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Re: Muslim Problem, Hindu Solutions: Sid Harth
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On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:18:32 -0700 (PDT), bademiyansubhanallah <...@gmail.com
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Taliban’s Spiritual Fathers Denounce Terror. Could Taliban Be Next?
Islamic World News
21 Nov 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com
Taliban's Spiritual Fathers Denounce Terror. Could Taliban Be Next?
2. Qaeda scorns Obama with racial slur
3. New enrolment rules will benefit thousands of Madrasa students in
India
4 The President-Elect Barack Obama and India by Martha Nussbaum
Taliban's Spiritual Fathers Denounce Terror. Could Taliban Be Next?
By Jeffrey Donovan, Abubakar Siddique
What would happen if the Taliban's spiritual fathers denounced
terrorism? That, in effect, is what has taken place in Deoband, the
northern Indian hometown of the austere form of Sunni Islam followed
by the Taliban.
In May, Darul Uloom Deoband Madrasah, located north of New Dehli,
issued an unprecedented fatwa, or religious decree, against terrorism.
Earlier this month, 4,000 senior Indian ulema and muftis -- Muslim
clerics with the authority to interpret Islamic law -- backed the
fatwa in a mass gathering in the city of Hyderabad.
Now, the Deobandi political leader in India has told RFE/RL that the
next step is to gather Muslim leaders from across South Asia,
including the Taliban, to discuss endorsing the anti-terror decree.
It looks set to be a hot debate.
"The killing of innocents or atrocities against them is terrorism,"
Maulana Mahmood Madani, general-secretary of Jamiat Ulama-i Hind
(JUH), the conservative political party founded by Darul Uloom
Deoband, told RFE/RL in explaining the May 31 fatwa. "That is how
terrorism is defined."
Strong Stand
The fatwa was issued in a strictly Indian context. In recent years,
amid a series of terrorist attacks, India's 150 million-strong Muslim
community has come under strong criticism from majority Hindus.
Stigmatized as terrorists, Indian Muslims have been seeking to take a
strong stand to dissociate them from violence -- and the fatwa is the
latest, if perhaps the most vocal, contribution to that effort.
But given Deobandi influence on Muslims across the subcontinent, the
fatwa is seen as having a potentially significant regional impact.
Darul Uloom Deoband was formed about 150 years ago as a spiritual
resistance movement to British rule. Over the years, its austere form
of Sunni Islam, which harkens back to the early days of the faith,
spread across northern India and what is now Pakistan. Thousands of
madrasahs propagating its teachings cropped up across the region,
including along the Afghan-Pakistan border. It is here that many
Taliban, including leader Mullah Omar, received their schooling.
With their teachers now coming out against terrorism, will the Taliban
in Pakistan or Afghanistan follow suit? Madani is unsure. But he wants
senior clerics from the eight member states of South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to come together to debate whether to
endorse the Deobandi decree.
"I don't know what [the Taliban and clerics who support them] will
say," Madani said. "But my intention is that this issue must be
debated. I am trying to bring together the ulema and muftis from all
SAARC countries in India. Then I will request them to endorse this
decree."
Critical Stage
The Deobandi efforts come at a critical stage of the Afghan conflict,
which has spilled over into the bordering tribal regions of Pakistan
with militants also striking targets in and around Islamabad. In
October, Saudi King Abdullah hosted allies of the Taliban and Afghan
government for a religious dinner in Mecca. That meeting fueled talk
that Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants a peace deal with the Taliban
-- provided they accept the Afghan constitution and renounce ties to
Al-Qaeda.
On November 16, Karzai offered to provide safe passage to Omar and
other Taliban leaders to take part in any peace talks. Taliban sources
said they were considering a response.
Late last month, Pakistani and Afghan politicians and tribal leaders
met for two days of talks in Islamabad. Their so-called "mini jirga"
reiterated the desire of both countries to combat extremism and
terrorism, and extended an olive branch to militants willing to lay
down their arms.
The jirga process, which is continuing, is a positive development,
according to Maulana Syedul Aarifeen, who heads a major Deobandi
Madrasah in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's restive Northwest Frontier
Province.
In the 1980s, Aarifeen's late father -- Maulana Rahat Gul -- was
instrumental in bringing together ulema to issue a fatwa declaring the
fight against Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers as jihad. But Araifeen
now wants an end to nearly three decades of war in the region. He
tells RFE/RL the jirga between Pakistan and Afghanistan is the best
forum to bring an end to the Taliban insurgencies in both Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
"This jirga should be held among Muslims," Aarifeen said, "because
Allah and his Prophet [Muhammad] said that when two Muslims have
differences among themselves, you should seek rapprochement among them
though consultation. And this process is called jirga in Pashto
[language]. Now we see that there are differences among Muslims, who
were united before. Now, the jirga is a good forum for us to unite
again."
Parallel Track
Alongside the jirga process, the Deobandi effort amounts to a parallel
track on the theological front.
Francesco Zannini, an Italian author and expert on South Asian Islam,
says the Deobandi fatwa appears aimed at condemning Al-Qaeda-style
tactics -- atrocities against civilians -- while clearly leaving
intact the Koranic concept of jihad, which among other things
legitimizes defending Muslims against aggression.
"I believe it's a big step forward in the sense that the Deobands are
now promoting in some way a movement that goes against what Al-Qaeda
is doing. This is a positive point," said Zannini, a professor at
Rome's Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies. "But, at
the same time, I would say that it does not attack classic
fundamentalism but rather only condemns its most extremist aspects. In
my opinion, the Taliban could very well end up backing it."
The Deobandi fatwa comes amid other recent developments in Muslim
countries that have condemned terrorism and embraced tolerance.
Saudi King Abdullah has led ongoing efforts to promote inter-religious
peace and tolerance, including a United Nations meeting last week in
New York. Earlier this month, Catholic leaders, including Pope
Benedict XVI and representatives of Islam's major schools of thought,
signed a statement after three days of talks at the Vatican pledging
to combat violence waged in the name of religion.
Zannini, who took part in the Vatican talks, says it all adds up to a
trend: "I believe at this point we find ourselves faced with what is,
essentially, the great Islamic middle class that has grown tired of
this confrontation. As a result, it has begun to do something about
it."
Perhaps the most dramatic shift within radical Islam came last May,
when Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, the Egyptian ideological father of Al-
Qaeda, published a major condemnation of the tactics used by Osama bin
Laden's terror network.
"We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of
Islam do," al-Fadl wrote.n RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed
to this report.
Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/Talibans_Spiritual_Fathers_Denounce_Terror_Could_T aliban_Be_Next/1350341.html
Qaeda scorns Obama with racial slur
Nov 19, 2008, By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's deputy leader accused Barack Obama
of betraying his race and his father's Muslim heritage on Wednesday
and urged more attacks, as the group tried to counter the incoming
U.S. president's global popularity.
Osama bin Laden's second-in-command Ayman al Zawahri attacked Obama as
a "house Negro," a racially-charged term used by 1960s black American
Muslim leader Malcolm X to describe black slaves loyal to white
masters.
"You represent the direct opposite of honorable black Americans
like ... Malcolm X," Zawahri said in an 11-minute recording publicized
on the Internet on Wednesday. It was al Qaeda's first high-level
commentary on Obama's election on November 4. Bin Laden could also
release a message on Obama within the next two weeks or so, one
analyst said.
Zawahri criticized Obama's support for Israel and plans to send more
U.S. troops to Afghanistan, where he said they were destined to fail.
He urged Islamist fighters to keep striking a "criminal" United States
until it withdraws from Muslim lands.
The recording was distributed on a videotape that carried pictures of
Obama at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and Malcom X, flanking Zawahri
in the center.
U.S. officials and analysts, alert for signs of an attack in the
period leading up to the transfer of presidential power on January 20,
said there was no sign of an imminent threat.
They cast Zawahri's message as an attempt to shift al Qaeda's focus
from U.S. President George W. Bush and maintain an enmity against the
United States among its supporters.
"They're faced with what is by any accounting a change in this
country," said one U.S. counterterrorism official who asked not to be
identified.
OBAMA BRINGING CHANGE
"The way they're dealing with the change represented by the election
of an African American as president of the United States is to insist
that nothing has changed," he said.
Obama's transition office declined to comment.
His election was greeted with broad hope in the Middle East, where
U.S. relations with Arabic countries were deeply strained under Bush.
Daniel Benjamin, a counterterrorism official under former President
Bill Clinton, said Obama's election on a platform of breaking with
Bush policies was a boost to American "soft power," or nonmilitary
international influence.
"I think they (al Qaeda) are deeply threatened by the fact there is a
new American president and that he has come to office saying he wants
to have a more constructive relationship with the one billion Muslims
in the world."
Zawahri, he said, "feels like he has a competitor for the hearts and
minds."
Zawahri referred to Obama's Kenyan father, who was raised Muslim but
became an atheist. Obama is a Christian. "You were born to a Muslim
father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the
Muslims," Zawahri said.
The Malcolm X reference probably reflects the influence of American-
born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn, believed to be close to Zawahri,
said a U.S. terrorism monitor who goes by the pseudonym Laura
Mansfield.
Zawahri has employed the "house Negro" insult before; when in 2007 he
used it to label Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her
predecessor, Colin Powell, who are both black.
"And in you and in Colin Powell, Rice and your likes, the words of
Malcolm X ... concerning 'House Negroes' are confirmed," Zawahri said
in the message released on Wednesday.
His spoken remarks could also be translated as "house slaves," but al
Qaeda's accompanying English translation, distributed by the
IntelCenter Web monitor, used "house Negroes."
Mansfield said it typically takes bin Laden, deep in hiding, longer
than Zawahri to produce a statement reacting to events and relay it to
an outlet. But it would not be a surprise if he released one soon, she
said.
(Additional reporting by Inal Ersan and Firouz Sedarat in Dubai)
(Editing by David Storey)
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed2/idUSTRE4AI47X20081119
New rules will benefit thousands of Madrasa students in India
19 November 2008
New Delhi: A significant move by the National Institute of Open
Schooling (NIOS) will benefit students who pass out from small
madrasas and maktabs to get enrolled for Secondary course of NIOS.
Under the new rule the notification for which was issued this Monday,
any one can enrol in a Secondary course level on the basis of a self-
certificate eliminating the need to show their previous academic work.
The notification issued by NIOS secretary D. S. Bist states that any
learner has to just state that "I have studied enough to be able to
pursue Secondary level course." This eliminates the need for having
any formal school education and therefore a school-leaving certificate
is also not required. The notification specifically clarifies that the
new provision "will also be applicable for those learners who wish to
enrol themselves in Secondary course of NIOS through Madarsas."
In an earlier notification issued in June of this year, NIOS stopped
insisting on madrasas and maktabs being registered society or be
affiliated/recognized by any Board. It also accredited all Madrasas
and Darul Ulooms which are recognized by other institutions.
Established in 1989 and initially known as National Open School, NIOS
provides for educational needs of out of school children, drop-outs
and those who do not have easy access to school facilities.
NIOS's Secondary Course is equivalent to the Xth standard. Students
are required to successfully complete a minimum of five subjects to
get the certification. Subjects offered at this level are Mathematics,
Science, Social Science, Economics, Business Studies, Home Science,
Word Processing, and Typewriting in English, Hindi, and Urdu. Many
language courses are also offered including in English, Hindi, and
Urdu.
Students who successfully complete Secondary course are eligible to
enroll in Senior Secondary which is equivalent to XIIth standard.
Link: http://www.nos.org/ Source:
http://www.twocircles.net/2008nov18/easier_open_school_enrollment_rules_will_be nefit_thousands_madrasa_students.html
The President-Elect Barack Obama and India
November 19, 2008 - 4:40pm.
By Martha Nussbaum
President-elect Barack Obama will face many challenges in foreign
policy, but forging a productive relationship with India will be high
on that list. President Clinton took a keen interest in India, and,
especially, in issues of rural development. He visited rural
development projects with his usual zest and curiosity, taking a
particularly keen interest in the situation of women. After his
Presidency, Clinton has continued his work on issues of poverty and
development. He was also virtually the only major international leader
to stand up right after the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 and publicly
condemn the perpetrators.
President Bush, by contrast, focused his efforts on the nuclear deal,
more or less neglecting issues of poverty and development. One bright
spot in the generally dismal record of his dealings with India,
however, was the decision to deny a visa to Narendra Modi, who had
been invited to lecture here by a group of Non-Resident Indians
(NRI's). The State Department cited his role in the Gujarat pogrom as
its reason for denying him a diplomatic visa and revoking his tourist
visa. This courageous stance in favor of human rights and against the
perpetrators of genocide was surprising but highly welome to the large
number of U. S.-based scholars of India who had petitioned the State
Department in this matter.
What course will President Obama choose? Will he, like Clinton, focus
on poverty, quality of life, gender equality, and an end to the
politics of hate? Or will he follow the lead of the NRI community,
focusing on entrepreneurship and nuclear partnership? Much discussion,
this week, has focused on Obama's appointment of Sonal Shah to his
transition team. I shall not add to the growing volume of commentary
on Shah's links to the VHP-A, since she has already issued one
statement condeming the politics of hate, and will soon be invited to
clarify her position further. Shah personally is involved with only
the VHP-A's relief efforts. There is room for concern, however, that
someone with such close ties to an organization that has been
complicit in terrorist activities against Muslims and Christians
should hold such a prominent place. The whole issue deserves the
further clarification that it will receive.
Instead of pursuing that question further, however, I should like to
focus on a letter written by then-candidate Obama to Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, dated September 23, 2008, and published in India
Abroad, the October 10 issue. I address these remarks to my former
University of Chicago Law School colleague in the spirit of the type
of respectful yet searching criticism that I know he will recognize as
a hallmark of our faculty workshops and discussions.
The Obama letter has three slightly disturbing characteristics.
First, the letter gives lengthy praise to the nuclear deal, without
acknowledging the widespread debate about the wisdom of that deal in
both nations. Perhaps, however, this silence simply reflects
politeness: Obama is surely aware that Singh has been an enthusiastic
backer of the deal, risking much political capital in the process.
Second, the letter speaks of future cooperation that will "tap the
creativity and dynamism of our entrepreneurs, engineers and
scientists," particularly in the area of alternative energy sources,
but never mentions a future partnership in the effort to eradicate
poverty and illiteracy. This silence, unlike the first, cannot be
explained by politeness, since Singh has devoted a great deal of
attention to issues of rural poverty, and it is plausible to think
that he could have gotten a lot further had he had more help from
abroad.
Third, and most disturbing, the letter commiserates with Singh for the
Delhi bomb blasts, but makes no mention of Gujarat or Orissa. Obama
offers Singh:
"my condolences on the painful losses your citizens have suffered in
the recent string of terrorist assaults. As I have said publicly, I
deplore and condemn the vicious attacks perpetrated in New Delhi
earlier this month, and on the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7. The
death and destruction is reprehensible, and you and your nation have
my deepest sympathy. These cowardly acts of mass murder are a stark
reminder that India suffers from the scourge of terrorism on a scale
few other nations can imagine."
Obama's use of the word "terrorism" to describe acts thought to be
perpetrated by Muslims, while not using that same word for acts
perpetrated by Hindus, is ominous. Muslims suffer greatly in India, as
elsewhere, from the stereotype of the violent Muslim, and both justice
and truth demand that we all do what we can to undermine these
stereotypes, bringing the guilty of all religions to justice, and
protecting the innocent. (The recent refusals of local bar
associations in India to defend Muslims accused of complicity in
terrorism, under threat of violence, shows that the rule of law itself
hangs in the balance.) Particularly odd is Obama's omission of events
in Orissa, which were and are ongoing. His phrase "the scourge of
terrorism" is virtually Bushian in its suggestion that terrorism is a
single thing (presumably Muslim) and that many nations suffer from
that single thing. (Note that it is not even true that most world
terrorism is caused by Muslims. Our University of Chicago colleague
Robert Pape's careful quantitative study of terrorism worldwide
concludes that the Tamil Tigers, a secular political organization, are
the bloodiest in the world. Moreover, Pape argues convincingly that
even when religion is used as a screen for terror; the real motives
are most often political, having to do with local conflicts.)
Obama's letter was written during a campaign. Perhaps it reflects
awareness of the priorities of NRI's who were working hard in that
campaign. At this point, however, he can start with a clean slate and
decide how to order his priorities regarding India. Let us hope that,
like Bill Clinton, he will give the center of his attention to issues
of human development (poverty, gender equality, education, health),
and that, when discussing the issue of religious violence, he will
study carefully the violence in Gujarat and Orissa, learn all he can
about the organizations of the Sangh Parivar, and adopt a policy that
denounces religious violence in all its forms. To mention one
immediate issue, it would be a disaster for global justice if Obama,
as President, were to heed the demands of the diaspora community to
grant Narendra Modi a visa -- especially since the Tehelka expose has
made so clear the cooperation of the government of the state of
Gujarat in those horrendous acts of violence.
President Obama has repeatedly shown a deeply felt commitment to the
eradication of a politics based upon hate. Can we have confidence that
he will carry that commitment into his relationship with India, even
when the demands of powerful leaders of the NRI community make that
difficult? I certainly hope so.
Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of
Law and Ethics at The University of Chicago, and the author of The
Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future. This
article first published on http://www.3quarksdaily.com/
Source: http://www.twocircles.net/2008nov19/president_elect_and_india.html
--http://newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1004
Posted by SultanShahin at 11:41 AM
...and I am Sid Harth
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On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:21:53 -0700 (PDT), bademiyansubhanallah <...@gmail.com
Gujarat govt refuses to contribute for minority students
Abid Suhail, TNN 10 August 2009, 04:34am IST
The Gujarat government has refused to contribute its share to the
scholarships awarded to the minority community students, according to
Union
minister for minority affairs Salman Khurshid. Talking to newsmen, he
disclosed that all other states had agreed to the proposal. He said
the scheme was being launched in 90 districts of the country,
registering the presence of 20 per cent and more minorities or more
than five lakh of them. Most of these districts, he added, were in UP,
Assam, Bihar and West Bengal. He said a meeting of MPs of different
parties held in that connection emphasised that greater attention
should be paid on literacy of minority community. Khurshid also said a
sum of Rs 990 crore had been allotted for different other schemes to
better the economic lot of the community. (Rashtriya Sahara 8/8).
Polygamy: Polygamy, says the Law Commission, is against the spirit of
Islam and the general impression that the Muslim personal law in India
allows it, is wrong. The Commission, headed by Justice AR Laxmanan,
and having Dr. Tahir Mahmood and BA Agarwal as members, has in
unanimous report submitted to the Union government, said while
polygamy is banned in Turkey, in Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq,
Morocco and Bangladesh, the practice is under the control of
administration or judiciary. Besides, says the commission, polygamy is
not common among Indian Muslims and those practising it are looked
down upon outside their families. However, the commission has not
recommended any change in the law because of the sensitivity of the
issue. (Qaumi Khabren 8/8).
Chinese Muslims: A middle in Aag (7/8) has demanded the Indian
government to take steps to prevent atrocities on Chinese Muslims.
Columnist K Vikram Rao claims that Pakistan is not taking any step in
this regard due to its close ties with China, but wants India to do
that. Rao said Vajpayee was a great critic of Chinese while in
Opposition, but the situation changed after he became the PM. The
Chinese Muslims, he says, want permission to offer Juma prayers in
mosques and right to undertake Haj pilgrimage even to those below 50.
Navodaya Vidyalayas: The Union government has restored the teaching of
Urdu in Navodaya schools of UP and asked the commissioner of these
schools to explain as to under whose orders this change had been
introduced. Meanwhile, the order to commission teachers to teach
Tamil, Telgu, Oriya and Punjabi has been cancelled and the principals
of the schools concerned have been told to arrange their return to
their homes. (Sahafat 8/8).
Urdu's Fragrance: BJP leader LK Advani has said the fragrance of Urdu
is unparalleled and it is a complete language. Speaking on the
occasion of the release of Urdu translation of his autobiography, Mera
Watan, Meri Zindagi, Advani added Hindi and Urdu were the most widely
spoken languages of the country. The chief guest of the function,
columnist MJ Akbar regretted that the language was orphaned after the
country's independence and hoped that the situation would change.
Speaking on the occasion, BJP president Rajnath Singh said his party
was opposed to dividing the country on the basis of caste and creed,
but did not favour reservation on the basis of religion.
...and I am Sid Harth
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On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:19:27 -0700 (PDT), Sid Harth <...@yahoo.com
Emraan Hashmi case: Intellectuals must protect India from
communalization
Submitted by admin4 on 10 August 2009 - 5:43pm. Articles Indian
Muslim
By Jasim Mohammad,
According to a shocking news, noted actor Emraan Hashmi has been
denied NOC by Nibana Cooperative Housing Society. Emraan Hashmi wanted
to purchase a flat in the building which was his legitimate right.
Consequently, famous film director Mahesh Bhatt and Emraan Hashmi
jointly held a press conference and revealed their pain. Instead of
setting the wrongs done to Emraan, Maharashtra police slapped cases
under different sections of Indian Penal Code against Emraan Hashmi
and Mahesh Bhatt without realizing larger issues involved.
This is not the first incident in which a Muslim citizen has been
denied his right of purchasing property within Indian territory. There
are numerious such cases, some have been reported and some have been
buried. Sometime back, Shabana Azmi had also made such complaint.
Leaving aside Emraan Hashmi episode, the issue must be discussed
intellectually.
When India attained freedom, large number of Muslims decided to stay
back. Those who remained in India are satisfied that their decision
was right. No doubt Muslims are far better in India than Pakistan but
since last two decades, a sort of degeneration into our socio-politico
atmosphere has taken place. Advani’s Rathyatra [1990] left blood trail
in the way and demolition of Babri Mosque [1992] and inaction by the
government further bolstered Hindutva elements. Veer Sawarkar’s
Hindutva philosophy derived from European fascism has taken over our
Constitutional secularism. The reason is that our policy makers and
politicians failed to translate constitutional secularism into ground
level realities. They allowed religious places to come up on public
lands and went on to either overlook or allow communal forces to take
ground. Administrative aloofness from fascist tendencies to take root
resulted in Gujarat genocide of Muslims [2002]. But we have not
learned any lesson and even today are tolerating communal activities
of some organizations.
When our forefathers were busy in debating constitution, one question
which was looming over their head was: how to satisfy aspirations of
all sections of the Indian society. Constituent Assembly debates
indicate in very clear terms that they had desire to develop a
cohesive and scientific society within India. Hence, they enacted
special laws for the tribal and deprived classes on one hand and
inserted special Articles in the constitution for the minorities on
the other. Their intention was completely in the direction of evolving
a peaceful sustainable Indian citizenry without any bias. But our
politicians of later years could not govern the nation on the lines
decided by constitution framers.
A very large section of the majority community is still secular. If I
say that Mahesh Bhatt represents that section, it will be no wrong but
unfortunately the governments, even those governments which are formed
by secular political parties fail to appreciate individual efforts of
secularizing Indian society. A new trend is emerging and emerging fast
in which secular parties make alliances with communal forces just for
government formation. It is a very dangerous trend because communal
forces sometimes form the government on the shoulder of secular forces
and then implement their hidden agenda. It is this modus operandi by
which BJP has succeeded in saffronising administrative machinery of
the country. History will record that the credit of this trend goes to
George Farnandes. BJP was treated as untouchable before George
Farnandes aligned with it. Slowly other such smaller outfits also
joined the race of sharing power on the cost of diluting their secular
identity. It is high time when political parties should clear cut
declare their stand either on Right, centre or left. If they do not do
so, it is the responsibility of our intellectuals to expose their
greed of power before masses.
What is most painful is that when Emraan Hashmi made allegations of
bias, right or wrong, Maharashtra government should have sought
explanation from the concerned society. Instead of safeguarding the
rights of citizens, the govt. did just the opposite and slapped cases
which has further encouraged communal elements to pursue biased
approach.
Why all this being happened? I would like to draw the attention of
concerned people to the fact that as may as 28 reports of different
inquiry commissions including Sri Krishna Commission are lying under
dust. It was the Maharashtra govt. which had appointed sri Krishna
commission amid much fanfare but failed to implement its
recommendation which has clearly held responsible many communal
politicians and police officers for the well planned post-Babri Maslid
demolition riots. Why did the govt. with all its resources shy away
from booking culprits?
We must ponder over another issue. Since a very long time, the
government has allowed Saraswati Shishu Mandir [RSS schools] to impart
education to children as per their own curriculum. Due to these
schools, today we have youths whose minds have been completely
polluted and communalized. There is no effort on the part of the
secularists to de-communalize them. If we fail still in channelising
our energies in that direction, I am afraid that demographic changes
within Indian cities and even villages will divide whole India into
Hindu and Muslim India. The development will not be in the larger
interest of the country because forces hostile to India will try to
exploit the situation.
We all are Indians. We are all committed to safeguarding this nation
and its heritage. It is our national duty to spread message of peace
and secularism and to counter communal forces by every mean. If the
government is not acting, if the politicians are failing and if our
administration is shying away, it is the duty of silent but effective
secularists to come out openly and oppose every move of the
communalists within the frame of democracy and law. The highest values
of all religions are humanism and to create a society based on
justice. It is time we woke up and also made people aware of
communalism with hidden politico-economic agenda. Survival of all
sections of Indian citizenry is foremost condition of survival and
developments of the nation.
(The writer is Research Scholar of Aligarh Muslim University. He can
be contacted at jasi...@gmail.com)
...and I am Sid Harth
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On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:21:30 -0700 (PDT), Sid Harth <...@yahoo.com
I know religious profiling works both ways: Emraan Hashmi
Submitted by admin4 on 10 August 2009 - 1:55pm.
By Subhash K. Jha, IANS,
Mumbai : As he awaits the verdict of State Minorities Commission (SMC)
on his complaint against a south Mumbai housing society, Bollywood
star Emraan Hashmi says he know religious profiling is practised by
people in more than one community. Emraan has complained he was not
allowed to buy a house in the society because he is a Muslim.
"The problem of being denied property on grounds of religion is
prevalent all over the country. Now so many Muslims have come forward
claiming the same. And mind you, I know religious profiling works both
ways.
"I know of Muslim colonies where Hindus are not allowed to stay. I
spoke out as a segregated citizen, not a Muslim.I want all
discrimination in property allotment to go. Otherwise why do we call
ourselves a democracy?" Emraan told IANS.
The actor alleged he was denied permission to buy a house in the
upmarket Pali Hill area of Mumbai because he was Muslim. Pali Hill's
Nibbana Cooperative Society, he said, refused to give him a 'no-
objection certificate'. He filed a complaint with the SMC, demanding
action against the society members. The society reportedly has mostly
Hindus and a couple of Catholic families.
There were more developments in the case Sunday, when a Mumbai
resident accused Emraan and film director Mahesh Bhatt of "fomenting
communal tensions to gain cheap publicity". The two had held a press
conference to highlight the complaint.
Emraan has been forced to beef up his security.
"He moves around with a lot of securitymen. It's a precautionary
measure. His house is looking like a fortress," said a source close to
the actor.
"The complaint doesn't deter Emraan at all. It's an age-old ploy to
silence you. No one can accuse Emraan of inciting communal disharmony.
Religious discrimination in buying and renting property has been going
on a very long time. No one talked about it openly. It's a sensitive
issue."
Office-bearers of the housing society have been changing their
statements repeatedly.
"They said he was kept out because he was serial kisser," the source
said. "For some reason they also made up an absurd allegation that
Emraan's parents barged into the office of the property dealers.
Emraan's parents had taken a proper appointment and gone and they were
treated badly. They were told the housing society people were busy.
"Emraan was enraged because his parents were badly treated. Emraan had
earlier bought an apartment in 2007 in Pali Hill. But there was no
such problem. This was his first real encounter with discrimination."
Now the man from whom Emraan wanted to buy the house has backed out.
"The prospective property seller now says he doesn't want to sell. But
for Emraan it is no longer about personal hurt. He's standing up for
an issue. People have accused him of doing this to gain publicity. Let
them say what they like. Emraan doesn't care what the cynics say,"
said a friend of the actor.
Asked why the actor had received so little support from the film
fraternity, the friend said: "He wasn't expecting any real support.
Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi have spoken on it. Also, Saif Ali Khan.
Emraan is prepared to take the issue to its logical conclusion. He
hopes people will no longer keep quiet about being denied property in
spite of being law-abiding citizens and paying taxes."
The actor is currently busy shooting for Ekta Kapoor's "Once Upon A
Time".
...and I am Sid Harth
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On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:29:18 -0700 (PDT), Sid Harth <...@yahoo.com
'Miscommunication by agent led to actor housing dispute'
Bharati Dubey, TNN 11 August 2009, 03:07am IST
MUMBAI: The Maharashtra State Minorities' Commission has resolved the
Emraan Hashmi case by making a scapegoat of his realty agent.
The commission concluded that a miscommunication created by the estate
agent gave rise to the dispute. The panel heard both parties-Hashmi
and housing society-though the person found "guilty'' was not called
for the hearing. On July 30, Hashmi had complained that members of
Nibbana, a housing society in Pali Hill, had refused to give him an
NOC even after he paid Rs 1 lakh for a flat.
Commission vice-chairman Abraham Mathai said, "Both parties resolved
their problems. The society secretary, J P Chatri, assured us that
they would welcome Hashmi if D N Suvarna or anyone else sold him a
flat.'' The agent, Jagjit Arora, said he was happy that the row was
over but added he "was not told about the hearing''.
Hashmi told TOI that he stood by what he had said earlier. "That's
exactly what I told the panel,'' he said. "Now, if it wants to resolve
the issue peacefully, peace is what I want.''
...and I am Sid Harth
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On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:49:08 -0700 (PDT), Sid Harth <...@yahoo.com
Rethinking Islam
Monday, August 10, 2009
Radical Islamism & Jihad
03 Dec 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com
Will we allow mainstream Islam to turn into a moderate fringe, while
extremists take centre-stage?
I was also ashamed to tell them (my children) that the terrorists were
Muslims and came from a country that was created in the name of Islam.
…It's all very well for us to say Islam has nothing to do with
extremism and terrorism. We can go on deluding ourselves that these
psychopaths do not represent us. However, the world finds it hard to
accept this line of argument as it sees the extremists increasingly
assert themselves and take the centre-stage while mainstream Islam
turns into a moderate fringe, writes Aijaz Zaka Syed.
Also: Pakistanis, You left us in 1947, Now leave us alone!
By A.M.Jamsheed Bahsa
And 'Enough is enough' by FARAH KHAN ALI
URL for this page: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1041
--------------------
No place to hide
Will we allow mainstream Islam to turn into a moderate fringe, while
extremists take centre-stage?
By Aijaz Zaka Syed
December 01, 2008
Watching the terror nightmare unfold in Mumbai over the past three
days on TV, my children have repeatedly asked me: "Who are these
terrorists and why are they doing this?" And every time I wished I
could offer them a convincing answer. I was clueless why these people
had taken over Mumbai and were targeting people who had nothing to do
with them. I was also ashamed to tell them that the terrorists were
Muslims and came from a country that was created in the name of
Islam.
At work, while my colleagues went about covering the madness in Mumbai
and laying out pages with the images of the Taj Hotel with its Islamic
arches and domes go up in smoke, I find it hard to look at them in the
eye.
This happens all the time. Every time innocents are targeted in the
name of Islam around the world, one can't face one's non-Muslim
friends and colleagues. A distraught friend who has devoted her life
to speaking and fighting on behalf of Arabs and Muslims wrote: "I've
had it with the Arabs and Muslims and Islamic militancy. Forgive me
but I am throwing in the towel." I couldn't write back to her. She
grew up in Mumbai and is upset. She went on to say: "The Muslims and
Islam have a problem and only they can solve it. If they do not, the
whole world will turn against them."
If this is how our most loyal friends feel, imagine the sentiments and
reactions of the rest of the world. Can you blame the world if it's
turning against Muslims? What do you expect when not a day passes
without the name of our faith being dragged through the mud by fellow
believers around the world?
I know that Muslim leaders, including those in the highest echelons of
power, have lately started speaking out against the extremists. The
Darul Uloom Deoband in India, one of the oldest and most respected
centres of learning in the Muslim world, issued a fatwa against
terrorism at a large gathering of Islamic scholars in June. Last
month, nearly 5,000 scholars backed the edict at a huge congregation
in Hyderabad. The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), and Saudi
Arabia have, of late, been vehement in condemning these repulsive
acts of violence targeting innocents. But clearly, we need to do more
to be heard.
The great irony of the Mumbai attacks is the killing of ATS chief
Hemant Karkare, a brave officer trying to establish the link between
Hindu extremists and the Malegaon blasts. He was killed outside the
Cama hospital on Wednesday night. Obviously, some Muslims do not know
their friends from their enemies.
It's all very well for us to say Islam has nothing to do with
extremism and terrorism. We can go on deluding ourselves that these
psychopaths do not represent us. However, the world finds it hard to
accept this line of argument as it sees the extremists increasingly
assert themselves and take the centre-stage while mainstream Islam
turns into a moderate fringe.
Aijaz Syed is Opinion Editor, Khaleej Times
Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=ca0ddccc-f725-4957-91 c7-5ba0f568b371
----
Pakistanis, You left us in 1947, Now leave us alone!
By A.M.Jamsheed Bahsa
The Mumbai terror attack has no doubt shocked the nation. It was an
attack on Mumbai, an attack on India. It is a matter of concern for
all of us Indians. But the community that has to be concerned most is
that of the Muslims of India, because those who came and attacked the
financial capital on the fateful day of 26/11 were bearing Muslim
names and had come from the so-called Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
It is a different thing that the Muslims would disown them as
practising Muslims, for they were sporting guns and ammunition and
above all they were wining and dining, and who knows, womanising,
something not expected from hard-core religious elements. To a common
man they were just Muslim mercenaries on a mission to cause maximum
damage as per the directions of their mentors sitting across the
border. They did exactly that and vanished from this world, a fate
they deserved most. Then what next? Pakistanis may try to put a brave
face but they cannot deny that these evil men were their countrymen,
born, brought up and trained by a terrorist organisation in their
country for this day.
The Indian Muslims, particularly our Urdu Press should behave
responsibly. It is no time for a blame game. It is no time for
concoction of a theory of conspiracy alleging complicity of the
saffron brigade. It may be best left to the investigating agencies to
unravel the real players behind this sordid drama. The whole of India
and every Indian is angry. Not for the loss of life and destruction
caused alone, but for the attitude of the politicians and helplessness
of the government of the day. The people's ire would be shown
elsewhere in the next ballot, but the mood is one of action, a firm
action, a decisive message that should go across the borders and the
steps that should be taken to secure the nation and insulate it from
future attacks. Yesterday it was through land, today it was through
sea and who knows tomorrow it may be through air. All these vulnerable
places have to be protected and secured for we should allow no
incursions into our land from any side. These steps are vital for the
future of this country. The prime concern of the citizen today is how
safe and secure we are in our own country. This is the general feeling
and mood of the countrymen.
Like me, many such Indian Muslims are equally angry and frustrated and
unable to understand why disaster after disaster is staring at them
all the time. What's wrong with our community and why are we in such a
position of feeling like strangers and alien in our own land. We have
been living here for centuries and also after we were ditched by the
greatest villain of the century, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Company, who
partitioned India in the name of two-nation theory. Don't the Muslims
of today feel angry at them for they were responsible for our present
state of affairs? They left us, and still they are not leaving us
alone to deal with our problems ourselves. Who are they to interfere
in our internal matters? Muslims should come out in open and tell the
people of Pakistan or any element fighting in the name of Islam to
keep off from our problems and mind their own business.
Govt of India did the right thing in issuing a demarche, a strongly
worded message to Pakistan, to do something tangible to wipe out the
remnants of terror outfits from their soil and hand over all those
listed wanted criminals that are enjoying the hospitality of the
Pakistani people at the cost of Indians, including the infamous Don
Dawood Ibrahim, the kingpin of 1993 Bombay Blasts and whose complicity
in 26/11 terror attack can also not be ruled out. President Zardari,
came on his knees virtually pleading with India to spare Pakistan and
not to punish her as retaliation for the act of a few disgruntled
elements. The same voice of concern and anguish came from Premier
Gilani and his Foreign Minister recently touring Indian. Mere words
would not do, Mr. Zardari and Company, show it in action and deeds
alone would gain confidence of the people of India.
Indians demands firm action in one voice and would not tolerate any
more attacks on them. Muslims of India are solidly behind the
Government and the people of this great country. It is said wise men
do not do desperate things in desperate times. It would be wise for
Indians to act with restraint. This is the call from across the globe
as like us the enemy across the borders too is armed with nuclear
arsenals. Any emotive action at this stage would not be acceptable to
the world at large either. The world is not prepared to go through a
nuclear holocaust. It calls for sober thinking and actions. Pakistan
was told in strongest terms that it should act and cooperate with
India to solve the terror plot besides curbing the activities of the
terror groups that are freely moving in the country. The same
sentiments were echoed by US Secretary of State, Condolisa Rice, who
is travelling to India shortly, specifically to offer us American
support.
It is incumbent on the Muslim intelligentsia and the Urdu Press in
particular that they do not inflame passions in any way. Instead, they
should send a clear cut message to all the Muslims that India is our
country, where we have to live and die. We are Indians and Muslims and
there is no distinction between these two. Our prosperity and well
being lie here and nowhere else. If we have any problems or
grievances, it is for us to try to resolve them in a democratic
manner. No one from outside need interfere. We the Muslims of India
constitute the biggest Muslim population of the world after Indonesia.
Though we are leaderless for the time being , we are resilient enough
to sort out our own problems without outside interference as we have
been doing in the last 61 years.
The Muslim Press whether it is Urdu Press or any other vernacular
managed by Muslims, has a duty of guiding its people in this hour of
crisis. Muslims are at a crossroad with no guide in sight. The
educated Muslim class should rise up to spread the message of love,
compassion and brotherhood. We need to reassure the nation. The bullet
of the insane terrorists did not distinguish between Muslims and
others. Among those who got killed were a fair number of innocent
Muslims too, over 40 at the last count among the 179 dead according to
the latest official figures. It was a pathetic description when a
bearded Muslim was narrating the ghastly incident at a TV programme,
"We, the People" telecast by 24x7 News channel, how six of his family
members were brutally killed on the spot while he was away to fetch a
water bottle. His voice was chocking, eyes welled up with tears,
unable to describe how he would live along with the orphans. This
tugged at the hearts of one and all participating in the debate. The
silence in the hall was eerie and mood sombre. We could feel the mood
of the participants in the debate. Those who were watching too could
not control their emotions. Our eyes too welled up, some hid their
faces with their hands, and a few were seen fighting their tears. One
could immediately feel as if our own family members were killed there.
Imagine how the family of 195 people who were killed would be feeling
at the loss of their near and dear ones. Think again of the sacrifice
made by our great son of India Karkare, ATS Chief, and five others of
his team, who laid down their lives performing the sacred duty of this
great nation. This was the tragedy that unfolded on 26/11. My heart
goes out to all those families who are grieving over the loss of their
dear ones.
Our nation is great and so are our people. The spirit is high and
India will certainly bounce back. Mumbai's cosmopolitan spirit is
springing back to normalcy, with business as usual. But the incident
has left a deep scar on the psyche of the people. Let's all allow our
investigating team the time and peace to probe while people keep a
tight vigil in their respective places. Till such time, do not lend
ears to rumours. It is our ardent duty to guard our unity in diversity
with life. Jai Hind.
A.M.Jamsheed Basha is a Chennai-based columnist
------
'Enough is enough'
By FARAH KHAN ALI
2 Dec 2008, 0000 hrs IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Potpourri/Enough_is_enough/articleshow/37801 20.cms
I am angry, frustrated, upset and emotionally distraught with the
terror attack that struck our city and nation on the night of 26th
November 2008. How dare this happen to us, how dare these people be
allowed to enter our land with arms and ammunition without the
government taking any responsibility for this major catastrophe....
I was in Dubai the night the terror struck and was sitting next to an
Arab woman while watching the news. She was cursing Osama Bin Laden
and saying that how dare he call himself a Muslim because no religion
allows you to kill another human being. She was angry with him for
allowing the world to believe that Islam preaches hate and that due to
the fanaticism propagated by him, people wanted to believe that terror
had a religion.
Namely Islam... I even got a message by sms from my friend Mrs
Sharmila Thackeray saying that, 'All those who had lost their lives
while saving this city are Marathis and that MNS workers are busy
donating blood and helping police for rescue operations.' At first I
was shocked then angry as I had just heard the news that my close
friend Ashish Chaudhary had lost his sister and brother-in-law. I sent
her back a message telling her to get a life as in times like this one
does not care from where you come from, it is a humanitarian loss. I
could not believe that at time like this Raj Thackeray and his wife
were trying to promote party politics. I also know that after she
reads this she may never talk to me again but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I am
not going to take this lying down anymore and not show my outburst to
these politicians because a member of my family or I know them
personally...
Kudos to Mrs Hemant Karkare, the widow of an exceptional office who
died in the field of duty, when she refused to take any compensation
from Narendra Modi... I doubt either of these politicians would be
brave enough to put their lives ahead of their countrymen. Why should
we spend so much money providing Z level security for politicians
who... divide our country with their inflammatory speeches?
Frankly in a country of ONE BILLION people we do not have ONE person
who can truly be called our 'LEADER'... As a citizen of India I do not
want to waste my vote voting for a government that does not care, and
one that makes promises only at the time of the elections. I... urge
the people of India not to cast their votes for any party until they
pledge their own lives to protect the citizens of this country at
whatever cost...
Jai Hind."
FARAH KHAN ALI
URL for this page: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1041
Posted by SultanShahin at 2:57 PM
...and I am Sid Harth
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On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:02:16 -0700 (PDT), bademiyansubhanallah <...@gmail.com
Hashmi's U-turn, blames miscommunication for controversy
Posted: Monday , Aug 10, 2009 at 1610 hrs
Mumbai:
In a U-turn, actor Emraan Hashmi, who had alleged that he was denied a
flat by a housing society because he was Muslim, claimed there was no
discrimination against him and the controversy arose because of a
"miscommunication".
"The dispute between me and the members of Nibbana housing society has
been resolved. The society had not discriminated against me. There had
been a miscommunication," Hashmi, who had sparked a furore with his
allegation of religious profiling, told reporters after a hearing on
his
complaint at the State Minorities Commission.
Hashmi's lawyer Majeed Memon said that a broker Jagjit Arora had told
the actor that the society had refused to sell the flat as Hashmi was
a Muslim.
"The secretary of the society today told Emraan that they had not
discriminated against the actor and that if anyone in the building
wants to sell their flat then Emraan can buy it," Memon said.
Secretary J P Chatri told the Commission that "they would not refuse
the actor on religious grounds as there are several other Muslims
residing in the building," the lawyer said.
The owner of the flat D U Suvarna, who was also present during the
hearing, said he would be more than happy to sell the flat to the
actor who is like a "son" to him.
"I have not decided on what I will do with my flat. But if I decide to
sell the flat then my first choice would be Hashmi," Suvarna said.
On July 31, the actor approached the Minorities
Commission accusing the housing society in posh Pali Hill of religious
profiling by refusing a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to him to
purchase a flat in the society.
The society houses film and television actors including well known
villain Prem Chopra.
"The issue has been blown out of proportion by the media. It was a
miscommunication and has been resolved after all the parties sat
across the table," Naseem Siddiqui, Chairman of the Minorities
Commission said.
...and I am Sid Harth
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On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:31:39 -0700 (PDT), bademiyansubhanallah <...@gmail.com
Rethinking Islam
Monday, August 10, 2009
Destroy Lashkar Camps: Why Indian Muslims are an existential threat to
Pakistan?
Islam,Terrorism and Jihad
04 Dec 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com
We have no way of knowing precisely what message US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice is carrying from India to Pakistan. Like millions of
Indians, I hope, the government has made it clear that now that we
have incontrovertible evidence against Lashkar-e-Tayyaba's involvement
in the recent terrorist attack on India, we will ourselves take steps
to destroy the terrorist camps in POK as well as Islamist Markaz Ad-
Dawa-wal-Irshad brainwashing camps at Muridke and elsewhere unless
Pakistan takes concrete action against these criminals and destroys
their camps for good.
There are suggestions that the response be internationalised. But let
not such suggestions merely confuse, obfuscate and delay the response.
If there is one phrase the world has heard from Indians of all hues
repeated again and again and again, throughout last week, it is:
Enough is Enough!
We, the Muslims of India, have particular reason to demand that these
dens of evil be closed down and destroyed. There is not the slightest
reason to doubt the known fact now that these Pakistani terrorist
organisations are particularly after the destruction of the Muslim
community in India. [See the article below.] The very idea of Indian
Muslims living peacefully and marching towards prosperity strikes at
the very root of Pakistan's existential philosophy. The very existence
of a prosperous Muslim community in India destroys the Two-Nation
Theory on which the state of Pakistan is based. The very fact that
Muslims in India not only live peacefully among themselves but also in
harmony with a variety of other religious, linguistic, ethnic
communities while Muslims in Pakistan are deeply divided among
themselves and constantly at each others' throats is a profoundly
destabilising factor for the very existence of Pakistan. That
Pakistan's Muslim Sindhis, Baluchis, Pathans, Saraikis, and indeed
Mohajirs would love to join the Indian mainstream, given half a
chance, cannot possibly be lost on the Pakistani establishment that
has spawned these terrorist organisations to further its dubious
strategic imperatives.
We the Muslims of India, by our very existence, more so on account of
our peaceful and prosperous existence, are an existential threat to
Pakistan. And not just to its terrorists, which are in any case a part
of the establishment. We can't help it. There is nothing we can do
about it. That is why it is in our particular interest, in the
interest of Muslims of India, that these terrorist camps are destroyed
and the criminals who have wreaked so much havoc on our land are
brought to justice.
For more concrete evidence and background information on Lashkar-e-
Tayyaba, read on….
Sultan Shahin, editor, NewAgeIslam.com
**************
Lies of the Lashkar
By Yoginder Sikand
Not possessing a television set myself, it was only just now that was
I able to listen to the recording, hosted on the Internet, of a
conversation which took place some days ago between a terrorist holed
up at Nariman House in Mumbai and calling himself 'Imran Babar' and
reporters of the India TV channel. (<http://uk.youtube.com/watch?
v=QhO6rynb1C8)
It is plainly evident from the conversation that the terrorist was a
Pakistani, most likely a Punjabi. This obvious from his accent and the
sort of Urdu he speaks. One can easily make out that he had been
carefully tutored by his mentors who masterminded the deadly terror
assault on Mumbai to intersperse his hate-driven harangue with some
Hindi words (shanti, parivar etc.) and to use Urdu words in the
typical Hindi way (jabardasti, instead of zabardasti, etc.) so as to
give the misleading impression that he and the other terrorists with
him were Indian Muslims, not Pakistanis. The terrorists claimed to
belong to the 'Deccan', in India, but it is obvious that this was not
at all the case. There can be no doubt that these Pakistani terrorists
were trained to lie that they were Indian Muslims who were allegedly
resorting to terror in revenge for the atrocities committed on Muslims
in India.
Why the Pakistan-based terror outfit behind the attacks would do this
needs no explanation. The aim of the attacks was probably to
destabilise India, fuel Hindu-Muslim violence, instigate Muslims to
take to terror in response to attacks by Hindus and then drown India
in flames. This, indeed, is precisely what several Pakistan-based self-
styled Islamist groups have been consistently plotting to do for
decades, although, mercifully, by and large, the Indian Muslims have
refused to fall into their trap. It is to the credit of the Indian
Muslims that, barring some stray exceptions, they have consistently
opposed all forms of terror, including that committed in the name of
Islam, despite the growing menace of Hindutva-driven fascist terror
across India, sometimes abetted by the state, of which they are the
principal and worst-hit victims.
The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba has never made any bones about its dastardly
plans of destabilising and destroying India. It has gone to the
ridiculous extent of claiming that it will not rest till the 'Islamic'
flag is hoisted atop the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi and till
India is absorbed into what it calls in its lunacy 'Greater Pakistan'.
In order to gain theological legitimacy for its deadly project it even
claims that the Prophet Muhammad is said to have declared that Muslims
who participate in a war with India would be saved from the fires of
hell. There can be no doubt that this sort of horrendous misuse and
deliberate distortion of Islam by the Lashkar has played a major role
in attracting vast numbers of would-be terrorists in Pakistan to its
fold who are fed with the poisonous propaganda that by participating
in what it calls a holy war against India they would win a ticket to
heaven.
The Pakistani state, it must be noted, has taken no action whatsoever
against this heinous propaganda, and elements of the ISI are said to
be in cahoots with the Lashkar and other such hate-driven self-styled
Islamist groups in the country. In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, and
when asked what action Pakistan had taken against the Lashkar, the
Pakistani President hurriedly shrugged off the question by claiming
that the Lashkar had been 'banned'. If that is indeed the case—which
it is obviously not—then how does Mr. Zardari explain the fact that,
as the Lashkar's official Urdu website itself announces, on the 29th
of November the Lashkar's supremo Hafiz Muhammad Saeed addressed what
it termed a 'mammoth' convention at 'New Saeedabad' (a locality named
after him?), organized by the Sindh unit of the Markaz Dawat ul-Irshad
(the 'religious' and political wing of the Lashkar). It was held, of
all places, in the premises of the local Government Degree College.
The Lashkar's website is replete with news about the whirlwind tours
of Saeed and his cronies across the country, delivering rabble-rousing
speeches, thundering against India and non-Muslims in general. And the
outfit, Mr. Zardari wants us to believe, is 'banned'.
Having been writing on Indian Muslim issues for years now, I can say
with some confidence that the general Indian Muslim is completely fed
up and fiercely opposed to the gross misuse of Islam by the Pakistani
state and Pakistan-based self-styled Islamist outfits. Deep down
inside, most of them lament the very creation of Pakistan, based on
the discredited 'two nation' theory, for it has left them permanently
helpless in the face of Hindutva aggression. They know full well that,
despite its bombastic claims, Pakistan is far being from the 'Islamic
state' it claims to be—with its problems of poverty, illiteracy,
mounting inequalities, endemic violence, and lawlessness, its corrupt
American puppet politicians who have reduced Islam to a plaything to
be employed for their own purposes, and so on. They face the brunt of
mounting Islamophobia stirred up by Hindutva fascist forces that play
upon Pakistan's dubious Kashmir policy and the heinous crimes of
Pakistan-based self-styled Islamist radicals to whip up violently anti-
Muslim sentiments in India. The general Indian Muslim's undisguised
disgust of the terror in the name of Islam that groups like the
Lashkar are seeking to spearhead is amply evident in the news that is
pouring in of Muslims across the country roundly denouncing the Mumbai
attacks and even insisting that the dreaded terrorists not be allowed
to be buried on Indian soil.
India's Muslims need to be seen as a potential asset, rather than a
liability, in the struggle against terrorism. Scores of Indian ulema
or Islamic clerics are now openly castigating all forms of terror,
organizing mass rallies and even issuing fatwas to get the message
across. The Indian state and civil society urgently needs to realize
that hounding the Indian Muslims, instead of seeking to listen to
their voices and concerns and genuinely dialoguing with them, can only
play into the hands of outfits of groups like the Lashkar. The fact
that Hindutva terror and Islamist terror only feed on each other must
also be urgently acknowledged. Our very future as a country crucially
depends on all communities, particularly Hindus and Muslims,
presenting a joint front to work together for peace and security. That
would be a fitting reply to both Hindutva and radical Islamist forces,
whose very existence is based on the frighteningly Manichaean notion
of perpetual antagonism between Hindus and Muslims.
Backgrounders:
LeT emerging as Qaida's successor
6 Jul 2005, 0156 hrs IST,
Indrani Bagchi & M Saleem Pandit, TNN
NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR: Tuesday's Ayodhya attack is a deadly reminder of
Lashkar-e-Taiba's core ideology — it goes well beyond opposing
India's sovereignty in J&K. According to the South Asia Terrorism
Portal, the Lashkar's agenda, as outlined in a pamphlet titled, 'Why
Are We Waging Jihad', includes the restoration of Islamic rule over
all parts of India.
The terrorist group started out as a wholly owned subsidiary of ISI,
Pakistan's intelligence outfit. But over the years it has grown beyond
its creator and is now regarded by many terrorism analysts as the
successor to Al-Qaida — not as a monolithic organisation, but as a
loosely constructed federation.
It propagates a narrow Islamist fundamentalism that is uncomfortably
close to Saudi Wahhabism. It wants to unite all Muslim majority
regions in countries that surround Pakistan.
Hence its presence in Afghanistan, J&K, Chechnya and other parts of
Central Asia.
The outfit has a history of executing precision attacks outside J&K,
the most prominent being its suspected role in the December 13, 2001
attack on Parliament and the 2002 strike on the Akshardham temple in
Gandhinagar.
Security sources say LeT had planned a similar in Ayodhya in 2002, but
it fell apart after the militants entrusted with the task were killed
in an encounter in Tughlaqabad.
BSF's senior intelligence officer .K Srinivasan, believes LeT
operatives are also active in UP and Gujurat besides being spread
across Jammu and Kashmir. Srinivasan, who has
been involved in anti-militancy operations in Jammu and Kashmir since
2000, told TOI that Lashskar's involvement in the Ayodhya attack
cannot be ruled out given its track record.
Shahzad Ahmad alias Abu Shamas ofPakistan is the supreme operational
commander of the outfit in Jammu and Kashmir. Shahzad resides in
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir but has a representative, Dr Zaan, stationed
in Bandipora, North Kashmir, acting as operational commander these
days, Srinivasan said.
The UN took the ultimate step in May of banning the LeT and all its
sister concerns for its links with Al-Qaida, through UN Resolution
1267 under which all states are obliged to freeze its assets, prevent
its entry into or transit through their territories.
The fact that this is yet to find ground in LeT's home base, Pakistan,
has not escaped notice.
Formed in 1990 in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, the Lashkar-e-
Toiba is the military wing of the Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad, an
Islamic fundamentalist organisation of the Ahle-Hadith sect in
Pakistan. Its first presence in J&K was recorded in 1993 when 12
Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries infiltrated across the LoC.
However, after being banned by the US and at different times,
Pakistan, the LeT has been reorganised into two supposedly exclusive
bodies — one devoted to preaching of Islam under Hafiz Muhammad Saeed
and the other to carry on its violent campaign under the leadership of
Kashmiri scholar Maulana Abdul Wahid Kashmiri.
Compared to other ultra outfits in J&K, LeT has attracted attention
for two reasons: its well planned and executed attacks on security
forces and for the dramatic killings of non-Muslim civilians. In fact,
it is generally noted that LeT cadres prefer death to arrest, pointing
to a high degree of motivation.
*****
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba ('Army of the Pure')
Formation
Formed in 1990 in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, the Lashkar-e-
Tayyaba (also known as Jama'at-ud-Da'awa) is based in Muridke near
Lahore in Pakistan and is headed by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.
Its first presence in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was recorded in 1993
when 12 Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries infiltrated across the Line
of Control (LoC) in tandem with the Islami Inquilabi Mahaz, a
terrorist outfit then active in the Poonch district of J&K.
1. Proscription
The LeT is outlawed in India under the Unlawful Activities
(Prevention) Act.
It was included in the Terrorist Exclusion List by the US Government
on December 5, 2001. The US administration designated the Lashkar-e-
Tayyaba as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) on December 26,
2001. It is also a banned organization in Britain since March 30,
2001.
The group was proscribed by the United Nations in May 2005.
The military regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf banned the Lashkar-e-
Tayyaba in Pakistan on January 12, 2002.
2. Objectives/Ideology
The LeT's professed ideology goes beyond merely challenging India's
sovereignty over the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The Lashkar's
'agenda', as outlined in a pamphlet titled Why are we waging jihad
includes the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India.
Further, the outfit seeks to bring about a union of all Muslim
majority regions in countries that surround Pakistan. Towards that
end, it is active in J&K, Chechnya and other parts of Central Asia.
Hafiz Saeed, a scholar of Islam, has said that the purpose of Jihad is
to carry out a sustained struggle for the dominance of Islam in the
entire world and to eliminate the evil forces and the ignorant. He
considers India, Israel and US to be his prime enemies and has
threatened to launch Fidayeen (suicide squad) attacks on American
interests too.
The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba does not believe in democracy and nationalism.
According to its ideology, it is the duty of every 'Momin' to protect
and defend the interests of Muslims all over the world where Muslims
are under the rule of non-Muslim in the democratic system. It has,
thus chosen the path of Jihad as the suited means to achieve its goal.
Cadres are drawn from the Wahabi school of thought.
Jihad, Hafiz Saeed said during the All Pakistan Ulema Convention held
on July 17, 2003, at Lahore, is the only way Pakistan can move towards
dignity and prosperity.
The LeT has consistently advocated the use of force and vowed that it
would plant the 'flag of Islam' in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.
3. Leadership and Command Structure
The outfit's headquarters (200 acres) is located at Muridke, 30 kms
from Lahore, which was built with contributions and donations from the
Middle East, with Saudi Arabia being the biggest benefactor.
The headquarters houses a Madrassa (seminary), a hospital, a market, a
large residential area for 'scholars' and faculty members, a fish farm
and agricultural tracts. The LeT also reportedly operates 16 Islamic
institutions, 135 secondary schools, an ambulance service, mobile
clinics, blood banks and several seminaries across Pakistan.
LeT publishes its views and opinion through its Website (http://
http://www.jamatuddawa.org/), an Urdu monthly journal, Al-Dawa, which has a
circulation of 80,000, and an Urdu weekly, Gazwa. It also publishes
Voice of Islam, an English monthly, and Al-Rabat - monthly in Arabic,
Mujala-e-Tulba - Urdu monthly for students, Jehad Times - Urdu Weekly.
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is the Amir (chief) of Lashkar-e-Toiba. While
Yahiya Mujahid serves as the spokesman of the outfit, Maulana Abdul
Wahid is one of the senior leaders. Abdullah Muntazer is the
'Spokesman for International Media' and editor of the outfit's
Website. Saeed's son Talha reportedly looks after the LeT activity at
its base camp in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
Saeed's son-in-law, Khalid Waleed, is reportedly part of the LeT
office in Lahore.
According to a November 2005 report of Rediff, the LeT leadership
consisted of: Hafiz Mohammed Saeed (Supreme Commander); Zia-Ur-Rehman
Lakhvi alias Chachaji (Supreme Commander, Kashmir); A. B. Rahman-Ur-
Dakhil (Deputy Supreme Commander); Abdullah Shehzad alias Abu Anas
alias Shamas (Chief Operations Commander, Valley); Abdul Hassan alias
MY (Central Division Commander); Kari Saif-Ul-Rahman (North Division
Commander); Kari Saif-Ul-Islam (Deputy Commander); Masood alias
Mahmood (Area Commander, Sopore); Hyder-e-Krar alias CI (Deputy
Commander, Bandipora); Usman Bhai alias Saif-Ul-Islam (Deputy
Commander, Lolab); Abdul Nawaz (Deputy Commander, Sogam); Abu Rafi
(Deputy Divisional Commander, Baramulla); Abdul Nawaz (Deputy
Commander, Handwara); Abu Museb alias Saifulla (Deputy Commander,
Budgam);
Its cadres are organised at district levels with 'district commanders'
in charge. Within Pakistan, the outfit has a network of training camps
and branch offices, which undertake recruitment and collection of
finances.
It comprises cadres mostly from Pakistan and Afghanistan and a
sprinkling of militants from Sudan, Bahrain, Central Asia, Turkey and
Libya. Funded, armed and trained by the Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISl, the external intelligence agency of Pakistan), it has presently
a little over 750 cadres (this number keeps changing) in Jammu and
Kashmir (a vast majority of the foreign mercenaries operating in the
Valley).
The policy making apex body consists of Amir (chief), Naib Amir
(deputy chief) Finance chief etc. At the field level, it has Chief
Commander, Divisional Commander, District Commander, Battalion
Commander and down below on army pattern.
4. Area of Operation
While the primary area of operations of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is Jammu
and Kashmir, the outfit has carried out attacks in other parts of
India, including in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Varanasi,
Kolkata, Gujarat, etc. It reportedly has cells in many cities/towns
outside Jammu and Kashmir.
The LeT has been able to network with several Islamist extremist
organizations across India, especially in J&K, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil
Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. LeT is actively engaged in
subversive activities in the States of Maharashtra, West Bengal,
Bihar, Hyderabad, Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh at the instance of
ISI to expand the frontier of violence outside J&K by subverting
fringe elements. Of all the Pakistan-based terrorist groups, the LeT
is the only group with support bases across India.
The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba has training camps spread across Pakistan and
Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). Its camps, recruitment centres/
offices are spread across the length and breadth of Pakistan and PoK
in Muzaffarabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi,
Multan, Quetta, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gilgit (in the Northern Area of
PoK), etc. LeT reportedly has 2,200 offices across Pakistan.
The LeT allegedly carried out the terrorist attack at the Indian
Institute of Science campus in Bangalore on December 28, 2005, in
which one person was killed; Earlier, on October 29, 2005, it
engineered the serial explosions in New Delhi killing at least 62
persons; It is also suspected to have carried out the Varanasi attack
on March 7, 2006 in which 21 civilians died and 62 others were
injured; Three suspected LeT terrorists were shot dead during an
abortive attempt to storm the headquarters of Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu organization, at Nagpur in Maharashtra
on June 1, 2006; The LeT, according to Mumbai Police, carried out the
7/11 serial bombings in Mumbai in which at least 200 people were
killed.
Arrests made during March-April 2004 near Baghdad brought to light
links between the LeT and Islamist groups fighting the United States
military in Iraq. In March - and possibly even earlier - United States
forces detained Pakistani national Dilshad Ahmad and four others in
Baghdad. Ahmad, a long-time Lashkar operative from the Bahawalpur area
of the province of Punjab in Pakistan, had played a key role in the
Lashkar's trans-Line of Control (LoC) operations, serving between 1997
and 2001 as the organisation's commander for the forward camps from
where infiltrating groups of terrorists are launched into Jammu and
Kashmir with Pakistani military support. Ahmad is believed to have
made at least six secret visits to Lashkar groups operating in J&K
during this period.
5. Training and Operational Strategies
The outfit provides training to both militant cadres and the Ulema
(religious scholars). Its militant cadres are given two months
training in the handling of AK series rifles, LMGs, pistols, rocket
launchers and hand grenades. It also provides a 21-day training
programme called Daura-e-Aam and a three months specialized training
programme called Daura-e-Khas.
The Ulema are provided with a 42-days course. At the time of
induction, the young recruits are made to go through a fresher course
called Bait-ur-Rizwan.
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is credited for having initiated the strategy of
Fidayeen (suicide squad) attacks in J&K. It has formed two sub-groups
called 'Jaan-e-Fidai' and 'Ibn-e-Tayamiah'. While the first group
consists of highly motivated terrorists, the second comprises
terrorists suffering from incurable diseases.
Compared to other terrorist outfits in J&K, the LeT has commanded
significant attention primarily due to two reasons. First, for its
well planned and executed attacks on security force (SF) targets and
secondly, for the massacres of non-Muslim civilians. After the Kargil
war of May-July 1999, (when Pakistani troops and mercenaries,
including those of the Lashkar, were forced to withdraw from peaks on
the Indian side of the Line of Control - LoC), the outfit launched its
Fidayeen strategy whereby small groups (2-5 members) of Lashkar cadres
would storm a security force camp or base. In another frequently used
strategy, groups of Lashkar cadres, dressed in SF fatigues, would
arrive at remote hill villages, round up Hindu or Sikh civilians, and
massacre them. These two strategies have been designed to achieve
maximum publicity and extract public allegiance, mainly out of fear.
On December 8, 2001, two LeT suicide squad cadres managed to penetrate
inside a SF convoy and opened fire killing one soldier. They were able
to generate adequate confusion to escape from the convoy after the
attack but were later killed in an encounter with another SF unit.
6. Links
It is closely linked to the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Taliban
and al Qaeda.
India's National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan said on August 11,
2006, that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is part of the "al
Qaeda compact" and is "as big as and omnipotent" as the international
terror network. "The Lashkar today has emerged as a very major force.
It has connectivity with west Asia, Europe....Actually there was an
LeT module broken in Virginia and some people were picked up. It is as
big as and omnipotent as al Qaeda in every sense of the term," he told
a private news channel. Asked how significant the al Qaeda connection
was in India, Narayanan said LeT was the "most visible manifestation"
of the al Qaeda in India.
LeT has an extensive network that run across Pakistan and India with
branches in Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Bangladesh and South East
Asia.
The outfit collects donations from the Pakistani community in the
Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic Non-Governmental
Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. It receives
considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance from
the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. The ISI is
the main source of LeT's funding. Saudi Arabia also provides funds.
The LeT maintains ties to various religious/military groups around the
world, ranging from the Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya
primarily through the al Qaeda fraternal network.
The LeT has also been part of the Bosnian campaign against the Serbs.
It has allegedly set up sleeper cells in the U.S. and Australia,
trained terrorists from other countries and has entered new theatres
of Jihad like Iraq.
The group has links with many international Islamist terrorist groups
like the Ikhwan-ul-Musalmeen of Egypt and other Arab groups.
LeT has a unit in Germany and also receives help from the Al
Muhajiraun, supporter of Sharia Group, (Abu Hamza Masari- of Mosque
Finsbury Park, North London) and its annual convention is regularly
attended by fraternal bodies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Bahrain,
Oman, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Myanmar, USA, Palestine, Bosnia,
Philippines, Jordan, Chechnya, etc.
It also has links with the International Sikh Youth Federation
(Lakhbir Singh Rode).
7. Links
The outfit collects donations from the Pakistani community in the
Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic Non-Governmental
Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. It receives
considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance from
the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. The ISI is
the main source of LeT's funding. Funds also come from some sources in
Saudi Arabia.
Finances are also generated through Hawala transaction and through
infiltrating groups and other conduits.
According to Mohammad Omar Rana, the expenditure on its militia alone
is around 35 crores of rupees per annum.
8. Weaponry
AK series rifles, LMG/HMG's, Hand Grenades, Rockets, Pistols, Mortars,
Anti-tank mines, Anti personnel mines, Anti Aircraft Gun, Remote
Control Device, explosive devices and sophisticated communication
system.
Source: http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/la shkar_e_toiba.htm
http://newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1042
Posted by SultanShahin at 2:58 PM
...and I am Sid Harth
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On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:10:30 -0700 (PDT), Sid Harth <...@yahoo.com
http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/minorities-have-played-a-vital-role -in-the-creation-and-then-development-of-pakistan-minister-bhatti/
August 12, 2009...10:41 am
“Minorities have played a vital role in the creation and then
development of Pakistan,” Minister Bhatti
Jump to Comments
By Aamir Latif, IOL Correspondent KARACHI –
Only three days to its 62nd birthday, Pakistan is celebrating on
Tuesday, August 11, Minorities Day, a move many see as part of the
South Asian Muslim country’s efforts to polish its image after a
recent bloody attack on Christians. “The decision has been taken not
only to show solidarity with all minorities, including Christians, who
are the equal citizens of Pakistan, but also to highlight their role
in the creation and development of the country,” Federal Minister for
Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti told IslamOnline.net.
Different programs, including rallies, seminars and conferences have
been chalked out by the government and NGOs to express solidarity with
minorities nationwide. Jammat-e-Islami, the country’s largest
religious party, is going to hold an interfaith dialogue, which will
be attended by Muslim, Christian, and Hindu leaders, to promote
interfaith harmony. “Minorities have played a vital role in the
creation and then development of Pakistan,” insists Bhatti, a
Christian. “And they are proud of their services.” Christians make up
3 percent of Pakistan’s 170 million population, followed by Hindus who
make up 2 percent. A majority of Christians, who are mainly involved
in education, health and sanitary sectors, resides in Punjab, the
country’s most populous and richest province. Hindus, mostly involved
in businesses, are considered much richer than Christians and mostly
live in the southern Sindh province, the second largest province.
“We have decided to observe this day on August 11 because it has a
special significance,” said Minister Bhatti. “On that day in 1947, the
founder of the nation (Mohammad Ali Jinnah), while addressing the
first constituent assembly of Pakistan, announced that no Pakistani
would be discriminated against on the basis of religion, sect, race,
caste or creed,” recalled the minister. “They all will be equal
Pakistanis.” Messages “I never felt myself vulnerable here. This is my
own country, where my forefathers were born and are buried,” Vijay, a
Christian, told IOL. Bhatti, also a central leader of the ruling
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), asserted that the Minorities Day will
send several messages. “This will give a message to the perpetrators
and masterminds of Gojra incident, that there is no place for
religious hatred in Pakistan.” Six Christians were killed last week by
a violent mob over a reported desecration of the Quran. “The
government will fully protect the lives and properties of minorities,
and will not allow any group or individual to use religious sentiments
to hurt them.”
The minister said dedicating a special day for minorities also
promotes the image of Pakistan. “By observing this day, we want to
give a clear message to the world that the Pakistani society is based
on religious harmony, social justice, and human equality.” Though
shaken by the Gojra incident, members of religious minorities
generally feel protected and comfortable with their Muslim countrymen.
“It was, no doubt, a horrible incident, but I would say it was the act
of some sick individuals,” Vijay Dravid, who works as a sanitary
worker at a local club, told IOL. “It is a matter of satisfaction for
us that the majority of Muslims, including religious scholars, not
merely condemned that attack but also helped the victims.” Vijay and
his family live with seven Muslim neighbors, who too are employees of
the same club. “I never felt myself vulnerable here. This is my own
country, where my forefathers were born and are buried.”
Amr Lal, who works as a peon at a local firm, agrees. “Hundreds of
Muslims were killed in Indian Gujrat a few years back, but not even a
single Hindu was killed in Pakistan,” he said referring to the killing
of some 2000 Muslims, many hacked and burned to death, by Hindu
extremists a few years ago. “Being a Hindu, I remember the last anti-
Hindu violence in Pakistan in 1992, following the demolition of Babri
Mosque in India,” recalled Lal. “Since that, there has been no
violence against Hindus.” Lal, however, calls for more development
funds and scholarships for minorities. “We don’t have access to
quality education, though most of the prestigious schools and colleges
have been set up by Hindus and Christians before partition (in 1947).
Therefore, the government should provide more educational facilities
to the minorities.”
...and I am Sid Harth
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On Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:09:41 -0700 (PDT), bademiyansubhanallah <...@gmail.com
http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2009/08/14/news0708.htm
Habib Tanvir: Citizen of the world
Sudhanva Deshpande
(From previous issue)
Mitti ki Gaadi, his Chhattisgarhi adaptation of Sudrak's Sanskrit
classic, was done in 1977; Bahadur Kalarin, an oral rural Oedipal
tale, followed soon after. Shajapur ki Shantibai (Brecht's Good Person
of Schetzuan), with the incomparable Fidabai in the lead, was done in
1978; and Lala Shohratrai (Moliere's Bourgeois Gentleman) in 1981.
In other words, by about the mid-1970s, Habib Tanvir had already
evolved his distinctive idiom of modern theatre, and subsequent years
basically saw him elaborating this idiom, refining it, polishing it,
rather than evolving a new form. Those who came to watch and love his
theatre after this time tended to take this idiom, his style, for
granted. It can, therefore, be quite easily forgotten that it took him
14 long years, from 1958 to 1972, to come to it.
FROM RURAL TRADITIONS
On Habib Tanvir's theatre, it is quite common to hear two views. One
sees a development of the IPTA legacy in him, the other sees him as a
practitioner of "folk" theatre. Both are incorrect. IPTA sought to
build an all-India network of revolutionary cultural groups in close
association with the communist movement. Habib Tanvir, after his early
years with IPTA, never again did that kind of work. Certainly in his
theatre practice there was not a whiff of IPTA: while IPTA used "folk"
forms essentially as carriers of revolutionary ideology to the masses,
Habib Tanvir fashioned a popular modern theatre, borrowing elements
from rural dramatic traditions that have been more often than not
utopic rather than revolutionary.
Habib Tanvir got his first set of six rural actors in 1958. He did
several plays between then and 1972, but most were, as he put it,
"failures". These failures led him to wonder why the rural actors are
fabulous when they do Nacha in their own setting? What makes them
stilted and trite when they act in his plays?
He identified two main faults: "mother tongue and freedom of
movement". "[I realised], after many years, that I was trying to apply
my English training on the village actors - move diagonally, stand,
speak, take this position, take that position. I had to unlearn it
all. I saw that they couldn't even tell right from left on the stage
and had no line sense. And I'd go on shouting: 'Don't you know the
difference between the hand you eat with and the one you wash with?'
". . . I realised that those who were for years responding to an
audience like this [without bothering about whether the audience was
on one side, or three, or four, or whether some of them were sitting
on the stage] could never try to unlearn all this and rigidly follow
the rules of movement and that was one reason why Thakur Ram, a great
actor [one of the 1958 six] wasn't able to be natural. Another reason
was the matrubhasha - he wasn't speaking in his mother tongue, so it
jarred on my ears, because he was speaking bad Hindi and not
Chhattisgarhi, in which he was fluent, which was so sweet. This
realisation took me years - naive of me, but still it took me years.
Once I realised it I used Chhattisgarhi and I improvised, allowed them
the freedom and then came pouncing down upon them to crystallise the
movement - there you stay. And they began to learn. That quite simply
was the method I learnt."
That was the method all right, but it was to be used to channelise the
rural actor's energy to tell modern stories. His dramaturgy and
stagecraft are also modern. His Kamdev ka Apna, Basant Ritu ka Sapna
(Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream) is played on a bare stage,
the only element of set being a hand-held, beautifully embroidered
half-curtain which sometimes reveals, sometimes hides, and sometimes
becomes a backdrop to, the action. With its simplicity, its directness
and minimalism, Habib Tanvir's theatre would have been considered
avant-garde had it not been so popular, and so funny.
If you talk to his actors, they all, without exception, make the
distinction between Nacha, where they originally trained, and
"theatre", that is, Habib Tanvir's theatre. His is a theatre of modern
sensibilities, of modern concerns. Besides his own plays, look at the
range of dramatists he has tackled. The ancient Sanskrit writers
Sudrak, Bhasa, Visakhadatta and Bhavabhuti; European classics by
Shakespeare, Moliere and Goldoni; modern masters Brecht, Garcia Lorca,
Gogol and Gorky, and even Wilde; and Indian writers Rabindranath
Tagore, Sisir Das, Asghar Wajahat, Shankar Shesh, Safdar Hashmi and
Rahul Varma. He has adapted stories by Premchand, Stefan Zweig and
Vijaydan Detha for the stage, besides adapting oral tales from
Chhattisgarh. The stories he tells are the stories of our times, told
with the simplicity and directness and energy of the rural performing
traditions.
Habib Tanvir, then, was a citizen of the world, borrowing, reading,
soaking up influences indiscriminately, but he became, through a long,
hard, creative struggle, a resident of Chhattisgarh. Chhattisgarh is
the prism that refracted his creative expression. He was writing his
autobiography, Ek Matmaili Chadariya - a life woven with multiple
threads, a life the dusty colour of earth. He was a Midas turned
upside-down: whatever he touched lost its sheen, it became rough and
turned to Chhattisgarhi. As Brecht once put it: "True art becomes poor
with the masses and grows rich with the masses."
This is the man the Hindu Right has hounded since the early 1990s. To
argue, as the Hindu Right did, that Habib Tanvir is anti-Hindu and, by
extension, anti-Indian, is of course a reflection not on the man and
his work, but on the depraved, pea-sized world view of his attackers.
Yet Habib Tanvir was no revolutionary. He, along with a large number
of intellectuals and artists close to the Communist Party of India
(CPI), flirted for a while with the Congress (I) in the 1970s. He
campaigned for the party in the 1971 elections with a play called
Indira Loksabha. In what some saw as a return of the favour, he was
nominated to the Rajya Sabha the following year, and, to the dismay of
those to the left of the CPI, he did not resign his seat when the
Emergency was declared in 1975. It is only later, in the 1980s, that
he became, in private conversations at least, more critical of the
Congress.
Habib Tanvir was an enemy of parochialism, of bigotry, of
fundamentalism, and of the kind of development that crushes the poor.
If Ponga Pandit critiques the caste system, superstition and
priestcraft in the lively, robust manner that Habib Tanvir has
perfected, the other play that he has been extensively performing
attacks Muslim fundamentalism: Asghar Wajahat's Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya
Voh Janmya hi Nai, the story of a Hindu woman left behind in Lahore
after Partition. His last production, Raj Rakt, based on Tagore's
Visarjan, is also a critique of superstition. An earlier play, Moteram
ka Satyagraha, based on a Premchand story and written in collaboration
with Safdar Hashmi, is a humorous look at what happens when religion
starts meddling with politics.
In the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December
1992, he produced for a Delhi group Sisir Kumar Das's Baagh, an
allegory on the communal tiger on the prowl. In 1999, he wrote and
directed for Jana Natya Manch Ek Aurat Hypatia Bhi Thee, on the fourth
century A.D. woman mathematician from Alexandria, who was lynched on
the streets by Christian bigots. Sadak, a short play, is a comic
critique of "development" that ravages villagers, tribal people, their
land and their culture. Hirma ki Amar Kahani is a more profound look
at what development has meant for tribal people.
An early short children's play, Gadhe, is a rip-roaring take-off on
the education system that produces asses. His production of Rahul
Verma's Zahareeli Hawa is a fictional recreation of the Bhopal gas
tragedy. Then there is Dekh Rahe Hain Nain, perhaps his most refined
play philosophically, the story of a king's futile quest for a calling
that will harm no other being.
This, then, was Habib Tanvir, a man who represents two great
traditions of Indian theatre - the tradition of the actor-director-
playwright-manager and the tradition of an active involvement, from
the Left, in larger social and political causes. The first tradition
is now extinct with Habib Tanvir's death. The second tradition happily
survives, and some of the credit for this must go to Habib Tanvir
himself, for showing the way. o
(Sudhanva Deshpande has co-directed, along with Sanjay Maharishi,
'Gaon ke naon Theatre, mor naon Habib', a documentary film on Habib
Tanvir and Naya Theatre.)
...and I am Sid Harth
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