Love Ya, Dubya

#348 by ballukhan
[``This is not enough. You want to do something? Go to the masjids and ask people to go against the totalitarian Islamism? Challenge the mullahs? ``]

This was not my full quote. Here it is repeated: “This is not enough. You want to do something? Go to the masjids and ask people to go against the totalitarian Islamism? Challenge the mullahs? Make a difference to the ordinary person who has no access to mullahs and even less to these signed dignitaries? Are you serious? Then do something. I am with you.

As you know I live in Mumbai. I am not sure where you are, but assume somewhere in my country. I will accompany you or any group (that is non-political and has no religious affiliation). Get in touch with me at farzanaveeATchowkDOTcom.”

Instead of responding with grace, you have chosen to contradict yourself.

[it is not the lumpens whom I am concerned with.............it is these `educated` Islamist supporters who know their way with the words that I am concerned with.................it is these `educated` people who have the ability to weave grand theories and turn communal politics into `politics of rage`......................]

In post #322, it was the lumpens that worried you:

[As I said, WE need our brave men and women who can openly say FU to OBL and his gang of followers........and not get terrorized by the chavanni lumpens mobilized by the mullahs.................the popular street `rage` against Bush was a mobilization by the mullahs with ample help from their counterparts across the borders.................whom are we trying to fool?]

And then you come up with this…

[I need not boast about what I have done for all I care........I have certainly ensured that no mullah dares to approach me with their inflamatory stuff they peddle in...........and I have also ensured that no knickerwala dare threaten me.......]

Yes, so grant others that too. I do not know what you have done but am sure you must have…and you do not know what I have done. No mullah approaches me and the ‘knickerwallas’ occasionally send me books these days. (I am curious how you have ensure they do no threaten you; had I said it the assumption would be quite different…)

[where is the `rage` on isues of corruption, lack of civic amneties, election reforms, police reforms, farmer`s suicide, rural poverty.........after inciting the gullible muslims these inciters want to prove that the IMs are `genuinely` enraged about these issues........need I repeat on how the communalization of Indian politics has been achieved in the past??]

The communalisation and caste-isation of politics is the bane of our system. The “rage” should be expressed by ALL Indians. Why single out one group? Are you trying to say that rallies have not been taken out on other occasions, that too religious rallies? Forgot the rath yatra? Was that about farmers, health, literacy?

PS: My offer in #340 still stands.

Re: # 351

editor of ny times is objecting on different grounds.... you are intelligent enough to figure that out , aren`t you?....

I guess the Editor of New York Times -- like MJAkber -- is also a Muslim....:)

``selected`` articles from US papers -- the US`s real opinion makers

``......Thursday`s nuclear deal with India, in which President Bush agreed to share civilian nuclear technology with India despite its nuclear weapons programs and its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

This would be a bad idea at any time, rewarding India for flouting the basic international understanding that has successfully discouraged other countries from South Korea to Saudi Arabia from embarking on their own efforts to build nuclear weapons.

But it also undermines attempts to rein in Iran, whose nuclear program is progressing fast and unnerving both its neighbors and the West.(New York Times editorial March 5)

Re: # 348 ballu
[...it is these `educated` Islamist supporters who know their way with the words that I am concerned with.................it is these `educated` people who have the ability to weave grand theories and turn communal politics into `politics of rage`....]

exactly. people like islamist FV and her cheer leader nasah.... muslim communalism and pan-islamism is rearing its ugly head and now is the time to stop it before it grows further.....

``This is not enough. You want to do something? Go to the masjids and ask people to go against the totalitarian Islamism? Challenge the mullahs? ``

I need not boast about what I have done for all I care........I have certainly ensured that no mullah dares to approach me with their inflamatory stuff they peddle in...........and I have also ensured that no knickerwala dare threaten me.......it is not the lumpens whom I am concerned with.............it is these `educated` Islamist supporters who know their way with the words that I am concerned with.................it is these `educated` people who have the ability to weave grand theories and turn communal politics into `politics of rage`......................what foolishnes..................where is the `rage` on isues of corruption, lack of civic amneties, election reforms, police reforms, farmer`s suicide, rural poverty.........after inciting the gullible muslims these inciters want to prove that the IMs are `genuinely` enraged about these issues........need I repeat on how the communalization of Indian politics has been achieved in the past??

Re: # 344

nasah saheb............I have attended more commie rallies than anyone else on this chowk...........I know how the cadres are mobilized for such protests...but this time they coordinated their rally with the mullahs who, as usual, mobilized the gullible muslims from the colonies....the poor guys were emotionally blackmailed to participate on issues about which they have only information provided by these mullahs ..these poor guys left their jobs and were packed on the trucks and buses.......this act itself has made them suceptible to further mobilization by these mullahs..........and this is a cause for concern to me because I know these mullahs are going to incite riots with these gullible muslims.................

all this has nothing to do with the issue of whether Bush is a war criminal or not.................and so is the issue whether Saddam and other dictators, with whom IM-s are hardly concerned with but they were never asked to show their `rage` against, are war criminal or not..............
this is pure communalization which is only going to help the BJP and the RSS.............................and I know you understand this very well .....................

Selected articles from The Pioneer >>

Sinister protest

The Pioneer Edit Desk

The organised protests against US President George W Bush before and during his visit to India pale in comparison to the mammoth rallies that have greeted him in London and other world capitals. The Bush Administration and its neo-conservative policies are not exactly overwhelmingly popular both within and outside the US. Much of the unpopularity stems from the Republican President`s plain speaking on issues ranging from religion to jihad. The war in Iraq has added numbers to his critics in lib-left Europe while the war against terror has made him unpopular among Islamists.

What has infuriated those who dislike him is his disdain for them and their warped vision. The Left, which has been in the forefront of organising protests in India during Mr Bush`s visit, has just had a taste of the President`s disdainful attitude, as did the Islamists: He refused to take cognisance of either, and rightly so. It can be argued that in a democracy such protests are legitimate and the fact that the Government did not try to suppress dissent is evidence of India`s political pluralism.

It is another matter that the irrelevance of the Left in today`s India (which is much larger than West Bengal and Kerala) has been underscored by the fact that the crowd it was able to gather for the Delhi rally did not add up to more than a couple of thousand cadre who make a fetish of disgruntlement with everything in life.

The perverse streak in the Left`s worldview has once again been exposed by its laughable slogan describing Mr Bush as the ``World`s terrorist No.1``. It would seem that anti-Americanism has come to be defined as being pro-dictators like Saddam Hussein whose ruthlessness and cruelty matched that of Stalin and other mass murderers who grace the pantheon of Communist heroes. Arundhati Roy would stretch that definition to include support for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban; she still grieves, as do her comrades, over the killer regime`s fall under American assault.

We can laugh away the Left`s preposterous posturing; few people doubt that anti-imperialism is a relic of the past and only those who still subscribe to the discredited, dogmatic and doctrinaire ideology that lies at the core of Communism believe that theirs is a righteous cause. The strident denunciation of Mr Bush by the Left, in a sense, has provided entertaining distraction from the more serious, and fearsome, Islamist protests that have erupted like a rash across India. The ease with which mobs of Islamists, most of them students of theology in madarsas, have been mobilised these past few days should cause concern to those who value freedom and democracy.

The protesters in skull caps who mobbed Delhi on the eve of Mr Bush`s visit, their compatriots who ran amok in Lucknow and forced a strike in Hyderabad on Friday, and the thousands of burqa-clad women who marched through the streets of Srinagar, reflect the sinister face of political Islam in India that is gradually emerging from the shadows of a ulema that has been preaching radical and repugnant Islamism in the guise of religious freedom without any let or hindrance.

It is ironical that Islamists, who believe that the ummah must be denied both liberty and freedom, should rally against the President of the country that leads the free world. It is no less ironical that the Leftists should have found it convenient to fly their banners alongside those of the Islamists.

---

Bush visit and the day after

Gautam Siddharth

Purana Qila, the ancient citadel of Mahabharat, the place from where the Pandavas reigned and which was repeatedly pillaged and rebuilt through 5000 years or more of its glorious and inglorious history, and which today stands barely five miles from South Block, the contemporary seat of India`s political power, was, in retrospect, a thoughtfully chosen venue for President George W Bush`s concluding address to the nation that had the extraordinary privilege to host him over three epoch-making days, for several reasons - the most important being it told us a great deal about ourselves.

The Old Fort is no stranger to history: It was here that the seeds of the great Pandava-Kaurava war were sown. It was from here that Prithviraj Chauhan whisked away his beauteous bride Samyogita. It was the very place from where Razia Sultan ruled, and it houses the infamous steps of the library where Humayun fell to his tragic death. Here Sher Shah Suri was killed by a canon that misfired from the Sixth city of Delhi that he built, and Bahadur Shah Zafar surrendered to the British, to be eventually sent to Rangoon where he wrote the last moving verses of his life. Do gaz zameen na mili, quye yaar mein...

However, posterity shall henceforth remember the Old Fort for yet another reason: For President Bush`s speech on Friday evening - not for its content alone that was memorable as it was straight-forward, but for the tremendous symbolic value of the setting which provided an apt finale to a visit that opened more doors in a single day than had been opened in the entire history - of nearly 60 years - of Indo-US relations.

Speaking from the first historical seat of the Mughal Empire, President Bush, in the course of his Indian journey, provided the vital thrust to bilateral ties that promise to soar in the coming days and months. But what did his visit tell us about ourselves?

While it told us that we are a mature democracy that allows dissent, it also brought rudely home that whereas the visiting dignitary chose to honour India`s composite culture by speaking from a monument that was last raised by its Muslim rulers, a section of their descendants preferred to allow their parochial and xenophobic tendencies to get the better of them.

The riotous mobs in Lucknow, the more than 50,000 skullcap wearing Muslims who raised slogans against the United States in Delhi, and nearly 250,000 of them who held a downright vulgar rally in Azad Maidan in Mumbai during which they burnt the Star-Spangled Banner, did themselves or their country no credit; instead - considering the landmark achievements of the Bush visit - the message they conveyed was they have no stakes whatsoever in a self-reliant, strong and powerful India, and that what matters to them is what`s happening to their godforsaken brethren in Iraq and Afghanistan. These demonstrators insulted India.

Along with their Leftist fellow-travellers who have obnoxiously appropriated the right to be called secular, and who gave no less a sordid account of their delinquency by fuelling Muslims` misplaced anger, the Islamists` sense of outrage at President Bush`s visit provided a clue to the domestic challenges that face the Indian leadership in its onward and unstoppable march towards development.

It also poses questions before progressive Muslims - and there many - who must ask their brethren by religion whether their display of transnational loyalties does not get in the way of their integration with the national mainstream. The Congress-led Government that hosted President Bush, too, must ask its strange bedfellows - the Red harlots - whether their fomenting Muslim hate was justified by any yardstick of political behaviour.

What, after all, were these protests about? That the United States had brought to heel a decidedly murderous lot in Afghanistan and Iraq? How is it that those who thought it fit to rail against President Bush and America fail to come out in protest each time Islamist terror-mongers blow up innocent Indian citizens from Bangalore to Delhi, or those who display the gumption to attack the heart of Indian democracy? What did they want to achieve with their display of outrage: That they have more sympathy for Iraqis and Afghans and less for Indian soldiers who are laying down their lives battling jihadis? Are they all jihadis?

A Mumbai-datelined report in The New York Times on Friday said: ``Nearby, a few dozen men stood under a banner declaring, `We are ready to become suicide bomber.` It is a sentiment rarely expressed openly in India, which has had domestic terrorism over the years but whose citizens have not seemed to be attracted to the current global terrorist networks. `Suppose Bush is here,` said Sajid Khan, 25, a student. `I will suicide bomb to Bush. If we could get a visa, we would go there and fight.` ``The young man, a product doubtless of a warped madarsa, promises to kill a world leader who came to India to place it among the great powers. The question is bound to be raised: Where does Sajid Khan`s loyalty lie: In the ummah or madr-e-watan dar-ul aman Hindustan?

Nearly 60 years after independence, this is not how India of our dreams was supposed to be: Instead, it was expected that all its religions and minorities would transcend shallow barriers to unite in building a strong and vibrant nation: A country of people with an identical belief - and stakes - in the Idea of India. That it has not happened so far is a result of nothing but the Congress`s vote-bank politics, which is evident from the timing of Justice Mukherjee`s spellbinding revelation on Friday: That Godhra was an accident!

Anybody can see through the ploy: Observing that vast sections of the party`s vote-bank is sulking after its canoodle with ``shaitan ki aulaad`` America, its leading lights chose to assuage their ``hurt feelings``. President Bush`s visit has, wittingly or unwittingly, raised the central question: Is India united in the war against terror? Will Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi answer this before the ink on the various agreements that their Government signed with the United States, dries?

---

India Bushes ahead


US President George W Bush`s visit, predictably, divided public opinion in India and I am not only referring to fundamentalist Muslim or Communist opposition to him. Even normally enlightened people (and I don`t include jholawalas in the category of ``enlightened``) have reservations about the US President`s shoot-from-the-hip-and-lip approach to diplomacy.

For reasons that have never been apparent to me, a sizeable section of Indian opinion was outraged by the US invasion of Iraq. I attribute that to the inability of most Indians to see the big picture. It is also a measure of the absence of a sense of civilisation in the average Indian although we happen to be among the world`s oldest. Further, India as a nation not only lacks a sense of history but also is remarkably bereft of the ability for strategic thinking. We tend to hang on to old shibboleths and totems: For instance, we continue to view Russia through rose-tainted prisms of the past forgetting that post-Soviet Russia is an altogether different, commerce-driven country.

Others, American regimes in particular, are extremely agile in diplomatic matters. Readers may recall the deftness with which Washington performed a U-turn with its China policy when Henry Kissinger, then National Security Adviser to President Richard Nixon, flew to Beijing from Islamabad to pave the way for the US President`s celebrated visit to China in 1972. That signalled a dramatic change in America`s foreign policy and resulted in the USSR`s isolation, eventually culminating in the collapse of the Socialist Bloc less than 20 years later. Now that the Soviet Union is no more, it is China that has emerged as the biggest economic and potential military challenger to the US. Additionally, militant Islam is threatening Western civilisation in a way it hasn`t ever since the Crusades led to the establishment of Christian hegemony over most of the world 1,500 years ago. Shifts in US stances need to be viewed in the context of these emerging challenges to American dominance. It is now up to us to derive maximum mileage from altered US perceptions and strategic needs. That explains why President Bush was unfazed when asked at the Hyderabad House Press conference last Thursday how he could justify enacting special laws for India to access nuclear fuel when it was not even a signatory to the NPT. His instant response was ``Things change``. That phrase, in my opinion, is the key to understand the current phase of Indo-US relations.

Clearly, the Indian national interest can lie neither with the unreformed dogmatism of Jurassic Park Stalinists nor with the rabid Islamist perception of the US as ``Great Satan``. In the civilisational conflict, India has to be ranged firmly on the side of the Western society with which it shares a great deal of cultural commonalities. As far as the Reds are concerned, their opposition to improved Indo-US ties is entirely phony and deserves to be contemptuously dismissed. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee happily receives American FDI but calls President Bush the leader of the world`s biggest gang of murderers. Admittedly, the US Ambassador to India had no business writing directly to Mr Bhattacharjee in threatening language, but that does not mean that the West Bengal Chief Minister`s duplicity should merit applause. How irrelevant the Communists` rhetoric against ``American imperialism`` has become could be gauged by the paltry turnout at their much-touted ``mammoth`` protest rally against President Bush last Thursday.

This is not to suggest that India should now genuflect before the self-serving gods of US economic or military prowess. It is essential for India to hold its head high and behave with dignity and self-esteem. Americans think nothing of shoving when a gentle push would do, as evident from the repugnant diplomatic transgressions of Ambassador Mulford in recent weeks. His behaviour was rightly described as indicative of ``Viceregal arrogance`` unbecoming in dealings between the world`s biggest democracies. Sadly, this situation arose largely because of the unseemly eagerness of the Manmohan Singh regime to strike a hush-hush deal with Washington. The lack of transparency with which the Indian Government conducted itself enabled the Americans to assume an upper hand. However, while criticising our Government`s tactics we should not lose sight of the strategic goals that it has been pursuing. In fact, there is a bi-partisan consensus on proceeding with the nuclear deal since the negotiations were first initiated by the NDA Government although they have fructified only now. In other words, the temptation to throw the baby out with the bathwater must be avoided by all responsible political parties, namely both the Congress and BJP.

The nuclear understanding is, however, only a part - albeit a crucial component - of the bigger arrangement. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee had used the term ``natural allies`` to describe India`s relations with the US when President Clinton was here six years ago. Since then, the two countries have upgraded their relationship to the status of a strategic partnership. That covers much more than fuel supplies for Tarapur. It needs to be appreciated that the Bush Administration has gone out of its way to frame appropriate mechanisms to draft India into the nuclear club bypassing the restrictions imposed by the NPT. A host of technologies, not just nuclear, can be accessed by India in the aftermath of the nuclear agreement and they would prove immensely beneficial to the Indian people. Agriculture and biotechnology are not ``sexy`` subjects for the usually uninformed, glamour-obsessed Indian media, but the agreements that have now been put in place could well unleash a second green revolution. Particularly in pharma and biotechnology, I am certain that Indian scientists and entrepreneurs will succeed in eventually upstaging the US itself in due course, the same way as the Indian genius managed to usher an IT revolution making this country a software superpower with the initial help of American know-how.

The Bush visit, thus, represents a quantum leap in Indo-US relations and the enlisting of India into the Big League. Sceptics will argue that China did not have to hold Uncle Sam`s little finger to climb steps that elevated it to P-5 status. It will be pointed out that China cocks a snook at the US and Western powers on human rights and Tibet, while India is seen to be apologetic and accommodating on Pakistan-related issues. Apart from obvious differences between internal conditions in China and India (surely we don`t want to live in a regimented society like theirs), it must be remembered that Beijing had total economic, political and military support from the erstwhile Soviet Union during the People`s Republic`s formative decades. We, on the other hand, chose not to have godfathers and opted to carry a huge baggage of moralistic pretences and socialist illusions instead. Now that India has arrived, we should not repeat the mistake of courting isolationism. But for that, mindsets have to change in India; blind anti-Americanism and emotional attachments to dangerous people like Saddam Hussain must be abandoned. Americans are somewhat patronisingly telling us they want to see India as a Great Power. We may react to this with some indignation, arguing we don`t need the US to mollycoddle us into big power status. But the bigger question is whether our collective psyche is one that befits that of a Great Power? In the aftermath of the Bush visit, India will do a service to itself by turning the mirror inwards.

#344 by nasah

[in an exhuberance to become a vassal and another concubine of King George -- just like another rakhel of George Bush -- Pakistan -- Indians including intelligent people like Bullukhan equate -- any Non Mulsim Indian -- protesting the visit of a Mongoloid Invader and killer of thousands -- a COMMIE....]

My dear Nasah - instead of providing inane naseehats - how about practicing some of what you preach?

In other words, please closely examine your own statement above and answer honestly whether you are not yourself generalizing in the worst possible manner?

in an exhuberance to become a vassal and another concubine of King George -- just like another rakhel of George Bush -- Pakistan -- Indians including intelligent people like Bullukhan equate -- any Non Mulsim Indian -- protesting the visit of a Mongoloid Invader and killer of thousands -- a COMMIE....

and any Indian Muslim protesting a bloody war criminal -- a MULLAH.........interesting!

and for some frenzied non resident Indians even a resident Indian MJAkber becomes a Muslim......:)

#333 sridhar

While I share your despair about indians who feel passion for Osama but none for self-improvement or education, yet, in a democracy people do have the right to demonstrate peacefully. Most of the demos were peaceful; there were some stray incidents in which fighting began.

As we all know, there is a populist tinge to much indian politics. Not so long ago the Bhandarkar Institute was ransacked by the Sambhaji brigade. The Shiv Sena has often used its mob power to intimidate people from all kinds of backgrounds (muslims, biharis, south indians). The VHP makes conscious efforts to turn out giant crowds at ``hindu`` events and uses extreme language to get them excited.

I think all of this is foolish and misguided. I dont see the muslim protests as very different from the rest.

I agree that Mullahs do not have a good track record of winning elections. But that does not mean they can not organize high-profile demonstrations. There is a difference in trying to win votes at grass-roots and having a few thousands of demonstrators (sometimes brought by busloads) present at strategic locations for maximum visibility.

The absence of objectivity (call it ``dishonesty`` if one so chooses) may lie in reading more into such demonstrations than is warranted. Certainly, the US media mentions those demos but few read too much into them.

Even Mullahs know how to leverage.

Sometimes, I think that this web-site is quite analogous to a high profile demonstration of the type we witnessed in India - an act organized by ``intellectual`` Mullahs! (But not of the type we are talking about.) Perhaps people like me CAN make a difference.

Like most people here, I personally believe that Islam is not a threat to peace - except for the ``extreme`` version of it practiced by some. (I hope everybody got to read read my March 2 i-log). GWB believes the same (one should not go by what some people here have been saying about him) - and he has repeatedly said so - time and again.

But, in the end, most people end up believing what they choose to!

`` A few decades from now when they are gone from this earth, nobody will remember their names, and what would they have achieved as far as contribution to humanity goes, absolutely nothing. ``

Listen you moron................we have no interest in seeking greatness through intellectual martydom...........neither do we seek to achieve immortality in other`s memories like you so dreadfully desire .......nor we do we want to errect theoratical dargahs like your ``Grand Unifying Theories`` with the desire that the faithfuls should bow down in some reverence whenever they recall our names.............unlike you we have absolutely no desire for the continuance of our existence in any one`s mind when we are gone................

We ONLY care about our immediate future..............we want to make our existence on this planet as beautiful as possible...............but you seek the opposite and want to create hell for us..........and for that we would certainly do EVERYTHING to ensure that imbecile Islamist sympathesizers like you do not convert more gullible muslims into your path to self destruction...........................it is a battle between those who seek LIFE and those who seek DEATH...................................

#322 by ballukhan:
[To FV-
As I said, WE need our brave men and women who can openly say FU to OBL and his gang of followers........ and not get terrorized by the chavanni lumpens mobilized by the mullahs................]

Ok, so what after FU? You think that those who do not say FU are threatened by the lumpens?

[the popular street `rage` against Bush was a mobilization by the mullahs with ample help from their counterparts across the borders.................whom are we trying to fool?]

At the moment, you seem to be fooling yourself. Do you not understand the concept of mass protest? Do you not get it that the so-called mullahs do not have the guts to contest elections and when they have they have lost their deposits in Muslim-dominated areas? Are the Left parties being mobilised from across the borders?

Now let us come to your brave men and women who signed a written statement against the cartoons. Please note, this is about the cartoons…and this supposedly not-so-brave writer has already expressed her views on the subject as well as the Quran desecration as well as not supporting the Muslim-organised rally for its communal tinge. (But because she is not your usual suspect celeb and she has not signed any written statement you have to question everything she says and does.)

Never mind. Did you not notice the rhetoric in that written statement that you saw here in this article?

I will try and deconstruct this whole statement...

[After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism.]

Have we overcome the other isms? Here are groups of warriors of Islam, if you will, who create havoc. There is no uniform ideology. Fascism is prevalent in the democracies of the superpowers.

[We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.]

And so? You mean to say that such statements have not been made before? Will they sign a similar written statement against Bush?

[Recent events, prompted by the publication of drawings of Muhammad in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values.
This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field.]

Ho-hum. What is the drift? Have they even bothered to make their stand clear and say they are all for the publication of these cartoons? Inn logoun se yeh naacheez achhee hai…

[It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism between West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.]

Gosh, this is so earth-shattering…

[Like all totalitarian ideologies, Islamism is nurtured by fear and frustration.

Preachers of hatred play on these feelings to build the forces with which they can impose a world where liberty is crushed and inequality reigns.]

Ok. Good.

[But we say this, loud and clear: nothing, not even despair, justifies choosing darkness, totalitarianism and hatred.]

Yeah, sure. Where are these people sitting? In the bright neon-lit facades that they can see from their bay windows…NO ONE chooses totalitarianism. And many do not even have the luxury of despair.

[Islamism is a reactionary ideology that kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present.

Its victory can only lead to a world of injustice and domination: men over women, fundamentalists over others.

On the contrary, we must ensure access to universal rights for the oppressed or those discriminated against.]

Please do so. And this won’t happen with a written statement.

[We reject the ``cultural relativism`` which implies an acceptance that men and women of Muslim culture are deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secularism in the name of the respect for certain cultures and traditions.]

Absolutely. Now how will this rejection translate into action?

[We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of ``Islamophobia``, a wretched concept that confuses criticism of Islam as a religion and stigmatisation of those who believe in it.

We defend the universality of the freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit can exist in every continent, towards each and every maltreatment and dogma.]

Where is their ‘bravery’ now? Why have they not spelled out the other dogmas?

[We appeal to democrats and free spirits in every country that our century may be one of light and not dark.]

Bohat khoob…

This bunch of people are either talking to themselves or dressing their own sweet little group.

So, applaud them for some heavy-duty signature campaigns.

Ballukhan, you say, “there are atleast some brave men and women who can thumb these Islamists and their ideological supporters who have been pursuing their agendas by infilterating the local masjids and inciting communal violence and hatred worldwide................”

This is not enough. You want to do something? Go to the masjids and ask people to go against the totalitarian Islamism? Challenge the mullahs? Make a difference to the ordinary person who has no access to mullahs and even less to these signed dignitaries? Are you serious? Then do something. I am with you.

As you know I live in Mumbai. I am not sure where you are, but assume somewhere in my country. I will accompany you or any group (that is non-political and has no religious affiliation). Get in touch with me at farzanaveeATchowkDOTcom.

Be Indian, or oppose deal

Swapan Dasgupta


In 1949, when Sardar Vallabbhai Patel was asked by someone to react to the turmoil in Indonesia, he is reported to have retorted: ``Ah, Indonesia. Yes, Indonesia. Just ask Jawaharlal.`` The story may well be apocryphal but it does suggest that hard-nosed, pragmatic politicians are only too aware that barring times of war, foreign policy rarely intrudes into the domestic discourse of democracies. As some of the BJP`s more obtuse strategists discovered in May 2004, people don`t change their voting preferences because Atal Bihari Vajpayee hugged General Pervez Musharraf.



History may provide some comfort to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who, having successfully negotiated a very fair nuclear deal with the visiting US President, suddenly finds himself buffeted by the visceral anti-Americanism of many of his colleagues in the Congress and, of course, the Communists. That the Communists would oppose any initiative that runs counter to China`s hegemonic designs on Asia is well known. In 1999, Indian Communists, after 22 years, realigned with the Congress. China`s hysterical response to the Pokhran-II blasts served as the catalyst of rapprochement.

Yet, it is not the Communist opposition that worries the Government in the context of the Bush visit. That opposition is a Pavlovian response and lacks both credibility and the numbers. It was, for example, patently disingenuous of the CPI and CPI(M) to suddenly be concerned about the US emasculating India`s nuclear arsenal. Many of us remember that in 1998, the Communist parties were protesting the NDA Government`s nuclear policy. Their fellow travellers were teaming up with cash-rich American non-proliferation bodies to denounce India`s nukes in international circles. These intellectual mercenaries were very much in evidence over the past week.

What has alarmed the Government and the Congress is the evidence of massive Muslim mobilisation against the Bush visit. Whether in the metros or the district towns, the opposition to Bush and Indo-US strategic initiatives was almost entirely Islamist. The mobilisation was effected through the network of theological seminaries. Those who carried placards comparing Bush to various four-legged animals and proclaiming their willingness to become suicide bombers for the faith even replicated the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban in dress.

It is important to note that the concerns of demonstrators were pan-Islamic and centred totally on happenings in West Asia. Indian Muslims were instigated to view India`s foreign policy through the prism of their faith. More ominously, the Government was threatened with political retribution if the Islamist hatred for America was disregarded.

The whole country must unite against this communal blackmail. The defence and foreign policy of India has to be based on national interest, not sectarian considerations. Indians may not like what is being done to Iraq but which should get priority - India or pan-Islamism? In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi courted the pan-Islamic Khilafat Movement for short-term gains. India was the long-term loser.

All Indian nationalists, whether they happen to be supporters of the Congress or the BJP, must compliment the Prime Minister for so far disregarding these friends of terrorists and doing what is in national interest. The opposition has a right to carp about the political management of nuclear talks but it should have no reason to complain about the outcome of the negotiations. Indeed, with the Indo-US agreement, the UPA and NDA have successfully established the continuity of India`s nuclear policy.

Today, there is a broad nationalist consensus on the terms of Indo-US strategic engagement. Regardless of their other differences, all nationalist parties must now act in tandem to ensure that the necessary modifications in American law are speedily effected so that India gets international recognition as a nuclear power. This necessitates a mobilisation of the Indian diaspora and the active involvement of political parties, corporates and religious and community groups. On this issue, there is no scope for partisan politics. You are either with India or with the unholy alliance of Green and Reds.

#329, the article in the Indian Express that you reproduce says <<< How would we have reacted if our Prime Minister was invited to a foreign capital city and called a ‘‘mass murderer’’ on account of the situation in the Kashmir Valley? How would we have reacted if our Prime Minister was prevented from addressing the American Congress because a small group of badly behaved congressmen shouted and screamed >>>

Feelings of grandeur on the part of the author of the article, I must say. Nobody in America, given India`s position viz a viz the US on the global scene would pay too much attention to an Indian prime minister and his visit. Indian prime ministers (even Pakistani heads of states) are considered chaprasees by the US elite. Chaprasees are not protested against, they are merely rewarded or punished based upon how high they jump when the master asks them to.