The Panel of Vendettas at UC Berkley

Re: satyavadi

{ Sure its not hard to look up some in the white pages, but in all my time at Chowk I dont remember reading Saxena`s first name or whether Saxena is his actual last name. }

...to think, there`s some poor unsuspecting soul out there who is getting calls from an irate monkey screaming about jinnah, pakistan, and divine lineage..

Nehru and Patel compromised with Hindu communalists in the Congress? That`s the most ridiculous thing I have heard. Such assertions may make good talk over coffee (or late at night after the nth round of boozing) but do not stand any scrutiny whatsoever.

So then, pray, who were the Hindu communalists in the Congress? If it is a label then let that be.

No single reason or even primary reason can be found for Partition - just as a large mass movement that lead to India`s independence (and consequently the creation of Pakistan) cannot be interpreted in terms of what a few people did or did not.

India fared better because the ``liberal`` or ``constitutional`` strand of thought managed to break clear of at least three different movements. The simple ``spiritual`` small community led anarchic movement of Gandhi. The Fabian and socialist impulses characterised best by Nehru - the Bismarckian or Garibaldi inspired ``nation-building`` movement that inspired the early Revolutionaries (Bengal, Punjab, Maharashtra, TN and many other places) that ended with Savarkar and now inspired Patel. Apart from this we had communist and socialist revolutionary movements as well. But afte the communists betrayed the freedom struggle during the Quit India times, collaborating with the Brits; the revolutionary movement lost much of its legitimacy with JP, Patwardhan and many others breaking ranks for good.

I am not sure who was sresponsible for the first moves towards the Constitutent Assembly. I know that Gandhi personally ensured that Ambedkar got in (it would have been difficult otherwise as he had managed to antagonise everyone with his supercilious ways!). The Muslim League also had representatives on the Assembly but once Partition became inevitable they left. That was a an opportunity missed. It would have made eminent sense if India and Pakistan had jointly drafted a Constitution and used it to run their respective countries. Unfortunately this is around the time that Jinnah`s plans began to unravel. The lust for power got the better of him. While in West Pakistan there were few who could challenge his caliber the Eastern part was a different matter. When Jinnah turned his back on India he was left heading the wrong way. Bereft of sane advice (Gokhale was long dead) and good people (his best friends were in the Congress), the job of recreating his liberal land was too much for him. Besides Jinnah was just a barrister - not a jurist or intellectual by any stretch of imagination. Just as George Washington handed down charge of the Army of the USA to the Congress in 1783; India`s political leaders waited while a Constitution was being written from 1945 to 1949.

In Pakistan there were none of these strands of the movement save one - the quest of the landed aristocracy to regain its jagirs and unfettered right to collect rents - much as it had done during the time of the Mughals. It was an attempt to return to the past - to an obsolete political model which was OK at the time of the Magna Carta - but not any longer. To call this ``Islamism`` is to trifle with Islam. Malaysia and Turkey have done pretty well for themselves - even Bangladesh (well they do have these pogroms once in a while).

There is still hope for Pakistan. Rewrite the Constitution - declare a secular republic - send the Army to the barracks - make a start on civil society - create smaller states or even counties -devolve power to them. Things will work out well. If it has succeeded in India it can`t but succeed in Pakistan.

While I am not a big fan of Wali Khan, his son, Asfandyar Wali Khan seems to be quite a balanced person. Everytime I hear him speak, he talks a lot of sense (apart from his insistence on calling NWFP, Pukhtunkhwa, thereby isolating the non-Pukhtuns in that provinces). He was sent by Musharraf as Pakistan`s rep at the recent inaugration of the new Afghan govt.

The ANP seems to be slowly coming into line with the mainstream of Pakistani politics. Their previous generation of leaders weren`t quite sure whether they wanted to side with India, Afghanistan or Pakistan. I have a feeling Asfandyar Wali Khan will be the next Chief Minister of NWFP. Hope he is not a corrupt guy. Quite a bit more balanced than most other Pakistani, ``career politicians.``

An interesting speech by him at ICN:

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/weekly-indexes/index-icn.html

My prediction for Pakistan`s next Chief Ministers: (Aitezaz Ahsan (Punjab), A Wali Khan (NWFP), Soomro (Sind), don`t know (Baluchistan))

TFT`s editorial!!!!

An acclaimed Indian Muslim “secularist” recently lambasted Mohammad Ali Jinnah as “the man who single-handedly divided India in 1947”. That is not true. While Mr Jinnah certainly created Pakistan single-handedly, it was Mr Jawaharlal Nehru and Mr Vallabhbhai Patel who jointly presided over the division of India by compromising with the Hindu communalists within the Congress party and pushing Mr Jinnah out of their fold. The sad irony was that it was Mr Gandhi who had to pay the price of their folly with his own life by insisting on a secular ideal for India. That lesson remains lost on many Indians even today.

Since 1969, over 10,000 people have died in communal clashes in Ahmadabad, which fact bemoans the passing of Mr Gandhi’s dream into a sectarian nightmare. Last week, over 600 innocent Muslims died in Gujarat and at least 30,000 were rendered homeless. Nearly 30 mosques in Ahmadabad were razed to the ground. Ten years ago, Hindu militants ran amuck in Ayodhya and sparked communal riots which left over 2000 people dead.

Well meaning secular Indians rightly berate Pakistan for being an “ideological and authoritarian state”, proudly pointing to their own country’s “secular and democratic” moorings. Yet they overlook the frightening similarities between the fundamentalists of the two countries, those in Pakistan who have declared war on Hindu India and the infidel West and those in India who talk of protecting or strengthening the “Hindu nation”, those who wield the trident, stick and firetorch in India and those who carry automatic rifles and advocate an Islamic state for the “Muslim nation” in Pakistan. Both may be minorities within their faiths but both have powerful political supporters in the civil and military hierarchies of their own countries.

The impulse of Hindu-Muslim communalism is rooted in the politics of medieval Indian history. Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism emanated from within the soul of ancient India and therefore didn’t lead to violent conflagration. But Islam arrived from outside India as a “conquering” force through the sword of the “temple breaking” Muslim hordes or on the back of “liberating” Muslim saints and mystics. Later the British imperialists aggravated religious tensions by politicizing the divide. The birth of Pakistan followed because Indian secularists couldn’t comprehend the nature of the communal challenge posed by the Hindus communalists within their fold rather than as a result of Muslim League belligerence in quest of a Muslim “nation”. But just as Pakistani Muslims should have stopped their search for a “Muslim nation” after the formation of their state in Pakistan in 1947 (as Mr Jinnah had advocated) but didn’t do so to their everlasting disarray, so too the Hindus should have stopped clamouring for a Hindu “nation” in India (as Mr Gandhi had pleaded) but didn’t do so to their recurrent dismay. Indeed, if many of Pakistan’s post-independence woes can be laid at the door of its “Muslim ideologues”, some of India’s problems have been accentuated by its Hindu revivalists who seek to define and enlarge Hinduism in the same erroneous manner of Islamism in Pakistan.

Of course, the rise of Islam as a “civilisational” force following the eruption of oil politics in the 1970s has hurt both countries. In Pakistan it fertilized the ground for the emergence of Ziaism and provided the impetus for the Saudi-American sponsorship of jihad in Afghanistan. In India, it laid the seeds of a counter-civilisational response in the form of Hindutva. The articulation of this “civilisational” behaviour was manifest in India by the advent of the “smiling Buddha” in 1974, a reference to India’s “peaceful nuclear explosions”, and in Pakistan by the launching of plans to build the “Islamic bomb” subsequently. Pakistan now came to be cast in the mould of an Islamic state while India began to shed its secular leanings in favour of a Hindu Rashtra. In Pakistan the process of Islamising the state was fed by the ambitions of the military while in India the BJP could not have scaled the heights of the state without the democratic votes and financial power of civil society. Over time, the failed authoritarianism of Pakistan and the successful democratization of India have led them to the same ideological cul-de-sac. In trying to disprove the political legitimacy of each other, both countries have mirrored the compulsions and concerns of the religious impulse in the other.

The most indelible memory of Partition is of railway carriages filled with mutilated corpses of Hindus and Muslims. Five decades later, the blood lust of both communities in India was fanned by exactly the kind of circumstances that fueled the slaughters in 1947, making India’s orgy of secular self-immolation look like some hoary fantasy. The irony is that it is General Pervez Musharraf who wants to liquidate fundamentalism and separate religion from politics in Pakistan today while India’s prime minister in waiting, Mr L K Advani, remains a staunch supporter of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad which seeks a “Hindu Rashtra”. The truth is that if India and Pakistan want to be stable and prosper together, they must be more like each other in secular outlook and less like each other in religious terms.

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Reply #: 108

pmishra2,

Power to you. Please let me know what i, as an NRI (in US)can do to help your cause. VHP puts us all to shame. We, as NRI, can make sure BJP and VHP do not get any more financial assistance from us.

rgds,

Sridhar

re:Reply #: 95

Ras Siddiqui,

These riots and the biased attitude of the police towards minorities make me believe that a central command and control structure is needed to control these riots nationwide (i wonder what something like Rapid Action Force is upto; it is neither rapid nor is it acting). Police are incapable of doing anything in such a situation. Muslim dominated areas should have muslim policemen. India is sitting on a communal volcano.

The 2 things most Indians need to be ashamed of are: caste system when it exploits others, and the communal riots that we see now and then. Political power base seem to be shifting in such a way that Dalits are seen to be regaining power in states like UP. These parties also have a huge support of muslims. Will eventual empowerment of muslims help stem the tide of communal frenzy remains to be seen.

Sridhar

YLH,

I have a rhetorical type of question for you.The answer to this will prove you are the chosen one.

So think carefully before you answer.

You are in the middle of a meeting and you violently and uncontrollably break wind. You have three choices

1.pretend as if nothing has happened and grin sheepisly

2.look in the direction of the food monster( Iam not taking any names here), implying that it is her.

3. Dare anybody else in the room to do do better, jump up on the table and sing `` JEEVAY JEEVAY ..Pakistan``

Happy thinking!

YLH

[[[No actually its quite easy. Think about it a little. We are not living in a hiding. All our phone numbers are out there for everyone.]]

Sure its not hard to look up some in the white pages, but in all my time at Chowk I dont remember reading Saxena`s first name or whether Saxena is his actual last name.

Anyways, didnt know the call traffic was too way. You guys take it easy :)

Satyavadi

re: ylh

hehe...so i called you, eh?....and you called me?...having delusions again?...must be your boyfriend calling you...

Anil,

Institutions aren`t power circuits - I am sure all of us know that. India adopted a parliamentary form of government taking a huge risk - the biggest ever - 50 years ago. We had a unique assemblage of learned folk to give us a modern constitution. The archives of the Constituent Assembly make fascinationg reading. Modern India can claim not only Founding Fathers but also Founding Mothers - as many women participated in making the Constituion. We started with a great deal of plurality and diversity while firmly establishing a contract between the individual and the State - thanks to Ambedkar.

As for ``marginal`` winning political power it is a process that happens all the time. How many know that the recent political battle in UP was an all OBC/Dalit affair? Well you can keep dividing this into Upper OBC and Lower OBC or whatever.

That we have reached Godhra and Ahmedabad after 55 years is disappointing and outrageous. I am equally outraged over Godhra and what followed it. No crime justifies such retaliation against an entire community. This especially when there have been many occasions in the past when this has not happened. I can think of at least 5 such provocative incidents in Kashmir, UP, Punjab and even in Madras (when the RSS office was firebombed killing 6 people) where good sense prevailed, where a thinking mind reasoned, ``Those who committed this crime do not represent their religion. They alone are responsible for what happened.``

Re Rsaxena

Thanks for the entertainment, dude. Ah, the need for a chuckle every now and then in the midst of a crazy day at the job.

Re the phone number, didn`t YLH post those cheesy help wanted ads for his bodyshop employer quite a few times?

And now, drumrolls please, I am going to be annointed a bigot, etc. ha ha.

You may be famous, but watch out, the FBI is going to come after you. And when you get to the slammer, say hi to the boxcutter duo. :)

pmishra2,

there`s an interesting job you may be interested in. HAve you seen our tinpot-banana republic-buffoon who goes by the name of CEO/General Messaraff. There`s a nice picture of him holding his favorite pomeranians. I believe he`s been looking for a lackey to complete his collection. Looking at the usual gargage you usually dish out methinks you would make an ideal lackey. Apply fast and hurry. Prafool Bidwai is already on his way for the interview!!

Aisha,

Truth does hurt isn`t it? Especially when you take the trouble to go all the way to bastion of ``liberalism`` onloy to hear to hear some plain talking - and that too - from Indo-American Profs. Your discomfiture is pretty obvious - I can`t help smiling!

Compared to the trash that is dished out in the rags that pass off for newspapers in Pakistan this must be a revelation to you.

You can rant and rave (and there are plenty who will join you) till u r blue in the face. I mean it - you would make a good replacement for the nitwit Shireen Mazari or even your Ambassador in DC.

Stop being petulant. Read the National Review and learn to write.

Oh yeah!!

This is crazy, Arundhati Roy is one of the most amazing individuals of her time.

``Indian court sends Booker winner to jail for a day: NEW DELHI, March 06: India`s highest court today found award-winning novelist Arundhati Roy guilty of contempt of court over a campaign to halt the building of a controversial dam and sentenced her to a day in jail. ``We have no doubt that she has committed criminal contempt,`` the two-member Supreme Court bench, Justices G.B. Pattanaik and Justice R.P. Seti, said in their ruling. ``We are not impressed by her arguments.`` Roy, a passionate campaigner against the billion-dollar dam, said she had come prepared for the verdict. ``I have my backpack,`` she said as she was escorted out of the court by officials for arrangements to be made for her to be sent to jail. (Reuters) (Posted @ 23:55 PST) ``

AN APPEAL TO ALL PEOPLE WITH LIVE CONSCIENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS ORGS.

It is a well known fact that those Pakistanis who went to Afghanistan to fight along with their Afghan brothers to repel the Anglo-American aggression, are held as prisnors of war, at the private prisons of Afghan warlords, who decided to side with the invading Anglo-American forces. These warlords are ``selling`` these prisnors if prisnors relatives pay ransom to the warlords.

It was reported by Paksitan`s most well known human rights activist Mr. Ansaar Barni, the Chairman of Ansar Barni Welfare Trust, that India has already ``bought`` 150 of these Paksitanis, and transferred them to India. According to him these unfortunate souls would be used in the coming holocaust of Muslims, which is scheduled for March 15, to strategically use them as bait and plant their dead bodies strategically during the coming anti-Muslim riots. The purpose obviously is to malign Paksitan and to prove that Paksitan is somehow behind these grisly acts which Indian government has in plans for Indian Muslims. Mr. Ansaar Barni has already written a letter of concern and protest to Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee.

I would request all people of the world with live conscience including Hindus to stop this attrocity and complete disregard of human life by ruling Hindu extremist goverment. All human rights oraganizations all around the world are also requested to monitor the situtaion in India and obtain the prisnors list from Indian government. Time to act is now when we can save the lives of those who are most vulnerable.