Thursday, January 12, 2012

Fatwa Fever

The Fatwa fever is on in India! Maybe that word should be a permanent Oxford dictionary addition if it already isn’t.  
Kapil Sibal tried to put one on Social networking. It triggered more twittering and dis’liking’ and sniggers from the social media community. Anna came along and is still trying to put a fatwa on corruption and alcohol. Madhya Pradesh has reined in beef-eaters while even the glorious Sun has not been spared by fatwaing the Surya Namaskar. The biggest joke of all is the ban on showing the pink elephants and statues at Uttar Pradesh. Amidst the new, how can old one’s be forgotten – Muslim clerics are already up in arms against Salman Rushdie stepping into India for a popular literature fest. A few more fatwas that should be issued soon by various Hindu, Muslim, Brahmins, SC/STs, govt. etc.-
  • If Maya’s elephants can’t wave their trunks, people are here forth barred from waving for anything, riding bicycles and using sickles to harvest their crops.
  • A fatwa should be issued on fat and unfit Abhishek Bacchhan from dancing (and being in movies) and a fatwa on Sonam Kapoor and Imran Khan on acting.
  • Citizens and tourists should not be allowed to eat anything but boiled vegetables so as to not hurt the religious sentiments of other communities including Jains and imprisonment for those who dare eat beef/chicken/pork or anything else not in the list of allowed eatables.
  • There should be a fatwa on traffic policemen who aren’t of any use anyway on Mumbai roads.
  • A fatwa should be put on pedestrians who try walking on footpaths annoying squatting hawkers and bikers who drive on them if there are no hawkers.  
  • A covert ban on Tendulkar making his century would ensure TRPs and advertisers getting their due
  • FDI fatwa continues and the movie association should follow suit and issue a fatwa on Hollywood to protect the interest of the wonderful Bollywood movies such as Rascals, Don2 and Ra One getting neglected despite their ‘wonderful’ stories.
  • A fatwa on all of all of yoga (not just the surya namaskar), pilates, kickboxing, for religious reasons, no-westernization reasons etc will be great so I have a convenient excuse to stop exercising.
  • A fatwa on Brahmins and higher castes to reproduce given that future increasing reservations will ensure they die of malnutrition anyway or they will go abroad
  • Thanks to Sibal, a fatwa on social networking in office will let me be more productive and go home early!
  • I wonder if a fatwa on the Rupee will rein in exchange rates at their current levels and if a fatwa can be issued on rising petrol prices
  • Last but not the least, after we exhaust all the fatwas, could we please have a fatwa against passing more fatwas and end this fatwaing?

Courtesy - Google Images

The democracy which India is supposed to be is now a fatwacrazy. It is insane that if a girl is molested, she is the one blamed for it since she was wearing a sleeveless shirt and not the lecherous man who did it. A motorist almost runs over a pedestrian and shouts at him for being in the way when he is breaking a signal. Unless power hungry politicians, moralistic clerics and wrong populist measures are reined in, the one thing – freedom - we prided ourselves on and thought we are better at than China will also cease to exist and leave little hope in a country desperate to shine.