Myths and Dreams: Hindutva Nationalism and the Indian Diaspora

Re 142 temporal ``how did yadav do it in bihar? ``
Naughty, naughty t-bhai aisa sawaal kaise pooch liya aap nay?

But seriously I remember my mother teasing apna Bihari painter Zainuddin about his chief minister Lallo Prasad Yadav. His response was ``Laallo Parsad kay bare may mat boliye madam. Agar Laallo nahin hota to Advani ka rath humay kuchal kay chala jaata``.

stuka

...this will be interesting...keep us posted...wonder if the cops can use a state or federal law to prevent modi from coming...(of course they can always use the ruse that they cannot provide `adequote` security to modi;))...how did yadav do it in bihar?

...t

Aleph Null,

Actually, after a day of meetings, I decided that my typing and posting Nussbaum`s entire essay wasnt necessary, esp. for the benefit of someone who seems to know whats best for women, Jews and liberal arts intellectuals. Perhaps you could write to Oxford Press before they print her book on law, religion and gender. I`m sure they will take YOUR authority into consideration.

Two of my cousins were in the attacker house...

One of them was 1400 something ... and my other cousin was 1573 Attacker

wow....

1586 Tempest

But ... it was nothing like the good old days when I was going there...

Manto # 131

I just read your ILOG. Let us lighten the atmosphere. I did not know you were a Sargodhian. I an 449 - Attacker House.

#124 Dost-mittar

{{Do you know if this Mary Roy is the mother of Arundhati Roy?}}

Yes. She was Mary Isaac to begin with (Roy is of course a Bengali name). I am two degrees of separation from la Roy.

In regard to Professor Nussbaum, I have no quarrel at this point with her reputation as a legal philosopher or scholar of Classical/Hellenistic antiquity. Those seem to be her home fields. She is just an affiliate of the notorious Committee for ‘South Asia’ Studies at Chicago. I suggest that that is where her scholarship gets spread thinnest. Her account of the Roy case materially misrepresents motives – perhaps due to tainted sources rather than active malice on her part.

#123 SaminaShah

Please don’t post the relevant excerpts before you’ve looked at the Notre Dame lecture that I posted a link to – you may just be replicating the account found there, which gives me a very good idea of Professor Nussbaum’s expertise.

As far as elephants go, I am something of an outcaste from the herd – part happenstance, part choice. The real elephants living in their natural habitat would look down their long trunks at my deracination. But I understand enough of the elephant habitat and ethos to correct the ethology professor’s errors of fact. Consequently, I resent someone’s efforts to dress me up as a giraffe, or use bleached elephant tusks as pegs on which to hang their fashionable ideologies of the day. IOW, my beef with Nussbaum is not her race or gender but simply that she has her facts wrong.

Temporal: A new report worth looking at..I should also point out..typically Indians will respect the cop but not the leftists or leaders like Owaisi who are blatantly communal themselves..

Hyderabad police chief threatens to arrest Modi
Indo-Asian News Service
Hyderabad, August 28

Taking a tough stand against Narendra Modi`s proposed visit, city Police Commissioner MV Krishna Rao has vowed not to allow the Gujarat chief minister to enter Hyderabad and warned that he would not hesitate to arrest him.

``If he lands here we will keep ready his return ticket and send him back from the airport itself. If he resists we will not hesitate to arrest him,`` said the top police official on Wednesday, drawing a volley of protests from the leaders of Modi`s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP, an ally of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP), has urged the state government to immediately transfer the police chief for threatening to arrest a chief minister.

Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi, which installs thousands of Ganesh idols in Hyderabad, has invited Modi to the massive immersion procession scheduled for September 9. The invitation has drawn protests from Muslims who consider Modi responsible for last year`s communal violence in Gujarat.

When asked how he could arrest a chief minister, Krishna Rao said he had the powers to do so. The police official made it clear that he would not allow any leader to vitiate the peaceful communal atmosphere in the state capital.

The commissioner said as Modi was perceived as being biased against a particular religious community, his visit might create law and order problems and disturb the peace and communal harmony in the city.

Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police SR Sukumara, however, said he had no information about Modi`s visit. Samithi leaders claimed that Modi had confirmed his participation in the procession.

Sukumara reportedly spoke to top police officials of Gujarat, who told him that Modi had not yet finalised his visit to Hyderabad.

Krishna Rao also expressed the hope that Modi would not come to Hyderabad. He pointed out that only one leader of the Samithi had invited Modi to the procession.

``Even Samithi leaders are against his visit, and only one leader has personally invited him,`` said the police commissioner.

Reacting strongly to the commissioner`s remarks, the BJP said Krishna Rao was ``unfit`` to hold the top post and demanded his immediate transfer.

BJP state vice-president SV Seshagiri Rao said the official`s statement was irresponsible.

``He has no right to take action against a chief minister,`` said the BJP leader.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is reportedly using his influence in New Delhi to stall Modi`s visit. TDP leaders have already requested state BJP leader and Minister of State for Railways Bandaru Dattatreya to ask his party`s central leadership to stop Modi from visiting Hyderabad.

Eight leftist parties have also urged the state government to ban Modi`s visit, saying the trip might create law and order problems in the city.

The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), a political party that enjoys tremendous support among Muslims, was the first to demand ban on Modi`s visit.

Reacting to the police commissioner`s statement, MIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi said the statement should have come from Chandrababu Naidu.

He asked Naidu to show courage like Bihar leader Laloo Prasad Yadav, who did not allow Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia to enter Patna.

re: Stuka and Dost-Mittar

Thanks! It was really instrustive what both of you had to say. It confirmed what I had suspected for some time.

re: Arjun-M

Arjun, emotionalism aside, the root causes of terrorism have to addressed. If you want to kill those who kill, without understanding the reasons, which motivate them, you will be killing people for a long time. Also, when you kill, please do not blame the victim for resisting you and trying to kill you in return. What you have suggested is akin to pouring gasoline over fire and it will simply increase the spiral of violence. This is what is happening in the Middle East right now and it is sheer insanity.

I agree with you completely that terrorism and the killing of innocents will not solve the problems, but I do not agree with the solution you have offered as a means of settling the problem. If killing all the terrorists was a solution, why has it not worked in the past? The evil of terrorism is more sinister and simply erdicating it and killing is not the answer. The root of terrorism lies in its ideology and even if you kill all the terrorists in the world and you have left the ideology alone, what have you gained in the end? Terrorism and terrorists are not as much of a problem as the reason behind their actions, because they can be defeated, but how do you defeat an idea in a tangible sense?

Secondly, understanding the root causes of terrorism is not the same as appeasing it. Empathy does not always means justification of the act and the wrongness of one act can not be answered by the wrongness of another act.

Also, I agree with you (I think it was you, who said) that Pakistanis should not bring India into every second line of their arguments and this amounts to nothing more than whining. However, it is also whining when Indians keep comparing Pakistan with India in every second line of their interacts also! LOL

Ciao

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Re Dost Mitter # 126 ``By Umars, I do not mean members of SIMI but the youth who is discriminated, disaffected, alienated and insecure, unsafe, unwanted and unloved in his own country? ``
Dost Mitter sahib there are a lot of disaffected, alienated and insecure, unsafe, unwanted and unloved youths in our country and true to the secular ethos of our country they are in every community. Heck at any one moment in our lives we have been there too.
I can still remember the guy in college who took an overdose of sleeping pills just because he got ``only`` 85% marks in his board exams -hopelessness is not a disease that afflicts only the minority. There is one factor we cannot deny - the country is making progress and for those who want to there are opportunities available. Our drunken old dhobi`s son used to deliver clothes to our house, many years later the same son walked proudly into our drawing room as a young officer of the Indian army - if we keep crying about our lot without making an effort on our own then we probably deserve our wretched existence.

First line should read .. `Interested` instead of `interesting`

Nazar,

The theme is not mine, but Ayesha Jalal`s... the League originally was interesting in furthering the interests of the Muslims of the Hindu Majority provinces and had no interest in the Muslim Majority areas for the obvious reasons.

In 1937 Muslim League won a substantial number of Muslim seats in the Hindu Majority provinces, but nothing in the Muslim Majority provinces... Jinnah at this point asked Nehru to consider the League as a possible coalition partner... Nehru`s reply was sadly smacking of arrogance.. he said that yes league might be an important communal organization but that it was only one of the muslim organizations... Congress thus alienated the league by joining up with clerical organizations like JUH, and other muslim religious parties. Jinnah tried again to talk some sense to the Congress leadership but Nehru replied with the league should prove its `inherent strength`... Jinnah replied that he was disappointed by Nehru`s attitude and that from now on he would only depend on the `inherent strength` and not on the Congress Party.

After Nehru and the Congress abandoned the League in 1937 (remember league had an identical manifesto to the Congress) and encouraged the Religious parties and pathan leaders like A G Khan... Jinnah started the arduous process of building up the league in the Muslim Majority provinces.... he soon rallied popular leaders of those provinces behind him including Fazl ul Haq and Sikandar Hayat from Bengal and Punjab respectively. These two men were the ones who moved the Lahore Resolution on 23rd March 1940.

A Muslim majority state, an idea which was old and had been enunciated by the very Punjabi Allama Iqbal, was a convenient slogan to bring the Muslim Majority provinces into the fold of the Muslim League... even then however Jinnah rebuked any attempts to define such a state or associate the League with the creation of an `Islamic` state. I don`t like the incendiary vocabulary... it is not the question of blame or fault. Pakistan is the product of History... you and the Indian nationalists clearly seem to fault Jinnah, some in India blame Nehru, and others blame the British. I don`t think any of these approaches are correct...

Please also read `India wins freedom` by Maulana Azad ... and please read Ayesha Jalal`s book and you will realize that this view seems to be the most accurate one historically. That is why I have found ample support from Dost Mittar and other Indians... also read my post 135 on your board.

-Manto

``If they are rich, they are regarded as Uncle Toms...if they are part of the mainstream like the bombay cop guy, they are regarded as uncle toms... ``

Yup. Like blacks in the US. It seems to have some credibility as a black person you need to be from the ghetto and speak ebonics, preferably have a jail time on your record and have a strong sense of greivance against the ``white male establishment``.

My boss is an African American, an MBA from a top biz school and definitely not the black man the ACLU prefers. He is respected for his achievements and the color of his skin is irrelevent.

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Manto # 119

``and in order to rally the Muslim Majority provinces they had to give them a vague idea and slogan, and that slogan was Pakistan.``

`` the British called Jinnah`s bluff, by giving him Pakistan``.

This is a new angle. Not in our history books and never discussed openly as such. It means that it was the British fault that Pakistan was created and it was not actually an intention by Jinnah and the Muslim leaugue. Jinnah and Muslim Leaugue only used Pakistan & Islam to get votes from the Muslim voters.

Thanks for stating your position. We will continue with our discussion on the right or wrong of it in future as and when a new related article comes on Chowk.

(may be it is a good idea if you can write an article on this theme on the Chowk)