The Indian Muslim question

I can see BP Open Thread has exploded into a flame war about Pakistani Hindus vs Indian Muslims.

I thought I would share my experience. The moment I go to India; I subconsciously de-Muslimfy. Indians & Hindus are just not comfortable and since I’m the non-confrontational type (only Kabir can role me up) I adapt accordingly.

When I’m with Pakistanis I tend to change colours accordingly however I have increasingly made my personal (and increasing) distaste of Islam known.

Pakistan is very riven with a class dynamic so it doesn’t matter what religion you are so as you belong to the right class. There are issues with Ahmadis.

Both societies have so much to do in improving minority rights but I do feel they mirror their ideological priors. Indians look at Muslims almost as a caste and Pakistanis internalise accordingly to class divisions (certain minorities belong to certain stratas).

As an aside I’m beginning to find the entire India-Pakistan antics to be a joke. I blame the Pakistanis for it.

I always used to get upset at why Middle Easterners use to look down at Pakistanis (even moreso than Indians). I finally understand and sympathise with it.

Pakistanis, with their mangled Arabic & Persian, and half-castes will bumble their way and talk of distant Arabian ancestors. They make no serious effort to steep themselves in the rich cultures of the Middle East (the Shahnameh was funded with monies from the Indus Valley).

They’re a bit of a disgrace and lack the civilisational coherence that Indians, Iranians or Arabs have.

I’m not a fan of what Indians have done to Urdu but I’m not an Indian so it’s really not my problem. But I find Pakistan to be a cultural dessert and that’s simply unacceptable.

Iran is anything but even after 40years of autocracy (thanks again to that very shit and disgusting cult called Islam that Pakistanis fall upon themselves to defend like idiots).

I actually have no real animus against Islam or the Prophet but when I see liberal Pakistanis attempting mental acrobatics to constantly justify anything done in their religion’s name, I realise it’s necessary to actually defame Islam and attack the source of this brainwashing.

So it’s very insulting to me as a half-Persian married to an Indian when Pakistanis, products of an half-backed and unimagined nation, claim parity with either nation.

It’s also very cheap to constantly point out the flaws of India vis a vis its own Muslim population as some sort of justification for Pakistan.

I’ll end with a short story from my friend S:

Her father was born in Karachi but the family were Gujarati (the gold trading caste). When Partition happened the Hindus were told they had 3 days to get out.

Because her grandfather was secretary of the community he waited until the whole community left Karachi. As the family of 12 (my friends father was the oldest of 10 siblings) were getting ready to leave; some marauders came into their house and told them their lives would be spared but they had to leave immediately.

This family left with only their clothes and departed for Bombay. They were upper middle class in Karachi but had to start again in Bombay. My friend’s father, who was 17 at the time and was a topper destined for medicine/engineering, left school to become a street hawker.

The story has a happy ending; the grandfather’s American company had an office in Bombay which hired both men but essentially they spent the rest of their lives building over again and settling the siblings. My friend’s father who was academically inclined never completed his school post Karachi and always pined to have studied more.

The reason I relay this story is that it’s not necessarily a traumatic Partition one but that the human cost of Partition extended to more than lives just lost but rather lives wasted in rebuilding and resettling.

The cost of Pakistan was this Partition and a little bit of contrition and humility by Pakistanis would go a very long way to heal the region.

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Kabir
5 years ago

The non-confrontational type? Constantly referring to the Prophet of God as a “pedophile” is just asking for a confrontation. Don’t delude yourself.

How do these views play among the Pakistanis you know in real life or is it something you reserve for your Hindu Right audience on this blog?

H. M. Brough
H. M. Brough
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

I don’t know if you can call the blog’s audience “Hindu Right,” going by the survey a lot more people here are skeptical and/or hostile to Hindu nationalism than sympathetic to it.

H. M. Brough
H. M. Brough
5 years ago

They called the USSR “Upper Volta with Missiles,” but really Pakistan is the best claimant to that title.

Kabir
5 years ago

Constantly insulting one religion is not “fighting for what’s right”. There is no excuse for calling the Prophet of God names. It’s extremely boorish and déclassé. If you would not insult the holy figures of another religion so blatently then it reveals a double standard that you do it so easily to Islam. That no one here calls you out on it reveals their indifference or antipathy to Islam.

You are free to stop identifying with Pakistan if you hate the country so much. Even the most liberal and ” indianized” (a characterization I don’t agree with) Pakistanis will draw the line at disrespect to the Prophet.

Karan
Karan
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

Kabir

how strong is your faith? How much % do you believe Muhammad is the ‘prophet of God’.

You realise it is a ‘belief’ and can not be proven either way.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Karan

No one is asking non-muslims to believe in the Prophet. But there is no excuse for constantly disrespecting him. This is a very simple point and I don’t see why it has to be repeatedly explained. Being liberal doesn’t mean you stand for boorish behavior. How would you feel if your gods were constantly gratuitously insulted?

Fraxinicus
Fraxinicus
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

Nobody goes out of their way to insult other gods, because the followers of other gods don’t go crazy and trigger a Streisand-effect reprisal over minor jokes.
If Muslims didn’t give a shit about dumb jokes on South Park or Danish newspapers, there would be much less blasphemy against your precious prophet.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Fraxinicus

Insulting anyone’s gods or holy figures is boorish and uncivilized behavior.

I don’t support people being jailed or put to death for blasphemy. A little mutual respect should not be too much to ask.

H.M. Brough
H.M. Brough
5 years ago

Don’t look at me, I tried to steer things in a different direction…seems nobody wants to talk about Brahmin overrepresentation though. Or Brahminical Patriarchy, given that a whopping 5% of our readers are female.

H. M. Brough
H. M. Brough
5 years ago

We don’t own India, we’re just the Jews of India…

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

And just like the ahmedis the christians are getting their due to help form Pakistan

Prats
Prats
5 years ago

“Jews are outsiders to America and marry into the Wasp template”

Not if you’re to believe Ben Shapiro and his Judeo-Christian shpiel 🙂

Razib Khan
Admin
5 years ago

how is bangladesh influenced by brahmins? (sincere question)

Scorpion Eater
Scorpion Eater
5 years ago
Reply to  H.M. Brough

Brahmins don’t overrepresent. They simply have too much time on their hands. They while away their time on blogs when others do much more productive work. 🙂

In my college I had many Brahmin and baniya colleagues. Baniya colleagues went on to found successful start ups. Brahamin ones are working as engineers in US tech industry.

Also, Brahmins have a tendency to drift towards armchair intellectualism. While they think and pontificate, others act.

I also have many non-Brahmin Telugu friends (mostly Reddys). It is remarkable how quickly they diversify once they reach US shores (opening side businesses like grocery stores, consulting firms etc). You will never see such dynamism in Brahmins. Commenting on Blogs is so much easier!

Santosh
Santosh
5 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

I don’t know about consulting firms, but at what point does a typical foreign-country citizen present in the US on a non-immigrant visa be allowed to open grocery stores and stuff like that? Never before the obtainment of the green card, isn’t it?

Santosh
Santosh
5 years ago
Reply to  Santosh

I see on a superficial google search that apparently a person on a non-immigrant visa like H-1B is allowed to open a business when he/she is planning to not actively get involved in running the business. But my googling was very superficial.

Scorpion Eater
Scorpion Eater
5 years ago
Reply to  Santosh

Santosh

As far as I am aware, anyone legally present in US can open a business. US has a very friendly business regime.

Santosh
Santosh
5 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

Yes, as I have found out too, they can apparently start businesses and be passive shareholders without actively taking part in the businesses. There are also some workarounds apparently as mentioned in the internet that help obtain permission for active involvement in the businesses too provided an employer-employee relationship is proved with the individual in question being the employee and the employer being a citizen/green-card-holding co-founder that the person opens the said company with.

Numinous
Numinous
5 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

There’s a different between being a legal immigrant (permanent resident, or green card holder) and a legal non-immigrant (student, guest worker, teacher, nurse, etc., all of who have expiry dates printed on their visas.) The former have no restriction on the kind of business they are engaged in. The latter are only supposed to do what their visa status says. A student is barred from working. A guest worker is barred from working for a company that is different from that stated on his/her visa (they’ll need to apply for a change of visa should they want to switch jobs). Etc. Engaging in business not specifically allowed for in their visas is grounds for deportation.

Santosh
Santosh
5 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

I see; thank you very much Numinous! I am quite familiar with the pre-OPT F-1 and OPT and STEM extension rules and not very much about the H-1B that follows. On an F-1 visa in the pre-OPT, i.e. full-time student phase, one is allowed to work some specific types of jobs for a specific amount of time per week and during the entirety of the OPT period that follows, one is allowed to work only in a job related to the major with self-employment (under which businesses related to the major may come?) allowed only in the first 12-month post-completion OPT and not allowed during the STEM extension (which requires proof of a bona fide employer-employee relationship). At least under the two OPT phases (and I am guessing similar should be the case for an H-1B but please correct me if I am wrong), a typical person on a non-immigrant visa is not allowed to *do* (stressing the work authorisation aspect of it) anything not connected with the major. But then these sites seem to say that foreign citizens legally present in the US can open businesses in the US without actively running them. Why is that? Does the field of study requirement apply only to the work-privileges aspect and the visa holder can open businesses (either connected to field of study like an appropriate consultancy firm or unconnected like grocery store) as much as they like as long as they are not working in them? Or are the requirements instead not as non-restrictive as these websites seem to suggest?

Numinous
Numinous
5 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

Santosh:

If what you say is accurate, you probably know more than I do. I was in the States for all of the previous decade, and rules may have changed since then. I may also not have been aware of all of the rules when I was there. The OPT extension program kicked in just when I was graduating, so I never bothered to find out what the terms of that were. (I got my H1B within 12 months of the OPT.)

In general though, my impression was always that you are not supposed to do any productive work outside of the terms of your visa. Not sure if starting an enterprise is excluded from that, but I used to think it was. You should get this confirmed from other sources (there are many message boards where you’ll get this kind of info.)

But then these sites seem to say that foreign citizens legally present in the US can open businesses in the US without actively running them.

I thought, in cases like these, the Indian tended to be hired as an employee of the company under an H or L visa. Remember that both the H and L visas are tied to both a specific employee and a specific employer; there can’t be more than one of the latter at any given time. This “tying” is what critics of these visa programs (rightly in my opinion) point out as a source of abuse.

DM
DM
5 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

Oh no doubt. Vaishyas Jatis are super awesome. Very enterprising and in tune with the world. Risk takers of the highest order. There is a definite bias to grind the current set of brahmins engaged with the world into submission. I don’t necessarily see any reason to do so. Kids from business oriented families are just geared towards entrepreneurship. In India, in many shops even small girls in single digit ages help their family and sit at the front desk interacting quite impressively with customers. The driver of entrepreneurship is risk taking mentality, and business families have that more compared to other jatis. How this shapes their culture in families and outlook towards other social interactions is another story.

Kabir
5 years ago

Pakistanis alone don’t need to be contrite for Partition. There are plenty of similar stories of people leaving everything behind in India and having to start new lives in Pakistan. My mother’s relatives had to leave Amritsar and come to Sialkot. They were lucky my grandfather was already well established as a lawyer there and was able to help them get settled.

Partition is just as much the responsibility of the Congress as of the Muslim League.

Also, this whole thing about Pakistan being “unimagined” is ridiculous. Perhaps it was unimagined in 1947 but it has now existed for more than 70 years and is just as legitimate a nation as any other on earth.

Numinous
Numinous
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

Partition is just as much the responsibility of the Congress as of the Muslim League.

No, it wasn’t.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

The Muslim League accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan. Congress reneged. That left Partition as the last option.

Who do you think you are kidding?

Numinous
Numinous
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

This is like saying that Britain and France were as responsible for WW2 as Nazi Germany because they refused to accept German sovereignty over Danzig.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

Congress refused to compromise with the League. Their reneging on the CMP was the last straw.

These are settled facts not opinion. Pakistan would not have existed if Congress had not backed out of CMP. Congress also insisted on dividing Punjab and Bengal, which left us with a “moth eaten Pakistan”.

But don’t let your bigotry stop you from living in your alternate world.

H. M. Brough
H. M. Brough
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

I have to agree…Kabir can point to specific proximate events to obscure the larger picture, but it is clear that the demand for partition was driven by one side.

(Personally I’m fine with partition, but not the horrible way it was executed.)

Arjun
Arjun
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

The cabinet mission plan was an idiotic idea. Pakistan itself never bothered to model itself on any similar foolishness. The birth of Bangladesh shows how much Pakistani rulers believe in local sovereignty.

Karan
Karan
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

“Congress also insisted on dividing Punjab and Bengal, which left us with a “moth eaten Pakistan”.”

So you seriously think Pakistan had a moral right to hold on to kuffar majority regions in Bengal and Punjab?

Especially after the Muslim league unleashed the first major ethnic cleansing campaign in Punjab (west)?

Especially after seeing how kuffar are treated in modern day Pakistan?

https://dailytimes.com.pk/196069/truth-partition-punjab/

What would have been the status of those millions of Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis etc under a non-moth eaten Pakistan?

Asia Bibi already answers that.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

Karan,

The Muslim League did not want Punjab and Bengal partitioned. Dividing these provinces had a huge human cost. You just have to read the debates of the boundary commission to realize what a flawed process it was.

Quaid-e-Azam believed in treating non-Muslim minorities as equal citizens of Pakistan (see the August 11 speech).

You cannot use the Aasia Bibi case to justify the division of Punjab in 1947. General Zia’s Blasphemy law was introduced in the 1980s. One could argue that a Pakistan with a larger proportion of minorities would have had to be more tolerant.

There is enough blame to go around on both sides.

Karan
Karan
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

“Quaid-e-Azam believed in treating non-Muslim minorities as equal citizens of Pakistan.”

Jinnah was culturally very British. I don’t doubt his sincerity to treat minorities equally. However, he hell doesn’t represent the majority of Pakistanis.

One Sikh leader asked Jinnah that once he was gone how could he guarantee their rights. Jinnah just said I give my promise. That was the end of the negotiations.

“One could argue that a Pakistan with a larger proportion of minorities would have had to be more tolerant.”

I think that is laughable speculation. History has consistently shown how kuffar are treated in most majority muslim countries, and it is anything but equal. Really every promise the Pakistani Muslim leadership gave to other minorities at independence like the Christians have been broken. Only a fool would believe hollow promises like that.

I agree that partitioning the states should not have ideally happened, however partitioning India on Muslim-non-Muslim lines made it a must. It could have been done on a much more civilised and planned manner which would have involved less bloodshed.

Really, autonomous states based on regional identity (punjabi, bengali, sindhi, kashmiri etc), not religion should have been the ideal. If people had been living for centuries side by side, it could not have been impossible to continue that. But religious nationalism stopped that.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

Whether CMP was a good or bad idea is not the point. It was the last chance to keep India united. Its failure is what led Lord Mountbatten to propose the Partition plan of June 3, 1947.

Jaswant Singh of the BJP wrote a book some years ago in which he argued that much of the responsibility for Partition can be attributed to Congress’s failure to compromise. Surely you all are now not going to accuse Mr. Singh of being a great lover of Pakistanis?

Both sides have to take responsibility for Partition. But of course it is a lot easier for some people to make Quaid-e-Azam out to be the arch villain of the piece.

Numinous
Numinous
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

Both sides have to be negotiating in good faith for a compromise to be feasible. The ML had made up its mind about not wanting to be part of a country that was majority Indian. What they would have been OK with, short of partition, was something that was not even a country but whose integrity would be held hostage to their every whim, Jaswant Singh’s arguments notwithstanding.

Whether CMP was a good or bad idea is not the point.

How you cannot see the cognitive dissonance between this line and the rest of what you say is beyond me. If one cannot argue about the merits (or lack thereof) of this plan, what sense does it make to argue about who gets the blame? Every plan gives something to one party or the other, and rational actors choose accordingly. The CMP was loaded heavily in favor of the ML’s demands, and the Congress rationally decided that unity of the country wasn’t worth the price.

But it’s rich to argue that a party that wouldn’t give up the farm to save the country from partition is equally culpable as the party that called for partition in the first place, and made one unreasonable demand after another. My analogy with Nazi Germany stands.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

Interesting that you say “not wanting to be part of a country that was majority Indian”. So Muslims aren’t Indian? Is that a Freudian slip or you want to rethink what you are implying? The Muslim League was worried about “Hindu Raj” and they wanted special assurances that Muslim rights would be protected. Congress was not willing to give those assurances and therefore no compromise was found.

Pakistan was a bargaining chip and an amorphous concept. The very fact that ML accepted CMP shows that they didn’t want Partition. It was Congress’s statement that CMP would be renegotiated in ten years that was the last straw for Quaid-e-Azam.

Both sides are responsible for dividing British India. Your comparison of the ML with Nazi Germany is ridiculous. The ML represented the minority while the Nazis were sending minorities to concentration camps. That’s a huge difference.

If you want to have the last word you’re welcome to it. I’m done with your bigotry.

Numinous
Numinous
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

Sorry, I meant “Hindu”, not “Indian”. My apology begins and ends there.

You are an idiot if you think I was comparing the ML to Nazis, rather than one situation to another.

The Partition as a bargaining chip theory is getting tiresome. Jinnah and bunch knew what they wanted, they just didn’t know how they were going to manage the territory they got. Lots of stuff was happening between 45-47, and the ML’s acceptance of the CMP indicates nothing other than that its leadership had run out of ideas and was willing to be led by the situation rather than the other way round.

Thanks for letting me have the last word. You won’t have to suffer my bigotry anymore.

INDTHINGS
INDTHINGS
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

Kabir,

A Freudian Slip reveals subconscious beliefs. The idea that Indian=Hindu isn’t subconscious, its what most Hindus expressly affirm, though they make a half-effort to disguise it when talking with non-Hindus.

Numinous,

I think you are more or less correct. Jinnah made ridiculous demands he knew Congress couldn’t accept, to ensure partition was the only viable option. He was trolling basically (though his intentions early on were honest).

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Numinous

Ayesha Jalal would know more about whether Pakistan was a bargaining chip than some random commenter on the internet who (as far as I know) is not by any means a trained historian.

And saying “Indian” when you meant “Hindu” is certainly an interesting slip. That kind of mindset really makes the case for Pakistan.

JT
JT
5 years ago

Congress was not in favor of the Cabinet Mission Plan for various reasons. One of them was that Nehru, Patel, and others believed that it was only a stepping stone to the partitioning of India into Muslim dominated wings in the East and the West and eventual fragmentation of the rest of India. Basically, Nehru and Patel were in favor of a strong center and weak states to stem the historic tendency of South Asia as a set of states in perpetual conflict, unable to confront foreign intrusions, be they from Central Asia or from European traders.

What is interesting is that Congress in independent India tried to stay with the “strong center” script, but the plot unravelled as language based agitations outside the Hindi heartland proved to be too strong to suppress. West Bengal was influenced by the Bangla agitation in East Pakistan. The emergence of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat on linguistic lines, was a clear sign that power would start to move to the states. The 1962 war weakened Nehru even if it may have served to unite a young India. On Nehru’s death a coterie of senior Congress leaders from different parts of India tried to grab the reigns of power. However, Indira proved to be more than a match. After the 1971 war, Indira did centralize power once again, but the decentralization genie was out of the box. India was headed into an era of coalitions governments with important contributions from regional parties – DMK/AIADMK/Telugu Desam/Shiv Sena/CPI(M), Akali Dal, etc. Congress had to accept this reality after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. The Gandhi dynasty had run out of steam.

Ironically, it is now the turn of the the BJP to make a pitch for a strong center. The strongest argument that BJP supporters have is that Modi is the only leader capable of keeping India strong and remaking its economy. An ineffective Congress leadership now sings the virtues of coalition governments and decentralization!

Scorpion Eater
Scorpion Eater
5 years ago

the Shahnameh was funded with monies from the Indus Valley
🙂
Just a detail. The funding was kind of involuntary.

Medieval era construction boom of cities of Ghazani, Samakand, Bukhara etc was also funded with Indian money in the same way.

Numinous
Numinous
5 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

Probably built with Indian labor too.

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

As you can see in the comment section, the issue with partition is not partition itself but the incomplete nature of it.

A more politically incorrect ( population transfer ) position would have allowed both the successor counties to be mentally at ease .

P.S. A more wiser man than me who just happened to write the constitution of India remarked that partition is god”s gift to India

VijayVan
5 years ago

Not 5 decades. 2 years would have been enough to take the debates beyond merely heightened religious hatreds to pragmatic directions. Meanwhile MAJ would have left for for Jannat. That would have knocked some sense into Pakistan movement to get real.
Pakistan is also a good proof how history is not a pre-ordained plot and it is contingent on so many factors including personalities, antagonists and protagonists

What is unthinkable today may be happening in 10 years..

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  VijayVan

“Meanwhile MAJ would have left for for Jannat. That would have knocked some sense into Pakistan movement to get real.”

The genie was out of the bottle, no amount of “persuasion” would have helped. It would lead to even more unhappy people in one country. At least with Jinnah you had some one who still believed “talks” before “violence” (largely) . Under Suharwardy you would have direct action day every fortnight.

उद्ररुहैन्वीय
Reply to  Saurav

Partition is indeed the best thing that happened under the circumstances. The manner in which it happened, though, reflects on how savage the average Indian was and, to a large extent, still is.

AmericanIndic
AmericanIndic
5 years ago

Will have to disagree here, I don’t think average Indian was more/less savage than the average Brit or German at the time.

Imagine a situation where Muslims of Great Britain succeeded in blackmailing the crown to a separate state. How confident are you that the process will be non violent?

Now imagine the above event happening in a Britain, where all its people were choked of political, economic and social freedoms for two centuries.

Razib Khan
Admin
5 years ago
Reply to  AmericanIndic

has anyone looked at the extent of the violence during the population exchange btwn turkey & greece? i know there were atrocities during the war before

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

The infinitely better model than what we had in partition. And they achieved it 20, 30 years before 47. One would presume we could have done it bit better than what Turks-Greece achieved.

AnAn
5 years ago

Slapstik, you favored partition?

If so, would you rather the English left more gradually?

My view is that Takfiri Jihadi Islamists launched terrorist attacks in 1947 that set off the partition riots. One of the goals of the Islamists was to break the bonds between Sufis/Irfan Sufi Shia and their Hindu/Buddhist/Jain/Sikh/Christian sisters–enabling them later attack the Sufis, Shia, minority muslims and moderate muslims more easily.

This is the same challenge the world has confronted for 14 centuries.

If not for the global rise of Jihadi Islamist extremism after 1919 in the Ariabian peninsula India likely would not have partitioned. Even if partition happened partition riots would likely have been much smaller.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  AnAn

Riots happened on both sides. Let’s not forget all the Muslims who were ethnically cleansed from East Punjab.

But trust you to blame everything on “takfiri jihadi islamists”. Just reveals your own narrow prejudices.

AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

https://samharris.org/podcasts/154-jihadists-really-want-2019/

Punjabi Sufis, Irfan Shiism, Sikhims, Hinduism have been deeply intertwined for centuries. Listen to the Guru Granth Sahib for evidence. Sarva Dharma or all religions and paths being true has been deeply intrinsic to Indian culture for many millennia. Something very large was needed to supersede it.

What changed in 1947?

The main group of people the Jihadi Islamists attack, harm and kill are and always have been moderate and minority muslims. They also attack nonmuslims. Nonmuslims suffering is the collateral effect of the Islamic civil war.

Why are you defending people who are trying to attack you, your freinds and family?

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

I’m not defending anyone, simply pointing out how reductive it is to blame Partition violence on any one side. Muslims were ethnically cleansed from East Punjab. “Islamists” were not to blame for that. Hindus and Sikhs were the ones who did the killing.

It’s easy to throw out terms like “takfiri jihadi” and “Islamic civil war” but you clearly have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to Islam. Citing Sam Harris only goes to prove that point.

AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

Kabir, if there is no Islamic civil war why do India’s major Sufi, Shiite, liberal, and atheist muslim leaders have bodyguards and Indian government provided security?

Why is this also true in Europe and Australia?

Why do so many high profile leaders who happen to be muslim refuse to discuss the holy Koran in public? [They discuss the holy Koran, hadiths and theology in private.]

Why is demanding that the Crown police protect muslims from Islamists one of the main four demands of Quilliam–one of the UK’s largest muslim groups?

Why do muslims around the world fear Al Qaeda and Daesh so much?

DM
DM
5 years ago

XERXES THE MAGIAN – “Pakistanis, with their mangled Arabic & Persian, and half-castes will bumble their way and talk of distant Arabian ancestors.” – This is the same fact that I bought up in another post. I was opposed, even if this is true.

XERXES THE MAGIAN – “Indians look at Muslims almost as a caste ” – You are party right in a way, not 100%. The root is that Indians look at Muslims as they do with Islam. You understand that we didn’t exactly have a friendly interaction with Islam. Plus, I’ll go one level up. Since ages, under peace the Indian civilization challenged different philosophies (even our own). Each of them had to go through critique and intense debate. One of the reasons, now abrahimic religions are facing this “purvapaksha”, and because they are not dynamic, they and its followers will face tough questions within the social sphere. With more information being absorbed by individuals, I suppose people are getting to know about the intrinsic hate speech against other religions in their texts.

Second point – Integration into the ever improving economic situation in India. As a society they will have to accept a flexible framework and start putting in the extra effort where demographics are concerned (improved, but a long way to go), focus on modern jobs and social rules to interact with the majority. It cannot be always under certain terms.

My third point is about confrontation and which is alien to abrahimic religions. Its silly to even think about putting a cap on speech on confrontational issues. Exactly one of the reasons why abrahimic relgions are not dynamic. If someone important in abc religion is criticised because he did x and y, and these are documented too, there may rise counter points to it from the other end. In India, its common for certain sections in the media and abrahimic religions to curse hindu gods and holy individuals, but then there also exists an ecosystem (albeit very small compared to the leftist) which counters each criticism.

As per my experience, my educated muslim/christian acquintances have zero knowledge about hindusim (I don’t blame them either). Just merely explaining sanatana dharma concepts to them and drawing differences is enough for them to go into their shells, become quiet and defensive. Imagine if I start to critique their belief systems. So what does it signify? Is it a reaction to the degree of false knowledge that they had? This is the first stage of the typical escapist mindset which ultimately leads to demands for anti-free speech laws, blasphemy laws etc. Is this awareness within the social structure percolating among abrahimic religions in India, and hardliners trying to counteract that? Is there some degree of inferiority complex? There may be other opposing factors. So that constant churn within social interactions will always be there. The government or constitution etc have nothing to do here.

Note – Do realize I’m not justifying the false equivalence of comparing one person having a historical identity against a set of gods belonging to another religion or, that the highest god in all religions are the same. They are not equal. I’m merely using it for my explanation.

Brown Pundits