Brown Pundits

In a victory for the Army the Sindh High Court has permitted the ex-dictator to leave Pakistan following a 15 day notice period. During his tenure he played a double game proficiently but then (as is the habit with dictators) ended up making a fool of himself. He should have never come back and in our opinion he will not be missed (he is also lucky to be alive).
….
The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday ruled that the name of former
military ruler Pervez Musharraf be removed from the exit control list.

The
ruling was issued by a two-judge bench of the SHC comprising Justice
Mohammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Shahnawaz following the hearing of
Musharraf’s request for the removal of his name from the ECL.

The
bench stated that parties opposing the ruling could approach the Supreme
Court during the next 15 days, adding that Musharraf cannot leave the
country during that period.

Earlier on May 29, the court had
reserved its ruling on Musharraf’s plea after his counsel Barrister
Farogh Naseem and Attorney General Pakistan Salman Aslam Butt concluded
their arguments.
….

Link: http://www.dawn.com/news/1112244/shc-orders-removal-of-musharrafs-name-from-ecl

….
regards

“We are facing failure of monsoon.
I wonder if it’s God’s will …There has been some sin. God
does not like that. We all remember what happened in Gujarat in 2002.” ……..
We are sort of OK with this logic provided it is applied without bias. Captain Amarinder Singh (as a Congress MP from Amritsar and as a Sardar-ji) certainly knows that Indira Gandhi died as payback for Operation Bluestar. Also, the (innocent) Sikhs of Trilokpuri, Delhi died as payback for (some other) Sikhs murdering Indira. And Rajiv Gandhi died as payback for saying that “when a big tree falls the earth shakes.” Fair enough.

The Hindutva response to the above will undoubtedly be that Muslims in Gujarat died as payback for Hindu pilgrims who were burnt to death. And the agents of death on all sides can claim that they were doing God’s work, that they are actually agents of God.

Finally this is true- when a poor monsoon strikes, the effect is harshest on the weakest sections of the society- muslims included. So in effect what Amarinder is saying that poor muslims all over India will be victimized a second time because of what happened in Gujarat. Food for thought.
……………………………..

Congress
MP Amarinder Singh on Wednesday wondered if the impending failure of
monsoon was god’s will to punish the government for its sins in Gujarat
(the 2002 riots). He said he wondered whether the failure was due to “El
Nino or El Modi”.

The Amritsar MP, who defeated finance
minister Arun Jaitley in the recent polls, was criticizing the
government for making tall promises without any roadmap when he made
these comments in Lok Sabha.  He said, “We are facing failure of monsoon.
I wonder if it’s God’s will that it is happening just after polls. I
wonder if it’s El Nino or El Modi effect. There has been some sin. God
does not like that. We all remember what happened in Gujarat in 2002.”

.

…….
Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Poor-monsoon-Gods-punishment-for-Gujarat-riots-Amarinder-Singh/articleshow/36408017.cms

……

regards

It is, however, the elopement of
Priyanka Wadhwani, a girl from a wealthy Sindhi family, and Umar, also
from a leading Muslim family in Bhopal, that triggered the biggest storm
in the city.
……………..

On a personal note, we know of a “developing” situation where a working class boy (muslim) and girl (hindu) would like to tie the knot. Both families (back in the village) are highly distressed and have requested us to put a stop to this. We support the choice these kids have made (why not?) but have insisted on a civil marriage. Incidentally, we also had a civil marriage followed by a ritual marriage.

Why insist on a civil marriage? Tariq Ansari explains in Outlook as part of a larger argument as to why he supports an uniform civil code:
…..Third, at least half of all Muslims are badly served by the Muslim Personal Law. Triple talaq, no rights to
maintenance (thank you, Rajiv Gandhi!) and subordinate rights of inheritance are all examples of how my Muslim
sisters labour under an unfair and, dare I say it, unIslamic set of regulations. I have a daughter and if she
should want to marry a Muslim it will be under the Special Marriages Act, thank you very much.
………….
That said, even with the protections of a civil marriage in place, Hindu-Muslim marriages will remain highly controversial (amongst Hindus and Muslims within India as well as without).

This article below by Saba Naqvi Bhaumik shines a spotlight on the dimensions of this social problem and a Pakistani (Shia) site responds by mainly focusing on the fact that a Shia lady has a Hindu surname!!!
Sad to say, in a few decades even Shia-Sunni marriages may become as controversial as Hindu-Muslim ones.
……..
(1) Muslims are doing it more and more. Well, at least to ME they are unislamic. Bharati Muslims may think otherwise. Look at this article from some shia lady with Hindu surname. Perhaps this is a way for Bharati Muslims to prove their love of Bharat-Mata.

(2) The Muslim idea of ‘practicing religion’ is unique among religions. In
other faiths it depends on how you define ‘practice’. It is near
impossible for practicing Muslim to get into an interfaith marriage and
sustain it successfully thereafter. If one is a true practicing Muslim,
come what may, he/she will not choose to marry a person outside the
religion. Because even if they marry civically, the marriage is void
Islamically and equal to fornication.

(3) We cannot make any generalizations here. It’s obvious that *only*
non-practicing muslims will marry hindus. Non-practicing muslims in
Pakistan, Iran, SA, also indulge in all sort of hanky panky too. A
practicing muslim will make sure his or her kids are raised according to
islamic tradition. As a shia we don’t even agree to a permanent
marriage with a a jew or a christian lady, let alone with a hindu, who
have no or little respect for the Abrahamic tradition. But for those who
follow the sharia of Bollywood, this is a non-issue. In short, the
problem is not where people live, but how they live. 
……

It is, however, the elopement of
Priyanka Wadhwani, a girl from a wealthy Sindhi family, and Umar, also
from a leading Muslim family in Bhopal, that triggered the biggest storm
in the city. Incensed, the Sindhi community convened a panchayat. Much
deliberation later, the elders concluded that it was mobile phones and
two-wheelers that were leading their daughters astray and perhaps a curb
was required on these. 

A “distinctly Islamic” influence was also
discerned in the practice of Bhopal girls covering their heads while
riding. “They say they do it to protect themselves from heat and dust,”
said Madhu Chandwani, general secretary of the Sindhi panchayat. “But
it’s clearly a fashion picked up from some Muslim girls. We Sindhis left
Pakistan to protect our daughters, and here in India they are moving
around with their heads covered.”
The girls, however, did not
take kindly to the panchayat’s diktat and took out a procession. Sindhis
in Indore too expressed reservations. Confronted with all the
opposition, the panchayat backtracked and said these were just views and
not a firman on the community.

As for Priyanka and Umar, they
are in hiding in Mumbai and are said to have contacted activist Teesta
Setalvad. Umar’s family thinks it would be foolish for them to return as
Umar could be attacked or even thrown into jail in bjp-ruled Madhya
Pradesh. Never mind if the court has ordered that the couple be given
protection.

Priyanka and Umar’s troubles have been compounded by
the fact that Priyanka’s family has close links with the parivar.
Outlook met her uncle Lajpat Rai Wadhwani in the company of known
parivar activist Bhagwandas Sabnani, who is also said to be a close aide
of Uma Bharati. Uncle Wadhwani was categorical that “Priyanka is dead
for us”. More vocal was Sabnani who was not only instrumental in
organising the panchayat but was also behind the creation of the Hindu
Kanya Suraksha Samiti, another parivar front organisation that will
largely be run by the Bajrang Dal.

Love doesn’t enter into the
picture for Sabnani; it’s all part of a larger conspiracy to convert
Hindus to Islam. He outlines the diabolical design Muslim boys
perpetrate: wear tilaks to disguise themselves as Hindus and hang around
girls colleges; threaten and force the girl to run away with them and
then abandon them since they can marry many times.

Bhopal girls cover their heads against the dust, but for Sindhis it’s Islamic

That
both Umar and Rehan have converted to Hinduism is not enough to wash
their sins. “It’s meaningless,” says Sabnani. “Done under pressure.”
With the families of both boys under attack in Bhopal, the Hindu
conversion could indeed have been a tactical move. For Sabnani, there is
no doubt: “In no time, they will reconvert.” 

The most sensible thing
for the couple to have done was to marry under the Special Marriages
Act, but it’s a long bureaucratic process that requires a month’s notice
during which anyone can object to the proposed marriage.

Incidentally,
of Umar’s eight brothers, the eldest too is married to a Hindu,
Aparajita Sharma, daughter of a police DG and an IAS officer herself.
Reports in the media said the second daughter-in-law too was a Hindu but
she is in fact Muslim, and goes by the name of Zeba. The rest of the
brothers are unmarried. When Umar disappeared with Priyanka, it was
Zeba’s husband and Umar’s brother who was picked up by the police and
questioned repeatedly for five days.

All their connections and
wealth can’t stop Umar’s family from feeling nervous, enough for them to
refuse being photographed or be directly quoted. They say people who
tried to help them were asked to lay off by the highest authorities in
the state. The police would land up at their house at odd hours and
without warrants. Umar’s conversion is hardly an issue for them. As a
family member says, “He is a 22-year-old child. We are worried only
about his security and health.” Currently the family has round-the-clock
police protection.

Hardly surprising, as many think that the
state government would have allowed a riot had the regime in Delhi been
friendly. But as Sajid Ali, a senior lawyer and Congressman, says, “We
recently complained to the minority commission in Delhi how there have
been 112 incidents of communal tension since the BJP came to power.” 

Ultimately, the BJP dispensation decided to back off and told its
Bajrang Dal/VHP cadres not to agitate further. Even the devout doubted
the intentions of the agitators. The general secretary of the All India
Sindhi Sadhu Samaj, Mahant Baba Ramdas Udaseen, told Outlook: “Social
outrage is not surprising in such cases. But these days such issues are
also highlighted for the political agenda of dividing communities.”

And
no one did it better than the parivar outfits in Bhopal. They made
political capital out of the state’s practice of tabulating such
marriages, something it has no business doing. The Bajrang Dal went to
town distributing an ‘official’ list of 341 Hindu-Muslim marriages in
Bhopal between 1997 and 2004. Hardly an alarming figure but enough to
reinforce parivar lore of venal Muslim characters pursuing innocent
Hindu damsels. 

Some years ago, VHP leader Acharya Giriraj Kishore had
gone on record to tell this correspondent: “There is a physical reason
Muslims can seduce Hindu girls. They give them more sharirik anand
(physical pleasure) because they have a surgery, Hindus don’t.” 
In
Kishore’s view, circumcision is the Muslim’s secret weapon. In the face
of such seductive logic, can reason have a chance?
….


Link (1): http://communalism.blogspot.in/2007/04/hindu-muslim-marriages-give-saffronites.html



Link (2): http://www.shiachat.com/forum/topic/234941571-hindu-muslim-marriages-in-bharat/

Link(3): http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?220920
…..

regards

How Chindia and other links were broken up just in time by super-agent Obama, with a bit of assist from a lady who made the Hard Choice of cutting through the human (??) chain of Chinese Secret Service agents.

The action sequence was in our opinion slightly more dramatic than the kill Osama elect Obama venture. Bravo!!!

Obama is a true hero for liberals in America and the world, but we still feel that impact-wise “Mr Premier, are you ready?” pales in comparison to those magical words: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”
……….
Eventually they discovered the meeting’s location…...
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, got tangled up with a Chinese guard, she adds.
In the commotion the president slipped through the door and yelled, ‘Mr Premier!’ really loudly, which got everyone’s attention.
“The Chinese guards put their arms up against the door again, but I
ducked under and made it through,” Clinton writes recounting the
incident.
“In a makeshift conference room whose glass walls had
been covered by drapes for privacy against prying eyes, we found Wen
wedged around a long table with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and South African
President Jacob Zuma.
Jaws dropped when they saw us. ‘Are you ready?’ said President Obama, flashing a big grin,”  

………….

At the
international conference on climate change in Copenhagen in December
2009, US President Barack Obama forced himself into a room where the
then Chinese premier Wen Jiabao was holding a secret meeting with the
then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders.

Giving a blow by blow account of the incident, of which she was part as
the then secretary of state, Hillary Clinton in her memoirs ‘Hard
Choices’ writes that the purpose of China was to isolate the United
States by bringing together countries like India, Brazil and South
Africa on its side.

But Obama’s determination and presence of mind thwarted such a move, she writes.

“President Obama and I were looking for Premier Wen Jiabao in the
middle of a large international conference on climate change in
Copenhagen, Denmark,” she recalls.

“We knew that the only way
to achieve a meaningful agreement on climate change was for leaders of
the nation’s emitting the most greenhouse gases to sit down together and
hammer out a compromise — especially the US and China,” she said. “But
the Chinese were avoiding us.”

“Worse, we learned that Wen had
called a ‘secret’ meeting with the Indians, Brazilians, and South
Africans to stop, or at least dilute, the kind of agreement the United
States was seeking. When we couldn’t find any of the leaders of those
countries, we knew something was amiss and sent out members of our team
to canvass the conference centre,” she writes.

“Eventually they discovered the meeting’s location.

After exchanging looks of ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ the
president and I set off through the long hallways of the sprawling
Nordic convention center, with a train of experts and advisers
scrambling to keep up,” she writes in her book.
 “Later
we’d joke about this impromptu ‘footcade’, a motorcade without the
motors, but at the time I was focused on the diplomatic challenge
waiting at the end of our march. So off we went, charging up a flight of
stairs and encountering surprised Chinese officials, who tried to
divert us by sending us in the opposite direction. We were undeterred,”
she says.

When they arrived outside the meeting room, there was a jumble of arguing aides and nervous security agents, she says.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, got tangled up with a Chinese guard, she adds.

In the commotion the president slipped through the door and yelled, ‘Mr Premier!’ really loudly, which got everyone’s attention.

“The Chinese guards put their arms up against the door again, but I
ducked under and made it through,” Clinton writes recounting the
incident.

“In a makeshift conference room whose glass walls had
been covered by drapes for privacy against prying eyes, we found Wen
wedged around a long table with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and South African
President Jacob Zuma.

Jaws dropped when they saw us. ‘Are you ready?’ said President Obama, flashing a big grin,” Clinton claims.

“Now the real negotiations could begin. It was a moment that was at least a year in the making,” she adds.
…….

Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Clinton-reveals-how-Obama-forcibly-prevented-Chinas-secret-meeting-with-India-to-isolate-US/articleshow/36394480.cms

……

regards

Karachi, Pakistan’s Economic capital (contributing around 1/4th to national GDP) and South Asia’s largest city- more than twice the area of Delhi with more people than Mumbai in city proper (due to lack of recent census, exact numbers may be debatable here), is also  an extremely violent place- no other megacity’s homicide rate comes within 25 per cent of Karachi’s.

As if the current levels of violence are not bad enough, Dr Christophe Jaffrelot argues that

things may get out of hand in near future:

Until recently, The combination of electoral politics and paramilitary
techniques helped MQM, retain control over urban Karachi. But growing Pashtun assertiveness has gradually
become a major challenge. According to the 1998 census, only 49 per cent
of the city population are Urdu-speakers (to whom the Gujaratis, with 8
per cent, must be added to obtain the proportion of mohajirs), whereas
Pashto-speakers made up 11.50 per cent, Punjabis 14 per cent, Sindhis 7
per cent and Balochis 4 per cent. But the war in Afghanistan that
started in 2001 and the growing instability in Pakistan’s Pashtun belt
resulted in the migration of one million people to Karachi, the largest
Pashtun city today. The mohajirs felt threatened by these Pashtuns also
because of the growing number of Sunni militants and Taliban supporters
among them.
 

To resist the Pashtun more effectively, the MQM has further refined
its paramilitary style and introduced sophisticated weaponry. This has
meant an unprecedented escalation of violence in Karachi. While the
previous wave of killings had resulted in 1,742 deaths in 1995 before a
quick return to normalcy, the number of casualties has been rising since
2006 to reach the unprecedented number of over 3,200 casualties in
2013, partly because of the tensions generated by the elections. But it
is not that Karachi is mired in chaos. As the mixed strategy described
above suggests, and as Laurent Gayer has recently shown in his book,
Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City, there is a
rationale behind the conduct of the parallel state that the MQM in
Karachi has become.

The judicial vulnerability of Hussain, who had been arrested on
suspicion of money laundering and who will have to report to the police
again in July, may affect this relatively stable brand of instability.
Hussain is the one who keeps the MQM united and has no obvious
successor. If the party breaks apart, an already volatile atmosphere may
spin out of hand — in spite of the ongoing deployment of security
forces.

To an outside non-expert, things do look grim for South Asia’s largest city or  perhaps I am papering over the stabilising forces of modern economy, self-preservation capacity of local elites/bourgeoisie, spread of PakNationalist brotherhood and the ‘spirit’ of the port city?