from the mailbox: on madhu kishwar and others

like hindus in general, the rss is far more willing to be kind to christists and mohammedans than to one of their own. madhu kishwar is a decent woman, a great antidote to the bra-burning, hypocritical femi-nazis like shabana azmi and deepa mehta. the rss is a good organization with decent people, but it has been demonized so much that it goes out of its way to try and improve their detractors' opinion of them. the demonization is so great that if an rss person is murdered, this is treated by the media as 'good riddance to vermin'. of course, if a christist or mohammedan or marxist is murdered, it is a 'great human tragedy' and/or 'a violation of the fundamental rights of an embattled minority person'. fiddlesticks!.

this pandering is true of the bjp as well. futile, that effort is.

On 12/4/05, G wrote:

I was exchanging emails with an RSS leader for sometime. He stopped writing to me after I forwarded an article by Madhu Kishwar. I came to know later that he was annoyed as he considered Madhu Kishwar a sinful intellectual who doesn't practice what she preaches.

Today, a long time after that happened, I was searching the internet to know if Madhu Kishwar is good or bad. Look what I found:

http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/mar/12rajeev.htm

I am beginning to think that the biggest failing of RSS is its narrowness of vision. Theirs is an amazing organization and Hindu Samaj owes them a great debt. Their effectiveness was on display in the anti-foreigner campaign recently in Assam but some of them spend a lot of time debating history and, after Sudarshan took over, they give an impression of frustration and helplessness. He did not have one good thing to say of Vajpayee or his team in that NDTV interview. I wish their energy is better channeled.