(Ramazan) Roza, Hazare agitation go hand in hand in Mumbai-DNA | Wary of BJP, Muslims stay out - telegraphindia.com

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_roza-hazare-agitation-go-hand-in-hand-in-mumbai_1577345

Roza, Hazare agitation go hand in hand in Mumbai

Published: Friday, Aug 19, 2011, 5:00 IST | Updated: Friday, Aug 19, 2011, 1:20 IST
By Manoj R Nair | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

Taking part in the anti-corruption protests while observing their day-long Ramzan fasts, Muslim supporters of Anna Hazare’s campaign say that they are fulfilling doing both their religious and national responsibilities.
Among those on a hunger strike at Azad Maidan since Tuesday are Muslims who are also observing the Ramzan fast.

Shadab Haidar, a resident of Mumbai Central, was one among them. On the evening of August 16, the first day of the protests, Haidar did not have a full meal after breaking the fast. Instead, after breaking the fast with some dates and water, Haidar joined other campaigners in an ‘indefinite fast’. More than three days into the protest, he said he will continue his fast till Hazare ends his campaign in Delhi.

Firoze Mithiborewala, another member of the group that is on an ‘indefinite fast’ said he had decided to take part in the anti-corruption movement after Hazare’s first protest in April. He is also observing the Ramzan fast. “It is just a coincidence that it is a holy month for both Hindus and Muslims. Hindus are also observing the Shravan fast. We pray together,” said Mithiborewala.

Aslam Gazi, Mumbai-based worker of Jamaat-i-Islami Hind said that while he observed his day-long fast, he spends a few hours daily at Azad Maidan.

“Our organisation has been associated with Anna Hazare for the last 10 years and have supported his work. I have even visited his village,” said Gazi.

Dr Riyaz Pathan, a homeopathic doctor from Khopoli near Panvel, has been taking part in the anti-corruption protests in the town since Tuesday while following the Ramzan fast.

On Thursday, he took part in a 3-km-long cycle rally that was organised as part of the anti-graft campaign in the town. The cycle rally began at 6pm and ended an hour later after covering most parts of the town. At 7.30 pm, Pathan ended his fast with a glass of water.

He said he is not exhausted by the demands of the day-long fast and the hectic protests.

Pathan said, “It is not at all tiring; it is a privilege to take part in the protests and do something for the country.”
Mithiborewala said: “It is as spiritually rewarding as a Roza.”
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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110819/jsp/nation/story_14396604.jsp

Wary of BJP, Muslims stay out

RADHIKA RAMASESHAN

Delhi Municipal Corporation workers clean up Ramlila Maidan on Thursday ahead of Hazare’s fast. Picture by Prem Singh New Delhi, Aug. 18: Many Muslims feel Anna Hazare’s drive against corruption deserves their support but their backing is clouded by the apprehension that the RSS and the BJP are “exploiting” the momentum his campaign generated to their political advantage. Citing such misgivings, some members of the minority community said they were chary of hitting the streets with the other protesters and chose to express their solidarity “silently”. The Ramazan month, when daytime fasting has to be broken after sundown, also made participation in a round-the-clock hunger-strike “more impractical”, they said. An editorial in the Urdu daily Jadid Khabar, published from Delhi and Moradabad, said corruption had to be dealt with head-on. But it also spoke of how Hazare’s self-professed ethical movement had virtually morphed into a call for ousting the “secular” UPA government and, therefore, acquired an overt political colour. The paper stressed it would not support an initiative to topple the Centre, however “laudable” the intentions were. It debunked the comparison between Hazare and Mahatma Gandhi, contending that while Gandhi fought for freeing India from colonial rule, a movement to get rid of a “democratic set-up” was not the same. Democracy, the editorial said, vested every adult with the right to vote, and this was the accepted process to make and unmake governments and not the “street crusades” launched by “civil society”.  “I made it clear that Hazare’s movement smacked of fascism, it was unconstitutional. If I had to make a moral choice between fascism and corruption, I would say better to live with corruption instead of fascism,” said Masoom Moradabadi, the editor of Jadid Khabar. A government employee, not wanting to go on record, conceded that while the Centre had botched up Hazare’s arrest, it was “extremely reasonable” earlier by engaging him and his team in a protracted dialogue on the Lokpal bill. “If the government is run according to their agenda, Parliament is rendered irrelevant,” he said. He questioned the “moral” underpinning of the Hazare campaign and asked why it counted Delhi’s traders’ associations as a principal supporter. “These organisations are circulating pamphlets eliciting backers. But do Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal realise that barring exceptions, they rarely file income tax returns scrupulously?” he asked. The Hazare team had attempted to reach out to Muslim representatives before he embarked on his fast this time. One of them was Delhi’s Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. About two weeks ago, Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi called on its president, Maulana Sayeed Jalaluddin Umary, and sought his co-operation for their “good work”. They claimed that the movement was “apolitical” and it had nothing to do with the RSS. When Hazare was picked up by police, the Jamaat issued a statement condemning his arrest and advising the government to elicit his group’s opinion while framing the Lokpal bill. “But let me tell you that we are not that exercised over the violation of civil rights. The Muslims fear one thing: that the events would most likely favour the BJP in the next election and damage the Congress. Everybody wants corruption to go but we don’t want the BJP at the Centre,” a businessman and social activist said. [ Regretfully, the news of the visit of Anna Team led by Kejriwal and Kiren Bedi to Jamaate Islami Hind's President Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umari, was not carried by even most of the Urdu newspapers that have direct access to Muslim community in various Muslim majority areas of the country. It does smack of a rather imposed ban on Anna news in Muslim media by some influential quarters. GM]

How Indian Muslims view and judge Anna Movement? an internal debate

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Indian Muslims were feeling left out in this very historical debate as
how to control corruption in public life with an independent
institution which can ensure free and unhindered prosecution of the
corrupt.

For good or bad, the one person that has vowed to bell the cat, is a
life long fighter against corruption. It did appear on the first day
of  his appearance in Jantar Mantar, that Hindutva elements had
visibly cornered the entire movement. However, soon the other left
liberal participants were able to convince Anna that if his movement
has to succeed as a united voice of the people, he must shun
politicians of all hues. The presence of people like Bhushan father and
son, Kiran Bedi at the top of the movement is assurance enough that
Anna Movement can not be hijacked by the fascists and anarchists.
These are seasoned people  and are connected fully with a mass networking all over
the country. Already there are occasions, where the crowd of
protestors have booed BJP leaders out of their midst. That happened in
Mumbai's Azad Maidan. The independent line being followed by Anna Team
has forced BJP to publicly announce its own separate strategy on Lok
Pal bill. As it is, both Congress and BJP have common vested interest
to keep all loopholes open to continue to milk their rule for their
own and their supporters' enrichment. No politician will voluntarily
agreed to go  under the kind of scrutiny and prosecution challenges
that Anna's Jan Lokpal bill is proposing. If people have to succeed in
forcing the political mafia to accept control over their decision in
monetary and licensing affairs, only public's united and most
aggressive protest can achieve the goal.

It is unfortunate that either Muslims have kept out of the entire
debate and protest movement or being kept out, the first voice that is
now on record coming from a Muslim organisation like Milli Council
Secretary General's, is steeped in Congress lingo. The old scare
tactic with which Congress has always threatened Muslims, is no longer
valid as there are any number of alternatives that are opening up and
Muslim need not mortgage their fortunes with a Congress that has been
directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of communal riots and
had kept Muslims so deprived that 3 generations of Muslim since
independence have been the most unfortunate victims of Congress
discrimination at all levels of their living in supposedly secular
democratic India.

All major Muslim organisations, Jamiatul Ulama, Muslim Mushawarat,
Milli Council (IOS), are heavily indebted to Congress for their
existence and continued relevance. They do not have any spine to free
themselves from Congress yoke. It is for individuals in the community,
to figure out, how forced are the proclamations of these prominent
Muslim organisations and what chances they hold for Muslims to advance
towards a free, independent, dignified and effective role in the
future of India, through the good offices of these Congress controlled
Muslim organisations.

I would urge Muslims to keep an open mind on Anna Hazare's movement
and participate in his deliberations so that any historical changes
that may come in the governance of India should have a deserving
Muslim role in its institution and effective working. After all,
Muslims did participate and sacrificed in the First Freedom Struggle.
Why shirk the challenges of a Second Freedom Struggle?  We must
develop a longer term historical strategy to empower our community
with full participation with our compatriots at all levels. This is
not a time for isolationist or slavish response to the challenges the
nation is going through. We must rise up to the challenges and join
the mainstream.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

------------

As a

- Hide quoted text -

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 4:06 PM, Institute of Objective Studies
<manzoor@ndf.vsnl.net.in> wrote:
>
>
> Short Takes
>
> Anarchy is not the option
>
> Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam on the dangerous brinkmanship of Anna Hazare and
> Co.
>
> When Anna Hazare stood up against official corruption, I was there, along
> with other Indians, including Muslims, supporting him and his cause.
>
> Sadly, like many other mass movements, we soon started to have a spectacle
> in which all kinds of fascists and shady characters had encircled Anna.
>
> Today, many of us are forced to reconsider our position of backing Anna
> Hazare’s campaign. We do respect him and the enduring work he has done in
> Ralegan Siddhi as well as scores of villages around it.
>
> We still stand by Anna’s complaint that there is too much of corruption in
> our public life and it must be done away with. However, the fact remains
> that Anna Hazare is being a little too simplistic.
>
> It is quite obvious now that opportunistic elements are trying to come
> riding to power on an Anna wave like they did on the Jaiprakash Narain
> bandwagon in 1977. This sabotage of democracy and the replacement of the
> state by the mob cannot be allowed.
>
> We have to remember that hundreds of millions of Indians gave a mandate to
> the UPA, not Anna Hazare and his team, to run the country. Thus, it is the
> authority of the Union government and the responsibility of Parliament to
> make law, not Anna Hazare’s.
>
> To be fair to the government, it has been constantly interacting with Anna
> Hazare and his associates. In fact, the government has been so considerate
> that it accommodated 36 out of their proposed 40 points in the Lokpal Bill.
> That, possibly, is as far as any government can go without abdicating the
> authority that the people and the Constitution have conferred on it.
>
> As the dangerous elements lurking in the shadows behind Anna Hazare and the
> circle of his friends try to inflame the masses with time-tested propaganda
> tactics (they have already released audio-cassettes of Anna Hazare), the
> rest of us have to think whether it is nationwide unrest and possible
> violence on our streets that we really want.
>
> Let us keep it in mind that this is what the evil men lurking in the shadows
> want. They want violence and anarchy. They cannot wait till the general
> elections when they can get elected in sufficient numbers (if they really
> enjoy the support of the people) and amend the law.
>
> Some of these people are inspired by the Arab Spring, which is quite
> inappropriate for the Indian Monsoon. To begin with, Manmohan Singh has not
> been ruling for four decades like the tyrants of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
> We have a system of peaceful transfer of power based on elections every five
> years. There is very little in common between India and the Arab Spring
> countries. Hence, the analogy is not correct.
>
> It is precisely for the reason that India is a democracy, demagoguery and
> rabble-rousing is absolutely uncalled for here. Our advice to Anna and Co:
> please wait for the elections and come to Parliament in large numbers to
> have your way. Till then, please have patience.

It is Parliament's job to make laws, Anna's fast misleading: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh -TOI

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/It-is-Parliaments-job-to-make-laws-Annas-fast-misleading-Prime-Minister-Manmohan-Singh/articleshow/9632518.cms#write

Comments posted on Times of India website over news story:It is
Parliament's job to make laws, Anna's fast misleading: Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh


PM says: The question is who drafts the law and who passes the law.

Congress is trying to run on thin ice by hoodwinking people that the
real issue is who drafts the law. Who drafts the law is not as
important as what goes into the Law. Congress has numbers to railroad
whatever it chooses to become law. However, it is not prepared to go
under the severe kind of accountability that Anna Team's Jan Lokpal is
proposing as the barest minimum to reform the governance of the
country. Congress as well as all political parties appear to have an
vested interest in perpetuating the corruption ridden political
system. Whatever may be the pious proclamations and promises of the
Prime Minister from the ramparts of the Red Fort, he is after all part
of a well-defined constituency of political class, that will not
easily yield to public for any control on its freedom to rule without
an institutionalized oversight regime. To reform the system, there is
no other peaceful alternative in sight, other than the demands of Anna
Hazare who he is so overwhelmingly supported by the masses; fed up by
the depth of the corrosion that has corroded the very innards of the
entire system of governance. The amounts in scams and scandals are
mind-boggling. While common citizens are struggling to make two ends
meet, what with rampant inflation deliberately promoted in the name of
growth, people at strategic points in the system are looting public
money in staggering volumes. Anna has correctly tried to shame the
Prime Minister for his being part of such a corrupt system. He has
gained a lot from this system. Now he should work for the people and
come out with endorsement of a really effective Jan Lokpal bill that
should send shivers down the spine of the corrupt all over the
country. It therefore does not matter, who drafts the bill,
government, opposition or Anna Team, as long as the harsh realities of
reform and accountability are embedded into the law of the land. And
that's just the beginning. Congress is trying to make the issue as a
partisan game and trying to mobilise its supporters to fight BJP. That
is a false diagnosis of its present plight and state of affairs in the
country. If Congress plans to win back the trust and confidence of the
people, it must yield to public demand and move fast to give India the
wherewithal to ensure a clean future. The hour has struck. Congress
must rise to the occasion and go with the masses by giving them a new
freedom from the drudgery of unchecked corrupt system. Public money is
sacred. Each and every rupee should be well spent, accounted and any
loophole that leads to corruption must be permanently sealed. All
culprits must be relentless brought to book and persecuted till the
public money is returned to the treasury and the criminal gets its
deserved punishment.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

LIFE Image

Who is Rupert Murdoch? By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor, Veterans Today

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/07/16/murdoch-notes-by-gordon-duff-the-video/

Who is Rupert Murdoch?

A Word Or Two on What Isn’t Being Said

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor, Veterans Today

Today the British papers not owned by Rupert Murdoch “rumored” that he might be jailed.  Americans, even Brits, have little or no idea what is at risk here.  There is simply no one who can report it when the individual who, not only controls the world’s largest news organization turns out to be, well, what?

Who is Rupert Murdoch?

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has played a significant role in the elections of three U.S. presidents, as well as some of the events that have happened during their administrations including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the economic meltdown,  Gordon Duff, senior editor and writer for Veterans Today told Press TV.

What he is not is an Australian “right wing” billionaire. Murdoch, though born in Australia is an Israeli citizen and Jewish.  Why is this important?

Murdoch is now admitted to have controlled the political systems in Britain and America for two decades.  He has had the power to choose national leaders, make policy, pass laws at will.  Where did the power come from?

We now know it came from spying, blackmail, bribery and propaganda.

What is his agenda?  Ah, there’s the rub.

Was it about selling newspapers using scandals or spying in the name of Israel to push Britain and the United States into wars for Israel?  There is a simple answer.

Murdoch’s primary motivation isn’t even that he is “for Israel.”  Murdoch is, perhaps, the most influential Israeli, more powerful than Netanyahu.  The problem with that is that his beliefs are what we call “ultra-nationalist.”

This makes him a threat.  Ultra-nationalists are known to support wars, plan terrorist acts, manipulate populations into strife and racism, foster fear and panic, even financial ruin.

What are we describing here?

If you aren’t totally brain dead, you realize I am describing Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
Murdoch owns Fox News and so much else you may not have a time to look at the list.  If he doesn’t own it he doesn’t want it.
Fox is a network and Murdoch, owning so many newspapers across America and being a foreigner shouldn't be able to control such a thing.  How did he do it?

Reagan “appointed” Murdoch an American citizen.  Murdoch promised to have Fox News support Republicans and say whatever was needed, no matter how false, how stupid or, as we  have seen now for decades, how genuinely evil.

What he really did, however, was use Fox as a base to allow Israel to run spy operations.

These went two ways:

1.  Israel got lots of military technology and secrets they could sell to America’s enemies for money.  This is good “Murdoch” business sense, as we all see now.

2.  Murdoch helped Israel gain control of congress.  They literally run the United States.  The tools?  As in Britain, bribery and blackmail, police, military and congress.

No surprises for anyone.

Murdoch has, in fact, engineered the last 20 plus years of American history, picking politicians, throwing elections, establishing policies.  Were the decisions his own?

I don’t think so.  I think Murdoch represents a group, mostly financial, making up the Rothschild family, the Federal Reserve Banks and organized crime.

There is an Israeli or Jewish aspect to some of this but not in the sense of being “pro” or “anti” Semitic.  The Murdoch empire, married to the “lily white”“no Jews allowed” Republican Party simply put their own very powerful spin on the good old “New World Order,” pushing it into drug running, arms and human trafficking, manipulated international currencies and debt on a massive scale, ran America and the European Union into economic collapse, worked with oil companies to set up price fixing schemes…

This is what Murdoch and his friends have done, all the while pointing their fingers at Osama bin Laden and the evil “liberals.”

They divided Britain, starting at first as 'conservatives' and then changed to “liberals.”  What they did in Britain is undermine legal government, destroy the nation and the public’s trust in the government, Blair, Cameron, it doesn’t matter, Murdoch chose both and ran and runs both like hand puppets as he did with Bush and his friends.

The ideas are simple.  Bilk the countries out of every last cent, use a portion to bribe or blackmail politicians, buy police and get even more money.

Then you lie to the people, give them enemies to hate, arrange wars for them to fight and stand back and watch them destroy themselves.

Are there people really this evil?

Yes there are, Murdoch, the gang at his companies, the gang at Fox News, the folks in the US called “neo-cons,” the Israeli lobby in the US, the ADL, AIPAC and the Likudist faction in Israel run by Netanyahu.

These folks hate the United States.

A similar group hate Britain.  Australia has their own, he runs that place entirely, right into the ground.  He also runs Germany, Canada, he runs much of what was once the “free world.”

Am I describing Satan?

Pretty much.

His strongest advocates, those who have stood with his thieves and liars against all that is decent, all that is good, all that is right is the Evangelical and “Zionist” communities in the United States.  They were and are the “fertile ground” for his message of hate and deceit.

Who does Murdoch claim to hate?

Muslims for sure, they are all bad.  Everything he touches in his hundreds of publications and TV shows or the phony news his gang of cutthroats create, hate of Muslims is always on top.  This pleases his Israeli friends.  If things keep going as they are, he may need to hide out there and Israel will always protect him, maybe plow down a few Palestinian homes to give him a grand estate.  After all, Muslims are an easy target, living in petty dictatorships run by thieves who we have now learned have always run to Washington and Tel Aviv for orders.

Take out a second.  Think the word “Palestinian.”  Do you also think “terrorist?”  Do you see a child being killed by an Israeli helicopter or innocent people killed by a TV villain, almost invariably played by Jewish actors, perhaps a sick “inside joke” of Murdoch’s.

Even the “revolutionary types” did the same.  The Islamic people of the world have been played, exploited and crushed since 1919."History will show it carefully planned and financed by a certain European banking family, one that 6 years earlier had established an illegal banking system in the US.

Learn about the real Balfour Declaration and how it was gotten through blackmail, learn who wrote it and to whom it was sent.

The story reads exactly like the things that are coming out in Britain day after day.

Murdoch tells his followers to hate “smart people.”  There has to be fear of the educated, the “elites.”  You can’t have rampant racism and blind ignorance until you destroy public trust in the natural leaders, until you destroy real culture and replace it with mechanized music, scandal mongering, dirty sex and endless conspiracies.

Murdoch is the real king of conspiracy theories.

Look at the endless list of wild accusations that came from Fox alone.  Then look at the others, the accusations, the wild and insane things that were written into history but likely planned by Murdoch.

9/11 probably had Murdoch’s hand in it as did the London bombings on 7/7.

There could be no great conspiracy without control of the news.

Now we find the news itself controlled the governments and may well have written the scripts to the wars, the rigged elections, the acts of terror and the misdirection that sent America into a decade of cruel and useless bloodletting after terror groups that never existed in the first place.

Now, today, as our British cousins are reeling in the revelations that their government for decades has not been their own, a diseased hybrid of crazy old man, Israeli spies and the paid stooges that the people thought were serving them….

And it goes on in America, full blast, Murdoch and his creatures, planning the future of America.

One of his creatures is Boehner.
Another is Palin.
Then there is Gingrich.
There was the entire Bush administration.
But, to get to the dark heart of evil, first you look at Fox News.