Pakistan will have to pay a heavy price
It is a shame that the People of Pakistan have not had their own government; either it was a puppet regime or some tin-pot dictator running and frightening them even to speak up. When the Lawyers brought down Musharraf Government to its knees, I thought, finally it is going to be the government of the people, and as Indians we can look forward to dealing with the people of Pakistan and their legitimate representatives.
None of that is happening, it is time for the people of Pakistan to wake up and have guts to let their government do what is good for the them; jobs, safety, security and prosperity, NOT Kashmir, it has given them nothing but misery and for what?
It is time to own responsibility and incarcerate the terrorists from LeT and other outfits, they have brought nothing but destruction to Pakistan and India. Getting rid of the terrorists should be their first focus. How long are they going to be duped by their dictators and useless politicians? Tom Friedman had asked the Pakistani public to take up on the streets and bring their government on their knees; you either rid of the terrorist or we will get rid of you.
If their government is not going to do it, unfortunately they will have to pay a heavy price before doing the right thing. I hope they wake up and bring the change. Mr. Singh should send a clear signal "Don't mess with India". Obama was asked on the day he made the announcement of Hilary Clinton, if he believed America has the right to go into Pakistan and take out the terrorist, then why shouldn't India do the same? I know India can do it without collateral damage, with least loss of life and with far less money to set an example to the world once again that we can do things non-violently.
Mike Ghouse
# # #
'Pakistan will have to pay a heavy price'
M J Akbar December 02, 2008 16:13 IST
Last Updated: December 02, 2008 19:24 IST
M J Akbar is one of India's best-known journalists and commentators, someone with a deep insight into the Indian people and their mindset. In this first-person, as-told-to piece, Akbar discusses the Mumbai attacks and their relevance for India.
Many people forget that India is a tough nation. Toothless leaders have turned India into a soft nation. People forget that India has fought back Muslim terrorism in Kashmir; Sikh terrorism in Punjab, Christian terrorism in Nagaland and Hindu terrorism in Assam, and amongst the Naxalites [Images].
We have had everything thrown at the Indian nation State. Still, we have stood up. The people of India have shown the courage and ability to believe in their nation and to fight back. But the completely impotent leadership of five years have turned a tough country into a soft State.
I am very sad. I keep feeling that if they protect India as they protect their leaders -- whether it is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [Images] or Congress President Sonia Gandhi [Images] -- I think I would be safe. Today, India's leaders are safe and India is in panic.
On what India's response should be:
India's proper reaction would be possible if we understand the extent of the disease.
If the disease is cancer, you can't apply band aid. After making a complete mess of security issues for five years by asking Shivraj Patil [Images] to go finally we may have a home minister who doesn't comb his hair and change his clothes. But we want something more than that. If it is cancer, we need chemotherapy, a much more serious exercise. It needs a legislative and executive framework. It needs political mobilisation. People are numbed.
The Indian people have no leadership. You have a prime minister. Did you see him when he addressed the nation? Nobody knew if he was addressing the nation or having a cup of tea?
He looked serious, but he didn't talk to us about our anger and about our anguish. I think this administration is tone deaf to the anguish of the people. They just cannot understand what the people are going through. They just don't understand our pain or our anger. The most important thing is that, perhaps, we have politicised not only the instruments of the State like the police but we have also politicised the understanding of the nature of the problem.
I think the very first thing to do is to ensure security so that it prevents the next attack. If any attack takes place under some ones job should go. Don't come to me with alibis.
On the terrorists getting local support:
I am an Indian Muslim and I am very proud of both, being an Indian and a Muslim. I do not see any contradictions. This is my land and I have nowhere else to go.
But can I say because I am an Indian Muslim that no Indian Muslim is involved? Can you, because you are a Hindu, say that no Hindu is involved? We have to behave like Indians first. Not as a Muslim or as a Hindu first. Because we need Hindu votes and Muslim votes and because this government thinks that it needs Muslim votes so it has been in complete denial.
Do you think that these people came across from Pakistan and had no support in Mumbai?
It is not possible. It was a huge operation. Ten people hit nine places and you killed nine of them. You want to say that they went from place to place? Who knows some of them must have slipped away to create new sleeper cells to hit us six months later.
They are hiding things. I would like to believe that there was an underworld connection. Because, Karachi and Mumbai are also linked by drug smuggling. The culture of criminals is aggression. It comes naturally to them. It is not easy for you and I to become aggressive, however angry we are. It does not come naturally to us. These are people who are trained psychologically in aggression. They have no respect for the State. They have no love for the country. And they have no respect for authority.
Why? Because the only face of authority is the corrupt policeman. The criminal gives money in the morning and money in the evening. Why should he have respect for somebody he gives bribes to? For the guy from the underworld his understanding of the Indian State and authority is corruption. He has no patriotism to stop him. Why would he not join hands with the terrorists? In any case, he belongs to another world. We have not even begun to address and discuss this.
On the Pakistan factor
I am tired of giving Pakistan a long rope on some excuse or the other. Everybody is saying this will happen if we do this, that will happen if we do this. Our relations with Pakistan will go, then, let them go. What has our relations with Pakistan brought us except violence and terror? Why should we be in charge of saving Pakistan? For what? Every time they turn around and they say they want evidence. Now, finally we have evidence.
I have been an editor for 35 years from the age of 23. From that time on, since the days of General Zia-ul Haq, I have been hearing 'Pakistan is asking for evidence'. We asked for withdrawal of their support to the movement for Khalistan, they said, 'Oh, we don't know anything about it.' On Kashmir, they kept repeating where is the evidence. Benazir Bhutto [Images] came, she asked for evidence. Nawaz Sharif came, he asked for evidence. I think Pervez Musharraf [Images] asked for less evidence. Now again, they are asking for evidence.
There is a terrorist in Mumbai, captured and arrested. How much more evidence do you want? If what he is saying is not evidence, then how can you get more evidence?
This government is in its 11th hour. Now they will bluff the people to protect their votes. There is no time left for them. The agony of departure will be hard from this government.
On the reaction in the West
The US and Britain have a vested interest in telling India to look within. Why? When Americans die then they can send their air force 7,000 miles and bomb every country to smithereens. But when Indians die, they tell us no, no, you must be patient. You must act like a swami and a yogi. Why? Is an American life more precious than an Indian life? Why should we keep listening to them? But we have a government that keeps listening to them all the time. We don't get tough.
The last time we got tough was after the attack on Parliament. We took some tough actions under Operation Parakram and then there was a certain lull. Three years ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was able to tell President George W Bush [Images] that there are no terrorists amongst Indian Muslims. That means that lull continued.
Pakistan must be made to realise that it will have to pay a heavy price. Not necessarily through war, but a heavy price will have to be paid in loss in trade, in cancellation of orders and other engagements. They should pay a heavy price in terms of people to people relations. I am not saying you can freeze a relationship to death, but the message must go out that if there is a crime there will be a penalty. You just can't get away with it.
Let the Pakistan government cooperate with us. But look at how the Pakistan government has buckled down and we are sitting here whimpering.
They want to send some lowly officers to India. For what? Even Pakistan is treating the Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi government with total contempt. They know how weak it is.
Delink Hindu-Muslim relations and Pakistan
Look, you must not confuse the Pakistan issue with the Indian Muslims issue. Their so-called alienation or their economic deprivation is not linked to the issue of Pakistan.
Indian Muslims have nothing to do with Pakistan. They have absolutely no sympathy for Pakistan. They know that Pakistan was the biggest mistake committed in the history of Indian Muslims. They know it. You can ask anyone in Baroda, Bihar or Mumbai. They know how they are suffering the backlash of all the consequences of cross-border terrorism.
Today, they fear retribution from the government, they fear retribution from popular disenchantment and anger. They feel helpless. They feel afraid.
We must understand finally that it is not so much the 'local people', it is the local underworld that is involved in anti-India activities. In 1993, who were involved in terrorism? The underworld. Why have you not done anything about it? The State turns a blind eye to the police and corruption. I don't know how many readers smoke hashish and other stuff, but I am accusing them of cross-border terrorism. Drugs come to India from Afghanistan via Karachi.
What we can do as individuals
If whoever is responsible for protecting the nation fails, then he or she should not be allowed to continue in power. That is the toughest and sharpest message we can give. You can tell that you may be a soft State, but we are a hard people and we are hard voters.
We are not going to forgive you for your lies and deception and for your waffling. How many blasts do we need to understand that? When Jaipur [Images], Ahmedabad [Images], Mumbai and Delhi [Images] happened no one who was genuinely guilty was caught.
We have to understand now that corruption has eaten away vitals of this nation. It is the biggest danger to the security of India. It is not just the case of some spectrum being sold to someone by some minister in. Everyone who is corrupt get out!
It Is a failure all around. We have to be extremely practical and pragmatic. There is great deal to be depressed about as an Indian. Frankly speaking, I feel very angry and upset. I am never upset by the behaviour of our enemies. I am only upset by the betrayal of those I trust.
M J Akbar, editor-in-chief, Covert magazine, spoke to Sheela Bhatt
Saturday, December 6, 2008
No place to hide
No place to hide
Will we allow mainstream Islam to turn into a moderate fringe, while extremists take centre-stage?
By Aijaz Zaka Syed
December 01, 2008
Watching the terror nightmare unfold in Mumbai over the past three days on TV, my children have repeatedly asked me: “Who are these terrorists and why are they doing this?” And every time I wished I could offer them a convincing answer. I was clueless why these people had taken over Mumbai and were targeting people who had nothing to do with them. I was also ashamed to tell them that the terrorists were Muslims and came from a country that was created in the name of Islam.
At work, while my colleagues went about covering the madness in Mumbai and laying out pages with the images of the Taj Hotel with its Islamic arches and domes go up in smoke, I find it hard to look at them in the eye.
This happens all the time. Every time innocents are targeted in the name of Islam around the world, one can’t face one’s non-Muslim friends and colleagues. A distraught friend who has devoted her life to speaking and fighting on behalf of Arabs and Muslims wrote: “I’ve had it with the Arabs and Muslims and Islamic militancy. Forgive me but I am throwing in the towel.” I couldn’t write back to her. She grew up in Mumbai and is upset. She went on to say: “The Muslims and Islam have a problem and only they can solve it. If they do not, the whole world will turn against them.”
If this is how our most loyal friends feel, imagine the sentiments and reactions of the rest of the world. Can you blame the world if it’s turning against Muslims? What do you expect when not a day passes without the name of our faith being dragged through the mud by fellow believers around the world?
I know that Muslim leaders, including those in the highest echelons of power, have lately started speaking out against the extremists. The Darul Uloom Deoband in India, one of the oldest and most respected centres of learning in the Muslim world, issued a fatwa against terrorism at a large gathering of Islamic scholars in June. Last month, nearly 5,000 scholars backed the edict at a huge congregation in Hyderabad. The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), and Saudi Arabia have, of late, been vehement in condemning these repulsive acts of violence targeting innocents. But clearly, we need to do more to be heard.
The great irony of the Mumbai attacks is the killing of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, a brave officer trying to establish the link between Hindu extremists and the Malegaon blasts. He was killed outside the Cama hospital on Wednesday night. Obviously, some Muslims do not know their friends from their enemies.
It’s all very well for us to say Islam has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism. We can go on deluding ourselves that these psychopaths do not represent us. However, the world finds it hard to accept this line of argument as it sees the extremists increasingly assert themselves and take the centre-stage while mainstream Islam turns into a moderate fringe.
Aijaz Syed is Opinion Editor, Khaleej Times
Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=ca0ddccc-f725-4957-91c7-5ba0f568b371
Will we allow mainstream Islam to turn into a moderate fringe, while extremists take centre-stage?
By Aijaz Zaka Syed
December 01, 2008
Watching the terror nightmare unfold in Mumbai over the past three days on TV, my children have repeatedly asked me: “Who are these terrorists and why are they doing this?” And every time I wished I could offer them a convincing answer. I was clueless why these people had taken over Mumbai and were targeting people who had nothing to do with them. I was also ashamed to tell them that the terrorists were Muslims and came from a country that was created in the name of Islam.
At work, while my colleagues went about covering the madness in Mumbai and laying out pages with the images of the Taj Hotel with its Islamic arches and domes go up in smoke, I find it hard to look at them in the eye.
This happens all the time. Every time innocents are targeted in the name of Islam around the world, one can’t face one’s non-Muslim friends and colleagues. A distraught friend who has devoted her life to speaking and fighting on behalf of Arabs and Muslims wrote: “I’ve had it with the Arabs and Muslims and Islamic militancy. Forgive me but I am throwing in the towel.” I couldn’t write back to her. She grew up in Mumbai and is upset. She went on to say: “The Muslims and Islam have a problem and only they can solve it. If they do not, the whole world will turn against them.”
If this is how our most loyal friends feel, imagine the sentiments and reactions of the rest of the world. Can you blame the world if it’s turning against Muslims? What do you expect when not a day passes without the name of our faith being dragged through the mud by fellow believers around the world?
I know that Muslim leaders, including those in the highest echelons of power, have lately started speaking out against the extremists. The Darul Uloom Deoband in India, one of the oldest and most respected centres of learning in the Muslim world, issued a fatwa against terrorism at a large gathering of Islamic scholars in June. Last month, nearly 5,000 scholars backed the edict at a huge congregation in Hyderabad. The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), and Saudi Arabia have, of late, been vehement in condemning these repulsive acts of violence targeting innocents. But clearly, we need to do more to be heard.
The great irony of the Mumbai attacks is the killing of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, a brave officer trying to establish the link between Hindu extremists and the Malegaon blasts. He was killed outside the Cama hospital on Wednesday night. Obviously, some Muslims do not know their friends from their enemies.
It’s all very well for us to say Islam has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism. We can go on deluding ourselves that these psychopaths do not represent us. However, the world finds it hard to accept this line of argument as it sees the extremists increasingly assert themselves and take the centre-stage while mainstream Islam turns into a moderate fringe.
Aijaz Syed is Opinion Editor, Khaleej Times
Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=ca0ddccc-f725-4957-91c7-5ba0f568b371
Pakistanis, leave us alone!
Pakistanis, You left us in 1947, Now leave us alone!
By A.M.Jamsheed Bahsa
The Mumbai terror attack has no doubt shocked the nation. It was an attack on Mumbai, an attack on India. It is a matter of concern for all of us Indians. But the community that has to be concerned most is that of the Muslims of India, because those who came and attacked the financial capital on the fateful day of 26/11 were bearing Muslim names and had come from the so-called Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
It is a different thing that the Muslims would disown them as practising Muslims, for they were sporting guns and ammunition and above all they were wining and dining, and who knows, womanising, something not expected from hard-core religious elements. To a common man they were just Muslim mercenaries on a mission to cause maximum damage as per the directions of their mentors sitting across the border. They did exactly that and vanished from this world, a fate they deserved most. Then what next? Pakistanis may try to put a brave face but they cannot deny that these evil men were their countrymen, born, brought up and trained by a terrorist organisation in their country for this day.
The Indian Muslims, particularly our Urdu Press should behave responsibly. It is no time for a blame game. It is no time for concoction of a theory of conspiracy alleging complicity of the saffron brigade. It may be best left to the investigating agencies to unravel the real players behind this sordid drama. The whole of India and every Indian is angry. Not for the loss of life and destruction caused alone, but for the attitude of the politicians and helplessness of the government of the day. The people’s ire would be shown elsewhere in the next ballot, but the mood is one of action, a firm action, a decisive message that should go across the borders and the steps that should be taken to secure the nation and insulate it from future attacks. Yesterday it was through land, today it was through sea and who knows tomorrow it may be through air. All these vulnerable places have to be protected and secured for we should allow no incursions into our land from any side. These steps are vital for the future of this country. The prime concern of the citizen today is how safe and secure we are in our own country. This is the general feeling and mood of the countrymen.
Like me, many such Indian Muslims are equally angry and frustrated and unable to understand why disaster after disaster is staring at them all the time. What’s wrong with our community and why are we in such a position of feeling like strangers and alien in our own land. We have been living here for centuries and also after we were ditched by the greatest villain of the century, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Company, who partitioned India in the name of two-nation theory. Don't the Muslims of today feel angry at them for they were responsible for our present state of affairs? They left us, and still they are not leaving us alone to deal with our problems ourselves. Who are they to interfere in our internal matters? Muslims should come out in open and tell the people of Pakistan or any element fighting in the name of Islam to keep off from our problems and mind their own business.
Govt of India did the right thing in issuing a demarche, a strongly worded message to Pakistan, to do something tangible to wipe out the remnants of terror outfits from their soil and hand over all those listed wanted criminals that are enjoying the hospitality of the Pakistani people at the cost of Indians, including the infamous Don Dawood Ibrahim, the kingpin of 1993 Bombay Blasts and whose complicity in 26/11 terror attack can also not be ruled out. President Zardari, came on his knees virtually pleading with India to spare Pakistan and not to punish her as retaliation for the act of a few disgruntled elements. The same voice of concern and anguish came from Premier Gilani and his Foreign Minister recently touring Indian. Mere words would not do, Mr. Zardari and Company, show it in action and deeds alone would gain confidence of the people of India.
Indians demands firm action in one voice and would not tolerate any more attacks on them. Muslims of India are solidly behind the Government and the people of this great country. It is said wise men do not do desperate things in desperate times. It would be wise for Indians to act with restraint. This is the call from across the globe as like us the enemy across the borders too is armed with nuclear arsenals. Any emotive action at this stage would not be acceptable to the world at large either. The world is not prepared to go through a nuclear holocaust. It calls for sober thinking and actions. Pakistan was told in strongest terms that it should act and cooperate with India to solve the terror plot besides curbing the activities of the terror groups that are freely moving in the country. The same sentiments were echoed by US Secretary of State, Condolisa Rice, who is travelling to India shortly, specifically to offer us American support.
It is incumbent on the Muslim intelligentsia and the Urdu Press in particular that they do not inflame passions in any way. Instead, they should send a clear cut message to all the Muslims that India is our country, where we have to live and die. We are Indians and Muslims and there is no distinction between these two. Our prosperity and well being lie here and nowhere else. If we have any problems or grievances, it is for us to try to resolve them in a democratic manner. No one from outside need interfere. We the Muslims of India constitute the biggest Muslim population of the world after Indonesia. Though we are leaderless for the time being , we are resilient enough to sort out our own problems without outside interference as we have been doing in the last 61 years.
The Muslim Press whether it is Urdu Press or any other vernacular managed by Muslims, has a duty of guiding its people in this hour of crisis. Muslims are at a crossroad with no guide in sight. The educated Muslim class should rise up to spread the message of love, compassion and brotherhood. We need to reassure the nation. The bullet of the insane terrorists did not distinguish between Muslims and others. Among those who got killed were a fair number of innocent Muslims too, over 40 at the last count among the 179 dead according to the latest official figures. It was a pathetic description when a bearded Muslim was narrating the ghastly incident at a TV programme, "We, the People" telecast by 24x7 News channel, how six of his family members were brutally killed on the spot while he was away to fetch a water bottle. His voice was chocking, eyes welled up with tears, unable to describe how he would live along with the orphans. This tugged at the hearts of one and all participating in the debate. The silence in the hall was eerie and mood sombre. We could feel the mood of the participants in the debate. Those who were watching too could not control their emotions. Our eyes too welled up, some hid their faces with their hands, and a few were seen fighting their tears. One could immediately feel as if our own family members were killed there. Imagine how the family of 195 people who were killed would be feeling at the loss of their near and dear ones. Think again of the sacrifice made by our great son of India Karkare, ATS Chief, and five others of his team, who laid down their lives performing the sacred duty of this great nation. This was the tragedy that unfolded on 26/11. My heart goes out to all those families who are grieving over the loss of their dear ones.
Our nation is great and so are our people. The spirit is high and India will certainly bounce back. Mumbai's cosmopolitan spirit is springing back to normalcy, with business as usual. But the incident has left a deep scar on the psyche of the people. Let’s all allow our investigating team the time and peace to probe while people keep a tight vigil in their respective places. Till such time, do not lend ears to rumours. It is our ardent duty to guard our unity in diversity with life. Jai Hind.
A.M.Jamsheed Basha is a Chennai-based writer.
By A.M.Jamsheed Bahsa
The Mumbai terror attack has no doubt shocked the nation. It was an attack on Mumbai, an attack on India. It is a matter of concern for all of us Indians. But the community that has to be concerned most is that of the Muslims of India, because those who came and attacked the financial capital on the fateful day of 26/11 were bearing Muslim names and had come from the so-called Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
It is a different thing that the Muslims would disown them as practising Muslims, for they were sporting guns and ammunition and above all they were wining and dining, and who knows, womanising, something not expected from hard-core religious elements. To a common man they were just Muslim mercenaries on a mission to cause maximum damage as per the directions of their mentors sitting across the border. They did exactly that and vanished from this world, a fate they deserved most. Then what next? Pakistanis may try to put a brave face but they cannot deny that these evil men were their countrymen, born, brought up and trained by a terrorist organisation in their country for this day.
The Indian Muslims, particularly our Urdu Press should behave responsibly. It is no time for a blame game. It is no time for concoction of a theory of conspiracy alleging complicity of the saffron brigade. It may be best left to the investigating agencies to unravel the real players behind this sordid drama. The whole of India and every Indian is angry. Not for the loss of life and destruction caused alone, but for the attitude of the politicians and helplessness of the government of the day. The people’s ire would be shown elsewhere in the next ballot, but the mood is one of action, a firm action, a decisive message that should go across the borders and the steps that should be taken to secure the nation and insulate it from future attacks. Yesterday it was through land, today it was through sea and who knows tomorrow it may be through air. All these vulnerable places have to be protected and secured for we should allow no incursions into our land from any side. These steps are vital for the future of this country. The prime concern of the citizen today is how safe and secure we are in our own country. This is the general feeling and mood of the countrymen.
Like me, many such Indian Muslims are equally angry and frustrated and unable to understand why disaster after disaster is staring at them all the time. What’s wrong with our community and why are we in such a position of feeling like strangers and alien in our own land. We have been living here for centuries and also after we were ditched by the greatest villain of the century, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Company, who partitioned India in the name of two-nation theory. Don't the Muslims of today feel angry at them for they were responsible for our present state of affairs? They left us, and still they are not leaving us alone to deal with our problems ourselves. Who are they to interfere in our internal matters? Muslims should come out in open and tell the people of Pakistan or any element fighting in the name of Islam to keep off from our problems and mind their own business.
Govt of India did the right thing in issuing a demarche, a strongly worded message to Pakistan, to do something tangible to wipe out the remnants of terror outfits from their soil and hand over all those listed wanted criminals that are enjoying the hospitality of the Pakistani people at the cost of Indians, including the infamous Don Dawood Ibrahim, the kingpin of 1993 Bombay Blasts and whose complicity in 26/11 terror attack can also not be ruled out. President Zardari, came on his knees virtually pleading with India to spare Pakistan and not to punish her as retaliation for the act of a few disgruntled elements. The same voice of concern and anguish came from Premier Gilani and his Foreign Minister recently touring Indian. Mere words would not do, Mr. Zardari and Company, show it in action and deeds alone would gain confidence of the people of India.
Indians demands firm action in one voice and would not tolerate any more attacks on them. Muslims of India are solidly behind the Government and the people of this great country. It is said wise men do not do desperate things in desperate times. It would be wise for Indians to act with restraint. This is the call from across the globe as like us the enemy across the borders too is armed with nuclear arsenals. Any emotive action at this stage would not be acceptable to the world at large either. The world is not prepared to go through a nuclear holocaust. It calls for sober thinking and actions. Pakistan was told in strongest terms that it should act and cooperate with India to solve the terror plot besides curbing the activities of the terror groups that are freely moving in the country. The same sentiments were echoed by US Secretary of State, Condolisa Rice, who is travelling to India shortly, specifically to offer us American support.
It is incumbent on the Muslim intelligentsia and the Urdu Press in particular that they do not inflame passions in any way. Instead, they should send a clear cut message to all the Muslims that India is our country, where we have to live and die. We are Indians and Muslims and there is no distinction between these two. Our prosperity and well being lie here and nowhere else. If we have any problems or grievances, it is for us to try to resolve them in a democratic manner. No one from outside need interfere. We the Muslims of India constitute the biggest Muslim population of the world after Indonesia. Though we are leaderless for the time being , we are resilient enough to sort out our own problems without outside interference as we have been doing in the last 61 years.
The Muslim Press whether it is Urdu Press or any other vernacular managed by Muslims, has a duty of guiding its people in this hour of crisis. Muslims are at a crossroad with no guide in sight. The educated Muslim class should rise up to spread the message of love, compassion and brotherhood. We need to reassure the nation. The bullet of the insane terrorists did not distinguish between Muslims and others. Among those who got killed were a fair number of innocent Muslims too, over 40 at the last count among the 179 dead according to the latest official figures. It was a pathetic description when a bearded Muslim was narrating the ghastly incident at a TV programme, "We, the People" telecast by 24x7 News channel, how six of his family members were brutally killed on the spot while he was away to fetch a water bottle. His voice was chocking, eyes welled up with tears, unable to describe how he would live along with the orphans. This tugged at the hearts of one and all participating in the debate. The silence in the hall was eerie and mood sombre. We could feel the mood of the participants in the debate. Those who were watching too could not control their emotions. Our eyes too welled up, some hid their faces with their hands, and a few were seen fighting their tears. One could immediately feel as if our own family members were killed there. Imagine how the family of 195 people who were killed would be feeling at the loss of their near and dear ones. Think again of the sacrifice made by our great son of India Karkare, ATS Chief, and five others of his team, who laid down their lives performing the sacred duty of this great nation. This was the tragedy that unfolded on 26/11. My heart goes out to all those families who are grieving over the loss of their dear ones.
Our nation is great and so are our people. The spirit is high and India will certainly bounce back. Mumbai's cosmopolitan spirit is springing back to normalcy, with business as usual. But the incident has left a deep scar on the psyche of the people. Let’s all allow our investigating team the time and peace to probe while people keep a tight vigil in their respective places. Till such time, do not lend ears to rumours. It is our ardent duty to guard our unity in diversity with life. Jai Hind.
A.M.Jamsheed Basha is a Chennai-based writer.
India's Dangerous Divide
DECEMBER 6, 2008
India's Dangerous Divide
India's Muslims are prominent in Bollywood but still struggle with their identity. In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, tensions have mounted and loyalties have been tested. Ramachandra Guha on the path forward for India and its Muslim minority.
An Indian Muslim woman at a candlelight vigil in New Delhi on Dec. 3, in memory of the victims of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
In October 1947, a bare six weeks after India and Pakistan achieved their independence from British rule, the Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote a remarkable letter to the Chief Ministers of the different provinces. Here Nehru pointed out that despite the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim homeland, there remained, within India, "a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want, go anywhere else. That is a basic fact about which there can be no argument. Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilized manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic State."
In the wake of the recent incidents in Mumbai, these words make salutary reading. It seems quite certain that the terrorists who attacked the financial capital were trained in Pakistan. The outrages have sparked a wave of indignation among the middle class. Demonstrations have been held in the major cities, calling for revenge, in particular for strikes against training camps in Pakistan. The models held up here are Israel and the United States; if they can "take out" individual terrorists and invade whole countries, ask some Indians, why not we?
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A bullet hole in the window of a restaurant at Victoria Terminus station in Mumbai, one of several locations targeted in the terrorist attacks.
Other commentators have called for a more measured response. They note that the civilian government in Islamabad is not in control of the army, the army not in control of the notorious Inter Services Intelligence agency, the ISI not in control of the extremists it has funded. They point out that Pakistan has itself been a victim of massive terror attacks. India, they say, should make its disapproval manifest in other ways, such as canceling sporting tours and recalling diplomats. At the same time, the United States should be asked to demand of Pakistan, its erratically reliable ally, that it act more decisively against the terrorists who operate from its soil.
One short-term consequence of the terror in Mumbai is a sharpening of hostility between India and Pakistan. And, as is always the case when relations between these two countries deteriorate, right-wing Hindus have begun to scapegoat those Muslims who live in India. They have begun to speculate as to whether the attackers were aided by their Indian co-religionists, and to demand oaths of loyalty from Muslim clerics and political leaders.
There are 150 million Muslims in India. They have gained particular prominence in one area: Bollywood. Several top directors and composers are Muslim, as well as some of India's biggest movie stars. One, Aamir Khan, was a star and producer in "Lagaan," a song-and-dance epic about a game of cricket that was nominated for an Academy Award in 2002. But Muslims are massively underrepresented in the professions -- few of India's top lawyers, judges, doctors and professors are Muslim. Many Indian Muslims are poor, and a few are angry.
Pakistan was carved out of the eastern and western portions of British India. To this new nation flocked Muslims from the Indian heartland. Leading the migration were the lawyers, teachers and entrepreneurs who hoped that in a state reserved for people of their faith, they would be free of competition from the more populous (and better educated) Hindus.
Bettmann/CORBIS
Mohandas K. Gandhi, who advocated for Indian independence and religious unity, was assassinated by a Hindu extremist two weeks after this photo was taken on Jan. 17, 1948.
Pakistan was created to give a sense of security to the Muslims of the sub-continent. In fact, it only made them more insecure. Nehru's letter of October 1947 was written in response to a surge of Hindu militancy, which called for retribution against the millions of Muslims who stayed behind in India. Three months later, Mahatma Gandhi, who was both Father of the Indian Nation as well as Nehru's mentor, was shot dead by a Hindu fanatic. That act shamed the religious right, who retreated into the shadows. There they stayed until the 1970s, when, through a combination of factors elaborated upon below, they came to occupy center-stage in Indian politics.
If the first tragedy of the Indian Muslim was Partition, the second has been the patronage by India's most influential political party, the Congress, of Muslims who are religious and reactionary rather than liberal and secular. Nehru himself was careful to keep his distance from sectarian leaders whether Hindu or Muslim. However, under the leadership of his daughter, Indira Gandhi, the Congress party came to favor the conservative sections of the Muslim community. Before elections, Congress bosses asked heads of mosques to issue fatwas to their flock to vote for the party; after elections, the party increased government grants to religious schools and colleges. In a defining case in 1985, the Supreme Court called for the enactment of a common civil code, which would abolish polygamy and give all women equal rights regardless of faith -- the right to their husband's or father's property, for example, or the right to proper alimony once divorced. The prime minister at the time was Rajiv Gandhi. Acting on the advice of the Muslim clergy, he used his party's majority in Parliament to nullify the court's verdict. After Rajiv's widow, Sonia Gandhi, became Congress president in 1998, the party has continued to fund Muslim religious institutions rather than encourage them to engage with the modern world.
Partition and Congress patronage between them dealt a body blow to Muslim liberalism. The first deprived the community of a professional vanguard; the second consolidated the claims to leadership of priests and theologians. In an essay published in the late 1960s, the Marathi writer Hamid Dalwai (a resident of Mumbai) wrote of his community that "the Muslims today are culturally backward." To be brought "on a level with the Hindus," argued Dalwai, the Muslims needed an "avant garde liberal elite to lead them." Otherwise, the consequences were dire for both communities. For "unless a Muslim liberal intellectual class emerges, Indian Muslims will continue to cling to obscurantist medievalism, communalism, and will eventually perish both socially and culturally. A worse possibility is that of Hindu revivalism destroying even Hindu liberalism, for the latter can succeed only with the support of Muslim liberals who would modernize Muslims and try to impress upon these secular democratic ideals."
The possibility that Dalwai feared has come to pass. From the 1980s, the dominance of the Congress party has been challenged by the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP seeks to make India a "Hindu" nation, by basing the nation's political culture on the religious traditions (and prejudices) of the dominant community. Charging the Congress with "minority appeasement," with corruption and with dynastic rule, the BJP came to power in many states, and eventually in New Delhi. However, its commitment to the secular ideals of the Indian Constitution is somewhat uncertain. For the party's members and fellow travelers, only Indians of the Hindu faith are to be considered full or first-class citizens. Of the others, the Parsis are to be tolerated, the Christians distrusted, and the Muslims detested. One form this detestation takes is verbal -- the circulation of innuendos based on lies and half-truths (as in the claim that Muslims outbreed Hindus and will soon outnumber them). Another form is physical -- thus, the hand of the BJP lies behind some of the worst communal riots in independent India, for example Bhagalpur in 1989, Mumbai in 1992, and Gujarat in 2002; in all cases, an overwhelming majority of the victims were Muslims.
The rise of the BJP owes something to the failures of the Congress, and something also to the example of Pakistan. As that society has come increasingly under the influence of Islamic fundamentalists, there is a more ready audience, within India, for the rants and raves of Hindu extremists. Likewise, the expulsion, by jihadis trained in Pakistan, of some 200,000 Hindus from the valley of Kashmir in a single year -- 1989-1990 -- has been used to justify attacks on Muslims in other parts of India. But to explain is not to excuse -- for the BJP has stoked feelings and passions that should have no place in a civilized society.
In its activities BJP is helped by a series of allied groups. Known also by their abbreviations -- RSS, VHP, etc. -- these were in the forefront of the religious violence of the 1980s and beyond. Roaming the streets of small- (and big-) town India, they addressed their Muslim prey with the slogan "Pakistan or Kabristan!" (Flee to Pakistan, or we will send you straight to your graves). Meanwhile, their ideologues in the press -- some with degrees from the best British universities -- make the argument that Muslims are inherently violent, or unpatriotic, or both.
In fact, the ordinary Muslim is much like any other ordinary Indian -- honest, hard-working and just about scraping a living. A day after I heard a BJP leader denounce the Congress for making the Muslims into a "pampered and privileged minority," I found myself making a turn into the busiest road in my home town, Bangalore. Just ahead of me was a Muslim gentleman, who was attempting to do likewise. Except that he was making the turn not behind the wheel of a powerful Korean-made car but with a hand-cart on which were piled some bananas.
That the fruit seller was Muslim was made clear by his headgear, a white cap with perforations. He was an elderly man, about 60, short and slightly-built. The turn was made hard by his age and infirmity, and harder by the fact that the road sloped steeply downward, and by the further fact that making the turn with him were very many motor vehicles. Had he gone too slow he would have been bunched in against the cars; had he gone too fast he might have lost control altogether. Placed right behind the fruit seller, I saw him visibly relax his shoulders as the turn was successfully made, with cart and bananas both intact.
One should not read too much into a single image, but it does seem to be that that perilous turn was symptomatic of an entire life -- a life lived at the edge of subsistence, a life taken one day at a time and from one turn to the next. In this respect the fruit seller was quite representative of Indian Muslims in general. Far from being pampered or privileged, most Muslims are poor farmers, laborers, artisans and traders.
The failure to punish the perpetrators of successive pogroms has thrown some young men into the arms of fundamentalist groups. But the number is not, as yet, very large. And it is counterbalanced by other trends, for instance, the growing hunger for modern education among the youth. The desire to learn English is ubiquitous, as is the fascination for computers. Even in the disgruntled valley of Kashmir, a press survey found that the iconic founder of India's most respected software company, Infosys Technologies, a Hindu named N. R. Narayana Murthy, was a greater hero among Muslim students than the founder of Al Qaeda.
Since the reasons for the poverty (and the anger) are so complex, a successful compact between Indian Muslims and modernity will require patient and many-sided work. It would help if the Pakistan center was to reassert itself against the extremism it has itself, in past times, encouraged. It would help some more, if, pace Hamid Dalwai, there was a more forthright assertion of Muslim liberalism within India. But perhaps the greatest burden falls on India's major political parties. The Congress must actively promote the modernization of Muslim society. And the BJP must recognize, in word and in deed, that the 150 million Muslims in India have to be dealt with in a civilized manner, and given the security and the rights due them as equal citizens in a democratic and non-denominational State.
Writing in 1957, the historian Wilfred Cantwell Smith pointed out that Indian Muslims were unique in that they shared their citizenship "with an immense number of people. They constitute the only sizable body of Muslims in the world of which this is, or ever has been true." True no longer, for in many countries of Western Europe and even in the United States, the Muslims are now a sizeable but not dominant component of the national population. This makes this particular case even more special. For if, notwithstanding the poisonous residues of history and the competitive chauvinisms of politicians, Indians of different faiths were to live in peace, dignity and (even a moderate) prosperity, they might set an example for the world.
Ramachandra Guha is the author of 'India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy.' He lives in Bangalore.
India's Dangerous Divide
India's Muslims are prominent in Bollywood but still struggle with their identity. In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, tensions have mounted and loyalties have been tested. Ramachandra Guha on the path forward for India and its Muslim minority.
An Indian Muslim woman at a candlelight vigil in New Delhi on Dec. 3, in memory of the victims of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.In October 1947, a bare six weeks after India and Pakistan achieved their independence from British rule, the Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote a remarkable letter to the Chief Ministers of the different provinces. Here Nehru pointed out that despite the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim homeland, there remained, within India, "a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want, go anywhere else. That is a basic fact about which there can be no argument. Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilized manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic State."
In the wake of the recent incidents in Mumbai, these words make salutary reading. It seems quite certain that the terrorists who attacked the financial capital were trained in Pakistan. The outrages have sparked a wave of indignation among the middle class. Demonstrations have been held in the major cities, calling for revenge, in particular for strikes against training camps in Pakistan. The models held up here are Israel and the United States; if they can "take out" individual terrorists and invade whole countries, ask some Indians, why not we?
View Full Image
Getty Images
A bullet hole in the window of a restaurant at Victoria Terminus station in Mumbai, one of several locations targeted in the terrorist attacks.
Other commentators have called for a more measured response. They note that the civilian government in Islamabad is not in control of the army, the army not in control of the notorious Inter Services Intelligence agency, the ISI not in control of the extremists it has funded. They point out that Pakistan has itself been a victim of massive terror attacks. India, they say, should make its disapproval manifest in other ways, such as canceling sporting tours and recalling diplomats. At the same time, the United States should be asked to demand of Pakistan, its erratically reliable ally, that it act more decisively against the terrorists who operate from its soil.
One short-term consequence of the terror in Mumbai is a sharpening of hostility between India and Pakistan. And, as is always the case when relations between these two countries deteriorate, right-wing Hindus have begun to scapegoat those Muslims who live in India. They have begun to speculate as to whether the attackers were aided by their Indian co-religionists, and to demand oaths of loyalty from Muslim clerics and political leaders.
There are 150 million Muslims in India. They have gained particular prominence in one area: Bollywood. Several top directors and composers are Muslim, as well as some of India's biggest movie stars. One, Aamir Khan, was a star and producer in "Lagaan," a song-and-dance epic about a game of cricket that was nominated for an Academy Award in 2002. But Muslims are massively underrepresented in the professions -- few of India's top lawyers, judges, doctors and professors are Muslim. Many Indian Muslims are poor, and a few are angry.
Pakistan was carved out of the eastern and western portions of British India. To this new nation flocked Muslims from the Indian heartland. Leading the migration were the lawyers, teachers and entrepreneurs who hoped that in a state reserved for people of their faith, they would be free of competition from the more populous (and better educated) Hindus.
Bettmann/CORBIS
Mohandas K. Gandhi, who advocated for Indian independence and religious unity, was assassinated by a Hindu extremist two weeks after this photo was taken on Jan. 17, 1948.
Pakistan was created to give a sense of security to the Muslims of the sub-continent. In fact, it only made them more insecure. Nehru's letter of October 1947 was written in response to a surge of Hindu militancy, which called for retribution against the millions of Muslims who stayed behind in India. Three months later, Mahatma Gandhi, who was both Father of the Indian Nation as well as Nehru's mentor, was shot dead by a Hindu fanatic. That act shamed the religious right, who retreated into the shadows. There they stayed until the 1970s, when, through a combination of factors elaborated upon below, they came to occupy center-stage in Indian politics.
If the first tragedy of the Indian Muslim was Partition, the second has been the patronage by India's most influential political party, the Congress, of Muslims who are religious and reactionary rather than liberal and secular. Nehru himself was careful to keep his distance from sectarian leaders whether Hindu or Muslim. However, under the leadership of his daughter, Indira Gandhi, the Congress party came to favor the conservative sections of the Muslim community. Before elections, Congress bosses asked heads of mosques to issue fatwas to their flock to vote for the party; after elections, the party increased government grants to religious schools and colleges. In a defining case in 1985, the Supreme Court called for the enactment of a common civil code, which would abolish polygamy and give all women equal rights regardless of faith -- the right to their husband's or father's property, for example, or the right to proper alimony once divorced. The prime minister at the time was Rajiv Gandhi. Acting on the advice of the Muslim clergy, he used his party's majority in Parliament to nullify the court's verdict. After Rajiv's widow, Sonia Gandhi, became Congress president in 1998, the party has continued to fund Muslim religious institutions rather than encourage them to engage with the modern world.
Partition and Congress patronage between them dealt a body blow to Muslim liberalism. The first deprived the community of a professional vanguard; the second consolidated the claims to leadership of priests and theologians. In an essay published in the late 1960s, the Marathi writer Hamid Dalwai (a resident of Mumbai) wrote of his community that "the Muslims today are culturally backward." To be brought "on a level with the Hindus," argued Dalwai, the Muslims needed an "avant garde liberal elite to lead them." Otherwise, the consequences were dire for both communities. For "unless a Muslim liberal intellectual class emerges, Indian Muslims will continue to cling to obscurantist medievalism, communalism, and will eventually perish both socially and culturally. A worse possibility is that of Hindu revivalism destroying even Hindu liberalism, for the latter can succeed only with the support of Muslim liberals who would modernize Muslims and try to impress upon these secular democratic ideals."
The possibility that Dalwai feared has come to pass. From the 1980s, the dominance of the Congress party has been challenged by the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP seeks to make India a "Hindu" nation, by basing the nation's political culture on the religious traditions (and prejudices) of the dominant community. Charging the Congress with "minority appeasement," with corruption and with dynastic rule, the BJP came to power in many states, and eventually in New Delhi. However, its commitment to the secular ideals of the Indian Constitution is somewhat uncertain. For the party's members and fellow travelers, only Indians of the Hindu faith are to be considered full or first-class citizens. Of the others, the Parsis are to be tolerated, the Christians distrusted, and the Muslims detested. One form this detestation takes is verbal -- the circulation of innuendos based on lies and half-truths (as in the claim that Muslims outbreed Hindus and will soon outnumber them). Another form is physical -- thus, the hand of the BJP lies behind some of the worst communal riots in independent India, for example Bhagalpur in 1989, Mumbai in 1992, and Gujarat in 2002; in all cases, an overwhelming majority of the victims were Muslims.
The rise of the BJP owes something to the failures of the Congress, and something also to the example of Pakistan. As that society has come increasingly under the influence of Islamic fundamentalists, there is a more ready audience, within India, for the rants and raves of Hindu extremists. Likewise, the expulsion, by jihadis trained in Pakistan, of some 200,000 Hindus from the valley of Kashmir in a single year -- 1989-1990 -- has been used to justify attacks on Muslims in other parts of India. But to explain is not to excuse -- for the BJP has stoked feelings and passions that should have no place in a civilized society.
In its activities BJP is helped by a series of allied groups. Known also by their abbreviations -- RSS, VHP, etc. -- these were in the forefront of the religious violence of the 1980s and beyond. Roaming the streets of small- (and big-) town India, they addressed their Muslim prey with the slogan "Pakistan or Kabristan!" (Flee to Pakistan, or we will send you straight to your graves). Meanwhile, their ideologues in the press -- some with degrees from the best British universities -- make the argument that Muslims are inherently violent, or unpatriotic, or both.
In fact, the ordinary Muslim is much like any other ordinary Indian -- honest, hard-working and just about scraping a living. A day after I heard a BJP leader denounce the Congress for making the Muslims into a "pampered and privileged minority," I found myself making a turn into the busiest road in my home town, Bangalore. Just ahead of me was a Muslim gentleman, who was attempting to do likewise. Except that he was making the turn not behind the wheel of a powerful Korean-made car but with a hand-cart on which were piled some bananas.
That the fruit seller was Muslim was made clear by his headgear, a white cap with perforations. He was an elderly man, about 60, short and slightly-built. The turn was made hard by his age and infirmity, and harder by the fact that the road sloped steeply downward, and by the further fact that making the turn with him were very many motor vehicles. Had he gone too slow he would have been bunched in against the cars; had he gone too fast he might have lost control altogether. Placed right behind the fruit seller, I saw him visibly relax his shoulders as the turn was successfully made, with cart and bananas both intact.
One should not read too much into a single image, but it does seem to be that that perilous turn was symptomatic of an entire life -- a life lived at the edge of subsistence, a life taken one day at a time and from one turn to the next. In this respect the fruit seller was quite representative of Indian Muslims in general. Far from being pampered or privileged, most Muslims are poor farmers, laborers, artisans and traders.
The failure to punish the perpetrators of successive pogroms has thrown some young men into the arms of fundamentalist groups. But the number is not, as yet, very large. And it is counterbalanced by other trends, for instance, the growing hunger for modern education among the youth. The desire to learn English is ubiquitous, as is the fascination for computers. Even in the disgruntled valley of Kashmir, a press survey found that the iconic founder of India's most respected software company, Infosys Technologies, a Hindu named N. R. Narayana Murthy, was a greater hero among Muslim students than the founder of Al Qaeda.
Since the reasons for the poverty (and the anger) are so complex, a successful compact between Indian Muslims and modernity will require patient and many-sided work. It would help if the Pakistan center was to reassert itself against the extremism it has itself, in past times, encouraged. It would help some more, if, pace Hamid Dalwai, there was a more forthright assertion of Muslim liberalism within India. But perhaps the greatest burden falls on India's major political parties. The Congress must actively promote the modernization of Muslim society. And the BJP must recognize, in word and in deed, that the 150 million Muslims in India have to be dealt with in a civilized manner, and given the security and the rights due them as equal citizens in a democratic and non-denominational State.
Writing in 1957, the historian Wilfred Cantwell Smith pointed out that Indian Muslims were unique in that they shared their citizenship "with an immense number of people. They constitute the only sizable body of Muslims in the world of which this is, or ever has been true." True no longer, for in many countries of Western Europe and even in the United States, the Muslims are now a sizeable but not dominant component of the national population. This makes this particular case even more special. For if, notwithstanding the poisonous residues of history and the competitive chauvinisms of politicians, Indians of different faiths were to live in peace, dignity and (even a moderate) prosperity, they might set an example for the world.
Ramachandra Guha is the author of 'India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy.' He lives in Bangalore.
Mumbai - Elite Ironies
Death Of A Salesman And Other Elite IroniesTARUN J TEJPAL
ROHINTON MALOO was shot doing two things he enjoyed immensely. Eating good food and tossing new ideas. He was among the 13 diners at the Kandahar, Trident-Oberoi, who were marched out onto the service staircase, ostensibly as hostages. But the killers had nothing to bargain for. The answers to the big questions — Babri Masjid, Gujarat, Muslim persecution — were beyond the power of anyone to deliver neatly to the hotel lobby. The small ones — of money and materialism — their crazed indoctrination had already taken them well beyond. With the final banality of all fanaticism, flaunting the paradox of modern technology and medieval fervour — AK-47 in one hand; mobile phone in the other — the killers asked their minders, “Udan dein?” The minder, probably a maintainer of cold statistics, said, “Uda do.”
Photo: AP
Rohinton caught seven bullets, and by the time his body was recovered, it could only be identified by the ring on his finger. Rohinton was just 48, with two teenage children, and a hundred plans.
A few of these had to do with TEHELKA, where he was a strategic advisor for the last two years. As Indians, we seldom have a good word to say about the living, but in the dead we discover virtues that strain the imagination. Perhaps it has to do with a strange mix of driving envy and blinding piety. Let me just say Rohinton was charismatic, ambitious, and a man of his time, and place. The time was always now, and in his outstanding career in media marketing, he was ever at the cutting edge of the new — in the creation of Star Networks, and a score of ventures on the web. The place was always Mumbai, the city he grew up in and lived in, and he exemplified its attitudes: the hedonism, the get-go, the easy pluralism.
For me there is a deep irony in his death. He was killed by what he set very little store by. In his every meeting with us, he was bemused and baffled by TEHELKA’s obsessive engagement with politics. He was quite sure no one of his class — our class — was interested in the subject. Politics happened elsewhere, a regrettable business carried out by unsavoury characters. Mostly, it had nothing to do with our lives. Eventually, sitting through our political ranting, he came to grudgingly accept we may have some kind of a case. But he remained unconvinced of its commercial viability. Our kind of readers were interested in other things, which were germane to their lives — food, films, cricket, fashion, gizmos, television, health and the strategies of seduction. Politics, at best, was something they endured.
In the end, politics killed Rohinton, and a few hundred other innocents. In the final count, politics, every single day, is killing, impoverishing, starving, denigrating, millions of Indians all across the country. If the backdrop were not so heartbreaking, the spectacle of the nation’s elite — the keepers of most of our wealth and privilege — frothing on television screens and screaming through mobile phones would be amusing. They have been outraged because the enduring tragedy of India has suddenly arrived in their marbled precincts. The Taj, the Oberoi. We dine here. We sleep here. Is nothing sacrosanct in this country any more?
Photo: REUTERS
What the Indian elite is discovering today on the debris of fancy eateries is an acidic truth large numbers of ordinary Indians are forced to swallow every day. Children who die of malnutrition, farmers who commit suicide, dalits who are raped and massacred, tribals who are turfed out of centuryold habitats, peasants whose lands are taken over for car factories, minorities who are bludgeoned into paranoia — these, and many others, know that something is grossly wrong. The system does not work, the system is cruel, the system is unjust, the system exists to only serve those who run it. Crucially, what we, the elite, need to understand is that most of us are complicit in the system. In fact, chances are the more we have — of privilege and money — the more invested we are in the shoring up of an unfair state.
IT IS time each one of us understood that at the heart of every society is its politics. If the politics is third-rate, the condition of the society will be no better. For too many decades now, the elite of India has washed its hands off the country’s politics. Entire generations have grown up viewing it as a distasteful activity. In an astonishing perversion, the finest imaginative act of the last thousand years on the subcontinent, the creation and flowering of the idea of modern India through mass politics, has for the last 40 years been rendered infra dig, déclassé, uncool. Let us blame our parents, and let our children blame us, for not bequeathing onwards the sheer beauty of a collective vision, collective will, and collective action. In a word, politics: which, at its best, created the wonder of a liberal and democratic idea, and at its worst threatens to tear it down.
We stand faulted then in two ways. For turning our back on the collective endeavour; and for our passive embrace of the status quo. This is in equal parts due to selfish instinct and to shallow thinking. Since shining India is basically only about us getting an even greater share of the pie, we have been happy to buy its half-truths, and look away from the rest of the sordid story. Like all elites, historically, that have presided over the decline of their societies, we focus too much of our energy on acquiring and consuming, and too little on thinking and decoding. Egged on by a helium media, we exhaust ourselves through paroxysms over vacant celebrities and trivia, quite happy not to see what might cause us discomfort.
For years, it has been evident that we are a society being systematically hollowed out by inequality, corruption, bigotry and lack of justice. The planks of public discourse have increasingly been divisive, widening the faultlines of caste, language, religion, class, community and region. As the elite of the most complex society in the world, we have failed to see that we are ratcheted into an intricate framework, full of causal links, where one wrong word begets another, one horrific event leads to another. Where one man’s misery will eventually trigger another’s.
Let’s track one causal chain. The Congress creates Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to neutralise the Akalis; Bhindranwale creates terrorism; Indira Gandhi moves against terrorism; terrorism assassinates Indira Gandhi; blameless Sikhs are slaughtered in Delhi; in the course of a decade, numberless innocents, militants, and securitymen die. Let’s track another. The BJP takes out an inflammatory rath yatra; inflamed kar sewaks pull down the Babri Masjid; riots ensue; vengeful Muslims trigger Mumbai blasts; 10 years later a bogey of kar sewaks is burnt in Gujarat; in the next week 2,000 Muslims are slaughtered; six years later retaliatory violence continues. Let’s track one more. In the early 1940s, in the midst of the freedom movement, patrician Muslims demand a separate homeland; Mahatma Gandhi opposes it; the British support it; Partition ensues; a million people are slaughtered; four wars follow; two countries drain each other through rhetoric and poison; nuclear arsenals are built; hotels in Mumbai are attacked.
IN EACH of these rough causal chains, there is one thing in common. Their origin in the decisions of the elite. Interlaced with numberless lines of potential divisiveness, the India framework is highly delicate and complicated. It is critical for the elite to understand the framework, and its role in it. The elite has its hands on the levers of capital, influence and privilege. It can fix the framework. It has much to give, and it must give generously. The mass, with nothing in its hands, nothing to give, can out of frustration and anger, only pull it all down. And when the volcano blows, rich and poor burn alike.
And so what should we be doing? Well, screaming at politicians is certainly not political engagement. And airy socialites demanding the carpet-bombing of Pakistan and the boycott of taxes are plain absurd, just another neon sign advertising shallow thought. It’s the kind of dumb public theatre the media ought to deftly side-step rather than showcase. The world is already over-shrill with animus: we need to tone it down, not add to it. Pakistan is itself badly damaged by the flawed politics at its heart. It needs help, not bombing.. Just remember, when hardboiled bureaucrats clench their teeth, little children die.
Most of the shouting of the last few days is little more than personal catharsis through public venting. The fact is the politician has been doing what we have been doing, and as an über Indian he has been doing it much better. Watching out for himself, cornering maximum resource, and turning away from the challenge of the greater good.
The first thing we need to do is to square up to the truth. Acknow ledge the fact that we have made a fair shambles of the project of nation-building. Fifty million Indians doing well does not for a great India make, given that 500 million are grovelling to survive. Sixty years after independence, it can safely be said that India’s political leadership — and the nation’s elite — have badly let down the country’s dispossessed and wretched. If you care to look, India today is heartbreak hotel, where infants die like flies, and equal opportunity is a cruel mirage.
Let’s be clear we are not in a crisis because the Taj hotel was gutted. We are in a crisis because six years after 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered in Gujarat there is still no sign of justice. This is the second thing the elite need to understand — after the obscenity of gross inequality. The plinth of every society — since the beginning of Man — has been set on the notion of justice. You cannot light candles for just those of your class and creed. You have to strike a blow for every wronged citizen.
And let no one tell us we need more laws. We need men to implement those that we have. Today all our institutions and processes are failing us. We have compromised each of them on their values, their robustness, their vision and their sense of fairplay. Now, at every crucial juncture we depend on random acts of individual excellence and courage to save the day. Great systems, triumphant societies, are veined with ladders of inspiration. Electrified by those above them, men strive to do their very best. Look around.. How many constables, head constables, sub-inspectors would risk their lives for the dishonest, weak men they serve, who in turn serve even more compromised masters?
I wish Rohinton had survived the lottery of death in Mumbai last week. In an instant, he would have understood what we always went on about. India’s crying need is not economic tinkering or social engineering. It is a political overhaul, a political cleansing. As it once did to create a free nation, India’s elite should start getting its hands dirty so they can get a clean country.
From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 49, Dated Dec 13, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
A Muslim Kannadiga
Mr.Puthige speaks the language of inclusion and I need to call and appreciate him. I am glad to see his commitment to Pluralism. He is driven by an internal reward and I wish him well and ask him not to be discouraged.
The examples Puthige has given are very real and I am glad he has balanced it well showing the narrowness of a few on both sides.
I know my community in Dallas very well, they are good a people, and my community is the people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka and from Atheists to Zoroastrians and every one in between. Thanks God it has grown to include the mainstream as well as other ethnic communities now through the interfaith and pluralism work that I am doing.
Let me assure you and my friends here in Dallas, that those guys are just a few, but enough to create a lot of trouble. I have identified 10 Indians and 5 Pakistanis who are loaded with hate and malice and are like a poison to the community. There is no goodness in their hearts, they go the Temples and Mosques to mask their ugliness and cheat God, but in their heart is venom against each other. You should see their face; there is unhappiness of their own creation in them.
I ran a Newspaper in Dallas, Texas called Asian News and later as Asian American Journal for about 8 years catering to the Subcontinentians. It was one of the most balanced papers that you can imagine. There was a page allocated for each nationality and each faith equally. But it was flooded with Hindu festivals, which happen every other week. Yet, there were a few among us Indians who have talked in the board rooms that this is a Muslim Paper and should be discouraged and a few other idiots believed them. There was a group of my Hindu friends that offered me dearly to write their agenda of divisiveness as well. There was another Hindu friend of mine, who said, "why don't you fix up the stories about the badness in each community, I will get you the advertisement for the papers and you will make some money". On the other side, there was a Pakistani store owner who threw a stack of the Asian News papers in the trash, as it included the Map of India with full Kashmir in it and there was a restaurant owner who made my visit to his place miserable about the anti-Indian rant he unleashed on me. There was a Muslim who declared and propagated that I am a Hindu, “look at the paper it is all about Hindu deities”. There was another Muslim directory that refused to place my ad because I place pictures of Idols on my Newspaper or my website. a One Indian threatened (not a Kannadiga) to kill me for writing about Pakistan, the same guy had threatened Ravi Kanth of TV Asia for doing the same, fortunately, they traced him and I believe he is in Jail some where.
In the Dallas Indians Yahoo group that I manage, I believe it is one of the largest Indian groups in the US after Los Angeles Indians, where we share about India and about all people on an equal footing. There were about 5 of them on the group who are hell bent on hate for Muslims and hate for Pakistan and there are two Muslim Indians who match their disgust. I have published a few notes in the moderated group and then decided that their hate agenda should not be given a currency. I have saved some of the most disgusting emails under the title extremists Indians and Pakistanis; they are no more than 20 among a combined population of about 100,000 people in Dallas. The 999,980 of us are good people, yet most of us know about what those 20 of them do, than a mountain of good work the 999,980 do.
I am blessed to have set the precedent to be inclusive on Radio and the Newspaper in Dallas, and thank God, that tradition is being carried out by both our Radio stations here in Dallas.
Since my wife passed away, I am becoming conscious of confidently saying that I will write and preserve the history of Dallas Desi’s that I have been working on now and then. I have saved in a file that some one can access should I collapse one day.
The Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalese and Sri Lankans have accepted me as one of their own. I am honored by it. Of course my Kannadiga people have given me the utmost respect; we have always acted as one group of people. I am a life time member of the Mallige Kannada Sangha as well as our India Association.
My message is simple - if we can learn to accept and respect the God given uniqueness of each one of the 1.3 Billion of the Desi’s ( people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka) then conflicts fade and solutions emerge. All we have to do is follow the tenants of each one of the faiths - to treat others as you would wanted to be treated, to tell the truth, not to hate, not to steal and that is all it takes to create beautiful societies of co-existence. Each one of us has to do our part without keeping a score on what others do or not do.
And lastly this was my Independence Day message to all the Subcontinentians and I know those 10 Indians and 5 Pakistanis are burning in their hearts and minds. I wish I can sit down and un-wire the hard wired hate they are made of, for their own Mukti.
I am pleased to wish a very happy Independence Day to my Indian and Pakistani friends around the Globe. In Dallas, we have good relationships between all communities, thanks to the leadership among all the communities who have not let these 20 rascals make life difficult for the other 999, 980 Desis. If these idiots knew that others laugh at their stupidities, may be they will become better beings, free of hate and malice. May God help them with peace for them.
Until three years ago, I used to do an hour long special radio show in August mornings called “Independence special” It was dedicated to India and Pakistan. From Monday to Friday 8AM –to 9AM through out the month of August.
In this month long program, Najma and I presented information about our civilization, history, culture, religions, customs, traditions, traditional and new forms of entertainment, foods, clothes, places to visit, politics, economy, regional round up, City beat, movies and cuisine. A summary of where we are heading and of course, studded with Patriotic Songs of both India and Pakistan.
One of the most sentimental moments for me was to see people in their realm of joy and open mindedness on those two days. They showed their bigness and pureness of their hearts - Indians have sung Pakistani patriotic songs on August 14th and Pakistani's have sung Indian Patriotic Songs on August 15th.
It is good to be free, free from ill-will, free from prejudice and free from unfounded hate.
God Bless every human, and today the Indians and Pakistanis.
India's Independence Celebrations.
Anand Bazaar on Saturday, August 16th 5:30 PM to Midnight.
Visit www.Iant.org for details.
It is one of the biggest celebrations in the United States.
Pakistan's Independence Celebrations.
Jashn-e-Azadi-e-Pakistan 2008 on Saturday, August 23rd.
Visit www.psntonline.com for details.
It is one of the nicely organized events in the United States.
A Festival of Cricket in Carrollton
August 29th, 30th and 31st. Day and Night matches.
For details go to: http://mikeghouse.net/cricket.asp
Mike Ghouse
http://www.mikeghouse.net/
In a message dated 8/16/2008 1:04:08 A.M. Central Daylight Time, MikeGhouse writes:
Yogi,
I'm a Muslim Kannadiga as well. My Dad was the Mayor of the town of Yelahanka, which was home to the founder of Bangalore Hon. Kempe Gowda. I grew up in the same house that Kempe Gowda lived some 400 years ago.
It is a good analysis of what you have written and I hope it gets published in Indian Express, the Hindu or the Deccan Herald. People should know the truth for the sake of peaceful co-existence.
The communal (between religious groups) tension was nearly absent when I was growing up there, but much of the planter has come from the Jan Sangh Party followed by it's descendent Bharatiya Janata party. Hindus and Muslims were at peace from centuries, the RSS led group came to Mangalore, and at the Shrine of Baba Budan Giri, which both Muslims and Hindus revered... planted the seed of division. I hope they go back to where they came from and leave Karnataka alone to be peaceful.
Mike Ghouse
www.MikeGhouse.net
In a message dated 8/16/2008 12:29:01 A.M. Central Daylight Time, ysikand@YAHOO.COM writes:
The Muslim Kannadiga
By Yoginder Sikand
'Fascist forces have carefully targeted the media. They recognise that infiltrating the media is crucial for their political project. In contrast, the media is not even on the agenda of secular forces', muses 44 year-old Abdussalam Puthige, editor of Vartha Bharathi, Karnataka's only Muslim-run Kannada language daily newspaper.
This, and what he sees as general Muslim indifference to and lack of awareness of the power of the media, are, he explains, two among the major reasons for the rapid rise of Hindutva forces in Karnataka in recent years, so much so that the state now has its first ever BJP-led government.
Puthige is a soft-spoken, exceedingly pleasant man and exudes passion and commitment. We sit at his modest office in Bangalore, where I pester him to tell me more about himself. That, however, this self-effacing man is reluctant to do. Yet, I managed to cull some snippets. He was born and brought up in a village near Mangalore in coastal Karnataka. He strikes me as a self-made man, unburdened by all his major achievements, which he does not wish to discuss. These include translating over twenty Urdu works into Kannada, starting at the age of sixteen, and editing a Kannada translation of the Quran. In addition to which are a media centre and now his newspaper, with an edition each from Mangalore and Bangalore.
I ask him to speak about how he hit on the idea of launching a Kannada newspaper, given that few Muslims in Karnataka own it as their mother tongue. The fact that the Kannada media is largely controlled by 'upper' caste Hindu elites and reflects their interests and concerns, leaving out the marginalised majority—Dalits, Backward Castes and Muslims—was, Puthige says, the major reason that set the project off. 'I wanted the paper to be the voice of the voiceless, to be a vehicle for relaying their voices and demands, and to counter media biases and hostile reporting about these communities.' In this, he says, he was inspired by an acquaintance of his from Mangalore, the late Vaddarse Raghuram Shetty, who, sometime in the 1980s, had launched a short-lived Kannada paper by the name of Mungaru that employed several Muslim, Dalit and Backward Caste journalists, in contrast to most other papers in the state which were, and still remain, heavily dominated by
the minority 'high' caste Hindus. The paper had also sought to focus on news and stories related to these marginalised communities.
In 1996, Puthige, along with some friends, set up a trust, the Madhyama Kendra, which was intended to serve as a media centre to promote awareness among Muslim youth about the importance of the Kannada media, to train them to influence the media by writing letters to editors and contributing stories and news reports and, particularly, to counter mounting misreporting and negative stereotyping of Muslims, which had become a pervasive feature of many Kannada papers sympathetic to the Hindu right. The centre conducted studies and published reports on this issue.
Puthige hands me a bound folder containing these reports and translates for my benefit. On one page is a news item in a Kannada paper that refers to a certain madrasa being raided, probably on grounds of being suspected for harbouring terrorists. When Muslim leaders contacted the police, they were informed that nothing of the sort had actually happened. The result of this fictitious police raid: Muslims and their madrasas became, in the minds of the readers of the report, inextricably associated with 'terrorism'. On another page of the folder is a news item in Urdu which reads, 'It is a crime for youth to take to violence in the name of jihad in order to make money', which a pro-RSS Kannada paper reproduces and deliberately mistranslates as 'Muslim Terrorists promise youth six thousand rupees each for making bombs.' A report in a third Kannada paper outdoes even this one in bone-chilling duplicity. It refers to a group of Muslims in Karnataka as reportedly forwarding a certain sum of money to Nawaz Sharif, the then Pakistani Prime Minister. In actual fact, however, that money was sent to Kargil Fund of the Prime Minister of India as a contribution in the wake of skirmishes with Pakistani forces in Kashmir. And so on, all in the same vein.
'No legal action has been taken against such papers. Not even by secular activists or even Muslim political leaders, who seem ignorant or even indifferent to the issue', laments Puthige. 'Vast sections of the Kannada press have become totally communal, and even those run by secular-minded people have been infiltrated by Hindutva elements. It is simply amazing how they are planting false stories about Muslims with such impunity and getting away with it, and this is getting from bad to worse with every passing day'.
Puthige's paper is a bold attempt to counter this menacing tendency and to make a difference. It was launched in 2003 through a public limited company that was floated two years earlier, and it has a press of its own. Plans are afoot to launch a third edition—from Hubli—is now being planned. Puthige does not see his paper as a 'Muslim' or 'Islamic' one. 'It aims at a cross-community readership, with a focus particularly on news and reports about marginalised communities—not just Muslims alone but also others, such as Dalits, Backward Castes and Adivasis', he explains. All of these communities are ignored, or else deliberately misreported about, in most Kannada papers, which is a major issue that the paper wants to address. Numerous well-known Kannada leftist and Dalit ideologues write regularly for the paper. In addition, essays and stories by social activists from outside Karnataka, most of them non-Muslims, on a host of issues not necessarily associated exclusively with Muslims are routinely translated and published in the paper. More than half of its readers, says Puthige, are non-Muslims and so are most of its staff, who number over a hundred.
Getting advertisements to keep the paper going, Puthige goes on, has been a major challenge. Many wealthy Muslim firms would rather advertise in Urdu papers, he says, which are geared to an entirely Muslim readership, and not in a Kannada paper like his, which appeals to and is read by Muslims and others alike. Because Vartha Bharathi is not overtly Islamic or Muslim, unlike most other Muslim-owned papers, many Muslims are reluctant to advertise therein—they do not see this investment as a source of religious merit. And then, Puthige says, non-Muslim firms advertising in Muslim papers have been known to receive threats, concealed as advice, from Hindutva activists to desist from doing so.
Puthige laments a distinct lack of enthusiasm from Muslims themselves for ventures such as his. 'Many Muslims in Karnataka look upon Kannada as something that is not theirs, as a Hindu language, despite the fact that several Muslims have made important contributions to Kannada culture and literature. They claim Urdu, or what passes of for it, as their mother-tongue. The general impression, among Muslims and non-Muslims in Karnataka, is that Muslims and Kannada just cannot go together, which I feel is wrong'. He elaborates. 'Some days ago I was in a mosque and a Hindu friend called up on my cell-phone. I spoke to him in Kannada. A man standing nearby overheard our conversation. He was visibly upset. How and why, he wanted to know, was I speaking in Kannada while inside the mosque!’
Similar views are held by many Hindus, Puthige laments. 'Sometimes, I am invited to address gatherings in Kannada, and, hearing me, many Hindus would say that my Kannada is so fluent that no one would ever think that I am a Muslim.'
Vartha Bharati, Puthige says, represents an attempt to undermine the widespread inhibition about writing and reading Kannada among Muslims in Karnataka. 'As inhabitants of the state, it is crucial that we are fluent in the official state language, for without that how can we communicate with others and with the agencies of the state? Without a Muslim presence in the Kannada media, how can we get our views and concerns across to the wider society, to political parties, to the government? For Muslims to continue to ignore the Kannada media is to only further strengthen their marginalisation and invisibility in public debates, even in matters directly relating to them,' he argues. 'If there were more Muslims in Kannada papers or if more Muslim-run Kannada newspapers were to be launched, this would certainly have an impact in dampening the mounting anti-Muslim propaganda, which large sections of the Kannada press are now so heavily engaged in promoting.'
Puthige tells me about a novel experiment that he and some of his friends recently came up with in order to encourage young Muslims, Dalits and others from similar marginalised communities in Karnataka who are heavily under-represented in the Kannada press to consider a career in the Kannada media. They developed a one year diploma course in Kannada journalism and last year advertised for applications. 'We received forty applications for the course, but not a single one of these was from a Muslim or a Dalit.' And, because of that, the course had to be scrapped.
'Muslims need a media run on professional lines, and not just in Urdu but in all other regional languages and English as well. A media that addresses not just Muslims alone but other marginalised groups, too', Puthige goes on. 'This is sorely lacking. The Urdu press is run mainly by madrasa graduates, most of who lack professional skills. There is no tradition of investigative field-reporting, so most of their stories are cut-and-paste borrowings from other sources. They are too preachy but extremely short on information and analysis.'
'There is so much to be done', Puthige exclaims with a sense of urgency as I get up to leave. I step out of his room and as I look back through the curtains I see him rush back to his seat and begin tapping away at his computer—back to work, back to the 'struggle for justice' that he has been so passionately speaking about for the past two hours or more.
Link:
http://www.varthabharathi.net/
The examples Puthige has given are very real and I am glad he has balanced it well showing the narrowness of a few on both sides.
I know my community in Dallas very well, they are good a people, and my community is the people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka and from Atheists to Zoroastrians and every one in between. Thanks God it has grown to include the mainstream as well as other ethnic communities now through the interfaith and pluralism work that I am doing.
Let me assure you and my friends here in Dallas, that those guys are just a few, but enough to create a lot of trouble. I have identified 10 Indians and 5 Pakistanis who are loaded with hate and malice and are like a poison to the community. There is no goodness in their hearts, they go the Temples and Mosques to mask their ugliness and cheat God, but in their heart is venom against each other. You should see their face; there is unhappiness of their own creation in them.
I ran a Newspaper in Dallas, Texas called Asian News and later as Asian American Journal for about 8 years catering to the Subcontinentians. It was one of the most balanced papers that you can imagine. There was a page allocated for each nationality and each faith equally. But it was flooded with Hindu festivals, which happen every other week. Yet, there were a few among us Indians who have talked in the board rooms that this is a Muslim Paper and should be discouraged and a few other idiots believed them. There was a group of my Hindu friends that offered me dearly to write their agenda of divisiveness as well. There was another Hindu friend of mine, who said, "why don't you fix up the stories about the badness in each community, I will get you the advertisement for the papers and you will make some money". On the other side, there was a Pakistani store owner who threw a stack of the Asian News papers in the trash, as it included the Map of India with full Kashmir in it and there was a restaurant owner who made my visit to his place miserable about the anti-Indian rant he unleashed on me. There was a Muslim who declared and propagated that I am a Hindu, “look at the paper it is all about Hindu deities”. There was another Muslim directory that refused to place my ad because I place pictures of Idols on my Newspaper or my website. a One Indian threatened (not a Kannadiga) to kill me for writing about Pakistan, the same guy had threatened Ravi Kanth of TV Asia for doing the same, fortunately, they traced him and I believe he is in Jail some where.
In the Dallas Indians Yahoo group that I manage, I believe it is one of the largest Indian groups in the US after Los Angeles Indians, where we share about India and about all people on an equal footing. There were about 5 of them on the group who are hell bent on hate for Muslims and hate for Pakistan and there are two Muslim Indians who match their disgust. I have published a few notes in the moderated group and then decided that their hate agenda should not be given a currency. I have saved some of the most disgusting emails under the title extremists Indians and Pakistanis; they are no more than 20 among a combined population of about 100,000 people in Dallas. The 999,980 of us are good people, yet most of us know about what those 20 of them do, than a mountain of good work the 999,980 do.
I am blessed to have set the precedent to be inclusive on Radio and the Newspaper in Dallas, and thank God, that tradition is being carried out by both our Radio stations here in Dallas.
Since my wife passed away, I am becoming conscious of confidently saying that I will write and preserve the history of Dallas Desi’s that I have been working on now and then. I have saved in a file that some one can access should I collapse one day.
The Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalese and Sri Lankans have accepted me as one of their own. I am honored by it. Of course my Kannadiga people have given me the utmost respect; we have always acted as one group of people. I am a life time member of the Mallige Kannada Sangha as well as our India Association.
My message is simple - if we can learn to accept and respect the God given uniqueness of each one of the 1.3 Billion of the Desi’s ( people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka) then conflicts fade and solutions emerge. All we have to do is follow the tenants of each one of the faiths - to treat others as you would wanted to be treated, to tell the truth, not to hate, not to steal and that is all it takes to create beautiful societies of co-existence. Each one of us has to do our part without keeping a score on what others do or not do.
And lastly this was my Independence Day message to all the Subcontinentians and I know those 10 Indians and 5 Pakistanis are burning in their hearts and minds. I wish I can sit down and un-wire the hard wired hate they are made of, for their own Mukti.
I am pleased to wish a very happy Independence Day to my Indian and Pakistani friends around the Globe. In Dallas, we have good relationships between all communities, thanks to the leadership among all the communities who have not let these 20 rascals make life difficult for the other 999, 980 Desis. If these idiots knew that others laugh at their stupidities, may be they will become better beings, free of hate and malice. May God help them with peace for them.
Until three years ago, I used to do an hour long special radio show in August mornings called “Independence special” It was dedicated to India and Pakistan. From Monday to Friday 8AM –to 9AM through out the month of August.
In this month long program, Najma and I presented information about our civilization, history, culture, religions, customs, traditions, traditional and new forms of entertainment, foods, clothes, places to visit, politics, economy, regional round up, City beat, movies and cuisine. A summary of where we are heading and of course, studded with Patriotic Songs of both India and Pakistan.
One of the most sentimental moments for me was to see people in their realm of joy and open mindedness on those two days. They showed their bigness and pureness of their hearts - Indians have sung Pakistani patriotic songs on August 14th and Pakistani's have sung Indian Patriotic Songs on August 15th.
It is good to be free, free from ill-will, free from prejudice and free from unfounded hate.
God Bless every human, and today the Indians and Pakistanis.
India's Independence Celebrations.
Anand Bazaar on Saturday, August 16th 5:30 PM to Midnight.
Visit www.Iant.org for details.
It is one of the biggest celebrations in the United States.
Pakistan's Independence Celebrations.
Jashn-e-Azadi-e-Pakistan 2008 on Saturday, August 23rd.
Visit www.psntonline.com for details.
It is one of the nicely organized events in the United States.
A Festival of Cricket in Carrollton
August 29th, 30th and 31st. Day and Night matches.
For details go to: http://mikeghouse.net/cricket.asp
Mike Ghouse
http://www.mikeghouse.net/
In a message dated 8/16/2008 1:04:08 A.M. Central Daylight Time, MikeGhouse writes:
Yogi,
I'm a Muslim Kannadiga as well. My Dad was the Mayor of the town of Yelahanka, which was home to the founder of Bangalore Hon. Kempe Gowda. I grew up in the same house that Kempe Gowda lived some 400 years ago.
It is a good analysis of what you have written and I hope it gets published in Indian Express, the Hindu or the Deccan Herald. People should know the truth for the sake of peaceful co-existence.
The communal (between religious groups) tension was nearly absent when I was growing up there, but much of the planter has come from the Jan Sangh Party followed by it's descendent Bharatiya Janata party. Hindus and Muslims were at peace from centuries, the RSS led group came to Mangalore, and at the Shrine of Baba Budan Giri, which both Muslims and Hindus revered... planted the seed of division. I hope they go back to where they came from and leave Karnataka alone to be peaceful.
Mike Ghouse
www.MikeGhouse.net
In a message dated 8/16/2008 12:29:01 A.M. Central Daylight Time, ysikand@YAHOO.COM writes:
The Muslim Kannadiga
By Yoginder Sikand
'Fascist forces have carefully targeted the media. They recognise that infiltrating the media is crucial for their political project. In contrast, the media is not even on the agenda of secular forces', muses 44 year-old Abdussalam Puthige, editor of Vartha Bharathi, Karnataka's only Muslim-run Kannada language daily newspaper.
This, and what he sees as general Muslim indifference to and lack of awareness of the power of the media, are, he explains, two among the major reasons for the rapid rise of Hindutva forces in Karnataka in recent years, so much so that the state now has its first ever BJP-led government.
Puthige is a soft-spoken, exceedingly pleasant man and exudes passion and commitment. We sit at his modest office in Bangalore, where I pester him to tell me more about himself. That, however, this self-effacing man is reluctant to do. Yet, I managed to cull some snippets. He was born and brought up in a village near Mangalore in coastal Karnataka. He strikes me as a self-made man, unburdened by all his major achievements, which he does not wish to discuss. These include translating over twenty Urdu works into Kannada, starting at the age of sixteen, and editing a Kannada translation of the Quran. In addition to which are a media centre and now his newspaper, with an edition each from Mangalore and Bangalore.
I ask him to speak about how he hit on the idea of launching a Kannada newspaper, given that few Muslims in Karnataka own it as their mother tongue. The fact that the Kannada media is largely controlled by 'upper' caste Hindu elites and reflects their interests and concerns, leaving out the marginalised majority—Dalits, Backward Castes and Muslims—was, Puthige says, the major reason that set the project off. 'I wanted the paper to be the voice of the voiceless, to be a vehicle for relaying their voices and demands, and to counter media biases and hostile reporting about these communities.' In this, he says, he was inspired by an acquaintance of his from Mangalore, the late Vaddarse Raghuram Shetty, who, sometime in the 1980s, had launched a short-lived Kannada paper by the name of Mungaru that employed several Muslim, Dalit and Backward Caste journalists, in contrast to most other papers in the state which were, and still remain, heavily dominated by
the minority 'high' caste Hindus. The paper had also sought to focus on news and stories related to these marginalised communities.
In 1996, Puthige, along with some friends, set up a trust, the Madhyama Kendra, which was intended to serve as a media centre to promote awareness among Muslim youth about the importance of the Kannada media, to train them to influence the media by writing letters to editors and contributing stories and news reports and, particularly, to counter mounting misreporting and negative stereotyping of Muslims, which had become a pervasive feature of many Kannada papers sympathetic to the Hindu right. The centre conducted studies and published reports on this issue.
Puthige hands me a bound folder containing these reports and translates for my benefit. On one page is a news item in a Kannada paper that refers to a certain madrasa being raided, probably on grounds of being suspected for harbouring terrorists. When Muslim leaders contacted the police, they were informed that nothing of the sort had actually happened. The result of this fictitious police raid: Muslims and their madrasas became, in the minds of the readers of the report, inextricably associated with 'terrorism'. On another page of the folder is a news item in Urdu which reads, 'It is a crime for youth to take to violence in the name of jihad in order to make money', which a pro-RSS Kannada paper reproduces and deliberately mistranslates as 'Muslim Terrorists promise youth six thousand rupees each for making bombs.' A report in a third Kannada paper outdoes even this one in bone-chilling duplicity. It refers to a group of Muslims in Karnataka as reportedly forwarding a certain sum of money to Nawaz Sharif, the then Pakistani Prime Minister. In actual fact, however, that money was sent to Kargil Fund of the Prime Minister of India as a contribution in the wake of skirmishes with Pakistani forces in Kashmir. And so on, all in the same vein.
'No legal action has been taken against such papers. Not even by secular activists or even Muslim political leaders, who seem ignorant or even indifferent to the issue', laments Puthige. 'Vast sections of the Kannada press have become totally communal, and even those run by secular-minded people have been infiltrated by Hindutva elements. It is simply amazing how they are planting false stories about Muslims with such impunity and getting away with it, and this is getting from bad to worse with every passing day'.
Puthige's paper is a bold attempt to counter this menacing tendency and to make a difference. It was launched in 2003 through a public limited company that was floated two years earlier, and it has a press of its own. Plans are afoot to launch a third edition—from Hubli—is now being planned. Puthige does not see his paper as a 'Muslim' or 'Islamic' one. 'It aims at a cross-community readership, with a focus particularly on news and reports about marginalised communities—not just Muslims alone but also others, such as Dalits, Backward Castes and Adivasis', he explains. All of these communities are ignored, or else deliberately misreported about, in most Kannada papers, which is a major issue that the paper wants to address. Numerous well-known Kannada leftist and Dalit ideologues write regularly for the paper. In addition, essays and stories by social activists from outside Karnataka, most of them non-Muslims, on a host of issues not necessarily associated exclusively with Muslims are routinely translated and published in the paper. More than half of its readers, says Puthige, are non-Muslims and so are most of its staff, who number over a hundred.
Getting advertisements to keep the paper going, Puthige goes on, has been a major challenge. Many wealthy Muslim firms would rather advertise in Urdu papers, he says, which are geared to an entirely Muslim readership, and not in a Kannada paper like his, which appeals to and is read by Muslims and others alike. Because Vartha Bharathi is not overtly Islamic or Muslim, unlike most other Muslim-owned papers, many Muslims are reluctant to advertise therein—they do not see this investment as a source of religious merit. And then, Puthige says, non-Muslim firms advertising in Muslim papers have been known to receive threats, concealed as advice, from Hindutva activists to desist from doing so.
Puthige laments a distinct lack of enthusiasm from Muslims themselves for ventures such as his. 'Many Muslims in Karnataka look upon Kannada as something that is not theirs, as a Hindu language, despite the fact that several Muslims have made important contributions to Kannada culture and literature. They claim Urdu, or what passes of for it, as their mother-tongue. The general impression, among Muslims and non-Muslims in Karnataka, is that Muslims and Kannada just cannot go together, which I feel is wrong'. He elaborates. 'Some days ago I was in a mosque and a Hindu friend called up on my cell-phone. I spoke to him in Kannada. A man standing nearby overheard our conversation. He was visibly upset. How and why, he wanted to know, was I speaking in Kannada while inside the mosque!’
Similar views are held by many Hindus, Puthige laments. 'Sometimes, I am invited to address gatherings in Kannada, and, hearing me, many Hindus would say that my Kannada is so fluent that no one would ever think that I am a Muslim.'
Vartha Bharati, Puthige says, represents an attempt to undermine the widespread inhibition about writing and reading Kannada among Muslims in Karnataka. 'As inhabitants of the state, it is crucial that we are fluent in the official state language, for without that how can we communicate with others and with the agencies of the state? Without a Muslim presence in the Kannada media, how can we get our views and concerns across to the wider society, to political parties, to the government? For Muslims to continue to ignore the Kannada media is to only further strengthen their marginalisation and invisibility in public debates, even in matters directly relating to them,' he argues. 'If there were more Muslims in Kannada papers or if more Muslim-run Kannada newspapers were to be launched, this would certainly have an impact in dampening the mounting anti-Muslim propaganda, which large sections of the Kannada press are now so heavily engaged in promoting.'
Puthige tells me about a novel experiment that he and some of his friends recently came up with in order to encourage young Muslims, Dalits and others from similar marginalised communities in Karnataka who are heavily under-represented in the Kannada press to consider a career in the Kannada media. They developed a one year diploma course in Kannada journalism and last year advertised for applications. 'We received forty applications for the course, but not a single one of these was from a Muslim or a Dalit.' And, because of that, the course had to be scrapped.
'Muslims need a media run on professional lines, and not just in Urdu but in all other regional languages and English as well. A media that addresses not just Muslims alone but other marginalised groups, too', Puthige goes on. 'This is sorely lacking. The Urdu press is run mainly by madrasa graduates, most of who lack professional skills. There is no tradition of investigative field-reporting, so most of their stories are cut-and-paste borrowings from other sources. They are too preachy but extremely short on information and analysis.'
'There is so much to be done', Puthige exclaims with a sense of urgency as I get up to leave. I step out of his room and as I look back through the curtains I see him rush back to his seat and begin tapping away at his computer—back to work, back to the 'struggle for justice' that he has been so passionately speaking about for the past two hours or more.
Link:
http://www.varthabharathi.net/
Thursday, August 14, 2008
India Pakistan Independence Day
INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATIONS
Indians and Pakistanis
Indians and Pakistanis
I am pleased to wish the very best of Independence Days to my Indian and Pakistani friends.
Until three years ago, I used to do an hour long special radio show in August mornings called “Independence special” It was dedicated to India and Pakistan. From Monday to Friday 8AM –to 9AM through out the month of August. In the month long program, Najma and I presented information about our civilization, history, culture, religions, customs, traditions, traditional and new forms of entertainment, foods, clothes, places to visit, politics, economy, regional round up, City beat, movies and cuisine. A summary of where we are heading and of course, studded with Patriotic Songs of both India and Pakistan.
One of the most sentimental moments for me was to see people in their realm of joy and open mindedness on those two days; August 14th and 15th. They showed their bigness and pureness of their hearts - Indians have sung Pakistani patriotic songs on August 14th and Pakistani's have sung Indian Patriotic Songs on August 15th.
It is good to be free, free from ill-will, free from prejudice and free from unfounded hate.God Bless every human being.
Click these songs and sit back and enjoy them:
Jana Gana Mana Adhi Naika jaya hai - Video rendering by AR Rahman
A jo des hai tera - the spirit of India
Paak sir zameen shadab -Video rendering
Paak sir zameen shadab - instrumental
I will update a few more songs as and when I get a chance.
Here in Dallas, we are celebrating the Holidays on two different days;
India's Independence Celebrations.
Anand Bazaar on Saturday, August 16th 5:30 PM to Midnight.
Visit www.Iant.org for details.
It is one of the biggest celebrations in the United States.
Pakistan's Independence Celebrations.
Jashn-e-Azadi-e-Pakistan 2008 on Saturday, August 23rd.
Visit www.psntonline.com for details.
It is one of the nicely organized events in the United States.
A Festival of Cricket in Carrollton
August 29th, 30th and 31st. Day and Night matches.
For details go to: http://mikeghouse.net/cricket.asp
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