Brown Pundits

btw, those thinking I am joking about the paknationalist dream have not met Pakistani Nationalists of the senior army officer type… See Zaid Hamid  for details (paid generously for his efforts by the ISI, as reported by his own ex-accountant). Its a load of crap, but that doesnt mean it doesnt have believers….

In a way (and we accept this with great reluctance) the founding fathers of Pakistan had it right. There is a lot to be said for the creation of a “Medina in South Asia” as the authentic voice of sub-continental Sunni muslims. We have strong reasons to believe that once the memories of the dead and afflicted have faded, the sub-surface links between erstwhile East and West Pakistan will re-assert themselves.
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It is a shame that the (West) Pakistanis did not really recognize the Bangali muslims as their peers and equals. The gaps are now slowly mending (even as the gap with India and Indians is rising). With the help of imaginative leadership (aided by generous Gulf dollars) a broad coalition of Sunni muslim countries across South Asia (and perhaps even beyond) is possible.

If such a federation comes to life, a huge vote of thanks will be due to …who else…the imperialist United Kingdom (and the West as an extension). The Brown Muslims of London and New York who feel alienated by Western ways and discriminated by Western elites will be the prime movers in any reconciliation, rapprochement and if it comes to that even the hard work of federation building.

Already Bangla-Pak alliances are popular in the West…and why not? The BMs are defined (and constrained) by what they are and what they are not…not Indians (but browns), not Arabs (but muslims), not Westerners (but living in the West).

While inter-marriage will help, the heavy lifting must be done by powerful, sublime literature that help underline the commonalities between Bangladeshis and Pakistanis and subtly (and not so subtly) highlight the differences with other people. Thus we have “In the Light of What We Know” by Zia Haider Rahman a cultural (and spiritual) sibling of “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” by Mohsin Hamid and one which adds to the growing (and unique) voice of Brown Muslims. May such a thousand flowers bloom. 
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The really interesting thing (for us) is the reaction of Indian Muslims. First off, the non-Sunnis (Shias, Ismailis, Bohras, Ahmadis…) may turn away from emphatic declarations of Sunni faith and due to the lived experience of non-sunni muslims in those countries. Muslims from South India (who are quite prosperous, mostly) may form a distinct cohort which resists assimilation with other Brown Muslims (similar to how Tamil Shudras will always reside outside and in opposition to the Hindu-Hindi majority).

The two most “vulnerable” groups are the Muslims of Eastern India (primarily Bengal and Asom) and those of the Hindi belt (primarily Uttar Pradesh and Bihar). As the Hindu-Hindi state grows in strength it is likely that the sense of alienation amongst muslims will keep growing. The eastern muslims are probably the most deprived of the lot (as per the Sachar committee report). The northern muslims are probably the most victimized – Azamgarh in UP is routinely termed in the news media as Atank-garh (terrorist town).

At the end of the day partition is as much a state of the land as it is a state of the mind. It will be a very good thing if the Hindu-Hindi state is able to overcome the caste divide that has poisoned our society for thousands of years. But it will be a very bad thing if the result is that the Muslims are defined as the common enemy (just like they are in the west).  

India cannot realistically hope to expel all muslims to Bangla-Pak. Even in that narrow sense there is no choice then but to co-exist.

This is no doubt an asymmetric situation (and Hindutva-vadis are naturally upset) but ultimately the secular way is the moral way. Nations who stand on immorality will never attain their fullest potential. Alternatively, to adopt Amartya Sen’s terminology, the contributions from the missing millions of minorities would have been a source of pride and joy…and ultimately strength of any nation.
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Imagine a book in which a gossipy story about former Pakistan
president Pervez Musharraf peeing in a women’s washroom and drunkenly
pursuing the Norwegian ambassador’s wife co-exists with a chance meeting
with Hamid Karzai, “at that time a rather shady figure involved in the
oil business”.  
…
Or where a riff on Princeton mathematician Kurt Godel’s
Incompleteness Theorem is followed by an explanation of German physicist
Johann Poggendorff ‘s Illusion. Or which tells you that kings in Saudi
Arabia are buried in unmarked graves in keeping with austere Wahhabism
and the question that Charles II asked members of the Royal Society. 
…
Now
don’t imagine, read Zia Haider Rahman’s extraordinary book, In the
Light of What We Know. The banker-turned-human rights lawyer tells the
story, over 500 pages, of a conversation that spans the lifetimes of its
two protagonists: Zafar and the nameless narrator.
…
The two men
meet at university at Oxford and over the course of several years
develop a friendship that survives heartbreak, nervous breakdown and
cataclysmic world events, the war in Afghanistan and the collapse of the
American banking system. It takes them from long walks in Manhattan
which sometimes end up in Ellis Island, to ambles in London from the
British Museum through the elegant Georgian squares of Bloomsbury.
…
There
are more dramatic leaps of time and place: Zafar travels to rural
Bangladesh, where his family originally came from before his father
found work as a waiter in London; to Oxford, where he fights his own
embarrassment about his parents’ status in life; to Kabul, where a proud
nation is enslaved by the West in what the latter believes is a
civilising mission; to a sunlit but sterile kitchen in a New York home,
not necessarily in that order. 
….
The narrator, in the midst of being
accused of financial irregularities, takes time out to listen to a
friend he feels he left behind, partly propelled by guilt and partly by
the collapse of the certainties of his own life. It is a contrast in
privileges: The narrator’s own posh, have-it-all Pakistani family
compared to Zafar’s impoverished Bangladeshi parents unable to overcome
the atrocities of the 1971 war. 
…
It is
no surprise that Rahman’s book is earning rave reviews, gathering much
acclaim as it sweeps readers off their feet with its scope and
sensibility. The writer, who lives in London, and whose life seems a
tempting reflection of that of his narrator, has created an
extraordinary adventure. It is far away from the colonial narrative of
Afghanistan, which makes it a committed political novel if ever there
was one.
…
At its heart, it is a post 9/11 novel. which is why one
finds occasionally echoes of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant
Fundamentalist.

 


…
It is a novel of rare beauty and power that has electrified the
literary establishment. It begins in London, about the time of the
financial crisis of 2008. The narrator, a young Pakistani
mat­hematician-tur­ned-investment banker, opens the door one morning to
see a bedraggled, half-­familiar figure outside. It takes a mom­ent for
him to recognise Zafar, the Bangladeshi math prodigy and his one-time
mentor who had disappeared mysteriously years ago. The narrator takes
Zafar in and instals him in his guest room, and Zafar’s strange,
disturbing story emerges, thro­ugh conversations and diary pages, its
eve­nts cross-cutting between Oxford, Lon­­don, New York, Kabul and
Islamabad.

In the Light of What We Know is a work of post-9/11 fiction, a
territory that has been well covered by writers like Mohsin Hamid and
Nadeem Aslam (not to mention Don De Lillo and Martin Amis), but Zia
Haider Rahman presents his version of it with a seething new anger. It
is a story that mixes the political and the personal—friendship and
betrayal, class and alienation, the collapse of financial markets, as
well as of nations. 
…
Reading the book, one senses resonances of Jos­eph
Conrad, V.S. Naipaul, Graham Gre­ene, John Le Carre, but most of all,
perhaps, W.G. Sebald, whose novels, like this one, are a hypnotic
mixture of travel, memory, fact, quasi-fact and fiction. 

It is a hugely
ambitious work, which could so easily have gone wrong, but Rahman’s
towering imagination, combined with his elegant, almost mathematically
precise prose, help him pull it off with env­iable ease. The novel ends
with a painful twist and a reference to Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem,
which seems to be at the heart of it all: in every system there are
propositions that are true, but cannot be proved to be true. And then,
one final, wry Sebaldian touch: a blurred black-and-white photograph of
two men, app­arently Einstein and Godel, taken from behind, as they take
one of their long walks through a Princeton evening. Thus, in a sense,
we come back to where the author started out, 555 pages earlier.


….
Rahman, the author’s profile tell us, was born into a family of
struggling Bangladeshi immigrants (his father was a bus conductor).
Putting himself through Oxford, Cambridge, Munich and Yale, he has
successively been a mathematician, investment banker and international
human rights lawyer. This book clearly owes its authenticity to his own
personal story. Reading it, one is often tempted to speculate about
which of the two characters derives from Rahman himself. Is it,
obviously, the brilliant, born-into-pove­rty Bangladeshi Zafar? Or could
it, not-so-obviously, be the aristocratic Pakistani investment banker
with no name? 

As the novel unfolds, one alternately thinks this way and
that, until one realises that they are probably both Rahman, in
different avatars, as he pours his self into the narrative. (In that
blurred black-and-white photograph of Einstein and Godel on their walk
through Princeton, after all, you can’t tell which is which). 

……..

indiatoday/in-the-light-of-what-we-know-by-zia-haider-rahman

Link (2): outlookindia.com

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regards

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This much is true, as Omar has pointed out repeatedly, weapons like the blasphemy law which are shiny and useful will not be put away so easily. It will require a mass movement and a big-hearted man (who can rise above all partisanship).
…. 
A
Muslim scholar named Muhammad Shakil Auj who had received death threats
over “blasphemy” allegations was shot to death Thursday
in Karachi, Pakistan. Auj was the dean of Islamic studies at the
University of Karachi, and some of the blasphemy allegations against him
reportedly originated with his colleagues. 

Auj
had told police that four colleagues at the University of Karachi
had accused him of blasphemy—including one colleague who’d previously
held Auj’s position as dean. The four were arrested but are free on
bail, and they are “being questioned” about Auj’s murder, the Times
reports. A seminary in Karachi had also called for Auj’s death.
…

Thursday morning started with very tragic news. One of my beloved teachers who had taught us in university was shot dead for some unknown reason.  

Dr
Shakeel Auj was Dean, Faculty of Islamic Studies, University of Karachi
since 2012. He completed his PhD in Islamic Studies from University of
Karachi in 2000 with a PhD dissertation of “Comparative Study of Eight
Selected Urdu Translations of Holy Quran.”

Apart from PhD in Islamic Studies, he also possessed an LL.B and a
Master Degree in Journalism. With all his books, research papers,
articles and an unending list of prizes and honors, he was an institution of his own.

Dr
Shakeel was my lecturer for Islamic Studies during my Bachelors back in
2006. After I graduated, I hardly got a chance to meet him again, and I
still regret it. Dr Auj was an unconventional Islamic scholar
who used to believe that Islam was an easy religion to practice, and it
was the people who had made it difficult.

We used to have
detailed, open discussions on various topics in the class, and he was
always very inviting to his student’s opinions despite having tons more
knowledge and understanding.

I still remember his analysis on the
meaning of “Al Rehmaan” and “Al Raheem”, the two names for Allah; how
thoughtful and well-researched it was! Doctor sahab also had a
strong media appearance and whenever he was on air, I used to tell my
parents proudly that that’s my professor on TV.

I can’t believe that a scholar like him has been shot dead in such a
horrendous way. It’s like losing a father; someone who spent his whole
life serving others without a complaint and played a pivotal role in
teaching, grooming, mentoring, guiding and making us into better
individuals today.
……….

Link (1): slate.com/karachi_islamic_studies_scholar_killed_for_blasphemy

Link (2): dawn.com/of-guilt-and-goodbye-too-late-to-thank-my-professor

Link (3): thehindu.com/pak-liberal-academic-shot-dead
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regards

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Above all we need to put a stop to the polarization for votes aka match-fixing (all parties do it), it is an un-reliable recipe for success (even if it was not such a despicable one to begin with). Everything considered, Toilets before Temples seems to be the best slogan for a secular nation full of young people which looks to the future and stops worrying (but still caring) about the past.

Top-line Verdict: Fareed Zakaria is mostly impressed by Narendrabhai Damordas Modi and has a few reservations. FZ describes NDM as “among the sharpest” he has met and that FZ “underestimated
him.” Also this: “He is very smart, intelligent and focused. He is very driven and
has a long term agenda. He wants to be a statesman at the world stage.
He is a man who looks to the future and not into the past,” the CNN
journalist said.
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This seems to be the key observation:
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After your election people have begun asking again a question
that has been asked many times for the last two decades, which is, will
India be the next China? Will India be able to grow at 8 to 9 percent a
year consistently, and transform itself and thus transform the world?

See, India doesn’t need to become anything else. India must become
only India. This is a country that once upon a time was called the
golden bird. We’ve fallen from where we were before. But now we have the
chance to rise again. If you see the details of the last five or ten
centuries, you will see that India and China have grown at similar
paces. Their contributions to global GDP have risen in parallel, and
fallen in parallel. Today’s era once again belongs to Asia. India and
China are both growing rapidly, together.


But people would still I think wonder can India achieve the
kind of 8 and 9 percent growth rates that China has done consistently
for 30 years, and India has only done for a short period.

It’s my absolute belief that Indians have unlimited talent. I have no
doubt about our capabilities. I have a lot of faith in the
entrepreneurial nature of our 1.25 billion people. There is a lot of
capability. And I have a clear road map to channel it.

Ayman al-Zawahiri the head of al Qaeda has issued a video and
an appeal trying to create an al Qaeda in India. In South Asia, he
says, but the message was really directed towards India. And he says he
wants to free Muslims from the oppression they face in Gujarat, in
Kashmir. Do you think, do you worry that something like this could
succeed?

My understanding is that they are doing injustice towards the Muslims
of our country. If anyone thinks Indian Muslims will dance to their
tune, they are delusional. Indian Muslims will live for India. They will
die for India. They will not want anything bad for India.


Why do you think it is that there is this remarkable
phenomenon that you have a 170 million Muslims, and there seem to be
almost no or very few members of Al-Qaeda, even though al Qaeda is in
Afghanistan, and of course the many in Pakistan. What is it that has
made this community not as susceptible?

Firstly, I’m not the authority for doing a psychological and
religious analysis on this…But the question is whether or not humanity
should be defended in the world? Whether or not believers in humanity
should unite? This is a crisis against humanity, not a crisis against
one country or one race. So we have to frame this as a fight between
humanity and inhumanity. Nothing else.

There are many people in the United States, and some in
India, who wish that the United States and India were much closer allies
– the world’s oldest democracy, the world’s biggest democracy. But
somehow that has never happened, and there have always been these
frictions and difficulties. Do you think it’s possible for the United
States and India to develop a genuinely strategic alliance?

I have a one word answer: Yes. And with great confidence I say yes.
Let me explain. There are many similarities between India and America.
If you look at the last few centuries, two things come to light. America
has absorbed people from around the world…and there is an Indian in
every part of the world. This characterizes both the societies. Indians
and Americans have coexistence in their natural temperament.


Now, yes, for sure, there have been ups and downs in our relationship in the last century. But from the end of the 20th century to the first decade of the 21st century,
there has been a big change. Our ties have deepened. India and the
United States of America are bound together, by history and by culture.
These ties will deepen further.


So far in your contacts with the Obama administration – you
have had several cabinet ministers come here – do you feel that there is
a genuine desire from Washington to try to upgrade the relationship
with India substantially?

Relations between India and America should not be seen within the
limits of just Delhi and Washington. It’s a much larger sphere. The good
thing is that the mood of both Delhi and Washington is in harmony with this understanding. Both sides have played a role in this.
 
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Link: cnn.com/prime-minister-narendra-modi-speaks-to-fareed-zakaria

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regards

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The Viceroy-elect to India has been declared after long months of intense deliberation:  Richard Rahul Verma is a very close associate of the next-in-line-to-the-throne. 

…
In our opinion this is quite a master-stroke by our overlords. While “yellow” China and Japan are promising filthy cash, here is truly a bonding of souls, “white” and “brown.” If proof was ever needed on this point, we point to Exhibit #1: US Congressman Curt “Bollywood lover” Clawson (Florida-19) who got confused by brown skinned officials representing the United States of America.
….
But think about the nature of Clawson’s goof. Sitting across a
congressional hearing room from Nisha Biswal, an official at the State
Department, and Arun Kumar, who works at the Department of Commerce,
Clawson addressed the two Indian-Americans
as if they were representatives of the government of India. Which is to
say: He had trouble recognizing that two Americans who trace their
ancestry to the developing world are really American.
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Nisha Desai Biswal (immigrant from Gujarat, married to an Odiya) is the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, and now we have an Indian-American ambassador to India as well. The cup of joy will surely overflow if/when the future Madam President selects Dr Amerish Babulal “Ami” Bera (Gujarati immigrant, Congressman representing CA-7, Sacramento County- East, California) as Vice President. That will be the day….

The only problem will be if/when a fire-breather like Preet Bharara is
given a “sensitive” posting….indeed this would be a scenario with
maximum scope of amusement.

We are not sure whether to be proud (first time an xx-American has been appointed to an xx country) or parochial – why not a Bong or Mallu ambassador, why do Punjus…and Gujjus always get to be first?

Then again we are given to understand that appointments to important government posts (also university faculty positions) in the USA require checking for prior communist associations. As we know, one cannot be too careful these days.
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Richard
Verma remembers the time when he was a little kid, seeing his mom in
her sari waiting for a bus to go to work in sub-zero centigrade
temperatures in blowing and drifting snow.His father had emigrated from
Punjab, arriving in New York City in 1963 with $24 in his pocket, and
his mother and siblings had followed a few years later.

“The times were
hard. We had no money. The kids could be mean in school to this new
immigrant family. But they persevered,” he recalls. “They showed us what
it meant to be strong, what it means to stay together, and confront
challenges as a family, and they taught us to be proud of our roots.”
…

On Thursday, the proud son of Indian immigrants who personify Indian
enterprise and academic excellence — his parents were the first ones in
the family to be educated; his father went on to earn a PhD — was
nominated by US President Obama to be the US ambassador to India. He
will be the first Indian-American to take the job if (or when) he is
confirmed by the Senate; indeed, he will be the first Indian-American to
get an ambassadorial appointment to a major country, not counting the
sinecure (to Belize) Obama’s bestowed on his collegemate Vinai
Thummalapally.

“When the day comes, and I am
getting my turn in line, and there is the President, and he says this is
Rich he works at the State Dept (you could tell the President was
relieved to have at least one Indian person in the receiving line…).
The Prime Minister looks at me, and says oh you are Indian, I said
yes…the President nodding approvingly. What do you do? Prime Minister
Singh asks: Oh I work at the State Dept Great, he said. Where are your
parents from? I said, Northern India, Punjab. He asked where … and I
said my dad is from Jullundur. The Prime Minister turned to the
President and said, “Oh, his father and I are from the same place….”

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Link (1): timesofindia Richard-Verma-new-US-envoy-to-India

Link (2): theatlantic.com/a-florida-representatives-indian-american-gaffe-is-revealing
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regards

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As a stereotype this is at least half true, Indian students in the USA (and elsewhere) will be focused on grades and are expected to do well in studies, while Americans will look at high-school and college as more of a (enriching) life experience.

Indians are unlikely to be familiar with US harassment laws and zero-tolerance codes and the fact that the criminal justice system will not hesitate to take action against elites (unlike in India where things can be hushed up).

As a daughter of a diplomat Krittika Biswas is not a typical case.  She benefited from strong support from the Indian diplomatic establishment and (we presume) did not lack in financial backing. This will not be true for middle class Indian kids in search of “US degree” who may be wholly destroyed by their own thoughtless actions or malicious behavior forthcoming from fellow (american) students.

We understand the need for emotional closure (and lawyer-ly hyperbole) but we are uncomfortable about all the drum beating about violated honor being restored of Ms Biswas, Indian Foreign Service and India (it is a bit like how Dr Aafia Siddiqui is described by patriots as a daughter of Pakistan….also unfairly targeted by the Americans). It was a false case against a civilian who was not representing India officially, and the “crime” was probably upgraded due to zero-tolerance principles adopted by US schools. 

The (most important) question remains, why was the student who actually committed the crime not charged? Without any other exculpatory information it does lend credence to the charge that the indictment (and arrest) was driven by “ethnicity” and/or a “tragic rush to accuse.”
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Incidentally it is only in rare cases that a white male american student will suffer such extreme prejudice from the police and courts. The most memorable recent example is the Duke lacrosse case which was initiated in 2006 and whose aftermath can be felt even seven years later in 2013-2014 (!!!) when the falsely accused students settled their lawsuits against Duke University and the city of Durham and a rogue policeman who used to disproportionately target Duke students committed suicide. Even in that instance it so happens that the false accuser was never brought to justice for her horrific actions.
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In March 2006, Crystal Gail Mangum, falsely accused three white students, members of the Duke Blue Devils men’s lacrosse team, of raping her at a party held at the house of two of the team’s captains in Durham, North Carolina on March 13, 2006……On April 11, 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper
dropped all charges and declared the three players innocent. Cooper
stated that the charged players – Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and
David Evans – were victims of a “tragic rush to accuse.”

On May 16, 2014, the three accused lacrosse players and the City of
Durham settled their long-running lawsuit. Under terms of the
settlement, Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans received no monetary
compensation, instead they requested that the city give a $50,000 grant
to the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission…..On February 21, 2008, the families of 38 of the lacrosse team’s 47 members who were not accused filed a 225-page lawsuit
against Duke University. The lawsuit against Duke University was settled out of court in 2013.
Both the University and the players declined to comment on the details
of the settlement….In early July 2014 Sgt. Mark Gottlieb committed suicide in Dekalb County, Georgia where he had worked as a paramedic…..
…….

In a
significant legal victory for the daughter of an Indian diplomat, the
city of New York has agreed to pay her USD 225,000 to settle a lawsuit
she brought against it after she was jailed for a day and suspended from
school on suspicion of sending obscene emails to her teacher.

Citing the India-US
relations, particularly in the wake of the upcoming visit of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, Batra said he advised Biswas and her family that
a “just resolution” of the case would be an appropriate move to
“enhance the bilateral relationship.”

…..

Link: indiatimes.com/New-York-city-to-pay-225000-to-Indian-girl-to-settle-lawsuit

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regards