Riots

Re: Prem, #318

``Will you be willing to put your premise and hypothesis to some rigorous and objective scrutiny?``

Prem, you are a very civil and thoughtful person. And it is to you and Indians like you whom I owe an apology for my not-so-flattering posts. I realize that the Indian philistine Chowk interactors, who love to bathe with the sewer water, do not represent decent and respectful (and, yes, highly evolved) Indians such as you, Pankaj, Amit, and Shankar. Please accept my apology if you find offensive some of my posts. It is very wrong for me to generalize and stereotype.

Having said that, yes, I am willing to put my premise and hypothesis to a rigorous and objective scrutiny. I want to be proven wrong.

from the NY Times

{{In Hyderabad, Hindu and Muslim women formed a human chain and contained Hindu-Muslim street clashes.}}

...maybe they are the smarter of the gender...

Sadna # Doesnt Matter

EXPANSIONIST ISLAM.....CALIPHATE INCLINED PAKISTANCONQUERING INDIA ....

Either Some non muslims are carrying the PERCEPTION of pre Cardova -Spain muslims of Mid East when ,between 700 to 1000 c.e. rate of spread of Islam was most alarming ...OR some body has been reading the NCERT History ``Stories`` than accounts of past which true Hx. is .

Islam as judged by state of 50 or so muslim majority countries are powerless,armyless,leaderless,voiceless ...among many other things needed for Expansion & conquering.

I am willing to put my money where my mouth is & will give 1:10 to any bookie from Kronji to Azhar for that .In last 50 yrs India got rid of 1/3 of its muslim population into mountains plains & swamps of bengal delta ...Yogoslavia pushed its muslim to Bosnia & Albania ...Little TIMOR even threw out large indonesian from timor isl.

March 15th came and went...nothing ugly happened in India....comforting to know that the Supreme Court still decides the law of the land...glad to see the gov`t obey the Supreme Court`s decision...

...a lot of things may be fcuked up, but the authority of the Supreme Court is not one of them...

shammi,

#361

Either you are misunderstanding me or I havent explained my view, or maybe my view is wrong.

India is a very huge country. Partition didnt affect the majority of Indians except in Sindh, Punjab, Bengal & other states where there was ethnic cleansing. However, I personally believe that there was so much sin commited by both sides at that time, that I cant hold only muslims responsible. I can understand why a Punjabi( presumably you) would see Partition as an extremely painful event. I think the carnage in Punjab was particularly brutal--to all sides.

However, to someone like me in Bombay & other parts of India, whose families were not directly affected by Partition; my response to the creation of Pakistan (& to the muslims who opted for Pakistan) was ``if you dont want to part of India, goodbye! I mean you guys arent exactly God`s gift to humanity & India will do just fine without you``. Kinda what a jilted gal might (or perhaps should) say:)

Lets flip the coin over: to the muslims who decided to stay in India, my feeling is ``hey thanks for having some faith in us, guys!``. Ofcourse, then when my coreligionists behave in such a disgusting way, I feel we let them down.

shammi #365
``However, the comment about `UP-size` with a clear connotation of self-superiority at a time when India is providing a terrible example to the rest of the world was out of line.``

I hate your(and others) implication here that you are the arbitrars of posts around here and that I have to explain my perspective and my intentions to you to past muster here. After all why don`t all of you mind your own businesses instead of gossiping and passing comments about other posters like jobless old women?

Whenver a Caliphate-inclined Pakistani talks of `conquering India`, I will surely point out India`s relative size to Pakistan to them. Its not a matter of superiority, its a matter of fact. If such a perspective saves a few young men from being sent to their deaths in aid of these fond hopes of conquest, well the bigger India is the better.

I don`t think Pakistanis are as insecure as you seem to be implying to be struck down at the mere mention of a geographical fact. Their smaller size is an advantage in a lot of things, for eg turning around the economy, in governance, control of population growth, conducting fair elections, in scale of problems of illiteracy and poverty. India has 200 million school-age children of whom 120 million donot go to school, Pakistanis themselves number only 140-145 million. I am sure Pakistanis can cope with these facts, expansionist Islamists must cope with it too, you please do so too and stop showing your blatant prejudices by blaming me for harsh facts.

PS: This is my last post on the subject.

re: shammi

{{ What had my goat there was the isolated comment (with no references whatsoever) that appeared (perceptions at play here again?) to lay claim of Indian superiority at a time when savagery of the worst kind has just visited India, and on an issue that appeared to deflect criticism away from the riots. }}

that reflects emotional and muddled thinking on your part...america, both before and after the rodney king riots, was a better place than iraq or north korea...do you understand this analogy viz-a-viz pakistan and india?

{{It is this sort of BS that had me, because if we want to promote an `Indian` brand that stands for civility, then we must protect it, and to that properly we MUST stop looking for excuses and scapegoats.}}

...no one is...but we sure as hell don`t need a banana republic from next door who doesn`t elect its leaders and has purged itself of its minorities to lecture us on civility...

{{Heck, even if the ISI engineered the train incident, our response does not let us off the hook. And at a time like this when all our energies should be focused on healing the wounds within, we are more than happy to let our attention get diverted, aren`t we?}}

....now you are rambling and are totally off the topic..

Reply Hobbyty # 343

``Won`t India have drop the ``Muslim`` as ``Invader``, Muslim responsible for ``Hindu Holocaust,`` Muslim responsible for ``breaking OUR country`` constructs that burden the history recalled in India?

Such attitudes have no place in an inclusive narrative. Luckily they are not held by the majority. (If they were, I would not be here today, or at least would be holding a Pakistani passport. Fact.) The fact that they are held at all by enough people to encourage violence is problem enough.

These are not the only attitudes that will have to go. What was in the minds of those people in Godhra when they set that train alight, for example? What was in the minds of people who burnt Muslims alive in Ahmedabad and now want to economically isolate them? ALL of this poison must GO.

What is with the name Shammi? Probably his mom was so embarassed and ashamed to have him .. she named him shammi.

Reply Shammi # 345

Shammiji

I share your shame that India has fallen so low, that we have failed to make a country which has moved past communal violence. But it’s a failure, and a shame, we have in common. My point is that the criminals in Godhra and the murderous mobs in Gujarat doubtless hid behind some perverted idea of religion, but the crime remains THEIRS, not something to be answered for my all Indians who profess the same religion as each group.

``The `Hindu` brand has been hijacked by the VHP/Bajrang Dal and as a PRACTICAL matter it is they who are defining the Hindu image in the eyes of the world. Anybody who fails to recognize it is out of touch with reality.``

I agree, and I would say that decent Hindus are in a better position to rectify this than anybody else. Ditto for a mob using Islam as an excuse to set a train alight - decent Muslims are in a better position to make sure Islam is not used as an excuse for murder ever again than anybody else. (Let those who have ears....) But the task facing decent Indians is essentially the same, as is the problem.

Hope I have made myself clearer.

Of possible interest:

I just spoke to my mother in Delhi yesterday - apparently the city has had a lot of demonstrations and dharnas for secularism - so this is not going unchallenged. (What good a dharna, you ask, for a riot victim? True, but they have to start somewhere. I admit that the thought of JNU students forming a human chain around the university and chanting ham sabh ek hain DOES move me, even though it may be a small thing in the face of violence.) She also said that some groups of women have been going from Delhi to Ayodhya to demonstrate for a peaceful and lawful resolution of the conflict - and complained to me that she wanted to go, but was deemed too old (couldn`t run away effectively if she had to, so would slow the others down and be a burden - I admit I was relieved, in a yellow bellied sort of way.) I don`t know if they made it through the security arrangements - they don`t seem to have surfaced in the news anywhere.

What seems to be different about the country`s reaction to this communal violence (as opposed to the anti-Sikh pogrom in 84 or even the RJB/BM inspired riots in 92) is that urban middle India perceives itself, and its way of life, under threat from communalism in a way that it did not before - and it is mobilising in a variety of manners to deal with it. For example, we seem to be going beyond ``we should all just get along`` (commendable though that sentiment is) to ``how does disagreement become a riot/pogrom?``, ``Who benefits`` ``How do they get away with it?`` ``What stops it`` and a host of other questions whose answers will hopefully translate into some practical, down to earth, actions we can take to prevent this from happening again.

Regards

Zafar

Reply Tahmed # 347

``Yes, I almost forgot. The chocolate cake too is mine.``

Too late pappay. Mineminemineallmine!!!! But I promise I will share. (Or trade. What is your stock of biryani, nihari etc.?)

temporal #358
Thanks for your post.
``this pre-supposes that the people in a newly carved piece of real estate have no prior baggage to carry in terms of tradition, culture and identity…not so…the stroke of pen or gun can usher in a new name…but…the older baggage and linkages do survive…``

Let me clarify, IMO, tradition, culture and identity are not necessarily bad things, you only have to pick and choose `properly` and then they can be useful guides. By historic baggage I meant that with only the administrative structures left behind by the British, Pakistan got a pretty clean slate governance-wise. There was a modern-educated intellectual class and noone else and nothing else to take charge, though I might be mistaken? Contrast trying to bring change in Iran for instance which had centuries worth of dynastic rule allied with a topheavy aristocracy and powerful clergy. Egypt for instance had the disadvantage of being in the thick of colonial conflicts and then the Middle Eastern conflicts without much choice in the matter.

``but he was just a king in them history books…and re-occupying India was not a aspiration or tall claim…we never thought in those terms``

``but in the over all scheme of things that may be a fundamentalist hiccup not a sustained thought…``

temporal, did you grow up in the 50s and 60s? I might be mistaken but from what I hear from some of my friends, the education and hence cultivated attitudes of Pakistanis changed after Bhutto came to power in the 70s. ZiaulHaq also made a number of changes too? Thirty years is a long hiccup..

``ordinary and even some informed pakistanis also cannot explain how despite all their prayers and support yasser arafat had always been more friendly towards india``

Yes that puzzles me too. Is it because Pakistan has been perceived as a US ally? It was mentioned somewhere that Ziaul Haq as an Army officer helped quell a Palestianian uprising in Jordan in `74, for instance.

``would you believe me that i can lay the same claim about indians``

No this is very true. Again I might be mistaken but though say an average Maharashtrian would prefer to associate with fellow Maharashtrians and speak Marathi, he can appreciate Gujaratis or say Malayalis doing their own thing(and on occasion join them). Perceiving the other as different is one thing, perceiving the other as unequal is another. I feel in many situations perhaps not all the first perception is a valid description for Indian situations. Is it the same in Pakistan?(just curious).

temporal, I join in your hope that we donot glow in the dark, it would be such a humongous tremendous waste.

re: naqshabandi

{Believe it or not but I DO actually love India: }

..i doubt india and its people love you..

{it is their belief system which i hate, their kufr; this does not mean I will be horrible to a hindu but it does mean I will never be able to really trust one or become friends with one the way i would with a muslim.}

so why do you complain when the hindu goon feels the same way about the muslims and wants to rid india of them? maye the hindu `hates the muslim belief system` and `doesn`t trust any of them`...if you can feel that way about the hindu, why can`t the hindu feel that way about the muslim?...

WHAT INDIA DID ON FRIDAY WAS REMARKABLE & LETS HOPE REPEATABLE FOR ENCORE

CONGRATULATIONS supreme court of India for deciding to keep the ``religous Activities of Both Parties`` off from the babri masjid & adjoining ram janam bhoomi acquired 20 + acres of land.

I am dissapointed by the partisan interpretation of SORABJEE,the A.G. Govt. of India trying to toe the BJP line & sounding to speaK for them rather for the state BY PREMATURE INTERPRETATION.

I watched all night on Star T,V. Indias CNN equivalent & i can tell you if gov,wants it can PREVENT ANY COMMUNAL RIOTS THROUGH THE BIG COUNTRY INDIA IS by strategic placement of police arrest of key players like in this case Vice president of VHP Bal Kishore ....After watching live coverage in Ayodhya of Mahant Pramahansa ,a character twice rhetorical than Bukhari ,go through the Mandali in Hanumangiri, as opposed to the sensitive site ...NO PROBLEM OCCURED .``IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED IN 92`` too Mr.ADVANI ,.but at that time mr.ADVANI was not the home minister .

From Somnath to Babri Masjid

Advertise HereYoginder Sikand

India claims that Muslims have always been inclined to destoy Hindu places of worship. They couldn’t be more wrong Hindu youths clamour atop the 16th century Babri Mosque Hindu mobs attack the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, in 1992 Hindus and Muslim alike have been guilty of destroying places of worship, and in this regard, as in any other, neither has a monopoly of virtue or vice





n recent years, ever since the campaign to destroy the Babri Masjid was launched, Indians have been fed constant propaganda about the destruction of places of worship being the particular skill of iconoclastic Muslims. While not denying that some Muslim rulers did destroy holy places of other communities many people do not realise that others have been guilty – and continue to be guilty – of the same sin.

In assessing the historical record certain precautions are necessary. Most importantly, a distinction must be made between Islamic commandments, on the one hand, and the acts of individual Muslims on the other. The Qur’an in no way sanctions the destruction of places of worship of people of other faiths. For the most part, Muslims have abided by the Qur’anic injunction that “there is no compulsion in religion”. Thus, for instance, after Muhammad bin Qasim, who led the first Muslim army to India, subdued Sindh he granted the local Hindus and Buddhists full religious freedom and guaranteed the protection of their shrines. Or, for that matter, when Sultan Sikander of Kashmir, egged on by his Brahmin Prime Minister, Suha Bhat, set about pulling down temples on a large scale the leading Kashmiri Muslim Sufi Hazrat Nuruddin Nurani bitterly protested, arguing that Islam did not sanction it. This opinion was shared by several other Muslim ‘ulama and Sufis as well. Thus, the Tabaqat-e-Akbari tells us that when they heard that Sultan Sikander Lodhi (r. 1489-1517) was planning to destroy some temples, a group of high-ranking ‘ulama protested, saying, “It is not lawful to lay waste to ancient idol temples”.

Caution must be exercised in accepting the narratives provided by medieval writers about the exploits of kings including their ‘feats’ of temple destruction. Most medieval historians were employees of the royal courts and they tended to exaggerate the ‘exploits’ of the kings in order to present them as great champions of Islam, an image that does not fit the facts.

For instance, the author of the late eighteenth-century ‘Riyad-ul Salatin’ claimed that Muhammad Bakhtiyar demolished several temples in Bengal when he captured the province in 1204, although there is no evidence to suggest that this did indeed happen.

In his recent book, ‘Essays on Islam and Indian history,’ the well-known historian Richard Eaton points out that of the sixty thousand-odd cases of temple destruction by Muslim rulers cited by contemporary Hindutva sources one may identify only eighty instances “whose historicity appears to be reasonably certain”. Eaton clearly shows that the habit of destroying places of worship was not restricted to Muslim rulers alone. He recounts numerous instances of Hindu kings tearing down Hindu temples as well as Jaina and Buddhist shrines and says that these must be seen above all as powerful, politically symbolic acts.

Typically, cases of shrine destruction are reported in the wake of the overthrow of a powerful enemy and the annexation of his territory. The royal temple of the enemy was often pulled down to symbolize the enemy’s defeat. Thus, for instance, the historical records speak of the seventh-century Hindu Pallava king Narasimhavarman I, who looted an idol of Ganesha from the Chalukyan capital of Vatapi. Fifty years later, the Hindu Chalukyan army returned home with looted idols of Ganga and Jamuna, taken from temples of their fellow Hindu enemies to the north. In the eighth-century, a Bengali Hindu army is said to have destroyed an idol of Vishnu belonging to their imperial foe, the Hindu king Lalitaditya of Kashmir. There are many other examples. Besides looting idols from the temples of their fellow Hindu enemies, several Hindu kings are reported to have destroyed the royal temples of their vanquished foes to signal their victory. Thus, the tenth-century Rashtrakuta king Indra III destroyed the temple of Kalapriya at Kalpa, after defeating his dreaded enemies, the Rashtrakuta and Kapilendra and the founder of the Suryavanshi Gajapati dynasty in Orissa is said to have sacked several Hindu temples in the course of his military campaigns in the Tamil country. The number of Jaina and Buddhist shrines destroyed by Hindu kings must certainly be much greater.

Because royal temples served as powerful political symbols and centres where kings were often worshipped as deities, they seem to have been the particular object of attack by invaders, irrespective of religion. As Eaton remarks, “it is clear that temples had been the natural sites for the contestation of kingly authority well before the coming of Muslim Turks to India. Not surprisingly, Turkish invaders, when attempting to plant their own rule in early medieval India, followed and continued established patterns”. He further adds, “Whatever form they took, acts of temple desecration were never directed at the people, but at the enemy king and the image that incarnated and displayed his state-deity”. As in the case of the attack of Hindu rulers on temples, Eaton says that almost all instances of Muslim rulers destroying Hindu shrines were recorded in the wake of their capture of enemy territory. Once these territories were fully integrated into their dominions, few temples were targeted. This clearly shows that these acts were motivated above all by political concerns and not by a religious impulse to extirpate idolatry.

The essentially political, as opposed to religious or communal, nature of these acts is clearly suggested by historical chronicles. Thus, we are told that Sultan Sulaiman Karrani of Bengal dispatched an army to Orissa against the Hindu Gajapati Raja to punish him for entering into a pact with the enemies of the Sultan, the Mughal Emperor Akbar and the Pathan Ibrahim Sur. The army, after defeating the Raja, then set about looting the Jagannath temple, the main royal shrine. As Eaton shows, it was usually the large royal temples that were targeted, for not only were they symbols of political power but were also richly endowed with jewels, gold and other precious metals.

In the wake of these attacks on enemy power, ordinary people were rarely targeted. Thus, for instance, when a Mughal army attacked Cooch Bihar in northern Bengal and destroyed the idol of the state-deity of Raja Bhim Narayan, the chief Mughal qazi of Bengal, Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq, issued an order to the Mughal soldiers that “nobody should touch the cash and property of the people”. Anyone who defied his command would have their hands, ears or noses lopped off. If the destruction of temples were above all powerful political acts so too were instances of patronage extended to temples by rulers. The much-maligned Aurangzeb, who is said to have destroyed some Hindu temples, is known to have made extensive grant to other Hindu shrines. Thus, in 1659, in a royal order issued to his officers in Benaras, he wrote: “In these days, information has reached our court that several people have, out of spite and rancour, harassed the Hindu residents of Benaras and nearby places, including a group of Brahmans who are in charge of ancient temples there. These people want to remove those Brahmans from their charge of temple keeping which has caused them considerable distress. Therefore, upon receiving this order, you must see that nobody unlawfully disturbs the Brahmans or other Hindus of that region, so that they might remain in their traditional place and pray for the continuance of the Empire.” Aurangzeb further added that, “According to the Holy law [shari’a] and the exalted creed, it has been established that ancient temples should not be torn down.”

Eaton, after closely examining the historical record, shows that the temples whose destruction Aurangzeb had ordered had been associated with his political rivals. If Muslim kings targeted temples belonging to Hindu political rivals they did not desist from similar attacks on their fellow Muslim foes and rebels. The history of Muslim rule in India is full of stories of Muslim kings fighting among themselves. Muslim rebels were treated with the same severity as their Hindu counterparts. Thus, Isami writes in his Futuh us Salatin that when the Muslim general Bahauddin Gurhasp joined hands with the Hindu Raja of Kampila and rose in revolt against Sultan Muhammad Bin Tughlaq, his own first cousin, he was flayed alive, after which his skin was stuffed with straw and paraded through the streets. Finally his body was filled with rice and fed to the royal elephants.

Hindus and Muslim alike, then, have been equally guilty of destroying places of worship, and, in this regard, as in any other, neither has a monopoly of virtue or vice.

Re: sadna

OK -- I admit I didnt read the reference to Pankaj. However, the comment about `UP-size` with a clear connotation of self-superiority at a time when India is providing a terrible example to the rest of the world was out of line.