Book Review : Black Friday

There are only a few books that actually make you think so hard that you want to write about it. Black Friday is definitely "the" book that provoked my thought process and forced me to re-evaluate my secular view. Morevoer , the book reinforced my belief that reality is much more forceful than fiction ,i.e. if the author has done his due diligence.
I must say that the author does a splendid job of taking the stance of an on-looker ,merely stating facts and drawing logical conclusions from these facts. Although the intricate details get a little boring but at the same time they point towards the kind of effort has put into this book.
Okay, so much so for the author's style . The main thing i want to discuss here is that after reading this book I have begun to beleive that India can only dream of being secular.All of us have read in the text books that secularism is good and religious tolerance should be cherished. But no one told us at what cost. I don't want to take sides of any religion. There are fanatics on both sides but the problem is that only one religion actually thinks that India is its country and that is where I have a pproblem.
This book says that Bomaby blast were nothing but a retailation of what happened in Ayodhya. No doubt what happpened in Ayodhya is regretable but Bombay blasts were not targeted at the Hindus. If these blasts had targeted Hindu temples or any such symbols of Hinduism I could have agreed that they were a form of anger towards a community but these blasts targeted national symbols such as the BSE, the Air India building .When WTC was brought down , america called it an attack on the nation .Doesn't the same theory apply here?
Often Media writes about the so called involvement of a foreign hand in these events.But how can such a foreign hand exist unless there is support from with in.The people who executed these blasts were not Pakistanis . They were Indians .How may times will I see outfits like SIMI and LET cropping up in the heart of India ?
Another point i will like to bring out is that minorities in India always take undue advantage of their underprevilige situation. the majority of the hindu community is as underpreveliged as these minorities so why should these minorities get any special treatment. i think it will be appropriate to bring out the fact that the Musilm community is the only community that fails to adhere to the Uniform Civil Code. May I ask Why this special treatment? No where in the world is there a separate civil code for any community. No other community in India has ever got any help from other nations based on religion. Jews don't get help from Israel to protect their minority interest nor do the christians cry out for help to the half of world that is Christians.