Memories of December 6th

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Studebaker,

You`re right two wrongs don`t make a right - that`s exactly my point. No Hindu would say don`t follow what you believe to be your path ... but try and read some (real) Indian Islamic history through the eyes of indigenous Indian faiths to understand the anger manifested in the babri demolition ... the denial of the facts of history by revisionism only adds insult to injury.

I wish instead of destroying and rebuilding a temple the VHP would put up museums and memorials to set the record straight and as a way to remember, grieve and heal - and as a warning to future generations - but refuse to repeat the injustice that would make them as bad as the original oppressor. (that nice sufi singer Farzana was quoting should read the Babarnama)

I can only quote Gandhi`s favorite bhajan

Raghupati raghav Raja Ram, patit paavan Sita Ram,

Ishwar Allah tero naam, sab ko sanmati de Bhagwan

Sanmati is needed badly right now ...

Reply Studebaker:

``Lubina Ahmed did not write this to be ``LIKE`Varsha! Godforbid if ever i have a sister ,bhabhi or mother like her (Varsha).``

## Yeah, I guess it`s hard for you--- a pious, right-thinking Muslim man--- to accept an independent-thinking woman who has the ``audacity`` to voice her own opinions in an eloquent manner in your own family. I quite understand.

``Lubina is what the mainstream media dont register ,recognize or purposefully ignore.like all opressive haegemonous dominant society .It CONTROL the vital points of dissent .Publicatiobn & access to masses being one of them``

### Duhhh...what does that mean? Is she Indian Muslim, Pakistani non-Muslim, Ahmadiya, Mohajir, Shia, non-Punjabi or what (all marginalised in ``opressive haegemonous dominant societies``, you`ll agree)? You have very conveniently not responded to my basic point: her command over the language is poor and her logical flow inconsistent.

``Lubina wrote outsider what REdiff b/c it wont let it publish probably lie YOU ,for whom the content was not more important than the words.``

## Thank God for rediff then. I shudder at the thought of being exposed to the so-called writings of every poor illiterate sod who has an opinion. I hope you are not equating Chowk, which is essentially an interaction haven where ordinary, largely anonymous people exchange personal points of view, with a newspaper or a portal like rediff, where one expects certain levels of reporting and writing ability. You`re damn right for expecting that from me.

Just for the record, though: I don`t really approve of Varsha`s ``screw-`em-all`` attitude and you`re right about most of her columns being little more than rants against Muslims, some in fact are highly offensive to anyone with a conscience ---one of her pieces was titled ``Where are the green M&M`s?`` * *wince * *

But don`t assume passion is a prerogative of Pakistanis alone. And don`t even TRY to compare the writing skills of ``our`` Varsha and ``your`` Lubina. You can`t win.

Cheers, <

Sound

Reply Rsridhar # 2

“Why do you always discuss such contentious issues?”

Arrey Rsridhar, freedom of speech involves addressing the issues you want to. There are a plethora of Indian views and sources of information present on chowk. Farzana is under no obligation to try and be representative. She writes from her own point of view.

“Why do you discuss Bal Thackeray again? This guy, most of hindus agree (exclude most in Maharashtra), is crazy.”

Bombay is an important city in India, and what happens there has an impact across India. In Bombay, unfortunately, Thackeray is very influential.

How did a mob of a thousand people armed with revolvers, acid bulbs, petrol bombs, knives and hockey sticks gather in a few minutes?

AYODHYA TO GODHRA Thursday, February 28, 2002



They lived through death to tell tale

In 45 minutes of horror on Sabarmati Express, 57 died but many escaped and...

JANYALA SREENIVAS & MEGHDOOT SHARON

AHMEDABAD, FEBRUARY 27: When Sabarmati Express rolled into Ahmedabad railway station this evening, only the engine could be heard.

Over 1,000 people, mostly VHP and BJP workers, stood still and silent. As the empty coaches littered with stones rolled past, the crowd let out a gasp.

Minister at the end of mob fury

GODHRA: Tempers ran high at the civil hospital town of Gujarat where 18 injured were admitted. A mob heckled Minister of State Bhupendra Lakhawala and shouted anti-government slogans when CM Narendra Modi visited.

The mob of 1,000 locked the main gate to the emergency ward and prevented Lakhawala from going in. When he tried persuading the mob, some youth pushed him. He was nearly pushed out of the hospital complex. Sensing trouble, Lakhawala beat a retreat. Even policemen inside the hospital watched, realising any interference might aggravate the situation. — ENS



Then they surged forward towards the train. On platform 1, women sevaks wailed, elderly men stood with glazed eyes and the youths cried revenge. The sevaks alighted from the train into the embrace of weeping relatives and friends.

Those who had lived through Godhra brought with them tales of 45-minutes of horror. Veenaben Rajput, in S6, said: ‘‘The train stopped five minutes after leaving Godhra. We thought there was a red signal. Then, a large stone landed right behind me. And then there was a hail of stones. I pushed some young girls under the seat. I shouted for help. But the others were hit and bleeding.’’

The stories were several but all those on board said the attack was planned. ‘‘After the hail of stones stopped, a 1,000-strong mob armed with crude revolvers, acid bulbs, petrol bombs, knives and hockey sticks set upon the train. They locked a coach from outside and set it on fire with petrol bombs,’’ Govindbhai, provision store owner from Amraiwadi, said.

According to Rajeshbhai Rasiklal from Dhansura, four compartments full of kar sevaks, including one of women, was targetted. ‘‘When I jumped out, I saw two coaches burning. We shouted out to those inside to get out. They looked confused. We never realised the doors were locked from outside,’’ he said.

The sorrow of the survivors was drowned in anger by the time the train pulled up in Ahmedabad. Most women and youth were angry. They brandished knives and swore revenge. A large police contingent had a tough time controlling them.

At Maninagar railway station, too, grief gave way to anger as 350 kar sevaks alighted from Sabarmati Express at 4.25 pm to the welcome of VHP leaders. They were from Amraiwadi, Maninagar, Odhav and Bapunagar districts.

Kar sevak Jignesh Dabhi from Bapunagar recalled: ‘‘They first pelted stones. Then some from the mob cut off the hose, which stopped the train.’’ Some of the mobsters even misbehaved with the women inside.

VHP city women’s wing convenor Bhartiben Gajjar said that the goons targetted the women. ‘‘Two women in my compartment were burnt alive. Two others jumped off the running train and fractured their limbs,’’ she said. Gajjar identified the dead women as Jiviben Dabhi and Premben Dabhi, both from Majur Gaam.

Islam as preached by Muhammad cannot be blamed for Muslim terrorism. However, Musalmans are responsible for most of the terrorist acts in past few years.

ROMAIR

From other board.

“You seem to have changed from Musharraf himself stating that he would go back, to a daily mantra. So I will once again ask the same question: Could you point out when and where he (as per your first reply) said he would go back to the barracks after Oct 2002?”

Okay I admit that I couldn’t find a URL to prove that he said that he will return to the barracks after 10/02; I think I was only conned into believing that like rest of the Paksitan, after Supreme court’s decision and all. But on the other hand, if I couldn’t produce a URL, does it make him a truthful person? does it give him a right to sit on our head like a dictator? Yaar this is Hindu logic, the baysharam logic.

“Can you explain how a constitution is raped? The only way I can think of is through amendments or by declaring it invalid and throwing it out. Neither has been done. “

I did answer that question and you yourself quoted it as follows:

``The recent changes in election laws, changing the representative structure in the assemblies, changing the laws on separate electorate;``

These issues are settled under constitution. Only an elected body has a right to change that. Any one else changing them, whether he gives a phultroo to the Supreme Court judges or not, if messes with them is raping the constitution. And one thing I never understood, why all those issues that create schism in the people are brought up only during military dictatorships. Why the hell these issue were not raised during the past ten years when there were elected governments. I think everybody knows the answer. Why the hell the laws enacted by past dictators not changed in the past ten years. Why now?


“The courts being put in place are actually not military courts. …….. I cannot imagine you or I ever ending up in one of them.”

This is the most dishonest and selfish argument I ever heard, especially coming from a person who writes mile long posts to support Kashmir’s legal rights. The purpose or reason for existence of a decent society is that it establishes a rule of law that is equal for all. Unless it guarantees that it will protect the most down trodden of the society it deserved to be abolished. Whether we like it or not we have to give due process of law to the Javed Iqbals, Jeffery Dahmers, and Hannibal Lechters along with Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, and Benazir. That is what makes us civilized. We have to develop a culture of justice by strengthening the existing institutions of justice, legislation, and juresprudence. Any new court is nothing but Macarthyism, witchhunt, and Inquisition-travesty, travesty.


“Also could you point out who the political opponents of this govt are? The only ones I can think of are the feudal and corrupt of the PPP and PML (and people who have benefited from them) as well as the hypocritical religious right (like Qazi Hussain and Fazl-ur-Rahman, who recruit other people`s kids to fight in Kashmir, but send their own kids to the USA. “

Let me repeat your mantra here; no two maulvis are same; no two politicians are same; no to feudals are same………as no two generals are same. I think you get the drift. I take you as a reasonable person then why don’t you understand that it has nothing to do with personalities. Its all about the system-dictatorship is bad bad bad period.


“The US was actually an ally in this war, and not the enemy. “

Will this so called ally help us protect ourselves if India attacks? Will it lend us some of its Stealths, Smart Bombs, and F-16s to fight Hindu aggression? Will it lend us a couple of aircraft carriers in case we go on war with India since we lended it our facilities? Yaar for heaven’s sake if god has given you Aqal, why you use it to misguide people?


“All major security decisions made by Pakistan are discussed with the Chinese leadership, since we are under the protective wings of China. China didn`t have too much problem with this, neither did the Pakistani strategic leadership. Do you claim to know more than them about the security of Pakistan?


Yak nah shudd do shudd, Are we a soverign country? Or men in Khaki have exchanged it for chohaaraas and gurr?

“And could you explain how giving Lasbela, Jacobabad etc. satellite fields to someone can be a security risk? What is going to happen? Are US helicopters going to take off and attack Lahore? Can you point to one incidence in history where something like that has happened?”

Yes I can cite two examples: Koreas and Vietnam where Americans went in to “help” local rulers as and ended up dividing their countries and committed worst acts of genocide in recorded history. Koreans were not as lucky as Vietnamies.


“I didn`t say it was unconstitutional. I said the constitution was condemned, through the amendment. What if 2/3rd of the National Assembly passes a law that everyone named Urstruly should cease to be a Pakistani citizen? Would that be valid? The Supreme Court wanted to undo some of NS`s constitutional shenanigans, but it was stormed by a group of our illustrious parlimentarians.”

I still don’t understand how constitution was condemned. Which article was condemned? I understand that each and every law, including the divine law has a potential to be misused but then God has given us a conscience and his divine guidance to act on our conscience to oppose what we think is wrong. Even the most fascist of the democratic government and the worst possible law has a maximum life of 5 years in a democracy. Then it has to face the scrutiny of the people. What chances do people have with a dictator? They have to wait until his plane blows up in the air. Right?

About Sharia bill:

If we believe that the law of God which He has given to us through our Prophet is the right law, then we have to take a start from somewhere. And what is better than taking a start with an elected democratic government. The check and balances that democracy gives refines the law. If we think that as long as we do not come up with a most perfect law we should live lawless, then we will never come up with that perfect law.

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Methinks, BJP and BJP only can stop the imminent mayhem in the country. Only BJP has some influence over VHP. If there was any other govt at the center including Congress, I would have zero hope of peace. There are at least 20,000 kar-sevaks in Ayodhya at this time, and if they decide to avenge the massacre, no force can stop them. I hope Vajpayee works overtime to prevent the fallout of this gruesome massacre.

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These are troubled times. I am afraid the worse may still be in the store. Tomorrow is a crucial day when VHP has planned the funeral processions of the 60 men, women and children who were burnt alive. In times like these when the emotions blind a person and tempers run high, one longs for Gandhi, a one man army, piercing through the frenzied mobs all alone, soothing bruised spirits and returning sanity to the masses.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Articleshow.asp?art_id=2308148

The contingent from Gujarat reportedly consisted of at least 1,000 women, majority of whom were senior ladies. ``We had gone to Ayodhya for a religious purpose. It is a shame that they chose to attack us whilst we were returning from a religious trip. In our culture, women are respected and not attacked with swords and acid. We should not take this lying down``, thundered Sushma Shukla as women kar-sevaks broke into ``Koi qurbani khali na jaye`` (no sacrifice should go unavenged).

``They stormed inside the women`s bogie and before we could react, they set the entire bogie on fire. Some of us managed to escape, but a number of our sisters got trapped... it was horrifying``, narrated Hetal Patel, a member of Durgavahi

re:Reply #: 7

Studebaker,

Hindus would not be unduely worried about what Rushdie wrote about Rama and Sita. It is after all one man`s word against faith of close to a billion people. A simple act of not reading his book will suffice. One does not have to issue even a fatwa (there is no such equivalent in Hindu religion). This is both degrading to one`s religion and gives the writer too much importance. He deserves just benign neglect. What do you do if you do not like a program in T.V? You do not smash your T.V set, do you? You just switch the channel, right? Same with Mr Rushdie. No need to even ban his book. Just do not read it.

Some years ago Shiv Sena attacked M.F.Hussain (who by the way knows more about Hinduism than an average Hindu would ever live to know)for his nude paintings of Hindu Goddesses. He has been painting these for many years. No one had ever protested. People understood it as an art. Gods and Goddesses have been depicted in various forms since antiquity in India. If you do not like what you see, we may have to start smashing idols in Khajraho. That is why, Shiv Sena belongs to that fringe in the Indian society which has to rake up these controversies to keep its popularity alive. Hinduism is not degraded by the paintings of M.F Hussain but by the vandalism of Shiv Sena.

Sridhar

There is no difference betweens Nazis and Jehadis. ``If you ain`t one of us, we kill you``.

re:Reply #: 30

Romair,

Hindus of Srilanka are different from Hindus of India. They may have a common language (Tamil)with Tamilians in India but the cultural similarities end there. Even there Tamil sounds archaic to some of us.

There has always been population movements between the island nation and Tamil Nadu with Rameshwaram being the center of such traffic. The wrongs heaped upon the Tamil population found a sympathetic cord among Indian Tamils. GOI responded to that both in terms of training their men and also sending food and other aids.

However, when LTTE turned against the IPKF, India beat a hasty retreat. The tide of popular support turned against the Srilankan Tamils when Rajeev Gandhi was assasinated. This happened right in that very state. I was there doing my M.D in Madras and could gauge the revulsion and dismay this single act created in the minds of ordinary Tamils. Support to LTTE has not been very popular since then. That is why regional political parties have not made this into a big issue during state elections.

LTTE`s struggle is political and not religious. OBL and Al Qaida never cease to remind us that their struggle is soley a religious one.

Sridhar

re:Reply #: 28

arjun_m,

Hindu extremism? Where do you find that animal? Does it really exist? Perhaps in Maharashtra in the form of Bal Thackeray. But hey, even he does not go about slitting a journalist`s throat while the ghastly act is recorded in film for posterity.

Sridhar

re:Reply #: 13

Aalamgir,

Agree with your post. We cannot right the wrongs done by history. That is why, demolition of a mosque in a free and secular India is something that cannot be defended by any rational person. That is why both communities need to wait for the court verdict and accept that verdict unconditionally.

Sridhar