An Equal Reaction

yeh, viva le democracy.

gen. nusharraf, r u listening???

When I suggested earlier that a cold political calculation takes place during a riot, that revenge will be exacted immediately so that the ``affected`` community thinks that it paid the initiators of the violence back in the same coin, that the political life and death of those in power depends on this kind of vigilante activism, the feeble-minded people on Chowk suggested that I was inciting the Hindus of India to kill the Muslims. Considering that the majority of the folks who post on Chowk are educated people, this tells you something about the quality of analytical thinking that these people are capable of. So why do you blame the general Indian population when they join in the rioting and say how this is behavior not expected from an educated person? In fact, recent columns in Indian newspapers suggest that the BJP which didn`t have a chance of winning the elctions in Gujarat will win if state-wide elctions were held now so it is clear that Narendra Modi and Company played their cards right from the viewpoint of their political survival.

Why are you trying to analyze the psychology of rioters? That is best left to practitioners of voodoo and exorcism like the Headshrinker. What happened is a sociological phenomenon: when a group of people act the way they act, it is not individual psychology that motivates them. So you need to analyze the factors that motivate them to act as a unit.

When you talk about education, have you considered that it is precisely the bogus education that we get in India that is responsible for this kind of mob behavior? Throughout school, we are conditioned to read our textbooks and regurgitate facts and figures during the exams. Is there any program that asks school children to read and analyze daily events as they do in US schools? Are we producing thinking human beings or mere automatons who are qualified to work as clerks in a vast mindless bureaucracy like the British intended for us to be when they ruled India?

So long as historical facts are swept under the carpet, you are going to find that the VHP and its cohorts will exploit it by presenting their view of history and they will find a sympathetic audience when people realize that they have been lied to in their history textbooks. Why can`t people be trusted with the truth about historical events? And why can`t children be asked to write essays as part of their schoolwork about what it was to be a Hindu under Muslim rule and turn it around by asking them what it is to be a Dalit? If from childhood people are exposed to the injustices other people have faced, the probablity is greater that they will think before joining in a riot.

Is it possible to ``brainwash`` children? Sure; all it takes is to study how Mao engineered the Cultural Revolution in China. If students could be taught to betray their own parents as counterrevolutionaries, anything is possible. But instead of overt and violent disruption of society what we are looking for is to create balanced and thinking individuals. But education is seen in India as the worst enemy of entrenched powers. The states with the highest literacy, Kerala and West Bengal, continue to elect Communists to power and nobody, particularly the Congress, wants to lose power to the Communists. So you are going to find that we will have Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan (along with those new states split from these) continuing to be the millstone around the neck of India with their extremely low education. That these states happen to be those that have historically suffered the most under Muslim rule guarantees that we will continue to see violence similar to Gujarat for years to come. But that doesn`t mean that India is going to spill into continuous factional strife like Afghanistan, Lebanon of the 70s and 80s or even Northern Ireland. It is just that we will have periodic riots that will enable our Pakistani friends to praise Jinnah for his foresight, cause public contests in hanging down the head in shame and public breastbeating on the Chowk by Hindus, and give Urstruly and the like paroxysms of joy when they think that Muslims of India will shortly embrace the Kalashnikov culture resulting in the disintegration of India or the establishment of a new Sultanate in Delhi. Meanwhile, back home in India things will slowly return to some semblance of normalcy will prevail.

re: anoop

I did refer to the VHP as India`s KKK -- nothing more, nothing less. But the KKK-types can be managed, and I believe the Supreme Court asserting its authority to put at end to the nonsense is a great start in that direction.

But we shoud thank our lucky stars we don`t have Lashkar-e-mufucka types in our country and in our army. They are 10 times more dangerous, and likely to fly planes into buildings in other countries.

Dear Mr. Bhat:

The why of the tragic events in Gujjrat will have been examined superficially if we should focus on the many different version of who started what, what were the sparks that lead tot he fire. In my opinion, It is mass or public education that should examine it`s responsibility for providing the intellectual foundations for the tragic events we are witness to.

Attitudes and perceptions are fashioned by education and legitimacy has been given to ideas that propose Muslims perpetrated a ``holocaust`` upon Hindus and Hinduism, that Muslims were responsible for ``Breaking`` India apart. This has had the effect making the Muslim in India a historical ``villan`` and has deposited, exclusively, responsibility for the ills of India on a particular section of Indian society. I hope a full and public debate will follow and will focus on the content of education imparted to Indians and to what extent it is beneficial to Indian to ensure that anti Muslim attitudes and teachings are not propagated or gioven ligitamcy in public education.

Anoop Bhatt asks:

“Without realising that what`s happened is a tragedy, the after-effects of which India will have to live with for a long time to come.

Why on earth did it all have to happen?”

I will tell Anoop why did it all have to happen.

It happened – because we subcontinentals are confirmed BARBARIANS.

Despite our “ancient civilization” bullsh#t – despite our Upnishads – Bhagwat Gitas – Vedas – Qorans -- Hadith – Gulistan – Bostans – Kamasutras – we still are the same savages same caanibals that used to roam the jungles of Southeast Asia eons ago.

In those olden days we used to kill the human being and eat them alive – now we have become civilized – become the software giants of the world and IT entrepreneurs – NOW we have become EDUCATED and SOPHISTICATED enough -- we pour Kerosene on human beings and burn them and roast them alive – and then throw them away – too burnt to eat them.

In 2002 -- Muslims are confirmed barbarians as they have demonstrated on camera how simple it is to slit the throat of a journalist if you have a sharp knife -- and how easy it is to cut off a human head from a living human body – they have shown how inflammable humans are when you pour kerosene in a train compartment packed like sardines with women and children.

And now our Ahimsavadi Hindus have shown that -- they can become quantitatively 10 times (580:58) more BARBARIAN in a flash -- than the Muslim barbarians -- if “provoked” only a little PROPERLY.

The reason I was absent from the seemingly irrelevant but beloved chatter box Chowk (in view of the Gunda Gujarat) – because coming from this same gene pool of barbarians – I was desperately trying to pour some kerosene -- on my two crummy identities – one “Muslim” – and the other “Indian” – and burn them into oblivion –

But -- those two “gundey dhabbeys” – those two “ghinaoney daags” – those two bloody blots on my “pristine” new American identity -- wont burn – wont wash -- wont go away.

So here I am back on Chowk folks – again to indulge in the exercise in futility – as to how “GREAT” -- we Indians and Pakistanis are – how ``GENTLE`` AND “CIVILIZED” we Muslims and Hindus are.

The stark fact is -- WE ARE NOT, folks.

We are Killer Indians, Killer Pakistanis, Killer Muslims AND Killer Hindus -- we ALL are killers and BRBARIANS to the core – to the hilt.

Our new FAD -- we BURN men women and children ALIVE – that is our new claim to fame – all over the world – congratulations, India.

Nothing has changed – since 1947 – and nothing will change for us -- inshallah -- even in 2047.

Pakistan is in the clutches of Muslim religious extremists – AND – India is caught in the talons of Hindu religio-political vultures.

The Indian government has been hijacked by a bunch of wretched Hindu religious extremists – parading as pathetic “parliamentarians”.

Now you ALL are most welcome to accuse me of hysterical overgeneralization – if you want to – be my guest.

hasan

I have never quite figured out the reasoning behind solely blaming govts. for massive social problems, by people who voted the govts. in themsleves. This can be a reasonable excuse in areas where the voting public is so enslaved that they have no choice but to vote for a particular person. For example, in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto will get elected from her constituency of Larkana, even if she nominates her pet dog. In areas like hers, the politicians literally control the livelihood of the people, and thus leave the people with no choice but to vote for the local feudal. The only other solution is for some of the peasants to assissinate the feudal, which does happen every now and then. But the feudal can never be voted out; even evil people like the Bhuttos are able to hold power forever. Only in such areas, are the politicians to be blamed solely for the poor conditions.

However, areas like Lahore and Karachi, are a different story. Lets take Karachi. People in Karachi, one of the most sophisticated, educated, and perhaps the richest city in South Asia, always complain about the MQM. MQM has hijacked the city; it has its own torture cells; its leaders are wanted killers (which some of the them actually are), etc. etc. All the problems in Karachi are placed on the MQM`s head. What people forget is that the MQM gets voted in, by the largest winning percentages in Pakistan (even larger than the feudals), every single time. In all the elections the MQM has ever participated in, in its area of influence, I believe it has only ever lost on two seats. Amazing winning percentage. So obviously what is being done in Karachi by the MQM, is being done with the overwhelming consent of the local people. Why do the people then put the blame on the MQM? Why don`t they blame themselves?

Similarly, the BJP isn`t doing anything surprising. I don`t agree with the author`s line, ``but when the BJP first rose to power, “mandir wahee banayenge” might have been a nice tagline that worked, but to many young educated voters, the BJP represented a bunch of respectable elder statesmen who promised a cleaner, better society.`` I am surprised this was seen as a tagline. The image of the BJP is not something proposed by Sonia Gandhi. I have never ever heard Sonia Gandhi speak. Yet I have been well aware of the BJP agenda for years. I had been quoting it here for a year or so, and was unfortunately given the above counter-arguments.

How do I know their agenda? It is written clearly on their own website (www.bjp.org). And the website`s orientation hasn`t changed for years. If a party says in the begining of its website it believes not only in tearing down of the mosque, but that it considers it an, ``awakening,`` and if it states as its first line its proud membership of the RSS, then I fail to see how the, ``mandir`` issue can be viewed as just a, ``tagline.`` There are open statements on the philosophy section of the website that the BJP believes all Muslims are actually Hindus, and will turn back to Hinduism, once they get their marbles straight. That the Indian Muslims are being pampered, etc. The whole website is full of this kind of crap. I have never seen any political party`s website, anywhere in the world, which has stuff like this. Perhaps the David Duke (KKK) site in the USA is a similar exception.

Infact, the BJP has not been able to implement its full agenda yet, because it has not had full control of the govt. But I cannot imagine that Indians voting for the BJP did not realize that they were voting for Hinduvta. If people outside India, can understand this, I am sure Indians understand it even better.

The argument that these Indians, ``grew up`` and actually looked at the BJP as some sort of an economic savior only, does not hold water, since their is more Hinduvta on any BJP forum, than economic theses. In my opinion, the Indians who voted for the BJP did see it as a better economic manager for India. However, they are lying if they didn`t understand its blantantly anti-Muslim stance (definitely not a tagline, but a social direction). The BJP-voting Indians simply calcuated that if their economic standard could be raised by the BJP, and in the process some Muslims died in communalism, then no big deal. Now, these voters are tongue-tied, not because the Muslims have died (how could anyone think their wouldn`t be another Ayodhya; 2000 human beings died there and the BJP became even more popular), but because the killings have ruined India`s image. This is hyporcrisy of the highest order. To now blame the BJP leadership, while absolving the voting public, is ridiculous. The BJP has done exactly what it told its voting public it would do. Infact, it hasn`t been able to do it with the same intensity as its website indicates it wants to.

My gut feel is that the BJP will eventually get voted out, in two more stages. In the next stage, it will lose power and became the main opposition. In the third stage, it will eventually lose its position as the main opposition, also. However, after following Indian replies, media etc., I am slowly begining to get convinced that the BJP is losing and will lose votes not because of its Hindu nationalistic politics, but because it was unable to fulfill its economic promises. Had the BJP been economically successful, my feeling is that it would have been voted back in power, with its voter conveniently disregarding its anti-Muslim stance, in a similar manner as they did when they first voted it into power.

Every Indian who voted the BJP into power, after witnessing the riots in 92, is responsible for the recent communalism in India. Each one of those voters, who was not forced to vote for the BJP (like the feudal votes in Pakistan), has blood on his/her hands. For such voters to state that they expected the BJP to, ``grow up`` after coming into power, is only a attempt to hypocritically attempt to wash this blood from their hands.

Re: Romair #3, 2nd to last paragraph

I think that you are beginning to get the hang of Indian politics. There is one omission in your analysis -- anti-Muslim politics and economic advancement will not go hand in hand. The social disruption and instability that will be caused by pursuing anti-Muslim politics will doom any party`s economic agenda. Thus, the electorate will gradually figure out that one cannot have it both ways, and opt for the latter (everything else remaining unchanged)

The following article is very eye-opening. Starting with the fifth paragraphs, and especially in the 6th and 7th paragraphs, there are some startling facts recorded by an Indian government official.

CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY

Reflections on the Gujarat Massacre

By harsh Mander

Numbed with disgust and horror, I return from Gujarat ten days after the terror and massacre that convulsed the state. My heart is sickened, my soul wearied, my shoulders aching with the burdens of guilt and shame.

As you walk through the camps of riot survivors in Ahmadabad, in which an estimated 53,000 women, men, and children are huddled in 29 temporary settlements, displays of overt grief are unusual. People clutch small bundles of relief materials, all that they now own in the world, with dry and glassy eyes. Some talk in low voices, others busy themselves with the tasks of everyday living in these most basic of shelters, looking for food and milk for children, tending the wounds of the injured.

But once you sit anywhere in these camps, people begin to speak and their words are like masses of pus released by slitting large festering wounds. The horrors that they speak of are so macabre, that my pen falters in the writing. The pitiless brutality against women and small children by organised bands of armed young men is more savage than anything witnessed in the riots that have shamed this nation from time to time during the past century.

I force myself to write a small fraction of all that I heard and saw because it is important that we all know. Or maybe also because I need to share my own burdens.

What can you say about a woman eight months pregnant who begged to be spared? Her assailants instead slit open her stomach, pulled out her fetus and slaughtered it before her eyes. What can you say about a family of nineteen being killed by flooding their house with water and then electrocuting them with high-tension electricity. What can you say? A small boy of six in Juhapara camp described how his mother and six brothers and sisters were battered to death before his eyes. He survived only because he fell unconscious, and was taken for dead. A family escaping from Naroda-Patiya, one of the worst-hit settlements in Ahmedabad, spoke of losing a young woman and her three month old son, because a police constable directed her to `safety` and she found herself instead surrounded by a mob which doused her with kerosene and set her and her baby on fire.

I have never known a riot, which has used the sexual subjugation of women so widely as an instrument of violence in the recent mass barbarity in Gujarat. There are reports every where of gang-rape, of young girls and women, often in the presence of members of their families, followed by their murder by burning alive, or by bludgeoning with a hammer and in one case with a screw driver. Women in the Aman Chowk shelter told appalling stories about how armed men disrobed themselves in front of a group of terrified women to cower them down further. In Ahmedabad, most people I met - social workers, journalists, survivors - agree that what Gujarat witnessed was not a riot, but a terrorist attack followed by a systematic, planned massacre, a pogrom. Everyone spoke of the pillage and plunder, being organised like a military operation against an external armed enemy. An initial truck would arrive broadcasting inflammatory slogans, soon followed by more trucks, which disgorged young men, mostly in khaki shorts and saffron sashes. They were armed with sophisticated explosive materials, country weapons, daggers and trishuls. They also carried water bottles, to sustain them in their exertions. The leaders were seen communicating on mobile telephones from the riot venues, receiving instructions from and reporting back to a co-ordinating centre. Some were seen with documents and computer sheets listing Muslim families and their properties. They had detailed precise knowledge about buildings and businesses held by members of the minority community, such as who were partners say in a restaurant business, or which Muslim homes had Hindu spouses were married who should be spared in the violence. This was not a spontaneous upsurge of mass anger. It was a carefully planned pogrom.

The trucks carried quantities of gas cylinders. Rich Muslim homes and business establishments were first systematically looted, stripped down of all their valuables, then cooking gas was released from cylinders into the buildings for several minutes. A trained member of the group then lit the flame, which efficiently engulfed the building. In some cases, acetylene gas which is used for welding steel, was employed to explode large concrete buildings. Mosques and dargahs were razed, and were replaced by statues of Hanuman and saffron flags. Some dargahs in Ahmedabad city crossings have overnight been demolished and their sites covered with road building material, and bulldozed so efficiently that these spots are indistinguishable from the rest of the road. Traffic now plies over these former dargahs, as though they never existed. The unconscionable failures and active connivance of the state police and administrative machinery is also now widely acknowledged. The police is known to have misguided people straight into the hands of rioting mobs. They provided protective shields to crowds bent on pillage, arson, rape and murder, and were deaf to the pleas of the desperate Muslim victims, many of them women and children. There have been many reports of police firing directly mostly at the minority community, which was the target of most of the mob violence. The large majority of arrests are also from the same community, which was the main victim of the pogrom.

As one who has served in the Indian Administrative Service for over two decades, I feel great shame at the abdication of duty of my peers in the civil and police administration. The law did not require any of them to await orders from their political superivisors before they organised the decisive use of force to prevent the brutal escalation of violence, and to protect vulnerable women and children from the organised, murderous mobs. The law instead required them to act independently, fearlessly, impartially, decisively, with courage and compassion. If even one official had so acted in Ahmedabad, she or he could have deployed the police forces and called in the army to halt the violence and protect the people in a matter of hours. No riot can continue beyond a few hours without the active connivance of the local police and magistracy. The blood of hundreds of innocents are on the hands of the police and civil authorities of Gujarat, and by sharing in a conspiracy of silence, on the entire higher bureaucracy of the country.

I have heard senior officials blame also the communalism of the police constabulary for their connivance in the violence. This too is a thin and disgraceful alibi. The same forces have been known to act with impartiality and courage when led by officers of professionalism and integrity. The failure is clearly of the leadership of the police and civil services, not of the subordinate men and women in khaki who are trained to obey their orders.

Where also, amidst this savagery, injustice, and human suffering is the `civil society`, the Gandhians, the development workers, the NGOs, the fabled spontaneous Gujarathi philanthropy which was so much in evidence in the earthquake in Kutch and Ahmedabad? The newspapers reported that at the peak of the pogrom, the gates of Sabarmati Asram were closed to protect its properties, it should instead have been the city`s major sanctuary. Which Gandhian leaders, or NGO managers, staked their lives to halt the death-dealing throngs? It is one more shame that we as citizens of this country must carry on our already burdened backs, that the camps for the Muslim riot victims in Ahmedabad are being run almost exclusively by Muslim organisations. It is as though the monumental pain, loss, betrayal and injustice suffered by the Muslim people is the concern only of other Muslim people, and the rest of us have no share in the responsibility to assuage, to heal and rebuild. The state, which bears the primary responsibility to extend both protection and relief to its vulnerable citizens, was nowhere in evidence in any of the camps, to manage, organise the security, or even to provide the resources that are required to feed the tens of thousands of defenceless women, men and children huddled in these camps for safety. The only passing moments of pride and hope that I experienced in Gujarat, were when I saw men like Mujid Ahmed and women like Roshan Bahen who served in these camps with tireless, dogged humanism amidst the ruins around them. In the Aman Chowk camp, women blessed the young band of volunteers who worked from four in the morning until after midnight to ensure that none of their children went without food or milk, or that their wounds remained untended. Their leader Mujid Ahmed is a graduate, his small chemical dyes factory has been burnt down, but he has had no time to worry about his own loss. Each day he has to find 1600 kilograms of foodgrain to feed some 5000 people who have taken shelter in the camp. The challenge is even greater for Roshan Bahen, almost 60, who wipes her eyes each time she hears the stories of horror by the residents in Juapara camp. But she too has no time for the luxuries of grief or anger. She barely sleeps, as her volunteers, mainly working class Muslim women and men from the humble tenements around the camp, provide temporary toilets, food and solace to the hundreds who have gathered in the grounds of a primary school to escape the ferocity of merciless mobs.

As I walked through the camps, I wondered what Gandhiji would have done in these dark hours. I recall the story of the Calcutta riots, when Gandhi was fasting for peace. A Hindu man came to him, to speak of his young boy who had been killed by Muslim mobs, and of the depth of his anger and longing for revenge. And Gandhi is said to have replied: If you really wish to overcome your pain, find a young boy, just as young as your son, a Muslim boy whose parents have been killed by Hindu mobs. Bring up that boy like you would your own son, but bring him up with the Muslim faith to which he was born. Only then will you find that you can heal your pain, your anger, and your longing for retribution. There are no voices like Gandhi`s that we hear today. Only discourses on Newtonian physics, to justify vengeance on innocents. We need to find these voices within our own hearts, we need to believe enough in justice, love, tolerance. There is much that the murdering mobs in Gujarat have robbed from me. One of them is a song I often sang with pride and conviction. The words of the song are:

Sare jahan se achha

Hindustan hamara ...

It is a song I will never be able to sing again.

(Harsh Mander, the writer, is a serving IAS Officer, who is working on deputation with a development organisation)

Ref hobbyty #: 6

[I hope a full and public debate will follow and will focus on the content of education imparted to Indians and to what extent it is beneficial to Indian to ensure that anti Muslim attitudes and teachings are not propagated or gioven ligitamcy in public education.]

There is no anti-Muslim attitude or teachings in Indian textbooks. But it is there in the propaganda crap put out by VHP, Bajrang Dal, BJP, etc., and they find a sympathetic audience because nobody wants to confront historic truths. You yourself posted the column from Hindusten Times on the ``secularist`` Indians being the root cause of the riots. One must learn from history. Those who forget history are condemned to relive it. Teach the truth but teach it without bias; teach it as evidence of man`s inhumanity to man; teach it to show what happens when you do not want to accommodate conflicting ideas and ideologies but seek to eliminate them. Teach the children to forgive, not necessarily to forget.

Are Germans taught to ignore the evils of Nazism? On the other hand, Germans have acknowledged it and paid billions in retribution. Now the Germans can at least say that have made some sort of amends though nothing can pay for the destruction of East European Jewry.

I have never said that some current generation of people should pay for the sins of their forefathers. But so long as one section of society is in denial the other section will continue to emphasize their grievances. Acknowledge them and work amicably for the resolution of issues.

Understand that politicians will NEVER work toward reconciliation of issues. Their job is to deepen divisions in society so that they can get elected. Do not expect justice at their hands or even at the hands of the police. Find a way to paralyze them. Observe strikes, hartals, rasta-rokos or whatever else you want to call them throughout Gujarat or even throughout India. Do it peacefully so that the police have no cause to apply force.

Was there one Congress politician who had the courage to announce that he would go to Ahmedabad to try and stop the riots, the way Gandhi did in Noakhali and Calcutta? There is no politician who has the moral authority or courage to do so. How about the other chameleons, the Communists and other left-wingers? Nobody will do it. So why is everybody clamoring for the removal of the current government of Gijarat? If anything, let the NGOs and public interest groups petition the Supreme Court on the issue and force them to either issue an opinion or sidestep the issue. At least we will know where the courts stand.

I am all for a public debate on what happened in Gujarat and how we can prevent its recurrence. I am all for punishing those civil officers of the state who did not perform their duties. But I fear that so long as politicians as a whole are in the game of victimization, we can only expect more riots.

hobbyty

What do you have to say about quality of education imparted to students of Social Sciences and Pakistan Studies in Pakistan ? Please DO elaborate !!!! You think the Pakistan version of revisionism has no repurcussions on the region ?

All ears ....

COVER STORY

SAFFRON TERROR

Political direction and police support enable the death squads of the Hindu Right to run riot in Muslim neighbourhoods in Gujarat.

PRAVEEN SWAMI
in Ahmedabad

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1906/19060080.htm

Blame it on the VHP, blame it on the filthy politicians, blame it on the BJP, blame it on Narendra Modi, blame it on the local police, blame it on muslims??? Blame it on education (hobyty)?

Can someone also please take a look at the intolerant, bigoted and inhuman religion of Hinduism/Brahminism which is the root cause of violence and discord in the Indian subcontinent?

COVER STORY

SAFFRON TERROR

Political direction and police support enable the death squads of the Hindu Right to run riot in Muslim neighbourhoods in Gujarat.

PRAVEEN SWAMI
in Ahmedabad

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1906/19060080.htm




COVER STORY

Condemning a carnage

T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
in New Delhi

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1906/19060240.htm

RE: Reply #: 2 nasah

Finally, nasah and I may remotely agree on something!

``But we shoud thank our lucky stars we don`t have Lashkar-e-mufucka types in our country and in our army. They are 10 times more dangerous, and likely to fly planes into buildings in other countries.``

Yes! Evil as they are and everyone knows how I hate them, the Islamic fundamentalists atleast chose a target which was hitherto considered the

invulnerable. The difference between the Islamic fundamentalists and VHP/BJP/Congress/RSS is that the latter preys on poor, emaciated ,helpless and underprevileged people in their homes.

Mosques, mandirs & mayhem

By Irfan Husain

Over the years, I have written many articles condemning the sectarian violence and the institutionalized discrimination practised against minorities in Pakistan.

While the response of Pakistani readers has been mixed, most Indian readers, whether Muslim or Hindu, have argued that their secular constitution is a guarantee of minority rights, and many of Pakistan`s problems stem from making religion the be-all and end-all of its existence. Given the rabid nature of our zealots and their leaders, as well as the sad plight of non-Muslims in Pakistan, I have had to hang my head in shame and agree with this criticism.

But in the wake of the horror we have just witnessed in Gujarat, I must say it is not enough to have a secular constitution: there has to be a consensus among politicians and citizens to make it work. In every society, there will always be individuals who break the law; in civilized nations, these criminals are usually caught, tried and punished. But when a sizable section of a society, led by its leaders and supported by organs of the state, transgresses and commits the most terrifying acts of violence, then clearly the code of conduct laid down by law and the constitution breaks down. The problem is compounded when no action is taken or contemplated against these people.

In a sense, the mosque/mandir crisis in Ayodhya is entirely of the BJP`s making. When it was in the opposition, it saw an advantage in egging on its extremist supporters into destroying the historic 16th century mosque. Now that it is in power, it is having to oppose the construction of a mandir on the disputed spot. But putting the jinni back into the bottle is proving to be a difficult task, specially as a viciously Hindu-nationalist party is ruling Gujarat, and is more than willing to take on New Delhi and the Supreme Court in its determination to gain favour with extremist elements.

If the religious right succeeds in its designs to construct a mandir on the disputed land in Ayodhya - and elements of the temple have been pre-fabricated nearby - then it will be a permanent blot on India`s claim to secularism. Muslims, already traumatized by the violence they have recently been subjected to, will be further embittered. More than the scale and organization of the attacks by Hindu groups, what was perhaps more shocking was the participation of the police in these acts. Instead of investigating the attack on the train in Godhra that left 60 Hindu activists dead, the police pointed out Muslim houses to frenzied mobs and joined in when the butchery began.

It would be sad if this ghastly chain of events were to seriously erode the secular edifice modern India`s founders worked so hard to erect. Many Indians are justly proud of this achievement, and are deeply embarrassed by the crude words and actions of people like L.K. Advani, the Indian home minister who, on arriving recently in Gujarat, announced that action would be taken against the (Muslim) perpetrators of the train attack without saying a word about those Hindus who have massacred hundreds of Muslims. But despite the BJP`s recent electoral setbacks, it does not appear that the tide of religious extremism is subsiding.

In much of the world where religion exercises a strong influence, unscrupulous politicians use it to further their narrow ambitions, thereby letting loose passions that become difficult to control. The killing frenzy that accompanied the partition of the Indian subcontinent is a grim reminder of the destructive power the exploitation of blind faith can unleash. And once Pakistan was created in the name of religion, there was no way politicians and religious leaders would not use Islam to achieve and retain power. India, taking a different route, has found that having a secular constitution is not necessarily enough to achieve the separation of religion from politics.

But the current crisis should not detract from the genuine integration of Muslims into the fabric of Indian society over the last half-century. It is true that the post-Partition generation was confused and demoralized: it felt abandoned and vulnerable, and much of its loyalty was with Pakistan. Refusing to learn Hindi and adapt to the changed circumstances, it remained aloof from the mainstream, and became largely marginalized.

Partly as a result of their own attitude, and partly due to prejudice, Muslims were often discriminated against. This has changed over the years as the younger generation now identifies with India, and has little time or sympathy for a Pakistan that is perceived as increasingly dysfunctional. They may cheer a Pakistani victory on the sports field, but no longer consider migration to Pakistan an option.

In Pakistan, the small religious minorities pose no political threat and apart from being largely marginalized, are seldom subjected to the kind of brutal pogrom the Muslims of Gujarat have undergone recently. Instead, militant Sunni groups have sought to cow down the Shia minority through a series of murderous attacks. The recent slaughter of ten Shias praying in a mosque in Rawalpindi underlines the danger posed to society by sectarian politics. Over the last few years, literally hundreds of Shias have been killed; doctors have been specially targeted.

Ironically, the spread of education in the subcontinent has done nothing to reduce religious and sectarian hatred. Indeed, most of those killing the innocent in the name of their respective faiths are literate, if not educated in the proper sense of the word. Contrast this with the relative tolerance that has marked inter-faith relations in South Asia in much of the last millennium.

Despite the wars of succession, conquest and plunder that took place, there were no religious wars at a time when Europe was being devastated by the great doctrinaire conflicts of the era. Both Muslim and Hindu rulers and the ruled displayed a remarkable sense of pragmatism and tolerance that are missing today.

How are these religious fires to be extinguished? Surely it should be possible to make it a criminal offence to preach hatred against another community, and disqualify politicians who seek to curry support in the name of religion. It is true that we are better at making laws than implementing them, but unless both India and Pakistan can control the rise of extremism, they risk being distracted from the main task of nation-building that requires the urgent attention of their rulers. Obviously, the task is more pressing for Pakistan, but as we have just seen in Gujarat, it cannot be ignored by India.