Hey Ram, What Have You Done to My Religion?
Dost Mittar July 21, 2003
#142 Posted by vishalkrips on December 25, 2006 9:18:39 am
i think u nearly got this interpretation right, barring ofcourse for the predujice shown involuntarily against the modern face of societal behavior of india.
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#141 Posted by harimau on July 31, 2003 8:42:06 pm
Ref ali87 #136
[Horray to south Indian pride....]
Do you know why I am so secure in my identity and you are so insecure?
That is because my forefathers BROUGHT their religion to the South Indians whereas your forefathers RECEIVED their religion from some Arab-wannabe.
It is always better to give than to receive.
[Horray to south Indian pride....]
Do you know why I am so secure in my identity and you are so insecure?
That is because my forefathers BROUGHT their religion to the South Indians whereas your forefathers RECEIVED their religion from some Arab-wannabe.
It is always better to give than to receive.
#140 Posted by dullabhatti on July 31, 2003 5:37:53 pm
I can`t make why Chowk highlights in sharp yellow the words like ass, cunt, dick etc... do they highlight because they consider them obscene or they like them so much and want our eyes to concentrate on them instantitly? It ambrassasing when you are viewing chowk page and someone sitting besides you look on your screen and sees these words highlighted. I have been asked about my obsession with such a dirty web site.:-)
#139 Posted by dullabhatti on July 31, 2003 4:18:50 pm
ok so dick escaped to get the attenion it deserves this time.:)
#138 Posted by harimau on July 30, 2003 7:13:51 am
Something for everyone; to read, to understand, to think about.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=29460&d=28&m=7&y=2003
How Personal Is the Law?
M.J. Akbar
Who said that Indian Muslims must “reinterpret the foundational legal principles in the light of their own experience and the altered conditions of modern life?” The chief justice of the Supreme Court of India, V.N.Khare? The prime minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee? The chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, K. Sudarshan?
The correct answer might shock some of the hard-liners who have become self-appointed arbiters of the destiny of Indian Muslims. This was the view of a philosopher-poet who took Mirza Dagh as his mentor, stirred Muslims as no one before had done with epic nazams like Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa, received a knighthood in 1922, and presided over the Allahabad session of the All India Muslim League in 1930 where in his presidential address he proposed that “Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and Baluchistan be amalgamated into a single state.” No one would call Sir Muhammad Iqbal a kafir. When he died in Lahore on April 21, 1938 the community honored him with a tomb in the compound of the famous Badshahi mosque built by Aurangzeb.
Iqbal elaborated in his seminal analytical work The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam: “The teaching of the Qur’an, that life is a process of progressive creation, necessitates that each generation is guided, but unhampered, by the work of its predecessors, should be permitted to solve its own problems.”
It is a myth that Islamic law is not amenable to reinterpretation. Islam has always been a dynamic faith, not a static one, and principles have been placed in context whenever needed. The oft-cited instance of the Qur’anic injunction against usury is as good an example as any. The Qur’an, which Muslims treat as the word of God, is unambiguous about this evil.
Verse 275 of the second Surah, Al Baqarah, begins: “Those who devour usury will not stand except as stands one whom the Evil One by his touch hath driven to madness.”
The next verse is equally specific: “Allah will deprive usury of all blessing, but will give increase for deeds of charity, for He loveth not creatures ungrateful and wicked.” The translation is by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, who points out in a note: “Usury is condemned and prohibited in the strongest possible terms. There can be no question about the prohibition. When we come to the definition of usury there is room for difference of opinion.” It is this “difference of opinion” that has enabled all but a thin fringe of Muslims to take interest from banks without feeling that they have defied a Qur’anic injunction.
Then there is Verse 38 of the fifth Surah, Al Maidah, on theft: “As to the thief, male or female, cut off his or her hands: a punishment by way of example, from Allah, for their crime…” In the time of Jesus, it will be remembered, thieves were crucified; and even as late as in the 19th century in Britain, you could be hanged for theft. No one in the Islamic world today insists on cutting off thieves’ hands. Time has created imprecision even in Saudi Arabia. If there can be reasonable reform without sacrifice of principle, then there can be reform in marriage and divorce situations as well.
Islamic law is based on the injunctions of the Qur’an, and the practice of the Prophet(pbuh) who was both a messenger of Allah and a ruler of men. But this canon has been subject to seven yardsticks: consensus, judgment, analogy, equity, public interest, custom and legal reasoning. Each of these is a parameter of change, without sacrifice of any basic principle. The principle is that theft should be punished, but both judgment and public interest rule that theft can be curbed in the 21st century without recourse to slicing off hands. The social purpose of law is to curb the evil, not torture the individual.
This is not the way the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, which has become the first and last word in Muslim affairs, sees either law or life. But before we proceed, where did it come from? What sanction does it have? Do its members get elected by any forum or by the Indian Muslim community? On what basis does it call itself representative? How is its executive appointed?
Judging by the way it behaves, it might seem as if the board has been controlling the destinies of Indian Muslims ever since Muhammad bin Qasim stepped into Sindh in 711. To discover the truth we have to step a mere 12 centuries forward.
In 1972, the late Qari Mohammed Tayyab suggested the formation of a lobby group at a meeting in the seminary of Deoband. A convention was held in Bombay on December 27-28, 1972 to establish the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), with Tayyab as the first president. It had an uncomplicated agenda: to thwart any effort to interfere, by either the government or the courts, with its interpretation of the Islamic law (or Shariah). In effect it meant that this body of clergy and like-minded politicians and activists would oppose any change, even if that change was beneficial to the community. It gave to itself veto rights on Islamic law; its continual slogan was “Islam is in danger!”; and its mission was to herd an insecure community into a vote bank that it would deliver to those who were ready to recognize its sole spokesman role for the Indian Muslim community.
So far it has held 10 all-India sessions. Its 41 executive members are not elected by Muslims, but inducted in the manner of a private club. It would be unfair to suggest that everything it has done is necessarily regressive, but it would be fair to say that this has been its broad thrust, as can only be expected of a body so heavily weighted by the influence of the clergy. Its attitude toward social reform is best summed by the position it took on family planning.
It is interesting that political parties ideologically close to the board, like the Muslim League, supported the imposition of the Emergency by Mrs. Indira Gandhi in 1975. But what might be called the “Muslim Parivar” changed tack when Mrs. Gandhi used the Emergency to push some overdue social programs like family planning.
At an extraordinary meeting held on April 17-18, 1976 the board declared that sterilization was haram or must be prohibited.
In all matters of family law the board has taken a male-oriented view. Its most dramatic success was the blackmail of an inexperienced Rajiv Gandhi over the Supreme Court decision in the Shah Bano case. The board mobilized Muslims and forced Rajiv Gandhi to deny a poor, ageing divorcee minimal maintenance from her estranged husband.
I dare say that if among Muslims only women for some reason were thieves, the board would have demanded that their hands be cut off.
However, the board has not suggested that Muslim thieves should be awarded the Qur’anic punishment irrespective of how Indian law treats non-Muslim thieves. It accepts reform for thieves, but not for divorcees. I find it appalling.
You would not of course expect India’s political class to point out any such inconsistency. That would be detrimental to its electoral interests.
One of the great tragedies of Indian democracy has been the manner in which secular parties — and I do not place sarcastic quotation marks around secular, because they are genuinely secular — have insulted Indian Muslims by handing them over to mullahs. They have thereby expanded a tendency into a pervasive fact. It is a travesty to treat Indian Muslims as single-dimension voters. As in so much else, this was first done by the Congress; but the non-Congress parties have been no better.
The Personal Law Board became a serious political player after Shah Bano. This continued with the Babri Mosque dispute, where it continues to dictate on behalf of the Muslims without any democratic reference to what Muslims might actually feel. It is perfectly possible that the overwhelming majority of Muslims might agree with the hardliners in the executive body of the board, but there is no methodology to determine this.
In fact, the problem with this dispute now is that it is in the clutches of the board and organizations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (not to mention social arsonists like Parveen Togadia) who are determined to shape the future only on the basis of their limited agenda. India is under siege from their veto.
The tension between change, reform, tradition and law is a familiar dynamic of the last two centuries; it is a process that long precedes the arrival of democracy. Justice Khare’s judgment on the need for a common civil code reaffirms a principle laid down in the Constitution, but falters when it ignores the complexities of social change.
At one level the court has not forgotten the scars of Shah Bano, and nor should it. The success of fundamentalists in blocking reform in Muslim personal law is another instigation. But there are other issues that need consideration before the demand for an immediate uniform civil code becomes a battle cry.
All communities are as reform-sensitive as Muslims, particularly where tradition has generated vested interests. Hindu law itself is not as uniform as some reformists would desire it to be.
When is the law called an ass? When it has legal reasoning on its side, but is bereft of consensus, judgment, equity and public interest.
When a horrendous case of injustice is perpetrated in the name of law, as in the Shah Bano case, then you know that the time has come for reform.
But equally, it is the duty of society’s leaders to build consensus around reform. Of course when those in authority are not leaders then this become difficult.
Sir W.H. Sleeman is the much-vaunted British Raj officer who allegedly eliminated thugs from central India. I do not recommend his memoirs (Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official) to those with high blood pressure; Sleeman is only another pompous windbag when it comes to “natives”. But he is extraordinarily perceptive about the subtleties of administration. He tells the story of Charles Harding, of the Bengal Civil Service, who in 1806 prevented the widow of a Brahmin from committing suttee. But a year later, her family prevailed and she was placed on a funeral pyre at Ramnagar, some two miles upstream from Benaras. As soon as the fire was lit, she jumped into the river; her clothes kept her afloat, and the current took her to the city where she was rescued by a police boat. Benaras was in uproar, and all the worthies suggested that the young officer return the widow to the pyre if he wanted to preserve the peace. Harding exhausted all the rational arguments, in vain. The crowd still bayed for suttee. Suddenly he had an inspiration. He had not saved the widow, he told the crowd; Mother Ganges had saved her. How else could she have survived without knowing how to swim? Her sacrifice on the pyre was obviously unaccepted to the river, or the Ganges would have received her.
The point was unanswerable. The widow survived. There is no substitute for persuasion.
In 1826, Lord Amherst asked for the views of seven European district magistrates of central India on whether a ban on suttee would be acceptable to the people. All seven said it would not. But when Lord William Bentinck did ban suttee a few years later, not a murmur was heard. The British Raj clearly had a motto: Just do it.
Arab News Opinion 28 July 2003
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=29460&d=28&m=7&y=2003
How Personal Is the Law?
M.J. Akbar
Who said that Indian Muslims must “reinterpret the foundational legal principles in the light of their own experience and the altered conditions of modern life?” The chief justice of the Supreme Court of India, V.N.Khare? The prime minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee? The chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, K. Sudarshan?
The correct answer might shock some of the hard-liners who have become self-appointed arbiters of the destiny of Indian Muslims. This was the view of a philosopher-poet who took Mirza Dagh as his mentor, stirred Muslims as no one before had done with epic nazams like Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa, received a knighthood in 1922, and presided over the Allahabad session of the All India Muslim League in 1930 where in his presidential address he proposed that “Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and Baluchistan be amalgamated into a single state.” No one would call Sir Muhammad Iqbal a kafir. When he died in Lahore on April 21, 1938 the community honored him with a tomb in the compound of the famous Badshahi mosque built by Aurangzeb.
Iqbal elaborated in his seminal analytical work The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam: “The teaching of the Qur’an, that life is a process of progressive creation, necessitates that each generation is guided, but unhampered, by the work of its predecessors, should be permitted to solve its own problems.”
It is a myth that Islamic law is not amenable to reinterpretation. Islam has always been a dynamic faith, not a static one, and principles have been placed in context whenever needed. The oft-cited instance of the Qur’anic injunction against usury is as good an example as any. The Qur’an, which Muslims treat as the word of God, is unambiguous about this evil.
Verse 275 of the second Surah, Al Baqarah, begins: “Those who devour usury will not stand except as stands one whom the Evil One by his touch hath driven to madness.”
The next verse is equally specific: “Allah will deprive usury of all blessing, but will give increase for deeds of charity, for He loveth not creatures ungrateful and wicked.” The translation is by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, who points out in a note: “Usury is condemned and prohibited in the strongest possible terms. There can be no question about the prohibition. When we come to the definition of usury there is room for difference of opinion.” It is this “difference of opinion” that has enabled all but a thin fringe of Muslims to take interest from banks without feeling that they have defied a Qur’anic injunction.
Then there is Verse 38 of the fifth Surah, Al Maidah, on theft: “As to the thief, male or female, cut off his or her hands: a punishment by way of example, from Allah, for their crime…” In the time of Jesus, it will be remembered, thieves were crucified; and even as late as in the 19th century in Britain, you could be hanged for theft. No one in the Islamic world today insists on cutting off thieves’ hands. Time has created imprecision even in Saudi Arabia. If there can be reasonable reform without sacrifice of principle, then there can be reform in marriage and divorce situations as well.
Islamic law is based on the injunctions of the Qur’an, and the practice of the Prophet(pbuh) who was both a messenger of Allah and a ruler of men. But this canon has been subject to seven yardsticks: consensus, judgment, analogy, equity, public interest, custom and legal reasoning. Each of these is a parameter of change, without sacrifice of any basic principle. The principle is that theft should be punished, but both judgment and public interest rule that theft can be curbed in the 21st century without recourse to slicing off hands. The social purpose of law is to curb the evil, not torture the individual.
This is not the way the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, which has become the first and last word in Muslim affairs, sees either law or life. But before we proceed, where did it come from? What sanction does it have? Do its members get elected by any forum or by the Indian Muslim community? On what basis does it call itself representative? How is its executive appointed?
Judging by the way it behaves, it might seem as if the board has been controlling the destinies of Indian Muslims ever since Muhammad bin Qasim stepped into Sindh in 711. To discover the truth we have to step a mere 12 centuries forward.
In 1972, the late Qari Mohammed Tayyab suggested the formation of a lobby group at a meeting in the seminary of Deoband. A convention was held in Bombay on December 27-28, 1972 to establish the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), with Tayyab as the first president. It had an uncomplicated agenda: to thwart any effort to interfere, by either the government or the courts, with its interpretation of the Islamic law (or Shariah). In effect it meant that this body of clergy and like-minded politicians and activists would oppose any change, even if that change was beneficial to the community. It gave to itself veto rights on Islamic law; its continual slogan was “Islam is in danger!”; and its mission was to herd an insecure community into a vote bank that it would deliver to those who were ready to recognize its sole spokesman role for the Indian Muslim community.
So far it has held 10 all-India sessions. Its 41 executive members are not elected by Muslims, but inducted in the manner of a private club. It would be unfair to suggest that everything it has done is necessarily regressive, but it would be fair to say that this has been its broad thrust, as can only be expected of a body so heavily weighted by the influence of the clergy. Its attitude toward social reform is best summed by the position it took on family planning.
It is interesting that political parties ideologically close to the board, like the Muslim League, supported the imposition of the Emergency by Mrs. Indira Gandhi in 1975. But what might be called the “Muslim Parivar” changed tack when Mrs. Gandhi used the Emergency to push some overdue social programs like family planning.
At an extraordinary meeting held on April 17-18, 1976 the board declared that sterilization was haram or must be prohibited.
In all matters of family law the board has taken a male-oriented view. Its most dramatic success was the blackmail of an inexperienced Rajiv Gandhi over the Supreme Court decision in the Shah Bano case. The board mobilized Muslims and forced Rajiv Gandhi to deny a poor, ageing divorcee minimal maintenance from her estranged husband.
I dare say that if among Muslims only women for some reason were thieves, the board would have demanded that their hands be cut off.
However, the board has not suggested that Muslim thieves should be awarded the Qur’anic punishment irrespective of how Indian law treats non-Muslim thieves. It accepts reform for thieves, but not for divorcees. I find it appalling.
You would not of course expect India’s political class to point out any such inconsistency. That would be detrimental to its electoral interests.
One of the great tragedies of Indian democracy has been the manner in which secular parties — and I do not place sarcastic quotation marks around secular, because they are genuinely secular — have insulted Indian Muslims by handing them over to mullahs. They have thereby expanded a tendency into a pervasive fact. It is a travesty to treat Indian Muslims as single-dimension voters. As in so much else, this was first done by the Congress; but the non-Congress parties have been no better.
The Personal Law Board became a serious political player after Shah Bano. This continued with the Babri Mosque dispute, where it continues to dictate on behalf of the Muslims without any democratic reference to what Muslims might actually feel. It is perfectly possible that the overwhelming majority of Muslims might agree with the hardliners in the executive body of the board, but there is no methodology to determine this.
In fact, the problem with this dispute now is that it is in the clutches of the board and organizations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (not to mention social arsonists like Parveen Togadia) who are determined to shape the future only on the basis of their limited agenda. India is under siege from their veto.
The tension between change, reform, tradition and law is a familiar dynamic of the last two centuries; it is a process that long precedes the arrival of democracy. Justice Khare’s judgment on the need for a common civil code reaffirms a principle laid down in the Constitution, but falters when it ignores the complexities of social change.
At one level the court has not forgotten the scars of Shah Bano, and nor should it. The success of fundamentalists in blocking reform in Muslim personal law is another instigation. But there are other issues that need consideration before the demand for an immediate uniform civil code becomes a battle cry.
All communities are as reform-sensitive as Muslims, particularly where tradition has generated vested interests. Hindu law itself is not as uniform as some reformists would desire it to be.
When is the law called an ass? When it has legal reasoning on its side, but is bereft of consensus, judgment, equity and public interest.
When a horrendous case of injustice is perpetrated in the name of law, as in the Shah Bano case, then you know that the time has come for reform.
But equally, it is the duty of society’s leaders to build consensus around reform. Of course when those in authority are not leaders then this become difficult.
Sir W.H. Sleeman is the much-vaunted British Raj officer who allegedly eliminated thugs from central India. I do not recommend his memoirs (Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official) to those with high blood pressure; Sleeman is only another pompous windbag when it comes to “natives”. But he is extraordinarily perceptive about the subtleties of administration. He tells the story of Charles Harding, of the Bengal Civil Service, who in 1806 prevented the widow of a Brahmin from committing suttee. But a year later, her family prevailed and she was placed on a funeral pyre at Ramnagar, some two miles upstream from Benaras. As soon as the fire was lit, she jumped into the river; her clothes kept her afloat, and the current took her to the city where she was rescued by a police boat. Benaras was in uproar, and all the worthies suggested that the young officer return the widow to the pyre if he wanted to preserve the peace. Harding exhausted all the rational arguments, in vain. The crowd still bayed for suttee. Suddenly he had an inspiration. He had not saved the widow, he told the crowd; Mother Ganges had saved her. How else could she have survived without knowing how to swim? Her sacrifice on the pyre was obviously unaccepted to the river, or the Ganges would have received her.
The point was unanswerable. The widow survived. There is no substitute for persuasion.
In 1826, Lord Amherst asked for the views of seven European district magistrates of central India on whether a ban on suttee would be acceptable to the people. All seven said it would not. But when Lord William Bentinck did ban suttee a few years later, not a murmur was heard. The British Raj clearly had a motto: Just do it.
Arab News Opinion 28 July 2003
#137 Posted by plats8 on July 29, 2003 8:00:31 pm
m_souza #134
This thread is wearing off rapidly, but I would suggest that you take a deep
breath, look at Nasah`s history of interacts and stop making senseless generalizations
about Indian Muslims and Pakistanis (and Hindus for that matter).
This thread is wearing off rapidly, but I would suggest that you take a deep
breath, look at Nasah`s history of interacts and stop making senseless generalizations
about Indian Muslims and Pakistanis (and Hindus for that matter).
#136 Posted by Ali87 on July 29, 2003 2:37:44 pm
#57 by harimau on July 23, 2003 9:55am PT
Horray to south Indian pride.... by the way the traditonal madrasees kids now speak of in the ``impure Hindi`` as a status symbol!!!
Hyderabad was never Bhagyapuri It was refered to in a loose shorthand as Bhagyanagar after bhagyamati the lover of a young prince of Golconda which was a few miles away and across the river Musi.
Sambhar doesnt contain Garam Masala??!!! wow!!
Henceforth I will take a stick and beat anyone who dares to utter that just for your sake.
sorry to disappoint you in your pure Dravid dreams...
Neverthless contiune it keeps every one amused...
Horray to south Indian pride.... by the way the traditonal madrasees kids now speak of in the ``impure Hindi`` as a status symbol!!!
Hyderabad was never Bhagyapuri It was refered to in a loose shorthand as Bhagyanagar after bhagyamati the lover of a young prince of Golconda which was a few miles away and across the river Musi.
Sambhar doesnt contain Garam Masala??!!! wow!!
Henceforth I will take a stick and beat anyone who dares to utter that just for your sake.
sorry to disappoint you in your pure Dravid dreams...
Neverthless contiune it keeps every one amused...
#135 Posted by nasah on July 29, 2003 6:47:44 am
``I am sure I have more Indian Muslim friends than you have Indian Hindu friends.``
(M SOUZA)
now on that question I can beat you hands down, Mohammad Souza:-)
(M SOUZA)
now on that question I can beat you hands down, Mohammad Souza:-)
#134 Posted by m_souza on July 27, 2003 10:44:52 pm
Nasah
Before getting agitated about a post that was not even addressed to you (because you are not a Pakistani but a patriotic Indian whose father fought during Independence struggle, I didn’t know), just go through all my previous posts and see for yourself that I have been the one to emphasize the similarities between India and Pakistan. I was the one to say that we are the same. Now you are telling me this?
“-- Indians and Pakistanis are same people –“…nasah, you may say this but do they believe this now. They say they are separate now. They don’t want to remember their Indianness.
My posts and queries were addressed to ferozk, a Pakistani. I really got such sane and convincing answers from him. At least he honestly agreed that there can’t be too close a friendship between people of two counties because this dislike, may I call it hatred, has been around for too long. But we can try nevertheless.
See…. if an Indian Hindu (like me) says that Indians and Pakistanis were one, that they are too similar and that Pakis have Indian roots then Pakis don’t like it and they defensively start disassociating themselves…total denial from their Indian/Hindu roots. They prefer to have Arabic roots coming from Ghaznavis and Ghouris.
But if some Indian for any reason decides to take a decision not to be too friendly with them, then also they have problem. OK, it’s fine if they have a problem. But nasah bhai, why are you shouting at the top of your voice. So much love for….. Maybe you can win over more Pakistanis in your anti-Hindu camp by defending them in all possible ways.
One day definitely the Pakistanis will get more and more friendly with Indians but SOME Indian Muslims would still be drenched in their protest against everything Hindu.
Ferozk told that he too realized it: “I am also sorry that you had to have a such a rude awakening, but I was coming to this conclusion nearly three year ago. The generation of partition was the best one to bridge the gap, but there was so much hated that they got swept up in it. The generations, which followed were taught to hate and hated without knowing why and in the process, went their own ways. Too much distence has opened up and you could be right and I am maybe wrong and the gap can seal itself one day. Anything is possible, but I do not think it will happen in my life time. It may happen in the life time of those who see each other without the tag of being an Indian or Pakistani and simply as one alike.”
Read …. #117 by ferozk on July 25, 2003 9:04am PT #123 by ferozk on July 25, 2003 11:24pm PT and see how decently he has evaluated things unlike you…who is getting touchy for no reason
++ -- try to make friends with some Pakistanis-- and do mix with more Indian Muslims -- for decency sake work for Hindu-Muslim understanding -- not hatred ++
Can you think beyond hindu-muslim? Weren’t we talking about Indian–pakistani issues here? Or is it the same thing to be a pakistani and to be an Indian muslim?
And by the way, I am sure I have more Indian Muslim friends than you have Indian Hindu friends.
Before getting agitated about a post that was not even addressed to you (because you are not a Pakistani but a patriotic Indian whose father fought during Independence struggle, I didn’t know), just go through all my previous posts and see for yourself that I have been the one to emphasize the similarities between India and Pakistan. I was the one to say that we are the same. Now you are telling me this?
“-- Indians and Pakistanis are same people –“…nasah, you may say this but do they believe this now. They say they are separate now. They don’t want to remember their Indianness.
My posts and queries were addressed to ferozk, a Pakistani. I really got such sane and convincing answers from him. At least he honestly agreed that there can’t be too close a friendship between people of two counties because this dislike, may I call it hatred, has been around for too long. But we can try nevertheless.
See…. if an Indian Hindu (like me) says that Indians and Pakistanis were one, that they are too similar and that Pakis have Indian roots then Pakis don’t like it and they defensively start disassociating themselves…total denial from their Indian/Hindu roots. They prefer to have Arabic roots coming from Ghaznavis and Ghouris.
But if some Indian for any reason decides to take a decision not to be too friendly with them, then also they have problem. OK, it’s fine if they have a problem. But nasah bhai, why are you shouting at the top of your voice. So much love for….. Maybe you can win over more Pakistanis in your anti-Hindu camp by defending them in all possible ways.
One day definitely the Pakistanis will get more and more friendly with Indians but SOME Indian Muslims would still be drenched in their protest against everything Hindu.
Ferozk told that he too realized it: “I am also sorry that you had to have a such a rude awakening, but I was coming to this conclusion nearly three year ago. The generation of partition was the best one to bridge the gap, but there was so much hated that they got swept up in it. The generations, which followed were taught to hate and hated without knowing why and in the process, went their own ways. Too much distence has opened up and you could be right and I am maybe wrong and the gap can seal itself one day. Anything is possible, but I do not think it will happen in my life time. It may happen in the life time of those who see each other without the tag of being an Indian or Pakistani and simply as one alike.”
Read …. #117 by ferozk on July 25, 2003 9:04am PT #123 by ferozk on July 25, 2003 11:24pm PT and see how decently he has evaluated things unlike you…who is getting touchy for no reason
++ -- try to make friends with some Pakistanis-- and do mix with more Indian Muslims -- for decency sake work for Hindu-Muslim understanding -- not hatred ++
Can you think beyond hindu-muslim? Weren’t we talking about Indian–pakistani issues here? Or is it the same thing to be a pakistani and to be an Indian muslim?
And by the way, I am sure I have more Indian Muslim friends than you have Indian Hindu friends.
#133 Posted by Faruk on July 27, 2003 7:50:07 am
Re : Article
Nice introspective article dost-mittar ji
Regards,
Faruk
Nice introspective article dost-mittar ji
Regards,
Faruk
#132 Posted by nasah on July 26, 2003 9:43:11 pm
``Islamic personal law runs contrary to the modern notions of human rights. Its anomalies are obvious to anyone except Muslim males` Hamid Dalwai in his book Muslim Politics In India````(SARWAR)
Agree 100%.
Muslim Personal Law is a CURSE brought on by the bearded (and also some shaved) ones -- condemning my community to the dungeon of eternal backwardness --
the Shah Bano case indicates that the community for its own good -- must be made to swallow the PILL of Uniform Civil Code to cure its sickness of medievalism.
UCC must supersede MPL -- no ifs and buts....and sooner the better
Agree 100%.
Muslim Personal Law is a CURSE brought on by the bearded (and also some shaved) ones -- condemning my community to the dungeon of eternal backwardness --
the Shah Bano case indicates that the community for its own good -- must be made to swallow the PILL of Uniform Civil Code to cure its sickness of medievalism.
UCC must supersede MPL -- no ifs and buts....and sooner the better
#131 Posted by nasah on July 26, 2003 6:42:07 pm
``I have a child in my close family who has Pakistani classmates. Now, one Pakistani boy is being too friendly to our Indian boy, feels close to him and says that Indians and Pakistanis are very similar and were one country not long ago. He seeks help from the Indian in studies too.
The Indian boy helps him more than he helps other class fellows, justifying that after all we are the same, Indians and Pakistanis. Pakistani boy is also sort of against the westerners, mocks at them but tries to relate to Indians.
Now seeing all this, I am a bit confused. So, this could be just for his own insecurity in the western world that he associates with Indians.
I feel like advising our Indian boy not to be too friendly with Pakistanis and to keep a distance because deep inside their hearts, Pakistanis just don’t like Indians and he could be in for a ride.
But of course, I couldn’t get myself to say this to a child. Now, I will.....``(m souza)
m souza -- why do you sound so pathetic? How old are U?. Is this the new Indian generation speaking? where do u come from?
Lad -- take the blinders off your eyes -- let the two kids play together --
what`s wrong with you? -- Indians and Pakistanis are same people -- try to make friends with some Pakistanis-- and do mix with more Indian Muslims -- for decency sake work for Hindu-Muslim understanding -- not hatred
and why do u say that Pakistani kid wants to play with the Indian kid because he is insecure in the West? -- that is so pathetic
that Pakistani kid is not insecure -- you are...
The Indian boy helps him more than he helps other class fellows, justifying that after all we are the same, Indians and Pakistanis. Pakistani boy is also sort of against the westerners, mocks at them but tries to relate to Indians.
Now seeing all this, I am a bit confused. So, this could be just for his own insecurity in the western world that he associates with Indians.
I feel like advising our Indian boy not to be too friendly with Pakistanis and to keep a distance because deep inside their hearts, Pakistanis just don’t like Indians and he could be in for a ride.
But of course, I couldn’t get myself to say this to a child. Now, I will.....``(m souza)
m souza -- why do you sound so pathetic? How old are U?. Is this the new Indian generation speaking? where do u come from?
Lad -- take the blinders off your eyes -- let the two kids play together --
what`s wrong with you? -- Indians and Pakistanis are same people -- try to make friends with some Pakistanis-- and do mix with more Indian Muslims -- for decency sake work for Hindu-Muslim understanding -- not hatred
and why do u say that Pakistani kid wants to play with the Indian kid because he is insecure in the West? -- that is so pathetic
that Pakistani kid is not insecure -- you are...
#130 Posted by sarwar on July 26, 2003 11:13:16 am
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#129 Posted by sarwar on July 26, 2003 11:13:16 am
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#128 Posted by ferozk on July 26, 2003 9:59:35 am
re: Dost-Mittar # 124
Yes. It would be a better subsitute but then again, both religion and nation states are about group identifications and organized power.
re: harimau # 125
That was harsh.
Ciao
Yes. It would be a better subsitute but then again, both religion and nation states are about group identifications and organized power.
re: harimau # 125
That was harsh.
Ciao
#127 Posted by harimau on July 26, 2003 9:02:21 am
For those who claim that stitched clothes are a contribution of the Muslims to Indian culture, here is something to ponder.
From http://www.himalmag.com/2003/april/lastpage.htm
The seat of power
If the president of the United States can go to an extended war in the doab of the Tigris and Euphrates without international sanction, then I too can rake up irrelevant matters and elaborate at great length. Such as on the male attire that is the Nepali national dress.
The top is called the labeda, daura or mayelpose. It is a double-breasted kurta whose flaps are battened down in four places with ties, in a diagonal across the chest. The bottom is the suruwal; the same as what the British named jodhpurs, it is skin-tight around the calves, growing to incongruous pleated proportions around the groin.
Both labeda and suruwal came to the middle Himalaya from Rajasthan, more proof for Kathmandu’s warrior-caste elite to trace its bloodline back to the desert out west. Rajasthan, home now to Pokhran I and Pokhran II, for a while did a brisk export of Rajput chieftains to the far corners.
The topi was already there, and at some point during the time that Nepal was never colonised by the Company Bahadur, the Western jacket arrived, to be called ‘coat’. The national dress of Nepal now comes in four pieces: the topi which can be dented and fashioned to create individual signatures; a most distinctive labeda top; the coat which completely covers whatever is distinctive about the labeda; and the suruwal, an uncomfortable bottom that sometimes comes with a full legged inner (bhitri). Way back in 1980, a Kathmandu dignitary visiting London was spoofed in a television programme as having arrived at Heathrow in his long johns.
In the sweltering heat of the tarai, home to some of the hottest temperatures of South Asia, civil servants have to suffer this double-breasted and jacketed nationalism. Dull and uncomfortable, the labeda-suruwal has come to represent the state and its functionaries, through years of authoritarian figures strutting about in it, large bellies accentuated by the unflattering fall of the labeda. There is more that is comical about the dress: when the male official goes up to a sofa on the podium, he has first to reach to his rear with two hands and flip the fall of the labeda up so that it rides up the back before he can make to sit. This is to save the ironing. Once the official is properly seated, members of the audience are afforded a grandstand view of the dejected sac of pleated cloth gathered between the legs.
The greatest challenge faced by he who wears the labeda-suruwal is the visit to the water closet is a secret. For who would want to share this embarrassment with the world? Let me lead you through the ritual step-by-delicate step.
First, park your topi in your coat pocket. Then unbutton your coat and shunt the two fronts aside. Turn the two front flaps of the labeda all the way up, and hold them there firmly with your chin against your chest. Loosen the injaar or drawstring and push the suruwal down. But remember to have both legs slightly akimbo so that you do not have the suruwal gathered at the ankles on the (wet…) floor. If a true traditionalist, you will have a bhitri-suruwal, and will need to repeat the procedure before you are ready to water the closet.
Life was never meant to be this complicated, and we wait for the great founder nation of SAARC to modernise its national dress. There is a lot at stake. Imagine a regional summit meeting at the Birendra International Convention Centre in downtown Kathmandu. As fellow (formerly colonised) South Asians zip in, zip down, zip up and zip out, the Nepali under-secretary in the ministry of foreign affairs is still only getting started with the first stage of the disrobing operation. Think of all the time spent away from the plenary and sub-committees.
Compute all the minutes spent struggling with the labeda-suruwal, and calculate an average two to three visits to the water closet on every workday. Multiply the minutes with the number of male civil servants in government employ, from the line ministries to the village development committees, and you will see how in the Himalayan kingdom’s development is retarded.
Let me assure you that there are problems aplenty with the other national wear of South Asia. One friendly neighbour’s male attire gives you a vision right up the inner thigh when a gentleman is seated. And as far as another friendly neighbour is concerned, here is what a correspondent from Lahore reports:
``oh man
well it’s called shalwar kamiz or shalwar kurta. if it’s not a shalwar, it’s pajama kurta. in delhi it’s called ‘pathan dress’. the water closet aspect resembles the Nepali challenge. The kamiz goes under the chin and then you untie the naala or naara. cousins who are born and bred abroad find the naala too much to handle and generally use elastic bands in their shalwar. which makes it easier to tug it down for a laugh. same for our foreigner friends.``
Perhaps we should all migrate towards trousers with zippers.
From http://www.himalmag.com/2003/april/lastpage.htm
The seat of power
If the president of the United States can go to an extended war in the doab of the Tigris and Euphrates without international sanction, then I too can rake up irrelevant matters and elaborate at great length. Such as on the male attire that is the Nepali national dress.
The top is called the labeda, daura or mayelpose. It is a double-breasted kurta whose flaps are battened down in four places with ties, in a diagonal across the chest. The bottom is the suruwal; the same as what the British named jodhpurs, it is skin-tight around the calves, growing to incongruous pleated proportions around the groin.
Both labeda and suruwal came to the middle Himalaya from Rajasthan, more proof for Kathmandu’s warrior-caste elite to trace its bloodline back to the desert out west. Rajasthan, home now to Pokhran I and Pokhran II, for a while did a brisk export of Rajput chieftains to the far corners.
The topi was already there, and at some point during the time that Nepal was never colonised by the Company Bahadur, the Western jacket arrived, to be called ‘coat’. The national dress of Nepal now comes in four pieces: the topi which can be dented and fashioned to create individual signatures; a most distinctive labeda top; the coat which completely covers whatever is distinctive about the labeda; and the suruwal, an uncomfortable bottom that sometimes comes with a full legged inner (bhitri). Way back in 1980, a Kathmandu dignitary visiting London was spoofed in a television programme as having arrived at Heathrow in his long johns.
In the sweltering heat of the tarai, home to some of the hottest temperatures of South Asia, civil servants have to suffer this double-breasted and jacketed nationalism. Dull and uncomfortable, the labeda-suruwal has come to represent the state and its functionaries, through years of authoritarian figures strutting about in it, large bellies accentuated by the unflattering fall of the labeda. There is more that is comical about the dress: when the male official goes up to a sofa on the podium, he has first to reach to his rear with two hands and flip the fall of the labeda up so that it rides up the back before he can make to sit. This is to save the ironing. Once the official is properly seated, members of the audience are afforded a grandstand view of the dejected sac of pleated cloth gathered between the legs.
The greatest challenge faced by he who wears the labeda-suruwal is the visit to the water closet is a secret. For who would want to share this embarrassment with the world? Let me lead you through the ritual step-by-delicate step.
First, park your topi in your coat pocket. Then unbutton your coat and shunt the two fronts aside. Turn the two front flaps of the labeda all the way up, and hold them there firmly with your chin against your chest. Loosen the injaar or drawstring and push the suruwal down. But remember to have both legs slightly akimbo so that you do not have the suruwal gathered at the ankles on the (wet…) floor. If a true traditionalist, you will have a bhitri-suruwal, and will need to repeat the procedure before you are ready to water the closet.
Life was never meant to be this complicated, and we wait for the great founder nation of SAARC to modernise its national dress. There is a lot at stake. Imagine a regional summit meeting at the Birendra International Convention Centre in downtown Kathmandu. As fellow (formerly colonised) South Asians zip in, zip down, zip up and zip out, the Nepali under-secretary in the ministry of foreign affairs is still only getting started with the first stage of the disrobing operation. Think of all the time spent away from the plenary and sub-committees.
Compute all the minutes spent struggling with the labeda-suruwal, and calculate an average two to three visits to the water closet on every workday. Multiply the minutes with the number of male civil servants in government employ, from the line ministries to the village development committees, and you will see how in the Himalayan kingdom’s development is retarded.
Let me assure you that there are problems aplenty with the other national wear of South Asia. One friendly neighbour’s male attire gives you a vision right up the inner thigh when a gentleman is seated. And as far as another friendly neighbour is concerned, here is what a correspondent from Lahore reports:
``oh man
well it’s called shalwar kamiz or shalwar kurta. if it’s not a shalwar, it’s pajama kurta. in delhi it’s called ‘pathan dress’. the water closet aspect resembles the Nepali challenge. The kamiz goes under the chin and then you untie the naala or naara. cousins who are born and bred abroad find the naala too much to handle and generally use elastic bands in their shalwar. which makes it easier to tug it down for a laugh. same for our foreigner friends.``
Perhaps we should all migrate towards trousers with zippers.
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