Why Are We Killing Ourselves?

Well, something off topic here:

Khalid Ahmed`s article in the latest TFT:

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/news9.htm

Has the following quote:

``Hinduism, through the anti-women teachings of Ramakrishnan(sic), had inclined the rural Muslim Bengali to misogynism.``

I would assume he means Ramkrishna Paramhans, who is highly venerated in Bengal. So what is this misogynist techings he is talking about, can anyne shed more light?

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Hobbyty,

re:

``You will note the brute, Rushdie has decided that he shall attack God, my prediction to you about the reception of this article in mainstream America, is that it will be as welcome as a skunk at a party..``

Would Rushdie be the first person on earth to question God? Or, to question God in America? Its heartening to know that interrogation of fundoism has become a thought crime worthy of Orwell.

Btw, Rushdie had as much legitimacy in who he is and how he describes himself-more so, in fact, than the rest of us who have no craft and no risk in order to produce our craft. Apparently his latest crime is to come out as a ``south asian/indian``...which I know sends chills into the Fatherland.

``Of course the ``New York sensibility`` the ``sex as political expression`` and ``non-judgemental`` crowd are going to be enthused - but real America is no moral gutter like India, nor are educated Americans thrilled by the barren wasteland that is communist ``thinking``.``

I beg your pardon? Perhaps you could actually come to NYC and lecture Dr. El-Sadaawi on these themes. After all, she was victim to the moral excesses of blessed Islamic patriarchal violence against women. I`m sure, though, that you would have something to teach her.

sadna, pmishra, truth:

it`ll be great if you set up a yahoo group or something where others can also read your ideas on what steps may be taken to ensure withdrawal of tax-exempt status for VHP etc.

Veeresh ``Lazy Intellect`` Malik #120:

You think the Ahmedabad rioters have ``stood up`` to the Muslims who committed the Godhra carnage and I`m complaining about standing up! No, bewakoof, they have slaughtered any Muslims they could lay their hands on. This is your bigot definition of ``standing up``. And it is a definition shared by many in India.

You and your ilk, the bigots of India, look at an individual and say what religious group can I associate this guy with. So a Muslim in Mob = Muslim in Godhra = Muslim in Gujarat = Muslim in India. So it is easy to say ``standing up``. A fair man, looks at a rioting group and says who are the individuals in and behind this group and how can I stop them.

Reply # 121 Shah

Your attitude is defeatist my friend.

[``In Kanpur b/c muslims faced RSS/Hindu mahasabha goons with weapons illegally ...SIMI is banned THROUGH OUT india``]

But the children of Kanpuri muslims are alive today, aren`t they? What is worse? Going to jail or watching your child burn to death? Remember, 17000 Gujrati Muslims were jailed under TADA, and they didn`t have any arms, did they? Now if they arm themselves maybe 34000 of them will get arrested under POTO, but their children will have a better chance of survival when BJP/VHP come looking next time.

[``You can only arm in India under severe punishment of life long jail e.g. Sanjay Dutt son of Nargis actress ,has been just suspect in posessing gun in 92 mumbai hindu -muslim riots is still under bail /probation in & out of jail.``]

There are only 2 ways that an arm bearing citizen (even second class, like Indian muslims) can be arrested and proscecuted. One, he is arrested while in possession (on his person) during a random search at some checkpoint. It would be stupid for an Indian to walk around with his weapon unless in the time of roits when he needs to defend himself. Two, if police conducts a raid based on intelligence information. You will see that as muslim localities increasingly arm themselves, the Hindu police will find it more and more difficult to go in to conduct raids, arrest people and recover arms. Ever heard about ``no-go`` areas in Karachi for example?

Veeresh ``deep seated inferiority complex`` Malik #120:

You are the most insecure person I have seen on Chowk when it comes to whites - you constantly bring them into every discussion, mineral water, merchant navy, cars everything. They are like a shadow hovering you and you have hundreds of anti-White racist posts to your credit. You do this in the guise of ``wouldnt it be nice if Hindus & Muslims got together and resisted whitey``.

When I talk of Hindu-Muslim violence or war, I look at the impact on the people involved - nothing more. But insecure, racist, pea-brained Veeresh has brought in a new theory to my post - that violence by Yanks is OK because I must consider them ``superior``. Not a word in my post would hint at that - how did he come to that conclusion? Because that idea is swirling there inside of him. Its age old - its called projection.

Bewakoof.

Shah

Shah Sahab, indeed I did not know that such penalties are imposed - I am not suggesting automatic weapons but normal hunting weapons - anything would be better than being unarmed the next time and you know there will be a next time, it may even happen sometime this month.

As is clear from the responses of the Indians, there are two strains, one is to obfuscate, to shift the topic of discussion to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mars, anywhere but to the relevant place, India. The other is to utter bold face lies, to the effect that the polity is ``secular``, ``self correcting`` - perhaps it is these barbarous pogroms that they consider self correcting. The tragedy is so many Indians actually belive, deep in their hearts they believe, Muslims to be ``babur ki aulad`` - being a Muslim is not a decision of conscience for them - for them it is an affirmation of their larger struggle aginst ``non-Indianness``. Instead of taking our criticism to heart and introspecting, trying to cope with what Tolerance and Pluralism should mean - they are content to say, that they are better than Pakistan (who cares?) or they rationalize, saying such things happen in other places, yes in Burundi or Rwanda, certainly not in places which make claims (we all wish were true) about being bastions of tolerance, pluralism, democracy, fair play, secular governance. They imagine that we enjoy that these are not true - when all we wanted was to invite to see their own responsibility in these failures.

You will note the brute, Rushdie has decided that he shall attack God, my prediction to you about the reception of this article in mainstream America, is that it will be as welcome as a skunk at a party. Of course the ``New York sensibility`` the ``sex as political expression`` and ``non-judgemental`` crowd are going to be enthused - but real America is no moral gutter like India, nor are educated Americans thrilled by the barren wasteland that is communist ``thinking``.

COMMUNISTS - Unite! Rushdi says problem not falliable humans but GOD!Thereby absolving the BJP and VHP ideologies - that`s right bigots, there is refuge, blame GOD! No more ``Devil made me do it`` - Objective answer to the problem of intolerance, of the psychology of inferiority and superiority, of the racism of caste, of identity, of petty and vulgar nationalsim, of communalism, is that God is the problem, witness:

“Slaughter in the Name of God

By Salman Rushdie

Friday, March 8, 2002; Page A33

The defining image of the week, for me, is of a small child`s burned and blackened arm, its tiny fingers curled into a fist, protruding from the remains of a human bonfire in Ahmadabad, Gujarat, in India. The murder of children is something of an Indian specialty. The routine daily killings of unwanted girl babies . . . the massacre of innocents in Nellie, Assam, in the 1980s when village turned against neighboring village . . . the massacre of Sikh children in Delhi during the horrifying reprisal murders that followed Indira Gandhi`s assassination: They bear witness to our particular gift, always most dazzlingly in evidence at times of religious unrest, for dousing our children in kerosene and setting them alight, or cutting their throats, or smothering them or just clubbing them to death with a good strong length of wood.

I say ``our`` because I write as an Indian man, born and bred, who loves India deeply and knows that what one of us does today, any of us is potentially capable of doing tomorrow. If I take pride in India`s strengths, then India`s sins must be mine as well. Do I sound angry? Good. Ashamed and disgusted? I certainly hope so. Because, as India undergoes its worst bout of Hindu-Muslim bloodletting in more than a decade, many people have not been sounding anything like angry, ashamed or disgusted enough. Police chiefs have been excusing their men`s unwillingness to defend the citizens of India, without regard to religion, by saying that these men have feelings too and are subject to the same sentiments as the nation in general.

Meanwhile, India`s political masters have been tut-tutting and offering the usual soothing lies about the situation being brought under control. (It has escaped nobody`s notice that the ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or Indian People`s Party, and the Hindu extremists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), or World Hindu Council, are sister organizations and offshoots of the same parent body.) Even some international commentators, such as Britain`s Independent newspaper, urge us to ``beware excess pessimism.``

The horrible truth about communal slaughter in India is that we`re used to it. It happens every so often; then it dies down. That`s how life is, folks. Most of the time India is the world`s largest secular democracy; and if, once in a while, it lets off a little crazy religious steam, we mustn`t let that distort the picture.

Of course, there are political explanations. Ever since December 1992, when a VHP mob demolished a 400-year-old Muslim mosque in Ayodhya, which they claim was built on the sacred birthplace of the god Ram, Hindu fanatics have been looking for this fight. The pity of it is that some Muslims were ready to give it to them. Their murderous attack on the train-load of VHP activists at Godhra (with its awful, atavistic echoes of the killings of Hindus and Muslims by the train-load during the partition riots of 1947) played right into the Hindu extremists` hands.

The VHP has evidently tired of what it sees as the equivocations and insufficient radicalism of India`s BJP government. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is more moderate than his party; he also heads a coalition government and has been obliged to abandon much of the BJP`s more extreme Hindu nationalist rhetoric to hold the coalition together. But it isn`t working anymore. In state elections across the country, the BJP is being trounced. This may have been the last straw for the VHP firebrands. Why put up with the government`s betrayal of their fascistic agenda when that betrayal doesn`t even result in electoral success?

The electoral failure of the BJP is thus, in all probability, the spark that lit the fire. The VHP is determined to build a Hindu temple on the site of the demolished Ayodhya mosque -- that`s where the Godhra dead were coming from -- and there are, reprehensibly, idiotically, tragically, Muslims in India equally determined to resist them. Vajpayee has insisted that the slow Indian courts must decide the rights and wrongs of the Ayodhya issue. The VHP is no longer prepared to wait.

The distinguished Indian writer Mahasveta Devi, in a letter to India`s president, K. R. Narayanan, blames the Gujarat government (led by a BJP hard-liner) as well as the central government for doing ``too little too late.`` She pins the blame firmly on the ``motivated, well-planned out and provocative actions`` of the Hindu nationalists. But another writer, the Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul, speaking in India just a week before the violence erupted, denounced India`s Muslims en masse and praised the nationalist movement.

The murderers of Godhra must indeed be denounced, and Mahasveta Devi in her letter demands ``stern legal action`` against them. But the VHP is determined to destroy that secular democracy in which India takes such public pride and which it does so little to protect; and by supporting them, Naipaul makes himself a fellow traveler of fascism and disgraces the Nobel award.

The political discourse matters, and explains a good deal. But there`s something beneath it, something we don`t want to look in the face: namely, that in India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of ``respect.`` What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion`s dreaded name? How well, with what fatal results, religion erects totems, and how willing we are to kill for them! And when we`ve done it often enough, the deadening of affect that results makes it easier to do it again.

So India`s problem turns out to be the world`s problem. What happened in India has happened in God`s name. The problem`s name is God.

Salman Rushdie is a novelist and author of the forthcoming essay collection ``Step Across This Line.``

RSaxena #128
Alas, there is a looong way to go to reduce VHP to the status KKK has in the US. Perhaps someone can make a more knowledgeable comparison, but there are stark differences namely

1. each organisation`s ideological influence in government and in the public sphere
2. in the way the state handles the activities of the organisation

1. Ideological and Political influence
If I am not mistaken, KKK is only a fringe member of the Christian Coalition which is itself is finally only a faction ( perhaps an important one) of the Republican party. Through public education and public consensus, the KKK and its ideology now represent the views of only a tiny mostly unseen minority. The broad public consensus ensures that definately noone in government at the national or state levels and perhaps local levels can afford to be seen to sympathise with KKK`s world view much less claim organisational allegiance to KKK. Absolutely noone can claim to use and then justify the KKK`s techniques of lynch mobs, church burning and other lawbreaking without facing legal action.


In contrast, the VHP is an arm of the BJP family, represents a part of the BJP grassroots base, many BJP members including the Gujarat CM belong to the VHP too. VHP helped BJP come to power, its goals were the BJP`s goals including the incidents at Ayodhya in `92 it has been a fellow traveller, BJP being in power has granted VHP greater legitimacy. The BJP is now `dealing` with this organisation on a matter of national importance thereby granting the VHP and its tactics and its claim to represent a large segment of Indians even more legitimacy. The VHP has earned this legitimacy not by demonstrating public support butmerely by organisational fervor and cohabitation with the BJP. Public support is what VHP publicly claims(even through Narendra Modi)that it has for rioting, raping and intimidation.

2. Contrast in the way the state handles the activities of the organisation.
The KKK cannot lynch people anymore, much less justify it as a means of public justice. Check out this case, this former cop who is mayor of a town is being pursued in 2001-2002 for racial incitement and murder of a black woman in 1969.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/05/18/mayor.cnna/

Heard of a single Hindutva organisation member being successfully prosecuted ? 500 dead and VHP doesnot admit responsibility, the state government and central government donot blame VHP, much less crackdown on the leaders in Gujarat, the Gujarat police HAVE registered FIRs against BJP and VHP members, lets just see how far they go.

The credit for the difference in KKK and VHP must go to the American people and their successful creation of public consensus against the KKK and translation of this consensus into the actions of the state. As I said, for Indians there is still a lot of work to be done and a long way to go.

re: sadna

{{I think an attempt should be made to get them designated terrorist organisation.}}

good luck trying to make that happen..you might as well also plan a manned mission to mars while you`re at it...the VHP is the equivalent of the KKK in the US..they are not comparable to hamas, jaish-e-whatever, lashkar-e-whatever, etc. the latter engage in international terrorism on citizens of other countries...the VHP and KKKs engage in domestic rioting and crimes...big difference from the perspective of a third nation like the US...

{They disown violence and divisive rhetoric}

how is making silly statements like this going to help..they already make silly statements like that...

re: veeresh

{{Dear Truth . . . now I understand your truth .. .. .. it is OK for Muslims to aid, abet and kill other Muslims, for example it is OK to kill Afghan Muslims. It is OK to kill women Muslims. It is OK to kill Ahmediya Muslims. It is OK to kill all the kinds of Muslims you don`t like.

This is my theory:- you consider somebody superior to you, he comes and kills you, that is fine by you. So, the Saudis and Yanks can pop you off, that is not an issue, that is your kismet.

But along comes an otherwise peaceful bunch of people of any religion, say Israelis or Indians or Bangladeshis, and they stand up against the atrocities committed against them by anybody, may happen to be Muslim or not, and you have an issue with that. }}

a beauty of a post!! very well-said.

Isn`t it interesting that Pakistanis claim that Pakistan is NOT the home for all Indian Muslims; that it was meant only for the Muslims of the provinces of India which had a Muslim majority.

Then they turn around and cry copious tears about the death of Indian Muslims in the Gujarat riots. Why is it any Pakistani`s business?

On the other hand, not one word of condemnation for the massacres in 1998 of Shias by the Taliban or of Christians in East Timor by the Indonesians.

Seems to me like Muslim-on-Muslim violence is acceptable; Muslim-on-anybody-else violence is not to be talked about; but Hindu-on-Muslim violence is to be condemned.

I wonder why.

pmishra2, Truth #124
``You can e-mail me at truthatchowk@yahoo.com if you have specific ideas.``

Truth, lets see what pmishra2 has to say.

Calling pmishra2!! Pl. give a contact email here on chowk or mail me too at sadna123@mail.com.

Sadna:

With regard to getting VHP declared a terrorist organization: While there has been widespread rioting by a lot of Hindus, indicating a social breakdown, I am not sure if we have specific info that will tie VHP as an organization to terror. Certain VHP individuals, maybe. Maybe that will be enough to nail VHP. VHP may, on close scrutiny, emerge as an organization with obnoxious views but not as a terrorist organization. They may get KKK status - legal but obnoxious.

But revoking tax-exempt status may be a slightly easier threshold to meet. As a practical matter, it may not change much - they cans till send money through conduits etc. But its about time Hindus faced up to Hindu bigotry and this may have that symbolic impact. Any idea how to proceed? You can e-mail me at truthatchowk@yahoo.com if you have specific ideas.

Sadna

That you are shifty eyed is not excuse to sit on your thumbs and defend the the ideology of Hindu chauvanism. This chauvanism wraps itself in the language of ``Secular`` and ``democratic`` but it`s reality is a deep psychosis, a very strong complex against Muslims.

You have a right to react in any way you think if right to criticism, even if with a knee jerk nationalism, but you can`t hide from the fact that your attitudes will have consequences, that ultimately persons who defend and promote the ideas of Hindu chauvanism, will be held accountable.