Joint Indo-Pak School History Textbook on the Web

http://www.timesofindia.com/today/09home5.htm
`Badnaseeb` Zafar`s family bemoans lost legacy
Monday 9 October 2000

http://www.sulekha.com/cgi-bin/column.cgi?resource=ms_roma
The Roma and the Persistence of Memory
Subhash Kak

SameerJB #101: You wrote that ``All religions are true within the boundary conditions of self. It creates problems when we try to extend the boundary conditions to others and to other nations whose majority belongs to a different religion.``

Pankaj then wrote about the beauty of the concept of ``boundary conditions``. I realized then that I had no clue as to what you meant by this. I then checked the internet to understand what it means and understood this to be a term from calculus (which I never took beyond an introductory class). So, would any of you gentlemen, please explain in a language that even a moron like me can understand, exactly what you mean by this term?

Tahmed

Forget boundary condition and calculus. It was just a small ramble from the main topic. What I essentially implied is conveyed in the first para of my post. It is when a class of people with vested interests like Mullahas or Mahantas take up the task of interpreting religion and force their beliefs down the throats of gullible common man, religion becomes a menace to modern society. If there are conscientious people who interpret these sayings with a compassionate heart and humanitarian bent of mind there would be no problems. It is the scientific attitude and humanitarian ideals that should rule human mind not dogmas. True we can make mistakes even if we follow scientific methods but I believe it will be less horrendous than the crimes committed in the name of religion.

Sincerely

Tahmed321 and Pankaj: Boundary conditions of the self simply means within the limit or bound of self or individual. I also used the term entropy somewhere that is quite complicated to define completely but simply put; it means disorderliness. I wanted to follow up on this discussion but after reading message from Chowk Staff, I tried for 24 hours to refrain from unrelated issues.

Pankaj, you have elaborated my previous post very well. Similarly, tahmed, you have made a valid observation through human psychology and the unilateral phenomenon of interacting through internet with the factor of delayed time in response. Invariably, this lead to a multitude of one-to-one parallel interacts taking place under one topic with each one trying to make his/ her point as forcefully as possible in each shot. This is exactly where religions come handy because almost everybody has some knowledge of their and their targeted individual`s religion.

Moreover, it is one of the easiest paths to take. All religions do have basic goodness and value system built into them. All of them are based on essentially a very simplistic model of life, social justice and morality because: 1) They were developed in the distant past when consumption and demand of knowledge, spirituality and morality was limited to what we now consider basics and antique. 2) It had to be simple to be applicable and understandable to a large number of people.

Many of the respondents are using the same basic knowledge to the complicated questions of today, similar to Mullahs or Mahants. In practice, complex questions require complex answers with the consideration of a number of variables, absent at the time of inception of moral/ spiritual codes. Relying too much on the basics for complex questions (as in the case of ``religious scholars``, Mullahs or Mahants) leads to a resistance toward facing the tough questions head-on (superiority complex) and obscurantism, both of which are the natural allies of Mullahs/ Mahants. They are well versed and equipped with the basic knowledge that they use effectively against freethinkers (free from the boundary conditions set by organized religions/ priests), intellectuals and specialists in their respective fields. Simply put, modern, rational and logical thinking threatens the status, bread and butter of priestly class which they are bound to defend fiercely through interpreting religion in a way which guarantees their status. In the case of Pakistan, attempts to arabize culture, extensive use of Arabic terminology and phrases in the vernaculars, ``Islamize, both society and state are some of the means towards their desired ends.

Sameer JB #117

Can you tell me your perspective on many people`s choice of natural herbs as compared to taking medicine by physicians.

Many factors come into play, including desire of physicians to extract money, desire of drug companies to extract most profits, contempt towards literate by illiterate. There will be many other factors.

What is truth. Are the UNO resolution truth and demonstrate the will of nations. Then why some resolutions are implemented and some not.

Was Colonialism justified because it was advanced and caused the condition of people colonized to be improved or war against colonialism justified.

The truth is ones perspective except in science perhaps.

Manoj#

J for ``Jahil``.

Misinformed post.

I have a question for you. If you don`t kill Muslims in mosques in India, where do you kill them. I thought that was the only place for Muslims to be killed. I forgot, you demolish mosques, so you have to find some other place to kill them.

SameerJB#117/Pankaj#116: First, thanks SameerJB for taking the trouble of explaining what you meant by boundary conditions. I was a bit curious since Pankaj had mentioned the intellectual beauty of this engineering concept - looked up the internet to learn a bit about it and ran into some heavy duty equations and all I have understood so far is that in engineering they have to do with different arcs that join two points. Anyway, enough of my problems ... :-)

On the business of the Mullahs and Mahants (the latter, I assume, being the Hindu-version of the Mullah): I agree with you and Pankaj. We dont need any brokers between the individual and God.

Sameer: tahmad: Pankaj:

(Been following your interesting and level headed posts.)

As Mahajizardeh said: ‘Pehlay Khuda phir Rasool: pehlay insaan phir musalmaan’ ... this approach can and should be applied to any and all faiths or ideologies with appropriate word changes ..... ‘insaan’ remaining unchanged.

Re Muslims and Hindus came across this recently:

Yahan tasbeeh ka halqaa wahaaN zannar ka phanda
Aseeri laazmi hay mazhab-e-shaikh-o-brahmin maiN.

regards,

temporal

PS: For you Sameer, I`will sign off as rms temporal. That shall remain between us ;)

dear krashid

misinformed post!!! huh. Would appreciate a point wise rebuttal.

history bhool gaye kya and truth is bitter and it hurts.

Sameer and Tahmed

Thanx Tahmed. Actually I was tickled by the use of words like entropy and boundary conditions by Sameer in explaining social concepts. Well it is my educated guess that Sameer must be either from engineering/science or a student of science(no one is a master in science:)). But I would bet on his being a Professor of natural sciences. In his last post he talks about complex problems demanding complex solutions and taking into account multidimensional aspects of a problem. This is exactly scientific lingo. You are definitely a sort of compassionate guy with a humanitarian attitude and it is a pleasure to talk with you. However I could not guess your profession. About myself, I am relatively new to chowk. As you might have guessed, I am a student of Chemical engg.. I am 22, did my bachelor`s from IIT Kanpur(remember Kanpur) and ended up here in America last year. There are some people whose posts I like to read like you people. You people provide me a new insight into the old problems.

Cheers

Pankaj, did you take SKG and DN Saraf`s courses? They are my all time favorites. SKG was out for sabbatical (Wisconsin and NUS)probably last half of your study? Am I correct? Chowk has the maximum entropy, what do you think? Are you doing Ph.D now or MS? I think your guess on Sameer is probably correct.

Best wishes for your study. You show more maturity for a 22 year old! and I love Kanpur, specially those peacocks in the IIT campus.

Dear Cherayam

C`mon you are also an IITian it seems. So nice to hear from you. You are right on both counts, I took D.N. Saraf`s course. He taught us Heat transfer. And I will never forget him `coz he gave a midsem in which I scored 1/30 and the average was 2.6/30. That was my all time lowest. Of Course I cracked end sem big time and got an A. S.K.G was indeed out for a sabbatical to Wisconsin. These days Ashutosh Sharma is doing some great work in Colloids and Interfacial Science. BTW are you also a Chemineer, if yes , which batch. Where are you now, and what are you doing. I am doing my MS here and plan to go for MBA afterwards. I am presently working on modeling and simulation of multiphase flow through naturally fractured porous media. Thanx again for enquiring.

Cheers

Cherayam

Yeah and I miss those peacocks too. BTW I used to live in Hall 2 F-bot Room 162. I will never forget my days in IITK. Those nightouts before Chem101, bulla and tulla throughout the night, following girls in Antaragni and most of all, passion of Galaxy(remember gaali contests between Hall2 and 3 during Galaxy). Those moments are unforgettable, permanently itched in memory.

Cheers

Its a wonderful idea to write a joint history textbook.We have to launch a struggle against the dictum that all histories are national histories.It is ironical that the Hindu India and theIslamic Pakistan have chosen to partition what is of necessity and for a large part a shared history.

I am familiar with the works of Ayesha Jalal,Mubarak Ali, Anil Sethi and Krishna Kumar and I believe they will do a good job.

I have taught modern history at Delhi University and would love to participate in this collective endeavour in whatever capacity I can.

With best Wishes for a noble cause.

Pankaj and Cheraym: Thanks for the thoughtfulness and guessing about my background. Actually, on various occasions I have mentioned about my extensive background in natural sciences, chemistry to be exact. My only teaching experience comes from being TA during my graduate studies. I have always been fascinated with the application of scientific and logical paradigms to interpret non-scientific issues. Actually science itself be worthless, if it is not used properly in life. Reading books by authors like, Carl Sagan, Linus Pauling, Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Stephen Hawkins, Issac Asimov and others really help in understanding many non-scientific aspects of life.

The use of vocabulary like boundary conditions or setting the limits is necessary to understand almost everything except few boundless things like imagination or spirituality. What would be the case if we do not have boundaries or limits? Can Pakistan win any cricket match, if boundaries for Pakistani team are set farther than the opponents? Similarly certain variables, like empires’ mindset will have lot more contribution to the outcome than spectators, weather conditions. Just as the solutions of integrated equations in calculus can lead to different results depending on the boundary conditions, changing the limits in religious matters would lead to varied results, failed expectations and unpleasant consequences with certain variables like classical interpretation, history of Islamic empires with extensive use of brutalities, madrassa and jihadi culture adversely effecting the outcome. Not only religions but also the physical laws will fail by changing boundary condition, for example, the limits of gravity and speed of light. In order to not have unpleasant outcome, the importance of negative variables have to be reduced to a level where they could be dropped out of the equation without significantly changing the desirable result. Jesus was setting the limit when he said about taxes, “give to Romans what is theirs and give to God what is His”. Western concept of separation of Church and State is also a step in this direction of setting the limits.

In order for religions to be beneficial and alive, they must be constantly evolving with the changing conditions. There must constantly undergo the process of reformation and reformulation. Hinduism would have been lot more successful worldwide, had they eliminated caste system and sati rituals early on. Islam would have also been lot more successful by decreasing the stress on time consuming rituals, dependency on Arabic language and culture and abolition of slavery ahead of western civilization. There was no need to interpret all events and physical laws in the light of religion. It did not benefit Islam when Sheik Abdel Aziz Bin Baz gave fatwas about everything and a well-respected Pakistani religious scholar interpreted higher density of water at 4 degrees Celsius so that sea life could survive under ice covered lakes and seas.

Religions are not panacea; they are part of the overall culture and their limitations in individual life as well as in the society as a whole must be well understood. Do not expect things which religion are not equipped to provide. Over-expectation would lead to disappointment, wasted time, resources and energies.

Krashid: I do understand chemistry quite well and the complex and enormous source of potential benefits found in a number of herbs, shrubs and trees. Many of them have been found very useful, both in labs and in the extended human experience. Again, there are limits to their efficacy and importance, especially when suffering from some serious illnesses. After all, the extension of life expectancy and general health in the developed nations owes it to the practices of modern medicine, among other factors.

temporal: pehle Khuda phir Rasool—pehle limitless phir conditional—pehle macroanalysis phir microanalysis—pehle generalized phir reductionism—pehle basics phir details (Sharia, Fiqah, Hadees, Organized Religions, Imam, Mullahs are details to me) and my favorite would be pehle taleem phir tafheem. Thus pehle insaan phir mussalman.

From almost b sameer to rms temporal….

Tahmed: I am what in urdu is called “kitabi keera”. I have read Arthur Koestler’s “Thirteenth Tribe” although I was familiar with the history much before the book came out. The European historians are not as restrained as US historians, when it comes to writing what they believe is the case. In the USA authors do not like to stir any such controversy which involves Jewish people. I am responding at this board because it has some relevance to our history also.

It is widely believed that a tribe named Khazars converted en-masse to Judaism in eleventh century. Khazars belonged to a class of people termed Scythians by historians. Scythians were a mixture of Turkic-Altai-East European people dominating the Eurasian steppes following Aryan migrations(?). Huns were on the eastern side and Khazars on the western side of this vast land mass. Now it gets intersting. Soon after Alexander the Great’s invasion of India, Scythians started pouring into India in waves and established many dynasties in northwest India (currently Pakistan) until the seventh century of current era. In local vernaculars, they are called Saka dynasties. First wave entering India was from western steppes, establishing Kushan dynasty with famous Buddhist King Kanishka were none other than Khazars. Remember this happened around 100 BC-100 AD while the conversion to Judaism took place around 1100 AD. It is widely believed among desi historians that the word Gujjars arose from word Khazars ( although some believe, it came from words gao and char; people who raise cows) and that Gujjars are the descendants of Khazars. Similarly, Hazara is also believed to be Khazara or Khazaria originally. A large number of Gujjars are still living in Hazara district of Pakistan. The city of Gujrat and Gujranwala as well as Indian state of Gujrat owe their origins to Gujjars. Do you find any similarity between Ashk-e-nazi Jews and Gujju Patels? Ever been to any number of shops named Patel Brothers? (Just kidding)

Jats are generally believed to be the descendants( in parts) of later Scythian waves and Rajputs and many Pathan tribes from the last wave of white Huns. Interesting suff?

This is actually a portion of our history, to which little disagreement between Indian and pakistani historians is expected.

Dear Sameer and Pankaj:

I should not lead the discussion away from the article concerned as per the directive of chowk (and rightly so), but I could not resist my temptation to reply to Sameers` brilliant expression of a great scholarly mind. I wish I was so well read as you are, Sameer. I like the way you have extrapolated the concept of limit and boundary conditions. I am waiting for the day when my son grows up little bit more and when I have more time after my daily chores both at U and home.

Pankaj, I can not give away much information about myself for obvious reasons. As you are in US and in Chem engg, you should know what is the best school for Chem engg in US (keep it to yourself if you have guessed it correctly). I was fortunate enough to do graduate study there, and now after couple of post-docs, I have been in my current position in a relatively good school for the last five years somewhere in this world. But I do have a close tie with IITK, and work with SKG in optimization area. My specialization is in gas-soild separation, CFD, and process development for air water cleaning. Have you developed your own code for simulating flow through porous media? I am more than a decade older than you, and yes I still cherish the IIT days, I was in GH.

Regards

cheraym