Towards Greater Tolerance

Great article, I agree with it entirely.
One question though- you say that ``...The first man to talk of Hindus and Muslims as separate nations was V.D. Savarkar who coined the word ‘Hindutva’ in a book with the same title in 1923``. Wasn`t it Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who was infact advocating separate seats for Muslims in councils since 1883? As far as I know, he was dead by 1898- after a lifeime of convincing Muslims of the great differneces between them and the hindus. That would cerrtainly make it seem as though he had the idea first...

Forget what the unintelligent, brain dead Indians (I am one of them) think about you. Who are we to judge you. Get rid of the India obsession. I am a guy who admire Imran Khan. I remember him giving an interview to the DD when I was a kid. He clearly told the audience what ``PATRIOTISM`` has done to the human kind. This single word has eroded all human values.

Its ok if you feel happy to say that Kushwanth is the greatest Indian intellectual.

We unfairly blame politicians when in fact the mainstream politicians both in the Congress and Muslim league were in fact largely secular. What was wrong was the way democracy was defined.

The basis of modern government in a diverse and multi-religious region has to be re-defined. Democracy as defined by the rule of the majority cannot be the sole basis for determining the manner in which laws are passed or the nation is governed.

As an example:

If 51 people in group of 100 decide to shave their heads the other 49 are not likely to follow suit simply because the ``majority`` says so. The equation does not change much if the ratio is 66 out of 33 (which was the ratio of Hindus to Muslims in pre-partition India). A classic case is the issue of cow slaughter in India . If a parliament in New Delhi passed a law banning beef it was unlikely that the Naga, Mizo, Khasi tribals in the North East or the Afridis in the North West would change their dietry habits because some MPs had been pressured by sadhus in Allahabad. Today India is the only ``free`` democracy in the world to institute legal dietary constraints on its people although the North eastern tribes actually care very little what the Kumbh Mela sadhus think and say as much. The Afridis, Muslim Bengalis, Muslim Punjabis, Baluchis and Sindhis ar no longer with us to for comment.

The answer was to rule without forcing issues on the basis of religious or cultural agenda.The British realised this 1857 when a trivial cultural oversight of grease on rifle cartridges in the army acted as a trigger for the eruption of a national revolt. There were other issues for the uprising in 1857 but the issue of cultural or religious non-interference was largely driven home to the British. They subsequently became ``tax-collectors`` with a ``Star Trek`` type prime directive of non-interference in religious or cultural affairs.The Radcliffe Plan attempted this solution in a post-partition scenario but was rejected by hardliners in the Congress.

It was realised very belatedly in India that the insistance by the Congress of a simple ``one-man-one vote `` basis has led to tragic consequences.
Becaue the Baluchi feared rule by Delhi which would regulate ( amongst other issues) what he ate we now have come to ridiculous situation where we are ready to nuke each other over the issue. Which is why in post-independence India even with a majority and howls from ``nationalistic`` hardliners not a single religious, cultural or linguistic issue ( cow-slaughter is a notable exception) has been forced on others. Some of the issues are:

-English continues to be used as a link language and Hindi is not used by the
Southern and North Eastern states for official communications. A number
other languages are recognised as official as represented by the number of times
the denomination of the currency note is spelled out in various languages.The only
one of its kind, the Indian rupee note outdoes even the Euro in the number of
languages depicted on it.

-Common Civil Code: This has yet to be adopted despite a constitutional directive
The religious personal laws of the minorities AND of the majority is yet in use.

-Individual state laws: The most common example of this is the status of Kashmir
and some North Eastern tribal states where the ethnic and cultural identity of the
the people are protected from migration from other states of India.


-Partitioning of states. States in India have been partitioned and re-partioned
several times to ensure that the ``aspirations of the people of that region`` are
represented.

India is ultimately going to become a confederation as envisaged by Lord Wavell and Cyril Radcliffe. It is regrettable however that the process will take one century and hundreds of thousands of lives in communal conflict. Added to that is the ever present danger that we may yet have a nuclear war merely over `` a slab of beef``.


Azeemabadi

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re: Pakistan will be next
Following is the article by Khalid Md from TFT in its entireity. I thought this was so important that i am just pasting it (i usually hate doing this).
I had said in the past that only democracy has the kind of resilence that accomdates for the changing times. The changing times demand that Pak accomodate with India on the question of Kashmir (i am saying accomdate not give up on Kashmir) and move on to build better relations. It benefits Pak immensely to have good trade with one of the biggeste markets next door. But Army ruling Pak has a different agenda. The Army Brass in Pak sing the same tune. It is Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir. There is no policy at all. This is why, there is little hope for Pak`s future, as long as the Army is in control.

The following article suggests that Pak will be the next target, after Iraq. This is not outside the realm of possibilties.
Read on:


``Pakistan will have to be ‘next’


Pakistan lacks the capacity to produce solutions to its problems internally. Just two years ago Islamabad kept offering its Taliban strategy as a policy without alternatives even after admitting that it was hurting Pakistan’s external image and internal security. It was finally overturned, with great loss to Pakistani citizens who were allowed to become pawns in it, simply because of an incapacity to intellectually tackle the problem of total international isolation. Islamabad is becoming globally isolated once again on the question of relations with India. While no one agrees with it, Pakistan is unable to show even the minimum amount of flexibility of approach to prevent an ‘external solution’ from being imposed on it. There is no doubt that Pakistan will be ‘next’ unless Pakistan changes its spots and starts thinking ‘laterally’ for once to save itself from disaster


s America makes ready to invade Iraq, the world is also preparing itself to absorb the shock when it comes. All the regional states have a strategy of coping with the consequences of the invasion. They have acted ‘pragmatically’ by evolving a back-up position if President Bush doesn’t heed their protestations of caution and moderation. The Gulf States are ‘on board’ by giving military facilities to the United States forces. All the states enjoy considerable internal sovereignty to cope with the consequences of the invasion. They enjoy the sort of control over population needed to avoid falling apart under pressure from popular passion. There is practically no terrorist activity in their territories, the random acts against American nationals in them having been taken care of. That leaves Pakistan as the only state where the population is not under control and terrorist activity is far from being conclusively tackled. In fact, in case America succeeds in staging a neat surgical invasion of Iraq, the trouble in Pakistan will become glaring in its incongruity.

The deficit of internal control: When people in Pakistan say that Pakistan will be ‘next’, their subliminal message is that its internal disorder and its external implications would not be easily ignored and some kind of action would be needed to wean the country from aberrant behaviour. The period of ‘pragmatism’ under General Musharraf was at best a period of half measures which satisfied neither the divided groupings inside Pakistan nor the anti-terrorist coalition abroad. After a decade and a half of ‘idealism’ Pakistan discovered ‘pragmatism’ in the face of UN Security Council resolutions following the 9/11 act of terrorism. The army pulled out of its ‘strategic depth’ blunder in Afghanistan and banned the four major jehadi organisations it was covertly supporting. What happened instead was more terrorism. The beginning of the year 2002 saw the inhuman beheading of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, followed by bomb attacks on Christians in Islamabad in February-March and the killing of 11 French technicians in Karachi in May. The following month the American Consulate in Karachi was attacked by the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. In July, General Musharraf himself narrowly escaped being killed through a remote-controlled explosion. The following month Christians were targeted in Murree and Taxila. In September more Christians were found with their throats slit in Karachi. Sectarian killings in Punjab ran parallel to the inferno of Karachi. In December, terrorists were caught planning to kill Americans working in the Karachi consulate, and on Christmas, Christian children were blown up in Daska in Punjab. Despite Pakistan’s denial that Al Qaeda was operating inside Pakistan, its leader Abu Zubaida was captured in Faisalabad and notorious Ramzi al-Shibh was caught from Karachi, while a key figure Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was said to be still at large in the city.

In 2003, terrorism is still rampant in the country. (Columnist Inayatullah contested during a discussion on 29 January 2003 in Lahore that there was more terrorism in India than in Pakistan; but the advisories are against Pakistan only, and foreign shareholders meet their Pakistani counterparts in Dubai, while tourism in India is open and foreign investors land in India without fear.) All the leaders banned for their involvement in activities endangering Pakistan’s security are out in the open once again and threatening more Islamic jehad while General Musharraf tries to persuade that it is no longer in the interest of the state to wage mercenary jehad. He says cross-border jehad in Kashmir is at an end but no one really believes him, not even Pakistanis who have knowledge about the activities of the banned but renamed militias. More and more of their activists are caught with weapons and explosives to give the lie to the claim that Pakistan has tamed its local terrorists. Sectarian killings are fewer but still going on. Non-Muslim communities still feel unsafe living in Pakistan and terrorists with plans to hit them have been caught just in time. On the basis of information given to American interrogators by such Arab terrorists as Abu Zubaida, more and more Pakistani doctors and scientists with strict Islamic training are found to be linked to Al Qaeda. More dangerously, Pakistan is seen covertly supporting a Taliban fight-back on the border with Afghanistan in which American troops have suffered casualties.

A threatened reassessment: America seems to be ‘unofficially’ moving towards a reassessment of Pakistan as an ally, given these developments. Seymour M. Hersh writing in New Yorker (27 January 2003) stated: ‘Last June, four months before the current crisis over North Korea became public, the Central Intelligence Agency delivered a comprehensive analysis of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions to President Bush and his top advisers. The document, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, was classified as Top Secret, and its distribution within the government was tightly restricted. The CIA report made the case that North Korea had been violating international law—and agreements with South Korea and the United States—by secretly obtaining the means to produce weapons-grade uranium. The document’s most politically sensitive information, however, was about Pakistan. Since 1997, the CIA said, Pakistan had been sharing sophisticated technology, warhead-design information, and weapons-testing data with the Pyongyang regime. Pakistan, one of the Bush Administration’s important allies in the war against terrorism, was helping North Korea build the bomb.’ There is no doubt that Hersh was officially briefed. His report went on to reveal details that effectively indict Pakistan as an unreliable state that would go to any length to persist in its hostile policy towards India. The changing complexion of the war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan could stem from Pakistan’s perception of an Indian comeback in the country under the Tajik-dominated Karzai government in Kabul.

During a meeting at Governor’s House, Lahore, General Musharraf complained earlier this month that in the OIC there were fewer and fewer takers for Pakistan’s India policy and that any reference to Kashmir was accommodated by the Islamic world only after Pakistan threatened to leave the organisation. He also disclosed to newspaper editors that there was actually a move within the Islamic bloc to accept India as a member of the OIC. This is a serious loss of international support on India policy. It develops that Pakistan has to first absorb the negative consequences of the Taliban policy it pursued in Afghanistan before 9/11. It had forced Iran to become its regional rival and caused the Central Asian Islamic republics to protest proxy infiltration. The highwater mark of this Islamic reaction against Pakistan came when in 2002, the Turkish prime minister visited India reciting the Bhagwat Gita while pointedly ignoring Pakistan’s protestations of eternal friendship. Iran’s return to the arms of Pakistan has been only partial because of Tehran’s persisting doubts about Islamabad’s sincerity. According to unconfirmed Indian reports, an accord signed between India and Iran on January 19 will allow New Delhi to use Iranian military bases in the event of a war with Pakistan. The agreement will also boost Indian armament exports to Iran and base Indian intelligence, security and military experts in Iran to train their Iranian counterparts. Appropriately, the ‘strategic alliance’ came just days ahead of the January 26 visit to India of Iranian President Muhammad Khatami. What should Pakistan make of this?

Waiting for externally imposed solutions: Indian opinion-writer Raja Mohan ( Daily Times 21 January 2003) stated: ‘Both New Delhi and Tehran were rattled by the policies of the Taliban, which rose to prominence in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. Preventing the territorial consolidation of the Taliban became a shared objective between India and Iran. Besides becoming a key factor in India’s energy security calculus, Iran has emerged as India’s potential gateway to Afghanistan, Central Asia and Europe. New Delhi and Teheran are working together to develop transport corridors from India to these destinations through Iranian territory. A missing link in bilateral relations has been defence cooperation. The two sides are now moving to fill that gap. This week the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Madhvendra Singh is in Iran as part of high-level defence exchanges. Ship visits and other military cooperation is expected to follow.’ India doesn’t have to persuade Iran to agree with its policy on Kashmir. While President Khatami offers mediation on Kashmir, the Indians say Khatami’s pipeline dream would be endorsed by New Delhi only if he is willing to get Pakistan to cease its cross-border ‘terrorism’. Even if the news about an Indo-Iranian strategic alliance is unconfirmed, the extent of Indo-Iranian economic and military cooperation points in a direction that will only increase Pakistan’s isolation in the region. Ahmed Rashid writing recently in The Nation about the growing Afghan reliance on Iran for its trade with the world quotes a Western diplomat in Islamabad: ‘Pakistan is losing out because its myopic policies place countering India above trade and stability in Afghanistan’.

The world will soon converge on the central malady of Pakistani strategists and will have to focus on Islamabad’s obsession with India. Many in Pakistan will rejoice when that happens, thinking that such a focus will highlight the Kashmir dispute. The truth of the matter is that, given Pakistan’s extremely weak and dangerous internal condition, such a focus will be similar to the focus that came on Pakistan’s Taliban policy after 9/11. Pakistan lacks the capacity to produce solutions to its problems internally. Just two years ago Islamabad kept offering its Taliban strategy as a policy without alternatives even after admitting that it was hurting Pakistan’s external image and internal security. It was finally overturned, with great loss to Pakistani citizens who were allowed to become pawns in it, simply because of an incapacity to intellectually tackle the problem of total international isolation. As seen in the above developments, Islamabad is becoming globally isolated on the question of relations with India. While no one agrees with it, Pakistan is unable to show even the minimum amount of flexibility of approach to prevent an ‘external solution’ from being imposed on it. There is no doubt that Pakistan will be ‘next’ unless Pakistan changes its spots and starts thinking ‘laterally’ for once to save itself from disaster.``

Sridhar

re:#274 by stuka
I am not denying the Indian American Astronaut her ethnicity. It is for her (or her parents, now that she is no more) to say it. Ylh has no say in this matter. He failed to mention why this Astranaut`s family had to leave their ethnic roots and migrate to India, where her father, by sheer hard work, became a prosperous businessman.
Let us create an atmosphere where such ethnic groups, who are dislodged, can come back. There are many prosperous Sindhi hindus in India and abroad, who would like to visit their native place and may be even invest. Will Pak govt allow them to do so? This talk about ethnic roots make no sense if it is merely a talk.
To answer your question, my great gradma was not a Sindhi. We are South Indians. There were pockets of South Indians scattered over the subcontinent in those days. They were in small numbers but they were there.
Sridhar

RSridhar:

``The Indian American Woman Astronaut was an ethnic Gujrati Punjabi and her grandparents moved from Pakistan in 1947.``

YLH does not say that Kalpana Chawla is Pakistani. He simply (and correctly) states that she was, in an ethnic sense, from Gujrat which is in West Punjab. Her family moved from Pakistan to India. The same goes for my family.

You say your grandmother shuttled from Karachi to Delhi. But was she an ethnic Sindhi?

For those doubting that Godhra happened or that Godhra was perpetrated by Hindutva-wadis looking for an excuse to kill Muslims, here is today`s news:

[Main Godhra conspirator arrested
Press Trust of India
Godhara, February 6

In a significant development, Railway Police today arrested Mulama Hussain Umarji, allegedly the main conspirator behind last year`s Godhra carnage.

Umarji, a religious priest holding top-most position in the city, was arrested at Signal Falia in the wee hours for allegedly being involved in the burning of the S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express on February 27 last year in which 59 Kar Sevaks were killed, Railway Police sources said.

The police action followed after one of the Godhra accused Zabir Behra, arrested earlier, on Wednesday made a confessional statement before the city chief judicial magistrate naming the religious head as the main conspirator for the carnage, the sources said.

According to Behra`s confession, Umarji provoked about 12 Muslim youths, including Behra, and while providing information that Kar Sevaks were returning in Sabarmati Express, planned to attack them, the sources added.

Umarji will be produced in the Godhra court on Thursday for police remand, Railway Police officials, who are investigating the carnage, said.

Meanwhile, District Superintendent of Police, Panchmahals N Komar told PTI over phone that there was no tension in the Muslim dominated areas of Signal Falia after Umarji`s arrest.

Behra, during his confession stated that Umarji had also promised to pay a sum of Rs 1,500 to each of the 12 youths for perpetrating the crime.

The special investigating team of Railway Police, probing the crime, has already arrested in this connection more than 75 persons, including Razak Kurkur, owner of the guest house in front of the Godhra railway station, where these youths had put up before the February 27 carnage.]

Isn`t a maulana supposed to be a religious man teaching his flock to keep to Allah`s commandments? Why was he telling people to kill Hindu pilgrims?

re:#235 by YLH2
``
The Indian American Woman Astronaut was an ethnic Gujrati Punjabi and her grandparents moved from Pakistan in 1947``
Ylh,
Actually, i am a Pakistani. I suddenly realised that. My great grandma used to live in Karachi (in the 20s) and often shuttled between Karachi and Delhi. She moved to India for ever after 1947.
Keep weaving the web, young man. Only, do not get entangled in it. You have to complete your Law and look forward to a great political future in Pakistan.
Sridhar

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Ref 12-Head #256

[Harami OU

Did you read the crap hindutva propogate.]

No, I don`t. It may come as a surprise to you but I actually prefer to read real history as opposed to doctored versions put out by either the BJP and its minions or by Jawaharlal Nehru University professors. If then my conclusions sound like some Hindutva propaganda to you, then perhaps there is a lot of truth on their side. Have you thought of that?

[You complainabout jehadists YOU NEVER COMPLAIN about the crap from SAMUKTHA ,unsolicited .I could change my E.Mail but i know she can hack it again besides it will apset my whole file of stored favourite places .]

Whoever SAMUKTHA is, he/she doesn`t sendme unsolicited e-mail. So, put some sort of spam guard in your in-box.

Ref PM #258

[``The reason Pakistan does not have pogroms against Hindus is the same reason India does not have pogroms against the Parsis. They are too insignificant too count.``

Ok. You have a point here. The Shias are probably the closest thing to a threat-posing `minority` to orthodox Sunni extremists, and really, it doesn`t take much of a stretch to imagine organized violence upon them, especailly if, say, the bogeyman of a trainload of Sunni ambushed by Shias were thrown in. I knoiw only to well how potent the mob mentality can be, though I cannot see with any certainty, the government of the two more urban provinced acquiesing in any such massacres.]

Right after the Gujarat riots, I pointed out that Modi was doing what he was doing -- let the riots continue -- for political compulsions, damn the legalities. I was excoriated as the Hindutva goon on Chowk for that. Now that Modi got elected, you are all wondering if all of India is going to go the Modi way.

Politicians will do anything to stay in power. The police in Punjab didn`t cover themselves with glory in 1947 during the partition riots. It is hard to believe that the police have improved -- on either side of the border -- after the British left.

PM,
All legal reasons aside, you were right about India not being able to afford any concession on Kashmir. Pakistan had lived with Indian `occupation` of Kashmir until 1987-88. So Pakistan and its military can survive without Kashmir.

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PM #265,
PM, ``back from where it came``, how do you know where it came from?
Is it not possible that it is your own?

My question with regard to ``India not honoring UN resolutions: statement made by you.
My first request was for you to quote from resolution. My argument is that as per UN resolutions first step is to be taken by Pakistan. In case you accept this position than we have nothing more to argue about this point, except discussing modalities of how Pakistan will meet requirements of Part 1 ..)

(of course I will also ask you for details on other topics .. of your interest)

re. #252 AlephNull:
You quote me:
{.... I have never understood what makes SOME people so terrified of the idea of multi-nation theory and political autonomy. Could it be the awareness of innate insecurity in their nationalistic premise? ... I suppose it just isn`t as fashionable to define nationhood in terms of basic beliefs and lifestyles as to demarcate boundaries by language!)}

and then respond:

``This led me to believe that your particular preferences were backed by *theoretical arguments*. I understand and deeply respect the power of abstract arguments. That is why I asked many obvious questions in an attempt to understand your rationale.}

Nothwithstanding a shared respect in the power of abstract argument, sometimes, Aleph, `wonder` means wonder, nothing more! I am not sure to what rationale it is you refer.

``... [The questions] were *directly addressed* to your comments, and to YLH`s. I intentionally kept them abstract for the most part to avoid another futile wrangle about sub-continental politics, Partition, etc. - but you must realise their fundamental relevance.``

Darn, was hoping I could get away feinging ignorance on that one! :)