The Sanjay Dutt Tapes

NPR`s Eric Weiner reports on India`s film industry - the largest in the world. ``Bollywood`` produces hundreds of schmaltzy musicals every year. So far, the audience has been limited to India and the diaspora. But now Bollywood is making its mark on the world stage, with an Oscar nominee, critically acclaimed films and a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Some Western actors are even showing up in Bombay, hoping to get their big break.

Boring.

Could mean anything. Could mean nothing.

What`s the point?

...sanjay dutt and the other monkeys and fatasses from bollywood can go jump into a sewer...who cares...

Reply #: 7 bundchungal



Bandchungal

When a child is born Bumndchungal it is considered miser mean & stingy .....Hope you change your mean nick .

Why would propsperous film star jeopardize his luxurious life EXCEPT for higher more important goal of PRESRVING HIS OWN LIFE?Its better to live than be DEAD at any cost.

btw Sanjay Khan is Hrithiks Father in Law

You dont declare him terrorist too do you ???

Suburban Whites and Pogroms in India

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-07/14prashad.cfm

By Vijay Prashad

Every few years I teach a class called ``Hippies.`` The main theme of the course is to follow the white, suburban middle-class in its homage to Asia - from the 1967 Summer of Love debut of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Mediation to the 1990s version via Deepak Chopra and the Dalai Lama.

We study the genuine sense of malaise among suburban youth (the condition that Paul Goodman called ``Growing Up Absurd``), but we also tend to the way in which ``Asia`` functions as an alibi for a politics to transcend the condition of the suburb. A bumper sticker that says ``Free Tibet`` seems to offer an entry into a transcendental politics, far removed from the social melancholy of suburban life.

Does Tibet or Hinduism offer a coherent program to reconstruct the oppression of suburban capitalism? My own sense is that it facilitates an escape from the rigors of our world. The conceit that whites have no culture and that they can get cultural from this tryst with Asia also contributes to the continued fascination with the surface and/or spiritual level of Asian cultures.

When Gwen Stefani of No Doubt or Madonna can wear a bindi and get accolades for it, those thousands of South Asian girls and women who get teased in school and at work for the ``dot`` on their forehead feel rightfully bitter and angry.

I`ve got nothing against cultural borrowings because I believe that culture comes without boundaries, without discrete origins and it does anyway move across the frail boundaries set-up by one cultural orthodoxy or another. Polycultural existences or cultural fluidity is inevitable.

But what do we do about the romantic entry of suburban whites into Hinduism when many of the organs that disseminate the faith are linked to the groups that conduct pogroms against Muslims in India?

Are ``curiosity`` and ``respect`` sufficient grounds for the entry of the suburban white into the theocratic fascism of these variations of faith?

In a perfect world, yes, but not in this one.

For about a decade, Biju Mathew (best known for his work with the New York Taxi Workers` Association) and I have conducted research on the Hindutva Right in the US and we`ve found that millions of dollars travel each year through illegal and legal networks to finance right-wing activity in the subcontinent.

This long-distance theocratic fascism was part of the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya in 1992, the anti-Christian riots in Gujarat a few years ago, and now, certainly, in the state-engineered pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat where at least two thousand people died.

Kanwal Rekhi, a neoliberal entrepreneur, co-wrote a powerful opinion piece in the Washington Post (22 May 2002):

``Many overseas Indian Hindus, including some in this country, finance religious groups in India in the belief that the funds will be used to build temples, and educate and feed the poor of their faith. Many would be appalled to know that some recipients of their money are out to destroy minorities (Christians as well as Muslims) and their places of worship. Mr. Vajpayee could deal a severe blow to such covert causes by simply labeling them as terrorists.``

What Rekhi missed was that it was not only ``Indian Hindus`` who financed the pogrom, but also many suburban whites who uncritically join temples and other such organizations. They give the Hindutva Right money certainly, but also the much needed legitimacy of white followers in the movement.

Of course the bulk of the saffron dollars comes from the Indian-American community, but the suburban whites who don the robes of Hindutva give prestige and legitimacy to the movement. The legacy and persistence of racism provides respect to any artifact or institution of color that is worn or frequented by whites.

This was the reason, for instance, why it was so important for the erstwhile right-wing Dharam Hinduja Indic Research Center at Columbia University to attract large numbers of white scholars for its project to whitewash Hindutva. Many came, mainly white women who study various aspects of Hinduism and are themselves very well known and otherwise respected scholars of Indology. Eager for cash, they disregarded the role they played for Hindutva, just as those whites who become Hindus in this day and age do not actively engage with the crucial role Hindutva plays within global Hinduism.

Let`s stay with the Hinduja institute. Funded by the arms-dealer and industrialist S. P. Hinduja, the center is named for his late son Dharam. Dharam, a Wharton graduate, fell in love with and married an Anglo-Indian Catholic woman whom he wanted to marry. Adamantly opposed to it, the family chased him off and, as a result, he committed suicide in 1992.

Those so-called ``Hindu values`` that would not accept the child`s desire to live as a human being in a complex world were now to be cruelly sanctified in a research institute that bears his name. Even as Columbia University abandoned the money after sustained protest by secular forces, Cambridge University continues to host such a center (there is also one in New Delhi).

And the suburban whites in the Hindutva Right movement are not only followers, because a few of them are important leaders. This should come as no surprise to those of us who have been accosted by ISCKON workers (the ``Hare Krishnas``) in airports and other places. Two of the main grandees are men who converted to Hinduism, became important intellectuals of the Hindutva movement and now flog the ideology via the Internet, in their books and periodicals:

(1) David Frawley, aka Swami Vamdev. Frawley is affiliated with various theocratic fascist organizations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Hindu Students Council (HSC) and the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) - all three arms of the global Hindutva movement whose teeth were bared in Gujarat recently. In 1996, Frawley traveled across England as an honored guest of the VHP.

From Arise Arjuna (1995) to Hinduism and the Clash of Civilizations (2001), Frawley offers a Huntingtonian analysis of the clash between Islam (bad) and Christianity (almost good), with Hinduism being the necessary ally of the good. The anti-Muslim tenor of his books is also evident in his works on ancient India (such as Gods, Sages and Kings, 1991) where Frawley joins a series of theocratic fascists to argue that Vedic India was bliss and that everything since then has been a disaster.

(2) Satuguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami and Satguru Bodhinatha Velanswami. Founders of the magazine Hinduism Today and of the ashram in Hawaii that houses the Hindu Heritage Endowment, these two swamis (Satguru or Gurudev has since died) have very close ties to the VHP. Their materials regularly quote approvingly from VHP documents and the money raised by the HHE goes toward Hindutva activities.

There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with the pursuit of spirituality under the sign of Hinduism; indeed there is perhaps much to be gained from it. However, as Hindutva-style cruelty devastates the landscape of Indian life, it is imperative for those who claim Hinduism to offer ruthless criticism of global Hindutva.

If you attend a temple, ask the priests and others about their relationship with the pogrom in Gujarat: and don`t take their denials at face value. Demand to see the account books, investigate the guests who come and speak to the members, find out if any group like the HSS runs the show. Do not allow liberal multiculturalism to give global Hindutva cover from secular forces.

Finally, as global Hindutva tries to get United Way clearance and as its front organs try to pose as charitable organizations, be ready to fight them all the way. The current exchange rate is fifty rupees for one dollar. Even a few greenbacks translate into crucial resources in impoverished zones and become a saffron bludgeon against the Indian masses.

Does this indicate that Sunjay Dutt`s career is over? Or does his mystique grow furthur? Is Chota Shakeel in Karachi? Is there a Barra Shakeel, also? And why is this important?

The mystery continues.......

Sanjay Dutt is a terrorist. It has nothing to do with his Mom being Muslim. If you read his Mom`s biography you will know how badly he treated her, when she was on his death bed. Furthermore, why does he have to have any AK-47 stored in his house? The only civilians who have such weapons are those with terrorist intentions. Sanjay Dutt was cought with a cache of such weapons just a few years ago. That is why he was a terrorist then and he is a terrorist now. He is a social deviant and is all hand and golve with Chota Shakeel and other such goondas who are based in Pakistan and the Middle East.

Sanjay Khan has no credible defence.

Reply #: 4 fawad79

Reply #: 3 aicha

Reply #: 2 aicha<

Reply #: 1Shatru Sinha

FAWAD

Sanjay Dutt is actor whose mother was Muslim Nargis ,thats why all the Shiv Sena & Bjp focus on him.

Aicha

Agree with you ..if Mr.Prasd Patil is diplomatically carefull to remain SILENT here is some start up discussions

Bollywood connection with the underworld



Relations between the Bollywood and Mumbai`s underworld was never a secret, at least for the Mumbai police. However, it is a shocker for common people to know how much close these two worlds are. The number of films on Mumbai`s underworld and subtle glorification of bad boys like `Nayk Nahi Khalanayak HumMein` have recently increased. Is it film depicting the reality from the underworld or now underworld copying stereotype characters seen in large number of Hindi movies?

The kind of conversations between filmy heroes and the underworld dons have been played on national news channels and heardby large number of unsuspecting viewers. They wondered whether they were hearing some sound track of a new Hindi movie. The reason was both the heroes and the underworld dons used the kind of lingo normally reserved for Mumbai`s underworld by the Bollywood script-writers.

Tapes heard by viewers were actual conversations recorded by sleuths of Mumbai police between Bollywood`s hero-turned Khalnayak and underworld don Chhota Shakeel known for his total influence over the film world in Mumbai. Media got its hand on these controversial tapes between Karachi-based don Chhota Shakeel and Hindi film actor Sanjay Dutt who had played the role of a Khalnayak. It is different to play the role of a bad boy in a film and do it in thereal. Along with Dutt, director Mahesh Manjarekar, Sanjay Gupta and others were also recorded on the tapes while the gang was on its way to Shirdi in 2000.

These conversations certainly throw enough light on the nefarious nexus between film world and the underworld. Theyshow directors falling over each other to depict the underworld don in the film, help him maintaining his influence, give him info, show fear of his sharp shooters and scant respect for the law of the land. Whether these tapes are of any help in the ongoing case against film financer Bharat Shah is for the court to decide.Tapes make people aware of this nefarious link between Bollywood and the underworld.

The Maharashtra government as well as the Mumbai police are coming under increasing pressure to initiate action against these top shots who openly talked to the Karachi-based don. If Bharat Shah can be put behind the bar for his recorded conversations with underworld don, then why these film personalities should be let go free. Police produced these tapes to prove that Bharat Shah has been working for Chhota Shakeel and financing films on his instructions.

These tapes have also created more difficult situation for Sanjay Dutt, son of Congress MP Sunil Dutt. Media and people have almost forgotten about TADA case against Sanjay Dutt during 1992-93 communal riots in Mumbai city when he allegedly possessed AK-47 machine gun. With great difficulty and lots of string pulling, he was released on bail while other TADA detainees continued to remain behind bars. One of the conditions was he will not keep any contact with the underworld which helped him to get the gun during troubled times. With the revelation of new tapes recorded in December 2000, it is clear that Sanjay was in constant touch with Chhota Shakeel even after repeated court warnings.

The Congress Party has been put on a defensive mode due to the controversial Sanjay Dutt-Chhota Shakeel tapes, as the party is aware of the effect these disclosures could have on the Gujarat elections. TheMaharashtra government is also going very slow on dealing with the new revelations. Deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal has blamed the previous Shiv Sena-BJP alliance government in the state for releasing Sanjay Dutt when he was behind bars under TADA.

Congress stalwarts are worried over the exposure of Sanjay Dutt in the tapes. Who could have leaked these tapes, they wonder and they realise the importance of timing. The needle of suspicion is obviously pointed towards the NCP operatives who are at the helm of the affairs of the home department. Bhujbal has washed off his hands saying that it is for the police to decide at the instance of the court, about the next step. Congress MP Sunil Dutt is all set to unleash his `Sadbhavna ke sipahi` march on Gujarat by the month end. The controversy over Sanjay tape can create problems for the proposed march.

Authorities have been talking about the nexus between filmdom and underworld for quite long but so far no steps have been taken. From the conversations available on the recorded tapes, it is clear that the underworld is quite entrenched and the filmdom is in vice like grip. Most of the film personalities blame terroras the main weapon used by the underworld to force many people to join their schemes by force. Film stars ask whether they can save themselves by going to police when they get extortionist calls or dictates from the underworld. They do not feel safe to go to police and lodge complaints as they know that the underworld`s tentacles have reached everywhere and they can harm them professionally.

Under such circumstances, unless the authorities really take up a massive clean up operation to weed out these underworld connections nothing can be done. This is not merely a link between the dream city and the underworld but it can go much further and harm the national security. These Karachi-based underworld dons are not merely interested in making a few more bucks or find themselves glorified on the celluloid. They are actually kingpins of the dreaded undeclared war launched by neighbouring state of Pakistan. Investigations are still on and even the cases are still lingering in courts on the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai city, which killed several innocents. Pakistani intelligence used the unsuspecting underworld links to accomplish their target of attacking vital installations in the commercial capital of the country.

The state authorities might find it difficult to deal with dons who operate from an enemy country and keep on killing people and influencing Bollywood from a distance. It is not merely providing protection to a few top actors or actresses but it is a serious business of unearthing links these underworld dons have developed without any inhibitions. It will require political will to hit out at the guilty and in the process even political bigwigs may be hit. The question is: are we prepared for such kind of aclean-up to save not only Bollywood but also the state and city from the vicious grip of these underworld dons.

ok who is sanjay dutt is he the one with the bugg out eyes or the prett boy?

oh and I also forgot to add - can we pls get a writeup on taht aspect too - so that we all know where who stands - just for once!!

what is the point here? We have all heard/read this so many times. The questions that shoudl be asked are - why did the police sit on this for such a long time and why is it seeing the light of day only now - any answers ??

Its not that Chota Shakeel is the worst criminal india has produced.Was not there Shiv Sena with its Anti Muslim & Islam _Pakistan ethos .Was not there BJP alliance govt with NDA agressively interested in forcefully filling its influence in every spheres of Indian life ....NRI to Bollywood Industry to Gas Stations under minister RAM NAIK ....all this much atention is UNDESERVED for Chota Shakeel Sanjay etc.

Has any body heatrd of N A I K or G O W L E ??

I didnt think so !

Chota shakeel is Chota in front of thses NAIK & GOWLE ....but read on ..

If given enough power & money i can record the rectal muscles of both Advani & Atal bihari full with electromyogram & audio of it on video recording.....There is nothing increminating except that so & so talked & so & so is deemed criminal by the bias police.

So when was it that movie industry never sought muscle of gunda party ,EVEN the neta politicians of BJP have gundas murdering opposition in Ajmer Bhopal Delhi Kanpur Lucknow ...