Caught In Between

A. Sarwari

I have posted an article #178 on the inappropriately named, Islam`s Challenge board. Please take the time to review and post your comments.

Re: Bapu

``HERE IS GOOD ROLE MODEL FOR ALL YOU PAKISTANI FEMENAZI ,SINGLE MOTHERS,DIVORCEE,SPINSTRESS,SEPERATED,WIDOWs,And `I STILL DONT KNOW WHY BURN THE BRA?```

You must be a real casanova with the ladies, in real life.

Re id--and one more thing...

The babri came down when the BJP was in the opposition.

Re id--my two cents worth contribution

``How hard lined is BJP about hindutva issues? Are there a lot of pro RSS type elements in BJP? Also, why has BJP got so much support in the past few years, despite their reputation of being hard liners?``

The BJP is the leader of a coalition whose members are not necessarily on the same page. The common glue that hold them together is a dislike for the Congress party/Sonia Gandhi as well as other opportunistic reasons. You`ve got fiery socialists [George Fernandes], opportunists [Mamata in Bengal], pragmatists [Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra] and atheists [DMK in Tamil Nadu] in the mix, so go figure. And without their support, the BJP goes straight to the opposition. The Shiv Sena is a loony outfit that was in power in Maharashtra, but they didn`t do a good job and got booted out. Of course, each segment within the coaltion talks the talk, but when it comes to policy, it`s a whole different ball game.

There are nuts in the BJP, and that includes the RSS, Bajrang Dal and others flakes, and they have always been small and vocal. These were the people responsible for Babri if you will. They do succeed in placing their favorites in power, but then there is the balance of the so-called secular side of the party.

That`s why while they were able to trash the babri building, the BJP has done diddly in terms of their avowed goal of building a Ram temple on the same location.

While the level of dementia among hindu nuts may be similar to those of your nuts, the main difference is a lack of heavy weaponry. The RSS types have exercises every morning in khaki shorts and sticks. Your nuts use AK-47s. There is no predominant gun culture and that explains the relative calm in India. If these guys had access to all the firearms your nuts have, boy would we be in seriously deep trouble.

``Are the marginal majority of Indians hardliners, or is it just a political issue, and people seem to go with the tide of emotions?``

The second part of your question sorta answers the first part, doesn`t it? In fact, the majority of Indians are not hardliners. The vast majority has a live and let live attitude though things are getting a little more intolerant when compared to the old days. They may get emotional from time to time, but come election time [which rather fortunately happens like clockwork] they vote their wallets. If the economy does fine, the ruling party stays. The price of rice is more important than some emotional issue such as a temple somewhere.

HERE IS GOOD ROLE MODEL FOR ALL YOU PAKISTANI FEMENAZI ,SINGLE MOTHERS,DIVORCEE,SPINSTRESS,SEPERATED,WIDOWs,And `I STILL DONT KNOW WHY BURN THE BRA?`

Kali Revisited

“I’m not a bra-burning feminist. I don’t know of any feminist who goes around burning bras. Bras are just too expensive to burn,” says Urvashi Butalia with a tinge of humour, on being asked how she reacts to people calling her a feminist.

“And now, when people call me a feminist I take it as a compliment.” Sitting in her Hauz Khaz office in Delhi, Urvashi recalls converting to feminism in her teens. Even though she denies being the slogan-shouting women’s activist that people often accuse her of being, she continues to fight a literary battle of a different kind.

Her publishing house, Kali for Women, is her inspiration, her shakti. Women fascinate her. And completely absorb her. Her tale is about an extraordinary woman who’s tried to change ordinary lives. Her grey streaked hair and dark circles whisper secrets of a thousand sad, betrayed women. She carries their burden with pleasure, making a mission of it all.

And as she flips the hundredth page of Jose Saramago’s Blindness, she still feels books are her closest link to reality.

It is this link that made her set up Kali for Women — India’s first and only feminist publishing house — along with Ritu Menon. Yet, starting it wasn’t easy — after all, it was bankrolled by a $100 investment in 1984.

Ritu Menon had been her comrade and still is. As she prepares for Kali’s forthcoming book, Women in Kashmir, to hit the stands, she knows it’s a book that’s a result of in-depth study. “Kali for Women doesn’t just publish books, we also undertake studies related to women.” Kali was formed at a crucial time: “We were heard, especially in Parliament, where nobody could ignore women any longer.”

And now, they have some hot-selling women authors writing for them — Vandana Shiva, Romila Thapar, Taslima Nasreen and Manjula Padmanabhan. It all began in Miranda House, when she was doing her under-graduate degree in English: “I was agitated when I saw women weren’t involved in Delhi University elections.

As a leader of the students’ union I was particularly vocal about the way I felt about things.” That was in the ’70s, when the seed of feminism was planted in Butalia. The rest was easy. Being labelled a feminist didn’t bother her. And then she decided not to get married. “It wasn’t a conscious decision. But it just never happened. I don’t have any regrets. Sometimes I do think life would have been different had I got married. Not that I’m the kind who hates men. But I do believe that other relationships can be just as satisfying.”

By the time she graduated, her mother had already started Stree Sangharsh, an organisation for women that staged anti-dowry street plays. “Now, my mother runs Karmica, an organisation that provides legal aid and counselling for women.” Butalia was amongst the ‘11 women’ who launched Manushi: “But I quit after the first issue came out.”

It was her love for printing which made her take up a job with Oxford University Press in the late ’70s. She quit in 1982 after which

she worked for Zed books in London: “They publish Third World books. I basically wanted to make contacts for Kali.” And Kali’s forte has been publishing Third World books on women. “Though Kali isn’t just a publishing house, we’ve done studies on feminist historiography, women in media, sectarian strife and fundamentalism.”

For her own book, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition, published by Penguin she took almost a hundred interviews of people who were hit by Partition. “I write only non-fiction. My writing is basic.” Quite like her, as she believes on existing on a shoe-string budget. And when she’s not pre-occupied by women woes or her books, she likes to discover herself with her friends.

Zafar:

2 Pakistan’s Government has had to do a sharp about turn regarding their support for the Taliban and (increasingly obvious) control of the Taliban. This has caused a lot of unrest in Pakistan – and the only way Musharraf seems to be able to sell it to the Pakistani public is by linking this about turn to an increase in Pakistan’s ability to do something to “gain Kashmir’s freedom” in the future. As it is I believe that Musharraf will have a hard time surviving the aftermath of the coming conflict in Afghanistan (a fatwa has already been issued against him in – of all places – London). If he can’t deliver something on Kashmir as a sop to the Pakistani public’s pride, and I am sorry to say that this something will probably also have to be perceived as disadvantageous to India, he has no chance of surviving at all. I believe that his position is similar to Sadat’s – he’s doing something that’s probably good for his country, but this involves walking away from an ideological commitment on which the country has staked its izzat – unless there’s some sop to this izzat, he (and his supporters) may pay a high personal price. Which should focus their minds when dealing (bargaining?) with the US.

I agree with your analysis. That`s why I think the Indian Gov`t should be far-sighted enough to take this opportunity to do a deal on Kashmir. Not a deal on Pakistan that is imposed, but one in which both parties genuinely feel that something has been gained.

India has 2 aspects of the Kashmir problem, one indigenous, one with Pakistan. On a moral basis, I am very much against doing a deal with the Kashmiris because I genuinely feel that till 1989, they did not suffer more or less under Indian misrule, as compared to rest of India. However, pragmatism dictates that instead of holding Pakistan`s feet to the fire in an hour of need, India should actually open a window of opportunity and hammer out some sort of compromise without formal transfer of territory, but outside tboundaries of the constitution. Will this actually happen? Unfortunately, in this case I believe our democracy would actually be a handicap in the hammering out of a solution.

re zafar`s

`Invite Sigalphdada to act as Prez`

I stand ready to serve the new Republic in any suitably humble capacity. Jai Roachistan!

Zafar, dost mittar, other indian chowkies:

Had a question for you guys. How hard lined is BJP about hindutva issues? Are there a lot of pro RSS type elements in BJP? Also, why has BJP got so much support in the past few years, despite their reputation of being hard liners? Are the marginal majority of Indians hardliners, or is it just a political issue, and people seem to go with the tide of emotions?

panini..why arent u writing man?

Further to my earlier post,

J&K government has given security to some hurriyat leaders as they received threats from the terrorists. What kind of wishywashy policy is this? Can you imagine israel protecting Arafat from Hamas? There`s a lesson here for those making facile comparisons to palestine and kashmir.

#552 rsridhar

That news item was half conjecture and rest wishful thinking.

Getting on the soapbox...

We indians should stop deluding ourselves that our problems are going to go away just like that. It was obscene that George Bush, the moron that he is, would dare the rest of the world and say, ``Either you`re with us or against us``. The iranians had the guts to counter that binary logic but here we are falling all over ourselves begging uncle sam to lend a ear to our complaints. Kashmir problem will not go away until india decides where it stands. If kashmir is an integral part of india why couldn`t i go buy land there and put my roots down? Since i cannot legally do that why should i care to ``defend`` it? We are caught in a web of contradictions. Let`s resolve the problem to ourselves first. India should do away with morality as an instrument of statecraft. Look, here`s pakistan that hatched and nurtured the taleban that is being paid to contain to it. Where is morality here.

Would you guys please stop quoting indian media which are (at the moment) nothing but groveling, whining guttersnipes?

from

http://www.usatoday.com/hear.htm

Trainees eager to join `jihad` against America

By Jack Kelley, USA TODAY

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Morning at the Dar-ul-Uloom Haqquania madrassa, or religious school, begins with a prayer and a defiant chant. ``Oh, Allah, defeat the enemies of Muslims and make Islam and the Taliban victorious over the Americans in Afghanistan,`` the 3,500 students say in unison in the school`s courtyard. Then, they break into a chorus of ``Jihad! Jihad!`` or ``Holy war! Holy war!`` Their words bring a smile to the face of the school`s chancellor, Maulana Sami ul-Haq. ``Osama and the Taliban would be proud,`` he says. Ten of the Taliban`s 12 senior leaders studied here. Their pictures hang on the walls of the courtyard, next to that of Osama bin Laden.



Even Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban`s leader, attended the school briefly before he left in the 1980s to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

``They are all our inspiration,`` Haq says. ``And soon, we`ll be fighting alongside them.``

Tens of thousands of students at Pakistan`s 6,000 militant Muslim madrassas say they plan to go to Afghanistan to fight U.S. soldiers, attack bases in Pakistan that may host American forces, or conduct suicide bomb attacks against U.S. targets if President Bush launches military action against bin Laden and the ruling Taliban militia in Afghanistan.

Bush has named bin Laden the prime suspect in the attacks in the USA and is expected by many here to be preparing retaliatory strikes at him and the Taliban, which has been harboring him for years. But the madrassa students say any U.S.-led strikes won`t stop the terrorism.

``We are all Osama bin Ladens,`` says Abdullah Shah, 35, senior teacher at Dar-ul-Alloon Sarhad, a nearby madrassa. ``Getting rid of one Osama won`t solve your problems. Your trouble is just beginning.``

Already, more than 2,000 students, some carrying the Koran, Islam`s holy book, and AK-47 assault rifles, have crossed into Afghanistan within the last week, Pakistani officials say.

More are on their way. Hundreds of others, who have been fighting Indian forces, are withdrawing from the Pakistani side of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. They also are heading for Afghanistan, Indian officials say.

Other madrassas, such as Haqquania here, are planning to shut down temporarily next week to allow their students to join the Taliban. Those who do go are being offered ``extra credit.``

``We give them the knowledge, the Taliban gives them the guns,`` Haq says. ``I, and all my students, will support the Taliban and Osama at all costs. They are the only ones implementing true Islam.``

Haq is believed to be one of bin Laden`s closest friends in Pakistan, and Pakistani officials say he is a Taliban insider. He keeps three pictures atop his desk, and one in his wallet, all of which show him standing arm-in-arm with bin Laden. He says he uses a red ``hotline`` phone on his desk to call Taliban officials in the Afghan cities of Kabul and Kandahar.

``Osama and the Taliban are alive and well, thanks to God,`` Haq says.

He refuses to say when he last spoke with bin Laden and denies knowing where he is hiding. ``Osama and the Taliban will not go lightly. They are preparing for a fight. That`s where we come in.``

USA TODAY was invited to spend a day at two of Pakistan`s madrassas, one of them militant and the other moderate. The Islamic clerics who run the schools say they want to explain their anger to Americans before their jihad against the United States begins.

There are an estimated 40,000 madrassas in Pakistan, of which the government says 6,000 are militant. The madrassas, financed by wealthy businessmen in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other countries, offer the best chance for an education for Pakistan`s poor. Most government-run schools are overcrowded and underfunded and require students to pay for some costs. The madrassas do not charge tuition.



By Jack Kelley, USA TODAY

Abdullah Shah sits with his students at the Dar-ul-Alloon Sarhad school.



The students, most of whom are from Pakistan and Afghanistan, spend up to 6 hours a day memorizing the Koran. Then, they spend 2-4 hours listening to lectures about the Koran and the Islamic prophet Mohammed. Their curriculum includes some mathematics and geography but little else. Critics say the schools are teaching intolerance.

``These schools are providing an education which is basically unchanged from the 11th century,`` says Islamic analyst Pervez Hoodboy. He says they produce ``a student with a particular mindset, one who does not question and who can be easily motivated into fighting to the death.``

Pakistani officials, while insisting that militant Muslims represent only 15% of Pakistan`s 140 million people, fear that the actions of the madrassa students could destabilize the government, which is led by a man who took power in a military coup 2 years ago. Fearing an uprising mobilized by the madrassas, the government has not cracked down on the schools.

``The biggest danger for Pakistan is from young, disillusioned and angry Pakistanis, many of them poor and jobless, who may be driven to join the radicals in a jihad,`` says former Pakistani army chief of staff Mirza Aslam Baig. ``Some of the madrassas are breeding grounds for this radicalism.``

Lately, lectures on the Koran at Haqquania and the moderate Dar-ul-Alloon Sarhad madrassa have given way to heated discussions about impending U.S. military action. Students and faculty at the madrassas demand that the United States make public the evidence it has proving bin Laden`s involvement in the terrorist attacks earlier this month in the USA.

``How can you convict someone without presenting evidence or witnesses against the alleged culprit?`` asks Khalid Ahmad Banouri, chancellor at Dar-ul-Alloon Sarhad. Surrounded by more than a dozen other Muslim clerics, he sits on a large Oriental carpet in a courtyard of the school. ``It makes many Muslims believe that, despite what President Bush says, this attack will be on Muslims and Islam itself.``

The expected assault on Afghanistan is just the latest act by the United States, Banouri says. He says America has implemented a foreign policy based on hypocrisy and self-serving interests:

• He ridicules U.S. support for Israel, which he accuses of brutalizing Palestinians and illegally occupying the West Bank of the Jordan River.

• He blasts U.S.-backed economic sanctions on Iraq, which he says are causing thousands of Iraqi women and children to starve to death.

• He and others here also are furious that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has agreed to share intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden. And they are angry that Musharraf will allow U.S. fighters to fly through Pakistani airspace on their way to attack targets in Afghanistan.

At the Haqquania madrassa, a student who says he has just attended one of bin Laden`s training camps pulls out a training manual, called the ``encyclopedia,`` which U.S. officials say is used at the camps in Afghanistan. ``Now listen, American, and listen well,`` says Hussain Zaeef, 21. He reads from Page 12 of the manual: `` `Bomb their embassies and vital economic centers.` That`s what I will do to you and your country. I will get your children. I will get their playgrounds. I will get their schools, too. I will get all of you.``

Tempers then flare. Several students begin yelling at once, pointing their fingers and gesturing wildly.

One yells out the name of Mohammed Atta, an alleged bin Laden associate believed to have hijacked one of the two jets that crashed into the World Trade Center. Another says he will ``kill more than Atta.``

A third student then unfolds a picture of the Sears Tower in Chicago. ``This one is mine,`` he says.

Sadna, Neptune

Arre, what has happened to the Hydra? Who is Lajwanti #529? Is the Hydra walking toward the light?

regards

Leave it to the redneck arses down south to elect bigger redneck arses to lead them.

{{Bush `disturbed` by comments on Sikhs

In an effort to pacify the Sikhs in the United States, the White House on Wednesday said that President George Bush was ``very disturbed`` by remarks last week from a lawmaker who described turbans as diapers.

``The president was very disturbed by those remarks,`` White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.

Republican Representative John Cooksey of Louisiana had reportedly said, ``If someone comes in with a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around it, he needs to be pulled over.`` }}

sarwari #541

``Friend and your nameless clan of losers who have no answer for Gandhi`s self-suffering on other`s expense derived form his Upanishadic heritage: ``

Innocent sarwari,

This discussion is about an article written by you, on ``Pakistan`s caught in between``. Gandhi may have been biggest self sufferer in world. He may have been biggest defeatist in the world. Upnishad`s may contain all the possible junk in the world. How is that related to Pakistan getting caught?

Is it not your job to explain your own ideas? When you couldn`t convince anyone, you have started rubbing IODEX on your tummy!! Soooo innocent.

Re: rsridhar

Take everything Deccan Herald writes with a grain of salt. It is one of the few Indian newspapers which is biased enough to exaggerate everything.