An Indian salute for President Musharraf

Ref shammi #: 417

[Here is an `authoritative quote` from the Ministry of External Affairs Website:

``...The yatra is organised by the Ministry of External Affairs, applications for which are invited during the month of March...``

http://meadev.nic.in/perspec/apr2001/kailash.htm

What business does the Government have in `organizing` pilgrimages/yatras for anyone? BTW, if you read the entire page, (which reads like a travel brochure) you will ask -- why is the Ministry doing this?]

Does the site mention your so-called ``fact`` that the Government of India pays for transportaion, medical facilities and food during the trip?

From what I understand, the Government of India has agreed to prepare a list of the 2000 pilgrims each year and forward them to the Chinese Embassy for the issuance of visas and herd them in groups up to the Tibetan border. This is the extent of the ``organization`` of the pilgrimage.

Read ``Circling the Sacred Mountain`` by Richard Thurman, Professor of Tibetan Buddhism at Columbia University. He has walked around Mt. Kailash and I recall him mentioning that a British tourist died of Acute Mountain Sickness in going around Mt. Kailash. The Bombay-based tour operator also asks that all pilgrims put their affairs in order before they embark on the pilgrimage because they may not come back. So much for the ``medical facilities`` that you have mentioned.

Isn`t the Hajj organized by a Hajj committee with the support of the Government of India? Isn`t a cash subsidy being provided to the Hajj committee unlike any subsidy to any Hindu pilgrims?

[On a different note, I understand that the Vaishno Devi pilgrimage in J&K has been greatly facilitated by the improvement of the hiking trail by the (you guessed it) ARMY!! Why is the army asked to maintain it? What is wrong with the hordes of private contractors paid for by pilgrims` donations?]

The government builds roads to various locations based on a variety of factors. All public works in India are undertaken by the government. So what is wrong if the trail to Vaishnodevi was upgraded by the Army?

Would you prefer that the Indian Railways not run loss-making trains to Rameshwaram? Would you stop trains through Bihar and UP because none of those lovely locals buys a ticket?

Would you stop running trains to Simla and to Darjeeling? But that would put you secularists out of joint during summers, wouldn`t it?

If the Government of India should not maintain the trail to Vaishnodevi, why should it maintain the Grand Trunk Road from Calcutta to Delshi? After all, it goes through the holy cities of Mathura, Allahabad, Varanasi and Gaya.

Try using your brain once in a while. And don`t quote any left-wing ``intellectuals`` and claim that supporting Muslims is secular but doing one single thing that might remotely help the Hindus as a benign side-effect is not.

Dost Mittar

Dost

Most feudals even though they have access to the best educational institutes - you can discover this for yourself - do not take advantage of this access. You see education must be a ``value`` and to them, it simply is not. What use the carpenter who spends his life sharpening his tools instead of using them?

Re: Nasah

``...Chitlee Qabar kabaab hut still functioning?...``

I passed through Chitlee Qabar last April when I was in Delhi (I took a rickshaw from Jama Masjid to Turkman Gate -- the shortest route is through Chitlee Qabar). I did not look for the `kabaab hut` that you mentioned, and so cannot tell if it still exists. I will email a friend of mine who runs a hardware business in Lal Kuan and find out for you:) However, I did go to Karim`s outside Jama Masjid for lunch. It is still absolutely wonderful (so much so, that the Parliament attackers went there for their last dinner the night before the attack!)

When even a `moderate` says this..? I think we are in for the long haul.
http://www.dawn.com/2002/01/21/top6.htm
``... He [Sardar Qayyum]rejected any third option of the dispute. If there was any third option, there were no ways and means to implement it. The late Dr Mehboobul Haq had proposed any such option which was abandoned because of the lack of any implementation method, he said. ``However, if there is a miracle, like that of the repartition of India to adjust Muslim population areas, I cannot say anything about the third option,`` he said.... ``

My dear rdesikan:

You write -- ````But then this myth about his ascending to heaven on a black, or is it white horse [or whatever] is sheer myth that has trapped the mindset of the arabs with this false irredentist dream.``

My friend -- in that godforsaken place -- every one is trapped in their own ``sheer myth``.

Do you think Israelis are better -- their claims are based on myths that are crummy FIVE thousand year old.

Remember -- ascending to heaven on a black or a white horse --is not any more fantastic -- than parting the red sea.

The dastardly thing is that both the ``Barbarian`` Bedouins and the ``Innocent`` Israelis -- are regularly KILLING each other`s innocent children -- for their `` false irredentist dream``.

BOTH are KILLERS and BOTH are VICTIMS of their centuries old f#king myths.

At least the Palestinians have been living there for the past 5 hundreds years -- not the AshkeNazis.

re nasah/hasan 420

I hope the number of your post did not contribute to its naughtiness!

With all due respect to your editing prowess, I stand by my original statement. Israel is no Israel without a united Jerusalem at its political and spiritual heart. Remember the Psalmist who pined ``If I forget thee I Jerusalem...`` Can India share Delhi or Pakistan divide Islamabad?

You say

``they have the SAME rights to have a country of their OWN``

They already have a country, it would appear. It is called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Heck 54 % of `Jordanians`, including their Queen, are also `Palestinians`.

re asif n

I stand corrected, humbly, on juxtaposing the event of Shab-e-Meraj with Shab-e-Qadr. Thank you for correcting me promptly.

As for Aqsa Mosque, I was referring to the PHYSICAL edifice that was built by Amir Abdul Malik in the 68th year of the Hijri. When the Quran 17:1 mentions Masjid al Aqsa, it obviously makes reference to the `Farthest Mosque`, as the literal translation is in Arabic and as has been verified by both Picthall and Yusuf Ali. In that sense Rdesikan is correct: the physical Aqsa mosque we know today was NOT mentioned in the sense you portray it to be. The entire ayat very well may refer not to a physical journey from A to B but rather a transcendental spiritual voyage unrestricted by time and space. After all, Allah is able to do all things, including those that we are yet to fathom or reflect upon.

Yes indeed Arabs have inhabited that land for a long time. WHat I said was that there has NEVER BEEN A SELF-CONTAINED PALESTINIAN POLITY in the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. I stand by that historical statement.

In the times of Arab rule of Israel non-Muslims were made to pay jizya, though the whole era was probably far better than the preceding Crusader rule. The Turkish rule, again Muslim, was more brutal with jizya and exorbitant taxes. At all these times, mind you, non-Muslims were excluded from key judicial, executive, and military positions by law.

ISrael guarantees all its citizens equal rights regardless of religion, no jizya, no extra taxes for being a Muslim, none of that. I am quite aware of AI reports and the dispatches of Mr Fisk. The problem for you guys is that I ALSO read the AI reports on Syria, PA areas, Iraq, and Iran.

Israel committs numerous offenses against human rights. For each such offense, there are lawyers who go to ISareli courts and press to seek redress. In Muslim countries, in similar situations, people just get locked up and killed. You will do well to remember that the Hama Massacre did not happen in Israel.

Calling it the Zionist entity, shedding tears on the `lost` Muslim sovereignty of Jerusalem, and engaging in blatant condemnation of Jews is not going to restore a Palestine that did not exist. Face the facts. Israel is a legitimate nation-state, recognized by almost all as such, a member of the UN, a parliamentary democracy.

romair 407:

May be you ask the Canadians to help you out on debt relief, textile quotas and F-16s. See how far you go.

Forgot this part:

``The young Pervez had a lot to live up to. His older brother, Javed, was a Rhodes scholar who went on to work at the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. “I was a year behind him at college and the teachers were always saying, ‘You’re the brother of Javed Musharraf, [and yet] you can’t answer the question—what’s wrong?’ ” the president recalls now. “So sometimes I used to get hold of his old essays and I would [rewrite] one and get very good marks.” His younger brother, Naveed, was very bright, too, and later became an anesthesiologist; he practices today in the United States.`` (Newsweek)

His elder brother is a Rhodes Scholar. That is interesting.

Probably the most comprehensive international write up on Musharraf, ever at http://www.msnbc.com/news/691105.asp#BODY

It was just completed by Newsweek. An interesting excerpt:

``Pervez was the second of three sons in a middle-class family that fled to Pakistan during India’s partition in 1947. (He’s the first Pakistani president to come from the ranks of the mohajir , or Muslim refugees from India, rather than from natives like the Punjabis who dominate Pakistan’s military.) His father was a diplomat who died in 2000, and his mother, Zohra, was a rarity for her era, an educated woman from a Muslim Indian family. She had a long career herself as an official in the International Labor Organization, retiring in the 1980s. “His mother is his main inspiration,” says Javed Jabbar, a personal friend and former cabinet minister.`` (Newsweek)

Dost-mitter bhai and Shammi mian:

To change the subject from war to kebab -- there use to be in old Delhi -- in those days -- a Chitlee Qabar Kababia -- his mouth watering seekh/shish kebab was famous inside Delhi and even outside Delhi -- people from Meeruth use to come to taste his delicacy -- is Chitlee Qabar kabaab hut still functioning?

As Threat Eases, U.S. Still Sees Peril in India-Pakistan Buildup

By MICHAEL R. GORDON

(excerpts)

“American intelligence agencies, in their latest estimate, do not consider a major Indian attack on Pakistan imminent, senior American officials said. But the agencies recognize that India`s military posture is dangerous.

The fear is that relations remain on a hair trigger and that any further attacks in India and its part of Kashmir, mounted by terrorists beyond the Pakistani government`s control, might yet spark a war.

``The United States thinks that Musharraf is for real and has undertaken fundamental changes,`` a senior American defense official said. ``We have been trying to persuade the Indians to take `yes` for an answer, and that the things that are happening in Pakistan are in their own interest.``

``We also knew that war would not break out when Colin Powell was in the region and the Indian defense minister was visiting here,`` the official said. ``

But the situation is still dangerous. It is still dangerous because India still has a strict set of demands and because there is still a mobilization. The situation is vulnerable to shock the next time there is a terrorist attack.``(NYT)

My dear siglaph:

You write:

“Those of us who truly believe in freedom will always support the right of Israel to exist within safe and secure frontiers with a united Jerusalem as her ancient and eternal capital.”

If I may modify your beautiful sentence to look a little uglier -- like the truth always is.

Those of us who TRULY believe in freedom will always support the right of Israel and the PALESTINIANS to CO-exist within safe and secure frontiers with a unitedly SHARED Jerusalem as THEIR ancient and eternal capital.

Anything LESS is pure, unbridled ANTISEMITISM.

Keep in mind my friend -- the Semite Palestinians are NOT -- “ camel-riding, 100 wife-marrying, infidel-killing bedouins.” -- even if they ARE --they have the SAME rights to have a country of their OWN -- as the ``God’s chosen`` Israeli have.

``````I dont know if you`ve ever tried good ol Mary Jane. But when youre high or ``tun``, you become very docile, amiable, introspective & philosophical. You get a much better appreciation of music. Heck, ask DRUMZ :).Besides, I would imagine that you should know: the best hashish in India is Kashmiri. Almost as good as Kabuli hash. Probably explains why Kashmiris are so docile & amiable (or at least; were...).(Shanker)

Kashmiri Hash zinda bad -- Kashmiri Jaish murda bad.

sigalph---you amaze me! you lot all accuse me of blindly following the interpretation of islam of ``medieaval scholars`` yet here are you denying something that is in the Qur`an itself! And your defence of the Zionist State of Israel was freedom loving place was incredible! Try asking the Palestinians if they have this ``freedom`` or read the reports of Ammesty International or of Robert Fisk in The Independent. As for claim that the Palestinians never had a land that is straight out of an Israeli propoganda machine!!!

Anyway, you claimed that The Al-Aqsa mosque is not mentioned in the Qur`an:

``Holy is He Who carried His bondman by night from the sacred Mosque to the Aqsa Mosque (Aqsa) ...[Surah Israh:1]

Here is the transliteration of the Arabic text in case you think the translators added the words ``Aqsa MOsque`` by themselves.

Subhan Allahdhi `asra bi `abdihi laylan-minal Masjid al Harami il`al MASJID AL AQSA`...

So now you have a choice: (if you are a MUslim) either you believe in Allah`s Word in the Qur`an OR you can believe the Zionist propoganda.

BTW despite your much vaunted knowledge you should at least know that this verse does NOT refer to the Laylat al Qadr (the Night of Power) but Laylat al Mi`raj (The Beloved Prophet`s Ascension (Night Journey) to The Heavens and Allah Himself).

``Little knowledge is a dangerous thing....``

BTW, you should compare the fair treatment and freedom which the Muslims meted out to the Jews when we had control of this holy land (i.e. from Hazrat Umar`s conquest until the British created Israel in 1948 after promising them a homeland via the Balfour Declaration) to how they have treated the Palestinians since 1948! Then you will know who the true lovers of freedom are...

ps there were Arabs in that land hundreds of years before the Jews came there. It is an historical fact. I am talking about pre-Islamic history now as well. Arabic people were there before Ibrahim alayhisalaam even!

Re Sigalph 410

I`m in the middle of a fascinating book by Bernard Lewis ``A brief history of the middle east``in which he mentions that Jersualem is not mentioned at all in the koran. In fact, the al aqsa mosque was built a good 15 years after muhammad`s death. I also remember that Al Quds means the westernmost mosque. the books do not state where that might be.

But then this myth about his ascending to heaven on a black, or is it white horse [or whatever] is sheer myth that has trapped the mindset of the arabs with this false irredentist dream.