A third child? You are fined Rs. 10,000 in Kerala…

If you did not know that Christian fundamentalists existed in India, take a look at this. A committee headed by the wily V.R.Krishna Iyer had lately recommended a sanction of Rs.10,000 and the exclusion of free education and health care for families that have a third child in Kerala. Kerala’s overdrive on  population control has been effective for over 2 decades or so. It was even a success among the so called “profusely breeding communities” too.

Some how a month back, church had an introspection, they found out that their numbers have gone down by a whopping 0.5 % . Thunder and lightning struck and came the words from the higher power ” we will all be behind you, just breed more”.  That seemed right out from the American or the western landscape, where far right organizations cry for these draconian changes that helps a society become more and more “scripture wise”. Church made a mockery on a policy that our system has been adopting for a while, at least something that Kerala had effectively managed to implement.

Personally, i have found this population control policy a dicey area. It is marred by contradictions as every other moment we hear that our strength is our young population, and the bane of the west is their aging ones. So, this makes me little apprehensive about the committee recommendations too. Government is trying to take the church head on here, as it has questioned a policy overdrive, which had made sense in Kerala, within its contexts.

It is very difficult to toe along the govermental line but i feel a religious organization’s wish should not supersede a democratically elected government’s, then there is no question about opposing the church. The church in Kerala has an important role in the public sphere: overtly expressing itself over issues and in that sense, it is a political force too. While the whole of our society expend energy  debating  over terrorism, we fail to identify the real cause that are helping religions to gain foothold and this is exactly why Markaz , church, the hindu fundamentalists, and the god men/women always make a mockery  of our democratic values.

Name leaves you without sponsorship.. in Indian Football

Mohammedan Sporting Club, founded in 1892 has a long lineage in Indian Football. The team, which has been promoted to next i-league; failed to gather sponsorship for the coming season. It seems they had approached Vivel  ITC, but the deal did not materialize. Why? The name it seems is a freaking stumbling block! “Mohammedan”.

Terrified, is what i am, to see such a news. The company promotes its biscuits and cookies using a bollywood Muslim but cant provide sponsorship to Mohammedan Sporting Club because the team name might look like ITC Mohammedan Sporting Club. That will that be the case with any other names too , right? … if it was Vodafone, it would have been Vodafone Mohammedan Sporting Club, which sounds even sillier than the other.

How about Infosys Mohammedan Sporting Club? There are some inherent problems with our corporates; In his book; The Age of Kali, William Dalrymple remembers his trip to infosys office in Bangalore and gives a very queer name to the employees of Infosys – The Brahminical Computer Boffins, a thinly veiled assault on Infosys and a very valid truth. I don’t claim that there are no other castes working in Infosys or there is a class hierarchy working there , somehow i always felt that the company brandishes a Brahminical arrogance. And this very arrogance is characterized in various other organizations  in various degrees.  For a club like Mohammedans, they will struggle to attract sponsorship.

We have heard about Madhavi Kapoor; who wanted to sell her flat in Pune and found that her efforts were being thwarted because her buyer was a Muslim. Now, we hear Mohammedan Sporting Club is being denied sponsorship, these two instances are  manifestations of some notions inherent in our society. For me, it is an eye opener to the sense of intolerance that is prevalent in our society. Infact, i will be extremely happy, if a corporate comes and backs Mohammedan Sporting and i wish such a thing happen,s to squash my extreme cynicism.

Not that i am trying to be yet another god man, i was proved wrong when i made a  dubious  prediction  in my  Caste/Communal blog about Kerala last time around.

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