The Doll’s House

#448 by hindvi:

[this is actually more relevant on this board:
despite Hamidm`s and Manji`s valiant efforts to rewrite the koran, religions as large as islam cannot be reformed by individuals, they can only change with education and socio economic development.]

Do you realise that it isn`t religions that can be reformed but individuals who can? Rewriting religious texts does not necessarily reform a religion, which is dynamic and depends to a large extent on socio-political climate it thrives (or is repressed) in. Besides, such rewriting would reflect the disparate perceptions of individuals based on the factors I mentioned as well as their own opinions/prejudices. Education and economic development can transform the way people think, not what they believe in.

Would you say that the fairly open society that constitutes most of the UAE has undergoen a religious reformation? Unlikely. They are simply better off and at the superficial level are able to interact `commercially` with others. Rewriting and reinterpreting have been done several times and the only thing that changes is the person doing so. It is far easier to go out and live a life that suits one`s value system that may or may not be based on any religion.

(I have not read Irshad Manji`s book, but from what I have gathered, she is asking questions based primarily on what falls within her line of vision. At the level of her being a woman who has made her choices -- sexual, social, religious -- she has reformed herself and freed herself. But by using this to make a studied dismissal of a religion is not going to reform anything. Salman Rushdie tried it and became the toy-boy of the West.)

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harimau (#450):

I do hope you add many more names to your Palm Pilot! And I repeat: stop obsessing over the Pakistani responses. It is unfair; someone had even suggested that they had no right to comment on this board. And watch how they go to boards that talk about Pakistani society. Indeed, although many disagree with what Manji has to say, their responses on that board are not personally nasty towards her (her lesbianism comes in because she has used it as her USP) or the writer of the article. Compare it with how the Hindus reacted here. I find it very revealing.

I can`t wait to see what kind of Islamic reformer one of them is going to find us...people in glass houses etc...

Jang

I agree with this point of yours:

``- i would like to treat chechneya (history of czarist domination) separately than indian union experiment``

i meant it not as a comparison of Czarist Russia with India, but as Chechenya`s role as a tiny part of the russian federation. Also India is much more democratic than Russia and also there is more democracy in kashmir than in chechenya. But Kashmir also has a brutal history of foreign domination by the Sikhs and the Dogras (hindus), and before them mughals and Afghans. The dogra and sikhs heavily taxed the local populace, the maharajah discouraged muslim education and prevented muslims from getting into goverment service, filling in positions in govt with pandits and with hindus from outside the state, and the Kashmiris carry this in their memory as stated by Victoria Schofield in the Kashmir Imbroglio.

Also one must remember that the Kashmiris like the Nagas, Manipuris, Bodos etc have an identity distinct from the dominant one in india, just like the chechens dagestanis etc in Russia, these differences can only be reconciled with more autonomy.

as regards ``- indian separatist movement of punjab was inspite of much higher standard of living and plenty participation in national life (e.g. military). ``

Firstly punjab militancy was in part mrs Gandhi`s creation she encouraged Bhindrawal as a counterweight to Akali`s it did not gain popularity until the Golden Temple was stormed.
Secondly its precisely because the punjabi`s had a much higher standard of living and plenty of participation in national life (i.e. military) that the militancy didnot have sustained mass support as it does in Kashmir.

and as I have pointed out in the past, the suppresion of militancy in punjab was finally done by sikh troops in punjab, unlike in Kashmir where the majority of the troops used are neither Kashmiri nor muslim.


``while agreeing with you on theoretical premise of your post regarding devolution of power (which was a favorite topics of home-minister-wanting-to-be-prime-minister advani), i dont see the separatist movements really articulate such views.``

What is a demand for independence if not an extreme demand for devolution of power, and advani did nothing for devolution of power, he just killed time with the Hurriyat, trying to show the US and outsiders that he was being reasonable and the kashmiris knew it too but they didnt want to show themselves as being unreasonable.

``in first analysis they seem to be violent, tribalistic, communal emotional outbursts. they almost always seem to be dominated by extremist and corrupt leaders.``

i thought separatist movement were by definition violent, how are you supposed to react with a power that is occupying with force and refuses to negotiate? how are you to establish your credibility/negotiating power? when peaceful demonstrations are fired upon as by the BSF under jagmohan in 89?

And when the situations comes to a head its usually the extreme that comes forth first, because when bullets fly its not the moderates who will dominatel but that doesnt mean there is not an underlying sympathetic mass, otherwise movements couldnt have been sustained 15 years with all the states might or 45 years as in the North east.

Lastly even in Kashmir the movement when it started was dominated by the JKLF, which isnt a fundamentalist organisation, it was atleast as apparent to me for a pan Kashmiri, but it was crushed by india and undercut by pakistan because it stood for azaadi instead of union with pakistan, they instead supported the Hizb, this suited the indian govenment too for now it could portray it as a struggle against islamic fundamentalists and bring on the secularism shield.

So we have an escalatory situation, and it will continue so until the indian govt changes its position because the people in Kashmir are pretty alienated, and being increasingly brutalised they have become even more fatalistic. the key lies with india it can still save the situation by granting them additional autonomy. infact it can make kashmir a gateway for a politcal understanding with pakistan and its natural ally afghanistan.

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rajsingh

You are right that no state will grant seccesion but i dont understand your other points if the united States gave autonomy to its states did it lead to anarchy? why would the granting of autonomy mean no grants? after all doesnot the US govt. give Federal grants? doesnt the US/Indian federal governement collect taxes from the residents of these very states? and doesnt the US govt carry out nation wide programs such as Highway building etc? why would the indian govt. abandon the states? does a difference of degree have to be taken to extremes? and the trend towards decentralisation is global today. its even more powerful than democratisation because even non democracy are decentralising as in China.

as regards

``To say that American Civil War was about abolition of slavery in US would be grossly misreading and misunderstanding the history of that time. That is more of a myth like many other myths of similar nature. American Civil War was more about Union, keeping the territory and Economy, and survival of USA. And of course, making the Center more strong. Aboliton of slavery and all those sort of pious reasons are after thoughts, add ons.``

Rajsingh I reccomend you read any of the books by Harold Holzer or any other non confederate historian you prefer. The civil war was all about slaves the proximate cause was restriction of slavery in western states, but the south knew if this continued they would be outvoted in the center. there was a lobby in the north that was against it on moral grounds but there was an equally if not stronger lobby which wanted protection from european manufactures i.e. tariffs and an end to free labour in the south when the north had to pay for it in its factories. The south equally opposed tarriffs because it didnt want to pay extra and had a dominant plantaion lobby which feared for its future, since it would be become unviable without slave labour.

Lastly dont ignore the fact that the south even when it became aaparent would face financial ruination and would suffer greater losses than with the emanciapation of slaves continued to fight because they couldnt bear tha thought of being equal to the black man. That is why on accepting Lee`s surrender, Grant famously said

``What General Lee`s feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us.``

Ulysses S Grant, Memoirs, General Grant`s meeting with General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House April 9, 1865


These points require a more involved discussion and reading I am afraid I cant devote more time lets just agree to disagree.

jang #454 I was talking about hospitality and warmth shown to thousands of indians by average pakistanis, not about their views on comparitive religions. :-)

More seriously, it is true that many (not all) people have much more positive feelings abut their ``own`` religion/country than they do about others. If those ``uneducated, illclothed`` egyptians (as the bengali indian poster condescendingly describes them) expressed derision about hinduism and the superiority of islam, then there is no shortage of ``educated, well clothed`` indians and pakistanis on chowk (not just the plain stupid ones, but even otherwise intelligent people) who are no better than them as you can plainly see on reading chowk posts.

Hindvi

Might interest you to know that even after the Civil War, Texas still did not want to be part of the Union and it took its case to the Supreme Court of United States. It lost there. Majority of the judges who sat for the ruling, they were northeners and were appointed by Lincoln.

One more thing here...I am not sure which state but I think, either Tenessey (spl?) or some other state actually had a voting on secession and majority voted for secession. After that only that particular state declared secession from the Union. Now if this is true all the way then there goes the value of plebiscite, govern by the consent of governed and so on...

And all this had nothing to do with abolition of slavery...other than for public consumption, slogan..

Dost Mittar

For your information only...

Quote:

In Maharashtra, government babus had to go without their bonus this year because of some legal difficulties, if you believe the chief minister. The real difficulty is that the government had no money in the till. That was yesterday.

Today I read in the papers that the government has decided to cut down babu salaries by ten per cent, which is a step in the right direction, but one that the government may not be able to take at all.

So Maharashtra, supposed to be the most affluent state of the country, has also joined Bihar and up in the long list of states who have become habitual defaulters. This is only the beginning.

---

MUMBAI, MAY 27. The Maharashtra Finance Minister, Jayant Patil presented today a please-all `additional` budget containing a huge deficit of Rs. 7,303.35 crores with sops for the common man, agriculture and trade and no additional levy.

Mr. Patil told reporters later that he expected to make the deficit good by a rise in revenue because of the tax-cuts offered, besides from borrowings. The deficit is expected to rise since this is the additional budget and not a final one, which may get formulated after a new Government is in office. Elections to the Assembly are barely four months away.

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rajsingh

``And then, Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 is about abolishing slavery only in southern states and does not say anything about other states. As a matter of fact many northern states did have slaves at that time.``

even today, the town of Wellesley Mass, a super-liberal town famous for liberal-femist Wellesley College, has on its book a law permitting no more than one slave per family. well in old days, this was considered liberal, but now thankfully its quaint because its not practiced. reminds me of some other ``old`` laws which were progressive then but are no-good now.

tahmed/DM

i remember a book recommended by some chowky lady about an indian visitor in `70s to Egypt. He was bengali (so maybe a commie ;-) ). he was surprised to hear the derision expressed by dusty, ill-educated villagers in rags about hinduism in contrast to superiority of islam. These villagers were uneducated, but they surely knew important things, such as comparitive religions well. They apparently also called diesel generators/water pumps al-hindi, because they were mostly made by Kirloskar Company from Indial.

Hindvi

Post#441

Quote:

`` i dont know how much was collected by the center in tourism related taxation. ``

Suffice to say, even before 1989, it has been a one way traffic as far as money is concerned. Center has been sending money to J&K for develpment and to meet short falls, all along.

Quote:

`` it is possible that state govenrnments might not have achieved anything better, but then they would shoulder there own blame. ``

In an ideal world, this may sound/look good but not in the real world we live in. If Center was not helping states like Bihar or North East, should people over there be left to their own misry? And thereby encourage separatism and secessionism. What kind of solution is that? How many Indian states are there which have done well for themselves? When there are not that many who have done well even after getting support from Center, how would they have fared well on their own? What is the basis of that hypothesis? Is that not on the lines of let the chips may fall wherever that may be? Let there by anarchy/chaos?

Let me remind you very clearly that India is a poor country. All those theories of idealogical and theoretical world are not necessarily applicable to India.

And please do try to read more on Center state relations and their powers reponsibilities vis a vis.

dost mittar #434 I agree that globalization has serious ill-effects. And no doubt the internet has created some surprises - no one expected the amount of hate material that popped up on the internet (by religious fanatics of all stripes and by racists), not to mention the amount of porn (which i read somewhere accounts for almost half the internet traffic) and so on. While previously only people who had done months or even years of work on something got published, now their voices are vastly exceeded by the noise of the hoi-ploi :-). Nevertheless, on balance we are clearly better off.

The really troublesome question is: where are these exploding advancements in technology leading to? In a series of lectures he gave around 1950 the english thinker Arnold Toynbee had given an important warning - man`s emotional development was outpaced by the technology now within his grasp. On chowk we see a pale reflection of this truth. The dangers are far more real in real life: where previously man could only fight with sticks and stones, now he has weapons capable of destroying all higher life forms on earth.

``And yes all muslims, including perhaps OBL, think that islam is a religion of peace. ``

I think my friend that you were not thinking when you wrote this. But please dont waste time listening to nobodys like me. Read what best selling western scholars like armstrong, esposito, lewis, have to write about islam. How would it sound like to you if someone implied that hinduism or sikhism is evil (and certainly you cannot deny that appalling acts of evil have been conducted in the name of hinduism and by sikhs as well)? As Jesus said: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Ref FarzanaVersey #433

[So now you are saying that at least a couple of Islamic sects believe in the ``literal word``, as opposed to the blanket statement earlier... ]

Even Mullah32 is claiming a Muslim is a Muslim is a Muslim, so I should be given some leeway!

[Re. Jain businessman selling beef to Indian Army in Delhi and he being fored into Muslim mainstream of Delhi, you do realise you are being facetious, don`t you??]

Am I NOT allowed to be tongue-in-cheek?

[Your driver being unable to afford mutton is economic constraint (do you know any other Muslim at all?!)....]

I went to a high school named Hindu High School so I didn`t have any Christian or Muslim classmates though I did have Dalits in my classroom.

I went to a college run by the Jesuits for a year and so had plenty of Christian classmates.

Later on in college, I had both Christian and Muslim classmates and friends. I have lost touch with them when I moved to the US.

My room-mate for a while in Washington, DC, was one Allaudin, PhD. Contrary to Soysauce`s beliefs about brahmins, I ate the (vegetarian) food cooked by him and so did my Iyengar room-mate. Raised in the Tanjore district, Dr. Allaudin likes only Carnatic music, having heard nadaswaram music as a child from the Hindu temples near his house. Another example of a fine muslim being mainstreamed in to the Hindu ethos!

My long-standing friend Sheik and his wife Dr. Iqbal can come calling any time they feel like. I carry their phone numbers in my Palm Pilot.

Same thing goes for people of the Christian faith too.

So I guess I can honestly say that I have friends that reflect the composition of India.

Which is probably more than that hypocrite Mullah32 can claim. At least Urstruly has the honesty to state that he doesn`t trust Hindus!

[And just why is the Pakistani response so important?]

They seem to think that is it is important that they respond to your writings with feigned concern and outrage.

Hindvi

You may find the following informative...


Quote:

According to constitutional scholar Granville Austin, probably no other nation`s constitution ``has provided so much impetus toward changing and rebuilding society for the common good.``

Quote:

ultimately led to a parliamentary government and a federal system (Federalism denotes a system of government in which power is divided by constitutional right between national and local units of government in regions. A state that follows the federal system is known as a federation. Examples of federal systems include the governments of Australia,Belgium, Canada, Germany, Malaysia, the former Soviet Union, Switzerland, the United States, and the former Yugoslavia. Some countries, whilst not being formal federations, function like them - Spain, for instance, gives more powers to its autonomous communities than most federations to their constituent parts.) with a strong central government. Following a British parliamentary pattern, the constitution embodies the Fundamental Rights, which are similar to the United States Bill of Rights

(The Bill of Rights is the name given to the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. When the Constitution was submitted to the state legislatures for ratification, many of its opponents claimed that the Constitution did not include a bill of rights because the document was an aristocratic scheme to remove the rights of Americans. Supporters, known as Federalists, assured Americans that a Bill of Rights would be added by the first Congress.) and a Supreme Court similar to that of the United States. It creates a ``sovereign democratic republic`` called India, or Bharat, which ``shall be a Union of States.`` India is a federal system in which residual powers of legislation remain with the central government, similar to that in Canada. The constitution provides detailed lists dividing up powers between central and state governments as in Australia and it elaborates a set of Directive Principles of State Policy as does the Irish constitution.

Hindvi

I won`t say following quote is absolutely true all the way....nonetheless, you may still find it of interest...

`` QUOTE:

The Dictator Lincoln invaded the South without the consent of Congress, as called for in the Constitution; declared martial law; blockaded Southern ports without a declaration of war, as required by the Constitution; illegally suspended the writ of habeas corpus;imprisoned without trial thousands of Northern anti-war protesters, including hundreds of newspaper editors and owners; censored all newspaper and telegraph communication; nationalized the railroads; created three new states without the consent of the citizens of those states in order to artificially inflate the Republican Party’s electoral vote; ordered Federal troops to interfere with Northern elections to assure Republican Party victories; deported Ohio Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham for opposing his domestic policies (especially protectionist tariffs and income taxation) on the floor of the House of Representatives; confiscated private property, including firearms, in violation of the Second Amendment; and effectively gutted the Tenth and Ninth Amendments as well.

As Dean Sprague correctly pointed out in Freedom Under Lincoln, all of these dictatorial acts were bad enough, but their real, long-term effect was to ``lay the groundwork`` for such unprecedented acts of coercion as military conscription and income taxation.

this is actually more relevant on this board:

despite Hamidm`s and Manji`s valiant efforts to rewrite the koran, religions as large as islam cannot be reformed by individuals, they can only change with education and socio economic development. The history of the west is an example as is that of Hinduism in the southern Indian state of kerala, which on HDI ranks as high as many developed countries, despite a far lower percapita income, thanks to universal literacy and health care, it is also the largest consumer of Newsprint percapita in the third world. it also has the best indicators for women`s development and rights and serves as a development model for the world bank.

But for this to occur there were massive efforts by the communist led govt and thousands of ordinary citizens from the educated classes, who volunteered to go to villages and set up temporary schools and dispensaries for a couple years where individuals rotated after a commitment of a few months or a year or two.

Muslims and non muslims on Chowk who talk so much, and are so concerned, have to get off their back sides and make some efforts. talk is cheap.

Dost mittar
please read the entire post, it is not just the finances that have caused a problem in Kashmir or Nagaland, but i highlight other areas such as power of panchayats to control there schools and clinics (i.e. of the local people to feel empowered), the power and funds of local government to undertake major development initiatives this was crucial in a poor country which followed socialist policies for over 40 years where private sector had neither authority nor sufficient funds to undertake infrastructure development.

I have also read the figure about more being directed towards kashmir than having been collected in taxes, but having been there in 1988, i didnt find srinagar to be as developed as cities in the planes and about the development of nagaland i have no idea. i dont know how much was collected by the center in tourism related taxation.

But my main point is that state goverments, which had small powers, (and in the case of kashmir often came to power through rigged elections) could lay the blame on the door steps of the center, and they wouldnt be entirely unjustified in doing so because of the extreme concentration of powers that the constitution and the nehruvian command economy which was strenthened by Indira Gandhi through mass nationalisation achieved.

it is possible that state govenrnments might not have achieved anything better, but then they would shoulder there own blame. Kashmiris claim they will make a switzerland of asia if they were given independence, this maybe a pie in the sky but if they had been given autonomy they would have faced reality either way. when a son is not allowed by his father to make decisions he has a ready excuse for his failures, but when decisions fall on his own shoulders he becomes responsible for his own fate.

this was further accentuated by the fact that there wasnt zilla and village level democracy in india, and the fact that in a command economy capital for development came only from the center.

the responsible son also picks up his own performance by watching his neighbours, so state autonomy might have led to some healthy competition in governance.

I am now bowing out of this debate.