Evian and Roy

hobbes #177
``Why be upset with me - it`s not my suggestion - If yu are upset, take it up with Pankaj Mishra - For someone who claims she doesn`t understand BJP and VHP ideas, you sure are prickly.``

So the theory that the core ideas and practices of ``Hinduism`` existed before the British is a BJP/VHP idea ? and you have no responsibilty to understand the ``suggestions`` about my religion that you want me to comment on ? Are all Hindus BJP supporters hobbes in your mind ?

Let me let you in on some info ... 3 of my neices and nephews (in India) are Catholic ... 3 of my first cousins are Muslim ... and I love them dearly ... my whole family has always voted Congress ... my kid sisters catholic mom-in-law is a Congress MP ... I wan`t nothing more than the BJP to be kicked out by the indian voter. But I`m Hindu.

and why bother being nice amigo - since only my prickly posts get on this board due to some strange discrimination of CHOWK STAFF ... another reason to end this discussion.

as you can tell I`m having a bad day :-(

Roohi
Why be upset with me - it`s not my suggestion - If yu are upset, take it up with Pankaj Mishra - For someone who claims she doesn`t understand BJP and VHP ideas, you sure are prickly.

hobbes #175
Please do educate yourself with the main branches of the family of religions and philosophical schools that ``Hinduism`` represents and some of their common scriptures, internal debates over the ages and mass religious movements such by the medieval Bhakti Saints.

Then it may be some use talking to you about if it or they existed before the British and in what form - otherwise it is really a waste of my time - and in any case I don`t see you as a major stakeholder in such a discussion. ... and perhaps it may be useful to analyse your own motivation for your interest.

Roohi
I may take you up on the Vivekananda project. But Pankaj Mishras piece has now been circulated around the world - no point evading it`s discussion - this is just the beginning of more such inquiry - I say learn from Pakistanis, if yu don`t do it yourself, others will do it for you.

hobbes #172

I am currently reading ``The Complete Works of Swami Vivekanand`` ... maybe when I finish it I can comment on that article. May I suggest that you read it too before you form an opinion of that article ? My initial reaction is just that Vivekanand and the Ramakrishna Mission are the liberal end of the Hindu spectrum and to compare them to the BJP just does not make sense.

That ``Hinduism`` did not exist before the 19th century is a strange piece of fiction as far as I`m concerned. Perhaps you need to learn Sanskrit and read the ancient Vedas, the Upanishads and the works of Vedanta philosophers such as Sankaracharya, Ramanujana and Madhavacharya to understand that.

I am in no mood to start an exchange on the BJP ideology - something I don`t understand anyway.

Here are a couple of samples of Vivekananda`s speeches in case you are totally unfamaliar with his thinking - I think they make useful reading today on Sept. 11th. A sincere request - if you have access to any remarks by a leading Islamic figure that have touched you about Sept. 11th and convey the genuine feelings of the majority of Muslims - could you please post them ?

----------------------------------------------
Swami Vivekananda`s Speeches

The World Parliament of Religions, Chicago

WELCOME ADDRESS - Chicago, Sept 11, 1893

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: ``As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.``

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: ``Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me.`` Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

CONCLUDING ADDRESS - Chicago, Sept 27, 1893

The World`s Parliament of Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has helped those who laboured to bring it into existence, and crowned with success their most unselfish labour.

My thanks to those noble souls whose large hearts and love of truth first dreamed this wonderful dream and then realized it. My thanks to the shower of liberal sentiments that has overflowed this platform. My thanks to this enlightened audience for their uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation of every thought that tends to smooth the friction of religions. A few jarring notes were heard from time to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them, for they have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter.

Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if any one here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, ``Brother, yours is an impossible hope.`` Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid.

The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.

Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: ``Help and not fight,`` ``Assimilation and not Destruction,`` ``Harmony and Peace and not Dissension.``

Chowk Staff - please post my responses to the earlier posters - Please?


Roohi
Do you have any comments on my post 136 with regard to Pankaj Mishra`s article in the ``The Newstatesman`` - ``How the Bristish inveneted Hinduism? In particular, the following: ``A hundred years after Vivekananda`s death the BJP has come closest to realising his project of westernising Hinduism into a nationalist ideology: one that has pretensions of being all inclusive, yet demonises Muslims and seeks to pre-empt with it`s rhetoric of egalitarianism the long overdue political assertion of India`s lower caste groups.``
What do you make of this?

Ref hobbes #169
[Horrified is my initial reaction. Whatever the nationality of the perpetrator - the behaviour is depraved and any sense of being Muslim is challeneged by this demented and barbarous behaviour. Is this also a ``hate crime`` or is it more an insanity? or are they they same thing?]
It is NOT a hate crime and it is NOT insanity.
I am sure a quick search through the web will locate relevant Koranic verses and hadiths that justify this.
This IS Islam.
Vengeful God, vengeful followers.

Ref roohi #167
[Hobbyty -
Since you brought up that sad and horrible rape case ...
What do you think of the Muslim Man who killed his pregnent Hindu wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law in Canada last month ? She was his high-school sweetheart, they both grew up in Canada - the problem was she did not want to convert to Islam ... so he killed her and his own un-born child ... ]
Repeat after me: Muslim-on-Muslim violence is okay. Muslim-on-Jew violence is what Prophet Muhammad ordered. Muslim-on-kaffir violence is what Allah has ordained.
Shias are deviants and are to be punished for straying from original Islamic thinking. Qadianis and Bahaa`is are apostate scum. Ismailis have the money that ordinary Sunni Muslims badly need and so are to be tolerated.
Will you now please bow down in the direction of Mecca 5 times a day and repeat this mantra?

Roohi -
for reasons best known to Chowk staff - my response to earlier posts on this board have yet to be posted.
Horrified is my initial reaction. Whatever the nationality of the perpetrator - the behaviour is depraved and any sense of being Muslim is challeneged by this demented and barbarous behaviour. Is this also a ``hate crime`` or is it more an insanity? or are they they same thing?

Hobbyty -
Sorry - they were from Jersey not Canada ... here is the story ... what really makes me sick is the two kids (5 and 2 yr old) waking up to find their Mom dead and walking over to their neighbours for help.

All 3 women of family killed over religion
By GLORIA SUHASINI and JYOTIRMOY DATTA
Wanted Muslim husband is arrested on Canadian border; arraignment set for Aug. 5

As the Toronto-bound Greyhound bus from Buffalo, New York, approached the Canadian border at 10 p.m. on July 30, with darkness at last descending on an interminable summer evening, Guyanese-born Alim Hassan must have been feeling the cramp in his throat lessening — when Canadian Customs signaled the vehicle to stop.

Customs officials, alerted by the Royal Canadian Mounties that he was wanted by the New Jersey police in connection with the stabbing murder of three women in Jersey City, asked Hassan to step down. The Canadians handed the man over to United States immigration officials.

According to the charges against him, just 15 hours before his arrest on the border, Hassan, a Muslim, had butchered in a tree-shaded home in the Guyanese quarter in Jersey City, three women relatives, all Hindus, including his wife, pregnant six months with twins.

Thanking law enforcement agencies for their collaboration, Hudson County prosecutor, Edward DeFazio, told News India-Times that Hassan appeared in court in Buffalo on July 31 morning charged with three counts of murder.

The charges: Murders of his 28-year-old wife, Marlyn Hassan, with twins in her womb, his sister-in-law, Sharon Yassim, 30, mother of two, — Andrew, 5, and Christopher, 2, and mother-in-law, Bernadette Seajatan, 50.

Hassan has been ordered extradited to New Jersey. His arraignment in Hudson County was set on Aug. 5.

DeFazio, an assistant District Attorney for 21 years, who was sworn in county prosecutor only on July 29, said it was the quick interaction between the various agencies that the man wanted in the killings at 10 Fox Place, a bloody drama interlaced with religious tensions in a mixed marriage, was apprehended so quickly after the crime. Hassan was a devout, practicing Muslim, while the rest of the family, despite their Christian first names, were relaxed Guyanese Hindus.

DeFazio said the Mounties received an anonymous phone call about a man wanted in the stabbing deaths of three women in New Jersey heading to Toronto. On receiving the tip, the Mounties contacted the Jersey City authorities to confirm that the crime had indeed occurred, then alerted Canadian customs officials at all major border crossings.

DeFazio said the murder weapon, a knife, was found at the scene of the crime.

Waking up in their two-story home in the morning of July 30, little Andrew and Christopher toddled downstairs to find their grandmother and mother lying dead in pools of blood in their bedrooms, and aunt Marlyn sprawled on the floor of the hall.

“My mommy’s dead, Please call 911,” Andrew told neighbor Asifa Bedun, according to a report in New York Post.

“She is downstairs. Everyone is dead downstairs. I came outside to get help,” standing in the driveway with Christopher, Andrew told Donna Duesbury, a cousin when she arrived at eight in the morning at the modest home where all three women lived with their husbands.

Summing up the motive of the gruesome crime, Duesbury told News India-Times at the Fox Street home on July 31: “It’s all about religion.”

Duesbury lives a couple of blocks away. She said Alim was quarreling all the time with his wife about the religion of their children, yet unborn, and insisting that Marlyn should also convert to Islam.

This was confirmed by the father of the dead two sisters and husband of Bernadette, Baldeo Seajatan. “He fought with my daughter everyday because he wanted the twins to grow up Muslims,” Seajatan told News India-Times. Seajatan is a bus driver with New Jersey Transit.

Hassan was an auto mechanic. He sat at namaaz, bowing and rising, five times a day, and wanted Marlyn, exhausted though she was with her work and carrying though with twins, to do the same. “She was willing to meet him half way,” being high school sweethearts. They were married five years.

Bernadette’s brother, Raymond, who preferred not to give his last name, who had flown down from Canada on hearing the shocking cut in and said, “Every one of us (in the family) would like to get a piece of him (Alim).” The man wearing a Guyana flag emblazoned T-shirt and a knee-length shorts was shaking in fury. “We would like to deal with him ourselves.”

But Donna was a lot more composed. “God and law will deal with him. We are devastated. We have gone through a lot since yesterday. It all happened right here,” she said, standing on the landing of the second floor, pointing to the inside of the house. On the windowpane facing the street, one of the victims had stamped the bloodstained palm of her hand, apparently to draw the attention of passersby. The police had measured and photographed it, but none had come to their aid before brave Andrew had taken his kid brother, Christopher, with him to their neighbor next door to call 911..

Hobbyty -
Since you brought up that sad and horrible rape case ...
What do you think of the Muslim Man who killed his pregnent Hindu wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law in Canada last month ? She was his high-school sweetheart, they both grew up in Canada - the problem was she did not want to convert to Islam ... so he killed her and his own un-born child ...
The whole sorry case reported here
http://ia.wnbc.com/news/1583666/detail.html

re: Harimau # 163

You are jumping the gun. Forget about ``most Muslims,`` even Hobbyty - clearly an outstanding Muslim - has not had a chance to tell us unambiguously and succinctly what he believes in. You are just assuming that Hobbyty is a bigot when may be he has just been too busy to respond.

Hobbyty is in the forefront of asking for equal rights and promoting non-discrimination. Hence, I am fully confident that he completely and enthusiastically rejects all political ideologies and religious nonsense that demean fellow human beings based solely and purely on the latter`s religious beliefs, and promote societal and state-initiated discrimination against them.

Being a follower/admirer of Soroush, he just can not be a religious bigot and hypocrite who believes in and teaches for others exactly what he does not want for Muslims.

Let us all wait for him to put all our doubts to rest.


nasah,

Salaam bade bhai. Aap bhi hobbyty kau galat samajhate hain. Aap bhi sabr se unka intezar karein :)

Veeresh, if you are still here. Here is one view about why Pakistan keeps fighting.

http://www.kashmirtelegraph.com/verma.htm
Pakistan: Road Blocks in Normalising Relations

A.K. Verma

If cross border terrorism ceases, facilitating a dialogue between India and Pakistan, will a dividend of long term peace follow?

For a proper understanding, a hark back to the late19th century is necessary when, for the first time, an awareness about a muslim identity in India started developing. At that time members of the muslim community drew their identity from class, region and language but not religion. Reformers like Syed Ahmed were the ones who sought to bring about a common cultural identity on the basis of the muslimness of the community. The grant of separate electorates in early 20th century invested the community with a political identity by recognising it as a constitutional minority. But the community still did not develop for long a track record of political activity and hence a homogenous political identity.

------Here is the interesting part-----------------------
Peace thus, stands effectively driven out because while we are ready to go by principles of compromise and 20th century values of peaceful co-existence, Pakistan prefers to be governed by yardsticks as applied during the time of Muslim rule. Henry Kissinger has commented that “ the compromises suggested by India are viewed as amputations of cultural and theological patrimony” by Pakistan. It is no wonder that Pakistan remains impervious to the idea of peace, whether in abstract or otherwise. Whenever it has ostensibly supported an agreement like Tashkent, Simla or Lahore, it had in reality made only a tactical move, agreeing to just a stage on the road to its final goal. Cries for Jehad have never ceased to be uttered in the urban and rural areas of Pakistan. Pakistan, therefore, seeks parity with India in strength just as parity had been given by the British to the Muslim League vis-à-vis the Indian National Congress in the pre partition India. In the process it ignores the geographical and other realities of the subcontinent which alone will decide a country’s position in the regional and world equations.

---------------------------------------------

To quote Henry Kissinger again, there is a deep philosophical gulf between how Pakistan defines peace and how India views it. Pakistan cannot win because India is too strong militarily. India cannot win because Pakistan will not give up the two nation theory.

he two nation theory is, thus, at the root of problems between India and Pakistan. Its post partition manifestation in the shape of Islamic ideology of Pakistan has carried forward its challenges to secular nationalism of India to the present day. Only by closing this philosophical divide can a season of peace be brought to the subcontinent. The policy of no discussions with Pakistan until cross border terrorism ceases should be extended to demand a reassessment of the two nation theory. Tackling this issue is of even more fundamental importance than trying to resolve territorial and other disputes.

Unless religion is given a fresh look in Pakistan, we can wait till doomsday for peace to descend to the subcontinent. The responsibility for finding a new direction for themselves lies on the Pakistanis citizens since they alone, by asserting themselves, can display whether their genius is in accord with Jinnah’s dreams of a secularised Pakistan or suggests submission to the whims and fancies of an irresponsible militarised power Establishment.

Author is a former Secretary of Govt. of India

By arrangement with South Asian Analysis Group, New Delhi

Ref dost-mittar #158
[But I disagree with your comments re. hobbs. He brought up this case precisely to ``snatch rhetorical advantage``. Would he have brought it up if the religions of the criminal and the victime were reversed?]
And for a couple of years, you have been telling me I was wrong when I said that with most Muslims, it is one rule for the Muslims and a totally opposite one for the kaffirs (and that includes the People of the Book).
Why do you think there is no answer to my post #145?
A few more posts along these lines by the 12-head and hobbes and I will be saying, ``Apply the Sharia, stone these fellows to death!``

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``He brought up this case precisely to ``snatch rhetorical advantage``. Would he have brought it up if the religions of the criminal and the victime were reversed?``(dost mitter)

good question -- dostmitter ji

`` We will soon see very clearly that he has absolutely no faith in any political ideology or religious mumbo-jumbo that discriminates against, or promotes violence and hatred against fellow human beings based solely and purely on their religious beliefs.``(Prem)

Prem miaN please -- please don`t overload the already loaded shoulders of hobbes sahib -- the poor prof might not be able to move -- or even collapse under that heavy tall order.

regarding misunderstanding -- it`s also possible that hamidm, and shanker are not understanding the professor -- because of the `language problem` -- before they start misunderstanding him.