Chitto jetha bhayshunyo (where the mind is without fear)

So, I am reading the Jingo Cheetah. Something about Mumbai being rude. Also something about the writing prowess of Rahul Bose. Someone called Freedom Fighter left a comment as to how Muslims should unite to form the Islamic Republic of Deccan (or something like that). Initially I got offended that someone could suggest something like this. I left a comment as to why he needn’t start his own country and there are Islamic republics on either side of the union of India. It was insensitive, I apologize. But, it started a maelstrom in a tea cup on the comments page. FF got back to why freedom is the birthright of every man and how the Indian (read Hindu) Union had systematically oppressed the Muslims of the Deccan. How Gujarat was an institutional example of Hindu intentions. So on and So forth. Read it here .

Also, there’s an essay competition going on about how Indians are not too comfortable with people unlike them and the ways to solve this problem. There’s a cool 50K for the first prize.

Somehow it all feels connected.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Lord Father, strike Bharat without mercy,
so that it may awaken into such a heaven.