Dance of the wolves

#222 Ajeya:

In responding to #220, although you are putting this up as a Hindu versus Muslim issue – making it appear like “we have so much bad stuff going against Hindus, so why are you focusing on this one Muslim family affected by Ayodhya”, if you think a bit, it will be apparent that both #220 and your #222 are basically accounts of people – usually underdogs – who suffer through no fault of their own. Occasionally, I have felt some of the frustration similar to yours. However, in fairness, I would like to draw your attention to the following:

(1) As is this author’s style (call it a shortcoming, if you wish), she is always more moved by the plight of individuals she comes into contact with (or learns about) more than that of groups she does not encounter!

(2) She makes India a focus of her efforts, because India is where she lives, and believes that’s where she can indeed make a difference!

(3) She is not afraid to take a position which could make her unpopular! She is not shooting for a political office, etc. (we know that many politicians will say anything as per the need of the moment, without meaning any of it). The fact that she can say those things and not be “punished” by the establishment, speaks volumes about the strength of the democratic institution and India’s maturity as a nation – let’s understand and value that!

(4) Lastly, honesty ought to be valued for its own sake, without attacking the individual! And ALL discrimination is bad! Yet, hurting people who have no recourse is deplorable and certainly when it is carried out by the establishment, the best time to stop it is when there are very few instances, not when it becomes institutionalized!

Re: #220 by OneOfThe72



Plight of Hindus in Sindh and Balochistan


Khaled Ahmed

…

Hindus in Balochistan: The latest facts about the Hindu community in Balochistan have come to light in a report by Minority Rights Commission of Pakistan titled Religious Tolerance in Balochistan: Myth and Reality (2003) by Akram Mirani. The Commission sent a team to the province, which observed the Hindus of Kalat, Mastung, Machh and Kolpur and discovered that the Baloch and Brahui tribes kept them to do jobs (musicians, carpenters, merchants) considered below their honour by the Muslims. The author noted that Hindus were visible in Baloch areas but were scarce in the Pakhtun areas although in 1941 most of the 54,000 Hindus of Balochistan lived in the Pakhtun areas. After 1947, the Hindus in the Pakhtun areas declined by 93 percent but only by 11 percent in the Baloch areas. In Kalat there are seven Hindu temples but the Hindu streets are separate from Muslim streets. There are even two Hindu doctors in Kalat. The only Brahman in town is Maharaj Roshan Sharma in charge of the Shiv Mandar there. Hindu merchants still control the wholesale trade of the area. But in 1992, after the Babri mosque incident in India, it was the Pakhtun community who intruded and subjected the Hindus to violence. The police in Balochistan is hardly organised. It keeps no record of violence against the minorities and is barred from operating anywhere outside the province’s major cities. Conditions have been bad in the Pakhtun areas of Balochistan.

Anti-Hindu violence in Balochistan: The Friday Timesreported in its issue of March 23-29, 2001, as follows: ‘Hundreds of Hindus have been forced to flee their homes and cross over into Sindh. Three Hindus were reported to have been killed in the town of Chaman after clashes between Hindus attempting to protect their homes and Muslim mobs in October. Temples and homes were set ablaze and property, including Hindu shops, destroyed as the growing social intolerance assumed alarming new proportions in Balochistan. In all cases, local extremist groups played a role in triggering the attacks. ‘Though the precise number of families which fled was unknown, reports suggested almost half the community of 10,000 Hindus in Lasbela had been forced to leave their homes over the year. In almost all cases, the increased activism by militant religious groups imposed new strains on relations between the majority Muslim and the Hindu communities, who had lived peacefully alongside each other for many decades. The efforts to forcibly convert the Hindus, especially female school students, had a direct role to play in violence against Hindu settlements. At least five Hindu temples were vandalised over the year, with their structures damaged and the idols and other objects of worship broken. Amidst the uproar caused by the conversion issue in Lasbela, activists of religious parties launched an assault on two old Hindu temples and threw to the ground the idols placed in them.’


Plight of Hindus of Sindh: Newsline(Dec 2000), pages 77-79, stated that ‘the status of the 2.7 million Hindus in Pakistan, who are largely concentrated in Sindh, does not make for a very encouraging picture. Despite the fact that the Hindus in Pakistan have generally maintained a low profile, the general attitude towards them is one of suspicion. A case in point: the editor of a Sindhi newspaper demanded a car from a Hindu businessman. When he refused the former wrote an editorial in his paper declaring that the gentleman was a RAW agent who had been supplying weapons to terrorists in the country. In another incident in Hyderabad in September, Ashok Kumar, a Hindu inspector of the Income Tax Department, along with the army monitoring team went to Sadar to collect tax return forms from shop owners. Instead of complying with the authorities, one of the shop-owners alleged that the Hindu inspector had threatened to grab him by his beard if he did not give him the form. Within no time the shopkeeper managed to muster a group of his colleagues, who shuttered their shops and took out a procession demanding that the government hand them the Hindu so that they “could teach him a lesson.” There followed a two-day strike in the city, as a result of which Ashok Kumar was not only suspended from his job, but also jailed after a case of ‘blasphemy’ was registered against him.

‘Hindus in Pakistan have faced the greatest trials when there has been tension between India and Pakistan. Says an analyst, “From the first Indo-Pak war to the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Hindus in Pakistan have been perceived as enemies and persecuted.” Kidnapping, extortion, and even killing are, meanwhile, common crimes perpetrated against Hindus in Sindh today. In September this year, Dr. Kanaya Lal, a Hindu eye specialist, was kidnapped from Larkana from the heart of the town. He was released after one week following a ransom payment of 5 lakh rupees (500,000 rupees). Another Hindu, Dr, Darshan Lal, was killed in Badah town in Larkana when he offered resistance to dacoits who were attempting to kidnap him from his house. At least four Hindu have been kidnapped from Sukkur during the last two months, and remain in the custody of the dacoits who have demanded hefty amounts of ransom for their release. ‘Many Hindus pay regular sums as ‘bhatta’ to different groups of extortionists merely in order to be aloud to live in peace. Pak Autos, an automobile outlet belonging to a local Hindu trader in Larkana, was torched a couple of months ago when he refused to cough up the sum demanded by activists of a political party. Another Hindu businessman disclosed that he had received a call at his Karachi residence a few months ago from an activist of a Sindh nationalist party who demanded the payment of a sizeable sum from him. He tracked down the number the caller had phoned from and discovered it belonged to an agency. When he contacted the authorities and gave them this information, he was not only refused help, he was told that “the activists of different groups are important to the establishment, while the Hindus are of no use,” thereby implying that he should not expect any assistance. Says the businessman “Instead of concentrating on business, most Hindus in Pakistan are expending their energies in developing their PR with the authorities and entertaining various influentials to try and build up a support base for themselves.”

…..

Re: #220 by FarzanaVersey

So have you written any articles about Jews not being allowed to set foot in Medina?

The time for your types has come.

It is here, and now.

I hope that the current trend does not slow down.

I hope you get kicked out of India.

All`s well? Take a look...

NOT INFUSING CONFIDENCE?

Fear, shame stalk Ayodhya Muslims

TIMES NEWS NETWORK (July 23, 2005)

Ayodhya: Mohammad Walilullah cites four reasons to prove he was born under the wrong stars. He is illiterate, he is poor. To top that, he is a Muslim, born and brought up in Ayodhya, and his house lies within Dorahi Kuan, a highly sensitive point in the Ram Janambhoomi complex after the July 5 terrorist attack.

After his tailoring shop was gutted in communal riots following the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, Wali Miyan operates from a ramshackle room next to his front verandah.

Friday was yet another eventless day till he heard about the VHP’s demand to evacuate the hundred metres of land adjacent to the RJB complex. Wali Miyan’s house is only five metres away. The TOI team visiting his shop found the old man in a foul temper, asking his wife to be “prepared for any eventuality’’. “Worse comes to worst, they will ask us to leave the place and that I shall do very happily. Enough of all this,’’ he tells the wife who was standing behind a tattered curtain.

Is it really true? Will they evacuate us? Will Mulayam Singh Yadav allow this? He has many queries that have no easy answers. Then begins his monologue about how misfortune always comes in heaps. After two deaths in the family last month, he lost his 10-yearold niece that very morning.

“Things are becoming increasingly difficult and even digging a grave can lead to objections in Ayodhya,’’ he confides.

Suddenly Walilullah falls silent. A figure in khaki is staring accusingly at him from across the road. “Why are outsiders being entertained by this tailor?’’ demands sub-inspector Deo Mani, in-charge of security in the area. “Who has allowed him to speak to the media?’’ he says, raising his voice as a crowd of silent spectators beings to collect.

“Doesn’t the old man know no ‘dramabazi’ (fooling around) is allowed within the RJB? And giving sob stories to the media. Has the b...... gone nuts?’’ the officer is now frothing at the mouth.

Wali Miyan looks ashen. “Please come inside and hide,’’ his wife whispers from behind the curtain. The old man silently shakes his head. “Bibi khud dekh lo, kaisi zalalat ki zindagi jeete hai hum log Ramji ki Ayodhya main (Lady, see for yourself what kind of humiliation we face in Ram’s Ayodhya),’’ he quietly says.

The sub-inspector now plonks himself on a chair facing his shop. Surrounded by armed jawans, he is clearly enjoying the show. His threats continue while TOI speaks with Wali Miyan..

Finally, sub-inspector Deo Mani cannot take it anymore. “All right, you wretched old man, keep talking. Let these people go and then I shall make you pay for all this jabbering,’’ he peppers his threat with choicest expletives.

The old tailor, suddenly in a gesture of defiance, which shocks everyone including the police officer, turns his back on him. Wali Miyan is weeping unabashedly. “Bibi, go and tell the world of our shame,’’ the words coming between suppressed sobs are incoherent. “You know about the prayer a caged parrot sends up each day?’’ he asks. Deo Mani, meanwhile, is nearly hysterical with rage but Wali Miyan is past caring.

“Lord almighty! It is better to die than eat a meal which makes my wings weaker,’’ he manages to complete the sentence and the translation as well.

The Lord sitting a few furlongs away may finally lend him an ear, who knows?

Editor

All numbering of iteracts appear haphazzard. My interact appearing after serial no. 3 has been given the no.212. Can you set them right please?

i will certainly not call you a loony, cause if i do then i risk being called a looney myself. `guarding faith with guns` and `being different from each other as we want to be` can summarise all the capacity of our thinkers (so called). all we hear today is that in response to the killing (no mentioning of human tragedy) the state has beefed up security with more ARMED patrols. where are we really headed?

asif

very mature article. liked it.

a pakistani

soysauce

Knowing how well you can think on some matters, I seriously doubt you yourself see any rationality in what you have written.

Re: # 213
Historically many leaders have invoked the name of God in times of war.
True, and especially during the Crusades.

Political leaders don`t act inconsistently, and shift justifications, just for religious reasons.

I guess you don`t really believe in objectivity then. All I hear you saying is discard what you see, there are motivations that only I can see. I think that`s called subjective opinion in most places.

Re: # 211
If those affected see themselves as subjects of a crusade then that too is the truth.
Is this so simple? When an individual or a group cannot bring themselves to speak for a nation without some due process, can it be done so for a religion? Also consider that the concept of organized religion should preclude a crusade. This cannot be left between an individual and her God.So , if a crusade is claimed, the spokesmen and office bearers of that organized religion should either come forward and accept responsibility or deny it. Would not someone do the same in case of identity theft, as has rightly been mentioned here?
And of course, as kaalchakra has mentioned, Bush seeking help from God doesnt mean that Christians are waging war on muslims.

Soysauce

Historically many leaders have invoked the name of God in times of war. Because Bush did so, that`s hardly reason enough to accuse him of being a crusader.

Political leaders don`t act inconsistently, and shift justifications, just for religious reasons.

People`s beliefs are their privileges. The only thing they reliably indicate are beliefholders` worldviews - not the reality as it exists.

Reality has a way of catching up with people sooner or later. Therefore respect for objective evidence is key to our (or any group`s) sanity and safety.

Re: # 3
kashmakash
How you dare to call yourself a Muslim unless make a declaration of your faith calling sertain people non-Muslim who call them as Muslims. My son while seeing news of killings in a mosque asked me, ``Papa, why do they kill people in the mosque?`` I said, ``Because the terrorists believe `Muslim Kafars` get segregated here.``

This faith inspired bloodshed of human beings reminds me of the great Bulle Shah who had said:-

Masjid dhaa de, mandar dhaa de, dhaa de jo kujh dhenda
ik bande da dil nah dhaawin Rab dillaan wich rehnda

I would suggest to the secular government of India to make an amendment in their constitution to declare all religious bigots and fanatics as `Maleechhas` and treated likewise.

Re: # 210
What beliefs? And on whose part? Did Bush say he is guided by god on a whim? Did he not mean it?
The empirical evidence is that there is a war on the justification for which changes depending on who you ask and when you ask. If those affected see themselves as subjects of a crusade then that too is the truth.
Your objective beliefs and two dollars will not even buy a cup of latte.

re: soysauce # 209

Are those beliefs objectively refutable? What kind of evidence will it take to refute those beliefs?

Re: # 205
Ballukhan, I think the Iraqi freedom fighters understand quite well that all the denials are for domestic consumption and that what`s going bears the hallmark of the crusades. How one phrases the conflict depends on who the audience is. Colonial regimes used the moral tone when it suited them (civilize and reform the natives to their larger domestic audience, and profit and loss to their shareholders and stakeholders) to hide the mercantile nature of their enterprise. In reality, it was a bit of everything. Even many of the colonized came to believe in the moral uprightness of the occupiers and the rationale for the occupation. When I read Gandhiji I am repeatedly struck by how long it took him to transcend the prevailing mythology about the lawfulness and moral superiority of the Brits. Perhaps it is a reflection of our times where everything happens doublequick that the occupied of Iraq are able to see thru the moral vacuity of their occupation. In your protestations I see a deliberate attempt to slur over the differences between those fighting occupiers of their lands and others. To you they are all jehadists. Tom Freedman would be proud.
Tell me again, do you see christians going around apologizing for what`s done in their name? I understand the evangelists are doing great business in iraq now that there is a favorable regime. Christians at large have no need to apologize (even with an overtly christian administration that initially codenamed WOT as Operation Crusade) because they as a whole have nothing to do with what`s going on.

Some things can be checked out fairly quickly and objectively.

Pick up the major newspapers of three or four different types of countries. Go through their opinion columns. See who repeatedly uses the word `crusades.`

See if there is a significant overlap between the people who see crusades being launched everywhere and those who view the concept of Jihad positively.

It may be that both crusades and jihads will be found to be the constructions of the same mindset.