Hands Across The Border

Shammi:

If anybody wants to destroy their personal copy of anything, it is their business. If you went out, bought a Geeta, and burnt it, that would be your business. I may question your judgement but it is your freedom of expression. It is like flag burning, which is constitutionally protected in America. I believe in that freedom.

It only becomes a Nazi activity if the state burns any copy of a holy book or an individual burns your copy of it.

Re: Anamika

I would rather focus energies on getting the VHP under control:

``NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Hindu hard-liners in India burned a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, Monday as international outrage grew at the destruction by Afghanistan`s Taliban rulers of historic statues in the name of Islam.``

``As Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar defended his destruction order, a German minister compared the attack on the statues to the book-burning purges of the Nazis and an Afghan news agency said Japan had warned the drought and war-ravaged nation aid could be hit.``

I think that the Koran-burning falls in the same category of Nazi crimes, as the German minister indicated.

krashid:

But YOU are not Iranian. What do YOU think? I told you what I think.

Truth #316

If I was Iranian I would shake my head.

Meaning what?

#314 Shammi

Why don`t you provide the details of Indo-Burmese nexus first? You keep alluding to it and then claim that these are not published in newspapers.

You should know that the RAW agents on Chowk don`t necessarily cover all geographic areas so please educate us first.

There is undoubtedly a lot going in the Northeast with some secessionist movements linking up with the Burmese rebels wanting to carve out a separate state. In this context a collaboration between Indian and Burmese governments is natural. It so happens that the Burmese govt. is a repressive military govt. Is India propping up that govt? Is there any evidence that India did not and would not collaborate with civilian govts?

The details are important, otherwise you might as well say, everyone is equally guilty, so nobody has the higher ground. (As as aside, I happen to think that GOI`s conduct in the Northeast has been shameful).

As for Bamiyan, are you saying that since virtually every nation is guilty of destruction of someone else`s heritage, no one has the right to condemn what`s going on? Yours is a wishy-washy attitude that makes no distinction between mob action and institutionalized thuggery. If anything getting elected has moderated the BJP`s position. As far as I am aware, most Indians here also are ashamed of what happened in Ayodhya.

#299 ylh

Yasser, you little brat, resorting to personal abuse or begging to be let off because you are taking so many credits shows that you are not yet ready for the adult world. There must be some teenager sites out there that ought to interest you.

krashid:

The point I was trying to make was that a move by a group (BJP/RSS/certain Hindus) to try to have a temple ``reconstructed`` through the process of law and the respectful movement of an existent structure is not inherently wrong - idol destruction on the other hand is inherently wrong.

The Babri Masjid destruction was inherently wrong because it was illegal, violent and disrespectful. But I do not view the demand for temple ``reconstructions`` as inherently immoral although I would vote against it if I was a law maker on the basis of ``choddo kal ki baatein, kal ki baat purani, aao sab mil kar banaye ek nahin kahani, hum Hindustani, hum Hindustani``. Let bygones be bygones.

shammi #314
I like the way you brush off every salient difference as a `detail`. I`m sure where your information comes from, members of the repressive Burmese junta graduated from Indian schools and have close ties with influential Indians.

A spade is a spade. If you are against the Talibanization of Kashmir, you cannot put on blinkers about where the Taliban came from and the implication of the Taliban phenomenon for India.

Re the demolition of Babri Masjid, I view it in magnitude many times more serious than the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, because the destruction of the Masjid was a breach of trust with the many million Muslims of India. It put into serious doubt their security and their equal status in the Indian union and also put in doubt how much invested was the government and political machinery in safeguarding them.

However, efforts are being made to repair that breach and there is no change, in the Indian state`s fundamental underlying principle which is universally accepted that all Indians are equal and that each`s heritage and sensibilities have to be guarded equally.

The Taliban has been breaching the trust between themselves and their countrymen for years by driving them to desperation in many ways, one doesnot expect anything better from them. One article I once read talked of this old Afghan man with just a grandchild left alive weeping in the presence of the reporter because in his old age, he is unable to earn his living with dignity and is reduced to begging.

You may be interested to know from todays NYTimes, that Genghis Khan tried to destroy the Buddhas in
the 13th century and Aurangzeb gave orders to do so in the 17th century.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/world/04AFGH.html

The Taliban phenomemon(and some notable political movements in Pakistan), also trying to exert influence in Kashmir, show by their rhetoric and entrenchedness(and support to activities of armed groups) that those medievial times are being resurrected and the philosophy of refusal to respectfully coexist with other faiths and beliefs is being embraced as a virtue and a necessity.

This is not any excuse for the bigotted in India. It is worse for bigotted Indians or the BJP to use any excuses, they ought to know better than their Pakistani counterparts.

But it is as important to the preservation of peace and harmony at this juncture that the Masjid is not made an excuse for secular-minded Indians to put blinkers on and refuse to recognise the implications of what is happening in the neighbourhood. We have to be uniformly aware of everything.

Sadhana

Re: Sadna #312

The specifics between Indo-Burmese and Afghan-Pak official interactions will differ. The details of the interactions are just that -- details, and are not so important for the point that I was trying to make. The important point is that Burma is ostracized from the community of civilized nations, and so is Afghanistan. Yet, India is trying hard to win influence there (I know the spiel as to the why). So before one criticizes Pakistan for trying to win influence in Afghanistan, one must tend to one`s own inconsistencies first.

Regarding your comment that ``Indian intelligence and military is not providing resources...`` -- I don`t know your sources, but these things are not published in newspapers.

Regarding the Taleban -- they are as much a mob as the VHP/Bajrang Dal is in India. We should better focus on restraining our genies first. Besides, the construction of the Ram Mandir (read `destruction of mosque`) was an election plank for the BJP in national and state elections.

Truth #308

Thanks for accepting that descruction of Babri Mosque is deplorable for whatever reason.

And as I told Taleban are doing this as a diversion tactic to their people and is not justified.

Your equating of old temple destruction with current temple descruction is inherently wrong.

For example you cannot say that why stone age people did not travel in aeroplane. I think you understand the analogy. One cannot seperate the events from the socio economic stage of development. In old times pillage, destruction, burning of crops etc was norm during whether it was done by Muslims or Hindus or Christians. In those times if someone break the norm by being more humanistic was appreciated.

The current times is the time of self determination, human rights etc. In this time if someone tries to bypass that suffers the wrath of people. The recent example of Iraq will suffice. While imposition of sanctions by pseudo-UN/USA on Iraq is causing a grave suffering to Iraqi people, the Arab dictatorial regimes and people are taking a humanistic approach to the issue.

And don`t worry we will be blacklisted also in future history as people who would be spending billions and trillions of Dollars to accumulate and use weapons of mass destruction, instead of aleviating the suffering people.

Lets be clear about one or two important points here.

The destruction of the Buddhas in Afghanistan is NOT the unexpected destruction by an out-of-control hungry illiterate mob, the destruction was carried out by order of the national government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and with full deliberation. The Taliban government officials and the ulema council who made a decision about the destruction were not suffering from starvation and deprivation when they took this decision nor when they implemented it using rockets and mortar in the face of international appeals to better judgement over the course of the last few days.

Just because they are also starving their population, the Taliban donot deserve any consideration wrt the Buddhas. Their refusal to entertain any other opinion on the matter was also their own considered choice for which they hold total responsibility.

Secondly, the comparison between the Indian government interaction with the Burmese military junta and the Pakistani nexus with the Taliban regime.

Firstly, Indians are not involved in Burmese internal politics, nor are Burmese exerting influence within India`s borders. (Though some support may well exist for pro-democracy Burmese groups.)

Indian intelligence and military is not providing resources and support for any ongoing armed conflict within Burma waged against other Burmese.

Members of the Indian military and intelligence and other influential Indians are not involved in reaping profits from decades-old arms and drugs smuggling across the Indo-Burmese borders.

Burmese refugees donot live within Indian borders in their millions, obtaining education before returning to fight civil war in Burma.There is no centuries-old potentially destabilizing ethnic and religious cross-pollination across borders(fuelled by surplus oil-money or China just has a different way of doing things).

The Burmese military government is agreeing to cooperate in fighting smuggling and tackling cross border militancy, where and when have the Taliban ever agreed to do so (even extradiate wanted Pakistanis)to Pakistan`s similar requests?

The very clear aims of engaging the Burmese government is to obtain Indian objectives viz better trade routes for the Northeast and tackling militancy and smuggling, not to be hostage to repressive Burmese objectives.

Sadhana

shammi #305 one more thought before I get back to what I should be doing on the internet (searching colleges): I always feel it is a great pity that in the end there is no need for all this animosity that people carry: the entire solar system is now clearly within the reach of mankind, and just one asteroid alone contains minerals that have been valued at trillions of dollars; factory and farm automation is freeing up people from drudgery; the economics of shortage that our ancestors lived with for millions of years is being replaced by the economics of plenty; we have found the Book of Life (the DNA) and could very well be the last generations of mankind that thinks of a life-span of ``fourscore and ten``. Anyone inspired by the Quran which states that God put man on earth and not angels since He expects man to study his Creation - i.e. to focus on science - would be truly thrilled to see the rewards God has provided if we take on this role seriously. Compare this to the issues that take up so much of our time in South Asia - fighting over a patch of land in Kashmir, fighting over who is God`s favorite, destroying places of worship - and one realizes just how far we are from where other people have shown we can be. If we understand why we are here.

shammi #305 Insecurity and the herd mentality of the mob is certainly part of the explanation. Also, as the Scottish poet Robert Burns said over two centuries ago: ``O wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!``

Or more recently, pogo (who I have quoted before, and which caused me trouble with a poster who assumed pogo was a real person and not a cartoon figure ...albeit wiser than our real life cartoons...) but coming back to what he said: ``We have met the enemy, and he is us``.

Shammi:

You consider support/no support of the Taliban a difficult choice for Pakistan?

You consider SLORC of Burma in the same category as the Taleban?

Please answer these questions before making superficial analysis and far fetched analogies.

Everybody has inconsistenices - compromise is another word for inconsistency. India gives Dalai Lama shelter and India deals with China. India, China and the Dalai Lama understand and live with this contradiction. However, at some point you say ``this is intolerable``.

krashid #306:

Look at the arrogance and ignorance in your post!

You, and a lot of other people, say why break the Buddhas? After all they are not worshipped! By implication, you argue they are possible targets for demolition if they are worshipped! And what gives anybody the right to destroy the idol of another man? What arrogance!

If you have read my posts, you would have noted my sadness and shame at Babri masjid destruction. And you now say, you will only listen to me after I condemn it? Are your powers of comprehension so limited?

I condemn the destruction of Babri Masjid. I condemn it because it was an inherently violent and insensitive act not because I want you to listen to me.

I will only listen to you if you first accept the following:

1. The destruction of temples such as the Somnath temple and the destruction of its idols is condemnable.

2. The right of a community to reconstruct what they believe to be a demolished house of worship cannot be put into the category as the right of a community to destroy the idols of another community.

3. Thousands of mosques function normally in India - the ones that are the center of controversy are the ones believed to be built on the ruins of temples.

4. You accept that temple destruction has taken place in India in the past.

I think you get the point.

My post #304
http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/020301/detopi01.asp

Truth #

My point was not this that what is happening in Afghanistan is correct. In fact Taleban themselves told few years back that these idols are not worshipped so there is no point in demolishing them.

The point was in your criticism you utterly forget that Babri Masjid was demolished recently and there is constant utterings by RSS/ Bajrang Dal of other places like Qutub Minar etc.

I will listen to you if you condemn first those incidences and then condemn the demolition of Buddha statue.

I think you got the point.