The Aga Khani

ras

``I saw two ``Half-Muslims`` sharing a beer yesterday. Makes me wonder what hamidm would

say if he encountered them?``

.....the agha khanis are perhaps the only muslim community that has stepped out of the seventh century - the rest of us are still eating dates and dating our camels .... the only other group that seems to be somewhat civilized are the ahmedis, who, as we all know, are non-muslims and wajib-ul-qatl .......i wonder how long it is going to be before suicidal shias and homicidal sunnis declare war on the agha khanis and run them out of pakistan ..... then, where will we get a decent hotel room or hospital bed ?

.... drinking beer is a very visible and powerful symbol for a muslim who has overcome his fear, superstition, and bigotary ..... somewhere along the way, islam has been reduced to four principles: prohibition, subjugation of women, interest free banking and hatred for the poor swine ........ a beer is a good first step on the road to recovery .......

P.S. ... no one is suggesting that drinking is a good thing and you should rush out to buy a six pack .... but one should stick around to give an inebriated friend a ride home ...... afterall, we do stick around for isha prayers and other godly activities ........

ylh

You are a bit to free with your insults. Do not accuse others of lying if you are not sure of your own facts. I have given below a short summary on Abdul Hamid. I first read about Abdul Hamid in class six, because there was a story in my Hindi text book called Abdul Hamid Kee Amar Kahani. BTW, THE Greandiers still have the highest number of Muslims and have served with distinction in Kargil, J&K etc. The Param Vir Chakra is India`s highest military award.

``Company Quarter Master Havildar Abdul Hamid was born on 1 July 1933, in Uttar Pradesh. He was enrolled in the 4 Grenadiers on 27 December 1954. During his Army service he earned the Sainya Seva Medal with Clasp J&K, the Samar Seva Medal and the Raksha Medal. During the 1965 Indo-Pak War, 4 Indian Division was entrusted with a two-fold responsibility - capture Pak territory east of Ichhogil Canal and contain possible enemy attack on Kasur-Khem Karan axis. The 4th Indian Division succeeded in reaching Ichhogil but the powerful Pakistani offensive forced it to fall back on Asal Uttar. The 4 Indian Division settled here to meet the enemy assault.

In the new defence plan of the Division, 4 Grenadiers occupied a vital area ahead of Chima village on the Khem Karan-Bhikhiwind road. A firm hold on this area was considered essential to sustain the divisional plan of defence. On Spetember 8th night, the enemy made repeated probing attacks on Grenadiers positions but was frustrated in all the attempts. The most serious threat, however, developed when the enemy attacked with a regiment of Patton tanks at 0800 hours on September 10th. The attack was preceded by intense artillery shelling so much so that every yard of ground occupied by the battalion was littered by a shell.

By 0900 hours, the enemy tanks had penetrated the forward company positions. At this critical juncture, Hamid was commanding a recoilless gun detachment. Seeing the gravity of the situation, he moved out to a flank with his gun mounted on a jeep. Intense enemy shelling and tank fire did not deter him. From his new position, he knocked out the leading enemy tank with accurate fire. Then he changed his position and knocked out another enemy tank. By this time the enemy who had spotted his position brought down concentrated machine gun and high explosive fire on him.

But he kept on firing. As he fired to hit yet another enemy tank, he was mortally wounded by a high explosive shell. Throughout this action, CQMH Hamid inspired his comrades to put up a gallant fight to beat off the enemy tank assault. His sustained act of bravery and disregard for personal safety, in the face of constant enemy fire, were a shining example, not only to his unit but to the whole division and were in the highest traditions of the Indian Army.

Company Quarter Master Havildar Abdul Hamid was honoured with the highest wartime gallantry medal, Param Vir Chakra, posthumously. Jai Hind!! Jai Jawan!

Aamir:

Great article man. Awesome. And Yes Shahnawaz was born an Indian, lived as an Indian and died an Indian. That is the truth, and YLH is either lying, or he does not know what he is talking about.

Pakistanis will always be indebted for 3 huge Aga Khani favors:

- Provided intellectual and political leadership to Pakistan movement in the form of Prince Aga Khan and Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

- Migrated in large numbers with their wealth and enterpreneurial skills to Pakistan.

- Gilgitis (mostly Aga Khanis) launched the freedom movement in Kashmir and were able to liberate Gilgit and Baltistan.

I don`t know or care if they are ``full`` muslims and neither should other Pakistanis, because politically they are more muslim than any other ethnic group in Pakistan. They way they slavishly follow Aga Khan`s farmans is truely disgusting, but so do the followers of the Pirs of Barri Imam, Golra Sharif, Sarwari Jamaat and thousands of other gaddi-nashins in Pakistan.

PS. NLI is not composed of Aga Khanis but mostly Balti (Baltistani) Shias. Aga Khanis serve in large numbers with Gilgit Scouts. (Major Hasan Khan who led the rebellion in 47-48 against the Maharaja was an Aga Khani I think)

Stuka..

I read a similar story about a jawan in my urdu text book...

So which one should one believe?

Farzana
Thanks for a well written and informative article. I agree with soysauce, for many of us Hinduism is like this in the matter of choice..
Absolutely no offense meant, but by your descriptions, in a positive way it seems you are half-Hindu, half-Parsi and half-Muslim, in the commonly accepted sense of these words. In other words the best of all worlds! Good for you.

`Commonly accepted sense of these words` alas sink these commonly accepted senses of these words: A family member was pointing out the other day that the UN charter of Human Rights speaks of the individual`s right to `a` religion or something. His point of view was that this is actually a Western imposition on a large part of humanity`s TRUE human rights, to restrict the right to only one religion. This, because in most of the East, people would subscribe to MORE than one religion. For example, the Japanese can be Shintoists and Christians both, or Christians and Buddhists both, (if you take a poll, say(just as example) 80% would describe themselves as Shintoists, 50% would call themselves Christians, etc). Similarly it used to be hard to tell whether some groups in India were Hindu or Muslim, or Hindu or Sikh, or a diverse tradition within Islam itself, the term Hinduism itself was hard to define etc, etc.
Revise the UN charter and banish the commonly accepted (finally bureacratic) terms Hindu, Muslim, Christian, etc!

Re: Ali1

``Gilgitis`` (assuming you mean the people who live in and around Gilgit and not all the residents of the Northern Areas) are NOT Aga Khanis but Shina speaking Sunni Muslims who, as a rule, hate and despise Ismailis (i.e, Aga Khanis). Ismailis live in (mainly) Hunza in the Northern Areas but also in districts north and west of Hunza. The NLI recruits almost evenly from Shina speaking Sunnis and Burushkashi speaking Ismailis with Balti speaking Shias from Skardu in a distinct minority. However, in any given battalion of the NLI (at last count there were

YLH:

``I read a similar story about a jawan in my urdu text book... ``

As far as Abdul Hamid is concerned, there is documented proof of his existence, and he is listed as a recipient of the Param Vir Chakra. You can easily go through the Gallantry Award citations of the Pak Army to see if there was an incident involving similar circumstances on your side. I am sure if you read about a Jawan in your text book he must have been a recipient of some sort of gallantry award, not just an anonymous soldier. If you find something, go ahead and believe both. Courage is not limited one side.

Stuka,

Honestly I personally don`t really care much for a bunch of Nazi/Axis sympathizers such as the INA. However, I know that there was atleast one so called `colonel` of this `Army` who opted for Pakistan. If it wasn`t Shahnawaz, must have been someone else. Though I was pretty sure it was him. Fuzair knows a lot about this stuff.. Maybe he will shed some light on the issue.

I have no intention of deceiving anyone.. given that I am not an Indian.

Sincerely

YLH

Yes, Col. Shahnawaz was and remained an Indian. In fact, he became a federal minister of some sort, and most definitely led an investigation into Netaji`s death. He himself died somewhere in UP. I know because my own Mausa ji (my mom`s elder sister`s husband) was an INA soldier and spoke of these leaders with reverence. As children we would sit around him and he would astonish us with stories of his life in SE Asia as a soldier. One of the most exciting rituals during these story-telling sessions was for him to start, in his booming voice, -

``Lal Quile ki hai awaz,``



And we would respond in chorus -

``sehgal dhillon shahnawaz``

Inspired, he would continue -

``Lal quile ko tod dau``

and we will complete the naara -

``sehgal dhillon ko choddh dau``

Even as kids we knew that there was something wonderful and morally uplifting about a hindu (sehgal), a sikh (dhillon), and a Muslim (shahnawaz) fighting shoulder to shoulder against the british.

You need not ask who our favorite relative to visit us was. God has been good to Mausa ji`s family. Beginning with very poor roots like ours, they have done exceedingly well. There is some justice in this world.

Prem

``You may be interested to know that Arya Samaj that did not take very kindly to Islam totally rejected caste system. They truly created a community of caste-less and amazingly progressive Hindus. They worked against all kind of social problems among Hindus - lack of education, superstitions, practice of dowry, inequality of women, internal divisions. But they exchanged one kind of man-to-man discrimination (Hindu against Hindu) with another kind (Hindu against Muslim). Inequality did not go away from their lives, it merely changed form. They offered their religious/social justifications, but those justifications don`t matter. Discrimination is discrimination - be it Hindu against Hindu, Hindu against Muslim, or Muslim against Hindu.

``

Some of us are Arya Samajis in practice :-). Caste system is an evil and it should be purged out of Hinduism. Ancient Hindu philosophy that we see in Vivekananda`s teachings, Upanishadas, Geeta, Ramayana and Shankara`s Advaitism should form the basis of neo_Hinduism. We need social reform movements once again to weaken the institutions of caste and provide a social system free of caste system.

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I too remember reading a story by the name of ``Veer(Brave) Abdul Hameed`` in my high school Hindi textbook. Let me recall from my memory. As far as I remember, he was a valiant warrior known for taking the air out of Paki`s ``famed`` Patton tanks (American donated ones). He single handedly destroyed 3 Pattons and damaged a fourth one using just artillery fire. He is known for restoring the morale of his batallion in the battle which finally turned out to be the ``graveyard of the Pattons``. He was awarded ``Param Veer Chakra``, the highest Indian military award.

Yasser

Dont mess with our heroes. Abdul Hameed and Shahnawaz were great patriots and will remain our heroes till eternity.

Betrayal again by Fernandez to glorify Modi & include him into peace maech at the last moment upsetting to Gujrati Muslims .....too recently hurt to forgive at least for NOW.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/front_pa.htm

MARCH IN SHADOW OF MODI ROSHNI

FROM BASANT RAWAT Ahmedabad, April 28: Carrying Atal Bihari Vajpayee?s secular beacon in his person, George Fernandes placed chief minister Narendra Modi ? hero to some, killer to others ? in new light. ?Roshni? (ray of light) was how the defence minister described Modi, recalling Jai Prakash Narayan?s fascination for the chief minister who was then a youthful leader.

?He (JP) looked to him as roshni. He used to mention 10 times a day how impressed he was by this youthful leader,? Fernandes told a peace rally today.

When members of the minority community, some of whom lost their relatives, friends and homes in the fire that has been burning in Gujarat for two months, saw this roshni flickering at the head of the peace march, most decided to stay away.

?I won?t join hands with these people,? said S.B. Syed. ?They have no place in a peace rally,? he said of Modi and members of his government.

With their followers, Syed, a member of the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the rally?s organiser, and the Samajwadi Party state secretary, Khurshid Syed, had come to join the peace march, but changed their minds when they found Modi, home minister Godhan Zadhaphia and revenue minister Haren Pandya there.

?We came because we were told the chief minister will not come. It is a betrayal. We are boycotting the peace march because killers and mass murderers are pretending to be peacemakers,? they said.

The march drew about 1,000 people, way below expectations of a turnout of tens of thousands, despite the presence of several Central ministers ? Arun Jaitley, Harin Pathak and Digvijay Singh ? and some local Congress leaders, who gave the exercise the respectability of not being an entirely government-sponsored event.

Minority community members, standing in large numbers on both sides of the road, held placards that said: ?Modi law of peace, kill Muslims to win election?; ?Modi law of peace, break down Muslims financially?; and ?Modi law of peace, a Muslim life costs nothing, rape them, kill them, police with you?.

Some might have joined ? but most just watched ? the 3.5-km march that began from Manilal Mansion near Kalupur railway station in the minority-dominated area of Lal Darwaja, passing through riot-hit localities that remain stripped of signs of day-to-day life despite relaxation of curfew.

Gun-toting police and Central force personnel stood guard at strategic positions and on rooftops as the marchers walked, carrying banners demanding an immediate end to ?insane communal rage?, to patriotic songs sung by NCC cadets.

Hours before the march, four persons were killed and 18 injured in police firing in the Millat Nagar area at Maninagar on the outskirts of the city.

Hours later, one person was stabbed to death.

Addressing a meeting at the end of the march, an emotionally-charged Modi said: ?Everyone has lost something. What Gujarat now requires is trust between people.?

?It is time to forget the past and to isolate those who are indulging in violence?. No one will be able to disrupt peace and communal harmony if miscreants are identified and isolated.?

Trust is something the chief minister will have to work harder on. Sheikh Memon, a protester holding a placard, said: ?Had we known Modi would join the peace march, we would have imposed janata curfew. You would have not seen so many Muslims today.?

Scores of them looked on from inside their barricaded colonies as the marchers went by. Holding a small baby in her arms, Zareena Biwi peeped through the iron gates.

?Peace is when I can come out and join you in the streets,? she said.