A concept, an action, legislation, activism, anything signifying a higher human ideal and serving a noble human cause, with a genuine intent and untied to prejudices or political intent, can be appreciated.
However, when the outwardly intent of activism appears honest and virtuous in nature but is covertly backed by an ideological, religious or political bias, it is confusing to most people genuinely wanting to support a note worthy, honorable cause. Of late, this seems to be the situation that many young, educated, socially-aware Indians are faced with.
On the surface of it, an initiative appears worthy of their support, encouragement and financial aid, yet after a while, many people are disappointed to discover social, religious or political motivations to the charity, they had been supporting.
It has become fashionable for people to call themselves “activists”. The term is an all encompassing one, for just about everything and often times, a clever attempt to cover up the actual intentions of an individual or organization. Upon closer scrutiny and research, one is surprised to find unexpected links and connections that lead to distrust, angst and withdrawal of support to the activism or charitable cause, whose primary objective may still be a good, aspirational one. Many national level organizations that occupy the space of “animal rights” or protection, fall into this conundrum for the genuine, well meaning but unsuspecting citizen, that wants to support a worthy animal-related initiative but later realizes, there’s much more than just a simple and pure animal protection plan, beneath the surface.
One such “activist” is Alok Hisarwala Gupta.
Who Is Alok Hisarwala Gupta?
Alok Hisarwala Gupta is a lawyer but is known more for his “activism”. He is an activist focused on LGBT rights and animal rights, among others. He is also partial to labels like Environmental Conservation. So far, it sounds alright, quite straight forward, noble in intent and mission (animal rights and related), certainly worthy of our time and charity, Correct?
Think again. The problem begins after some research into the ‘activism’ and causes supported by an individual or organization or by an accidental discovery of the variety of ‘charitable’ causes, they are involved with. You start digging around and find more disturbing information.
On further investigation, one realizes that ‘activists’ like Alok are also involved in the favorite subject of the Indian Left and the pseudo seculars- protection of “minority rights”. The disappointment after the discovery of the many “shades” of Alok Hisarwala Gupta, changes one’s perspective of what appears to be an innocent, benign, worthy cause on the surface but leading to unintentional, undeserving support for causes like “minority rights”, which in India refers to special privileges, based on one’s religion, often times at the expense of Hinduism, in a supposedly ‘secular’ country, where no religion should demand or be granted special rights over the others.
Alok, The Anti-Hindu Bigot
More research further reveals that Alok Gupta is associated with news reporting sites like The Srcoll, The Leaflet and possibly The Wire, whose founders and management are known, even proven for their Left leaning views. A Leftist biased opinion or perspective is fair game to a robust debate in the grey area between the intellectual, political left and the right in most nations, however, in India, the left-liberal group is a bigoted one, rabidly biased against the Hindus. In India, the left does not focus on economic, social, political, environmental, educational types of indices for the most part, like they do in most other nations. Instead, the Indian left almost always drags religion into their lecture halls, living rooms and newspaper opinions, which is almost always pro Islam and Christianity and anti-Hindu.
Hence, while young, urban, upwardly-mobile Indian citizens are sensitized to animal welfare and may want to lend a helping hand to Alok Gupta and “activists” like him, it can end up inadvertently supporting and encouraging a different cause, because such activists also play the minority card & the divisive, anti-national game of minority politics.
Alok Hisarwala Gupta’s writings, give his pseudo- secularism away. He talks of queer/LGBT rights, animal rights, women’s rights and even matters of sexual perversion, in the backdrop of Hindu society and sensibilities. If he is truly secular, why doesn’t he discuss such matters in the context of other religions as well? When he speaks out passionately against the practice of temple elephant ownership, why doesn’t he broach the subject of cruel cow transportation and slaughter and ritualistic goat/sheep slaughter, associated with the minority religions? Why does this activist’s frustration, righteous angst, collaboration with foreign activists, his demands for changes in Parliamentary law accuse and impact the Hindu community only? At this stage, the alarm bells begin to ring.
Association With Problematic Organizations
Alok is associated with the following organizations: Vidhi, Centre for Legal Policy, Centre for Research on Animal rights, The Scroll news site, The Leaflet founded by Supreme Court advocates, Indira Jaising and Anand Grover and the Federation of Indian Animal Protection organizations (FIAPO).
FIAPO is run by one Chinny Krishna (Chairperson Emeritus) which has Peter Singer as one of its board members. Peter Singer has been defined as a “a Nazi, a reincarnation of Hitler’s deputy Martin Bormann, a baby killer, a philosophical hypocrite, and an enemy of civilization” in an article published by The Guardian.
It is noteworthy to mention that BJP MP Maneka Gandhi, received the 6th Peter Singer award for her animal rights activism from Peter Singer himself. Maneka Gandhi’s name has been hitting the discussions surrounding the death of Manakulam Vinayagar Temple elephant Lakshmi.
Indira Jaising runs a non governmental organization (NGO) called Lawyers’ Collective, the license of which was permanently cancelled by the Home Ministry for violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). The Government of India accused the NGO of using foreign funds in a manner not mentioned in the objectives of the NGO. She was picked by the UN to investigate alleged attrocities by Myanmar on the Rohingya Muslims, who themselves engaged in violence. Indira defended the infamous “secular” activist, Teesta Setalvad on her post Gujarat riots activism even after the country’s investigative agencies faulted her for several misrepresentation of facts and misappropriation of funds. Anand Grover, Indira Jaising’s husband, is known for having tried to get a reprieve from the Supreme Court for Yakub Memon, one of the 1993 Bombay bombings, accused.
Alok Hisarwala Gupta’s writing includes subjects like social discrimination, women’s rights, sexual peversion, sodomy in relation to patriarchal Hinduism! Who are the national and international sponsors of such a hateful, narrow minded narrative, beneath several layers of a superficially innocent but covertly deceitful subject?
In an article published online in October 2021, Alok Hisarwala Gupta tries to argue that Hindu patriarchy is responsible for perversion tendencies, including sexual deviations! History records numerous, unfortunate, unimaginable instances of horror and inhuman behaviour across all civilizations and cultures, both old and relatively new. Slavery, being one such behaviour. Outlandish, abnormal, cruel human behaviour is more related to human psychology, sociological conditioning and economic or ecological circumstances, rather than religion. What makes Alok Gupta focus exclusively on Hinduism and ignore the other religions practiced in large numbers in India, when discussing an ugly theme, unfortunately common to all religions and cultures?
A Filtered Woke
Many of us are familiar with the famous “Never go full retard” scene from the Hollywood film Tropic Thunder.
“You went full retard, man. Never go full retard!”, says Robert Downey Junior to Ben Stiller
A little tweak to the dialogue would perfectly fit for Alok Gupta who speaks about extending the concept of queer to animals as well.
“You went full woke, man. Never go full woke!”, somebody has to say this upfront to him.
In a paper written by him titled “The Despised And Dishonoured: The Non-Human ‘Beast’ And The Non-Confirming ‘Khairati‘, Alok Gupta goes on to argue this:
“I argue for parity of victimhood for animals. Animals are victims of sexual abuse not because of a pathological sexual depravity (an unfortunate colonial language which we must reject) but because of a deeper culture of violence in our society against the weak, who are necessarily gendered as sexual victims either as women, children, transgenders or animals.”
He wrote this in an attempt to shift the blame on the larger Indian (read Hindu) community over an incident where a Muslim man was caught for raping a goat.
“Therefore, the animal rights community should speak against the Hindutva radicalization of the rape of the pregnant goat from Nagina, Haryana, and the queer, feminist and civil liberties organizations must extend the politics of intersectionality to non-human (and also similarly gendered) victims of sexual crimes.“, Alok writes in the paper.
Here’s the abstract of another paper published under the title “The permissible and the perverse: Indian geographies of interspecies sex“ by Alok Gupta:
“We argue in this paper that what separates permissible from perverse acts of killing, or sex with, an animal is a matter of material and symbolic space. We focus on interspecies sex –which is often, but not always, bound up with killing –to argue that what separates permissible from perverse acts of interspecies sex in India, or husbandry from bestiality, is where it occurs geographically in proximity to an upper-caste, anthropatriarchal imaginary of a Hindu nation. We argue that the state-sanctioned abattoir and its breeding facility are spaces of normalized exception, in which anthropatriarchal violences are relatively permissible, and on the same grounds as in the “human” space of the home. We trace interspecies sexual contact across spheres of bestiality, animal husbandry, petkeeping, and population control. We conclude with a queer bestial ethics of avowal, one that dispenses with anthopatriarchal innocence towards a more capacious embrace of the panspecies desire for touch and thriving”.
This is the level to which this alleged animal activist goes to tarnish the Hindu society as a society responsible for sexual crimes against animals.
It is this self-styled activist who is going after temple elephants under the garb of animal rights.
Beware Of The Nefarious Agenda-Driven Activists
The world of NGOs and non-profits is a tricky, murky one in India, with many supporting an overt or covert anti-national agenda, aided and funded by special-interest groups in India and abroad. As already mentioned, an NGO with a seemingly honorable mission in the interest of animals, minorities, the poor, women’s empowerment, education or the environment, may appeal to many of us and our children, raised with good manners and wanting to live responsibly in the world while respecting all forms of life. By all means, support them but only after you have thoroughly checked their credentials and their ideological, finanancial affiliations. One must be sure of the real motive and intent of many such organizations, that receive funds from vested interests.
Many governments around the world, including India, have been complaining for years, about self proclaimed ‘activists’, NGOs and non-profit organizations, trying to meddle in the internal affairs of a nation, acting as lobbyists for international economic or political interests and acting on behalf of corporation/industry funded ‘special intetests’ groups or heavily funded minority religious organizations, under the guise of ‘secularism’ and ‘human rights’.
The individual/organization may well have its roots and real intentions elsewhere, that common citizens are not always aware of. The images we see may draw sympathy from us and rightfully so, provided the purpose is authentic but beware! Do some background research of the individuals and their organizations – you may be unpleasantly surprised to know that the real string-pullers and the funding behind the scenes, may have an ulterior motive, that is detrimental to the independence and sovereignty of a country.
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