My SAARC Diary

``I will show you a recent letter in the newspapers that amazed me with its ‘logic’. The writer believes that if you find a place in the Indian cricket team even if you come from a state where your community has been persecuted with the active connivance of the government in power, then all is well with the world. It is “secular” intellectuals who have the audacity to malign the poor Gujarat government when Irfan Pathan, a teenager, the son of a maulvi who lives in a mosque can play cricket for the country. ``

Farzana, you seem to find excuses for the most crooked of Muslim politicians yet you show disdain for apologists of crooked Hindu politicians. Why is that?

Why is there a need to analyze to minute details the actions of Muslim politicians however harmful they might be? Yet you have no patience for similar analyses on behalf of Hindu politicians.

harimau #135
``You think it resembles Hindutva; I think it resembles the Pakistan ideology (`Buddhism is in danger` as opposed to `Islam is in danger`). ``

I think Hindutva closely resembles both Sinhala nationalism and Pakistan ideology(`Buddhism in danger`, `Islam in danger` `Hinduism in danger`).

The correspondence between elements of all is almost exact. For example the depradations of medieval Tamil invaders are given exactly the same prominence in `rewritten` Sinhala history as the depradations of medieval Muslim invaders are given in Hindutva history. The determined denial of 1000 years of interwining of Tamil and Sinhala religion/culture/society by the Sinhala movement, is very similar to the determined denial of 1000+ years of interwining of Hindu and Muslim religion/culture/society in the Pakistan and Hindutva movements.


The lesson is, the Pakistan and Sinhala nationalist movements have provided justification for decades/generations of war and neither Islam nor Buddhism nor Muslims or Buddhists are any safer for it. Is India to go through decades of violence to reach the same conclusion about Hinduism and Hindus?

harimau #136
`` Would not the Rs. 150 crores spent on the Haj subsidy be better spent on schooling Muslim children?``

Zactly right. Such a proposal has come from Muslims themselves, else the Indian govt. will face twin accusations of interceding in religious affairs of Muslims and trying to rob Muslims of their identity via state education.

The BJP which in its early days made loud claims of `Hindutva is all inclusive/ true secularism`, could have courted a Muslim constituency which pressed for such measures, but the BJP chose to use such issues SOLELY for fanning communal hatred via hate speech against Muslims. Some inclusion, some secularism.

zafar: wuzzzzup kiddd..welcome back

#140 ironman

While we are asked to stop making war movies about defending Indian territory, anyone seen the films Pakistanis have been making for decades, shaan se.

For the latest laugh, take a look at Larki Punjaban. I am glad they left Christians out :)

Ref harimau #134

{[Alternatively, compulsory reading of all of Periyar’s works,...]

You know I read more of his stuff than Maasanamuthu has done. That`s why I have the rate cornered!}

Read `rat` for `rate`.

re:#122 by tahmed32
Thanks.
Agree with your post.
Sridhar

#131 by SharkO,

``I am pretty sure most Indians are much friendlier in real life than those that post here...``

sharko saab,

Reading every day for 10 years about our countrymen (civilian and soldiers) being killed by mercenaries and jihadis...yes...that sure makes us feel friendly towards you.

But I`m not surprised by your statement. You guys are completedly whacked out of reality. Look at that stupid bastd Kasuri...demanding we stop making war movies!

Farjanabai

“Yeh saala angrej log toast kaise peeta hai? Boley tau, drink a toast… apun tau chai mein doobata tau bhi pighalta nahin poora.”

Yeh mere koo bhi nahin malum ben! Stuka se poochthe so? Hau maa, roj sootaan pen ke naachtha ma! Sab toastvoast malum hoyenga usskoo.



Salaam e dua

Did Tahmed suggest Hawaii as alternative Haj destination? Tahmed, hamein bhi le chalna!

Farzana #120,

I expect now you would be writing a column explaining why you admire Bal Thackeray as well?

Ref sadna #128

[I would recommend reading `Only Man is Vile` by William McGowan, a book about Sri Lanka.]

Not only have I read the book but I remember and chortle at the verse that gave the book its title ;)

[I happened to read it in the mid90s and got scared out of my wits at the eerie resemblence between Sinhala nationalism and Hindutva.]

If you had read more about Sri Lanka, you would have understood how well the politics of ``Divide and Rule`` are played in Sri Lanka. Thus the Muslims of the Northeast are classified as Muslims but not Tamils though Tamil is their language. There are Sri Lankan Tamils and Plantation Tamils and the former sold the latter down the river. (Lal Bahadur Shastri`s acceptance of the repatriation of almost a million Plantation Tamils to India in 1965 was a major mistake. Would you take back the Jamaican or Guyanese or South African Indians?) Throw in the Burghers (Anglo- or Dutch-Sri Lankan community) and you had the Sinhalese claiming that they were being marginalized in their own country.

You think it resembles Hindutva; I think it resembles the Pakistan ideology (`Buddhism is in danger` as opposed to `Islam is in danger`).

Ref sadna #104

[Re Haj subsidies.

It is infinitely better if India subsidises Haj of Indians than if Saudi Arabia or people sitting in foreign countries subsidise it.]

At least if Saudi Arabia subsidizes it, it has that much less money to spend on conversions.

If India is to mollycoddle its minorities, let it at least be in a fashion that will help them improve their lives. Would not the Rs. 150 crores spent on the Haj subsidy be better spent on schooling Muslim children? With the fees in an engineering college set at Rs. 35,000 a year (in Tamil Nadu, that was the recent figure) Rs. 150 crores would pay for a total of over 40,000 students, meaning that we will add 10,000 Muslim engineers to the mix of graduates each year. And we could have done it for the last 57 years, adding nearly 600,000 Muslims to the professional class and giving their families a better standard of living. If the walking brain-dead such as Maasanamuthu could have a college education at the expense of the public, I would say let it go to the truly deserving poor and underprivileged Muslims (ruling Farzana Versey neatly out!).

If the goal of the Haj subsidy is for the Indian Government to provide safe passage to Jannat for Indian Muslims, can we really object when, with identical goals in mind, the Government of Pakistan funds madrassahs and the jihad factories?

Ref FarzanaVersey #119

{Now you are clearly confused. Please tell me how these two statements can be taken together?

[Well, do let me know when you get to Chennai. I just bought absinthe... banned in several countries because it is actually toxic (in large doses and over a long period of time... so it is quite okay to drink one glass!)] }

I would offer you a glass of absinthe. That is how the statement is meant to be taken. Taking absinthe, on the other hand, seems to be a complicated process. There is some talk about dribbling a sugar solution into the drink. I got to find out and do it right.

[…anyway, what is Mullah Omar paying you as bride price?]

I wouldn`t presume to accept money for a woman with a great amount of self-assurance such as you. That would be almost like behaving like an uneducated Afghan and also treating you like a commodity. Think of yourself as a nazar from me to that great man Mullah Omar.

[Btw, an apology from you is in order. You have been nasty, vile, obnoxious…unless you are planning to roll up the slopes of Tirupati!]

I don`t know what provoked that demand for an apology! I thought I would turn over a new leaf what with it being a new year and all that. I also chanced to read your iLog the other day. I do hope you are completely recovered. From the surgery, I mean, not from your sense of injury ;)

[Alternatively, compulsory reading of all of Periyar’s works,...]

You know I read more of his stuff than Maasanamuthu has done. That`s why I have the rate cornered!

[... and a chauffeur (Muslim, naturally!)-driven car at my service when I am in Chennai next.]

This one is easy to do. Would you like the Urdu speaker or the Tamil speaker?

[And the whole bottle of absinthe. My system is immune to toxicity with the likes of you around…]

Fair warning: absinthe makes the heart grow fonder! (Actually, most liquors do but I couldn`t resist the pun!)

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#120 by FarzanaVersey on January 10, 2004 2:39am PT

Next we would have FV raving and ranting about how Hitler was a principled man who wanted to liberate his aryan clan from the clutches of jews and barbarians around and create a world in which the pure aryans were not hassled by the dark people. How his overzealous party members started the war etc. etc. and how he was unfortunate to be accused of the world war deaths- Churchil was equally at fault !! How handsome Hitler looked in that uniform and how so many young ones wanted to be in the shoes of eva.....

>>Why were over a hundred million Muslims willing to eat out of his palm?
Because Jinnah reflected their fears, even as he spoke of intermarriage to
promote communal harmony. Jinnah learned, as does every other politician,
that human beings are easily excitable because they are inherently
prejudiced.<<


Well it`s quite easy to understand Jinnah`s fears just looking at the poisonous replies of some of the people who post here. Gandhi was murdered by a hindu fundamentalist after all.

Newsflash:

Peace would be a good thing for BOTH countries. Pakistan is rightly putting it`s association with political Islam behind it, and whether India`s BJP disowns it`s Hindutva roots isn`t really any concern of ours. The end result is all that matters and things are looking up. I am pretty sure most Indians are much friendlier in real life than those that post here and look forward to the day when citizens of both nations are crossing the border freely to share in their heritage.