Shadowlines (Part I)

````y`see I have this sis who I`m desparate to get married off...````(Shanker)

``I AM desparate````..??

Forgive me for asking -- did you ask HER -- if SHE is?? -- apparently not.

Living in the US coal mines -- and not a speck of dust on the snow white Indian kurta -- that is a miracle -- you are a lucky man Shanker Saheb.

This is where -- Ghalib as a US immigrant -- would have said:

US meiN hooN US ka talabgaar naheeN hooN

bazzaar se guzra hooN kharidaar naheeN hooN

:-)

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Sadna: How so?

Americans have done it again, they would rather order a dictator around than an elected one.

Pakistan polls to be postponed to 2003?

Muhammad Najeeb (IANS)

Islamabad, July 07



General elections that were expected to be held in Pakistan in October are likely to be put off till March 2003, says a front-page report in The News daily.

The paper quoting unnamed sources said people in ``the inner circle of

President Pervez Musharraf`s administration suggest elections would be put

off till March 2003``.

But Musharraf and senior members of his regime issue assurances almost daily

that elections would be held according to schedule.

While validating the October 1999 military coup in which Musharraf came to

power, the Supreme Court had directed the government to hold polls within

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM,

This is the latest hit in the UK, and it shows the real contribution of pakistan to the indians. ``Paki`` an ultimate insult to the indians. One has to see the movie to realise what the heroine has done in response to that insult. Well done pakistan, who said the country has made no contributions to mankind.

TREATMENT OF PAKISTANIS,

Pakistanis are treated badly in the US at present. Smallest of immigration law violence end up in them being deported while millions of illegal immigrants stay in the US with the full knowledge of the authorities.

In many cases, like that of YLH, all that he wanted was to recoup the money spent by his parents on his education in the US and come back to become the president of pakistan. There could be hundreds of others like YLH and this is a case of legitimate shattering of the dreams. Along with that, add the insult of being chained and deported. This type of humiliation and selective vendatta creates a very valid grouds for anti US feelings. An educated jihadists is far more lethal than the madrassa product.

The US policy is in a way fomenting the creation of more virulent starins of jihadists. US should reconsider the policy, especially in the case of pakistanis like YLH who went there on more of secular persuits.

re:Reply #: 65

shammi,

A nice analysis. Let me add my 10 cents worth. I think muslims have grown much smarter over the years in terms of who they are going to vote. You are right in pointing out about how they felt deserted by Congress over the BMJ issue and stopped voting in its favor en-masse. I also see a lot of emphasis on education by the present day muslims. I see it in the articles i read in some muslim newspapers and web-sites (like the Milli gazette). This is all very good.

One thing the muslims of today lack in India is a good leadership. This leadership was available in the form of Md Ali Jinnah during pre-partition days. Nobody can dispute his stature and sincerity and honesty when it came to the issues involving muslims during that time (one may argue that partition has not helped their cause but then we have the benefit of hindsight). Today, we do not have a leader of his caliber to lead the muslim Indians. No doubt BMJ is an important and emotional issue for the muslims but a lot of lesser politicians (like Syed Shahabuddin)seem to have made a name out of this issue. There is a lack of debate on important issues facing them. In this vaccum, people like Shahabuddins and Shahi Imams have been misleading the people.

Sridhar

DRUMZ #85,

whoa, what`s this? what does sadna have that i don`t? i even bought a dress for our impending betrothal.....what the hell am i gonna do with it

shankar bhia,

don`t worry about me, convents are better than men these days ;)

Gujarat: where is justice?

By Kuldip Nayar

No school bus stops here to pick up children. No postman comes here to deliver letters by name. It is no longer on the beat of the media. Rioting makes news, not the absence of it; relief or rehabilitation is a mundane story. Even after four months of carnage, thousands of victims in Gujarat have no home, no hearth and no work.

Refugee camps, where they took shelter when their houses were destroyed or burnt in broad daylight, are being shut. Some have tried to go back to the places where they lived to rebuild their tenements - and lives. But the hostile neighbourhood has forced them to return. They cannot stay on where they are today - in unhygienic conditions. The government says that its ``work`` is over. What are the states for if they cannot look after the people who are ruined by the government`s failure to protect them?

The victims have no place to go. They feel helpless and abandoned. Yet the prime minister had promised them ample compensation and quick rehabilitation. They have received some money as a grant. But it is too small to be considered compensation and too meagre to help them make a beginning.

Are they victims of prejudice or politics or both? They have come to believe that they are the sacrificial lambs state Chief Minister Narendra Modi used to polarise society. On this premise he seems determined to go to the polls in September or October, six months ahead of schedule. The BJP, his party, expects to reap the harvest from the poisonous seeds Modi has sown.

``If it is a question of vote, please disfranchise us,`` many inmates of refugee camps say. This is probably the strongest denunciation of a system, which claims to be democratic and secular. Muslims constitute 10 to 12 per cent of the electorate in Gujarat. Still the BJP insists on playing the Hindu card.

The elections are some months away. The problem of victims is immediate: how do they pick up the thread and from where? They would like to go back to the shops they had and to the houses where they and their forefathers lived. But many in the majority community do not want it. The administration could help but quite a bit of it is contaminated. And at the helm of affairs is Modi who is far from repentant. His new antic is to open a school of ahimsa (non-violence)!

To turn the tide flowing in favour of the Congress was the task entrusted to him when he was sent to Ahmedabad from Delhi where he was the BJP`s general secretary. Being an RSS pracharak (publicist), he had learnt only one lesson: how to play on the imaginary fears of Hindus against Muslims to communalize society. He would have created a Godhra train incident if it had not happened. The tragedy is that some Muslims played into his hands. Modi probably knows that the Gujaratis would one day realize what harm he has done to their economy - and their image. But that will take time. At present, he wants to cash in on the atmosphere of prejudice, suspicion and fear he has built.

This can be well imagined from a letter that a Muslim gentleman has written to me: ``Not long ago, I would walk up to the nearby post office to send my letters and pick up fresh fruits and vegetables on my way back. I liked the leisurely talk with the Hindu vendors. Now my servant does all that. I am afraid to go out even in a car. I prefer to stay at home. But that is not life.``

Many Muslims have begun to migrate to other states. Some of them, who had come from UP in the wake of the Babri masjid`s demolition, have gone back. But the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is trying to spoil the atmosphere by reneging on its earlier promise. It has refused to accept even the court`s verdict on the mandir-masjid controversy. The prime minister`s statement that the BJP had never deviated from the mandir agenda had created confusion. But the BJP`s reiteration to honour the court`s decision has saved the situation.

So have the NGOs working in Gujarat. They are the only rays of hope in an otherwise murky scenario. All of them are Hindus. They have been looking after the refugee camps from day one. Hindus have contributed lakhs of rupees and some of their organizations have adopted the Muslim villages, razed to the ground during the riots. Indeed, all this has given the victims a feeling that they are part of the Indian nation.

Yet Hindu fundamentalists have not relented in any way. They had planned a series of rath yatras in the next few days. The Muslims had responded positively when they cancelled the Muharram ceremonies. But the sponsors of rath yatras were adamant. It took the National Human Rights Commission`s strong statement to make them come down from their resolve. Former Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan also appealed to the prime minister to stop the yatras. Such pleas hardly matter to a party that is out to divide the nation.

New BJP chief Venkiah Naidu is going still further. He said the other day on a TV network that he would ask the BJP ministers to spread the party`s message. He does not realize the implications of the statement. External affairs minister, finance minister or, for that matter, any other minister is that of the country. True, he belongs to a party but in a notional sense only. Otherwise, it will be mixing politics with the state. Venkiah Naidu`s emotional burst clouds his vision.

The BJP chief should have taken a leaf out of America`s contemporary history. Both the Senate and the Congress unanimously passed a resolution to condemn `bigotry and violence` against Sikh American citizens in the wake of the terrorist attack on September 11. The resolution was co-sponsored by 39 Senators and 131 Congressmen and signed by President Bush to make it a law. The resolution regrets that many Sikhs ``who are easily recognizable by their turbans and beards, which are required by their faith, have suffered both verbal and physical assaults as a result of misguided anger`` after the September 11 attacks.

An American who killed a Sikh soon after the attacks was prosecuted and executed within a few months. But in India, where 3,000 Sikhs were massacred in Delhi alone, the culprits have not been found till today, even after 18 years. Nor has parliament passed any resolution to condemn the large-scale murder. We have had a plethora of commissions to find out who were the guilty. One commission is still sitting in New Delhi.

The ``ethnic cleansing`` in Gujarat looks like meeting the same fate. The commission appointed to find out the guilty is yet to begin its work in right earnest. The senior member, Justice Nanavati, is busy with the commission on the Sikhs` massacre. That the BJP appointed him is not a coincidence. In the commission on Sikhs` massacre he is to pinpoint the Congress responsibility. In the Gujarat case, he will be finding out the culpability of the BJP. Quite a feat!

The Congress government never allowed the truth about the Sikh massacre to come out. The BJP will see to it that the truth about Gujarat remains hidden. The party has already given a clean chit to Modi. India`s tragedy is that convenience has the better of the rule of law. Politics and crime have become the two sides of the same coin. Where is justice? Or is there anything called justice?

The writer is a freelance columnist based in New Delhi.

sadna,

{{very pleasant and polite in real life}}

yeah yeah, thats all well & good ...but is he as good looking as imran khan? for some reason, ever since she fell in love with that bum, nobody`s ever good enough for her!

Re: sadna #87

Actually, I asked the same question twice because I did not receive an adequate and convincing response. This article below summarizes my concerns:

Dead, In Letter And Spirit

Democracy in India has today become a hollow sham and the State an instrument of terror and extortion

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20020708&fname=Column+Prem+%28F%29&sid=1

In light of the above, I find any investment of time, energy and resources on what bedevils other countries where different groups are suppressed to be utterly frivolous

PS: I will be unable to link up to the Web for over a week

sadna,

is it my computer or why is it only your posts get through during these pregnant pauses on Chowk? It happens I`m not working this long mid-weekend & can get to my computer more often:)

DRUMZ,

Dude, youre coming to Chowk to actually look for a chick? foggetaboutit! Saxena`s tried it several times & bombed...like BAD!..besides, papa tahmed keeps a tight ship around here:)

Koi hai?

nasah #78
`` Poor wretched naked Hindutvas -- even the Godhra fig leaf is gone now.``

Re the forensic investigation on Godhra, this article had some graphics:
http://www.the-week.com/22jul07/cover.htm

The forensic investigation does show that the fire was started inside the railway carriage. It also shows that the inflammable liquid used was spilled near seat 72, namely near the doors at one end of the carriage, as those who have travelled by train in India might remember. This is borne out by two things, firstly that the other end of the carriage (the other doors near seat 1) burnt the least. And secondly, while most of the liquid seems to have flowed towards the centre of the carriage (seats 72-1) some of it trickled the other way into the toilets near seat 72, which are on the other side of the doors.

The point is those who set fire to the carriage stood near the doors at one end when they did so(which seems logical because why the heck would passengers in the middle of a crowded Indian Railways carriage allow someone to go sprinkling flammable liquid around them, watch him light a fire to it and then let him escape?).

But this also means the culprit could be someone from outside the carriage who found the doors of this particular carriage open and climbed in to do the deed, and escaped after. So the culprits could still be either Hindutva freaks or non-Hindutva freaks.

DRUMZ #85
Chicken!


shankar #83
Re meeting Yasser. Needless to say, he is very pleasant and polite in real life and it was nice to meet up with him with my brother. Re rishtas, you donot need intermediaries, consider the Chowk to be a virtual hotel and go for it.


shammi #86
You responded to #69 twice.

Re: sadna #69

``… it will not make Muslim-dominant countries any more egalitarian toward nonMuslims…"

So what? Does that affect the life of an average Indian and voter more than the converse?

Re; Layman #73

I was making recollections from my memory about elections that were held 18 years ago, so I could be wrong about the chronology about elections. You said, ` It was the sympathy factor for IG and good governance by Janata govt at the state that were the factors`. This is a subjective assessment, and there is no way of proving one way or the other. I am willing to accept your rationale, while not entirely discarding mine.

Re: Zafar Al-Talib #74

Thanks, but maybe I was not right on the facts after all, since Layman has challenged them.

Re: Chandra #79

``… You are a nice man…"

Thank you.

``… Where in the world a minority community burns women and children of the majority community …"

Recent police and forensic reports suggest that the fire in Godhara was started INSIDE the train, and not from the outside, which calls into question the whole `basis` for riots. However, let us not quibble over the initiating event, and let me, for now, concede to you that the `accepted` version is indeed true. So what? Does one community (any) have the right to take the law into their own hands? Does the response justify killing innocents?

``…or make them refugees in their own land…"

I suppose that you are referring to Kashmir and to the plight of the pandits. The biggest argument that one can make is that two wrongs do not make a right. And if the oft-repeated official line of cross border terrorism is to be believed then it is not the native Kashmiri, but the Pakistan-based militants responsible for this. So, the `minority community` (if you are referring to the one in India, that is) is not the one to blame.

Sadna: ``OK, I`ll bite.``

Woah that was quizzick, but im not joking. I had my eye on scout but shes a lil crazy, samina is taken and hamids daughters are takin forever.

Anyways how much u givin for the dowry? Itll be fun, no? We can have jinnah floor mats and invite ylh.

Ali1: ``Who killed your pet mountain goat?``

Thats an interesting assumption, but If i dont have a girl, it dont mean my pet goat left me. IM not knockin ur hustle, but farm animals are not for everyone. Im sure milking cows makes u think of dirty things but dont paint everyone with the same brush (and dont play ball with the big boys, keep playin with the lil boy`s balls).