The Meaning of Pakistan

Interesting Discussion/Revelations on the following thread regarding Dr.Qadeer`s Departure/Retirement/Change of Positions:

http://helpsavepakistan.community.everyone.net/commun_v3/scripts/thread.pl

I guess Dr.Qadeer is retiring and has been offered the position to assist the government. Ohooo!!! I am just thinking and thinking and thinking and cannot stop thinking, in what area?

Whatever he does and wherever he goes, I sincerely wish him all the best. If his intellect will assist our bureaucrats, politicians, armymen, civilians in any way or shape - he should be in the cabinet. If he will be in the cabinet to add to the existing ``high and mighty`` list, that will be a sheer wastage.

Personally, I feel that if he does not belong there, he would not stay there for very long. My emphasis is on ``staying`` and not on ``lasting.`` If he takes the position, and finds it useless, he will get out of it. People of his caliber cannot stay very long in any cabinet. Yes, being an adviser is one ``(in)significant`` option. I would rather have him be the ``adviser in action`` than an adviser only. Hoping for the best.

Ref RSaxena #: 145

[Krashid

Is your camel lactating right now?]

He prefers Mello Yello. (That was the name of a soft drink in the US in the late 70s. I don`t remember which company made Mello Yello. If the trademark has expired, maybe Coca-Cola of Pakistan can start bottling Mello Yello again!)

re.Ali1#whatever to me:

Gee thanks for the advice. I`m touched that you read that far down into my post.

Now please let`s discuss the issue at hand, not my imagained proclivities in the sexual arena.

Interesting article in Friday Times titled, ``To Be a Muslim in India.``

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/

I have always wondered about the situation of Muslims in India. The writer asks the same question,

``And who hold that Muslims don`t have a bad deal. If that is true, I thought, why have Pakistan? Why did we fight for a separate country? And why don`t we become one again? These were the questions nagging my mind when I set off to celebrate Eid in India.``

Is this article completely biased, or is it truthful? My own personal experience is based on the interactions with Indian software programmers. There is definitely a religious line that is blantantly obvious between the have and have-nots in the expatriate Indian IT community. Nearly every single software engineer from India in the US is a Hindu. If we assume that India has around the same number of Muslims as Pakistan, has around 40% higher literacy rate (Pakistan at 35%, India at 52%), and is perhaps ten years ahead of Pakistan in IT, then there should be three times as many Indian Muslims in the US IT industry as Pakistani Muslims. Yet my own practical experience is that nearly every South Asian Muslim IT engineer, one meets here, is from Pakistan (very few from India, and almost none from Bangladesh).

I have also followed www.milligazette.com, a newspaper which claims to be, India`s first Muslim newspaper (now they have changed this slogan to, ``World Muslim`s No. 1 English Newspaper``). It is generally filled with complaints, and accusations, and seems to indicate that the Indian Muslims are in the same situation as the American African Americans, in terms of the social hierarchy.

I am quite familiar of the social problems faced by the minorities in Pakistan. They have been discussed, and accepted, here on Chowk in detail, by Pakistanis. However, as inhumane as it may sound, the religious minorities in Pakistan do not have the numbers to mount any kind of a major resistance to the majority.

In India, the Muslim minority is a huge minority. Apparently, it seems like the current economic progress in India is actually increasing the divide between this minority and the Hindu majority. A situtation like, Pakistan in the 60s, seems to be devloping in India, i.e country was progressing quite well, however East Pakistan was left out of the progress, thereby increasing the social divide, which eventually resulted in the breaking up of the country. In essence, the economic progress, due to its one-sidedness, actually assisted in the breakup of the country. Is India headed along similar lines? Or is it the flip side, where the Muslims are actually progressing along with the Hindus, and may actually, at some stage, enjoy the same or higher living standards that Pakistani Muslims enjoy.

It would be interesting to get an objective and unbiased opinion from Indian contributors on this point, as well as on the article in Friday Times.

Something is going on:

March 12: ``ISLAMABAD: Top leadership of strategic and sensitive Pakistani nuclear organisations was changed on Sunday by removing Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan and Dr Ashfaq Ahmed as heads of Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) and Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) respectively.`` (NEWS, Pakistan)

March 14: ``ISLAMABAD: The government said Wednesday it would introduce a new law under which it could ban groups involved in violence between rival Muslim sects in the country, said a report quoting official statement.``

March 15: ``Government making efforts to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty : FM....`` Sattar said that Pakistan was making efforts to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). ``Our government supports that treaty and we are engaged in mobilizing a domestic consensus in favor of signing the treaty,`` he said.`` (Dawn, Pakistan)

Will we be hearing an announcement of Pakistan signing the CTBT soon?

i felt very sad after reading the fridaytimes article that umairr mentioned about muslims in india. not because of the things that are known to everyone (babari and police brutalities, etc) but because of the things that are not known to everyone - for it showed where the priorities lay for the muslims.

i was thinking that i would read about all the injustices that farzana has been pointing to in her postings - in the form of hapless muslims saying `wah janab` all the time to the hindus.

but,

did they complain that they had been denied the education they wanted because they were muslims?
did they complain that they had been denied the jobs they wanted because they were muslims?
did they complain that they had been denied housing where they wanted because they were muslims?
did they complain that they had been living in fear of being shot while praying in mosques?

no.

what did they complain about?

the old lady feared that muslims boys and girls would marry outside the faith. that meant `a lack of freedom` to her. hindu boys featured with muslim girls in movies/videos meant a building up of `hatred in india’s underbelly against muslims`. and why were muslim men not shown dating hindu girls.

we also came to know that feelings of ``aap tau hamaray mulk say aye hain`` are not just rumours spread by harimau types, ``few of them even had the pakistani flag inside their houses`` is also not just thakare`s perverted imagination, and applauding ``shahid afridi thrashing the indian bowling attack`` is not just a bajrand dali`s accusation.

what a shame!

no matter what the legitimate grievances muslims may have, those will never get any sympathy from any indian as long as such feelings exist in the minds of the muslims about the country that india is perpetually at war with.

but if gavaskar can praise pakistani team, what is wrong with all of the above? right, farzana?

btw umairr, the author of the fridaytimes article seems to think that the poor and the rich muslims are pretty much the same in both india and pakistan. so what makes you wish that `... indian muslims may actually, at some stage, enjoy the same or higher living standards that Pakistani Muslims enjoy...`

ROmair 150

That article points out real issues for all Indians to seriously consider. I agree with one major thesis of the article - muslims continue to face considerable discrimination in many parts of India. Before I comment on it any further, however, could you or anyone else figure out the reason(s) why the author thinks partition had to happen - the author`s other main (core?) point.

Also, it is not only in the IT sector that muslims lag behind. They are behind in almost every sector you can think of - administration, medicine, literature - you name it.

ROmair

``Ref: Muslims In India``

On the whole I find the article objective and even handed though I do not quite understand what he means by ``You have to go to India to see why partition happened``.

My feeling is that Muslims that are in the middle class do not face a significant handicap. About muslims in IT, I personally know several but you are right they are disproportionately fewer as compared to the total population. I dont quite know the reason for this. I used to belive that muslims were disproprtionately poorer in India but I remember seeing some recent statistics (dont remember where) that say its not so (please correct me If I`m wrong).

Among poorer muslims there is a deep sense of disenfranchisement which is not helped by obscurist leaders on both sides (the saffron gangster of Bombay or the ``Shahi Imam`` of Delhi).

I must say it took my living in the US to realize how it is to be a minority, how it must feel like to be a muslim in India at Diwali with the sound of crackers all around you.

ROmair #150 :

``If we assume that India has around the same number of Muslims as Pakistan, has around 40% higher literacy rate (Pakistan at 35%, India at 52%), and is perhaps ten years ahead of Pakistan in IT, then there should be three times as many Indian Muslims in the US IT industry as Pakistani Muslims.``

Sorry -- how do you get that factor of three ? Also, literacy is not the correct determinant to use, it is number of undergraduate and master`s degrees.

-What about attitudes regarding going abroad ? Would an Indian Muslim prefer working in the Middle East or in the US, given a choice ?

-Also, how do you know what the H-1B acceptance rate is for Indian Hindus versus Muslims ? (e.g., a US policy could bias your numbers.)

-What about if many more Pakistanis come to the US for undergrad education than Indians ?

What we really need is some detailed stats. about education, and not anecdotes.

-Arun Gupta

ylh #142

Yasser,

I’m not trying to start another creation of pakistan discussion (I have nothing new to add) but don’t you see the contradiction in what you say? In what jinnah said? In pakistan, a person’s religion IS the business of the state. For what other reason then religion was the state? Why did so many non-muslims leave? I’m really not saying this to antagonize you and I think most people here are familiar with the history, but every time you try to make these arguments, these questions will constantly rear their head. I think I read you saying somewhere that had jinnah accepted a deal for a united india (the cabinet mission?) that would have been okay with you, but now that pakistan is here, you want to keep it that way. If you said that, I can understand it.

The real question I have is why do you believe in social welfare states? I think socialism, even in milder forms such as what democrats in the US advocate is highly destructive. India alone should be proof enough socialism impoverishes a nation. the idea that government should run industry, regulate everything, and provide welfare for its citizens cripples societies. Not only are socialist governments grossly inefficient, but they have to take away all the citizens’ rights from free speech to the right to property in order to maintain the socialist state. Government is a monopoly. They have no incentive to be efficient b/c there is no competition. This is why the private sector and markets are far more efficient.

Romair #150

Let’s be honest yaar. The real question is would a pakistani ever admit that an indian muslim is well off in india? Surely you recognize that a pakistani has a huge psychological incentive to never admit that an indian muslim is secure in india b/c the moment she/he does, it begs the question, “well, why did muslims need a separate state?” and similarly, we on the other side have an incentive to talk down anything that would suggest anything but communal harmony. So what to do? I think the only thing you can do is look at all the anecdotal evidence. And in looking we see that india has muslims as well as other religious minorities in all levels of society from government, business, academia, to the arts. I think your implication that a lack of indian muslims in the indian software industry (is this true?) is a result of discrimination by hindus is faulty in its logic. There simply isn’t enough (or any) evidence to make that assumption. Ironically, as most people here know, the biggest indian software company, wipro, is headed by azim premji. But I think the more telling evidence is this simple fact. The world including india is moving more toward a market economy with free competition and the one thing I can say from first hand experience is that if an indian thinks you can make him money, he’ll hire you no matter what your religion is.

Sadhna #137

So you have become fully bigoted and biased in one year.

Isn`t it a good achievement of mine.

My parents migrated once and I at least have no plan to go back.

Ref concerned #: 152

[we also came to know that feelings of ``aap tau hamaray mulk say aye hain`` are not just rumours spread by harimau types]

Can you identify ONE rumor spread by Harimau?

Exactly who are the harimau-types and how do you know they are MY type?

There has to be a limit to this crap of blaming the messenger for the message.

The messengers to be blamed are the mullahs. The message that should be eliminated is that everything is Allah`s (or Jehovah`s or Bhagwan`s) will.

You got to give credit to the Protestants for their work ethic. As the T-shirt proclaims, ``Sh *t doesn`t happen`` to Protestants.

Concerned #152

You wrote that Indian Muslims will not get any sympathy from Indians.

I thought Indian Muslims are Indian too.

Do you mean something else.

I am sorry. What was the point.

Concerned,

I had exactly the same feelings you had. You spoke to the point.

This is regarding the article ``To be a Muslim in India``.