A Good Reason To Cheer

#69 by SyedAhmed on March 24, 2005 2:46pm PT


holds views which justify ethnic/religious cleansing


how many paki generals were prosecuted for the genocide in b`desh? ZERO....

how many paki generals who oversaw that genocide went on to successful careers in Pakistan...


these posters are virtually indistinguishable from the taliban or the Neo-Nazi`s in the US


funny you should mention the taliban...the taliban created by the paki army and supported by the paki junta...the taliban that is responsible for the miseries of the afghan people....

Amrita,

Do you know which group spends the most money on conversions in India ?
Do you know which group labels the other as `unbelievers` and not worthy of interaction ?
Let us see if you will give an honest answer ?

The concept of left/right itself is a western notion. The Sangh parivar is more
environmentally friendly than the commies - so who is left and who is right ?

Also, people like Revathy Gopal must realize that they are
serving as ``useful idiots`` and being used by external forces inimcal to Indian interests.
Revathy Gopal and her ilk would be foolish to think that it was their activism that
resulted in the visa for Modi being revoked. There are bigger forces under play
- which include the protestant lobby, energy interests and geo-political moves.

believe he has even been permitted to enter the UK, feted by his band of Gujarati brothers for presiding over genocide in his state.

Am I the only person who finds this objectionable? Gujaratis are in favour of genocide? That`s a big call.

BTW, I wonder how long they will keep Gerry Adams out. The Irish American lobby is too strong to let it stay. Besides, he hasn`t been banned from entering the country, he was just not invited to the White House as an honoured guest as he was every year in the last 10. Mr Adams of course, is blameless?

There is something very reassuring to see a wholesome and genuine secularist. And you come across as a very wholesome and genuine person. You think the way I still do on my increasingly rarer good days.

You will find my views to be unacceptable, since I have begun to feel that the very presence of Islam and Christianity in India is destructive to India`s soul. Do disagree with and condemn all such arguments with gusto.

IMHO people like you represent the idealized soul of India and the inner essence of Hinduism. I can no longer touch that soul nor feel its comforting presence near me. But I still deeply respect it.

kaal - :). Stuka once posted this bit, I forget who said it but it went along the lines of, the right is as important to the survival of a country as the left because balance is important but in India the tragedy is that the right has been captured by the Hindutva brigade.

I think the whole secular-communal issue has polarized the Indian polity to such a level that the ordinary citizen is now being held hostage and has to consign himself to options that he is not happy about. If he believes in the integrity of the Indian republic and refuses to view his fellow citizens as demons then he has the option of votong for people like Laloo and the Congress - :(. If he wants to look for some economic strides forward, something that is becoming increasingly more important to the indian emerging from years of limited financial opportunity, then he has to support a bunch of people who`ll look the other way when things like the Gujarat riots happen - :(.

Could we remove this ``Muslim bad, Muslim Pakistani not Indian, Kill Muslim or Convert Muslim, now lets`s get Christians, become a Hindu Rashtra, Pull down the Taj`` etc biz then maybe we could concentrate on the things that are really important to a country that hopes to make major strides on the world stage - economics, poverty, disease, science, technology, infrastructure....

I have absolutely no problem with the Right - even though I may not vote for it :). I do however have a beef with the Hindu Right because their allegiance is primarily to the idea of a Hindu Rashtra. And no one can stop me from feeling that way or speaking about it because I am still a citizen of the democratic republic of India not some theocratic militarized Hindu state.

So yeah, I get what you`re saying and I think we need a secular right and a non-communist left that isnt afriad of the communal right.

Re: # 60

Getting elected/reelected merely means that your particular electorate prefers you over the other candidate(s). It does not confer legal immunity.

Maharana #46 you write ``The crux of my post on this board has been the denial of safety, security and justice to the people of india.`` (i.e. regardless of religion).

I agree with you here. The same of course is true for Pakistan. These are governments that spend billions on buying the latest technology, and yet are not bothered to protects its citizens from their true enemies - the thugs inside the country.

You write ``And the US never really put any pressure on Pakistan against misslile or bomb development. They had turned a blind eye to it all for a long time. If they wanted to, one phone call to your general and he would have been up, saluting `` You are either ignorant of history (Clinton himself was burning the phone lines pleading with Sharif to take the ``high road`` and not respond to Indian provocations!!) or simply intent on sticking to your views. No problem - Pakistanis (unlike those innocent Gujerati families who were burnt in their own homes) have the means to respond to the BJP thugs. That is all that matters, and you are welcome to hold your view that night is day and black is white.

Sorry if I sound a bit irritated as well. Discussing emotional issues related to the life and death of people isnt exactly a great way to build friendships, I think. Despite our differences of views, I am sure you are a fine gentleman and wish you all the best in your real life. Last post, and hope to see you around on chowk on some other board.

Ref nb #72

[Re: # 57
Irshad Manji, stuka, trust you to forget a feminist`s name :) ]

Hey, it could have been Taslima Nasreen!

Stuka #63: ``Romair: U are right. But the point is that there are no short cuts and elections``

Elections, without a free judiciary, are actually more dangerous than no elections. Because such elections provide a facade of legitimacy to a dictatorship. I prefer either a true democracy, with a solid judiciary, and independent legislature and an honest executive. If that is not possible, then I prefer an open dictatorship, which is openly considered a dictatorship.

This way the dictatorship has to deliver. It cannot hide behind, ``elections`` to legitimize its incompetence...........Once the judiciary has been suppressed either directly or indirectly, the govt., with or without elections, should be viewed as a dictatorship...........

Re: # 57
Irshad Manji, stuka, trust you to forget a feminist`s name :)

Threat to Modi`s life in UK, trip called off

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2005 01:57:56 AM ]

Sign into earnIndiatimes points

NEW DELHI/AHMEDABAD: Following a call from PM Manmohan Singh on Thursday night, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi cancelled his proposed UK trip.


Modi, who has been in the eye of a storm following denial of visa to him by the US, was scheduled to attend the `Gujarat Day` function at London`s Royal Albert Hall on March 26. He was to fly to London on Friday afternoon from Mumbai.

Official sources in New Delhi said the PM called Modi at 10 pm and advised him to cancel the trip in view of intelligence reports from Central agencies that there was a specific threat to his life from the Dawood Ibrahim gang and jehadi groups, including Al-Qaida affiliates. Several radical Islamic groups are known to have a strong presence in the UK. When Modi showed reluctance to cancel the trip, the PM, according to the sources, told him that if he went ahead, not only his own life would be in danger but also the consequences for the nation could be grave. Modi finally relented.

In a short span of half an hour, the CM received calls from three Union government functionaries, advising him to cancel the visit. The first to call him was home secretary Dhirendra Singh. When he showed reluctance to heed the home secretary`s advice, home minister Shivraj Patil called him. But in vain.

Meanwhile, Modi held consultations with top leaders of his party, who reportedly told him that in a federal polity, the Centre`s advice cannot be ignored.

The final decision to cancel Narendra Modi`s visit to UK was taken after a call from the PM. Modi is reported to have told him: ``If you are advising me not to go, I`ll not go.

Kardesh

I have seen and heard Modi only once, briefly on television.

This is not a person I will support. I find him dangerous. I am not sure how to minimize his influence.

One thing for sure is that our liberal friends are even more lost.

Look, in terms of winning elite social browny points, the most rewarding option for any Indian social climber is to denounce `Hindu fanatics.` Besides, this course of action requires no intellectual effort. We need many people doing that. But the noises such people make will help us more EXTERNALLY than with INTERNALLY. Internally, they can at best win short-term solutions. They display no long-term strategy.

If leftists were also intelligent, they would raise hell about Modi, AND show some interest in maintaining credibility with Hindu majority. That`s not the hardest challenge since the Hindu majority is depressingly secular (take it from me, Hindus are the most accomplished and the most shameless free riders when it comes to religious issues).

But the Left in India just does not appear to be equipped to play on both ends. The more they associate with foreign powers and foreign interests even for right reasons, the more they will isolate themselves from their ultimate audience.

We need some Indian leftists with a broader vision to step forward. People who understand that there is a time to rebuke and a time to take Hindus along. Revathy? Amrita?

It was quite suprising to note that the majority of posters on this particular interact ( many of them longtime posters) holds views which justify ethnic/religious cleansing and or support of mass murders like Mr Modi. Arguments such such as rabid nationalism and neo fascist religious intolerance - is indicative that mere education qualifications hardly make an individual into a human being. It is refreshing to see that there are many Indians who also reject such rabid tendencies - but unfotunately it seems they are in the minority.

If one peels off this thin veneer of civility - which is perhaps a mere act of wordplay - these posters are virtually indistinguishable from the taliban or the Neo-Nazi`s in the US - a scary thought for all of us who reside on this planet.

The world is hardly immune from fascists and nationalists - wherein even mature democracies have elected individuals responsible for sensless wars and immeasurable human carnage - but justifying these acts can hardly be considered civilized debate - perhaps this insenstivity to human feelings thoughts and emotions and sufferings - relegate these individuals to a lower life form in the evolutionary scale.

As always, there is something to hope for, I am assuming since many of the posters are based in the US or the West, - the education system here will impart a better set of values in their children than their parents did for them- thereby enabling their progeny to evolve to a higher strata in the evolution of home-sapiens

#67 Baal:

Beautifully written. The problem with the Jihadi muslims and the Mullah missionary Christians is that they understand that they were big failures in INDIA and cant take it. The truth is that If INDIA had failed the rest of the world would have been easy to conquer between the 2 dogmas stamping out any light of rational thoughts for ever. Now that the church and the mullahs are loosing control in an increasingly knowledge era, they no longer can control the flow of information. So as the knowledge opens the minds of many muslims and christians, the hold of Islam and Christianity will diminish and eventually vanish. It is that they fear. It is that reason why they fear the rational questions raised by the Hindu mind.

There is no turning back the clock into 700 AD when we are entering a century of freedom and free flow of knowledge. It sounds the deathknell of the dogmas of IL-LOGIC, dogmas of domination, dogmas of darkness. So they are fighting a loosing war against time. Welcome to 21st century.

Oh Indians repeat with me the mantra:

It`s any day better to befriend
a religious fandu
than a secular gaandu!

What it means: if you compare 100 religious fandus and 100 seculars,
you will find 60 spiritualist, god fearing, fairness minded Mohan Joshis among fandus
But you will be lucky to find 1% humanist or universalist among the secularist
Secularist is a colonialsit construct. Most of them are yet another set of ``booked``
(people of book) people booked to 19th century alien book (Das Capita). Secular gaandu does not help you in your secular well being (job, business and science/technology education) either.

Befriend Rehmaan or Raaberts. Go to his Masjid, sit in vajrasana, pray to yogeshawar (Shiva) and do whole set of 26 asanas, pranayam and meditation in masjid or church.
Let it change you inside out. If you do not like Arabic or Anglicized name call them by nick name Ramya or Rabya. Most important go to masjid and church in 1000s without joining any foreign legion. Please do not allow them to go in the corner ghetto. Call them to your yog, pranayam and meditation sessions. Carry his tazias in moharram or fast like him in ramzan (it`s similar to shravan). It might enhance your own faith. Bring the jesusism, become a a true spiritual Muslim and eradicate legions of oppression and community destruction - Christianity and Islam. Build community India.

Keep it in mind secularist Chiknah (PBUHis Highness), Hitler, Stalin or Mao killed in millions and made mushkil Jinnah of crores.

Also keep in mind that Prachndas and the King of Nepal get arms from same assembly line. Ponder over why Romilla-s are visiting profs in US univ. It`s a giant media/psyops machine with $5B annual budget. That is why I say it`s a neocolonialism. Lowly ediotic Revathy is just a foot soldier who does not know what she is doing. She might get a round trip and free dinner at Kahmir/Khalistan/Naga/Mizo/Tripura forum/convention in London/DC.

About legions be it 4th, 7th or 19th (Marx) century ones, they are not friends of poor but they love poverty of others.

To Islamists and Christian Anas, you should understand what majority Indian think:

``A sun of disaster has risen in the West,`` wrote an African poet. ``The Christian calamity has come upon us like a dust cloud.``

Ethiopia, the world`s oldest Christian country, adhering to Christianity for more than a thousand years, is also the poorest country in the world. More than a thousand years of Christianity did not mitigate the awful poverty of its people and religion did not help raise their standard of living. Just a decade ago millions perished due to famine. The citizens of Ethiopia continue to remain ill-fed, ill-clothed and illiterate, steeped in poverty and disease. War and poverty still remain the dominant realities in Africa.

``When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.`` - Jomo Kenyatta (1897?-1978)

President Robert Mugabe said that churches had played midwife to colonialism, ``succumbing or voluntarily surrendering God to the racism of colonial structures.``

Joshua Nkomo, now vice president of Zimbabwe -``The Christian churches have failed. Ministers have preached to people that they are the same in the eyes of God, at the same time have supported a social system that divides these people into groups of unequals.``

Vivekananada

---

``We who had come from the east have sat here day after day and have been told in a patronizing way that we ought to accept Christianity because Christian nations are the most prosperous. We look about us and we see England the most prosperous Christian nation in the world, with her foot upon the neck of 250,000,000 Asiatics. We look back into history and see that the prosperity of Christian Europe begin with Spain. Spain`s prosperity began with the invasion of Mexico. Christianity wins its prosperity by cutting the throats of its fellow men. At such a price the Hindoo will not have prosperity.``

``When someone suggested to him that Christianity was a saving power, he opened his great dark eyes upon him and said: ``If Christianity is a saving power in itself, why has it not saved the Ethiopians, the Abyssinians?``


William Ernest Hocking, (1873–1966), American idealist philosopher,
``It is remarkable fact that the outstanding Christians in India are the first generation.. We had thought that the third and fourth generation would be much more outstanding...The reasons why the first generation people were wonderful was because they brought over their Hindu culture, and they were at home in their own categories. They had their roots in the cultural past: therefore they were natural. The second generation were taken out, and became neither good Europeans nor good Indians. The second and third generation Christians are neither this nor that. In that period, the Indian Christian had lost his soul. A nationalist said to me, `Your Indian Christian is a man out of gear; he isn`t in gear with your people, and he out of gear with us.`

Christianity has often alienated Indian Christians from the mainstream in India. They are afraid for instance to participate in anything that has a Hindu connotation, or they are made to change their names. And since they get alienated, a certain fear psychosis sets in. And it is true that Christianity also introduced the feeling of guiltiness, of being a sinner, which is absent from Hinduism. ``I would even say,`` adds Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, ``that it sometimes gave Christians an unfortunate sense of superiority over Hindus.``
Christians are also proud that they brought education to India, ``but,`` counters Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, ``it is not true: there were for instance 125,000 medical institutions in Madras before the British came. Indians never lacked education, the Christians only brought British education to India, which in fact caused more damage to India by westernizing many of us.``

Dr. S. Radhakrishnan told an audience in Oxford that to the Indian Christian, Jesus was the white man`s god marching with a sword in one hand and the Union Jack in the other.

Hindu Society has been suffering a sustained attack from Islam since the 7th century, from Christianity since the 15th century, and this century also from Marxism. The avowed objective of each of these three world-conquering movements, with their massive resources, is the replacement of Hinduism by their own ideology, or in effect: the destruction of Hinduism. This concern is not at all paranoid (as the spokespersons of these aggressors would say), even if the conversion squads are remarkably unsuccessful in India. Consider the situation in Africa: in 1900, 50 % of all Africans practiced Pagan religion; today Christian and Islamic missionaries have reduced this number to less than 10 %

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From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hindu`s religion.

The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as Krishna:

``I am in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there.``

To my mind`, our religion is truer than any other religion, because it never conquered. Because it never shed blood, because its mouth always shed on all, words of blessing, of peace, words of love and sympathy. It is here and here alone that the ideals of toleration were first preached. And it is here and here alone that toleration and sympathy become practical; it is theoretical in every other country; it is here and here alone, that the Hindu builds mosques for the Mohammedans and churches for the Christians

Mahatma Gandhi called religious conversions a fraud on humanity. ``If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytizing``. ``I resent the overtures made to Harijans.`` ``Stop all conversion, it is the deadliest poison that ever sapped the fountain of truth.`` Poverty doesn`t justify conversion.

Kardesh:

Excellent posts. Though we differ in our respective interpretation of this specific incident, our worldviews are exactly the same.

``You can justify almost anything, but in the end, people may judge you for what you resemble without asking your permission. For our own selfish reasons, let`s learn to be civilized. ``

Touche. I would just like you to know that the discussions between Indians, though ostensibly about Modi, is actually one of how we view ourselves as a nation and a society vis a vis foreign influences.

The people on the left are okay with socio-politcal barriers being broken but want to maintain economic nationalism. The people on the right want the reverse; political nationalism combined with global economic integration. Ultimately the two move in tandem, it is just a question of where one yield`s first.