Lessons From the Pearl Murder

Pmishra,

Please acknowledge that you are a liar of the first degree, given your creed ofcourse, ... to confirm that please visit my post 432 and others on Farzana Versey`s thackerey article which have been a clear response to your lies about me, and which you have failed to acknowledge in right royal Indian style of liars. n case you don`t know what I am talking about, this is in reference to your weekly assertion that I didn`t reply to your `Bipan Chandra` assertion which was the worst twisting of words I have ever seen...

Others,

The Daniel Pearl tragedy was one of collossal proportions, and the clear losers were Marianne Pearl, Pakistan, and the Pakistani People. I think it goes without saying what my feelings are on that issue.

I shall air my opinion on the shameless Indian glee however which enough Indians have exhibited on the tragic and gruesome death of Danny Pearl. It goes to show that like the fundoos, Indians too have no humanity left in them. Infact my suspicion that Fundoos and Indians, two deadly enemies would gladly let go of their mutual differences to embarrass us the true Pakistani Patriots ... and go to any lengths to do so.

We shall erect a memorial in the sacred memory of the Martyred Danny Pearl, a Jew, an American and the a true martyr of the Pakistani Nation. That memorial will remind us of our resolve to become the tolerant progressive state as envisaged by our founder and to overcome and crush all Islamic fundamentalism, frustrating the designs against the Pakistani Nation, of the Indian Cowards at the same time.

Long Live Humanity (no this does not include Indians especially after the shameless display by shameless Bigots like Mahesh G and others who are overjoyed at the gruesome death of Danny Pearl. Indeed Indian are one People! You all think alike.)

Reaction response# 89. Mr. Hamidum ( Hamid Muhammad?) thank you very very much. I did not like your attityde mind to make fun of BA fails or non bas ok.

This old style Aparthed Chhap pakistan style.

I am nonBA. I did not like General sahib to decide I am not good enough for him. It should be decided by PPL of PK.This most bad type of descrimination. About 45% are literate ok. may be 20% are BA or more of them. This basically DISCRIMNATION against NONGRADUATE in country.THIS AGINST SPIRIT of democracy. The worst part is PPL like you exPk donot even say this is wrong.

I am real unhappy ok that expak feels over 75% of PPL have no ability.

I an sad first general nuters( cuts) spirit of DEmo. by banning BB,NS,Altaf-MQM chief).

Then he disqualifies 75%.

Then packs with Tech. people and women (why let them fight win- that is democracy)

Then he says openly BB ns or MQM supremo will not be allowed , what is this.

I am shocked NO expak said any thing any time about this. Ayubkhan gave basic democracy was far superior may not be perfect but better than farce.

I hope some EX paks can put money so they can put challenge to this total non democracy in supreme court. I know the Supreme court is rubber stamp. But ask expak to Bush to tell Mush to start playing with fire. Let me again say its not democracy it like Sharabi telling people be sober. Let me say again nothing will happen. Only way out is to have UN sponsored colonism for next 10 years. Ask white good british retired Civil officers to control country.I was born just after Englishman left. Browm Sahib is worst enemies of brown people.I am tired of third worldly. Also ppl will listen to them as they can whip and improve ok. I am just tired of . We need to stop tution classes. I pay lot more than gas and Elctrsity. I see my daughters notes tutions, these BA, MAs etc are just minting money. They do not teach just cramming. All Lafangebazi. Just tirade. Good bye expaks.

hobbyty #141, sadna #143

No reasonable person could disagree with the general framework of Pankaj`s comments. There is a genuine danger of majoritarian tyranny here. We have some money and power-hungry ``gurus`` and priests conspiring with the BJP to help get them some votes.

The Mahant of Ayodhya is a scum-filled lard ball and the sooner he is put into prison or at least given a good beating, the happier I am going to be. As for Ashok Singhal, I wish I was standing next to the man so that I could spit on him. The BJP has pandered to the VHP and to nazi`s like Bal Thakre and this has had a really bad impact on Indian democracy.

But there is good news: the BJP has been badly beaten in the elections. Cunning people may conspire with fascists to come to power but the indian commitment to democracy will ultimately end their self-defeating behavior. The news that 10%+ of the UP assembly is muslim is also excellent news.

Three cheers for Indian democracy!

Re: ana, #134

``Goray Rang ka zamana kabhi ho ga na purana.....``

That`s so clever! A desi brick right on the head!!! I agree with you whole heaterdly; and I bet so does the silent desi majority.

PS: I love the song, though; without the irony, that is.

Hope something good will come out of Dan Pearl’s medieval slaughter. Pakistani patriots may realize that terrorism as national policy has backfired.



My Prediction: The Jehadi Poster Child will be deported to USA if some mysterious accident does not cause his death in Pakistani prison. ISI will not want this canary in FBI/CIA hands.

Ref hobbyty #: 141

[``Hinduism`s Political Resurgence

Blah blah blah blah

What was once quickly identified as unreasonable and aberrant — Hindu majoritarianism — enjoys a growing influence and legitimacy as the ruling ideology of the Indian government. Oddly, the illiberal tendencies a military dictator seeks to expel, with popular support, from Pakistan seem to be finding a hospitable home in democratic India.]

The hospitable home doesn`t seem to elect Hindutva politicians. The BJP has been defeated in the states with the LEAST LITERACY in India.

You people believe that it is illiteracy that is the problem in Pakistan. No; the mindset that created Pakistan is the problem in Pakistan. The mindset that says the average person will casually drop money in a collection box for jihad in Kashmir. The mindset that calls a gun-toting terrorist an average everyday person. The mindset that allows madrassahs where hate is taught to flourish whereas the government runs ghost schools.

With US planes flying all over Pak airspace and US warships parked off Karachi harbor, what is the threat that Pakistan faces today? Yet Musharraf asks for 28 F-16s on his visit to the US, the money for which has been returned by the US. Did he ask for assistance in terms of food to feed school kids as the state of Tamil Nadu in India did? The US government would have gladly shipped the mountains of wheat, rice, cheese and butter that it doesn`t know where to store to Pakistan. But no, you have to have Saudi-funded madrassahs where, as you Pakistanis are quick to proffer explanations, the poor send their kids in the hopes of getting their children food.

Will a single party in Pakistan campaign on the abolition of the Hudood ordinances? Will any party in Pakistan campaign promising to abolish the Blasphemy Laws? No. So don`t even begin to compare what is Pakistan doing and what is happening in India on the religion front.

Thank God for Jinnah. Otherwise, we Indians would be loaded with 140 million of you idiots and the goddamn Afghans as our neighbors. Jinnah indeed is the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity; he took with himself all the incorrigibles of the subcontinent.

Let me paraphrase Bertrand Russell: Pakistan is the ultimate segregation of the unfit.

Dear Prof Hobbs

Indian democracy, since its inception in 1947, was in an adoloscent stage. Congress dominated all walks of political and social life with little opposition. In this period of monopoly, sycophancy ruled and nothing characterises it better than the slogan,``India is Indira and Indira is India``. Things started changing when Indira was shown the door in 1977. But the opposition, inexperienced as it was, was bogged down in internal fights that ultimately proved to be its undoing. For stability in a multi-party democracy, it is essential to have two strong parties, one slightly left of center and other towards right. With the emergence of BJP, Indian democracy seems to be comming of age. It should be noted that the BJP rule was characterised by much dilution of its original ideology under pressures of effectively governing a pluralistic state. Thus no temple was constructed and insignificant number of riots took place during the last 2.5 years of BJP rule. Even now BJP under pressure from its NDA allies is refusing to allow VHP to have its way on temple issue. Thus we have two strong parties now. If BJP doesnt provide good rule people can go back to Congress and vice-versa. At this time people probably want a return of rejuvenated ``secular`` Congress, and not the pseudo secular Congress that manipulates religion for its votebank. The rise of BJP began with the despicable pandering of Congress to fundo Muslims in Shahbano case and now the cycle is completed with BJP witnessing a temporary downfall due to its misgovernence. Congress will get another chance in all probability and BJP will be there to take govt by balls it it falters. This is the kind of ``comming of age`` of Indian democracy that makes us feel more secure about our future.

How come NYT reports that Pakistani authorities are discounting Omar`s confession saying that

these statements were not done under oath but at the same time, attorneys representing them say that police asked defendents to sign in blank piece of paper.

What is cooking. Is Omar being set up for another encounter. After the mystery fire in mil HQ(remember there were two), plus this..

I am sure the Americans are LOOKING real hard this time.

Hobbyty 141

Compare that with the following article about Pakistan published in 2000.

Thursday, December 28, 2000

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20001228/t000123583.html

The Chilling Goal of Islam`s New Warriors

In Pakistan, today`s militant faithful see the entire world as the battlefield for their holy war.

By ROBIN WRIGHT, Times Staff Writer

MURIDKE, Pakistan--Abu Samara was a gangling lad of 14 when he joined the jihad. He was still too much of a boy to grow the beard required of holy warriors. But he wasn`t too young to master the weapons of war.

Within weeks, his long, thin fingers were proficient with assault rifles, hand grenades, rocket launchers and the militants` deadliest device: remote-controlled explosives.

Then he volunteered to die.

Over the next decade, Abu Samara learned advanced weaponry in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. He trained alongside Muslim militants from Arab and Asian countries at Afghan camps later attacked by the United States for fostering extremists. Then he joined the Army of the Prophet, or Lashkar-e-Taiba, the most feared of Pakistan`s 14 private armies.

``From the moment I discovered the idea of jihad [holy war], I knew what I`d do with my life,`` he explained, sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the ground, an AK-47 slung over his shoulder.

The former peasant boy, who at 24 now has a full, untrimmed beard and a head of long, tousled black hair to match, spends most of his time these days in Kashmir, the idyllic Himalayan territory of snowcapped peaks and verdant valleys that has become the world`s highest battlefield. His cell of commandos crosses into Kashmir from Pakistan for months at a stretch to carry out suicide missions intended to wrest all of the disputed region from Hindu-dominated India. Most volunteers don`t survive more than four years.

Abu Samara is the archetype new ``Jihadi,`` a breed of Islamic warrior whose mission is no longer simply fighting infidels and oppressors in Muslim lands--the kind of campaign that put earlier generations of holy warriors on the map in war zones such as Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon and Chechnya.

The new Jihadis are the most dangerous face of Islam today. In Pakistan, they are the most aggressive among a growing array of activists and organizations replacing or challenging crumbling state institutions. They`ve already played a major role in transforming South Asia into the world`s most volatile region--and Pakistan into what the United States views as the world`s most explosive country.

As a result of escalating tension over Kashmir, a U.S. intelligence estimate predicts a 40% to 60% chance of open warfare within the next couple of years between India and Pakistan--two countries that openly tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

Yet Abu Samara`s mission is not limited to Asia`s subcontinent. He`s out to change--perhaps even conquer--the world in the name of his faith.

``Jihad is not just about fighting against oppression and occupation. Jihad is about the way you think and say prayers, the way you eat and sleep. It`s about creating an Islamic environment. It`s about the struggle of life,`` said Abu Samara, a nom de guerre that means ``father of bountiful.``

``Jihad gives life purpose,`` he said. ``Without it, we`re useless.``

Inspired by Success Against the Soviets

Virtually all of the private armies in Pakistan, the only Muslim country created solely to preserve a religious identity, are offshoots of groups launched with the help of Pakistani intelligence during the Soviet occupation of neighboring Afghanistan in the 1980s. But they weren`t disbanded after Moscow`s 1989 withdrawal. Inspired by Islam`s role in defeating a superpower, their mission and numbers expanded rapidly.

The impoverished South Asian nation is now home to at least 128 camps for militants dedicated to retrieving Kashmir and widening the Islamic world. Once the militants were proxies of the government. Now, even the new military regime is unable or unwilling to rein them in.

``If the government tried to stop us, we`d just carry on our jihad. We do what we want,`` said Abu Samara.

In Pakistan, Abu Samara operates out of a secluded compound run by the Center for Islamic Teaching and Guidance, or Markaz al Dawa Wal Irshad, in the countryside beyond Muridke, a half-hour`s drive from Lahore. It`s one of a growing number of Jihadi camps throughout Pakistan that offers both religious and military training.

The center is a tranquil compound tightly guarded by the Army of the Prophet, the group`s armed wing formed in 1993. ``Jihad for Peace`` is crudely slopped on the entrance wall in English.

Inside are training fields, obstacle courses and tightropes strung treacherously high between trees to train Jihadis how to cross Kashmir`s rivers and ravines. To qualify, militants as young as 12 must be able to carry another fighter across the high wire. There are no safety nets.

The compound is self-sustaining: Wheat fields, orchards, a dairy and man-made lakes to cultivate fish surround small apartment blocks. The extensive facilities include a clinic, grammar and secondary schools, an Islamic university, homes for families of those who died for the cause, a mosque and barracks for fighters.

There`s no entertainment, however. Fighters are instructed to smash television sets owned by their families before joining, since anyone unwilling to comply is also unlikely to forfeit his life for the jihad.

Long rows of large tents quarter new trainees who`ve exceeded both the compound`s limits and the expectations of its 2,200 recruiting stations.

The Center for Islamic Teaching and Guidance was founded in 1986 by Hafez Sayeed, a senior Muslim scholar whose white hair and beard are dyed a deep rust by henna, in keeping with Pakistani tradition. Sayeed cultivates volunteers, most between the ages of 12 and 15, steeps them in Islam, arranges their training in guerrilla warfare and then dispatches them to fight.

`We Want One System in the Whole World`

His description of the movement`s goals sounds benign enough.

``We`re Muslims, and we believe Islam is more than a few rituals. It`s a religion of peace with solutions to all of today`s political and economic problems. It`s important for us to spread that message because we want one system in the whole world, which, of course, is Islam. And to make Islam dominant, we must do jihad,`` Sayeed explained. ``Today, Western systems are dominant, but they`ve failed to deliver, so people are returning to divine systems.``

Sayeed`s center, one of the largest and most important of the camps, has produced more than 3,000 Muslim preachers and scholars as well as dozens of spinoff religious schools.

But the center`s lofty ambitions sound less benign on an evolving set of Web sites it has launched in recent years, the most recent of which is http://www.markazdawa.org.

``The Islamic ruling system does away with all nationalities, tribalistic bonds and races and melts them into Islam,`` boasted a previous site. ``Under the Islamic ruling system, foreign policy is tied with jihad, conquest and the spread of Islam. It destroys borders and physical barriers to lead humanity from worshiping each other to worshiping the Lord of humanity.``

Islam also has its ``own rules`` regarding individual rights, it added, ``in contrast to Western notions of freedom and liberties.``

The movement`s conspiratorial, even paranoid, mind-set is reflected in its admonition not to drink Coca-Cola, because, it says, the name reflected in a mirror forms the Arabic words ``No Muhammad, No Mecca.``

Like all Pakistan`s Muslim movements, the center gets most of its recruits for both fighting and preaching from the 8,000 madrasas, or religious academies, that have sprung up throughout Pakistan during the past two decades.

Most are a byproduct of a crumbling state. More than a million youths are now enrolled in madrasas because of Pakistan`s deteriorating education system and the growing appeal of Islam.

A typical madrasa is the Place of Islamic Knowledge and Help, one of dozens in and around Peshawar, the lawless frontier city and gateway to Afghanistan that has long been a refuge for militants. It attracts boys as young as 7.

``Anyone who memorizes the Koran will go to heaven--as will his parents and 10 others,`` said Hamim Ullah, a small 12-year-old dressed in a long blue shirt and white prayer cap. The fourth of 11 children from a tribal family, he memorized all 30 chapters of the Koran in three years.

``I`ll be here a few more years to study Islam and then I`ll join the jihad. God willing, I`ll go wherever in the world I`m needed. I`m not afraid,`` he added earnestly as two dozen boys crowded around him.

The Place of Islamic Knowledge and Help was originally set up for Afghan refugees after the Soviet invasion of 1979. Many of the Taliban, the rigid fundamentalists who took control of Kabul, the Afghan capital, in 1996, emerged from this and other Peshawar madrasas. ``Talib`` means student. Now most of the academy`s students are Pakistani.

Ghulam Mortaza has witnessed the transition. The plump Koranic scholar fought in Afghanistan. Now he prepares Pakistani boys for a new jihad.

``A day will come when the Taliban system of ruling is here too. The situation is heading that way,`` he explained after breaking up the crowd of boys. ``Then the jihad will spread wider. That`s what globalization is really about. Definitely the world will become a village and the whole world will be Islamic. Globalization is making Islam universal.``

The Milder Side of the Movement

Qazi Hussain Ahmad is the grandfather of the Islamist movement in Pakistan. With his snowy white beard, wire-rim glasses and furry lamb cap, he looks the part. Qazi is an honorific title and it signifies his leadership of the Islamic Party, or Jamaat-i-Islami, the largest, oldest and most influential Muslim party.

It`s also the mildest side of Pakistan`s Islamic movement.

The Jamaat was a political player even in the days when Pakistan was part of India during British colonial rule. Since then, the group has worked both inside and outside government. But its agenda has never changed.

``Pakistan is the outcome of a struggle, a jihad in the subcontinent over Muslim rights. That struggle continues today between the people and the ruling class because we never fulfilled our mandate,`` Qazi said.

``With the failure of all the secular parties and the military, Pakistan is now in a liberation period. It may take five or 10 years to fully liberate the masses. But there`s no alternative for Pakistan now but Islam.``

Jamaat has never garnered more than 10 seats in parliament. Yet the party increasingly reflects the views of the silent majority in Pakistan, according to the results of a State Department survey. The U.S. poll, released earlier this year, found overwhelming support for Islamist solutions to Pakistan`s problems.

At least 60% said religious leaders should play a larger role in politics, and 78% said schools should teach more religion. Nearly half favored limits on men and women working together.

Discontent With Conventional Parties

Of the five largest Muslim countries in regions outside the Mideast--Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan-- Pakistanis are the most Islamic, the survey concluded. ``Solid pluralities see Islam as having a large and increasing impact on society,`` it said.

The key reason is widespread discontent with the conventional parties that have dominated politics for more than half a century but left Pakistan on the brink of failure as a state--with political instability, debilitating economic woes and a breakdown in law and order. Four military coups haven`t helped.

In a Lahore suburb, Jamaat has created an alternative model for the system it wants for the whole country. About 6,000 people live in 16 apartment buildings, 50 homes and a guest house. They are served by their own mosques, schools, a clinic, maternity hospital and playground. Pakistan`s equivalent of a gated community is clean, safe and free of corruption.

Most of Jamaat`s activities are moderate and related to societal change, such as a network of 3,000 schools. But it, too, has a militant side.

A telling touch is Martyrs` Park, honoring members who died in Kashmir with the private army Hizbul Moujahedeen. Through Hizbul, Jamaat has played key roles in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Jamaat was also responsible for mobilizing the first protests against Salman Rushdie`s book ``Satanic Verses`` for its ``blasphemous`` dream sequences of the prophet Muhammad. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini`s edict imposing a death sentence on Rushdie grabbed headlines in 1989, but the Islamic world`s fury was ignited by Jamaat.

The party is also opposed to surrendering Pakistan`s right to carry out nuclear tests. Pakistan and India are the only nuclear powers not to have signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

With branches throughout Asia, Europe and even North America, Jamaat now has a wider network than Egypt`s Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Islamic world`s oldest movements. It is active in the five Central Asian former Soviet republics as well as among the Muslim Uighurs of western China. It has strong ties to Muslim groups as far afield as Malaysia and Sudan.

``A feeling is emerging in Pakistani society that we have a special role to play in uniting Muslims all over the world. It seems like wherever there`s war, Muslims are being killed. People feel that we need to get together to stop it, but there`s a leadership vacuum,`` said Khalid Rahman, executive director of the Institute of Policy Studies, an Islamist think tank in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, that reflects Jamaat thinking.

``With our independence and history of democratic institutions, what we have is better than many Muslim countries. And as a nuclear power, Pakistan is a country looked up to by the Muslim world--and the obvious place to provide new leadership.``

A Former Leader Sees a Revolution Coming

Hamid Gul is a charismatic former lieutenant general with a flair for the dramatic. Attired in a dark suit, his hair and mustache neatly groomed, he sat back on a green brocade sofa and reflected on the days when he orchestrated the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. As head of Pakistan`s intelligence service, he channeled tons of American arms and billions in Saudi petrodollars to Afghanistan`s moujahedeen.

That made him, for a decade, the most powerful man in Pakistan.

Now retired, he`s still a force to be reckoned with. And his vision of Pakistan`s future is distinctly Islamist.

``Pakistan will go through its own version of an Islamic revolution,`` Gul predicted. ``The army is the last hope. And if the army fails--and it probably will--then people will realize they have to do it themselves, revolt against the system. Everyone sees this on the wall.

``Because everything else in this country has failed, Islam will have to lead the way.``

The army, he predicted, will probably offer little resistance, mainly because so many of the troops already are sympathetic to the Islamist cause.

In many societies, the military is the instrument and guarantor of a secular state. But Islam has always been a strong undercurrent in Pakistan`s army, dating back to colonial Britain`s encouragement of worship as a form of discipline. Pakistan`s army also has gone through a transformation during the past two decades that gives it an Islamist veneer and increases the dangers of a wider regional conflict that could make the Afghan war look small by comparison.

The trend got a major boost in 1979 from the simultaneous onset of the violence in Afghanistan and the revolution in neighboring Iran that ended 2,500 years of monarchy. In both, Islam was the idiom of opposition.

``Pakistan has been sitting in the lap of revolutions for more than 20 years. This can`t help but have a big impact on people`s thoughts and expectations,`` Gul said.

``The Afghan jihad, particularly, produced a tremendous headiness. Here were the moujahedeen in traditional dress dating back centuries fighting a modern superpower. No one ever expected them to win. Then Islam triumphed and communism withdrew. This sent a powerful message to Muslims everywhere,`` he added. ``A new breed of young people emerged from all this.``

Military Is Also Getting Involved

They didn`t all join militant movements. Many in the military, both young and old, also now believe that their mission is not merely defending Pakistan. Like the Jihadis, they`re intent on defending Islam throughout the region--and beyond.

Last year, the military intervened in clashes in Kashmir, a role usually left to the Jihadis. Gul regards the troops` seizure of part of the strategic Kargil Heights as proof of Islam`s power to inspire Pakistani soldiers. ``India`s superior technology failed when it came in direct contact with determined human spirit,`` he explained.

The conquest was short-lived. President Clinton persuaded Pakistan`s democratically elected then-prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to withdraw from Kargil in mid-1999 to avoid a wider regional conflict. The immediate flash point dissipated. But in less than four months, Sharif was ousted by the military.

Loss of ties with the West has also spurred Islamic sentiment.

Throughout the Afghan war, Pakistan`s military had close ties with its Western counterparts. Many officers were trained in the United States or Britain. The exchanges, cooperation and bonding ended abruptly with the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and U.S. military sanctions in 1990 imposed because of Pakistan`s nuclear capability.

Today, the only senior officer in the government with experience in the West is Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the leader of last year`s military coup, who was trained in Britain. The rank and file have had no firsthand exposure to the West.

Mahmoud Ahmad Ghazi reflects the growing Islamist identity of Pakistan`s military. Ghazi graduated from a madrasa that also produced several Taliban leaders, some of whom were his classmates. Last fall, he was appointed to the ruling National Security Council by the coup leaders.

Ghazi said he`s not worried about the ``Talibanization`` of Pakistan.

``Oh no, if you compare Pakistan with the religious leaders of Afghanistan, you`ll find a helluva difference,`` he said emphatically during an interview in the marble office block in Islamabad he shares with the generals.

Yet he also sees Islam as the key to Pakistan`s salvation--as he regularly advises the military.

``Islam is the most dynamic force today because, unlike other major religions, it hasn`t succumbed to secularism. It doesn`t divide human life between the religious and the secular, the spiritual and the profane,`` he explained with the gravity of total belief. ``Only Islam offers an integrated approach to the totality of human existence. Only Islam is the route to victory.``

Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories about: Islam, Pakistan - Revolts, Jihad (Organization), Guerrillas - Pakistan, India - Foreign Relations - Pakistan.

You will not be charged to look for stories, only to retrieve one.

Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times

Re: Masd # 71

I was running behind schedule and thus, had to curtly jot down my thoughts. Secondly, what I had meant to say was that a lot of Sindhi local customs have many similarities with hindu customs. There are a lot of hindus living in Sindh and they are one of the most neglected minorities in Pakistan.

Pakistan, historically, has done a very poor job of acknowledging the presence of hindus in the country.

I was a bit amused by your contention that the interior of Sindh was mostly muslim and that might be true, but your response had a shrill tone, as if you were protesting and denying the existence of hindus in interior Sindh via the guise of religion. I might be wrong and this could be a false impression, but your interact did raise this observation.

Sindh may be a muslim majority area, as you rightly suggest and I do not doubt your point of view. However, what must be kept in mind is that before Sir Cyril Radcliffe was shown a map of India, across which he drew a line, Sindh was once a part of the Bombay presidency. Sindh had a hindu presense throughout its history and it was one of the reasons, if my memory is correct, that Mohammand bin Qasim landed there in time of a hindu raja, with whom there was a ``failure to communicate`` on certain (again, ironically) on some bilateral issues.

Put this way, Sindh has a hindu influence in it just like Uttar Predesh has a muslim influence in its history. In this sense, we have to make a distinction between culture, the past and geo-political realities. The geo-political realities cannot alter the culture nor can it re-write the past. Granted, that in the last 55 years too much water has passed in the Indus and Ganges and that India and Pakistan are two different nations for all purposes. India and Pakistan share many things - culture, history, lingusitical ethnography, and acknowledging that reality does not lessen the spirit of 1947 nor does it imply that the past will be altered.

Ciao

hobbyt #141
For once the NYT goofed up badly. It had an article by Celia Dugger on page 3 on BJP`s loss in the elections which directly contradicts many points of Pankaj Mishra`s analysis. Let it be a lesson to all NRIs and editorial page editors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/25/international/asia/25INDI.html


btw, there is also a long article quoting Pakistani sources on the links between Pearl`s kidnappers and the ISI, no mention of the Indian connection.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/25/international/asia/25PEAR.html

re: spout

{{please be true to your Indian heritage.}}

at least i`ve got a heritage...oh wait, i forgot, you have one too....the camel behinds and sands of arabia...nevermind that pakistan did not exist so it can`t have a heritage...but you`re really from arabia, which did exist...

Akash, all Chowkies

Indeed, BJP has been ``graceful`` in accepting electoral defeat. War mongering and Muslims in India as a contentious issue, do not resonate as they once did (or is it too early to make such a definitive statement?). An example of other Indians being ``graceful and ``introspective`` and instructive for both Pakistanis and Indians - The paradigm regulating relations between these two countries internationally, has changed, from The ``New York Times``:

February 25, 2002

``Hinduism`s Political Resurgence

By PANKAJ MISHRA

NEW DELHI -- A few weeks ago I was in Ayodhya, a North Indian pilgrimage town. In 1992 a crowd of Hindu men demolished a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya. They claimed it had been built by the Mogul emperor Babur over the birthplace of Lord Rama. India changed fast after that moment of Hindu nationalist rage. The politicians who had led the crowd to the mosque that morning and later watched their followers erect Hindu idols over the rubble — and who for most of the 50 years since independence had been on the political sidelines — now hold top positions in the Indian government.

Since the 1992 destruction, an enthusiasm for the free market has also overtaken India, but the new middle- class affluence hasn`t reached Ayodhya. Down its monkey-infested alleyways, the richest people are still Hindu abbots. One whom I met in Ayodhya was Ramchandra Paramhans, who helped initiate, in 1950, the legal battle for the temple and who in the early 1980`s entered into an opportunistic alliance with Hindu nationalist organizations then attempting to attract Hindu voters through an explicitly anti- Muslim program.

Mr. Paramhans described to me, as he fed cows in his vast straw-littered compound, how he had upbraided India`s home minister, L. K. Advani, on the phone that morning for having neglected the temple issue. In his white dreadlocks and long beard, he seemed like a Hindu version of the self-important mullahs I had met in Pakistan. But senior bureaucrats really had traveled, a few weeks before, to his compound to mollify him after he threatened to bring down the government. And a few days after my visit to Ayodhya, Mr. Paramhans showed up in New Delhi at the head of a heavily publicized procession of abbots to deliver personally a blunt ultimatum to Prime Minister Behari Vajpayee.

I couldn`t help but recall my meeting early last year with some prominent Islamic clerics and politicians at an old madrasa near Peshawar, Pakistan. The madrasa had become notorious after some of its alumni became the leaders of the Taliban. Its teachers were keen to impress upon me the apolitical nature of their work. I suspected they were dissembling, but I was more struck by their defensiveness. It was as though they could sense what has been confirmed since by the fundamentalists` failure to stir up trouble for Pervez Musharraf: that public opinion overwhelmingly opposes the fanatical ideologies that have undermined Pakistan in every way. It is this strong anti-extremist sentiment that General Musharraf now relies on — much more than American support — in his crackdown on militant groups and his more discreet confrontations with the ideologues given high places by the previous military ruler, Mohammad Zia ul- Haq.

While General Musharraf strives toward a secular polity, the ruling politicians of India head in the opposite direction. Hindu nationalists have long exalted Hindutva, or Hindu-ness, over the secular identities proposed for India by Gandhi and Nehru. So now the federal minister for education, Murli Manohar Joshi, promotes a new Indian history that highlights the depredations of Muslim invaders (as they are called) and celebrates Hindu bravery. Mr. Joshi has also allocated funds for such ``Hindu sciences`` as astrology. This sectarian-minded education is objected to by many of India`s distinguished historians — especially those who had stressed India`s pluralist traditions in their now discarded textbooks. Mr. Joshi recently denounced these historians as ``academic terrorists`` who were more difficult to fight than the usual kind of terrorist.

This may be bluster; and perhaps India`s largest-circulation news magazine, India Today, describes an isolated mood in a recent cover story on the ``return of the militant Hindu.`` But that mood does exist. Fed by a patriotic media and film industry and reflected in bellicose posturing against Pakistan, it nearly dominates public life now; its urban middle-class constituency hopes that nationalism may provide a measure of security against the economic and political crises that, in the early 90`s, had looked so threatening. And nationalist leaders continue to strengthen their hold over the heavily centralized Indian state as their constituents continue to gain from a globalized economy.

An antiterrorist ordinance — introduced by the government before the recent attacks on the parliaments in Kashmir and Delhi — would have required up to three years` imprisonment for a journalist who failed to assist government authorities. It has been challenged by human rights groups and political parties concerned about the possibility of its misuse against minorities. In any case, the ordinance is unlikely to curtail the activities of Hindu extremist outfits affiliated with the government like Shiv Sena, which claimed some credit for demolishing the Babri mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992 and was indicted by a judicial commission for inciting the pogrom against Muslims in Bombay in 1993.

What was once quickly identified as unreasonable and aberrant — Hindu majoritarianism — enjoys a growing influence and legitimacy as the ruling ideology of the Indian government. Oddly, the illiberal tendencies a military dictator seeks to expel, with popular support, from Pakistan seem to be finding a hospitable home in democratic India.

Pankaj Mishra is author of ``The Romantics,`` a novel.``

chotu #124,

hey there, you know how bad i am with emails, sorry budz :) i`ll try to be better.

about the post now, i agree with the jist of it.

who can deny the corruption of the PAkistani government? but i do believe, we should do all we can to generate support for the current one, even it happens to be the result of a coup.

the current Pakistani gov`t is making amends and trying to improve the political and social situation in the country. we DO NOT, therefore, have to apologize to the West. besides, they aren`t exactly angels when it comes to political agendas. Pakistan has been used by the West whenever it`s convenient. We`ve done more than our share of helping fight the current war against terrorism, and we continue to do so. We don`t have to sit around feeling sorry and guilty for ourselves because of a tragic incident.

tahmed321 #107,

Veeresh is Elmer Fudd?

whoa! everything`s fitting in nice and proper now.

Veeresh ji, are you going to sit back and take that or are you going to say something to defend yourself from such accusations?

Knows too much. Eliminate at any cost.

Ansari, ISI darling, now its biggest enemy.

PTI [ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2002 10:05:26 AM ]

EW DELHI: Aftab Ansari, the prize catch of the CBI in the Kolkata American Centre attack case, has become a target of Pakistan`s ISI after he spilled the beans by exposing the hawala racket used to send funds to sponsor anti-national activities.

A wireless intercept suggested that ISI has directed some of its conduits in the country as well as neighbouring Nepal to eliminate Ansari at any cost, intelligence sources said.

Ansari, presently in the custody of Rajkot police in Gujarat in connection with a spate of kidnappings in the region, has been provided additional guards while being taken to the court of First Class Judicial Magistrate in Radhanpura, the sources said.

The wireless message intercepted in Jassar area of Gujarat suggested that some professional killers from the underworld gangs had been hired to kill Ansari.

Ansari had revealed to CBI his connection with hawala operators in the national capital, Bhopal, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata and Lucknow.

http://www1.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1942043