Why We Need Islamization of Science

Netizen: That discussion you provide merely confuses the term ``tolerance`` with ``secular``. And thus reaches the absurd conclusion (by implication) that BJP is secular and Congress is not. And shourie`s talk of tolerance for ``good muslims`` looks ridiculous when matched with the BJP actions (destroying babri mosque, creating communal rifts as a result leading to the deaths of thousands in india - and thugs remain the elected party leaders for half a billion indians. you people have serious issues you need to deal with i think before claiming to be a tolerant society. India may be secular by constitution, but a very large segment of the population is decidedly primitive in its thinking.

Re: # 374 HP
//..As Yassar has explained in his many posts secularism is not against Islam in any way. ..//

But the reverse is NOT true. That`s the problem, as far as pakistan and other islamic republics are concerned. Islam is dead against secualrism. So no matter how you spin it - secularism in pak is lost cause. India can`t help you there - nobody can.

Your best shot is - be islamic[minus the kufr-hate] and be democratic - get rid of the fauzis. That will work fine.

mahesh #393 there was also cleansing of muslims in east panjab as there was of hindus and sikhs in west panjab. my ancestral village had 40 percent muslim population, and today it is 0 percent muslims. All muslims were either killed or fled for their lives to pakistan. so please try to stay objective - there was as much brutality in east panjab as in the west.

I say that 1947 was an aberration because there was nothing anywhere close to it in the past - before 1947, hindus, muslims and sikhs got along quite well in the panjab - according to people from my parents generation whom i have talked to on the subject. 1947 was also an aberration since it did not leave any lasting bitternesses - as you would have realized if you had read my post carefully where i mention sikh pilgrims coming to pakistan for decades and being almost invariably welcomed. That is all I am saying.

Amit, what kind of reconciliation among Sindhis and Bengalis are you talking about? Do we see open borders between India and Bangladesh? What kind of reconciliation between Sindhis can there be anyway. With Hindu Sindhis spread all over the world.

Tahmed, 1947 was just an aberration? What kind of an aberration is it if it basically triggered the cleansing of all Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. A token number of sikhs living on in Pakistan as third class citizens with no ability to fight for their rights should not be paraded as a symbol of communal harmony. It is not a symbol of Pakistan`s greatness that it has not massacred the remaining sikhs when these people have no existence to speak of.

Views of indian national party leaders

More secular than thou!
KHUSHWANT SINGH | Tuesday, March 01, 2005 11:18:43 IST
Aiyar is an atheist; Shourie a Hindu who rejects the existence of a compassionate God, subscribes to the Buddha`s belief in all pervading dukh and visits Sufi dargahs
None of our languages have an exact equivalent for the word secular. It means something quite different in western democracies which are almost entirely Christian than in the Indian context: India, though predominantly Hindu, has a sizeable population of Muslims, Christians and Sikhs. So far I have arrived at only two means of deciding whether a person is or is not secular. One, anyone who subscribes to no religious belief is an atheist or an agnostic, is per force secular. Their numbers don`t count because most Indians are proud of belonging to one or the other religion. My second test is even more down to earth and relevant to our present state. When it comes to the nitty gritty, what determines whether or not a person is secular is his or her attitude towards the minority communities, mostly towards Muslims who matter much more than Christians or Sikhs. I have a further test: anyone who did not condemn L.K. Advani`s rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya and the destruction of the Babri Masjid is anti-Muslim and has no right to call himself or herself secular. This may sound somewhat arbitrary, but I stand by it. I also sought further enlightenment. So I went through Mani Shankar Aiyar`s Confession Of A Secular Fundamentalist (Penguin Viking). It is a pretty comprehensive collection of articles embracing different points of view on the subject.

I will confine myself to a dialogue between Aiyar and Arun Shourie which took place in September 1995 and forms the first chapter of his book. I do so because I regard both Aiyar and Shourie as the brightest, cleanest and the most well-read and well-informed men in their respective parties. Aiyar is a minister in Manmohan Singh`s Congress-led government; Shourie threw his lot with the mosque-breakers` party and was a minister in Vajpayee`s BJP led government. Aiyar is an atheist; Shourie a Hindu who rejects the existence of a compassionate God (he has good reasons to do so) subscribes to the Buddha`s belief in all pervading dukh (sorrow) and visits Sufi dargahs. He has also written books which hurt the sentiments of Dalits, Christians and Muslims. Aiyar chose to confront him on his views on Islam and Indian Muslims. Aiyar put it to Shourie as bluntly as he could:


``Does being a Muslim makes it more difficult to be an Indian than being a Hindu makes it to be an Indian?``
Shourie replied: ``Adhering to Islam in purity would make it impossible to live in a multicultural, multi-religious society and still abide by the tenets of Islam. But for a Hindu...``
Aiyar pressed his point further: ``If you`re faithful to the edicts of Islam as enshrined in the Koran and the Shariat, you would have difficulty in being a good Indian.``
Shourie answered in the affirmative and went further in defining a good Muslim: ``If `good Muslim` means brotherhood of man and so on, then there is no difficulty.

But if it means, as 1,000 verses in the Koran say, `Spread Islam, have nothing to do with these Kafirs, kill them, they are untrustworthy, they are unclean, then?
The Hadith is full of this. There are rewards for killing the kafir. If this is a good Muslim, then a multi-religious society in India would become impossible.``
I leave it to the readers to decide which of these two men are really secular.

hamidm #382 ``mild-mannered tahmed ``?? are you trying to ruin my reputation??

actually romair has lots of company of morons (see ``paki paki`` arjun worrying about kashmir being handed over on a platter e.g.)...oooops, I meant pakistani and indian diplomats negotiating on chowk.

BTW... I went to the Indian Pavillion at the SAARC Book Fair here in Lahore today... and found some really interesting books...

One of the books I bought was a book called ``Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity: Jinnah`s Early Politics`` by Ian Bryant Wells ... its published by Permanent Black New Delhi.

I have read the introduction... and it is heartening to see a genuine attempt to reconsider history in India... I have already mentioned H M Seervai`s book and Ajeet Javed`s book in this context...

Those of us who are in Lahore... should make it a point to visit that fair... I have my eyes set on this book by Romilla Thapar about ancient India... I`ll be there tomorrow and possibly on Sunday as well.

ArjunM... if you ask me... let me reveal my true feelings about Kashmir that I have hitherto expressed in private with some of my friends. But since you`ve made the whole thing controversial...

Yes I do believe that a great injustice was done in 1947... I do believe that India was wrong in the way it took over Kashmir...

But a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then... as Khaled Ahmed once wrote... the UN passed those resolutions when Pakistan was still a secular state. No reasonable person would want to take a piece of land from a secular democracy, however oppressive, and give to a Military dictatorship, however benign and progressive. These are the facts... I have learnt to live with them... the rest of the Pakistanis will too...

However ... Kashmiris have legitimate concerns on both sides of the border. They need to be addressed and a formula needs to be worked out.

#374 by HP on March 3, 2005 5:32pm PT


Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Natwar and Mani Shanker are some very reasonable and fine people and I feel that they would honor their commitments to Pakistan.


#367 by Romair on March 3, 2005 3:43pm PT


India needs to give up the Kashmir Valley (and keep Ladakh and Jammu).


#347 by Mantolives on March 3, 2005 11:14am PT


we would see Jinnah`s vision for a prosperous and progressive South Asia with Pakistan and India living side by side would come about



I didn`t realize it`s ``Hand over Kashmir on a platter and we`ll be your friends`` week in Pakistan....

romair,

....... give it up !........ you have everyone, including mild-mannered tahmed and young manto, yelling at you ........... wonder why ?

........... in all seriousness, you suffer from the common malaise that afflicts all paki faujis and ex-faujis - they think they know everything when they know diddly ......... and with the advent of the internet they are even more dangerous - now they can do a google and become experts on hdi, opinion polls and various economic and social matters in a matter of minutes ........

.......... show a little humility, drop the imperial ``I``, quit talking about your great military and corporate accomplishments and then maybe people will listen to you ........... untill then just have some fun like the rest of us ............ as ahmedmadani would say, this is all lufangebazi anyway ..............

HP: Welcome to this board, sir. It is indeed an honorable group of people on the Indian side today (manmohan singh and gandhi), with manmohan also being a man of vision as reflected in the kashmir accords. Fortunately, the pakistan team consists of similar pragmatic people as well. So let us see what they can accomplish in the next few years.

amit #369 Actually the chaos and killings of 1947 did not leave any lasting bitterness - despite 1947, sikhs have the image in pakistan of being hearty, good humored people who can laugh at sikh jokes themselves. Thus, the sikh pilgrims to pakistan through the past decades have almost invariably been welcomed and sikhs living in pakistan (taking care of gurdwaras) have lived peacefully. 1947 is seen as an aberration more than anything else. So it wasnt the ill feelings among panjabis that came in the way. And certainly, for economic ties to take place, cultural affinities certainly help a great deal.

The recent breakthroughs between the two governments are I think very significant. One can sense that there are visionary, broad-guaged people behind these breakthroughs (as HP also indicates). Certainly the breakthroughs in Kashmir were unprecedented after 50 years of hardened positions. With Afghanistan in top gear economically (30 % growth rates in the past two year, elections, and the illiterate taliban replaced with people who have seen the world and worked as professionals in large organizations), it is a question of time before one sees commercial traffic rolling from Kabul and over the Pakistani motorways into India. While no doubt there will be problems and even backstepping in the next several years, but the ultimate pattern that is going to emerge is clear - a quilt-work of regional economies that cut across national boundaries that you indicated in your earlier post. Rather than the monolothic ``India`` and ``Pakistan`` entities that we have all grown up under. And certainly, militaries would have no relevence left - and for this reason will probably serve to delay (although they cannot halt the powerful economic forces being unleashed by global change and prosperity taking place).

Romair...

Your question is absolutely stupid... and idiotic.

If a person says that state should not have anything to do with religion... that the state should be completely impartial to religion.. to most normal people this is ``secularism``.

Why don`t you put your money where you rear orifice is ... and tell me where in the US constitution does it say ``secular`` or ``secularism``.

Then tell me that the US constitution is not secular....

Get a life.

arjun-m ji

i don`t know why Pakistanis detest you but my admiration of you continues. You always come up with absolutely great smashing one-liners.

regards

Where is rsaxena? Fine young man of few words and hitting hard with brevity.
Come on Saxena ji. We miss you.

Regards

#367

Attempting a coup! Funding Madarssas! Praising Dictators ! Denouncing Democracy and Secularism! Praising Mullahs!! .....and now a Minister of S & T of Kashmir??

LOL! That is a tall order!!

Romair #360

`` That is a ratio of 2-1, i.e. ``overwhelming majority wants religion in their public life.`` Exactly as I said.......... ``

What is religion in public life ?