Khamosh Pani Crosses the Border Noisily

friend: Huh! I claimed what? I thought you knew enough english to be an editor of a English launguage daily. Is this why they don`t let you write in Dawn and you have to post all your articles in your blog?

u obviously need to learn to read what i wrote earlier friend -- that the blog contains MATERIAL FROM THAT DAY`S EDITION --

man u r dumbbb

This is in response to your response to #152, about Graham Staines. But it`s just a point made in passing, and not germane to the point being discussed here!
Perhaps it might interest people to know what people in Staines`s native Queensland (Australia) feel about the Staines murder. And I mean the average white Queenslander, those, that is, who actually read the newspapers and watch television news programs. They wonder why Staines thought it necessary to work in Orissa and not among the underprivileged indigenous people in Queensland itself, who need the kind of medical and religious/missionary/coversion help he was providing in India quite as much. They question his motives in ways that remind one of the VHP/Sangh parivar. I suppose it`s because the white settlers dealt with the indigenous peoples of Australia in ways that are far more gruesome (if that`s possible) than the Staines murder, or even Godhra/Gujarat. Not that this excuses what happened to Staines, or in Gujarat.

DilipD #173
``My experience there, my time there, my reporting on what I found there (and the rest of Gujarat, really) are automatically invalid because none of it fits with what they think must have happened.``

I can understand. But there is a genuine need out there to know the facts.

`` “Must have” because they have not made the effort to go, but they have formed their ideas anyway.````

A member of the general public who does not make sufficient effort to go to location and find the truth and a journalist who writes about the incident but does not make sufficient effort to find the truth are not comparable. I am NOT saying you are one of those.

``. But within my constraints – time, mobility, all that – yes, I feel like I got a good sense of what went on in Gujarat in 2002. If you think I left out stuff you wanted to hear, that I’m therefore a leftist and have lost credibility, so be it.``

Um, no. As I said I got that impression from your lack of interest in the violent tactics of Communist Party of India(Marxist). Could you possibly mention the month/year of your write ups on Gujarat so I can look them up on rediff.com. Thanks.

Regarding Gujarat, a lot of people refuse to accept facts. Even journalists who present bare facts are fair game for such people. Journalists who exhibit ideological bias do not help at all.

Take the simple issue of setting of the fire from inside the train coach. The government`s own forensic report tabled in the Lok Sabha said that inflammatory liquid was spilled in the corridor between seats close to one of the doors, and that is where the fire was set.

One end of the ideological spectrum insists that that means VHP set the fire. They refuse to consider the possibility that someone could have climbed into the coach from outside and done the deed - a possibility mentioned by the forensic report itself. They also ignore the heaving stoning of the coach from outside which the report mentioned.

The other end of the ideological spectrum refuses to accept the report at all. Mr Home Minister Advani (who appears to be a little slow in the head) rejected the findings of the report out of hand.

In this ideological give-and-take, no one really cares what really happened which would be consistent with the findings. Journalists also happily restrict their reporting to the ideological to-and-fro, either because they too take sides or don`t really care either way(what other reason can be there?). The general public is fed a lot of rhetoric instead. The general public is not stupid and the general public is fed up.

Gujarat is a deep hurt for many people for a lot of reasons and particularly the perception that it could happen again anywhere anytime is quite unsettling. So the truth about Godhra and subsequent riots is very important but yes it is a free country, and journalists can of course tell everyone to lump it and find the truth for themselves, just as politicians do in this free country.

Anyway, pl. note, if I hadn`t mentioned your name, we wouldn`t be fortunate enough to interact with you here. :). Good luck in your future endeavors!

Dilip#169

``Feel free to feel dumb and suspicious and call it nonsense. I don’t know anything secret, I am just respecting what people ask me to respect. ``

My dear sir,
Victims of Godhra are primary key to the equation. What actually happened? We have read all sort of justifications from non-payment to tea stall vendor to an abducted girl. Who instigated that crime? You claim to know what happened inside that compartment and have a strange excuse of ``respecting`` the will of victims! I believe you are really disrespecting all victims of Godhra and Gujrat.

DilipD and others,
Let me try to explain again why I think what happened at Godhra is important. There are lot of flash points in India and one only needs one spark to start a chain reaction of events. Perhaps DilipD thinks that sanity is prerogative of only a limited set of journalists, but I, and lot of other people were shocked when Godhra happened, our reaction was ``what have these people done? Now riots will start``.
Same was reaction of many people to Babri demolition. ``what have they done? now riots will start?``.

Riots happened because of mob mentality. Unfortunately our Police is not immune to this mob mentality. We must know the people who are starting these fires, why these fires got started.

``I have no idea what response one gets, nor what the relevance of this point is. But since you brought it up, what’s the crime in putting up Osama posters? After all, the nearby mithai-shop has a poster up of Bal Thackeray and that isn’t a crime. ``

I know, putting poster of Osama is not a crime legally. But does that tell something about the person? Or are you going to talk only in legal terms from here on? Does law allow people to assemble in vicinity of the disputed site in Ayodhya? Does law allow one community of decide that it will economically boycott another ( remember the Gujrat leaflets..!) ? Do these things distrub you, the law not withstanding? Does the fact about the preaching in mosques( as Veeresh pointed out) disturb you ? Does it distrub you that the mullah refers to out country as `them` when talking at the friday prayers ( I am a witness to this) ? Does it distrub you that the guy at NCC camp decided to tell the commanding officer that he would not have to do the camp in ramzan if he were in Pakistan ( again I was in the same camp) ?

I dont know whether you will find a relevance to these points, just like you did not find the relevance to the point about the Osama poster. But since you already said you are biased, I will not surprised at any response( if you choose to respond to this lesser mortal, that is).

But I can tell you this. I have attended some friday mosques with one of my friends ( although I must admit I was scared to hell), and I have seen the start of a communal riot right in front of my eyes. I hope I will have the time and energy to write up about the latter. But I have seen that the rot is on both ends. And if the rot at one end is brushed under the carpet just for being politically correct, it is not going to serve anyone a great deal.

Dilip
//.... He converted, they say, thus he asked for it. ...//

I haven`t met/seen anybody who has justified Graham Staines killing. Like I said, it`s just against common sense to justify killings like this. Except of course, for people who are communalists and fundamentalists.

Once again - you have willfully avoided the whole point of the discussion. My question was - ``If the messages being spread-out in the mosques are as disgusting as the ones in VHP leaflets - the where is the outrage?``

Where is the media expose for muslim communalism which is as bad as hindu communalism?

dilip
//...I simply said I have not yet met a Muslim who claimed Godhra was justified. I hardly extrapolate from there to conclude that there are no idiots among Muslims...//

So now that you accept there are ``idiots among Muslims`` - so where is the expose? Where is the outrage to contain and confront muslim communalism? Where is the outrage for godhra-in-reverse that happened in kerala - a bunch of hindus were literally cut-down in their temples? Where is the outrage for attack on that hindu temple in gujrat after the riots?
Where is the media ``investigation`` into these events?

This hideous penchant for ignoring muslim communalism has to stop. Fundamentalists from both sides must be exposed for long term health of communal harmony.

sadna #151: It’s not that I have any objections to people asking me about Godhra. It’s that people who ask me only want answers of one kind. My experience there, my time there, my reporting on what I found there (and the rest of Gujarat, really) are automatically invalid because none of it fits with what they think must have happened. “Must have” because they have not made the effort to go, but they have formed their ideas anyway.

Check, for example, mahesh who thinks that because I report what he doesn’t want to believe, I “didn’t meet the right Muslims”.

Therefore, I go about my business without worrying about these reactions. I visit such places, I work with my constraints and I write about what I find. I can’t say I’m satisfied, because there’s always more people I might have met, more places I might have visited. But within my constraints – time, mobility, all that – yes, I feel like I got a good sense of what went on in Gujarat in 2002. If you think I left out stuff you wanted to hear, that I’m therefore a leftist and have lost credibility, so be it. I don’t write to pass anyone’s tests, I don’t write in conscious search of credibility. I write, that’s all. People will find credibility in what I write based on what they want to hear, which is OK with me.

All I can say is, please make the effort to go yourself. It’s not such a great effort. Perhaps you owe it to yourself.

mohar #152: Nobody justified killing of Graham Staines, the christian priest.

Wrong. Plenty of people did. He converted, they say, thus he asked for it.

mahesh #170/171: Not condescending at all. “You didn’t talk to the right Muslims” is, let me be frank if you like, absurd. It got called.

I simply said I have not yet met a Muslim who claimed Godhra was justified. I hardly extrapolate from there to conclude that there are no idiots among Muslims. Just as, when I also say I have met plenty of Hindus who claimed the “reaction” to Godhra was justified, I don’t extrapolate from there to conclude that all Hindus are idiots, or that the only idiots around are Hindus.

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Dilip, no need to get condescending.

There were enough Muslims to believe Godhra was justified. Why else would it have happened if all Muslims think it was not justified?

Dilip, do you really believe that there are no Muslim communalists? That communalists exist only in the Hindu society?

Good times on Chowk, as always!

jang #147 and friend #159:

Feel free to feel dumb and suspicious and call it nonsense. I don’t know anything secret, I am just respecting what people ask me to respect. I have never once made an argument nor justified anything based on what those victims of Godhra told me, not even here. The sole reason I mentioned them was to say that I have myself tried to speak to victims of the Godhra tragedy.

mahesh #148: I “didn’t talk to the right Muslims”. Of course. Silly me, why didn’t it strike me? I merely went wandering through Gujarat speaking to people at random in shops, in camps, in homes, on the street, in villages, in Sabarmati Ashram, etc. What a stupid way to go about things. Instead, I should have dug out “the right Muslims” to speak to.

ankit #149: Talking down to you? Brushing away all opposing opinion? Do tell me, who ever brushed away any of your opinions (me included)? Has anyone prevented you from posting here, or brushed away your opinions here? Anywhere?

Now let us see what response one gets when he points out the Osama posters in the room of a guy at IIT?

I have no idea what response one gets, nor what the relevance of this point is. But since you brought it up, what’s the crime in putting up Osama posters? After all, the nearby mithai-shop has a poster up of Bal Thackeray and that isn’t a crime.

When someone calls the bluff and points out the glaring bias to a leftist

Ah, so it’s about the triumph of calling a bluff? OK, you called my bluff (though remind me, what was my bluff, actually?). Here’s a secret, though: I am biased.

waraich #150: Thank you for this simple truth: Religion is like that. It divides.

Which is why I stay as far as I can from every single religion and hope that I can bring up my kids without religion, as I was.

More in a bit. Crazy day.

HP #165
The point that this article is making is that communal riots, which to me is an objective indicator for communalism, occur in places which have about 1% of total population.
And I dont think that this article is ignoring the instances where a few people have died, but it is only taking into account those cases where riots have occured. From there, it is taking a sampling of 46% of deaths which have occured repeatedly in some places.These are the places which can be said to be riot prone or on a communal boiling point, so to speak. And this does not only include Hindus killing Muslims, but all sorts of religious riots.A very big reality check is needed for those posters who believe that muslims are hunted and killed in India, and there are many on chowk.
The study that says a specific number of muslims are killed, does that also indicate that they were killed because they were muslims? And why a study only about muslims?Why not for every victim?
Now talking about Gothra and Ahmedabad, there is not just one side to that debate, and you would know that.Actually it is very necessary to find ``excuses`` about Gothra and Ahmedabad,as even that article does.But thats another point.Besides,I wonder how many Indian posters have said that Gothra is the just cause for Ahmedabad.Cause, yes, but just cause, no.Also, many Indians are peeved that the media has a one sided attitude, and the jury is still out on that.
About communal practices and communal mindsets, yes, they do exist. There are chasms.I am not denying that.For eg.,there may be a sizable numbers of Hindus, who would not eat at Muslims, places, to give an example.But this is also a simple fact that even such Hindus dont hate muslims and would interact with Muslims quite normally on other platforms.Same about muslims. The basic point is that such communal mindsets do not preclude muslims from living a normal life.The empirical fact is that in more than 90% of India, riots may never have occured and people are co existing peacefully with each other.Beyond that, it is largely a matter of perception and personal experience.

omar_r_quraishi #164

``it is threads like these that bring out the inner goodness in the RSS/VHP/BJP fan club on chowk -- and there are so many of them -- their numbers keep growing, the latest one being mr friend here who claims to know what was going on during the gujarat riots -- wonder if he led one of the mobs himself ``

Huh! I claimed what? I thought you knew enough english to be an editor of a English launguage daily. Is this why they don`t let you write in Dawn and you have to post all your articles in your blog?

#162 by rahul_capri

Rahul,

That article and study deals with riots and violence and then the study does not consider many instances where just a few people died. There is another study and somebody posted that on chowk which stated that almost 300 Muslims die every year in communal violence. (I will try to find the link for you. I think the poster was “Hindvi”).
Being communal and getting physically involved in religious/ethnic riots are two different things. There are many people who are communal but would not get involved in the kind of street violence that took place in Gujarat or elsewhere.

Only communal sentiments would find excuses for Ahmedabad and Godhra. People that are non communal would condemn both incidences with the same vigor.

There are many posters here that are clearly communal and I can name them too but I doubt that many would actually get involved in killing people.
I also understand the point that most of the communal violence takes place in cities and I had brought that point up my self sometime ago. Villages have different kind of communal practices and I believe you are well aware of them too.