Kerala says no to Vande Mataram

Brown Pundits Archive · August 15, 2014 · Comments Off on Kerala says no to Vande Mataram
…..A private school in south Kerala removed Vande Mataram from Independence
Day programme after a religious outfit allegedly threatened management……
The school also dropped the namaste
gesture from a dance number performed during
Independence Day celebrations, inviting sharp criticism from various
quarters….
….
Vande Mataram (not) singing is a perennial favorite, this movie is re-released every time the extremists (on both sides) need a bite from the original apple and to boost morale.

To summarize, muslims (and assorted other communities) have objections in singing Vande Mataram because it hurts religious sensibilities. The idea is that the song propagates worship of the mother (and mother-land, mother Goddess….) and muslims pray only to Allah.  

However we should note that there is no general agreement on this point and many muslims find nothing objectionable in singing Vande Mataram: the song (as they see it) is a salute to the mother-land….in the version popularized by AR Rahman….it is Vande Mataram….Ma Tujhe Salaam.

Let us be crystal clear on this point – no single individual can be forced to sing a song (the Supreme Court agrees). This is true even if it is the national anthem (Jana Gana Mana). But to jump from there to a ban on singing Vande Mataram and saying Namaste is a step too far.
…………
If your (muslim) child attends an (school) assembly, she can be advised to stand respectfully while others sing (this is a normal thing in any school assembly, many students do not bother to sing, some do not know the words, let alone the meaning….). If it is a school function, the child can request to be excused from that particular assignment (there is lot of flexibility- many children across many programs).  If you want not even a shadow of doubt to cross your mind, then simply request your child to stay home for the day (Independence day, Republic day,…).  

Yes, all such rules may well appear to be a burden on your child. But then nobody said that standing up for your principles should be easy-peasy. Indeed it would be a good place to reflect if burdening your child with super-tough principles (say for example, no chocolates for pure vegetarian Hindus) is also the right thing to do (as we see it parental rights are not absolute).

Vande Mataram is the national song and hence a national symbol (of equal importance to the anthem, lest we forget). Forget about the background (Ananda Math by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was the source book) and controversy around the novel (describes the  rebellion of sanyasis or monks against oppressive muslim rulers), that was all duly considered during the extended debate on the song.

Only the first two paragraphs of the original Vande Mataram are considered as the body of the “national song” version. This was specifically done in order to take muslim sensitivities on board. No less than Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (whose patriotism for India and devotion to Islam cannot be questioned, we hope) informed the debate and was satisfied with the compromise.

Now we have SDPI (Social Democratic Party of India) thugs threatening a Kollam school to drop Vande Mataram and also not to say Namaste. Well, how to put it politely, this sort of arm twisting will only invite retaliation (from the extremists of the other side).

We are (as many times noted before) unqualified to give religious advice. However as we understand it, muslims are advised to follow the local sensitivities of the land in which they live. It is unfortunate that very few Hindus now live in Pakistan but we are sure that they would try to honor the blasphemy rules (written) and the public fasting rules (unwritten). And if they do not…well we know what would happen…right?

The response to the above point is two-fold, both of which deserve careful scrutiny. First, thank god that Muslims have a homeland where they can be free from Hindu persecution. That answer is only a partial tuth. The cross-migration doors were open only for a few years after partition (I). After partition (II) the option of migrating to Pakistan was not even available for a few hundred thousand desperate Bihari refugees in Bangladesh. So, for all practical purposes, the left behind muslims are without a home-land and at risk of persecution from Hindus and Bengali nationalists.

To their credit, the pre-partition muslim leadership did consider this eventuality…well not quite. During deliberations on the impact of partition they made it clear that there would be Sikhs and Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims in India both requiring protection from the majority population. As they saw it, this was a good enough insurance policy….because if you touch a Muslim in India, a Hindu gets hurt in Pakistan.

Take the example of Israel (yes we know it is Satan and all that). Many a scholar has pointed out the similarities between Israel and Pakistan. However, there is one major (and startling) difference. Israel will always welcome Jews to come back home, even some very strange Jews such as Manipuri and Mizo tribes-people (the lost tribes). That is not the case for Pakistan.

The leadership perhaps never imagined that one day Pakistan would be empty of all minorities such that such a rough and ready logic of the streets will not work anymore. They probably never imagined that muslims will be harmed by other muslims in Pakistan…but that is another story. The insurance policy has been declared as null and void and the insurance company has been declared bankrupt. This is a point on which serious reflection is required, not idle gloating.

The second response is that India (as determined by her founding fathers) is a secular republic, home for all people, not just Hindus. The freedom to practice religion is guaranteed in the constitution. And that is a perfectly fine response at an individual level, a muslim today may well find Vande Mataram (the national song version) offensive (disregarding the wisdom of Maulana Azad). However freedoms are not absolute, indeed freedom of speech is curtailed by the rule that no one can use speech to hurt communities (say for example, by committing blasphemy). 

Why was Salman Rushdie banned from even speaking at the Jaipur Lit Fest? This is not secularism, it is self-convictions (no doubt sincerely held) forced on others by threatening extra-constitutional measures.  If we just let the thugs win, in the long run, it will be Hindu thugs who will prevail in India. That is a very unpleasant prospect for the truly secular folks…and even the not-so-ideological aam admi.

What happened in the Kerala school was not people following their conscience but instead group thuggery by the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). No, they are not communists, rather they are part of an umbrella of extremist groups such as the Popular Front of India (PFI), which cut off the hands of a college teacher (TJ Joseph) for having committed blasphemy (in reaction, his son was beaten up by the police and his wife committed suicide by hanging). To add insult to injury the (Christian) college terminated his job!!! 

This is what the Hindu and Outlook had to say on this matter of muslim extremism in Kerala:
…………………….
The Hindu: “Freedom of expression has increasingly come
under attack from religious fanatics in democratic and secular India and
it is the duty of society and the political system to intervene more
effectively to defend those who are targeted even if they express
unpopular views”. 
…
“The act of
a gang that cut off the hand of a college teacher, by wielding an axe
on a thoroughfare in Kerala in broad daylight, had Talibanism writ all
over it. This act of barbarism, however, points to the rise of
blood-thirst driven by religious fundamentalism that certain fringe
elements may be seeking to impose on the State. That it was a planned
operation carried out with brutal intent adds to the shock.”.

 
LittĂ©rateur M.N. Karasseri, himself a retired professor and someone who keeps tabs on Muslim politics, noted in an Outlook article, “The Muslim youth today are looking for idealism and adventure. They are being misguided by the proponents of Maududism
that espouses a do-or-die battle for ensuring hukumathe ilahi (the rule
of Allah). The SDPI (Socialist Democratic Party of India), Jamaat (Jamaat e Islami Hind)
and several other outfits subscribe to this philosophy. If the rest of
society does not realise the inherent danger, more Taliban-model
reprisals will follow.”



…
Progressive Muslim writer Hameed Chennamangaloor says in an The Economic Times
article, “the circumstances are ideal for fanatics to convince their
community members here that the problems their community faces in Iraq
or Afghanistan are their own problems. The fact is that the problems of
even the Muslims in Kerala are quite different from their community
members in northern states. Some of these groups have more funds than
even mainline political parties like the Congress or the CPM, and can
hire any number of hands”.
……………..

There are two problems with the thugs-r-us phenomena. For the sins committed by some stupid thugs in Kerala, muslims outside Kerala may pay a price (at the hand of other stupid thugs). Second, even the fort of Malappuram may not be that robust. One day, two years ago, when we were driving around in Mangalore (a few hundred km to the north), we were amazed to see countless saffron flags in a district that has significant muslim population.  

If it comes to a fist-fight we somehow doubt that the Christians in Kerala (and others) will stand with Islamist outfits (which are cut from the same cloth as the Islamic Caliphate that is stomping on all Christian communities in Syria and Northern Iraq). This would then continue the ghetto-ization of muslims (which is exactly what the extremists want). And no good will come from this.

……
A private school in south Kerala removed Vande Mataram from Independence
Day programme after a religious outfit allegedly threatened its
management saying some of the words in the song were against the
religious belief of a section of the community.
The school also dropped the namaste
gesture from a dance number performed during
Independence Day celebrations, inviting sharp criticism from various
quarters.



…
Initially TKM Centenary School in Kollam, 65km south of
Thiruvananthpuram, had planned a dance fusion with Vande Mataram playing
in the background. But it was replaced with an orchestra after workers
of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) threatened to disrupt the
programme.



….
The national song was dropped after several rounds of rehearsals.


When the issue snowballed into a raging controversy, school management denied any external pressure.

“Since
there were even three-year-old children, we made some changes in the
dance programme to ensure they are not stressed. It has nothing to do
with external pressure,” said administrator of the school, K Abdul
Majeed. However he did not elaborate how ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘namaste’
put some pressure on children.

Various student outfits later took out protest marches to the school
seeking strict action against the management and the principal.


…
However, the SDPI justified the changes in the programme.

“We approached the school management after a number of parents
complained that some words in Vande Matraam and the gesture namaste were
against their religious belief. We only requested the school to respect
their sentiment,” said SDPI leader AK Salahuddin.


…
Police said they received a complaint and started an investigation in this regard.

School principal Latha Alexander was unavailable for comments.

…..

Link: http://www.hindustantimes.com/

….
regards

Communal cuisine

Brown Pundits Archive · August 15, 2014 · Comments Off on Communal cuisine

I went to somebody’s house the other day of an interfaith couple. I was offered beef and I was rather surprised by that, even if both parties were irreligious I would have thought that beef would be as eschewed as pork.

I doubt that the children of the marriage (though nominally spiritual not religious) would be fed pork at home though they were happily served beef.
Since my engagement I’ve pretty much stayed away from beef since even though my fiancĂ©e is an atheist I know she really doesn’t take to beef. It’s the same hangup that I have towards pork products even though I consume them (in the back and dark atavistic recesses of my mind it’s still an unclean meat). 

Purna Swaraj ka matlab kya?

Brown Pundits Archive · August 15, 2014 · Comments Off on Purna Swaraj ka matlab kya?
…..He spoke about violence against women, saying his head hung in
shame to see incidents of rape and sexual assault…..”After all, a person who is raping is somebody’s son. As parents have
we asked our sons where he is going? We need to take responsibility to
bring our sons who have deviated from the right path”…….
….
The Prime Minister in his independence day speech made an important appeal to all Indian parents: please take care of your boys so that they do not grow up to hurt girls. He also talked about the curse of communal violence. He should have been more specific about how Hindutva-vadis are violating Hindu codes of behavior. Also on many occasions girls are killed by their own families, whether in the womb or when in (un-authorized) love.

The PM should have simply said: Girls are
goddesses. If you touch them, harm them in any way, your health, wealth, happiness,
education, dignity….even your daily roti will be yours no more.

But this is not a day for quibbling. It is a good start. We need to see if fine words will turn into determined actions. The first and most important step would be to ensure that the girls go to school and stay in school.
…………….
The call for Purna Swaraj (total freedom) was made on January 26, 1930 (ironically in Lahore). Today in 2014, we need to re-state the demand for total freedom once more. 

Purna Swaraj will only come when all our girls are able to walk with their face uncovered and their head held high. When they can marry a boy of their choice regardless of caste, creed or religion. When they can choose not to marry at all, or walk away from a marriage. When they can choose when to have a baby (and how many and what gender). When they can inherit the same wealth as their brothers. When they are not killed for dowry. When it is recognized that the lady in the house must eat properly. When they get equal opportunities for education and work. When they can lead pujas and cremate their fathers…..


Both men and women have equal rights and responsibilities towards society. However nature is not fair. Women bear the heavy burden of bearing children. Men must take up the grave responsibility of bringing up the children such that we live in a more equal, more just society.

….

Laxmi is an acid attack
survivor. Assailed when she was 15, Laxmi’s PIL in the Supreme Court led
to a directive for regulation of acid sales and greater compensation
for survivors. Today, the 24-year-old, awarded the International Women
of Courage felicitation from US first lady Michelle Obama, is an
activist with the Stop Acid Attacks campaign. Laxmi discusses social
changes around survivors, how hurtful remarks are decreasing — and what
independence means to her:

What progress has occurred since the Supreme Court directive on regulating acid sales?
There’s practically no improvement — even when the court mandated one
can’t sell acid without a licence, there’s very little regulation on
this. We started a campaign where volunteers secretly filmed buying
acid. They got it easily.
But awareness has increased. There are fewer problems for survivors
in getting jobs. Last year, two women got government jobs, albeit after a
struggle.

Earlier, one heard nasty comments from people — but things have
changed. Now people respect us — some even want to get pictures clicked
with us.
Women have begun to speak out — and speaking up changes things.
Today, acid attack survivors are getting married or are in
relationships. I’m in a relationship too — everyone knows about it! I’m
happy Alok Dixit, founder of Stop Acid Attacks campaign, recognised me
for who i am rather than my face.

Did you endure hurtful remarks?
Yes, almost whenever I’d go out. It would be common for someone to point at me and laugh.
I’d cross people on the street who’d say, ‘She looks smart from behind — but like a monster from the front.’
When I applied for jobs, I was turned away. I was told my face would scare clients.

A spurned stalker attacked you — what happened?
Well, he attacked at 10.30 in the morning with a big crowd around. No
one came forward to help. I kept asking for my father. I even rammed
into a couple of cars.
Then someone realised what was happening and poured water on me. One
man called the police, took me to hospital and became an eyewitness in
the case. I remember my skin melting and dripping off while i was being
transported. I had 45% burns. The doctors weren’t hopeful of my
surviving.
The police were really helpful though. That evening, the police station was overflowing with suspects rounded up.
Eventually, the police zeroed in on the attacker.

Rejected men often attack women — why do other acid attacks happen?
Women get attacked for not having a male child. One woman had five
daughters. Her husband threw acid on her while she was pregnant because
she refused a sex determination test.
There are property disputes, domestic spats and rape cases where rapists force the victim to drink acid.

What do interactions with survivors teach?
When i first met such girls, i was shaken to the core — I realised I
wasn’t the only one. We draw strength from each other. We spread legal
and medical information. Meeting other survivors also makes us angry —
that anger helps.

What does independence mean to you?
Well, I celebrated Independence Day in school. We’d sing patriotic
songs and take pledges — but these should mean something, right? These
are not just words.

Women are not treated equally in our country. I feel men and women
should have the same kind of freedoms in India to do the same things —
freedom to wear their choice of clothes or anything else. That is independence.

….

Link (1): https://in.news.yahoo.com/modi-vows-fix-government-muddle-031403024.html

Link(2): http://equal-freedoms-for-men-and-women-thats-independence-laxmi

….

regards

The neo-Marxist historians of India

Brown Pundits Archive · August 14, 2014 · Comments Off on The neo-Marxist historians of India
…..my first academic
job at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata…..a friend sent me a petition on the plight of Tamils….he hoped
some of my colleagues would sign……a senior
historian said: “As Marxists, the question
you and I should be asking is whether taking up ethnic issues would
deviate attention from the ongoing class struggle in Sri Lanka”….
…..
The times they are a changing. Yes, top scholars such as Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Tirthankar Roy hail from a (mostly) Marxist (also super-caste) background. But as Ramchandra Guha explains, their scholarship is rigorous and their viewpoint is post-ideological. Most importantly, they make history reading enjoyable.

What is of great interest is Guha’s reflections on the social science studies community (and its evolution) in India. The pre-eminence of Marxists (liberal muslims amongst them) was due to political patronage from the Congress. Now that the Saffron Parivar plans to get in the history (re-)writing business, our suggestion (plea) will be to encourage strong scholarship (even if the lens used is a different one). Weak ideologues will end up embarrassing the ideology. What then?
……
In October 1984, I got my first academic
job at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Kolkata (then
Calcutta). A week after I joined, a friend from Chennai (then Madras)
sent me a petition on the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, which he hoped
some of my colleagues would sign. The first person I asked was a senior
historian of Northeast India, whose work I knew but with whom I had not
yet spoken. He read the petition, and said: “As Marxists, the question
you and I should be asking is whether taking up ethnic issues would
deviate attention from the ongoing class struggle in Sri Lanka.”

My colleague
was known to be a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Yet
I was struck by the way in which he took it for granted that I must be a
party man too. Although this was our first meeting, he immediately
assumed that any new entrant to the Centre must, like him and almost all
the other members of the faculty, be a Marxist as well.

In the
1980s, Marxism occupied a dominant place in the best institutes of
historical research in India. There were three reasons for this. One was
intellectual, the fact that Marxism had challenged the conventional
emphasis on kings, empires and wars by writing well-researched histories
of peasants and workers instead. Indian history-writing was shaped by
British exemplars, among them such great names as E.P. Thompson and Eric
Hobsbawm, Marxist pioneers of what was known as ‘history from below’.

The second
reason for Marxism’s pre-eminence was ideological. In the 1960s and
1970s, anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa were led by Communist
parties. Figures such as Ho Chi Minh and Samora Machel were icons in
India (as in much of the Third World). These fighters for national
freedom were supported by Soviet Russia and Communist China, but opposed
by the United States of America and the capitalist world more
generally. To be a Marxist while the Cold War raged, therefore, was to
be seen as identifying with poor and oppressed people everywhere.

The third
reason why there were so many Marxist historians in India was that they
had access to State patronage. In 1969, the Congress split, and was
reduced to a minority in the Lok Sabha. To continue in office, Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi sought, and got, the support of MPs of the
Communist Party of India. At the same time, several former Communists
joined the Congress and were rewarded with cabinet positions. Now the
ruling party began leaning strongly to the left in economic policy — as
in the nationalization of banks, mines and oil companies —and in foreign
policy, as in India’s ‘Treaty of Friendship’ with the Soviet Union.

In 1969,
before the Congress and Mrs Gandhi had turned so sharply to the left,
the government of India had established the Indian Council of Social
Science Research. The ICSSR was meant to promote research on the
profound social and economic transformations taking place in the
country. The Council funded some first-rate institutions, such as the
Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi, the Gokhale Institute of Politics
and Economics in Pune, and the Centre for Development Studies in
Trivandrum.

History is
both a social science and a branch of literature. In theory, historical
research should also have been within the ICSSR’s brief. However, in
1972, the government established an Indian Council of Historical
Research instead. The education minister at the time, Nurul Hasan, was
himself a historian. Those who promoted and ran the ICHR were, in
personal terms, close to Professor Hasan. In ideological terms, they
were Marxists or fellow-travellers.

The two men
responsible for establishing the ICSSR were the economist, D.R. Gadgil,
and the educationist, J.P. Naik. Both were outstanding scholars, but
neither was a Marxist. They were true liberals who promoted high-quality
research regardless of ideology or personal connections. The ICHR, on
the other hand, was from the beginning dominated by left-wing historians
who favoured themselves and their friends in the distribution of funds
for research, travel, and translation.

The control
of Marxists over the ICHR weakened slightly in the 1980s, but was then
re-established when Arjun Singh became education minister in 1991. He
was persuaded that the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign could best be opposed by
the State sponsoring ‘secular’ and ‘scientific’ history. Marxist
historians flocked to his call, accepting projects and appointments
within the minister’s favour.

In 1998, the
Bharatiya Janata Party came to power. The new education minister, Murli
Manohar Joshi, was an ideologist of the right rather than left. Under
him, the ICHR was handed over to academics charged with, among other
things, diminishing the contributions of socialists to the freedom
movement and discovering the origins of the river Saraswati.

In courting Marxist historians, Arjun Singh took inspiration from Nurul Hasan. In promoting Hindutva
scholars, the current HRD minister is following in the tracks of M.M.
Joshi. Hence the recent appointment of Y. Sudershan Rao as chairman of
the ICHR. 
I had never heard of Professor Rao before, and, nor, it
appears, have most other historians. Since he belongs to Andhra Pradesh,
I asked some historians in that state what they knew. They described
Professor Rao as a “non-descript scholar who does not have any academic
or intellectual pretensions”, but was known to be close to the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh. They added that despite his ideological bias and
lack of scholarly distinction, he was an amiable and friendly man.

His personal
charm notwithstanding, Professor Rao has not published a major book,
nor a single scholarly essay in a professional journal. However, he has
made known his belief in the essential goodness of the caste system, and
the essential historicity of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat. These may be among the reasons why he has been appointed chairman of the ICHR.

The Marxists
who once ran the ICHR were partisan and nepotistic, but also
professionally competent. The thought of Karl Marx — as distinct from
the practice of Communist parties — provides a distinct analytical
framework for understanding how human societies change and evolve. This
privileges the role of technology and of social conflict between
economic classes. Marxist historiography is a legitimate model of
intellectual enquiry, albeit one which — with its insistence on
materialist explanations — is of limited use when examining the role of
culture and ideas, the influence of nature and natural processes, and
the exercise of power and authority.

A
sophisticated intellectual culture should have room for able right-wing
scholars too. In the US, conservative historians such as Niall Ferguson
are both credible and prominent. Their work celebrates the stabilizing
role of family and community, and argues that technological dynamism and
respect for individual rights are not evenly distributed across
cultures. And where Marxist historians chastise capitalists for
exploiting workers, right-wing historians celebrate them for creating
jobs and generating wealth.

Why are there no Indian equivalents of Niall Ferguson? This is because the right-wing here is identified with Hindutva,
a belief system which privileges myth and dogma over research and
analysis. And no serious historian can be expected to assume a priori
that Ram was a real character, that Hindus are the true and original
inhabitants of India, that Muslims and Christians are foreigners, and
that all that the British did in India was necessarily evil.

Contrary to
what is sometimes claimed in the press, there are many fine historians
in India. From my own generation of scholars, I can strongly recommend —
to student and lay reader alike — the work of Upinder Singh on ancient
India, of Nayanjot Lahiri on the history of archaeology, of Vijaya
Ramaswamy on the bhakti movement, of Sanjay Subrahmanyam on the
early history of European expansion, of Chetan Singh on the decline of
the Mughal State, of Sumit Guha on the social history of Western India,
of Seema Alavi on the social history of medicine, of Niraja Gopal Jayal
on the history of citizenship, of Tirthankar Roy on the economic
consequences of colonialism, of Mahesh Rangarajan on the history of
forests and wildlife, and of A.R. Venkatachalapathy on South Indian
cultural history.

The scholars
named in the preceding paragraph have all written excellent books, on
different themes and periods, in different stylistic registers.They have
all read Karl Marx and digested his ideas. At the same time, they are
not limited or constrained by his approach.They have been inspired by
other thinkers, other models, in their reconstructions of human life and
social behaviour.

Like their
counterparts outside India, these scholars bring to the writing of
history both primary research and the analytical insights of cognate
disciplines such as anthropology, political theory, and linguistics.
Their personal or political ideology is secondary (if not irrelevant) to
their work, whose robustness rests rather on depth of research and
subtlety of argument.

In the 42
years since the ICHR was founded, the historical profession has moved
on. The economic and technological determinism of Marxism, once so
appealing, has been found wanting in pushing the frontiers of research.
If the HRD minister wanted a professional, non-partisan (and
non-Marxist) scholar to head the ICHR, she had a wide field to choose
from. But it appears that the minister wanted not a capable or respected
historian, but a captive ideologue. And she has got one.

……

Link: http://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/

…..

regards

What will the White House say?

Brown Pundits Archive · August 14, 2014 · Comments Off on What will the White House say?
….An
online petition urging Obama administration to cancel White House
invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 2002 Massacre of Muslims
has gathered over one lakh signatures, a minimum requirement for
eliciting an official response…..
….
Most likely the official response would be that we (USA) respect the verdict of the (Indian) people, hundreds of millions of them, amongst which there are people from all faiths and communities. That an unprecedented 8% of muslims voted  for the BJP (true). That the BJP got more votes (25% for BJP, 33% for BJP led coalition) from scheduled castes (Dalits) than the Congress and the highest profile party (BSP) of the Dalits (true). That the BJP got more scheduled tribes (Adivasis) votes than anybody else (true).
……

…….
The actual problem is deeper (and more sinister). Out of the 87 Lok Sabha seats (16% of total seats) where Muslims are over 20 per cent of the
population, the BJP won 42 as opposed to just 15 seats in 2009. That the
voice of 15 per cent of the country’s population could be rendered
ineffective expresses a paradox present in our democracy. 

Even that is not quite the full picture. The BJP probably got a huge chunk of Shia votes (and Bohra, Ahmadi, Ismaili and other minority Islamic sects) based on the enemy of my enemy is my friend principle. In Lucknow and in Varanasi (the constituency of the Leader) the Shia vote may have played a significant role in boosting the vote margin (Rahul Gandhi was discredited in part because his winning margin went down).  

What we are really talking about is the disenfranchisement of the Sunnis of India. While Gujarat is important, Ashrafs and Brahmins (as cultural leaders) must find a formula for co-existence. We are not qualified to offer wisdom to the religious but here are a few suggestions for a Hindu-Muslim Co-existence Code.
………..
A multi-faith leadership team to declare Ram as an Imam and Mohammad as an avatar of Vishnu. A truth and reconciliation commission which will (among other things) establish a common standard for commemorating historical events (our heroes are NOT their villains…etc.). A zero-tolerance policy against communal violence and a rapid rehabilitation program for past victims. A guest worker program so that South Asians can travel across borders without harassment. A time-limited embargo on conversion (and re-conversion), ban on pork and beef consumption in public places, honoring noise pollution standards when conducting religious ceremonies, reforming personal laws so as to meet the no discrimination against women standard.  

Since we are unable to enforce secularism in the public place (like France) we must have a big-tent religious movement…perhaps by co-opting the Hindutva movement. The easiest way is to infiltrate and create pressure groups within the BJP. The idea is not that far-fetched.  

The principal Sikh political-religious outfit (Akali Dal led by Parkash Singh Badal) has been a long term ally of the BJP. The present BJP president Amitbhai Anilchandra Shah is a Jain. The BJP has partnered with the Buddhists in Ladakh and neo-Buddhists in Maharashtra. The Parsi industrialists (Tata, Godrej,..) have strongly backed the BJP. Even the Christian denominations in Kerala and Goa have not been averse to bonding with the BJP.  

As always, it is the two nation theory that continues to divide the two main communities and it is past time that we do something about this. It is very important that we do so.
…….
There are a few other problems that needs to be highlighted as well in the upcoming high stakes morality game. In the recent (not-concluded) Gaza war, the ammunition for the Israeli Defense Force was provided by the USA and the missile defense barrier – the Iron Dome – was paid for (in large part) by the Americans. America stands alone in its diplomatic defense of Israel’s actions. The number of muslims killed in Gaza 2014 is about the same as that of Gujarat 2002 (the head-count does not include the drone led civilian deaths that expanded greatly under Obama). Will there now be a petition to ban Obama from meeting with himself?

Also this is assuming that muslims killed by non-muslims is a special case of grievance. Muslims have killed other muslims, the wrong type of muslims in the past, with American arms, ammunition and full-throated diplomatic support. Gary Bass has written about Archer Blood (American counsel general in Dhaka) and the Blood telegrams that provide direct evidence of America’s collusion in the genocide in Bangladesh, in support of which Nixon had dispatched the USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal (see below). Why is this not considered as the “father” of Gaza? Where is the petition for war crimes trials against Kissinger and others? If there is a expiry date for victims then we should be told.

Polling by Pew shows the long-term impact of long-distance thuggery. Today it is America (not India) that is considered as the greatest threat/enemy by the Sunni world. This includes Pakistan which has promised to wage a thousand year war with India. Even moderate islamic countries like Indonesia claim that USA is the greatest threat (as well as the biggest ally). Only Bangladeshis “love” USA and “hate” India – driven by fear of the big brother next door.

We have no objections to petitions (they help in raising awareness) but what the Gujarati Muslims (and all other riot victims and displaced citizens of India) really need is justice in time. If the state is unable or unwilling to help the non-state actors must come forward. Some progress has been made but it is never enough, plus there are more and more new victims spread all around the country.

The long-term solution to improving community relations is less polarization based on a true secular agenda. That is usually the job of the left, but somehow the left has lost its ability to persuade the people. Unless the left is re-vitalized, the rightists forces on all sides of the fence will dominate. The divisions will grow and the killings will continue unabated. 
……….

An
online petition urging Obama administration to cancel White House
invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 2002 Massacre of Muslims
has gathered over one lakh signatures, a minimum requirement for
eliciting an official response.

The petition was launched on
July 21 by US based rights group Sikh For Justice (SFJ) after US invited
Indian PM for a Summit at White House effectively reversing the 2005
ban on Modi’s entry and visa to United States imposed by Bush
administration. Obama’s invitation was followed by Secretary Kerry’s
visit to India who said US looked towards productive and fruitful
summit.

SFJ used Facebook to garner gross root support from the
Americans and 100,000 threshold was achieved a week before the White
House deadline of August 20. “The overwhelming response to the petition
indicates that strong anti-Modi sentiments exist among the American,”
said SFJ legal advisor Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

Reasoning why
Obama should cancel summit with Modi, the petition cites New York Times
April 16, 2014 report stating “mobs of Hindus rampaged, raped, looted
and killed in a spasm of violence that raged for more than two months.
Mothers were skewered, children set afire and fathers hacked to pieces.
About 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Some 20,000 Muslim
homes and businesses and 360 places of worship are destroyed, and
roughly 150,000 people were displaced”.

Pannun said that now
the petition had crossed the required threshold and now Obama
administration would have to answer the Americans as to why a leader,
who was earlier treated as human rights violator, was being hosted at
White House. Obama’s invitation to Indian PM is a deliberate violation
of US laws which prohibit entry of officials like Modi who have
committed gross human rights violations, added Pannun.

……..

[ref. Wiki] The Task force was to be headed by USS Enterprise, at the time and still the largest aircraft carrier in the world. In addition, it consisted of amphibious assault carrier USS Tripoli (LPH-10), carrying a 200 strong Marine battalion and twenty five assault helicopters; The three guided missile escorts USS King, USS Decatur, and USS Parsons; four gun destroyers USS Bausell (DD-845), USS Orleck (DD-886), USS McKean (DD-784) and USS Anderson; one ammo ship USS Haleakala (AE-25); and a nuclear attack submarine. 

The Enterprise was assigned by the Central authority, while the other ships were assigned by local commanders. Enterprise was at this time at the Tonkin Gulf area. Recovering her airborne aircraft and transferring personnel who were required to stay to the USS Constellation (CV-64), she prepared to head off. The task force was delayed while the support ships refueled, it held off East of Singapore, and was ordered into the Indian ocean on 14 December crossed Malacca straits on the nights of 13–14 December and entered the Bay of Bengal on the morning of 15 December The group was required to proceed slowly, averaging a speed of 15 knots, both to conserve fuel as well as to allow advance information on its heading.
….

Link: http://Online-petition-urging-US-to-cancel-invitation-to-Modi-crosses-one-lakh-signatures

……

regards

A revolution is announced (Aug 14)

Brown Pundits Archive · August 13, 2014 · Comments Off on A revolution is announced (Aug 14)
Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal dreamed of the perfect world where there is no exploitation. However there were a few barriers on the road- the rich (Marwaris in Kolkata), the landed class (feudals in rural Bengal), the petit-burgeouis (aka bhodrolok middle and lower-middle class conservative Hindus), the powerful (politicians) and the people who protected the powerful (police, army). Charu, the ideologue-in-chief wanted to get rid of most (and re-educate the rest in gulags). His inspiration was Mao Tse-Tung, and his slogan was “Chin-er Chairman amader Chairman” (Mao is our Chairman too).

We are not here to argue the rights and wrongs of the Naxalite movement. India for the moment is calm (even though Maoists are active in Central-East India and manage to blow up a train track now and then), under the watchful eye of the Hindu Brotherhood. The agitation against corruption and the rest was led by the Aam Admi Party which then frittered away the love that the voters had bestowed on them. Regardless of win and loss the consensus amongst all communities is firmly on incremental progress (even in Kashmir). The best example is seen in the blood-less partition of Hindu-majority Andhra and Telengana, even though the stakes were just as high as in Hindu-Muslim partitions. If one wants to establish forced analogies, then Telengana is the new Pakistan.

How about the original Pakistan then? We are puzzled by the silence of experts on BP on the upcoming azadi march – perhaps their attentions are engaged elsewhere (Gaza??) or they are not taking this seriously enough. 

Noted below is a comprehensive background report. If one wants to establish forced analogies, then Khan-Qadri are the Charu-Kanu of  this generation (Qadri has specifically called for a revolution). They too dream of a heaven on earth to be brought to Pakistan (corruption to be erased in 90 days) and yes, they may not be averse to adopting violence to achieve their goals.
…..
As an outsider our observation is that Imran Khan is the leader today with the strongest “brand value.” People (middle-class) truly believe in his promises of creating a welfare state. About Tahirul Qadri we are not sure, even though wise men tell us that he is a “moderate.”

Somehow we see the hidden hand of the Army behind these events. Or perhaps we are just being cynical and this is really something big and new. Lal Salaam, comrades!!!
…………
 
The battle lines are more or less defined now with the approach of
Aug 14. Unsurprisingly, Tahirul Qadri has joined hands with Imran Khan
for the ‘azadi march’. His fanatically motivated supporters, drawn
mainly from the lower middle classes across the Punjab heartland, may
add spine to Imran Khan’s middle-class youth brigade with no experience
of street agitation.
….
Besides, Qadri has set a more strident tenor
for D-Day. Now there is no going back on the ‘revolution’, he has
warned his allies. It is certainly the politics of expediency that has
brought together Qadri and Khan on the same platform. But the radical
rhetoric of the Canada-based cleric and his incitement to violence could
turn him into a liability for the PTI and prove to be the undoing of
the ‘azadi march’ even before it has taken off. Nevertheless the new
coalition will shape the emerging political polarisation in the country.

….
Most other political parties are sitting on the fringes weighing
their options as the confrontation comes to a head. What happens on Aug
14 is most likely to determine their future course of action. But more
importantly, what are the choices for the beleaguered prime minister in
this hour of reckoning?
…
Will he sail through the storm or be swept away by the tide? Having
already lost the initiative in the battle of narratives, Nawaz Sharif
faces a tough fight ahead to survive in power against strong odds. It is
more than just a political battle; the government’s unresolved tension
with the generals over Musharraf’s treason trial and a host of other
issues will also matter in the endgame.
….
Having been thrown out of
power halfway through his tenure twice, one expected Sharif to exercise
discretion while tackling the mounting political tension. However, the
dynamics of the present crisis are quite different from the past. Unlike
his previous terms, when the power struggle at the top echelon cost him
his government, Sharif is confronting a street show of force
challenging the very legitimacy of his rule for the first time.
….
Surely,
the threat is compounded by the conflict within the power structure.
Sharif’s uninspiring and absent leadership does not help his cause for
mobilising mass support for the impending battle. The concentration of
power within a small family circle has exposed the weak ability of the
government to motivate party cadres to stand up to the challenge
….
Yet
there is no sign the prime minister realises the gravity of the
situation. He still wonders where he has gone wrong. His speech on
Monday at the launching of Vision 2025 had a defensive tone with no
clarity on how he is going to fight the battle. He still seems to be in a
state of denial about the gathering storm. His implicit inference to
the military being the author of the script will surely further sour
already tense civil-military relations at this crucial stage.
….
The
Punjab government’s perilous handling of the Qadri issue — first the
killing of 14 Minhajul Quran activists in June and then the recent
blocking of the roads by containers — has cost the administration
dearly. The spectacle of men and women crawling under the containers to
reach their destinations in Lahore could not be more politically
damaging for the Sharif brothers. The container strategy has failed to
work and any move to detain Imran Khan and other leaders ahead of the
Aug 14 sit-in will surely boomerang on the administration, fuelling
uncontrollable violence across Punjab and perhaps giving more dead
bodies for Qadri to exploit.
….
It would have been more sensible had
the government permitted the PTI’s march in the first place. In that
case, the onus of maintaining peace would squarely be on the opposition.
Now Qadri’s joining the march has changed the matrix and any show of
flexibility by the government would be taken as a sign of weakness. The
space for Sharif regaining the initiative is fast shrinking.
…..
Yet
it is not the end of the road for the Sharif government. There are still
a few options left for the troubled prime minister to regain the lost
political space. His biggest political capital is the party’s absolute
majority in the National Assembly that he has yet to put into action. A
major problem for Sharif is his utter disregard for parliament. His rare
appearances in the House and inability to initiate debate on major
policy issues has rendered parliament ineffective and increased his
isolation.
….
It took a long time for Sharif to embrace the other
major parties represented in parliament and that too came when the chips
were down. Inviting political leaders to the national security meeting
to discuss the North Waziristan military operation may be a positive
move.
….
But mixing the discussion on security issues with politics
in the presence of the military brass raises some relevant questions
about the actual purpose of bringing together the civilian and military
leadership. The image of a line of army generals in their battle
fatigues sitting across the table from the political leaders was
presumably meant to send a signal to the public of the military’s
backing for the government.
…..
What was the idea behind the decision
to telecast live the prime minister’s opening remarks concerning the
political crisis in what was supposed to be an in-camera security
briefing? This kind of game is counterproductive. The government is
expected to take a saner approach in such a situation.
….
Sharif may
be down, but he is not out of the game yet. It is neither a 1993 nor a
1999 situation when he lost the power struggle. But the wrong moves
could land him into the same situation. It is not just the issue of
facing up to the challenge thrown by the Qadri-Imran combine, Sharif
also needs to address other problems concerning governance and the
economy to ensure his survival in power and avert the derailing of a
fledgling democratic process.
……

Link: http://www.dawn.com/running-out-of-options
…..

regards

The Cadillac Man

Brown Pundits Archive · August 12, 2014 · Comments Off on The Cadillac Man
…..A woman would never make a nuclear bomb…..They
would never make a weapon that kills, no, no….They’d make a weapon that
makes you feel bad for a while…..
…..
Robin Williams just committed suicide (August 11). He was brilliant in many movies (Good Will Hunting) and funny in others (Good Morning Vietnam), in Dead Poets’ Society he was funny and brilliant at the same time. A funny man with a not-so-funny personal life and a sad way to end it all at a ripe young age of 63.

In our opinion, comedy is a harsh look at life, softened by the humor. Williams was unsparing on everything holy, he would say that (his denomination) the Episcopal Church as “Catholic Lite—same rituals, half the guilt.” The holy cows will now be missing the dissing.
…..

…..
Here is Williams on Gandhi and Mother Teresa. Not perhaps appropriate for people who worship the (wo)man, not the actions (or ideas). Incidentally, the one thing that does irritate us is how many westerners mis-spell the name as Ghandi.

The movie that is closest to our heart (and one we suspect very few people will know or recall) is the Cadillac Man. Williams is at his persuasive best (indeed the plot looks a bit like his personal life) with the women AND the men. Unintellectual, shallow perhaps….but deeply entertaining. The best part in the movie is when he (Williams) realizes that the gun carried by the maniac (Tim Robbins) is not loaded, he has been wasting his time and energy all this time. That is when a switch clicks ON in his brain and he grows up from a man-boy to a man.
…..
[ref. Wiki] Dead Poets Society won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (Tom Schulman). Peter Weir received a nomination for Best Director and the film itself was nominated for Best Picture of 1989. Robin Williams
received his second Best Actor in a Leading Role nomination and it has
since been widely recognized as one of the actor/comedian’s best roles.
It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film. The film’s line “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” was voted as the 95th greatest movie quote by the American Film Institute. Also, the film was voted one of the 100 Most Inspiring Films of All Time by the AFI.
……. 

[ref. Wiki] Queens car salesman Joey O’Brien (Robin Williams) must deal with the ever-increasing pressures in his life: he has an ex-wife demanding alimony, a daughter who’s missing, a married mistress (Fran Drescher) and a single mistress (Lori Petty)
who are both desperately in love with him, and a two-day deadline to
either sell twelve cars or lose his job. In addition, he has an
outstanding loan to a Mafia don which he must either quickly repay, or lose his life.


….
On the day of the big dealership car sale (and the final day of O’Brien’s deadline), the car dealership is taken hostage by an AK-47-toting motorcyclist (Tim Robbins) (on a Kawasaki H2) who believes his wife (Annabella Sciorra) is cheating on him. Joey manages to talk the man out of doing any harm to the other hostages,
as police surround the dealership. 
…
Without realizing that the
assailant’s gun is not loaded, the police wound him after most of the
hostages have already been released which prompts Joey to promise to
stick with him while he recovers. The crisis solves all of Joey’s
problems: his mistresses learn of each other and dump him, his daughter
returns, his job is secure, the Mafia don (whose son was among the
hostages) forgives his debt, and he begins to reconcile with his
ex-wife.

…
regards 

Mount Sinjar overlooks the Valley of Death

Brown Pundits Archive · August 11, 2014 · Comments Off on Mount Sinjar overlooks the Valley of Death
……Yazidi refugees survived by hiding in cave dwellings,
drinking from springs, hunting animals…..families
scattered across Mount Sinjar, a barren range stretching 35 miles
near the border with Syria….there are fears aid will not reach them all……One pershmerga fighter said: “There’s
not enough for everyone….It’s five people to one bottle”…..
…
There seems to be no hope left for the Yazidis dying in droves from thirst (and pain). Just like that, a community will vanish from the face of the Earth, while the world watches (mostly) in silence.

 

………….


Mount Sinjar stinks of death. The few Yazidis who have managed to escape its
clutches can tell you why. “Dogs were eating the bodies of the dead,” said
Haji Khedev Haydev, 65, who ran through the lines of Islamic State jihadists
surrounding it.
………
On Sunday night, I became the first western journalist to reach the mountains
where tens of thousands of Yazidis,
a previously obscure Middle Eastern sect, have been taking refuge from the
Islamic State forces that seized their largest town, Sinjar.

I was on board an Iraqi Army helicopter, and watched as hundreds of refugees
ran towards it to receive one of the few deliveries of aid to make it to the
mountain. The helicopter dropped water and food from its open gun bays to
them as they waited below. General Ahmed Ithwany, who led the mission, told
me: “It is death valley. Up to 70 per cent of them are dead.”

Two American aid flights have also made it to the mountain, where they have
dropped off more than 36,000 meals and 7,000 gallons of drinking water to
help the refugees, and last night two RAF C-130 transport planes were also
on the way.

However, Iraqi officials said that much of the US aid had been “useless”
because it was dropped from 15,000ft without parachutes and exploded on
impact.

Handfuls of refugees have managed to escape on the helicopters but many are
being left behind because the craft are unable to land on the rocky
mountainside. There, they face thirst and starvation, as well as the
crippling heat of midsummer.



Hundreds, if not more, have already died, including scores of children. A
Yazidi Iraqi MP, Vian Dakhil, told reporters in Baghdad: “We have one or two days left to help these people. After that they will
start dying en masse.”



The Iraqi Army is running several aid missions every day, bringing supplies
including water, flour, bread and shoes. The helicopter flights aim to airlift out refugees on each flight, but the
mountains are sometimes too rocky to land on, meaning they return empty.



Even when it can land, the single helicopter can take just over a dozen
refugees at a time, and then only from the highest point of the mountain
where it is out of range of jihadist missiles. Barely 100 have been rescued
in this way.



 



The flights have also dropped off at least 50 armed Peshmerga, Kurdish forces,
on the mountain, according to Captain Ahmed Jabar.



Other refugees have made their way through Islamic State lines, evading the
jihadists to reach safety, or travelling through Kurdish-controlled sections of Syria to reach the town of Dohuk. 

So far the
Yazidi refugees left behind have survived by hiding in old cave dwellings,
drinking from natural springs and hunting small animals, but with families
scattered across Mount Sinjar, a barren range stretching for around 35 miles
near the border with Syria, there are fears aid will not reach them all
unless the humanitarian relief operation is significantly stepped up .

Hundreds can now be seen making their way slowly across its expanse, carrying
what few possessions they managed to flee with on their backs. Exhausted
children lie listlessly in the arms of their parents, older ones trudging
disconsolately alongside while the sun beats down overhead.



…
The small amount of relief the peshmerga militia can bring up into the
mountain is not simply enough.



One pershmerga fighter, Faisal Elas Hasso, 40, said: “To be honest, there’s
not enough for everyone,” he said. “It’s five people to one bottle.”



….
The refugees who made it out described desperate scenes as they awaited help
from the outside world. “There were about 200 of us, and about 20 of that number have died,” said
Saydo Haji, 28. “We can live for two days, not more.”



…
Emad Edo, 27, who was rescued in an airlift on Friday at the mountain’s
highest point explains how he had to leave his niece, who barely had enough
strength to keep her eyes open, to her fate. “She was about to die, so we left her there and she died,” he said.



….
Others shared similar stories. “Even the caves smell very bad,” Mr Edo added.
According to several of the airlifted refugees, the Geliaji cave alone has
become home to 50 dead bodies. Saydo Kuti Naner, 35, who was one of 13 Yazidis who snuck through Islamic
State lines on Thursday morning, said he travelled through
Kurdish-controlled Syria to get to Kurdistan.



….
He left behind his mother and father, too old to make the rough trip, as well
as 200 sheep. “We got lucky,” he said. “A girl was running [with us] and she
got shot.” He added that this gave enough cover for the rest of them to get
away.



….
Mikey Hassan said he, his two brothers and their families fled up into Mount
Sinjar and then managed to escape to the Kurdish city of Dohuk after two
days, by shooting their way past the jihadists. Mr Hassan said he and his
family went for 17 hours with no food before getting their hands on some
bread.



….
The Yazidis, an ethnically Kurdish community that has kept its religion alive
for centuries in the face of persecution, are at particular threat from the
Islamists, who regard them as ‘devil worshippers’, and drove them from their
homes as the peshmerga fighters withdrew.



….
There have been repeated stories that the jihadists have seized hundreds of
Yazidi women and are holding them in Mosul, either in schools or the prison.
These cannot be confirmed, though they are widely believed and several
Yazidi refugees said they had been unable to contact Yazidi women relatives
who were living behind Islamic State lines.



…..
Kamil Amin, of the Iraqi human rights ministry, said: “We think that the
terrorists by now consider them slaves and they have vicious plans for them.”



….
Tens of thousands of Christians have also been forced to flee in the face of
the advancing IS fighters, many cramming the roads east and north to Erbil
and Dohuk. On Thursday alone, up to 100,000 Iraqi Christians fled their
homes in the Plain of Ninevah around Mosul.



….
Refugees said the American air strikes on IS positions outside Erbil were too
little, too late. They said they felt abandoned by everyone – the central
government in Baghdad, the Americans and British, who invaded in 2003, and
now the Kurds, who had promised to protect them.



….
“When the Americans withdrew from Iraq they didn’t protect the Christians,”
said Jenan Yousef, an Assyrian Catholic who fled Qaraqosh, Iraq’s largest
Christian town, in the early hours of Thursday. “The Christians became the scapegoats. Everyone has been killing us.”

The situation in Sinjar has irreparably damaged the notion of home for the
Yazidis. For a large portion of them, the unique culture of the area will
never return, and they will therefore have nothing to go back for.



….
“We can’t go back to Sinjar mountain because Sinjar is surrounded by Arabs,”
said Aydo Khudida Qasim, 34, who said that Sunni Arab villagers around
Sinjar helped Islamic State take the area. Now he as well as many of his
friends and relatives want to get out of Iraq altogether. “We want to be refugees in other countries, not our own,” he said.

….

Link: http://Iraq-crisis-It-is-death-valley.-Up-to-70-per-cent-of-them-are-dead.html

….

regards

Brown Pundits