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Romair: [Tariq Ali: sorry for the digression]

Romair, you asked a few times why actors like Shahrukh Khan are silent about the communal situation in India. Here are some excerpts from an interview Shahrukh Khan gave to Shekhar Gupta on TV. The full excerpt is in today`s Indian Express.

``In the past, people like Dilip Kumar, so many of the big stars, had to change their names...Madhubala...had to change their Muslim names to something that was more religion-neutral. Today, you, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, you are all carrying your own names... So what has changed so you would feel sort of — I won’t say secure enough — but relaxed enough to retain the Muslim names...
I really don’t know the timings of the people you mentioned, like Dilip saheb. I think that has got to do more with Kumars at the time. The name Kumar attached...it was something done with a lot of actors.

But does anything make you conscious of your Muslim identity?
No. I was never made to feel...I think I am a majority.

Majority in the sense of how many people love you?
Never have I been made to feel...

Or when you see what’s been happening in the country, whether it’s Babri Masjid, whether it be what happened in Gujarat...
It bothers me. Even if it happens to Christians, to Hindus or to Muslims. It’s very very disturbing...because I am married to a Hindu lady. My children will be brought up knowing both the religions... and they can make their choice or they can become Christians if they feel like. I think that’s the kind of secularism and communal feeling we should have.

I’ve read somewhere that you have said if Hindus and Muslims can’t sort out the Babri Masjid issue, give it to the Christians...
Give it to someone else. I don’t even think...actually give it to Indians to sort it out themselves. And don’t think of them as Muslims and Hindus, or as Christians or Sikhs. Think of them as Indians.

And don’t think of them as political beings...
Politicising religion is the easiest way to do it. Religion is the opium of masses...

But do you see more of that happening now in India: politicising of religion?
Not more, I think, since I’ve been able to read newspapers, I have noticed lot of it is politicised. People should realise.

Because you are truly a pan-Indian role model, you don’t see yourself as a Muslim or a Hindu, nor do we. Does it sometimes make you think that maybe people like you have to rise and play a proactive role in stopping this?
I don’t know how to do it. I think I am too much of a yuppie and too greedy to give up my personal selfish life.

You are used to a soft life, is it?
I am too used to...not a soft life, I work very hard. I am used to a life which is just about me and my family and my close friends. I think I am too much in love with myself to give it all up. At least at this age as I talk. Maybe later on...

But you see yourself doing something? Richard Gere, for example, Jane Fonda, they have all become active in either causes or they are trying to make a difference...
I don’t believe in institutions doing the causes. I want to do them myself. I have lot of thoughts in my mind to open orphanages and hospitals, but I want to do it from the money that I earn from films. I don’t want business houses helping me. I don’t want no central force helping me. I want to do it myself.

What are you reading these days?
Right now, I’ve just started a book called Chancers, a fiction about an actor who doesn’t know what to do in his profession because he’s been out of work for the last five years. And I was reading Prophet Mohammed’s biography, an English lady has done a very nice book on Prophet Mohammed.

That’s a new thing I believe. You are reading a lot of books on Islam.
I am reading a lot on Islam. I need to know why is so much happening in the name of Christianity and Islam...I am from an Irish Brothers’ school, so I knew a bit about Christianity. But I wanted to know about the politics of what is happening, because I believe I am Islamic, I am a Muslim. I know the meaning of Quran to a certain extent, I have read it.

Do you pray?
I pray.

Five times a day?
No, not five times a day. The religion part of it I don’t follow so staunchly maybe. But I am a true believer of Allah. And I haven’t read anything anywhere which makes me feel aggressive

So the question you are asking yourself is how is Islam acquiring this aggressive trait? And why such hostility and insecurity about Islam?
Why such hostility, internationally, especially in the West, in America. It should not be so. I don’t think...

Things like Iraq, Palestine do these bother you?
Yes, they bother me. It troubles me to know that they are reading the same book that I’ve read and I am sure that they have the same belief as I have. Then why are some people looking at it with aggression? I think there is a misunderstanding.

That’s very interesting. US has Al-Qaeda suspects from all nationalities but not one Indian. Mr L K Advani made this point on this show that even in our Kashmir, you know there’s terrorism, but we have hardly found any other Indian Muslim caught in terrorism. So there is something about the Indian system, the Constitution or may be our ethos which has given the Indian Muslim the feeling that ‘Look, if I have a problem, I can get justice or redressal in this system’. Do you believe that?
Yes, I believe. I think Indian Muslims are really wonderful. I think, to live in a country dominated not by religion, and to live peacefully, and to be able to have friends. And I am sure all the Hindus also love them.

But, as a Muslim, given what happened in the last few years — Gujarat, Ayodhya — have you felt more secure, less secure or have you felt bothered?
I am bothered. I am not insecure or secure. I don’t think anyone can say anything to me living in this country because I am a true blue Indian and nobody can take that right away from me, or my family on the basis of the religion I follow. And I very strongly believe that. I don’t feel insecure at all...I don’t feel more secure about... But it bothers me to read and see images. It could have been Hindu or Muslim images. But the images that one sees, one does get bothered.

What is it that bothers you in our political discourse right now?
It bothers me that a lot of politicians are using religion as a baton for explaining their right to rule. And I think...

Give me some examples...
All of them, you know, the guys who say when they talk about being pro-Hindu. They should say ‘OK, Hinduism is fantastic, i has the fantastic qualities in the world’. I have read the Ramayan, the Mahabharat — Amar Chitra Katha version — I have acted in Ramleelas. My friends are all Hindus. So I understand their philosophy. But by saying that Hinduism is good, you can’t prove that one religion is better than the other or deride the other. Similarly the Islamic people do it, and they say that ‘Oh! these guys are killing us’. Nobody is killing nobody. It’s just Indians killing Indians, and that’s shameful.

But Shah Rukh, those are nice sentiments, but I think this situation has to improve and communities have to come closer. First of all Hindi cinema has to play a big role. It’s been playing a big role. In fact one of our most secular institutions has been Hindi cinema, barring some films recently. I bet they bothered you as well.
They bothered me a lot. They show our neighbours in bad light. We don’t need to make bad guys of some other countries. We have enough bad guys, enough good guys in this country. We have enough heroes, enough villains in this country. I think we should exhaust that before looking outside for bad guys.``

re: Fuzair # 194

Fuzair, I agree with you. Still, Pakistani army also saw a great deal of rapid promotions after 1947, when the army was short of officers. In many ways, people were promoted beyond their competence. Then was the rush to promote in 1971 and there was rash of promotions after Z. A. Bhutto fired the top leadership of the army. After the death of Zia and his generals in 1988, there was another rush of promotions.

Ciao

Re Ras sahib # 205

You`re too kind sir. Ammi is in teaching Biology to the afternoon shift crowd at St Jo though she has promised us this will be her last year:)

Our house is in Mohammadpur; the new place is on Nazrul Islam Road (the name may have been different before) and the old one is off Zakir Hussain Road (almost by Lalmatia).

When I was there six years ago, Balaka Cinema was still opposite New Market. I suspect it still is.

Re Stuka 204

You`re right. I should have emphasized the hardiness of the earlier generation more. That said, the mix of the so-called citizen-soldier and the hedonistic culture does create rather less-than-hardy soldiers,

stuka #203 there is probably an element of fact in what you write about the pakistan right wing (or more accurately, the religious right wing) being less suave than their indian counterparts. the important thing of course is that both sides stink.

if someone is still a marxist, as you say bidwai is, then that is of course quite dumb. while some things marx wrote make sense (notably his theory that socio-cultural-political structures are a function of nature of technology) the rest (notably his call for socializing means of production) has of course been disproved after the colossal failure of the 70 year experiment aka the soviet union. as i said, i havent read enough of him to be able to pass judgement.

all i can say is that if someone (as in case of bidwai) annoys the religious right wing (suave or neanderthal) in india or in pakistan, then that person must be saying something right.

RE: #167 sigalph235.

Is your house towards Dhanmondi, Mohammadpur or the Old Capital side?

Is Balaka Cinema still there or New Market? Your mother teaches at St Jo?

No wonder you write so well....


RE: Dard #169

Your reply was music to my ears. You are a true Pakistani...


RE; #196 by shobuz

What can I say to you? Your honesty speaks for all of us...


I am truly sorry if I have offended anyone


Ras

Sigalph:

``I personally doubt that this band of warriors would have won the victory over the NAzis as quickly as their much hardier forefathers did. An army ought to reflect the society AROUND it but be thoroughly insular FROM it, so thought the British and they built us those wonderful cantonments. ``

I am surprised by your statement. The American soldiers who fought and died fighting the Nazis were predominantly citizen soldiers. One might argue that the ethos of society itself has changed with the boomers bringing on a whiny, self-centred outlook. But, the professional army pre WW2 was much smaller than the force which actually went to fight in Europe and the Pacific, draftees mostly.

TAhmed:

``i did read an article from bidwai on chowk that did not strike me as being particularly egregious. but again, i didnt read the article too carefully, being more interested in the discussion taking place``

Don`t get me wrong. If you take an individual article as a stand alone, u will find that Bidwai says a lot of reasonable stuff. The problem is that Bidwai writes a lot, and the MORE you read, you realize that his thinking is one track and there is a Marxist ideological bias.

I would concede that Pakistanis take more easly to introspection (a gross generalization, but my opinion nevertheless) as compared to Indians. The reason is that the english media in Pakistan is dominated by lefties who bash Pakistan all the time whereas the media in India is equally divided between lefties and righties therefore lefties bashing India often get bashed by righties in turn. Make sense?

Oh yeah, and Indian righties are more suave then Pakistani righties. The Pakistani rightist will talk of Hindu mentality etc and make a fool of himself thereby exposing himself to be a bigot. The Indian rightie will make all the right noises about secualrism and plurality but then pass on comments equally bigoted but will get away. :)

re: ahmadzai # 162

The level of ignorance is simply staggering...

My dear Ahmadzai ji, rather than taking the route you have chossen to, a wiser strategy for you would be to help lift Pakistan up.

stuka #163/pmishra #175: thanks for your posts describing further your views on certain indian writers like khushwant singh and bidwai. i certainly agree on the benchmark for judging a political commentator that stuka mentioned (i.e. if his reasoning is rational and based on reasonable assumptions). how well this applies to these writers, i leave for you to judge since my knowledge of what they are talking about is certainly limited.

i did read an article from bidwai on chowk that did not strike me as being particularly egregious. but again, i didnt read the article too carefully, being more interested in the discussion taking place (if a writer isnt available to defend his work on chowk, his article becomes quite uninteresting - since chowk is for discussion, and if one wanted to read a serious article albeit without the writer being present to respond to comments, there are enought books, magazines, websites avaialble for that). on khuswant singh, from your posts, it seems there is no controvsey then.

i am not sure how the writers on muslim culture and history that were also mentioned stack up in your view against the same benchmark. i do know that having read one of bernard lewis` books i found it to be quite factual, informative, interesting. it mostly had to do with the fall of the ottoman empire, and the reasons for it, and i thought it was quite insightful and well worth reading by all those who think maybe it is time to bring back a caliph in muslim countries. i see on chowk some pakistanis criticise him bitterly, but when probed for something specific he said i found no specific examples being presented.

someday i might become interested in finding out how sound bidwai, pipes and others are as writers, and that day i shall check out their originals as stuka suggested.

till then, i shall content myself with the thought that there are enough chauvinists in indian as well as pakistani society that a few critics can only help. criticism hurts, but a critic is a society`s best friend whereas a chauvinist is not. imho.

re:#197 by pmishra2
Mishraji,
All that article points out is that BJP seems to be having a very flexible foreign policy geared to the needs of its security intersts, which is how it should be. It may have learnt its lessons from Gujarat carnage but only time will tell. Most of the rest are speculations by the author.
Sridhar

fuzair #194: Your comment about the Generals being promoted quickly, prior to 71, is insightful and accurate. Though, for some reason, it did not affect the PAF. I think Asghar Khan was 36 years old (?) when he became the Chief of Air Staff. I have always been amazed at his far sightedness. He single-handedly set up an Air Force, which gained recongnition outside Pakistan. Even though Air Force is such hi-tech business, and difficult for third world countries to operate.

Nur Khan is also highly thought of. Though he was a very young General also. I wonder why the Army has never been able to produce its Asghar Khans.

``I have a certain amount of first-hand observation experience here and I can safely say that, on average, our (both Indian and Pakistani actually) armies need officers to do what the US Army does with NCOs. You simply cannot rely on our enlisted men to carry out tasks competently and efficiently (with some honorable exceptions, of course)``

This is probably true for the Army. However, it is not true for the Air Force (and probably Navy also). In the Air Force, all enlisted ranks, regardless of country, have to put together and take apart aircraft. The ones taking apart F-16s in Pakistan have to do the same tasks as those in the USA. Many enlisted guys from the PAF become officers in the Army. In fact, I know a few enlisted airmen, who have even become Generals in the PAF.

Though for an Army, I would think loyalty, patience, dedication etc. would be more important than technical skills, for enlisted ranks.

Americans are an exception to the rule of enlisted. In the USA, people join enlisted ranks for a few years, to get an education, make some money and then get into civilian professional careers. I think Chuck Yeager`s son was enlisted. As were probably many successful CEOs, Professors, etc. in the USA. One of my bosses in San Jose, used to be an enlisted policeman in the USAF. He was the director of the company, I worked for, and had lines of MIT and Harvard grads under him.

US military is in a league of its own. One cannot compare it to other countries. It has no weaknesses. $400 billion budget. Extraordinarily good equipment. Hi-tech research. Well-fed and looked after. Excellent benefits. Well-trained. Dedicated. Enlisted guys getting Bachelors degrees. Officers getting Ph.Ds (including command branches, not just engineers). With a solid political leadership, deciding where they should fight and not fight.

The guy commanding the 101st Airborne (?) in Iraq did an interview. He is a Maj. General, and is a Ph.D. from Princeton in economics. Imagine.

Re 193 thru 195

Three years ago a certain Colonel Qayyum wrote some reminiscences and perspectives in Sehgal`s Defense Journal on the ideas and officers of the Pakistan Army. He basically surmised that the strategic outlook of individual Pakistani officers was largely non-existent or, at best, myopic in that they could never think beyond a battalion level. Such narrowness of outlook, the retired colonel further opined, continued as a given officer went from Lt. Colonel all the way to a senior general officer. Of the few exceptions to this phenomenom were Generals Attiqur Rehman, Shaukat Riza, and of course the aristocratic Sahibzada Yaqub Ali Khan.

With further reference to the Sahibzada as a cardinal example, Colonel Qayyum maintained that it was the cold, calculated, insular persona exemplified by the Anglicized old officer corps that Yaqub Khan personified and the newer breed detested. That fastidious, almost patrician, bearing also helped create a thoughtful, ie broader, strategic outlook. With the `nativization` of the Army and its officer corps, along with the true patrcian-ness the attendant visionary outlook was also discarded in favor of more `awami` type ethos (perhaps symbolized by Gen Musa?). When officers were officers, and men men, the author mused!

As for the ice-cream American soldiers, it may just have a grain of truth to it. I have always felt, in an almost snobbish Commonwealth tradition, that you downgrade the fighting quality of combat personnel as soon as you mix professionals with week-end warriors. UNfortunately, the United States Armed Forces are perhaps the biggest experimentation with this professional-weekender mixing. I personally doubt that this band of warriors would have won the victory over the NAzis as quickly as their much hardier forefathers did. An army ought to reflect the society AROUND it but be thoroughly insular FROM it, so thought the British and they built us those wonderful cantonments.

#192 sridhar

With regret I have to say this article is saying something different. It says that the Arabs and the Chinese don`t give a damn about human rights and episodes like Gujarat. And thats why the BJP finds it easy to talk to these parties. In contrast, we have the ``Christian`` west and hindu liberals who condemn the use of violence repeatedly, and have forced the BJP to restrain its ``lumpen`` foot-soldiers.

Overall, I think this articles arguments are very shallow and unsupported. Real-politik determines the progress India has made in Central, West and East Asia. It is tied to indian modernization, awareness that indians will be a large player in the next 5-10 years etc. It has very little to do with the BJP`s ideological moorings. People like Vajpayee have always had a broad non-ideological foreign policy in mind. This was true 20 years ago. Today the country has the economic heft to back up this vision.

On a different note, I am glad that even the nuts in the BJP (Shri Modi and company) recognize the importance of economic growth and progress. If nothing else, it will ensure that their brand of polarizing politics becomes irrelevant sooner than later. Or will it?

Some writing opens old wound, and some heals wound.

Some of the old hurlings pre 71:
Pakistanis to Benglais:
Bengalis eat fish-smell like fish.
urdu is the only way to advance
Bengalis eat white rice yet they are black.
Bengalis talk funny, smell funny and eat funny food.
Bengalis names are muslim but they are Hindu in their heart.

Bengalis to Pakistanis:
Panjabis are janowar
Pakis are half brained and half are ataa (flour)
..
..
..

Hurling went on between two sides for many years. It was inevitable that they would breakup today or tomorrow.

Any one knows of any of post 71 name callings.....

Some memory flashback of 71: …..A bihary boss killed Bengalis in is house and later EPR killed him and let go women…..A Punjabi guard killed his Bengali Boss, because he hurled him as ‘panjabi janowar’…..My father were constantly harassed by his Pakistani customer in Habib Bank, yet my fathers Bihari colleague helped us every single way by buying us food when we could not go out afraid of army gonna kill us… some ‘Major Manjur’ came (through some friends) to our house and when he saw me, he wanted to hug me so badly and my mother got afraid and was crying till he assured my parent that I only reminded him the son he left home in Rawalpindi. Major Manjur said he was told to come to East Pakistan and to kill ‘kafirs’, but he said he did not see any ‘kafir’……Army from Chittagong cantonment gathered unknown Bengalis near ‘Batali Hill’ and we used to see a light from the top of the mountain used to go out and few seconds later we used to hear the firing. We saw corpses in the big water drain of Bengalis and Biharis as some took the opportunity to settle old scores not related to war. We saw earless several Pakistani soldiers begging for their lives…..saw rikshawala lying dead with bullet hole in his head. We hide an assistant manager of a mill owned by Pakistani when EPR came to kill him………


I love my bengalism, but also liked urdu people. I enjoyed our differences and was bond with a faith of muslim brotherhood. Our common faith, Iman could not help us to see the benefit of brotherhood and peace. People with race-pride …..got their wishes come true.

I do fill a brother is lost though I had to loose him. People should not believe that army can solve the problem as West Pakistanis thought then.

When Pakistan and India played, my support went to Pakistan. When India played with any other nation my support went to India. Now I do not like any of them, as we loose miserably.

But again for the heck of it, I find many reasons to be found of both Indian and Pakistanis as I have friends from both countries.