Nehru’s Legacy: Time to pay tribute HP #499
India was ruled by the British government through a Viceroy and his imperial council who made the final decisions on India`s federal and provincial governments until August 15 1947. Hadn`t you noticed?

Nehru’s Legacy: Time to pay tribute soysauce #488
Very well said.

``Wanting fair play is not discriminating against muslims altho that was Jinnah`s view``

I was recently reading a letter from Jinnah to the Viceroy in mid 1946 complaining that `the Congress had started a sinister propaganda against League-Congress parity`. The thing to understand is that in the Constituent Assembly, which was elected in the same time period from the provincial legislatures, the Congress had a 201:73 or almost a 3:1 majority over the League. Yet Jinnah termed the Congress refusal to accept parity with the League as `sinister` though it was the parity which was sinister and unjust and would have had disastrous consequences in a future India.

To say this was an interim arrangement is wrong as League wanted similar parity in the future Union executive to be enshrined in the Constitution and not only that Jinnah had made it his platform to deny the Congress/Hindu-majority provinces/Hindu majorities, all, right since 1939 saying repeatedly from 1939 onward that democracy was dead because Congress had 3 to his 1.

The British bought his unjust argument lock stock and barrel until Direct Action Day, however, but I will bet no Englishman is ever going to write a book on what would have been the sinister consequences of their support for League-Congress parity. No, they will only write about how Jinnah was ``unjustly`` denied parity by the Congress, passing the whole issue off as parity denied= justice denied (expect the British and Pakistanis to write many articles and books on the sinister consequences of denying Iraqi Shias their majority, however).

Nehru’s Legacy: Time to pay tribute
kaalchakra#259
``By ``central legislature`` you mean representatives from all of India? ``

All of British India, yes.

``Can that demand be interpreted differently? Do we know what rationale was actually provided? ``

It`s a long story. But in short(really!), the context was the Lucknow Pact principle on which the 1919 reforms had been based - that where Muslims were in a minority they would get protection, ie separate electorates as long as they wanted and weightage(more than their population percentage of seats). In Muslim majority provinces Punjab and Bengal if Muslims wanted a majority of seats, they would agree to joint electorates and if they wanted separate electorates, they would not get a majority of the seats. Muslims opted for separate electorates in Punjab and Bengal.

When the next round of reforms were contemplated in the 1920s onwards, various Muslim parties sought to increase the number of seats in Punjab and Bengal to majorities, ie seats proportional to their population percentage there, but without conceding joint electorates and without changing the Muslim weightage(seats in excess of population percentage) in Muslim minority provinces.

The ``centrist`` Muslims which at that time included Jinnah on one had and Congress who were willing to consider other compromise formulae could not prevail over these demands and ultimately Punjabi Muslim factions including the Unionists prevailed in this matter, including over the British.

So on the one hand there were people like Lala Lajpat Rai who `between 26 November and 17 December 1924, ..published thirteen articules in the Tribune, stigmatizing Jinnah as a recruit to the communalist Muslim party and condemning communal electorates, in most provocative terms. He told his readers that communal electorates, once accepted, would not be abolished without civil war; that to accept them was to divide the country into Hindu India and Muslim India; and that as the Punjabi Muslims were unwilling to grant weightage to minorities it would be better to partition the Punjab, and if necessary Bengal, and to establish a federation of autonomous Hindu and Muslim states`. (David Page, Prelude to Partition, and Page refers to this stance of Lala Lajpat Rai as a ``communalist`` stance, btw).

On the other hand, Punjab Muslims began to dissent with all-India Muslims` efforts to compromise with the Hindus.

`Sir Malcolm Haily narrated this change of mood to Sir Arthur Hirtzel, Permanent Secretary at the India office, in a letter[written in Dec. 1927] which shows how far this separatist trand had progressed:

``They see that they can never have quite the same interests as Muslims in the provinces with large Hindu majorities and they seriously think of breaking away from the All India Muslim League and starting a federation of their own.

This will seek to embrace the Punjab, parts of the U.P, the North West Frontier, Baluchistan and Sind; it is part of the programme to secure Sind for the Punjab and to give up to Delhi some of our Hindu districts in the South East of the province. They openly say that this in itself is only a preparation for a larger Federation which shall embrace Afghanistan and perhaps Persia.``


What did the British do with these demands?
The Simon Commission opposed the Muslim demands for majorities with separate electorates in Punjab and Bengal saying:

```` This claim goes to the length of seeking to preserve the full security for representation now provided for Muslims in these six provinces and at the same time to enlarge in Bengal and the Punjab the present proportion of seats secured to the community by separate electorates to figures proportionate to their ratio of population. This would give Muhammadans a fixed and unalterable majority of the general constituency seats in both provinces. We cannot go so far. The continuance of the present scale of weightage in the six provinces could not—in the absence of a new general agreement between the communities—equitably be combined with so great a departure from the existing allocation in Bengal and the Punjab.

`` It would be unfair that Muhammadans should retain the very considerable weightage they enjoy in the six provinces, and that there should at the same time be imposed, in face of Hindu and Sikh opposition, a definite Muslim majority in the Punjab and Bengal unalterable by any appeal to the electorate........ ``


Ambedkar writes:
``Notwithstanding the opposition of the Hindus and the Sikhs and the rejection by the Simon Commission, the British Government when called upon to act as an arbiter granted the Muslims all their demands old and new. ...As to the ..demand which related to a statutory majority in the Punjab and Bengal, the demand was given effect to by the Communal Award[1932]. True, a statutory majority in the whole House has not been given to the Muslims and could not be given having regard to the necessity for providing representation to other interests. But a statutory majority as against Hindus has been given to the Muslims of the Punjab and Bengal without touching the weightages obtained by the Muslim minorities under the Lucknow Pact..``

--
Having obtained a permanent majority wrt Hindus, the Muslim politics of these provinces became based on the principel of preventing these majorities from being eroded 1 ) by a future Hindu majority at the center or 2 ) by joint electorates and reserved constituencies (which Congress offered proportional to population at a time of Muslims` own choosing) and 3 ) they often termed Hindu-Muslim political alliances as inimical. Also 4 ) often Muslim politicians cooperated with the British to stymie constitutional advance at the center.

In 1939 when Jinnah said Muslims must have equal share or 50-50 the British handed him a veto over the future Constitution. By 1945-46, in the reconstitution of Council/central cabinet, the British offered Muslims equality with Hindus and later Muslim League equality with the Congress though the Congress had a 201:73 majority after the Constituent Assembly was constituted.

So the question is, in this behti ganga, what was there to prevent any Muslim politician from becoming a separatist?

Nehru’s Legacy: Time to pay tribute #246
kaalchakra, in 1919 (following the Lucknow Pact) elected Muslims in the central legislature equalled the number of elected Hindus. In the Govt of India Act 1935 (following the communal award 1932), the number of elected Muslims in the central legislature was 80% the number of elected Hindus. Can you contemplate any Muslim leader backing down from this position of pre-eminence?

In the late 1920s, the Muslims demanded that the Punjab Muslim majority wrt Punjab Hindus be made permanent and unalterable by vote, ie, under separate electorates. When the nonMuslims wouldn`t agree, Iqbal and others talked of autonomous Muslim state in the Northwest. Subsequently, in 1932, the British made the Punjab Muslim majority wrt Punjab Hindus permanent and unalterable by vote, ie, under separate electorates, and this was reflected in the Govt of India Act 1935, the great constitutional concession in self-rule of provinces which the British made to Indians (the same Act also stymied Indian self-rule at the center under the pretext that a given fraction of princely states must agree to accede first). Can you contemplate any Muslim leader backing down from this position of pre-eminence?

The question really is, given the above, what was there to prevent any Muslim leader from becoming a separatist? We should not wonder about that, we should wonder at and honor those who did not.

Saddam - The Sacrificial Lion #118
Zarqawi was from Al Qaeda, which can reduce a nation to rubble and assassinate Ahmed Shah Massood and no one cares. The US has decided to fight in the same craven way and posters who were yesterday talking of hanging Karzai from a lamppost are showing outrage at Saddam`s hanging. The hypocrisy of both sides of this `civilisational` divide (as if there is any `civilisation` in mass killings) is sickening.

Saddam - The Sacrificial Lion hamidm2#109
Does it matter? Your personal fixations on chowk posters do not dictate the course of world affairs.

Saddam - The Sacrificial Lion hamidm2
You need to get over your sadna fixation soon because it won`t help when it occurs to the US taxpayer some time soon that if he was to pay billions of dollars to invade a nation and hang a dictator for state patronage of Al Qaeda, the 9/11 attacks and global jihad ideology which is still on the US taxpayers` tail, that nation was not Iraq and that dictator was not Saddam Hussein.

Saddam - The Sacrificial Lion Funny thing is unless I am mistaken, Umrikan taxpayer is paying for keeping Israel, Egypt and Pakistan afloat too. Without the Umrikan taxpayer, these countries would long ago have been forced to settle matters with their neighbours instead of dreaming of global manipulation/domination through defeat of the US in their local battlefields.

An Untouchable Apology kaalchakra #170
Oh OK. For many people, the truth, belief and faith are all the same and the harsh reality is that truth means different things for different people. The idiot human race can`t even remain true to the beliefs they do profess, most of the time(given that they are about 99% chimp, that is not particularly surprising).

Posting a narration of the story you mentioned as homework for harimau:

One scorching day of summer, the worthy saint and his followers were going to bathe in the river Ganges at the Manikarna ghat. On their way, the party encountered a chandal (keeper of cremation grounds) who is considered the lowest amongst lowest in the hierarchy of Indian castes. Accompanying the outcaste were his four repulsive dogs. Addressing the untouchable, Shankaracharya asked him to move away and make way for them. The hunter then raised some interesting questions:

``You are always going about preaching that the Vedas teach the non dual Brahman to be the only reality which is immutable and unpollutable. If this is so how has this sense of difference overtaken you? There are hundreds of yogis going around indulging in high sounding philosophical talk, donning the ochre robe and exhibiting other insignia of holy life like the water pot and staff. But not even a ray of knowledge having found entrance into their hearts, their holy exterior serves only to dupe householders. You have asked me to move aside and make way for you. To whom were your words addressed O learned Sir? To the body which comes from the same source and performs the same functions in the case of both a brahmin (the highest caste) and an outcaste? Or to the atman (soul), which too is the same in all, unaffected by anything material like the body? How do such differences as `this is a brahmin, or this is an outcaste,` arise in the essentially non-dual world, which is the philosophy you preach. O revered teacher, is the sun changed in the least, if it reflects in the liquor pot or in the holy Ganga? How can you indulge in such false sentiments as `Being a brahmin I am pure; and you, dog-eater, must therefore give way for me,` when the truth is that the one universal and unblemishable bodiless spirit is shining alike in each of our physical forms. Forgetting, due to false attachment, one`s own true nature as the material-less spirit - beyond thoughts and words, unmanifest, beginningless, endless and pure - how indeed have you come to identify yourself with the body which is but unsteady like the ears of an elephant.``

It is believed that the chandala was none other than Lord Shiva in disguise, and the four canines the four Vedas. The sage immediately fell to the feet of the outcaste and composed there a quintad of scintillating verses, called the `Manishapanchakam,` summing up the absolute truth as follows:

From the standpoint of the body, O Shiva, I am thy servant; from the standpoint of the soul, O Thou with three eyes, I become a part of Thine; and O the Self of all, from the standpoint of the Self, I am verily Thou: This is my settled conclusion reached with the help of all shastras.

http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/shankaracharya

An Untouchable Apology kaalchakra#167
If you could possibly describe that ancient discussion ?

India, Pakistan and the Kashmir dispute #276
In my years on chowk I have found that hamidm2 is a self righteous twit too right up there with tahmed32. They belong to a Pak generation which expects Indians to respond to their `deserved talking down to the less civilised` with self-deprecating and feel-good brotherhood statements and they don`t know what the hell to do with Indians who talk back.

India, Pakistan and the Kashmir dispute `` Nothing would get done and everything would become a religious issue.``

Liaquat Ali Khan said to Mountbatten about the Constituent Assembly proceedings in 1947 - that the fact that it had recommended after debate that customs (tariffs) be part of external affairs proved that Hindus were determined to crush and subjugate Muslims economically.

I can`t imagine why Pakistanis think Indians would want to live with that sort of cr_p today. I can just imagine even the Prime Minister coming out of his house and turning west would be interpreted as determination to crush and subjugate Muslims geographically.

India, Pakistan and the Kashmir dispute hamidm2 #210
However times you or any other dishonest Pakistani like yourself calls me a believer in ``akhand bharat:, that will not make me one. I have an army standing between me and deluded Pakistanis like yourself, thank god.

India, Pakistan and the Kashmir dispute ``#197 by dost-mittar on December 23, 2006 8:25am PT
hamidm:

You misinterpreted my post.``

This is a very common disease among self-righteous Pakistanis on chowk, they always abuse one for saying the complete opposite of what one wrote, leaving one puzzled trying to make sense of it. It points to a very clouded vision either in their heads or in their bifocals which impedes their reading.

An Untouchable Apology #98
What`s your point? How many Nair women have so far protested not being allowed to go topless? How many of them have filed public interest litigations demanding the right to do so? Even one?

You can`t equate denial of the constitutional right to Dalits to worship in whichever temples are still closed to them (discrimination against them wrt freedom of religion) with a public nudity law which applies equally to all Indians.

An Untouchable Apology #94
That`s Ayyankali (1863-1941). Gandhi met him in 1937.

The Temple Entry proclamation by the Travancore maharaja in 1936:

``Royal Proclamation

``May the truth and reality of our Faith be known in all its profundity.

``Believing it to be founded on divine directions and an all pervading spirit of tolerance,

``understanding that it has for centuries been keeping in harmony with changes in the tides of times,

``Concerned that none of our Hindu subjects should be denied the peace and happiness on the basis of birth, caste or community,

`` We made a decision and thus proclaim to command carrying out of activities and customs in relevant situations.

`` Under the rules and regulations that apply none who is born or by faith a Hindu shall be prevented from entering any temple under the jurisdiction of our government.``

``On this Thursday the 12th day of November 1936``