Archer

I was about to mention VP Singh too. There is something about these ex-Rajahs and tinpot rulers that they feel that they can continue to impose roughshod policies on India for their parochial interests. Both are class A jerks for what they have done.

Tell me something- if your relative loaths you, insists that your way of life is incompatible with his, and this endures after 800 years of coexistence, however forced it may be- do you seriously think that partition would not have occurred?

Look at present day Pakistan & Bangladesh - do you think they would have contributed to independent India? One is continuing to sponsor terror on religious grounds, despite having an independent state. The other is also on its way to becoming a Pak., despite the occasional Grameen bank success story. Fifty years after independence, a Pakistani Muslim will give up his life, to cross the border and kill a few hindus, blow up a temple, attack any symbol of "polytheism" (one gent from lahore iirc wanted to blow up a train station because its architecture reminded him of a temple!) - pray tell me, what would have happened if there were no borders, no standing army to stop most of these kind souls?

Despite having merely a 12-15% Muslim population, in India, Govt after Govt has bent over backwards to appease the most fundamentalist members of the Indian Muslim community, and pandered to their ever whim. The present UPA Govt went so far as to justify the presence of Shariah courts in front of the Judiciary! Defended jiziya even. What do you think would be the situation with a 30% population percentage? Or even more? Where more than half of that percentage is virulently Islamist?

Fact is that partition occurred only partly due to British development of political Islam as a means of divide and rule (not that it did whatever they hoped for either), and the political push and pull between the leaders- Jinnah, Gandhi and Nehru, but even otherwise, Islamism has been incompatible with any doctrine, such as democracy, wherein its writ is not run. This is the elephant in the room (if I may overuse that term again) which most Indians dont acknowledge. Because if we do, then it lends credence to the Pakistani two-nation theory, albeit in whichever way. The two nation theory should actually be "political islam" vs the rest, in which case I would agree.

So unless Islam in the subcontinent reforms, there can be little aim of a united preindependence India. As a matter of interest, partition caused most of the educated, well to do Muslim elite to leave India for Pakistan. Which goes to show (yet again), that even education and standard of living does not necessarily stop Islamism. In such a clime, its better- as horrible as the events of partition were- that Independent India progresses without the baggage of Pak/ Bangladesh. If one day, they can bring themselves to work with the hated Hindu/ non Muslim - they can try for a federation. But each year that goes by, the three countries trajectories head on different paths.

__________________
Karmani Vyapurutham Dhanuhu

My bow is stretched for its task

Ray

Archer,

I rather they etch their own destiny.

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Tronic

Ok, you made some fine points there, but two I have to ask... for one, are we all not trying to end the caste system? Ofcourse, quotas and reservations are not helping, but I reckon that the end to caste discrimination is the end goal...

second, we are still regularly taught about the atrocities commited by the Mughals... And here, the marxists do have a fine point; turning the enemies from the Mughals into Muslims is defenitely not going to help "to preserve the national unity" of India...

And sure, there might be a great deal of lefties, but as long as they don't hamper with the economy again, I think they are alright...

We are already learning about the atrocities of the Sultanate.... but you will alienate them when you start discussing the atrocities as Muslim atrocities against India, rather then Mughal atrocities against India... there is a difference...

So is this where you are directly referring to Muslims of today? They had no part in the atrocities, and they are not some elephant in the room... they are the same as you or me...

That would be great, but majority of Hindus would be against it, since they are now getting special benefits simply because of those cons of the caste system...

No, thats the thing, where is it whitewashed? We already discuss all the atrocities commited by the Mughals.... heck, we have an entire religion which is shaped the way it is because of those atrocities!!! i.e. Sikhism... The major threat to us is religious extremism as a whole, not primarily Islam... How is it that the well-off Middle Class or even the Upper Class constantly inter-marriage between Muslims and non-Muslims, and the Lower classes tend to live in their own divided worlds... the point is, that we need more people who seeing past religion to stand up social barriers, and unite together as Indians... get the lower classes to co-exist for a change and hopefully even they will unite in the future... painting all these as Muslim atrocities and such will do nothing to the Upper and Middle Classes, but will tear apart the lower classes who will take such to heart and that would spell bad for India, since we have a huge lower-class population... they must be uplifted...


Religious politics played by the BJP, Akalis and those Muslim parties (who names I don't know) are dividing society much more then these Commies...

It would defenitely have been ideal... but sadly, we are treading the opposite way...

Totally Agree...

Sure, there are close ties, but that does not give RSS any right to rewrite Sikh history...

First, it is not re-iterating Sikh-Hindu ties, it is rewriting them... We already know about the ties, about eldest son of Hindu family converting to Sikhism to fight Mughals; and the Rajputs playing a big part in developing the Sikh martial arts... we already know all that... but today, Sikhism is a seperate identity; we are a seperate religion... yes, we are closely affiliated with Hindus but that does not mean, that Sikhism has to be Hindunized by the RSS... I mean, even Buddhism is spun out of Hinduism, and yes Sikhs-Hindus-Buddhists-Jains, we all visit each others worship places, but that does not mean that all these religions should not be respected for what they are rather then trying to change them into branches of each other...

Dude, this is not a competition with who is more extremist... it should be a total war against all extremism... no matter how thick or thin it is...

Religionism... killing the world today!

I did not study under Punjab board... uptil 10th standard I was studying under ICSE board, and +1 and +2, I did under CBSE... and yeah, the class warfare stuff would be referring to castism, i'm guessing... but yeah, it also depends on how long ago your education was... Education is fast changing and going through some heavy reforms, every year it is different syllabus...

Agreed, but again, the poorer classes are again prone to these extremist organizations; since a little bit of igniting, and telling the poor what they want to hear, turn them into flocking sheep, joining such organizations without reasoning...

This has mainly only happened abroad by people who left India in the 1980s, either due to terrorist connections, or Police harassment... And yes, I totally agree it has to be put to an end, and therefore our government must be willing to engage foriegn governments and pressuring them to curb this extremism going on in their countries...


Exactly, and hence that is why, try to absorb and be absorbed with the rest of the Muslims... the more lines we draw, the more it cuts out Muslims into seperate socities and the more they crumble to send their kids to these places because of those social pressures... the more, we mix within their societies, and they mix within ours, those social pressures they face dramatically reduce... ironic thing is, most Muslim peers I know, we can freely talk about religion and god without putting each other on fire... That is because we pretty much grew up together; and on religious issues, all of us pretty much have this mutual understanding (without ever having to discuss with one another) that is God is really just God... doesn't matter what word you use to refer to God.... and also, do pay respects to each others holy places, be it Mandirs, Gurduwaras, Churches or Mosques...


Ok, agreed, media coverage focuses more on the Muslim victims... both sides have to be shown, agreed... but the Modi government does have every reason to be criticized... first, they did nothing to put out these extremist fires, let it get to rioting; and then it was reported that the Police there were also not interferring to break up the riots! They let the slaughter go on... I'm wondering if dividing Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat actually worked in Modis favour because it landed the BJP with strong support in Gujarat... the dirty politicians are responsible for the whole mess...

Again, the reason for that are the social divisions which must be addressed... in a heavily mixed society, it would be darn difficult for such riots to take place... my neighbour would think twice about ransacking my house, since that would mean, same happens to his..

and on a more serious note, India's politicians must be questioned...

But, then criticizing Modi is not the same as criticizing someone's religion.. when politicians screw up, they MUST be questioned... or else, we'll be living under Laloos forever...

But again, it is damn wrong, that if you question the way a certain government functions, you get your mouth tapped-shut? Even Mushy seems to be doing better then that!

And yes, it was more of a decision of local multiplex operators, but only after the Gujarat government made noise against Amir... unlike the banning of the Da Vinci Code in several states, which conducted polls to see if it should be banned or not, no such thing happened with Fanaa... I reckon the Gujarat government has these distributors in their pockets... unless how does it explain what happened to Parzania? Another issue where the govenrment showed resentment, and woala, distributors aren't screeing it in Gujarat again!!!

__________________
Nabha Sparasham Deeptam
-Touch The Sky With Glory

Jay

I dont want to quote and requote the same stuff again. But I strongly disagree that a Kshatriya wouldve not relented to India Pakistan partition. Thats absurd and patently wrong.
Any saner person would fight for his land, kshatriya or not.

Not to mention that there is no class divide in the Indian Army. I'm sad that we still are discussing this martial race concept, which has been proven wrong on the face of the British.

While I agree that the muslims of today India some way think they are the descendants of Mughals and their rule was one of the greatest in our civilization. Some think they are a seperate entity as if they were imported from a muslim planet.

But OTOH with a population of 1 billion and a muslim population of 130 million, we cannot alienate all of them coz some of them believe that we hindus are sub par to them. The only way we will solve this problem is by an islamic reform. I'm not sure whether we in the sub-continent can change it or the whole Arabian peninsula needs a make over.

__________________
A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

Archer

Tronic, it is the Left intelligentsia which has ensured the survival of the caste system...they see everything in terms of oppressed castes rebelling against the Bourgeoisie upper class...so the latter have to be supported in their "fight", which means the caste system will endure..


I agree..but this is a difference of perception. See when the average hindu talks of hindu-sikh ties, he feels proud and is reiterating the latter to be "related" to him and hence a positive thing. Unfortunately, the flip side of this is that it appears to dilute the religious identity of those who are accosted in this manner...for instance jains also have the same issues you raised, and some object to being called hindus...others say what the heck and ignore it. I really dont claim to be an expert on the RSS, but when they keep pointing to sikhism and reinforcing these ties, I dont think they mean to portray sikhism as hinduism, its more of a locally born religion with ties to hinduism thing which is a big deal for them, if you recall they made a big deal out of/took offense to some texts calling the sikh gurus brigands even before it became a political issue...well, it varies from person to person, but if sikhs were to (say) come up with such ties with hinduism, i would take it in stride and be ok with it..nothing really sinister about it. As long as one is not asked to renounce your religion and convert, I think this much give and take is reasonable and we can take it in stride. After all, I would be honored to go to a langar and/or read the guru granth sahib, or listen to someone state how hindus and sikhs are tied together, and how punjabi families had the elder son as a sikh, whilst the rest were hindu...I know many sindhi hindus who worship / respect the sikh gurus, but are hindus ...so it is indeed true that sikhism and hinduism - depending upon region to region, and community to community, have strong ties of interrelationship..
Conversion is another thing altogether, and becomes contentious- this is what evangelicals and zakir naik types dont understand, they cannot take the diversity of faiths thing and religious tolerance...I may go to a church and pray, or even visit a mosque with my muslim friends, but would be somewhat offended - if they were to take it as proof of their religion being better than mine, and then try to make me renounce my religion and convert to theirs..

Again, why are the Mughals or the Sultanates the "Indian muslim"? The Indian Muslim should be the Ibrahim Gardi and the Hakim Khan Suri and or the Idris Hassan Latif or the Abdul Kalam..
By ignoring what Islamists did in the name of Islam, we are ignoring the need for religious reform and to take the wind out of the Islamists sails..nobody will then quote approvingly of the kind of Sultanates approvingly, or let Islamist rhetoric slide.
Lastly, I dunno about Punjab state board, but NCERT texts and state board texts in three northern states were definitely marxist lite in terms of agit-prop.



Again, you misunderstand how coalition govts work...if the leftists "give" you the economy, you have to defer to them on "culture", end result is manufactured history and casteism persists...its a sad state of affairs..

Then draw a line in the sand and show that the "True muslims" were those who sought integration and didnt wage religious war...there is always a way to present the most unpalatable facts in a somewhat correct manner, but negating the fact itself is a very dangerous thing..


...elephant in the room is an idiom. it means a topic which nobody wants to discuss...in this case, the elephant in the room is the issue of islamic record in the subcontinent, which should be discussed - in a mature manner- so as to learn the proper lessons from it, and prevent it from being "hidden", till it erupts in riots and untold grievances..the other use of the idiom is to refer to the untold fear of offending the everyday muslim...an assumption which leads Govt after Govt to mollycoddle the AIMPLB, the deoband, the shahabuddins- basically the hardline islamists, the very people who are making the IM community fanatic, and should be sidelined...but out of fear for their reaction, and the obsessive fear that by merely discussing the record of islamists, we will be offending every muslim, we are merely pandering to the hardliners who live on this fear!


..the key is to replace caste with economic backwardness...if applied uniformly, it will be a non discriminatory move, but some amount of political backlash will be there...after all, who wants to give up freebies!


tronic, sikhism is an exception, guess why? because you maintain oral and written records of the period which are protected as religious scripture - unfortunately, now imagine what would happen if i decided, for the sake of communal harmony, that the martyrdom of the gurus, ahad to be stricken from the record, without asking you? since it would make the sikhs "angry" against the muslims and the muslims would be offended! now see whats happened- in contrast, the hindus & other communities have not maintained such unified records and a strong sense of oral and written history has been dismissed as communal because of the reasons discussed before! see the difference? who made these choices for the rest of india?
secondly, the differences in terms of classes- are not borne out by actual events...in riots, everyone participates. in fact, the lower classes are the ones who get hurt the most, are the most violent. the difference is that muslims in india are already in the lower most strata - as mentioned, at partition, the rich and middle class emigrated to pak, and hence they area valid target for islamists and the mullah. so the state must intervene and ensure the tablighi jamaat and others are kept out, come what may...every quasi secular muslim state maintains a close watch over the mullahs...but india doesnt!


the thing is that the religious parties wouldntexist but for the commies...just consider...till the 90's, was the BJP even a national force? would the akalis be as powerful unless the congress was not historically weak in the punjab? these are issues which have always raised a head- every reaction has a counter reaction, and unfortunately, the issue of minority pandering (in terms of IMs) became an electoral issue which the BJP was able to exploit...and the congress bears good responsibility for its votebank politics- in UP / cowbelt, the Congress defined the term and invented the method...as far back as the 80's in the north, i remember congress corporators going around assiduously picking up minority criminals...n effect screwing the muslim community over themselves...

definitely true...


...which is exactly my point, the whole bloody education issue is political. the class warfare stuff when i had it dripped left politics. even today, two state board texts in the north are full f the stuff...my point is that if we make sure that (say) BJP idealogues dont write the texts, neither should the marxists!


...which is the problem, since the muslim community in india is predominantly from the lower strata and hence state intervention is critical in preventing them from being subverted. state intervention in the madrasas, ensuring political islamists are not appointed to positions of power etc. irrespective of her communal rabble rousing on occasion, i would gladly have shabana azmi have the state power as head of muslim committees rather than some syed shahabuddin, but the govt appoints the latter to develop a votebank! thats the problem!


agree totally. my point was about social structure. namely in religions where the spiritual place exists as a source of social stability and political power, it becomes essential to monitor and prevent their abuse by extremists. which is what the khalistanis exploited and so do the tablighis and others.


tronic, that is idealism speaking and there is nothing wrong with what you said, it is what we all aspire to and should aspire to. however, the problem is much more complex. in many places with a significant islamic presence, the ghettoization of muslims apart, there are strong islamic revivalist movements..these draw upon islamic mythology to alienate ordinary muslims from their non muslim peers...here, the moderates should speak up and rebut them, but ven there the marxist whitewash of the "glorious islamic era" means that the zakir naiks get away with lies and half truths and fool impressionable young muslims..it becomes a case of one issue reinforcing the other...where the issue only comes forth in a riot!



tronic, the situation varied from place to place. initially i was in the same camp as you were, but right now, the more i talk to gujaratis the more it appears it was the usual that happens every place in india, namely civil failure and allegations galore later..for eg, "2000 muslims had a genocide" in gujarat. actual figures are 254 hindus, 790 muslims. then there is the issue of modi did this, modi did that..if we read day to day accounts, including those by kps gill after he was brought in, it seems that the IPS was more to blame, he speaks of overweight cops having stress attacks when riots occurred..i think that modi had some role to play in terms of rabble rousing, but he is a consummate politician and took credit for what was not his..ie once riots started, they took their own path- and frankly, gujarat has a long communally charged history, especially after the tablighi influence, it has become even worse- and these riots were just the latest, and wont be the last either. after modi goes, a decade from now, another issue and they will recur. ashutosh varshney in his account of gujarat has pointed out that unlike other places in india, in gujarat each community is largely separate from the other, and has been for some time, hence violence is more likely to break out.

..ideally yes, in reality- no. what happens is that xyz people will come and torch your house, and will continue to do so, till you vacate. this is invariably a feature of riots.

..definitely!


...modi is being attacked as a hindutva fundamentalist and the whole godhra issue has been turned into bad hindus vs minority muslims. the events of godhra which sparked the riots have been ignored for the most part, so the average gujarati will not appreciate the nuance non-gujaratis draw in this respect. in their view, since they reelected modi, calling him religiously inspired names reflects on them and they bristle at it..


...well if aamir did that against mushy, his body would be in a ditch, with two 7.62mm rounds in his skull! this is just a boycott, which hits his movie, and frankly, its not comparable to what happens in a dictatorship..


there are two issues with fanaa- one that it somewhat glorifies terrorism and is the work of a bleeding heart liberal who advocates a plebiscite in kashmir on dubious grounds, and second, that it is aamirs movie. the first is what personally i dont like, but thats not why the multiplex operators whacked it...they did it because of the potential troubles caused by aamirs involvement...so what did aamir do?

ok, after gujarat aamir declared that he was now a born again muslim and he felt for his community and criticized modi...he has every right to do that..but then he made some bad (from the pov of aamirs goals), moves. he publically supported the NBA andolan...now if you know the NBA issue, you'd know whether congress or modi, the NBA issue is loathed in gujarat, they support the dams fully..now aamir, who is acoke figurehead, and has not publically spoken out against their depletion of ground water in kerala went and declared his support for NBA...first it came across as a political stunt against modi, but more importantly, it made him "anti-gujarat" for the common man on the street, who sees the narmada waters in gujarat as a very positive thing...so modi got handed a victory...

this is why the multiplex guys backed off..and frankly, it has to do with aamir allowing his politics to get the better of him. by choosing a political role, he entered the arena, and has to deal with the rules of the game. note that in tamil nadu, actors are famously political...but if you are in, you are in. rajnikanth knows this, so has played a waiting game, he knows the day he enters fully on any side, the knives will be out for him!

Archer

i agree...but there is a point that gandhi and nehru were very peacenik, and patel was sidelined. so technically speaking a stronger resolute leader could have made a difference, but again, its conjecture to state that a khshatriya would have not agreed to partition! which kshatriya leader led todays pakistan and bangladesh to regard that land as his own, if i may ask? ..plus imho, on account of islamism, partition was somewhat inevitable anyways..

...it will remain, because several communities in india identify themselves as martial..perhaps another fifty years later, it will be a somewhat, non-issue.

very true, which is why i support a full blown campaign against islamist propoganda, including the truth about the "islamist era", a reiteration of the need to live together and not fall into the historical trap, and complete sidelining of the fundamentalist mullahs who run the AIMPLB, the deoband etc or their supplanting by Govt approved sarkari mullahs, till the day the muslim community is educated and rich nough to avoid their enticement...its not an ideal solution, but necessary, as the few somewhat secular muslim countries have shown..

kams

Archer , a very good analysis. Couple of points.

Very true. But politicians will never let that happen. Its not in their interest to ensure economic prosperity of downtrodden mass. These special interest groups are their vote bank. In the current scheme, very few (if any) truly deserving candidates benefit. My dad is a Professor (now retd.), he got tired of seeing truly gifted students (both SC/ST as well as others) not able to complete their higher studies only because their parents could not afford to miss on the extra income two more hands could bring in.

Archer, I was in Ahmedabad during riots (I worked in Gujarat for 8+ years). My house was in front of State Home Ministers Home. There was sizable police presence as well as a BSF camp. It was of no help to those poor people who were burnt alive in their homes, only 200 meters away. It was extremely well planned. It was not some mindless mob running amok. I can't even repeat what a BSF inspector told me , neither can I forget the sight of a elderly bearded muslim being pulled from the rickshaw by a crowd, beaten and ......

Archer

Same here, in college, I saw some truly deserving SC/ST candidates...I also saw esteem owning, gold chain wearing candidates who walked in with zilch marks and then "ran" the place...frankly, it was a disgrace...economic criteria should be the sole criteria, but even that will be defrauded, as with fake caste certificates (hoo boy! what a racket!)..
I do think that even politicians respond to the media and educated elites perception...the problem here is that the media, which is firmly JNU style leftist is obsessed with caste...on CNN-IBN for instance, several of the journos blogs obsess with caste, caste, caste...reading them made me feel that the likes of Laloo and Mulayam are "modern"!


Kams, I have no doubt that some elements were planned, and every victim is one too many. I have been through three riots - in one I escaped with my skin- and I was lucky, but what I meant to say was that each and every event cannot be blamed on Modi, whilst assuming that he was some guy who pulled each and every string. The press in India would like to believe he is the sole cause- if only! The people of Gujarat elected him resoundingly thereafter, what of that.

The reality (imho) is that Gujarat is communally polarized- whether hindu or muslim, each side was itching to get at the others throats, and Godhra sparked it off.

I was talking to a bunch of Gujaratis after the riots, and they laughed off the influence of Modi. One guy- dads in the congress btw- told of how after the last riots (which happened during congress rule, and were equally brutal), he and his friends were attacked by a muslim group coming from friday prayers and one of his friends was killed. So this time around, he was prepared, and went armed in a group, and he mentioned some slums in ahmedabad where they literally had a pitched battle. So this is the reality, that the average person in gujarat, irrespective of politicians had scores to settle. Then of course, the police are told to just watch and/or stay out.

Modi's sidekicks are reported to have asked the cops to not intervene in Ahmedabad, but per Outlook (which btw, openly admits to loathing Modi)'s post riots account, in several cities, the cops were plainly not upto the task even without political interference. KPS Gill mentions for instance, that on one occasion when confronted with a mob, the overweight SP claimed to have a heart attack and had to be rushed to hospital! His third in command then asked for firing, where it turned out that the .303's were jammed on account of disuse. And the cops ran for it.

The first thing KPSG did when he came to Gujarat, was to apparently remove all those senior officers above a certain age from the front. He then handed junior officers on the spot responsibility and got them to deliver.

As to why the state of affairs in gujarat is thus, it would take eons to write, and having lived there for 8 years you'll have seen it first hand. The fact is that wherever ghettos are there- there are literally communal dont go lines- lucknow, bhopal, delhi, hyderabad, bangalore - same sh!t, marginally different reasons.

What I object to, are the claims of "genocide"- thats a strong term and has to be used with circumspection. Riots, in which both sides suffer are not genocide- 250 odd Hindus were killed in police firing, riots and the like. The fact that 700 Muslims were killed comes down to pure attrition warfare- who has the numbers, wins. And the reasons for the Godhra riots are simply ignored. Face it, the average Indian is not a namby pamby peacenik, despite Gandhi- we are as tribal, as senseless as we always have been and this extends to both sides. On the one hand, whilst Modi has been justifiably tarred and feathered, the influence of the Tableeghi jamaat has been underplayed. The events at Signal Falia are dismissed as invented, and even the attack on Akshardham was justified as revenge for Gujarat. If the riots are to be reported, and lessons learnt- be fair, and go after both sides equally. Otherwise you'll have the present reaction where Modi is becoming more and more of a popular figure, cutting the martyr act and his detractors are being marginalized thanks to their openly admitted bias. For instance, Teesta Setalvad (who is openly anti-Modi and is embroiled in controversy) got the Padma Shri. I mean, talk of political sops and statements. So all thats happening is that two camps are being drawn. This time around, you had many folks criticize Modi & co and express outrage, next time around his critics will be ignored. That is not a positive development.

Archer