Independence Thinker

Program Unveiled for Green Energy Summit 2009
Must Attend Event for Solar, Wind, Biomass, GreenFuels, Green IT, Green Builings, Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

December 15, 2008, Bangalore: From March 4-6, world leaders in the renewable, green, clean technology and energy efficiency sectors will gather in Bangalore for Green Energy Summit 2009. The summit is a highly efficient forum for varied stakeholders from solar, wind, biomass, IT, transport, construction, aviation, nanotechnology and biotechnology to bring together the business and science of the most important and relevant Green Energy and Clean technologies ( http://www.greenenergysummit.com ).

Green Energy Summit has two objectives, amidst a vast array of highly complex issues. First, to bring to a single, public platform - stakeholders and decision-makers from policy, finance, manufacturing and trade. Second, to help catalyze solutions, initiatives and opportunities, so that Green Business, and therefore the necessary change we seek so desperately, can prosper.

"While the business opportunities in the future are enormous, we understand the need for businesses today to gain a foothold so that economically viable change can be more logical, active and urgent. To facilitate this, we will be bringing together those who are creating, propagating and establishing the systems and standards that are needed, so there can be a firm stimulus for action that goes far beyond the rhetoric, with practicable initiatives being addressed," says Dilip Thomas Steering Committee Member/Program Chair & CEO of Saltmarch Media, the organizers of Green Energy Summit ( http://www.greenenergysummit.com/ )

"Green Energy Summit is unique in that it endeavours to identify practical steps that will be of interest to decision makers in govt, business, industry and civil society in order to move the agenda forward with speed and urgency," adds Dr. J Gururaja, Former Sr. Advisor to United Nations. Among the participants expected to explore a sustainable future at GES are the sector’s leading financiers, entrepreneurs, corporations, scientists, policy-makers, city planners and the buyers and sellers.

The first announcement of the complete program has been published from the summit website ( http://greenenergysummit.com/programOverview.html ). Featured speakers include the finest group of 'faculty' ever assembled on this subject:

-"Vision for Green Energy" -- Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Former President of India
-"Climate Change and Green Energy"-- Dr. R K Pachauri, IPCC
-"New Policy Initiatives for a Green Energy Future" -- Vilas Rao Muttemwar, Minister, MNRE, GoI
-"Greening India's Power Sector" -- Dr. Jairam Ramesh, MoS - Power & Commerce
-"Solar Photovoltatics: Global Perspectives" -- Dr. Hermann Scheer, Member of Parliament, Germany
-"Conflict/Integration between Energy Security and Climate Change Policies" -- H.E. Corrado Clini, Ministry for the Environment Land and Sea, Italy
-"Green Energy, Global Economy and the Planet" -- Dr. Christopher Flavin, Worldwatch Institute
-"The Global Energy Assessment for 2009" -- Prof. Thomas B. Johansson, IIIEE, Lund University
-"Financing Challenges and Opportunities for Green Energy Development" -- Michael T. Eckhart, ACORE
-"Learning from the European Target Figures for 2010" -- Dr. Wolfgang Palz, WCRE
-"Impact of Policy Initiatives and the Roadmap for Green Energy Development" -- Dr. Mohamed T. El-Ashry, REN21
-"Fostering the China-India Collaboration on Green Energy" -- Policy Makers and Industries from China
-"Global Energy Future - New Perspectives" -- Dr. Yogi Goswami, Former President, International Solar Energy Society
-"Partnership Strategies for Promoting Green Energy and Energy Efficiency" -- Dr. Marianne Osterkorn, REEEP
-"Regulators’ Perspectives on Encouraging Energy Efficiency and Demand Management" -- Pramod Deo, CERC
-"Status Quo and Roadmap for Green Energy Investments in Emerging Markets" -- Dr. H. Jeffrey Leonard, GEF
-"PPP in the future financing of Green Energy and Climate Change Projects" -- Dr. Jose Achache, GEO

Besides the plenaries, the power panels, industry-focussed sessions and workshops will cover topics including policy & framework, finance & strategy, CDM, China- Middle East-collaboration, solar, wind, fuels & transportation, green IT, energy efficiency, green buildings, small hydro, cogeneration, green buildings & architecture, environment. There is also a conclave of bankers, VCs, PE investors and aid organizations and a conclave of Chief Secretaries, Energy Secretaries and administrators to drive and debate policy and implementation.

Apart from the main conference, there will be a dedicated Exhibition area to showcase the work of vendors from Solar, Wind, Biomass, Green Fuels, Green IT, Green Buildings and Materials, Equipment manufacturers, the government, nodal agencies and the industry. Plans are also afoot to fund five practical and result-oriented projects in the areas of primary healthcare, SPV for drinking water, BIPV, “IT Lights-Off Day� and other applications; the projects will be announced at the Green Energy Awards ceremony on 6 March 2009.

Dr. Arcot Ramachandran, former UN Under Secretary General and chairperson of the summit, says, "We are also planning for the rural voice to be heard, for children to become green conscious, for achievers to be felicitated and, for participants to be taken to real-life implementations of renewable energy, so they can see and feel the promise of renewable and clean technology."

Needless to say, organisations participating in the summit have the opportunity to reinforce its commitment to sustainable development and promote its innovative green technologies and strategies with International and Indian companies, renewable energy intelligentsia, R&D and academic institutions, as well as the government, on several of the key initiatives their companies are driving.

Register now to secure your place at this premier networking and deal-making forum, in Bangalore from 4-6 March 2009. For sponsorship opportunities and delegate registration contact Poonam Sharma at +91 99020 77327 or +91 80 4005 1000, or e-mail info@greenenergysummit.com .

A Saltmarch Media Press Release
E: info@greenenergysummit.com
Ph: +91 80 4005 1000

I take back my earlier comments in this thread: I do not know enough about Gandhi to make any sort of judgement as of yet.

er Harish, you should settle this by showing us where manto abused you or your family members...when he "started it" as you claim. Otherwise you should just slug it out without trying to paw and claw at the moral high ground.
Instead of wasting time quoting irrevelant stuff about manto from other people, just show us the money quote.

Here is what people really think:

Post by shobig_sifar on Aug 24, 2007 1:31:33 am

give credit where it is due. I and Manto have had clashes of sorts and hardly ever had an agreement over anything, as is the case with him and Atif payee, but I can vouch he is not the sort of guy to imbue family members into his personal cyber-scuffles. Harish, on the other hand has been consistantly and appallingly abusing Aisha, despite his potential to have a clean and intellectual discourse.

Yaar... may God help you and help those you are quoting.

#353 Posted Yasser

You will keep hoping and praying and wishing that some how some anonymous nick will "expose" my "hypocrisy".

I don't have to pray. It is already happening. And the surprise is, your own compatriots are even more vitriolic than any Indian can ever be. Some of the threads exposing your utter hypocrisy left even me (who's quite familiar with your attention-seeking antics) shocked.

God save people who have the misfortune of being associated with a disgusting person like you.

And even god cannot save those unfortunate enough to be associated with a caricature such as you.

Harish mian,

You will keep hoping and praying and wishing that some how some anonymous nick will "expose" my "hypocrisy".

God save people who have the misfortune of being associated with a disgusting person like you.

#350 by Ranjit

For god's sake, you are two educated professionals with liberal values. Why does it have to descend to such virulent personal hatred and vitriol, especially attacking mothers and sisters?

Yaar Ranjit, I fully agree with you, but please check the 50-odd posts and see who started the whole mother thing. Yasser mian is frustrated because his attempts to pin me down have boomeranged on him, and so he probably thinks baiting me by abusing my mother will rile me up sufficiently to respond even more vulgarly than him, which could then be used as a case against me. All it has proved is Yasser mian's dubious credentials. Please also visit UP and check how other Chowkies are exposing his shameless hypocrisy.

Ranjit,

This is a very good question and should be addressed exclusively to this fellow Harish mian who really isn't worth my time given his disgusting habits.

This disgusting fellow with "liberal values" abused the hell out of my family because he doesn't find my views palatable. He says I abused him first but beyond trying to show him that such abuse indicates a deep seated insecurity and possibly a broken home ... I have not responded in kind.

Now he keeps saying I abused him but you can view the evidence in 326 and 301-305. If he feels I abused him or Aisha did... he should produce evidence. But he has none... so he is acting the only way he knows how to...

I wonder if some people are so devoid of humanity as to completely abuse others for having points of view contrary to each other. You and I have had many disagreements... how many time have we started abusing each other's mothers and wives?

Harish and Manto,

Guys, I dont mean to interrupt your mutual lovefest but this is really juvenile and disgusting, especially on a public forum. For god's sake, you are two educated professionals with liberal values. Why does it have to descend to such virulent personal hatred and vitriol, especially attacking mothers and sisters? Why cant you treat each other with at least some decorum? If you cannot behave rationally, why not ignore each other? If educated people cant have a decent conversation, what hope is there in the subcontinent?

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Know this

And in the future no this: just because you call your mother a bitch and a whore in love and affection doesn't mean every woman in the world is going to accept this kind of abuse.

Harish mian,

The said Ilog is still there and is in response to your ilogs. You can check the dates. You are abusive liar and you've been proved as one. Now keep going in circles.

Untill and unless you can produce our "abuse" against you, you don't have a point.

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You are right. I was merely trying to point out the hypocrisy in his reprimand to folio, when he himself is a 100 times more abusive without provocation.

In retrospect it was a collossal waste of time induling a fool like him.

Manto,

Why are you even arguing with this guy? If a dog barks, you don't bark back. Give him his due in life: Ignore him.

PS: For your sake, I sincerely hope you don't actually believe what you wrote in #340... because you ought to be locked up in some sort of an insane assylum.

Harish mian,

The burden of proving your assertion lies with you. I have already proved my assertion that you are an abusive person and you've admitted it. Now your assertion that you were provoked into doing it needs to be proved.

If you think this is an idiotic argument, you might want to consult "Indian Evidence Act" to see the procedure for yourself. According to you the entire Indian legal system is also idiotic.

#339 by Yasser

Yasser mian, squealing like a pig won't help. If you really had any evidence to prove that it was I who started the abuse, you would have produced it by now. Instead, first you claimed that it was I who started it in #271, then argued that since I accepted having abused you and the female Yasser, it was upto me to prove that I was provoked into doing it. Now what kind of an idiotic argument is that? You accused me of starting the whole thing, it is upto you to prove it.

harish mian,

You are beginning to sound like the biggest idiot on here.

You've accepted that you are abusive. Your abuse has been listed. Now you say you merely "responded in kind". Fair enough, it is now for you to prove that you responded in kind.

Therefore show us examples of this... and the best way to do this ... is to produce specific evidence of abuse by myself or Aisha.

#337 by Yasser

Apparently your countless ilogs with the flamboyant use of the word "bitch" and "whore" completely unprovoked is NOT evidence enough.

You do know who I used those words for, don't you? Looks like your frustration at having been caught with your pants at ankle-level has left you close to nervous breakdown. The references to red light areas means not just that it is your place of birth and residence, but could also be the place of the family trade, so why should you be upset at such words? In fact you should be pretty comfortable with them, shouldn't you?

Now it is up to you to prove that you were merely responding to provocation.

Not a single post of yours proves that it was I who started it all. All you've been CP'ing are my old ilogs with abuse, which I didn't even deny. But your claim that you were forced to abuse after I started it, still needs to be proved. Here's what you said in #273:

"You know full well that we've never abused you and any indirect insinuations I made to your family were after your hurled abuses at Aisha."

In the absence of such proof, I'm forced to conclude that in addition to the other questionable things you indulge in, you're also an inveterate liar and need some serious therapy.

Harish mian writes:

"having to grope for evidence to prove your claim"

Apparently your countless ilogs with the flamboyant use of the word "bitch" and "whore" completely unprovoked is NOT evidence enough. I suppose this how you address your mother at home in which case you must be informed that these are indeed derogatory words...

Mian... the evidence I have produced is damning. See post 326 again. Now it is up to you to prove that you were merely responding to provocation. The burden of proof lies with you.

The very fact that you can't produce a single post from us with the kind of abuse that you have resorted to is itself damning evidence of your culpability.

Harish mian,

Your language and my language is there for everyone to see.

As for "started the cycle of abuse"... the question would come up if I or Aisha had similarly abused you. We haven't and despite your tall claims, the only evidence we have is of your abuse.

You kept abusing us for expressing our point of view. Infact you declared that the reason you act the way you do is to shut us up.

Good luck.

Harish mian,

Your language and my language is there for everyone to see.

As for "started the cycle of abuse"... the question would come up if I or Aisha had similarly abused you. We haven't and despite your tall claims, the only evidence we have is of your abuse.

You kept abusing us for expressing our point of view. Infact you declared that the reason you act the way you do is to shut us up.

Good luck.

#332 by Yasser

The kind of unprovoked and unrestrained abuse that you are capable of, makes me wonder if you were brought up in the red light district.

And the kind of uncouth language that you have used on this very board makes me wonder if you were born and still live there.

We could have buried the hatchet.

Oh how very magnanimous!!! Thanks, but no thanks.

But you are so devoid of humanity and a sense of integrity that you have chosen to make this into another useless sparring match, despite having all the evidence in your face.

If the fact that 50 posts later, having to grope for evidence to prove your claim that I started the cycle of abuse represents a victory, then I'm happy to be the loser. Go ahead and celebrate it.

"Frustrated are we"

Yes. Frustrated as to how people like you can be so utterly and completely dishonest.

Harish mian,

Because I am honest man I admitted "indirect insinuations in response to your abuse" and here is another indirect insinuation. The kind of unprovoked and unrestrained abuse that you are capable of, makes me wonder if you were brought up in the red light district.


All you had to do was apologise for your abuse... and had you shown me where I had similarly abused you I would have apologised as well for such a slight- though good luck finding any. We could have buried the hatchet. But you are so devoid of humanity and a sense of integrity that you have chosen to make this into another useless sparring match, despite having all the evidence in your face. To me this represents the true of face of Gandhiism and its followers.

Rest assure nothing I can write can match the abuse you are capable of.


-YLH

#329 by Yasser

It turns out that not only are you butt ugly, blind and abusive, but God hasn't given you much of the grey matter either.

Hahahaha! Frustrated, are we? The fact that you slip down further and further on the abuse scale proves that your arguments are getting nowhere.

There is no question of that when only you have been resorting to such abuse.

Yasser, once again you leave me with no option but to catch you with your pants down in full public view. Here's what you wrote in #273 on this very board: "You know full well that we've never abused you and any indirect insinuations I made to your family were after your hurled abuses at Aisha." and it is an altogether different matter that you and the female Yasser abused me in your ilogs, but since you cleverly deleted them out, we'll leave it at that. But you still don't seem to have any evidence that it was I who started it off.

"All I'm asking you to do is to proof of your claim that it was I who started the whole thing."

It turns out that not only are you butt ugly, blind and abusive, but God hasn't given you much of the grey matter either. Started what first? There is no question of that when only you have been resorting to such abuse.

The question of who did it first would emerge if either Aisha or I ever brought ourselves down to your pathetic level.

"All I'm asking you to do is to proof of your claim that it was I who started the whole thing."

It turns out that not only are you butt ugly, blind and abusive, but God hasn't given you much of the grey matter either. Started what first? There is no question of that when only you have been resorting to such abuse.

The question of who did it first would emerge if either Aisha or I ever brought ourselves down to your pathetic level.

PS: Just posting them in italics doesn't make it new...just as packing stale food in a brand new silver foil doesn't make it any fresh..LOL!

#326 by Yasser

The only evidence we are looking for is your claim Aisha or I abused/provoked you... which sadly you haven't been able to produce.

Aww Yasser mian, must you produce everything that you and the missus stand for? All I'm asking you to do is to proof of your claim that it was I who started the whole thing.

Clearly, the fact that you must have to post these ilogs again and again shows that you have nothing new. Can't help it, can we?

Dear Harish mian,

Did you read posts 300-305 which quote your ilogs? Are you blind as well?

Here are some more of your ilogs...where you show us what your mother taught you:


Deluded B!tch by harish_hyd Oct 27, 2006 05:43 am Views: 7
Please leave Yasser alone by harish_hyd Sep 29, 2006 12:19 am Views: 4
Enjoy this, b!tch!! It could be YOU by harish_hyd Sep 20, 2006 05:41 am Views: 4
Frustrated and Unemployed in Lahore by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 04:28 am Views: 4
Caste-free Pakistan by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 04:00 am Views: 4
No Title by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 03:55 am Views: 4
Tag Team In Action by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 03:00 am Views: 1
B!tch starts bitching by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 02:43 am Views: 1

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#307 Posted by harish_hyd on August 22, 2007 10:39:51 pm
Hahahaha!!! Yasser getting desperate. You can go on posting my ilogs just because unlike you, I do not delete the offensive ones. But does it in any way prove that you do not belong to the Hamdani family? I doubt...LOL!
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#306 Posted by harish_hyd on August 22, 2007 10:37:32 pm
#301 Posted by Yasser

Do you want more of what your mother taught you?

Yasser mian, and if your mother had taught you any common sense, along with decency and honesty, you would understand that my ilog in in response to one by the female Yasser. Any outsider who's reading this ilog can clearly notice that. And unlike you both, I do not delete my ilogs to hide proof of such foul and vulgar language that seems quite common in the Hamdani family. Once again, you've only proved my point that my posts/ilogs have always been in response to provocation from you and the female Yasser.
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#305 Posted by MantoLives on August 22, 2007 10:36:35 pm
Here you are back to showing us what kind of family you are from:

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/54115/31575

Knight jumps to the rescue of damsel in distressPosted: Oct 29, 2006 Sun 10:36 pm Views: 1
If anyone is more likely to have been abused, it is Yasser’s mother..and we all know why. Perhaps also the reason why an Arab name was given to a Paki Muslim...oops Ahmadi...er Sunni....er Ismaili...phew!!!!


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#304 Posted by MantoLives on August 22, 2007 10:35:16 pm
Here you are thinking every woman in the world is like your mother:

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/54344/31575

Feeling better now, b!tch?Posted: Nov 7, 2006 Tue 03:45 am Views: 2
When there is no good news to share about your country, what else can you do to make it look good? When the US audaciously bombs your country anytime it wants to without bothering to so much as apologize, you need something to reassure you that you indeed belong to a sovereign country and not some banana republic that lives on the crumbs thrown at it by its master

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#303 Posted by MantoLives on August 22, 2007 10:32:48 pm
And here you are protesting that you look like your father instead of your mother:

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/56323/31575

At least I don’t look like a whore. That is what I would call audacity.

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#302 Posted by MantoLives on August 22, 2007 10:29:05 pm
Here is another... where you assume that everyone in the world follows the Gurumoorthy success ethic:

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/56318/31575

Insecurity is when a Madarssah-educated nouveau-riche son is proud of his father’s supposed achievements, boasting to all and sundry (funny when this is such an anonmymous forum where no claim can be verified) that his dad drives a better car than Azim Premji, whose net worth would be enough to purchase every woman in this chutiya’s family a million times over.

The only evidence we are looking for is your claim Aisha or I abused/provoked you... which sadly you haven't been able to produce.

-YLH

#321 by Yasser

What? Still no evidence? Yet another post goes wasted. Like I said before, all it proves Yasser mian is that you have been caught with your pants down and are now desperately looking for some cover. But coming from such an illustrious lineage, you shouldn't be ashamed at all, no?

Masadi mian,

We went through the discussion in detail and you failed to answer my points. So there is no point really in going in circles.

In my view, you are as disgusting and distasteful a liar as Mr. harish hyd of India... and utterly incapable of civilised academic dialogue based on facts.

Manto writes "Masadi mian,

An Indian poll recently conducted polls in Pakistan and India. One poll was about the founding fathers:

Jinnah's approval ratings in Pakistan 97% in India 43 %"

One things third rate lawyers should never do is throw out polls to social scientists as "proof". What kind of nonsense is this "approval rating"- approving of what? Of course they are going to approve just like the poll that Zia ul Haq conducted asking Pakistani's if they "wanted Islam"- what were they going to say? That the Church of MAJ has taboo attached with rejection is why you get these high poll numbers, dig a little deeper with REAL questions and you'll get to know just how deep the resentment is with lackeys of the West...

"PS: And I don't need to prove to anyone about how I was provoked. I know it, you know it, and the female Yasser knows it. That's all that matters. "

Yes we do. You got "provoked" because Aisha expressed her point of view about India. How dare she!!! How dare she provoke you by saying India has abject poverty. She deserved worse abuse than that... that woman!

Dear Harish mian,

You did not respond in kind. You being from where you are not used to women expressing their point of view. Hence you resorted to abuse.

Lets get something straight. My objection was to your hypocrisy in your post addressed to folio. You are the last person who ought to be giving moralistic lectures to anyone.

Otherwise your abuse doesn't bother us. I take it as evidence of your family background and dubious lineage.

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#318 by Yasser

The fact that you've not produced a single piece of "abuse" from us proves that you started it.

Hahahaha! So why do you think I would dig out your posts? You started the whole discussion about how I abused the female Yasser in #268. I did not go around to people crying that I was abused. It was you who said in this post:

"... ironic to see Harish mian, who has been hurling similar and worst abuses at Aisha Sarwari for expressing her point of view"

and then in #273:

"You know full well that we've never abused you and any indirect insinuations I made to your family were after your hurled abuses at Aisha."

I already said I RESPONDED IN KIND. Now show us proof that I started it? Come on, don't waste my time with your moronic (non)arguments.

Dear Harish mian,

If you were "retaliating", where is the evidence that something provoked you? Did Aisha or I ever call your mother or any other woman a "bitch" or a "whore" or a "slut" or anything of the sort?

The fact that you've not produced a single piece of "abuse" from us proves that you started it. Aisha's ilogs as well as posts and my ilogs and my posts are there to which you responded.

You know we did not start it. We did not even respond in kind. Yet instead of apologising for being abusive, you are going in circles, making adhominem accusations without any real basis.

My contention that you are a bloody hypocrite stands PROVED.

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Harish mian,

You are a joke. I've produced atleast 10 ilogs where you are showing us your family background and you've produced not even a single ilog/blog with any abuse from us.

All you could come up was some blog about misquoting Gandhi which I've shown is from an Indian book published by JNU Press. I stand by the quote because it is not some anonymous blog but an actual published piece of work by an Indian publisher.

So it is proved that you are one of the most abusive people on this website who can't take a counter argument without resorting to vilest abuse.

Now it was upto you to produce a single piece of evidence against us... ilog, post, blog etc and we've not deleted anything as God is our witness... you've failed miserably.

What I don't understand is why you are so insistent on lying. You know... God knows.. I know ... that what I am saying is true. Why not prove to me that you are a human being by admitting that you made a mistake and that you are sorry.

#314 by Yasser

Please tell me where in this ilog are we abusing you?

Yaar Yasser, that was a blog, not ilog. Sorry for the confusion. But in that post, where did I claim that you were abusing me? All I'm saying is that you have abused facts (which BTW is nothing new), and whoever wrote that blog has duly recorded it. And after that, if you still feel others see you as honest (and bringing in God as witness, as if he's gonna come down and testify for you), you're only deluding yourself.

But really, you're flogging a dead horse. I don't know what it is that you are out to prove. If you're bent on proving that I abused you and the missus, I already said that I have and it was in retaliation to abuse from you. If there is anything left to be proved, it is that I started it. Sadly, you've miserably failed to do that after almost 50 inane posts. So until you come up with something concrete to prove that I started it, I will respond at my own sweet will and time. I'm not going to match you word for word in idiocy, because no one can match you when it comes to it. But your dishonesty is starkly exposed and your "reputation" for spinning facts has spread far beyond the small confines of Chowk. Have a nice one!

Harish mian,

Please tell me where in this ilog are we abusing you?

The quote I got was from Dr. Ajeet Javed's book and was a different one but that is a different issue. 'I am a Hindu first and hence a true Indian' (Secular and Nationalist Jinnah by Ajeet Javed Singh Page 187, Jawaharlal Nehru University Press)

But how does it give you the right to abuse other people and their families?

#312 by Yasser

As god is my witness, we didn't delete or change anything. You can go look at it. You got banned.

Here's the ilog I found about you and the female Yasser:

-------------------------

http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/ 2006/01/on-quote-from-gandhi.html

On a quote from Gandhi

The Pakistani duo of Aisha Fayyazi Sarwari and Yasser Latif Hamdani are of the apparent opinion that sufficient repetition can turn anything into fact. An instance is the quote they attribute to Mahatma Gandhi:

'I am a Hindu first and hence a true Indian'

More accurately, the quote is

"There is undoubtedly a sense in which the statement is true when I say that I hold my religion dearer than my country and that, therefore, I am a Hindu first and nationalist after. I do not become on that score a less nationalist than the best of them. I simply thereby imply that the interests of my country are identical with those of my religion."

What is the nature of his religion and his nationalism?

I can neither serve God nor humanity if as an Indian I do not serve India, and as a Hindu I do not serve the Indian Mussalmans.

To understand the crusade against Mahatma Gandhi, one has to understand that he is a bulwark of modern Indian secular democracy. Those who would destroy it must diminish Gandhi. This is as true of the rabid Hindu rightwingers in India as it is of Pakistanis.
----------------------------

After this, do you expect anyone to take your word honestly? "God is my witness".....LOL!!!!!!

Dear Harish mian,

As god is my witness, we didn't delete or change anything. You can go look at it. You got banned.

You are basically devoid of humanity. You abused Aisha because she dared to express her point of view. How dare she ... that woman. I've proved with evidence what kind of disgusting and filthy background you hail from.

May God help those who have the misfortune being associated with a disgusting freak like you.

#309 by Yasser

Yasser mian, if I were a liar, I would have deleted my ilogs to cover my tracks, like you have done. But no, I stand by everything I said, and I believe in responding in kind. Too bad you love to dish it out but can't take it. Tough luck!

#303 by Yasser

And here you are protesting that you look like your father instead of your mother:

No Yasser mian, in fact I was being compared to something else instead of you-know-who, and I was feeling better about it, which is what I expressed. But you wouldn't know now because you thought you were being smart by deleting your khandaani ilogs.

Harish mian,

The only reason you felt so much liberty in abusing us was because we did not respond in kind. We don't believe in abusing women...

Had you even an iota of shame you would have accepted and apologised the liar you are.

Harish mian,

Aisha's ilogs are there. May God if there is one strike down the liar here.

Why don't you produce some evidence of where she or I abused you? You are the most disgusting person I have come across... a true Gandhian and a true liar indeed.

Here are some more of your ilogs...


Deluded B!tch by harish_hyd Oct 27, 2006 05:43 am Views: 7
Please leave Yasser alone by harish_hyd Sep 29, 2006 12:19 am Views: 4
Enjoy this, b!tch!! It could be YOU by harish_hyd Sep 20, 2006 05:41 am Views: 4
Frustrated and Unemployed in Lahore by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 04:28 am Views: 4
Caste-free Pakistan by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 04:00 am Views: 4
No Title by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 03:55 am Views: 4
Tag Team In Action by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 03:00 am Views: 1
B!tch starts bitching by harish_hyd Sep 15, 2006 02:43 am Views: 1

Hahahaha!!! Yasser getting desperate. You can go on posting my ilogs just because unlike you, I do not delete the offensive ones. But does it in any way prove that you do not belong to the Hamdani family? I doubt...LOL!

#301 Posted by Yasser

Do you want more of what your mother taught you?

Yasser mian, and if your mother had taught you any common sense, along with decency and honesty, you would understand that my ilog in in response to one by the female Yasser. Any outsider who's reading this ilog can clearly notice that. And unlike you both, I do not delete my ilogs to hide proof of such foul and vulgar language that seems quite common in the Hamdani family. Once again, you've only proved my point that my posts/ilogs have always been in response to provocation from you and the female Yasser.

Here you are back to showing us what kind of family you are from:

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/54115/31575

Knight jumps to the rescue of damsel in distressPosted: Oct 29, 2006 Sun 10:36 pm Views: 1
If anyone is more likely to have been abused, it is Yasser’s mother..and we all know why. Perhaps also the reason why an Arab name was given to a Paki Muslim...oops Ahmadi...er Sunni....er Ismaili...phew!!!!

Here you are thinking every woman in the world is like your mother:

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/54344/31575

Feeling better now, b!tch?Posted: Nov 7, 2006 Tue 03:45 am Views: 2
When there is no good news to share about your country, what else can you do to make it look good? When the US audaciously bombs your country anytime it wants to without bothering to so much as apologize, you need something to reassure you that you indeed belong to a sovereign country and not some banana republic that lives on the crumbs thrown at it by its master

And here you are protesting that you look like your father instead of your mother:

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/56323/31575

At least I don’t look like a whore. That is what I would call audacity.



....

Given that Amansandhu could not produce her evidence... I hope you will produce something to prove me wrong.

Here is another... where you assume that everyone in the world follows the Gurumoorthy success ethic:

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/56318/31575

Insecurity is when a Madarssah-educated nouveau-riche son is proud of his father’s supposed achievements, boasting to all and sundry (funny when this is such an anonmymous forum where no claim can be verified) that his dad drives a better car than Azim Premji, whose net worth would be enough to purchase every woman in this chutiya’s family a million times over.

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/54350/31575

No Yasser, I was only comparing the "strong Paki b!tch...er..woman" to your mother, and boy, do they compare well! In fact, it is hard to tell one from the other.

...

Do you want more of what your mother taught you?

Harish mian,

That is your stock answer. I am just amazed at your shamelessness. Did you not use words like "whore" and "bitch"? I don't know about the Gurumoorthy house hold, but everywhere else these are considered derogatory, sexist and outright offensive.

If you could show a similar attack on you or your family by Aisha or myself, you would have a point.

#298 by Yasser

That was really lame.

Sure..when everything else fails, this is the stock answer you're left with. BTW, I found an interesting blog which exposes your "honesty". Wanna take a look?

Yaar Harish mian,

That was really lame.

Masadi mian,

An Indian poll recently conducted polls in Pakistan and India. One poll was about the founding fathers:

Jinnah's approval ratings in Pakistan 97% in India 43 %

Gandhi's approval ratings in Pakistan 29% in India 85%

So your wishes are not going to come true.

Your failure to argue with facts and to repeat the illogic of the Mullah freaks who called Jinnah kafir-e-Azam in the 1940s shows your desperation.

So keep repeating your lies. Pakistanis are done believing liars like you who are their biggest enemies. And I speak for the common man... not you.

#292 by Yasser

Don't tell me that you are the genius who is advising Nawaz Sharif to deny the undertaking and agreement that he signed and which was presented before Supreme Court today.

Nope, how would I do that? Neither am I a Paki nor am I a lawyer, both of which you however are. So it must be you who brilliantly advised him.

You and your missus deserve every bit of abuse I've hurled ... and then the counter-accusation ... because I've only responded in kind.

It is quite clear that your simplistic "I only responded in kind" is no where to be found in 271.

Yasser mian, you must be blind as a bat to deny what is written right in front of you. In this department, you even beat Nawaz Sharif hands down.

Manto writes on another board "Is this guy Masadi for real?"

Yes, I am for real and I am the worst nightmare of a-holes of the West that want to perpetuate the same old MAJ BS in this country to take it further down even deeper into the gutter than it is in right now. What I do know for sure is that the fate of the Indian Muslim was a direct consequence of the majority collectively punishing a minority because of the greed of one man, the MAJ BS, a reaction to obtaining a non-viable country that was to become a whore of the West, thus causing debilitating suffering to the Muslims of this region both inside and outside India.

Today, I had to get some papers Xeroxed, so I went to a corner shop. This guy walks in and asks the shopkeeper, "When is Shab e Miraaj?" The shopkeeper says, "People of an enslaved nation do not partake in these things, I am worried about load shedding and you are asking me this question. People who are enslaved cannot have a religious identity." Then he turned to me and said, "kyun saab jee, theek baat hey?"

I said "bilkul theek" and I am happy that the people of this nation are finally waking up. Then they guy who asked the "Miraaj" question asked the shopkeeper, “Then why did Quaid e Azam make Pakistan", and the shop keeper says, "Quaid e Azam ney jhak maree thee". I laughed as I left the shop on whose wall was the "jhak man's" photograph and said, " Soon the people of this nation will rise up against the BS of both the Quaid and the Mullah variety, enough is enough, the time of our liberation is nigh, one that involves social justice for all". No lackeys of the West like the MAJ will be tolerated, new currency will be printed. Enough of the same old BS. The High Priest of the Church of MAJ and all its franchises and whore houses will be shut down. Then will the humanity in Pakistan rejoice......Inshallah

Gandhi was an influence on Bhagat Singh but Bhagat Singh became unhappy after he called off a campaign after Chauri Chora violence. Bhagat Singh and his compatriots became centre of attention of Indian youth of their time when Jatin Das died as a result of complications arising out of forced feeding to hunger strikers.

After Jallianwallah Bagh Massacre days of British in India were numbered. But after Gandhi if anyone could be credited with winning India freedom it was Bhagat Singh.

Serious historiography is difficult. It is difficult to fully account for "worth" of any one person or group when we try to assess contribution made by them to independence. But after Das's death and transportation of his body by rail many Indian youths were roused to take part in independence struggle.

Subhash Bose may have never tried to tap animocity of Japan and Germany if those external factors did not exist. But Bhagat Singh would have become revolutionary regardless of whether there was communist revolution or whether there was a Gandhi and whether Gandhi was pacifist or not.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Harish mian,

Don't tell me that you are the genius who is advising Nawaz Sharif to deny the undertaking and agreement that he signed and which was presented before Supreme Court today.

This is what you wrote in 271:

You and your missus deserve every bit of abuse I've hurled ... and then the counter-accusation ... because I've only responded in kind.

It is quite clear that your simplistic "I only responded in kind" is no where to be found in 271.

#290 by Yasser

You are being clever by half. That you hurled abuses is there by your own admission.

Here's what you wrote in #273: "You know full well that we've never abused you and any indirect insinuations I made to your family were after your hurled abuses at Aisha."

Yasser: You abused me and female Yasser.
Harish: I only responded in kind.
Yasser: Prove that we abused you first.

What kind of logic is that? Aray bhai, first you accuse that I abused you both, to which I say that I only responded in kind. Then you ask me to prove:

1. how I started it all?
2. how you are innocent?

Which one is it? It is rather strange that the one who accuses me of abusing him and his missus wants me to prove my innocence. Make up your mind and fast. I wouldn't want to engage in this discussion forever with someone who doesn't even know what he wants. If it weren't so pathetic, I'd die of laughter.

Dear Harish,

You are being clever by half. That you hurled abuses is there by your own admission. Had you not abused Aisha or myself, you would have said: "I have not abused you or Aisha".

Therefore your 271 amounts to admission and you know it is true. Your "in kind" statement doesn't make sense since Aisha has never abused you ever nor have I in the first instance.

So we know the following:

1. You have admitted to abusing Aisha and myself.

2. You have claimed that you abused us only in response to our abuse towards you.

3. You have not produced any evidence for 2.

#288 by Yasser

Therefore you need to prove your accusation since my "accusation" stands proved by your own admission/confession.

Yaar Yasser, I said #271 that I responded in kind to what you said. If you feel you and the female Yasser haven't abused me in any way, then what does "in kind" mean? Let me make this simpler for your mediocre brain: if X praised Y and Y responded in kind, it only means that Y praised X as well. OTOH, if X abused Y and Y responded in kind, it means Y abused X in response.

So the fact that you're squealing like a pig with its head cut off is because you know that you both abused me and were being crybabies when I responded in kind. If OTOH, you feel you haven't done anything to deserve the abuse, you have nothing to worry about. But all the kicking and screaming points to only one thing: you got more than you bargained for.

Yaar Harish mian,

Are you having problems comprehending what is being said?
My accusation that you have resorted to worst kind of abuse is proved by your words:

You and your missus deserve every bit of abuse I've hurled, because I've only responded in kind.

The claim that you've resorted to abuse was not DISPUTED by you. You came up with excuse that it was Aisha who started it. Therefore you need to prove your accusation since my "accusation" stands proved by your own admission/confession.

Now please see that the burden of proof lies with you. You may seek legal opinion from your finest "solicitor" friend on this.

-YLH

PS: the fact that you have to drag my family into this whole thing once again proves that you (and the female Yasser) deserved every bit of abuse I've hurled at you.

#285 by Yasser

Therefore the burden of proof is on you to show where Aisha abused you or your family to earn the abuse to which you responded in kind. Unless you produce this - my assertion remains unchallenged since the only admitted truth here is that you've resorted to abuse.

Abay Yasser, even an illiterate Abdul would tell you that since it is you who made the accusation, it is YOU who must prove it. Nowhere in the world is the accused asked to provide proof of his/her innocence. The onus of proving the accused's guilt solely lies on the accuser. Such shocking ignorance, coming as it does from someone "working for one of Pakistan's top law firms" is to say the least, astounding.

Dear Harish mian,

The problem with people like you is circular logic or lack thereof.

What am I supposed to prove? It is you who were supposed t prove that we abused you or your family.

The fact that you abused Aisha again and again on your ilogs and other places is NOT even disputed. You've admitted it and you were banned from this website for abusing people.

You wrote: You and your missus deserve every bit of abuse I've hurled, because I've only responded in kind.

Therefore the burden of proof is on you to show where Aisha abused you or your family to earn the abuse to which you responded in kind. Unless you produce this - my assertion remains unchallenged since the only admitted truth here is that you've resorted to abuse.

The truth is that you know as well as I do that neither Aisha nor I ever abused you and the only reason you resorted to showing us your family background was because you were frustrated - as usual - and had no counter-arguments to Aisha's ilogs about India (which did not mention you by the way).

Repetitively claiming that you abused us only because we abused you first without providing evidence for it is a rather shameless way of arguing.
-YLH


PS: Amansandhu promised three hours ago that she was looking it up and will show it. She has failed to produce evidence and she has failed to atleast apologise for her lie.

Yaar Yasser, on this very board, your propensity to resort to abuse at the drop of a hat is there for everyone to see. And instead of going on and on squealing like a pig, why don't you just prove that it was I who started the abuse? The fact that 10 posts later, you have absolutely nothing to prove your claim is rather revealing in itself, isn't it?

Apparently, your mother didn't see it fit to teach you basic honesty. Or is that a trait totally missing from your family?

PS: Aman, you don't have to stoop down to Yasser's level. All you have to do is call him by his first name, his parents ensured that every time you do that, you've responded in kind :-)

aman,

I hope you will have enough integrity to admit that you were wrong in claiming that if at all you don't find it.

Re: # 279

Sadly Harish mian that is not true. I did not complain to Chowk staff.

You were banned because instead of countering Aisha's ilogs about Indian poverty with logic, you started hurling abuses and showing off your family background.

You are such a liar. You admitted to abusing us in 271 giving the excuse that we deserved it. Then when you couldn't come up with any concrete reason for why we deserve it, you are asking me to give you proof. Shame. Check your ilogs... you will find ample evidence, if you haven't removed it already.

-YLH

YLH

PS: Your addition of the word "fuck" to what I actually called you shows that even you don't think dumbass qualifies as an excuse.

Ok, Manto I am looking it up, you will see it soon.

Re: # 275

Dumbassandhu,

The only person on a high horse here is Harish mian. No amount of abuse on his part can stop Aisha or myself from expressing our point of view.. all it does is prove a point about Harish mian's family background.

My issue was with Harish mian's self righteousness, hypocrisy and double standards. It was he was sermonizing Folio (and someone ought to have but not Harish mian who is as bad if not worse than Folio).

If we were to take that (dumb) as a standard of abuse, poor Harish mian would be banned from this website. However... my comment was with regard to specific abuses, in front of which even Folio's abuses against Hamidm are merely child's play.

And while you and I call each other names all the time, all Aisha was doing was posting news items about India... the same way arjun-m does. But because Arjun-m is a man, he cannot be targetted for his gender.. but Harish mian chose to target Aisha, presumably because his mother failed to instill any respect for women in him.

-YLH

PS: Your addition of the word "fuck" to what I actually called you shows that even you don't think dumbass qualifies as an excuse.

#274 by Yasser

Harish mian, for its worth, was duly banned from Chowk for several days on several occasions for indulging in such abuse.

And the only reason you weren't is because you lick Chowk staff's boots, of which there is ample evidence. Or you would have to be banned every couple of days.

And sure, we all know your family background, please don't get me started with that.

#273 Posted by MantoLives

You are a shameless human being. You know full well that we've never abused you and any indirect insinuations I made to your family were after your hurled abuses at Aisha.

Yasser mian, you accused me of abusing you and the missus. Stop squealing like a pig with its head cut off and show proof. Otherwise, it only proves my earlier contention, and that too on this very board, that it is you guys who started the abuse and you fully deserve any retaliation from my side.

I am free this afternoon, I will look it up, its about time Manto came down from his high horse

What you wrote Manto, is here,on chowk, in print, In the meanwhile start looking for excuses

Manto, I will look it up, and oh by the way isny calling me dumb abuse. Talk about double standards

dumbassandhu,

I called you a dumbass, because you are. I did not use the word "fuck". That is a lie.

Harish mian has called me such things for a long time and I don't even consider such banter abuse. It is the vilest abuse that only someone with a questionable family background can throw up that I have objected to.

Harish mian, for its worth, was duly banned from Chowk for several days on several occasions for indulging in such abuse.

Harish Mian,

You are a shameless human being. You know full well that we've never abused you and any indirect insinuations I made to your family were after your hurled abuses at Aisha.

The reason you resort to the vilest abuses against Aisha was only because of what she wrote against India. She had not abused you or your family or anyone else. So your comment is a lie and may God help people like you who are such blatant liars.

Manto, you have hurled abuses at me expressing my point of view, calling me a dumbass fuck.

#268 by MantoLives

... ironic to see Harish mian, who has been hurling similar and worst abuses at Aisha Sarwari for expressing her point of view.

What part of "You don't hit back in the same coin until someone has provoked you by insulting/abusing you or your family members personally." did you have trouble comprehending? You and your missus deserve every bit of abuse I've hurled, because I've only responded in kind.

laddu, no gate-crashing. We are having our own party, open to all. The only requirement is you must love partying.

Those who come because they are called will be strictly prohibited from entering.

Re: # 266

Hey,

But how are you going to get past the idolator beheader and intercessor who would ensure that you do not get the ticket to Allah's rave party.

While what folio did was abhorrent... ironic to see Harish mian, who has been hurling similar and worst abuses at Aisha Sarwari for expressing her point of view.

Something ought to be said about double standards.

Re:GT #239,"... it is best for institutions to be a-religious"

GT, there is no such animal.

masadi

It's possible the middle classes brought a democratic mindset in Europe, but in India, at best they provided democratic leadership, refining, defining collective visions and aspirations (not a mean factor by any stretch; but they worked on existing material, did not furnish the material itself).

One may even argue, on a hunch, that in the economically/socially harsh conditions that India faced, middle classes would choose undemocratic/particularistic solutions. I have seen that happen, personally. Anecdotal evidence, but there may be something to it.

---------------------

harish, folio

Good job, guy :)

We horrible Hindoos enjoy hamdim's presence, even learn from him. On judgement day, we will plead on his behalf, that he be permitted to enter the good places, along with us. :)

Re: Aslam and others

Those who are suggesting that the "Middle class" is somehow responsible for setting up the foundation of democracy in India are talking BS, without popular support the Middle Class is always coopted since they are employed by the vested interests who contour not only their personalities but vest them into maintaining the status quo, not to mention that the Middle Class wasn't of much significance in independence era India as a bullwark against colonization...

#263 by Folio

Yaar if there is anyone you need to apologize to, it is hamidm2 mian. You don't hit back in the same coin until someone has provoked you by insulting/abusing you or your family members personally. That's all I'm saying.

Sorry Harish, That's all based on his previous accounts of his family history, which he bragged abt as a matter of pride. I just added zing to it to make it even for his piece on Gandhi.

Btw, Do I have an option to delete a post?

If so, Chowk Staff pl do DELETE the post 'Everybody Likes Hamid2'.

#230 by Folio

Yaar Folio, that was in bad taste and without provocation. Hamidm is irreverent of everything emanating from South Asia, but that does not mean you get personal with him.

#253 dont worry yar..there was a civil war after the prophet died..but later the kaliphas created a great islami empire..alls we got to do is wait for that kalipha after this temperory civil war phase is over and then everything will be just fine.

IB #254 One can always point to something that someone didnt do, or some fault in someone. That does not change the fact that the Chief Justice has stood up for the basic rights and freedoms of the people of Pakistan that Musharraf and his agents were only too happy to try to take away from them.

And the vast majority of the people of Pakistan understand that. Even if you chose not to.

GT: You seriously underestimate Abdul. He is as smart as you or me or anyone else. As proof of this: I remember reading a column in the Washington Post where the columnist predicted that the Chief Justice would not find much popular support given that issues like habeas corpus and the right to vote were beyong the understanding of the average person in a poor country. Events proved that columnist wrong.
Conversely, Musharraf's lie that he could not act against maulvis of lal masjid when they were intimidating shopkeepers and others in Islamabad was proved when in fact people heaved a sigh of relief when he finally cracked down on the maulvis. Two days after lal masjid, there was a large public gathering - as part of the democracy movement, with lal masjid remembered only by maulvis.

Same in India - BJP made a big deal about "India Shining" and BJP leaders like Advani tried to play on hindu nationalism. And ended up losing elections, because the indian abduls too saw through this crap.

So, have more respect for the poor people of South Asia. And just be glad that you and I are more fortunate than them - but God gave them a brain like he gave you and me as well. Never forget that.

Re: # 253 Why Jinnah archives are still not opened ? any reason. hope soon made open as with time paper slowly disintegrates. May be under some scholars international group should compile and and gop should subsidise so even poor people can study selected works of Jinnah and gone by era.

Tahmed sahib:

You ask:

"So, why not call a spade a spade in politics, and call good governance as "good governance" rather than as "ram raj" or "islamic state"?"

I would gladly follow your prescription. But there is a slight problem. Suppose I am fighting an election and I am telling abdul that I will implement "good governance". He asks me "what is good governance". I tell him "well it means secularism, balanced budget, free trade etc. etc.". He is not very convinced. Instead I say "good governance induces ram rajya". Now you got the sucker and his vote (or even his laathi) :)

Point is you simply cannot leave religion out in South Asia today. Maybe, in some distant future.

I do not understand why these guys are struck up in Gandhi and Jinnah.

Too much of obsession with political leaders and "Prophets" makes a dis passionate evaluation of their contributions at a hind sight difficult. That makes us susceptible to making the same mistakes in the history agan and again.

Pakistan needs to kick out all the references ot "Islam" or the so called "Islamic principles" from its constitution if it is to turn into a modern democracy - otherwise they would keep on repeating the nonsense that has been carrying on since the last 60 years.

At a hind sight Jinnah's ghost also needs to be exorcized from Pakistani minds because he also strenghtens the notion of Islam as a foundation of that nation.

On UP, Saleeeeeeem has made an observation: Gandhi and Osama belong to the same spectrum but stand at opposite ends.

There is something about this statement which rings true, but I do not know what. Anyone cares to explain?

Saleeeeeeeeeem?

Re: # 250 tahmed bhai,
don't you think CJ is biased? there's a case by Air Marshal (r) Asghar Khan - which provides evidence that ISI distributed money to Nawaz Shairf,Javed Hashmi,Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Fazul-ur-Rehman and lot of other politicians. Why is CJ not going against them? Don't you think CJ's involvement in missing cases is hurting National Security?
Why are we such a emotional country? CJ is fooling everyone!

Re: # 249

Given that most of Jinnah archives still remain under lock and key, including presumably the famous draft constitution that he had been working on... we cannot say for sure how much he actually did achieve in those 13 months.

What we do know is that Muslim League- which though founded in 1906- as a mass political party had only really come to the forefront in 1936-1937. Before that it had been an annual platform/conference for all practical purposes ... except the brief role Jinnah's ML had played against the Simon Commission. With power falling to the League in 1947, one could say the party peaked too early ... and too many khota sikkas jumped other ships to join it bringing it down.

Thus in 1947... you had a dying charismatic leader and a bunch of immature politicians in a very nascent party-movement which lacked the maturity that such an organisation develops over a few decades. This is why the same party broke into a million parts after Pakistan was created.

Just imagine!

Justice loving Americans, Citizens for many many generations, Successful in their fields , highly respected by their opponents..talk about the hatred for US & why that hatred is justified...

and then there are Cantonment & Colony Kuttaaas from Pakiland, on work-permit green-card citizenship maybe, with BBS-education fromtoata-maina school...who love the maashter so much that they have yet to utter a single sentence against the US thUggs.

"Mujhhay bataa toa sahee aur kaafiree kyaa hai"?
........................................ALLAMA Iqbal

tr: Pray , at least tell me, what else is un-belief.
__________________________________________________________
Why They Hate Us
by Sheldon Richman, June 27, 2007

What’s more obnoxious than a person who constantly whines about the injustices committed against him while ignoring his own injustices against others?

A country that does the same thing.

We often hear American politicians and commentators reciting a list of “terrorist� acts committed against the “United States.� It typically includes the 1982 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the 1996 bombing of U.S. Air Force housing in Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden in Yemen. Reciting this string of attacks supposedly demonstrates, without further argument, that the United States has been the major victim of violence on the world stage — unprovoked violence perpetrated by “Islamofascists� because we are free. Indeed, it is widely believed that the attacks on September 11, 2001, were in part the result of “our� failure to retaliate for the earlier attacks.

But this is sheer balderdash. The attacks, while often criminally misdirected, were hardly unprovoked.

The last century-plus of U.S. foreign policy has largely been a story of aggression and empire-building. American presidents have intervened and interfered in every region of the world, not in self-defense, but in the name of U.S. “national interest,� which in reality means the interest of well-connected corporations and their ambitious political agents who felt appointed to bring order to the world. As a whole, the American people haven’t gained by this — in fact, they have paid dearly in money and lives. But not as dearly as those on the receiving end of that policy. For all the pious moralizing about democracy and human rights, American foreign policy has treated foreign populations like garbage, beginning with the brutal repression of the Filipino uprising against American colonial rule from 1899 to 1902. That war and its related hardships killed 250,000 to a million Filipino civilians and 20,000 Filipino rebels.

How many Americans know that?

Since that time American presidents have intervened, directly or by proxy, in countless places, including Cuba, Haiti, Colombia (Panama), Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq, Guatemala, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. On many occasions American administrations have engineered regime changes (sometimes with assassinations) to install leaders friendly to “American interests.� Rarely has intervention occurred without the murder of innocent civilians, degrading hardship for survivors, and arms and (taxpayer) money for repressive “leaders.� The paradigm is the 1953 intervention in Iran, when the CIA helped drive an elected, secular prime minister from office so the autocratic shah could be restored to power. His brutal U.S.-sponsored repression of the Iranian people finally provoked a religious revolution in 1979, creating an anti-American theocracy that has been a thorn in the side of U.S. presidents ever since.

Coincidence? Of course not. Americans may be ignorant or forgetful; the victims seldom are.

Iran was neither the first nor last case of “blowback,� the CIA’s term for what happens when a foreign operation explodes in one’s own face.

How many Americans have any inkling of the crimes — yes, crimes — their government has committed against foreign peoples in their name over the last century? Most people don’t know and don’t care — and that’s fine with their rulers because when vengeful foreigners assault American civilians (unjustifiably) or military occupiers, U.S. leaders and jingoist supporters can say “America� was the victim of another unprovoked attack. “Why do they hate us?� they will wonder.

Anyone the least bit familiar with history will know the answer. The CIA is about to release hundreds of documents about earlier interventions (and domestic spying), so there’s no more excuse for ignorance. Let’s stop whining and get curious. As Walt Kelly’s Pogo put it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.�

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Visit his blog “Free Association� at www.sheldonrichman.com. Send him email.
__________________________________________________________

Jang:

Both MKG and MAJ were haters of the West, not simply British or the Colonisers but basically whatever stood for "WEST".

Time & Time again they expressed their derision for Western civilization and the Western system ( the quotes, excerpts, ansd speeches are not isolated or private) in the full glare of Internation media. They never ever said these things to please any crowd..all the utterences were in the language of the Maashter.

The Pakis who fancy themselves as Ooons have NO deen O Eemaan..they immediately distance themselves from these great men when it comes to expressing an unconditional, unequivocal and unabashed HATRED for the WEST. The Kanjaroon here refuse to admit & utter it..even in an anonymous capacity.

Until & unless they express hatred, at least for their barbaric invasion & killings in Iraq & afghanistan, & condemn The United Satans and their Coalition-for-the -Killings Nothing what they write or say carries any value.


Ex[pressing HATRED for the west is the only indicator today of a free-mind...If one can't even speak against the bastards what else one could expect from these Kuttaas of Macualay,

mantolives: i should add that the chief justice is an example of what i am talking about. yesterday he told the intelligence chief in pakistan to produce a "disappeared" man before court or else face jail himself!! this is the kind of a leader I am talking about - who is not scared to stand up for the basic rights of each Pakistani. Which includes the right to vote and the right to habeas corpus.

#247 manotlives: That is indeed different from what I stated earlier, because you reminded me of Nehru staying in power, which demonstrated that if Jinnah had lived Pakistan too may have had a democracy. The rule that "no man is always right" applies, after all, to me as well.

The basic point I make - i.e. that "leaders" need not be grasping for political office all the time - remains unchanged though.

Also, note that Jinnah did know he was dying, while Nehru was in good health, and so the former could have done more like I mentioned.

And I say this with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, like I said, so one can understand why Jinnah did not anticipate games that tinpot generals and twobit bureaucrats (like ghulam muhammed) and khotasikka politicians (like bhutto) not to mention halfbrained maulvis would play in the absence of strong constitutional foundations.

i think the islamis should give big hugs to paki-secularoons..they after all hated gandhis for his ramraj but loved jinnah for his nation based on islami principles. they have their heart in the right place..they are just trying to make it palatable.

Re: # 245

Agreed on this but that is different from what you stated earlier.

GT #239 I have no problem with someone being positively inspired by his personal views, religious or otherwise (a hindu with ram raj as interpreted to mean good governance, a muslim with "islamic state" as also interpreted to mean good governance, or an avowed non-religious guy who merely seeks good governance).

My point is very simple: religious terms like "ram raj" or "islamic state" do not necessarily translate into good governance. So, why not call a spade a spade in politics, and call good governance as "good governance" rather than as "ram raj" or "islamic state"?

This way, no one can do a bait and switch: i.e. protray "ram raj" or "islamic state" as good governance before coming to power, and once in power translate it differently to mean caste oppression (in case of hinduism) or oppression of women and minorities (in case of islam as zia did with hadood laws and blasphemy laws).

Mantolives #240 It is indeed true that if Jinnah had lived as long as Nehru after partition, he may well have established solid Constitutional foundations that no tinpot general or halfbrained maulvi would have dared to ignore.

On the other hand, as I understand Jinnah was well aware of his precarious health, and so could have focussed on establishing these Constitutional foundations.

I realize hindsight is 20-20, so I guess this is more of wishful thinking, i.e. that there was some way to knock into the heads of would-be saviors of Pakistan like Musharraf and BB and Nawaz Sharif that they can best serve their country at this stage by stepping aside and letting true democracy flourish (i.e. with inner party elections to select new heads of the PPP and the various MLs, given that BB, NS and Mush have had their chance and the average Pakistani doesnt care for any one of them).

Re: # 243

I was always impressed by Washington- the great general who defeated Cornwallis - who in turn humbled the great Tipu Sultan of Mysore ...

I am also impressed by Alexandar Hamilton even more than than Jefferson and Washington. But that is another story...

240 Manto

"I am saying Washington did the right thing by seeking office. You on the other hand want to make him into something he was not"

We are entitled to our own opinions. I am very impressed with the guy as I learn more about him.

Goodbye and take care.

Farzana Versey has written a remarkable piece in Asian Age on the New Gandhi movie:


Maverick: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost
by Farzana Versey
The Asian Age, Op-ed, Aug 7, 2007


Bluntly put, Mahatma Gandhi was afraid of his son Harilal. “To the people he was a father…To his son he was the father he never had� says the subtitle of the new film Gandhi My Father. This is itself a misnomer. Gandhi was never the father of the people; he was the father of the nation. To the people he was the Mahatma, a greater soul.


Like many fathers in the subcontinent, Gandhi was in competition with his son for the potential of him taking over as man of the house and his wife’s attention. To handle the first threat he denied him conventional education and for the second he adopted celibacy as a means of giving Kasturba the position of his mother. The son, denied his Oedipal attachment, sought out prostitutes.


Put sexual self-denial/destruction in the context of the family unit and you will see how universal the story is. The normal person here is the son and not the father.


Gandhi was at an age when he should have felt settled. He was not. When he talked extensively about his battle with lust, it would be easy to classify it as frustration. Harilal was mirroring it all the time and that must have been disturbing.


Individual angst is a microcosm of the dysfunctional nature of society and even larger political issues. When the son converted to Islam at the age of 50, it again brought to the fore Gandhi’s assumption that he was still a child who would go to the “highest bidder�. As he wrote, “Harilal's apostasy is no loss to Hinduism and his admission to Islam a source of weakness to it, as I apprehend, he remains the same wreck that he was before.�


The fact is that the father was struggling with his own spiritual moorings. He was trying to base a fight for freedom on the foundation of morality gleaned from epics. His political arena was an ashram. The son turning to a religion which would in effect brand the father a kafir was a blow not to his paternal instinct but to the idea of his own godliness.


Gandhi was essentially the Nowhere Man suddenly trapped in the standards of the new world, which his ostensibly simple sensibilities could not grasp. If you care to look out of your window and spot a man who is either smiling too much, or walking far too purposefully or getting more restless than is necessary, then this is the man who has no answers as to what went wrong, and how and why.


So, he regresses, hoping to unveil today’s revolution by using yesterday’s bravado. He starts at home with the new arsenal in his battle against an imagined opponent – his spouse. The only way he can assert that he is in charge is by making rules. Some lines need to be drawn for him not to break inside.


Kasturba became a caricature of a housewife forced into becoming an ideological sidekick. She was expected to get everything right, and be in control not only of external situations but of her emotions. She had the constantly pained look and fake smile of somebody who had to hold back.


Harilal was seeking a role-model and instead found parents prone to Kodak moments of lobotomised bliss. He naturally became obsessive, but there was clarity in his thinking. As he did not fit into a mould, he could fashion himself the way he wished. It is to his credit that his rebelliousness was positive in that he did not worry about playing to the gallery. It is here that a political statement comes out with the greatest force. Do we have to remain outsiders to be truly contented? Does being snubbed act as a spur to freedom?


In the devious little trick film Lage Raho Munnabhai, that is now considered a contemporary classic, the protagonist buffers the ‘spirit’ of Gandhi. Interestingly, we have a goon without a family lecturing a bunch of old men deserted by their families. All the subjects for the Gandhigiri experiment are what society deems to be dysfunctional people.


Therefore, let us forget whether he was a good father or not. Was Gandhi, the statesman without a state, a good father of the nation? His aphorisms amount to the inheritance of candyfloss that gets sticky after a while. In a nation that was to be created as a secular republic he was pushing the idea of god. When there was talk of an honourable settlement between the Hindus and Muslims almost a decade before Partition, he had said, “My faith in unity is as bright as ever; only I see no daylight but impenetrable darkness and in such distress I cry out to god for light.�


His idea of Ram Rajya has today become cause for an acrimonious second, albeit mental, partition. And what has happened to the Harijans, children of god? Don’t we realise that this whole toilet-bowl existence he sanctified as dignity of labour has left millions of people still in the Grade 4 category of jobs? It took an Ambedkar to truly empower them as Dalits. Non-violence? Is there such a movement today? We have a South African, Nelson Mandela, speaking up for it after having been branded a terrorist in the past.


Let us get real. We don’t need a Harilal to tell us that the Gandhi bubble had burst long ago and become a mere ghost along one more M.G.Road.

'The noble ones give up power and come back if needed and do what's needed and ofcourse they become "prime movers"'

Pardesi this statement more fittingly applies to Jinnah than some Virginia plantion slave onwer though I have great respect for General Washington for other reasons and he was a product of his times.

If you think about it Jinnah refused power more than anyone else in India. He was offered premiership of India thrice, offered governorship of several provinces.. he rejected countless offer of titles like sir and Qaiser etc... he refused to even accept honorary doctorates from universities who wished to bestow them on him... preferring to remain plain Mr. Jinnah.

Even his final decision to seek the office of Governor General of Pakistan was a reluctant one. Announcing the June 3rd Plan to the Muslim League Working Committee and after its subsequent passage... Jinnah had this to say:

"I have done my job. You have your Pakistan. You may do with it as you please. When wars are won, field marhsalls retire and civilian authority must take over."

It was not untill Mid-July that Muslim League nominated Jinnah... a whole month after the June 3rd Plan. There were three reasons for it:

1. Lord Mountbatten was unacceptable to Pakistanis as GG because he was too pro-Congress.

2. Hamidullah Khan, Nawab of Bhopal, the Muslim League's favored candidate was embroiled in a rather interesting familial struggle with his daughter and heir apparent Abida Sultan. Abida wanted to leave for Pakistan but Hamidullah Khan wanted her to take over in order to abdicate to India.

3. According to Liaqat, and he represented the League's majority view, Jinnah alone was a politician and leader who had popular appeal amongst the masses. He alone could keep the nation together at that critical time.

Hence Jinnah - already ailing and over worked- was once again asked to bail the Muslim Leaguers out. This ofcourse earned Pakistan the wrath of Dina Wadia for ever and she has mentioned how her father's life was squeezed out him by the Pakistanis.

And then they forced the dying man to make a trip down to East Pakistan... which in essence proved to be the nail in the coffin for Jinnah never recovered from that long and arduous journey, in which by the way he made his biggest political blunder ever.

Sri Prakasa's account confirms that Jinnah planned on returning to his house in Bombay and living out the rest of his days.

Ofcourse had he done so... he would have been abused by many for "abandoning Pakistan" to go live in the comfort of his palatial mansion ... ironic because his 2.6 acre mansion was much smaller than the 300 acre plantation General Washington retired to.

Pardesi mian,

I am saying Washington did the right thing by seeking office. You on the other hand want to make him into something he was not.

There was no United States before 1789 and Washington was an Army General not a Governor or head of a state. He then brought the colonies together and ruled them for two terms.


Tahmed,

No man is perfect and Jinnah made his fair share of mistakes. However what you are saying is frankly not making much sense to me. In other words... Jinnah should have become the head of state and retired within 1 year because he would die in the 13th?

George Washington not only played a leading role in making of the constitution but also became the first president and was president for 8 years. Jinnah by comparison died in 13 months. So atleast don't second guess history. If one goes by what Sri Prikasa told Jawaharlal Nehru, Jinnah was planning on retiring back to Bombay had he lived...In other words... Jinnah should have become the head of state and retired within 1 year because he would die in the 13th. Remember Jinnah very much planned on staying out of office but it was Mountbatten's designs that forced him to move to Pakistan. Just like George Washington, for Pakistanis Jinnah was the natural candidate.

Gandhi would never have been a candidate. It was Nehru who was built up as a candidate. If your reprimand was relevant it was to Jawaharlal Nehru who was in power for 17 years and died in power. Yet for some reason no Indian seems to criticise him for not leaving power but you are criticising Jinnah was staying in power for barely 13 months before dying ?

Ironic.

tahmed sahib:

You write:

" .... we should not drag in religious symbolism into political issues, otherwise we corrupt both religion and politics."

Religions often tell us how one should live one's life both private and public. Politics is a process which sets up institutions within which life is to be lived. Over time and across geography the two have intersected to produce both good and bad results. But more importantly, if most people want to live their private and public lives guided by religion, its myths and symbols, then (in a democracy) isn't it but natural that religion will guide politics? How will they necessarily corrupt each other? Now it may well be argued that in a multi-religious society with conflicting religious ideals, it is best for institutions to be a-religious. While, this may indeed be so (and I am biased towards this viewpoint), the politics which creates these institutions need not be a-religious at all. In fact, I believe, that in such situations politics should be very close to religion so that peoples' religion/s is/are well understood. Otherwise, institutions will be deeply flawed.

Talking about religion, politics should well reflect hamidm2's and my religion also. And in this domain, let me (under the supreme guidance of hamidm2) assure you that there will be no cross-fertilization of corruption between religion and politics. If our polity were to rule then we would want only one execution: that of mohar. We would impose at most one restriction: Gandhi's photographs on the walls of govt. buildings be removed due to our concern about politicians developing bad sexual habits. Otherwise, everything will be fine and liberal. Osama can apply for a visa as long as he checks the "not a terrorist" box.

218 Mantolives

Here is the link that will provide you little more details on the 3-4 year gap between the end of war and his new venture about constitution. The power hungry people don't give up power unless forced to. The noble ones give up power and come back if needed and do what's needed and ofcourse they become "prime movers".

The key words in the link are:

"Following the end of the war in 1783, Washington emulated the Roman general Cincinnatus, and retired to his plantation on Mount Vernon, an exemplar of the republican ideal of citizen leadership who rejected power"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington

Also, please dont put words in my mouth. I never compared Gandhi with Washington. Neither one was better than the other. They were just different for different civilizations and their respective nation's needs at the time.

hamidm: Talking of naked politicians, I wonder if you would be equally opposed to Lady Godiva who (like Gandhi) chose to ride naked (and not even partially naked as in case of Gandhi!) through town in a form of non-violent protest (against her own husband in this case in an attempt to shame him into ending his cruelty to the peasants). The conversation would have gone this way then:

Lady Godiva (in full naked glory, sitting on the horse, makes her political statement): No more beating up the peasants, Sire!!

hamidm: How cool!! I am drooling over Godiva, and I dont mean Godiva chocolates either!

missus (whispers to hamidm): You want a slap, boy!!

Mantolives: Of course Gandhi was never a serious contender for power. That was my point!!

He CHOSE not to seek public office, and had he chosen otherwise would any Congress politician have dared to deny it to him?

And of course Washington could have become lifelong President had he CHOSEN to do this. He chose otherwise. While I have a lot of respect for Jinnah, and we owe him our beloved Pakistan, let us not deny facts or deny the reality that no man is always right.

Stuka #224 You misunderstood what I wrote, so let me clarify: When I wrote that you and kaalchakra had the "dark vision" of ram raj, I also meant that you were opposed (not supportive) of this "dark vision" (i.e. good governance). And when I wrote that others (drlokraj/folio) had what in effect would be the "bright vision" of ram raj, I also meant that they were supportive of the "bright vision".

This may sound confusing, but this illustrates the fundamental point I tried to make: we should not drag in religious symbolism into political issues, otherwise we corrupt both religion and politics. Thus: if you simply refer to "good governance" (instead of "ram raj" in case of India, or "islamic state" in case of Pakistan), then everyone knows what you are talking about and it is easy to agree. Wrap this political concept in religious terms, and you open up room for all sorts of interpretations. Thus, zia in Pakistan wrapped his politics in religious symbolism, and did incredible damage to Pakistani political institutions while at the same time as he did incredible damage to religion in Pakistan by funding and politically strengthening priests (and thus defaced the beauty of Islam which rests in the lack of an organized priesthood).

So, in fact, I tend to agree bascially with you and Kaalchakra. Drag terms like ram raj into politics (even if you really mean "good governance" and not caste suppression), and the perfectly fine democratic set up in India will in due course be corrupted by religious chauvinists. The same way the concept of an "Islamic state" has done in Pakistan.

Excerpts from an article by Vinay Lal, historian from UCLA Journal of History of Sexuality of Uni of Texas.

====================

"as long as the penis remains, one cannot
be a true ascetic."

=======================

Most tellingly, though, Gandhi appears to have found some sustenance in certain strands of Vaishnava theology and literature. During the course of one long exposition of his views on brahmacharya, Gandhi had remarked: "When the Gopis were stripped of their clothes by Krishna, the legend says, they showed no sign of embarrassment or sex-consciousness but stood before the Lord in rapt devotion."

=====================

the Indian political scientist Bhikhu Parekh, the whole matter of Gandhi's "bizarre" sexual life can virtually be dismissed with the observation that hls "theory of sexuality rested on a primitive approach to semen."

====================

Working almost entirely withln a positivist
framework, Parekh has nothing much to say except that Gandhi's ideas about the "production and accumulation" of semen were "untrue," and that the old man was "wrong" to "mysti@" semen by ascribing it with "lifegiving power," just as he was "wrong to associate it with energy"; indeed, "the very concept of ojas or spiritual energy is largely mystical and almost certainly false."

=====================


Then, Nayyar says, Gandhi told Manu that their purity had to be subjected to the "ultimate test," and they were
to offer the "purest of sacrifices." He suggested that they "now both start sleeping naked."3 Manu, reports Nayyar, readily consented.

===============================

There was never any suggestion that Gandhi made improper advances towards Manu or the other two women who on occasion had slept with him, or that the encounter was in the remotest matter sexual, or even that he had entertained "impure" thoughts towards Manu and the other women. Gandhi himself eventually made this matter public knowledge
and was to write voluminously on the nature of his experiment,....

=========================

in the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, "unnatural
and shoclung." Gandhi "has gone to the extreme limit ofhis argument," Nehru added prosaically, "and does not recognize the validity or necessity of the sexual act at any time except for the sake of children; he refuses to recognize any natural sex attraction between man and woman."

======================

Describing Gandhi as "absolutely wrong in this matter," Nehru thought it likely that his advice, if followed, could only lead to "frustration, inhibition, neurosis, and all manner of physical and nervous ills."59 More recent assessments, scholarly and journalistic alike, adopt almost entirely the same argument: thus Bhikhu Parekh, critiquing Gandhi for subscribing to a "dualist ontology" that made him hold steadfast to the distinction between the "physical" and the "spiritual," finds Gandhi incapable of making a distinction between the sexual act involved in rape and the sexual act that takes place between loving spouses.60 Gandhi's "ideas and preachments" on the subject of sex seemed to one of his most intense admirers to be "outlandish and almost inhuman," and Nehru appears to have encapsulated a fairly common view that Gandhi was "obsessed" with sex.

======================

good point, masan. That's all the more understandable when we consider that to us Indians Jainism was another sampradaya (tradition). Sampradayas have traditions and specific followers, but their ideals and ideas (can and do become) filter widely in the society. Gujjus probably have been signficantly affected by jainism (not sure).

This notion of "separate religions" is not our own. That openness is a great strength but it has also been misused to hurt and divide.

I see that people take offence to Gandhi sleeping naked with some other women to test his "sexual abstinence".. I don't have a problem with it as long as he has not forced anyone to take part in his experiments.

Gandhi, I think is a "Jain" disguised as an Hindu, or atleast had been tremendously influenced by Jain ideals of non-violence / vegetarianism etc..

Even now there are Jain monks in India who have sacrificed everything (their wealth / clothes / food / other pleasures etc.. kinda recnounce everything) for the welfare of the world and just roam around the streets "naked". Gandhi would have strived to achieve that ideal.

To these venugopals ram rajya can't be anything other than Islamic sharia, and the following cannot be anything other than a call for Hindu fascism..

Ishwar Allah tero naam
sabko sanmati de bhagwaan...

One has no problem with damnrimples and pat frenches talking from their wrong ends, or Muslims not having full information, but one has a right and a need to be concerned about venugopals of the world.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

In any case, here is the picture of the moron, Arun Venugopal:

http://www.newschool.edu/milano/nycaffairs/feet2worlds/theteam.htm l


Debates about Gandhi are important to those who like to engage in them.

We need to be far more concerned about why some Hindus dedicate their lives to spreading hatred and outright lies about Hindus themselves. And, understanding who these people are. My first guess is: these are the Hindus who, for some reason, have become complete outsiders even being Hindu in name.

Nothing wrong in being an outsider. Except that, given the overwhelming dominance of semitic religious mindset, from the outside Hinduism does look like a weird religion, and Hindus a weird people.

Arun Venugopal, reporter
http://www.newschool.edu/milano/nycaffairs/feet2worlds/theteam.html



Arun Venugopal was raised and attended college in Texas, but has lived on and off in India, first as a student and later as an advertising copywriter with Ogilvy & Mather. He worked on film productions in New Delhi and New York before becoming a journalist. He is a reporter for India Abroad and its online counterpart, Rediff.com. His work has appeared in Newsday, The Seattle Times, The Washington Post and Beliefnet, where he was a former editor, as well as Outlook magazine and The Economic Times in India.
He contributed to Voices of Healing, an anthology dealing with 9/11 and its impact on the Asian American community. Arun has a Masters in Media Studies from the New School, and lives in Brooklyn with his wife, writer Meera Nair, and their daughter.

#219

[inveterate hatred of the Jinnah]

Dil jo bhi kahega - maaneNge
Duniya meiN bichara -- dil hi to hai...

re: hamidm2 # 226

LOL. In addition, mem sahib was threatening to start illicit liaisons with the naked man's (handsome and charming?) children. Sahib had to pack up double quick. :)

everybody loves gandhiji

mem sahib: oh virgil, look at that poor naked man starving imself to death - what does he want ?

sahib: the man is an idiot ...... just forget about him .... here, give me a kiss

mem sahib: but just look at him - he looks so weak and scrawny and emaciated and he has no hair and no shoes and people tell me that he hasn`t had sex in forty years .....

sahib (a little irritated): would you want to have sex with a man who looks like him !

mem sahib: no dear - but we are christians and we have to show compassion for these poor starving heathens because god entrusted them in our care ....... what does the poor man want ?

sahib: that idiot wants freedom - he wants us to pack up and go back to england so that he can go back to living in a mud hut with his goat and nieces ........ ingrate ! ....... he doesn`t know how good he has it - electricity, the kutchery, high tea, polo and the hill stations in uti and simla .......... these natives are incorrigible !

mem sahib: but dear, he looks so miserable, so pathetic and look !..... look at all the flies buzzing around him - the poor man doesn`t even have the energy to shoo them away !.......... please, oh please - let him have his independence .... let`s go home - i am tired of living in this miserable place anyway - the summers are awful, and as much as you try you cannot teach an indian cook to make a decent shepherd`s pie ..........

sahib: except jinnah`s cook .......

mem sahib: who is jinnah ? .........

sahib (even more irritated) : i hate that man - he thinks he is better than us ........ give me a kiss....

mem sahib: but dear can we give this poor suffering man his independence .......... look !..... he can hardly breath and his ribs - oh my god ! - look at his ribs ! ....... i think he is dying ..........

sahib (exasperated): okay, okay !........... the idiot can have his independence - serves him right ! ........... now, can i have a kiss

mem sahib: oh virgil, you are so handsome and charming and wonderful ......... i love you

sahib (muttering) : and if i didn`t love you so much i would let that half-naked bugger die ........

I just don't understand - why was Gandhi not given Nobel Peace Prize ? if he was god !
We in Pakistan should start to respect Gandhi - ( with all the strings attached to him ) . It's wrong to argue for the sake of argueing for no reason and pasting responses which are egoistic and nothing more.
My request to HP, Manto and Cliftonbridge and tahmed is pls, kindly ignore this lott of bjkumar/majumdar/masadi - as with even a valid arguement / comment they fail to get light from it.

"On Ram Raja: I see Stuka seeing the dark vision Ram Raja presented by Kaal (i.e. caste suppression) as being the correct definition, while drlokraj/Folio seem to think it refers to good government."

Huh??? It's the opposite...the popular version of Ram Rajya is the latter, to which I and Kal agree upon. The former was simply Kaal's rather dark interpretation and I believe one done in sarcasm.


In addition to what Aleph Null summarizes about attitudes to Gandhi; I would simply add that I lack the intellectual bandwith to comprehend the man. We are all not born to the same IQ and I feel no shame in admitting that the man was either too evolved or too much of a lunatic for me to even begin to comprehend. My view of Gandhi is from the narrow prism of his impact on my community, a very narrow view that deserves no indulgence.

Ranjit bhai,

There have been a whole number of posts on UP lately on MAJ (pbuh) lately with Manto mian (and his supporters) claiming that he was a certified kanjaroooooooon while Atif (and his cohorts) claiming that he was a mujahidooooooooon.

Regards

#219 Posted by ANull

So this ahole is now reduced to writing a summary of what other commentators had to say about Gandhi.

One thing I must say that his one observation is right. This is a sub par article. I am told that Dr. Dalrymple now lives in India and writes for the Hindu regularly. Obviously, the land has some impact on the him. He now merely writes to make a few bucks here there on the cheap.

I am off to Montreal in couple of hours will take up this later.

#218 Posted by MantoLives on August 19, 2007 10:52:08 pm


That accusation is better levelled against Jawaharlal Nehru who stuck to power like a leach for 17 years and died in office.


Yeah...he's guilty of giving india a reasonable start to a democratic future and guilty of providing the impetus to the setting up of the IITs..

jinnah should be so lucky...

Re:Manto
Dude, why dont you submit a comprehensive article to chowk on Jinnah? I have seen more articles and discussions on Gandhi on chowk, while very few articles seem to focus on Jinnah. It would be a good learning experience for all Indians.

Another article on Gandhi - and a mediocre one at that.

To me, what is far more interesting than the article is the range of reactions to Gandhi the man and myth and to associated ideas like his notion of Ram Rajya. These can be viewed as responses to a sort of online Rorschach test: each respondent perhaps conveying more about his worldview - his loves and hates, his hopes and fears, his overpowering obsessions - than about the ostensible subject.

Thus Romair/bulleya sees in Gandhi the man who would have insisted on plebiscite in Kashmir and political devolution in ‘South Asia’ – never mind the absence of evidence for such a claim. Arjun is utterly indifferent to Gandhi and his peculiar notions but pleased at the soft power that he has given India and the grief he has caused Pakistanis down the years.

Kaalchakra, that sly, connniving brahmin, tries his devious and ironic best (aided by Folio and mohar) to convince naïve and trusting momins that Gandhi’s Ram Rajya actually means good governance rather than revival of a casteist Hindu fundamentalist theocracy where kshatriyas would once again rule, fanatic brahmins would actually operate the levers of power, lower castes would be put in their proper place, and Muslims (sufi or otherwise) and other mlecchas be relegated to untouchable status. But he cannot hope to deceive HP, that gifted online sleuth and googler extraordinaire.

Hamidm takes umbrage at the man’s sartorial style, homely looks and and futile asceticism. Aslam644 flaunts his achievement in publicizing Gandhi’s nocturnal experiments with nieces and other nubile women. Maulana echoboom seems to have forgotten that he claimed Gandhi for Islam not so long ago. Naqshbandi declares Gandhi a devious pervert and quack, a mushrik deluded by his ego into seeing himself as a high-ranked spiritual being, one of the forty false messiahs prophesied to appear before the End of Days.

Masadi sees Gandhi as a man who, whatever his personal quirks and eccentricities, popularized the notion that the masses of India must have a voice in their government and thus was responsible for whatever little democracy exists in that country today. Ras Siddiqui in his naivete calls Gandhi a well-intentioned man to whom even Muslims owe a great deal. Bjkumar continues his foolish adulation of Gandhi and inveterate hatred of the Jinnah.

Last but not least, for Mantolives, Gandhi is the epitome of evil, the witch doctor who politicized religion, the racist casteist Hindutva-fascist Hindu fundamentalist bigot and hypocritical fraud who tried to the very end to deprive Muslims lead by QA MA Jinnah of their due. His influence penetrates everywhere like a foul miasma. His spectre, alas, still haunts South Asia even after it was supposedly buried in the rubble of Jamia Hafsa.

PS: I just read Pardesi's post about George Washington walking away after victory against the British.

There was no United States of America in its present sense before 1789.

The articles of Confederation was basically a number of independent states with their governors as head of states.

And like Jinnah - who wanted to retire to his house in Bombay- it is true that Washington wanted to retire to his estate... but he did not.

He was not invited by the constituent assembly as Pardesi tries to spin it... George Washington was the Prime Mover of that constituent assembly. It was he who moved to and was the prime mover of the new constitution.

You may want to read his biography here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gw1.html

George Washington was no drama and comparing him to Gandhi -someone who was NEVER any serious contender for power nor would have gotten any since he was more of a symbol than anything else is an insult to the memory of George Washington.


Similarly Jinnah who died 13 months later can hardly be faulted for not giving up power. That accusation is better levelled against Jawaharlal Nehru who stuck to power like a leach for 17 years and died in office.

God save us from the Masadi-BJKumar alliance against reason and truth.

tahmed,

I am bit surprised by your insistence on George Washington not holding power after the US.

George Washington served two full terms as the first President of the United States. That is 8 years. Jinnah died in 13 months.

Baalishtiyaas (Palm-sized ones) are commenting upon the two Gullivers of their days. There were some lesser Gullivers then as well.

But in the sixty years in BOTH countries has anyone even remotely come closer to honesty Uncorruptibility & gentlemanly-opposition?

There warts aside, their human misdemeanours aside, their odd & weird private habits aside...was any one, any single one of them was then, or even today after exhaustive scrutiny of their private& public life, accused of misappropiating public funds or trust, of their constituencies & followers.

SO SHUT the fuck up!..and instead try to figure out what went wrong with us..we the generatation that consistently produces Lulliputans.

If so many were there like a galaxy..uncorruptible, unbendable, ones to put all what they valued on line then is it possible to admit that it is not in our genes, not in apnay loag, not a Desi trait. Does it not prove that it is an Acquired Eastern-Defficiency Syndrome. That we have caught this bug sometimes during our travails & trysts with a system which was not homespun? that we spurned our elders & told them point-blank that they have nothing left to teach us & the bloody morality of religion is just there to keep us poor while the neighbor is on the take. ..and happy.

Something did go wrong somewhere along in the prison which was renamed freedom-house because the guard outside switched from white to brown/black/tan cherry-blossoms.

When will our researchers, the westoxicated scum, will analyze fusing their own minds & seek homespun solutions rather than parachuted quick fixes of "IN-SOURCING" by mortgaging the family jewells.

It is high time that Kanjarronns in both the countries , who are instilling all that is bad vulgar & contrary to our cherished ideals which did produce a galaxy & luminary of leaders when we were "old-fashioned" is now capable of producing only haraamkhores, haraamzaadaaz, & KanjarRs only.

beej
i completely accept your superior knowledge of harlequin romance novels...come to think of it that explains alot...i am sure masadi will point out how this tool of western imperialism has seductively destroyed the thinker in you!

sleep tight :)

#212 Bridge

I understand that you like the vamp! There is no accounting for love and taste...

...of blood, of course!

Slurp away, to your heart's desire! Pakistan has an unblemished six decade record!

Or, as they often state in Harlequin novels....

"Don't stop now!"

#209 Bridge

[Jinnah left a wealth of inspiring and beautiful ideas to the world.]

Most aptly embodied through the bodies so well-spread-out on the Direct Action Day, of course!

lol...miss universe pagent ? why ? is the entry criteria disagreeing with beej's overly emotional hatred for a wonderful leader? ...what do you have to do to win i wonder?

#209 Bridge

Yeah, yeah - when everything else fails, try a bit o' guilt!

Which part of the observations in #207 do you disagree with?! And where was your absolute horror when mian Manto was going on and on with his rantings?!

Or is the problem with the lack of sugar-coating?! Or is the reality simply too depressing?!!

And what ever gave you the idea that you are a participant in the Miss Universe beauty pageant?!

A mirror is not such a bad thing, after all!

beej

ik din bik jai ga mitti ke mol
jag main reh jain ge pyaaray teray bol

Jinnah left a wealth of inspiring and beautiful ideas to the world. And this what you want to leave behind? repent o sinner!

YLH/Masadi sahib/Assorted others,

Just to clear a few misconceptions. India and Pak dont owe their independence to MKG or MAJ (pbuh). They owe it to the great sacrifices made by the original Aryan, Casteist, Racist Freak (sorry if I missed a few adjectives)- Herr Hitler.

Masadi sahib,

The failure of democracy in Pakistan has nothing to do with MAJ. It was to do with the political backwardness of Muslims, particularly those of the NW Provinces. Whatever limited political tradition had taken roots was among the Mulsims of Bengal and the minority provinces like UP, Bihar and Bombay. Similarly, whatever success that democracy has had in India was becuase of the relatively higher level of political development among Hindus.

I am surprised that u consider a thoroughgoing scoundrel like ZAB a democrat. This was the guy who was morally responsible for the carnage in B'desh in 1970-71 with statements like Idhar Hum Udhar Tum, for genocide in NWFP and B'stan in 1970s, for declaring Ahmedis non-Muslims in 1973, for torturing and threatening political opponents thru his misrule in the 70s and finally rigging elections in 1977 which caused his downful. And of course I am not even going into his disastrous economic policies which undid Ayub's decade of development.

Regards

#206 Posted by cliftonbridge on August 19, 2007 9:03:48 pm
[doesnt stop you from trying hey beej? :)]

Dear Bridge, I have often tried – but been invariably saddened by the disapproving glances of mian Manto.

Take for example, this i-log of mine from March 26, 2006 – which you (being a newcomer) may have missed out on. Therefore, here it is, Bridge – for your eyes only! (Everybody else, kindly avert your eyes!)

Dead Man’s Mirror

What the heck happened to you, old man?

Look at those tiny worms, those little varmints stuck to you!

Little left to nibble on – yet they hang on – they hang on for dear life – for that’s all they got left. Bits and pieces of you – down to the bare bones! They will chew on you and then they will chew on those crumbling rags that were your suit and they will chew on your coat tails and they will chew on your casket – but chew on you they will!

Because everything else tastes worse – and leaves the lousiest taste in those mouths!

Those salivating mouths, not to mention those foaming mouths, and those mouths with the licking tongues, and those mouths that bark out the orders!

What to say of the mouths that receive warm, salty streams – streams that kill the severest of thirsts forever and quench the very desire for all such thirsts – and not just for the mouths that those streams target! It is the ultimate quenching which ends all fires in all hearts for all times to come.

Can anyone imagine – those pure mouths so sullied?

Imagine the pure mouth of your own daughter – crushed under the lips of someone less than the pure! Imagine him kissing her all over! Just imagine! How dare she?! How dare she lie under that impure body – and be penetrated by him?

Oh, the thought of it!!

How dare she defy you? It is nothing short of direct revolt!

Direct revolt always calls for direct action! Direct action – your very personal invention! Your very own baby!

You were the true originator of things direct! You always took things to the people – no matter what kind of people – and no matter what their favorite tools for settling scores – be it axes, or sickles, or knives, or lathis, or guns! What is a little blood shed for the cause of the qaum so long as it is not you who has to do the bleeding? And what is a little disruption in the lives of a few millions as long as your own little house is intact in Bombay?

But why shy away from me so?

What’s the matter – don’t like to see the unvarnished stuff?

You never liked the unvarnished stuff, did you?

Was September 11 the day you ended it all or was that a day which simply culminated what YOU had got started – and everything else that was bound to follow? Like a ticking time bomb set for the long haul – a plane on autopilot!

But wait!

What’s that muffled sound I hear? Could it be that the hordes have finally realized what you really were? Could it be that they are finally ready to give you your real due – like communist leaders of the past – ready to yank out those dead and dry bones and raise them to heights where they truly belong?

Raise them high, high, and even higher – with that noose knotted around the neck bone?

And tie that typewriter right down there – yes, right there where the balls are!

Or were! Too bad one can never find them! I wonder at what point they got lost. Or perhaps the card of religion was just too easy not to play – not for you – the lawyer who must win at any cost!

Could they have learnt to live together? Who knows – you never gave them a chance. You were not the giving type – you were a taker! You came, you saw, and you conquered!

You see my darling, there is nothing like the presence of a minority population to teach people the practicality of tolerance - that it is doable – and one does not need to be a majority to start making a difference and having a real say in how things are run. So once they got rid of the minorities – what was there left to learn? Except the fact that power works over reason. And except the fact that there is a bill to pay – that fact learnt over the long run!

And they are still paying those bills of yours – with a hefty interest, too! The morons who have no assets to pay those bills – the morons who can least afford those very bills!

Is that tumult a real sound?

No, it was just a false alarm!

So you can return to your permanently dark bed now – perhaps for the next sixty years or so – till it is time for another set of hordes – or perhaps till it gets to the dawn of the dead! That dawn can’t be too far after all, there are plenty of zombies already to be seen around where you lie buried now!

Don’t worry, I’ll be waiting!

I got nowhere to go – nor do you!

Because you are already dead and I never die, old buddy – we are stuck together tighter than bunkmates – and no amount of polishing me is going to change how ugly you look now!

doesnt stop you from trying hey beej? :)

#102 masadi

Sir, your eulogy of the Jinnah is well-phrased indeed. I could not have done a better job myself!

#63 Romair

Actually Pandit Nehru tried to implement some of Gandhiji’s basic ideas through panch-sheel, to the eternal gleeful happiness of the Zhou and his redd, redd lot and the everlasting sorrow of the Dalai-Lama!

#61 KaalChakra

For what it is worth, here is how Tulsidas described Ram-rajya!

Dai-hik, dai-wik, bhautik taapa
Raam-rajya nahiN, kaahuhi vyaapa
Shashi sampanna sada rah dharnee
Treta bhai, satjug us karnee…

Translation: During the Ram-rajya – all bodily ailments, natural disasters (acts of God), and physical catastrophes ceased to happen anywhere. The earth was plentiful with resources and even though it was the age of Treta and not the age of Satyug (The age of Truth, which had preceded it) – the acts of men became like they used to be during that earlier age.

#52 Dr. Lokraj

Dr. Sahib, that is one helluva post! I think you should chuck your day job and come do commentary here full-time! Perhaps you are already doing so?! :)

#9, #10 masadi

Sir, as I have earlier stated elsewhere, I find it most amusing that so many chowk “veterans� and their lackeys – including that “young turk� Manto, are trying to shut you up when in fact, you are among the very few original Pakistani voices on this site.

I wholeheartedly agree with the viewpoint that the MAJ was a lackey of the West – which explains why he did not spend a single day in jail whereas every leader with the least bit of honesty (from the days of the independence struggle) spent quite a bit of time therein!

One thing is certain – Gandhiji probably had read more of the Holy Quran than that Jinnah guy ever did! And in all likelihood, Gandhiji consumed a lot LESS pork than MAJ, too!

You know the vamp Jinnah – the type who sucks the blood of innocents – that very architect of “direct action� day, who always went for the jugular!

By the way, in #50, that kiddo Manto compares you with Gandhiji. I think he is – in his usual secretive, lawyerly, weasel-like ways – trying to get into your good books!

#199 Posted by GT

[1. Well, India is yet to become a democracy though it is going in that direction.]

Deep. Very deep.

[2. The proportion of Indian educated say around 1947, would be less than many countries in the Middle East, Africa today and Latin America (in the 70s).]

That's a rare nugget.

[So let us give the unwashed in India some credit too ...]

Yes. Let's.


[I know it is against the mdern caste system to do so. ]

Yes. The modern one. Dead against it. So true.

aslam (I think) wrote that India is a democracy because of a large educated section.

1. Well, India is yet to become a democracy though it is going in that direction.

2. The proportion of Indian educated say around 1947, would be less than many countries in the Middle East, Africa today and Latin America (in the 70s).

So let us give the unwashed in India some credit too ... I know it is against the mdern caste system to do so.

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"...the works of Annie Besant and Madam Blavatsky. The latter claimed to have received instruction..."

I do not know how much Gandhi was influenced by Besant. But is is well documented that half-way around the world there was another who was influenced .... he wrote under the name "arjun" ... a die-hard liberal who refused to use his powers against the legislature even though it resulted in his death... a man who fathered a revolution which lead to the deaths of thousands ... a man who inspired the only person to invade the US mainland ... a man who fathered the Mexican revolution ... a man whose name was Madero.

When we read history we should not confine our study to time, geography and our "modern" perspective.

IMHO, Gandhi's non-violence was not about sitting around and singing songs (the Western fascination). It was a cry to the masses, who did not posses swords , guns, resources or the courage, that they had the right and were indeed able to "... think or give their opinions about the high matters of government."

Kaal:

I owe you a quote. It was not by the Habsburgs (as I earlier thought) but the Bourbon monarchy, sometime around 1767. It goes:

"The subjects of the Great Monarch who occupies the throne of Spain should learn once and for all that they were born to obey and remain silent and not to think or give their opinions about the high matters of government."

(Luis Navarro Garcia, "El virrey marques de Croix")

I quickly went thru the posts after my last post #85, and have the following comments:

1. on George Washington walking away from the US Presidency: thanks Pardesi (post 139) for pointing to the specific history that supports the more general comment I made about G. Washington setting a great example by walking away from power. And Pardesi #159 is I think also correct in noting that Gandhi set a similar example, and (sadly, I think, for Pakistan's future political development and very relevant nowadays when BB, NS, Mush have all demonstrated they are all three basically small men/women who place personal power above national interest - and the chief justice stands out all the more in contrast) Jinnah did not.

2. On Ram Raja: I see Stuka seeing the dark vision Ram Raja presented by Kaal (i.e. caste suppression) as being the correct definition, while drlokraj/Folio seem to think it refers to good government. So, still unsure (having respect fro all three, and sure they know what they are talking about and certainly not in a position to know better myself)...I googled and read the first couple of links which basically gave the drlokraj version.

Armed with my ignorance on the subject then (smiley icon here), here are my two cents: "Ram Raj" may well mean different things to different people. BJP et al may see the dark vision that Stuka/Kaal say it represents, while Gandhi may have seen the bright vision. The moral of the story is: Mix religion with politics and you screw both of them. If you are looking for "good governance", why put a religion label ("ram raj" for hindus, "khulfa-i-rashideen" for muslims e.g.) around it? Why not just use "good governance" or "democracy", which means the same thing to everyone, hindu, muslim or christian and on which everyone can agree on regardless of religion?? And, as an added benefit, those for whom good governance plays second fiddle to greed for personal power (e.g. Mush or BB or NS in Pakistan) are forced to pay lip service to it as well. :-)

Good lord .... politicizing the masses is not easy .... but it is an extremely important component in the foundation of a democratic process ... Gandhi played an extremely important part in politicizing a sizeable proportion of Indians. Rest is upto the Indians ... That being said, it really does not matter what Gandhi ate, said or sh*t (paraphrasing Masadi). I do not know much about MAJ and the masses.

HP:

I am no fan of KallChakra but his latter explanation (not the one advocating caste rule) is absolutely the popular understanding of Ram Rajya. There was no religious movement led by Gandhi in the name of Ram Rajya. The closest "back to basics" movement was Arya Samaj and that rejected Sanatana Dharma and its associated evils of idol worship, caste etc.

189/arjun

ha ha ...

Re: # 161
Mr. Masadi... just now i wrote supporting you point of view it is rejected.
They just not like to be told what others feel.

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And folio here is a direct quote from Gandhi himself.... Chapter 27 of his autobiography "RECRUITING CAMPAIGN"

People did attend, but hardly one or two would offer themselves as recruits. 'You are a votary of Ahimsa, how can you ask us to take up arms?' 'What good has Government done for India to deserve our co-operation?' These and similar questions used to be put to us. However, our steady work began to tell. Quite a number of names were registered, and we hoped that we should be able to have a regular supple as soon as the first batch was sent. I had already begun to confer with the Commissioner as to where the recruits were to be accommodated. The Commissioners in every division were holding conferences on the Delhi model. One such was held in Gujarat. My co-workers and I were invited to it. We attended, but I felt there was even less place for me here than at Delhi. In this atmosphere of servile submission I felt ill at ease. I spoke somewhat at length. I could say nothing to please the officials, and had certainly one or two hard things to say. I used to issue leaflets asking people to enlist as recruits. One of the arguments I had used was distasteful to the Commissioner: 'Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.'


Compare this to what Jinnah said:
“We cannot ask young men to fight for principles, the application of which is denied to their own country. A subject race cannot fight for others with the heart and energy that a free race can fight with for the freedom of itself and others. If India has to make great sacrifices in the defence of the Empire, it must be as a partner in the Empire and not as its dependency. Let her feel that she is fighting for her own freedom as well as the freedom of a commonwealth of free nations under the British crown and then she will strain to stand by England to the last.�

This should so the difference between the two men.

#171 Posted by aslam644 on August 19, 2007 2:39:39 pm


The reason India was successful with democracy was because hindus had a large educated middle class


The reason you don't have a democracy is because you let your army get too much power..

The reason you gave your army too much power: Kashmir..you thought the martial army could defeat the bania and win kashmir for you...The army failed and then turned the "indian threat"(after a war it started) into continual justification for it's powergrab...

no two ways about it...

Re: # 184

For some stupid reason addresses show up broken. There is no gap in "mistake" in that address.

Dear Folio,

1. There is no such quote in Hector Bolitho's book "Jinnah the Creator of Pakistan" attributed to Jinnah.

2. koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhimistak e.html


Join mistake and see for yourself.

Please Don't abuse me unnecessarily as is your wont. You may read Gandhi's Passion by Stanley Wolpert, Story of my experiments with the truth and see that Gandhi was a recruiter through out the first world war. To Jinnah Gandhi even wrote saying "Seek first the
recruiting office, the rest will follow" ...

Jinnah's support to the British against Nazis was the just stand to take.

OK, CU tmrw.

Manto

Can you post more information on the law jinnah got passes to convert all dealings into rupees instead of gpb?

Pl see the last days of Jinnah. He's on his deathbed in Ziarat. Pl read those sections. His arrogance is humongous.

Btw, JINNAH HELPED BRITISH IN WW II FOR A FAVOURABLE STEELEMENT TO INDIAN MUSLIMS.

Give historical sources, not a lota of dubious Internet source.

I too can write something on Jinnah and quote it as evidence.

Pl dont be smart by halk. Be honest. The link u gave is not opening.

YOU FORGOT TO MENTION THAT JINNAH HELPED BRITISH IN WW II IN EXCHANGE FOR A FAVOURBALE STEELEMENT FOR INDIAN MUSMLIMS.

Folio,

I have the Hector Bolitho book as well as his diary of notes with me. There is no mention of such a quote, so you might be mistaken.

Jinnah worked under Muhammad Shafi to bring the Muslim Leagues together. So your claim is not true. On the contrary you won't find a single instance of Gandhi working under anyone else.

On another note: there is no gap between mistak e in that address.

Please correct it. I'll see your response tomorrow. Good night.

Jinnah lived for 70+ years. How many times did he work under somebody?

I am sure u read Hector Bolitho. If I can recollect Jinnah's brazenness he quotes on deathbed:

'Jinnah NEVER FOLLOWS...he LEADS'. (sic).

Jinnah's abmition is to become the C-in-C of Pakistan not to block MB. He'd have atleats apointed a Muslim as GG. He himself became one.

Folio,

Gandhi was a recruiter for the British Empire from 1914-1918.


http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhimistak e.html
"Recruiting Indian soldiers for the British war effort in 1914-18 without setting any conditions"

Through out the period Gandhi wrote to Jinnah several times asking him to help him in the recruiting of soldiers ... Jinnah responded:

Jinnah said:

“We cannot ask young men to fight for principles, the application of which is denied to their own country. A subject race cannot fight for others with the heart and energy that a free race can fight with for the freedom of itself and others. If India has to make great sacrifices in the defence of the Empire, it must be as a partner in the Empire and not as its dependency. Let her feel that she is fighting for her own freedom as well as the freedom of a commonwealth of free nations under the British crown and then she will strain to stand by England to the last.�

Re: # 173

Wrong again.

1. In 1918 or 1919 Jinnah invited Gandhi into and supported his election as the President of the Home Rule League and worked under him.

2. Jinnah's own choice of GGship was to block Mountbatten's way and to lay down clearly the fact that Pakistan was an independent state with a political head of state.

Gandhi came to India in 1915 (at the age 46) to recruit for the British Empire. He was a recruiter till 1918 atleast.

Canu show me the proof that Gandhi recruited for British in India?????

Re: # 172

Folio mian,

Gandhi came to India in 1915 (at the age 46) to recruit for the British Empire. He was a recruiter till 1918 atleast. He got the title Qaiser-e-Hind in 1918.

Therefore I am not sure I get your argument.

As for Jinnah ... he joined as the Gokhale's Political secretary and was very much a follower from 1906-1910... so there too your argument is without basis.

Jinnah had this mental block to work under somebody. He's not a team player. By modern standards he's -ve character.

U know that's why he elected himself as the GG of Pakistan instead of appointing somebody if MB was not acceptable.

By all accounts Jinnah's a -ve character.

Gandhi started it in India in 1915. He didnt even start it in 1915. What he did as a normal citizen b4 that shud not be judged.

On the contrary Jinnah was into politics straight away. He trained himslef for this role (as a political leader not as a follower; that's his attitudinal problem, to begin with).

Hp
That’s how things are I’m afraid love across the religious divide makes the news.

Masadi
The reason India was successful with democracy was because hindus had a large educated middle class, Nehru himself said that Muslims are a generation behind hindus, while the muslim middleclass was still at nascent stage.

Re: # 168

So Gandhi of 40 years of age is the same as 3 or 4 year old who pees in his pants - if at all?

"Let Manto produce even one piece like the ones produced here"

I am afraid I can't produce copious amounts of crap that you are capable of.

Chowk has rightly rejected your contributions for being too substandard... and that says something because chowk publishes even my work... and I don't even lay claim to any such delusions of greatness as a writer.

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#156 Posted by aslam644
“My second revelation is about Queen Victoria when she became a widow, she had a young muslim toy boy by the name of munshi abdul karim.�

I have read that story……there is a problem, if she had a Christian boy toy, it would not have been a story for you or any one else…

#156 Posted by aslam644
“My second revelation is about Queen Victoria when she became a widow, she had a young muslim toy boy by the name of munshi abdul karim.�

I have read that story……That is a problem if she had a Christian boy toy, it would not have been a story for you or any one else…

We will let PC Joshi and Sajjad Zaheer have the last word on Jinnah's credentials as a popular democratic leader who fought for the rights of people and for freedom:

PC Joshi, the Communist leader, who wrote a remarkable anaylsis of Jinnah's movement:

Mr. Jinnah is to the freedom loving League masses what Gandhiji is to the Congress masses. They revere their Quaid-e-Azam as much as the Congress do the Mahatma. They regard the League as their patriotic organisation as we regard the Congress. This is so because Mr. Jinnah has done to the League what Gandhi did to Congress in 1919-1920 i.e. made it a mass movement

P C Joshi "Communist reply to Congress Working Committee's charges Page 16."

(I personally consider any comparison with Gandhi an insult to Jinnah.)


And Sajjad Zaheer (he was India's foremost communist leftist) wrote this:

The task of every patriot is to welcome and help this democratic growth which at long last is now taking place among the Muslims of Punjab. The last stronghold of imperialist bureaucracy is being invaded by the League. Let us all help the people of Punjab to capture it.

Light on League-Unionist Conflict People's Publishing house Bombay July 1944.

Re: # 161

More adhominem attacks. I've already refuted these pathetic arguments. You don't have the moral courage or integrity to accept that you have no argument.

Jinnah was for 30 years hailed by Indians as the Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity... Jinnah turned to Muslim nationalism only after having exhausted all avenues of cooperation.

Meanwhile the genius i.e. Gandhi who is known world over for his "leadership" is the "model of religious, racial and caste inclusion" ...wah. If you read his collected works (there are 90 volumes of them), you not only find him the British Empire's most obedient servant but a racist without a mask and casteist Hindu.

About foundations... India has a working constitution thanks to Dr. B R Ambedkar (I am willing to bet you haven't even heard the name) ... you know what Dr. B R Ambedkar considered Gandhi: A medieval Hindu Fascist ... blue blooded Hindu fascist without a mask... the greatest enemy of all untouchables. It was thanks to Nathuram Godse that India was spared of Gandhiism and it was thanks to B R Ambedkar that India became a solid constitutional state aspiring to be a democracy. Gandhi hasn't got anything to do with it.

Your argument is merely an emotive argument- hardly the standard that one would expect from an academic that you claim to be. Jinnah was pro-west because he wore western clothes and Gandhi was a hero because he went about naked.
And furthermore it pre-supposes that good parents always have good children and bad parents always have bad children.

Why Pakistan has not reached its potential has very different and much more concrete reasons than abusing this man or that man...

The Muslim bourgeoisie i.e. Salariat behind the creation of Pakistan belonged entirely to the Hindustan regions and had no real roots in indigenous Pakistan. Those who had roots in the regions of Punjab and Sindh etc were mostly feudals. Thus the feudals and the army in collusion with the civil bureaucracy found it really easy to over throw the bourgeoisie ... in 1954 and then the army assumed command in 1958.

Why were feudals stronger in Punjab etc... had its roots in the British theory of Martial and Non-martial regions... whereby the British ruled Punjab with consensus of the feudals who were given a free rein ... and the democratic and bourgeoisie institutions of Bengal and rest of India just did not take root here for a long time. How are you going to blame this on Jinnah or his party League which struggled as much against the Unionist Party in the 1940s as Congress had (against the Unionist Party) in the 1930s...

Pakistan thus was faced not just with general Muslim backwardness (because of their preference for either soldiery or farming) but also the fact that the regions that constituted Pakistan were industrially a half century behind the rest of India.... Pakistan's creation in fact has provided that impetus and fire required to create a modern industrial economy and a bourgeoisie...

Thank god for Jinnah who gave us a free and viable country. We have made a mockery of him... but one day we will return the country to the masses who want to follow his vision. That day ... parochialism and cultural fascism - which you Masadi represent- will be defeated inshallah.

#151 Posted by KaalChakra
“Some people don't agree. Which is fine. The point is, their's shouldn't be the only perspective "on the internet" especially if it is not shared by large numbers of people.�

I agree with what you wrote before the quoted paragraph. It is part of political process that people and political leaders go thru changes and transformation and that is why I am not in favor of taking a hard stand on both Gandhi and Jinnah as they changed their political views based on where the political climate was leading them too.

Your above argument is beyond reproach. Caveat; the point is that those who have an ax to grind usually make an attempt to present their pov in some forums and Neglecting the Net or giving their opponents or the people with distorted view a free pass is no one’s fault. There may be a minority which has a different view of RamRajya but a majority on the Net presents an acceptable pov for people like me and others.

Okay I have not read you post #158 yet!

Re: # 159

Pardesi,

I have already responded to the Gandhi issue many times. He was none of the things he is made out to be.

Congress was right in sidelining him.

aslam writes "I was the first person on chowk who revealed that Ghandi slept naked with young girls."

I don't care if he slept with his mama, what I care about is that by tapping into popular rural revolt against Colonization, he gave India a good foundation of democracy- that is all I am interested in, I could care less if he slept with a different goat every Tuesday....

On the other hand what MAJ gave Muslims was bloodshed, sectarianism and an authoritarian legacy that gets dictates from the West.... End of Story, not interested in legislation x or legislation y or Seville Row or Saville Row, or Jinnah talking the various talks or wearing the various hats....not interested at all....dont want to waste my time with that nonsense....

Masadi,

Instead of referring to your substandard books and third rate essays on god knows what nonsense... how about responding to my arguments and the facts that I have given?

I am in it for historical accuracy. I will not let a third rate liar like yourself get away with anything.

#86 MantoLives “As for Gandhi... Congress people were not stupid enough to allow him to become anything anyway.�

No correct. Gandhi was not cut out for day to day running mundane stuff. He had made his huge mark on history and there was no need for him to do the nuts and bolt stuff. In fact every one knew that he is too naïve and idealistic for even the most formal highest position.

One of his great achievements that is normally not mentioned is that he knowingly or unknowingly encouraged building of a huge team of high caliber, tolerant and driven individuals who took leadership roles before and after independence. In sports world here they call it having a deep bench. When he was gunned down, Indian democratic processes (periodic elections, constitutional work, secular ideals) did not die with him.

Jinnah knew about his medical problems and that he has a very limited time. Did he encourage building of a dedicated team of his followers who could carry on his ideals? Did he motivate these guys to be tolerant with each other so that the new national issues can be resolved without him, army or use of violence? Has anybody done research on this issue?

This is not Jinnah vs. Gandhi issue. It’s just Management and Leadership 101 question (succession planning) that every concerned father of nation / senior executive is supposed to plan for.

HP, gay issue? I just pasted his bio from National Public Radio. Nothing added, nothing deleted.

That actually makes no difference. Gay issue has nothing to do with it.

------------------------

"that Islam is being misinterpreted and Islam is being distorted but when asked to present the real Islam they have nowhere to go."

Again, no. I do know that some people insist on their "right" to "interpret as I please" because "others are also interpreting."

That is a silly game.

The point is what do most people actually believe. That can only be CHECKED BY TALKING TO REAL people, not one or two, or from internet, but real people and quite a few of them. There are alternatives, sometimes. One can look at editorials, articles, stories written by (a good number of) people under question themselves

So in the example I gave, IF, for instance, cliftonbridge went and spoke to four random Hindus and they laughed at my interpretation, then it would be just my interpretation, worth nothing.

(Zee's and echo's viewpoints are not rare, and one can conclude that a similarly small proportion of Muslims hold those views. The argument there is not of numbers, but of power - a small number of people being able to force their vies on a more passive majority).

Manto writes "When confronted with facts, he responds that he has no time to read books."

Manto is a third rate liar. I told him I have better things to do than read "books on Jinnah"- this does not mean I don't read books, in fact I have written books that document hundreds of source books that I have used. It is quite clear that Manto is High Priest of the Church of MAJ and defending MAJ for him has nothing to do with facts or reason but with hero worship....I rest my case of this evident truth, as well as the well known facts of history which reveal whatever I have claimed about the MAJ to be true.

Masadi
You better stick with the US elite, you haven’t got a clue when it comes to indo-pak partition history, manto is on a far higher ground when it comes to facts.

I was the first person on chowk who revealed that Ghandi slept naked with young girls.

My second revelation is about Queen Victoria when she became a widow, she had a young muslim toy boy by the name of munshi abdul karim.

Masadi is a third rate fool who calls himself an intellectual.

When confronted with facts, he responds that he has no time to read books.

Why read books after all... that would only cloud the genius of his mind.

Re: # 144 Massadi,
Are you V.S Naipaul?

And to repost... in case the loser misses it:

Masadi,

If you have produced any arguments, why not point us to that post. You have NOT. Your arguments comes down to Jinnah wore a suit and was evil and therefore subverted democracy. These issues have been discussed to death on these boards. But one can safely say that Pakistan Movement was the first truly popular movement of the Muslims in the subcontinent... and the masses turned out in larger numbers than any other leader.

You should read PC Joshi, the Communist leader, who wrote a remarkable anaylsis of Jinnah's movement:

Mr. Jinnah is to the freedom loving League masses what Gandhiji is to the Congress masses. They revere their Quaid-e-Azam as much as the Congress do the Mahatma. They regard the League as their patriotic organisation as we regard the Congress. This is so because Mr. Jinnah has done to the League what Gandhi did to Congress in 1919-1920 i.e. made it a mass movement

P C Joshi "Communist reply to Congress Working Committee's charges Page 16."

(I personally consider any comparison with Gandhi an insult to Jinnah.)


And Sajjad Zaheer (have you heard of him- he was not a Muslim Leaguer mind you... he was India's foremost communist leftist) wrote this:

The task of every patriot is to welcome and help this democratic growth which at long last is now taking place among the Muslims of Punjab. The last stronghold of imperialist bureaucracy is being invaded by the League. Let us all help the people of Punjab to capture it.

Light on League-Unionist Conflict People's Publishing house Bombay July 1944.


These are the true facts. You have no idea what you are talking about Masadi.

Masadi,

What I said was that if you repeat the lie about me owning chowk again, I would have to pull some strings at GC.

After my threat you shut up well and I did not make the calls.

HP, my belief is (and for facts and figures one would obviously refer to people who spend time on such things) Gandhi went through at least three phases:

1. As a very young man, he picked up a casteist world view, probably a paternalistic version of it, but casteist nevertheless.

2. Then he saw the problems, and wanted to reform it. He took the approach that many Muslims take these days. Like (some Muslims) try to go back to some 'ideal' form of Jihad that avoids its real issues as non-Muslims see them.

3. Then he recognized that that was not going to work. And moved away from any active dreams of varna systems - preferring to work to actually eliminate casteism through his actions.

---------------

You will be surprised how many dalits (and non-dalits like me) admire and respect BOTH Gandhi and Baba Ambedkar - as two giants who took two different approaches to solving a major problem. Both were sincere (the way Hindus - dalits and non dalits see them).

Some people don't agree. Which is fine. The point is, their's shouldn't be the only perspective "on the internet" especially if it is not shared by large numbers of people.

Masadi,

If you have produced any arguments, why not point us to that post. You have NOT. Your arguments comes down to Jinnah wore a suit and was evil and therefore subverted democracy. These issues have been discussed to death on these boards. But one can safely say that Pakistan Movement was the first truly popular movement of the Muslims in the subcontinent... and the masses turned out in larger numbers than any other leader.

You should read PC Joshi, the Communist leader, who wrote a remarkable anaylsis of Jinnah's movement:

Mr. Jinnah is to the freedom loving League masses what Gandhiji is to the Congress masses. They revere their Quaid-e-Azam as much as the Congress do the Mahatma. They regard the League as their patriotic organisation as we regard the Congress. This is so because Mr. Jinnah has done to the League what Gandhi did to Congress in 1919-1920 i.e. made it a mass movement

P C Joshi "Communist reply to Congress Working Committee's charges Page 16."

(I personally consider any comparison with Gandhi an insult to Jinnah.)


And Sajjad Zaheer (have you heard of him- he was not a Muslim Leaguer mind you... he was India's foremost communist leftist) wrote this:

The task of every patriot is to welcome and help this democratic growth which at long last is now taking place among the Muslims of Punjab. The last stronghold of imperialist bureaucracy is being invaded by the League. Let us all help the people of Punjab to capture it.

Light on League-Unionist Conflict People's Publishing house Bombay July 1944.


These are the true facts. You have no idea what you are talking about Masadi.

#147
"I am sure why the History of subcontinent gays was brought into this. "
I am NOT sure why the History of subcontinent gays was brought into this.

Manto writes "Thank God for Pakistan and thank god I did not make the calls I was about to make at this late an hour."

Ha ha, just like he was gonna get me fired from "GC". The guy claims to be "well connected"- well same tradition of subverting democracy as the MAJ!!!

#141 Posted by KaalChakra

Your argument is similar to what the Islamist claim that Islam is being misinterpreted and Islam is being distorted but when asked to present the real Islam they have nowhere to go.

RamRajya is as much an illusion as the real Islam is. There is nothing defined in stone for both ideas so while you may claim like Urstruly or echo claim about Islam, the true RamRajya is still not presented. The reality is that what educated Hindus are writing on the net is perhaps the more acceptable version of RamRajya despite your protestations that it is not.

I am sure why the History of subcontinent gays was brought into this. Is that some kind of put down on Arun Venugopal?

Gandhi did not want to abolish the caste system and empowermment of lower castes or their emacipation in any form was never on his agenda. He wanted the upper castes to be more humane towards the shudras and end untouchability.
He opposed the separate electorate for lower castes which was agreed by british during second round table conference in 1931 by going on fast unto death. Other leaders persuaded Ambedkar to sign Poona pact and settle for reservations, otherwise , in event of Gandhi's death ,they feared attacks on dalits.

Manto writes "The reason why Masadi has "blanked" out the names is because the letter is NOT from a federal minister. If you look at the top left hand corner... you see that the actual post is blanked out ... most probably a third rate functionary in the Chairman's office."

Conspiracy mongering, The letter is signed by the Federal Minister whose name I have deliberately withheld. I don't really care about the letter, what I care about is that your social science department at GC will soon be receiving the article and the recommendations and out of the many government institutions, chances are a few will adopt them and produce more people in the tradtion of those that go against colonization, people who reject MAJ.

The articles can be read here http://articles.asadi.org
Read the one titled "Overcoming the Colonial Subordination Model of Education"

Let Manto produce even one piece like the ones produced here and then we can talk about "third rate minds". Talk is cheap, Jinnah talked the talk too, democracy talk, Islam talk, Muslim vs Hindu talk and so on, but when it came time to walk the walk he proved himself to be a hypocrite on all counts...

Manto writes "Allow me to simplify for your third rate brain that has a problem comprehending issues:

1. You don't have a point Mr. Asadi.

2. You have NOT produced a single fact ...

3. You've not responded to a single one of my arguments."


This is just sloganeering, which point of the many that I have raised have you responded to? None. I have responded to all your allegations and so called defenses. Are you trying to tell me that the Quaid attained Pakistan inspite of the British? Are you then trying to tell us that the Quaid pursued an independant policy as King of Pakistan, independant of the colonials and their institutions? Well the facts post independence don't bear out your contentions. The MAJ subverted democracy, all through his career, and when he was given a country, he accepted it showing hypocrisy of his claims by ignorning the vast majority of Muslims. That Gandhi was able to tap into popular rural sentiment against colonization (a fact) regardless of how sick or demented his person was- that is immaterial- or how religiously bigoted he was- is what laid the foundations of democracy in India. Jinnah was who laid the foundations of Pakistan being a lackey of the West and non existant grassroots democracy....which continued until ZAB appeared

IB Well said man.

However for Professor Masadi history begins and ends with "Freedom at Midnight" a third rate orientalist fantasy based exclusively only Mountbatten's interviews.

On another note ... ladies and gentlemen Masadi has posted a letter on his ilog that he claims is from a Federal Minister of Government reforms, promising to "disseminate" his "report" on teaching methodologies.

The reason why Masadi has "blanked" out the names is because the letter is NOT from a federal minister. If you look at the top left hand corner... you see that the actual post is blanked out ... most probably a third rate functionary in the Chairman's office.

It must be remembered this office is NOT a federal ministry per se but is headed by Dr. Ishrat Hussain who has the same privileges and status of a federal minister. The letter is not from Dr. Hussain - whose name is blanked out as the person who forwarded the report or passed it down to a menial office worker.

Having read Masadi's pathetic arguments, I was not willing to accept that things have come to such a sorry state that we are giving out reports by third rate associate professors to our policy makers.

Thankfully however it turns out that Masadi is merely playing up a stock bureaucratic reply ...and there is no chance in hell that his reactionary and bigoted philosophy may be accepted by the government of Pakistan.

Thank God for Pakistan and thank god I did not make the calls I was about to make at this late an hour.

Isn't it a fact that people who support RamRajya strongly support upper caste control of the society or conversely believe in dismantling the current lower caste preference system.

Gandhi, I believe was NOT looking in changes in the caste system he was just trying to provide a better political standing for the caste in attempt to include a vast majority of Indians in to the independence movement.

For Gandhi it was a political step to call them Harijan. It was never meant to ignite social changes that would provide equal opportunities or the uplifting of the lower caste of no caste Hindus. Though in the end, his limited initiative turned in to a social movement after the independence and now we have Dalit instead of Harijan.

The more political and social status Dalit gained in India, the less popular Gandhi becomes. As in the minds of Hindutva or the RamRajya supporters he was responsible for leading the awakening of the Dalit in India, No matter how unintentional it was when Gandhi first set out to change the name to Harijan.

HP, this is what I am trying to figure out.

Suppose I googled 'ram rajya.' And a lot of stuff came up, all corresponding with what Arun Venugopal wrote.

Now, the possibilities are - this is what Hindus believe, and are themselves, all, posting it on the Internet.

Or, it's possible, this stuff has nothing to do with what Hindus believe. But that the postings are by a small handful of Hindus, which are then picked up and relayed all over by non-Hindus (not because they are bad people, but because the stories are very believable to them).

--------------------

To describe believability, let me recount a recent experience with a lady on chowk, who I believe has been one of our very best additions on chowk in years - cliftonbridge.

She raised a question. I gave an answer. But the answer did not fit in with her pre-conceptions (right or wrong).

Naturally, she did not easily believe what I wrote (as anything more than my person interpretation). So one naturally gave her the freedom to go and ACTUALLY CHECK IT OUT with REAL HINDUS, not one or two, but with a few more.

That is a lot of work. Hopefully, she might follow up. Or she may not consider it worth her time.

However, if the answer I gave was very believable to her, the communication would have been flawless. Not in this case, but one can imagine conditions, when such 'flawless' communication is beneficial to parties. Except that the message would have been totally wrong.

--------------------

The question, normal Hindus (not extremists) might want to think about (IF they believe Arun Venugopal is writing nonsense - as I am sure they do): why does he write what he does?

And perhaps, is it safe, for normal Hindus again (not extremists), to leave such Hindus unchallenged?

Re: # 138 Manto Bhai,
Why did MAJ - left properties in India ? In reality MAJ never wanted Pakistan - Pakistan was used as a bargaining chip and nothing else. It was only after mid-1946 MAJ realized the pressure from the average muslims to go for Pakistan . Quaid fought for the rights of minorities while Nehru/Ghandi/Congress were only concerned about Hindus and this attitude actually forced (once amb. of hindu-muslim friendship) MAJ to comeup with the theory of two nations.
The low-casts (OBC's or whatever they call low-cast Hindus) still hates Gandhi!
I just hope Quaid be understood in India one-day .

#74 tahmed32

You were not incorrect. Washington did walk away after winning the war with british. He was invited back to run the constituent assembly to draft the constitution in order to resolve conflicting demands from states and various interest groups. He walked away (second time) after the constitution work was completed and was invited back to be the President. He walked away (third time) after two terms of presidency. What a guy!

Re: # 135

Ad hominem... as usual poor Masadi... without an argument.

Ironic that the "colonials" gave him a country and yet he remained the most popular leader in it? Ironic that the British kept on abusing him. Ironic that while he told the British to go to hell and refused to allow Mountbatten to become the GG ... Indians begged Mountbatten and gave him a blank piece of paper.

Allow me to simplify for your third rate brain that has a problem comprehending issues:

1. You don't have a point Mr. Asadi.

2. You have NOT produced a single fact ...

3. You've not responded to a single one of my arguments.

#130 Posted by KaalChakra

a little google would reveal what is out there about Ram Rajya and most of the stuff corresponds with what Arun Venugopal wrote so how could you claim that there is another version a much benign version out there that is being hidden by people and Hindus are not willing to show that to people. The TV program Ramayana notwithstanding!

IMHO Hindu-Muslim misunderstandings are actually manufactured by people (because neither are inherently stupid). On Islam's side, it was the Sufis. For whatever reasons they did that, we needn't go there.

I suspect, on Hindu side too, there are 'sufis' of sort. People who make things up. Things that are 'believable' by the other side.

Why?

Manto writes "If Jinnah was all powerful have you considered where he derived his power from? Did he have an army? It was the people. "

Fool the power came from the colonials who were dealing with him, they "gave" him a country by usurping the rights of the Muslims.

I have responded to every one of your stupid arguments, the facts that I have stated are not hidden or obscure in some "book" somewhere, they are out in the open. Only those who don't possess any semblance of thinking ability can ignore them. Jinnah subverted democracy in Pakistan, he laid the foundation of that, he could have established a democratic state if he was interested in doing so but then he wouldn't be king. Idiots like you cannot think, they only know hero worship that is about all they can muster. You can try as much as you want to "stop" me, the people will triump in this country God willing, the foundations of that have been laid already and they were laid with the will of popular support by undoing the colonial status in which the MAJ wanted us to remain....His crimes and the blood on his hands is great and his betrayal of the Muslims of India, after evoking sectarianism is something that no historian should ignore given the facts...

It's actually a very small world.

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/47023

Arun Venugopal

Arun Venugopal was raised and attended college in Texas, but has lived on and off in India, first as a student and later as an advertising copywriter with Ogilvy & Mather. He worked on film productions in New Delhi and New York before becoming a journalist. He is a reporter for India Abroad and its online counterpart, Rediff.com. His work has appeared in Newsday, the Seattle Times, the Washington Post and Beliefnet, where he was a former editor, as well as Outlook Magazine and the Economic Times in India.

He contributed to Voices of Healing, an anthology dealing with 9/11 and its impact on the Asian American community. Arun has a Masters in Media Studies from the New School, and lives in Brooklyn with his wife, writer Meera Nair, and their daughter.

Arun's story is called Gay South Asians in New York. New York has become a haven for Desi (South Asian) gays, who are trying to escape anti-gay prejudice in countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh . But most are not interested in leaving their entire culture behind. So Desi gays have created a new hybrid culture that draws on traditional South Asian values such as devotion to family as well as American pop culture.


Links:
» A Bay Area site that publishes a magazine for queer desis, or South Asians, around the world.
» The South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association has chapters in NY and NJ , and holds monthly meetings.
» Sholay Productions hosts the Desilicious party, featured in the radio story, as well as other events.
» Many of the articles online are distinct from what India Abroad runs in its print publication.
» To find out about other South Asian parties in New York , visit this site, run by DJ Rekha, who also scored the music for ‘Feet in Two Worlds.

HP,

My guess is that masadi is trying to win allies after being debunked on this board.

He clearly has no idea about Gandhi or Jinnah beyond that one of them went around half naked and the other one was dressed in what would be called western clothes.

"Particularly moving is Rajmohan's account of Gandhi's later years, much of which were spent behind bars until his final release after his wife's death (and cremation) in jail in 1944, aware of his fading influence and haunted by the possibility of failure."

A glimpse into the past from Wavell The Viceroy's Journal Ed. Penderel Moon.

October 7 1943
Cabinet at 6 p.m. on India, worse even than I had expected, not because of opposition, but because of spinelessness, lack of interest, opportunism. Amery did his best but talked too long and allowed himself to get tied up on points of detail by P.M(Winston Churchill). P.M. managed the discussion well from his point of view, as he drew each speaker away from principles onto matters of detail and waved the bogey of Gandhi at everyone. Anderson and Attlee gave rather lukewarm support. Grigg stood pat on his diehard paper. Smuts and others spoke on the thesis 'Quieta non movere'. Morrison and Beven were frightened over the Gandhi bogey and talked vaguely of social progress and setting the poor against the rich. Eden also spoke as if I was proposing to enthrone Gandhi. Somewhere about here the P.M. worked himself up to a tirade against Congress and all its works and then digressed into the dangers of the Indian army becoming politically minded and anti-British. It ended with the P.M. promising to draft a directive for me to be discussed tomorrow. Something face-saving will be produced, designed to carry them on and get me out there, but with every intention of blocking any progress...


October 8 1943
Had short discussion with S. of S. on economic progress. Meanwhile Winston had cancelled 3 p.m Cabinet on India and proposed to see me alone at 3 p.m.: he had produced a formula for a directive which was mostly meaningless, e.g. it exhorted me to get on with the war, to improve the lot of the Indian, to make peace between Moslem and Hindu, and indicated right at the end that political progress during the war was not barred. Amery on reading it said: 'you are wafted to India on a wave of hot air'.

P.M. was menacing and unpleasant when I saw him at 3 p.m., accused me practically of playing to the gallery, misrepresented what I had proposed, and indicated that only over his dead body would any approach to Gandhi take place. I resented this and I am afraid rather replied in kind. I think what it really amounts to is that he fears a split in the Conservative Party and trouble in Parliament over any fresh political advance in India, so is determined to block it as long as he is in power.

..
October 12 1943
Randolph Churchill was at Gibraltar on way home after being with Commando at Salerno... He said I went to India with one great advantage over the last few Viceroys: they had to decide whether and when to lock up Gandhi, I should find him already locked up.

May 8 1944
On the morning of May 4 Gandhi interrupted the peace. George Abell brought me a telegram at 2.30pm to say that the doctors(Roy and the Bombay surgeon-general Candy) thought very poorly of his health and that he might die at any moment. Bombay Government, Home Department and most the Governors recommended immediate release and P.S.V wanted my approval to a telegram to S of S to say that we proposed to release him 24 hours later. Personally, I could not see that we gained much credit by releasing him at the point of death; and if he was not at the point of death there was no need of such hurry. I did not entirely trust the medical opinions. However, it was difficult to disregard them, and Thorne's opinion was very strongly in favour of release. And Jenkins was not likely to make a panic proposal, and said that doctors views indicated that G. would not be a factor in active politics again. On the other hand, I should have like to consult my Council and should certainly have done so had I been in Delhi. talked it over with Abell for about an hour before cabling consent.

May 12 1944
At Council on May 10, some of my colleagues were rather upset that I had not consulted them over Gandhi's release; they all agreed that it was the right thing to do but resented that the credit of the release should all be given in the Press to the Viceroy and not to the G of I; they had had the odium of putting him in prison but no kudos for releasing him. Fortunately I had taken the initiatve by explaining to them what had happened before they raised the point. I think they were fairly happy in the end. Amery unfortunately had said that he 'left the decision to Lord Wavell' instead of 'to the Government of India'.

Reports on Gandhi's health seem to show that he is really ill and P.S.V. seems to think that his memory and headpiece may be affected.


May 29/31 1944
Had a telegram from P.M. to acknowledge my letter of April 29. It was friendly and complimentary but finished up with a diatribe against Gandhi, he is obviously disturbed by the idea that I may start negotiating with him.

June 21 1944
I had a letter from Mr. Gandhi asking to see the Working Committee and to see me. I am replying that as our recent correspondence has shown radically different points of view, I see no value in our meeting or in his meeting the Working Committee, until he has something more constructive than Quit India to propose.

July 19 1944
Chief business in the last day or so has been drafting telegrams to S. of S. about Mr. Gandhi's activities. There is likely to be a debate on India in House of Commons on July 26, and Amery is likely to have a rough passage, especially in explaining why Gandhi should not be allowed to see the Working Committee. I have tried to give him ammunition but I am afraid that nothing he says goes down very well. It would in any event be difficult to convince a large section of the House that Gandhi's motive is not really for a settlement but to secure the release of the Working Committee as a prelude to further political agitation.

August 4 1944
The P.M. wired me that the Cabinet was very perturbed that I had entered into negotiation with Gandhi, who should be dead - at least politically- according to the medical reports cabled home. I fortunately remembered his directive of last October, and wired back that I was not negotiating with G, merely informing him that negotiation on his basis was impossible; that I had carried out the injunctons of his directive; and that the only provision of his directive which I had been unable to carry out was to 'divert shipping to carry food grains', since H.M.G. would give me neither shipping nor food grains.

HP: "Indian society cannot afford the re-establishment of the Ram Rajya and reverse the gains of the dismantling of the caste system"

I am not supporting the caste system in any of its forms or shapes, I am for the grassroots democracy movement against colonization, of which Jinnah was not a part.

"Another paranoid Paki"

But HP is neither paranoid nor unintelligent!

All I have been saying, unfairly blaming drlokraj, is that the sources of these stories and interpretations are and have been Hindus themselves!

Who are these Hindus? Why do they spread these beliefs? That is far important to uncover, understand, and confront than trying to convince HP.

Were I HP, I would rather believe the authors of these stories than I would believe Mohar. That would simply be more rational.

Now, if they are right, then of course, they are right. But if they are wrong, then you can see the sheer cost, in social terms, of these stories?

Please understand. The interpretation of ram raj as the coming Hindu theocracy ACTUALLY played a part in breaking India. And in all that followed since.

------------

Diwali's Volatile Subtext

By Arun Venugopal

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/116/story_11629_1.html

----------------



Would it not be so much better, and more honest, if the authors of such stories and interpretations first confronted other Hindus, to see, if they got their basic beliefs right...

Re: # 127

You've produced NO FACTS. You have admitted that you've read no book on the issue.

All we have are ad-hominem arguments from a bigoted idiot whose argument comes down to whoever wears western clothes is evil.

Masadi,

You've not responded to a single one of my arguments because you are too ignorant and stupid to even attempt to do so.

When I asked you to read a good book on Jinnah, you said you did not have the time. So what the hell are you arguing about? You've admitted that you don't know the first thing about the man. Yet you argue like you are Quran itself... You have no idea about the 1937 elections or their results... you have no idea that Muslim League won the polls in UP and Jinnah merely wanted coalition governments there with the Congress... so your entire argument is AD HOMINEM. If Jinnah was all powerful have you considered where he derived his power from? Did he have an army? It was the people.

Is this the teaching methodology you wish to instill in the Pakistanis? Reject everything based on little knowledge?

And I see you've discovered the word "ad hominem". Quite clearly beyond watching the movie Gandhi, you have no idea about the man... so all your arguments are in fact AD HOMINEM. Infact you are the KING of AD HOMINEM and ignorance. I will do whatever there is in my power to stop you in Pakistan...

And here is Gandhi - your brilliant "inclusivist" leader:

Well now I produce for your benefit Racist Casteist Hindu Fascist Bigot Gandhi`s own words from the The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what I have written is fact and it is you who is trying to cover up the real facts... what I produce below shows that Gandhi was the most racist and inhumane exclusivist bigot known to mankind... no wonder one of his own followers from the Mullah Brothers from Khilafat Movement declared later that even the worse Muslim was better than Gandhi... not because Gandhi was a Hindu... but because he was a racist casteist hindu fascist bigot....



Gandhi�s Mein Kempf

Like Adolf Hitler, Gandhi also compiled his racist manifesto when he was an accomplished barrister of age 35. Please note his extensive usage of the word �Kaffir� for black people- Citations are from Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi ... they may be checked again and again from any library in the US...


``A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir. ``
Collected works of MK Gandhi, Vol. 1, pg 150-151

``the whole objection to the Indian proceeds from sanitary grounds, the following restrictions are entirely unintelligible:
1. The Indians, like the Kaffirs, cannot become owners of fixed property.
2. The Indians must be registered, the fee being 3 pounds 10S.
3. In passing through the Republic, like the Natives, they must be able to produce passes unless they have the registration ticket.
4. They cannot travel first or second-class on the railways. They are huddled together in the same compartment with the Natives.
So far as the feeling has been expressed, it is to degrade the Indian to the position of the Kaffir. ``
Petition to Lord Ripon, CWOMG, Vol. 1, pg 199-200


``Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of a raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness ``
Address in Bombay, CWOMG, Vol. 2, pg 74

``...A reference to Hunter`s `Indian Empire`, chapters 3 and 4, would show at a glance who are aborigines and who are not. The matter is put so plainly that there can be no mistake about the distinction between the two. It will be seen at once from the book that the Indians in South Africa belong to the INDO-GERMANIC STOCK or, more properly speaking, the ARYAN stock

We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do, only we believe that they would best serve these interests, which are as dear to us as to them, by advocating the purity of all races, and not one alone. We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race. ``
Indian Opinion 24-9-1903, CWOMG Vol. 3, pg 453

...The petition dwells upon ``the co-mingling of the Coloured and white races``. May we inform the members of the conference that, so far as the British Indians are concerned, such a thing is practically unknown? If there is one thing, which the Indian cherishes more than any other, it is the purity of type. Why bring such a question into the controversy at all?
The Transvaal Chambers and British Indians, Indian Opinion 24-12-03, CWOMG Vol. 4, pg 89

Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian Location should be chosen for dumping down all the Kaffirs of the town passes my comprehension. ...Of course, under my suggestion, The Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of Kaffirs with the Indians, I must confess I feel most strongly
Indian Opinion, 10-4-04, CWOMG Vol. 4, pg 130-131

It is one thing to register Natives who would not work, and whom it is very difficult to find out if they absent themselves, but it is another thing and most insulting to expect decent, hard-working, and respectable Indians, whose only fault is that they work too much, to have themselves registered...
What is a Coolie, Indian Opinion 2151904, CWOMG Vol. 4, pg 193

It reduces British Indians to a status lower than that of the aboriginal races of South Africa and the Coloured people.
Indian Opinion 15-9-1906, CWOMG Vol. 5, pg 419-423

Mr. Stead has boldly come out to give us all the help he can. He was therefore requested to write to the same Boer leaders that they should not consider Indians as being on the same level as Kaffirs.
Indian Opinion, 15-12-1906, CWOMG Vol. 6, pg 183

...the Governor of the gaol tried to make us as comfortable as he could...But he was powerless to accommodate us beyond the horrible din and the yells of the Native prisoners throughout the day and partly at night also. Many of the native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought amongst themselves in their cells.
Indian Opinion 7-3-1908, CWOMG Vol. 8, pg 120

Apart from whether or not this implies degradation, I must say it is rather dangerous. Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized -- the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty, and live almost like animals. Each ward contains nearly 50 to 60 of them. They often started rows and fought among themselves. The reader can easily imagine the plight of the poor Indian thrown into such company!
Indian Opinion, 7-3-1908, CWOMG Vol. 8, pg 135

When I reached there, the chief warder issued an order that all of us should be lodged in a separate room. I observed with regret that some Indians were happy to sleep in the same room as the Kaffirs, the reason being that they hoped there for a secret supply of tobacco, etc. This is a matter of shame to us. We may entertain no aversion to the Kaffirs, but we cannot ignore the fact that there is no common ground between them and us in the daily affairs of life. Moreover, those who wish to sleep in the same room have ulterior motives for doing so. Obviously, we ought to abandon such notions if we want to make progress.
Indian Opinion, 6-1-1909, CWOMG Vol. 9, pg 149

CWMOG = Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi`s racism against scheduled castes and dalits

He wrote in 1922 for Niya Jawan

(1) I believe that if Hindu Society has been able to stand it is because it is founded on the caste system.
(2) The seeds of swaraj are to be found in the caste system. Different castes are like different sections of miliary division. Each division is working for the good of the whole....

(3) A community which can create the caste system must be said to possess unique power of organization.

(4) Caste has a ready made means for spreading primary education. Each caste can take the responsibility for the education of the children of the caste. Caste has a political basis. It can work as an electorate for a representative body. Caste can perform judicial functions by electing persons to act as judges to decide disputes among members of the same caste. With castes it is easy to raise a defense force by requiring each caste to raise a brigade.

(5) I believe that interdining or intermarriage are not necessary for promoting national unity. That dining together creates friendship is contrary to experience. If this was true there would have been no war in Europe.... Taking food is as dirty an act as answering the call of nature. The only difference is that after answering call of nature we get peace while after eating food we get discomfort. Just as we perform the act of answering the call of nature in seclusion so also the act of taking food must also be done in seclusion.

(6) In India children of brothers do not intermarry. Do they cease to love because they do not intermarry? Among the Vaishnavas many women are so orthodox that they will not eat with members of the family nor will they drink water from a common water pot. Have they no love? The caste system cannot be said to be bad because it does not allow interdining or intermarriage between different castes.

(7) Caste is another name for control. Caste puts a limit on enjoyment. Caste does not allow a person to transgress caste limits in pursuit of his enjoyment. That is the meaning of such caste restrictions as interdining and intermarriage.

(8) To destroy caste system and adopt Western European social system means that Hindus must give up the principle of hereditary occupation which is the soul of the caste system. Hereditary principle is an eternal principle. To change it is to create disorder. I have no use for a Brahmin if I cannot call him a Brahmin for my life. It will be a chaos if every day a Brahmin is to be changed into a Shudra and a Shudra is to be changed into a Brahmin.

(9) The caste system is a natural order of society. In India it has been given a religious coating. Other countries not having understood the utility of the caste system, it existed only in a loose condition and consequently those countries have not derived from caste system the same degree of advantage which India has derived. These being my views I am opposed to all those who are out to destroy the caste system.

Part of my response was cut off:

Manto writes "God save Pakistan since I just read that pathetic letter from the government of Pakistan which is "considering" your advice. Infact I can assure you that I will do whatever I can to make sure that an ignorant jahil like yourself is kept out of policy making in my country at all costs."

What makes me a Jahil in your books is that I am able to use well known, indisputed historical facts and then connect them with fresh logical argumentation. While you just reproduce some obscure facts you have read somewhere as a damn parrot and call people names. That is the difference between us. I know how societies get structured, how they work, you on the other hand only know how to hero- worship. That you would try to keep this nation enslaved at its basic education level by doing your utmost to keep recommendations that would breathe fresh life into the minds of our youth, turn them from parrots like yourself into critical thinkers, is no surprise to me. Your hero was the product of a similar colonial mindset, yet thought that "democracy" meant acting like a king over the people, it meant "messing" with people's lives and culture and rejecting the mandate of popular elections, then he thought that it meant evoking religious exclusion while being selective in that exclusion by forgetting a vast majority of Muslims that he had made into scape goats for his perverted end and who now faced the brunt of Hindu wrath. In my books that guy was a criminal. I lay full blame on the subversion of democracy in Pakistan on the weak, enslaved state institutions whose foundation was laid in colonial institutions, and place it firmly and squarely on the person of MAJ, and I credit ZAB with any democracy that emerged in Pakistan. Try your best, the people will reject your meddling to keep them colonized.

#112 Posted by masadi

That is a very subjective reading of the History.

Why Kaal gets upset when RamRajya is associated with the evils of the caste system is probably because Gandhi and Kaal see the caste system in its original shape and that was just a division of labor. Later on, the caste system became the cruse that divided Indians between segments of people and perhaps that division was the root cause of the successive successful intrusion from the outside.

The Rajas or the Maharajas could not count on the support of the lower caste in fighting against the invasions. In fact, it is quite obvious that they weren’t even looking for support from the lower caste as fighting side by side with the acchoot or shudra or outcast(whatever their names) was not acceptable to both Brahmin and the warrior class.

There is no historical evidence that lower caste Hindus or non Hindus were part of any defending armies.

The question is whether the Ram Rajya is a worthy goal in today’s political environments? Not at all! Indian society cannot afford the re-establishment of the Ram Rajya and reverse the gains of the dismantling of the caste system. But if you pay attention to RSS, BJP etc, you will discover that that is what they want to do. Dismantle the gains of lower caste to the betterment of the upper caste thus their cry for establishment of Ram Rajya….Supported by groups on this site.

Manto writes "PS: My own guess is that having his hairbrained theories rejected by reasonable minds on chowk.... Masadi is trying to make himself palatable to the Indians"

The only thing Hairbrained here are your thoughtless"copy-paste" theories from a few books you have managed to read. You claim that Jinnah improved the condition of the Muslims in India and then write a whole post regarding how bad their condition was. I don't need to make myself palatable to the Indians or anyone else. What I see in the man is subversion of democracy, one step after another (even in 1937 when he felt the election results didn't do him justice) till he gets handed a country whose very foundation in the "independent era" was laid on subverted democracy. First, the bourgeoisie is not good for democracy, Gandhi had popular support in the rural backwaters of India where no bourgeoisie existed,that is what real democracy is about.

Then he writes "About foundations... India has a working constitution thanks to Dr. B R Ambedkar "

Names don't mean anything, no person can make any working constitution outside of the institution of the state that got its birth in the independence movement, which had popular support because of Gandhi. Whatever the hell he was fascist, Hindu or whatever, these are all Ad Hominem arguments, the fact of the matter is that he tapped into popular support and never subverted democracy in the fashion that Jinnah did, nor did he evoke religious identity like a damn hypocrite to cause bloodshed, thereby laying the foundation of not only a dictatorial Pakistan but also a sectarian Pakistan.

Then he writes " Jinnah turned to Muslim nationalism only after having exhausted all avenues of cooperation."

Really, he couldn't compete with the Congress so that amounts to "having exhausted all avenues of cooperation" and accepted a nation state doomed to failure from the start where he seats himself as "king"?

Then he writes "Your argument is merely an emotive argument- hardly the standard that one would expect from an academic that you claim to be. Jinnah was pro-west because he wore western clothes and Gandhi was a hero because he went about naked"

Really? and where do I make this argument? Towards the end period of his "independance" movement Gandhi rejected the British based on indigeneous standards, had great support of the Masses, while the Jinnah man fled to London. Of course your arguments againt Gandhi amount to little more than Ad Hominem. When you evoke mass support, the kind that Gandhi did you can call him whatever name in the book you want, that lays the foundation of democracy in the NEW arrangement, while when you use political expediency to subvert democracy time and again like the MAJ did, and do not have popular support and accept an arrangement that ignores a majority of Muslims regardless of the feudals or the power arrangement under colonization.

Again you are not making sense.

My only contention was to praise Indians for being open minded enough to give a 43% for Jinnah ... which is a remarkable figure ... given the hostility there is for partition etc.

YLH

CNN-IBN also rated Muhamand at 97% rating in pakiland and 25% in india... what's the point?

Re: # 105

Mohar mian,

I didn't know I had bought the majority shareholding in CNN-IBN which conducted the POLL. Thanks for sending me the memo.

116/HP

Another Paranoid paki... exactly what I was talking about... :)

Good c-p job HP. Keepitup!

PS: My own guess is that having his hairbrained theories rejected by reasonable minds on chowk.... Masadi is trying to make himself palatable to the Indians ... since no pakistani is willing to buy eccentricities here.

Masadi,

The man you abuse was for 30 years hailed by Indians as the Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity... Jinnah turned to Muslim nationalism only after having exhausted all avenues of cooperation.

Meanwhile the genius i.e. Gandhi who is known world over for his "leadership" is the model of religious, racial and caste inclusion. If you read his collected works (there are 90 volumes of them), you not only find him the British Empire's most obedient servant but a racist without a mask and casteist Hindu.

About foundations... India has a working constitution thanks to Dr. B R Ambedkar (I am willing to bet you haven't even heard the name) ... you know what Dr. B R Ambedkar considered Gandhi: A medieval Hindu Fascist ... blue blooded Hindu fascist without a mask... the greatest enemy of all untouchables. It was thanks to Nathuram Godse that India was spared of Gandhiism and it was thanks to B R Ambedkar that India became a solid constitutional state aspiring to be a democracy. Gandhi hasn't got anything to do with it.

Your argument is merely an emotive argument- hardly the standard that one would expect from an academic that you claim to be. Jinnah was pro-west because he wore western clothes and Gandhi was a hero because he went about naked.
And furthermore it pre-supposes that good parents always have good children and bad parents always have bad children.

Why Pakistan has not reached its potential has very different and much more concrete reasons than abusing this man or that man...

The Muslim bourgeoisie i.e. Salariat behind the creation of Pakistan belonged entirely to the Hindustan regions and had no real roots in indigenous Pakistan. Those who had roots in the regions of Punjab and Sindh etc were mostly feudals. Thus the feudals and the army in collusion with the civil bureaucracy found it really easy to over throw the bourgeoisie ... in 1954 and then the army assumed command in 1958.

Why were feudals stronger in Punjab etc... had its roots in the British theory of Martial and Non-martial regions... whereby the British ruled Punjab with consensus of the feudals who were given a free rein ... and the democratic and bourgeoisie institutions of Bengal and rest of India just did not take root here for a long time. How are you going to blame this on Jinnah or his party League which struggled as much against the Unionist Party in the 1940s as Congress had (against the Unionist Party) in the 1930s...

Pakistan thus was faced not just with general Muslim backwardness (because of their preference for either soldiery or farming) but also the fact that the regions that constituted Pakistan were industrially a half century behind the rest of India.... Pakistan's creation in fact has provided that impetus and fire required to create a modern industrial economy and a bourgeoisie...

God save Pakistan since I just read that pathetic letter from the government of Pakistan which is "considering" your advice. Infact I can assure you that I will do whatever I can to make sure that an ignorant jahil like yourself is kept out of policy making in my country at all costs.

#115 no I am not being taken into the GoP, the GoP has decided to use my recommendations because the committee on reform thinks them valid, if it helps to remove the traps of colonization that are pulling the nation down (thanks in part to the MAJ), then it will be a very good achievement. The subversion of democracy and thereby keeping us subservient to the colonials by a person who had a colonized mind, started with the MAJ and continues to this day. Any efforts to get rid of that should be welcome...

Basically Ram Rajya is a concept of Hindu revivalism in almost the same vain as the Wahabi movement of the salafis that calls for the revivalism of ancient Islam or the Islam of the Prophet era.

Can the RamRajya be associated with caste system? Yes, very much so. Caste system is part of the Hindu belief system. The caste system not necessarily means killing of lower caste that is part of the evil that creeps in a society. However, it should not be ignored that RamRajya is an attempt to revive a system which appreciated the caste system and still does. The current exponents of the RamRajya in India and in the US are the famous BJP, RSS, VHP and their student wings in the US.
Most of the Indians posting on this site have been exposed to the RSS, VHP or the Hindu students’ council in the US.

I consider their work similar to Jamaat Islami and its student wing Islami Jamiat Tulaba. Whose main platform is the revival of the Khilafat Rushda or the system that prevailed during the Prophet era.

Actually both groups whether they are Muslim or Hindu are perverts and would like to impose a religious rule disguised as RamRajya or the Islami Nizami. Just two sides of a long defunct coin.

Here is a little info for Tahmed on RamRajya. Appears pretty benign but in reality has some long communal teeth. Gandhi clearly supported RamRajya perhaps in its purest form but his statements had roots in Hindu resentment of the Mughal rule in India.


“another story about the origins of Diwali has taken on real-life resonances in India's political consciousness. In tracing the fall and rise of Prince Rama, some see a metaphor for the resurrection of a purer India, free of Islamic-era and colonial influences. While centuries have passed since India first came under Mughal rule, scars remain. Hindus contend that thousands of temples were destroyed by Muslim invaders, and that certain practices such as child marriage and sati (the self-immolation of widows upon pyres) were merely desperate responses to marauding armies…�

“There is a shared sense among many Hindus, both within India and throughout the diaspora, that India needs to return to a more virtuous era. Those who have contended with the many inequities of modern Indian life--the corruption, the poverty--think: If only we could recover our glorious Hindu civilization, our problems would be gone.�

“The modern city of Ayodhya, which functions as Rama's seat of empire, remains the epicenter of Hindu-Muslim violence, as Hindu groups continue pressing for the construction of a temple to Ram upon the site of a mosque that was destroyed in 1992. Even the race to build a nuclear bomb in the late 90s invoked Ram Rajya. Some Hindus assert that the nuclear bomb was an ancient weapon that proved the power of Rama's kingdom, but claim it was never deployed, evidence of his peaceful nature.�

Asadi, U are being taken into GoP.

Btw congrats on big job with GoP. Hope u bring good changes there.

Best Wishes, (no pun or sarcasm).

drsahib, that was really nice and generous of you. As you know, I very much admire you (and all you have done, particularly in spreading scientific awareness), but this misunderstanding had me very upset.

Dr Mohar is right. It is time to take a break, when one suffers from such a misunderstanding for so long. Thanks again.

New subversions of democracy,

"Quaid-i-Azam guaranteed his counterpart that the two of them would be able to solve the problem once and forever, if Mountbatten was ready to fly with him to Srinagar at once. As India was not interested in the immediate resolution of the problem and wanted to gain time, Mountbatten told the Quaid that unlike him, he was not the complete master of his country and had to take the consent of Nehru and Patel. Thus the talks ended and the problem remained unsolved. "

http://www.storyofpakistan.com/articletext.asp?artid=A111


= ) Amazing eh?

re #73 Manto:

You are quite pathetic, the guy used religious exclusion, to divide up India, something the British desired, on the other hand Gandhi, plant or not tapped into the popular sentiment of the people and is recognized the world over for that "leadership". Just as you are legitimizing the "presidency" of the MAJ, so do people legitimize the presidency of Musharraf. Like HP said the guy was pro-West through and through, that means whether you like it or not that your mind is colonized, you are a lackey for all real intents and purposes. A little knowledge might be dangerous but reasoning from well known facts, that no historian disputes is honesty compared to your subversion of the facts to worship one man that I consider a mass murderer. The final proof rests in what happened in India and Pakistan on the democracy front, the Gandhian foundation was much better than the MAJ one, especially when he was hell bent in subverting democracy by dictating to the elected prime minister... Regarding that obscure piece of legislation, you have failed to prove how that caused any economic development in India or improved the condition of the common folk.

kaal bhai, thank you. I was always wondering why are you so angry and at times writing cryptic posts about me. Hope there is no such mis-understanding now and you dont need to apologize.

drsahib, my sincere apologies.

Cnfession: I have been pissed over this for some time. A couple of times I saw you (or may be it was someone else) associate ram rajya with caste-system. There was one clear instance when ram rajya was specifically associated with the killing of bali.

I thought that was very very dishonest. Or ignorant. You and I know very well that ram rajya means and has meant NOTHING more than an ideal state. Like ram bana, ram bachan, etc. There is no record or recollection, as far as I know, of Gandhi ever advocating any Hindu/Muslim/Sikh theocracy.

Again, if this was not you, I very sincerely apologize. But you can see how such misunderstandings can be disastrous for any society where people of different faiths live, and I have, mistakenly, it appears, believed our liberals have been responsible for spreading this ignorance.

For the third time, my apologies. I was wrong.

kaal bhai, I dont associate Gandhi's Ram Raj with killings of lower caste people and whatever the concept is, I dont find it relevent to India today....so kissa khatam karo.

...and please do not associate everything communists do, with me, because I am not responsible for what they do or what they have done in the past... and I have friends among communists, congress, akalis, bjp and many other political parties.

I don't remember having said anything personally against you...you can tell me if I have. You can e mail me if there is any such issue.

Folio

The fear of RR comes from the fact that Ram is a hindu god - worshipped widely - hence ram rajya, to the ignorant and paranoid, smells of a theological concept, and somehow the proponents were out to impose that on the fellowers of bedouinism...

the fact that Ram was not a priest but a secular prince interested in good governance of his people doesn't matter to paranoid pakis and ignorant "liberals" like Kaal...

Either way - it's a dead concept - no more used in post-independence politics... so it's as good as beating a dead-horse... :)

mohar, drlokraj is a good man. Let's just wait for his explanation, once and for all, of ram rajya.

If drolokraj believes that ram rajya denoted a Hindu theocracy, with return to caste-system inequities, then I can assure you, in the real world, a significant proportion of non-Hindus have a every reason to take his word over yours. Believing him, an atheist and a communist, yet a Hindu/Sikh over you would simply be more rational for others.

So I suggest, we respectfully wait for our man, the one drlokraj's explanation. And whether he has or has not, in the past, on chowk, associated ram rajya with the killing of lower caste people.

He has, but yet, it would be good to hear from him.

Anil,

"It is for his contributions for non-violence as a weapon, and to Independence of South Asia."

Are u outta ur mind? Did Gandhi's non-violence gave Independence to Sri Lanka, Burma and Maldives? What South Asian Independence are u talking abt?

what's up with YLH and his obsession with poll "ratings" on dead people?... Mohamand, the bedouin, would get a 97% rating in pakiland and 25% rating in India[15% muslims + 10% commies + Kaal]... what's the point?

Mohar, I dont need to Google abt Rama Rajya. I grew up listening abt it in my daily life.

RR was never meant to be a Hindu Theocratic state as 'defined' by Ahmed sahib. How a Surya Vansh King like Rama can be the head of a theocractic state (i.e one headed by a priest or priests?).

A fellow Surya Vanshi like Urstruly can throw light on this.

Yasser:

I question unqualified 85% approval rating of Gandhi. It is for his contributions for non-violence as a weapon, and to Independence of South Asia. I highly doubt his approval rating for anema-giver eccentricities. These behaviors of his have been known to many in India.

Of course perverts like Manto and others can only come up with Ad Hominem to discredit someone who has mass appeal and that also at the grassroots level. In the "independence" movement of India, and note the "" in independence, Gandhi stands heads and shoulders above the MAJ fellow, who was a third rate imitator of the Ata Turk, both these fellows were slaves, the Ata Turk a third rate slave and the MAJ a fourth rate one because he imitated the third rate slave.

Now, Pakistan has seen a true leader, one who single-handedly tried to install democracy in this country, one who had mass appeal, the only true leader of the caliber described in the Quran regarding Ibrahim, a nation (umma) by himself: the mullahs don't understand what this means it means that an individual goes against an existing institutional structure and is successful in altering it, he is the foundational social structure by himself; such people can alter history and change the course of the world. Their task is not easy, it is very difficult, of course in the case of Pakistan it was a Herculean task, much beyond a single person to achieve without maneuvering and struggle; that one person could achieve so much regardless of the mistakes- that one person had that vision not only for this country but by its example the entire Third World, was something we all can be proud of. It is for that reason that he was not tolerated and made an example of. That person was ZAB. He has my respect, and our lives the life of the common man is much worse off now that what it would have been had the tree of democracy he planted been allowed to grow. Compared to him the so-called Quaid e Azam was a damn pygmy...

but question is - what the heck is wrong with Kaal?... who took a dmp in his cereal bowl?...

folio

true - the term "ram rajya" was used during pre-independence days, mostly by gandhi... it has pretty much died with him... it has no practical use - since there is hardly any details about how the utopia was achieved or if it is even relevant to modern society... it's has never been part of the post-independence political parlance...

So - paranoid pakis like mullah32 do not have to worry... actually, had they taken their heads out of bedouin %%%es and read up on their own ancestry - then they would have realized this already... pakis would be pakis...

hey drsahib, good to see you.

So let me ask you. Have you associated in the past, on chowk, or have you not, killing of lower caste people with ram rajya?

We will take your word for it, google or no google.

If you would like, you may also explain your understanding of ram rajya now. I will readily apologize, if needed. I think you are a great guy, otherwise :)

Re: # 87

Yasser:

Another way to look at these polls is that India is more tolerant to opposing views than Pakistan. Just a food for thought.

kaal bhaiyya, I did not know that I 'imparted' some knowledge about hinduism or anything else to my muslim friends on chowk.

Blaming atheists for hindu-muslim divide.....dhannye ho aap kaal maharaaj...aap to koti koti naman!!

kaal - obviously you have some serious issues with drlokraj - take it up with him directly - don't fight proxy wars... :)

TAhmed: U can totally believe Kaal's concept of Ram Rajya. Ofcourse, you must also then totally believe only Zeemax's view of Islam as Kaal says that it is the only true Islam.

Kaal: You need to take a break from Chowk and get over your paranoia. Take a scotch and club soda with a couple of aspirins.

OK, my last post on ram rajya :)

mohar, folio, we continue to assume, unjustifiably, that Indians Muslims are/have been totally devoid of common sense and basic intelligence. That they would live in India for hundreds and hundreds of years, among Hindus, as neighbors and friends, many having converted from Hinduism, and have no clue about the basic, most common beliefs of Hindus.

My submission is that that is NOT true. This kind of 'knowledge" about Hindus (and it is not just about ram rajya) was systematically imparted, painstakingly by our respectable drlokraj and his friends.

If you go back in history, you will see what I am saying. What's more, with wonders of google, you will find that education being imparted right here on chowk, by dr sahib himself.

So let's understand clearly who plays what role in our society. Then we can do whatever we wish.

OK, mohar, no more...hopefully, drlokraj will present his view all by himself :)

OMG,

I think this is what u've expected from me.

Let me have some funny answer now abt Rama Rajya now.

As Kaala Chakra said, after establishing Rama Rajya, we let Brahmins flog non-Brahmins. Muslims come nest with their heads inserted into grinders.

After kiiling all Muslims, we disrobe all Muslim women and rape them everyday.

I think this is what expected from me.

I gave the serious answer abt Gandhi's Rama Rajya as that is known in our society.

Mr. Ahmed,

I gave the serious answer abt Rama Rajya Gandhi talked and that is know in our society.

Btw, I dont romanticise abt some mythical past. We need to look ahead and that's what I tell Manto everytime. If we have to look back it's with a view to learn some good lessons but not to sharpen knives.

Let me have some funny answer now abt Rama Rajya now.

As Kaala Chakra said, after establishing Rama Rajya, we let Brahmins flog non-Brahmins. Muslims come nest with their heads inserted into a grinders.

After kiiling all Muslims, we disrobe all Muslim women and rape them everyday.

I think this is what expected from me.

yaar mohar, don't agree with any of that. "Confusion" can hardly explain firm conviction and belief.

Do believe me on this. drlokraj HAS (the only person with that distinction) explained clearly what ram rajya entailed, including, let me emphasize, the killing of "lower caste" people, all authorized by Hindu religion.

Unless drlokraj shares his wisdom again, someone can google his old posts on chowk.

What I am suggesting is that Indian Muslims were not and are not stupid. They were clearly explained and systematically educated on what ram rajya meant, and drlokraj and his allies undertook that education.

Hope he doesn't keep quiet for too long :)

Re: # 86

PS: Washington was elected president twice after the 1789 constitution. He moved away after the second term creating the precedent which was made the law in 1940s.

By the way back to what I was saying:

The CNN-IBN Pakistan and India polls are out.. (State of the nation polls)

In this context Jinnah got an approval rating of 97% in Pakistan and 43% in India.

Gandhi got an approval rating 29% in Pakistan and 85% in India.

Tahmed,

I hope you will hit those American History books again because George Washington was the first President of the United States of America.

As for Gandhi... Congress people were not stupid enough to allow him to become anything anyway.

Kaal #78 shall look forward to drlokraj's elaboration of what he means by ram rajya (yourself having already made your understanding clear, and thanks for that).

who btw drlokraj is definitely smarter than me since he wastes less time on chowk. :-)

Anyhoo - ram rajya is all about peace, prosperity and stability - sort of an utopia... the concept of Ram Rajya has nothing to do with religion per se - it has everything to do with state craft and governance... Ram was epitome of good governance...

The confusion came because of the fact that Ram is also one of the hindu gods - hence raising suscipicion of some kind hindu theological setup among people who don't know their own history and enduring mythology of the land...

In retrospect it was not wise to use the term to explain the goal... gandhi should have taken into account the confusion it did brought in...

Now Kaal - you should be ashamed of yourself - being so ignorant of your own history and culture... you are just like the "liberals" you deride...

Re: # 77

It passed.

The CNN-IBN Pakistan and India polls are out.. (State of the nation polls)

In this context Jinnah got an approval rating of 97% in Pakistan and 43% in India.

Gandhi got an approval rating 29% in Pakistan and 85% in India.

ylh: also look forward to any response you may wish to provide to my question: wouldnt it have been better if jinnah had refused to assume public office after the formation of Pakistan (like George Washington in US did, and like Gandhi in India did come to think of it)?

Folio #75 so, in short, your answer to my question concerning what you mean by ram raj is as follows: "The folklore abt this phrase is abt ppl having good lives, no disturbances (i.e peaceful society), era of no hunger and reegn of virtues.

That is a goal no one will argue against.

Does your concept of ram raj stop here, or does it then proceed to provide the means? from the rest of your post, it seems you have some kind of an idealized version of a distant past, but again - am all ears to your response to this next question.

Thanks. Gotto go to an evil chinese restaurant now to meet some evil fellow pakis, but will be back to see your response. :-)

kaal

Dude - take a break... you are spending way too much time in chowk and it shows - step back and get some perspective and objectivity...

Folio, tahmed32

It's patently unfair for two really intelligent and good people to argue over this. The task of explaining ram rajya should be/can be left SOLELY to drlokraj.

After all, it is no ordianry concept. Unambiguously, explained as Hindu sharia, it was among the more important factors leading to the inability of Hindus and Muslims to live together, to huge amounts of violence, (and the loss of millions of lives).

drlokraj and his allies played the key role in explaining ram rajya then, and only they can enlighten us again now.

drlokraj, the board is yours, please :)

#73 Posted by MantoLives on August 19, 2007 8:43:11 am

What happend to jinnah's most radical step: his law for the use of the rupee? Did it pass?

Anyway King Rama himsekf is not a priest how come his kingdom is a priestly reign?

Mr. Ahmed,

Where did u get this definition of Rama Rajya??

The folklore abt this phrase is abt ppl having good lives, no disturbances (i.e peaceful society), era of no hunger and reegn of virtues. Where did u find Hindu theology here? I dont know who perpetuated this myth but the reign of King Rama is the rein of all good things one can expect. It's mostly an oral tradition to equate Rama Rajya with good/virtuous society.

For a theological state u shud have Brahmins acting as Kings (eg. Parasurama, Pushyamitra Sunga OR Gupta emperors who implemented the agenda of Brahminical order and that is when the idol worship came into Hindu religion when Guptas started constructing temples).

Again it's half-truths abt Brahmins. If some Brahmins were acting as Ministers in the courts of Kings/emperors some were philosophsing abt life and some were busy seeking nirvana in Himalayas by chanting the name(s) of God(s) i.e the ppl who forsake this world/society, family lives.

In any case there's nothing called Hindu religion in those days what's there to start a Hindu theocratic state?

Again how can Gandhi talk abt Hindu theocratic state when he's constantly surrounded by Badshah Khan, Azad and Ali Brothers whilst Jinnah was badmouthing Gandhi abt Hindu Raj from a distance?

U can still pretend to be deaf abt this (in order to prop up Manto monkey).

ylh: While not wishing to take your attention away from the augean task of educating masadi, I have a question on Jinnah: Do you ever wish Jinnah had set a precedent by refusing to run for office once he had achieved the formation of Pakistan. Musharraf and BB and Nawaz Sharif (all of them shamelessly clamouring for office even after having served longer than prime ministers and presidents do in more mature democracies? could then have been shamd by providing them the example of Jinnah.

Now, the most obvious example I can provide is George Washington (who walked away from offers by Congress of continuing as President, and instead walked away to tend to his farm saying that he did not wish to set a bad precedent). And no doubt this will make me a US lackey in Masadi's eyes. :-(

Re: # 50

Once again Masadi... as I said... Little knowledge is very dangerous.

1. Wearing western clothes doesn't make one a lackey ... wearing the dress of the Hindu peasant doesn't make one a freedom fighter.

2. The legislation I produced was just one of the many efforts Jinnah made and succeeded at which in real terms helped lessen the exploitation of Indians by the British. I suggest you pick up a good book on Jinnah.

3. You really haven't read the Independence of India Act 1947 ... Dominions of Pakistan and India were constitutionally unique because they could become republics by the act of their own constituent assemblies. In other words Pakistan and India were dominions only because there was no other legal alternative till the adoption of independent constitutions.

4. And while Jinnah told Mountbatten to go to hell on the issue of retaining him as GG of Pakistan and it was Jinnah who chose his cabinet ... Gandhi's followers not only retained Mountbatten as the first viceroy of independent India but also gave him a blank piece of paper to decide the cabinet.

5. One of the fiercest issues that came up early on during discussion on the transfer of power was that Jinnah insisted that King George should not be allowed to sign his name George R I (Rex/Regina Imperator/Imperatrix) on the documents pertaining to Pakistan... ultimately Jinnah prevailed and Mountbatten thoroughly abuses Jinnah for suggesting this.

6. One of the things Jinnah was abused by the British was that he refused to sign on legislation as "representative of the King" but signed on as the "President of the constituent Assembly". This ofcourse violated the convention of dominion government.. but Jinnah the constitutional lawyer held that Pakistan's dominion government was like Eire only in form.

7. Jinnah became the Governor General of Pakistan because the majority party in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly i.e Muslim League put up his name... just like Congress begged Mountbatten. Thus by that logic.. Jinnah was elected as any Prime Minister. Here too he was abused by the British press for politicising the office of the governor general.

8. Gandhi's role as the recruiter for the British Empire is well known. History will expose the truth of Gandhi and whether he was actually a British plant to control the Independence Movement. You ought to read HP's post very carefuly.

so, unless enlightened further by folio or drlokraj, i assume that my understanding of ram raj is basically that provided by kaal. and for reasons I think the muslim equivalent promoted by urstruly and co would be a step backward for Pakistan (with zia having already done some damage to Pakistan by introducing hadood laws etc. and empowering and funding the muslim priesthood) - i.e. a state ruled by priests is a state that slips back into more primitive times when mankind was more like animals.

Kaal: my point in #66 remains - lets us not talk of gandhi (and simply wish, like all others no longer with us, the best), but focus on the concepts. That spares us endless discussions on what is essentially a no-brainer:

ram raj: i am all ears here, but at this point simply see it is the hindu equivalent of a theological state (i.e. where priests rule, and people obey).

non-violence: a vital concept in today's world, when mankind's future is in jeopardy given the mismatch between his emotional development and technological prowess.

what gandhi thought on these two is no longer important since gandhi is not running for any elections in future.

Kaala Chakra,

U are as smart as hamid in black humour (abt Ganhi's neices).

Folio, tahmed32 sahib, I am NOT kidding. drlokraj knows quite a bit more about Gandhi's ram rajya. Some google experts might dig out his prior postings where he elaborated along the lines I suggested. Or, if he is in a generous mood, he might explain again.
------------------------


drlokraj # 64 :)

Folio, I am not sure if that is all Gandhi meant. I suspect he had a deeper, hidden (or not so hidden) agenda, including full, regular flogging of sudras, enslavement of Muslims, and elimination of women from India, except his nieces (for obvious reasons).

Ask drlokraj. He has much more details than anybody imagined as real.

-----------------

About damrymple (Jesus, that is a weird name, is it not?), don't forget, the fellow imagines himself to be a Mughal of sorts, only latter era.

Actually, if you read some old books written by white men with relation to India, they ALL have a Mughal deeply embedded in their mental genes. That is the only natural world for them - a point I tried to explain to a lady with nick beginning with S* but ....

folio: what is it then? (this is a genuine question, not a rhetorical one)

Mr. Ahmed/ Dr. Lok Raj,

Rama Rajya is NOT a Hindu THEOLOGICAL state. Pl desist from perpetuating the faslehoods.

drlokraj: Thanks for the clarification - which indeed reinforces the important truth that in order to have a productive discussion and/or line of thought, one should focus on issues rather than personalities.

Thus, we have the situation here of three blind men (drlokraj, tahmed, and kaalchakra) and the elephant (gandhi):
drlokraj "sees" gandhi as the representation of Ram Raj (a hindu theological state, which he does not elaborate further though);
tahmed "sees" gandhi as the representaton of non-violence;
kaalchakra too "sees" gandhi to be the representation of Ram Raj (which he elaborates to be some form of a society driven by caste wars).

no doubt other blind men could pictch in: hamidm "sees" gandhi has the representation of the "half-naked fakir"; ylh sees gandhi "sees" gandhi somewhat the same as kaalchakra.

My plea: let gandhi's bones (or ashes or whatever) rest in peace whereever they are. just like we should let all other personalities who are no longer around to defend themselves on chowk rest in peace.

Focus on the issues!! and say "God bless" to the personalities and realize that like us, they too were humans - struggling with this uniquely human condition of being an animal that has come a long way but is still not there yet.

#63 Posted by bulleya on August 19, 2007 7:45:20 am

Nehru gave India the IITs...kinda

According to manto, g-man gave pakistan it's IITs(Institutes of Islamic Terrorism) and the lal masjid...

#61 yaar kaalchakra, I am as much communist as much hindutva-vadi you are (daaNt nikaalta huaa icon)

one can personally like or dislike gandhi, but, in the end, had his ideas for south asia been implemented, circa 47, south asia would have been a far different and much more peaceful place.......

one of the biggest tragedies of south asia, in my opinion, is that nehru was the head of congress, circa 47, and not gandhi......gandhi, himself, was quite unhappy with nehru, during these times......

........a better situation would have been gandhi headin the congress during 47, and then nehru taking over, after a few years......or at the death of gandhi....

nehru had it in for pakistan.....he wanted it choked to death, and did everything in his power to achieve that.....on the other hand, he did quite a lot to look after the minorities (muslims included) within india......in addition, the problem of kashmir was of nehru's creation also......

gandhi was ready for a plebescite on kashmir......he was ready to spend a portion of his lifetime in pakistan.....he was ready to accept jinnah as the head of a combined india......he was ready to fast till nehru opened up pakistan's funds.......etc.

i think, on the whole, pakistanis generally consider gandhi a good guy, because of the above......while their opinion of nehru is low because he stopped pakistan's funds, cut off trade with pakistan (which has yet to restart), broke promises on kashmir, etc. etc.......

so, in the big scheme of things, when one is looking at gandhi, the politician, one needs to look at the above; at least if one is a pakistani.......

Kaalachakra, Rama Rajya is a metaphor for happy days.....something similar to Utopia. I am sure u know this.

Dalrymple though a greta writer need to sell his books in Pakistan and to Pakistanis elsewhere. His obsession with Mughl era whilst discounting the existence of non-Muslims masses (who constituted nemerical majority) in India is a travesty of truth.

He must learn to balance btw Mughlai history and peoples' history.

tahmed32, drlokraj

This is a very important point that some Muslims these days miss, and Hindus (other than drlokraj and his fellow communists) deliberately ignore. Surely, William Dalrymple and Pat French types must have discovered this.

Gandhi envisioned Ram Rajya for Indian in which the caste system will be returned exactly as mentioned in the books of Manu, which is the Quran of Hindus. Upper caste men, in this system, would be REQUIRED to shoot and kill a couple of men and rape a few women of lower castes every morning, before 10 am (so brahmins kill kshatriyas, kshatryas kill vaishyas, vaishyas kill sudras, and all them kill commies).

Why William Dalrymple got to review a book that is more than 10 years old?

I read both Patrik French and Rajmohan Gandhi.

As 4 Kathrin's book, I am yet to find it.

Kathrine as a gora wud have slept with at least a 1000 men b4 she wrote this book. Therefore projecting Gandhi as a playboy is not surprising.

#55 tahmed
I should have elaborated it further....I meant his concept of Ram-Raj or the kind of state he conceived post independence

Re: # 4

The first part of this statemet is certainly true....his idea of appeasement of Muslims in the country was a mistake.
And he had to pay dearly for the same with his life.

But the more unfortunate fact for India is that,
Indian politicians have by and large given up on almost everything else that Gandhi stood for including his many virtues that civilized world still accepts with awe, while embracing with maddening fervour his one major flaw of relegious appeasement.

And you know well that Godse was not born but created.

in #56 did i say mosque? i should have said "every mosque, every school, every office...every day!"

rozaiba #51 great post. should be taught and discussed every friday in every mosque in Pakistan. it will be a breath of fresh air.

drlokraj: how much is gandhi relevant? I think you mean how much is his concept of non-violence relevant. Given the capacity of mankind to destroy the planet, I think it is of central relevance.

aslam #53 it is indeed true that non-violent protest is nothing new. E.g., a thousand years before Gandhi, Lady Godiva undertook her own form of non-violent protest (riding naked on a horse through town to shame her own husband into being less cruel on the peasants) which I am sure the peasants applauded. But then perhaps hamidm would have applauded her nakedness, while berating (like cigar-boy churchill) poor gandhi for being a naked fakir.

There was nothing original in gandhi’s methods of non-violence political movement
These methods were used by women of the suffragettes movement and the trade union movement in the UK, Gandhi was influenced by these two movements.

Though Gandhi or Gandhism alone was not responsible for India's freedom, still the fact can not be denied that his mass appeal was tremendous and it was he who could reach out to the common man at that time and even common people in villages started thinking of becoming independent. Even most of the revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh were initially motivated by his call to join freedom struggle.

When so much is being written and discussed about a man the world over, there are bound to be diverse opinions.All writers write to get read and noticed and if everyone keeps on writing on the same thing from the same angle, why will people read?

Its a shame that some writers resort to the tactic of writing about 'eccentricities or weirnesses' of famous personalities to sell themselves. Gandhi had all those 'eccentricities' but he was open and honest about them and he did not ask other people to sleep with naked girls to test their calibacy. His personal eccenticities do not and can not overshadow his role in the history of the subcontinent.

Haven't some people wrote about Prophet Mohammad(Prophet of Doom and other such books)? That does not take away Prophet's place from history as well as from present day life. Only few months ago there was an article on chowk about negative aspects of Iqbal's life.....will that make him a lesser poet?

How much is Gandhi relevent to modern day India or Indian politics, is another matter.

The compulsion for polarization:

The desire for a polarized existence is a common characteristic in paralyzed, defeated and fatalistic ideologies.

Attaching labels of ‘us’ and ‘them’ produces the effect of spurring a belligerence that had been nipped, not from any external compulsion, but due to internal fragmentation and decay. And that temporary high of associating with parochial, religious and landed bonds works to sedate the aftershocks from the confusing burdens of history and our own labyrinths.

The Kush defeated the Egyptians and adopted nearly all of their civil codes – from Gods to pyramids, as evidenced all across the northern Sudanese desert along the Nile – not as a sign of weakness but one of strength. The Romans took all the Greek Gods and gave them Roman names. The Sufi orders pre-dating the Mughals absorbed an array of local customs – from bhajans to language – and created something far more powerful and attractive. The Young Turks saw the legal codes (among a variety of factors) non-Muslim Ottomans were living and prospering under and contrasted it to the Shariah codes of the decadent Muslim Ottoman communities giving them and Ataturk a clear choice on what had to be done. America to-date takes every conceivable-saleable idea and product from any culture and Americanizes it with little circumspection of how it will dilute and alter the original character of the country.

In each instance, it is a sign of strength to accept someone else’s culture and ways of life and arrogantly make it your own!

Societies that are weak and decadent refuse to let go of their stale ideologies. To ward off their inevitable destruction, they seek solace in those ideas that offer an artificial respirator, placate their confusion, and keep it simple albeit lifeless.

Manto writes "People like Masadi and Gandhi can only scream and yell and prolong imperialism... while others like Jinnah fight it on its own turf."

And to show that "fight" he produces an "obscure" piece of legislation with stupendous claims of India's "economic development" in the 1924 period! Wearing western clothes, talking the western talk, being part of the British trained elite and looking down upon the indigeneous culture, then heading a dominion that submits to the King and claiming that the people's elected prime minster would do whatever he told him to do, that is part of lackeyhood something that Gandhi did not personify, whatever previous role he might have had in the empire. MAJ did not want to end colonization or imperialism, he just wanted it to be from afar, like the Ata Turk...

gandhi was no pitchman


Apple clicked on the wrong icon for its "think different" ad campaign.


BY BILL McKIBBEN | I'm writing this on a Macintosh, which is the only kind of computer I've ever owned. But if I ever need another one (and I may not -- I just use it as a glorified typewriter, and so it has oceans more power than I require), I'm going to buy a PC. And all because of an ad.

I was leafing through some magazine at the library when the back cover caught my eye: Mahatma Gandhi, cross-legged in front of his loom, wire-rim glasses perched down his nose, wearing only a loincloth that he had doubtless made himself. And in one corner, the Apple logo and the words "Think Different."

Despite its wounded grammar, this ad is not very difficult to decode. Gandhi has great power as an icon (in the archaic meaning of the word). One look at him and you think, "simplicity," "calm," "rebellion without violence." The associations come as quickly and as powerfully as they do in an ad with, say, Pamela Anderson Lee, where you immediately think, "sex on a beach." And for Apple, of course, it's important to endow its box of chips with those associations. Fairly or not, Apple has long since lost the battle for "efficiency," which is the chief virtue of the data age. It's stuck defending a few niche markets -- design, education, certain kinds of media -- where rebellion remains a nostalgic touchstone. So Gandhi makes a certain kind of mercenary sense.

But Gandhi is different. While it is ignoble to use Albert Einstein (another of Apple's icons) as a pitchman, it is not perhaps immoral in quite the same way. Einstein was more or less a part of his century; his magnificent mind did not take him outside the flow of recent history.

Gandhi really is different, far more different than the copywriter seems to have understood.

He was the eruption in this century, and in some ways this millennium, of a venerable idea, an idea that stretches back at least to the Buddha -- the idea that by leaving yourself behind you find yourself, that by renunciation you conquer. So it is bizarre to use him to sell products. When he died, all his belongings -- toothbrush, Bhagavad Gita, loincloth -- fit inside a couple of shoe boxes.

But that's not the real degradation. Were Apple merely selling computers it would only be grubby to use Gandhi's picture. Instead, of course, they're trying to sell each of us an image of ourselves. Which is precisely what Gandhi spent his life trying to help people strip away. In the fight for Indian independence (against the biggest brand name of his era, the British Empire), he succeeded in helping a nation shrug off its own internalized sense of subjugation, its own sense that Britishness, like Appleness, was superior. And he did it without trying to substitute the usual nationalist passions.

He went well beyond that, too -- his battle against the caste system was in reality a battle against even more insidious self-labeling, against identities ingrained in the unconscious of an entire subcontinent. And though he was a devout man, he even tried to fight against the religious brands -- his prayers each night came not just from the Hindu scriptures, but from the Gospels, from the Koran. He was assassinated by a fanatic Hindu precisely for his lack of brand loyalty.

Gandhi believed there was something sacred and lovely at the center of people, and that to get to it each of us needed to cut through the various lusts and fears of everyday life. That was hard enough to do in village India; how much harder in our time and place, when we live amid a hurricane of messages and symbols all designed to overlay our own identity. Gandhi, in other words, was the chief spokesman against the consumer mentality since Christ -- against the idea that the ownership of a particular kind of computer might free you, make you more creative or rebellious or attractive.

Trying to sell a Macintosh with Gandhi's image is every bit as ironic as selling cigarettes with a picture of healthy, sexy young bodies. (Or as ironic as the Land Rover ad some years ago that said: "Celebrate Thoreau's Birthday. Drive Through a Pond.")

Eknath Easwaran, the California meditation teacher whose book "Gandhi the Man" is the simplest, and therefore loveliest, of the many Gandhi biographies, describes seeing Gandhi meditate during the evening prayer service in the last years of his life. The text that evening was from the second chapter of the Gita. As the sonorous verses were read, you could see him completely absorbed, his mind growing calm and still. His concentration was so complete that it was no longer the second chapter you were listening to, it was the second chapter you were seeing, witnessing for yourself the transformation it describes:


They are forever free who have broken
Out of the ego-cage I and mine
To be united with the Lord of Love.
This is the supreme state. Attain thou this
And pass from death to immortality.

On the other hand, you could have 1.6 Gb, a 10xCD-ROM, 128 MB RAM and a smug dose of superiority.
SALON | Nov. 4, 1997

Bill McKibben is a Methodist Sunday School teacher in upstate New York and the author of "The End of Nature." Simon and Schuster will publish his new book, "Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single Child Families," next spring.

gandhi was no pitchman

For anyone who has cared to look beyond text-bookish history, there is nothing really new in this article or reveiw rather. Yes, Gandhi had his contradictions and eccentricities, but that does not take away his much deserved place in history. It was he who was largely responsible for making the freedom struggle a pan-Indian, mass movement, taking it beyond the confines of court rooms, imperial chambers and underground revolutionary outbursts.

For those of us who never looked at him as being some kind of a saint in the first place, his quirks only serve to make him more interesting.

#34 Posted by hamidm2

[........ my contempt for gandhiji is strictly for aesthetic reasons - the man made an ass out of himself with his asinine pursuit of ascetic life ........ if i may say so, the man was an asshole .......... god knows we have enough ugliness in the subcontinent without gandhiji parading around half naked! ]

hamidm,

The first time I heard about it was when Robin Williams mentioned it in the programme "The Actor's Studio". Apparently, when an western journalist asked him what he thought of western civilization, Gandhi replied "I think it's a wonderful idea". Just the very fact that he was a man who could see though the flimsy veneer of the suits and the cigars, and could see the barbaric, uncivilized and predatory nature of the colonial west, makes him MUCH more of a man that you will ever be. Let alone the other attributes of his character. It is true that he was no great intellect, but he was a man with more honesty and courage than one is likely to come across in a lifetime.

HP "How tragic it is that till the end, it was the British who were directing and leading the political discourse in India and not the Indian political parties."

This to me would suggest lackey-hood. Regarding Gandhi, I am not suggesting that a British inspired and incepted Political Party would let anyone get to the top without it being expedient for the British, neither am I suggesting that independence was attained rather it was given, what I was suggesting compared to MAJ were the surface reflections in which Gandhi personified the desires of the common man against colonization (for whatever reason) moreso than the MAJ, who reflected not the indigeneous "ideals" but the ideals of those he worshipped and considered superior, the British and Kemal Ata Turk... Amidst other reasons that personification itself led to the establishment of the democratic tradition in India, unlike what happened in Pakistan.

# 41,
Well said BJ Kumar

“it is extraordinary that they were able to leave as peacefully as they did. Partition may have brought on a sectarian Armageddon that left 14.5m uprooted and more than half a million dead in inter-religious massacres between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims ; but as far as the British were concerned, whatever the fate of their former subjects, they themselves were able to march out of the Gateway of India without a shot being fired.�


Dr. Dalrymple has mentioned something that I had discussed on this site couple of years ago.

The amount of influence the British had on the political scene in India was unbelievable and that is after the devastating war and enormous pressure from the US. The Indian political parties were trying to curry favors from the British till the end.

How tragic it is that till the end, it was the British who were directing and leading the political discourse in India and not the Indian political parties.

#9 Posted by masadi
“Gandhi was not a lackey of the West like MAJ,�

There is no doubt in my mind that Jinnah was pro-west and being a pro-west in the subcontinent’s context is not a bad thing at all. Jinnah never claimed otherwise.

The question is whether we can exonerate Gandhi from the charge of being a lackey (which is pretty strong) or pro-west, If this is a charge at all.

There is no history and I will defer to Manto on this because I have not read all of Gandhi’s books or other work in details, but whatever I have read, tells me that Gandhi was never anti-west. His political career started in South Africa and throughout his years there, he was never reported to have said any thing anti-west or anti-colonialist or even anti-apartheid. In the harshest political climate in South Africa, Gandhi never showed any sign of being anti-British what to talk of anti-imperialist, then how could we possibly assume that he turned anti-Imperialist or anti-west in India where the political climate was pretty mild and moderate compared to the tough political conditions in South Africa.

There certainly is a big difference in being Pro-west or being the lackey of the west. There is nothing out there that would even remotely suggest that Jinnah or Gandhi were Lackeys of the West because they were not. BUT there is no question that they were strongly pro-west.

This is a dilemma of the Indian independence movement that barring a few left leaning parties, none of the major political parties throughout the Indian freedom movement, showed any signs of being anti-colonialist or anti- imperialist. Both Parties were sponsored by the British at the inception. Over the years, their political character changed but it was never to the point that both parties were willing to confront the British in the strongest possible way. In fact, the approach was to cooperate with British and find a way to work with the British within a system that was actually defined by the British.

From 1916 to 1940 congress was the only political party with following in all communities in India. The Congress never at any time faced any substantial opposition from any party to challenge the congress’s political control of the Indian society. If we pay attention to what was going on in the 25 years(1916-1940) of the unchallenged political control of the country, we clearly see that Congress came up woefully short in every area. Congress never vigorously challenged the British; it never made any attempt to radicalize the people against the British. In fact, history shows that Congress was a partner of the British in removing the radical elements from the Indian political scene.

There was this Nehru wing of Congress that had some anti imperialist ideas but Nehru was too young to change the congress’s pattern of cooperating with the British. The person who was solely responsible for congress’s policy at that time was none other than Gandhi himself. He never allowed the Congress to take a strong line against the British at the central level. I believe the congress from its platform always asked for a dominion status. I think it was not until 1928 that congress talked about the independence. (I don’t have references now but I am sure someone would correct me on this).

If we accept that, then it was Gandhi who created and implemented a policy of “working with the British� or cooperating with the British, then imo, in a political sense, Gandhi comes out to be the Lackey of the British and Not Jinnah who became a political leader almost at the tail end of the independence movement.

Ama yaar Dalrymple,

Pay no attention to mian Hamidm2’s superficiality – the man is simply incapable of straight thought without a straight shot – which he, of necessity, must forego while visiting the land of the Pure! (No booze, no sex – bad combo – as you must have doubtlessly guessed from his offerings on this board!)

One needs to concentrate not on the superficial stuff about Gandhiji – not the natural therapy, not the message of brahmacharya and the like – but on his underlying message of non-violence and non-cooperation – his strong belief in the essential bhaichara of mankind. His technique was so successful in the subcontinent that it was replicated countless times throughout the world, including by Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. in the land of the Free! Whether or not anybody actually follows his message in this day and age – he remains highly relevant.

Heck, people are still writing books on him and making money – getting rich and fat off that simple soul who himself tried to live the life of an ascetic – skipping even the barest of necessities for minimum clothes – simply to identify with the poorest of the poor of his land! Some people are even getting rich and fat writing reviews of books about him! :)

There have been countless attempts to use his technique of non-violent protest – around the world, the latest being the lawyers’ protest in that land of Pakistan (as one sees – even common Pakistani lawyers could see the merit of the Gandhian method – so they took the lathi-charge of the khakis without hitting back!) All of that after six decades have transpired since he was killed!

What a man! Like the great Einstein said:

"generations to come may scarce believe that such a one as this, in flesh and blood, walked upon this earth."

PS: When I say determinants of anything... I mean one's subservience or lack thereof.

Ofcourse culture is identity and dress etc form a part of that identity.

Hamzaad various#,

Some of us live in our own countries and are unhindered by the colonial complex that you seem to harbor.

Colonial complex you ask? Yes. You have the colonial complex because you continue to try and preserve the old world in face of reason because reason is "foreign" and "British".

We all have had grandmothers who had their little eccentricities... their little totkas... but not all of us call superstitition and old-wives tales "wisdom" simply to prove a point about how anti-imperialist we are. This is orientalism of the doubly dispossessed if you ask me. By imagining this very real divide between reason and superstition as some sort of an artificial divide between new and old.. or "education" and "wisdom" as you say, you are indulging in the same fantasies that once the great orientalists of the past did. Anything that is normal or similar is naturally worth contempt to you... the exotic, out of the ordinary which makes people of the East look like a spectacle in the west is obviously "wisdom".

My "westernisation" has nothing to do with any sense of awe for the gori chamri. I am the sort that can tell an American or English counterpart to go to hell because I am not in awe of them, being educated amongst them... I can wear the shalwar kameez with as ease as a pair of jeans. Both are part of my culture. I am part of the global culture...

These things - dress language lifestyle- are not the determinants of anything. You are the real kammi kameen if you think about it... but unlike you I would not make references to your late mother, who is as respectable to me as my own.

And just a little fact that has emerged recently from the Pamela Mountbatten's book recently:

While Jinnah put a big danda up the rear orifice of Mountbatten by not allowing him to become the governor general... Mountbatten was begged by the Indian leadershp to become India's.

Late on 14th August 1947, after the Mountbattens returned to Delhi from Karachi, The Congress handed them "an imposing envelope" containing the names of the future Cabinet Ministers of India. The envelope had a blank piece of paper. This while Jinnah chose his own cabinet and told Mountbatten to go to hell.

-YLH

nb,

Gandhi was complicit with the Indian government in witholding funds at that crucial moment ... his later attempt at "treating Pakistan fairly" after Pakistan had gotten a soft loan and had met its problems head on was merely for his mahatmafication for posterity. It cost him his life and made his wish come true.

...

Gandhi was a racist casteist Hindu fascist freak... and not merely an eccentric. His eccentricities was a cover for the deep-seated racist and fascist ideology that drove him.

Folio mian,

Even if we accept for a second your analogy, do you see what is wrong with comparing a 20th century politician like Gandhi.. to a 7th century religio-political leader of an Arabia which was tribal?

LOL, methinks the problem here is that most of you come from really fancy families filled with appropriately fancy elders. People who spent their spare time writing advanced science papers for the benefit of the Royal Society of London, and setting afire ballroom dance floors around the globe, all while dressed in finest, glittering clothes, always in the company of ladies from Paris.

Never have you dealt with maddening old men - Hindus and Muslims alike. People who would drive you nuts with their crazy ideas, their odd obsessions, and their inexplicable choices. But who would also, at other times, leave you breathless with their wisdom, awestruck with their humanity.

And now that they are gone (to heaven or hell or heaven, one knows not - but depending strictly upon whether God is wise or a moron) - wondering if you yourself would ever, ever, ever grow into even a tiny fraction of who these elders were, naturally, effortnlessly, almost unfailinngly, under conditions that would make you, in your strongest moments, break more sweat than is blood in your body.

Most of you are just too lucky. Too William Dalrymple. Good for William Dalrymple. And good for you...:)

What are people so excited about, Gandhi was an eccentric if there ever was one. I don't understand how he was muh pe ram ram etc, it just shows how unappreciative Pakistanis are of how he tried to have Pakistan treated fairly-talk about ungrateful. He was not the greatest man ever, and that's all Dalyrymple is saying, I think.

Re: # 26

naqshbandi,

........ my contempt for gandhiji is strictly for aesthetic reasons - the man made an ass out of himself with his asinine pursuit of ascetic life ........ if i may say so, the man was an asshole .......... god knows we have enough ugliness in the subcontinent without gandhiji parading around half naked!

..... and please, let's not carried away by imitating the prophet's lifestyle (pbuh and his camel) - he might not have been as bad as gandhiji, but he was no saint either ...

Masadi you creep !!!! (Utterly & Completely Respected)

So you are still trying to spread your bullshyte notions that have been rejected by the rest of the civilized world!!!!

Will you never learn ???

Don't you remember the hiding you got on faithfreedom.org( at the hands of Ali) ???

Don't you remember the disciplinary meetings in the US University just before they deported you in spite of your pleadings???

Don't you remember your abject surrender and begging/whining tone in which you implored for a second chance to be allowed to stay in the US????

Don't you remember the unceremonious manner in which you were comprehensively rejected and kicked out of the US??

Don't you remember the impish grin on the face of the US immigration (INS) official as you were dragged kicking and screaming to the airplane????

Don't you remember the "evil" students in your Pakistani college who made open mockery of the ideas you tried to teach them???

Don't you remember the management committee meeting which unanimously declared you "unfit" to train young Pakistani students???

Don't you remember how you were thrown out of that college and the security staff alerted to never let you enter again ???

Don't you remember how all your pleadings for "outstanding claims" were met with derisive laughter???

Don't you remember how the Chowk staff has consistently refused to publish your bullshyte articles???

Don't you remember how even lulu.com would not accept your "works" any more???

And now, you have found a one-man audience in the intelligent MADani.

Perhaps now you have reached the peak of your career.

Rejoice in your success...

Yaar, I know u are a religious, pious guy. I dont mean to poke u there.

I am giving u a comparison of historic Muhammed and historic Gandhi. What they achieved is important than what they did in their personal lives.

Granted that Gandhi, though he declared to be practicing celibacy, is amoral his contributions to Indian Freedom struggle are worth a mention.

Nobody bothered where he's when the triumphant national leaders congregated in Dehli in the night of 14th August 1947. This poor idiot was fasting to stop massacre of innocents in Naokhali. He's stupid and he's killed for his unbounded compassion. Let him rot in hell.

That's what I have to say.

and Folio for us every single action of the Prophet is worthy of imitation. What he said and did are known as the Sunnah.
We believe everything he (alayhis salatu wa salam) did and said was inspired by Allah and worthy of imitation.

BUT the Qaid's honesty and integrity and principled stances are worthy of imitaton by anyone.

If he had lived Pakistan wouldn't be in the state it is today.
May Allah send his mercy upon Qaid e Azam. Amen!

i'll ignore the anti Prophetic comments since they only show ignorance.

For the record we do NOT consider the Qaid to be infallible or even worthy of imitation but we respect him for giving us a land where Muslims could freely practise their religion and live according to their own culture and traditions. Was he fallible? Of course he was. Infallibility is only for the Prophets.

Gandhi's contribution to freedom struggle is what is important to us in as much as Muhammed's contribution is to ur lives i.e giving u guys Qoran, not bothering abt how he mastered the art of beheading and sleept with all and sundry women & babies.

In any case Naqsh, we are not into worshipping Gandhi, unlike what u guys do to Jinnah. U guys do hair-splitting of what Jinnah grumbled, mutterd, spoke, burped & farted.

Gandhi's contribution to freedom struggle is what is important to us in as much as Muhammed's contribution is to ur lives i.e giving u guys Qoran, not bothering abt how he mastered the art of beheading and sleeping with all and sundry women and babies.

As a book reviewer urself, u know what is chalk and what is cheese; what is grain and what is husk.

i think hamidm (where are you?) summed up gandhi with the words, 'that half-naked beggar was a disgrace'.

gandhi was the archetype of the sort of hindu our elders warned us against, "bughal mein chuRi munh mein Ram Ram"...
people like Sardar Patel were at least honest and upfront.

The real shame is that echoboom has joined the 'half-kanjars' in bad mouthing gandhi, while kaal has hit it on the head that 'our elders recognized gandhi's eccentricities as not so dissimilar as their own'.

This article is for the likes of arjun and manto.. arjun for his achHoot, anglo-indian backward class inferiority complex and manto is the neo-painDu, faith-hopping, kammi-kameen who would sell his mother to appear MAADREN.

Thanks to Chowk for publishing this. It shows that the saintly image cultivated by (most) Indians of Gandhi is a sham. The man was a perverted, delusional, certifiable quack by the sound of these books Mr. Dalrymple has reviewed.

In spiritual language we would say that he was a mushrik completely overpowered by his nafs (Ego) yet deluded by Satan into believing he was a high ranked spiritual being.

A hadith sharif says that there would be 40 dajjals (antichrists/false messiahs) from the time after the Prophet to the end of time; from these reports it seems clear that Gandhiji was one of them.

re: hamzad # 20

You can't be both from Pakistan and a Muslim. Or I (pretend to) have too simplistic a view of Pakistani Muslims...

(As a kid, I used to know some Muslim elders - of grandfather's generation - who totally got Gandhi's weirdness because they were smart enough to recognize their own eccentricities for what those were, just eccentricities. We see fewer and fewer such people now...Too much education, too little wisdom. Now I don't even bother discussing, focusing more on strengthening boundaries instead of eliminating them...)

Masadi:

You may carry on and on about US Elite....but you are right on the money about your description of India.

"little democracy that exists in India,(little because the people are suffereing and suffering immenselfy while the "democratic" government remains unaffected)"

Most Pakistanis tend to criticize secularism in India because they are zeroed in on the Hindu Muslim angle. You are right in your focus on the lack of real democracy itself rather than secularism..a sideshow of the elite to manipulate religious communities to their own agenda.

#5 Posted by MantoLives on August 18, 2007 12:19:04 pm

yeah pal..we know how gandhi is responsible for lal masjid and hwo gandhi is why pakiland, 60 years after independence, is seen as the fountainhead of islamic terrorism...

gandhi is why the london bombers blew up the subway and why the redskins lost to the packers in the 2004 game because of a bad call...i also blame that fascist SOB for the people in restaurants putting mayo on my cheeseburger when i specifically asked for no mayo...

Since none of the idiots below are capable of critiquing the artilcle, kaka will attempt it..

The world-view that Dalrymple tries to invite the reader to.. in order to 'oddify' Gandhi.. is telling. To see Gandhi as an eccentric, you have to put yourself in the shoes of a 'normal' person, kind of the 'half-kanjar' that arjun here purports to be. Someone who can easily be shamed by the 'weirdness' and 'achHoot' behaviour of his forefathers..

But before that, take a look at the 2nd paragraph: So the British were DEEPLY rooted, huh? And they were rooted RIGHT FROM THE TIME of the founding of some company in Liverpool? And then Shakespeare? As You Like It?? Bill, you are one to talk about wet dreams!

And the British left peacefully?? Oh, he meant no british lives were lost. Well maybe the Americans too should have distracted Iranians with border diputes, in order to avoid the hostage crisis..

And so preacheth Bill.. of the love between the lords and the aristrocrat brahmins. And the idiot that Dalrymple is, he confuses that as the 'two sides', damn the masses who Nehru and Edwina would have preferred as slave-servants.

'Personal weirdness', 'unusual practices'.. what exactly is the charge here? That Gandhi was more real than the WEIRD fantasy that everyone conjured up? Should we hang the real Gandhi, for prancing around in Bill's imaginations?

Let's list the charges: many dietary fads, saline enemas, testing his self-control (with nubile young women as opposed to ugly old transistor). With no sense of smell, he ventured into equating human excrement with cow excrement.. and simple man as he was, he thought out aloud about it to the press. No sense of properness, oh the poor weirdo!

Readers associated with medical professions probably remember the times they were uneasy talking about sex, touching genitals even dead bodies. But after having grown up, you do talk to your mother about breast cancer and encourage describing your private ailment as descriptively as you can. This may seem like a blatant defense of all weirdness that was Gandhi, but a TRULY ENLIGHTENED person does venture into every 'orifice of the universe' and is not exactly beholden to the standards of high schoolers.

The scholarship on combining exoteric Christian beliefs and Indic religious practises, kaka will leave alone for now..

No matter what Gandhi did think of himself, would it be too far fetched to describe him as 'the pre-ordained and potentially divine world saviour whose coming was implicit in the 'Eastern' religious writings to which so many of his English acquaintances had turned.. [He came to believe that] it was his destiny to lead a troubled world along the path of salvation'? Do we like humilty or do we prefer (perceived) reality?

And one more idiotic BS that sophists typically indulge in.. So Gandhi was somehow associated (agent??) with this ECU (Esoteric Christian Union). So now forget Gandhi and lets concentrate on the founders and their shenanigans and devote another paragraph on their weirdness and crimes in an essay about Gandhi. Bravo! Idiot or poor propagandist, Bill take your pick.

And the 'bizarre beliefs' of preventive medicine and 'bringing oneself into the harmony of natural forces' is as incriminating the early attempts of aviation pioneers to fly without a permit. You can shame teenagers with this 'damning rhetoric', or maybe fellow modern idiots.

Take a look at the note produced about the sick village boy. Oh, weird, weird, weird. Gandhi, the Bapu of the nation acting so non-scientifically..!

The silliest (and most telling of Dalrymple's mindset) statements are the most infuriarating too. Gandhi's 'extreme eccentricity did not stop him from being both a shrewd tactician and a major moral force'. So Bill knows the formula for being a moral force etc, and it involves no eccentricites. But Bill, the empirical evidence suggests that you need to think outside the box, to stay significant.

In summary, Dalrymple seems to be appealing to a townhall mob of 'normal' idiots who cringe at the thought of half-nakedness, no sense of smell, a man slightly ahead or behind times.. and anyone who does see the idiocy of it all usually sits quietly on the back benches.