible. But the government is still advising people to use air conditioning to avoid heatstroke as cases of hospitalisation rise with the heat. Weather officials warn the heat is likely to continue in the coming days.”

US NEWS

Ukraine: US boosting military presence in Europe amid Russia threat (AP)

“President Joe Biden said Wednesday the U.S. will significantly expand its military presence in Europe, the latest example of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped plans for the continent’s security and prompted a reinvestment in NATO.”

Immigration: Slow effort to ID San Antonio migrant dead, toll rises to 53 (AP)

“Victims have been found with no identification documents at all and in one case a stolen ID. Remote villages lack phone service to reach family members and determine the whereabouts of missing migrants. Fingerprint data has to be shared and matched by different governments.”

Abortion: Clinics scramble to divert patients as states ban abortion (AP)

“The ruling has set off a travel scramble across the country, with a growing number of states mostly banning the procedure. Clinics operators are moving, doctors are counseling crying patients, donations are pouring into nonprofits and one group is dispatching vans to administer abortion pills.”

Wernher von Braun's Prophetic Statement - A Peek into Teleaction in a Cosmic Quantum Reservoir

In a fascinating anecdote from the annals of history, the pioneering rocket engineer Wernher von Braun is said to have made a remarkable statement about the future "dominator of Mars" – referring to Elon Musk – before the visionary entrepreneur was even born.

When examined through the prism of teleaction and retrocausality, speculative concepts rooted in quantum mechanics' deepest enigmas, this extraordinary anecdote acquires profound implications.

At the heart of these ideas lies the baffling phenomenon of quantum entanglement, where particles exhibit instantaneous correlations that appear to defy the cosmic speed limit imposed by special relativity. This "spooky action at a distance," as Einstein famously called it, has led some physicists to propose the radical notion of retrocausality – the possibility that the future can influence the past.

While retrocausality raises many paradoxes and requires a fundamental revision of our understanding of causality and time, it offers a tantalizing potential explanation for the seeming faster-than-light influences exhibited by entangled particles.

In the context of a hypothetical "cosmic reservoir computer" universe, where the fundamental particles, fields, and their interactions serve as a vast, distributed computational network, these quantum phenomena take on added significance.

Just as reservoir computing harnesses the complex dynamics of non-linear systems for computation, perhaps the universe itself is a grand reservoir computer, where information propagates and influences events in ways that transcend our classical intuitions.

From this perspective, von Braun's prescient mention of Elon Musk could be seen as a manifestation of the universe's inherent computational fabric – a glimpse of the deep interconnectedness and "coupled oscillations" within this cosmic quantum reservoir.

Much like how entangled particles seem to defy spatial separation, perhaps certain events or information within the universe could become "entangled" or coupled in a similar fashion, leading to acausal influences or prescient insights that challenge our conventional understanding of causality.

Of course, drawing direct connections between specific events or observations and speculative concepts like retrocausality or cosmic reservoir computing would be premature and unsubstantiated by current scientific understanding. These ideas remain highly controversial and require significant theoretical development and rigorous experimental testing.

Nonetheless, as we continue to explore the profound mysteries of quantum theory and the computational potential of complex systems, entertaining such unconventional perspectives could open new avenues of inquiry and potentially lead to deeper insights into the nature of reality and the limits of what is possible.

Von Braun's intriguing statement serves as a tantalizing reminder of the profound mysteries that still lie at the heart of our universe, beckoning us to push the boundaries of our understanding and to embrace the counterintuitive realms that quantum mechanics has revealed.

This book is a personal exploration of the remarkable depths of love, defying societal expectations and leaving an indelible mark on readers’ hearts. Hosea The Prophet Who Married a Prostitute is far from conventional – it resonates deeply with people who may have loved and continually did so without getting anything in return...

Exclusive: ‘सुप्रीम कोर्ट की टिप्पणी…', नूपुर शर्मा केस पर जस्टिस एसएन ढींगरा ने दिया बड़ा बयान

Exclusive: ‘सुप्रीम कोर्ट की टिप्पणी…’, नूपुर शर्मा केस पर जस्टिस एसएन ढींगरा ने दिया बड़ा बयान

Image Source : PTI FILE Nupur Sharma ‘single-handedly responsible for what’s happening’ in country, says SC. Nupur Sharma Case: दिल्ली हाई कोर्ट के रिटायर्ड जज जस्टिस एस. एन. ढींगरा ने नूपुर शर्मा पर सुप्रीम कोर्ट के ऑब्जर्वेशन को ‘गैरजिम्मेदाराना’, ‘गैरकानूनी’ और ‘अनुचित’ बताया है। India TV को दिए एक इंटरव्यू में जस्टिस ढींगरा ने कहा कि सुप्रीम कोर्ट को ऐसी टिप्पणी करने का कोई अधिकार नहीं है।…

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Prophet TB Joshua: A Life Dedicated to Faith and Humanitarianism

Prophet T.B. Joshua, widely known as Senior Prophet T.B. Joshua, was a prominent Nigerian televangelist, philanthropist, and leader of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN). Throughout his lifetime, he touched the lives of millions through his teachings, healing ministry, and dedication to humanitarian efforts. In this article, we explore the life and legacy of this remarkable man.

Early Years and Spiritual Journey:

Born on June 12, 1963, in Ondo State, Nigeria, T.B. Joshua grew up in a humble household. His early years were marked by his deep sense of spirituality and a desire to serve and help others. Joshua's spiritual journey led him to establish the SCOAN in 1987, which would become his platform for spreading the gospel and changing lives.

Teaching and Healing Ministry:

T.B. Joshua was renowned for his ability to deliver powerful and inspirational messages. Through his sermons and teachings, he emphasized the importance of faith, love, and hope. The prophet's healing ministry attracted a large following as people sought spiritual and physical healing from afflictions and various ailments. Countless individuals testified to the miraculous healings they experienced through his ministry.

Humanitarian Efforts:

Prophet T.B. Joshua believed in changing lives beyond the realm of spiritual healing. His commitment to humanitarian works touched the lives of many, both in Nigeria and across the globe. The SCOAN was actively involved in providing educational scholarships, housing assistance, healthcare, and disaster relief efforts. From providing aid during natural disasters to supporting underprivileged communities, Joshua's mission was to alleviate suffering and bring hope to those in need.

Bridge Building and Global Outreach:

True to his vision of uniting people regardless of their background, T.B. Joshua fostered interfaith dialogue and engaged in efforts to promote peace and harmony among different religious communities. His teachings resonated with individuals from all walks of life, attracting a diverse international following. This global outreach allowed him to impact lives and spread his message of love and reconciliation far beyond Nigeria's borders.

Controversies and Criticism:

As with any influential figure, T.B. Joshua faced his fair share of controversies and criticism. Some questioned the veracity of his healings, while others raised concerns about the operational aspects of his ministry. However, his followers remained steadfast, emphasizing the positive impact he had on their lives and communities.

Have you ever made an active choice to love continuously without expecting anything in return? Did you promise to love for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health? This book is a personal exploration of the remarkable depths of love, defying societal expectations and leaving an indelible mark on readers’ hearts. Hosea The Prophet Who Married a Prostitute is far from conventional...

By • Olalekan Fagbade Tension in community as Islamic cleric slaughters Dog during Son’s naming ceremony Palpable tension is brewing in Nasarawa community, a suburb in Chikun Local Government of Kaduna State when a lslamic cleric, Abubakar Sani slaughtered dog meat to celebrate his son’s birth. When the news spread in the community, irate youths stormed his house and partly destroyed it before a detachment of security personnel deployed to the troubled community saved him from further hostilities. Speaking in an interview, the councillor of the troubled community, Adamu Muhammad who confirmed the incident said, “Some aggrieved youths stormed the residence of the cleric when they found out that he slaughtered two dogs. “We told them that even if it is true, they can’t take the law into their hands. We are always trying to maintain law and order, he stressed. Speaking in an interview, the Cleric, Abubakar Sani insisted that there’s nowhere in the Qur’an where it was mentioned that no one should not eat dog. Citing many verses to back, he said what he did was based on his understanding of the religious book. Speaking in the same vein, one of his students, Ismail Abubakar Rijana contended that the holy Qur’an does not prohibit Muslims from eating dog meat, insisting that “we are Muslims and followers of the Quran. we equally believe in the Quran as a religious book. Adding, “the way we practice Islamic religion is different from how others practice it. We understand that people are not happy with us. So, based on our knowledge of the Quran, no verse prohibits the eating of dogs. However, we are ready to change and ask Allah for forgiveness if we are convinced by verses in the Quran that what we did is wrong.” Speaking on the controversy, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Mansir Hassan said the sanity has been restored in the community following the deployment of security personnel. He said the police are investigating the incident. Meanwhile, members of the community who spoke to newsmen while condemning his actions, said what the said cleric did was against Islamic practice. Ibrahim Garba, a youth in the community remarked,”this is a Muslim community. We all know that it is prohibited to eat dog meat in our religion. We will not allow such practice to persist. Another resident who pleaded for anonymity posited that, “we saw some youths moving with two dogs, only to find out later that the cleric slaughtered the animals to celebrate his son’s birth. “There’s no doubt he slaughtered the animals and shared it with his students, he stressed. However, since the incident, some Islamic clerics have started reacting to the development, one of such clerics is the renowned Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi who condemned the eating of dog meat. He remarked that “there are two rulings on the issue of eating dog meat. The Prophet(SAW) prohibited the eating of all animals that hunt or have canine teeth, which dogs have. “So it is prohibited, but in another school of thought, as practised around the Iraq region, it is disliked. But for the ones we follow, the Prophet(SAW) forbade eating dogs, so literally, people don’t eat dogs here. So when you come and introduce such a different practice, it will create reactions, especially when associated with Islamic rites like naming ceremonies. “This is because Islam only permits four animals for religious rites: camel, cattle, sheep or goat. Any other animal, even if it’s halal like a hen or ostrich, is not allowed to be used for religious sacrifice. “So their actions are un-Islamic and provocative. They provoke the general Ummah of Malik School of thought which says it is forbidden to eat dog meat.” #TensionincommunityasIslamicClericslaughtersDogsforSonsnamingceremony

The war between the Byzantine Empire and the Muslims, particularly during the early years of Islam, was a pivotal conflict that shaped the course of history in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. This protracted series of military campaigns, known as the Arab-Byzantine Wars, was characterized by shifting alliances, territorial gains and losses, and significant cultural and political impact.

**Origins and Early Conflicts:**

The Arab-Byzantine Wars can be traced back to the rise of Islam in the 7th century. In 622 AD, the Prophet Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina, marking the beginning of the Islamic calendar. In the following years, the Islamic community (Ummah) rapidly expanded its influence through a series of military campaigns. Under the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphs, the Muslims began to clash with the Byzantine Empire over territorial control in the Levant and North Africa.

**Conquests and Shifting Borders:**

The initial phase of the conflict saw the Muslims swiftly capturing regions that had been under Byzantine rule. By the mid-7th century, important cities like Jerusalem, Damascus, and Alexandria had fallen to Muslim forces. The Byzantines, under Emperor Heraclius, tried to resist these advances but were hindered by internal divisions and the strain of prolonged warfare.

The most significant confrontation came in 636-637 AD at the Battle of Yarmouk, where the Muslim forces decisively defeated the Byzantines. This battle marked the beginning of the Muslim conquest of the Levant and paved the way for further territorial expansion.

**Challenges and Byzantine Resilience:**

The Byzantines faced numerous challenges during these wars. The empire was strained by both internal conflicts and the ongoing conflict with the Muslims. Yet, the Byzantine Empire displayed remarkable resilience, especially during the reign of Emperor Heraclius, who managed to reclaim some lost territories and stabilize the empire temporarily.

**Impact on Religion and Culture:**

The Arab-Byzantine Wars had profound cultural and religious implications. The fall of key Christian cities to Muslim forces meant that these territories came under Islamic rule, leading to changes in the religious landscape. Muslims allowed non-Muslims to continue practicing their religions under certain conditions, giving rise to a multicultural and multireligious society in the newly conquered regions.

**Legacy and Long-Term Effects:**

The Arab-Byzantine Wars left a lasting imprint on the region's history. The Muslim conquests had a profound impact on the Byzantine Empire's territorial boundaries, weakening its grip on the Levant, North Africa, and other regions. The resulting cultural and religious interactions between the two civilizations shaped the development of art, architecture, science, and philosophy in the Middle Ages.

The Arab-Byzantine Wars, exploring key events and their impact on both civilizations:

**Key Events:**

1. **Battle of Yarmouk (636-637 AD):** This battle is one of the most significant engagements in the Arab-Byzantine Wars. The Muslim forces, led by Khalid ibn al-Walid, decisively defeated the Byzantine army, resulting in the conquest of Syria and paving the way for the capture of Jerusalem.

2. **Siege of Constantinople (674-678 AD):** The Byzantine capital of Constantinople was subjected to a prolonged siege by the Umayyad Caliphate. The Byzantines managed to repel the assault, but the conflict demonstrated the strength of the Muslim navy and the challenges the Byzantines faced in defending their heartland.

3. **Iconoclasm Controversy (8th and 9th centuries):** While not directly a military conflict, the Iconoclasm Controversy, which centered around the use of religious icons, further strained relations between the Byzantine Empire and Islamic powers. The theological and political divisions within the Byzantine Empire weakened its cohesion during the ongoing conflicts.

**Impact on Trade and Culture:**

The Arab-Byzantine Wars had a significant impact on trade routes and cultural exchange. The Mediterranean was a hub of commerce connecting East and West, and the disruption caused by the wars led to shifts in trade routes and the redistribution of wealth. As the Muslims conquered key trade cities, such as Alexandria and Antioch, they gained control over vital economic arteries.

This period also witnessed the transmission of knowledge. Greek philosophical works, which were preserved and translated by Islamic scholars, were reintroduced to the West during the later Middle Ages. The Muslim conquests played a role in preserving and disseminating these classical texts.

**End of the Wars and Lasting Legacies:**

The Arab-Byzantine Wars gradually gave way to new dynamics as the borders stabilized. By the 8th century, the Umayyad Caliphate had transformed into the Abbasid Caliphate, shifting the center of power to Baghdad. The Byzantine Empire managed to regain some territories in Asia Minor, but its eastern provinces remained under Islamic control.

The conflicts left a lasting impact on the demographic, cultural, and religious landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean. The conquered territories experienced a blending of cultures, with Greek, Roman, and Christian traditions influencing Islamic societies, and vice versa.

In the long term, the Arab-Byzantine Wars contributed to shaping the geopolitical map of the Middle East. The Muslim conquests paved the way for the spread of Islam across the region, while the Byzantine Empire's territorial losses marked a turning point in its decline.

**Historiographical Challenges:**

It's worth noting that historical records from this period can be complex and sometimes contradictory, and historians continue to debate certain aspects of these wars. The availability of sources and differing perspectives contribute to ongoing discussions about the motivations, strategies, and consequences of the Arab-Byzantine Wars.

In summary, the Arab-Byzantine Wars were a multifaceted series of conflicts that profoundly impacted the Byzantine Empire, the early Muslim world, and the broader Mediterranean region. The interactions and clashes between these two civilizations shaped the course of history and left an enduring legacy on culture, trade, and the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East.