Just Another BLOW-UP?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?msid=160261

TODAY`S INTERVIEW
Minority Report

[ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 02, 2003 12:00:00 AM ]

At a crowded meeting in Mumbai last week, the city`s Muslim
intellectuals spoke about the community`s disapproval of
terrorist acts. But film, stage and TV actor Farooque Shaikh
questioned the necessity for Muslims as a community to
condemn every act of terrorism. Shaikh, who`s active in
citizens` peace initiatives, spoke to Jyoti Punwani about
his irritation at his community`s tendency to proclaim
``what should be taken as given``:

Your speech at the meeting raised quite a few eyebrows. What
exactly did you say?

All I said was we are wasting our time and energy stating
the obvious every time. I would have preferred us spending
time in helping those who suffered in the blasts by either
raising funds or organising a blood donation drive.

Condemnation of such incidents has come to be expected of
Muslims.

But how many times must we do so? Every time something
happens, must we undergo this trial by fire? Should it
become part of our social psyche? I think the fact that we
do condemn terrorism has been shown enough. After all,
aren`t we equally affected? If you are an average Muslim,
living in the vitiated climate generated by such blasts,
you`re doubly affected. When a bomb goes off, it does not
discriminate who it`s going to strike. In the recent
incidents, as many Muslims were hurt as Hindus. An average
Muslim also suffers the ignominy of the perpetrator being
spread to the whole community. That makes him twice as
vulnerable as the next citizen. It`s common sense that he
would condemn it.

In the context of the 1993 serial blasts, it was assumed
that many Muslims approved of them...

Much water has flown under the bridge since then. The total
picture of those times is known to everybody. If anyone
still doesn`t know, he should just pick up a copy of the
Srikrishna Commission report. The blasts were a consequence
of the `92-`93 riots. If you give people the ground to sow
poisonous seeds, that`s what`s going to grow, and it takes
time to weed them out.

That could be taken as a justification of the blasts.

It is not. Consider this: A mass movement has been going on
against the police all over the country for decades. Police
stations have been blown up. There`s been insurgency in the
north-east for five decades now. Should we allocate blame to
whole communities involved in these movements? Only
the mischievous and ill-informed would do so.

What do you make of the participation of Muslim areas in the
Shiv Sena bandh after the Ghatkoper blasts? Muslims said
had they not participated, they would have been accused of
not sharing in the city`s grief.

Exactly, that`s the kind of psyche we are generating. That
bandh was totally uncalled for. If the Ghatkopar blast cost
us a few lakhs, the bandh cost us Rs 150 crore. The bandh
amounted to saying: `You chopped off my nail, so I`ll chop
off my entire foot`.

But the participation of Muslims in the bandh was as widely
hailed as their clapping for India in the World Cup tie
against Pakistan.

That`s such a childish attitude. Those who rejoice at such
things are either lacking in information or have a deep
political interest in spreading misinformation. Wherever
India plays, local Indians come out to cheer the team.
Should the host country turn against them and ask them to
leave the country? As one living in a family of practising
Muslims, I cannot count six persons who cheer when Pakistan
wins. Which world are we living in when we rejoice at
Muslims clapping for India? This time too, headlines
were made out of the fact that Muslims had helped the
victims and donated blood, as if this was an extraordinary
happening. The whole thing should`ve been reported without
singling out any particular community.

Mumbai`s Muslims were the only ones to agitate against
Kargil as a community.

That`s the kind of psyche I was talking about at the
meeting. I think such demonstrations are a waste of time.
I`ve been an Indian and a Muslim all my life and that`s what
I hope to be for the rest of my life. I don`t see any
less Indianness in me than in any non-Muslim and that`s the
truth I see in Muslims around me.

Does the assumption that these blasts are the handiwork of
Muslims offend you?

A criminal is a criminal whatever label he operates under.
It doesn`t matter to me whether he`s found to be a Muslim or
a Martian. He must be tried and punished. Does the burden of
being involved in insurgency haunt the non-Muslim psyche?
Is anybody exploding against all those who bear the name
Veerappan?... Fact is, people are becoming aware that most
of the ill-will is created by vested interests. This time,
Mumbai has sent two clear messages. One was to those
diabolical minds who perpetrated these blasts: `You can hurt
us, but you won`t defeat us`. The second was to the
politicians: `We know you are going to fish in troubled
waters but we won`t be taken in`. The more we send these
kinds of messages, the more we defeat those who want to
divide us.

Do you think your community will heed your advice at the
meeting?

Till Muslims feel their security lies in making such
statements, they will continue to do so. Politicians whip up
this kind of emotion and because we are not
well-informed, we get taken in. That`s what the Third Reich
was all about.

harimau # 148:

I am not going to go through the 147 posts a second time for a thorough check but has a single person demanded that the culprits be punished to the utmost extent of the law?…

… Was the demand made that those who set the train afire must be punished ever made? No!

…Does Farzana ask for punishment of the guilty? No. Does temporal, Urstruly, Stuka, Subroto, anuradha, nb,, godot, etc. ask for punishment for the guilty? NO! Let me be emphatic: NO FRIKKING WAY!

…you have lost all credibility…spare us your rigteous indignation!

…this is what I wrote on another board and here:

---

#1 by temporal on August 25, 2003 3:47pm PT

On Suicide Bombings
...there is...there was...there can be no justification...
reminds of what have said many times earlier:

...there can be no justification of any deliberate violent act against civilians...none whatsoever...be they by individuals, organizations or states...

my heart and prayers go out to the victims of this blast...and prayers for the perpetrators...whoever they are...that they be caught, tried and punished...courts and justice cannot alleviate the loss of those who have died...but hopefully they can prevent future occurrences...

...must admit this also: the blame game must have started there...and in the ensuing melee the perpetrators would go scot free...like new delhi, bombay 93, gujrat etc... and only the poor the very poor would suffer...hope i am wrong this time...

with prayers,

---

you take liberties with truth and i stand by my original assertion

...t

harimau # 140:

Would they publish an article (by me, of course, since all other Indians are out there wringing their hands at the plight of the poor Muslims of India) demanding the Swift Sword of Death for the criminals? Of course not!

you made a similar claim once before…and i suggested then as i would again here…put your money where your moth is…write the article/s…and submit it to chowk…and if they do not publish it then speak up…

…t

Ref Wholly-Precious-You #144

I am not going to go through the 147 posts a second time for a thorough check but has a single person demanded that the culprits be punished to the utmost extent of the law? I don`t think so.

When Gujarat 2002 happened, everybody immediately forgot the provocation of 60 Hindu pilgrims being torched to death. Instead, there were vociferous demands from Indians and Pakistanis, Hindus and Muslims (rare show of unity, don`t you think?) that the perpetrators of the Gujarat riots ought to be punished. Was the demand made that those who set the train afire must be punished ever made? No!

Now this. Does Farzana ask for punishment of the guilty? No. Does temporal, Urstruly, Stuka, Subroto, anuradha, nb,, godot, etc. ask for punishment for the guilty? NO! Let me be emphatic: NO FRIKKING WAY!

Why not? Because it doesn`t take Scotland Yard and two years of investigation to prove that it was all done by Islamic thugs. Knowing this, all the interactors, Pakistani and Indian, Hindu and Muslim (another rare show of unity) have come out and started wringing their hands in public. The worst criminal in this is Farzana who actually attempts to justify the bombing by saying that she knew trouble was in the air because of the report inside the metal briefcase.

Because I call for collective punishment (for the most likely locations where the bombers had found shelter) I am considered a raving lunatic. Is this 1984 (the novel) or what?

Farzana trumpets that here is my mentality for all to see. What about her mentality? Did she or did she not demand action against Narendra Modi and the Gujarat State Police for their acts of commission and omission during the Gujarat riots? Why is she not demanding prompt action this time against the criminals involved in the bombing? The answer is because on Aug 25, the perpetrators were Muslim thugs. Their thuggery doen`t matter to Farzana, their Islamic faith matters more. This is the journalist who decries the state of Indian journalism!

Now is the time to send in any crap to Chowk. Because Chowk editors want to push this off to the archives so they will publish your trip to some remote hamlet in Balochistan or Bangladesh for otherwise I will be the sole voice screaming at Farzana and they want to silence me.

Farzana may think I have the attention span of a child; she is dead wrong. Isn`t this the same woman who even pooh-poohed the destruction of the Bamiyan art treasures? She will not rest until every Indian converts to her definition of secularism. Screw that stuff, I say.

Let me give you the true definition of secularism. My cousin returned from the Persian Gulf for his sister`s daughter`s wedding. He introduced a newcomer as another one of his sisters to me. She and her family have been known to my cousin for 20 years from their days in Cochin and have continued their friendship when they both moved off to the Gulf. The lady in question and her husband and daughter had come to attend the wedding. They happen to be Muslims. That is the true nature of people-to-people relationship in India, at least in the South. That is what these bombings will destroy slowly over a period of time. That is what Farzana will assist in destroying with her poison pen.

Pakistanis on Chowk have noticed that more South Indians are now anti-Pakistan as a result of Kargil. All it takes is a couple of hundred South Indians dying in bombings in Bombay for even more of us to turn anti-Islamist.

Regarding my statement about reclaiming Krishna Janma Bhumi in Mathura, there exist contemporaneous historical writings by Muslim historians that document the destruction of the Krishna temple there. Farzana will not be able to claim that no record exists of a prior Hindu temple there as she is claiming about Ayodhya.

By the way, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has now come out to claim that the Ayodhya dispute is one of property, and tax records should be studied to determine who has paid taxes on the land (or officially exempted from taxes), forget the findings of the Archaelogical Survey of India. Did the AIMPLB ask for Islamic punishment aka the Swift Sword of Death for the Bombay bombers? Of course not! Does Farzana talk about that? Of course not!

Harimau,of course there is no right to carry RDX. And of course those who carried out these acts had support somewhere,you can`t just land up in an unknown city and do something like this.What I`m protesting about is the idea that the issue can be solved if the government punishes all of Bhendi Bazar. Why give more grist to the mill of those who complain about the way India treats its own citizens?And more importantly,why should the innocent have to suffer because of a few rotten apples?
I read the article in Time before I saw it here and wondered how long Perry would be allowed to stay-this article is fundamentally more damaging to India than any number of claims the PM is an old man who spends his days dozing. But no one paid any attention to it.He makes a mistake in the first para itself where he refers to St Stephens as a private school,another where he says Hindu riot victims were paid more compensation than Muslims riot victims-and he quotes an unnamed RAW source as saying he understands that there will be revenge for Gujarat.What is the difference between this kind of journalism and the kind Stardust got into trouble with the Press Council for,many moons ago,for claiming its sources were an industrywalla?
Why don`t people at least tell the truth while putting forward their side?I`m not talking of Farzana ,but of Angana C`s article. I received a chain mail originating from her,months ago,claiming the Godhra incident was sparked because of the karsevaks molesting a young Muslim girl-despite no evidence. Prem Shankar Jha dealt with this in Outlook-most Indians will know, Outlook isn`t a saffron publication. Why choose such a deliberately emotive lie?
I don`t know if Farzana is justifying it.It seems more like she`s claiming psychic abilities or that she understands the minds of the extremist.Whatever. She`s obviously distressed by it.
If all it took to raise a terrorist was poverty,a lack of opportunity and a general feeling of lack of control,the citizens of Hazaribagh and Patna seem good prospects to me. Most Muslim inhabitants of Dharavi will have more opportunities than your average poor rural Maithili Brahmin-and I say this as one who has had the misfortune to briefly live in Dharavi(great early morning views). There definitely is more to it. So what if we have to admit that some Indian Muslims have been swept up in the jehad wave?For a country with such a large Muslim population,I don`t think we do badly at all.
One thing I do think though,Farzana,is that you think of Indian Muslims as victims,as passive objects of ill will from the Sangh and most other Indians in general.The blast was something a Muslim did-to other Muslims as well as Hindus,but it`s difficult to see the perpetrator as a victim.If other Indians really did want to see the end of Muslims,don`t you think they`d be doing a better job of it?
If I sound conflicted,that`s because I am.I belong to a generation that spent its childhood under Mrs Gandhi,but in its teens around the time of Mandal and Mandir, fed on certain attitudes, listening to teachers making fun of Hinduism at school(the order I went to has a convent in Murree,among others,would they do that with Islam in Pakistan?) and not even realising till I grew much older that what they did was wrong. Hinduism was fair game for everyone for many,many years,which I suspect is where the Sangh gets its support from. I think Hindus have had enough. At the same time,being brought up to respect all religions isn`t something you grow out of easily. And it is unique to India-I realise that when I hear Westerners sanguinely declare Islam is evil,having lived thorugh much less than in India. I would never do that,and nor would most Hindus I know-because most Muslims I know are not like the bomber.

Smohamad #135


``I think they caught the ``perpetrator`` of these crimes, about two years ago and since then he has been in some nameless dungeon in the Kashmir valley. Now at a suitable time all police has to do is to drag his ass out of the dungeon, shoot him and plant his corpse at a bullet laden hideout. Talk about the efficiency of Indian police, eh. ``

Alas SMohamad, our police is not as efficient as Paki police. Otherwise they would have just rounded up a complete locality and killed everyone one. Don`t worry, with guide likes you, we will learn.

From Rediff:

Mumbai twin blasts case solved: Police

=== Interact Filtered ===
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re: #120

....really, unkal harimou....this makes you sound beyond redemption...like jay...and that is a scary thought...

What Wonder-Woman-with-the-XRay-Eyes doesn`t tell us is that the Archaelogical Survey of India was assisted in its efforts by a French firm headed by one M. Robillard. M. Robillard previously provided the expertise that used ground-penetrating radar to map the Babri Masjid site. If Wonder-Woman has a problem with ground-penetrating radar, she should offer her X-Ray vision for mapping purposes.

What reason does M. Robillard have to support the findings of a temple? Has he been paid off by Hindutva-wadis? Is the payoff big enough to warrant risking the reputation of his company? Why doesn`t our Courageous Reporter talk about that?

All the rubbish about the Uniform Civil Code to boot in this article. Why doesn`t Wonder-Woman demand criminal justice a la the Sharia? Did she call for public beheading of those found guilty? No. Why not? Because she knows damn well that the perpetrators are Islamic thugs, that`s why. But it is her ISLAMIC duty to support an Islamic cause no matter how outrageous the actions might be.

Of course Chowk rushes to publish her article. Would they publish an article (by me, of course, since all other Indians are out there wringing their hands at the plight of the poor Muslims of India) demanding the Swift Sword of Death for the criminals? Of course not! They have already pre-empted any such article by publishing the Islamist`s aplologia. For those of you that are language-impaired, that means justification, not apology.

Have you seen how that fool who rushes to kiss the Islamic Butt every chance he gets (I am referring to Headshrinker here) is strangely absent from this board? Why not come here and earn a few brownie points?

Ref temporal #137

[harimou

sir you are bigotry personified]

Why? Because I advocated collective punishment?

Do you think the guys just showed up one day in Bombay with RDX in their suitcase and set off the explosions? You don`t think they stayed with somebody in a friendly neighborhood? You don`t want any messages sent to those who helped?

Even in the US, there are conspiracy laws used to punish anyone remotely connected with a crime. By the way, they also burnt down a household complex in Waco, TX in 1991 in case you have forgotten it. That place was ringed with tanks and they lobbed incendiary bombs into the building.

Ref temporal #137

[harimou

sir you are bigotry personified]

I just returned from a Madhva Brahmin wedding. The persons who played nadaswaram, the South Indian equivalent of the shehnai, are one Subhanu and his wife Khaleela. This pair not only lives on the island of Srirangam where one of the holiest temples in South India is located they are official musicians to the temple.

When you tell me that a Hindu has any official capacity (other than that of a bhangi) in a mosque in Pakistan, you can lecture me or any other Indian on bigotry.

By the way, I have not rushed to blame Pakistani Muslims for the explosions. I blame Indian Muslim thugs (the operative word is `thugs`) and am perfectly willing to take it out on them and their supporters.

The only trouble with Wonder Woman is that her reactions are so predictable. This is what I had written on the board ``Suicide Bombers``. Sure enough, Farzana did not disappoint me.

#26 by harimau on August 26, 2003 4:38am PT
A little bit off the track here but can we expect our Resolute Correspondent in Bombay Farzana Versey give us her words of wisdom on the latest bombings in Bombay?

And all of those who were kind of claiming that the Ram Janma Bhoomi was a hoax by Hindus, do they have anything to say about the report by the Archaelogical Survey of India? Or are they going to take the position of the Wakf Board in India that the report itself is made out of whole cloth?

Anxiety Rises in a Muslim Enclave Near Bombay
By AMY WALDMAN


UMBRA, India, Aug. 26 — The teeming streets of this suburb of Bombay are notable for two things: that most of the people are Muslim, and that a decade ago the streets were not teeming at all.

Since then, as if in a small replay of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, Muslims have migrated to Mumbra by the hundreds of thousands, creating a stark segregation.

They came seeking safety — comfort in numbers — after riots with Hindus left more than 1,000 Muslims dead in 1992 and 1993, many of them in Bombay. The riots were quickly followed by bombings for which Muslim underworld figures were blamed. That further heated up the anxiety, and the exodus.

Now the atmosphere is heightened once again, because of two bombings in downtown Bombay that killed 52 people last Monday. No one has taken responsibility or been arrested, but many believe that Muslim militants are to blame.

India`s Muslims — about 14 percent of the population of more than one billion — are often characterized as a breed apart from Muslims elsewhere. They did not join Al Qaeda; they did not surface in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. They live in secular India, as opposed to its Islamic neighbor Pakistan, and most see India`s democracy and Constitution as providing them sufficient rights and redress.

Moreover, average Muslims in India have evinced little passion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although a scheduled visit by Israel`s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, on Sept. 9 is generating opposition.

Indian Muslims have even stayed away from the insurgency in Kashmir, India`s only Muslim majority state, other than the Muslims living in the state. Many Muslims say the hard-line sentiments found in their religion, especially in marginalized areas like this one, are a reaction to the growing strength of fundamentalism among India`s Hindu majority, a strength that is both social and political. Many Hindus in turn argue that Hindu fundamentalists have mobilized in response to militant Islam.

A decade ago, Hindu nationalist leaders set out on a national pilgrimage that many Muslim youths saw as a provocation and a threat. In 1992, Hindu nationalists demolished a 16th-century mosque that they said had been built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, and the Bombay riots and carnage followed soon after.

A few years later, a Hindu nationalist-led central government was formed. Early last year, riots in Gujarat State left at least 1,000 Muslims dead — carnage that many Muslims believed reflected governmental indifference, if not connivance.

``After Gujarat, the sentiment in Mumbra was very high,`` said Moazzam Naik, an official with Jamaat-e-Islami, a decades-old Islamic political movement. He did not agree with Muslim extremists, but saw the sentiment growing.

Among those extremists is the now banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which the police have blamed for five smaller bombings on buses and trains and in markets between December and July. Some officials have suggested that the movement could be responsible for Monday`s blasts as well, though they have not offered evidence.

The student movement was founded in 1977 as a sort of youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, to encourage young people to follow Islamic principles, like avoiding alcohol. By the 1980`s, its radical nature became clear, and Jamaat began distancing itself from the offspring.

The student movement`s true believers grew their beards, urged women to cover up and said idol worship should be banned, an implicit attack on Hinduism. They rejected conciliation, and some believed that violence was justified. ``They wanted agitation, not dialogue,`` said Abdul Ruaf Khan, an imam in Mumbra, who opposes the use of violence.

Mr. Naik, of Jamaat, broke from the hard-liners in the student movement in 1991. He said he came to believe that some of the students were working with Pakistan`s intelligence service, long accused of sponsoring terrorism in India.

Mumbra, which is home to about 500,000 people, is now about 80 percent Muslim. The hills against which it banks are green and clean, but its streets are dirty, its odors noxious. For many residents, regular jobs are hard to come by, and there has been ``a boon in illegal activity,`` said Ashraf Mulani, 39, a former municipal councilor from Mumbra.

In Mumbra and places like it, Mr. Naik said, talk of ``nationalism, democracy, secularism, being in the national mainstream`` have come to be seen as ``anti-Islam.``

A senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said he believed that Mumbra and similar pockets provided shelter for militants. ``For Muslims, there is a feeling of being persecuted,`` he said.

Many Muslims say that a Prevention of Terrorism Act passed in 2002 has been used with particular force against them, resulting in arbitrary arrests, harsh interrogations, and detention without charge.

So even as Mumbra residents profess not to support the student movement, they do not condemn it. They are helping to support the defense of 22 men — most members of the group at one time — arrested in connection with the earlier bomb blasts. It is less a question of supporting the group than opposing police tactics, they say.

What the ``F`` does it matter who destroyed whose temples 1000 years ago? Learn and understand from the bigotry of past to create a more tolerant, understanding nation. Both the communities need to stop living in their ``glorious`` past and concentrate on the future.

harimou

re: #120

sir you are bigotry personified