Why I’m proud to be a Pakistani

Jay,

Brother as a fellow Hindu whose family sufferred a lot due to partition I will still gives thanks to Allah that Pak was created. Instead of that sick clown cum scumbag Gandhi had we followed Babasahib Dr BhimRao Ambedkar we would have been much better of.

Read Bharatvani the problem is not Muslims it is Islam.

Hello Shandana,

Are you the same Shandana who attended St Michael`s at Clifton. Your mother used to be our Lit. teacher. If you are, then this is your classmate: Sabika. Good to know you are making a difference.

Amidst the dilaasay, the sar par haaTh pherna, the peeTh pay thapkee dena, the waH waH, the aaNsu (KhuShi/magarmuCH), the heaving bosoms inspired by floodgates of hubbulwatnee dangerously mixed with nostalgia, I wonder what is it that makes the silly question that the article asks so important. Important enough to not only warrant an article but the ensuing discussion that consists mostly of asbaat meiN sar hilaana as expected.

Each and every one of the individuals mentioned would have found their route to azmat (if we can call it that) INDEPENDENT of Pakistan. We can certainly be proud of the achievements of these people, and especially so because they are Pakistanis, but I don`t see how it makes Pakistan a source of pride. It is to their credit that they have survived even in Pakistan. Hawa Bibi is more a product of the bell curve of morality than ``we must be doing something right.`` If we were doing something right, we would have a lot more Hawa Bibis in a population of 140 million. The backdrop makes Asma, Hina, Pervez, etc. even greater individuals but I am sure they would have kept themselves busy even in the first world.

Perhaps the article should be engaged differently: Tantrums of a 50 year old nation.

Slink re:142

Hey, the house is still there, the family is still there, and heck, so am I at times.. :-) (though the lure of Uninterrupted Power and Water is strong..!).

AK

Gymnosophist#144

Jinah`s equivalent is not in English. It is actually, Jenran Bhoy, where two N are half sound of N. And R is a word which comes in Urdu after R.

He might have to do it in England when he went for Bar-at-Law.

For Chinna, we have a word in Urdu ``Chunna`` meaning small.

Ref kafir k khan #: 141

You say {As long as South Indian Brahmans will have mile long names, nothing in India is going to change.}

Whoa, whoa! Hold it right there! The record for the longest name seems to be held by one S.B.P.B.K. Satyanarayana Rao who is the MP from Rajahmundry. Even his constituency has the good sense to shorten its name from Rajamahendrapuram to Rajahmundry. Just imagine what would happen if Mr. Rao decided to unfurl his initials S.B.P.B.K!

Mr. Rao`s first initial would normally refer to his `Inti peyaru`, the traditional name of his house. Just be happy that he was not born in that Welsh village with 78 characters in its name. On the other hand, it is entirely possible, with the large-scale emigration of Y2K consultants to all parts of the world, that Mr. Rao`s great-grandson might be born in that Welsh village and that he would choose to adopt that as his `Inti peyaru`, along with 7 initials before his name, which would be Chinnasatyanarayana Rao (`Chinna` in Telugu meaning `little`) both in honor of his great-grandfather and to distinguish one from the other. That might take the cake for the longest name in the world!

Just watch out for what you are saying. The name Jinnah is supposedly not that gentleman`s family name but a nickname meaning `Junior`. The resemblance to `Chinna` is too close for comfort. One of these days, as you guys decide to honor your heritage, you might trace your lineage back to Hyderabad (Deccan) and start adopting multi-mile long names.

;-)

Kyaa kamal kee cheez hai yeh interaction! Did you know, that in India a large number of green cars are sold, green two-wheelers are sold, the Army wears green but there are no saffron vehicles or uniforms?

We MUST fix this, us hard-core right-wing phallus worshipping Hindoos.

By the way kafir my friend, if Indian women do kiss phalluses, what is wrong? Men buy inflatable dolls, what is wrong?

In your kafirabad there is place for a sense of humour or is that coloured red?

well well well...

i`m checking chowk after a week so i missed the transition from discussing what we have to be proud of to indiapak relationships. it took a while, so i`m taking it as a good thing.

as ferozk pointed out, this article was written as a sort of reply to another one that glorified our nuclear capability. it was meant as a tribute to the human spirit. simply that and nothing more.

to the indignant who took the lack of any references to the armed forces as evidence of ingratitude, write your own article about why you love them.

thanks to all those who added names, including gymnosophist and other indians who demonstrated a desire to move beyond the traditional parameters of our interaction and looked for ways (and people) through which we can connect. i had intended to add a disclaimer (already mentioned this in an earlier reply) saying i realised how inadequate my coverage was but in my haste to send this off i forgot to send it. my fault, i tend to be too impulsive.

urstruly..yes it is nice when people read things into articles the author never intended them to read. where did you say this happened?

to all those who feel this was simply a case of looking for a reason to be proud in the face of my own ineptitude...sure. basking in the reflected glory of others is something i try to do as often as i can. it helps me build up an appetite (i`m not just eating for me then you see)and thus maintain the smooth complexion we kgs going, foreign educated/tainted, flute sucking elitist snobs are famous for.

incidentally, that was the only tuition i had, and my mother paid for it by taking tuitions herself.

assadk...we used to be neighbours, didja know that?

shandana

Re: 138 Asim Hayat

Were U writing a reply or submitting a Ph.D. thesis. Thanks to Alla we have no boring guys like U in Kafirabad

I do remember, when Salman Khurshid, then Minister of State for External Affairs in the Narasimha Rao (Cong I)cabinet, faced down the Pakistani delegation at one of these futile slanging matches at an international forum in the mid `90s(the Indian delegation btw under the chairmanship of then Opposition leader A B Vajpayee), the Pakistani delegation called him `bhaade ka Muslim`.

Those who geniunely care to know can do a yahoo search on Salman Khurshid, I am not reproducing his germination records here.

So try to say something new, guys. You had a major problem with your neighbour even when BJP was not anywhere near power. What was the excuse then and during all those years?

And let us ponder one moment on the rule of the `majority`. I vehemently oppose the current (political) movement for a Ram temple at Ayodhya and condemn all religion-related violence, and hold BJP responsible for more that its share of it, but please to ponder for a second, in a hugely Hindu-majority country, despite so much political and other type of muscle being put into it, one temple cannot and hasnot been built so far for 50+ years. Does this look like `majority imposition` or fundamentalism?

If you begin to look at some of the facts, you have to look at all of the facts.

Sadhana

Re : Satish and brick walls.

A brick wall replies.

Satish,

As an aside I take it, saffron is your favourite colour.

In your fervour for ``we are superior than thou``, you failed to or possibly did not want to agree with what i had to say in my last reply. Written law and its practice are two different things in the third world. That is our primary failing. i have a hard time arguing with closed minds, and well, i can see you are not going to budge from your position. i shall let it be. furthermore, perhaps the following article shall highlight the role played by RSS in your religion-less India. Actions, they say, speaketh louder than words. Read and see the religion-less India in action, providing equality, and lifelong liberty to pursuit of success to its Muslims and other minorities.

The Hindutva laboratary

(By Akshaya Mukul)

The dividing line between old and new in Ahmedabad is the decrepit wall erected in the 15th century by its founder Sultan Ahmed Shah.

Today, it’s called the ‘Berlin Wall’ because it has become, over the last decade, both a physical and an emotional-psychological barrier, separating Hindu settlements in spanking new areas from Muslim clusters in the walled city. Those who, consciously or otherwise, choose to defy this segregation do so at their peril. Senior journalist Ashraf Sayeed learnt this the hard way. Some years ago, when Ahmedabad was in the grip of continual communal violence, his Hindu friends advised him to shift from Patrakar Colony to a “safer area” as they feared they would not be able to protect him for long. But when Sayeed tried to purchase a house in posh Gandhinagar, his prospective neighbours forced the Hindu property owner to rescind the deal. Today, he lives in a house bought from a Muslim; predictably, it’s in a Muslim neighbourhood.

Similarly, Hanif Lakdawala and his Christian wife Sheeba George, could not rent space for their Institute for Initiatives in Education. Ultimately, a Brahmin friend helped them. The obverse is equally true: Hindus in Muslim areas face a backlash.

Indeed, the state which produced the apostle of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, is a simmering cauldron of hatred. The few who care are mocked at. Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh utilises the Bharatiya Janata Party’s being in government to relentlessly push its divisive agenda.

The public has been so co-opted that the state government’s recent decision to lift the ban on its officials joining the RSS was met with indifference. Similar was the response when banners declaring, “Vishwa Hindu Parishad welcomes you to Hindu Rashtra’s village” mushroomed in several villages following the anti-Christian incidents in Dangs in 1998.

“Only a few decisions are taken publicly,” says former chief minister Shankarsinh Vaghela, once a leading light of the RSS in Gujarat. “The rest is a covert RSS operation, deftly planned and executed. In doing this, the RSS can go to any extent, even kill.”

But killing is usually unnecessary. Threats and intimidation are enough to hasten ghettoisation. When this fails, minorities, especially those in petty business, are boycotted. This is precisely how Muslim autorickshaw drivers were driven out of Bardoli last year.

State home minister Haren Pandya protests that “a communal hue should not be imparted to local issues.” He euphorically cites statistics to show that the number of people killed in communal riots has dipped during the BJP’s five-year tenure.

A senior bureaucrat counters: “The idea is to exert constant pressure on the minorities, and make them realise that the terms of their existence will be set by the majority. Since the government is a party to this, you don’t have to achieve this through riots and killings.”

Adds Lakdawala, “Even the recent Christian bashing was well-planned. You could read slogans like pehle kasai, baad mein isai — first butchers (Muslims), then Christians — on public walls in interior Gujarat way back in the Eighties.”

Why is the RSS using Gujarat as a laboratory for its Hindutva project? And when did this process begin? Replies Achyut Yagnik, coordinator of the Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, “It began with the 1969 riots in which nearly 2,000 people were killed. The involvement of the RSS, Hindu Dharma Raksha Samiti and Jan Sangh was brought out by the P Jagmohan Reddy inquiry commission.”

Gujarat politics underwent a change in the Seventies. The hegemony of the powerful Patidar (Patel) community, exercised through the Congress, was being increasingly challenged. Following the famous Navnirman movement against Congress chief minister Chimanbhai Patel, the party realised that, post-Emergency, it needed a new social alliance to stay in power.

Consequently, it forged the KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) coalition and stormed to power. When Madhavsinh Solanki formed his Cabinet, Patidars found themselves out of favour. Says Yagnik, “For the first time, there was a divorce between political and economic power. It was an impossible situation.”

Looking for new patrons, Patidars found their opportunity in the anti-reservation struggle that began a year later. The BJP, whose earlier incarnate, Jan Sangh, had built a strong upper caste base through the RSS, grabbed the leadership of the movement.

The picture was now clear: upper castes were drifting towards the BJP; OBCs, Dalits and Muslims towards the Congress. (Dalit-Muslim unity was easily forged because the strong influence of vegetarianism in the state forced them to live in the same neighbourhoods.)

In 1985, Solanki increased OBC reservations from 10 to 28 per cent, incurred the wrath of anti-reservationists — and bagged 84 per cent of the seats in the election that year. The Sangh, now fearing that its patronage of the anti-reservation stir would alienate it from lower castes, gave a communal twist to the movement. A series of riots inexplicably broke out in the walled city.

The focus shifted. A section of OBCs were wooed and coopted into the Sangh’s upper caste alliance. Simultaneously, Solanki could not uplift the marginalised sections among the KHAM alliance — and disenchantment set in.

Thus, in the late Eighties, the BJP began invoking religious symbols to cash in on the dissatisfaction. Since tribals (7 per cent) and Dalits (15 per cent) constituted a substantial vote bank, the Sangh’s myriad outfits like the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram started working among tribals, providing relief and indoctrinating them.

The attempt to break tribal-Dalit-Muslim unity succeeded in 1987 when, during a riot in Virpur on the Kheda-Panchmahal district border, tribals attacked Muslims for the first time. KHAM had given way to the politics of religion.

This mobilisation was complete when LK Advani’s infamous Rath Yatra was flagged off on September 25, 1990 from the Somnath temple, its place in Hindu-Muslim communal history acting as the catalyst.

In 1990, the BJP’s alliance with VP Singh’s Janata Dal helped it increase its seats and enter the coalition government. And in 1995, the BJP was in power on its own. Gujarat was thus a successful test case for the BJP, proving the virtues of wooing the middleclasses and gobbling allies.

But why is the average Hindu Gujarati inclined towards extreme and divisive politics? Yagnik traces this to the rapid urbanisation of Gujarat: “This led the middleclass to see itself as a block. It realised that the Hindu identity could counter KHAM.”

Similarly, at the block and village level, the capitalist growth of agriculture and the White Revolution enhanced the prosperity of the farming community, which now wanted to express itself politically. Upwardly mobile farmers were attracted to the VHP and Bajrang Dal because they provided an alternative to subaltern politics. This has resulted in the BJP controlling the state’s powerful and rich cooperatives.

Even tribal and Dalit government officials (Gujarat Dalits have the highest literacy rate among their brethren — 61 per cent) find the Hindutva ideology resolves their identity crisis in cities, where the upper-caste dominated middleclasses scoff at lower-caste identification. Obviously, it also helps to get co-opted.

“Hindutva rhetoric wasn’t just meant for coming to power,” Vaghela points out. “The idea is to perpetuate it for eternity.” For this, the RSS needs yes-men in the BJP and government. This was the reason, claims Vaghela, he was sidelined despite building the party in the state. “I could have posed difficulties for their fascist mechanism of zero-debate,” he says.

Vaghela says even Prime Minister Vajpayee has experienced the RSS’ intolerance for debate. In 1980, he wrote an article, “Whither RSS?”, in a national daily. “So furious was the Sangh leadership that it decided to defeat Vajpayee in the 1984 election — and it did. Vajpayee seriously contemplated leaving the RSS, and even wrote a poem, Jayen to jayen kahan. (Where should I go?) But he missed the bus,” says Vaghela.

But RSS propagandist Mukund Deobhankar says the state is not being saffronised — because it was always saffron. “It’s only more visible now,” he claims, arguing that a Hindu state has its advantages: “If we grow, the minorities will be safe. For, the followers of other religions will have to share our vision of India and its culture. Then, we won’t mind accommodating two more gods (Allah and Christ) along with our 33 crore gods and goddesses.”

Deobhankar justifies the government’s decision to lift the ban on police officers and government employees joining the RSS. Agrees home minister Pandya, “When the chief minister and I are from the RSS, how does it matter if an employee goes to the shakha?”

But a senior bureaucrat in his ministry warns, “Those Hindu employees who don’t join the RSS will be isolated. And your RSS link will become a deciding factor in promotion. I am dead set against the move.”

Economist Meghnad Desai wrote about Gujarat in 1998, “Gods are worshipped in large social gatherings in much the same way as the British go to soccer games on Saturdays as a consumption display event.” When a government relentlessly pushes a communal agenda in a state such as this, the seeds of hatred are easily sowed.

Gujarat is clearly a laboratory where the RSS is conducting its communal experiments. Gujarat today, India tomorrow



Scary stuff, would you not agree Satish.

And yes, we`re back to the ol` `Screw you, Pakis, India/Bharat/Hindustan is best!`.

Re Asim Hayat and a few others:

This started as why Pakistanis have reasons to be proud of their country and has degenerated into the usual name-calling. I posted names of Pakistani winners of the Magsaysay Award to add to the list of those Pakistanis who have done their country proud. But if you insist on dragging India into this, I feel a need to respond.

The current Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives is P. M. Sayeed (representing Laccadives Islands in the Arabian Sea). The insignificance of Laccadives (both in terms of land area and population) does not warrant giving this significant position to anybody from that Union Territory but the election of Mr. P. M. Sayeed to the post of Deputy Speaker does say something about the representative nature of the Indian Parliament.

The deputy leader of the House of States is Najma Heptulla.

The BJP, which is the rabid, foaming-in-the-mouth Hindu fundamentalist party, holds all of 45 seats out of 244 seats in the House of States. It holds 183 out of 545 seats in the House of Representatives. Thus, you can accuse 1/3rd of the Hindus of India as being rabid, masjid-demolishing, foaming-in-the-mouth, anti-Muslim bigots. That same party, which includes Arun Shourie, also includes Sikander Bakht. I am sure Mr. Bakht is considered the Uncle Tom of Indian Muslims by Pakistanis. I am wondering who would qualify as Aunt Jemimah - Shabana Azmi, perhaps? Jeez, she even acted in that movie `Fire` as the Hindu wife of a God-fearing man who had given up sex and thus had to become a Lesbian! She is no good as a Muslima!

The Indian Muslim League has been reduced to such incompetence that its only two elected members come from the southern state of Kerala, where it is called Muslim League Kerala State Committee, probably to avoid being painted with the same brush as those guys who demanded the Partition of India. This of course gives some of you guys who keep harping on Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir, the opportunity to demand Moplahstan, except that you wouldn`t have learned anything from history. The creation of Pakistan has totally destroyed Indian Muslim League as a political entity and anyone who asks for any special privileges for any *religious * group is going to get nowhere in Indian politics. On the other hand, you find that regional parties based on *inclusion * such as Telugu Desam, DMK, Janata Dal, etc., manage to get the majority of seats from their home states and have reasonable representation for people of all religions. Thus, the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (yes, I know; that puppet of India) has sent Karan Singh (a Dogra), Kushak Thiksey (a Buddhist) and Sharief-ud-Din Shariq (no prize for guessing his religion) to the House of States while electing 4 Muslims to the House of Representatives (including Hassan Khan from Ladakh which is predominantly Buddhist and wants to secede from Kashmir).

So, why don`t you guys go to http://alfa.nic.in/ and look at the names of the MPs from various parties? It might open your eyes when (and if) you realize that not everyone in the Indian Parliament is a member of the BJP, that the BJP`s hands are effectively tied when it comes to foisting a Hindutva agenda, that not every MP is a refugee Sindhi like LK Advani. The very names might tell you a little bit about how difficult it is to get unanimity of opinion on anything. Except the territorial integrity of India. Thus Kashmir, Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim, etc., can kiss their ideas of secession goodbye and sit down and work for the good of the people of their states. (The fact that they have all of 4 and 2 seats in the Lower House means that they have no voting power unless the hated Hindus agree to let them secede from India.)

I am sure you guys are delighted that you have left the tyranny of the majority behind when you created Pakistan. Of course you conveniently ignore the fact that a 35% Muslim population with majorities in Bengal, Punjab, NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan with very sizeable minorities in UP, MP, Andhra and Assam cannot be tyrannized by any Hindu majority, particularly when that Hindu majority is at odds with itself over language, allocation of river waters, share of finances, etc. But go back to your History of Hindustan according to the Pak Education Ministry and close your eyes to the reality of what is happening in Pakistan and in India.

As a whole lot of people are not tired of pointing out, there isn`t a long line outside the Pak High Commission in New Delhi demanding immigrant visas to Pakistan from any of the oppressed indian minorities. And there isn`t likely to be any change in that situation in the near future.

Now, can we go back to celebrating the common man of Pakistan?

pullu #91
Re` Bihar, I`d like to mention a humourous Hindi essay by Harishankar Parsaai which I really enjoyed on the topic,
``Hum Bihar mein chunaav lad rahe hain``
(from an anthology ``Urdu-Hindi Haasya Vyang``, Ed Ravindranath Tyagi, Rajkamal Pbacks)

The author describes what happens when Lord Krishna himself decides to take an hand in the state(responding to so many ;Hey Bhagwans; being uttered) and how His best efforts meet with so much frustration, the Indian Constitution and Bihar politics sharing the honors :-).
Cheers,
Sadhana

Asim

I know trying to answer people like you is like talking to a brick wall. I will try to reply, pointless though it is, because I cant keep quite in face of white lies coming from you.

Lets just see a few points, should we?

India has a one citizen one vote policy, all our minorities vote in wlwctions, represent people and become ministers etc. Pakistan has a separate electorate of 10 seats when there is a parliament at all, which is rare in itself. These `minority` seats even contain the muslims who have been declared `non-muslim` by the powers that be, such as Ahmadis. These people by law dont represent general populace, but only the minorities, and so are excluded from the regular public life.

India has separate personal laws for minorities which control their civil lives, including the right to marry four wives. All the civil rights availed by Hindus are available to the minorities. Pakistan has Blasphemy law for its minorities.

There is no barrier on Indian muslims to become anything in the Indian Union, and muslims have shown that they can reach any position, including the president of the republic, chief justice, navy and air force chiefs, richest Indian etc.

Minorities in India can establish and run their own educational institutions, without interference from the Government, a right denied for the majorities, prompting hindu institutions like Ramakrishna Mission to go to courts seeking minority status. (It was denied, by the way.)

The fanatic `frothing at the mouth` communal party like BJP seeks such `communal` things as a Uniform Civil Code, no special rights to any states, or group of people in the Indian Union. It has never asked for any special rights for Hindus. The `liberal` pakistani parties have got Koran and Shariah included as the base of Pakistani law, a source of the constitution of Pakistan. They have started Islamic Shariah Courts, and blasphemy law with mandatory capital punishment. The `communal` BJP in India has opened up the economy, boosted the IT, and is trying to put such `frothing at the mouth communal ` bills in the parliament as Freedom of Information Bill and Women`s Reservation Bill.

I guess it is some other group that is `frothing at the mouth.` But guess what? We dont care.

Mayhem!

You reminded me of Rashid Junior. In 1972 or 1974. Both Pakistan and its opponent were equal, even in extratime.

In sudden death time, Rashid Junior took off his shoes. And dribbled from half line to goal and made the goal. I think his village people made him shoes of silver (or gold)

The few other names, which come to mind are Sami-ullah, Shahnaz Sheikh, Haneef Khan, Hasan Sardar, Akhtar Rasul, Islahuddin, Munawwaruz-Zaman, Tanvir Daar, etc. I had lost interest (or grown too big) when the new generation like Shahbaz Senior came.