Lesbians vs. Gays vs. Hinduism vs. Modernity?

Aah . . . bleeding hearts and sacred cows and feet of clay . . . Dost Mittar, you have travelled the world, without documents to start with, and with them subsequently, so I am sure you understand . . . bleeding hearts evacuate copiously as per the need of the moment.

Initial article by FV was on lesbians gays and Hinduism and modernity . . . so in any case, the movie has now vanished, sunk without trace as all garbage eventually does. (Garbage unrelated to sexual orientation, religion or ``modernity``, btw.

So a consensus is emerging among hindus now that profiling of muslims is as natural as breathing. Excuse me but aren`t you the people who once were choking when Taliban were profiling hindus living in Afghanisan by making them wear yellow arm bands. Keep in mind that taliban didn`t do it because hindus were hindus but because hindustan was actively pumping in weapons and money to destabilize taliban, thru northern alliance. I am not saying that you hindu people are hypocrites but I just want to know what is the statistical probability that a hindu residing in afghanistan might be facilitating in the said destabilization.

soysauce:
We do indeed disagree! Being born in Pakistan and having a Pakistani visa stamped on my passport, I am these days a prime candidate for profiling and indeed have been taken for secondary examination twice and `randomly` selected for screening. Being a statistician by trade, I fully understand the reasons for profiling and prejudice is not the only one. Inspectors who are looking for a potential target have to work on a limited information model; the only basis for developing a `maximum likelihood model` is from past empirical data, which is prejoratively known as `profiling`. But I draw the difference between suspicion and accusation; while I understand an inspector`s reason for suspecting me I would find it unacceptable if, after questioning, I were stopped from admission on the basis of my place of birth, religion and a pakistani visa.
..and yes, sikhs were subjected to racial profiling during those days and still are to a lesser extent.

And how come none of the bleeding hearts ever complains about the horrendous practice of calling a whole goup of people ``criminal tribes``?

soysauce #192

Profiling is as natural, human, and reasonable as breathing. Unless we constantly profile people, our information processing capabilities will be quickly overwhelmed. Where there is greater uncertainty, greater profiling must invariably follow.

Like it or not, after 9/11, a group of bearded middle eastern man carrying leaflets printed in arabic will cause greater concern among the passengers of an airline than will a group of old white ladies wishing good byes to their grand children.

During the Khalistan movement, I doubt if Sikhs did not have to bear the brunt of extra security.

We will have to ask some Sikhs to help us out.

Dostmittar #190

That reminds me of the incident during the Lok Sabha elections this April where PDP president Mehbooba Mufti lifted the veil of a burqa-clad woman voter under the suspicion that she was bogus. There also seems to be reason to believe that terrorists in Kashmir have used the burqa to move about more freely than they could otherwise. I think Tavleen Singh’s concerns are quite valid.

#190
Huh? The incident that Tavleen Singh describes appears to be a case of `profiling` of muslims and I think Ms. Singh is saying that should be OK in india. I think that is bigotry and therefore, no, we are not in agreement. Profiling does not require any other reason to be suspicious. It`s enough if a person belongs to a certain category which in this case appears to be religious muslim. Profiling is stupid, arrogant, alienating and ineffective.
I do wonder if Ms. Singh would have approved of searching sikh men and women extra carefully during the khalistan movement? From what I know EVERYONE was searched carefully, sikh or not. That was not only humane but also EFFECTIVE.

soysauce:
``Bearded men and veiled women have lived in india for centuries as indian citizen and for Ms. Singh to claim that profiling of the sort done in a foreign airport should be acceptable to indians (muslims or hindus) betrays bigotry, confusion or both.``

I dont think that Ms singh would disagree. I might add that a muslim woman at heathrow is also not a strange sight anymore. Before 9/11, the poor women wouldn`t have been put through the hassle that they were in Ms Singh`s queue. But supposing that an indian inspector had reason to be suspicious, subjected these women to a similar intense questioning only to find out that they were totally innocent, wouldn`t some people have harassed the poor inspector out of his/her job?

I think that Ms singh was using this incident to make the point that those criticising should not pick one particular community for communalism or bigotry. A sonia gandhi finding a cabinet seat for someone accused of leading anti-sikh mobs in `84 is as hypocritical in asking the removal of Modi as the BJP asking for the removal of Tytler while not doing anything about Modi.

I muddled my last post. Corrected version below:
#186 dost-mittarji,
In the part that you fully agree with, Ms. Singh makes a point that`s uncontestable by its very nature (I for one asked what was she (Ishrat) doing with those characters), repeats the insinuation that they (these characters) were after Modi and then tries to establish her (own) credibility by arguing that she is holier than the civil rights groups. A through and through political, self-aggrandizing statement.
The essay itself seems targeted at a certain kind of audience and an artificial attempt at balance permeates it. Bearded men and veiled women have lived in india for centuries as indian citizens and for Ms. Singh to claim that profiling of the sort done in a foreign airport should be acceptable to indians (muslims or hindus) betrays bigotry, confusion or both. If this woman is a progressive, india is in big trouble.

Innocence Betrayed

The involvement of Ishrat Jehan, an educated middle-class girl, in a terrorist plot is a pointer to the fading faith in the system. The plot, the encounter to bust it and the uproar symbolise the sense of disquiet in civil society.

By Uday Mahurkar and Sheela Raval


It was the first spell of monsoon. Shamima Shaikh and three of her daughters were lazily surfing channels in their two-room apartment in Hasmat Park in the dreary township of Mumbra on the outskirts of Mumbai. Even as they settled down to watch a popular family melodrama, there was loud knocking on the door. Shamima`s eldest daughter Zeenat Jehan opened the door only to find herself facing a battery of cameras and microphones. Mediapeople asked her about her sister Ishrat Jehan. Bewildered by the clamour, Zeenat just about made sense of the fact that Ishrat had been killed in a police encounter the previous morning on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

It was as if melodrama had come knocking and soon enough the lower middle-class family found themselves unwittingly starring in one. The second child of Mohammed and Shamima, the 19-year-old, five ft two inches, good looking and seemingly happy go lucky Ishrat was gunned down with three other alleged operatives of the dreaded Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). They were allegedly on a mission to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Ishrat was with her friend Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai and two others, Zeeshan Johar alias Janbaaz and Amjad Ali Rana alias Salim, identified as LeT suicide squad members and citizens of Pakistan.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Did Ishrat`s family know of Javed`s LeT links and, therefore, her activities?
How come no policeman was injured despite 42 rounds being fired by the terrorists?

Why hadn`t the police arrested Javed and Ishrat on their earlier visits to Gujarat?

How were the terrorists planning to eliminate Narendra Modi?
As the family rushed to the neighbours to borrow a newspaper, the news had already gripped this small hick town and the nation. ``This can`t be true`` was the initial public reaction. Zeenat claims, ``Ishrat has never killed an ant; just forget about her going on a murder mission. How can a caring person like her, who fends for her entire family, be a terrorist?``

Testimonials of Ishrat`s good character and behaviour poured in from school and college teachers, neighbours and friends. To Safia Qureshi, a neighbour, ``Ishrat was a model daughter and sister who was mature enough at a tender age to support the family.`` Down south, in Kerala, M.R. Gopinatha Pillai, 67, a middle-class farmer and Congress activist, couldn`t believe that his son Pranesh (alias Javed) could be involved in terrorist activities.

Conspiracy swirled with cordite as politicians barged into the din. The pre-election environment in Maharashtra triggered curious reactions, charges and demands. NCP leader Vasant Dhavkare rushed to donate Rs 1 lakh to the family, Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde was cornered in Delhi and pressured to hand over the case to the CBI, M. Siddiqui, a Mumbai Congressman, said the encounter was engineered to save Modi from being ousted and Abu Azmi of the Samajwadi Party dubbed the encounter a fake and promised to take it up with the President of India.

The doubts over the genuineness of the encounter are not unexpected. A self-confessed gangster Ketan Tirodkar has alleged on a sworn affidavit in the MCOCA court in Mumbai that he and encounter specialist Daya Nayak delivered one Sadiq Mehtar as a target for an encounter for the Gujarat Police in January 2003. Mehtar was dubbed a LeT operative and killed. While the court has admitted the statement as a petition and is looking into the charges, the credibility of the police has been seriously eroded.

The June 15 encounter also raises several questions ranging from the timing of the incident to the manner in which the police were found scrambling to prove their case. Perhaps it is the lack of credibility that dogs the police force-particularly the Gujarat Police-across the country.

But P.P. Pande, joint commissioner of police, Ahmedabad Crime Branch, doesn`t think so and brushed off allegations of the encounter being stage managed: ``Thanks to the coordination of intelligence and security agencies, we have been able to avert a great calamity.``

T H E E N C O U N T E R
A 15-km chase, an exchange of 112 rounds of fire and four dead.
JUNE 12: Ishrat and Javed leave for Ahmedabad. Halt at Malegaon and reach Ahmedabad on June 13.
JUNE 13: Make recce of Chief Minister Narendra Modi`s residence and other places along with Salim and Janbaaz.

JUNE 14: Ahmedabad Crime Branch receives message at 11 p.m. that four persons in a blue Indica were suspected terrorists. Target: Modi.

JUNE 15: Less than 90 minutes after the message, the Ahmedabad Police seal off entry points and six police teams are out.

JUNE 15: 4 a.m. A team led by ACP Narendra Amin at Narol Circle sees a blue Indica coming from Mumbai zoom past them towards Naroda. Amin`s team intercepts the Indica after a 15 km chase. His guard fires his AK-47 at the tyres bringing the car to a halt near the road divider.

JUNE 15: Around 4:30 a.m.: A terrorist jumps out of the car and starts firing at Amin`s vehicle with an AK-56 after taking cover behind his car. Another team led by ACP P. Singhal fires from the other side. After eight minutes, the firing ceases from the terrorists` side. Score: terrorists fired 42 rounds and police 70 rounds.

THE BOOTY: Police recovered from the Indica one AK-56, one pistol, a satellite phone (its record is still being ascertained), diaries believed to be those of Ishrat, Salim and Javed with details. From the boot of the Indica the police recovered several coconuts and a sack of yellow powder which is being examined by forensic experts. The coconuts indicate that the four also intended to target a place of worship or a religious gathering, perhaps the Jagannath rath yatra in Ahmedabad to be held three days later.

D E A D L Y F O U R S O M E
A student, an electrician and the LeT

ISHRAT JEHAN RAZA, 19: Part-time teacher, first-year BSc student. Resident of Hasmat Park, Mumbra. Was in the front seat next to Javed. No criminal record.

ZEESHAN JOHAR ALIAS JANBAAZ: LeT operative. Resident of Gujranwala in Pakistan, he entered India illegally. Sitting in back seat with Salim, he also fired a pistol.

AMJAD ALI AKBAR RANA ALIAS SALIM: Medical student turned LeT operative. Resident of Sargodha, Pakistan. Was in the back seat and fired a pistol.

JAVED SHEIKH ALIAS PRANESH PILLAI, 32: Electrician-turned-LeT member. Resident of Pune. Was in driver`s seat and fired an AK-56. Long criminal record.

P R E V I O U S I N C I D E N T S

OCTOBER 2002: Samir Khan Pathan, who was plotting to kill Modi and other leaders, was shot when he tried to snatch the pistol of an official. All 13 accused in conspiracy LeT off after his death.

JANUARY 2003: Police killed LeT operative Sadiq Mehtar, a gangster from Bhavnagar, who was accused of plotting to kill Modi, Togadia and Advani. He was killed when he tried to flee from police custody.

JUNE 2003: Police shoot Ganesh Khunte and Mahendra Jadhav who had come to kill Gujarat Law Minister Ashok Bhatt and BJP MLA Bharat Barot at the behest of the Dawood Ibrahim gang.


As the air cleared, police investigations revealed Ishrat was everything her family and neighbours believed. But she was also connected with LeT operatives. Typically, fundamentalist groups target young, educated non-stereotypes for indoctrination. Intelligence agents in Kashmir and Delhi have been regularly intercepting messages of LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad modules aimed at Modi and VHP factotum Pravin Togadia.

A message was intercepted in May in which LeT`s Pakistan-based chief of Indian operations (barring Kashmir), Muzzamil alias Tariq, spoke to Javed. When Muzzamil asked him, ``Lalaji kahan hain (Where is Advani)?`` Javed replied, ``Woh apne ghar pe hain (He is at home).`` Then Muzzamil said, ``Mubarak ka ab kuch karo (Do something about Modi).`` Javed replied, ``Khad ka intezam karo (Arrange for weapons and ammunition).`` The names of the two Pakistani terrorists Zeeshan Johar and Amjad Ali also figured. Terrorists from Kashmir and the distraught in Gujarat seem to have formed an unusual coalition.

ISHRAT`S DIARY
She had received Rs 4.8 lakh from unidentified sources.
Visited Ahmedabad and Surat thrice in two months.

With Javed and stayed in hotels under false names.

Paid Rs 1,09,000 to Pakistani fidayeen Salim alias Rana.
As unusual as the pairing of Javed and Ishrat. Contrary to rumours, police reveal that there was no love angle. Like Manisha Koirala in Mani Ratnam`s Dil Se, Ishrat had no romantic links with Javed but an allegiance to a cause. Says Amar Jadhav, DCP, crime branch, Thane, ``Prima facie evidence suggests that Ishrat wasn`t innocent. Her role and involvement are matters of investigation and deep concern.``

Police investigations reveal that Javed offered to get Ishrat a decent job in a good company and convinced her mother to send her for interviews to other cities, including Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. Ishrat also acquired a cell phone and fashionable clothes.

In fact, Javed and Ishrat made their first recce of Ahmedabad on March 13. Police are now scrutinising the CCTV footage at the Akshardham Temple to ascertain their second visit in May. Apparently, Javed and Ishrat, who had checked into an Ahmedabad hotel on May 15, had also visited the Akshardham Temple before leaving for Lucknow where they met Salim alias Rana on May 17. Rana accompanied them back to Pune where he stayed with Javed. What is not known is when and where the fourth member Janbaaz joined them.

DIARIES OF JAVED AND SALIM
Plot to target Narendra Modi, L.K. Advani, Pravin Togadia, Bal Thackeray, Vinay Katiyar and Uma Bharati.
Details of making explosives and use of incendiary chemicals, besides drawings of five types of ID circuits.

Details of payments made to other LeT operatives.

UNEASY CALM: Javed with wife
Sajda and child
Javed`s own connections and involvement are less of a mystery. Born Pramesh Kumar Pillai and baptised Javed Ghulam Muhammed Shaikh, he grew up in Thamarakkulam village in Alappuzha district of Kerala before he came to Pune in 1988 to train as an electrician and worked for various contractors including Ishrat`s father in 1992. Besides an income Javed also acquired notoriety. He had been booked for rioting , grievous criminal trespass and possession of lethal weapons. Thereafter he worked in Dubai between 1998 and 2002. Armed with three passports Javed had apparently met Muzammil during his visit to Oman and joined the LeT. Javed last visited his father in the blue Indica with his children and returned to Pune on June 5. His father next saw him in photographs splashed in newspapers.

It isn`t clear as yet as to what triggered the public uproar. Perhaps it was the cold brutality of the encounter laid bare in the pictures splashed by TV channels and newspapers. Public perception revolved around an intriguing contradiction which accepted the apparent involvement of Javed and the two Pakistanis but refused to believe that Ishrat could have had anything to do with the trio despite her travels with them. This is not surprising because Ishrat didn`t fit the stereotype. But then neither did Waleed Alsheri, who held a degree in aeronautical science, and Mohammed Atta, who studied at Technical University of Hamburg, two of those involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack. If the WTC attack was the response of warped minds to humiliations perceived and real, the enrolment of an Ishrat into a terrorist module is a symptom of desperation. In a sense the uproar over the killing of Ishrat Jehan symbolises the disquiet in civil society.

#186 dost-mittarji,
In the part that you fully agree with, Ms. Singh makes a point that`s uncontestable by its very nature (I for one asked what was she doing with those characters), repeats the insinuation that they were after Modi and then tries to establish her credibility by arguing that she is holier than the civil rights groups. A through and through political, self-aggrandizing statement.
The essay itself seems targeted at a certain kind of audience and an artificial attempt at balance permeates it. Bearded men and veiled women have lived in india for centuries as indian citizens and for Ms. Singh to claim that profiling of the sort done in a foreign airport should be acceptable to indians (muslims or hindus) betrays bigotry, confusion or both. If this woman is a progressive, india is in big trouble.

ankit#184:
That was a relevant piece from tavleen singh. I fully agree with the following:

``Every newspaper I read painted the dead girl out to be a model of virtue who could not possibly have had anything to do with terrorism or terrorists. Almost nobody asked what she was doing in a car filled with armed men allegedly on a mission to assassinate Narendra Modi. And, speaking of whom may I say that in the campaign to demonise him (of which I totally approve) what puzzles me is the absence of clamour from our hyperactive civil rights groups about the fate of those Muslims in Gujarat who are still unable to return to their villages. Modi’s crime was not just that he allowed violence against people he was supposed to protect but that after the violence was over he did nothing to help the victims return to their homes. There are thousands of Muslims in Gujarati villages who continue to live in terror because the killers remain unpunished. Nobody speaks for them just as nobody speaks for the victims of other riots who continue to fight their lonely battles for justice``

To be fair to the much maligned author of this thread, she did not assume the girl to be innocent.
If tavleen singh has not already been dubbed a saffronite, she soon would be. But IMs should instead pay attention to what she says and do some introspection. She strikes a highly responsive chord among the unbiased hindus or what one might call soft secularists; a lesser known fact is that she is not a hindu herself. And she has made a point that I have repeatedly made on chowk - that unless secularists condemn muslim communalists as strongly as hindu communalists, they play right into the hands of the the likes of Modi and Tagodia. I admire the strict way in which Antony handled the hindu killings at Marad in Kerala. Unfortunately, the secularists criticised him and called him a soft-hindutva supporter, although his timely condemnation and strict action probably prevented the backlash and the growth of support for the bjp that would have happened in the absence of such timely action.

172

have not been able to see Dev. Nevetheless, this article is totally biased.

Look at this:
``
Yet, Dev has scenes of Muslim mobs retaliating, daring to torch Hindu shops (an acceptable version of events — communal violence as a clash between two `equal` enemies). Far worse, Nihalani reinforces the action-reaction justification for the carnage. (The burning of the Sabarmati coach at Godhra and the killing of the kar sevaks is here substituted by a motorcycle bomb which kills devotees at a Ganesh temple.)

``

did muslims not retaliate where they could in gujrat? then why were so many hindus among the victims of the violence? the administration did take sides, but it is nobody`s case that the muslims did retalitate with violence where they were capable of doing it.

and what is this action reaction part? is it not a fact that the things started after godhara. it is a different matter to justify and say that since godhara happened, the riots can be forgiven. that is not acceptable. but it is definitely true that things started with godhara- it is a historical fact and one cannot just wish it away.

and this:
``
While the true facts of Godhra remain a mystery (which we hope our new and esteemed railway minister will soon unravel), Nihalani does not engage with such bothersome detail
``

so the true facts of godhara are a mystery. maybe a raw conspiracy similar to the one in which they were trailing four terrorists for months? even better will be declaring it a rss conspiracy!


and why are you fuming Farzana. Why did you post it if you dont think what it says is okay?

A piece by Tavleen Singh

http://iecolumnists.expressindia.com/full_column.php?content_id=49831

Why we are a soft target for terrorists

On the morning that the American engineer, Paul Johnson, was beheaded by his terrorist captors in Saudi Arabia I happened to be arriving in London. At Heathrow airport, ahead of me in the immigration queue, was a Muslim family of sub-continental origin. The man wore an Islamic beard and looked as if dressed for Friday prayers. Skullcap, short pyjamas and long kurta and the three women accompanying him were so totally veiled that only their eyes showed. The orthodoxy of their attire or the beheading in Saudi Arabia must have been playing on the mind of the British immigration officer because he interrogated this family longer than I have ever seen anyone being interrogated at immigration before.
While the rest of us waited impatiently in a queue that got longer by the minute the Muslim gentleman was questioned and questioned again. His passport was examined first by one official, then another, then some sort of supervisor poured over it frowningly. The veiled ladies, meanwhile, were escorted to a hidden chamber and kept there for what seemed like half-an-hour and it was only at the end of all this that they were allowed to enter Britain. Exhausted though I was from my long flight I watched the proceedings with interest because it made me realise how political correctness in our own fair and wondrous land makes us an even softer terrorist target than we already are.


If a Muslim family had been treated this way at an Indian airport there would have been a case in the Human Rights Commission against the immigration department. Political correctness, particularly in the media, makes us nearly always give terrorists rather than the police the benefit of doubt. A recent example is the case of the Mumbai college girl who was killed in a police shootout with alleged terrorists.

Every newspaper I read painted the dead girl out to be a model of virtue who could not possibly have had anything to do with terrorism or terrorists. Almost nobody asked what she was doing in a car filled with armed men allegedly on a mission to assassinate Narendra Modi. And, speaking of whom may I say that in the campaign to demonise him (of which I totally approve) what puzzles me is the absence of clamour from our hyperactive civil rights groups about the fate of those Muslims in Gujarat who are still unable to return to their villages. Modi’s crime was not just that he allowed violence against people he was supposed to protect but that after the violence was over he did nothing to help the victims return to their homes. There are thousands of Muslims in Gujarati villages who continue to live in terror because the killers remain unpunished. Nobody speaks for them just as nobody speaks for the victims of other riots who continue to fight their lonely battles for justice.

This peculiarly selective approach to human rights discredits the cause just as the absence of firm measures to deal with Islamic terrorists, and the institutions that breed them, ends up discrediting all Muslims. The root cause is political correctness carried to such absurd lengths that we in the media do not even dare point out that young Muslims are being misled onto paths of violence by half-literate, half-witted mullahs whose influence has grown dangerously ever since political Islam began its confrontation with the West. Civil rights groups must share the blame because quick though they are to point out the evils of ‘‘saffronisation’’ they rarely pick up on the tirade against ‘‘infidels’’ that carries on in Muslim religious and educational institutions. It is these institutions that are the breeding grounds of terrorism but not even a BJP government was able to do anything for fear that it would be seen as an attack on Muslims.

It is an issue that will have to be addressed if we are to stop the poison spreading. There is no harm in Islamic schools and religious institutions teaching knowledge of the religion but if that is all a child is taught from its first day of learning to its last it grows up thinking of those who are not Muslims as infidels. From this exclusivity comes the desire to kill unbelievers as enemies of the faith. Whatever Islam’s grouse against the West it cannot be used as an excuse for terrorism in India and yet we have been dealing with Islamic terrorism longer than any Western country.

Kashmir’s ‘‘freedom movement’’ was hijacked by radical Islamists in the early nineties and the first beheading of a Westerner was that of that poor Norwegian tourist in Kashmir in 1995. Nobody even found out what happened to the others who were abducted along with him and then we saw the advent of Omar Sheikh and Azhar Masood who were in India to recruit troops for the cause. So hopeless were our anti-terrorism measures that we kept these two evil men in our jails for several years before graciously exchanging them for the passengers of IC-814 in Kandahar.

Incompetence and an absence of political will are part of the reasons why we have been unable to deal with terrorism but political correctness is almost as much to blame because its pressure forces our political leaders to turn a blind eye. Political correctness to such a degree that we cannot say Islamic terrorism without being accused of communalism. We can, though, say Hindu fundamentalist and Sikh terrorist without anyone protesting. What does that tell you?

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Re. 177
[#172 by FarzanaVersey
`` While the true facts of Godhra remain a mystery `` ]

Read first. I have posted an article by someone else, and it screams out in the first sentence itself. Because you cannot get back at that writer, just spew your venom here. Old tactic. Quit.

This board is slowly becoming the RSS, Sai Baba Apologist and Hindu Extremist hound.