‘Our Liberals’ and Minority Psyche

#155 by anil

You are a polite person and sometimes it is not a good idea to interfere in something you have no knowledge about. Your interference may just burn you. So I suggest you better not poke your unintelligent nose on this issue. For starter, if all Urdu speaking in Pakistan claim that they are Indians and some of them are actually Indian by birth , would you take them back just because they so?

Salim or anyone else on this forum can`t do anything abt it. Let him wail abt it as he has no other cause to write volumes abt. No one cares and your posts on this issue would not do any good to you as you simply don`t know the issue at all.
Thank you

Antihypochrist, Alephnill and others,

As usual, you people fail to appreciate the context. If someone jumps up and down about how Pakistan is such a horrible place, should we not apply the same test to India? So Daniel Pearl was killed, wasn`t Graham Staines (along with his two sons) burnt alive by a Hindu mob? And then came the pitiful excuse- ``we have a better legal system in India- no body caught Daniel Pearl`s killers in Pakistan``... when all people involved in that murder of Daniel Pearl are behind bars. Honestly I don`t give a damn whether the Hindu mob is behind bars or not... I am not interested in India or its people, but if you can`t be accurate in your claims, don`t expect others not to throw the same at your face. The problem here is that Indians can`t stick to arguing fairly. If you raise an issue, I will also raise an issue... why do you cry foul?

The facts of the Graham Staines case is that an Australian (not Austrian as someone pointed out) Priest with his two young sons was burnt alive by a religious mob in India for being Christian... Daniel Pearl`s cold blooded murder- a great tragedy about which I have written extensively about- was politically motivated... though a lot of corners tried to paint it in jewish colors.

So what does this prove? Religious intolerance is not unique to one country or one religion. India certainly has its own fairshare of it... so what are you guys arguing about?

Re: # 156

AlephNull,

What rubish are you talking. Please go to www.indiacause.com and see Sundaram`s article on what the f***ing christians are doing in India now. And this also does not mention the North East where the Papist, Presbyterian and Baptists have created life hell for us Hindus there.

Mo was right on one thing that he warned you against christoos. Wish Shri Krishn makes a cameo appearance to warn our gullible bretheren about the same.

No Regards
Sanatani

Aur agar itna bura lag raha hai then take all of them tp Pak with you. Youll earn brownie points with Mo in case you get any one of them to read the Shahada.

#161 by Mantolives

“The facts of the Graham Staines case is that an Australian (not Austrian as someone pointed out) Priest with his two young sons was burnt alive by a religious mob in India for being Christian... Daniel Pearl`s cold blooded murder- a great tragedy about which I have written extensively about- was politically motivated.”

Good point Manto. Pearl was killed because he was poking his nose in some affairs that were political in nature. Stains was murdered or burnt alive for his religious beliefs in a supposedly secular country.

I was thinking abt that too and I would post more abt it later. But I am not surprised by the false rage by this Forrest Gump #156 of the site. Post #159 by sanatani shows the kind of hypocrisy we see here. He writes (and mind you he is not the first to express that on this site), “the 140 million 5th columnists for Islam”. People, who believe that a substantial minority in India is actually fifth columnist, have the galls to talk abt minorities in other countries.

Anyone who says that minorities are hail and hearty in India lives in some kind of lala land.
There are some idiots but this idiot is really the Forrest Gump of all idiots. I just love this comment by Forrest Gump #156 of this site, “They couple of so-called Christians from India who show up here every now and them are actually duplicitous faking Hinjus in disguise.”

Isn’t this a great whine? Now we should just accept everything people claim on an anonymous web site that has no way of even verifying someone’s email address.

There have been lots of talk abt a Muslim President in India but no one should forget that he was recommended as president by a party that has Muslim blood on its hands. He is the President because of the Muslims vote bank. How many Christians have made it to Indian Presidency or for that matter, how many Zoroastrians, or any other minority? I am sure there are plenty of qualified people from other minorities in India but they just don’t have votes to back them up.

He is President because of the Muslim vote politics and not secularism, which BJP opposes anyway. Just love the false rage by these morons…..

Monto,

I had been to Lincoln`s Inn several times but I never saw Jinnah`s photo there and you tom tom about it?

For Indian guys:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/gandhi/index.html

Pl brood over it, whether Dracula Jinnah has a page in the Nobel Prize pages.

VRV.

Dear VRV,

Ah yes... Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi were joint finalists for that prize the same year...

Looks like you`ve been burnt excessively by comments to have to resort to lies now...

Lincoln`s Inn has Jinnah`s portrait ... every barrister who goes there knows it. I doubt that you`ve ever been to Lincoln`s Inn though or for that matter England... still most Pakistanis still opt for that Inn of court just because of that...

``oil painting hung since July 1965 over the entrance to the their Great Hall and library in London. ``M.A. Jinnah, Founder and first governor general of Pakistan`` Tall, thin, monocled, Astrakhan capped, the portrait`s subject was, so the brass of strip secured to its frame attests ``born 25 December 1876, so died 11 September 1948``. .. the anonymous artist captured his upright, unbending spirit, as well as his impeccable taste in clothes, yet Jinnah`s face is as enigmatic and spare as the shining brass plate below it. His eyes wide open, his lips tightly closed, formidable. One would guess he was a man of few words, never easily thwarted or defeated. But why is he there- in so honored a place on the hallowed wall of British Jurisprudence... Two marble busts flank M A Jinnah`s portrait like horseguards. Lord Mcnaghten, who was the lord appeal in ordinary .. while the other immortalises Sir Francis Henry Goldsmit, ``First Jewish Barrister``... Jinnah however held no office at Lincoln`s Inn, nor was he elected even to serve on the cabinet of a single British viceroy...Yet the story of Jinnah`s unique achievement was so inextricably the product of his genius as a barrister, perhaps the greatest ``native`` advocate in British Indian history, that his portrait richly deserves the honor it holds. During the last decade of his life , Jinnah may have been shrewdest barrister in the British Empire. He was certainly the most tenacious. ``

(Stanley Wolpert- Jinnah of Pakistan- pages 3 and 4)

If you ever get a chance to visit England, be sure to see for yourself...

#161 by Mantolives on June 24, 2006 11:34pm PT


Daniel Pearl`s cold blooded murder- a great tragedy about which I have written extensively about- was politically motivated


It was motivated by his investigation of the Islamic terrorism that Pakistan and Pakis are most known for the world over...

you can quote Jinnah all you want and have the detective goatbrain agree with you all you want...the fact still remains..the world associates Pakiland with ISLAMIC TERRORISM...

#152 by hamidm2 on June 24, 2006 6:00pm PT


.... then why do you guys want a 140 million pakis to join india ?


Speaking(confidently) on behalf of a a billion Indians: ``We`` don`t....Who in their right minds would want to open their newspapers one day and read the headline ``British men of Indian extraction blow up subway``..

Manto: Any relatives of your old man?


Mob attacks Ahmadis in Daska for ‘desecration’

By Ali Waqar and Zawar Hussain

LAHORE: A mob attacked an Ahmadi locality in Jhando Sahi village in Daska near Sialkot on Saturday afternoon and injured two people following allegations that some Ahmadis had desecrated the Holy Quran.

The mob also burned down two shops and a few houses in the village.

The district police arrived at the scene and arrested seven Ahmadis. They also shifted about 70 Ahmadis from the village for fear of more attacks. A case has been registered against the arrested Ahmadis under Section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The seven men include Waqar, Nawaz, Zaheer, Fayyaz, Shakeel and Inayat.

Locals said that two men, Waqar and Nawaz, were burning some pages of the Holy Quran outside the Ahmadis’ Bait-ul-Zikr in the village. A neighbour saw them, rushed to a local Muslim festival being held nearby and told the people of the alleged desecration. A crowd rushed to the Ahmadi locality of the village and beat up Waqar and Nawaz. It also set fire to a few vehicles, two shops and a few houses belonging to Ahmadis. At this, the 60-70 Ahmadis residing in the locality fled the village.

Later on, hundreds of people belonging to surrounding villages demonstrated against the alleged desecration and chanted anti-Ahmadi slogans. The situation in the village remained tense and a large contingent of police was deployed to avert any more damage. Protesters from nearby areas had also started arriving at the village by nightfall, sources said.

The police shifted all Ahmadis living in the village to other areas. Sialkot District Police Officer Dr Tariq Khokhar told Daily Times that the police had “strong evidence” against three of the seven arrested men.

However, members of the Ahmadi community said that the men were burning their own journals and papers.

Dear HP,

Well said. This, I suppose, is in line with my general theory, I refer to as ``The Dispossessed Gupta Syndrome`` a rather common ailment for Indians of this website. Urstruly, with whom I agree very little on, rather succinctly defined this syndrome in a gem of a post earlier on this board. Given that I possess neither the articulate expression that you do, nor am I, despite several attempts, equipped with the verbosity that our friend Alephnill is, I am often hardpressed to explain this theory on paper, but Urstruly and yourself have done wonders.

However, I think your criticism of Sanatani is misplaced. Sanatani accurately expresses the ground realities of India. Given time, he would , I am sure, learn to live and let live... The biggest difference between Sanatani and Alephnull/VRV is that the former is honest and while the latter are hypocrites. You just have to press the right buttons and you`ll see what happens. Earlier, when I questioned Gandhi, a political leader and father of Indian nation, VRV, who hitherto was singing songs of Indian inclusivism, launched a scathing attack on the personal life of Muhammad, who died 14 centuries ago. Without going into the merits of his claims against so holy a figure for all Muslims, it just shows how deeply a common Indian identifies ``Hinduism`` with India.. any attack on India and Gandhi therefore must be countered with an attack on Islam... because an attack on India and Gandhi is the equivalent of an attack on the body politic of Hinduism. It goes without saying that without Chowk, many of us would have never realised the true meaning of the song ``Aay Quaid-e-Azam tera ahsan hai, ahsan``. A former Gandhian fanatic, Tahmed, today is the most scathing opponent of Indians on this website. Sadna had earlier declared that for a Non-Hindu to be accepted as an Indian, they would have to accept Hindu cultural life as part of Indian nationalism. This is in line with Gandhi`s view that in order to be a true Indian, one must be a Hindu first- though Indians love to spin that statement to mean other things I admit .. but every interpretation is equally dangerous.

The very fact that you will find all kinds of Pakistanis ... including those who completely take issue with the official Pakistani narrative ... and many Pakistanis who are deeply critical of the country, faith and the founders of the country, shows that Pakistanis as a whole are far more secure in life than Indians. Contrast this with the Indian situation ...It is true that almost 50%-60% of Indians hate Gandhi intensely but their criticism is based on both perceived Gandhian soft corner for Muslims... while they should be criticising him for his role in encouraging religious fanatics of all kinds because of his own irrational and misplaced belief system.. or for his role in protecting caste system, or his obscurantism and backwardness. In what little I have read so far .. Even Tilak, Veer Savarkar or Bankim Chatterjee appear to be a thousand times more progressive as Hindus than Gandhi when it came to caste system and other ills of the ``Hindu Cultural Life``. Even Nathuram Godse`s testimony makes interesting reading. Reformers like Ranade for example were deeply conscious of their Hindu identity, but they did not make a mockery of it by parading around half naked appealing to the superstitions of the people by using ``Mahatma`` and other such words... Lala Lajpat Rai, the great Lahori Hindu, was another such great figure who would have been better suited as the leader of Hindus... These Hindu leaders were not stuck in the past. They did not suffer from the dispossessed Gupta syndrome. However Gandhi did ... even Nehru was bitten by this bug. Only Nehru wanted to define ``Bharat Mata`` in other terms... but deep down it was the same impulse at work. All these gentlemen were fighting for their class... their caste- for caste Hindu domination... thinly veiled in rhetoric which often contradicted their actions. Nehru`s treatment of Parsi and Muslim members of Congress is well documented in Azad`s book for example.

Furthermore... Indian claims are funny and logically/legally untenable ... while I would like nothing more than to a Non-muslim president, just to shut these idiots up, but legally that is hardly the criterion to judge the state of minorities. What happens in countries where head of the state is also the head of the country`s official church ... as in the case of England. Technically there is no separation of Church and State in the United Kingdom, but can anyone deny that in theory and form officially ``Christian`` Monarchy, ruled by a ``Christian Monarch``, is in practice and substance, one of the most secular republics on the planet? Great Britain today is without a doubt a truly secular state and society, much more so than the United States of America, where there is an official separation of Church and State. Thus is it not possible to have an Islamic Republic in form, which will be a secular state in reality? I am not suggesting we are there, but is it not where we are headed? Evidence on the ground suggests so.

But unfortunately for people, especially those without a proper background in political science form is everything. I am beginning to think that arguing with these people has run out on marginal utility.

arju bhayya...

Do you see the difference? In a remote part of Faisalabad district, the Pakistani police sprung into action to defend a minority (constitutionally) community ....

Meanwhile.. in cities like Ahmedabad in India... the police usually joins the festivities of an all-Muslim bonfire.

#170 by Mantolives on June 25, 2006 4:15am PT

Yup...the paki state that erased the word muslim from Salam`s grave rushes to protects your old man`s people...we all know the blasphemers will receive an apology from the real pakis as often happens in Pakiland..

(insert bridge cliche here)...

So let me get this straight...According the law of the land in the land of the pure, to prove a rape, a women needs 4 male muslim witnesses....but you only need one witness for blasphemy?


Pakistan`s blasphemy laws used to persecute non-Muslims
Massoud Ansari in Lahore and Michael Hirst
(Filed: 25/06/2006)

By rights, the Pakistani Christians Asif Masih and Amjad Masih should be celebrating. Released from prison last month after their life sentences for blasphemy were overturned by Pakistan`s supreme court, they are enjoying their first taste of freedom for seven years. But in the country`s increasingly fundamentalist climate, the two feel as imprisoned now as they ever did, forced into hiding for fear of attacks by Muslim extremists.

The two cleaners from Jhang district, 300 miles south of Islamabad, were jailed by a Faisalabad court in 1999 under Pakistan`s draconian blasphemy laws, having been wrongly accused of burning a copy of the Koran. Because the law can be invoked on the word of just one witness, it is frequently manipulated by Muslims to settle scores or rouse religious tensions.

Asif, 30, and Amjad, 36, who are not related - Masih is a generic term used to describe Christians in Pakistan - said police made the Koran-burning allegations after the pair refused to pay bribe money in 1998. Their first appeal was rejected on May 23, 2003, and they were finally freed last month.

Amjad`s wife, Kausar, said: ``It has been a tough period for my family, but I am afraid the real tough time starts now, as the extremists can attack Amjad or somebody else from the family.``

In jail, the two men were kept in solitary confinement for their own safety, following the murder of another blasphemer in a women`s prison in 2003. Meena Munir, a local human rights activist, claimed they were just as much at risk having been released.

``Once a person is charged with blasphemy, he is considered condemned even if he is acquitted,`` she said. The families of the two men now face poverty, as employment prospects are bleak for anyone remotely associated with an alleged ``blasphemer``.

Amjad, his wife and their four children are now being looked after by the Bishop John Joseph Shaheed Trust, a charity set up in memory of a clergyman who committed suicide outside a court to protest against the blasphemy laws.

Amjad`s story is all too familiar for Pakistan`s vulnerable Christian minorities, who make up less than three per cent of the predom-inantly conservative Muslim population of 160 million. Unlike Christian communities in the Middle East, who are generally prosperous, Pakistani Christians are mainly poor - most trace their ancestry back to the ``untouchable`` Hindu Chuhra caste.

In many areas, they have suffered violence orchestrated against them and their churches. In February, 400 people attacked a church in the southern city of Sukkur after accusations that a Christian had set fire to a Koran. In 2002, Muslim hardliners threw grenades into a church on Christmas Day, killing three girls.

Worsening the situation for indigenous Christians is the perceived link between them and the Western world that is now demonised by extremists.

``Pakistan is becoming a fundamentalist state,`` Nasir Saeed, the London director for the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), a Pakistani charity, told The Sunday Telegraph. Pakistan`s National Commission for Justice and Peace, a Roman Catholic human rights body, has criticised the authorities for failing to prosecute Muslim militias, whom it claims have murdered at least 23 alleged blasphemers.

But defending those facing blasphemy charges is dangerous in itself. Joseph Francis, the co-ordinator for CLAAS in Lahore, said he had received death threats from al-Qaeda-linked groups for taking up such cases in the courts.

Although President Pervez Musharraf promised in 1999 to restrict the application of the blasphemy law, he withdrew, under pressure from funda-mentalist groups, settling instead on various rhetorical statements deploring religious intolerance.(Retreat from Kargil, retreat from changes to the law...at least he`s consistent in his propensity to retreat)

In another case, Ranjha Masih was jailed for life for allegedly knocking over a board with Koranic verse. His wife, Rasheeda, said, ``We always respect all the prophets of God and would not disrespect religious scripts.``

Despite calls for reform, Ajaz-ul-Haq, Pakistan`s religious minister, has insisted that even if 100,000 Christians lost their lives, the blasphemy law would not be repealed.