Rushdie and the British Establishment

Yes they are and I am proud to be a chaddi wala. Alas you are a disgrace to yours I am afraid.

Giani ji

One rarely meets a chaddhi wala. So it's a privilege.

I was curious, and looked up a few of your past interacts.

Would you mind commenting on how your views differ from those of any other regular Hindu' (secularist')s and leftist's?

Indian/Hindu Democracy and Justice in action:

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On January 10, 1993, Hajirabi Qureishi saw her husband and eldest son dragged from her house by Shiv Sainiks who used to hang around the local Sena shakha. When she tried to stop the sainiks, they pushed her off the parapet and she lost consciousness. She never saw her husband and son again.

Much before his inquiry into the 1992-93 Mumbai riots was complete, Justice Srikrishna wrote a letter to the government recommending immediate payment of compensation for missing persons in cases that he had personally investigated. The Qureishis headed that list. Hajirabi should have received Rs 4,00,000; instead she received Rs 2,00,000 eight years later for her husband. Compensation for her son Saleem Qureishi continues to form the subject matter of petitions being heard for the ump-teenth time in the Supreme Court.

Unable to cope with memories of their disappearance, Hajirabi left the Hindu-Muslim chawl that had been home for years to live in a Muslim ghetto. Every known and unknown Muslim organisation had its offices there, including SIMI. Yet they could not recruit Hajira's son Rizwan, his father's favourite.

Farooq Mapkar should have been an ideal candidate for SIMI. Shot in his shoulder on January 10, 1993, while praying inside a mosque, this bank employee saw a namazi being shot dead at point-blank range despite coming out of the mosque with his hands up. Along with the other namazis, Farooq was charged under Section 307.

Fourteen years later, Farooq continues to take leave from his job to attend court hearings in a case declared false by the Srikrishna commission. Contrast this with the case of sub-inspector Nikhil Kapse. The commission found him guilty for unprovoked firing that killed six innocent Muslims. But he was exonerated by a bunch of policemen entrusted with implementing the commission's findings.

The policemen didn't think it necessary to talk to those who testified in front of the commission about the incident involving Kapse. In these 14 years, Kapse hasn't faced a day's suspension. More than Farooq and Rizwan, Abdullah would have made the ideal jehadi. As a 12-year-old, he saw his handicapped father being dragged down the stairs of the madrassa where he taught and shot, pleading for water as he lay dying. Abdullah continued to live in the same madrassa. Eight years later, he joined the legal battle to put behind bars the policemen charged with murder for this incident. When he lost, the entire madrassa felt betrayed.

Even while lashing out at the government's indulgence towards policemen charged with murder, Abdullah was packing his bags for further studies in Deoband. He had graduated from his madrassa with flying colours, with full marks in logic. "Why don't you study law", i asked, "you could fight for your father". "My world is the hereafter", he replied. "He can't get involved in all this", added his teachers.

Mumbai's riot orphans have grown up deprived of their childhood, seen their mothers struggle alone - and often fail - to give them the education their fathers desired for them. They've seen those who led the violent mobs become ministers. A sitting judge pronounced these policemen guilty; his report became an election issue and made ministers out of nobodies, but has yet to be acted upon.

They've seen, over the last year, those who took revenge on their behalf by killing innocent Hindus, being made to pay, some even with life sentences.

Last week, as two Muslim accused in the July 11 train blasts in Mumbai confessed on TV (by a mysterious coincidence, all channels got hold of the footage exactly a year after the blasts), the news anchors screamed: "This man not only betrayed his nation, but also humanity. Doesn't your blood boil when you see this traitor"?

Narendra Modi could be accused of having done the same. No channel asks these questions about him. These double standards are now part of being a Muslim in India's "vibrant" democracy. We should be thankful hundreds of Kafeel Ahmeds haven't produced a swadeshi version of jehad.

The writer is a political commentator.

Hi Kaal,

Please help me out by pointing out my leftist or secular leanings in my earlier posts. However, do provide the context as well.

All I am asking Hindus to do is respond and interact using deceny and the high road. This does not mean bending over.

Even Vajpayjeeji took the initiative to talk to Pervez. Now you would not call him a leftist or secular would you ?

My suggestion to Arjun was simply to read the news and ask himself one simple question.

Are Hindus and IMs better off than their neighbors and if so why? I guess I should have been very explicit to him.

Giani ji

I haven't met any chaddi walas, except once as a kid. So am curious to learn what distinguishes RSS/VHP folks.

You don't have a very good reputation, you know.

Or are RSS/VHP/Chaddi walas too 'respect-all' and 'love-all' typers under a different brand name?
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Giani ji, having written that, re-read your #43, and think, may be, you are suggesting the "high-road" more than anything else?

That would be odd, since the whole reputation of RSS/VHP/Chaddi walas is of being 'low-roaders.'

I mean, what makes you so different from the two most respected Indians here, both committed secularists, dost-mittar sahib, and anil ji?

Something seems to be missing here, something I don't get. :(

Re: # 44

Pity you havent met more. Suggest you make an effort to meet some of them and you will find that the press that often sensationalizes has gotten it pretty wrong and often

Now if the VHP/RSS etc were the low roaders and into Muslim bashing as a primary aim then Arjun and you should have no problem with chaddiwalas.

There is no other brand. Dont need to hide, if thats what you mean. They are really nice and simple folks once you get to meet them. They believe in simple things like love your country, all laws should apply equally to everybody, be proud of your heritage etc.

You will also find a cross-section of people - rural folks, Venture capitalists as well as gold medalists - who are members.

Dont know Dost-Mittar personlly but have enjoyed reading his interacts. Did not find any Muslim bashing in them either. Since you respect Dost-Mitter why dont you follow his example.

I am different from Dost Mitter in that he is older and he lives in Canada, I think. Dont know much else about him.

hmm.. excellent analysis piece, Mr Pirzada!

"Yet 18 years later, the decision to knight Rushdie is laced with intellectual hypocrisy, flawed judgment and narrow political expediency."(author)

this is a bunch of bull -- Rushdie was given a Knighthood not for Muslim-Kushi by Satanic Verses -- that was not an equivalent of Ghazihood for Infidel-Kushi.

Rushdie is British and a British literary giant -- with the Knighthood the Britt simple recognized the obvious -- though a little belatedly -- it was not done to put ants in Muslim pants.

The problem with us Muslims is that we are in a perpetual state of carrying red ants in our green pants even when there are no ants -- or no pants.

This business of "Chooiee tu mooiee" has to stop someday – its becoming a drag.

An inability to tolerate Islam contradicts western values


Free speech is now the rallying cry of escalating tensions, but we can also use it to expose double standards on both sides

Karen Armstrong
Saturday July 21, 2007
The Guardian

In the 17th century, when some Iranian mullahs were trying to limit freedom of expression, Mulla Sadra, the great mystical philosopher of Isfahan, insisted that all Muslims were perfectly capable of thinking for themselves and that any religiosity based on intellectual repression and inquisitorial coercion was "polluted". Mulla Sadra exerted a profound influence on generations of Iranians, but it is ironic that his most famous disciple was probably Ayatollah Khomeini, author of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.

Article continues
This type of contradiction is becoming increasingly frequent in our polarised world, as I discovered last month, when I arrived in Kuala Lumpur to find that the Malaysian government had banned three of my books as "incompatible with peace and social harmony". This was surprising because the government had invited me to Malaysia, and sponsored two of my public lectures. Their position was absurd, because it is impossible to exert this type of censorship in the electronic age. In fact, my books seemed so popular in Malaysia that I found myself wondering if the veto was part of a Machiavellian plot to entice the public to read them.

Old habits die hard. In a pre-modern economy, insufficient resources meant freedom of speech was a luxury few governments could afford, since any project that required too much capital outlay was usually shelved. To encourage a critical habit of mind that habitually called existing institutions into question in the hope of reform could lead to a frustration that jeopardised social order. It is only 50 years since Malaysia achieved independence and, although the public and press campaign vigorously against censorship, in other circles the old caution is alive and well.

In the west, however, liberty of expression proved essential to the economy; it has become a sacred value in our secular world, regarded as so precious and crucial to our identity that it is non-negotiable. Modern society could not function without independent and innovative thought, which has come to symbolise the inviolable sanctity of the individual. But culture is always contested, and precisely because it is so central to modernity, free speech is embroiled in the bumpy process whereby groups at different stages of modernisation learn to accommodate one another.

It has also, as we have been reminded recently, become a rallying cry in the escalating tension between the Islamic world and the west. Muslim protests against Rushdie's knighthood have recalled the painful controversy of The Satanic Verses, and last week four British Muslims were sentenced to a total of 22 years in prison for inciting hatred while demonstrating against the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

It would, however, be a mistake to imagine that Muslims are irretrievably opposed to free speech. Gallup conducted a poll in 10 Muslim countries (including Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) and found that the vast majority of respondents admired western "liberty and freedom and being open-minded with each other". They were particularly enthusiastic about our unrestricted press, liberty of worship and freedom of assembly. The only western achievement that they respected more than our political liberty was our modern technology.

Then why the book burnings and fatwas? In the past Islamic governments were as prone to intellectual coercion as any pre-modern rulers, but when Muslims were powerful and felt confident they were able to take criticism in their stride. But media and literary assaults have become more problematic at a time of extreme political vulnerability in the Islamic world, and to an alienated minority they seem inseparable from Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and the unfolding tragedy of Iraq.

On both sides, however, there are double standards and the kind of contradiction evident in Khomeini's violation of the essential principles of his mentor, Mulla Sadra. For Muslims to protest against the Danish cartoonists' depiction of the prophet as a terrorist, while carrying placards that threatened another 7/7 atrocity on London, represented a nihilistic failure of integrity.

But equally the cartoonists and their publishers, who seemed impervious to Muslim sensibilities, failed to live up to their own liberal values, since the principle of free speech implies respect for the opinions of others. Islamophobia should be as unacceptable as any other form of prejudice. When 255,000 members of the so-called "Christian community" signed a petition to prevent the building of a large mosque in Abbey Mills, east London, they sent a grim message to the Muslim world: western freedom of worship did not, apparently, apply to Islam. There were similar protests by some in the Jewish community, who, as Seth Freedman pointed out in his Commentisfree piece, should be the first to protest against discrimination.

Gallup found there was as yet no blind hatred of the west in Muslim countries; only 8% of respondents condoned the 9/11 atrocities. But this could change if the extremists persuade the young that the west is bent on the destruction of their religion. When Gallup asked what the west could do to improve relations, most Muslims replied unhesitatingly that western countries must show greater respect for Islam, placing this ahead of economic aid and non-interference in their domestic affairs. Our inability to tolerate Islam not only contradicts our western values; it could also become a major security risk.

· Karen Armstrong is the author of The Battle For God: A History of Fundamentalism

Dear Moeed, Hello , nice to read your article .I thought you dropped the idea of writing on this subject.
Contact please.

Moeed,

Though I appreciate your analysis and the work that went into its background. I'd like to differ with you about why Rushdie was awarded.
1. He should have been awarded a long time ago, considering other British writers of equal repute. He probably wasn't for fear of the reaction in Muslim worlds. The reason why literature is great is because it provokes people to think. In that case Satanic Verses provoked many people to think. The Islamic world's violent response to Rushdie, the Fatwa etc., in my humble opinion shows exactly what is wrong with it--sad that for a body of ideas that were so eclectic and advanced for the times has sunk to violence as a recourse for literally any problem.
2. The problem that the West has with Islam is the VIOLENCE. Nothing else is worthy of embarrassment.
3. If Muslims had behaved with dignity to the offense of the Satanic Verses, it would have proved Rushdie wrong.
4. Don't you think that the Jihad crowd, if they had stood in Hyde Park talking about exactly what is wrong with modernity, instead of bombing innocent people in subways, would have been heard?
5. It is a mark of Western liberty that the most outrageous ideas are published and discussed and a mark of the intellectual sloth and emotional cowardice in the 'Islamic' countries that nobody is free to speak their mind. But always must toady some figure in authority.
6. Don't you think that it is strange how a lot of the Fiqh that guides Islamic social behaviour today was written by a bunch of people who themselves had killed to get the power? and isn't it strange that the political state is always aligned with religion in each and every Muslim state? to ensure that the State never gives power to the people and remains imperial, submissive to a few people.

Unless Muslims/Islamic countries replace violence with cogent dialogue, it will continue to lose power.