Indo-Pak Menu

Bulleya:

Quite a few Muslim Indians I know and have known personally in many relationships. My take is that there is more bigotry among Hindu Indians than among Muslim Indians that I have met. Bigots are not mainstream and Pakistanis react to them more violently than Muslim Indians do.

I am not qualified to discuss open season on Islam and Muslims at large, but from my room with a view, and it is only a view. Muslims and Islam in part is responsible. Distance between two extreme ends of thoughts is much narrower among the believers. There is an arrogance that comes out on religious issue among Muslims out and can be seen even at Chowk. I am not saying that such arrogance is not present in other religionists, but room to distance oneself is a lot bigger to be distant fringes. I have nothing in common with Laddu / Dharma and Sanatani, they are too distant for me. There religion has no bearing on me. This is the distance I am talking about. The same is true among others also. Muslim societies and Islam saw extreme highs in the past, and extreme lows. It has not seen the stability in the middle to create a wider spectrum of opinions and thoughts. Something that can only evolve through stability and acceptance of changed reality. No one can deny that the reality for Muslims and Islam has not changed. Islam and Muslim cannot live inside their bubble, they live among sea of non-believers where they are not supreme nor is their religion accepted to be the most perfect. All most societies went through such transformations, Islam and Muslims are not the only one. Therefore, I do not subscribe to that all other are “bashing”. This “victim” view needs to be thrown out of the window, that only Muslims and believers of Islam can do it, no one else can. Others see mobs agitating against Danish cartoons differently than Muslims and believers of Islam. This is a reality, you cannot hide it under the carpet of “victim”.

dost-mittar:.......you want to tame indian muslms.....stuka wants to reduce their numbers.....and eklavya has no issues with killing them, if they dont conform to his social ideology.....

this would all be fine, if the three of you were zealots, like many of our indian colleagues on this site......however, the three of you, are otherwise, three of the most normal individuals i have interacted with......

while i can understand your emotions when pakistan india comes up and i can write those off......what amazes me is the audacity with which you can make racist comments about 15% of your own population......

allow me to point out how you are misrepresenting facts, and letting your prejudice get the better of you.......

anil: ...i am not sure how many indian muslims you know.....since you havent visited india in ages......i meet them regularly.......and i interact with indian hindus regularly also.....

strangely, both open up to me, far more than they do to each other, on such issues......

......the prejudice is open to see.....it is exactly as dost-mittar has suggested.....some are liked as individuals......however, the rest are not liked as a community.......

take a look at the dialogue on this site....it is open season against indian muslims......muslims in general......and islam in particular, by indians on this site......

i have, rarely, if ever seen any indian muslim have the courage to take it on.......the odd one who does, is, immediately declared a traitor.....

it has now reached a level, where indian muslims are presented as terrorists etc. in normal social interactions.....movies, etc.......and the indian public claps......

i interact with the odd indian muslim executive(s) that i run into in the indian IT industry.......trust me, even they are not comfortable....they are scared......who wouldnt be when open discrimination agianst them, is considered common dialogue (dm being an example).......

Re: # 110
[...this is the first stage of naziism...]

Says who? a paki whose country has reduced minorities to less tahn 3%, down from possible 15%... where constitution explicitly bars minorities from highest office, even dis-enfrinchises minorities their selected identity(ahmedi muslims)...

This is rich... LOL

Re: # 110

Bulleya;

"... any indian muslim has the courage to stand up and defend himself... "

Most muslim Indians that I know define their identity differently, and measure themselves with a different yardstick than Pakistanis. Therefore, it is impossible for a Pakistani to give a fair assessment of muslim Indians. This is not in defense of choice of the word by anyone.

dost-mittar: ....i find it hard to believe that your desire to tame muslims was in jest......i think it was a freudian slip......i have noticed such things before in your commentary on muslims.......

.......this seems to be the trend amongst indians that i meet....they are very uneasy with indian muslims......some say it openly, like stuka and eklavya and have no issues about having less of them or killing them......others are like you......

bigotry and prejudice is bad, even if it is based on fact........however, when it is based on fiction, it is worse......the points you have presented are not factual.......unfortunately, i think the situation amongst indians is such that it has, now, become open season on labelling muslims.......and even more unfortunately, hardlz any indian muslim has the courage to stand up and defend himself........

this is the first stage of naziism.......when prejudice enters into common social interactions as normal.......

tahmed (#97),

”if you wish to attack me on the article i wrote on iraq, then have the honesty to cut and paste what i wrote in that article that sounds like bad judgement to you.”


(Grin) Without getting into the pow-wow between you and Riaz, I’ll say this much: The gist of your infamous article was that we should trust the US government on the issue of Iraq war.

As it turned out, no WMDs were found. The “imminent WMD threat” was then replaced by the “WMD program”, then “WMD intentions”, then “9/11 connection”, and then “harboring terrorists”. Finally Iraq war was justified on basis of “spreading democracy”. Had enough??

Read on. It gets more interesting …

When I pressed you on the issue, you later acknowledged that USA “attacked the wrong country” (your own words, I am not making this up!).

You fell for the Iraq war propaganda and are now stuck in denial. Unfortunately denial only makes you look like a bigger fool than the original article itself.

Riaz#98:

That was not a response to my post. You can choose to ignore what you like and accept what you like. That's your prerogative. If you want to ignore hundreds of international reports which blame ISI for training jihadis as biased and accept what one person who says points the finger for terrorist attacks on Mossad and CIA, that too is your prerogative. I am sure that you are not the only one who exercises that prerogative.

Riaz haq and the gay person Shore sahib are alike. Are they both same?

Re: # 99
Thanks Ajeya for your kind wishes. I placed my views in Chowk in the hope that it would be critically examined. And so it is: it has been commented upon variously. I would go by the thought-provoking comments rather than the just provoking ones. I read the book review you sent along. There's no harm in looking hard at the social and economic problems in a given geo-political environment. Your words of encouragement will always be valued by me.

Since 911, muslims have been suspected and hated, the world over. Al-Qaeda, with its lofty claims against imperialist America has successfully put Islam, and muslims in the line of fire. Xenophobia against immigrants has turned into muslim-bashing. Only the Human rights organisations have kept the task of monitoring the conditions of migrating workers and policy of host governments towards immigrants. Human rights organisations claim that the migrant worker is allowed into a country because they need young workers to replace their ageing workforce but the treatment meted out to these immigrants, specially a xenophobic backlash and the slow speed of governments in accomodating these workers contributes to the rights violation of these newcomers.
In developing countries workers migrating from rural to urban areas face many hardships which include discrimination. Politicians in Mumbai and Karachi worry over the change in ethnic demographic and unleash discrimination and violence against poor migrants. Anti-migrant jargon in Delhi against workers of Bihar and UP has also flared.
The fact that the daughter of Indian Prime minister pleaded cases of muslims unduly incarcerated under the draconian patriotic laws serves as a reminder that all is not lost in this climate of hatred. Awareness through education could clear the minds of hatred and bigotry. However some Indians continue to ride the muslim-hating campaign though the American establishment has already realised the fallacy and danger of their anti-muslim witch-hunt.

Regards: i think there is room for improvement in more respect for minorities in both countries.

Riaz, Hamidm & other pakistani friends

Your oft-repeated claim on Kashmir is worth visiting if your minorities can live as well as muslims in Gujrat. If Hindus have disappeared from Pakistan while muslim population in Gujrat is always there, there are basic realities of everyday life (and not pick and choose statisstics of Riaz).

When hindus in Pakistan will be able to claim safety in Pakistan as in their own country, Pundits in Kashmir living in refugees camps in jammu and other states will go back to Kashmir too. I'm sure most Indians will be happy to let Kashmir go to Pakistan or where ever they want.

"Fearing Taliban, Pak Hindus take Thar Express to India

Vimal Bhatia , TNN 10 September 2009, 02:15am IST

JAISALMER: In the past four years, some 5,000 Hindus may have crossed over from Pakistan, never to return. It has not been easy abandoning their homes, sometimes even their families, but they say they had no choice: they had to flee the Taliban.

It started as a trickle in 2006, the year the Thar Express was flagged off. The weekly train starts from Karachi, enters India at Munabao, a border town in Barmer, and runs up to Jodhpur. In the first year, 392 Hindus crossed over.

This grew to 880 in 2007. The next year, the number was 1,240, and this year, till August, over 1,000 have crossed over. They just keep extending their visas and hope to become Indian citizens.

Incidentally, these are official figures. Sources say there are many more who cross over and melt in the local milieu. And officials have a soft corner for these people, most of whom have harrowing stories to tell.

Ranaram, who used to live in the Rahimyar district of Pakistan’s Punjab, says he fell prey to the Taliban. His wife was kidnapped, raped and forcibly converted to Islam. His two daughters were also forcibly converted. Ranaram, too, had to accept Islam for fear of his life. He thought it best to flee with his two daughters; his wife was untraceable.

Dungaram, another migrant, says atrocities against Hindus in Pakistan have increased in the past two years after the ouster of Musharraf. "We won't get permanent jobs unless we convert to Islam."

Hindu Singh Sodha, president of Seemant Lok Sangathan, a group working for the refugees in Barmer and Jaisalmer, says there's unfortunately no proper refugee policy in India even though people from Pakistan reach here in large numbers.

He said in 2004-05, over 135 families were given Indian citizenship but the rest are still living illegally in the country and are often tortured by police because they don't have proper citizenship certificates. "In December 2008, over 200 Hindus were converted to Islam in Mirpur Khas town of Pakistan. But there are several others who want to stick to their religion but there’s no safety for them in Pakistan."

Immigration officer at Munabao railway station, Hetudan Charan, says the arrival of Hindu migrants had suddenly increased as over 15 to 16 families were reaching India every week. “None of them admit they are to settle here but seeing their baggage, we easily understand,’’ he said.

Ravi Kumar, who was Barmer collector till his transfer two days back, said the government in 2007 had given permanent citizenship to a few Pakistani immigrants."

Re: # 91

Riaz sahib:

I cannot believe that you are so gullible not to see throught such write-ups.

You could easily replace Hutus and Tutus for Hindus and Muslims, Jews and Paletinians, Uighur and Chinese etc. etc. and this boiler plate is ready for other scene. Try it and see for yourself.

You need to exercise your critical thinking, unless you are loosing it. Just as was the case of per capita wheat consumption numbers, or $1.25 and below poverty numbers that Masadi points. May be not on your blog, but here you are loosing your credibility very fast.

A few years ago, the Economist would have never reviewed this book, let alone put it n their front page. Amazing what a little bit of creeping self-doubt will do. And then there is the fear of being condemned later, as well.

For the benefit of the erudite viewers at Chowk, I am cut-and-pasting the review on that book I mentioned in the last post:

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West.

By Christopher Caldwell.
Doubleday; 422 pages; $30. Allen Lane; £14.99.

IN APRIL 1968 Enoch Powell, a Tory cabinet minister, destroyed his political career when he denounced mass immigration as a disaster (“like the Roman”, he said, “I seem to see ‘the river Tiber foaming with much blood’”). Today Powell’s arguments, if not his classical allusions, are becoming dangerously mainstream.

Christopher Caldwell is an American journalist who writes for the liberal Financial Times as well as the conservative Weekly Standard. He has spent the past decade studying European immigration, travelling widely and reading voraciously in an impressive variety of languages. His controversial new book repeatedly echoes Powell’s warnings all those years ago.

Mr Caldwell argues that “Western Europe became a multi-ethnic society in a fit of absence of mind.” European policymakers imported people to fill short-term job shortages. But immigrants continued to multiply even as the jobs disappeared: the number of foreign residents in Germany increased from 3m in 1971 to 7.5m in 2000 though the number of foreigners in the workforce did not budge. Today immigrants account for about 10% of the population of most west European countries, and up to 30% in some of Europe’s great cities.

Policymakers were even more mistaken about culture than they were about numbers. They assumed that immigrants would quickly adopt the mores of their host societies. But a surprising number of immigrants have proved “unmeltable”.

Mr Caldwell argues that the reason why so many immigrants failed to assimilate can be summed up in a single word: Islam. In the middle of the 20th century there were almost no Muslims in Europe. Today there are 15m-17m, making up about half of all new arrivals in Europe.

For the most part European countries have bent over backwards to accommodate the sensibilities of the newcomers. A French law court has allowed a Muslim man to annul his marriage on the ground that his wife was not a virgin on their wedding night. The British pensions department has a policy of recognising (and giving some benefits to) “additional spouses”.

But European public opinion is tiring of such bending. Mr Caldwell cites a poll that shows that only 19% of Europeans think immigration to be a good thing for their country; 57% think that their country has “too many foreigners”. Such numbers have recently forced politicians to adjust their policies.

Many countries are tightening their immigration laws, shifting to a skills-based immigration system and setting citizenship tests for would-be immigrants. The French have banned girls from wearing veils in schools. British politicians, such as Tony Blair and Jack Straw, have denounced the veil as a symbol of separation. The old welcome-mat seems to have been replaced by a “Love it or leave it” sign.

For Mr Caldwell this is all a matter of too little too late. Europe’s indigenous population is ageing fast, with a quarter of it over 60. Immigrants have large families. Moreover, Europe is no match for Islamic self-confidence: “When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident and strengthened by common doctrines, it is generally the former that changes to suit the latter.”

Mr Caldwell’s unremitting pessimism about Europe raises all sorts of questions, both large and small. Are Europeans really as feeble as he asserts? They have discovered that some principles are non-negotiable in their relations with Islam, particularly women’s rights. And is Islam really as self-confident? The willingness of so many Muslims to take offence at any slight—a cartoon here, a novel there—could be a sign of profound cultural anxiety.

Mr Caldwell is also worryingly selective in his use of evidence. He all but ignores the multiple examples of upward mobility and successful integration. He dwells on the fact that many Muslim men feel emasculated by the success of their women without bothering to wonder why so many of the women are successful.

That said, this is an important book as well as a provocative one: the best statement to date of the pessimist’s position on Islamic immigration in Europe. Supporters of liberal policies need to sharpen their arguments if they are to prevent neo-Powellism from sweeping all before it.