They Shoot Kashmiri Pandits, Dont They?

ali87

If you keep you wits about you you wont need to smoke and burn.

Hypocrite, you have no shame in arguing that Muslims can discriminate against non Muslims unless non Muslims accept Islam. But you want the freedom to not sing Vande Matram without having to pay for it.

You are basically hypocrite religious fanatic. Smell Persian roses, hypocrite. Mughal raj is over. People like you will be put in place where you and your brothers belong - two feet under the ground.

Cheers, hypocrite :)

Re: Farzana, #154

First, let me thank you for re-posting my post that was meant, although in a twisted way, as praise for you. For the lesser souls, it does happen quite often that those you like and trust can stab you in the back in an opportunistic moment to make themselves look good. You have taught me a lesson I will not forget. However, what you quoted from my post made me realize that at times I am no better than very those whose behavior I condemn and that I must guard myself against uncivil tendencies. Your stab in the back has made me very cautious in what I write to others, and hence made me clever. It is then because of you that I feel, at least in one respect, I’m a wiser and a better person. Thank you once more.

By “so many people and an entire community” I meant at Chowk, not entire India. And I thought you were smart! Mistaken again.

No, Farzana, there isn’t anyone as privileged as you at Chowk. It’s a great irony that your articles are despised by very those you seek to address, something Chowk Editors conveniently overlook in your case, one after another. Now, that’s privilege!

You mention my posts to your articles, I suppose the invective ones. What about my diatribe? I do not write articles that attack people, their behavior seen from a biased pen, or a way of living. Interacting and posting as a piece of conversation is entirely different than writing an article for publication. I thought you knew that much. I was mistaken, yet again. And yet another stab in the back.

Yes, India-Pakistan amity can be achieved by writing thoughtful, balanced articles. Trying to overcome bigotry with articles like yours is like trying to put out fire with gasoline. What makes you think you are any better than those who have twisted your name and address you in a despicable manner? One wonders who is at fault here. By keeping silent in response does not prove you are any better or even right. It is your articles that speak for you, and that, dear Farzana, is a fact.

Quoting a letter from one unknown Indian who likes your writing does not prove anything. There are fifty Indians at Chowk who think of you on the contrary.

Nor it proves anything that, as you quote from your non-Muslim Indian friend, “It is axiomatic that Pakistan is worse off than India in most ways.” So it is also axiomatic that Japan or Australia are far better than India in almost all ways. So what!!!

Nazar Hayat Khan:

``Another advice to Indians: Stop acting as saviors of the Kashmiri Pundits and giving them false encouragement. They belong in their homes in Kashmir. ``

You should apply the same advice with regards to Indian Muslims, including those in Indian Kashmir.

#180 by sadna on April 2, 2003 8:38am PT

From 1995-2001 women were forced into prostitution in Afghanistan so that their children wouldnot starve, but they were not allowed to work honestly as doctors, engineers and teachers. It was done in the name of religion and this regime was given wholehearted support by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Gulf countries.
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you mean this prostitution was considered Islamic? Let me get this right, you are saying that women were not allowed to work or even go outside the house and yet they were allowed to sell their bodies!!

My my you are too clever with words... and all this was suppourted by Saudi, pakistan and gulf countries!!

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When the Taliban regime was toppled, there were demonstrations and protests among Muslims around the world, including in India. Why?

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If I rember it right there were hardly any protests. Also the entire Indian media was against this attack on the soverginity of Afghanistan by US mainly because of the percived Imperial visons of America. There were many changes in afghanistan in the decades with communists coming and varoius shades of socialist, Islamic hardline, Taliban etc there were no protests. The US swagger and pervived ill intentions was why the protests were there for. Not that people suppourt taliban as such. Take a small impromptu poll in next time you are near the most conservative mosque in India and ask them if they would like taliban style rules you will find hardly any one agreeing on it. so I dont know what is it you keep complaining about.

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I also notice a tendency to get extremely exercised about a Muslim girl not being allowed to wear hijab to school in a nonMuslim Western country, but care nothing for the fact that in most Muslim societies, girls hardly get to go to school at all and literacy rates are abysmal.

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Why not.. when chirstians can wear a cross, girls can wear all kinds of short inapporiate dresses, children can sport allkinds of weird hair styles like colored spikes, If a modest apparel is objected as if it was the worst thing in that could happen It is some thing to get exercised about.

While you defend this practice also remember that in the schools started by christians(and copied blindly by many other schools)in India and elsewhere in asia girls (you might remember) cannot wear bangles, cant sport bindi, cant wear any modest dress, but the short skirts much of which went against the cultural mores of India were stipulated as uniform. Im sure you had plenty of fun watching those western movies. But usuall those days Hindi or local movies were not show. This was a kind of cultural attuning to the western civilisation with all that is western is glorified and all that is Inidan being banned. How much of what we are is the result of that influence?


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From experience in the high Muslim concentration areas of North Kerala, I have heard from a doctor that conservative Muslim men donot allow their women to get timely medical treatment. Why?
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That may be so but that has the same reason that hindu men wouldnt allow their women to get treatment just a couple of decades back in rural areas. Because of lack of knowledge these are village people.

In any city in India you ask near a mosque which mosque belongs to the Tabliqi Jamath (decried in the media as conservative or dangerous) meet their families you will find Doctors, engineers, PhD`s among their women in as much numbers as you find in the tamil Bhramins. I had some family friends who belonged to the Tabliqui jamath and a few class mates It never ceased to amaze me how many professionals they have in both women as well as men.
At the same time they are traditional when it comes to modesty etc. It does not follow that if you are modest you have to be a illterate.

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I have many women colleagues who tell of the havoc their careers have played in their family life. While I have nothing agaisnst women working. The western way of life that we are inheritining now makes it almost impossible for women to take care of their children. The result is most of my colleagues have severe problems with their children quite a few of them are badly adjusted. Many of them have realise the freedom that was suppossed to come with carrrers also carried burdens now quite a few of them who want to leave their jobs to take care of their home and kids and family. Most are unable to do so because the loans they have taken and the fears of loosing their lifestyle.

I agree that it is not right to force women to stay at home at the same time we should acknowledge that the modern way of life(this is not just money and gadgets, Its stems from Ideology) has given prosperity but it has also extracted costs. While the richer countries can shoulder the burden of socites where the family structure is broken I think it would be disastourus to poor countries. We should reocgnise that the modern life (ie the western inspired life) has also its tarranyies which are applied indirectly on people.

Islam does calls for a balance. Perhaps that balance is being tested in Iran, Malaysia. These are the countries where technology and modern(how this word irritates me)needs.

I dont see why you people are antagontic towards Islam. Sure it has its share of fanatics.

I wonder where the hindus on chowk come from. I dont come across many such people in real life. I suppouse that the fanatics seek out this forum where pakistan bashing and the accompaning musllim bashing takes place.

#183 by Roshan
//..Farzana is not sweet talker but if she can be liked forthe tang of orang juice VARSHA is bitter as NEEM ..//

Exactly my point. Varsha and Farzana are opposite sides of the same coin - they both profess extremist viewpoints. They both need to countered.

nakhok at # 182:

EP was different. Army did not have any public support on action that Bhutto had encouraged them to take. But Kashmir has the backing of a majority of Pakistanis.

If Indians are so confident of Indian position on Kashmir from historic and moral grounds, why are you always running away from negotiations (which is different from bilateral agreements) on Kashmir?

The excuse on part of current fundamentalist Indian Government that it does not want to talk to Pakistan until we stop ``cross-border terrorism`` is not acceptable. First of all we do not believe that it is what Indians claim. And if we had agreed that there could be some misguided players with their hidden agenda, then we have also extended a hand of cooperation to Indians to control this. We have consistently said that let us talk and even devise a mechanism to control terrorism.

My advice to Indians: India cannot be an accuser, prosecutor and judge at the same time.

Another advice to Indians: Stop acting as saviors of the Kashmiri Pundits and giving them false encouragement. They belong in their homes in Kashmir. Its there they should strike a deal (perhaps agree to disagree) with Kashmiri leadership of Hurriyet. Still better, Kashmiri Pundits should provide leadership to Kashmiris to turn their wishes into a reality.

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# 174

Ahmadzai wrote:
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``my advise to Indians will always be to stop acting as patrons of Kashmiri Pundits. The latter should always consider Kashmir as their home and work out some alliance with the majority there.``
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Ahmadzai`s advice is ill-directed. It is the Pak military that has to stop acting as the patron of Kashmiris. General Pervez Musharraf`s ``Kashmir is in our blood`` is a symptom of the problem. Pakistan`s ruling oligarchy needs to do whatever it takes (including dialysis) to rid its blood of Kashmir.

Pakistan`s military always had this attitude problem. Altaf Gauhar`s (the powerful information secretary under ``Field Marshal`` Ayub Khan) has described with telling effect the ``Field Marshal`s`` mindset during the 1965 war. The ``Field Marshal`` had decide that Operation Gibraltar would be a cakewalk because ``As a general rule Hindu morale would not sustain
more than a couple of hard blows at the right time and place. Such
opportunities should, therefore, be sought and exploited.``

But when Operation Gibraltar didn`t work out the way ``Field Marshal`` Ayub had planned, he took to deriding the Kashmiris for failing to rise up and join the Pakistan Army in fighting the ``Hindus``. In fact, the ``Field Marshal`` even wondered if the Kashmiris were true Muslims!

Six years later, the same would be true in East Pakistan as well. The East Pakistanis had to be murdered and raped because they were not ``good Muslims``. Pakistan`s army officers had institutionalized racism to the point where the soldiers were willing to believe that they were engaged in rape and murder to save Islam in East Pakistan. Veteran Pakistani journalist Suleri (father of writer Sarah Suleri) has written how shocked he was in 1971 to find Pakistan army officers nonchalantly joking about the on-going rapes in East Pakistan as a service to the Bengalis to improve their genes! Much the same story was confirmed in accounts of DAWN correspondent Anthony Mascarenhas.

Pak Military`s case on Kashmir is really all about real estate. There is absolutely nothing in the history of Pakistan`s ruling elite (primarily the military) to suggest that it cares any more for freedom and democracy in Jammu & Kashmir than it cares for freedom and democracy for Pakistanis!

Pakistan`s ruling elite doesn`t care a damn for the people of Jammu & Kashmir. All it is interested in is the real estate. To that end, it has been financing cross border terrorism which has already succeeded in imposing the religious homogeneity of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir on the Kashmir Valley as a first step toward turning it into a fiefdom for Pakistan`s ruling elite.

If Pakistan`s ruling elite can let a quarter million stranded ``Biharis`` (who consider themselves Pakistanis) to rot in refugee camps for decades, it cannot possibly care for Kashmiris who don`t even call themselves Pakistanis. The ``Biharis`` will not come with any real estate - naturally
Pakistan`s ruling elite doesn`t want to touch them even with a 10 ft pole.

Funds were set up in Pakistan, and even in Saudi Arabia, to finance the repatriation of these hapless ``Biharis``. The Rabita trust was one such fund. And General Pervez Musharraf was himself on its board. I don`t know how much fund was collected by the Rabita trust for the purpose
over the years. But I was not very surprised to be told ruefully by a Mohajir-Pakistani acquaintance that in the post 9/11 era, the funds of that trust have been frozen on orders from the American government because they were being misused to promote terrorism. And that, in
a nutshell, spells out the real tragedy. Pakistan`s ruling elite has never lacked in funds to promote jihad in Afghanistan or Kashmir. But they had not a penny to spare for the repatriation of the hapless ``Biharis`` !!

Pakistan cannot really afford to fund the cross border terrorism. Unfortunately for Kashmiris and Pakistanis alike, Pakistan`s army cannot seem to afford to end its patronage for these terrorists either because ``Kashmir banega Pakistan`` has become its fulcrum to ensure that the military continues to be allocated a disproportionate share of the country`s wealth.

Jammu & Kashmir is multi-religious and multi-ethnic. Terrorists from across the LoC are trying to ruthlessly impose the religious homogeneity of Pak Occupied Kashmir on the rest of the province - not surprising in
view of the nexus between these terrorists and Taliban/Al Qaeda over the years.

``Kashmir banega Pakistan`` is not a Kashmiri slogan, it is a slogan engendered in the cantonments in Pindi & Lahore. It is a slogan designed to preserve the perks & privileges of Pakistan`s military. There is absolutely nothing in the history of Pakistan`s ruling elite (primarily the military) to suggest that it cares any more for freedom and democracy
in Jammu & Kashmir than it cares for freedom and democracy for Pakistanis!

And here`s something to mull over. Pakistan`s army had muredered three million Muslims in East Pakistan in 1971 to protect its vested interests. It should be truly frightening for anyone to realize that that is more than the entire Muslim population of the Kashmir Valey in 1971!

Farzana-jee,

I have published more than 10 articles describing suffering of all kashmiris on Chowk. Here is another sample of freedom from the peace-loving jihadis of Pakistan.

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16 injured in Kashmir blast

02apr03
AT least 16 people were injured in a grenade attack carried out by suspected Muslim militants in the southern region of the Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said.

The attack in the town of Shopian, 50 kilometres south-west of Srinagar was aimed at police, but the grenade missed the intended target and exploded among civilians near a bus station, a police spokesman said.

He said three of the victims were in a critical condition.

In a similar explosion, a civilian was killed and 12 others injured at the southern town of Anantnag yesterday.

More than 38,000 people have died in Indian Kashmir since the start of an anti-Indian rebellion in the scenic Himalayan region in 1989. Separatists have placed the death toll twice as higher.

ali87 #171

Lets talk about today and not 1000 years ago. From 1995-2001 women were forced into prostitution in Afghanistan so that their children wouldnot starve, but they were not allowed to work honestly as doctors, engineers and teachers. It was done in the name of religion and this regime was given wholehearted support by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Gulf countries.

When the Taliban regime was toppled, there were demonstrations and protests among Muslims around the world, including in India. Why?

I also notice a tendency to get extremely exercised about a Muslim girl not being allowed to wear hijab to school in a nonMuslim Western country, but care nothing for the fact that in most Muslim societies, girls hardly get to go to school at all and literacy rates are abysmal.

From experience in the high Muslim concentration areas of North Kerala, I have heard from a doctor that conservative Muslim men donot allow their women to get timely medical treatment. Why?

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ali87:
``After all they are your women. Unless the women want to be saved they are no concern of mine.``
Human rights are everybody`s business!

Farzana:
You interepreted the smiley correctly.
But the post was not completely devoid of substance.
The issue indeed is the purpose in writing the article for chowk. If the purpose was merely to give expression to your feelings, I have nothing more to say. But if you had a larger purpose of influencing others` opinions, then the tone assumes importance.
Who is your primary audience on chowk for this article? Pakistanis or Indians? If it is Pakistanis, then your success rate is almost 100 per cent or zero per cent, depending upon how you look at it. It is 100 per cent because almost all of them agreed with you; but it could also be considered as zero percent since you were only preaching to the converts and merely reaffirmed what they already believed.
But if your purpose was to influence the Indians on Chowk, then you could have been a lot more persuasive if you had used the same tone as in your Interact. Even if one is speaking to an issue and not to a particular person, the very nature of religious and national identities is such that many of us find it hard to view these things in abstract and tend to take them rather personally. I try to be analytical and unemotional about these matters but even found myself moving my head horizontally more frequently than vertically when reading your article and vice versa when reading your interacts (and it`s not because I recently returned from a trip to Kerala:-)).
I apologise for assuming a buzurgana (patronising?) tone but you know at least that this comes straight from the heart!
Regards

[ #163 by harimau on April 1, 2003 9:42pm PT
I don`t think you can get sounds like `g`, `gh`, `sh`, etc., out of your mouth. Sheesh, you can`t even say the name of your mother tongue properly. I remember you Fakhrs going around saying, ``Tamil moliyin sirapeluthu `la`.`` (Sorry, this really cannot be translated for non-Tamil speakers. There are three distinct characters signifying various pronunciations approximating the letter `l` in English. The last character in Tamil is the third of these and the speakers of the above sentence would use the second while proudly proclaiming that the third `l` isn`t available in any other language. Which is of course not true. Malayalam has the same latter and all Malayalis, regardless of caste, education, or upbringing, pronounce it perfectly. Which, of course , leads to the next question: how do you identify a Tamil-speaker as a brahmin? Answer: They are the ones who can pronounce the word ``Tamil`` properly.) ]

I am not sure I have understood what you are writing here but may be I have.

In Gujarati as well as Marathi there is a alphabet character whose pronunciation approximates sound of -zh- as in Kazhagam and Tamizh (I think). According to a book I have read by K. T. Achaya (on History of Indian Food), Prof. Achaya shows a geneology of Indian languages in which Tamil is shown as mother of Gujarati. Marathi also has many words which use -zh-. Examples: Bazha Saheb Thackeray, Bazh Gangadhar Tizhak. These names are transliterated in English as: Bala Saheb Thackeray and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. (Tilak is famous for syaing: Self-Rule is my birthright, and I shall not rest until I have it.)

Koreans who do not come into contact with instructors in early life who teach them how to say -r-, may lose their ability to speak -r- forever. That is, they cannot be taught to speak -r- ever in life if they are past certain threshold age.

#167 by Ralph on April 2, 2003 0:39am PT

Ralphy I belive in the religion I want. If you want to call your religion ``corrupt` religion`` It is your choice.

Like I said earlier I can call a spade a spade. I dont have to go about it in a round about manner. Your religion is yours to follow not to impose on me.

Leave mine to me Ill decide wether it is good or not.

As for you realising what Islam was, the world does not owe you anything for it.

on the crocodile tears on deaths of women and children. I have seen a couple of corpses of women and children in 1984 burnt at the hands of the peace loving, docile, harm nobody hindus. 3 tousand died in those three days. nearly 2 thousand died in the Gujrat a few months back the memories of lakhs of houses burnt are still fresh and These peace lovign,docile, harm nobody hindus, elected a boasting Modi who promised to repeat the Gujrat in every state.

Whats in a religon nothing at all. That is why the there is so much concern that women were earlier burnt and even now reports come which indicate at thimes children are sacrificed in Tantric rituals.

Thanks but no thanks I refuse to follow this kind of concern and love. You chose to follow it it is your perrogative. You want to glorify sati it is upto you. After all they are your women. Unless the women want to be saved they are no concern of mine.

There was so much concern for women that they were elevated to fine dancing women who could enjoy any man they want in the temples(or was it the other way round?)

So much concern that they were denied any property rights for thousands of years. So much concern that the women couldnt Inherit anything at all.

I dont give a damm if you honour my refusual not to sing vandae mataram. Just dont ask and even if you ask dont expect me to respond favourably.
Hardly looking to you for honour.