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Month: January 2015

If we are done critiquing the cartoons, can we now critique the faith?

Almost a week has passed since 12 employees at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed in a terror attack, and since then we have seen widespread condemnations of the attack, fringe celebrations of the attack, critique of the magazine’s cartoons, and a unity rally by some world leaders.

While widespread condemnations and fringe celebrations have now become “natural reactions” to any terror attack (yes, that’s the world we live in), the new aspect this time was critique of the cartoons drawn by those mercilessly murdered, which was virtually victim blaming.

And it was done almost immediately, almost as a natural reaction, not as an afterthought.

Earlier today, Charlie Hebdo released front page of their next issue, which is a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad – very mild and constructive by their acerbic and disruptive standards – and people are critiquing that too.

The terrorists, and their apologists, must be smiling.

Which Narendra Modi supporter are you?

People voted for Narendra Modi because they wanted development, they didn’t have any Hindu agenda in mind.” is the latest muse of people who earlier religiously believed that “a vote for Modi means crossing the moral point of no return”.

They are the same people who thought that Modi, with help of Amit Shah, “polarized” Uttar Pradesh to sweep the general elections. Now they think that the elections were won on development agenda.

This U-turn by these alleged “intellectuals” is not surprising as they are experts in shifting goalposts; however, what is consistent are their generalizations.

Earlier a vote for Modi was a vote for fascism, and now a vote for Modi has become a vote for development.

This post is not to analyze what a vote for Narendra Modi meant, because many alleged journalists are analyzing that by writing fat books, hoping to make a fat impression and preferably fat money.

This post is about who voted for Modi.