A Work In Progress

Ref AzadMunna #87

[Altrhough illiteracy is a curse but there Literacy has nothing to do with the calamity & you unfairly trying to dump a problem which just happens to be affecting Muslims & you being HINDU have no interest in it except howl at muslims ``hey ..its yours Take care of it `` ]

You said this in reference to bbabu`s post #86 where he quoted a NYT story on polio in India.

If you read the story, you would have to acknowledge that the government is NOT saying to Muslims, ``hey ..its yours Take care of it ``.

In fact, the government is using Muslim organizations and women to try to reach the Muslim population in the efforts to eradicate polio.

Perhaps your maulvis can tell their congregations that Oral Polio vaccine is a good thing. That would be a far better service than the usual ``Islam is in danger in Hindustan`` crap.

Ref ali87 #81

[I understand this logic....
but you dont understand the whole scenario...
The present day states are organised on basis of language..
The Idea that they share a similar culture and language and thus need to have a unit to self govern.
However nearly 70% of muslims ie nearly 90 millon (a sizeable number of people in sheer numbers) in present day India speak Urdu and they have no say in their unique Identity. They are expected to submerge their Identity into the Indian (read Hindu) Identity.]

Some two years back, the longest-published Portuguese daily in Asia (out of Goa) ceased publication. You didn`t find Goan Christians named Costanza or Rodriguez making a big fuss over it. On the other hand, the folks in Tuticorin named Mascarenhas and Machado have been doing without a steady diet of the Portuguese language for close to 250 years and seem none the worse for it.

The reason there is no separate Urdu-speaking state in India is, even in UP with its 170+ million population, you can`t get together enough people wanting to speak Urdu or run their administration in Urdu. If Hindus in UP and Bihar and Punjab spoke Urdu, that is because they needed to converse with Urdu-speaking people, meaning the nawabs and their minions who controlled the state apparatus for 750 years. But now that that is no longer the case (and remember, the British imposed English only in 1858, being content to govern in Persian between 1757 and 1858), maybe it is time for the Urdu spakers to learn the language of the local masses.

By the way, the railway stations in UP have station names in English, Devanagari and Urdu scripts, so it is not like Urdu-literate people have impediments placed in their way.

[Thus Muslims in Karnataka have to bear the humiliation of being asked to love Kannada first then Urdu.]

How about the Coorgis? They got to learn Kannada first and Tulu next. How about the Konkanis? They have to learn Kannada first and Konkani next. And these are Hindus! So it is not like the injustice is only meted out to Muslims. Get out of the victim mentality.

[In Hyderabad and many other muslim Majority distircts of Andhra pradesh simlarly Telgu is promoted and any suggestion of Urdu having any function is just wished away. There is a Urdu Academy which has govt administrators who cant even Understand sopken Urdu much less writtnen Urdu.]

If India is to be divided exactly along linguistic boundaries, we will have about 250 states in the country. Some 20 lanuages have been recognized as official languages and some 27 states exist, with Hindi being the language of administration in Haryana, UP, Uttaranchal, Bihar, MP, Chhattisgarh and Jharkand. You could argue that Chhattisgarh and Jharkand must be broken into some couple of dozen states each if the tribal/ethnic/linguistic identities are to be the sole criterion for creating a state. Even in Tamil Nadu, you would then have to give a separate state for the Todas of Nilgiris.

[In all of these places muslim majority electoral districts are broken up unnaturaly to include rurual areas where hindus are in majority. This is visible in three MLA electoral districts in Bangalore and nearly 4 MLA districts in Hyderabad.]

That didn`t prevent Mr. Jaffer Sharif from getting elected in Karnataka or being appointed the central minister for railways in the Congress government. Such gerrymandering did not prevent Abdul Rahman Antulay from becoming the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

[It seems that any kind of pressure group is legitmate in India, Hindu caste based, language based, Geographic topographic based but Im frequently told that religious(read Muslim/ Urdu) based identity or grouping or even any hint of catering to the needs of muslims (called appeasement, you can count the number of so called moderate commentators who say that giving in to The Shah Bano case and other unspecified special favours had given the hindu right the legitimate Appeasement stick) is just dividing the nation.]

You should move to Tamil Nadu. The local school system offers the Oriental Studies Stream with Urdu as the major language.... this in a state where there was NEVER any history of usage of Urdu amongst the Muslims and where a Muslim poet wrote an epic on the life of Prophet Muhammad in Tamil.

I am sure if you look around, you will find that in every state you actually have the right to study Urdu during your school years and substitute Urdu for the basic language in high school. I know of people who bemoan that they can no longer learn French in high school like their parents did (I am not talking about French India here but about Cochin in Kerala). But at some point in time, some languages are going to drop by the wayside. Portuguese is probably on its way out in India.

[Im not inclined to belive that it would have been such a simplicist solution as you say if pakistan had not been created. I have serious doubts if the needs of muslims would have been taken care as easily or surely as you think to be the case.]

Do you think Hindus would have moved en masse into Sindh or Balochistan? The only thing would be Bengal and Punjab would not have been partitioned and Punjabi would be taught in West Punjab too. By the way, do you read all the laments from Punjabi Pakistanis about the loss of their language and culture on Chowk? What do you have to say about that?

[A case point in this argument is the roit in Bangalore a few years back on annoucement of start of Urdu bulletin by doordarshan. Now muslims in Bangalroe are generally thought to be well integrated with the locals there most being from farming or trading back grounds. For the first time in the history of Bangalore there was a communal rioit in which hindu groups burnt muslim business establisments and busses belonging to muslims. And what was the provocation? a 2 inch single colloum announcment that there will be a Urdu bulletin on Local Doordarsan. This is the extent of adjustment shown by the hindu establishment and the govt just gave a order 3 days later that the news bulletin was cancelled.]

What do you think the reaction would have been if the announcement said that there will be a news program in Tamil? Give me your honest answer. How many times have the locals demonstrated against Tamil movies being shown in Bangalore?

[Urdu was not even a state level recognised language in UP where there are a large number of muslims till mid seventies. Kashmiri language had to wait for 25 years to be recognised as a national language. And all this happend in the times of the great secular visionairy leaders.]

There are times when political decisions are taken that fly in the face of reality. When the central government said in 1965 that Hindi will be the sole language of administration in the future because English is a ``foreign`` language, they had to be reminded that Nagaland`s official language was English! And why was that? Because each tribe in Nagaland spoke a different language and they all agreed on English as the common language. So don`t ask me to justify the stupidity of politicians, and that too from the Cow Belt.

[Disadvantages of partition are hard to gauge in restospect each line of thinking gives rise to many unknowns each with far reaching consequenses. Looking at the condition of pakistan or even Bangaladesh makes it hard to justify the two nation theory but there were many more factors in play that have to be considered.]

At least, we could all concentrate our defense against EXTERNAL enemies instead of against each other. That would be one benefit of a united India.

[However that is water over the bridge.]

True.

[We can justifiably be say we are in relatively good positon vis a vi pakistan. All said and done we are not to much better than them either. It is also true that pakistani socitey has made some very bad choices but put yourselves in their positon and see given the pressures and influences and circumstances would you have come out any better?]

At every point in time, they could have used American aid to further the cause of education in Pakistan. They could have shown that Muslims are capable of getting over their victim mentality; that they can become a beacon to other Islamic countries. Instead, they are looking to Turkey or Indonesia to be their role models.

[Single nation or two or three nations this is a choice even in retrospect is very difficult to make or visualise. Im glad that im not required to make that choice.]

If Jinnah had not insisted on a Muslim veto over the actions of a Federal government, in a United India Muslims would still be in power in Sindh, Balochistan, NWFP, Punjab, Kashmir and Bengal. As it was, with the exception of Kashmir which was a Princely state, all other provinces did elect Muslim Chief Ministers and cabinet members. So where was the justification for Jinnah`s cry of ``Islam is in danger``? If indeed Islam was in danger, then there is no doubt that Jinnah wanted an ISLAMIC state and not a secular state. But this is a difficult issue for Pakistanis to confront because they will have to conclude that their country was born because of the stubbornness of one man and not for any rational reason. They at least admit that it has been governed for more time in its history by somebody who proclaimed himself to be The Lone Saviour of Pakistan.

[However there is sitll the question of kashmir........
Prehaps it is not the kashmiri people who are the problem or pakistan which is the problem. We need to ask ourselves why do politicans say that givning in to the demand of kashmiri (ie of autonomy or independece) will lead to similar demands elsewhere. If there are similar demands what is the fault of kashmiris? are they to be held ransom to the disunity of rest of India? In any case why should people in other parts of India not have more say in how they are governed?]

It is unfortunate that Kashmiris think they can actually become independent. They tried it between Aug and Oct 1947. In 9 weeks, they realized the intentions of Pakistan.

India is NOT going to give the high ground in Kashmir to Pakistan or to China. It is going to hold on to the territory and the Kashmiris can decide what they want to do about it.

[Now when you understand this remark in proper prespective you will know that it means that if you take up another religion and then ask for to selfregulate your self then you can go but leave the land.. ]

Self-government within India with even greater autonomy than they enjoy now may be possible. But they cannot ask to leave the Indian Union either to become independent or to join Pakistan. Nobody in India is going to cede land. That is why you see the statement ``Move to Pakistan if you want``.

[I think the solution most people in have in mind is negotiate with kashmiris on the autonomy that was promised and to honour that agreement while taking care of indias defense requirements in some agreeable way.]

If you really dispassionately analyze the situation, the only things that are now common among the states in the Indian Union are: defense, communications, currency, customs, industrial policy, and to some extent, education. Tamil Nadu is unable to enforce even legally-binding contracts on Kaveri water against Karnataka. Jayalalitha runs her state as she pleases and so does Chandrababu Naidu. They are now even b~tching about the fact that they get a lesser share of the federal revenues than they send in because more money is being allocated to backward states. If the Congress Party was interfering in Kashmiri elections. they did the same to Telugu Desam Party in Andhra too. After a while, they got thrown out of Andhra completely. The same thing would have happened in Kashmir too. But Kashmiris should be able to vote without fear of reprisals from the so-called mujahideens. If that happens, Kashmir will settle down like Tamil Nadu or Andhra did. It is unfortunate that Kashmir is right smack against Pakistan so that Pakistan is able to play games there.

[A added challenge could be to ask pakistan to match that in their part of kashmir. Im sure nothing of that sort will happen. It will starkly remind pakistan of the condition of their socitey. It will remove the cover of kashmir from the hate agenda in Pakistan and compell them to come to terms with the actual problem of hate and misinformation conducted for 50 years on India. ]

Truer words have never been spoken.

Ref yusafkhan #79

[yeah...sell this to the muslims of Gujrat. ]

If ypu notice, one idea was sold very clearly to the Muslims of Gujarat and the rest of India: don`t mess with Hindus again.

You didn`t see a repeat of Godhra anywhere, did you?

Sometimes you Butt-Fakhrs have to realize that you are no longer living under some Mogul emperor.

The payback will not be an eye for an eye; it is going to be 20 dead Muslims for every dead Hindu. Live with that thought or die by it.

AzadMunna

I have gotten my facts straight. I am interacted with speakers of Punjabi, Persian and Urdu. I learnt a good amount of ``Hindi`` in school.

There is no significant difference between Urdu and Hindi for a non-native speaker of those langauges or even a colloqual speaker of those languages.

http://www.geocities.com/sikmirza/arabic/hindustani.html

The only thing that stands out is the Arabic script.

I never said Hindus did not know or use Urdu. There is no enthusiasm among Hindus for any kind of recognition to Urdu.

Whether you like it or not India has choosen Hindi with Devanagiri script to be official language. This was done in 1948 not by the BJP crowd. Pakistan has choosen Urdu as national language even though 90% of Pakistanis have some other language as mother tongue. Keep in mind the arrogance of Urdu elite in Pakistan was a big factor in the events of 1971.

With indo-pakistani hostility you can kiss goodbye to the survival of the written urdu in India. I can tell you if you want non-Urdu people to learn Urdu in India you will have to kiss goodbye to the Arabic script.

On MNCs there are one way of getting investment. The other vehicles are foreign mutual funds, Indian companies and Indian entrepruners. Of course the Indian state is still responsible for some infrastructure. Even MNCs invest in a country for 2 reasons - one to sell goods and services, two to procurr goods and services.

ali87:

Try educating people instead of irredentist garbage on the status of Urdu.


---------
Distrust Reopens the Door for Polio in India
By AMY WALDMAN

RAMPUR, India � The little girl sat somberly, eyes large and sad, mouth an unmoving bow, legs as lifeless as a marionette`s. Her face contorted in pain and frustration. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

She clutched at her mother, who berated herself for her child`s agony. In trying to do what she thought was right for her daughter, Tehazib Jahan had done something irrevocably wrong.

Last year, Mrs. Jahan had heard the story circulating through her Muslim neighborhood that the polio vaccine would make her child sterile. She believed it. So even though her daughter, Uzma, still needed two doses of the vaccine, Mrs. Jahan would not take her to the immunization booth. When the vaccinators came to her house, she demurred.

Three months ago, Uzma came down with a fever. Then the paralysis, polio`s calling card, set in. Today the once playful 4-year-old cannot stand without help.

``We are illiterate, not very intelligent,`` Mrs. Jahan said. ``We were influenced.``

Borne along by rumor and fear as much as any biological route of transmission, the polio virus � almost vanquished worldwide thanks to a cheap and widely available vaccine � has made a defiant comeback in India.

In 2001, after years of aggressive mass immunizations, there were 239 new cases in the country � down from about 200,000 in the early 1980`s. Officials were confident that India could eliminate the disease, as so many countries have, by the end of 2002.

Instead, India had 1,509 newly diagnosed cases last year � the vast majority, 1,197, in Uttar Pradesh, the country`s most populous state, and one of its poorest. Uttar Pradesh accounted for 68 percent of the polio cases worldwide.

The reason, according to government officials and community leaders, seems to be largely a rumor that the oral vaccine, given as drops, was part of a government population control scheme. No one knows how it started, but its effects are now clear.

On a recent day, another mother, Shamina, 30, initially refused doses for her three children, ages 1, 3 and 5, when the vaccinators came to her door. Her husband had told her to do so, she said.

``We have heard some things about these medicines,`` she said as chickens pecked at her feet. ``That when these children become adults � they will be useless.``

The resurgence of polio here has alarmed international health experts, who had aimed for the global eradication of polio by last year. Last year, polio was found in seven countries and increased only in two: Nigeria and India.

``There`s a real risk of people thinking if we fail we`re going to have 1,000 cases a year,`` said Dr. Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the World Health Organization`s global polio eradication initiative. ``We`re not. We`re going to have hundreds of thousands of cases of kids being paralyzed by a disease that was an inch away from disappearing forever.``

Dr. Sobhan Sarkar, the Indian government`s deputy commissioner of child health and coordinator of the national antipolio campaign, said what worried him was the spread of polio to areas where it was not previously found. The virus is spilling from Uttar Pradesh into other states.

The polio outbreak has also exposed a religious, or communal, health divide. Only 17 percent of Uttar Pradesh`s population is Muslim, but 59 percent of its polio cases last year were among Muslims, like Uzma. Although the rumor was repeated in Hindu communities too, health officials say it gained greatest currency among Muslims, who in Uttar Pradesh tend to be landless laborers with lower literacy rates and a greater mistrust of the Hindu-dominated government.

Many Indians have feared forced sterilization since it was carried out during the authoritarian period of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi`s state of emergency in 1975. Since then, government health initiatives have often been viewed warily.

That has been especially true among Muslims, not least because most government health workers are Hindu.

Some health officials said they had known for years that they were having a harder time reaching Muslim households. But Naseem Ahmad, vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, said the divide between Muslims and Hindus widened when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in the state five years ago. It is now part of a coalition government.

``Because of the political setup at the moment, with the B.J.P. in power,`` he said, ``the impression from the illiterate and semiliterate is that anything from the present government would be to their detriment.``

This is not the first fear to foil a health campaign in India. Last year, rumors that vitamin A � dispensed to reduced the incidence of diarrhea and measles and to help prevent blindness � had caused the death of dozens of children halted a public health drive in the state of Assam.

Mrs. Jahan, who is 26, is totally unschooled. She was married at 16 or 17. Her husband rolls cigarettes for a living, and the family earns about 2,400 rupees, or $50, a month. She lives under the purdah system and so she rarely leaves the house. When she does, it is in a burka, the head-to-toe, face-covering veil. She said she did not know how the rumor got started. ``We are women, confined to the household,`` she said. ``We work and we eat.``

Uzma is unusual, in that most of the polio cases here have been diagnosed among children under 2. But almost all of them have come in places where significant percentages of children � 6 percent or more � did not complete the full course of the vaccine, which involves at least four doses.

Health officials say they hope that in the wake of the current epidemic the number of new cases will taper off this year, at least in Uttar Pradesh, with many children who are not immunized by the government developing natural immunity through mild exposure.

Dr. Aylward agreed that that could happen, but warned against a false sense of security. ``It`s going to plummet, and buy you a bit of time,`` he said, ``then it`s going to come roaring back.`` Mass immunization, he said, remains necessary, and that effort is under way.

The government and the World Health Organization, in partnership with Unicef and Rotary International, which has given more than $500 million to fight polio, started a drive this month to immunize 150 million Indian children, many of them in Uttar Pradesh.

Where possible, the government has tried to add health workers of the same religion and social caste as the people where the vaccinations are scheduled. But officials say they have struggled to find enough Muslim women with some education and without purdah strictures to join them. Nongovernment organizations have helped fill the gaps.

With 166 million people, Uttar Pradesh is more populous than all but five of the world`s countries. It has long been troubled by poor governance. Federal health officials say the repeated transfers of state bureaucrats have made it difficult to mount sustained campaigns.

Health workers and those with aid organizations said that in a state where so little seemed to work, the very efficiency of the eradication drive added to people`s suspicions.

``People say, `We do not have food, we do not have jobs, we do not have electricity. Why are you only after these drops? Why again and again these drops?` `` said Nikhat Parvin, a Muslim volunteer with the nonprofit Adventist Development and Relief Agency. On this morning, she accompanied a vaccination team through the lanes of Ger Hassanha, a Muslim neighborhood in this bedraggled city of 300,000 people.

Rampur district had 36 polio cases last year. Of those, 29 were among Muslims, although the district`s two million residents are about equally split between Hindus and Muslims. All the cases, the district`s chief medical officer, Dr. Vijay Singh said, were among the poor, those with inadequate food, unclean water and poor sanitation. In many localities, he said, human waste was simply dumped in the open, making fecal-oral transmission of the virus ``very, very easy.``

The team went house to house, checking to see whether the drops had been administered, giving them if they had not, and then chalking the status upon wooden doors.

By 11 a.m., two mothers, both Muslims, had refused. One of them was Shamina, who said she was illiterate. But she allowed the three women with the team into her courtyard to make their pitch.

``Your children are not only your children, they are like my children,`` said Byant Kaur, 55, a state health worker since 1969, and a Hindu. ``Why would I hurt my children?``

Hamida Khan, a Unicef community mobilizer who is Muslim, joined in. ``If the population decreases, who will the government rule?`` she asked, as Ms. Parvin nodded.

Ms. Kaur continued, ``If anything happens, you can get hold of my neck.``

The mother relented, and Ms. Kaur quickly dropped in the oral vaccine.

But across the narrow lane, her neighbor, who the team knew had a 3-year-old, refused even to open the door.

Instead, she shouted through it. ``You are dishonest! I don`t have time! I have so many other things to do!``

Then she added: ``My children are already grown!``

Dr. Singh said many parents, knowing they might face pressure from the government � or even the police � if they refused the drops, were now simply lying about whether they had children younger than 5.

From behind the door came the last word: ``I will not give the medicine to my child!``

To counter the creeping rumors, the government has begun a pro-immunization media campaign featuring India`s most popular actor, Amitabh Bachchan.

But as Mrs. Jahan herself observed, there may be no more effective advertisement than her little Uzma. Now that people can see from her daughter`s crippled limbs that polio is real, ``they do not believe the rumor,`` Mrs. Jahan said, almost proudly. ``They see the logic in getting the drops.``

ali # 81

I would contest the claim ``70% of Muslims speak Urdu``

Muslims in Tamilnadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam Kashmir, Gujurat generally don`t speak Urdu. To people who don`t know Hindi or Urdu, Urdu = Hindi in Arabic alphabets minus a few Sanskrit words.

Languages that don`t have a state are in trouble in the long run. Urdu speakers are not in a majority in any state in India. They are in no position to ask for one.

If people who are fond of Urdu can walk across the border to Pakistan where they impose Urdu over the native langauges.

shah # 80

Articles like this meant squat. MNCs are only one vehicle of investment.

re: problem of learning urdu in India
This problem is really there for people (especially muslims) who want to learn the language. But GOI is not all to blame. There is tremendous apathy among the Indian muslims in teaching their children urdu even when they continue to bemoan that they are not getting enough govt support.
Go to the following url for a detailed info on the status of urdu in India. This is written by a British teaching in London and is more balanced than many other articles written by muslims.
Url: http://www.ercwilcom.net/indowindow/sad/article.php?child=14&article=5
Excerpts:
1. ``What could individual Urdu speakers or small voluntary organisations formed by them have acted to combat the dangers that Urdu was facing? One thing that they could have done was ensured that their own children learnt to read and write Urdu. If the schools were not providing for their education, the parents themselves could have provided it, and by and large they did not. Even in Urdu-speaking families people who were generally devoted to Urdu and whose children were also interested in Urdu, had not taught their children to read and write it. Urdu for them was simply the language of the home. Many of them enjoyed Urdu poetry; they would go to mushairas and most of them could understand what was being said. I remember seeing a young relative of the late Habibur Rahman writing down in Devanagari script Urdu verses which appealed to her. On another occasion I met Ismat Chughtai. She told me that her daughter could not read and write Urdu. So one asks the question, why not? Why didn’t the parents make sure that their children could read and write Urdu? It seems to me that whatever the difficulties, it was, and is, primarily the responsibility of people who love Urdu and Urdu literature to arrange for the teaching of Urdu and Urdu literature themselves. They could and they should do that; and if I am not mistaken, they are not doing it.``
(My comments: the Tamil associations in Delhi depends on some govt aid but the school itself is run and funded by an association for Tamilians. Why should Urdu be any different?)


``....In many immigrant communities in countries like Britain people want their children to acquire a much better knowledge of what some people call their heritage language than is provided for in any official provision in the schools and the educational system. They act accordingly. That is, they themselves set up classes, hire rooms or meet in suitably sized rooms in their own houses and impart some instruction to their children. And there is absolutely no reason why Urdu speakers in India shouldn’t do the same...``.


2. ``...As I wrote in an article in the Indian Review of Books (September 15-November 15, 1995), one of the most disappointing features of the picture is the idleness and ineffectiveness displayed by those who have seen themselves as the trustees and leaders of the Urdu-speaking community. Substantial resources were from very early days made available by the central government to organisations established to support and promote the interests of Urdu. But the record of these organisations is a far from impressive one. In 1949-50 I spoke personally to some of those who sat on the governing body of the Anjuman i Taraqqi i Urdu and urged them to draw up a coherent plan of activity and proceed to implement it....``.

3. ``The protagonists of Urdu seem to me all too often to call upon somebody else to do something instead of doing it themselves, and that there is a historical background to this attitude, formed in the centuries when Muslims constituted the ruling elite of India. Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, who is himself a member of the UP Urdu-speaking elite strikes a rare – and welcome – note when he says in his interview (in English) with Ather Farouqui published in the Lahore paper The Nation on July 8, 1994: ``The Muslims of Uttar Pradesh...have a sense of superiority, which I consider quite stupid really...The UP sharifzada will never do for himself anything that he can command, persuade or cajole anyone else to do for him.``

4. ``I come now to what I think the protagonists of Urdu should do. I do not object to them saying that other people, like the government of India, state governments and so on, ought to be doing this, that or the other, and should be pressed to do so. I do not object to them saying that we should try and get teachers in religious institutions to take up Urdu. I do not object to these things, but they should pay far more attention to what they themselves should do, regardless of what other people are or are not doing. There are some important activities in which all protagonists of Urdu need to engage themselves and all others whose support they can obtain. One such is the production of Urdu materials in the Devanagari script. It would be extremely helpful to people who know Urdu but who cannot read the Urdu script and to the cause of Urdu generally if Urdu teaching materials and works of Urdu literature were published in the Devanagari script.``
``All organisations – government-sponsored and voluntary – ought to consider the implications for them of the fact that many Urdu speakers know Urdu but do not know the Urdu script. They are anxious to read Urdu, but they can only read it if Urdu literature is presented in the Devanagari script. ``
(My comment: This is a great idea. I am interested in reading urdu literature but i do not know the script. It will be immensely helpful if the same were made available in Devanagari script).

You may go to the url for a detailed discussion on the subject. People like Ali87 (how many Alis are there in Chowk anyway?) seem to say that, because urdu is not getting its due in India, muslims in India are being discriminated. The problems is more complex. Urdu is losing its popularity because urdu lovers and people who know the language well (almost all are muslims) are doing little to spread the knowledge around.
Infact, i may safely say that hindi films have done a lot more in keeping popularity of urdu (and many urdu words alive). Without these films, i would never have learnt of words like: Ishq, Mohabbat, dastaan, riyaz, etc etc. Kudos to hindi films.
Sridhar

#81 by ali87

``However nearly 70% of muslims ie nearly 90 millon (a sizeable number of people in sheer numbers) in present day India speak Urdu and they have no say in their unique Identity. They are expected to submerge their Identity into the Indian (read Hindu)``
You, i believe, are an Indian muslim. If so, you should know that everybody in India is a minority. As a Tamilian growing up in Delhi, i was expected to submerge my Tamil identity towards the larger North Indian culture around me. Did i like it? No, i did not, though i had no choice. The best my parents could do was to put me in a Tamil medium school where i learnt both Tamil and Hindi and was thus able to merge my identity with the larger North Indian identity somehow and still manage to preserve my language and culture.
Muslims in India have the same choice. A muslim in Karnataka can send his child to a school where he/she learns Hindi, Kannada. He can make efforts to educate the child in Urdu if he wants to by sending the child to a school where they teach urdu or in his private capacity. It is tough, like it is tough for a Tamilian growing up in the North. Urdu is not a muslim language (just like sanskrit is not a brahminical language but used extensively by buddhists, jains of the time). Anyone saying so is a fool. It is just a language used by muslims for historical reasons. Did you know that there was a time (before partition) when Hindi was taught an learnt only by hindu pandits along side sanskrit? Hindi gained importance again for historical reasons when Urdu was being projected by Muslim League as the language of muslims in Pakistan. There is no reason why muslims in India should stick to urdu at all but at least do not expect the GOI to give any kind of assistance in the matter. There is no reason to. But, muslims in India have constitutional rights to preserve their language and if they feel urdu is their language, they can do all they can to preserve it in their private capacity. Having said this, i will also say that GOI has done its bit in the preservation of Urdu in India. See my next post for details.
But where is all this debate. All we hear is if Babri Masjid needs to be reclaimed or not. There is little debate among Indian muslims as to what direction their education should take and how they need to modernise their education to fall in line with the mainstream. If they teach their children only urdu, these children are not going to fit into the mainstream Indian society (which is Hindu whether you like it or not) and will be marginalised. But, even teaching their children Urdu is not something that is done with any amount of seriousness. It is said that even Ismat Chugtais daughter did not know how to read or write the urdu script. Can you expect other muslims in India to do any better?
You are also talking about Kashmir and saying you wanted states to have autonomy without realising it already exists. You were in Kashmir in 1989 when militancy was taking root, so i am not surprised the people were disenchanted. I was there in 1978 and there were no such feelings. MY uncle, who worked for Doordarshan, was posted in Srinagar from 1972-76 and did not face any problems. There has always been a strong undercurrent of Kashmiriyat but that had, until 1989, never spilled into militancy. Latter has many reasons, but mainly the inablity of the Kashmiris to elect a govt of their choice due to rigged elections under congress rule. The situation has changed now. For the first time, there is a popular govt in Srinagar. Hurriyat is being told by visitors (mostly EU leaders) to talk to the govt and come to an understanding. I hear that the CM Mufti Md Sayyed is planning to raise a state level anti-terrorist squad to tackle the problems of militancy. Militants in Kashmir are mostly foreign trained and have a vested interest to prove to the world that democracy in Kashmir is not working. The world has seen thr` their designs. Their days are numbered.
Naga problem is close to solution. Have you heard of a highway being built connecting Myanmar with NE corridor and Thailand? This will boost trade and economic opportunities. NE has its own seperate council which takes economic decisions. It however depends on center for money. Even that may be a thing of past if trade with Myanmar, Thailand picks up.
India is already becoming a federal structure. Recently, Kerala govt had an Economic meet in which Reliance and other big IT companies participated. Each state is showcasing its own potential. Those who are energetic and have the drive, will reap a good harvest. States like Bihar (whose CM says ``ye IT Yt kya cheez hai) will be left behind for obvious reasons.
Sridhar

#78 by harimau on January 17, 2003 0:45am PT

I understand this logic....

but you dont understand the whole scenario...

The present day states are organised on basis of language..

The Idea that they share a similar culture and language and thus need to have a unit to self govern.

However nearly 70% of muslims ie nearly 90 millon (a sizeable number of people in sheer numbers) in present day India speak Urdu and they have no say in their unique Identity. They are expected to submerge their Identity into the Indian (read Hindu) Identity. Thus Muslims in Karnataka have to bear the humiliation of being asked to love Kannada first then Urdu. In Hyderabad and many other muslim Majority distircts of Andhra pradesh simlarly Telgu is promoted and any suggestion of Urdu having any function is just wished away. There is a Urdu Academy which has govt administrators who cant even Understand sopken Urdu much less writtnen Urdu.

In all of these places muslim majority electoral districts are broken up unnaturaly to include rurual areas where hindus are in majority. This is visible in three MLA electoral districts in Bangalore and nearly 4 MLA districts in Hyderabad.

I have discussed this extensively with many hindu friends but even these so called middle class liberals see no role for the religious Identity of muslims and the accompaning social and Cultural Identity.
It seems that any kind of pressure group is legitmate in India, Hindu caste based, language based, Geographic topographic based but Im frequently told that religious(read Muslim/ Urdu) based identity or grouping or even any hint of catering to the needs of muslims (called appeasement, you can count the number of so called moderate commentators who say that giving in to The Shah Bano case and other unspecified special favours had given the hindu right the legitimate Appeasement stick) is just dividing the nation.

Im not inclined to belive that it would have been such a simplicist solution as you say if pakistan had not been created. I have serious doubts if the needs of muslims would have been taken care as easily or surely as you think to be the case.

A case point in this argument is the roit in Bangalore a few years back on annoucement of start of Urdu bulletin by doordarshan. Now muslims in Bangalroe are generally thought to be well integrated with the locals there most being from farming or trading back grounds. For the first time in the history of Bangalore there was a communal rioit in which hindu groups burnt muslim business establisments and busses belonging to muslims. And what was the provocation? a 2 inch single colloum announcment that there will be a Urdu bulletin on Local Doordarsan. This is the extent of adjustment shown by the hindu establishment and the govt just gave a order 3 days later that the news bulletin was cancelled.

Urdu was not even a state level recognised language in UP where there are a large number of muslims till mid seventies. Kashmiri language had to wait for 25 years to be recognised as a national language. And all this happend in the times of the great secular visionairy leaders.

Disadvantages of partition are hard to gauge in restospect each line of thinking gives rise to many unknowns each with far reaching consequenses. Looking at the condition of pakistan or even Bangaladesh makes it hard to justify the two nation theory but there were many more factors in play that have to be considered.

However that is water over the bridge. We can justifiably be say we are in relatively good positon vis a vi pakistan. All said and done we are not to much better than them either. It is also true that pakistani socitey has made some very bad choices but put yourselves in their positon and see given the pressures and influences and circumstances would you have come out any better?

Single nation or two or three nations this is a choice even in retrospect is very difficult to make or visualise. Im glad that im not required to make that choice.

However there is sitll the question of kashmir. I think that no matter what pakistan does or not do India still has to address the question of the choice of kashmiris. If it was a simple question of holding elections then there would have been solved long ago. The question is clearly of the agreements that the Govt of Inidia made to the kashmiri people and visbile alienation of kashmiri people.
I dont know how many people have interacted with kashmiri people. I visited kashmir in 1985 for a couple of weeks before the current militancy started. Every person that I interacted refered to India as another land and referec we people as Indians(meaning to say that they are not). Subsequently I studied in a college in bangalore which had nearly 200-300 hundred kashmiri students and have come to the same conclusion.

Prehaps it is not the kashmiri people who are the problem or pakistan which is the problem. We need to ask ourselves why do politicans say that givning in to the demand of kashmiri (ie of autonomy or independece) will lead to similar demands elsewhere. If there are similar demands what is the fault of kashmiris? are they to be held ransom to the disunity of rest of India? In any case why should people in other parts of India not have more say in how they are governed?

If you dont belive that is the problem and not pakistan or kahsmir just ask this question among hindus (Honestly instead of discussing this endlessly on forums such as these it is better to conduct this exercise) among your friends in a casual atmosphere. You will be surprised at the answers you may get. I conduct this exercise frequently with my hindu unsuspecting hindu friends many time.

The discussions give rise to a wide range of responses and one thing least agreed is that of honouring agreements. Usually the remark of already having given too much land to the muslims comes up. Now when you understand this remark in proper prespective you will know that it means that if you take up another religion and then ask for to selfregulate your self then you can go but leave the land..

This is where all pretensions of democracy as etc are seen in proper prespective. even people who always thought themselves as very liberal just find that their thinking is just as similar to the VHP line or similar to the line of the that Justifies the two nation theory.

In media discussions and public platforms india there is a courious reluctance by all including members of common public, political commentators, defence commentators, politicans, peace activists to spell out their solution. Every one claims to have a solution but simply refuses to spellit out.

I think the solution most people in have in mind is negotiate with kashmiris on the autonomy that was promised and to honour that agreement while taking care of indias defense requirements in some agreeable way.

A added challenge could be to ask pakistan to match that in their part of kashmir. Im sure nothing of that sort will happen. It will starkly remind pakistan of the condition of their socitey. It will remove the cover of kashmir from the hate agenda in Pakistan and compell them to come to terms with the actual problem of hate and misinformation conducted for 50 years on India.

Till you examine the demons in yourself you cant hope to exorcise them out of others.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

harimau...#78...>
>>If you people understand the meaning of one-man-one-vote as >>practiced in democratic elections, you would have seen that the 80%>>+ Muslim population of what is now Pakistan would elect Muslims to >>positions of power and they then would be able to provide patronage >>to Muslims in the economic and education fields

yeah...sell this to the muslims of Gujrat.

Ref ayeshakhan #77

[Another piece of information for you, Jinnah did not ask to partition Bengal or Punjab. The Pakistan he had asked for was much larger than the Pakistan he actually got. In fact, his remarks when the boundaries were drawn were ``I don`t want a moth-eaten Pakistan!``]

You are darn right that Jinnah didn`t want to partition Punjab or Bengal. But this brilliant lawyer didn`t realize that every one of his arguments for partitioning India could be and was indeed used to partition Punjab and Bengal. If Muslims cannot live in a Hindu-majority India, why should Hindus be forced to live in a Muslim-majority Punjab or Bengal province? It just proves that Nehru and Patel were not as dumb as Jinnah thought they were. And if Jinnah didn`t want a moth-eaten Pakistan he could have stayed put in the Indian Union.

[Neither he nor the Muslims feared competing with Hindus economically--all they wanted was a fair chance--something they would have been denied in India. And so, thankfully, Pakistan was created to safeguard Muslim interests, economically and otherwise.]

You guys need some myth to hold on to, so hold on to the myth that the Hindus would have swamped the Muslims in India. The Sangilikkaruppans and Masanamuthus of Tamil Nadu demanded a Dravidastan on the same basis, that they would be swamped by the Aryans of the North but were totally ignored by the British. Today, the Aryan North as represented by the Congress and the BJP cannot get one of their members elected dogcatcher in any village in Tamil Nadu. Sangilikkaruppans and Masanamuthus, despite their diminished intellectual capacity, rule Tamil Nadu. If you people understand the meaning of one-man-one-vote as practiced in democratic elections, you would have seen that the 80%+ Muslim population of what is now Pakistan would elect Muslims to positions of power and they then would be able to provide patronage to Muslims in the economic and education fields. But your concept of one-man-one-vote is that one man, namely Jinnah, would have the one vote that mattered.

That now continues with one man, Pervez Musharraf, now wielding the one vote.

I have not read the previous replies and perhaps someone has already commented on this but the author does not seem to be aware of the rules for partition. Jinnah was not looking out for ``an ideal piece of real estate`` when he created Pakistan, but geographically speaking, those were the Muslim-majority provinces. And yes, he was a liberal man. He belonged to Congress before the Muslim League. He advocated Hindu-Muslim unity and joined the League only when he found such unity un-workable and when he became disillusioned by Hindu attitudes, in particular that of Gandhi, as he liked to mix politics with religion. Something Jinnah never believed in or practiced. Another piece of information for you, Jinnah did not ask to partition Bengal or Punjab. The Pakistan he had asked for was much larger than the Pakistan he actually got. In fact, his remarks when the boundaries were drawn were ``I don`t want a moth-eaten Pakistan!`` Neither he nor the Muslims feared competing with Hindus economically--all they wanted was a fair chance--something they would have been denied in India. And so, thankfully, Pakistan was created to safeguard Muslim interests, economically and otherwise.

#69 by YLH2 on January 12, 2003 6:47am PT

im with you on this...

americanexpress # 73

A lot of western technology companies are creating jobs in India. Of course the real question can they create enough.

The other issue in India is the closure of inefficient factories due to elimination of tarriffs. It is a good thing in the long term because it leads to a more efficient industry.

The basic problem for Pakistan is that nothing is happening due to Islamic fundamentalists. Pakistanis are stuck exporting textiles and living with expatriate remmittances for a few more years.