Lashes to lashes, dust to dust

Re: # 222

Tahmed sahib:

Until the majority of believers share you view that jahaliyat is the problem, this will remain a challenge for you and believers like you.

You may attack non-believers all you may wish, but real change will come when you and believers like you can become the catalyst and help other believers transition to your thinking is made among the believers. All transformations are difficult.

This one among the believers is more difficult, because it is happening in modern times, when people, not just hindus, in rest of the world can find out about lashings of a 17 year old in matter of minutes. The attention to it, does not mean there are no problems elsewhere.

This is a reality, Tahmed sahib.

Re: # 227

Tauheed sahib, since you agree with me, I am absolutely sure you will understand my logic and rationale for redflagging all those dumbass statements you made down below. :)

#226. I forgot that a former citizen of a state based on a religion, founded in blood, and focussing on the otherness of the religion and victimhood of followers of that religion can't be communal, of course.

#223 bjkumar: agreed with you. I just wrote something along these lines to HP as well.

#224 i dont doubt it. After all, you were Made in India and cant help being communal.

Hasho: The Taliban onslaught on Pakistan is nothing short of an invastion. Painting this invasion as a popular revolution is doing a disservice to Pakistan. And too many Pakistanis, too cowardly or too confused by their "muslim" mask to acknowledge the obvious, have only made matters worse by delaying a full scale military response from Pakistan.

Only now, with the wolves cutting a direct path towards Islamabad, are Pakistanis beginning to face up to this fact. And when the government realizes it has no choice except to start hitting back without hold back punches, there will be far more bloodshed than if Pakistanis had not allowed themselves to be fooled.

"Then you should remember this next time you feel the urge to join in the bad habits of the hindu brigade on chowk in berating my religion too."
I certainly will, if it's something that your religion says is ok.

Re: # 221

Hasho, the real fight in Pakistan is not so much among regional leaders on regional issues but between the forces of Wahhabiism and the Sufi way of living. Current evidence is that the agents of the former are winning and from my limited understanding, they have been doing so since the mid-1940’s, thanks to the role of Jinnah and his cohorts. There is no real evidence of the massive grass-root uprising you refer to (except perhaps in the Drawing rooms of some educated elites) although it sounds romantic and would be nice to have.

nb #219 "There is nothing in Hindu religious texts which enjoins you to terminate girls, or even says it is all right. "

Then you should remember this next time you feel the urge to join in the bad habits of the hindu brigade on chowk in berating my religion too. Too many hindus (and even muslims who were raised in jahil environments like hamidm and confuse their parents' jehaliyat with islam) are only too happy to claim that Islam - not jehaliyat - is the problem.

And lets not get into this talk about what the scriptures say (the first thing hindus - even educated ones like Dost Mittar - do when a muslim tries to say what you said above is to pick certain selected verses from the Quran as "proof". mahabharata (from what little i know about it) is centered around a battle. not around a peaceful demonstration, or pious discussions.

Shandana’ s article just follows the emerging trend in Pakistan. A mad and outraged population looking for some major changes in the society and the way Pakistan is governed. All four provinces are on record in showing their extreme annoyance in different ways-Punjabi taking to the streets over the Judges issue twice in less than two years, Sindh going berserk over Benazir’s murder, NWFP crying out for justice and finally taking a stand in Swat, and Now Baluchistan stepping out and protesting the murders of the Baloch leaders.

Finally, after sixty years of divide and rule by the army and its henchmen, Pakistanis are uniting over the issues that matter to the people. A country nears the revolution when the Middle class and the lower classes of the society agree on many issues and finally take on the establishment. We have reached that point in Pakistan. However, a centralized leadership that can tap on the public anger is still not there in Pakistan.

The army and the civil Bureaucracy were able to successfully pigeonhole leaders as Bengalis, Sindhi, Balochi, Punjabi and Pathan. Mujib was never accepted as the leader of Pakistan. He was always portrayed as the leader of Bengal. Bhutto was projected as a Sindhi leader even though he enjoyed support in every part of Pakistan, except Baluchistan. Benazir never was accorded a national leader status and now we clearly see establishment voices that are projecting Nawaz a Punjabi leader vs. a Sindhi leader Zardari.

The Judges issue united all Pakistanis. The pressure on Zardari to not accept the judges hurt him politically but the good part is that it united people even more. The struggle for the democracy was galvanized by the heroic struggle over the judges’ restoration movement. Now the weakest link in the Pakistani establishment-the judiciary- is leading the Pakistani middle class and empowering the people to stand up against the injustice. The Judges or the Supreme Court will not solve all the problems but they provide the first instance in Pakistan’s history when people actually forced the state, the interested International powers, the Army and the bureaucracy to bend and accept the people’s demand.

The first Pakistani revolution in 1971 was destroyed by the Pak army supported by the Indian army. Now People of Pakistan are ready to take on the Pakistan army, now unsupported by an Indian army which stepped in Bengal to save the Pakistan army from complete annihilation at the hands of Pakistani citizens and created another country, destroying the most powerful movement for democracy in Pakistan.

It is obvious that the people are mad and they are ready to take on the state institutions bare handed. The revolution may turn ugly, bloody, and messy but that is how revolutions take shape.

The Pakistani establishment thinks that the US and India would interfere to save them from the ignominy of defeat by the poor Pakistanis but let’s not forget that no power in the world can stand up to the desperate poor folks.

When you only have chains to lose, no bribery, threats or intimidation can stop people from fighting on.

Re: # 219 nb

Tahmed just took a cheap shot at you and succumbed.

The NY Times had an article yesterday that China has an excess of boys by 32 million (world's largest disparity) due to female infanticide. Of course, this has nothing to do with Communist ideology just as the fact female infanticide's prevalence with Muslims as well as Hindus in India has nothing to do with their respective religions.

You may want to mention to him that while gender-determination tests in India are illegal, honor-killings of women and public lashings in Pakistan have the full weight of the law behind them.

Enough said.

Tahmed, my parents are religious Hindus. There is nothing in Hindu religious texts which enjoins you to terminate girls, or even says it is all right. The texts are quite clear that abortion itself is a sin. I don't agree, unwanted children should not be born.There is nothing in religious texts which says women should be burnt for dowry or that dowry must be given. OTOH, if you ask the Taliban, they will tell you that the Hadiths and the Koran support flogging for women.
Anyway, the selective termination of pregnancies occurs mostly among your fellow Punjabis (and surrounding areas), so talk to them about it. Indian Muslims do not have a sex ratio significantly different from Hindus (940 as against 935 females for every thousand males, the ratio for Christians is over 1020:1000), so something's happening there too.

Does any one has ideas why Holbrooke goes to India? It's not like India is local Godfather that needs to be kept updated or that financing or troops are needed from India.

My guess will be it's getting India's input on how to motivate Pakistan to look after it's own interests by going after Jihadis and/or do some reform work. US perhaps believes that Indians being closer to Pakistani mind might have some better ideas.

Yes, we're a tiny minority!

nb: and you avoided a dowry death too!! that speaks well of your husband (speaking in the context of india, of course).

#214 nb: your fetus managed to survive!! your parents must be moderate hindus. :-)