India’s Communal Gamble

Dateline Patna

MOSQUE CAPTURED BY YADAVAS

By Syed Mohammad Iqbal

Bihar, where the ruling Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) leaders swear by their concern for the cause of minorities, increasing cases of encroachment upon their religious places have caused resentment among a good number of Muslims in and around the state capital. The latest update has come from the Danapur subdivision, where the chief minister Rabri Devi`s caste men Yadavas have forcibly turned a mosque at Maner some 25 km from capital Patna into a cowshed after driving away the mosque`s caretaker .

The mosque, one of the oldest in Maner is being used by Yadvas as a cowshed, making it difficult for the Muslims to offer prayers there. When the caretaker of the mosque protested the nefarious move, he was threatened with riots, says an aggrieved Muslim of Maner. It is also alleged that the place is also being used for gambling and prostitution. The graveyard at Maner also seems to be in the process of being encroached upon.

A statue of late Congress MP Ramnagina Singh, has been installed on the graveyard land, which has aroused Muslim suspicions about the motive of late Singh`s followers. Yet another plot of graveyard land, situated on the outskirts of Maner has also been encroached, with a cinema hall having come up on the land nearby, to the anguish of Muslims.Though the matter is now in the court, the state government`s silence from the very beginning has disheartened liberal circles and the minorities of the Yadav-dominated Danapur subdivision.

Incidentally, a similar case of encroachment upon Qabristan land was reported from Fatuha, 30 km east of Patna a few years ago. Several missives were sent to the district administration seeking its intervention to free the graveyard but to no avail. Here it may be recalled that the RJD supremo Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, now Union Railway Minister, had together sat on dharna at Fatuha demanding immediate removal of encroachments from the graveyard. However, the same Mr Yadav maintained stoic silence on the issue when he had become the chief minister of the state later.

Mr Irshad Ahmad, general secretary of the Bihar Pradesh Muslim Conference at that time held the state government in general and Laloo Prasad Yadav in particular responsible for the wanton acts of yadavas during the last few years. He regretted that despite complaints lodged with the police station concerned, no step was taken to free the religious shrines. Mr Ahmad disclosed that the Bihar Pradesh Muslim Conference had drawn the attention of Mr Yadav during Iftar party in 1996 towards the forcible occupation of mosques, particularly in Maner, Fatuha and Patna city areas of the district.

However, he kept mum on the issue. Interestingly

Mr Ahmad alleged that Muslim ministers of RJD

government too preferred to remain silent. Another Muslim leader, who did not wish to be quoted, rued that while the RJD government talks about Muslim welfare and their leaders love to shout the slogan of M-Y combination, the Yadavas had launched a campaign of sorts to defile the holy places of Muslims. Many of the 40 mosques in the urban and semi-urban areas of the district are silent witnesses to encroachments by Yadavas and were being used as cowsheds.

Muslim leaders threatened to hold public shows throughout the state of video films on the mosques if the RJD government continues to ignore their religious feelings. Senior Janta Dal leader and former minister of state for finance, Faiyaz Bhagalpuri, meanwhile, has threatened to launch an agitation if the encroachments were not removed from the Muslims holy places soon. Mr Jawed a dynamic worker of RJD said that even for Mukhia election which was held recently only Muslims cast their votes to Yadavas but Yadavas never cast their votes to any Muslim candidate. They openly used to say that we never cast our vote to any community. q

Subscribe Now

Removal of minorities names from voters list

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

By Zafar Agha

Behold! Another conspiracy is taking shape against Muslims of Uttar Pradesh. News have been received during the last few days from Rampur and many other districts that names of Muslim families are missing in new voter’s lists for the forthcoming elections.

This is a very serious matter because this is not simply a matter of chance but a well planned conspiracy being hatched by BJP and R.SS. Now their tentacles have spread so far that Indian bureaucracy is under their control. Even otherwise news had been making round from 1970’s onwards about Election Commission that election machinery was under their control. Now, most of the staff and managers on election duty are either members of the Sangh group or its sympathizers. In addition to this, members of the Sangh group have penetrated almost every branch of administration, including census department which collects all statistics about the country’s population. Their attitude is such that they visited all other houses of my locality but did not take the trouble of visiting my residence. Obviously they knew that a Muslim family lives there and when that family will not be mentioned in the census list, it is not at all difficult to remove its name from the voters list.

The news regarding Muslim families names missing from voters lists is making rounds in many districts and states for quite some time but these days such news are mostly coming from UP. Obviously, there are two objectives of this strategy. Firstly, the ratio of Muslims population should be reduced in the overall population of the country, and secondly, the names of as many Muslims should be removed from the voters lists as possible.

The most important problem for Sangh group is how to deprive Muslim voters from their voting rights. This is a very serious problem because a common man in this country may very well enjoy many constitutional rights but, in ordinary life he has one important right i.e the right to vote or to elect or remove a government. Now this RSS group, which includes BJP also, wants to deprive Muslims of their voting rights by hatching different types of conspiracies. The names of Muslims occupy the top place in the list containing the names and communities or classes who are prepared to be deprived of their voting rights. Dalits and other backward classes are also targeted for being deprived of their voting rights but for the present Muslims are their main targets for being deprived of voting rights for the UP elections.

The main reason for all this at present is that elections in UP are to be held shortly. The Sangh group feels that the earth is slipping from under the feet of BJP in UP, the most important state of India. The Sangh group, which includes BJP also, is extremely worried lest it may lose UP elections scheduled to be held early next year. And if BJP loses UP, the central government at Delhi will become shaky. This thought is giving them sleepless nights and they are trying their best to somehow or the other make BJP win the UP elections. For this they are prepared to employ any means. The first step in this plot is to somehow eliminate as many names of Muslims, ‘Dalits’ and other backward classes from the voter’s list as possible so that the numbers of these voters, who are generally opposed to BJP etc, may be reduced to the maximum possible extent. In other words, the Sangh in collaboration with BJP have planned to somehow hijack Indian democracy so that the Indian masses may not be able to remove BJP from power through elections.

It should be borne in mind that removal of BJP’s likely opponents from voters list is the first step of their conspiracy. The second stage of this conspiracy is to manipulate Hindu-Muslim tension and possibly organize riots in the states where elections are to be held. For example, preparations are in full swing to create Hindu-Muslim tension in the name of Ram temple. On the occasion of these elections, on one side their strategy is to rouse Hindu emotions in the name of Ram temple and to attract them towards BJP and on the other side, to spread rumour and create tension in and around Muslim localities just a couple of days before election day so that heavy police patrolling could be effected so that many people, specially Muslim bodies, may not dare to step out of their houses for casting absence, BJP supporters may cast their votes in favour of BJP candidates.

Another conspiracy has already been hatched to conceal this conspiracy in a different way. The government of UP has recently announced that Muslim backward classes will also be given reservation out of the quota of other backward classes. Firstly, this is not something new and secondly, a government which wants to destroy mosques and close down ‘madrasas’ on some pretext or the other, how once an expect of such a government to give reservation to Muslims? As a matter of fact the objective of this announcement is that there should at least be some logical reasons or bases to verify the bogus votes to be cast on behalf of Muslims and other backward classes who may not step out of their houses on account of the fear because of heavy police patrolling.

Another important objective of this new reservation policy is that the impression should be propagated through false opinion polls that normally are held and shown on the eve of elections that this time such and such percentage of backward classes of Muslims and other communities are inclined to cast their votes in favour of BJP which is because of the new reservation policy. Subsequently, when the elections are over, it should be shown in bold letters on TV and newspapers that in these elections such-and-such percent of Muslim votes were cast in favour of BJP and in this way BJP got the majority.

But there is no cause for worry. Muslims and other backward classes should carry on agitations along with their leaders for inclusion of their names in the voters list. Fort this purpose they should ‘gherao’ offices of election commissions. Again, the difficulties created on the eve of elections by creating tensions and police’ bandobast’ should be ignored and people should came out fearlessly, including womenfolk, and cast their votes against BJP.

Backward sections of India should remember that they have only one strong weapon at their disposal i.e the weapon of vote which the BJP and Sangh group is trying to grab from them. Educated people should educate the people about these sinister conspiracies. Teachers of institutions like Aligarh Muslim University can play an important role in this movement. These people should remember that if this weapon of vote is taken away from them, they will be destined to lead a life of slavery. (Translated from Urdu) q

Subscribe Now

scout,

{{why do Indians get so angry and hostile when faced with self criticism?}}

now, now, please dont use sweeping generalisations. I`m just about as Pakistani as you are Mother Theresa:)

Suleman Bakery-accused Tyagi gets bail

By MH Lakdawala

Mumbai: The granting of bail to former police commissioner RD Tyagi proves beyond doubt that state government is not serious in implementing Srikrishna commission report or punishing those indicted by the Commission.

The ex-police commissioner was granted bail mainly on the grounds of parity: since his co-accused are out on bail, why not he? Since those who went inside Suleman Bakery and actually fired spent not an hour in custody, while the man who claims to have waited outside had to surrender? The defense argued. But the state did not put its case strongly to counter this argument.

The simple reason is that the Maharashtra state did not want them inside either. In the normal course of things, Tyagi,and 16 co accused, should have been arrested as soon as the FIR was filed u/sec 302 and 34 IPC on May 25.

How serious was the State government and STF can be gauged by the fact that they did not appealed against the bail granted to Tyagi’s 16 co-accused. During the hearing of Tyagi`s bail plea Judge Thipsay repeatedly asked the special public prosecutor (PP) whether the State had appealed against the bail granted to his co-accused.

In his order too, he pointed out that the granting of bail to them did not aggrieve the state. How could it be aggrieved when it had not opposed even their anticipatory bail application? The order makes it obvious. The order granting them anticipatory bail clearly states that the investigating agency, i.e., the Special Task Force (STF), did not even press for custodial interrogation. ``The very fact that the investigating agency did not find it necessary to take them into custody indicates that there is no apprehension of the applicants tampering with the evidence or absconding...``

In his brilliant arguments opposing Tyagi`s anticipatory bail application in the high court, Special Public Prosecutor P R Vakil had declared that thanks to the cover-up by Tyagi and his department, there was no evidence left to tamper with.

He had pointed out the complete lack of evidence to support the version put forward by Tyagi and his Special Operations Squad (SOS). He had even displayed the kind of arms with which the alleged terrorists were supposed to have escaped while surrounded by the STF, to show how absurd this claim was.

All these arguments applied equally to Tyagi`s co-accused. There was no question then of greater responsibility or lesser. Why then weren`t the same arguments made in the anticipatory bail application of the co-accused? Because Home Minister Chagan Bhujbal and Police Commissioner M N Singh didn`t want them to lose their jobs and then be left with a sullen police force to deal with?

Vakil had concluded his high court arguments by pointing out that there was enough evidence to necessitate custodial interrogation of Tyagi. He had to be asked what happened to the victims` clothes and the bullets embedded in two bodies. Normally, murder accused are interrogated in custody. If this accused is dealt with separately, it would be an injustice, he had said.

Despite this, the STF chose, just a few hours before Justice A B Palkar was to pass his order, to finish off Tyagi`s interrogation in their office.

Special Public Prosecutor Vakil has been an unenviable task. How can any PP forcefully oppose anticipatory bail or bail when his client doesn`t want the accused in custody? If Vakil fought with all his might against Tyagi`s anticipatory bail application, it was because public pressure forced the government to let him do so.

Even while hearing in magistrate`s court. STF fails to produce Tyagi. Reprimanded by magistrate for making no written application. Tyagi`s counsel insists that shifting Tyagi either to Arthur Road Jail or J J Hospital will be life-threatening. Though there`s no medical report saying this, PP keeps silent. He does not ask court to order medical examination of Tyagi by panel of government doctors.

Thus apparently state government projects itself as implementing the Srikrishna Commission report and committed to bring to justice those indicted by the Commission. But its deeds convey the fact that it is only interested in scoring political points even at the cost of Justice. q

Subscribe Now

Dateline Jhansi:

Hate-mongers active

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sang Parivar spreading hate against uslims in



Colleges!!

I`m a student of Bundelkhand Institute of Engg. & Technology, Jhansi. Recently an untoward event took place on our campus.

It is a matter of grave concern that Sangh Parivar has started arousing anti Muslim feelings in the ordinary citizens more vigorously in the wake of attack on US. They are trying to communalise the atmosphere.

In this regard now RSS personnel have started mobilsing masses by going to different institutions. And our college is one of them. I was shocked to know that on 18 September RSS men came with some teachers in one hostel (Vrindavan) of college and asked all the students to gather in the common room. There they blatantly incited the students by educating them about the ``evils`` of Muslims and false facts about Babri Masjid etc. and urged them to join the RSS. They even said that any Masjid or religious place of Muslims is a symbol of ``Ghulami`` (slavery) and they all will remain ghulam until they erase these symbols.

However, some students resisted their ideas but clearly such students were in minority and their views were overwhelmingly refuted by the majority of the people present. This clearly shows how the Sangh Parivar is growing rapidly and enlarging its working area and how they are inciting even those peoples who normally don`t want to indulge in any anti-Muslim activity. But at this moment what concerns me most is: how did our director allow RSS to hold a meeting in the institute?

(Name and address of correspondent provided)

BIET, Jhansi. q

Subscribe Now

Mazar desecrated in Jahazpur



Bhilwara: In yet another incident of religious sacrilege in Rajasthan, a mazar (mausoleum) has been desecrated at Jahazpur by unidentified miscreants.

Sudhanshu, the collector, who visited the mazar of Adamali Shah, said that additional police force had been deployed there. The mazar was repaired, he added.

In the last two months, there have been as many as six incidents of sacrilege in the State, including the demolition of an old Qalandari mosque situated at Swai Bhoj temple complex at Asind and desecration of another mosque and burning of a holy book at Pander.

This was one of the four mazars in the town at an old fort, at a height of 450 feet, where two constables had been maintaining round-the-clock vigil since August 15, the collector said. He did not explain as to how the desecration happened despite the vigil.

re romair 26

The fundamental flaw with your analysis is that Indian Muslims are 13 %, at most, of India while Bengalis were 54 %, at least, of Pakistan. The yardsticks you use are intellectually not kosher.

vat? hamid? u abbuce nehru? Pisful! i lowe sadam

Shahid Mian:

It seems Hindu hocus pocus is being bought and splashed around in the west also. The following is from a Canadian paper. Care to comment on the veracity of the following observations?

``The Lies of Oprah

FrontPageMagazine.com | October 16, 2001

ON FRIDAY, October 5, Oprah devoted her program to ``Islam 101,`` which, I think, was supposed to be a crash course on the Islamic religion.

I’m still confused.

One of the guests, Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., explained that, ``There is nothing in Islam that does not accord women equal rights and respect. Islam encourages women to participate and be a productive member of society.``

Another guest, Professor Akbar Ahmed, who served as the Pakistani Ambassador to Great Britain and is now the Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington D.C., stated that there was a ``commonality`` between Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the ``emphasis`` on ``family life.``

Oprah didn’t challenge these statements.

After the program, I was very traumatized. I tried to synthesize Oprah’s show with everything I have read in the Qur’an – and in other Islamic texts. I failed miserably.

I’m very confused.

In the Qur’an, Surah 2:28 tells us that men are superior to women. Surah 4:34 commands a man to beat his wife as soon as she shows any sign of disobedience to his orders. The verse reads, ``As for these women, fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart and scourge them.``

The Prophet Mohammed was kind enough to leave no misunderstanding on this matter in the hadiths, which are his Sunnah (sayings and doings) as recorded meticulously by his companions. They are considered to have the same authenticity as the Qur’an by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world.

In his hadith in volume 3:826 of the Sahih Al-Bukhari, Imam Al-Bukhari quotes Mohammed’s order to the husband regarding his wife: ``Hang up your scourge where your wife can see it.``

The Prophet, however, was loving enough to command that, according to Imam Kitab al-Nikah’s hadith No. 1850 in The Book of Marriage, ``you shall not slap her on the face, nor revile her, nor desert her except within the house.``

It’s a good thing that some contemporary Islamic teachers are a little more liberal on this issue. Abdul-latif Mushtahiri is a prime example. In his book, You Ask and Islam Answers, he instructs on page 94 that, while he is all up for a good wife-beating, it is a good idea to stop short of any broken bones or shedding of blood. He patiently explains that, ``Many a wife belongs to this querulous type and requires this sort of punishment to bring her to her senses!``

I’m confused.

Is this the ``family life`` that Professor Ahmed was referring to on Oprah in regard to the ``commonality`` between Islam, Christianity and Judaism? Or was he referring, perhaps, to Prophet Mohammed’s instruction to husbands, quoted in Imam Kitab al-Nikah’s hadith No. 1850, that, ``It is that you shall give her food when you have taken your food, that you shall clothe her when you have clothed yourself``?

I wonder what comment Oprah’s guests would make about Al-Bukhari’s hadith, in volume 3:826 of the Sahih Al-Bukhari, that quotes Mohammed saying that women are deficient in mind and religion? Is this why Surah 4:3 allows a man to marry up to four wives at the same time, so that the other three can make up for the deficiency of the individual retarded one?

When the Pakistani ambassador told Oprah that ``Islam encourages women to participate and be a productive member of society,`` was she referring to Surah 2:223, which states that a wife is a sex object for her husband? It’s quite a poetic verse: ``Your wives are as a tilth unto you, so approach your tilth when or how ye will.``

Aside from having more than nine wives, the Prophet Mohammed married six-year old Aisha and consummated his marriage with her when she was nine. Al-Bukhari’s Sahih Al-Bukhari is filled with references (i.e. vols. 5:236, 7:64, 7:65, 7:88) to this inspiring ingredient of Islam that all Muslims must accept.

I’m very confused.

Is Oprah planning to have an ``Islam 202``? Is that when she will ask her guests about six-year old Aisha? Or is it when she will recommend the book Rage Against the Veil – the heartbreaking account about how Islam mutilates the lives and souls of women and children? The book tells the story of Homa Darabi, an Iranian female doctor and human rights activist, who committed suicide, by self-immolation, in a crowded public square in Tehran in 1994 to bring awareness to the nightmarish realities that, for some reason, were forced into invisibility on Oprah’s ``Islam 101.``

RE: scout

``why do Indians get so angry and hostile when faced with self criticism?``

This has nothing to do with self-criticism. Our newspapers are the most scathing critics of the GoI, as are most Indians.

The issue here is lies (shammi just exposed one)and one-sided spin by the author.

Perhaps Altaf Hussein should write articles on Pakistan here; we can then judge how tolerant Pakistanis are of ``self-criticism.``

Bad news for apologists of Jihad and Islamic terrorism. Even Europeans don`t want to tolerate it anymore...and they are far more tolerant than Americans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/20/international/europe/20FRAN.html

Do we need further proof that the writer is a deluded Paki.

My the author lives in India.

He reeks of Pakistani ideology through and through.

What bullshit is this?

If the Hindus have desecrated every Muslim monument in India then the Muslim rulers have destroyed every Hindu temple and the Muslims have nothing but cruel rulers.

Two can play this game.

If the author wants to paint the whole society with a broad brush then why he does he find wrong what he accuses the Hindus of doing.

If you want to criticize India be objective.

Eklavya, can you be a sport and list the valid points the author makes. Please wean all the Muslims being India`s rulers and look how they are suffering kind of crap from the article.

I can`t get through the article without my blood boiling over.

I would appreciate a summary. Thanks.

Which alternate reality does the author live in ?

Perhaps this is proof of the many-worlds theories

of quantum mechanics ? Or the many universes of

superstring theory ?

-Arun Gupta