Thursday, April 16, 2015

How ‘communalism’ hovers over the destiny of India By Ghulam Muhammed


How ‘communalism’ hovers over the destiny of India

By Ghulam Muhammed

India is at the threshold of a historical breakthrough. It has potential for reaching heights of progress and development as well as challenges that can usher in a neo-colonial stranglehold on entire Indian economy as well as its cultural expanding into a well defined civilization. This time around, unlike British, Portuguese, French and Dutch colonizer trying their luck to conquer India through the force of arms in the 18th and 19th century, the neo-colonizers will lasso India with huge amounts of paper investments, in which they themselves will remain indebted to a world, that dare not name its name. Like the earlier wave of colonizers, Jews will be the lead strategists and funders to all such foreign enterprises and as in earlier phases, they are relentlessly committed to their own priorities in shaping the world to their own dreams of a World Order. Earlier they camouflaged their moves under assumed identities like British, French, Dutch et al. This time around they are sufficiently confidant to come out openly to claim their victim’s total surrender to their diktats.

In India, they are playing the game of divide and rule, by taking advantage of the communal divide that was planted by the British colonials in India and using this communal divide to subdue India. While at face value judgment, President Obama’s praise for Modi’s rag to riches story depicting India’s dynamism and potential as a great nation, he has not find it convenient to analyze how Modi’s rise in Indian politics differs from the normal opportunity-led nations’ cleaner pathways. Modi has shot up a communal hate-mongering fascist organisation on the basis of its ‘triumph’ in teaching a lesson to the uppity Muslims in the post-Godhra state-wide genocidal pogrom. US Human Rights watch-dogs have appropriately kept alive the final verdict on how to deal with a supposedly state sponsored massacre of innocent civilians in Gujarat, by working against any lifting of the ban on Modi’s visa to visit the USA. 

However, Obama disregarded the massacre as a minor blip in national or international historical events and lauded the assumption of power by Modi, strangely on that same murderous record of Muslim bloodletting that could not fit into Obama’s own sense of dynamism and opportunities. 

One can place this bloody event as one off happenstance, if it is not tied up to an ideology that can rival with Islamism in its worst avatar. ‘The clash of civilization’ that Jewish British Historian Bernard Lewis had first identified and named in his famous article published in ‘Foreign Affairs’ magazine, could hover over India’s future in such a menacing scale that India’s future development will assume the same scenario that Europe had gone through in last century. It is time that Modi should realize that the way his and his party’s Hindutva is hiking the stakes in their Hindu-ization of India, is fraught with dangers that are not unknown in history.

Modi should not forget that while British were supposed to give up their colonial rule, they, Churchill in particular, came out with partition of India, as they wanted a part of India for their own strategic exigencies. Jinnah and Muslim League were minor details for them. Nehru, Patel and Gandhi thought once Muslims are out, they can rule India as their own undisputed property. They fought decades to nurse the dream. However, it was difficult to throw out the overpowering presence of the West, while we were trying to stand on our two feet. That partition of land has now gravely translated into partition of ideas. An Idea of India and an Idea of Pakistan! Both will be called upon to fight it out on our soil; while the neo-colonials will be there to pick up the pieces.

In his zeal to cut ribbons, hug opportunist friends and let international Zionist conspirators seep into nooks and corners of this vast country, like cockroaches in summer, he may push India into a big time arena, where its mettle may be tested much before it has gained strengths and stability. Modi must realize that the term ‘communalism’ should not be treated as something long known to India and easily subject to taming; it can take many shapes as peripherals change all around us. In the kaleidoscope of events and characters, India is treading on a tapestry that is renewing itself time and time again. Modi must come to term with its fellow countryman, the Muslims. India should be a united India to face the rest of the world.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2015

AAP leaders stay away from rebel meeting in Gurgaon - THE HINDU

My comments posted on THE HINDU website article:

AAP leaders stay away from rebel meeting in Gurgaon


'Veteran Journalist Kuldip Nayyar, also sent out a message said that “insulting” people like Mr. Bhushan and Mr. Yadav was a big mistake.' What if the leaders themselves were asking for it. There is a time for everything. While Kejriwal was fully occupied with Delhi Assembly elections, was that the time for the august moralists to not just advise, but to take negative steps to sabotage AAP's election efforts. The struggle for supremacy in the party hierarchy was too open to be missed. Those who had less than full commitment to party politics, should not either have joined the AAP as political party, or would have declared from the beginning to remain as outsider pressure group monitoring AAP performance. To personalize the entire episode in a divisive manner and then expect others to keep calm without reacting is a very naive exercise. Just as the so-called group of volunteers have an immediate opinion and stake in AAP; so do a big majority of voters of India have stakes. Can't ignore!

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

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AAP leaders stay away from rebel meeting in Gurgaon



Rebel AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan. File photo
PTI
Rebel AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan. File photo
A number of AAP leaders and prominent individuals on Tuesday stayed away from the convention of party rebels Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan and chose to express solidarity through written statements instead.
AAP Patiala MP Dharamvira Gandhi, who had earlier faced the leadership’s ire for taking stand in favour of the dissidents, in a letter stressed the need to work towards strengthening the party’s core ideals.
“The need of these challenging times is to stay true to the party’s founding ideals and foundational principles and to dispassionately debate all the ideological and organisational issues to prevent the deviation of AAP which has become a symbol of alternative politics,” he said.
In the letter, addressed to the volunteers, he also sought to remind them that it was their “right” to act as a watchdog over the party’s decisions emphasising that they were in the AAP not for any individual but for its principles.
Mr. Gandhi alleged that his effigies were burnt and a negative publicity was unleashed against him including labelling him as a “traitor”.
Meanwhile, Christina Samy, another expelled national executive member, social activists Aruna Roy, Medha Patkar, who had recently quit AAP, were also conspicuous by their absence from the Gurgaon meet.
In her message, read out by a Chennai-based AAP worker, Ms. Samy said, “I am with you all in this struggle for Swaraj”.
Clarifying that he is “not from and has never” been part of the AAP, activist Nikhil Dey read out Ms. Roy’s message.
“We will have to make sure that common man has full stake in democracy. Alternative politics should be accountable, transparent and one that responds to people,” she said.
Veteran Journalist Kuldip Nayyar, also sent out a message said that “insulting” people like Mr. Bhushan and Mr. Yadav was a big mistake.

Monday, April 13, 2015

‘Went for a job, found a bloody war instead’ - By Sindhu J Mansukhani - The Free Press Journal - Mumbai, India

http://www.freepressjournal.in/went-for-a-job-found-a-bloody-war-instead/

Free Press Journal


‘Went for a job, found a bloody war instead’


— By Sindhu J Mansukhani | Apr 13, 2015 12:15 am 
SK Karim Mandal
Mumbai : Often there are times when luck just does not favour a person, and all things go wrong in every possible way. For 23-year-old S K Karim Mandal, luck seems to have left his side more than once – changing his life in one moment and throwing him in the middle of a bloody war in the next. Mandal, a resident of Kolkata in West Bengal was one of the many Indians who had gone to Yemen to try and make some money using the skills that he knew, but instead he found himself in the middle of gunfire, AK-47s, and a desperate attempt to return to safety.
FPJ spoke to the evacuee from Yemen who was in the first batch of people that came back to India from the strife-torn country. Excerpts:
How long back did you go to Yemen, and why?
I had gone to Yemen a little over a month ago, when an agent in Kolkata had arranged for my job there. I had got in touch with the agent through a friend who was also going to Saudi Arabia to work. The plan was to go and work for a newly established gear casting manufacturing company, and contribute for the household. My two elder brothers are married and live separately with their families, and so are my sisters. I am the youngest in the family and live in Kolkata with my parents. After getting in touch with the agent, I had paid Rs 41,000 for the Visa, air-travel and other such expenses for my transit to the other country. But the deal was I was cheated. I was never supposed to be in Yemen.
If not in Yemen, where else were you supposed to be then?
The deal with the agent was to send me to Oman for work and not Yemen. It was only after I reached Mumbai and saw my ticket that I realised that I am being sent to Yemen for work and not Oman. Since I had already paid for the ticket and the Visa, there was no option for me but to go ahead and work in Yemen itself. I had been there only for two weeks when the war started.
How did things change there when the war struck?
There was suddenly a curfew everywhere. I was living with eight other young men in a room provided to us within the premises of the factory itself. As soon as the war struck, the owner of the company fled and all work in the factory stopped. We were stuck inside the room, unable to go anywhere. Before the war started, we used to go out regularly, but later amidst the constant gunfire and battle we did not dare go out of the room or even open the door.
How did you manage to survive for so long without going out? How did you get food or fulfilled other daily needs?
The room was well-stocked with food to last several days. The fear was mostly due to being stuck in an unknown land with unknown people amidst so much violence. Our company’s owner used to visit us some times. But he used to say very odd things. When I told him I am scared, he told me that I feel so because I have always lived in peace in India. For them, such violence is common, that they are used to it and that it doesn’t scare them. How can one not be scared in such conditions?
He also gave me a gun, an AK-47, for protection. It was huge and meant for my protection. My boss even taught me how to use it. I used to carry it around when I used to go for namaaz at the mosque.
Were things that bad that even someone who was praying was not safe? Did you ever actually fire with the gun?
Oh no, they didn’t hurt me. Indians are well-liked and loved there. No one harms them. Nevertheless, the fighting was so reckless and intense that every time I went to read namaaz (which was the only time I used to get out of the room), every moment seemed like an apt one to use the gun.
How did you manage to contact the Indian authorities?
One day a few of us got out of the room and contacted the Indian Embassy in Sana’a. We told them that we need help and want to get out. Through the embassy we also came to know that there are more people like us who want to get out. The Embassy told us that we need to present our passport or its photocopy as proof of our nationality to get out, so we requested our boss to return our passports so that we can go home. We kept in touch with the Embassy through phone and were informed that a ship will be leaving from the Aden harbour on the evening of March 31. We promptly left for the harbour and embarked on INS Sumitra. A little over 12 hours after that we reached Djibouti in Africa. We stayed there for a while and flew back to India.
How was the atmosphere on the ship and in the aircraft? How did the other evacuees behave?
Everyone was very quiet and sombre. They did not talk much. Sure they were happy about being safe. But as we sat on the deck of INS Sumitra while sailing to Djibouti and later boarded the aircraft, no one talked much throughout the long trip. We were just thankful that our own people had finally come to rescue us from that unknown land.
And how was your homecoming in Kolkata?
My parents are very old. When my family came to know of my state, everyone had become tense. As their tension changed into relief they just took comfort in the fact that I was back and safe.
What are you planning to do now? You will have to plan something all over again to start earning money.
Yes. I have heard there’s a company in gear casting manufacturing company in Sewree, Mumbai. I have been told by some friends that there might be a job available there. If that doesn’t work out, I am trying to save up money again and maybe work in Riyadh. Manufacturing gear casting is all that I know.
Sindhu J Mansukhani

Sunday, April 12, 2015

I Would Have Sentenced Rajiv Gandhi and Veer Bahadur Singh to Death - By Ilyas Azmi - ex MP Lok Sabha


http://www.urdumediamonitor.com/2015/04/11/i-would-have-sentenced-rajiv-gandhi-and-veer-bahadur-singh-to-death/

Urdu Media Monitor

I Would Have Sentenced Rajiv Gandhi and Veer Bahadur Singh to Death

By Ilyas Azmi
As the news of release of the perpetrators of Hashimpura Mass Murder case became public, the scenes of 28 years ago started re-playing in the minds of many people like me.
Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi

It was merely three years after departure of the British Rule that the shrewdest of the shrewd, Jawahar Lal Nehru had, by making it a legal requirement for a Dalit to be a Hindu to get provision of reservations guaranteed by the secular spirit of the Constitution, buried it with great pomp and show so deep in the Mughal Garden of Rashtrapati Bhawan that he had left no chance ever for it to come out of its grave.
Having been active in every national and popular movement launched in the country after the British had departed; I have the privilege to be an eye witness to most of the incidents that happened then.
The 1987 Meerut riot was one of those thousands of riots the foundation of which had been laid by Rajiv Gandhi on 1stFebruary 1986 by getting the infamous lock of Babri Mosque opened.
Veer Bahadur Singh
Veer Bahadur Singh

On the pretext of the Gomti river flood Rajiv Gandhi went to Lucknow. There he removed the Chief Minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari and replaced him with Veer Bahadur Singh. This is now no secret anymore that Veer Bahadur Singh was contracted as Chief Minister with a certain task to perform. Only few days later, Chairman of Waqf Board Farhat Ali was called from Allahabad to Lucknow. Veer Bahadur Singh then pressurised him and tried to bribe him with the promise of making him as Indian Ambassador to the US on condition that Waqf Board [relinquished its claim to and] handed over the Babri Mosque [to the Government]. But Farhat Ali was neither a clergy nor a political leader who could have succumbed to the offer. What was said to him during the next three days, Farhat Ali had then narrated to me word by word.
Having failed ‘Waqf Board Mission’, Rajiv Gandhi immediately sent a known Supreme Court Judge to Faizabad and got the District Judge Krishna Mohan Panday to agree to get the Mosque lock opened through a court order. This should be borne in mind that [as his reward] the said judge of the Supreme Court never retired from the service and continued acting as the Chairman of one or the other commission until his last breath.

V. N. Rai
V. N. Rai

The 1987 Meerut riot, during Ramadan, was part of a series of several such riots that had broken out in different parts of the country after the reopening of Babri Mosque [for Hindu worship].As per Congress’ tradition Veer Bahadur Singh had hosted an Iftar Party at his residence and from Meerut he went straight to the Iftar party. There during the party Veer Bahadur Singh’s PA informed him of two phone calls from Delhi which he ignored. As food was being served and Veer Bahadur Singh had hardly taken a bite or so when his PA told him that the Prime Minister was himself on the line.
Veer Bahadur Singh stood up and few moments, without even seeing off the guests, left for the airport. In Delhi Rajiv Gandhi told Veer Bahadur Singh that the Muslims in Hashimpura and Imlian had become so rebellious that during the curfew they did not let the police enter in these areas and ‘This cannot be tolerated.’
Veer Bahadur Singh informed the Prime Minister that peace had been restored in Meerut. Yet, as ordered by the Prime Minister, next day he reached Meerut. There he met the commanders of different battalions of PAC.  All of them told him that the PAC had already gained notoriety and since peace had returned to the city and nothing else could [or should] be done. However, the commander of 41 Battalion of Ghaziabad was willing to obey the orders. Therefore, he was given instructions in private. [If this sounds surprising remember ‘Mr Clean’s’ role in 1984 anti-Sikh riots—UMM]
Veer Bahadur Singh spoke Bhojpuri and used to stammer.  The commander mistook Imlian for Maliana. Maliana was a village on the outskirts of the city around which temporary residential colonies had come up. During the riots not a single person had even his nose bleed. But due to Veer Bahadur’s stammer the wrath that was to befall on Imlian moved to Maliana.
Muslims being taken away by the police
Muslims being taken away by the police

On 22 May 1987 it was not only Hashimpura that had witnessed massacre. During the day a company of PAC entered in Maliana village and opened fire blindly killing 62 people. Virender Sengar of weekly Chauthi Dunya happened to be in Maliana at the time. From there he reached Delhi and gave an eye witness account to Late Javed Habib. Javed Habib called for me. By the time I reached Zakir Nagar Virender Sengar had left for somewhere else. Javed Habib narrated the story to me on the basis of which I wrote an article and through the help of some of my people in Bombay got that published in daily Inquilab.
One part of 41 battalion of PAC was sent to Maliana and another to Hashimpura. In Hashimpura a large number of residents were taken into custody and were kept in four different police stations. What happened to them and how they were treated there I had been witnessing similar picture in Maunath Bhanjan and other places for years before. In the evening out of them 43 young men were selected and herded in four trucks. The destination of these trucks had already been decided. They were unloaded on the banks of Gang canal and Hindon river and were riddled with bullets. While their dead bodies were being thrown in the river, as the latch of the back of one of the trucks was opened the kidnapped youths therein jumped out in tandem and tried to escape. Rifles of the PAC started to shower bullets at them. Five of them who were injured managed to jump in the river or were thrown by the PAC for being mistaken as dead. On the banks of the river there are large villages of Muslims.  One of the injured named Zulfiqar, managed to reach one of those villages. The villagers took him to Delhi the same night. Another villager fished out four of the wounded and took them to Ghaziabad police station.
At that time Vibhuti Narain Rai was Senior Superintend (SSP) of Police in Ghaziabad. He recorded their verbatim statements in police register and got them hospitalised. On the other hand at that moment Veer Bahadur Singh was asleep in UP Niwas in Delhi. He was woken up at 4.00 a.m. and was informed that V.N. Roi had registered everything in police record. ‘Ei to gajab hoi gawa,  Ei to gajab hoi gawa’ [This is a disaster, this is a disaster] he screamed and ran towards his car barefoot. He reached Ghaziabad and suspended V. N Roy and ordered heavy police vigilance around the hospital where the wounded were admitted so that no one could meet or see them.
In those days a bridge was then being built on Highway No 24 in Masuri and due to that scaffoldings had been erected over the canal. Some of the bodies that came floating there got entangled in these scaffoldings. The residents of Masuri took these bodies out and performed their last rites and perhaps when they had already buried them then the news of it became public.
Later after a long period a magisterial inquiry was initiated by then in Uttar Pradesh the State Government had jumped out of the frying pan of ‘secularism’ into the fire of ‘socialism.’ The important thing is that the ‘socialism’ of Uttar Pradesh was ‘secular’ too i.e. karela woh bhi neem Chadha [to make the matter worse].
The Socialism of Uttar Pradesh is the rarest in the world and perhaps is the eighth wonder, of the world. In this no party rules but the Government is of a particular family and particular caste and no rule of law applies to it. If a large number of 19 accused of Hashimpura massacre belonged to the ruling caste, could any Government then dare plead its own case? Could it dare present evidences and witnesses in a court of law?
In Uttar Pradesh the rule of the fraudulant and fascist Congress party had come to an end the day when it got buried under the rubble of Babri Mosque. Its last rites were performed with the martyrs of Hashimpura and Maliana. Besides Congress there are BJP, BSP and Samajwadi Partyand all of them have some sort of understanding all along among themselves. The election ofDimple Yadav from Kannauj is such a solid proof of what I am saying that after this only a mad person would ask for a proof.
The biggest truth of this tragedy is that Rajiv Gandhi had appointed Veer Bahadur Singh as a contract Chief Minister in order to make him perform some dirty tasks. Whenever Veer Bahadur’s conscience troubled him he used to open his heart to his friend Jai Parkash Shahi who used to use that information for his exclusives. When the [high command in] Congress realised that all these secrets were being given to Jai Prakash by Veer Bahadur Singh, as there was no other source that would have known the secrets discussed between the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister, then as soon as the contracted assignments were accomplished Veer Bahadur Singh was replaced with Narayanan Tiwari again. Few days later Veer Bahadur Singh was found dead in a hotel in Europe and soon Jai Prakash Shahi was also made to join him through a road accident. Are these mere coincidences? Long live Nehruvian secularism; long live Mulayam brand socialism on the basis of that the main accused killers of Maliana and Hashimpura were not even suspended from their posts. If I was the judge I would have still given them few years  in prison and would have tried Veer Bahadur Singh and Rajiv Gandhi, the real killers, and awarded them death sentences.
Human history has even in democracies witnessed the murderers like from Hitler to Bhutto, Mujiburrahman, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Saddam Hussain and their ultimate end.
From the time of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) mothers of the Muslim Ummah have also given births to one hypocrite worse than the other. This article will not be complete without me mentioning that in both of the major parties each and every servant thereof is a masterpiece from the school of Abdulh ibn Ubayy Salool.  For as long as the Millat does not get rid of the burden of its collective sins its necks will remain cracking under this load. Mathura, Masuri, Faizabad and Muzaffarnagar will keep on being repeated and there is no other way of stopping them from being repeated.
Ilyas Azmi is a former MP and a senior leader of Aam Admi Party
Translated and slightly abridged from daily Sahafat, 9 April 2015, Delhi, by Urdu Media Monitor.Com

Saturday, April 11, 2015

What India Can Teach Us About Islam and Assimilation - By Shikha Dalmia - TIME Newsmagazine

http://time.com/3817133/india-muslim-assimilation-islam-us/

TIME NEWSMAGAZINE



IDEAS RELIGION

What India Can Teach Us About Islam and Assimilation

April 10, 2015

Shikha Dalmia is a senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation.

What Ayaan Hirsi Ali gets wrong about Muslim immigration

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali, Muslim-born émigré who is one of Islam’s fiercest critics in the West, warned in TIME that Americans should stop thinking of Charlie Hebdo-style massacres as something that “couldn’t happen here.” Sure, America doesn’t have Islamists calling for the “United States of Sharia,” as in Europe. But the Muslim population in America is on track to grow at over twice the rate of that in France over the next 15 years, she maintains. And this is a problem given that even moderate Muslims might be resistant to the American melting pot because they’ll want ultimately to live in a society governed by sharia. Therefore, they may instinctively “turn a blind eye to the use of violence and intimidation tactics…against apostates and dissidents.” And Americans need to wake up from their torpor and confront the threat.
The suggestion that Americans, who have spent trillions on multiple wars and an intrusive “homeland security” apparatus post 9/11, are insufficiently alarmed about Muslim extremism is more than a little bizarre. But setting that aside, how accurate is Hirsi Ali’s suggestion that Muslims are inherently incapable of assimilating in non-Muslim societies?





Not very, if the experience of India, the world’s most populous democracy, is any indication. Muslims make up almost 15% of India’s population, compared to 0.8% in America. And they couldn’t be any more dissimilar to the portrait drawn by Hirsi Ali.
If Hirsi Ali were right about the perennial allure of radicalism for Muslims, India, a country where I grew up and lived before moving to the United States and making Michigan my home, should be Ground Zero for Islamic militancy. Instead, Indian Muslims participate fully and enthusiastically in their nation’s civic and cultural life, including, remarkably, its majoritarian Hindu religious traditions, without experiencing too much cognitive dissonance. As of last year, four of them were known to have joined ISIS — while the total number who may have gone is unknowable, it appears to be far fewer than the numbers in Europe and America that Hirsi Ali plays up. Those known cases may be four too many. However, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, there are always some malcontents in liberal societies who are attracted to illiberal ideologies. Some Americans left for the Soviet Union during the heyday of communism.
Muslims have lived in India for a millennium, first arriving in small pockets as traders and then in large numbers as invaders. They established the Mughal dynasty that ruled the country for 300 years till the Hindu majority took over and established a secular democracy after colonial rule ended in 1947. If Hirsi Ali were correct, the ignominy of being deposed from power and subjected to infidel rule would bring out their worst extremist tendencies.
Instead, India’s Muslims are no more prone to violence than anyone else. Muslim insurgency has broken out in some parts of India like Kashmir. But that’s at least partly a response to an abusive and obtuse central government that has ignored local needs, much like the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement in the 1980s. That’s why George W. Bush famously introduced Manmohan Singh to Laura Bush as “the prime minister of India, a democracy which does not have a single al-Qaida member in a population of 150 million Muslims.”
Rampant prejudice in housing and elsewhere — along with occasional outburst of Hindu nationalist violence — has hindered Muslim progress, relegating Muslims to the lowest socio-economic rungs. Yet, Indian Muslims have avoided the sword and eagerly seized the opportunities afforded to them by their country’s (imperfect) democracy.
Consider: Four Muslims have served as India’s president — a ceremonial but high office reserved for civilians of major accomplishment. One of them, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, played a leading role in developing India’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons program with no apparent qualms that he was boosting the military of a nation of infidels. The founder of Wipro, a software giant that is India’s pride and joy, is Prem Azmji, a Muslim man. Muslims are among India’s most prominent cricketers, a sport that means even more to India’s national pride than a moon landing may someday.
Muslims are an integral part of every facet of Bollywood, India’s 125-year-old film industry whose open veneration of romantic love is deeply subversive of puritanical Islamic strictures. Indeed, Bollywood’s three top male stars right now are Muslims (all with the last name of Khan) — and Muslim women have always been among Bollywood’s top actresses. Also, some of these stars are among India’s most vocal progressives fighting for the rights of gays,women, and minorities — not to mention sexual liberation.
But nothing speaks more to the depth of Muslims’ cultural assimilation in India than the fact that Muslims have written, composed and sung some of the most popular bhajans or Hindu devotional songs. The late Mohammad Rafi, a Muslim singer who is a household name in India, sang bhajans so poignant and soul stirring that they bring tears to the eyes even of a Hindu-turned-atheist like me. Iqbal, a Muslim poet, wrote the lyrics of arguably the most patriotic song in India that celebrates “Hindustan” as the best nation in the world. More recently, A.R. Rahman, an observant Muslim composer who won an Oscar for his score in Slumdog Millionaire, has recorded the most goose-bump-inducing rendition of Vande Mataram — an ode to the Hindu Motherland. (Conversely, Hindu musicians have created many moving Islamic Qawwalis or Sufi songs dedicated to allah.)
Indian Muslims are proud of their tradition of tolerance and moderation and guard it zealously from Wahhabi influence. They’ve even refused to bury the bodies of Muslim suicide bombers, including the Mumbai attackers, the ultimate punishment because it forever deprives the bombers of a spot in heaven. Indeed, in recent years many Indian Muslims have been fighting tooth-and-nail against Saudi-funded Wahhabis who are trying to take over India’s madrassas and Muslim shrines. Some even submitted a memorandum to Indian authorities demanding that madrassas be reformed to include modern education alongside traditional religious instruction.
In other words, the moral high ground among Indian Muslims is decisively on the side of moderates, not extremists — in complete contradiction to Hirsi Ali’s predictions for America.
Furthermore, notes William Dalrymple, a celebrated British writer who has written extensively about the Islamic world, Indian Muslims are not all that unique. Even in countries where they are the majority, Muslims are often doctrinally flexible, allowing a great deal of give-and-take with other religions and sharing their festivals and sacred spaces (Saudi Arabia and other countries where Islam is the sole religion are a different story). For example, he notes, the Coptic festivals in Egypt attract thousands of Muslims as do many Christian shrines in Syria, such as the pilgrimage church of Our Lady of Seidnaya outside Damascus, which attracts many Muslim couples seeking children. He is a friend of Hirsi Ali, and admires her spirit, yet regards her fears that Islam is inherently — and ineluctably — prone to extremism as “entirely wrong-headed.” Her reading of Islam is colored by her own tragic experience growing up in Somalia (where she endured genital mutilation), he argues, not from a wide-ranging familiarity with Islamic practices. “She has now spent much more of her life in Europe and the Beltway than in the Muslim world,” he says.
All of this suggests that if 150-million-plus Muslims have managed to “melt” in the “pot” of India’s young and fragile democracy without boiling over into violence, they’ll be able to do so in America even more easily, especially given that its democracy is stronger and more established, and their numbers are much smaller. What won’t help, however, is anti-Muslim fear mongering based on a narrative knit from gaudy acts of extremism that fails to take full measure of the broader Muslim reality.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Cattle market gone, farmers vow to leave the infirm in Maha cities - Written by Parthasarathi Biswas - The Indian Express, Mumbai

"The ban is a result of pressure from sethjis* in the cities, so let them look after the animals."


* Sethji here may refer to the role of Jain, Marwari moneybags who now rule India with their backseat driving. This will be the first mass public reaction to such power management of Indian governance by the money class.


http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/cattle-market-gone-farmers-vow-to-leave-the-infirm-in-maha-cities/

The Indian Express

Cattle market gone, farmers vow to leave the infirm in Maha cities

maharashtra beef ban, beef ban, cattle traders
Tupkar said farmers cannot afford the upkeep of the old cattle, which would cost them Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 every month.
Written by Parthasarathi Biswas | Pune | Updated: April 10, 2015 2:02 am
Farmers in Maharashtra have threatened to abandon their cattle in cities, a fallout of the ban on beef. Maharashtra’s new law has led to the closure of most cattle markets — 80 per cent as estimated by farmers as well as Department of Animal Husbandry officials — and the unsold stock is more than the already packed shelters can accommodate.
The cattle that farmers want to dump on the streets are the old, infirm ones, said Swambhimani Shetkari Sanghatana youth president Ravikant Tupkar. Farmers would otherwise have sold these off so that they could invest in new cattle. Such transactions mostly happen during April-May, allowing farmers to buy the new cattle ahead of June-July sowing season, Tupkar said.
Tupkar said farmers cannot afford the upkeep of the old cattle, which would cost them Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 every month. The normal life span of a cow or a bull is 20 years and it remains active for 10 to 12 years.  Farmers would soon transport these infirm animals to urban centres, Tupkar said.
“The ban is a result of pressure from sethjis in the cities, so let them look after the animals. With repeated droughts and a complete breakdown of the agrarian economy, the farmer will not be able to look after them,” Tupkar  said.
Until the ban, trade in Maharashtra’s cattle markets reached an average 3 to 4 lakh stock every year. Prices have dropped by half since the ban. “There are more than 100 cattle markets in the state where such trading happens. The biggest of such markets is near Ahmednagar, but since the ban has come into force, most of the markets have closed down.” Tupkar said.
Tupkar said the organisation is in the process of finalising a massive agitation. “If the government does not provide a financial package to help farmers look after such cattle, we will transport the animals to the sethjis who brought about the ban,” he said.
The question of dealing with such animals has been discussed by the animal husbandry department too. Its commissioner, A T Kumbhar, said since the government has banned the slaughter of animals of the cow progeny, they are implementing the ban. Asked what the government plans to do with the lakhs of such animals, Kumbhar conceded he has no answers. “We are waiting for government directions on this,” he said.
Senior officers too admitted that their office is not clear about how they should deal with the old and infirm animals whose numbers will keep swelling year after year. “The state has 140 cow shelters but all of them are run by private parties. The government should now clarify where we can accommodate these animals,” said a senior officer.
First Published on: April 10, 20151:49 am

Akbaruddin Owaisi mocks Thackerays in bastion, Shiv Sena fumes - ummid.com






Akbaruddin Owaisi mocks Thackerays in bastion, Shiv Sena fumes


Thursday April 9, 2015 11:38 AM, ummid.com & Agencies

Mumbai: Mounting a stringent attack on the Shiv Sena in the run-up to the April 11 by polls in Bandra (East), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) senior leader Akbaruddin Owaisi mocked Uddhav Thackeray and his party symbol, and also challenged him to visit Hyderabad if he is a real ‘tiger’.

"If you (Uddhav) are the Tiger, then why isn't the tiger stepping out? What type of tiger is this who roams only in his home, Mumbai and Maharashtra," Owaisi said amid the chants of ‘Sher Aaya, sher aaya, Hyderabad se sher aaya’.

"Look at us, we move around all over India. If you have the guts, you should come to Hyderabad," Akbaruddin Owaisi said while addressing an election rally on Monday in Bandra - home to Thackeray family and considered as Shiv Sena stronghold.

“Uddhav Thackeray calls us 'Hyderabad wale'. You are naive. Your entire life has been spent in the shadow of your father," he added.

“We came from Hyderabad to Nanded and then to Aurangabad and Byculla," he said.

On AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi's statement daring him to visit Hyderabad, Uddhav said if the former has courage, he should ensure better livelihood for Muslims. 

"The Owaisi brothers should understand that we treat our parents like God," he said Wednesday in a reference to Akbaruddin's remarks that Uddhav had always been under his father Bal Thackeray's shadow.

Uddhav also alleged, without elaborating, that Congress has offered crores to Owaisi. 

"We showed culture by not fielding candidate against the widow of RR Patil (NCP leader) in Tasgaon seat after the appeal made by Sharad Pawar, but NCP did not reciprocate and backed Congress in Bandra," added Uddhav.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Saut however criticised Akbaruddin Owaisi for his tirade against Thackeray.

"Who are these Owaisis? Is Hyderabad in Pakistan? Owaisis had earlier challenged Modiji. World saw he addressed a successful rally in Hyderabad. We will also go to Hyderabad", he said.

Meanwhile, with only two days left in polling, the election battle in Bandra (East) bypoll has intensified. In the constituency, while Sena is trying hard to retain the seat, Congress candidate Narayan Rane, who had lost the 2014 state election, too is in fray for an entry into the state assembly.

The elecion however has turned into a tri-lateral battle with the entry of the MIM. The MIM candidate, Siraj Rehbar Khan, who had bagged over 23,000 in the last election, is predicted to be front runner in the high profile bypoll.