Feeling Good

#40 by tahmed32 on May 18, 2004 9:58am PT

[The first time BJP tried to bully Pakistan, Pakistan demonstrated it had the bombs. The next time BJP tried it, Pakistan demonstrated it had the delivery capability as well as the intention to use it in case of war. BJP extremists` (under Advani) desire to overrun and humiliate Pakistan was so great that they needed to learn two separate lessons before they got the point.]

You got it all wrong. As satyamvada put it, India`s nuclear explosions forced Pakistan to come out in the open and stand exposed. Post 9/11, the world has begun to dread a very likely scenario in which Paki nukes get into the hands of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Also note that a couple of nuclear scientists (Sultan Basheer Mehmood is one of them) were arrested for their links to Al Qaeda. Hence the periodic statements emanating from Islamabad that `Paki nukes are in safe hands, Pakistan is committed to nuclear non-proliferation, blah blah!`

Paki nukes are now firmly under the US scanner. Not for nothing do some Paki columnists suspect that the Americans are in Pakistan for something more, not just to fight the war on terror.

And the credit for this goes solely to the BJP government.


[It is not that BJP leaders are doing anything illegal in boycotting the swearing in - as members of India`s national assembly, they have a responsibility to demonstrate respect for the constitution.]

Nor is it mentioned in the Constitution that members can boycott another member during Parliament sessions. This happens all the time. For example, George Fernandes, the previous defense minister was heckled and boycotted during a discussion on some controversial defense deals a couple of years ago.

Boycott is by no means unconstitutional.

Slight digression: those two arrested scientists, whatever happened to them? Where are they?

#42 by dost-mittar on May 18, 2004 2:45pm PT

I think it is time those guys who talk in a patronizing tone to the IM to realize that their fantasies of being the light and guide to the Ummah or even the IM has been shred to pieces by us voting BJP out of power- and look at these guys across the borders who watch us helplessly at their incapability to even decide their fate in their pure land!!!

tahmed32,

Atleast you have learned to run away from any factual argument.
That is the first sign of improvement, from your current denial stage.
You will one day learn to accept facts and become rational. Work on it.

satyamvada #42 I have had these discussions with your kind on chowk, and am not prepared to waste more time going over the same thing with you now. Bye Bye.

#40, 41
Not again please! Please look back AlephNull and my interacts with TAhmed, there is noting left to say.

Various posts by tahmed32 & Mullah Urstruly,

Hey, didn`t I advice one of you religion nuts to stick to posting about things that you REALLY know. You never lived under BJP rule, never lived under congress rule.... so stop sermonizing us about them with your stupid religion talk.

Not everybody who supports BJP is a stupid religious nut. For example, I am from a backward caste family and far from being an ultra-religious Brahmin nut. Got that? Majority of voters are more concerned about economy than anything else. Unlike the way that you might be imagining, people did not vote out NDA because they disliked gujarat episode. People voted it out because they suddenly developed lot of love for Commie socialist economic policies. The low class stupid idiots are thinking that commies are somehow going to make milk and honey flow in the land of stupidity. So, as far as they are concerned you and your religion can go to hell.

It`s the economy STUPID. And it`s about stupid people deciding how to get there.

Urstruly:
Nobody answered your question because the premise was erroneous. How many Indian newspapers or even chowkies are blaming Pakistanis for the loss of the NDA? People who are whining at the results of the elections are those who are part of the `India shining` and are naturally upset at their defeat.
Not too many Indians are blaming Indian Muslims either. But they can rightly take credit/blame for contributing to the defeat of the NDA. Muslim vote constitutes 20 % or more in over 100 constituencies. They refused to be trapped by BJP`s crocodile tears or to lump them with Pakistanis and voted strategically to defeat the NDA candidates wherever they could.
Does that help?

tahmed,

Dude, Indians knew by the mid-to-late 80`s the Pakis had the nukes. If you had read
the Indian press then you would have known. What the BJP did was to smoke the
Pakis out and get their capability out in the open. Look what happened next !
Who was able to withstand the sanctions ?

The action by the BJP was one of the shrewdest foreign policy moves by the Indian
Govt, since 1971. The Pakistani cover was blown and the world actually became
safer because the P*kis could not continue covertly.

I do realize that your P*ki education is a handicap that prevents you from rational
thinking. But I suppose that years of living in the West has still not not thought you
to become rational. You live in your own delusions.

harish Hyd: The first time BJP tried to bully Pakistan, Pakistan demonstrated it had the bombs. The next time BJP tried it, Pakistan demonstrated it had the delivery capability as well as the intention to use it in case of war. BJP extremists` (under Advani) desire to overrun and humiliate Pakistan was so great that they needed to learn two separate lessons before they got the point. So, I stand corrected, and it took two lessons, not one, before Advani and his followers got the point. ;-)

It is not that BJP leaders are doing anything illegal in boycotting the swearing in - as members of India`s national assembly, they have a responsibility to demonstrate respect for the constitution. While I admire India`s 50 years of unbroken democracy, and hope that it flourishes (not just for the sake of the Indians, but for the sake of the whole world), the fact remains that you cannot take democracy for granted (as we Pakistanis sadly know all too well). The Weimar regime in Germany laster several years, until the Nazis came to power through the democratic process. Which they then proceeded to subvert. The same can happen in India. The BJP is no different from the religious parties in this regard.

omar_quraishi #34
The reason I asked the first question is that you seem to demand that readers take every thing a journalist writes to be gospel truth. Unfortunately in this case at least, Indians have access to alternate truths too.


The reason I asked the second question is because not only some posters but even certain columnists in well-known newspapers take valid disagreement very personally. Valid points made by disagreeing party are never properly addressed, because the response is of the rhetorical variety `oh so you claim to be perfect, so you are bashing me/us, trust me you are not perfect,etc`, a bit like a small child who is on the edge of bursting into tears and drowning out the opposition with his wails :).

OK, I admit that I don`t get it. I still don`t get it why Hindu religious nuts are pissed at Pakistanis and Muslims for their loss in election. Are you guys preparing a case for another Gujrat like genocide of Muslims for punishing them for voting for Congress instead of you? Or is it just a simple case of, as our proverb goes, Khisiani billi khamba noche. Could some decent Hindu please answer my questions without attacking my religion and my country. I totally understand your feelings for loss of power, but why drag Pakistan into into it?

Thank you in advance for being courteous and decent. ( Don`t waste my thank you pl.).

Omar ji 35 - another question, as an editor/writer/journalist, do you think you have the option to write what you think may be the facts of the case, or would you like to check up on facts please?

The Daily Times article speaks about a cover issue by Outlook on Pakistan, which, just by the way, was already on the stalls when I went to Pakistan. Matter of fact, I carried a few copies for people who asked for it in Lahore and I`Bad. So did the Multan journos I met. In any case, I didn`t see many other people from the ``burger class`` in Pakistan denying the reportage therein, so what are you getting so hyper about, Sir?

It may be a fact of life for some people to accept that journalism = ``enjoying extraordinary hospitality.`` I, personally, don`t think that is journalism. I know most journalists in India pay their own way too. The kind of journalists I met, from the Urdu media in Pakistan, who you choose to taunt, were of the sort who had paid for their tickets and were therefore on the train. That just leaves, uhhhhmmm, well, a certain sort of journalist who writes basis the ``extraordinary hospitality`` s/he enjoys. Anybody you can recognise, Omar ji?

To me, specifically, visiting Pakistan is like Ireland would be to a visiting Irish American. My forefathers left for reasons valid enough in those days, this does not prevent me from visiting and observing what I see, and writing about it. You think it is untrue, prove it. But that does not detract me from my purpose.

Matter of fact, I am probably in Pakistan again in a few weeks, Pindi & Multan & Karachi, and shall invite you to open the bonnet of a Varan Hino-Pak bus with me, in case that interests you. I am sure we all know who owns Varan transport, so I presume that can be organised, too, by you. After that, you can take a ride on the lovely Lahore-Wagah Railway Line to discover a few truths about ``extraordinary hospitality``.

from an (asst.) editor `of sorts` to a writer `of sorts` -- oh my god now that veeresh ji has `caught me short so many times on this website` what am i going to do now??? -- oh no, now my whole world is coming to an end now that the wise sage has not approved of me and my posts -- actually yes veeresh ji, beena is a friend and a worthy member of Pakistan`s journalist community -- and she doesnt have to prove her credentials to anyone, least of all to doubting Thomases like you -- how about you write your memoirs or philosophy of life veeresh ji, and we can call the book `Me, myself and I`?

sadna -- your first question would have to be addressed to the person who said that journalists demand credibility -- if you`re implying by your question whether a writer like the one who wrote this piece should earn credibility, then she has earned more than her fair share of it, trust me she is the last person who would demand it -- she`s the founding editor of the news on sunday, which made a huge difference to coverage of social issues --

as for your second question sadna -- i dont believe they do but i suppose you would have to ask a child psychologist or paediatrician -- why, does that happen in india? Do you think in your knowledge, children in India in general grow up with no one disagreeing with them on anything from babyhood to adulthood?

By the way, sadna, when is a question not genuine?

veeresh bhai, the daily times actually referred to people like you in one of their recent editorials -- hope u didnt miss it, in case you did, here it :
Please read the first paragraph, third sentence carefully -- i think it`s you --


EDITORIAL: ‘Ungrateful Indian guests’

There is lot of anger in the columns of the Pakistani press about the ‘ungrateful’ Indians who came to watch cricket in Pakistan. All this is being attributed to a special issue by one of India’s weekly magazines which carried a story detailing the lives and activities of Pakistan’s upper crust. It appears that the journalists who wrote up the issue were more interested in the moral well-being of Pakistani society than in watching cricket and enjoying the extraordinary hospitality shown them here or even in comparing it with moral standards in their own country.

The popular press in Lahore has gone to town over the story. One editorial has reprimanded all those who welcomed the Indians and has abused a local hostess-writer. The magma of hatred, barely controlled by our India-haters, has come pouring out. The earlier rumours that most Indians came to Lahore, not to watch cricket but to sell goods, including gold, in Lahore’s black market have been recycled for fresh use. It was propagated at the time of the cricket series that Indian cricket-lovers had sold contraband goods worth Rs 3 billion, including ashes of cremated bodies for the sorcerers of Pakistan! Now of course the story has given more ammunition to the cleric in Pakistan to not only call for taking to task the morally bankrupt upper society but put a stop to people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan. The mullahs are already calling for ‘kowras’ (whip-lashings) on the backsides of those who thought of staging a cricket series with India and those who opened their hearts to the visiting Indians and offered them hospitality.

An ARY TV channel discussion Friday focussed on relations with India and the audience supported peace with India but said ‘no’ to cultural relations with it. The average Pakistani is infuriated by the story, its pictures blazoned on the first pages of the Urdu newspapers. Of course one has to be careful and not get carried away. The story is not representative of all the opinion in the Indian press. It would be wrong to ignore the positive and well-meaning articles written by Indian journalists and mount a collective attack from the Pakistani press on the basis of just one such story. That would be a major distortion of reality. And it would defeat the purpose of bringing Indians and Pakistanis together in order to ease the more complicated government-to-government relations. But it is appropriate to examine the psyche that presides over the factories of prejudice and hatred on both sides of the border.

What has been repeated in the story is an old pitfall that the Indians need to avoid while visiting Pakistan. At the behavioural level, it starts with surprise. (This also happens to many Americans and Europeans visiting Pakistan for the first time.) Instead of seeing a fundamentalist society beating up women for not wearing the veil and sending ‘wine-drinkers’ to jail like the Taliban, they see people living more or less like Indians back home where too some ‘dry’ states drink themselves silly without being punished. But the trouble with the critical Indian is that, unwittingly, he/she puts on the mantle of the unforgiving, sanctimonious Pakistani moaning about his sinning compatriots. He refuses to change his pre-formed view of Pakistani society. He is actually resentful that his definition of Pakistan is challenged by reality. He is always more comfortable with his own definition of the ‘other’ in life because that indirectly defines his own identity.

We in Pakistan should not fall to the easy temptation of retaliating against this attitude. Being in denial will not dissociate from us our Dionysian side, the not-so-controllable creative aspect of a putatively ideological society. What happens in Lahore and Karachi happens in New Delhi and Dhaka too. There is no dearth of negative piety-opinion in Pakistan about the sleazy goings-on in the Indian entertainment world. But we would be wrong if we concocted something like this about the goings-on in Bombay or Delhi. That would be a small thing to do. Let us ask our Indian guests to accept our reality the same way we are ready to accept theirs.

The truth of the matter is that 99 percent of the people on both sides have lived less-than-satisfactory lives in the last half century because India and Pakistan have cared more for fighting useless wars than for the well-being of their masses. Leaving the chattering classes aside for a while, there is no denying that both peoples would like the two states to live in peace and, if possible, in a cooperative, mutually profitable mode. The governments in New Delhi and Islamabad are on the verge of achieving the kind of bilateral relationship that the world wants for them. Let us not help the spoilers on both sides to win the day by derailing this process in a fit of anger. We have seen what such emotions and outlook have wrought during the wasted years of Indo-Pak hostility. *

BJP loses because of their adherence to the TNT-

Read my earlier prognosis regarding TNT being the real cause of BJP`s downfall. I had predicted that ABV would be retiring and Joshi would also lose. Advani kept his set because he was standing from a ``safe`` seat- My thesis is that it is due to their vulgar (read TNT) understanding of the aspirations and sentiments of the non-Hindu minorities that they have lost this time:


````#23 My Pakistan Diary: Lahore Aaya Main Othay Dil Chhod Aaya! on April 29, 2004
#208 by vertex on April 28, 2004 9:20pm PT

..............Any way, read this editorial form TOI in order to understand why ABV would be retiring soon...............and why Advani and Murli Joshis would be losing the elections due to their stupid understanding of IMs and their adherence to the TNT....... ````

Rise of psychophancy,

Sonia who has no moorings in the indian cultural meleu is propped up by the illiterate sof the cow belt in the hope that they can have their field day in corruption. It is the rise of psychophancy, the one who is ready to be the obedient servants of the so called leader will rise to power in this situation. Son of sonia is expected to become the congress secretary, at last the fools and incompetant of india has come to power.

May be like the pakistanis, who always claim that they are fair skinned and hence superior have found a match, the like minded indians from the cow belt have put a genuine white as the leader. Can pakis match that.