BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE

This petition is doing its round, but to my mind these are forgone conclusions. We are still thinking on beaten tracks. We need an overhaul not just in our systems but in our thinking as well. And to do that a lot of changes must begin within ourselves. The Prime Minister alone cannot do much ... I think it is time we came together as a country and made some promises to ourselves ... More about that that later. Read the petition first...

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/26novAct/petition.html

I also want you to now read what Shah Rukh has recetly told the press...

Like every secular Muslims, Shah Rukh also finds it hard to digest when he is asked to take a stand such issues as terror or prove his secularism. He says, "Now that when you say, you need to take a stand, that makes me little angry. I have been brought in a Hindu atmosphere in Delhi, my wife is a Hindu, I read the Quran, I do the namaz, I love the religion and I love Hinduism also." But the star actor also accepts the fact most of the terror attacks in the world are carried out by Muslims. "That's a truth that you have to face. The only way to face is, yes they are Muslims but they don't understand Islam properly," he opines. "There is a Islam for muslims and one for the mullahs"... Here is the crux.

I have watched with some trepidition an increasing amount of militant hinduism for sometime. If this carries on and we are constanly expected to take sides to prove our loyalty to our religion, I am afraid I will have to look for a different patch of land where I can live with my secular beliefs. This is the right time to take up our fundamentalism and throw it out of the window... We must come together as one to decide for instance, what we must do when a handful of these rabid, selfish fundamentalist act and speak on behalf of the moderate lot and burn buses, break shops and beat up innocnt people. I am personally tired of this homegrown terrorism and I am sick of taking all this quietly. When I recently went to file an FIR against the MNS here in Mumbai, firstly the local police adviced me to settle it at a personal level. Secondly the MNS staff got furious when I called them terrorits and threatened me with dire consequences...why? because I was a Bong and not a Marathi ? There are hundreds of Marathis like me who are not at all happy with this fundamentalist wing as there are hundreds of secular Muslims like Shah Rukh who are tired of having to prove their allegience to this country.

"I do not agree with some of your views in the later part. The Hindu terrorism that you speak of is the outcome of anger and frustration at the politics of appeasement that Congress has always been following. Displaced Muslims from outside the border are their main vote bank.All its policies are to sustain this vote bank in rank disregard of the majority sentiment. You hv missed the Congress's ugly politics in fomenting this animosity between two major religions. MNS is a canker in the indian politics. But there is an element of truth that Lalu is importing all Biharis to far flung states in the Railways for menial jobs and ignoring the local men," - says my friend K Parthsarathi.

That is precisely what I am worried about. It is time for allof us to see through the political games around us and scoff at the politicians and not at the people. We have to ensure another Godhra or Malegaon doesn't happen in this beautiful country of ours ever again. We the people of India must promise to remain selfless and secular and work together for the betterment of our country and not just one region.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world"- Mahatma Gandhi