As if we have a dearth of issues that make our heads hang in shame and embarrassment in the international diaspora! We keep coming across a new one each day. Why do these bizzare things keep happening in our country? Have we totally lost it?
Why does a film production house need to hide the waist of an actress (via VFX) in a song? And that too, in the same country that has shown the open-mindedness to accept a former porn queen almost as a household name!
In the name of tradition and culture, we keep doing every single thing against it. Islam does not preach to terrorise people in the name of jihad. Hinduism never says that choosing to end lives in the name of an animal or love is okay. However, we do everything – we become terrorists and execute mass killings, we lose our mind and lynch people selling meat, we kill our own in the name of either ‘love jihad’ or ‘honour killing’.
In a country that is dealing with a million issues, including illiteracy, unemployment, crime, poverty, corruption, pollution and what not – government officials are busy making the headlines for all sorts of nonsense.
Well, as an icing on the cake of ‘brainless news’, the Minister of State for Higher Education, Satyapal Singh, has said that Darwin’s theory of evolution is false and needs to be excluded from textbooks. He said that no person, alive or dead, has ever seen an ape turn into a man.
I can’t even laugh at this. Mind you, this gentleman is ‘educated’ enough. He has a PhD in chemistry from Delhi University. Yes – I am sorry to say this, but to me, he seems to be a perfect example of an ‘educated illiterate’. According to our respected minister, centuries of paleontological research and theories are all false because nobody went to a jungle and lived over hundreds of year to see an ape turn into a man.
Well, this entire episode reminds me of Phoebe Buffay from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and how she had denied that evolution or gravity existed. I remember how disturbed Ross, as a scientist, had been. We all feel like Ross today – or maybe, even worse. I do not have much to say than God save us Indians from this crazy phase that we are in.
A version of this post was first published on the author’s blog.