Husain, Hinduism, Hindustan: Testing Tolerance

#522 Yasser

[...only facts are and facts don`t favor you...]

Fact: Jinnah got you Pakistan. Pakistan screwed up.
Fact: Gandhi got us India. India shines.
Fact: Pakistan could have been shining, but screwed up.
Fact: Your ``dream`` Pakistan appears little different from what India already is.
Fact: Everyone hates lawyers - it is almost like a nightmare.
Fact: Every nightmare has a reason.

Fact: Your heart is inside your chest.
Feel free to eat out!

I LIKE facts.

#522 Yasser

[....but your defence is pathetic that is the problem. You may continue to defend him- we disagree- we will continue to disagree- ....]

Manto, the eternal two-bit lawyer - the case must be won - no matter what the price. Yes Yasser, you have the books and you have picked and chosen (and based on past experience perhaps manufactured) as per your need and prepared your ``case`` - the problem is this side is not even a lawyer (and has no intention of becoming one (shudder)) - you have all the books - you only lack some common sense!

So, how come your ``findings`` only grace this (non-paying) web-site?

And when are you publishing them in a journal and start winning literary awards after review by some REAL peers of that trade? And print them in a bestseller and flash those wads of money right into the faces of the fat-cats running this site?

And when are you becoming a candidate in your elections?

And when ARE the elections?

Bjkumar...

It is not that you defend Gandhi but your defence is pathetic that is the problem. You may continue to defend him- we disagree- we will continue to disagree- which is our democratic human right ... Merely making statements of bravado is not going to help... only facts are and facts don`t favor you.

This is precisely why you resorted to abuse.


Shishapa...

Yes it says a lot to the credit of Hindu Bourgeoisie which was in any event more educated and liberal than Muslims. Pakistan however was an attempt to create a Muslim majority version of the same... and it is too early to write it off because it is the Muslim Bourgeoisie is only beginning to come into its own..

#All

I read the article one more time to see if I had any new thoughts.

My disadvantage is I had not known much about Husain (and perhaps still do not (just like I do not know much about many other topics)) but the newspaper interview held on his ninetieth birthday was quite an eye-opener for me. Knowing how he feels about his art, and how he feels about his country, what a terrible thing that some of his own countrymen would attack him! The whole world pretty much knows that the motivations behind attacking Husain are strictly political - if it were not Husain, any other Muslim would have sufficed. The author`s mistake is to treat these goons as if they were reasonable people, as if they need a legitimate reason - they certainly do not need HER approval - if they had a chance, they would be just as happy to haul up the author on some pretext as well!

I won`t repeat the sentiments that I already explained in #20, they all hold.

Which brings me to Gandhi - because in many ways Husain reminds me of him - even the author calls him a modern-day Gandhi.

I particularly like this quote from Husain:

``I have always wanted to share the process of my painting, nothing in my life has been hidden. I haven`t deceived anyone.``

Gandhi - in my opinion was among the very few people of his time - no matter what his idiosyncracies (peculiar to his times), he was perhaps the only person who never tried to deceive anybody and who cared about ALL the people of the subcontinent. He is long gone - but in India we carried his legacy for a while - not to the extent he would have wanted it - but a good part of it still holds.

I personally feel that without him, India would have NEVER energed a secular country - and the way feelings had heated up (of course I was not around) at the time of partition - I doubt it would have stayed secular for too long afterwards except for the tears of remorse that followed his assassination. Sometimes I privately wonder that over time, those tears have washed away and we are coming back to that great Hindu-Muslim divide again.

It is quite touching to see many Indian nationalists insisting that Hindus and Muslims are so well-bonded now they can never break up - even this author repeated that.

The reality is that they are, yet they are not. They are equals as per the law but they are segregated. They are friendly toward each other but parts of them are scared of each other and quite mistrustful.

The bonding has strengthened over the last five decades - to the extent that the Shah Rukh Khans of today do not have to change their last name to that of this interactor.

I do not buy the symbolisms alone - I look for results.

But that bonding is not unbreakable! Keep pumping those Jihadis in and who knows where it will all end up. Prior to 1984, who could have imagined that there can be such a thing as Hindu-Sikh riots - those sons of the same mothers - the younger siblings versus the oldest sibling that was given over to the Wahe Guru?

Anything is possible - it only needs the ``right`` combustible mixture of circumstances.

That`s why I will never forgive the Pakistani army brass for what they have tried to do - and the Pakistani intelligensia and its bureaucrats for going along with it - the Pakistani Mullahs do not count because their power (in my view) is limited to raising street rucus and recruiting human fodder for the Jihadi factory through sermons - and the general Pakistani population has perhaps never counted in the scheme of things - what with having no power, and no literacy, and no nothing.

And for exactly the same reason, I will defend Gandhi once, I will defend him ten times, I will defend him a million times, if necessary. Not because I am a ``Gandhiwadi``, or a Congressman, or any of those labels - this interactor is none of those labels - but simply because I would like to think that I still have an ounce of decency left in me. And others who do, will do the same. The fact unfortunately is that there are few on this site.

Call me a sufferer from the ``knight`` disease, if you have to - and feel free to laugh derisively - if that is the extent of your vision and the extent of your understanding!

You Pakistani guys and gals enjoy your Jinnah! Whether you identify with the Indians or with the Arabs is also your very own business. I feel no bitterness - if YOU are happy with what Jinnah accomplished for you all - it is your very own pleasure to experience.

It has been only sixty years but some of those pleasures can never be satiated.

It is almost like having sex!

nasah #518
OK, that`s good to know. Thanks.

bjkumar:

I am glad that you cooled down. We can all hope that the moderator will now get back to his/her desk.

dear Sadna for heavens sake no -- not by any means...

the translation od the persian proverb -- excuses for a sin sometime sound worse than the sin.....

Re: # 510

``First of all the credit for the Indian constitution goes to Dr Ambedkar who steadfastly stood against Gandhian ideas from flowing into the constitution. It would do you a lot of good to read those debates. Nehru was not too impressed by Hindu terminology etc ... ``

No doubt about it. But Ambedkar does not exist in vaccuum. There has to be
fertile and receptive and sustaining ground and support structure for him to stand on.
Afterall, he was allowed to complete the task unlike Jogindernath Mandal who fled.
Does not that speak volumes about the ``fanatic Hindus``?

bjkumar
Frankly this is what I think. FV doesn` t believe in the middle or moderate majority and the sooner it disappears the happier she is to be `vindicated`. It has been a constant implicit or explicit theme in all her writings on Hindu-Muslim affairs (according to me) that there are no Hindus who are not genocidal and no Hindus who are not hard core Hindutva-vadis pretending to be something else. This could be the general Indian Muslim belief or not, I have no way of knowing. Pakistanis are certainly 100% behind her on this as it is their national ideology.

Now if Hindus in turn believe that there are no moderate Muslims, that they are all genocidal, that of course is also welcome to FV since then she gets to be a victim twice over. It is an ideology one wields, leaving all responsibility for the complexities of real world to everyone else. It is labelled patriotism by some.

#All

Okay, I have cooled down a bit.

Perhaps I could have made my point in #480 without using the particular metaphor, and perhaps I should have – since the end result seems to be that everyone is talking about the metaphor itself – rather than the actions which prompted it.

I also recognize that whatever their level of “validity,” such terms do hurt!

Therefore, it is appropriate to make my apology to the author/moderator of this board. (I do realize that a lot of text is continuously flowing through these channels and the editor has to look at everything and can not be on top of everything all the time.)

Therefore, Farzana – I am sorry I used those particular words – they were unnecessarily strong (although not atypical from this interactor). (If chowk wishes to throw in a punishment of any kind, it is its prerogative and that will be quite acceptable, I suppose.)

Having said that, here is a question for you:

Where are you going with this site?

My own guess is that the basic idea is to promote goodwill/understanding between the people of the two countries and more – and hopefully, such goodwill can lead to other things – bigger and better. (Some people have claimed that there is a specific agenda behind what you/chowk “owners” are doing.)

Assuming that my own guess is right – do you think that cause gets helped by letting YLH and wife go on their anti-Gandhi tirades?

This is not a rhetorical question – so think carefully.

The Hindu-right wing is quite happy with such a drubbing – they could not care less – it only alienates the moderates – the people in the middle – and the vast majority as far as I know – although my guess is that the middle rank is shrinking. Keep this kind of stuff up and believe me it will shrink a LOT more.

No answers needed, but something to consider, hopefully carefully.

nasah #513
I don`t understand your comment. If it is directed towards me, pl. do translate.

Uzr-e gunah bud tur uz gunah.....

Mantolives #various
I don`t understand what it is you are arguing. I have been arguing right from the start that India needs to see genuine grassroots activism among Muslims(and other communities too of course) in favor of women`s rights, discarding of harmful patriarchal traditions and modern education, allied with increase of economic opportunities.

If anything, India needs more of the Muslim mass contact program and focus on Muslims` economic issues/daal bhat by its political parties, which Nehru attempted in 1937.

``It was even happy to indulge in tokenism and promote Mullahs etc. ``

Tokenism like that famous speech by Mr. Jinnah or an appointment of a Hindu minister
in the cabinet? Tokenism like Muslim League did to Pakistan being secular after using
religion to found it!
So whatever Mr. Jinnah and Muslim League did was substance and whatever Hindus
did was tokenism!
There you go again.

Dear Shishapa...

This is a very simplistic argument... we are not discussing form but content. Now we are confusing issues...

First of all the credit for the Indian constitution goes to Dr Ambedkar who steadfastly stood against Gandhian ideas from flowing into the constitution. It would do you a lot of good to read those debates. Nehru was not too impressed by Hindu terminology etc ...

The Hindu Bourgeoisie was well developed and secular anyway. They understood very well that a Hindu majority state would protect their rights and therefore there was no need to make a theocracy or a Rashtra... the Hindu Bourgeoisie did not believe in a theocratic state because it was well developed and therefore was ready to accept modernity and democracy- It was even happy to indulge in tokenism and promote Mullahs etc.

FYI India is not a secular nation- it is a secular state. Lets make no mistake about it... and the two things are not necessarily the same.

Re: # 508

I still fail to see, if Congress was such a fanatic Hindu party, how come it did not enact
to make India Hindu Rashtra after independence.
What could have stopped it if it was striving for that all along?
How come India turned out to be a secular nation and not Hindu Republic of India?