Were We Too Hijacked by 9/11?

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Ferozk,

The fundamental problem for which educated like you are basically responsible is the homogeniety of the society in most major issues. It is amusing to see people like you talking about babri majid demolition, what you and especially the educated pakistanis fail to notice that at least a thousand mosques have been built in kerala alone in the past 20 years. The numbver of chucrhes and other places of worship for all religious hues is on the incrase.

I hant come across any indian who is not proud of the lotus bahai temple in delhi. It is certain that no new hindu or ahmadia temple has been built in pakistan in the last 30 years. It was only PM who once posted that several temples in pakistan have been destroyed following a spontaneous response to babri majid. No educated pakistani wants to talk about it. It is this spineless attitude you the educated that annoys the hell out of me. Even today, many hindus wrire about babri, no one, no one from pakistan has written about the hindu temples of pakistan.

It will be hard to imagine for me to see a kerala with out muslims. My cousins study at a muslim school, neary 80 percent are hindus, because the school believes that its reputation depends on the quality of its products, admission is purely on merrit, only 10 percent reservation for muslims, and the fees are high. It may be hard to find a similar situation may be in gujarat. The essence of indian resiliance is its diversity. The weakness of pakistan is the denial of the truth, no pakistani wants to accept the muslim history of india, that islam of kerala are as old as the islam any where else, it was a hindu king who met the prophet that spread islam in kerala. The oldest mosque, Cheraman Mosque is named after him.

Now go and read Pak.org version of history, reflect on what you owe to fellow pakistanis as an educated person. It is the pathological jihadic thinking ( except for hamidm) of the pakistanis that irritates the hell out of most indians.

Ferozk, Dost-Mittar, Sadna,

IMO, the difference between Hindutva and Jihadi -both exclusivist, and therefore, deeply immoral - philosophies is this: Hindutva offers a much wider tent.

In that sense, Hindutva includes equivalents of BOTH Two-Nation Theorists and Jihadis. As far as I understand, among TNT believers are some who are not interested in using violence against others. They simply want a country when ``Muslims can live according to their own genius.`` Many Hindutva believers fall in exactly that same category. They are very peaceful people. They just don`t want Muslims ``interfering`` in how India is run.

On the other hand, Hindutva ``brigade`` does include some real violent thugs who are out and out evil, who do not mind actually spilling the blood of another human being to further their demented ageda. These are the blood brothers and sisters of Jihadi thugs.

ferozk #106
Those killed by VHP/BJP cadres while the police watch and the nation`s PM/Home Minister dissimulates are suffering as bad or worse fate than those killed by jihadis while Pakistanis dissumulate.

But please distinguish between the armed jihadi philosophy which is indiscriminate violence is the sole answer and Hindutva which says no such thing(but can reduce to this).

Re violence as principle and philosophy : Hindutva doesnot preach violence as principle and philosophy, its an ideology which talks of the primacy of Hindu rights like the Muslim League talked of the primacy of Muslim rights. The end product of both was violence of the sort seen in Gujarat, but that was not what most Hindutva supporters supported Hindutva for(and it was/is pretty stupid of them not to realise what would happen). The violence against innocents was not what was written into Hindutva manifesto when people voted for them, though it was certainly threatened by many as is being tried by Modi now.


Re violence as state policy : If violence is made state policy in India, we will have civil war, everyone knows. Like Pakistanis blame the US and India for jihadi blowback, BJP will blame Pakistan. But such arguments donot work well with voters who want a stable environment, jobs and facilities, and unlike the Pakistani Army, the BJP needs to answer the media and opposition parties on a daily basis and voters at regular intervals. For example, Narendra Modi who recently spoke of `teaching them(Muslims) a lesson` has had a report prepared against him by his own state government`s intelligence agency and is now being investigated by the National Human Rights Commission for his remarks which were broadcast on a TV news network this last Sunday.

The point is that violence against innocents is not quite written into state policy quite yet, because there are election and other public campaigns being run to oppose it.

On the other hand, armed jihad preaches violence as the sole principle and philosophy and is practised as state policy, under cover of deniability till this August. These jihadis have explicitly been organised, trained and armed by state policy for no purpose other than the sole and single purpose of killing their Muslim and nonMuslim opponents in Afghanistan and Kashmir by the Pakistani government with the support of Pakistanis all over the world, not just in Pakistan. Pakistani jihadis have killed 10s of thousands of people over more than 20 years without a single political party or body of citizens in Pakistan openly opposing it from ANY platform and none in sight to oppose it in future only unending justifications.


And you got it wrong, what I said was, neither can Pakistan do as it pleases in Kashmir as it did in Afghanistan nor will India to pay off Pakistan to stop pursuing jihad in Kashmir, like the US paid Pakistan off to stop pursuing jihad in Afghanistan. One example illustrating these differences is the more than 75% turnout on the recent election day in Kargil which Kargil residents say is their reply to Pakistan for its continual harrassment of border residents with shelling and violence.

Re: PM # 103

Yes, I agree that Germany and Japan were the exceptions. Still, PM, it takes a long time to change. It was only in 1999 that Germany changed its nationality laws based on a direct blood lines; laws that were created by Otto von Bismarck inthe 1880s and re-affirmed in Nurnmberg in 1934 during the biggest Nazi period. Germany has changed within a life time, but has the thought process of the Germans really changed within a life time also? Japan is as racist towards foreigners as it was in 1941. Yes; the political systems in both Germany and Japan changed for the better, but their mental outlook has not changed drastically since then. Germans have developed a tolerance for auslanders - foreigners, but in the former East Germany they still write on the walls ``auslanders aus!``

Re: Prem # 102

I agree with you! Well Said!

Re: Sadna # 104

Sadna, I equate the jihadi and Hinduavta philisophies as the same, because they both use violence to attain their aims. Period. I do not make the argument that violence is a perfectly normal method to attain objectives if it can be rationalized along religious arguments.

Agreeing with what you said, the same also applies to India, where the population has also supported Hinduavta philsophies. India, unlike Pakistan, has a functioning democracy and when the Indians elect a political party, which supports the ideology of Hinduavta, does that not suggest that Indian opinion also supports Hinduavta - enough to get it elected and form the Indian government? Does that not imply support for Hinduavta and its ideology in India?

Whether violence happens in Kashmir or India or whether it is committed by jihadis or Hinduavta`s followers, it is still violence. Giving a geographic limits to it to condoning it based on a national policy is wrong and by blaming the jihadis for violence in Kashmir, does that lessen the violence perpetuated by the disciples of Hinduavta in Gujrat? One commits violent acts against the Hindus and other replies by committing violent acts against Muslims. It kills people and it uses violence to justify its message. That my friend is simply wrong and must not be tolerated or condoned simply, because the reasoning is based on one`s sense of patriotism.

India is certainly not Afghanistan and yes, the United States is not paying for the violence in Kashmir. Does that make a difference? Like I said, please do not use geography to justify violence or a violent response to violence itself.

Ciao

Ferozk
You are mistaken in equating Hindutva and jihad philosophies. The equivalent of Hindutva is the creation of Pakistan.

I agree with jay that many sections of Pakistani opinion have been supporting jihad under one pretext or another.

Even those supporting them on the count of human rights in Kashmir are hypocritical a-holes because while preaching human rights to the Indians, they donot bother keep any tab on what exactly heavenseeking jihadis are doing in Kashmir, nor have these Pakistanis made sure to set up ANY institutional framework to check the misuse of the resources, arms and training they are generously supplying to these freeroaming psychopaths. Equating Hindutva with jihad will not do it either and remember Kashmir is not Afghanistan to do as you please and India is not the US to pay you off to stop doing it.

re. Ferozk #98
Khan sahib, I sometimes wonder how one can write so cogently at times (such as #98) and other times... well... :)
Your point on Pak ideology still being negotiated is quite apt, and eqally liberating to ponder on.

Two comments:
1. I think the distinction Jay was making lay in his use of the term ``all Pakistanis [in one way or another]...`` This may be only slightly inaccurate. However, supporting jihad as a counter to perceived human rights abuse is no different from, say, Indian`s support of their army in IOK -- on the conceptual level, that is. Jihad in this sense may have nothing to do with visions of religious conquest, and, i believe, is the sense in which the vast majority of Pakistanis tacitly supported it. Of course, PTV propaganda, countering DD`s, made it easy to lend such moral support. So Jay, maybe you can give your Islamophoboa a rest, or a rethink? Religious extemism might be a problem, and a large one at that in Paksitan, but is by no means pervasive to the exent you suggest.

2. Feroz, you would be surprised at how soon mindsets, even, or EASPECAILLY, collective mindsets may change. Not in your lifetime? hmmm... Heard of Germany? Japan? Why should it be so difficult for two peoples who share such a great deal of cultural heritage, incuding language? Hope isn`t enought Feroz. WILL is what brings real change.

rgds,
PM

re: Ferozk # 98

Great post. Hindutva thugs are no less evil than Jihadi thugs. Indians and Pakistanis must treat them equally, like the vermin they are.

In this regard, I must say, Pakistan appears to be changing for the better (at least at the level of common every-day folk) - they are increasingly questioning old bigotries; and India is changing for the worse - increasingly the cancer of bigotry is finding hospitable terrain in India.

I hope we Indians stop this immoral slide, and as Indians and Pakistanis help each other become better, more humane, less religiously obsessed societies. If we don`t, then in just a few short decades, there will be little left for either of us to celebrate.

Re: Jay # 93

Hinduavta, as you said, might be local and peculiar to India and may not have the transational appeal of a jihad, but if ``all politics are local``, then the influence and message of Hinduavata directly affects Pakistan. In this sense, its importance cannot be minmized. Furthermore, as the dislike of Pakistan and the Muslims is akin to the cause celebre of Hinduavata, there is no consolation from that fact that its lacks the intensity of a jihad.

To argue otherwise, would be tantamount to creating a distinction between the two; a distinction, which seeks to justify violence and extermism based on a political reasoning. Hinduavta is an extermist philosophy since it advocates violence to attain its aim and like any political philosophy, which advocates violence it should not be tolerated.

Contary to what you have suggested, Hinduavta did ``fertilize`` a local movement in the birthplace of Gandhiji, which unleased a spasm of violence; a violence that had political motivations behind it. It did ``fertilize`` a movement, which led to the destruction of the Babri Masjid. These two examples, were all local and when taken in their sum, they do represent a national trend in India towards violence and extermism in politics.

I will agree with you that Pakistanis have supported jihad for one reason or another, but how does that seperate the distinction between adherents of Hinduavta and the jihadis, who both use its violence to attain political ends?

The point being discussed, and please correct me if I am wrong, is not to justify a politically rationalized dichotomy over the employment of violence for political ends, but to suggest that violence used for furthering political aims is simply wrong. Period.

Jay, the reality of the situation is that after 55 years of independence, Pakistan has not been able to articulate, what constitutes as its national ideology. That debate is still raging, in the true sense of the word, and hence, it is too early to predict that Pakistan cannot be a moderate nation. In the same token, because there was no historic precedent in India, it does not mean that India will always remain a tolerant nation. These a priori assumptions, which you are alluding to, can be misleading and prone to be proven wrong.

You and I exist in what the Germans refer to as ``augenblick`` - an historic moment - and thus, we cannot say with certainity what the final verdict will be. We can only pass judgements on our time and that too, within a very narrrow judgement biased by the limits of our own experience and constrainted by the time, we have managed to experience those events in. We cannot pass historic verdicts with our limitated experience, when history has no limits and will continue to evolve long after, we have shuffled off this mortal coil.

Yes, the governments of all hues supported the extermists in Pakistan, but does that imply that past policies cannot be changed? It was a mistake supporting these groups in the past, and the question is can we as a nation learn from our mistakes and change for the better?

I think that Pakistan can learn from its mistakes and change for the better, but I would be a fool to think that this metamorphis, for the better, will occur within my life time. It will not. The forces of history evolve slowly, but they do evolve and their time is measured in centuries and long years and not within a single time - yours or mine.

Ciao

Karachi Express # 97

You ar assuming that the ``mighty`` Moguls were not unruly. I am sure you must have historicial writers such as Ibn Kaandha , Ibn Bhendi etc. to support your thesis , the fact that these people are unruly is a legacy of the Moguls and their manner of rule.

By the way these ``mighty`` Moguls were not feeling warm and cosy with the really strong Persians on their Western frontier and always had to fight off the indepenedent-minded rulers of Hind, be they Afghans, Rajputs or Jatts or Marathas.

rsridhar, arjun_m,

Reg. Gandhi:
Everyone loves a pacifist...as long as he`s not on their side!

I liked the line in the movie where Gandhi remarks to the american journalist (just before the dandi march) - `Its not generals alone who can plan campaigns`.

cheers,

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ferozk,

It would be an absurdity to talk of india as a single entity in relation to social values. Large parts of bihar and UP will remain a disgrace to mankind for a long time, may be even gujarat may turn to a muslim no-live zone as a final epitah to a man who strived for religious tolerance.

But what has happened is for a sizeable part of the indians material progress has become a religion, and hopefully with some associated secular human values. Reduced corruption, visible material progress and a genuine sense of pride in being an indian are undeniable.

Once again a saving feature is there is no global hindutva ideology, like the jihad that can fertilize a local movement. It is hard to deny that every educated pakistani has supported the jihad on human right grounds, as great military strategy or as a legitimate religious activity.
I always believed that the secular and staregic versions are only maqurades for the genuine religious belief and support for jihad reinforced only by fatwafobia.

It is hard to visualise india becoming a hiduadist country, the same as pakistan ever becoming a moderate country. The very ideology of its formation forecloses any moderate options and the efforts to blame zia for all that is wrong has been a fundamental flaw in pak thinking. No one cares to ask, what was created by zia has been nurtured, expanded and sustained by govts of all hue, democratic to military pointimg to some fundamental pak predilictions.

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re: Mushy boy ko gussa kyon ata hai
Reality bites:
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/today/editor/opi1.htm
Sridhar