Days of Rage

"But, if idealism is naïveté, then so be it. It is ideals that move history forward—think of Gandhi or Martin Luther King.'

Manto hates Gandhi being himself Paki ,Hindus shot him too for being idealistic....Till now not being realist is poetry ,bollywood and Gulberg ...If Asma wants to be like the queen who said let them eat cake when the country was starving there is pertent poetry

"Unhi kaliquon ko hai lazate lutfe baharan ke

jo kaliyan ibta umer se kanto maine palte haine"

Only those flowers have right to bloom

who grow among thorns

That masy be another idealistic poetry

relity is that matters

Kaun jita hai tere zulf ke shar hone tak



"Many thought they were politically naïve, but it was they, not the realists, who succeeded in changing the course of history.”

We DONT live in IDEAL world.
Both Gandhi And Martin Luther were Assasinated .violence And Segregation is realism

#6 by echoboom

[Their empire was effectively built in coalition with India's Hindu majority and succeeded as much through conciliation as by war.This was particularly true of the Emperor Akbar (1542-1605), who issued an edict of universal religious tolerance, forbade forcible conversion to Islam and married a succession of Hindu wives. At the same time that Jesuits - and those who sheltered them - were being hanged, drawn and quartered in London, when most of Catholic Europe was given over to the Inquisition, and while in Rome Giordano Bruno was being burnt for heresy in the Campo dei Fiori, in India Akbar was summoning Sunnis and Shia Muslims, Hindus of both Shaivite and Vaishnavite persuasions, Jews from Cochin, Parsis from Gujerat and Jesuits from Goa, as well as groups of Indian atheists, to come to his palace and debate their understanding of the metaphysical, declaring that 'no man should be interfered with on account of religion, and anyone is to be allowed to go over to a religion that pleases him'.

All this is important to remember at a time when simplistic and inaccurate notions of Islamic history and theology have wide currency, both inside and outside the Islamic world. For Orientalists such as Samuel Huntingdon and his master, Bernard Lewis, the Ottoman and the Mughal empires are potent symbols of Islam at its most threatening and aggressive. Lewis's books consistently depict two fixed and opposed forces at work: on one hand the West, which he envisages as a vulnerable citadel of pluralistic and open minded Judeo-Christian civilisation; and on the other hand, quite distinct, a hostile Islamic world hell-bent on aggressive conquest and conversion.Yet such simplistic binaries quickly fall apart on any sort of fair-minded examination. Both Akbar and his son Jahangir (1569-1627), for example, were enthusiastic devotees of Jesus and his mother Mary, something they did not see as being in the least at variance with their Muslim faith: over the main gate of the principal mosque at Akbar's capital is an inscription which still bears the legend: 'Jesus, Son of Mary (on whom be peace) said: The World is a Bridge, pass over it, but build no houses upon it. He who hopes for a day, may hope for eternity; but the World endures but an hour. Spend it in prayer, for the rest is unseen.']

If this is true then what is the explanation of the fact that Islamic people are on the run everywhere? What went wrong between now and then? Could it be that Mughal empire was great in spite of and not because of Mughals? Could it be that Baniya logs (and jews) were responsible for India's past glory?

Einsteinwallah:18

Your query is not new & a lot of stuff has already been written on that here & elsewhere.

I might get carried away with a very very long reply.

Pointers:

1. The debate & the conclusions of St. Thomas Aquinas & Imam
Ghazali (1100/1200 AD?) & continuing till now with Huntington & Lewis as DEFENDERS, APOLOGISTS, & WARNERS...because there is a growing school of thought now which considers GHazali to be right.;.these are the Post-Hiroshimaists, ecologists, Greenpeacers, "lefties", DE-Progress-ers, etc etc.

2. Mongol invasion & occupation [ before they were Muslims]
brought destruction spanning from China to Hungary.

Mongol's conversion to Islam brought glory to all the
under their control or occupation.
3. The relentless crusades first against the Byzantine Orthodox church & then against Muslims in the MUslim ruled lands destroyed a lot of infra-structure but also enabled Europe to learn Science, technology, & philosophy from the great Muslim empire & COMMONWEALTH ( a term stolen from muslims by Britto-Babboons) under ONE Khalifaa stretching from China to France [Pacific to Atlantic]. Babur had to seek permoission from the Khalifa to call himself a King & had the "khutba" in all Jumaa prayers read in his name.
Otherwise one was always a mere Sultan,Nizam, Nawab.

As Iqbal has said the Ocean is yet churning & is always in turbulence...As long as Muslims & Islam continue to grab headlines, for good OR bad, there is always hope for a resurgence that will bring forth pearl-oysters to the
seashore.


The knowledge that appears today to you so "obvious", self-evident truth, most enlightening,"modern & advanced" will all be reduced to a heap of nonsense.

Just be ready for it...

Have you ever wondered why fewer drivers suffer/die in a car, full of passengers, in a crash?

(Side note to chowk editors:
Dear lazy bums, please take the trouble to READ the damn piece for inadvertently missed lines, scrambled text and other screw-ups BEFORE you put it up and end up revealing either your own absolute mediocrity or the badly-needing-updating state of your eyeglasses – to the whole world! Thank you.)

William Dalrymple,

In spite of the fact that a lot of information in this (long) article has been part of several ongoing topics of discussion on this site, I enjoyed this piece tremendously. I especially enjoyed the part which discusses the background and the personality of Asma Jahangir. (Perhaps you should have focused more on the individual and cut back on some of the other more mundane, political stuff.)

Great individuals like Ms. Jahangir are a credit to wherever and whatever they come from. Pakistan is lucky to have her. Even I – not a Pakistani, feel so proud of her!

If Pakistanis don’t want her, we Indians would like to have her!

#20 bjkumar

(re: side note to chowk editors:
I concur with bjkumar...seriously, what was that mashup? Some of us read the whole thing you know :)

tahmed32, writing about Jahangir or Akbar does not break the author's obsession with (white) moghuls. Mr dailyrumple's "democracy" does not include factory workers, street hawkers, rickshaw pullers, office clerks, small farmers. He is merely a fiction writer for the rich and famous.

Re: # 14
Thanks to your 'saviour' CJ, Naeem Noor Khan, a dangerous man with proven links to Al Qaeda, is today a free man. The Chief Justice secured the militant’s release by dragging the director of the F.I.A. to his chamber and warning him that he would haul the chiefs of military intelligence to the Supreme Court if the ‘missing persons’ – the term used by rights activists for those detained by the spooks – were not released.
Detention without court order is a debatable point here. But the combative mood of the Chief Justice, combined with his refusal to hear the case against these ‘missing’ persons, leaves no room to doubt that his hard line has more to do with politics than with judiciary.

IB #23 Habeas Corpus means the government cannot imprison a man without any charge. If this man had "proven links to Al Qaeda", why did Musharraf not do the right think and present them to court?

#22 kaalchakra: I am sure all chowkies are rich and famous (and I am flattered to be in the company of these celebrities)...but is Dalrymple's attached article fiction?

bjkumar:

Your observations are correct..and I notices that too.

When the referees start kicking the ball themselves this is what happens. Editors become interactors. wearing TWO hats & non-disclosure, in essence the numero uno bane of the EAST..& especially Pakistan. WILL NOT SHED THE UNIFORM!

The CHOWK staff is cutting, pasting, highlighting passages to promote their non-mulla & pro-nanga agenda [ I'll spare the Oons word here..they CONTROL!).

A lot of the stuff getting published here is a mishmash for the paradoxical & at-odds purpose of generating clicks & unflinching idOlism.

Like a marriage of a Marxist to an Adam Smithist hoping to bear a baby who would be Hilton Hippie..like Paris Hilton.

bjkumar #20: Asma Jehangir has a place of honor with all true Pakistanis - and that is why she was leading the Lawyers procession that Dalrymple reports on. We can give you one-slightly used general (along with his uniform) though - and throw in some some holy men and one oxford graduate as well for free!!

tahmed32, beej seems to have a collector's fetish. So he might love all that :)

Is this article is a work of fiction? Probably not. But it surely is the work of a fiction writer whose sight does not stretch beyond the lifestyles of rich and famous, and their present and past glories.

After a lull, HP seems to be in full flow. He has written a great piece on FP and a pertinent interact here. I too feel that this article is not far removed from Indian soap-operas. It is a good article that Hamid's aunties should memorize and throw around bits and pieces in Islamabad's cock-tail parties for bringing in the 'intellectual' effects. But that is evident to most FP interactors. I thought that HP's interact was pertinent because of the question posed to echo.

As far as I am concerned I find interactors like kaal, HP, echo, swarrier, zee etc. much beyond the ken of Dalrymple. In this context I find Echo's affinity to the Mughals (or is it their court) a bit perplexing. Echo, what is it that draws your respect to these authoritarian zombies? If this great guy Akbar was so illuminated why did he not ban sati? No Muslim monarch, I repeat ... no Muslim monarch opposed or tried to ban the evil practices of the caste system. Having a Muslim name did not differentiate them from those bas@$%^s who had Hindu names except in their choice of villages on whom they fancied genocide. Echo get a life ... or get out of your inherent fascination of what is 'white'. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

(This is my last interact on this thread which follows a stupid Bollywoodish article).

GT:
I think a short answer would suffice.

Muslims, are strictly prohibited to interfere in the religious practices, rituals, cultures of those who are NOT muslims.

Once they convert they are supposed to adhere very strictly to the Islamic practice & culture & give up the pagan/non-muslim practices.

Fundamentalism ( GOOD word) is not applied one sidedly.


Babur , the great Mughal, specifically intructed MUSLIMS to be very discreet about cow slaughter. It is also in his will to Hamayoun his emperor son.

SATI:

This indeed is very disturbing but even then there was no interference EXCEPT on one occasion & one occasion ONLY.

and that was by Sher Shah Suri.

Once during his exile days he was given sanctuary by a hindu woman who had called mother because of some childhood memories [ I forget detail]. It so happened that when he was appointed the adminitrator of a certain district, some 20 years later, he was aghast to find out that it was that same woman who was to be sutteed , by her "will" of course..because that was what was expected of her..no choice then.

Sher Shah intefered & stopped it..but then the Pundits all went to the governor & complained. The Governor immedeiately reprimanded Sher Shah and told him that their in a social-contract that no rel;igion wiill interfere in another religion {sounds like pristine "secooolarism]. Sher Shah backed off but was determined to curb it whenever he would get a chance.

Whe he took control of Bihar, the first thing he did was to summon a large assembly of Pundits & brahmins & arranged a debate , without any coersion yet in control, to somehow work towards alternatives.

Sati was stopped then by the Pundits & Brahmins themselves agreeing that it was not necessary. You might call it his power & influence..but still it was not decreed & no one was punished if they did so. There IS a difference.

After him they all went back to their old ways. You might also be aware that sati gets more "honourable" either in famine or in plenty.

perhaps people are being too harsh on dalrymple--he is a superb writer and fair but he is, all said and done, still an orientalist with all that entails.

btw, i can understand why the hinduans are upset at mr. dalrymple glorifying the great Mughals--after all it is these Mughals who turned India from a god-forsaken place into the wonder of the world. but they were Muslims--gosh most of them were orthodox too (Akbar was the sole exception--and only in the latter part of his life. As the great Aurangzeb said: "Jadd e man, Akbar, akbar neest, akfar ast!" ) so I can see why it might get your goat but if it wasn't for these benign 'dictators' you wouldn't have a tourist industry!!!

Naqsh, there may well be something to that. But if Mr. Dailyrumple is to rise above Hindu-Muslim imbroglio, he has to first move out of the celebrity page. IF that is his ambition.