India’s Communal Gamble

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re shah

``Iam discriminatory to muslims of any lingual persuasion but its a fact Arabic script which urdu is understood by most muslims.Rest is minority including bengali``

Pity that you never let facts bother you. There are more Bengali speaking Muslims than there are Urdu-speaking ones(and I say that as a great fan of Urdu). It is that kind of attitude that led to the carnage of Feb 21, 1952, immortalized today as the UN International Mother Language Day.

You guys will never get it through that Urdu (or Persian or Arabic) is not synonymous with Islam and Muslim. Allah is neither an Arab nor a UP-ite (or even a Hyderabadi). Sorry to be the bearer of bad news for you guys.

sadna #381

Yep Syed Shabuddin defnitely heads the list of such leaders .

SMA...SMA MESSAGE FROM MUSHY

from jung of today

Govt says all safety measures were in place

India prime suspect in Bahawalpur massacre

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: India has emerged as the prime suspect of Sunday`s terrorist attack on a Catholic church in Bahawalpur killing 18 persons, including a policeman, and 17 members of the country`s Christian community.

On the basis of circumstantial evidence and keeping in view the normal pattern of terrorist targets in the country, the government has asked the intelligence agencies to include India as the prime suspect. It is suspected that the Indian RAW has masterminded this carnage to malign Pakistan.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, meanwhile, said the government, both at the federal and provincial levels, had taken all possible measures for the safety and security of places of worships and allegations to the contrary, that no precautionary measures were taken despite intelligence warnings, are not correct.

The spokesman said as a matter of fact, the presence of

#303 Zafar

As for the increase in the number of dowry deaths, yes it`s one view that what has gone up is the reporting of such deaths rather than the number of incidents. I don`t think that is true. That`s why i cited personal knowledge instead of govt figures. The size of dowry has gone up dramatically in recent years. In some communities an H-1 visa was worth 1 million rupees or more in dowry. In lower economic classes too dowry has gone up (proportionately) and families find it harder to meet the demands. Therefore it seems entirely plausible to me that my vantage point is not something unique.

An interview with V.S. Naipaul in sunday`s NY Times magazine

Questions for V.S. Naipaul on His Contentious Relationship to Islam

By ADAM SHATZ

Although your prose has been universally praised, you remain an object of considerable controversy. You have been charged with insensitivity and pandering to Western prejudices in your writings about Islam.

Well, that is the trouble with writing about Muslim people. There are people of the universities who want to run you out of town, and they`re paid to, and so they pay no attention to what you actually say.

You have described the Taliban as vermin.

No, that`s my wife! She`s a Pakistani journalist who for many years wrote a column. She writes from that kind of perspective.

Are you surprised by Osama bin Laden`s support in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Iran -- countries you wrote about in your travel books on Islam?

No, because these are the converted peoples of Islam. To put it brutally, these are the people who are not Arabs. Part of the neurosis of the convert is that he always has to prove himself. He has to be more royalist than the king, as the French say.

Is this what you mean when you write about Islam`s imperial drive to extend its reach and root out the unbeliever?

Yes. It is not the unbeliever as the other person so much as the remnant of the unbeliever in one`s customs and in one`s ways of thinking. It`s this wish to destroy the past, the ancient soul, the unregenerate soul. This is the great neurosis of the converted.

more at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/magazine/28QUESTIONS.html

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Ref Asif Naqshbandi #: 377

[I will contest your view that the leaders I chose were scourges to Hindus. They were all practising, pious, Sunni Muslims.]

I am not saying you chose them for that reason but if you have seen the response of most others to you, they have chosen to make fun of you for that.

[Some amongst them, like Aurangzeb Alamgir are considered wali e kaamil [perfect sufi saints, friends of God] by us.]

As a small boy, when I read in history books that Aurangzeb, the Emperor of India, lived on the proceeds of the sale of copies of the Quran hand-written by him and skullcaps made by him, I was deeply impressed by his simplicity. Again, one has to separate Aurangzeb as a person from Aurangzeb the Emperor; as an emperor he did things that one finds hard to accept (such as killing his own brothers to get the throne and imprisoning his father).

[WE can argue about different versions of history for ever....:-)]

That is so true!

[I am not calling for the destruction of the idolators.]

I know that.

[Neither does the Qur`an call for the destruction of unbelievers [except when they are the aggressors in a war]. I fully believe that orthodox Islam is a tolerant faith.]

Having lived with large Muslim populations from my childhood, I know that to be true too.

[I agree with you totally here. Except that Aligarh is not a good example; their interpretation of Islam is ``modernist`` and not classical. Universities which combine modern science with classical islamic teachings are what are needed most.]

I would leave the design of a modern curriculum to educated Muslims. They should know what is best for their people. A balance between modern scientific education and one`s cultural heritage (Hindu, Muslim or Christian as the case may be) in any educational institution would be an ideal blend that would produce a truly outstanding citizen of the world. He may not be a financial success like Bill Gates but is that what we need in every person?

[we should learn science but not scientism--the belief that science has the answer to all our questions alone.]

Agreed.

[Hope that makes sense to you...:-) ]

You do. Honestly. It is a great mystery to me why people start asking you for the definition of a true Muslim when you mentioned the 4 recognized schools of thought in Islam. You did not ever call for the extermination of anybody else yet all these people are making the assumption that that would be your next step.

It is always nice to have a discussion with a person who is learned in his own religion than to argue with people whose total concept of religion consists of the few verses they learnt by rote as children.

Regards.

Zafar Al-Talib #369

`` ?When this happens I put in my request for a few hard kicks to the whining Sanghis/Jamaatis? backsides.?


Voh tho aap yahan kar chuke, Mashallah.``

Alas, chaahtey huey bhi aap jaisa `saathvik` hona sab ke liye mumkin nahin :((if you will pardon the expression)

Hazrat Asif Naqshbandi of London Sharif:

If you happened to overlook, I asked a couple questions to you in my post #317.

Thanks.

reason #366
`` firstly , i am sorry i did not understand the link between my post and your reply . ``

reason #335
``and ofcourse there are so called muslim leaders who have done nothing in political career beside making muslims insecure about UCC . ``

:) I was curious whether Shahabuddin is one of them, is he?

I didnot know about his connection with AB Vajpayee.

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Atal Vajpapyee,P.M. of Scular Democracy ``will of Nation``Babri panel

PRASANNA MOHANTY

New Delhi, October 11, 22:44









he All-India Babri Masjid Action Committee has said it does not believe that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will actually do anything to resolve the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute before March 12, 2002 - the Vishwa Hindu Parishad deadline for a solution.

The VHP has threatened that if the government failed to find a solution, it would start building the temple at the disputed site. Reacting to Vajpayee`s statement on Wednesday that the Ayodhya Cell would be revived, convener of the committee Zafaryab Jilani told TheNewspaperToday from Lucknow: ``How can we expect justice from Vajpayee? We have no faith in him. He is a party to this movement of building the temple at the site (in Ayodhya). We cannot trust him and therefore there is no question of any expectation. And we cannot be fooled by such gestures.``



``How can we expect justice from Vajpayee? We have no faith in him.``





The Prime Minister`s Office said a notification to this effect was expected in the next few days. While the exact nature of the Cell and its terms of references are not known yet, it is believed that a retired bureaucrat would be assigned to broker a settlement between the VHP and the Babri Committee.

Former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had set up the Ayodhya Cell under the PMO in September 1992. Former Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra, who had retired by then, was given the task of facilitating negotiations.

But the process broke down when the VHP refused to withdraw its proposed kar seva from December 6, 1992 and the Babri Committee declined to participate in the negotiations.

On December 6, 1992, the kar sevaks demolished the masjid. Since then, there has been no attempt to bring the two parties together. Meanwhile, the VHP has announced that it will begin temple construction at the site from March 12, 2002. It was in response to VHP`s announcement that the PM said in Lucknow a few months back that he was talking to the Muslim leaders to find a solution to the problem. But he refused to divulge who was he talking to. The Babri Committee later denied that any talk was on.

Jilani said the Prime Minister’s decision to revive the Cell, as was announced by the VHP after a meeting with the Prime Minister here last Wednesday, was aimed at strengthening the movement to build the temple in view of the forthcoming UP elections. ``This is an exercise in futility. Nothing will come out of it. It is just to help the VHP and the Bajrang Dal and give a message to the Hindus, who have drifted away from them and also from the BJP, that something is being done to build the temple. It is to fool the Hindu masses - their electorate. But this will not fool us,`` Jilani noted.

However, the proposal to revive the Ayodhya cell has not enthused S.P. Gupta, chairman of Indian Archaeological Society who was in the panel of four experts from the VHP side which provided historical and archaeological evidence to prove that a temple existed at the disputed site before the masjid was built.

Gupta told TheNewspaperToday: ``It makes no sense. The purpose is to evade a commitment. What can the Cell do? I am taken aback by the announcement.``











The others in the panel were Prof B.R. Grover, former director of the Indian Council of Historical Research, Prof Devendra Swaroop of the Delhi University and Prof. Harsh Narayan of the Aligarh Muslim University.

The members of the Babri committee panel were historians Prof R.S. Sharma and D.N. Jha, Prof Athar Ali from the Aligarh Muslim University and Prof Suraj Bhan of the Kurukshetra University.

Gupta insists that the negotiations broke down because the Babri Committee did not accept the evidence, while Jilani put the blame on the VHP saying it did not withdraw its proposed ``kar seva.`` Now, both the parties argue that there is no point in repeating it. The matter is also pending before the Lucknow High Court.

Re: banjara

``The ``Will of the nation`` pertains to the building

of a Ram temple,``

Ah, ok. I see. I disagree with any overlap between religion and government affairs.

In this specific case, the Supreme Court will have something to say about that. In India the Supreme Court is really independent and doesn`t hesistate in chiding governments.