Why Are We Killing Ourselves?

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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.

``Hear Hear``!! Hear the truth here . . .

Truth #116
I was just registering my disawoval of the Pakistani worldview as expressed by hobbyt.

In my view, the death of one Indian in a majority-minority tussle with the state looking on is worse than any number of deaths in war elsewhere.

I like pmishra2`s ideas of spreading the word about VHP among NRIs and getting their tax-exempt status revoked by the US government. I think an attempt should be made to get them designated terrorist organisation.

I think the following measures should be taken( from what I posted elsewhere):

1. Vajapayee and members of his government admit adminstrative failure to protect Muslims and Hindus both. They disown violence and divisive rhetoric as a way to consolidate their vote banks and reiterate their committment to a multi-religious society in India. Failing this Advani had better resign, if not Vajpayee.

2. Narendra Modi acknowledges his government agencies acted too late and in an ineffective manner. Narendra Modi is either dismissed or he admits that its his job to repair the harm to communal relations.

3. The BJP is in government both at the state and central level. They use their adminstrative power to bring the worst offenders to justice. Special riot courts are set up to punish the guilty speedily and successfully.

4. BJP/VHP/Bjarang Dal/Cong admit that the Gujarat wings of the orgnaisations indulged in unlawful activities and suspend the leaders and take action against the guily members in their organisations.

5. Ensure that all communities affected get the perception of justice being served in the puishment of offenders and reparation and rehabilitation of victims, including businessmen whose businesses were looted.

6. The NDA/BJP government refuses to deal with the VHP on Ayodhya unless VHP withdraws in kar sevaks from Ayodhya and agrees to the supremacy of the rule of law.

(Want to add: VHP should actually be banned, but given their current `mobilization` this may be set off more violence. So BJP should either get into a position to deal with this administratively or tell VHP that the next violent incident will get them banned).

hobbyt #113
I cannot express my horror at what is happening, afterall its my country. What makes it worse is its a perpetuation of past incidents and behaviours and was made worse by incompetence and bias on the part of the states leaders. As George Fernandes said `noone is standing tall`.

But my world view is so totally different from yours, esp with respect to India. For one thing I find the Pakistani horror at Muslims getting killed quite inconsistent and very dependant on where they were killed. For example, it was the Pakistani government which kept Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar provided with enough rounds of ammunition to bomb the civilian localities in Kabul for two years? and kill 50,000 civilians in the process.

There is absolutely noone with the moral authority to speak against violence in our region, alas, we are all shifty-eyed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/07/international/asia/07PASH.html

A Tribe Is Prey to Vengeance After Taliban`s Fall in North

By DEXTER FILKINS with BARRY BEARAK

((Pashtuns young and old have been forced out of their villages and now live in caves in northern Afghanistan.))

NAZRA, Afghanistan, March 3 — One after the other, the villages in the valley of Shor Daryab stand all but empty.

Nazra and Guljosh, abandoned. Ghaforbai and Babakzai and Daulatzai, gutted. Attan Khoja, a mishmash of lean-tos and caves and half-crazed hangers-on.

``Go this way, and you will see that all the villages are empty,`` said Amir Jan, a lone man searching for truffles near a lifeless town.

Until recently, the 10-mile valley near the border with Turkmenistan was inhabited almost exclusively by ethnic Pashtuns, the group that formed the core of the Taliban movement.

The Pashtuns are Afghanistan`s largest ethnic group, but a minority here in the valleys and plains of the northwest.

They lived in clusters, away from the more numerous Uzbeks and Tajiks, and when the Taliban fled the area last November, the Pashtuns suddenly found themselves hunted and alone.

The Pashtuns of northern Afghanistan are fleeing their villages by the thousands now, telling tales of murder and rape and robbery, and leaving behind empty towns and grazing grounds just beginning to shimmer with the first grass of spring.

Some refugees are living in caves; others are heading south, to where their ethnic brethren still dominate. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of Pashtun villages have been looted.

Reports like these inspire proposals by the interim government in Kabul for a security force to police areas outside the capital, proposals that the Western allies are reluctant to accept.

One of those who has caught the full fury of revenge against the Pashtuns is Muhammad Yosin, a farmer from Attan Khoja who fled his village when the Uzbek gunmen came and now lives with his family in a cave.

On a crinkled piece of paper he carries a handwritten list detailing what they stole: new carpets — 4; old carpets — 4; mattresses — 6; cups — 12; plates — 6; teapot — 1.

``I have 100 witnesses who would swear I am not a Taliban supporter,`` said Mr. Yosin, a tiny man with a long beard, ``and still they took everything I own.``

The persecution of the northern Pashtuns opens a new chapter in Afghanistan`s tangled history of ethnic relations.

For decades, northern Afghanistan peacefully cradled its many groups, jostling together the Pashtuns, the Turkmen and the Hazara with the dominant Tajiks and Uzbeks. Then came the Taliban, ethnic Pashtuns drawn mainly from the south and inspired by a vision not only of extreme Islam but also of Pashtun supremacy.

When the Taliban swept across northern Afghanistan in the late 1990`s, they focused their fury on minorities, massacring thousands. The Taliban often gave favored status to their local brethren, setting aside the choicest lands for their farms and cattle.

Now, it appears, the newly dominant are exacting their revenge, from Herat in the west to the outskirts of Kabul in the east, where Kuchi nomads are too afraid to bring their sheep to their historic grazing lands on the Shamali Plain. Much of the mayhem seems to be unfolding before the gaze of America`s wartime allies, the Uzbek warlords who took over when the Taliban collapsed.

More than a dozen Pashtun villagers along the Shor Daryab blamed an Uzbek warlord named Hashim, who led the force that took control of the area in November.

Seated on the floor of his office in nearby Faizabad, Mr. Hashim seemed a harmless figure, a smiling man with a beard. Above his head hung a framed portrait of Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Russian-backed Uzbek mercenary and regional leader, and a letter of appreciation for Mr. Hashim`s help in subduing the Taliban.

Asked about the thousands of Pashtuns who have fled their villages, he dismissed them with a wave, saying, ``They are Al Qaeda.``

It is not clear to what extent the attacks on Pashtuns have been politically orchestrated, and to what extent they are spontaneous revenge.

A United Nations official, who declined to be identified, said of the anti-Pashtun campaign: ``It has been systematic and wide scale. Rapes are far more common than killings, but the serious looting is very pronounced. With the change in power, it is time to settle old scores.``

No one knows how many Pashtuns have fled their homes, or how many villages have been sacked. The United Nations says 50,000 Afghans have gathered at camps near the Pakistan border, many of them northern Pashtuns and Kuchi nomads.

In Faryab Province, where the Shor Daryab runs, field workers with the International Organization for Migration said they had distributed food to more than 2,000 displaced Pashtuns living in tents and caves.

Until recently, Attan Khoja formed a network of mud-brick Pashtun hamlets nestled alongside the Shor Daryab, a once-formidable river that years of drought have reduced to a gully. The breathtaking valley, framed by undulating green hills, provided the grazing grounds for the herds of sheep, camels and cows that kept the villagers alive.

According to villagers still left in Attan Khoja and some who fled, the Taliban abruptly retreated from the province`s main precincts on Nov. 9, the same night that opposition forces expelled the Taliban from the key northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif. The next night, the villagers say, Uzbek soldiers led by Mr. Hashim swept through, gathering up all the guns.

Like many Pashtuns left in Faryab Province, the people of Attan Khoja say they neither supported the Taliban nor benefitted from their rise to power.

The next night, the villagers say, the Uzbeks returned, yelling and shooting and dragging men from their beds. Some women were raped. Nearly everyone was robbed, animals were seized, carpets carted off. Three men resisted; they were shot.

``We have the women sleeping in the donkey stables,`` said Gul Muhammad, a 55-year-old shepherd. ``When the men with guns come, we cannot protect them.``

After that first night, the Uzbeks came again and again, the villagers said, always demanding money and valuables at the points of their guns. After each attack, more and more villagers left. When the survivors of Attan Khoja had nothing left to give, the Uzbeks ripped the beams and frames from their mud-brick homes.

While none of the villagers` claims could be verified, today the village of Atan Khoja stands in ruins. It is mostly an eerily quiet place. Door and window frames have been torn away, and most of the roofs are gone. Many of the remaining families have carved caves from the nearby mountain walls, where they live with the few possessions they have left.

The stragglers who have stayed seem to have paid a price for their stubbornness. A bedraggled woman named Gul Dana sat outside her cave mumbling to herself, unable to remember the names of her sons and bemoaning her ill fortune.

``We have nothing, we have nothing, no carpets to sit on,`` Gul Dana cried, fingering her head scarf. ``I think it is time I sold my veil.``

The people of Attan Khoja seem befuddled by their fate, but a drive north along the Shor Daryab offered something of an explanation. A few bumpy miles up the road, the hamlet of Daulatzai stood silent but for a pair of shepherds grazing their animals on the hillside. They were Uzbeks from over the hills, and they reveled in the novel experience of leading their sheep to the finest lands in the valley.

``During Taliban times, we would have been beaten for trying to bring our sheep over the hills,`` said Lal Muhammad, 25. ``The Pashtuns were arrogant, and they were cruel.``

He pointed to one of the few intact houses: ``See the window frames and the roof beams? They are mine. I am not going to take them back, but they are mine, and they took them from me when the Taliban came four years ago.``

Across northern Afghanistan, the pattern repeats itself. In the middle of a grassy plain southwest of Shibarghan, Kuchi nomads clamor over their few remaining sacks of rice. That very morning, they said, Uzbek gunmen had come in search of loot. When they found none, they grabbed one of the young men instead.

``They took my son! They took my son!`` howled Shah Pairy, pulling the veil away from her face.

Two miles down the road, Abdul Shakur, a 21-year-old Uzbek farmer, guided an ox across his fields for the first time in four years. The Taliban had seized his lands when they conquered the area, he explained, and now he was taking them back. If some Pashtuns were suffering now, well, Mr. Shakur said, it was time they were repaid, wasn`t it?

Sadna:

There is a difference between getting killed in a war and by starvation and getting killed in riots targeted on the minority by the majority. In war/starvation, if you are out of a war zone and have food, you FEEL OK. In majority riots, even if you are a minority living comfortably at home, you still FEEL insecure because you have seen what the majority can do. Deaths in war are like amputations, living in the shadow of a riot is like living with cancer.

We can draw NO comfort that, by the standards of war, casualties were 600 in Gujarat and not 60,000 or less than in Afghanistan. It is a completely different dynamic at work here.

The need of the hour: PUBLICLY, DEMONSTRABLY AND DECISIVELY PUNISH the guilty, reconstruct the mosques and graves demolished, make the conditions such that a Muslim will feel comfortable returning to his home - this includes visits by local community members to the camps where displaced Muslims are living to invite them back, the removal of the killers from society to jail.

Easier said than done when large segments of Hindus are infected with hate.

The agressiveness teaching of of Islam is the route cause of the conflict.

What the followers of the Islam need to under stand is that world has change and religious agressiveness and politics of conflict will not help in the spread of Islam. The other people are aslo now more aware of their faith and are seeing that their own faith is more competetive compare to teaching of Islam.

This very notion comes in the way of Islam now and its loosing the ground tolerant faith making its fanatic followers more agresive....the other sides react strongly too.

In India for Hindus its matter of survival of our way of life....people are not ready to compromise.

No one will object to 5 times a day praying Muslims but they certainly will react to agressiveness of Islam.

Sadna

There can be no hiding or getting away from facts or trying to obfuscate - what happens in India is the responsibility of Indians - if it makes you happy to point to failures in other parts of the world - by all means, point to them - in the end, you will have to accept responsibility for your own short coming.

Blame Muslims for this, blame them for that Blame them for inciting a riot, blame them for ``breaking OUR country`` - if that works for you, I have no problem with that - but my message to Muslims in India is to be armed and be prepared and that LIBERTY is never given, it must be WON!

I cannot believe the nerve of Sarita Sarvate to write the article she wrote when the smoulders of the bodies of 500 or Muslims are still red. What a despicable person.

I`d never heard of her and I wish I never had. Hopefully, I will never see her in print again.

It is depressing to be Indian right now.

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Foreign Service

Wednesday, March 6, 2002; Page A10

GODHRA, India, March 5 – For two days, as the Sabarmati Express snaked across northern India, some Hindu activists in cars S-5 and S-6 carried on like hooligans. They exposed themselves to other passengers. They pulled headscarves off Muslim women. They evicted a family of four in the middle of the night for refusing to join in chants glorifying the Hindu god Ram. They failed to pay for the tea and snacks they consumed at each stop.

When the train pulled into this hardscrabble town in western India on the morning of Feb. 27, the reputation of its rowdiest passengers preceded it. When they refused to pay for their food, Muslim boys among the vendors at Godhra station stormed the train.

When the confrontation was over, 58 Hindu passengers – mostly women and children – were dead, incinerated by a fire that consumed cars S-5 and S-6. In retaliation, mobs of enraged Hindus descended on Muslim communities across Gujarat state, igniting riots that killed more than 500 people, India`s worst religious violence in a decade.

Indian officials have characterized the riots as Hindu rage for an attack on innocent activists. However, interviews with passengers on the train, witnesses to the incident and police and railway officials suggest that the train fire was not a premeditated ambush by young Muslims, but rather a spontaneous argument, provoked by the Hindu activists, that went out of control.

``Both sides were at fault,`` said a police official here, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``The provocation was there and the reaction was strong. But no one had imagined all this would turn into such a big tragedy.``

B.K. Nanavati, the deputy police superintendent in Godhra, said the investigation does not support the contention by Gujarat`s chief minister, Narendra Modi, that the assault on the train was a ``terrorist attack.``

``It was not preplanned,`` Nanavati said. ``It was a sudden, provocative incident.``

The confrontation illustrates the volatile mixture of religion, history and extremist politics that plague India, a Hindu-dominated but officially secular nation of 1 billion people. In 1947, when India achieved independence and was partitioned to create the Muslim nation of Pakistan, thousands of Hindus fleeing Pakistan settled in Godhra. Enraged that Muslims in Pakistan had evicted them, they vented their anger at Godhra`s Muslims, burning their homes and businesses with truckloads of gasoline.

Since then, government officials have deemed the city one of the country`s most ``communally sensitive`` places. In the 1980s and again in 1992, it was wracked by riots, some started by Muslims and others by Hindus.

Today, the population of 150,000 is almost evenly split between Hindus and Muslims, who live in segregated communities separated in places by the train tracks. There is little interaction between the groups, which regard each other with suspicion.

Hindus, who question the depth of the Muslims` loyalty to India, refer to the other side of town as Pakistan. The Muslims contend they are mistreated by the local Hindu-dominated government.

Enter the World Hindu Council, whose cadres want to transform India into a Hindu nation with limited minority rights. The group, part of a coalition of Hindu-nationalist organizations that includes the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, favors a confrontational approach to push its agenda.

At council rallies, members brandish tridents and swords – symbols from Hindu mythology – and shout Hindu slogans. And in 1992, the group led a mob of Hindus who destroyed a 16th-century mosque in the eastern town of Ayodhya. Since then, the council`s followers have made pilgrimages to Ayodhya, where they hope to build a temple to Ram on the site of the razed mosque.

Activists from Gujarat state, where the Hindu council has a strong base, often made the trip on the Sabarmati Express. Along the way, witnesses say, they frequently would scream out ``Victory to Lord Ram`` and ``Victory to Hindus`` as the train passed through Muslim neighborhoods.

``There was a history of provocation,`` said Syed Umarji, a wood trader who lives in a Muslim neighborhood near the tracks here. ``They would say these things all the time.``

On the train that left Ayodhya on Feb. 25, members of the Hindu council were particularly boisterous because of a government order that they vacate the Ayodhya grounds. Muslims who were on the same train say the activists walked through the cars shouting taunts such as ``Wipe out every Muslim.

``The train was full of them,`` said Fateh Mohammad, a Muslim passenger who was traveling with his daughter and son-in-law. ``They were shouting and dancing all the time. All the Muslims were very scared.``

Savita Darbar, a member of the Hindu council who was on the train, insisted that her group was not confrontational. ``We were just singing prayer songs to Lord Ram,`` she said. ``We did not bother the Muslims.``

As the train came to a stop in Godhra, however, all the elements were in place for a fight.

The train was five hours late, largely because the activists` behavior had forced the conductor to make several emergency stops. Instead of arriving quietly in the middle of the night, the Sabarmati arrived at 7:43 a.m., just as word of the group`s behavior had trickled in from vendors at other stations.

The vendors in Godhra were resolved not to be victimized. The Hindu council members, too, were ready for action: Rocks collected from near the tracks were piled near the doors of their cars.

When the Hindus refused to pay for their tea and snacks, several young Muslims jumped on the train as it started to leave the station and pulled the emergency brake chain. With a piercing squeal, the Sabarmati ground to a halt a half-mile from the station, in the middle of a Muslim neighborhood. An argument ensued, drawing hundreds of residents.

Police and railway officials said they do not know who began throwing stones first. But the officials said they believe that after about 10 minutes, one or more Muslims poured a flammable substance on a mattress and ignited it between the S-5 and S-6 cars.

A few minutes later, a fire broke out at the other end of the S-5. Within moments, the car was engulfed by flames.

Police officials said they are not sure how that second fire began. Nanavati said the Muslims could have set another fire, or the Hindus, trying to respond in kind, might have accidentally sparked a blaze in their own car, which was filled with kerosene and cooking gas.

``It could have been an accident,`` Nanavati said.

Thus far, the railway police have arrested only Muslims – 41 of them – in connection with the fire, a fact that galls Muslim leaders here.

``They should arrest the Hindus, too,`` said Shoail Sadamas, an accounting student who witnessed the incident. ``They were not innocent victims.``

Special correspondent Rama Lakshmi contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44252-2002Mar5.html

Provocation Helped Set India Train Fire



Official Faults Hindu Actions, Muslim

Reactions for Incident That Led to

Carnage

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Foreign Service

Wednesday, March 6, 2002; Page A10 GODHRA, India, March 5 – For two days, as the Sabarmati Express snaked across northern India, some Hindu activists in cars S-5 and S-6 carried on like hooligans. They exposed themselves to other passengers. They pulled headscarves off Muslim women. They evicted a family of four in the middle of the night for refusing to join in chants glorifying the Hindu god Ram. They failed to pay for the tea and snacks they consumed at each stop.

When the train pulled into this hardscrabble town in western India on the morning of Feb. 27, the reputation of its rowdiest passengers preceded it. When they refused to pay for their food, Muslim boys among the vendors at Godhra station stormed the train.

When the confrontation was over, 58 Hindu passengers – mostly women and children – were dead, incinerated by a fire that consumed cars S-5 and S-6. In retaliation, mobs of enraged Hindus descended on Muslim communities across Gujarat state, igniting riots that killed more than 500 people, India`s worst religious violence in a decade.

Indian officials have characterized the riots as Hindu rage for an attack on innocent activists. However, interviews with passengers on the train, witnesses to the incident and police and railway officials suggest that the train fire was not a premeditated ambush by young Muslims, but rather a spontaneous argument, provoked by the Hindu activists, that went out of control.

``Both sides were at fault,`` said a police official here, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``The provocation was there and the reaction was strong. But no one had imagined all this would turn into such a big tragedy.``

B.K. Nanavati, the deputy police superintendent in Godhra, said the investigation does not support the contention by Gujarat`s chief minister, Narendra Modi, that the assault on the train was a ``terrorist attack.``

``It was not preplanned,`` Nanavati said. ``It was a sudden, provocative incident.``

The confrontation illustrates the volatile mixture of religion, history and extremist politics that plague India, a Hindu-dominated but officially secular nation of 1 billion people. In 1947, when India achieved independence and was partitioned to create the Muslim nation of Pakistan, thousands of Hindus fleeing Pakistan settled in Godhra. Enraged that Muslims in Pakistan had evicted them, they vented their anger at Godhra`s Muslims, burning their homes and businesses with truckloads of gasoline.

Since then, government officials have deemed the city one of the country`s most ``communally sensitive`` places. In the 1980s and again in 1992, it was wracked by riots, some started by Muslims and others by Hindus.

Today, the population of 150,000 is almost evenly split between Hindus and Muslims, who live in segregated communities separated in places by the train tracks. There is little interaction between the groups, which regard each other with suspicion.

Hindus, who question the depth of the Muslims` loyalty to India, refer to the other side of town as Pakistan. The Muslims contend they are mistreated by the local Hindu-dominated government.

Enter the World Hindu Council, whose cadres want to transform India into a Hindu nation with limited minority rights. The group, part of a coalition of Hindu-nationalist organizations that includes the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, favors a confrontational approach to push its agenda.

At council rallies, members brandish tridents and swords – symbols from Hindu mythology – and shout Hindu slogans. And in 1992, the group led a mob of Hindus who destroyed a 16th-century mosque in the eastern town of Ayodhya. Since then, the council`s followers have made pilgrimages to Ayodhya, where they hope to build a temple to Ram on the site of the razed mosque.

Activists from Gujarat state, where the Hindu council has a strong base, often made the trip on the Sabarmati Express. Along the way, witnesses say, they frequently would scream out ``Victory to Lord Ram`` and ``Victory to Hindus`` as the train passed through Muslim neighborhoods.

``There was a history of provocation,`` said Syed Umarji, a wood trader who lives in a Muslim neighborhood near the tracks here. ``They would say these things all the time.``

On the train that left Ayodhya on Feb. 25, members of the Hindu council were particularly boisterous because of a government order that they vacate the Ayodhya grounds. Muslims who were on the same train say the activists walked through the cars shouting taunts such as ``Wipe out every Muslim.

``The train was full of them,`` said Fateh Mohammad, a Muslim passenger who was traveling with his daughter and son-in-law. ``They were shouting and dancing all the time. All the Muslims were very scared.``

Savita Darbar, a member of the Hindu council who was on the train, insisted that her group was not confrontational. ``We were just singing prayer songs to Lord Ram,`` she said. ``We did not bother the Muslims.``

As the train came to a stop in Godhra, however, all the elements were in place for a fight.

The train was five hours late, largely because the activists` behavior had forced the conductor to make several emergency stops. Instead of arriving quietly in the middle of the night, the Sabarmati arrived at 7:43 a.m., just as word of the group`s behavior had trickled in from vendors at other stations.

The vendors in Godhra were resolved not to be victimized. The Hindu council members, too, were ready for action: Rocks collected from near the tracks were piled near the doors of their cars.

When the Hindus refused to pay for their tea and snacks, several young Muslims jumped on the train as it started to leave the station and pulled the emergency brake chain. With a piercing squeal, the Sabarmati ground to a halt a half-mile from the station, in the middle of a Muslim neighborhood. An argument ensued, drawing hundreds of residents.

Police and railway officials said they do not know who began throwing stones first. But the officials said they believe that after about 10 minutes, one or more Muslims poured a flammable substance on a mattress and ignited it between the S-5 and S-6 cars.

A few minutes later, a fire broke out at the other end of the S-5. Within moments, the car was engulfed by flames.

Police officials said they are not sure how that second fire began. Nanavati said the Muslims could have set another fire, or the Hindus, trying to respond in kind, might have accidentally sparked a blaze in their own car, which was filled with kerosene and cooking gas.

``It could have been an accident,`` Nanavati said.

Thus far, the railway police have arrested only Muslims – 41 of them – in connection with the fire, a fact that galls Muslim leaders here.

``They should arrest the Hindus, too,`` said Shoail Sadamas, an accounting student who witnessed the incident. ``They were not innocent victims.``

Special correspondent Rama Lakshmi contributed to this report.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

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hobbyt, ali1
Tell Shah about Afghan Muslims. One million and a half Afghans and unknown numbers of Pakistanis died in the 20 years during which Pakistan armed first one faction then another. 2-4 million more Muslims became refugees during that time.

#103 by hobbyty

beautiful post!!

Muslim group wants to undo Babar’s fault

http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=177294

From Prasanta Paul

DH News Service

BURDWAN (West Bengal), March 6

If Babar made a monumental mistake way back in 1528 AD by demolishing a temple and erecting a mosque in its place, could this go unexpiated down the ages, especially when it has triggered a dispute, threatening the secular fabric of India ?

At a time when the members of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and sadhus and sants of VHP besides Sankaracharya of Kanchi have been racking their brains for an answer to the vexed issue, a group of Muslims in this Marxist stronghold of Burdwan, a subdivisional town about 85 kms from Kolkata, is ready to join the Karsevaks for the March 15 ‘extercise’.

Driven by their desire to atone for the ‘wrongdoing’ of Babur who they claimed, had indeed demolished the temple structure at Ayodhya to facilitate construction of a mosque, the group supposed to be comprising around 14 Muslims is slated to leave for Ayodhya escorted by their ‘large-hearted’ VHP brothers in the locality. Led by one Syed Anisur Rahim who is in his late 50s, these Muslims (a majority unwilling to reveal their identity) are not smitten by the likely opprobrium they would definitely invite from their community at large for what they say is something apparently sacrilegious.

But it`s not exactly the tale, at least, so would Anisur Rahim would vouchsafe. Rahimji who runs a shop close to a mosque on the main road here, would not describe it as a freak act, for, what he and other members of his community have agreed to do “is to restore the honour and dignity of Islam.” “You see Islam is a great religion which preaches non-violence and peace. Babur defamed Islam by demolishing a temple which his predecessor Ibrahim Lodhi did not resort to,`` explained Rahimji who has overnight earned a fame in the area, thanks to the publicity given to him by the VHP activists there.

Notwithstanding a cautious vigil by the plainclothes policemen and intelligence personnel throughout the day before his tiny shop as part of a precautionary measure to avert untoward incident, Syed Anisur would vehemently decline to agree to a poser that their move “is partly a smoke-screen to deflect any Hindu backlash and partly a cheap publicity stunt.”

“How can you deny a historical fact and basic religious tenets? There were no podium for Azan and attendant facilities for Ozu (ceremonial washing and cleaning) in the demolished structure at Ayodhya in the first place. Secondly, the tell-tale signs of idol ingravings on the walls will speak of anything but Islam as it is forbidden in our religion,`` argued Rahimji.

But then, the Ayodhya dispute erupted almost a decade ago and why it has taken him and 14 others so many years to realise this and make their intention public? Syed Rahim hesitated for a while and as he groped for a plausible answer, he was rescued by a fellow Muslim ‘Karsevak’ who blamed it on lack of courage on their part. However, when pressed for his identity, the ‘good Samaritan’ refused to divulge his name.

It is obvious that those who have offered to join Rahimji for a trip to Ayodhya, are yet to overcome their strong apprehension of a backlash from the memebers of their own community. Nevertheless, they are still wary of the fact on whether they would be allowed to proceed to Ayodhya in view of stepped-up surveillance on the karsevaks mounted by the WB government.

And even if they make it, clandestinely or otherwise, would they really perform the ‘kar seva’? ``Of course, we will participate in the kirtan (bhajans of Ram) provided we are allowed to do so by the sadhus there,`` Anisur replied.

To: All My Brothers and Sisters All Over the World

The Hindu fundamentalist organizations in India are becoming a threat to the security of minorities in India. Hindus are by and large peaceful people and have co-existed with Muslims in India for a long long time.

On December 6,1992, Hindu fundamentalist groups demolished the Babri mosque in Ayodhya while giving scant regard to the Indian legal system. Since then these fundamental groups have become more and more vocal. Their key members are now part of the Indian government and in the past few years of their rule they have totally destroyed the peace and harmony that has existed between Hindus and Muslims for all these years.

This is a petition to ban the following terrorist organizations : Vishva Hindu Parishad(VHP), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal for their violent activities against Muslims and Christians. One of these groups has been responsible for targetting Christians by burning churches and in one instance even burning a priest alive. The most recent act of terrorism being the burning of innocent Muslims/Hindus in the Indian state of Gujarat (including innocent children).

The extremist activities of these groups are well known and documented. Even the Indian opposition parties have stepped up their demand to band these fundamentalist Hindu groups.

A substantial part of these organizations` funds is raised in the United States, we strongly urge you to declare these organizations as terrorist , freeze their accounts, close their offices in the United States and prohibit their members from gaining visas and enter the United States.

http://www.petitiononline.com/banvhp/petition.html

U.S. Policy Should Acknowledge Hindu Nationalism

By Sarita Sarvate

Sarita Sarvate is a writer for India Currents and other publications, and a contributing editor to Pacific News Service, from which this piece originated.

March 6, 2002

LONG MARGINALIZED, Hindu nationalism is becoming mainstream in India.

The recent burning of an Indian train headed for Ayodhya, the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram, has once more flared Hindu sentiments in the subcontinent.

During a recent visit, I found liberals and intellectuals, jet-setters and slum dwellers, men and women, Brahmins and untouchables expressing this Hindu pride.

I think it is history`s revenge for a land that was subjugated by foreigners for more than a thousand years.

It was Mahmud of Ghazni from Afghanistan who first came roaring through the Khyber Pass around 1000 A.D. to destroy the magnificent Hindu temple at Somnath. These early Muslim rulers of India were soon followed by other dynasties, all with connections to Afghanistan.

Because of its polytheistic, pacifist and non- proselytizing nature, Hinduism became vulnerable to the coming of Islam. Muslims ruled India until the 1600s, when the British took over.

Hindutva, or the Hindu fundamentalist movement, originally began in the back alleys of my hometown of Nagpur in 1925, in the wake of India`s struggle for freedom from British rule. Through the recitation of stories of native heroes like Shivaji, who had successfully fought guerrilla warfare against the Mughal despot Aurangzeb, the movement strove to incite nationalistic pride in a people who had lost their identity.

The 1947 partition of the country at independence from Britain created deeper wounds in the Hindu psyche. Later, America`s support for military dictatorships in Pakistan and the simultaneous marginalizing of India, the world`s largest democracy, kept the Hindutva movement alive.

Now, the war on terrorism has opened these 1,000-year-old wounds once again. Indians, who were hoping for strong American rhetoric against Taliban-incited terrorism in Kashmir in the wake of Sept. 11, were sorely disappointed. Many Hindus today believe that U.S. concern for victims of terrorism is limited only to its citizens, and does not extend to innocent Indians.

Most Indians I spoke to clearly believe that Kashmir - a majority-Muslim region between India and Pakistan - belongs to India.

This nationalistic pride was revealed to me when a Bengali friend - who hails from a cosmopolitan and Westernized family and whom I had always looked up to during my formative years for guidance on American literature, art, music and pop culture - told me about a recent pilgrimage she had undertaken to the holy city of Varanasi. As she was bathing in the waters of the Ganges, she said, what struck her was not the spectacle of hundreds of little Hindu temples dotting the river bank, but the shadow of the enormous mosque built by Aurangzeb still towering over the holy site.

In that instance, I realized that what Hindus need today from the international community is an acknowledgment of the legitimacy of Hindu nationalism in a historical context. Such understanding is essential for any agreement on Kashmir that will pass muster with Indians.

Indeed, more than 50 years after independence from Britain, many Indians invoke memories of past invasions so that future generations will not be too pacifistic.

``You can turn the other cheek for only so long,`` a female friend commented during my visit. ``Sometimes you have to show the world that you are proud.``

Educated women seem to be on the forefront of the Hindu nationalistic movement today. Many now join peasants in their annual trek to the Kumbh Mela and other spiritual gatherings.

Unless future American foreign policy takes Hindu nationalism into account, violence in the subcontinent may well escalate, and might lead to a military, even a nuclear, conflict.

Standing in the visa line at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco recently, I noticed the large picture of the Taj Mahal covering an entire wall. ``Isn`t it ironic,`` I said to a friend, ``that the one icon most people identify with India happens to be a Muslim tomb?``

``I wish they would use a picture of the Minakshi Temple instead,`` she replied. The temple is Hindu.

And then we both fell silent, surprised by our own non-secular sentiments.

But such sentiments are not uncommon among Indian immigrants, many of whom believe that America needs to take a more favorable stance with regard to India, the world`s largest democracy, vis-a-vis Pakistan, a military dictatorship harboring Taliban terrorists.