Hidden Hindus

hyasit

Islam means ``surrender`` .Become a slave of an outdated Ideology.

JOIN THE NEAREST MADRASSA ,THEY ARE WAITING FOR HATE MONGERERS LIKE YOU SPREADING THEIR VENOM.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE THIS WORLD SICK


P.S DO THEY CALL YOU A NIGGER AS WELL

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This is interesting. Historically minorities are persecuted by the majorities all over the world. Persecution can be on the basis of colour ( as it used to happen in the US , culture ( what spanish invaders did to South America ), economic ( what developed countries are doing to Africa ), religion ( what Germany did to Jews ). In todays scenario, it is India where minorities seem to live in relative peace and comfort as compared to other countries. I read somewhere that Islam is interpreted to preach peace and harmony in places where it is in minority ( US, India ) and opression of minorities in places where it is in majority ( Pakistan, Arabic countries ). What is sinister is to brand all non muslims as non believers and get religious sanction from mad mullahs to kill them

salaam shandana bibi,

if yaadgasht serves, hindu is a persian word meaning ``dark one.`` derogatory? certainly. as i read your article my mind replaced the word ``hindu`` with the word ``nigger.`` any ``rehm`` as in ``rahim`` and ``rehman`` you may have been expressing for the plight of these ancient & spritual minorities was transformed into a grotesque parody.

better luck next time with the old ``research before writing an article`` part of the process..& lets stop using the disrespectful word ``hindu`` to refer to these people....(a moral i was hoping your article would have ended with)

regards,

hysait

Please see the article which is in the following URL: www.indiavotes.com/elections/news/feature707.html

Thank you.

Sundar

While describing the various forms of Hinduism, the authoress has forgot to mention a very important school of thought: Atheism. Hindu, or rather, Indian religion is probably the only religion in the world which even has atheism as one of the philosophical options.

Mr.Banjara,Pl make it Amirul-Munafiqeen when you talk of Gen Zia.

I wish we could conform to the the thoughts of Quaid-e-Azam who promised that after independence,people will not be discriminated against on the basis of religion,caste etc.AS the people are illiterate,the maulvis(themseleves quite uneducated/unenligtened generally)have turned the clock back on us.Since the political leadership exploited religion,Zia joined hands to destroy all our chances of coming out of this quagmire.As normally happens with people,who do not cherish freedom,Zia ruled for 11 years till God got fed up with his hypocrisy/chicanery practised astutely with the help of his constituencyie the army and a handful of readily available political elite/aspirants to state power/bureaucracy.

Our narrowmindedness in religious matters fanned by maulvis and aided by a `jahil`poulation has made us pariahs in the world,more so in the muslim world justifying the contemptuous remark of the late shah of Iran about us `It appears that Islam was born on 14th aug 1947`.How many of us muslim Pakistanis understand the holy Quran?How many maulvis understand and act on it?That is the crux of the matter and accountable for all our sins/crimes.we seem to forget that handsome is handsome does and no amount of petti-fogging/polemics will put us on the road to salvation--here and here-after.God help Pakistan!

Interview with Pakistani CEO Parvez Musharraf with Foreign Affairs correspondent.

http://www.nation.com.pk/inset.htm

Interview with Pakistani CEO Parvez Musharraf

Q. How many children do you have? A. Two. A son and daughter.

Q. If your daughter would come and tell you that she would like to marry an Indian .... a terrific Indian. ``A doctor``, Would you object? A. If it`s a Muslim Indian I wouldn`t. If it`s a Hindu Indian I would certainly object.

Q. You would object? If she would be willing to marry, let`s say, a Catholic American, Irish American? A. I would again object.

Q. Do you think that Pakistan, in general, Pakistani society, treats its minorities or different ethnic groups better or worse than India treats it own?

A. 200 times better! Q. 200 times better? A. If not more. I`m very sure of that and this is, again, an unfortunate wrong perception that Indians create against Pakistan, of our being not accommodating enough against the minorities and our having extremist attitudes towards the minorities. There is nothing farther than the truth.

Q. With the risk of irritating you, you said a short time ago that you would not be happy to see your daughter marrying a Catholic or a non-Muslim. Doesn`t this reflect some kind of intolerance towards,...

A. No, I would beg to differ. This is not intolerance. I would love to interact with anybody of any religion and I have been interacting. I have been abroad and I`ve been interacting, in fact, let me tell you that when I was at the Royal College of Defense Studies, I respected the Israeli officer very much and my interaction with him and also with his wife was very pleasant. So I have no intolerance against any kind of interaction. But when it comes to marriages that you are talking of, now this is a totally different issue. There are cultural differences involved and there are societal differences involved and therefore that is the reason when I said that I would not like my daughter to be married to a Hindu Indian, that doesn`t mean that I am intolerant. I interacted very well with the Indian Hindu officer who was there on the same course. He was my neighbour and we interacted very well with him.

Q. You point a finger at the media, saying that the media tilts strongly toward the Indian side?

A. Yes. Certainly. I strongly believe that this is the case. There are a lot of Indians in the media, controlling the media and that is the unfortunate part, they distort facts. Actually perceptions that are not the reality.

Q. You are speaking about Indians who work as English journalists in England, and American journalists in America? Are you claiming that their heart is really with India? A. First of all there are a lot of Indians in all places in the international media .... television, newspaper .

Q. Sure. There are talented Indians.

A. These Indians do have actually an interest themselves, and they also influence others, those who are around them, those of other nationalities.

Q. A plebiscite was offered in Kashmir by the United Nations in 1948. Do you still want it? A. Yes. Certainly. That is our position.

Q. Now, going back to what you said before, If the results would be pro-India, would you still accept them? A. Well, I am more than hundred percent sure that the (plebiscite-R.L.)results will not be pro-India.

Q. What if the people of Kashmir will vote for independence? A. There`s no room for that. They have to vote either for India or for Pakistan.

Q. Kindly mention to me the four countries that are good friends of Pakistan.

A. Okay. Number one, China. Turkey. Saudi Arabia. Abu Dhabi.

Q. Abu Dhabi is not a very big country.

A. (Here the Pakistani Ambassador suddenly joins in, and corrects his chief executive: ``UAE, United Arab Emirates, and the chief executive accepts.)

Q. You don`t count the United States as one.

A. Well.

Q. I said ``good`` friends.

A. We have been good friends but not all that. ..

Q. Do you think that the nuclear weapons now present in both India and Pakistan make the sub-continent more, or less secure?

A. More secure, I think.

Q. The people of India and Pakistan have shared a history of several thousand years, shared language, shared cuisine, music and common culture. Yet, there are more Muslims remaining in India than there are in Pakistan. Is that true?

A. Population wise, is this true. I don`t think it is true that India has more Muslim than we have. But I would like to comment on the first part when you talked about our history and our commonality. I do beg to differ. Our history is totally different. Our heroes are their villains and vice-versa. Our culture is absolute the opposite. They consider cows as their gods. We slaughter cows and eat them .

Q. Didn`t India`s culture stem partly from the area of what is Pakistan now?

A. No. The Buddhist culture originated from Pakistan. But the Hindu culture did not originate from Pakistan.

Ranan R. Lurie is a Senior Adjunct Fellow with the CSIS, The Washington based think tank, the political cartoonist for FOREIGN AFFAIRS magazine, and an internationally syndicated political analyst/cartoonist

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/issues/0011/stern.html

having read almost all your writings on chowk, i somehow never had the courage to write anything in the InterAct section. But reading this one about Hindus in Pakistan, a memory surfaced of something that happened when i was a student at IBA. We had a Hindu classfellow and one day during lunch at the cafeteria, he took a sip out of the coke bottle that i was drinking from. Another classfellow of mine actually wrinkled his nose, privately suggesting that i use a new straw. I don`t remember what i said but i do remember grabbing the bottle and taking a long drag from that very straw.

Mutez

Dost-Mittar #394

The decline in population was due to the forcible conversion to Islam by Ameer Abdul Rahman,the ruler of Afghanistan in 1895 who settled them in

Nooristan,which is about 20 miles west of Chitral

and is in Afghanistan,the leftover 3000 are in

Pakistan and retain their religion.

Sarwari#395

I was talking about a feature film ``Mirza Ghalib``

directed by Sohrab Modi and not about the tele-drama by Gulzar.You will get the joke if you read

your original composition and my joke once again.

Regards.

Re: Reply #: 392 Banjaara

Assalmlaikum.

You are really funny maybe I should make an animated disney movie on you, ``Bhaloo Banjaarea Bhanghi beats the Bhangraa`` I hope the humour isn`t lost upon you... sorry I didn`t get the joke about Ghalib...as far as I am concerned the first time an Indian drama was so well made and we Pakistanis give credit where its due, that one one good direction by Ghulzar, thuogh he made Ghalib look like a pro-hindu anti-muslim proponent a number of times, but i guess its allowed.(The dialogues are rattey huwey now)

Now, coming to the actual discussion of how well lit Khatrees are up there in preserving their hind-politics, a letter to the editor...

India`s brand of secularism

I refer to a letter from an unnamed Indian in the USA published in DAWN of October 13 under the captain: ``Secularism - an Indian view.``

If one goes by the Indian writer`s definition that ``a secular country is one that gives equal rights to all its citizens irrespective of their religion`` and his assertion that this is written in the Indian Constitution, in practice the Indian government does not practise it.

According to the Indian government`s census figures, Muslims number a little under 12 per cent in India`s population (now about one billion). Yet in figures quoted in a meeting of a UN Human Rights Sub-commission in Geneva held from July 31 to August 18, India`s elite Administrative Service (IAS) has 3.27% Muslims while the Indian Foreign Service and the powerful Police Service have 3.37% and 2.7% Muslim representation respectively. Their share in the Secretary-level cadre in barely 1.2% and in the Central Subordinate services it is 1.56%.

In the boards of directors of public limited companies, Muslims have a 1.7% share. In the Indian armed forces, Muslims representation is below 2%. In the higher judiciary, Muslim representation is very meagre.

Overall, Muslim representation in the central and provincial legislatures has shown a decline in recent years, largely because the BJP-led government as the centre and its allies and offshoots in the states espouse and propagate the chauvinistic Hindutva philosophy of Hindudom`s superiority over the followers of other religions. In fact, the arrogant devotees of this communalistic ideology want those Indians who converted to Islam or Christianity in the past to return to the Hindu fold.

The Bombay High Court recently dismissed as timebarred a case for the indictment of the Muslim-hating Bal Thackery, chief of the Nazi-style anti-Muslim Shiv Sena and an ally of the ruling BJP, for an anti-Muslim pogrom in Mumbai which he instigated and masterminded in 1994 and in which some 3000 Muslims were killed.

A report in the Asian Age of New Delhi of Sept. 13 shows that a number of Muslim students of the Aligarh Muslim University were arrested by Indian police sleuths on the charge of being agents of the Pakistani ISI. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Jamaat-e-Islami of India have condemned the arrests of the AMU students.

India`s National Commission for Minorities recently indicted the pro-BHP Bajrang Dal and Vishua Hindu Parishad (VHP) for their role in the recent anti-Muslim riots in Surat. These two strong-arm Hindu communal bodies have been behind the attacks on Christians and their churches. Will the Vajpayee government tell the world what punitive action was taken against their saffron brigades?

QUTUBUDDIN AZIZ

Karachi

http://www.dawn.com/2000/10/16/letted.htm#1

Turkey-Pakistan bhai bhai.

This was very true till the eightees but no more.

Went to Turkey in 1974 and had a lovely time,being

a Pakistani,every where it was brother and friend

and discount in all shopping or service including

female escorts and strip-tease joints(I am serious).

Visited again in 1989,and upon hearing that I was a Pakistani,they were warm and welcoming but the rates were doubled compared to other tourists,on

querry why this change from my previous visit and

they shrugged their shoulders in that typical

style of theirs and commented that NOW we know

our brothers from Pakistan rather well.

Apparently,this change in attitude came in with

Ameerul Momineen Hazrat General Zia-ul-Haq and

his Islamization programme in Pakistan,and continues till date.However,the common man is

all friendly and welcoming to a visitor(Mehmaan)

irrespective of his country of origin.

Regards

Sarwari # 352.

Waalaykum As-salam wa rahmat Allah wa barkaathu.

Your threat to write a book on India and then

deciding against it and writing on Pakistan instead,reminds me of a joke.

Ghalib died and was produced before The Almighty.

Since,he used to drink,Allah Ta`ala punished him

by ordering a film to be made in India with

Bharat Bhooshan as Mirza Ghalib.Ghalib protested

on the choice of Bharat Bhooshan,which was the

height of impudence,hence Allah Ta`ala added

further punishment to him and another film by the

name of Mirza Ghalib was made in Pakistan,with

Sudhir as Mirza Ghalib.Since then,no one has heard

from the great poet.

Ma`as Salaama.

Regards

Dost-Mittar #311

The Kalash Tribe in the Chitral valley are also

known as Kafirs,because of their religious belief

which is animistic .Anthropologists have been

trying to find their origins,but nothing concrete

has been proved so far.The most acceptable theory is that they are part of the returning forces of

Alexander the Great,who settled in the extreme

north of the NWFP in Pakistan in the Chitral Valley.In 1895 Ameer Abdul Rahman,King of Afghanistan attacked and converted them to Islam and settled them in the conquered area,

naming it Nooristan.The Kafirs are found about 36 km south east of Chitral city,in Bamburet,Birir and Rambur Valleys.The biggest village, Bamburet is accessible by jeep.The other two accessible on foot/mules only. Their population at the turn of century was about 100,000 which is reduced to

3000 now.

The Kalash women dress in all black thick material

with beautiful head dress adorned with cowrie shells,siver coins,buttons and coloured feathers.

They have three main festivals which are:

Joshi (spring),Phool(Autumn) and Chowas(Mid December).The Joshi is the most amazing spectacle

celeberated under the full moon in Spring.The

Kalash life is full of song ,dance, music and

hard work.

They probably are the original ``flower children``,

who have however,lost their innocence thanks to

globalization of the World and now perform in front of tourist for money.

There are quite a few sites on the Kalash or

Kalasha Tribe,if you want further info. about them.

Regards

fairdinkum #389

bahut acche and very interesting. Actually makes me feel a bit homesick. At the temple festivals I`ve observed, `village` folk got the occasion to watch folk and classical dance with religious storylines as well as Dostoevksy plays in translation!! Its sometimes very hard to comprehend the complexities of life on the subcontinent :-).

Talking of Dussehra, yesterday there was a `Ravan jalaana` here with a Ravana imported from India(from the export list: Highly inflammable Hindu bad guy effigy :-)). As I was telling a friend, fireengines and cops preside, and we have to stand so far away we have to take the triumph of good over evil on trust. So we go back the next year to verify :-).

Hm, written Hindi looking like snakes, good description. Look at it this way, its snakes have lids on them, unlike the free-roaming ones in Urdu :-). I knew North Indians visiting us down south used to call South Indian scripts `jalebi` scripts. Malayalam from Kerala has a particularly jalebi look :-).

Sadhana

sadna #388

No, never been to Bosnia……but worked as a volunteer with Bosnian/Kosava refugees…

Rural India ka joo zikr kiya tu nay ham nasheeN Aik teer mayray seenay main mara keh haai haai

ok, when opportunity comes up, I will write about it… about the warmth and hospitability extended to me as a mehmaan….. about attending the dasehra festival….and literally pushed to sit in the front row to watch ram ji ki lila (stage show).. …about the lavish dinner our neighbors treated us to which they probably could not afford…..about some elderly Hindu men, who knew how to read and write Urdu...btw, written Hindi seems like lots of snaked lying together to me :)....people always giggled when i asked them about what was written on the wall or what was the number of this bus.....about smoking beedi and chewing baba 120 tobaco paan….about riding on bullock cart….about having a shave a facial and head message for 10 rupees(tip included)…. about how women, who didn’t even know me, cried when I was leaving… this was chand pur…..a very small town in bijnor… will never forget it…...then there was this place near Lukhnow.....can`t remember the name now....i was going to tell you a very interesting story about that place...but its rather long...so next time...remind me...

Passport par place of birth hai… aur Pakistan ka visa bhi…well, I am an optimist :)

fairdinkum #386
Liked your description of your Indian travels. Did you find rural India different in many ways from rural Pakistan? Do write more about it when the opportunity comes up(and I seem to remember mention of Bosnia,too :-)).
Come to think of it, maybe its something in your passport which gives you away :-)(just joking). Well, maybe the world will be a friendlier more trustful place in three months time(:-().
Sadhana

krashid #380:

``Satyavadi #375

Shame on you.

You are selling your conscience without paycheck.``

Main ro-uN ya has-uN karooN maiN kya karooN.

Sadhana,

accha…
CPM would be the communist party? Thanks for the url.. i read the report at rediff.. what internal security threats are they talking about? ISI infiltration? Is that why they didn’t give me the visa? :) Just kidding!

I have been to India you know… loved it….. especially rural India…and dehra doon valley and masori was good too…and agra was majical….. in delhi, I was staying in a hotel in the middle of the city…I had the window open while I was sleeping…and you know what….in the morning a monkey came in through the window…I could not believe it…ran downstairs to report at the reception…….and they looked at me strangely and then giggled….saab koi baat nahi aisay hoota hai … :) …. got lost in the market near Jamma masjid and had to pay the rikshaw man to get me out :)…. traveled from Dehli to Bijnor by bus… we were traveling to a small village near Bijnor… missed the connecting bus at bijnor…..a truck driver gave us lift to that village for ten rupees :) good service eh? :) in bombay, I got ripped off at the central station :) ….. bombay was good fun though…stayed at Johu beach….long way from the city…it all seems like a dream now… I was really looking forward to going again.. damn that visa officer…..:( I will try again in three months time…

fairdinkum #387
http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/oct/12tara.htm

fairdinkum, obviously, the topic of RSS merits a more detailed discussion, but in my opinion
a. seen solely from the grassroots level, in my assessement the original RSS was a totally different animal from the unattractive dimension it has taken on today.

b. I grew up in a region where RSS didnot seem to be a potent force in electoral politics and `Hindutva` was not even a known word, but low-level cadres of RSS and CPM such as shopkeepers and daily wagers used to keep killing each other in retaliation sprees, esp when CPM was in power. I never quite understood it, anyone? There exists a similar situation in WBengal, I`m thinking. The use of violence at the lowest level of politics is totally unacceptable, if the top level leaders even apolitical also use language which however high-faluting translates to eye-for-eye in the street, well, thats just not acceptable.

If I`m not mistaken, RSS has only recently appointed a media spokesman to explain its point of view to the public. Well, if finally they are wholeheartedly into politics, then they will be held accountable for their viewpoints and actions.

Sadhana

sadna, your comments..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_970000/970321.stm

to krashid # 381

it is easy to laugh anything off.. but difficult to face it..

you are dragging me to the same argument which is going on ever and forever in chowk...

all what i said was that the stastics which u and your compatriots regularly use about 700000 lakh indian soldiers suppressing kashmir is not true.. i guess u lost the centrality of my argument and started pointing out one statement which is very peripheral.. we will come to that later...

do you really think all the 7 lakh soldiers are involved in counter insurgency movement??.. wake up man, even u cannot be that foolish , however blind u are..

we have to gaurd siachen, the entire Line of Control, the line of control to the east ( in leh) and some reserve units,

now how much will be left out of that 7 lakh to counter the isurgency movement or to ``suppress`` kashmiris is very easy to conclude....

all what i am pointing out is that the 7 lakh figure u use very often is wrong.. u got it? U GOT IT?

that was the main point o.k.? now if u still insist on the 7 lakh figure , so be it... no one except pakistan believes it...

now coming to the issue about which u pointed out my `` novice `` ness...

do you think the entire afghanistani movement is only about soviet union and afganistan mujahideen.. do you really think the afghanistan people could deter russians on their own...

u laugh at me.. i cant even do that.. i pity you ... the same is the case with kashmir or most of the other militant movements o.k.?

````````````If you think India is more super power and its soldiers very brave. And their moral high (with daily desertion in hundreds), I think you should reasses your thoughts on independence movement.``````````````

and when did i talk about india being more superpower and its soldiers being very brave...? if u want to say something about desertions in indian army about which i am hearing for the first time ( ofcourse that doesnt mean that it is not true..) , please dont use me as a ruse....

to end this , i agree that sometimes even 7 lakh soldiers will not be able to suppress the will of a community.. but that is only a peripheral statement o.k.? now dont hang on to it...

cheers,

jntuece99

Jay #371:

Thank you. Your `I AM Jay` caught my eye sometime back. :-)

jeunteuce#

Your remarks that if Kashmir movement could survive for 10 years with 700,000 army personnel.

I can only laugh at your novice.

In Vietnem, on one side was the superpower of world and on other side people. Do you know how prolonged is their struggle of independence. If not let me know.

In Afghanistan, on one side was the superpower of world and on other side Mujahideen. Probably you are aware that it has been an important contributor to downfall in Russian Economy and its breakdown. If you don`t let me know.

If you think India is more super power and its soldiers very brave. And their moral high (with daily desertion in hundreds), I think you should reasses your thoughts on independence movement.

Satyavadi #375

Shame on you.

You are selling your conscience without paycheck.

The ‘Other’ as outsider

Shereen Ratnagar

Let us return to the ``glory-continuity-roots`` paradigm mentioned in the first part of this article (Aryan-Harappan myth, October 11). Archaeologists agree that the Harappan script went out of use; that instead of the shallow street drains of Mohenjodaro, the towns of UP and Bihar in the time of the Buddha had more efficient sewage in the form of vertical ring ``wells`` and jars; that the network of land routes and sea trade serving the Harappan region terminated with the civilisation and new routes fell in place.

Even so, some suggest that Harappan traditions of bead-making still survive in the town of Khambhat. This, even though the modern industry utilises wage labour, iron pikes, diamond drills, and other elements absent in the bronze age, and even though no post-Harappan groups made the very long and thin red carnelian beads in which the Harappan beadmaker excelled. (The beads of later cultures were much smaller in size.)

Again, is it not hard to accept that the modern Sindhi ox-cart is a survival from Harappan times, if this kind of ox-cart is not continuously attested through all the centuries between these two periods? Tradition is not something that alternately freezes and thaws. Perhaps in a certain environment, modern cart-makers used similar raw materials and faced similar kinds of technological constraints as did the Harappans.

Much that has been said about proto-Hindu deities and practices in Harappan religion, too, originates with John Marshall, who, in the Twenties and Thirties, had no frame of reference other than ‘Hinduism’ in which to comprehend this newly discovered culture; in any case he did not give due attention to the work of Bhandarkar and misunderstood the character of certain Vedic deities. Yet, for decades scholars — and certainly this does not include ‘fascists’ alone — have uncritically followed his ideas on religious survivals from Harappan times.

There were abandonments of several Harappan villages, and of all the major cities, around 1800 BC, and it is of interest that, unlike the ancient Gangetic towns, the great Harappan cities never attracted settlement thereafter. Large-scale migration and resettlement points to the break-up/schism/fission and consequent re-forming of communities. This and the decline of State organisation would explain at least partly why the craft and writing traditions did not endure.

We are predisposed to the ‘continuity-roots’ idea because there is an old intellectual tradition that opposed the traditional and spiritual East steeped in religion, on the one hand, to the dynamic, technological, and rational West on the other. This is a European thought in origin, to which Indian academia has also been prone. Moreover, ‘it has always been so’ becomes a defence of hooliganism during the Ganapati immersion. This brings us to the crux of the issue.

Fundamentalism, whatever its colour, seeks continuities with a text or stage of development of a religion that is perceived to be the original stage. (In the case of the fundamentalist State of Pakistan, of course, it was essential to say that the great civilisation of Mohenjo-daro came to an end because the people had worshipped false gods.)

Movements that target groups within society as enemies require unquestioning allegiance. If the roots of the practice of Sati, or of caste divisions, lie in the remotest past, it is not easy to challenge them — and they become an aspect of being Indian. If Hinduism has been practised in this land since ‘time immemorial’, the ground is prepared to present the Muslim as the ‘Other’ outsider. The trend of singling out periods of the past for public attention, then, can in one sense be explained as Hindutva’s need for its ‘givens’, its unquestionable truths.

A very dangerous set of ideas follows from this kind of thinking, which is to ascribe actions, values, or beliefs, when convenient, to ‘Indianness’. We say that there is corruption not because we know we can get away with it, but because we are Indian. It is claimed that certain kinds of behaviour are ‘in the blood’ of Brahmins, others ‘in the genes’ of lower caste people.

Such thinking may well be fuelled by recent trends in which the study in America of Harappan and post-Harappan skulls and skeletons is being uncritically linked with questions of language (Aryans, for sure!) and even notions of identity. At Independence, we rejected the barbaric British notion that people of the ‘criminal tribes’ were born criminal — are we now veering back to such thinking?

It is essential to teach students of archaeology the social sciences of anthropology, history, and sociology, so that they can be equipped to study cultures other than their own, and cease to refer all their discoveries forward to the present.

But it is also reassuring that continuous vocal opposition over the last few years has not fallen on deaf ears. The new Harappan gallery in the National Museum has been set up with professional skill and displays little saffron garbage even if some Sacred Truths about continuity of religious practices still linger.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/121000/detOPI02.asp

To Satyavadi # 378

Hi, nice to see you again.. well, coming to the pay packet, scores of policemen, doctors, teachers, etc. etc. are ready to join u in ur migration to the other side...

ISI will get the distinction of becoming the biggest employer... another feather in its pack, biggest drug peddler, biggest destabiliser, biggest supporter of insurgency movements, etc.

what say? :-)

but dont ask me to join you.. i am very satisfied with the money i am going to make....

anyway see u in other threads..

luv,

jntuece99

Re: shankar

Yes, no one in their right mind in India would want some mohajirs coming back. Can you imagine having a Musharraf and krashid in India? We have Laloo and he`s problem enough.

Justnec or whatever your name is

This is the reason Why I begin to think that Indians are inhuman... I swore to Allah and you didnt believe me ... I challenge anyone on this forum to find me one textbook from Pakistan which said what it said...

How many of you actually read that article... could it be that it was written in a jest???? Maybe???

I didnot quote any WOlpert or Gandhian on this issue ... I told you that ``IT IS A FACT THAT THERE EXISTS NO SUCH TEXTBOOK IN PAKISTAN WHICH HAS K FOR KAFIR OR Z FOR ZALIM WITH A SIKH``

Show me the article on Dawn... and the article must have been written sarcastically if any such article exists ... why cant Indians distinguish between sarcasm and truth?????

That was a pathetic attempt .. your logic didnt even make sense.. it is almost that you are trying to start a conflict.

Jnteuece #372:

Hey there, welcome back.

I havent gotten my check from `the agency` for September. I am thinking of jumping to the one on the other side of the fence. Lets see :)

Satyavadi

Nine houses torched in Dalbandin

By Muhammad Ejaz Khan

QUETTA: A Hindu temple and few houses of the Hindu community came under attack at Dalbandin, 340 kilometres from the provincial metropolis, on Wednesday when an infuriated crowd protested against the alleged desecration of a religious textbook, said official sources.

The sources said Frontier Corps has been called in at Dalbandin to control the situation. The law and order situation in Dalbandin is under control now, officials claimed. Independent sources said a Hindu temple and at least nine houses of the community at a Hindu of Muhalla of Dalbandin were torched by over 5,000 enraged people when they came to know that four Hindus had distributed ``Parshad`` (sweet) in the pages of a religious textbook of class seventh.

The sources said the mob carrying batons and kerosene oil attacked the temple and the houses of the Hindu community. They sprinkled kerosene oil and torched the temple and the houses. However, no loss of life was reported.

Balochistan Home secretary Maj (retd) Shaharyar Khan Mahsud confirmed the incident to The News and said the FC has been deployed in Dalbandin to control the situation. The religious scholars of the area had played an effective role in de-escalating the tension in the area, Shaharyar said. The Dalbandin police told this correspondent that they had arrested four Hindus - Shaval Das, Chando Mal, Anand Lal and Sardar Dev Singh. The police said when the enraged persons attacked the temple some 16 cops of the police and Levies were performing their duties in the Hindu Muhalla. The police resorted to tear-gas shelling and aerial firing to disperse them but in vain, they said.

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2000-daily/12-10-2000/main/main13.htm

To mohajir, # 367,

Your post represents your biased views about pakistan, and your habit of reading all unimportant news from there. Have you ever been to pakistan, I invite you to come to pakistan, i can take you all over pakistan as I have done to my friend, and you will know that no temples are burnt in pakistan. It is in india that babri masjid is burnt.

If I sound like a typical pakistani, then it is intentional.

krashid Reply # 364

Mohajir Reply # 367

Rashid ji, if you read Mohajir`s reply that itself will explain my defence but I want to tell you a couplet of Sant Kabir ( Have you heard about him and his religious synthesis? ). This couplet applies to most of us (Bilal Ahmad, I exclude because he has reached a higher plane).

It goes like this:-

`Bura jo dekhan main chala bura na milyo koye

Jo mann dekho aapna to mujhse bura na koye`.

I hope you won`t have any problem in understanding this. Otherwise, I will be at your service to explain.

You may not agree but it is true that this kind of philosophy can thrive only in a pluralistic country like India or what you call gutter. So, `Mera Bharat` still remains `Mahhan`

Wish you all the best!

To sb # 339,

J.Krishnamoorthy

Sorry for the delay, my airline is being taken over by another, a sport has to get second priority. It was a couple of decades ago that I read anything by J. Krishnamoorthy, but essentially he maintains that all the books, religions and other ideas corrupt the man/woman and truth and wisdom come only when one is rid of all the ideas from the books, religions, you name it. It is the direct observation and the direct intutive bestowal of knowledge that is the ultimate source of all knowledge.

Once up on a time, in bangalore we attended J. Krishnamoorthys lecture and asked him the question, `` if one has to get rid of all external sources of ideas, why are you spreading this idea, is it not a bias?`. He responded, ``I dont care whether you accept my ideas or not, to me speaking is my prediliction, it is what comes to me naturally, it is my nature, like the charecteristic of anything. I never write any books, it is others who are printing my speaches. So I can say, dont listen to any guru, including myself.`` . I just remebered it after a post to skip the posts.

So in conclusion, read any of his books, thay all talk of not to be influenced by any gurus and keep his above response in mind.

regards

jay.

To chowk staff, # 342

RELEVANCE,

On chowk there are only two types of articles/posts, ` indo-pak and non indo-pak. If you have cared to analyse the responses, you would notice that only the ones with an indo-pak content get the gurnsey. what is there to debate about a good poem. it is good, so what, so was geetangali. It is the indo=pak dimension that gives chowk its vitality, that is what creates and sustains the dialogue, if you choose call it fights, on the chowk.

At any time the diversity of the indo-pak dimension requires three threads devoted to it, and if the chowk staff havnt provided, the chowk wallahs make it. The ultimate test for relevance is the interactions. If you care check the responses to recent article, ``why dot.coms will fail``. It hit nearly 100 responses, only a couple related to the dot.com stuff, the rest were about one jay, accusing a temporal, a pakistani of plagiarism, and the follow on from it. That is indo-pak reality.

If chowk were ever to get a place under the sun, it will not be because of the structured interacts that it facilitated but because of the free flow of opinions and biases that it encouraged.

If one cares to think of the chowk myths, like the k for kafir, the two percent extremists of pakistan and the TNT folklore, the cudos have to go to the imaginative, the iconoclasts and not the pedantic, the spell checkers, the reactive and the what the chowk staff want to have, the stuctured logical school teachers.

Chowk should look for a place under the sun, not follow the book, what ever that might be.

just an after thought , why is that YLH who is so fond of quoting from various books protest against what is written in DAWN or something else.? why cant he extend his argument that all what is written in DAWN which is a pakistani newspaper is not right to the books written by some stanley or some obscure gandhian whom no one had ever heard about ?

and after listening to the often repeated 700000 indian soldiers going on a rampage in kashmir, i had some sleep less nights visualising the 7 lakh soldiers daily zeroing on kashmir, raping, plundering the people? :-)

have u heard of a term called barracks? do you even have a remote knowledge of indian geography and hte fact that kashmir is the most vulnerable point for india bcos of both china and pakistan in its vicinity?

this 700000 figure is a very good one to rant about and to use it in rhetoric , but if u give it a second thought u will find out that it is not

completely true.. and do you think the kashmir seperatist movement would have survived till now if all the 7 lakh soldiers are involved in counter insuregency movement?

wake up to blind rhetoric , my friends .....

Shankar

You are absolutely right... however Turks historically helped us generously against India ..

in the 1965 and the 1971 wars.

It is interesting how secular regimes like Shah and Koruturk were helping us and yet... fundoos in charge in Iran now... and that thug Bulent Ecevet,

once the enemy of Turkey`s secularism are now kissing up to India ...

Urstruly

Turks and Pakistanis have ties that no Government on either side and can break off. Only irresposible fundoos like Qazi or thug prime ministers like Ecevet can undermine them but not for long....

Also, you mentioned Ms Sarwari... the girl is an absolute fireball of Passion for Pakistan. She had contacted me two months ago in Lahore because she wanted to distribute the latest in Networking Lecture tapes in Pakistan. I decided to be a good Pakistani and help her out at the Lahore end. That day all day she worked tirelessly going from LUMS to FAST to Informatics ... I have never ever seen

a more dedicated Pakistani. Seriously the way she commands my respect, no one else does on Chowk.

Yasser Hamdani

Muslim protesters set ablaze buildings belonging to Hindus in a Pakistani town on Wednesday, after a Hindu woman gave away sweetmeats wrapped in paper bearing Islamic verses, police said in Quetta.

They said the protesters, complaining of alleged desecration of the verses from the Koran, set fire to a Hindu temple, three houses and a shop at Dalbandin, in the south-western province of Baluchistan, of which Quetta is the capital.

Local authorities called in the paramilitary Frontier Corps to control the violence, government officials said.

They said the incident erupted after the illiterate Hindu housewife had used pages torn from a school textbook, one of which had Koranic verses, as wrappings.

Some members of the Muslim community held a protest against what they called desecration of the Koranic verses and incited people to attack Hindu properties, the officials said.

They said the situation was brought under control and four people were arrested for the violence.

ylh #357: ``A look on the other board will show you how people like SB are currently making a God out of Gandhi ... typical wont you say?``

Are you refering to this - `Maybe your repeated invocations of Gandhi`s name and actions(as interpreted by you) are to that end? And to save much back and forth later on, let me remind you that you conferred the sainthood on him, equating him to Jesus and Buddha on this site (if only to not compare him with your version of Jinnah), far as I remember none of the Indians did.`?

The Indian govt has no business talking to the MQM. They are a bunch of thugs who have ruined a cosmopolitan city like Karachi. Their parents chose Pakistan for the better or for the worse. They are not representative of the majority of mojharis. Just because that idiot Altaf Hussein says partition was a mistake doesnt mean he`s right.

Most Indians & Pakistanis atleast agree on one thing. India & Pakistan are two separate, distinct countries. In the past 53 years, each country has formed a distinct culture & identity. In fact, let me argue that the cultural & political differences between India & Pakistan are greater than, say the US & Canada.

The next thing the MQM might advocate is reunification or a repatriation of mojharis to India. Nobody in their right minds wants that.

Humsab #360

I really appreciate your humanity.

And the cold blooded murder going on in Kashmir in many names.

There is no parallel between MQM and Kashmiris. MQM was not fighting for their rights for self-determination. Kashmiris are fighting for their right of self-determination.

If you are so convinced about those THUGS CALLED MILITANTS, have a plebiscite in valley to find out the desire of Kashmiri people, whether they are with thugs or PIOUS people.

ylh,

{{ Indians can try but they will never ever have true Turkish loyalty that we enjoy .... Maybe you should try and talk to some Turks .. they will set you straight.... Almost all Turks I know are extremely cordial towards Pakistan and pro Pakistan on Kashmir.}}

Whooptido!!

Whats the big fuss about the Turks? The above is true about most Muslim nations. Push comes to shove they will always side with Pakistan over India. Fat lot of good its done for Pakistan. None of these nations have done more than make polite noises & grunts about Kashmir. You get ``resolutions`` passed about Kashmir at every OIC summit. You might as well use them as toilet paper. Thats about as much impact they have made.

Besides, most of these countries, Pakistan included, have similar human rights skeletons in their closet. So, none of them can talk from a moral pedestal. Of course , most muslim countries absolutely love portraying themselves as innocent victims of Wesern imperial/ zionist/ hindu/ communist oppression--take your pick. Like they are the most humane & civilised societies--give me a break. No Turkish leader has lectured India about Kashmir. We can turn around & tell them what they have done to the Kurds & Armenians.

I`ve come across several Turks in the US. They all have a keen business sense & have become very wealthy in the US. Maybe they like Pakistan (I`ll take your word for it), but that doesnt automatically mean they despise India. They get along very well with us. I have, though ,personally seen them laugh among themselves when they see SAsian muslims leave a party & hurry to the mosque at sunset. I`m not saying this is good or bad, of all muslims Turks seem to be the least religious. I`ll say this--they uniformly dislike Greeks. I cant figure out why, but then I guess they cant figure out why Indians & Pakistanis dislike each other.

Kant Patel 350:

I understand perfectly your concerns.

It would do us well if we rise beyond dogma and indoctrination. Since I loathe shouting pissing matches, I am afraid I cannot elaborate anymore. You will have to read between lines. Here is what I wrote in another interact today.

“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

sarwari #352

It would have been good had you chosen to respond to my reply #47 to you.

Please donot bother if its too inconvenient.

Krashid: # * * * : All boards

Some one some time back was missing Farangikush. You seem to have decided to substitute for that genius.

Your laments are getting increasingly illogical and hate-filled. Take a different track. You have even ceased to irritate. Time for relection.

Satyavadi

krashid

Reply # 355

Thanks for your response. I thought you were ignoring it.

But why have you talked only about MQM and not other movements I mentioned in my earlier response. I believe your statement that you are not Army`s supporter shows that those actions were reprehensible.

Please give me an opportunity to remove your blinkers and tell you that militants in J&k are indulging in same activities as you narrated for MQM. All such movements ultimately reach this depth. After the intial idealist stand which does not survive for long, all the goonda elements get a recruiting ground and then make the movement free for all which enriches a few people and kill many. It is a reported fact that except Yaseen Malik, all others have looted people and have built mansions for themselves.

As for your reported savagery comment, I will only say that militants just need to be killed in as cold-blooded manner as they do with people. Absolutely no mercy on this account. language of love is alien to them and those who are still fresh and wanmt to start a new life find it difficult to retrace their steps back because of reaction from other militants.

RE: YLH #349

Yasser!
You are absolutely right about the feelings of Turks for Pakistan. The first Turk that I met in my life was in US and I was astonished by his warmth and good feelings towards Pak and Pakistanis.

One day I was changing oil in my car on my drive way when a shiney Mercedes stopped by. The well dressed man in the car was looking for an address. After I told him the address he asked me whether I was an Indian or Pakistani. When I told him that I was a Paki, he sprung out of his car and hugged me. He didnt care about his Armani suite or my oil stained clothes and hands. We spoke for about half an hour. The first thing he expressed was his gratitude for the Indian Muslims and Pakis for what their ancestors did for Turkey during Khilafat Movement. He also spoke passionately about Ali Brethern.

It wasnt an isolated instance. After that whenever I meet a Turk I get the same warm, hospitable treatment from each and everyone of them. I found them more passionate about Pakistan than the Pakistanis.

RE: Sarwari

Dear Aisha!

I finally remembered today that you are they same person who wrote ``Fighting in Peace``-what a great writing that was. Though you dont interact much but I am a great admirer of your passion for Pakistan. Please do write for Chowk, and as soon as possible; we desperately need some optimistic writers here. I am so sick and tired of the ranting of these morally bankrupt Commie-turned-liberals whose non-stop cacophony is now getting on my nerves.

Aisha

Well said... :)

A look on the other board will show you how people like SB are currently making a God out of Gandhi ... typical wont you say?

At least Mr Gandhi had more sense than accepting such show of flattery in his lifetime

Sarwari #352

Jabb Kisi Se Gila Rakhna

Samne Apne Aina Rakhna.

Who is the poet. (Good verse without poet`s name is injustice to poet)

Humsab #397

First I am not a supporter of Army or MQM. Second your assertion does not change the facts about India or does it?. Third, since I am from Karachi, I can tell you about operation against MQM. Fourth the operation was done in so called democratic Government of Nawaz Sharif. I think it was a blessing in disguise for all of us. Karachi has been made hostage by MQM. Nobody dare speak anything other than MQM line. People have been killed and harrased, and extortion of money was common and nobody would speak. This mafia network was broken by army operation. Total number of deaths during MQM rule runs in 10,000 where mostly it was first ethnic violence between Mohajir and Sindhi, Punjabi, Pathan and later between rival factions of MQM. The total number of extrajudicial killing and overall killing by security forces (although not justified by me) is less than 500 and involve most notoriuos criminals.

Karachi is slowly regaining its cosmopolitan character. And my family there is very happy with change.

Kant Patel #350

In your response to Temporal, you said that irrelevant portions should be taken out of Koran.

It is not as simple as that.

Although HamidM may be right in posting against the bigotry done in the name of religion, but he is wrong because he is posting these Ayah out of context.

Non- Muslims work and have worked in Islamic countries including Iran, Arab countries, etc. How many of them have been forcibly converted or have been killed because they were not Muslims.

Still Shariah is practiced in most of them.

Also in history Islamic rule has been very pragmatic, even with religion. While all the western culture has to be anti-religious to be pragmatic.

The current trend in Islamic world of Jihad and Jihadist can more appropriately be seen as an assertion of Nationalism in the guise of religion as it has been with communism, which was Nationalism in the guise of Communism.

Kant Patel:

Firstly, my apologies for jarring anyone`s sensibilities with my use of words. Totally unwaranted.

Secondly, a disclaimer: I am not advocating obscurantism.

Finally, while blood transfusion, organ replacements, etc., are related to saving life or delaying death, gene therapy will be geared towards influencing the characteristics of the yet to be born. The US govt has not allowed research in this area for a long time because of the powerful implications of such work(the private firms however carried on their work, and now the govt scientists are making these orgs a case to press for govt`s go-ahead for their own research). So did some Euro govts. It is accepted in the medical world today that we have capability to create `intelligence`. I am not saying we should walk away from our labs and research, but some fields of research should be debated on a larger scale and perhaps stalled till a later date. Like you said, I think it has to be monitored and chanelled (who monitors and channels it - the people who made the atomic bomb and used it when the war was almost over? Is there place in this monitoring for other people, who missed out on Industrial Rev and are barely trying to catch up with IT rev? And what about the countries whose people still starve despite there being no dearth of food for everyone on the planet?). A link - http://www.frenchanderson.org/ethics/ethics.html

Assalmlaikum.

Well said Krashid and nelaasamunder!(Reply #: 340 and :341 )

``Jub kisi say koi gilla rakhna

Saamney apney aainaa rakhna``

--Learn a thing or two from your side of the world(Jagjit Singh`s ghazal)

I was once thinking of writing a book when I retire called, ``India and secularisim: A thousand ways supernumbered nations disguise their bad smell`` Then I thought again and decided, by that time India will still be braging about something it has not and it will become a ghissi pitti story... I would rather write about the progress Pakistan has made. (inshallah)

wassalam

-Aisha

Correction to #350,

LIFO (Last..... s/b LIFO ( Last In First Out).

Sorry folks,

Kant......

sb #325,



The ecology was `screwed`, and evolution started to `mess` up, when Adam was offered the celebrated apple :-); with emphasis on your word``screwed``!:-).

No,really, the lesson is that little act started an evolutionary change, a process (change) with no end. Rather than throw this process out of the bathtub, one needs to get a handle on it, and veer it into the positives rather than negatives. Otherwise, as someone already suggested, we would be devoid of trnasfussion, heart by-pass, organ replacements, etc. Yes, we need more of these `messing` up, not less, albeit with due monitoring and channelling to avoid the pitfalls.

slink #323



May be from your old posts (mistakenly, perhaps!), I got the impression that you are a Christian. I am terribly sorry , if I am mistaken. Anyway, I realize now, the comment was not appropriate or pertinent, though no sujective thought regarding your intentions was intended. Again, please allow me to retract, and apologise for my slip.

Kant......

temporal, #315

Please treat my response on rational, or shall I say humanistic!, grounds rather than in X religion vs. Y religion bashing terms. Thanks!!

I would somewhat agree with hamid`s response to your post, and would like to expand it a little further. IMHO, your argument reminds me of the cliche: chicken-and-egg argument. As a matter of fact your argument, if I may, in itself represents a cliche many times repeated on this humble site.

Now, are we going to hide, ever since the birth of the religions, behind ``it is not the religion, it is the followers`` (a generic quote, BTW). So my question is Is religion someting abstract entity? And, if so, can it exist in a sort of vaccum, i.e., without humans (the followers)? Alright, let us accept your contention, FTSOA, that religion is either pious, or, impartial, (my interpretation of yours and generally-held view), and, therefore, not subject to the human follies of bigotry, discriminations, etc. hamid refers to certain quranic injunctions in his response. Bearing in mind that the Book is a result of the divine revealations, and, also, that these very revealations (as depicted in the Book) created the Religion, can you still say that either the revealation is not what it implies, or, that we humans fail to understand the God`s language. temporal, have you ever wondered why the apologists always refer to one ayya or line to refute another line from the same source! In accounting, there are two methods for depreciation, namely, FIFO (First In First Out) & LIFO (Last In Last Out). Which method should be applied. Surely, not both! You know if those lines are not supposed to mean what they literally say, why not delete them instead of passing on qualifiers after qualifiers for centuries, nay?. No follower(intellectual or otherwise)thus far has had the guts to say so. Why? Because, that is the RELIGION. One more thing, The Pope is taken by the followers of Catholicism as the interpreter and custodian of that religion. What he says BECOMES an intricate part of the religion. He has told his clergy, specifically in Asia, to tell the non-believers that the religion they are following will not lead to salvation (i.e., read as, will lead to HELL instead),only following his R will though. Ok, so that is his and all his followers belief but not the religion`s. What comforting thought!

Again, without those believers religion is not worth the scriptures it is professed on, or in(?).

So, religion is afterall a relative thing , not abstract.

A disclaimer: the argument re. Book and Islam, IMO, equally applies to all (Semite, Hindu, and others not mentioned here). It applies to RELIGION. You cannot make somebody give up his R and accept your without bashing and degrading his R. Makes sense!!!

Kant......

Rsaxena,

Please read my post again... I believe you have the answer to your question which you have repeated a 1000 times.

Turkey has always taken a pro right of self determination stance for Kashmir.

If you are not going to answer the following questions please refrain from wasting my time.

1)Did you know that Turkey supported Pakistan in the 1965 and 1971 wars?

2)Did you know that Pakistan and Turkey were part of the RCD?

3)Did you know that the Turks call Jinnah ..

Jinnah pasha?

4)Did you know that a major avenue in Ankara, I believe that the Indian Embassy is on that avenue, is called Jinnah Cadevesi?

5)Did you know that Bulen Ecevet the Prime Minister of Turkey right now was in jail for being the enemy of secularism in 1980????????

Yasser Hamdani

PS Indians can try but they will never ever have true Turkish loyalty that we enjoy .... Maybe you should try and talk to some Turks .. they will set you straight.... Almost all Turks I know are extremely cordial towards Pakistan and pro Pakistan on Kashmir.

Shandana,

A very moving article indeed - but then Muslims in India get ostrasized too - so where do we start and where do we finish this argument....

... Maybe one day - somewhere in time we humans might just be able to discover this secret and then live in harmony.

krashid

Your response # 340

I am impressed with your concern for Indians in Kashmir and savagery etc.

What will you say about what Pakistan Army/ Govt. did in Balauchistan in 70s, Sindh in 80s and MQM in 90s and all along for last 50 years in Northern Areas where your current CEO made a record of achievments in killing, oppression and exploitation?

RE: Slink

I think you need a vacation-trust me there is nothing wrong with it.

neelasamundar,

to answer your questions..no i have never been to India. i do have family there though. what happened at the Babri Mosque was inexcusable, and what happened in the aftermath in Pakistan was also inexcusable. two wrongs dont make a right.
what do i have to say about Kashmir? i dont think you want to hear what i have to say about Kashmir so i`ll just echo your own thoughts..ganday mailay hindu kuttay..right? my article was not about indians in karachi, my article was about pakistani hindus. i will take into serious consideration your suggestion to highlight the many human rights abuses in India.

shandana

RSaxena#337

It is simply a matter of perspective.

If Indian economy has suddenly become from worse to bad, how are the majority of Indian faring and have been.

If the economy of Pakistan has taken a turn from bad to worse, how are the people of Pakistan faring.

In 1971 I agree with you.

And your remarks on Kashmiris, I am waiting for history to give its verdict. How do you think about 1000 years of slavery. Was it God`s wrath for something like Kashmir committed in past against its own people. Do you think it was a ``Be Awaaz Lathi of God`` which you have failed to realize. (That is why it is called Be Awaaz)

RSaxena#337

It is simply a matter of perspective.

If Indian economy has suddenly become from worse to bad, how are the majority of Indian faring and have been.

If the economy of Pakistan has taken a turn from bad to worse, how are the people of Pakistan faring.

In 1971 I agree with you.

And your remarks on Kashmiris, I am waiting for history to give its verdict. How do you think about 1000 years of slavery. Was it God`s wrath for something like Kashmir committed in past against its own people. Do you think it was a ``Be Awaaz Lathi of God`` which you have failed to realize. (That is why it is called Be Awaaz)

A few InterActors! have been consistently using the InterAct! space to post messages that have no connection with either the article or the ongoing discussion. In the interest of other readers and writers please refrain from doing this as it diminishes the value of this valuable space. To announce and or voice opinions that are not related to the posted articles you should use the Speakers Corner and the Chowk Forum`s. From our end we will soon provide a service that can allow your to post your impromptu emotions and opinions.

Thank you.

well i just want to place couple of questions

i have been to india and i have seen muslims there in worst conditions

why incident of Baberi masjid took place ?

What else you would have expected as a reaction?

What do you have to say about what is happening in Kashmire?

may be i am getting a little bit off the track but still if you can feel so much about indians in Karachi u must have tosay somthing about mislims in india .

Jay the pathetic#

If I am Jihadist. Do whatever you can do?

Your 700,000 strong BRAVE Soldiers show what you can do? Only commit savagery. And the more you commit savagery in your country, the more your writings start blaming Pakistan. i.e second law of Indian politics. The savagery committed by India against its own people is directly proportional to its onslaught on its neighbours.

Why you want to hide atrocities of Indians done in their country in the name of Secularism and Democracy. At least our Jihadist are not Bigots. Your actions come in worst kind of atrocities committed on humanity. The dreaded face of India is more than evident and no amount of word mincing can change the fact that in India minorities, secessionist and lower caste are killed mercilessly with the connivance of police and army or state in large numbers on daily basis.

Mosques are demolished, churches burned, priests also burned and killed. At least be bold enough to accept that this is not democracy and secularism. If you think it is, then we are better off without that.

And when I say daily. It MEANS Daily. Give me any date, any date when it has not happened in India and I will give you the incidence. Do you have guts to tell another lie on this board Mr. pathetic.

Jay: A search at a local library for J Krishnamurthi`s books brought up 12 titles. Any suggestions for starters? Thanks!

Re: The Pimple & Turkey

hahahahahah. ``Jeevay Pakistan???``

Maybe that`s why Turkey has been pressuring India on Kashmir? Oh but wait, last time I checked they didn`t utter a word when the leader visited India. Stop your fits for a second realize that I never suggested anything about India and Turkey. There`s little for India to gain other than goodwill and another insult to beat Pakistan with.

And take your little PSA playgroup nonsense from Rutgers and keep it there. I`ve met and worked with many a Turk who could care less about what/where/who Pakistan is. Most of those fellows are a mellow, chilled out group looking for a good time. Not Quran-tied-to-chest-fatwa-announcing-and-Jihad-demanding Pakistanis.

Re: krashid

Is Pakistan`s broken economy, the bodies of dead terrorists (aka Pakistani mujahideen) lying all over Kashmir, and the circumcision of the country in 1971 also a reflection of God`s will?

RELIGION AND FOLLOWERS,

It has been repeated so many times that it is as true as k for kafir, that muslims are the problem and not islam. It has been said by pakistanis, from a country where islam is supreme, `sharia courts` ensure that pak legislations are in tune with teachings of islam. Judges on these courts are islamic scholars, not some one with temporal knowledge.

Read the blasphemy laws, read its dealings with the ahmadia, ask the question, what has the sheria courts done about it.

Read post # 312, its various responses, the usual islamic/muslim name calling, while I take take a humble bow. Rare indeed.

Satyavadi#

First you did not give the reference from Dawn for K for ``Kafir`` (chotiwala Kafir and not Kalash mind you).

Second don`t worry with God. HE has his own way of dealing things. You will not know or might not be knowing, and will not realize. The division in Indian society, epidemic of AIDS and very poor condition of most people might be just that. It is a matter of realization.

Pullu

Not only is that possible but that is what I have been advocating. On the other board I had asked people not to look at Jinnah vs Gandhi as a clash of good vs evil because that just isnt fair ... I asked them to look at Politics and at History from a historical perspective .. and this extends to all facets of the bilateral relations between

Pakistan and India ...

Unfortunately the Indians only replied with personal insults.

Anyway thanks for the compliments :)

Yasser Hamdani

Sadhana and others:

Mind if I join in?

I think the socio-ethical arguments surrounding the practice of eugenics boil down to a single question - whether we have the right to deprive someone of basic human rights - the right to life, the right to choose. Are we not violating a basic human right by deciding who shall have the right to live? Are we not robbing someone yet unborn the freedom of choice by deciding on their behalf to donate their body parts to save another person`s life? How fair is it to expect this of anyone?

I agree it is great to be able to save a life without risking another. And I can empathize with those who now have the choice to have a child without the risk of giving birth to someone with a serious genetic disorder (a traumatizing experience for both the parents and the child). It can be argued that by genetically screening the embryos first and selecting the healthiest one out of the lot, the other unhealthy ones can be spared the pain and suffering they would have to face were they to be born. But, again, are we right in assuming that the unhealthy contenders would not want to experience life because of what they might or might not have to face? Do we have the right to decide what quality of life a person might want to live? We haven`t even finished dealing with the issues surrounding euthanasia and the right to choose death and we`re already arguing over which unborn individual should and shouldn`t be given a chance to experience life.

Lubna

Satyavadi

As far as I recall.. the comment of `k for kafir` was made in a post here that was an excerpt from an Indian newspaper, quoting an Indian - presumably some political/military figure.

I`d be happy to be corrected, if ANYONE remembers the source (which may well have passed into Chowks own pop culture.. hey, Bogie never actually said `Play it again, Sam`, after all..).

Sorry for the typos in my previous post

Tibor#310, Patrick#317,sb#325

Its slightly hard to explain. IMO, traditionally humans think of themselves as justifications in themselves, part of the greater scheme of things, part of a continuity. Religion, culture, family ties ingrain this `identity`, even if its say, a heir to a property or a kingdom who knows that he was born for a `worldly material` reasons,too. This question of identity, as fairdinkum says, does have a nonzero effect on those who don`t know their antecedents.

I`m not sure its so easy to reconcile that one is alive only because one`s body parts were of use to another human being, the choice being made from among many `others` after being examined under a microscope? Maybe of we were all `off the assembly line` types, we could get used to it?

Frankly, I think society cannot afford to mainstream something which creates human beings with such an impersonal cost-benefit approach, social engineering almost like a paper-pushing percentage-computing bureacracy. And PM, you`re the one who brought up the word sacred and reminded me of this case :-).

There was the recent case of the Siamese twins, whose separation by surgery has been ordered by a British court, which would result in the death of one of them. While I personally believe that its better to save at least one child, the argument of the lawyer for the `surviving` one was disturbing, too. According to a NYT article, ``An Unjust Sacrifice``, By Robert A. Sirico, Spet 28 `00, www.nytimes.com,
`` But utilitarian rationality has overtaken their case. The lawyer appointed by the court to represent Jodie insisted that Mary`s was ``a futile life.`` That is a dangerous statement -- sending us down a slippery slope where lives can be measured for their supposed value and discarded if deemed not useful enough.``
(end quote)

The right language(according to me) would have been to say that both lives and souls were equally precious, but nature sometimes forces us to make a choice and if at least one can be saved and the alternative was that we lose both, then we should do everything we can.

Similar `futility) arguments(I cannot cite exact references) are apparently used often in other European countries to expedite the death of severely ill people, even when it is not clear whether the patient consents to such a end. In my personal experience, such an argument was used for a young cacer patient by his doctor, until another (SAsian) doctor pitched in and saved him in that instance, and the patient survived a few more months.
As this guy says
``That is a dangerous statement -- sending us down a slippery slope where lives can be measured for their supposed value and discarded if deemed not useful enough.``

Re: abortion which will inevitably come up :-): I am for a `woman`s right to choose` over her government`s right and IMO, this question becomes relevant only when the said government has a lot of money to spend on ideological choices. I am also for discouraging abortion as a `mainstreamed` choice available to all and sundry just for the heck of it. Is this stand contradictory? Maybe.

Sadhana