What it's REALLY like to be an Atheist in India | Jansher Singh

Indic Atheist Interview

Abhijit: Hey everyone, welcome back to Rationable. Today, we've got an exceptional guest, the Indic atheist. Let's plunge into it. We're gonna talk about a lot of very interesting stuff.

Jansher: Thank you, Abhijit. Thank you for having me on your platform. And I'm great that I'm able to find more rationalists atheists and skeptics in the Indian space.

Abhijit: Yeah, we definitely need our people around these days, don't we?

Jansher: How much we have the Raita wing and the left wing and all that.

What is Raita Wing? I have no idea about that.

There is right wing and it rhymes with the word Raita. "raita failana" is like those who represent the right wing in a very bad way. Ah, there is there raita and then there is trads. trads are the traditionalists, the proper castist and superstitious people who vote for the song party.

And then there is Raita Wing. Raita is a word given by the trads, I believe. I could be wrong, but raitas are the ones who do not want casteism to prevail, who do not want certain superstitions to pay to represent Hinduism, but they still want Hindu as as a protective force, as a protective group.

Really? Yes. How does that make any sense? Yeah, no, it does. You have right wingers who are probably atheists, or not even atheists, but moderately religious, and they want to be represented. And then there are your traditional people who have been there for, since forever, I believe.

They feel that their religion is now being properly represented, including its ideas, rituals, superstitions, and even the more dogmatic hierarchies and discriminatory practices, which is why they support voting for the BJP. So it's two factions, which we have on the right wing of the raitas and the trads.

Okay. I just described it's not exactly accurate, but it is somewhat very close to how these two groups function separately.

Abhijit: I think that's interesting. I haven't heard that perspective before, but it is one thing I would love to. I mean if it was at all possible shouldn't it be the raitas and the biryanis or something of that sort?

We should have that

Jansher: Bani is something that they would find on the left, the ones who are eating freebies just to represent leftist ideas. The whole political discourse is all about tags and names and the caricatures. We are too engrossed in this entertainment bit of political discourse that we actually fail to discuss actual issues and we find common ground.

I don't think there's going to be a common ground anytime soon. You just have, yeah.

Abhijit: Probably not. I don't think there ever has been in any context in this country, at least. But I, listen, I wanted to start off with something else. I want to understand your story. What like where did your rationalist, atheist perspectives, where did they come from?

When did they start? What were you brought up on? Were you brought up in a religious family?

Jansher: Not exactly. I was, let's say, in a very moderately religious family on both my mom's and dad's sides. I come from a Sikh family. And I—yes, I'm an ex-Sikh. But my atheism didn't spiral out of disdain for Sikhism.

It was a disdain towards basically all religions, ah, because I'll start from the beginning. I do come from a military background. My dad has served for 30 years. So given that privilege, I have been to different places. I explored different cultures and all that. Right?

And let's say that I've also been to Kashmir. I've also been to the Northeast, where the insurgency takes a very different form, based on ideology and based on religion even. But, meeting all these people all over India I never eventually, had any prejudice towards anybody.

I can have some biases. I can have some preferences that I don't, and I can say it out loud, like Jat buddhi but that is just, something they would also endorse that. Yeah, Jat Buddhi, you know

I'm a little angry. I'm an angry young man, and Baniya guys, they're pretty smart when it comes to business, and they like flaunting it. Oh, yes. Very calculated. To some, to some level we can all use these words without being prejudiced towards anybody. So in that sense I have a very, I would say, liberal understanding of the Indian diaspora, right?

I, being from Kashmir also, and my family never imposed any ideas about radical Islam or all that. That is something you grow up and eventually do find out.

Abhijit: We're gonna talk about it a little bit later.

Jansher: Oh, we should.

Abhijit: Yeah,

Jansher: We should. In early childhood, I couldn't even think of a concept like atheism.

How can you not believe in God? Everybody believes in God. Everybody. You talk to your relatives, your friends and all the adults. It is so normalized that the lack of belief in God was very alien to me until class 10th, I believe.

So we were all filling out some forms. I don't know if that form still asks for something like religion, but the first time we filled a form was in Class 10th regarding our board exams so I am CBSE educated NCRT books and all that, so the first time we filled a form in Class 10th regarding our board exams so we can issue an admit card.

I think they asked about religion. I don't think it was mandatory. I don't, it was just for the school record or something, because there is no religion mentioned in your 10 certificate. But the school still asked about our religion in particular. And there was this one of my classmates, a lady. I was sitting with my benchmate, and he just brought it out of nowhere that that girl, apparently she does not follow a religion. I like What do you mean? What does that even mean? Don't follow a religion. We are all born into a religion.

Abhijit: Yeah. When I was a kid, I had I was made to write that I was a Hindu all in all the forms, and I was like.

Really? Is that where we are? My parents were like, yes. Even though they're very, from a very, reformist sector of Hinduism called the Bramho Samaj, but Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. So

Jansher: you're a bra, you're a bramo. Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray

Abhijit: No. Yeah, they were a part of the gang.

There's also this chap the person who founded it was Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

Jansher: Yeah. The Reform and the British stooge apparently

Yeah. The British stooge, Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

Yeah, exactly.

Jansher: It's funny, like on odd day there is a different opinion on even day there is different so on Odd Day Raja, Ram Mohan and Roy was a British stooge who apparently targeted Indian culture, right?

Apparently that's abolished Sati. So he targeted Indian culture. That is what they say, Indian culture. But on even day they'll tell you that where is sati it was never it was never there. It was never mandatory. Okay. Then why are you angry with somebody who abolished it on odd day and even day? Their keeps changing, their opinion, their defense.

It keeps changing,

Abhijit: yeah, exactly. But fortunately I was also brought up in a very liberal thing but I still had to write the Hindu that I was a Hindu in all the forms that we had to fill out. All the way up to my last job when I was in the entry forms and and very decidedly atheist.

 I was going to write none for religion. And the guy said, ne yeah, please, I say form papa.

I said, okay, fine. I'll write Hindu. But e ever since then, I've been trying to figure out what the hell to put into that bracket. Should I just say atheist in that bracket or what? Like it's because atheism isn't really a religion. That's something that of course we've all discussed quite a bit.

But anyway, sorry. Continue with your story.

Jansher: Oh, no. So I'll get back to my story in a bit. So the categorization you are talking about, if there is to be a category, right? It should be irreligious would include atheists, agnostics people who say, I'm not religious, but spiritual. But that'll be a test that ultimately on a form, are you writing down your religion or you actually writing down irreligious, you can believe in your God, your deistic God.

You don't have to be theistic. You can be deistic right? That I don't believe in a God which judges us based on what we eat, who we marry, where we fuck, and all that. But I do believe that there is a God who created everything, and then he left everything on its own. There are people like that who believe in that sort of a God, right?

So we can all be clubbed under an umbrella term called irreligious, because I don't think I'm gonna have a problem with ag agnostic or somebody who says, thank God, but does not visit any religious place. I'm not gonna go. I do that a lot. I take it like I had that phase of, being picky and nosy, but now I'm like, yeah, ultimately religion is the main problem because religion dictates some dogmatic practices.

What you eat, what you do when you wake up, how many times do you pray how you treat homosexuals, right?

Oh yeah. All that.

Jansher: So I don't think that has to do anything with people who simply believe in a non-religious court. Let them ultimately I'll never agree with their philosophy, their concept, but it's not like I'm we are going at each other's throats, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Abhijit: And

Jansher: fortunately, India is a very problem. I don't think, ultimately we do not have problem with religious people as well. My family is religious. They are totally okay with my atheism. So why do I hate these kind of religious people? My grandfathers both from my maternal and paternal side, they were the last one to wear a turban.

All of my uncles from my dad's side, my aunts from my dad's side, and my uncles from my mom's side basically chacho, everybody, nobody ever put on a turban as an adult. And by the time the third generation, like me and my cousins were born from both sides, nobody had that much of an of a connection with traditional Sikhism.

We visited Gurudwaras, we visited we celebrated all the festivals. We anyway, celebrate most Hindu festivals as well, like the holy and Diwali that's there. What we do not particularly go into is like Nares and all other Pujas and all that. That is something very much on the Hindu side. I believe.

Holy and Diwali has a more pan-dharmic appeal, and now it is even glowing global because what Christmas achieved is, was they took out Jesus and they put in Santa, and now everybody cares about Santa. They don't care about going to the church. Which is what I would say the secularizing of festival.

And Diwali can become that. People can just call it Festival of Lights. They can definitely Google or ask an Hindu about what is the light concept and all that. They can know about it. But yes, they can celebrate Diwali as much as in any Indian would celebrate Christmas without having to do this.

Abhijit: Yeah, exactly. And of course we've got Easter, which makes absolutely no sense because it's about Jesus' resurrection and yeah.

Jansher: What do we do with Easter Bunny? Nobody cares about Easter, India. Nobody not East, right?

Abhijit: Yeah.

Jansher: I, same with Halloween, man. I never, Halloween is

Abhijit: just a fun trend now. It's like people just want to have Halloween parties because they want dress up in weird shit.

Jansher: It's free Comic Con man. It's Free Comic Con.

Abhijit: Exactly. I won't say free all the time. Yeah, it's Comic Con. All right.

Jansher: It's Comic Con all the time. You can dress up as whatever you want. Like I have been told so many times to dress up as Agent 47 that from the Hitman Games. I'm like, come on here. That's that's mean.

That's. Okay. Coming back to the atheism story, the atheism journey. Yeah. So that woman I actually got offended, I was such a brat and such devout towards beliefs that like, how can you not believe in a God? What sort of arrogance can lead to having such beliefs and all that? Now, that is one part of my memory, which reminds me that how small steps were taken towards atheism.

I would also say that when I was in class third or fourth, there was this poster of Guru Nanak at our school. It was Army School of Uddampur right? That was not third and fourth. That was first and second. That was year 2001. 2001. So they had in earlier classes we had moral science as a subject, right?

And the point was that there were pictures of God everywhere. There are Hindu, God, there's he gods, there is Jesus. Of course, we cannot draw Muhammad and Allah. That is something that the religion that doesn't allow. And henceforth Islam, I would say is still very, I, they have self isolated themselves in some way, but I could easily see posters of Jesus posters, of Nanak posters of Shiva and Ram and all that.

In school. It was, they were not spread out in some propaganda way, but they were just there, and they were very universal quotes all under them . One of them had, God helps those who help themselves. Ah, I was like, really? Really? GaN potato, how is that, how's that even making sense?

Exactly.

Jansher: It doesn't make any sense. Those who help themselves. So why do I need God? Then I'm helping myself and if I'm not helping myself, there is no divine intervention. But that thought did not linger and, manifested into atheism all of a sudden it is just something I had as a, I would say five, 6-year-old.

I was still a very devout believer. I have grown up like most urban kids in India have grown up watching Western media, right? So in Western media, the most easy depictions, the most free depictions of God are, I think of this Greek courts, right? There is there are so many movies, there are so many games around Hellenic mythology.

 I was actually interested in Greek mythology for when it comes to Indian mythology, I think I had just seen one uh, Ramayan, which is the Japanese version every, Diwali on cartoon network. That is all the media exposure I had. I did not watch on any of those old seals. I've definitely seen clips here and there, right?

Abhijit: Yeah. I used to watch those on Sunday mornings, Ramayan and Mahabharat and everything on Doordarshan I've grown up watching that stuff.

Jansher: Basically I was aware of both Indic mythology and Greek mythology. And I used to ask, certain questions that when Prometheus did something very on a cosmic scale, he restored the earth to the center of the universe or all that.

What were the Indian gods thinking at that time? The sun even belongs to an Indian God. The sun belongs to a Greek God. And if a world changing event happens in that mythology, like this is a K kid's perspective, right? I know it sounds a little dumb now.

Abhijit: No, of course.

Jansher: Religion sounds dumb ultimately.

Yes. So I was thinking here, really if this can happen, what about the Indian gods? Wouldn't they be like that? What just happened to my Sun right? If Hanuman went up and he swallowed the sun, whatever that story is, what was Helios was thinking at that time, right? If zeus's lightning bolts were stolen, and suddenly the power of thunder is gone, what would Thor think?

What would the Indian God Indra think? So this cannot coexist in the same dimensional plane, right? There has to be a contradiction. And absolutely. Then we have deities, and then we have prophets. Like then what about Jesus? Jesus came down from an invisible God. What was that God doing while these polytheistic my mythical events were happening?

So all of these very basic but stupid questions ultimately led to, foregoing my stupidity for religion. I came this close in 2013 or 14 to getting a tattoo, Sikh tattoo on my left arm. I had gone abroad to visit my uncle. So he had a tattoo artist friend. And I was like, yo, that Khanda with the lion the something you would see.

 So that Khanda with the lion was something I wanted on my left arm. I was like that I'm gonna get jacked up and the tattoo is gonna be, inflated. It's gonna look big. I'm gonna be a proud Sikh. Yeah. But there's nothing about Sikhism.

I was really doing, I never had a turban in the first place forever.

I have a picture of me with a juda in the nineties, but that was during vacation, I think. That's it. Never kept it permanently. None of my kindergarten or early elementary school, classmates have seen me in that it was something I had during a long vacation just for a gimmick, right?

Yeah, eventually I started contemplating all of these memories I had that I did question God at some point, but now I'm thinking all of them together. There are a lot of instances there where I questioned God and I cannot put all of them together right now.

It'll be too long. But yeah, I did start to question everything, and I did come to the realization that probably there is no God. Right now, I don't have to be having this opinion and, push it on everyone's face. But I need to self actualize and self and analyze this concept which I've had, which I've been ingrained since my childhood, right?

All of those things did make me come to a conclusion that this, there is no God. That was the first step. Second step was fine, now, since I do not believe in my God or any other God, because there are so many gods, so many religions, so many deities, so many prophets, I have forgotten that first step.

Second step is not that Now, since I don't have the compulsion to respect others' beliefs, right? It was not disrespect in the first place. It was respect that, okay, you believe in a certain God, I respect it. You believe in a certain God, I respect it. Now, I don't respect any of them. Because now I'm neutral towards them.

That respect has to be earned. That is a one-sided communication. Who are we talking to in the first place? We talk to them. Yeah. Very true. Yeah. It's a one-sided communication. People go and pray and sit, cry, weep, beg. It started to repulse me, I would say, yes at some point. But I took a neutral stance like theek hai.

Let these guys have their peace. They don't have anybody to talk to. Let them pray. Let them soothe their pain. Let them kill their time as this bad time will eventually, vanish at some point. Let them go through, let them cope, whatever. But then I started to look at all the things religious people do, religion does, because now my horizon was beyond the comfort and the bubble of respecting religion or believing in religion.

Now as an adult, now I'm exposed to smartphones, exposed to the internet. So all of it was timed very perfectly. We are millennials, nineties kids. Early two thousands, we didn't see much of religious bigotry. We were not told much about religious bigotry from our parents because had we been in a traditional household, yes, we would've had some great hate towards certain communities because that is what would've been ingrained in our households from an early age.

But if our parents, what we say that we come from a liberal household, it is not just a magical word. It has everything to do with the way we were raised because they did not care about setting boundaries for us. They knew that we will figure out those boundaries. We'll set it ourselves, right?

Now I can say that, yeah, Islam is the most dangerous religion, but my parents will know that I'm not going to go out and harass Muslims because they know how they've raised me, how well they raised me, right? So in that sense yes, it took some, time for me to figure out how religion works, how it poisons people.

And I would say mid 2000, 2000 tens is when I started having, not just atheistic, but more antithetic views. I started looking at now at 2000, mid 2000 tens we had ISIS peaking, and now they have been, I would say, cornered and almost defeated. But yes, that is when I started seeing Islamic extremists from a different light.

Right now, it was very different from the perspective I had as a kid when I was visiting my father in Kashmir. And early two thousands it was at its peak, the militancy in Kashmir, right? So in the evening, if my dad has to go out for a walk, a gunman would go with him, right? I would go with my dad, but I never questioned that why is a gunman required when we are just going to civilian areas, meeting local kashmiris, right? He just gave me one words sorry, one sentence that militant, that's all he said. He never said anything against the people, right? Even though he can have his prejudices, he can have his biases, he can have a worldview, but I don't think in the military, it comes in the way of their duty.

They still function as a very apolitical and a secularist organization. So he said, but gunman, militant, right? For me, that time there was no such thing as a Islamic militant. It was just militant, right? Militant big beard Kandhari Kurta and AK 47, right on all that. And mostly just Bollywood films with those Arabic background music and all that inshallah, whatever dedication they have, very comical, I would say.

So that was my, probably the first and only idea that I had in my mind about what an extremist looks like, but I did not attach it to a religion any religion, right? I like take a militant there. But when in 2015, I was contemplating that memory that, yeah, this was the first militant for me. Why was the first militant I saw from Islam, right? Why? But enough of Islam. Let's come to a local level. Let's talk about India and the index faiths, right? 2014 was a very crucial and a very moment defying year for the Indian politics. We voted out a dynasty. We voted out I would say a Kingdom of Gandhi.

And we did it for promises very different to what we are seeing right now. We wanted so we wanted a corruption free India. Instead, what we got was Hindu. We wanted some accountability, but now there is no accountability. There is hero worship of politicians, right?

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Jansher: It is a very it is something we can actually debate for hours and hours that what exactly happened in 2014?

We all voted for BJP, I voted for BJP, right? Uhhuh. I voted for BJP. And I would also say that as an atheist, I supported BJP. I was done with my atheist journey. I was not radicalized by ideas of faith, but I was radicalized in a way that yes, I have to be dependent on Hindus to protect me.

Yes. That these were my views at some point till lockdown, I see. Till lockdown. I did not do any self-analysis because I, as a first time voter I voted for BJP Elli, I was not even 18. I was hardly interested in politics, but all those anti-corruption movements in 2012, 2013, that was the time when I was passing out I was going to college.

So yeah. Young blood interested in a new party had no idea who Modi was. I just knew he was a PM of Gujrat. I didn't even knew that he had something to do with the, something. No, I would not say something a lot to do with the 2002 riots, but since the Supreme Court has already decided my field, I don't want to be in a defamation charge.

Yeah.

Jansher: So I'll use my words carefully anyway. What happened in 2014? What where exactly did we go wrong? And I would say something like this was already being brewed. Just a minute man, I'll just switch on my charger, right?

Yeah. I would say my entire as a first time voter and the ideology which I had built up in my mind started with BJP. BJP came as a savior. It swooped him victorious. And Narendra Modi established himself as a one man figure. And we all liked it. And I would say 2014 to 2019 was not much of a bad tenure.

We could still enjoy a lot of things on the internet. There was not much division. It was, I think after the riots, the Anti CAA riots. That is when the propaganda machines also started doing rounds each day, each night. And that is when the poison actually started to spread way, way more. So it was, I think after the second term I realized that this is not the party for me.

This is not the party I voted for. And as an atheist, if somebody asks me, how could you vote for the BJP? I have I, I don't regret it. We all go through different changes. We all go to different phases. We all have to learn what is best for us, what is objectively good, and how we fit in that objective world.

I don't think there is something objective still that is very subjective, but yeah, there are certain things which we can all agree on object, on an objective level that yeah, certain things are bad. And having a right wing Hindu centric government is very bad. Rightly I ly because that is something from an atheist perspective, I'm I don't think I am gonna call them out for their schemes and their other administrative, initiatives which are actually good or which they have failed. I think in that case we should criticize the opposition and the ruling party on a very similar basis that this scheme failed. You promised these many incentives. Where are those incentives? That is a more I would say civilized discussion, but when it comes to identity politics is something everybody does.

We are a nation of very diverse identities based on caste, religion, ethnicity, right? Diversity, I would honestly say has never been our strength for sure. Diversity, right? There is there is a gunda for every diversity there is a caste based gunda. There is a, yeah, absolutely. So you can see language based gunda, right?

And mostly it's the diagnostic towards North Indian Hindi speakers, which I somewhat understand. Like I wouldn't want Hindi to, have dominion over all languages as an Indian. I love all the languages, even though I don't understand 99% of them. But I would want you to have your native language and communicate with me in English.

Now, I'm not some Shashi Tharoor or Shakespearean guy, right? But yeah, like all try at least that English could be, it's a very controversial opinion, which I'm about to say that yes, English could be the mediator between different ethnic groups in India. It shouldn't be

Abhijit: Hindi. Yeah, absolutely. Because even in the South, that is my

Jansher: language.

Why would my language take precedent over others?

Abhijit: Absolutely. There are a lot of people in the south in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka where they really look at Hindi and with great disdain and even English to some extent. But at the same time, English does end up being the language you communicate with, and, but I, having been to Bangalore recently, I've noticed that a lot of the cab drivers speak Hindi. They prefer Hindi over English. But in Tamil Nadu, I think it's a little bit different, but I haven't been there in a long time, so I can't speak to that. But there are gunda of every stripe. But I, from what you were saying earlier, I did see the whole when in 2014, I did see that fascism was going to become a priority.

I even before the elections, I had told friends that I would rather have a corrupt government doing nothing than have a very progress driven fascist government. Fine. There was there was a lot of controversy when it comes to that, and a lot of my friends disagreed with me. But BJP did win.

And we've seen a lot of progress. We've seen a lot of highways being built, a lot of the energy infrastructure improving quite significantly across the nation. There was an attempt at creating hygiene solutions when in villages and things like that. Yeah. It was an attempt at that. Funny

Jansher: thing is that Swatchh Bharat actually made me a lot more responsible when it comes to civic sense.

I was like that if the Prime Minister can pick up garbage from the streets, which I know is like a gimmick in every other campaign, that's but yeah. Now I don't have to think about that Prime Minister, but I did start taking very serious steps. I would say even radical steps. If we are having drinks at some random spot in the middle of nowhere, the moment somebody drops their beer can, it is just, it just makes me violent, and I do tend to use my size in that advantage. I'm six foot two, broadly built and all that. Just very humble of me to say all of that. But yeah, I do get in their phases bhai, uthao usko, utha de otherwise you'll be picking up yourself. I do get very antagonistic in that regard, because, I've in over the years, I have developed this habit here. If I have some garbage, I can just store it in my bloody car in some point. Exactly. Home my

Abhijit: car's an absolute mess. But that means that the outside in

Jansher: that case, yes. Even my car does become a mess, but it is not the mess, which I was supposed to throw out.

It is just that my charger is lying somewhere. The Yeah. Dust is somewhere, but yeah, you can just keep it in your car. Whenever you see a dust bin, just throw it there. My society takes two different types of trash. There is green and there is blue. So green would have geela kuda, that's what they say, recycled material, organic material.

So if you having boiled eggs, the shell will go there. If you're chopping vegetables the skin goes there. If you didn't like a burger you had from McDonald's, just throw the entire burger inside that. That is what your Gila kuda is. Then the sukha kuda, the dry one, that is something they recycle.

So this one was Biodegradable , the other one is recyclable. So that have packets, paper, plastic, everything. And I don't know where they treated, how they treated, but yeah. There is some sense of righteousness that Yeah. I live in a society like that. They treat garbage. Yeah. And people from that same society, if they tend to throw garbage right outside, it just boils my fucking blood every

Abhijit: time.

Yeah. I, we, in my colony, we still don't have garbage segregation. Fortunately, no other form of segregation either, but at least not the garbage, it's being separated.

Jansher: Oh, man. See I am I'm gonna shift. I come currently in Chandigarh Tri-City. Uhhuh, I'm shifting back to Delhi. I hope I do not end up in a society like you mentioned, where there is veg non we or Muslim guys are not allowed.

Because ultimately I can, I am not a Muslim. I can stay there, but during some festivals, they will come and ask chanda and I'll say, I don't believe in all this nonsense. Get lost. Yeah. Then I'll be singled out. Woh fourth floor pe rehta hai, woh ganja, chashme wala no. So let's see. That is a major problem. I used to be in Dwarka before I shifted here. Dwarka, New Delhi, and uh, there was an officer retired officer from the Navy he was a Muslim, Bri, his na Captain Khan. So captain in the Navy's equivalent to a colonel in the Army, right?

He had to go through a lot of societies to find a house. Just because he was a Muslim, it did not matter that he served the country. Like the, all these guys are like, oh, Ji, they'll share posts about a Muslim Martyr, Pete and the Army or the paramilitary forces. Yeah. And.

But

he was also different. He was in the army still. You couldn't accommodate him, couldn't give him a house on rent.

It's absolutely ridiculous.

Jansher: So yeah, there is when I say that there is discrimination, it's not a reaction to all the terrorism on the extremism, which happens in the name of Islam.

It's just prejudice that you've built up. Yeah. I'll get to that in a bit. Now, coming back to the political spectrum and my atheist journey and how in parallelly. So when people ask me that, how as an atheist I was able to support a Hindutva government, and even just say that yeah, i'm grateful for Hindus. I still say that to some extent because let's be honest we live in a country where secularism is definitely a challenge for some communities, right? They're not able to uphold it. The other guys have to uphold it and make the case for secularism that yes, secularism works in India, but it works because of certain people, right?

And there is hardly any Islamic country where you'll find secularism. There was Turkey, but now after Erdogan, however you pronounce it, I think that is going to take a toss in a few years. When yeah. When Modern Turkey Orke was formed back in 1920s, 1930s after World War I when and the Khilafat movement which was started from the, out from the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire breaking down, right?

Khilafat movement was calling for a caliphate all over the world. And third world Muslims were the most agreeable with such a movement that yes, we should have a universal Islamic nation, right? And that is Khilafat movement led to so many riots in India, Hindu, Muslim riots, right?

Whereas on the other hand, Turkey took a more secure path. It has become a modern nation where people can go and there is no dress code for Turkish women. There are plenty porn stars here in Turkey from Turkey, really? Yeah. So that is how liberalized that society became over span of a century. But now with their new leader, I think there is a high chance of them going backwards, right?

Abhijit: There's always a chance of that happening, especially in this day and age. For some reason, everybody seems to be going backwards.

Jansher: There is a very good explanation for that because I would like to quote Sam Harris on this, that if secular liberals do not build safe borders, fascists will.

Yeah, indeed. That has res the moment I heard it for the first time, it made all sense to me like that. Yes. If we do not have the spine to have difficult conversations and identify extremism on an early stage, then somebody else is going to come and fill in that vacuum and do it for us in a much more irresponsible way.

Tolerant people have to take the responsibility of having discussions, having measures, having identifiers to curb such problems, otherwise intolerant people will come and do it in a much more irresponsible way. That is a fact. Absolutely.

Very true.

Jansher: Yeah. Why I was a movie supporter was for exactly this reason, right?

That theek hai, I am not believing in any religion. I don't believe in the idol worship or worshiping the invisible sky daddy. But at least the idol worshipers won't harass me, won't kill me. That is the view I had. Now, I hear this view from apologist

eventually, right? So that is a paradox. I'm more likely to get killed by an Islamist, right? Very, I am more likely to, anybody's, more likely to kill, killed by an Islamist, I would say, but to have Islam as a crutch. To walk with your crippled ideology your ideology is crippled, right? It needs Islam as one of the crutches to walk, what Islam, but what about Islam? What aboutery is, I would say right now, patented by the Indian right wing, right? They can't argue or can't even respond without bringing up something else. Nehru Gandhi and all that. It's very childish. It's very immature. It is I would say very boring.

It does get boring. And you do feel a sense of superiority, I would say. I mean that true Nazism is having more rationality than the others that I am mentally superior, yeah. But yeah. So this is the case, right? They have been using Islam as a clutch, but they have failed to take any accountability so far.

And that is just not with the keyboard warriors. but even with very well qualified intellectuals, right? I'll just, this is my first time on the internet, but I'm not ashamed of saying names. People like Jai Sai Deepak people like Dr. Ananth Vaidyanathan

Yeah.

Jansher: Look at the debates.

I have made one video on Jai Sai Deepak one on Ananth Vaidyanathan and I think I was able to dissect them perfectly, right? And if it comes to having a debate, I'll just. I won't shy away from a debate. I know it'll be very difficult to counter them, but yeah, ultimately what they do is they shout, Ananth Vaidyanathan definitely shouts.

He's more about the spectacle.

Abhijit: I can respect

Jansher: greatly. I can, but what

Abhijit: about Jai Sai Deepak, what it is? What is it that you noticed about him?

Jansher: Sai Deepak is a classic case of an apologist, right?

He is what most people would say is that he's the Indian Ben Shapiro, but I think Ben Shapiro is still very dumb.

This guy is very smart. Given that. He has very sharp arguments.

Abhijit: But that's true.

Jansher: Really. You need to have a sharper argument too, if you want to counter it. I've made one short form content where he is talking about atheism and how atheists are the ones who are very detached from their culture, that is not the case.

Right? Absolutely not. Like there are so many liberal households which still have liberal minded religious people, right? They are not gonna turn to atheism. If I preach atheism to them, they'll be able to offended by what's wrong in my religion. That is because the version of religion they follow is not harmful to anybody, right?

And they're perfectly fine with having that moral disposition. But my religion is fine in truth. They, as human beings with humanist values, their humanist values surpass their religious values. That is why they're fine, and I don't have to correct them on that. We know that there is no such thing as a good religious person.

There is a good person who just happens to have a religion because a religion is one part of your identity. You have a lot of things. Whatever you do as a job, your hobbies, your religion, it's a big soup of different elements that make you, right. Religion cannot. Very true. The primary let's say identifier of who you are.

I'm a proud Hindu. I'm a proud Muslim. I just cringe when I see such things on the fucking Instagram bio or any bio for that matter. Like out of all things you could post on social media, this is the one you want to have precedence. Like same with thirst traps. Like out of all the things you could post your puration pictures, you're posting your titties flashing in the face.

So yeah I can have certain disdain towards that. Same way if you're out of all things, you're posting your religion, like this is what you're obsessed with.

Abhijit: Absolutely. It becomes a part of a person's identity.

Jansher: Yeah. Too much. Too much. That is all the personality they have.

Abhijit: And that's one thing that I fi if I find is very that it's problematic with the atheist idea of, challenging an idea and not necessarily cha challenging the person themselves, but it becomes, they are so interlinked, they're so intertwined with most people that it's impossible to actually challenge an idea without challenging that person or basically arguing against an idea or insulting an idea without actually insulting that person.

So you can't, like for example, a lot of people say, I can call ideas stupid, but I'm not calling you stupid. But a lot of the time people have their own identities. Wrapped around their ideas. And if you hurt their ideas, if you hurt their belief systems, then they get hurt as well. And there's no way to avoid that.

So I try to be as respectful as I possibly can be, even to their ideas and because I know that they're both very tightly wrapped together.

Jansher: No, I do understand that respect is something we should give everybody for their beliefs. But when it comes to religion, now this respect is the only tool they have to totally discourage the discussion altogether.

Yeah.

Jansher: I can be disrespectful towards people who watch friends. I don't like that show at all. I can't, can be disrespectful towards people who follow a certain sport like cricket. I don't know the appeal to cricket, but India is a cricket hub, right? We have the biggest cricket league, we mean, mint a lot of money.

It is so emotional for so many people. I get that. I can respect that, but I can also disrespect that and not be killed. Absolutely. I can disrespect friends and not be killed. I can disrespect cricket and not be killed. And eventually, after a heated argument next day, nobody is gonna call me cricket hater, blasphemous person and all that.

When it comes to religion, why do we have to have the same let's say a moral compass or a set of manners. It is not good manners to talk about somebody's religion. Why? Why does something which is not even tangible? Cricket is tangible. Man, I can hold a bat, right? I can play the sport. I can wa I can buy a ticket to go and watch it.

But when it comes to religion, that same religious person will pick up that bat and beat my head with it. Why?

Very true. But

Jansher: for what? For what? Exactly. Gods You haven't seen Gods who don't respond to you. Gods who created religious rules and discriminatory practices against women, against people of different beliefs, different faith, right?

So how can something like that have so much importance in the public space? It is right now the most controversial thing You wanna talk about religion? Don't talk about religion. Why have we put ourselves in that position and how, you can say that yo, it is so disrespectful. Of course it has to be disrespectful.

Your entire worldview. The public policy. How we the education system, and everything is based around religious practices or some level of it. Do not disrespect people. Yeah. Do not do this. Do not do that. Why? There are so many laws to protect people's fairytales, whereas person who criticizes those fairytales can be booked under blasphemy laws.

That is a case with third world countries mostly. Us, UK pretty good in that regard. Very good. Yeah. In fact, we have pioneers of, free speech in some, to some regard. Oh, to a great

Abhijit: extent. Yeah.

Jansher: Most of the atheists, we were inspired by U and Me. Like Dawkins. Hitchens is my favorite.

Like I have Oh yes, absolutely. Books over there. Ah he is my favorite. That is, I would say also the kind of template I would like to follow. He is very quick witted. I am not, I do have to think about my response, but Yeah. I'll get there.

Abhijit: Yeah. We're not all that well with those kinds of things.

Jansher: Yeah. Eventually it's all about practice. So I, of course, I can write a very witty script for a video, which I have to rehearse and, record. Most of my videos are like that. They do tend to be on the offensive line, and I'm okay with it, right?

But when it comes to a live debate, I would probably think two or three times before having an insult at the tip of my tongue.

But definitely insult will eventually come out because the religious person is going to be so repulsive, this and that, laser eyes and all that, but is a live, you'll try to be as respectful as possible because now you're dealing with a person, not an idea. A person will mold the idea in a certain way, and you have to mold your conversation accordingly. Absolutely. You will end up abusing that person.

Beliefs, right? Religious people will repulse you, right?

Abhijit: Not me, but the thing is, I, but I do understand your perspective. The, there is, I especially, I've seen some debates between, oh goodness, I can't, there's this guy called Daniel something or the other, he is a Muslim apologist who debated Matt Dillahunty.

And there's another guy called Suboor. I don't remember exactly who debated Professor Dave recently. And have you seen

Jansher: Dawkins versus Mehndi Hassan? That is the funniest man.

Abhijit: Oh, that one I haven't seen. No.

Jansher: Oh my God. That should

Abhijit: be fun.

Jansher: He literally asked that, why did Mohammad go up there? Why up there? Why not go?

Abhijit: Oh yeah. I, he said, you actually believe that

Jansher: Mohammad up went up there on a winged horse, on the

Abhijit: winged horse, and he said, yes.

Jansher: He like, you really believe that?

That was so freaking funny, man. Oh, yeah, that is true. If you ask religious people exactly the kind of exactly these kind of questions, which renders their religion in the most little sense, right? Actually believe that Ram crossed and I crossed over the ocean to an island on rocks with his name written on them, fighting a 10 headed demon.

You actually believe that. You actually believe that it's gonna be very offensive. Same way with Mohamad. He went to the moon. He split the moon, right? We do know Mohammad was there. He was a war Lord, he was a illiterate merchant war Lord, right? And that is when histography was pretty much there.

Like we could record things in hundreds of languages, hundreds of scripts. And somehow we have people who came before Mohammad, who were not mythisised. We have people who came during Mohammad who were not mythisized. We have people who came after Mohammad Mu. They were, and they were not mythisised just because Mohammad started a religion you had to add an extra interpolation and a fable that yes, he go, went on a winged horse. That is what religion does for 2000, 2,500, or let's say even 3000 years we are able to record a history on an empirical basis. But somehow, every time a religious person has come in between the last 2000, 3000, 4,000 years since we have writing, they still get ized. So that just tells you everything about religion, 500 year old religion, Sikhism even that has some like some certain things which are like totally nonsense. There is a, there's a gurudwara in Ladakh , a very famous one there, which has let's say the story goes like that, that Nanak was meditating at a mountaintop, always at a mountaintop with the sages and all that.

Always.

Yeah. Or

Jansher: a mountain top, or somewhere at the mountain. And some asur or some monster, some demon pushed a rock. They pushed the rock towards him, and instead the rock did not crush him, did not roll over him, making him into paste. Instead, he, the rock stopped exactly where it touched Nanak when when Nanak's skin touched the rock surface, it started to melt.

And that entire shape of his body the silhouette is there on the rock. And that rock is in Ladakh. And I've been to Ladakh in 2000 and in 2014, I've been to that gurudwara two times. And I was like, here, even 500 year old stories about religion have such things. It could just be a carving, right?

Abhijit: It could be a carving, it could even be a natural feature, which we just interpret pareidolia to make it look like something, like a cloud shaped

Jansher: person, right? Yeah, it's exactly like that. But yeah, even 500 year old religion, when we had a 500 years ago, the European powers were looking towards India to invade them, Dutch, French, British, Spanish, everybody, that it was the age of exploration and age of enlightenment In Europe, we have myths like these.

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Jansher: And

Abhijit: I have to say though I'm a little embarrassed, I'm embarrassed to admit you that, you know, the current Hindu, ancient science, ancient technology rhetoric that we've been hearing for the last few years.

Jansher: Exactly. That is the first step. If you heard of Pushpak Vimaan then it's a rabbit hole from there.

Abhijit: Yeah. But I used to believe that sort of stuff when I was a kid. And I believe that into adulthood thinking that it was a possibility. Because I've always been a science fiction fan. I've always thought that, like maybe we've had ancient aliens, maybe we've had ancient technology, all those Mahabharat things with the arrows going, touching each other, and then all of a sudden those would be missiles.

And we've been flying around in planes and stuff like that for ages. And then somehow we lost all the technology. But then that, that is something that I, that is an illusion or that my, that belief melted away only when I was around 30 years old when I was writing my dissertation for my writing, course writing, and I was researching a science fiction novel on how to write one.

And I discovered that all of it was absolute nonsense. And I was like, wait a second. So when these politicians are sprouting, that kinda stuff, I don't think of them as complete idiots because I think that they genuinely believe that sort of stuff because so many people do. And especially even people who are just talking about ancient aliens helping to build the pyramids, there's a natural logical progression when it comes to, things, connecting things like that, to connecting, ancient technology and things like that.

But fortunately I've grown out of that. That's a, that's definitely a big relief. Did you ever believe that sort of thing?

Jansher: I was a big fan of ancient aliens at one point, but I didn't, I still considered it a conspiracy, which could not be proven. I wish it was true because oh yeah.

So do I wish it was true. But that, that tells you that this problem about pseudoscience is not just an immune problem. It is definitely an immune problem when it, if we measure the scale and compare the scale, yes. But as a concept, I think it, exists everywhere. Egyptians build one of the most important monuments like the three pyramids of Giza.

And the civilization is gone and whatever they have to promote about that civilization, it is being done by the west because they're fascinated by those three samosas in the middle of the desert. Yeah. So even the people in the west, with all the technology and all the emancipation and all their first world education do believe that it is some alien miracle because they do not believe in God that much, in the West. But, not want with God. But no aliens for sure. Aliens, you've seen that meme aliens, right? So

Abhijit: it wasn't aliens, but I'm not saying it was aliens,

Jansher: but yeah, aliens.

Abhijit: Get my hair up and crazy.

Jansher: I can't do that. Yeah. Aliens for the west, gods for the east, right? It's a universal problem because I don't know what's wrong with accepting the fact that our ancestors were, could in fact brilliant.

Abhijit: Absolutely. They're just as intelligent as any modern human. It's not 'cause they were older. They were stupid. But then that's. Because you think that the people in the past were smarter than they're right now.

Jansher: Yeah. Right now, brilliance isn't building machines, which makes these tasks easier.

If I want to build a pri exactly pyramid today, I can do it in a year. They took, i, I don't know how many years it took to build a pyramid. Probably if Taj Mail can take 20 years, I'm pretty sure Premise took more than that.

Abhijit: Oh, yes.

Jansher: Right now our brilliance is in creating technology. And if even for let's say the future generations, we will be very much impressive.

Like for example, if we look in the last a hundred years, we invented a plane in the 1910s and went to space in just 70 years. Now those are another, great examples of our ancestral brilliance, right? Yeah. Like in the seventies, in the the ancestors in the last one century, they went from the first flight to going to space less like 70 years, man.

So that is also impressive. So how can building stones something out of stone and rocks and pushing those stones on a sand and, having slave labor with who or whip their asses there, and all that. Yeah. Could be possible. Slavery gets shit done, you know

Abhijit: that. I'm definitely making a short of that and putting that up.

Jansher: Get shit done. You whip. Now there are two, there are a lot of theories that, who were the slaves? Some say it was the first iteration of Jewish people when they were pagan. Those, the pagan Jews built it. Some black people believe that it is the black people who did it that black people were Egyptians.

That is also what they believe in Africa. We was, Kongs is a meme because of that. So there are a lot of iterations, but yeah, if our ancestors can build that, then yes, our ancestors can also go to space in modern times. Our our same species has just cloned a dire wolf, which is, I know just a headline.

The actual nuance of that is that they have just done some gene altercation with a wolf and yeah, I heard about that. But yeah, we can do impressive things. We could do impressive things. A thousand years ago, 1500 years ago, at that time, it was mostly sticks and stones. Right now we have machines for it.

Absolutely

Abhijit: every progression is just, is essentially a new way of making things easier to do every technological leap and slightly, it's all, and it's all incremental and it's all been tracked like 10,000 years back. These ancient aliens, ancient apocalypse, all of these things have absolutely no bearing because we know all the, we know quite clearly the root of history and how technology and it, human ingenuity has remained the same, but technology has grown in a very slow, incremental pace.

One could argue up until the industrial gener revolution, but it's just has, yeah. Last three,

Jansher: last few centuries were like I would say fast tracking our progress. Like we just went like this. In the last four or five centuries we went like this.

Abhijit: Oh, absolutely not even four or five centuries.

I would say the last two centuries have been absolutely crucial in the development of science and especially, and medical science in particular has been one century, basically.

Jansher: No, I would say like telescope and the microscope ca came way before Oh, yes. Electricity. There was some mechanical development after the age of enlightenment.

Age of enlightenment is highly credited for the modern science we have because

Abhijit: and a lot of that was based in the Middle East. A lot of the scientific developments, the meeting of minds, the wisest people and the greatest technological and scientific developments happened in the Middle East in the early what is it around the 500 ad onwards?

Jansher: No. It's called the Golden Age of Islam. I and the Golden Age. Yes. Have notes for it. I have notes for it. I am not the kind of person who can remember a lot of things, but I definitely have some notes for it there somewhere in my phone. But yeah, it is also very debatable because they say algebra was invented in Middle East, right?

That is, but it is mostly what it is that they took a numeric system from India. They just added a few things in Middle East and algebra, the name came after Europeans took it from Middle East. Wow. Europeans took it from Middle East. The Middle East took it from India. That is also very debatable.

I, I just don't want to say this with a very concrete pretending as that I have concrete evidence for it. Because I don't want to add more fuel to the Hindu centric version of history. But yes, there are certain things which are true. From a true perspective or an Indian civilization perspective.

But you have to debate. You have to check the sources, right?

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Jansher: But I would still carry the European Age of Enlightenment for most of the modern developments. And people would say that I'm appropriating Christianity. No. The age of Enlightenment went against Christianity in the first place.

Right?

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Jansher: There is nothing Christian about modern developments. I would definitely say that modern scientists can be racist. Racist in the West White from the they like to talk about eugenics even today, they would destroy people from other races to be scientists, but it has nothing to do with their faith, I would say It is mostly to do with their skin, right?

Europe has always been about the skin, not their religion. They therefore have forgone their religion. And if you take into account the conversions, which happened under the missionaries from Europe, yeah. Eventually, Europe right now is a very secular society, and they are, they're too secure.

They're suffering. Look at the immigration and the refugee crisis over there.

Abhijit: Oh my.

Jansher: For sharia and all that changes.

Abhijit: Anyway, hey so when did you when did you start your Instagram and YouTube channels?

Jansher: I just started this last year, oh, just last year? Okay. Yeah. Not even that frequent. The last video I made was in November.

It was on Khalistan. And after that I've just hidden those videos and uploaded it as short form content because they were vertical and they were less than three minutes. So I've uploaded them as shorts Nice. But I didn't get much views in shorts. In fact, the comments, the abusive comments was much more spicier than when I uploaded them in regular videos.

I responded to them accordingly. I do not shy away from stooping down to their level because come on man, if you are going to, if you are the best way, if you say that, do not listen to tools is not respond to them all. But if you're going to respond to them, are you still going to be righteous and all that?

Why waste your time? You're going to still take five minutes or four minutes to write a very well drafted sentence. Oh, you shouldn't be like this. Shame on you.

If you're gonna engage with them, why waste your energy? Cussing them is way more effortless. Fuck you, fuck your beliefs. You gobar eater. What's wrong with that? Have, you're supposed to have fun with this. You can't otherwise, if you get too caught up with the with these comments and they're very deranged,

Abhijit: yeah. Some of them really are

Jansher: Joking aside, they're very deranged and you can't let them get into your head. You need to have a more for head. Oh, yeah.

Abhijit: Yeah. So I try and avoid if it's just, if it's just an inflammatory comment, I just leave it there. I don't even respond to it. If it's a civilized question or criticism, then I approach it and then I, instead of actually stating my beliefs straight up. I try to question theirs and ask them logical questions. For example I saw a video recently where somebody said that when you eat meat, that is what causes heart attacks because of the karmic response that you have, the karmic response that everything happens. So I was like, so how come vegetarians have heart attacks?

That's the only comment I posted in, in the comment section. And I still don't have a response to that. I'm waiting.

Jansher: Oh, that's still a very polite approach, precisely.

Abhijit: So I always believed in a polite approach, and that's why, I established Rationable because I saw there was a lot of this online argumentation and a lot of toxicity happening online.

So I I created Rationable as a way to have civilized conversations about things. But I understand that voices like yours, which are much more firebrand, are very important. I interviewed Professor Dave. He doesn't pull any punches. He's full on with the insults and the name calling and stuff like that.

And that works for him because that's the, just the way he is as a human being, that's just his tone of voice, because I've met him He's very he's don't fuck around with me, man. But

Jansher: I do resonate with that because I'm a loudmouth, I would say in real life as well. I somehow, it's very different.

Abhijit: Oh, Punjabi. It's just

Jansher: Punjabi more, I've grown up in Delhi some more to do with Delhi.

Abhijit: It's actually a delhiite thing more actually. Yeah.

Jansher: Mai Jaaton ke college mei raha hoon and that is the first time I felt Yeah they're very nice people and having, some persona, some level of personality similar to theirs definitely. You'll definitely be heard. You'll definitely, it's that it's up to them and they, yeah. But yeah, you can be loud and you'll be heard, yeah. If you ignore somebody, you can only ignore them after you hear them. Yeah. That means that you definitely heard them. So yeah, I'd like to be heard, but I say I'm not much of a talkative person. I'd avoid conversations and social gatherings unless I'm very familiar with people, right?

But if thoda sa mere ko pump aa jaata hai then it's like I won't let the other person speak, Hey, bro I've had those, I have had those two switches, either I'm totally silent or verbally very violent.

And the fact that he said that it is a personality, it's not a fake personality for the camera. That is true. You cannot fake this. Absolutely. You can't fake a lot of things. But I believe, I cannot fake I cannot fake this, absolutely.

Abhijit: I can't be a more aggressive speaker. I can't be a, I can't, I just can't be

as firebrand as say, you or Professor Dave or Matt Dillahunty or anything. Matt Dillahunty is like next level, but I just, I can't be like that.

Jansher: Matt Dillahunty still seems very polite to me, man. Like he's a very, he's a sweetheart,

Abhijit: really. I've been watching his videos obsessively for the last several months.

Jansher: I think I need too much more of his videos. I can't judge him based on one or two videos. I've seen him, I've mostly seen his views and his quotes and his tweets and his ideas. But I think the only time I've seen him debate, I think is with, was with the Jordan B. Peterson.

Oh, that was brilliant.

And he was very

Jansher: civilized. It's one or 2-year-old video, right?

Abhijit: Yeah, I think, yeah.

Jansher: Yeah.

Abhijit: And he was very civilized in that conversation. It was very civil and he just, he challenged ideas and my God, I, and I don't think Jordan Peterson is ever going to be talking with Matt Dillahunty again because Matt Dillahunty was like, you shouldn't

Jansher: be talking to anyone.

Abhijit: I So you think you eat mushrooms and act, have an actual spiritual experience? Is that what you're saying? He's yes. And then I think Jordan Peterson also said that getting high on mushrooms can also help, can not only give you a spiritual experience, but once you have that spiritual experience, you can actually quit smoking and quit drinking because of the spiritual experience. And I was like, wow, where is this guy coming from that is just completely out of left field? I couldn't understand it at all. And Matt Dillahunty totally called him out on it, and it made him sit down and say, bhai, yeh nahin chelaga. And Jordan Peterson was at a complete loss.

He had no idea what to say.

Jansher: Yeah. But I've

Abhijit: seen his conversations with Sam Harris. Word salad.

Jansher: He's a complete

Abhijit: word salad.

Jansher: I have been a smoker for 13 years. I quit cold Turkey. Nice. Oh, it's, it had nothing to do with the spiritual awakening. It can be for some he's probably talking about one of his friends who told him a story that Yeah, he had an awakening and he let go of some bad habits.

It is so anecdotal, it can't be even a statistic.

Abhijit: Absolutely. And he says, and it, that is called that's something like what you would call evidence, and totally butchering the quote. Paraphrasing. But yeah. Anyway, but anyway, Matt Dillahunty totally demolished him in that one. But Sam Harris has had multiple conversations with Jordan Peterson.

I don't know why, but they have had many conversations and I've listened to most of them over a long period of time, because after half an hour of that, my brain starts going all haywire and I'm like, okay, I need a break. I can't do it anymore.

Jansher: The thing is that these people, most newbie atheists just listen to them and they're having a rush of emotions.

Oh, he's so right. But they need to listen to them way more. They need to, I would say even template, those kind of arguments. Absolutely. There is a very interesting video I saw of Sam Harris who was talking about miracles. Like a few minutes ago we were talking about how we have been able to record history, but whenever there has been a religious movement, there are fables added to it.

Like I said 1300, 1400 years ago, we had kings and generals, and then we had mohammad whose fables were going to the moon and all that. Why other kings are about how many castles they did seize and all that, how many horses they had what was their strategy, what was their covenant?

But when it comes to mohammad who was born at the same time while these medieval kings were there, we are talking about his trip to the moon. Amazing. And then 500 years ago, we have had Mughal history, Rajput Mughal history and then we've had, this sage, the Sikh sage who apparently melted a rock thrown at him.

There is another story of him, he asked two people to bring I think a phulka from their house. He just wanted to te test how which one of them is a more moral character, right? So there is a peasant. He brings a roti, he keeps it in one hand. Then there is a businessman, croney capitalist a person, right?

He holds that roti in another hand. Now, those rotis are made in their respective households, right? So the story goes like that, that Nanak crushes this roti, and, milk pours down from that roti. And the other one, when he crushes the other roti, there is blood. So he's saying, okay, this one has been made from an honest man.

And this one this roti has come from a household which strives on the blood and sweat of others by exploiting others. I was like your recording mug history and the administration and Rajputana Kings and the battle tactics and all the middle Indian, medieval religious movements, political movements.

And the, on the other hand, you are adding fables even at that time, right? Forget that was way before cameras. We have had cameras for the past, let's say 150 years. Then we have Sababa who was doing miracles even. Oh yes,

absolutely.

Jansher: Photo, there's a picture of him. But still, somehow he has done miracles.

And Sam Harris said this example of Jesus versus Satya Sai Baba not the sababa,

Abhijit: yeah. The Afro one. The Afro one.

Jansher: Yeah, the Afro one. So it's like that doesn't take much to believe in miracles. And even in today's time, we have Satya Sai Baba, conjuring gold out of nowhere. So to speak and there are videos of him that it's right under his sleeve.

People would still believe him. We have video evidence of him doing all of these tricks. It's just illusions, right? Every, like every magician, Street magician does it. He's just David Blaine with a spiritual flavor.

Abhijit: And not even as good as David Blaine, this guy. Just very cheap magician. In fact I was at an atheist conference in Pune where

Jansher: India, I would like to be there

Abhijit: oh, absolutely. Next time it's happening, I let to, in danger

Jansher: everybody with my views,

Abhijit: no it's a fantastic place to be. The only problem is a lot of it is spoken in Marathi, but a lot of the talks, but the good thing is there is

Jansher: a thing in Maharashtra, there is a lot of rationalist movements in Maharashtra, thanks to Ambedkar and I would even say Dabolkar right,

Abhijit: oh yes, absolutely. There is a huge movement there.

Jansher: There is.

Abhijit: And Narendra Nayak was was the keynote speaker at that meeting and I think last year it was the poet, what's his name? Javed Akhtar. Javed Akhtar.

So Jve doctor was the keynote speaker last year and was the year before that. The year before that, I don't remember. I think 2022 it was. And Narin and I did on stage, he showed how you can put on a false thumb with a gold chain inside, and he can say that, look, my hands are completely empty. And then he takes off the thumb within his palm, and then he pauses out.

He puts out, the goal chain just falls into his other hand. And he says, this is as simple as it can get. This is one of the lamest like magical tricks that you can possibly have. And I can do it in front of you without any effort whatsoever. And if you see Satya Sai Baba doing it, and he's I've exposed him.

I exposed him on tv. They've shown video evidence of him doing it. I have done it immediately afterwards, and I've shown everybody how it's done. And yet he still has such a massive following. And of course, all the ash pills that he used to palm and then put ash into people's hands, I'm like, it's gross.

It's really, and the, when you're talking about gross, the grossest thing was the thing about the golden egg coming out of his mouth. Have you seen that one?

Jansher: I would want to see that one. It's hilarious. I try wanna see it, I want to learn it. I want to perform it. Yeah. So you actually, you have, if you can do it with an afro, I'm pretty sure you can do it with a buzz cut.

Abhijit: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because he keeps the golden egg in a towel in his hand, and then he brings the towel to his mouth. He puts the golden egg into his mouth.

Jansher: Wait. I've seen him. It's then he, yeah, he's, oh,

Abhijit: look, there's a golden egg. And not with that accent.

Jansher: It would've been way more impressive had it come out

from

Jansher: somewhere of somewhere

else.

Jansher: Yeah. Know

that would've been much more impressive.

Jansher: There are people who can smuggle drugs with some, with drugs shoved up. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That

Abhijit: would've been fun.

Jansher: It's just very exciting to look at news articles whenever somebody gets busted in Indira Gandhi Airport yeah. It's the goose, two inches, three inches deep, man. Like holy shit. Pills, ecstasy, cocaine, everything. I like, man, wherever you were smuggling them too. I hope it was totally sealed, man. Like otherwise, I

know

Jansher: after the first snort, somebody is gonna sit, smell something else, oh,

yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, but coming back to what we were talking about. Yeah.

Jansher: So if we can do if drug dealers can do that. I believe spiritual babas with their powers, they, I think they can hold an egg, right? Oh yes. I hold, I held shits bigger than that man. Oh, for sure. They had potatoes and tacos and Yeah.

Basically a bad worst dietary choices. You can do shit

Abhijit: or something with a lot of fiber. Like for example you know what I call these, what I call people like Satya Sababa and other hoaxters and scammers like that. I call them the un flushables

Jansher: turds un.

Abhijit: We need one of the turd breakers to help get it done and it still doesn't go right.

They just

Jansher: Put a bucket of water

Abhijit: and things like homeopathy though that homeopathy is also one of the unf flushables, it just won't go away.

Jansher: Okay. I will, we'll get to her homeopathy and yoga in a bit because I have a very anecdotal experience. I'm not saying that I believe in it, I still don't, but my mother had a condition called multiple sclerosis. Yeah. It's a new condition. And because of that, we had to shift to Delhi because, my dad being an officer, he, we did have the privilege of, some great healthcare sponsored by the taxpayer, taxpayers and all that.

But that injection, which was particularly required to cure her condition, was a weekly injection. Every Monday she had to get that injection administered, and that was not available in remote areas. We were in Dalhousie Himachal it was not available there. Doctors, I, we had to shift in Delhi.

That is how I've been a Delhiite for more than a decade. But at the same time, she was also watching Astha channel. She was to watch yoga every morning. And what doctors told her that her condition can only be contained, it cannot be cured.

Yeah.

Jansher: There was a two year course, two years every week.

So 52 into 204 weeks, there will be injections. And after that we can see some improvement. She used to do yoga every day for at least an hour. She used to do the breathing exercise, the Aya arm.

Abhijit: Yeah.

Jansher: And after two years, the doctors, when the course was over, when her treatment was over, she was multiple sclerosis, had zero trace left inside her body.

Zero.

Abhijit: Oh, wow.

Jansher: And I'm grateful that doctors did their best. And I'm not sure whether yoga was a great contributor to that because I can't totally dismiss the possibility, but I do also cannot, accepted in a way that totally gives credit to yoga. Now, could it be that her immune system responded very well to that medicine?

It can be that, and just because she coincidentally also did yoga. I am trying to link yoga with a treatment. It could be a lot of things, right? So I've never, it could be, yeah. Conclusion in that regard. I would just say that she's fine and I'm happy. I'm happy for her.

Abhijit: And that makes you a good skeptic.

Jansher: Yeah, to, to an extent. But she also thought that my, like I have myopia, hypermetropia, yeah, opia, whatever it is. I forgot the exact term. Like the number I have is negative, so I think it's myopia. Yeah. I should put it, I'm very shameful. I don't know it at the tip

Abhijit: of my tongue. Even, I've forgotten it.

I learned it. What, in class five, class six. I still don't remember it. So

Jansher: I'm also colorblind and I also have a condition called nystagmus. I can't focus on fast moving objects. So it is very difficult. It has always been very difficult for me to play sports, which have a ball, ah, in my direction.

Where did it go? Oh, somehow I'm still able to manage that in combat sports, because boxing is a little more intimate. I do get punched a lot. My reaction time is slow because, I, but yeah, I can take punches. Whatever

Abhijit: should do tai Chi

Jansher: definitely help me if I get surrounded, by a mob.

I'll see what I can do. How many people I take down with me. One, two third person will definitely kill me. Definitely. I'm being rude. Ah,

Abhijit: that happens.

Jansher: That happens. That'll happen eventually, so anyway so she insisted that I should definitely try out these breathing exercises because those breathing exercises definitely helped her.

That is what she believes, right? Yeah. I did try to get into it, but then I became a smoker. I was like, there was no point now. I'm a smoker, so whatever oxygen I was getting with, opening one nostril, releasing it with the other, it's gone. I'm utilizing it. So I never got into it much. Eventually she also stopped doing yoga, the breathing exercises, and she's now just doing it for her flexibility and all that.

So yoga influence in this family, it was like not, did not go out in a negative way. It just was forgotten. Or like over time, I became, we became more liberal. We became less religious because I remember there used to be one mandir in my household. Now every two, three years, dad will have a posting.

That mandir will come with us, of course, with the rest of our stuff. That mandir used to have a Gita, A Guru Granth Sahib. It used to have a picture of the two gurus the first and the last guru in Sikhism, Nanak and Govind Singh It used to have a Shivling and even a small Ganesha. Very cute one, and over time that Mandir stopped getting any attention.

Right now, there is no mandir There is everything else in this house, but there is no mandir there.

Ah,

Jansher: this is a civilian house. My dad retired five, six years back. Now we do not have a mandir anymore. We do not even have agarbattis, incense sticks. We not have those, right? Whatever relationship my family had with religion is only something they celebrate during festivals on Guru Purab they would just put out some diyas, on Diwali, they would light up the house, make a rangoli also, right? On something. But there is no prayer, nothing. My grandparents still, and it's not like I'm going to, bother them. Why are you doing this, granny? Why are you doing this? I'm not gonna do that.

Of course not. Yeah. Like my granny my, my maternal grandmother has a specific time of doing her around seven to eight. And she does it. She wants to be left alone. I'll leave her alone. That's it.

Abhijit: Fair enough. Now I wanna switch gears a little bit, Sure. And talk about Pehelgam And what has happened.

Yes, of course.

Abhijit: What is, and this has been, I have become so saturated with the news now that it's just, it's it's hard for me to talk about. It's hard for me to even watch new things about it. There are lots of theories, there are lots of finger pointing against the state government, against the chief minister against the army and the military, and the defense minister and the Prime Minister as well.

So where do you think things went wrong? Or did this, is this just one of those things that happened senselessly and was an organized terrorist effort, but do you think there were any failings on our part as well

Jansher: so not being a defense expert, I am simply voicing my opinion as a citizen of India like every other Yeah.

Can. But since I'm doing in front of camera, I am, I have to be more careful. No, I am just having a conversation. Yeah. So I be as honored as possible. It is a work of religion. I would say it out loud. It is. Islamic extremism. And it is not something new that this country has faced.

We have been facing it since Islamic extremism was born in the sixties, seventies, as a modern militia movement because yeah, Islamic being extreme has always been there. But to militarize that movement after the Iranian revolution, right? When all the mujahideens were born, when Soviets invaded Afghanistan and Americans funded the mujahideen and taking inspiration from that, they were militarized Islamists everywhere, right?

Same case with Kashmir. Pakistan is very much a in fact it is a great factor in contributing to this divide. You are neighbors Muslim ne Indians are neighbors with Pakistanis who are Muslims. What could go wrong, right? What could go wrong? Absolutely always comes from there.

And I would tell you some things like there are Doordarshan channels, which are telecasted in Mir, which share pro India content even today. That is only to curb the Pakistani broadcast because their receivers I don't think they're using antennas still. If antennas are still a thing.

Yeah. But I was told around seven, eight years back by an officer likeI look, we try to make sure that we are doing everything to de radicalize them. I will be honest, we are everything to de radicalize them. Even still, if their faith triumphs over all the logic, all the incentives that we have to blame religion, at some point we have to blame them, yeah. Then as in Islamic extremist, we have to blame them. We there are separate rules for Jammu and Kashmir, even before the abrogation of 317. There are still some privileges they enjoy.

There are, there is school funding for them. Education. The Army funds their schools.

There are army recruits former militants to make sure that yes, it's not about punishment and death sentence. You have a chance to resolve reform yourself. You can join the fighting side. You can fight these radicals because what will radicals do if somebody joins the Indian army? They will take away their family. That is what they have done. Plenty of times. Yeah. I read a last, I read a report about some soldier from the territorial army. Territorial army is like the reserve army. Like we have national guard in US. Then there is PA in India. So this guy was kidnapped and maybe I think 20, 30 days later, his body was found and his dad, his father was just obviously furious, sad and yeah, very upset over the whole thing that this happened.

This his boy who just wanted to serve his nation. So yes. Yeah. There are a lot of things which happen over there and we do make sure that they don't happen. We try to deradicalize them on a very early level. We try to give them freebies and everything, but still, if they feel that Kashmir as an identity, as an ethnic identity should be a purely Muslim identity, that is a problem I will not deny and I will speak speak out against it very bluntly.

And there is, that is one part the primary issue for this attack and many other attacks which have happened in the past few years. There was Reasi there is Pehelgam right now. There was Reasi and then Pathankot and all that. Everything, yeah,

Abhijit: there was Pulwama is one point. Yes.

Jansher: Everything, it is always because of religion.

I'm a kafir I, I am a Hindu who might get onto each other's throats and you are a Hindutva fascist. He'll call me a, probably, he'll call me a communist. Even though I'm very capitalistic. I believe in private property. I like to own things

Abhijit: and anti-national.

Jansher: Anti-national, whatever, their little fantasies.

For a Muslim extremist, there is no difference for him. I am a kafir for him. Even a Hindutva fanatic is a kafir Yeah. So the Islamist jihadi doesn't discriminate for we are all equally worthless enemies, equally inhuman who need to be curbed, who need to be killed. Yes. Religion has everything to do with this.

And I will point out with a very different example of a different set of extremists who have nothing to do with this attack. I will talk about gaurakshaks. I will talk about mob lynchings. I'll talk about people harassing interfaith couples harassing people who we just eat non-veg, and this harassment is not just verbal and social policing. It is violent. It is vengeful. It is in mobs. It is organized. If I can openly say that that is Hindu Hindu extremism,

Abhijit: right? Yeah.

Jansher: Why do I need to censor myself? In the case of Islamic extremism, let's first take Hindu extremism and Islamic extremism on the same scale.

Right now we are not talking about terrorism, which is, I would say the final form of extremism. Let's just simply talk about extremism first. Street level, local, right? We have mobs wearing colors and harassing people, beating people, lynching people, killing people, raping people . That happens both on the Islam Islamic side and the side.

That could even happen in third world African countries where Christian mobs are there because if European and Western white Christian nations can move forward, that is something African Christian nations have failed to do on a similar scale. They're still homophobic. They would still lynch homosexuals, right?

They would still lynch you for blasphemy They will come out and say, why are you running? Okay, so they'll still do that to you. They will still grab you. So extremism depend depends on a lot of factors. Economic factors, societal factors, right? Christianity is still the same in Europe and Americas, north Americas particularly.

Yeah. What does it mean der in south of in Africa, right? They both follow the same Bible. They go to a similar church, but in Africa they still have blasphemy laws. They still have laws to persecute dissidents, christianity for you. Same with Islam. It is different in Turkey. It is different in Middle East.

It is different. It is different in Saudi versus how it is in Dubai. I would say. Dubai is pretty liberal about certain things. They have opened their borders. They have

Abhijit: had to be liberal.

Jansher: Let's talk about extremism. So if mob lynching gauhatya, gauraksha ke naam pe hatya and all that, it can have a religious label to it. Why not Islamic extremists taking similar examples punishing women who leave the house without a burka raping them because they left the house without a burka.

They deserve it, right? How many times for a cartoon of Mohammed, how many times studios have been burned down? The artist has been threatened, even killed. Now talking about refugee crisis in Europe. Now there's a demographic change. They're not terrorists. Yes, they're extremists on a street level.

They're asking for Sharia, right? They are calling certain things un-Islamic, the European values, which welcome them in the first place, right? Secularist values. Modernist values. That's right. Now they go, they say drinking is bad. Europe drinks like a fucking bucket. They like football. They like to drink.

They say absolutely. Everything is bad. It is un-Islamic. Music is bad. It is un-Islamic. Art, dance, everything is un-Islamic. We want Sharia. Isn't that Islamic extremism

Abhijit: right? Absolutely

Jansher: now we have, compared to very similar things, even though here extremism definitely is very dangerous on one particular site.

But yes, Hindu extremist Islamic extremist. Now take it. Let's take it a notch further. Let's talk about terrorism. Now if terrorism is also done in the, say same sense with a affinity towards religion, why is it hard for liberals? Liberals to say that it is Islamic extremism or more precisely Islamic terrorism.

How does having this opinion stereotype anybody, if I could say Hindu extremism, did I ditch out any Hindu like all Hindus and average Hindu? No, it is very understandable, right? Same sentiment and the same clause and the same rationality should be followed with Islamic extremists, right? What this does this dishonesty does is create a vacuum, which this vacuum wala part we've already discussed a few minutes ago, stages of the video, right? This will create a vacuum, ultimately, Hindutva will come. And I'm not saying it is justified. I'm not justifying Hindutva at all. I just, I detest them. I'm disgusted by them. I'm anti Hindutva as of now, openly. But if we don't have such conversations, what do you think? Who do you think is gonna have them? And it has everything to do with religion. Everything. It has always been to do always had everything to do with religion and still is. 1990, the Exodus. It was so disheartening to see people of their own country become refugees in their own country, right?

Yeah. Their own land and their own, everything has been taken away from them, right? Secondly, let's come to the government failure. Now. This government is incompetent as fuck. And hide their in competency with gimmicks. Now, I would definitely give them credit that earlier when certain things like these would happen, which happen on a daily basis, even during congress rule they would go for a diplomatic solution.

They would condemn. But now we react. And reaction is a good thing because ultimately there is a code of public opinion. And the public, if they, by perception they feel that we are not doing anything, the government will definitely capitalize on these gimmicks the right, but the extent to which they capitalize on these gimmicks, like going to election rallies.

Modi went to Bihar, yaar. And he's still talking about those ki hum events karenge, yeh karenge, it is so bloody insensitive, so fucking insensitive. He's just milking the tragedy for politics, right? Absolutely.

Abhijit: It takes every opportunity to do that.

Jansher: Every opportunity to do that, every opportunity.

Right? There was Lieutenant General DS Huda. Who saw certain operations in late 2000 tens. And he said that political resonance is not good if with these acts of the armed forces. It's not good. And he, I'm not exactly able to recall exact words, but he said something on the very similar lines.

And he said it after we've seen we witnessed how these gimmicks are done to spread a narrative. Now, he also acknowledged that yes, ultimately government did not have any choice but to publish these acts because even there was a morale morale thoda down ho gaya tha faujiyon ka bhi. What are exactly are we doing? What is our government doing? There was a moral question raised by even some of the servicemen that what are we doing every time this happens to us? What do we do? Why are our hands always tied? Yes, I would say that publicizing what we did in Uri and Balakot air strikes, it does definitely make the does definitely add some confidence in the public. Internationally also, it sends a message that we do not just condemn, we retaliate and we should. Then the same Lieutenant General DS Huda did clarify that military operations have been happening even before. Right now they're happening on a scale and it's fine, but there is a political resonance is not good.

Abhijit: How do you think we should retaliate?

Jansher: See, we are doing everything, man. Like I said, there are deradicalization methods in Kashmir, which are being implemented by the army intelligence and the best think tanks, they're doing it

Abhijit: Do. And there's been a lot of this conversation about the rivers, the rivers treaty.

And we now, the treaty has been reversed and that Pakistan will no longer get water from us. How are we supposed to block those rivers and redirect them? I, it makes no sense to me

Jansher: no, the fact that we have now started focusing way more on the flow of a water body is the, it goes in the sense of direction that now there are two narratives.

One is saying religious is all responsible. The other is saying government is responsible Now. There's a middle ground. I, like I said, there is no middle ground, but the middle ground we are trying to create is that yes, government response is responsible, but now you cannot just focus on the fact that the, how will the water be redirected?

That cannot hold too much weight in this conversation. That is something being pumped and repeated by the left side was by pani ka kya karenge?. Panic. Absolutely. There is a water shortage in so many places in India also. We redirect it there, but now that is not the biggest of our concern.

Same with the right jihadi all. I'll tell you another, this government's fault is that it has failed to unite this country. It has totally failed to unite this country. All it can unite is a bunch of their own vote bank. That is all absolutely right. And I believe there was not this much prejudice during Congress time because I, they would be silent, appeasing for the Muslims, but at least majority would stand together against terrorism

Right now people are more into harassing people and all that, like harass Same ka. Yeah,

Abhijit: absolutely.

Jansher: How backwards we have gone as a country,

Abhijit: yeah. Right now we are playing, once they're forward,

Jansher: two step backs.

Abhijit: Exactly. We are playing into the hands of what the terrorists want, which is to divide the country.

They want, they had this attack because they knew that we would react in this way that all of a sudden we will start looking at all Muslims as terrorists, and they want us to divide this country, that divided country is a weak one. And that's exactly what they're doing. And that's exactly what most Indians are starting to do.

Jansher: So it just tells you now that most Indians are not critical thinkers. I, again, another blunt thing, I would like to say that it's okay to be racist against Indians, right? Because whatever racial stereotypes we've developed on the internet, it is not because of people like me, not because of people like you.

So why will I feel offended? Indians are dirty. Yes. I say Indians are dirty. I'm tired of dirty Indians because I'm not the one contributing to that stereotype. So I will not feel offended by that stereotype. Indians are this. Indians are that. Yes, they are. And I'm tired of such Indians. Because I am not offended by such stereotype.

I did not contribute to it. And I'm pretty clear in my stance. Yeah. We are repulsed by people who act like this, who are the majority of Indians. We are disgusted. We are even shocked to see such a display of inhumane behavior. Yeah. Is it because of Indians like me? Indians, like you are the average Indian with common sense, which is very rare.

Is it because of them? They don't, I it's always the culprits who feel offended, always. Yeah. Always. I'm like I've just went out of this country twice. I'm getting married this year. I will probably go again.

Abhijit: Congratulations.

Jansher: Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll come to the, that part as well because I've had a sour taste regarding special Marriage Act and Hindu Act.

Maybe some, if that is required. Not today, but I'll also go out of this country once again and like

So that is definitely there. And I'm not like, not all Indians, but definitely an Indian man. Yeah. Always. So same way if, we say to extremists, it's definitely though extremists getting triggered, yeah. Silent Extre, the one who come to their keyboards and support rioters and terrorists.

They do not have the guts to do it themselves. I, this is the best thing I say to most people. Ki the, when there is a violent incident, somebody says, no, they're glad it happened. Where are your fucking balls? Go out and do it yourself. Why are you sitting here, man? Why are you wasting your time? But religion isn't fucking danger.

You fucking incompetent buffon are you don't, you have a pair of balls, right?

Response.

When will I see your video climbing a religious place? Putting your flag. When will I see it? I want to see it.

Abhijit: Yeah. Enough people doing that shit though.

Jansher: Yeah. There are 10 people doing it, but there are a thousand supporting it. And exactly. Those thousand people don't have the balls to do it.

They just want someone else to protect their religion.

Abhijit: Yeah. The they came out, what it was yesterday that I saw that there were a group of people who went up to the top of a church and tied a flag on top of it or on top of the cross.

Jansher: If your religion was so great, your 4,000 year old religion was so great.

Why would people convert for four kg rice? Have you ever thought of that?

Abhijit: Yeah. And there are lots of people who have converted because of Casteism as well. Mostly caste. They've converted to Islam, they've converted to Christianity, they've converted to Sikhism, and yet the Casteism still remains in all of those,

Jansher: all of them.

Abhijit: There's this amazing movie I watched called Untouchable.

Jansher: Okay.

Abhijit: Which actually doesn't have a narrator. The entire, it's, I think it's probably, it's on YouTube for free to watch for free. And I would recommend everybody to go watch that. It's absolutely phenomenally disgusting how Casteism is still so prevalent across the country and has been for a very long period of time, and nobody talks about it.

But that's, that's a completely different conversation to be had.

Jansher: All of that just definitely ties into, a lot of things that this country has been, forced to in a very convoluted way. So yeah, the first point has been made. It is a religious issue. Second point is that we need to question a government time and time again. If, remember the time when 26 11 happened,

how can this bloody happen under your fucking nose every time? Right now? Where is the accountability?

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Jansher: Where is the accountability right now? Just some bots who would try to silence you by shouting, Jai Sri Ram, that is all, there is 10 Jai Sri Ram comments, and suddenly you don't want to talk to them. Fuck all of you.

I want I'm questioning a bloody supreme leader here, so this has to be done. And thirdly, there is a very big confusion.

Abhijit: Please go ahead.

Jansher: How, have you seen the content online content? It's here is India Indian Army with their achievements, a picture or a video of them. There is our Ramesh. With their orange gamchha harassing people, and they think both are the same. They are protecting India, they're protecting dharma

Protecting the dharma and protecting India are not the same, my friend.

Abhijit: Absolutely not.

Jansher: that is a big misconception no matter how many reels you make, reels and, okay, let's say during the podcast culture. And during the last 4, 5, 10 years, we have seen many veterans coming out and, telling, talking about themselves, talking about their experience in the army. It is great.

It is much more unfiltered than your typical TV interview. On camera, off camera. Since I come from this background, I have a way more different equation and I can ask way more silly but blunt and even stupid questions and off camera conversations also matter. I won't say any names, I don't have to, but I mentioned these jokers to some of the people who are serving or people who have served they spit on such people.

They, for them, their duty is the most important, although ultimately they're the ones who have to clean this mess. Yeah. What do these guys in the streets think? That they're going to protect us from Jihadi. These guys are, the stakes are going to protect us from jihadis.

Like we said earlier, south India

Mamta Bannerjee

are saffron gundas, that's all you are. I have the same disgust towards you like the rest of the guys. I mentioned. I face the same threat from you that the rest of the guys mentioned, you are not our protectors. Ultimately uniform, be it kaki, white, blue, or green.

Absolutely.

Jansher: And men and women who actually lay down their rights, like they also have their biases.

They also have maybe local vote. They for G also give word. Police people also give vote. They also abuse a politician. But after their duty is done, they are not looking at every person with a lens of prejudice. When they come back assimilate with the rest of the society. It's very, I would say, wrong on their part to think that they are some, anything more than a bunch of goons delusions of grandiose, that is what they're suffering from.

Abhijit: Absolutely.

Jansher: Religion is the most toxic thing on earth, right? And the different levels of this toxicity needs to be called out. We can easily say which is better, which is worse. We cannot also let people use one religion's extremism to hide their own. Even if that religion in question is the most dangerous one. We cannot let a lesser evil religion hide it because they'll just ultimately become like them to some extent. Not exactly like them.

But

Jansher: your discount version yeah. Alibaba, not Amazon version. Alibaba version. Then we were also talking about how people believe in miracles.

Even now we have cameras, so people still tend to believe in things. So imagine 2000 years ago if people could believe in a person walking on water simply by rumors. Right now, people can believe in miracles even though they have video evidence against it.

Abhijit: Yes.

Jansher: So you blame people to go 2000 years ago, medieval, you, ancient classical people who believe religion strives on ignorance, even despite there is plenty of evidence against it, as old as that, which has survived 2000 years because Sam Harris was giving an example of Jesus versus this, and I was trying to equate it with Nanak and Mohammad and all the other religious figures would've come up, even Ambedkar

But thank God, I would say that not been I would say mythicised

Abhijit: absolutely. Thank goodness for that. I say thank goodness as much as I possibly can.

Jansher: Thank God I'm an atheist. Yeah. And lastly, thank God we're both

Abhijit: atheists. Even

Jansher: if you are an atheist, you can definitely be radicalized in the right wing ideology.

You will feel that, yes, the majority is protecting me. That is like a discussion. I think we left off somewhere in the middle. Yeah. But yes, it can happen. It has happened to me and I've like I used to post so many opinions and used to enjoy the likes I get from the right wing audience in my field.

This one particular post even reached Paresh Rawal, the BJP MP. Wow. And I was so excited. Oh, look, Paresh Rawal I will tweeted my screenshot about Ram Mandir and from

Abhijit: What did you tweet?

Jansher: I don't know if I can post it here, or I can share my screen, let's say in the post production. I will add it.

Abhijit: Oh. Just tell me generally. Okay.

Jansher: So it was about see I definitely supported the Ram Mandir even after my I get the deradicalization from BJP, I still supported it, not because I do not support the way it was all the steps which were taken. Of course, I cannot support the fact that a Masjid was demolished.

Not because it was demolished, but it was demolished after riots. It could have been done by a simple, I would say court order that yeah, this needs to be demolished. But I think riots would've been still, have they still would've happened any case.

Yeah.

Jansher: Do not align with the steps which came all the way ultimately to laying the first foundation stone.

I believe it was just a mosque for a tyrannical ruler. And if people want to have a religious place as an architectural or a civilizational token allowed, they should have it right now. What I posted was that constantly asking for Ram Mandir for hospital or a school in the place where Ram can be built is very stupid, right?

Because it was not built by taxpayer money. And then saying things like that this is that we are Nazis. We are Nazis and all that. No, we are not Jews laugh at you by such as strike battle. Basically I was trying to downplay the Hindutva extremists and their role in violence and all that.

Abhijit: I see.

Jansher: So that was my tweet, and I believe that speaking of taxes diligence should definitely be taxed.

And then again, I use the classic right wing whataboutery, because I was a right winger at that point. I used the what about other religions? When will they pay taxes? That might be some misinformation on my part, but when will the minorities pay taxes? I believe all should pay taxes. Hindutva Right wingers believe that. No, even Hindu shouldn't pay taxes. I on believe that every religious place should pay taxes.

Abhijit: Absolutely. Absolutely. They,

Jansher: the most privileges they enjoy the most I would say they enjoy everything.

Abhijit: Yeah. Wow. And what have you ever put up a.

Like a redo of that tweet and just said that, yeah, maybe I was wrong. I

Jansher: don't think I'll let it occupy a major part of my life. It was different time different angst and all that.

Abhijit: So yeah, it be there. Anyways, thanks so much for joining me, man. There's been we've been planning this for a while, but it's amazing that you're also a part of the movement. If you come to Delhi, we gotta hang out. It'll be amazing.

Jansher: For sure. For sure.

Abhijit: And thanks so much for joining me on Rationable. It's been an absolute pleasure

Jansher: and it was a privilege to have you here as well.

Abhijit: Thank you so much.

Yeah. So guys that was a Rationable interview with the Indic Atheist. If you liked it, give us a like, do subscribe to the channel, if you would want more content like this. And just as a little bit of a reminder, I do have a Patreon at Rationable, so give us a little bit of a follow there and help support this channel if you can.

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