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The Aga Khani

Farzana Versey April 26, 2002

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#261 Posted by saminashah on May 12, 2002 1:30:31 am


Sigalph,

re: ``On an aside, I do greatly appreciate your courtesy in posting the URLs of important items. That is a far cry from the entire articles being posted about repetitious things by unknown commentators, quoted by bored chowkwallahs. We could all learn from you in this regard. Thank you.``

(Face turning red)

Actually Sigalph dada, I (cough!) have actually posted one of those long winded articles of which you speak on another board...I couldn`t resist it...

I must confess to a few things: On one hand I agree that we need to cut down on the cutpastes, some of us in particular anyway. But I actually appreciate some of the articles being posted by interactors who cutpaste sparingly. I am so pressed for time lately, and quite frankly, cyber lazy, that it suits me just fine to read articles that aren`t drivel on interact boards...but, thanks for the shout out!

Btw, how are you? How was your trip to NYC? Were you able to find the music you were looking for?

I`ve got to get to Jackson Heights and Oak Tree Road-havent been anywhere for the last three monthes and am getting a bit antsy for chaat, mendhi and clothing! I`ve been SOOOOO GOOOOOD :(

Rsax, Sac, Scout-

Did you see last Sunday`s NYTimes Styles Section? (okay, yes, I read that piece of fluff, yes I am embarrassed to admit it-but its all for Pinkyfeld!)

There was a bit on Indian fashion storming NYC.

My reservations:

1. HELLO! This is SOUTH ASIAN CULTURE that we are talking about, not just India. What are the rest of us- haleem?

2. The misbegotten writer of the piece actually used the ``E`` word; yes folks, ``exotic`` and whats more, the ``G`` word-``garish`` to describe Indian aesthetics! Hud ho gaye! How dare they? After reading the article, I looked at my subtle dupattas, earrings and kurtas and wondered if I was misrepresenting....was I ``South Asian`` enough? Did I need to put on alot more jewelry and wear several patterns and colors at the same time? Is the NYTimes engendering yet another form of anxiety in its desi readers?

3. Someone compared the God/Goddess Hindu pantheon as ``Disney like``. Salt on paper cuts! Someone should write them, Rsax, Sadna and take them to task...



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#260 Posted by saminashah on May 12, 2002 1:30:31 am
re:``saminashah

[Harpeet,Is that your short story on a Brit. fiction website? Its quite good! I believe you should post the web address of this site so other Chowkies can read it]

- Jeez, you really get about on the web dont you? Nothing escapes the eyes of saminashah! I always said you were the coolest. Yes, it is me. In fact, it is my first piece of fction to get published anywhere.

Anyone interested in reading a short story about Punjabi youth growing up in 1970`s England (Its funny and sad, and hilarious and a masterpiece blah blah blah....)

go to

http://www.short-stories.co.uk/``

-Sssssssshhh yaar! I`m supposed to be writing research papers entitled ``Moll in The Roaring Girl: Crossdressing as Political and Social Protest in Renaissance England`` (do you like that title?)

and not gadflying around the net as you suggest...

Lets just say a little bird told me...I have friends in high places you know..or rather, high friends in places...

anyhoo

good luck! Its a great story!

-h-



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#259 Posted by Banjaara on May 12, 2002 1:30:31 am
Is this the `tryst with destiny` ?

You can come back to your homes only if you... Drop rape charge, convert to Hinduism...villagers in Gujarat are setting terms for Muslims to return

http://www.indian-express.com/full_story.php?content_id=2176



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#258 Posted by Banjaara on May 12, 2002 1:30:31 am
sarwar # 257

``Surprising is that the Indian Kathak dance was organised by government officials. How can Islamic republic organise an Indian dance for Americans?``

Your question exposes your Indian roots.The dance

you refer to is called KHATAK and is presented by

male members of various Pathan tribes in the NWFP.

Regards

PS:You probably know that Kathak itself was developed by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Oudh and it may not be pc for you to call it ``indian`` in these

days of ``us`` and ``them``.



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#257 Posted by cutandpaste on May 11, 2002 6:35:28 pm
Arsenals Expand in India`s Sectarian Fight

Crude Bombs Pose Terrorism Worry



By Rama Lakshmi

Special to The Washington Post

Saturday, May 11, 2002; Page A21

AHMADABAD, India -- By day, Jaimin Gandhi is a young, ambitious computer student who dreams of making India the software superpower of the new century. By night, he pursues a passion more deeply rooted in the past. Gandhi and other Hindus march through the streets of this western city, protecting their religion, they say, from shadowy foes.

More than two months after an attack by Muslims on Hindus here in Gujarat state triggered India`s deadliest religious violence in a decade, the killing continues. With the official death toll already exceeding 900, with the majority of victims Muslims, local authorities and other observers say Gujarat`s sectarian clashes may be entering a new and possibly more deadly phase as both sides amass stockpiles of weapons.

On the streets of Ahmadabad, the state`s largest city, the angry bands of Hindus and Muslims who zealously guard their neighborhoods in tense, night-long vigils now are armed not only with stones, sticks and torches but also with acid-filled light bulbs and crude bombs. Police have found homemade ``mini-cannons`` and pistols in Hindu and Muslim neighborhoods. Officials said the manufacture of bombs and pistols has become a cottage industry for jobless youths.

Many local officials said the bombs, made of firecrackers, nails, knife blades and glass, have become their principal concern. Ten people were injured Tuesday when a bomb exploded on a bus in the town of Lunavada. In Vadodara, a police sweep unearthed bombs that contained gelatin sticks, a particularly powerful form of dynamite used in mining.

``This adds an element of terrorism, if you look at explosives and weapons that have been found,`` said Ashok Narayan, secretary of Gujarat`s Home Ministry. ``In a communal riot people try to settle old scores. But when such weapons are used in blasts it is dangerous, as you are killing people at random.``

As each side hears fresh reports that bombs and explosives have been found in the other side`s neighborhoods, the divide between Hindus and Muslims grows wider.

``Whenever curfew is lifted for a few hours, Muslims go looking for new explosives rather than food,`` Janak Thakkar, 20, a Hindu, said as he served water to thirsty policemen one night this week.

``We have not slept a single night in the past two months,`` said Yusuf Khan, 19, a Muslim who was parading with friends in the night, nervously watching for the shadow of approaching policemen. ``They are trying to finish off Muslims in Gujarat. They will force us to take up weapons.``

With the killings midway through their third month and showing no sign of ending soon, some Gujaratis say the damage to fragile Hindu-Muslim relations can never be undone, and that what happens in Gujarat will determine India`s course.

``If we don`t crush them now on the streets every night, Islamic fundamentalism would rear its head elsewhere and there will be many more incidents like the Godhra train massacre,`` said Virendra Shah, a Hindu hotelier, referring to the Feb. 27 attack that led to retaliatory riots by Hindus.

Since India gained independence in 1947, communal violence has flared periodically even as governments have grappled with how to balance the interests of the country`s diverse religious, ethnic and regional groups. The constitution established secularism as one of India`s guiding principles, but today 84 percent of India`s 1 billion people are Hindus, the national government is led by a Hindu nationalist party, and many Indians question whether secularism is workable -- or ever was.

``Secularism in India is a bogus word,`` said Shah. ``It only cheats us. Instead of equal rights to all religions, it has come to mean special rights for Muslims in India. The definition needs to be changed.``

The train attack, Shah maintained, has embittered Hindus toward India`s entire Muslim community of 130 million. ``The old concepts don`t apply anymore,`` he said.

``India`s secularism is seriously damaged in Gujarat,`` said Qutubuddin Sheikh, 57, a Muslim taxi driver who has not been back on the road since the rioting began. ``They want to establish a Hindu nation here. But I am not going anywhere. They have to deal with the fact that this is my land too.``

Such passions play out every night in Ahmadabad`s Kalpur neighborhood, a maze of narrow, winding alleys flanked by old, ornately carved houses where Hindus and Muslims have lived together for centuries. Streets strewn with broken glass, bombs and stones illustrate how distrust has replaced the decades of fragile peace that proximity had imposed.

Kalpur is wracked every day by rioting, which is followed by long, nervous nights. Hindu men gather on the steps of an old temple and Muslim youths huddle under a clock tower while bombs explode in the background and edgy policemen fire tear gas into dark lanes.

``This is the border,`` said Gandhi, the computer student, pointing to the line dividing the Hindu side of Kalpur from the Muslim side. ``We have to be vigilant. We have tolerated the Muslims for too long.``

Across the ``border,`` Ikram Beg, a 38-year-old cloth merchant, told a group of Muslim teenagers to be vigilant. For Beg, this is a decisive battle.

``Gujarat has become the laboratory for Hindu nationalism,`` said Beg. ``If we can defeat them here, India will be saved.``



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#256 Posted by sarwar on May 11, 2002 6:35:28 pm
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#255 Posted by cutandpaste on May 11, 2002 6:35:28 pm
THE SATURDAY PROFILE

A Pakistani Dancer and Her Life Underground

By SETH MYDANS

http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=199292

KARACHI, Pakistan

FOR the well-dressed, well-heeled and well-bred of the Horticultural Society of Pakistan, it was an unusually daring event, even risqué. Organizers had obtained a rare government permit and admission was tightly controlled.

Under a round yellow moon at the exclusive Marina Yacht Club here, in full view of her assembled audience, a woman was about to commit an act most Pakistanis are forbidden by law to witness: a dance performance.

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White awnings billowed as a wind blew in from the Arabian Sea on this recent evening. Loudspeakers erupted with stuttering, syncopated music. Then, from stage right, a streak of white as the dancer, Sheema Kermani, bounded into the spotlight.

She never paused.

Sometimes with the rhythm, sometimes against, she bent and leaped and twisted. Her jeweled fingers flashed, her huge eyes flicked from side to side, her mouth opened and closed as if the music were breathing for her.

Vigorous, electrifying, sensual, a celebration of the body and its passions, her dance was everything conservative Muslim Pakistan now stands against.

In a country where most women cover their heads and some hide inside full-body burkas, where sexual feelings are seen as a challenge to purity and uprightness, a dancing woman is a defiance and a threat, and Ms. Kermani knows it.

``Muslim men have got this hang-up about dancing women,`` she said after her performance. ``They`re afraid that once they see a woman they can`t control themselves, that either she`ll seduce them or they`ll rape her.``

Quick, darting, impatient, Ms. Kermani, 49, fills her pauses with as much energy as her gestures, and she is as vivid and forceful offstage as on, her words as sharp and expressive as her dance movements.

``Here you have a whole culture in which girls are told to hide their bodies, not to be proud of their bodies,`` she said, eating whatever was placed before her at a formal table. ``At the root is the fact that men are scared of the power of women.``

It is a patriarchal challenge that seems to stimulate her. Dance, she said, is as much a social statement for her as an art. ``When a woman stands up on stage, she stands up straight and she says, `Here I am. And here is my body,` `` she said. ``I think that is the statement that people are afraid of.``

For the past two decades, strictures on dance have tightened as Pakistan has grown more conservative. Most public performances are now against the law. This year, all forms of dance were banned from television.

As a result, one of the region`s great art forms is disappearing here, although it still thrives across the border in India. Ms. Kermani is one of the few performers who have not retreated into exile or retirement, one of Pakistan`s last great classical dancers.

For all her vibrancy, when Ms. Kermani dances she is already an artifact of the past, a ghost dancer leaping and whirling as if her world were not already dying around her.

``I don`t believe there is any other country where dance has got this kind of stigma to it,`` she said. ``Only special private performances like tonight are allowed, and even for this they had to get special permission.``

Under these conditions, it is impossible to make a living as a dancer.

``It depends on the political situation of the moment,`` she said. ``If things are fine, then maybe I will have one performance a month, or even two or three. But sometimes months go by and I get nothing.``

She supports herself by teaching the daughters of wealthy families who want to give them a taste of their culture. Few stay long. Only two of her female students have continued into their 20`s and both seem on the verge of disappearing.

It has become a social convention in Pakistan that dance is immoral, even sinful. ``A girl might not get a proposal of marriage if she is seen performing on stage,`` Ms. Kermani said, laughing. ``It`s very hard to go against convention. But one can if one wants.``

She does not deny the sexuality of her art, which has its roots in the earthy philosophies of Hinduism. But this is something to be celebrated, she says, not suppressed.

``There`s a devotional aspect and there`s an erotic aspect as well,`` she said. ``In Indian culture, the God who is most important in dance is Lord Krishna. You worship him and at the same time he is a lover.``

For Ms. Kermani, dance is also a weapon. Art and political activism, she said, have always gone hand in hand for her.

The daughter of an army major, she said the arts were a part of her world from childhood — piano, painting and dance. She was precocious in all of them. Five years after she started to study dance, she began teaching, at 21, alongside her instructors.

She earned a degree in fine arts in London, then studied in India with the masters of different dance forms. At the same time, she said, she took up political and feminist causes. ``I`m very motivated in the women`s movement and in the peace movement,`` she said. ``Dance is part of this whole thing with me.``

When the conservative crackdown began in the 1980`s, she fought back, and she spends much of her time now as a leader of a politically oriented theater group.

``There is very little theater in Pakistan today, very little dance, very little song,`` she said. ``And that`s because they are so subversive. They tell the truth.``

Ms. Kermani`s husband works in theater as well. They have no children, but most mornings her front room is busy with little girls as she teaches them her art.

HER house is filled with music and the ocean breeze twirls strings of wind chimes at her door.

In Pakistan, it seems, murder is often considered a solution to disagreements, and Ms. Kermani said she regularly receives death threats, by telephone or written note.

Once, when she performed with a theater group at Karachi University, she said, students threatened to kill any man and woman who appeared together on stage. At other times, when she dances in major hotels for special functions, employees there send her threatening messages.

``Nothing has happened,`` she said lightly, back home now from her performance at the yacht club. She walked quickly through her house, stripping her wrists of bangles, unclasping the jeweled ring from her nose and letting loose her long, black hair — lithe, graceful, impulsive, a girl of 49.

``I am still alive,`` she said. ``I believe in what I`m doing. I do it with all truth and honesty. And that`s how I`ve survived.``



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#254 Posted by Harpreet on May 11, 2002 6:35:28 pm
saminashah

[Harpeet,Is that your short story on a Brit. fiction website? Its quite good! I believe you should post the web address of this site so other Chowkies can read it]

- Jeez, you really get about on the web dont you? Nothing escapes the eyes of saminashah! I always said you were the coolest. Yes, it is me. In fact, it is my first piece of fction to get published anywhere.

Anyone interested in reading a short story about Punjabi youth growing up in 1970`s England (Its funny and sad, and hilarious and a masterpiece blah blah blah....)

go to

http://www.short-stories.co.uk/

-h-



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#253 Posted by ZafarA on May 11, 2002 6:35:28 pm
Reply Semipreciousme # 243

``what i was saying is that, imho, i really think that the higher echelons of power aren’t colluding with these terrorists…"

Perhaps not directly, but they are allowing the lower echelons to get away with it, either because they can`t stop them (so their control is limited), or because they feel that the outcome is in some way beneficial to them (see! see! I am all that stands between the country and religious conflagration, please extend more support to me personally and send bank draft...) or they just don`t find it worth the effort to stop.

And no, it`s not just Pakistan that some of these shoes fit.

``….no one can stop ppl from killing, unfortunately….but i agree…the pak. gov’t can do more to prevent these killings…"

The knowledge that they will personally get away scott free (without paying any penalty) for these murders is something which enables the killers to operate so freely. If the Govt made sure that even some of them were arrested and prosecuted I think the killings would reduce drastically, in fact they might stop.

And again, that`s not just the case in Pakistan.

Regards



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#252 Posted by rsaxena on May 10, 2002 11:45:25 pm
re: Zafar

{I do agree that Godhra should be discussed, and understood, in order to ensure that this kind of violence does not occur again. (Exactly as Gujarat is currently being discussed. Yes.)}

...more specifically, what needs to be understood is how india managed to create pockets of society that produce human beings capable of burning alive other innocent human beings...religion is amost incidental to gujarat and godhra...what is critical is why and how we are producing barbarians...today, religion is the outlet for the barbarians, tomorrow it will be something else...let`s treat causes, not symptoms...



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#251 Posted by rsaxena on May 10, 2002 4:20:25 pm
re: cutnpaste #250

...india should not be supporting people who believe suicide terrorism is an acceptable form of protest...personally, i am glad india has distanced itself from arafat...

...as for the other arab nations, i believe india HAS remained engaged with them...the author of the article is being alarmist...for example, india is still close to saddam, and reports suggest it continues to do business with him despite UN or US restrictions...if arab nations felt alienated by india, they would have started making noise about kashmir, and they have not, even at recent OIC meetings...india must and will keep them content enough so they never do...

...the author makes a loose assumption that india`s new engagement of china means disengagement with others...for various reasons, india and china are unlikely to become best buds, but both are being practical in pursuing mutual benefits of economic engagement...(it is a a strategy pakistan might want to consider viz-a-viz its relations with india...economic engagement to build trust before making loud demands to solve the thorniest issues)...

...(if you think StarTrek was real and Elvis is alive, you might also believe this is the beginning of the unholy indo-russia-china axis that the russians have been talking about)...



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#250 Posted by tahmed321 on May 10, 2002 2:54:00 pm
InYourFace #233 Looks like I got myself a squealing rat...heh! heh!...and claiming that he never said anything against Pakistanis in general either. I dont step on anyone`s tail unless I know the tail belongs to a chauvinistic rat of some kind, and you proved credentials last time we interacted a few months back (and I am not spending time researching ancient posts for you either). So you would rather discuss ``rain-fed irrigation or something`` now I am sure, rather than squealing because I have stepped on your tail.



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#249 Posted by Prem on May 10, 2002 2:54:00 pm
re: InYourFace # 233

I assume you ended your post on a lighter note, but boss, this is a very WRONG time to use words loosely. I hope you will understand.

We are passing through such a terrible time...all of us may want to be VERY careful to avoid words that can be misunderstood.



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#248 Posted by cutandpaste on May 10, 2002 2:54:00 pm
A wrong benchmark for Indo-Gulf ties

Gulf News

| By Neena Gopal, Our Asia Editor | 08-05-2002

Print friendly format | Email to Friend

India`s `look East` policy that took its Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh to China was an affirmation of the minister`s much touted forward-looking foreign policy initiatives that have propelled India onto the world stage.

But while he won plaudits for establishing new linkages with a prickly neighbour, there is an urgent need for India to `look west`.

It must now seek to strengthen tenuous ties with its own immediate neighbourhood, particularly with the Arab world in the troubled context of the atrocities being committed by Israel on the Palestinian people, and the rising horror here in the Gulf over the targeting of Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat.

The killings in India`s once prosperous western state, if not stopped, have the potential of not just inhibiting India`s outward looking foreign policy from growing, but could prove as much of a stumbling block in the improvement of relations with the Arabs, as Kashmir once was.

While the question of whether India has a `look west` policy at all is debatable, the form it should take is not, given the Indian government`s two-track policy in the Middle East.

Under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, the policy has, on the one hand, translated into stepped-up contacts with the Jewish state of Israel, albeit on a military level, with a direct co-relation to growing ties with the U.S. On the other, it has allowed older ties with President Arafat to become moribund.

A foreign policy, that puts India`s strategic and security interests first and her crying need for Israeli and U.S. military hardware and intelligence, to contain what it sees as continued infiltration from neighbouring Pakistan, should not ignore two things.

India`s energy security needs a sustained energy-related partnership with its main suppliers, the Gulf states. But India`s moral standing in the world cannot be held hostage to a government`s myopic and limited link with a nation that is fundamentally anti-Islam.

The contrast between Singh`s China visit and his last visit to the Saudi kingdom cannot be more marked. With China, Singh and his team have moved step by step to connect at increasingly higher levels, demonstrating India`s tactical shift towards engaging with the more powerful Asian superpower.

Its deafening silence on the unfolding tragedy in the West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus and Ramallah, however and the consequent erosion of goodwill after Singh`s January 2001 visit to Riyadh, cannot go unnoticed.

India`s policy of building economic bridges, as it has done successfully with China in opening up her north-eastern states to commercial interaction, is the warp and woof of the forward thinking initiative by the foreign office that attempts to weave economic links before tackling contentious issues like border and territorial disputes.

India watchers who commend Singh for his bid to break China`s strategic encirclement of India, by reviving the fabled road and rail links to Mandalay, and Bangkok, say that India has failed to capitalise on the inherent strategic assets that it already has in place in the Gulf and the Middle East.

``When it comes to the Middle East and the Palestinian issue, India`s foreign policy seems to have hit a road block,`` a South Asia expert said. It must factor into its calculations that one-third of India`s energy needs are met by the Gulf states, and at least 10-12 per cent of the workforce in the region come from India.

The profile of that workforce has changed. While the labour force continues to be drawn from India, more and more professionals, particularly in the IT field are finding jobs in a region, looking to grow in IT and energy related fields.

The preferred partner

India`s political and military significance after the nuclear tests, it`s attractive markets make it the preferred partner for growth, the expert said. Yet, India ranks way below Japan, for instance and China, in its economic interaction, points out Hussein Al Athel, Secretary General of Riyadh`s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

In Saudi Arabia, officials privately admit that their country`s disenchantment with the Taliban, the Al Qaida extremist elements that have proved a source of instability, have worked in India`s favour vis-a-vis the Kashmir issue.

``The Kingdom`s position on Kashmir now emphasises the bilateral process, with a dialogue with Pakistan on the basis of existing agreements like Simla and Lahore,`` a senior foreign policy expert said in Riyadh. ``There is acceptance the solution as sought by Pakistan cannot be delinked from India`s concerns relating to cross-border terrorism,`` he added.

India`s ability to translate this into a stronger backing in world forums had failed in the past. But the gradual shift in Saudi policy was demonstrated when it became the first Gulf country to send aid after the Gujarat earthquake and second, when it categorically condemned the attack on India`s parliament as an act of terrorism.

A first

``This is the first occasion when Saudi Arabia made a pro-India comment on an issue involving `jihad`,`` the expert said.

Points out Dr. Bandar Al Aiban, a senior member of Saudi Arabia`s powerful Majlis Ash Shura, and Chairman of its Political Affairs Committee ``we see India as a force for stability and peace in the region, we value it for its secular credentials, for being a moral force for peace, and we would like India to speak up and play its role as a power in the region.``

Dr. Aiban says India`s policy on Palestine, and now, the events in Gujarat could cost it dear. Palestine is under siege, and India, which should have shaken out plans to help rebuild the Palestinian National Authority, whose every last vestige of authority the Israelis have sought to remove, is caught in a web of silence.

Barring the mandatory statements from the Ministry of External Affairs and a statement at the UN, India has kept its distance.

As a South Asian diplomat said, ``Foreign policy is not made by statements. It requires you to be interactive, to build ties with that country based on the broad, strategic interests you share, be they political or economic or both.``

``If its hesitancy to speak out, stems from its worry over what Israel will think, they should realise that Israel is not the superpower, it is the U.S.,`` the diplomat added.

Politically too, it is at an impasse. The recent visit by Arafat`s envoy to Delhi and the manner in which he was cold-shouldered raises questions on whether India, caught in its own domestic political crises, will be able to shake off its traditional lethargy - unless it involves immediate neighbour Pakistan and now increasingly the U.S.- to build a foreign policy that addresses its own broader strategic interests in the Middle East region.

Indian foreign policy experts who advise the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government on foreign policy issues say that backing Palestine has brought few rewards in the past, with the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) for instance, continuing to issue hostile statements vis-a-vis India`s position on the state of Kashmir.

Diplomats who deal with the region have remarked on India`s closeness to the Iranian regime yielding equally little fruit, but also emphasise that since India`s attempt to reach out to Saudi Arabia, the dominant Gulf country last year, the OIC has toned down its statements.

Critics of the government`s policy say that India must shed its Kashmir fixation and build links with the Gulf states on an economic and people-to-people level as it has done with the U.S. and China.

The Gujarat factor

The real danger today is that India, currently looking inward, is myopic over the larger ramifications of the Gujarat killings.

India`s lawmakers` bruising 16-hour debate on the Gujarat massacres that have claimed thousands of lives, is indicative that, Gujarat not only claims the attention of India`s parliamentarians, it now consumes the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led coalition government, which is buffeted by the twin challenges of survival and identity, and has time for little else.

The Indian government, grappling with rising concern in the UK and the EU over the events in Gujarat, seems unaware of the knock on effect any such onslaught on the Muslim minority in India, particularly when seen as a cynical experiment in Hindutva, will have in the Gulf states.

No Gulf state has officially condemned the killings, but privately senior Saudi officials, for instance, have said that while relations with India are no longer seen in the Kashmir context, the Gujarat killings could set in motion a realignment that may not, in the end, be to India`s liking.

India must therefore not allow Gujarat to become the new benchmark for Indo-Gulf relations.



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#247 Posted by tvarad on May 10, 2002 2:54:00 pm
RE: Reply #: 233 InYourFace

``BTW. Tvarad’s comments were supremacist in nature and I reject completely.``

This is total nonsense. I wish you had read what I said carefully. What I said was that there have been many thinkers/activists in Hinduism who have opened the path for Hindus to reconcile themselves with the modern age. I implied that it was wrong for Hindus to shun these leaders and embrace extremists who will only bring disaster much like Muslim extremists have done for their people.

I have already apologized for a sweeping statement that I made about Muslims when it should have been about Muslim leaders which I stand by.

I have been extremely critical of the current Muslim leadersship who have let their community down badly. I have also been extremely critical of Hindu organizations like the Saffron Brigade/ShivSena/BJP who are doing the same.

Please show me what is supremacist in these statements.



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#246 Posted by rsaxena on May 10, 2002 2:54:00 pm
re: AAmir

...it is not the yasemin`s who need attention...they seem to be doing just fine...it is the the urstrulys, hobbytys, and progressives...



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listing 16-32   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Interact Index

    #277 harimau
    #276 tahmed321
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