The long list of human rights abuses perpetrated on minorities in India just became longer—claimed Nongra-dhuti (“nongra” is Bengali for “soiled”) Ray waving a copy of this press report.
An Indian suspect was forced by police to eat 50 bananas as a laxative, to retrieve a necklace he was accused of stealing and swallowing.
When the bananas failed to produce the desired effect, police fed Sheikh Mohsin rice, chicken and local bread.
Finally the necklace, which appeared on an X-ray taken on the suspect, was excreted and retrieved.
Mr Mohsin will appear in court on Monday in the eastern city of Calcutta, and could face a prison sentence.
Police say he snatched a gold necklace worth £550 ($1,100) from a woman as she shopped for toys on Saturday.
When cornered by police, he swallowed the necklace.
The suspect was fed 50 bananas on doctor’s advice, after the X-ray dealt a blow to his denials.
But only after a further meal did he yield the necklace, Calcutta police deputy commissioner Gyanwant Singh told AFP news agency.
A sweeper was paid to retrieve the exhibit from the toilet. Mr Mohsin was asked to wash it.
“There is a certain chilling predictability about this, a dreadful Orwellian litany of sameness” noted intellectual Sugarika Ghosh in an intestine-churning post titled Shhh Muslims on the stench of a conspiracy , noted human rights activist Nandita Bas-kar claimed that the X-ray was obtained under duress with the accused kept in a stress position, while Prime Minister Singh, in an emotional a-“peal” to the nation, declared that he is finding it tough to sleep or to eat bananas.
After the necklace was returned to the rightful owner, the good lady has been reported to be suffering from Lady Macbeth’s syndrome muttering “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten…” in hushed tones.
[Link courtesy S. Pyne]
The Greatbong Blog & Podcast 
“Prime Minister Singh, in an emotional a-”peal” to the nation, declared that he is finding it tough to sleep or to eat bananas.”
ROTFLMAO……………you are too good!
“Nongra-Dhuti”!!
😀 😀
Man.. awesome piece of info..
Hw do u manage to lay ur hands on these gems man?!?!
😛
and i missed being the first commentor by a whisker again!!
DAM
:-
wow…. for chrissakes… that thief is bloody lucky they did not cut his intestines out!!! Not to mention the vitamin boost he got thanks to all those bananas
Thank you,
About time some one spoke up against the cabal.Miss Dhuti is truly insufferable. Making sense is not a pre-requisite for being a compassionate humanitarian I guesss.
However, as Voltaire once said-
‘I do not agree with a word of what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it’
I guess putting up with opinions that are contrarian for the sake of seeking attention, is a price we have to pay for having civil liberties. In the long run, this may be a small price to pay.
But, it does sicken one’s sensibilities when one sees debates made out of opportunism rather than conviction. come to think of it that is what I love most about your writing. You seem to write what you actually subscribe to in your opinions, irrespective of what affiliations and associations people try to allude to.
And heh, you are really funny.
Wonder why the “great” BBC always reports such nonsensical items.
Nongra-dhuti means soiled ‘dhoti’ in Bengali.
GB
They showed that whole banana-eating incident live of India TV!!!
lol , perhaps i will tell my kids about this funny incident
did the lady actually take back the necklace??
ROTFL….
now wearing tht necklace can be quite a shitty feeling ain’t it???
Its scary ! Period ! Ms.Ghosh’s comments on the back of a particularly difficult series of decisions emanating from Justice Kode, are actually attempts to lend a communal colour to the judgements. Note the way she carefully paints the surnames of the accused in deliberate staccatoes for the effect. The English Media at large has always been all for Minority-related issues but lately in their zeal to garner brownie points they have started issuing hyperbole for even non-issues.
@Tintin – “I guess putting up with opinions that are contrarian for the sake of seeking attention, is a price we have to pay for having civil liberties. In the long run, this may be a small price to pay.”
But this is a deliberate incitement. She is not looking for parity or even-handed justice. She is stoking fires. Note the comment – “As Muslim after Muslim has walked to his death, as “terrorist” after “terrorist” has been taken away for life, what about the Hindu mobs and Hindu police officers who were named and indicted by the Justice Srikrishna Commission that inquired into the bloodcurdling 1992-93 riots of Mumbai in which 900 died?” – that is bloody communalism and blatant at that. To drive home a point she wonderfully equates Muslim with Terrorist.
Its not a conspiracy of silence! Its a conspiracy of verbosity screaming at us from the pages of her portal!
Well, you know i think the minorities in India have themselves to blame for their current image/status. Most muslims dont consider themselves as an intrinsic part of this country. Lets face it, they are treated much better here than what their treated in the US/Europe etc. If they dont get a job, they cry communalism. If a muslim offender is put behind bars, they shout out communalism. What the muslim community needs to be told,at large, is that “get out if you dont like it here”…Their not doing anybody any favors by staying here. Remember the nation is always larger than an individual.
sagarikaji ki peeda ko dekh kar meri aankhen bhar aayi. mujhe bhi manmohanji ki tarah neend aani band ho gayi hai.
I am all for reservations in judicial decisions. Henceforth, the results of all hearings would be determined by the necessity to fill up the quota for the offender’s community. There will of course be reservation for SC/ST/OBCs. Minorities will have the right to setup and maintain their own jails and there they can do whatever they want to.
The introduction of ‘social justice’ in the judicial system should please the commies!
@Rohit:
“What the muslim community needs to be told,at large, is that “get out if you dont like it here”.
That’s not going to happen, so why don’t you get out of here instead? Just a suggestion.
These human rights activists sometimes simply go beyond control…
LOL on “Prime Minister Singh, in an emotional a-”peal” to the nation, declared that he is finding it tough to sleep or to eat bananas”. You are simply too much 🙂
This post, though funny…had the pointer to demonic post by Ms SGhosh. She is trying to paint judiciary saffron, which is entirely wrong .
More so, she is trying to justify bomb blasts…as if the great “D” became a Saladin and slayer of the rioting infidels…
Come on… “Murder” is criminal… but there is a difference between spontaneous killing in mob mentality…road rage…animal behavior…and that in a meticulously-planned-brutal-mass-blasts of terror…both are absolutely wrong and heinous ..But there are basic differences between them… and one cannot be used to revenge other…I mean not comparable…
Lets feed 100 banana’s to Ms SG and likes…To strengthen their guts and make them see other colors [Yellow!!] then saffron conspirators everywhere…
Here are some incidences that the Stolkholm syndrome infected media missed out at the same time, while they were busy with their bananas
http://www.hindujagruti.org/news/article/muslims/attacks/terror-unbound-14-years-old-hindu-child-burnt-alive.html
Another report by a friend who lives in Nadia. (cannot authenticate)
“Police Station: Nabadwip
Block:
Sub-division:
District: Nadia
State: West Bengal
6th August, 2007, Monday
A meeting of village elders led by the CPM panchayat chief let off with a fine a young man who raped his 10-year-old student. The culprit — first-year BA student Mizan-ur — was told to pay Rs 2,000 at Bamunpukur village in Nadia’s Nabadwip last Tuesday. The 19-year-old would have got away by paying the fine had it not been for the victim’s parents, who thought it was a shame to compromise and refused to accept the money. The girl’s father, Bidyut Das, a carpenter, lodged an FIR against Mizanur yesterday. The Nabadwip College student is absconding. His father is an affluent man, owning two shops — a stationery shop and a grocery — in Mayapur. ”
As I said before, Bengal (the Indian side) is facing a continued Leibensraum, as we blog. This time Bengali Hindus wont have another Bengal to run to.
WTF?!
We’ve gone the way of (what it seems like) the Americans. A crime against Hindus/Whites is a “regular” crime, anything against Muslims/Blacks is “bigotry”.
Disgusting.
In fact, I don’t care what the religion of the perp was, I’d give the police an award for this!
GB, I do believe that the thief swindled his way to enjoy a nice feast at the taxpayers’ expense. Or may be usual communist government’s minority appeasing. May be a covert exercise in ethnic cleansing.
Could be a clandestine CIA funded clinical trial using genetically modified Metamucil (modified for flushing sordid truth out of Gitmo baddies) with the facts altered (banana et al) to divert attention towards Cuba and Latin America.
Remember a similar attempt by Washington sending Albert Brooks to Delhi in 2005 “looking for comedy in the muslim world” to check out what makes ‘them’ laugh? This time, what makes ‘them’ flush? I bet RAW helped them in “cleaning up” after the operation.
Next time I attend a Chomsky lecture, I’ll update him about the conspiracy. Unless his esteemed collaborator Ms. Roy has already mailed him a doctored report (where scatology has been transformed to eschatology and RAW banana to raw banana).
To end with, here’s the full Lady Macbeth quote: “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten as much as eau de colon!”
@ Shan
Appreciate your suggestion. But that aint going to happen either. Actually, what i wrote was/is quite true. I mean sure maybe its not politically correct which is why it must’ve touched a raw nerve, but it does reflect reality in some way.
Rishi,
Relax. You RSS-types don’t tire of alarmist rhetoric, don’t you?
I’m sure the Lebensraum will turn-out alright for Bengal. There is always enough room to accommodate millions of Hindu Bengalis (from Nadia, Murshidabad, “Medina”-pore and both 24-Paraganas) in adjoining states, the Thar desert and maybe even in Fuhrer Modi’s backyard. Those who stay back will enjoy the local Bangla flavor of “Pax Arabicana”.
I believe strongly that the only way to undo the partition of Bengal is to have a unified and independent Bengal – which inevitably will be fully Islamic. Exactly 60 years ago, another rabid khaki-knickerwallah (Syama Prasad Mookerjee) foiled Sarat Bose’s utopian dream of a unified and independent Bengal by insisting that a partitioned Bengal is better than giving away the whole of Bengal to Pakistan… So, unlike Sindhi Hindus whose beloved Sindh remained unpartitioned, our beloved Mother Bengal was cleaved in two, thanks to “Myopic Mookerjee”.
With about 70% of Bengalis today already living the Mohammedan dream, why bother resisting the demographic changes that are sweeping West Bengal? You just can’t turn the tide.
If you don’t believe me, watch the 90-minute documentary “The Bangla Crescent” by clicking on the website below, then type in whatever “3 Letter Code” is displayed into the box, and you can download using the “free” version
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XYD8BDBI
An article on this incisive documentary is “India’s Cancer Wards”: http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2005/08/indias-cancer-wards.html
So you think you can stop the inevitable, eh?
I hate this blog but I just cannot keep away, luv reading Rishi Kaju’s comment. The quote about the musilms in the last post is alreads in the annals of history.
Let us all vote Rishi as the next CM of Bengal. He is great. Rishi, 2 thums up dude!!!!!!
Holy mother..
how can u force someone to eat that much
hell man hell
:O
You must watch “Face The Nation” by the same sagarika ghose . She is the loudest piece of crap spewing “journalist” on tv. i cant imagine how she gets prime time hours and there she is howling everynight being judgemental and repeating her own version of what the guests say. Whats worse is the utter disrespect she has for divergent opinion…when she’s not screaming down dissidents, the edit will play loud music and distracting video…
I just managed to extricate from tonite’s performance where she claims that because Dhoni is now captain, small town India is beating the bastions of “the old boys clubs” in metros. Not once did she get various barbs from the socialogist in JNU who says that small town achievers in her long list (cricket,Indian Idol, beauty contests) is not an achievement to crow about considering the millions of bubli’s who never get to become XYZ of lala-land…diyam…, or that this just shows that metro-culture is being pushed to tier-II cities..or that perhaps winning a damned (un)talent show based on regional votes is not the right place to measure the rising competence of non-metros. PS not to miss her other programme “Rising India” 😀
Now I discover she cant even write .. Bong i hope u were sarcastic when u called her an intellectual….
Her entire article is written in her dumb cheerleader style where god only knows if she knows that her own constant rattling of muslim followed by words like terrorist belie her own beliefs. She’s got this entire condescending attitude that puts me off.
Notice she calls herself bloody mary…what the bloody hell…
PS Disclaimer: this entire comment is on her reporting style, not any particular subject she has written/talked about.
@ Raktim
i agree with you. S Ghosh is here to sensationalise a news item.
@ great bong- how come you jumoped from eating bananas to her piece/ ?
Its not related at all…..
@ Hujur
Speaking of united Sindh (all in Pakistan)
The great Gandhian Acharya Kriplani regretted later, because after following Gandhiji’s advice, he left the Sindhi Hindu community without a inch of land they could call home.
Bengalis should be thankful to the Khakhi clad Shyamaprasad Mookerjee for atleast consolidating 1/3 rd of Bengal, so that millions of Hindus could actually run to it. Had Sarat Bose’s plan been agreed to, East Pakistan (with entire Bengal in it) would have become a silent slaughterhouse.
Rishi,
It seems overwhelming, impossible, even futile to resist the inevitable demographic changes in Bengal.
After all, what matters is that the sweet, Bangla language will continue to be spoken there, won’t it? Every “Bangla Bhai” will continue to retain his ancestral Bengali surname (which by the way was “Pramanik”) while doing what he does best.
There may just be some changes in vocabulary (like the pseudo-Punjabi that seems to be the lingua franca of the converts in West Punjab). See the review of the documentary “Wapsi – The Returning”: http://www.chowk.com/articles/9001
There may be minor inconveniences to the women, a couple of gang-rapes here and there, but that’s part of the Islamization process, which works superbly when aided by a collaborating administration and ignored by the apathetic media:
1) The “Dhantala mass rape of 2003” is a case in point, though most Bengalis have forgotten it. This mass rape by a Muslim-Marxist mob (inside a Madrasa) of all the Hindu women and girls in a wedding party, whose vehicles were stopped on their way to a family wedding at Dhantala in Nadia district, is a good barometer of where Bengal is headed.
2) A “Pratima Das”-esque story once in a while, should be no problem of course: http://bengalvoice1.blog.com
If I were Amartya Sen, I would be worried that “Sonar Bangla” might then end up becoming an economic “basket-case” and a Jihadi-magnet, like its eastern half. The stagnant and repressive effect that Abrahamic cults have on society is hard to deny when contrasting countries (in the Indian subcontinent) that used to be one until a few decades or few centuries ago. Any erstwhile part of India that has been alienated from its Dharmic heritage is a living testament to this fact – just check out the latest news on Karachi, Khulna, Kandahar or Kashmir.
Good luck to you on keeping Bengal “Sonar”.
P.S: Forgive me for my sarcasm …. If you have any good ideas, let me know how an individual (like me) could pitch in and help. Otherwise, I’m going to have to sit back and watch the downward spiral in slow-mo.
its wrong to blame the country of Bangladesh for what happened during partition. Just think that before that sudden political turmoil those same ppl stayed in the house next to us, and every morning we have met them to greet with a smile. Neither we nor they ever felt this hatred towards each other.
Then can I ask why one sudden morning all friendship fell apart? Why suddenly ppl started killing each other? Ignorance can kill and the collective ignorance can destroy. That’s exactly whwat happened at that time. Some ppl took the chance of the ppl’s ignorance. And they still are doing the same. Why should I blame all those poor bangladeshi souls for that? Thinking the whole of bangla desh is a breeding ground of Jihadis and blaming htem for that is also cowardish act.
We have ulfa terrorists breeding on our own grounds for such a long time. Could we abolish them? Could we atleast suppress KLO terrorists? Could we suppress all thoses BODO terrorists Tripuran terrrorists? nagas kukis????
We being such a big and powerful country could not solve our problem. And we expect bangladesh whose government itself do not live for a full tenure will solve our problemss by killing terrorists who are probably stronger than their whole army!!
We should be realistic and before commenting on others should look at our ownselves.
Regards.
Ankan
They should have given that guy some food served to the students at the Ramakrishna Mission Narendrapur hostel …..he would have puked the necklace out in 5 mins ……
Dear Ankon:
Nobody is saying that the entire country of “poor souls” as you described Bangladesh, is Jihadi. But as of today, nearly 89% of Bangladesh has the ideological groundwork if not the willingness to participate in Jihad. This is not what I (a Sangh worker) is saying. This is what Mr. Shaharyar Kabir, a former Muslim and a renowned humanist from Bangladesh tiold me just a week back. And unfortunately, you (if you live in rural Bengal) happen to be at the right place and the right time (actually wait 8-10 more years) to enjoy the full flavor of it
And you are absolutely right, ignorance can kill and collective ignorance can destroy.
I can see that happening right now in Bengal (the Indian side) and you, I am sorry to say, are also part of it. I hope I am wrong.
Now to speak about Bodo, Naga, Kuki, Kamtapuri, ULFA issues.
Each of these issues is a complex mix of ethnic animosity, economic depravity, marginalization and motivation. And it is our responsibility as the people of India, to address that. If done honestly (which has happened occasionally), the issues can be addressed.
But there is one thing constant in al the above issues. The presence and active participation of DGFI (Directorate General of Forces Intelligence). The Bangladesh equivalent of ISI.
Now, DGFI or ISI (which now works with it) again are not the problems, it is the ideological force behind it that drives the wheel. 30 years back there was no DGFI, but 30 years back the problems were still the same.
@ Hujur
I didnt know that famous Jihadi, Siddique-ul Islam (Bangla Bhai) had his Hindu forefathers with Pramanik as the last name.
I do know many Muslims from Bangladesh who keep their Hindu forefathers last names like Majumdar and Biswas.
you wrote, “Forgive me for my sarcasm …. If you have any good ideas, let me know how an individual (like me) could pitch in and help. Otherwise, I’m going to have to sit back and watch the downward spiral in slow-mo”.
Well such spirals are usually always in slo-mo, except for the occasional cataclysmic event like The Partition.
I was speaking to some Hindu friends from Bangladesh a few days back about the same thing. How we let things happen in slow motion. He lamented, “100 years back a Hindu household in Dhaka’s Shakhari Bajar would not have dreamt that today the place would not have 1 Hindu left to carry on a 1000 year old tradition”.
Why 100 years, even since 1971 (including under Bongo Bondu Mujib, who btw, was one of Suhravardy’s henchmen during Direct Action Day), there has been a systematic decimation, forced conversion and liquidation of Hindus within Bangladesh.
But forget the Hindus in Bangladesh, they are just 11% (reduced from 37% in 1947). Hindus cant save their ass when they are in majority, forget about saving them when they just 11%.
On the brighter side, the Indian side of Bengal still continues to have a Hindu majority.
On the darker side, the following districts have already have enough followers of Quran to start what is known as “the Beirut effect”. (more than 30% Islamic presence)
Those districts are
Murshidabad, Nadia, South 24 Parganas and huge pockets of Medinipur, North and South Dinajpur and Malda.
Irrespective of political party affiliation, the above districts have started seeing coerced Hindu population movement at the village level and increased resource dislodgement by a increasingly politically aggressive Muslim population. The government and its agencies are unwilling to take the bull by the horn because of vote-bank politics (even though many of the Hindu victims are themselves Communist cadres).
At this rate, its only a matter of 15-20 years when in the relatively urban Bengal (which thankfully is substantial) will face a envelopment by pro-Islamist rural pockets.
It is then, that people predict will this turn into a armed Jihad with direct participation of DGFI or its equivalence of that time. A extremely mobile and young Muslim population in Bangladesh with poor living conditions and a bleak economic future can quickly turn this into a major strategic defeat for India with the Bengali Hindu population bearing the brunt of violence and displacement.
@ Hujur
Now the important part.
What can u do?
Bengal has always been a intellect driven society.
Intellectuals have to be the tip of the spear, when it comes to dealing with this problem, if I may call it so.
1. Within the next 5 years, the threat perception of the educated Bengali Hindu has to be raised to a point where they can affect all political parties ( this issue should be apolitical for best results) to take enough bold decisions to arrest disproportionate Islamic population growth.
Enforcing family planning laws, arresting population movement across the border are some of the much needed steps.
2. Hindu social groups should encourage and support return of apostate Muslims back to their Hindu roots with full dignity and social acceptance. There is atleast 2 to 5 % of Muslim population, which would be more than happy to return back to their Hindu roots. Hindus MUST welcome them back with full protection and social mobility.
3. Stop coerced migration of Hindus from the districts I mentioned above. Even if it means providing economic support from urban Hindu Bengal, pockets of Islamic influence bigger than a village level cannot be allowed to build up.
4. Hindu Bengalis ,as a linguistic group should demand International refugee status for the millions of Hindus that have been kicked out of Bangladesh/East Pakistan since 1947. There has to be a documentation with room for redressal of the magnitude of human tragedy that befell the Hindus of Bengal since 1947.
5. Nearly 2-3 million Hindus who have left Bangladesh not during but after Partition and whose properties have been confiscated by Bangladesh using the Vested Property Act, need to be compensated by Bangladesh. The value of the confiscation amounts to more than the annual GDP of Bangladesh.
Refusal shall result in expulsion of undocumented Bangladeshi Muslims from India.
Most importantly, we need to educate ourselves….. all the time. People who do not learn from their past mistakes are condemned to repeat it.
Rishi: “At this rate, its only a matter of 15-20 years when in the relatively urban Bengal (which thankfully is substantial) will face a envelopment by pro-Islamist rural pockets.
It is then, that people predict will this turn into a armed Jihad with direct participation of DGFI or its equivalence of that time. A extremely mobile and young Muslim population in Bangladesh with poor living conditions and a bleak economic future can quickly turn this into a major strategic defeat for India with the Bengali Hindu population bearing the brunt of violence and displacement.”
Very very true. Please carry on- more and more people need to read about these isues. This is what I call an objective analysis, not a Sagarika Ghosh like “toxic cloud” bs. But the sad thing is that even when such things had happened, happen and are bound to happen in future, there were/arewill be enough people like her who will echo what a great (sic) person said during partition, “No backlash please, they are muslims.” Shhhhhhhhhh…alla.
Gb, a post on the pathetic National Awards, which are now turning into an extended version of the Bollywood Filmfare awards. Regional Cinema is being systematically ignored, notwithstanding the sop to Kaalpurush this year. Most of the other awards, especially bachchan for Black is atrocious. This is a triumph of reputation and glamour over substance. Bollywoodisation of the nation is a theme you have got to explore – and who better, given that at one point of time Bengali cinema was the premiere product of quality cinema in India, though it may have slipped off that high pedestal recently.
Lady Macbeth “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten…”
Holy cow !!!!!
ROFL …..
Nice to see Khujur and Hujur united in their common hatred.
What apocalyptic visions you guys have. Truly remarkable. And that comment about apostates (like me) being brought back to the fold – that sounded so like my dad that I was really touched with your concern for my apostasy. Thanks man! I know you really care for me now.
I am truly ecstatic to see that the vast majority of commentators on this page seem to have taken on themselves the burden to save India from Jehadis/Muslims (since they are one and the same). I feel much safer now, and indeed grateful that so many people seem to have the best interests of the Hindu at heart. After all India is a Hindu nation, and should have been denoted as such after independence, but for the meddlesome socialists who insisted on something vague term called “secularism”.
These “deshdrohis” have tried to stop the patriots at every stage – be it during the post partition riots or at every flash point later. On the way they have got too few victories – a Gandhi’s murder here, a Bombay riot there, and even fewer role models, maybe a flip-flopping Thackarey for some time, or greedy politicians like Advani, or bumblers like Katiyal etc.
But no more. The rightful resurgence has started under the dynamic leadership of Narendra Modi. Gujarat has proven that the Hindus will be ruthless in their pursuance of the Muslims. It might have started in Gujarat, but it will end in West Bengal with the overthrow of the duplicitous government and the implementation of the Final Solution. The Rishis (Hujur and Khujur) are just and fair facilitators of that end game.
Rejoice Hindus. You are going to be freed. Whether you like it or not. And if you do not, you are unpatriotic, communist, apostate, pusillanimous, irreligious, bastards! Go prostrate yourselves before your jehadi brothers and never call yourselves Hindu again.
Yes Ankan, I am referring to you. Go to Saudi Arabia for that is your spiritual home.
Rohit, you can stay.
Sagarika is Rajdeep’s wife and daughter of former Doordarshan director Bhaskar Ghose. Prannoy Roy is married to Brinda Karat’s sister. Arundathi Roy is Prannoy Roy’s niece (or cousin?). Draw your conclusions…
We should give the same treatment of eating 50 bananas to Musharraf and Dawood Ibrahim will come out.
Very nice article GB, you are the best in the entire blogdom.
@ Rohit
“I mean sure maybe its not politically correct which is why it must’ve touched a raw nerve, but it does reflect reality in some way.”
Being politically incorrect is not the same thing as being ‘correct’. I hope you appreciate the difference 🙂
“Well, you know i think the minorities in India have themselves to blame for their current image/status. Most muslims dont consider themselves as an intrinsic part of this country. Lets face it, they are treated much better here than what their treated in the US/Europe etc. If they dont get a job, they cry communalism. If a muslim offender is put behind bars, they shout out communalism. What the muslim community needs to be told,at large, is that “get out if you dont like it here”…Their not doing anybody any favors by staying here. Remember the nation is always larger than an individual.”
Oversimplification is probably helpful in understanding the general theory of relativity, but when you apply the same tactic to a complex, multi-layered problem like the privileges/problems of a minority in a diverse, multi-ethnic & pluralistic society like India, you reach absurd and dangerous conclusions.
@ Conspiracy Theorists
“Nobody is saying that the entire country of “poor souls” as you described Bangladesh, is Jihadi. But as of today, nearly 89% of Bangladesh has the ideological groundwork if not the willingness to participate in Jihad. This is not what I (a Sangh worker) is saying. This is what Mr. Shaharyar Kabir, a former Muslim and a renowned humanist from Bangladesh tiold me just a week back. And unfortunately, you (if you live in rural Bengal) happen to be at the right place and the right time (actually wait 8-10 more years) to enjoy the full flavor of it”
And a lot of other gems I am not quoting to avoid duplication
I am pleased to see some worthy successors to Alvin Toffler, making precise predictions about the impending Armageddon. I mean, can you get more precise than 89%…
Please let me know a couple of days in advance, I will short the Sensex and make a fortune 🙂
@ Kishor
“We should give the same treatment of eating 50 bananas to Musharraf and Dawood Ibrahim will come out.”
Priceless 🙂
@ GB
Vintage stuff… I think the mainstream media has gone the politician’s way, ‘all rhetoric and nothing rational’. Was it Chomsky who said that the media is in the business of manufacturing opinion? I hope, a little naively perhaps, that it would be the blogging world that would, one day, influence public opinion in a major way.
Thank you Ravi Ivaturi, but the question is who would wash Dawood Ibrahim then ?
Disinterested/objective groups like any of the prominent media-houses/human right activists- who would be very gentle about cleansing program 🙂
Media is just looking for TRP. Even News Channels have become Entertainment Channels and concentarting only show business! People only have to gear up to create COMPLETE revolution now…
@ Shan
Appreciate your bringing in Narendra Modi at the drop of a hat again, again when my entire focus was Bengal and its equations.
And there was no need for you to send poor Ankan to Saudia Arabia. I would have appreciated a more logical and constructive response from a thinker like you.
@ Ravi Ivaturi
Thanks for your opinion sir.
I will keep that in mind when I construct my next “conspiracy theory”.
@ Ravi, Shan
I sincerely hope that what I outlined above just turns out to a conspiracy theory and
Will make my life and the life of many others much easier now and in days to come.
@rishi khujur:
My experience has shown that there is no logical response possible when people start off on an extremist platform – especially in religious matters. Your “entire focus” was only ostensibly on West Bengal. However the national (international) implications and extrapolations are very clear. You were not taking just a political stance, you were taking a religious one as well, hence the desire to convert “apostates” back to the fold.
Besides the Sangh Pariwar never takes a localized view of things, and you are, by your own admission, a Sangh member…
If I am mistaken and your affiliations are purely local and for the welfare of Bengal and Bengalis alone, I would still take issue with your views and agree with Ravi’s “conspiracy theory” description. However, that is neither here nor there.
But don’t fret so. In a few years (5-10) you will have the last laugh when WB is renamed Bengalistan with Communist Party of Islam (Mohammed) i.e. CPI(M) at the helm.
Then I will remember you and realize my mistake just moments before a Islamist cuts my throat and leaves me to die on the streets of Kolkatabad as part of the purge of Hindus (apostate or otherwise) from Eastern India. Ok?
@ Shan
As I said, this is not about “last laughs” and me being proven right and you being proven wrong. This is no laughing matter….
This is also not about Communists party of this or that or BJP.
I am a Sangh guy, but I work perfectly fine with people of other ideological persuasion at the tactical level as long as our strategic goals are similar.
One of my goals is to achieve strategic equanimity amonst as many ppl as possible, for which I try to work persuasively.
You said, “Then I will remember you and realize my mistake just moments before a Islamist cuts my throat and leaves me to die on the streets of Kolkatabad as part of the purge of Hindus (apostate or otherwise) from Eastern India. Ok?”
I see a tad smack of Ila Mitra and Jogendranath Mondol in your last sarcastic paragraph.
Wonder why they regretted it later?
@GB:
Do you read all this stuff regularly ?
Great piece 🙂
PM SIngh getting Sleep/Banana less is a wild thought… how do you connect all this stuff ? 🙂
After reading comments looks like i am on some Rediffish comment sections where muslim thrashing post is like party time for all commenters who are on edge of the seat to send every muslim out of country.
Being a muslim i think .. forget it… i dont want to start another channel of comments…
Send all of us somewhere where you you think we wont come back and make you depride..
Jai Hind.
Thanks,
Tarzan
“We should give the same treatment of eating 50 bananas to Musharraf and Dawood Ibrahim will come out.”
:))
@Kishor .. you are in a class of your own dude.
Turtle, thank u. U always appreciate my comments. Thanks for ur support.
Banana Republic – ROTFL.
Too good man!!!
Remember, you heard it here first -(Thanks to Reuters)
“PM Singh, after hearing about the gross violation of *human rights* hopped on a plane and went straight to meet the victim of Hindu torture …err…Police torture , Mr. Sheikh Mohsin. Singh was worried he will have to deal with another sleepless night. So as not to earn the wrath of his wife and be partner who gets disturbed by his “sleeplessness”, he went straight to West Bengal.
Unfortunately, when reports last came in Mr. Singh was not able to meet Mr.Sheikh. His visit was cut short by a Banana. He slipped over the pile of 50 bananas kept as evidence by Human Rights volunteers. Mr. Singh is potentially going to spend many more sleepless and this time “painful” nights after the banana wreck”
Rishi,
What’s your email address? I need to get in touch with you and learn how I can personally pitch in and help improve the situation on the ground in Bengal.
Thanks.
@Hujur
I gave it in one of the previous posts.
Anyway
rishi_khujur@rediffmail.com
@Sanhita: Thanks
@Abhishek: In this case, S.Pyne sent me the link.
@SKDB: 🙂
@Tintin: Thank you for the kind words.
@DV: I have blogged about exactly this before—why such bizarre items about India invariably get prominence.
@Aby: You are joking right?
@JM: And explain why crime doesnt pay.
@Sang.Froid: It cost a small fortune. I am sure she did. One more reason why you should not invest in gold.
@Rajat: 🙂
@Mandeep: True.
@Raktim: Hmm.
@Rohit: “Most muslims dont consider themselves as an intrinsic part of this country”
Most Muslims? I would not agree with that simply because if that was the case, we would have a civil war on our hands. And please do understand that this country is as much theirs as yours—so this “them getting out” bit…
@Anonymous Coward: Hm
@Shark: 🙂
@P4u: Ms. Ghosh is a wannabe Barkha Dutt…minus the genuine achievement.
@Aditya: Yes the police comes out smelling nice on this one.
@S.Pyne: Eau-de-colon ! Priceless
@The Adhikary Gal: So why do you hate my blog?…On second thoughts, dont bother.
@Aman: And that too bananas.
@Momo: i cant imagine how she gets prime time hours
As a daughter and wife of media bigshots.
@DF: It is related….the piece isnt really about “bananas” …if you notice really closely.
@Ankan: its wrong to blame the country of Bangladesh for what happened during partition.
Out of context here but it is the Bangladeshi government which has actively supported the eradication of the Hindu population there. At the very least, do look into the Enemy Property Act
@Dibyo: 🙂
@Raj: AB for Black ! Sigh. That movie could have been a great horror movie.
@Kartik: 🙂
@Sriram: Right. Answers why she is on primetime TV.
@Kishor: “We should give the same treatment of eating 50 bananas to Musharraf and Dawood Ibrahim will come out.”
Applause. Simply awesome.
@Ravi Ivaturi: “I hope, a little naively perhaps, that it would be the blogging world that would, one day, influence public opinion in a major way.”
Will that ever come? And if it does, will the same forces that drive MSM also drive bloggers?
@Vinayak: Complete revolution like the launch of the GB channel.
@Tarzan: This one forwarded to me…
@Kaunteya: 🙂
GB,
did u check today’s aajkaal (the CPIM trash mouthpiece). the ‘editorial’ made fun of the banana incident. I was just wondering what they would have written if the police were from ‘fascist’ modi’s gujrat.
I may have a demented mind but even I dont read Aajkaal.
@ Tarzan
you wrote” Being a muslim i think .. forget it… i dont want to start another channel of comments…Send all of us somewhere where you you think we wont come back and make you depride..
Dear Tarzan,
I am critical of Islam, not Muslims. As I have said before, Muslims born into Islam are as much a victim of Islam as the rest of humanity.
A suggestion… dont worry about de-priding anybody, just worry about doing things that will make u proud. I am sure you do that.
I try to do the same.
@Rishi- Notice how the ‘liberals’ are trying to reduce your serious arguments to frivolous ones. Take the case of the Nabadwip incident that you provided. Now these kind of incidents are swept under the carpet very quickly by the mainstream media, but that picture of that guy pleading for his life during the Gujrat riots is reprinted again and again and again.
The case of Hindus in Bangaldesh and the gradual islamization of parts of WB are cases of genuine concern. The concern, as you point out correctly, is because of the religion of Islam. Now I am an athiest, but I have found that there are some things in Hinduism and Buddhism worth admiring. The problem with Christianity and Islam is the fact that they believe in the either-or principle. There is only one God, rest is false, they say. Naturally, in the eyes of the radicals amongst these religions, there is less or zero tolerance for people of other religions/athiests. So say if in a community there are 88 muslims and 12 non muslims; unrest, violence and slow process of proselytizing is an inevitability. Now consider the reverse scenario- 88 Hindus and 12 muslims. There may be unrest and occasional violence, but I have never heard of forced conversion of religion. Never. Also most of the violence on the part of Hindus is often retributory and not initiated. Same goes for Buddhism.
Thats why minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh are much worse than minorities in India. And the Indian Muslim is quite aware of it. Also the average Indian muslim isnt anti India. But the problem in dealing with the radical ones comes from within us- the ‘liberals’ like say a Sagarika Ghosh. After thorough reading of Indian liberals, I have come to the conclusion that their viewpoint is something like this- Say a muslim group does a bomb blast or rapes a Hindu girl. The ‘liberals’ will say, “So what! But you will not retaliate”. Why? “Because they are muslims!!!” So they protest incarceration of the muslim perpetrators, they shout discrimination and try to portray as if there are an equal number of Hindu terrorists, but they are delibeartely exonerated. The hard fact is that most terrorism related activities etc are done by Muslims, or people born into Islam as you say. But these people will illuminate , highlight and portray statistically insignificant or sometimes old acts like Ayodhya or Gujrat to either condone guilty muslims/ or portray a image of secular liberal writer to the Western media for whatever ends they wish to accomplish.
Due to a combination of vote bank politics (UP, Bengal) and the view espoused by political parties like the Congress (Muslims can kill you, you cant kill muslims), we see a dangerous shift in equilibrium towards propagation of radical Islam and its inevitably dangerous consequences. Cases like Gujrat and Thackarey are actually incidents which restore parity/ maintain equilibrium/ a reminder to aspiring terrorists than an iron fist lies beneath the velvet glove.
“I am a Sangh guy, but I work perfectly fine with people of other ideological persuasion at the tactical level as long as our strategic goals are similar.
One of my goals is to achieve strategic equanimity amonst as many ppl as possible, for which I try to work persuasively.”
But to do that, you have to speak frankly and tell the bare truth. And your introspection allied with deep research of past incidents have led you to the concrete proof of the basic fundamental conjecture which is universally acknowledged privately but seldom uttered publicly – that there is something wrong with Islam itself. Not all its followers are terrorists, but in the hands of the radical, it becomes an excellent and unrivaled doctrine of hatred, malevolence, destruction and intolerance towards non-muslims.
So in the light of all 9/11, Sabvarmati express, Israel- Palestine, 7/7, Eastern Europe and countless acts of terrorism on Indian soil, yours is probably the best comment of the new millennium. I guarantee you that even if comment doesn’t get its due in 2007, it will certainly become a world famous quote in 2107, used both rhetorically, metaphorically and literally.
“Muslims are as much a victim of Islam as the rest of humanity.”
– Rishi Khajur.
Commentator on India’s best blog- RTDM (http://greatbong.net).
Sometime during the month of August, 2007.
@Yourfan 2
Agree with you mostly on your comparison of Hinduism, Islam & Buddhism. So the traditional argument that religions are inherently good, it’s the people who misinterpret them is wrong. It’s the religions that need analysis, some of us understand very well the kind of brainwashing influence religions can exert. And I agree with your rank-order of religions on the scale of violence.
Here’s why I have tried to ‘frivolize’ Rishi’s serious arguments.
Conspiracy theorists often substitute speculation with certainty. Also did you ever consider why conspiracy theories almost never come true? The answer is obvious with a simple application of probability. Generally speaking, for a conspiracy theory to come true, several things should go wrong simultaneously. It is like saying that if you hold a portfolio of bonds, what are the odds that all the bonds default simultaneously? Very low, if the portfolio is well diversified… I don’t want to hazard a guess if the political portfolio of the Indian sub-continent is well diversified but you get the drift.
Anyways, who knows the future? Who imagined that the cold war would end? Who imagined that Hollywood and Star TV would fuel a growing resentment in the Russian people eventually leading to the collapse of Soviet Union? Who imagined the India would become a market economy? Sure, these things are obvious only in hindsight, as always.
The problem with conspiracy theories is-they fuel paranoia, make people suspicious, carry credibility (especially when propounded by well-meaning people like Rishi) and sometimes become self-fulfilling prophesies in a local environment.
@Ravi
To the best of my knowledge a conspiracy theory is defined thus – “A conspiracy theory attempts to attribute the ultimate cause of an event or chain of events (usually political, social, or historical events), or the concealment of such causes from public knowledge, to a secret, and often deceptive plot by a covert alliance of powerful or influential people or organizations. Many conspiracy theories say that major events in history have been dominated by conspirators who manipulate political happenings from behind the scenes.”
I dont quite agree with Rishi on all counts but I dont think what he is trying to say can be construed as a “Conspiracy Theory” as per the above definition, and hence be dismissed with the help of frivolous arguments. He is simply using facts to hypothesize a scenario and if you disagree with it, a better way to deal with it would be to research and dig up facts and construct an opposing stream of logic justifying your conclusions. I also dont understand why his suggestion of reconverting apostates is being ridiculed when all other religions of the world actively seek to do the same.
As far as probabilities are concerned, it is not rare that many such “conspiracy theories”/”six sigma events” do come true in both finance (since we are on it – Remember LTCM) and politics (remember partition).
Thanks
Sunil.
Our job is not to dismiss and frivolize these arguments as “conspiracy theories” but to objectively evaluate them and counter them with logic (should be easy since they are “frivolous” anyway).
I for one have not been able to come with an argument to counter Rishi yet.
@ Sunil
Sure, conspiracy theories have appeal, that’s why they have survival value. Survival value doesn’t mean they are true (meaning they will happen). Our brains are programmed by natural selection to detect patterns… that’s why all of us have confirmatory biases- we look for info that confirms our biases and ignore data that contradicts them
My simple point is this- it’s impossible to predict extreme events. I am fine with speculation… but don’t speculate with an evangelical conviction. And don’t apply hindsight logic… event X has happened, therefore Y WILL happen. Future is far more complicated than that..
Of course, extreme events will come to pass, if you wait long enough. The odds of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 20000-which means if you manage to take 20000 flights in your life, you are almost certain to die in a plane crash. Regarding LTCM, did you know that it was said that it was unlikely to fail even once in the lifetime of our universe? It failed in exactly 6 years. If you could predict extreme events, then you could short the market index and make a fortune.
as someone commented .. even i was wondering why the comment thread was so much like the erudite ones found on rediff.com
then i saw this:
@Hujur
I gave it in one of the previous posts.
Anyway
rishi_khujur@rediffmail.com
i pity anyone who thinks there are bigger threats to india than backwardness and poverty..
if we were a country with proper institutions the police would get a magistrates order before they fed the man the bananas and the sweeper who cleaned the necklace would get minimum wage..
yuck! you guys think that woman either wears it or keeps in her bank box with her other precious jewellry? maybe she sold it and someone else is wearing it without knowing where its been..
i hope the sweeper did a good job.
GB
‘You are joking right?’
No. I really mean it and I have seen it on TV.
They showed it as breaking news and gave some caption like ‘Khake Kele chain nikle’ or something like that.
@ ravi
That is what I am trying to say. It is impossible to predict. Hence when someone hypothesizes about the future we should look in to his assumptions and logic and if we disagree we should clearly state what assumption we disagree with and why. We should not dismiss it as an extreme event and hence unlikely to happen.
Since you seem to be a finance professional, I am sure you would understand that people make money in the markets on the basis of predictions and all these predictions are based on economic assumptions. In order to make money one has to question the validity and robustness of these assumptions and not dismiss ideas on the basis of whether they constitute an extreme form of opinion. LTCM went belly up exactly because the brightest guys in the business (nobel laureates no less) were dismissive of the probability of an extreme event and did not safeguard themselves against it. Same with partition. I am not saying that there will be another partition or another LTCM, all I am saying is that we should not fall in the same trap as these guys did.
p.s: Since you bring up the subject of availability bias (believing data that is available) and recency bias, could you counter Rishi with hard data and logic so that we can imbue ourselves with the bias that your data brings to this discussion.
P.P.S: Putting money in the markets and shorting indices is also a form of speculating with evangelical conviction.
Thanks
Sunil.
@ Sunil
Data is what we don’t have. Or are you suggesting that some of the anecdotal evidence supplied by Rishi constitutes hard data? “89% of Bangladesh has the ideological groundwork…” does this data come from a market research study? Dude, get real, this is not a scientific theory or a Black-Scholes equation that you can prove empirically… What is Rishi’s representative sample? If I talk to somebody from RSS, I would get a bleak view- of how Muslim Indians are taking over the country. If I talk to a Christian zealot, I would get a peep into the Second Coming of Christ and Armageddon. If I talk to a ‘former Muslim & a humanist’, I would get exactly the same data which Rishi got.
Hopefully, the following metaphor will clarify why I did not address Rishi point by point.
Remember, years ago, statues of Ganesha, all over the country, were purportedly drinking milk. There are two ways to get to the truth.
1. Do hundreds of eye-witness interviews, study capillary action, call religious leaders and scientists and do a panel discussion & finally ask for viewer votes.
2. Understand that ‘miracles’ don’t happen & there is always a natural explanation, say the same thing if you were asked for your opinion, switch off the TV.
I agree with Rishi’s general point that the problem is with Islam and not with Muslims. But the solution is definitely not conversion…
@ ravi
I am happy that you have finally chosen to question assumptions instead of being just dismissive. I agree that Rishi’s data is questionable and that is what should have been the focus of this debate and not “Conspiracy Theories”.
Although I dont quite understand why you agree generally with the point that the problem is with Islam and on what basis do you think that conversion is not the solution.
I hope it is not on the basis of the “understanding” and “there is always a natural explanation” school of logic that you seem to follow.
p.s: To the best of my very limited knowledge good judgement lies in collecting data from as many sources as possible and then dispassionately evaluating it to come to a conclusion and not in “understanding things” on the basis of pre existing biases.
Thanks
Sunil.
I read the Anandabazar print edition of the same report, which said that the thief was given 36 [24 peelled and subsequently 12 unpeeled) bananas, instead of jolaap (laxative)] after he gulped down the chain during his interogation. And this he did as he was suffering stomach aches.He was so much in pain that he even agreed to the suggestion of eating 12 unpeeled bananas.
Anyways, after reading the entire article and all your comments I feel that some of you should write to newspapers and channels. Hopefully, some of these will enventually get printed, if not, the ‘secular’ minded will surely notice. I get saddened by the fact that my religion ‘hinduism’ is being constantly equated to as being a bad word in the Indian context. I am proud of the fact that my religion is one where one has to be born into and converted.
I am also aware of pockets of muslim colonies in my district of west Bengal which are untouched by education (state sponsored or otherwise) and family planning. No wonder, every move to introduce any non-religious topics to the madrasa education has been stalled in the name of being anti-religious. Even a Kashmiri writer, a muslim who talked of looking beyond the Prohphet as the role model as he might be as human as anyone of us, has been given a fatwa.The liberal are silent as usual, as it’s their internal matter.Funny, how every ‘hindu’ related gets a comment, retort, whatever, but when it comes to Muslims, they are silent!! Are they scared that somebody will blow up their offices, are pump in bullets like the “your Black Muslim Bakery’ case?
@ Sunil
“I agree that Rishi’s data is questionable and that is what should have been the focus of this debate and not “Conspiracy Theories”.”
I thought that was obvious to anybody even with a remote understanding of statistics -which was why I was not interested in a point by point rebuttal.
“ To the best of my very limited knowledge good judgement lies in collecting data from as many sources as possible and then dispassionately evaluating it to come to a conclusion and not in “understanding things” on the basis of pre existing biases.”
Agree. But taking a stand on the basis of a scientific/economic / generally accepted theory is often more effective that getting down on all fours and micro-analyze.
“Although I dont quite understand why you agree generally with the point that the problem is with Islam and on what basis do you think that conversion is not the solution.”
I am not particularly against Islam, but I have issues with religion in general. That would take the debate totally in a different direction 🙂
The biggest problem facing the world today is radical Islam. If you dont get this then it is unlikely you will get anything of the rest of the debate.
@tracer bullet: awesome. im sure george w. bush and dick cheney who tell us this all the time are the smartest people in the world.
if you think that radical islam is the world biggest problem and not the fact that the drivers of radical islam – osama bin laden, the taliban and the pakistani army/isi were set up and supported by the united states of america then you’re the one in trouble.
now that their pet dogs are biting them in the ass its suddenly the worlds biggest problem. while they were blowing us to bits it was no issue. im sure the south americans are shaking in their boots because of islam.
the biggest problem with the world is the abuse of state machinery for stupid whims. that includes religious terrorism.
the answer to that is to seperate the state from religion not the further the role of religion.
every country in the world which has done so has prospered while those who feel religion is the ‘biggest problem’ rather than focusing on the development of their people have suffered.
if india was a hindu state we would find ourselves in the same mess that pakistan and bangladesh find themselves in today.
take care of the basics and the world’s biggest problems will solve themselves.
LMAO
hahahahaaha…
@ravi
“Agree. But taking a stand on the basis of a scientific/economic / generally accepted theory is often more effective that getting down on all fours and micro-analyze.”
I thought taking a stand on the basis of scientific/economic theory meant getting down on all fours and microanalysing , and taking a stand on the basis of “generally accepted principles/theory” meant succumbing to the patternistic biases that bedevil our mind (due to progarmming by natural selection, I have been told) . Anyway forgive my ignorance.
Thanks
Sunil.
@ Sunil
“Anyway forgive my ignorance”
Forgiven 🙂
Dear Rohit,
I disagree with your views on asking Muslims to quit India. Muslims are our own flesh and blood, and we all have common Hindu ancestors… whether or not some Muslims feel comfortable enough to accept this reality.
What you should be doing instead is asking Muslims to stay in India, while asking Islam to quit India.
Islam is the problem, not Muslims. They are human beings, just like you and me.
Just like the triumvirate of “Nazism-Hiter-Mein Kampf” brainwashed ordinary Germans and turned them into willing tools of hatred and genocide, so does the trio of “Islam-Mohammed-Quran”.
Ordinary Germans were as much victims of their Nazi brand of the “cult of hate” as the Jews who perished in the Holocaust … and likewise, “the converted Arabs, Indians, Egyptians and Iranians who were forced into another cult of hate” , are as much victims as their Hindu cousins.
The problem is not people but the “belief system” that brainwashes people into zombies, from their very childhood. Once they shake off the shackles of this “belief system” and return home to their roots, there will be no problem.
Work towards bringing your brothers back into the mainstream Dharmic paths of India…. Peace and Harmony will follow naturally.
Ravi and Sunil.
Very interesting conversation.
I get daily updates on the incidences relevent to the issue at hand from Bengal (Indian side) and Bangladesh. That includes media reports as well as verifiable reports (with pictures where possible) from volunteers on the ground, manyof which are not publicly available.
If you want, you can study and analyze those updates for a 1 year period and help me come up with a better inference and as a result a improved strategy, than the ones I proposed above.
I shall greatly appreciate your volunteering in such an exercise. My email has been mentioned previously.
nice post GB…any comments on the happenings between Shweta Tiwari and her husband being arrested and stuff…….
@rishi khujur
I know that you are not criticizing muslims. but criticizing Islam eventually you ARE criticizing Muslims.
See not everybody in the community is a JIHADI. but bcoz of some jerks you can not say that all of us are bad. I do things what i have to do. at the end of the day i too have to eat and sleep in my country. So it isnt like the way you are thinking.
Politicians are burinig country to cook their food. and being a burning object dont we think that we are also fools. we should put all these religious greatness at a side.
See i dont take side of my religion. I also know that there are some individual who are on the wrong track. but we cant help it. every religion has something in it. We are islamic and we are proud of that. We are not JIHADIS. WE are just normal people trying to meet two ends.
Thanks
Tarzan
@ Tarzan
You wrote, “We are islamic and we are proud of that. We are not JIHADIS”.
I was hoping you would say that. And please understand that what I am asking you here is not intended to be disrespectful of you, in any way, as a person.
A few questions, and you can respond, if you choose to here, or you can carry the conversation elsewhere.
1. Since you claim to be a proud Islamic person, I assume you believe in the Quran in its totality (as a primary requirement of being a Muslim). If you do, could you tell me what is there in it to be proud of?
2. Do you as a Muslim, subscribe to the prescribed message of the Hadiths?
“1. Since you claim to be a proud Islamic person, I assume you believe in the Quran in its totality (as a primary requirement of being a Muslim). If you do, could you tell me what is there in it to be proud of?”
how do you respectfully ask someone this?
its like asking someone respectfully if their mother is a slut..
mr. khujur seems to suggest that there is nothing to be proud of in islam because its obviously more irrational than another religion ..say.. scientology
i suppose it must be hard being a muslim being born in india. they see such an inherently superior religion which is completely rational without any sort of repressive practices right before their eyes yet they continue in their errant ways.
how tragic.
oh mr. khujur if only there were more wonderful enlightened people like you. surely then we could not be bothered by the muslims. we wouldnt even need a holocaust.
we could convince them to kill themselves!
@ Rishi Khujur
I was too hoping for your response.. but you have outdone your image from my mind by asking these questions..
See in my first comment I said i dont want to start any controversy or channel of posts. Bcoz i dont feel comfortable being the culprit of 100s of comments after my post. and waste time of all that well worded and well thinking person to debate on wheather islam is bad, worse or worst.
i am not very good at playing with words so forgive me for any discripencies.
1)
Its not that there is single page or single chapter why i like Quran. And as You said i am proud of it in its totality. It teaches to stick to that what we believe and one more thing that i am completely following is live and let others live. It teaches to fight for what you think is right. I can go on and on and on for this..
So I am proud of it as a whole book.
2)
I do.
Do you know what Hadith is ?
Thanks,
Tarzan
Mr w.t.f. ittabari
Take a chill pill … sir. Most people here are trying to have a meaningful conversation, including me. And I am learning a lot from this interaction too.
I will be more than happy to look critically at Scientolgy or Hindu Dharma or any other -ism in parallel to this conversation.
I must say thats a very innovative approach to getting your “ornaments” back hehe 😀
@ w.t.f. ittabari
Why dont get realistic than criticizing each other. its no use to throw brickbates. eventully all of us are going to get hurt.
If they doesnt know what is the basic funamental of Islam they will question it.
May be we dont like it but it is a bare truth that Some of the individual connected to Islam are on the wrong track. And they have taken all of us granted by sauing that what they are doing are doing on behalf of us. So we have to suffer till we dont come and speak.
It is OUR mistake that we giving him a chance to pi point our religion and question Islam. Thats the Truth.
@ Tarzan
You wrote “Its not that there is single page or single chapter why i like Quran. And as You said i am proud of it in its totality.”
All I can say, dear Tarzan, is that the readers should read the Quran and decide for themselves what you are “proud of in its totality”, by your own admission.
I have read the Quran (3 different translations), all approved by “Al-Azhar seminary”.
I have done my homework on the Hadiths too.
But i dont know Arabic, so you can come back to me and say that “Kafir” in Arabic does not mean a “non-believer”.
@ Tarzan
But I work closely with a Egyptian Islamic scholar, who claims, he knows Arabic very well, and I have little reason to doubt that.
Every single person who doesnot believe in Islam is “Kafir”. And if you have read it than you should know it that its not written that we have to kill all the “Kafirs”. It is a proverb given to a non-believer.
I have also read quran. Not bcoz my region says but bcoz i follow it. If one follows Quran they dont suffer.
It teaches to live simple life and help each other.
But whole islamism can not be blamed bcoz of some people who take the Quran and Hadith the wrong way.
@ Tarzan
you wrote
“Every single person who doesnot believe in Islam is “Kafir”. And if you have read it than you should know it that its not written that we have to kill all the “Kafirs”. It is a proverb given to a non-believer”.
Rishi’s response
You lied my friend, in your second sentence.
Here are some translations that will jog your memory
“Those who disbelieve, their patrons are false deities. … Such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein.–2:257 (Chapter 2, Cow, Verse 257)
Those who argue concerning Allah … wrath is upon them and theirs will be an awful doom.–42:16 (Chapter 42, Councel, Verse 16)
Surely that day will be a day of anguish, Not of ease, for non-believers.–74:9-10 (Chapter 74, the cloaked one, Verse 9-10)
Then, when they saw Our doom, they said: We believe in Allah only and reject (all) that we used to associate (with Him). But their faith could not avail them when they saw Our doom. … The disbelievers will be ruined.–40:84-85 (Chapter 40, The believer, Verse 84 -85)
Behold them, staring wide (in terror), the eyes of those non-believers!–21:97 (Chapter 21, The prophets, Verse 97)
The worst of beasts in Allah’s sight are the ungrateful who are non-believe.–8:55 (Chapter 8, Spoils of War, Verse 55)
As for the non-believers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not. Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom.–2:6-7
But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads, Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted; And for them are hooked rods of iron.–22:19-21
This is not a exhaustive list, but gives an idea of what I am talking about.
I am not even going into the Hadith.
And Tarzan…you are right when u say that “If one follows Quran …they dont suffer”.
OTHERS WHO DONT FOLLOW QURAN, DO SUFFER.
@Shan,
Don wanna go to Saudi… 😦 send me to Pakistan,,,gals are too good there… 🙂
And what a long and overwhelming debate is going on here. nice to see people to fight over religion and even taking decisions that there is nothing to take pride in one’s religion and all sorts…
Guys,
Get over this religion stuff. We started about Banana….now we are in fact going bananas. India is secular country. At least try to make it so. religion is something personal and for your own internal relief. At least I take it to be so and I am sure like me many Hindu and Muslims take it that way. so lets not make it a baazaar and start comparing it to one another.
quite late now,
signing off,
Ankan
@Rishi,
All those translations are fine but I still think Tarzan is right. It says that all non believers will be doomed. Nowhere i could find an instruction go and kill them, Could you please provide a reference??
Isn’t it same with all religions? Even my mom taught me when i was a kid that if you touch a book with your feet it will be such a great sin that you will go to hell and where there is big giants which will bite you and all those stuff. Isn’t this a similar picture of Doom!! mind it its not written in geeta but how many of Hindus actually know geeta? whatever they are taught from childhood is in fact religion to them.
And by the way non-believers mean non believers in GOD or an atheist. Which I am and surely my doom is coming which ever religion I may be from…
now don’t come after me so that I am actually doomed…
running away for eternity,
Ankan
Dear Ankan:
Non-believers = Kafirs (read Tarzan’s pervious mail), which u happen to be if you are a Hindu.
Stay happy my friend, ignorance is bliss.
@ Hujur
Thanks for the 3:10 pm comment
…useful links
Heard the latest on the pride of Islam on all national TV channels yesterday. Taslima Nasreen along with some elderly writers was “taught a lesson” in typical Islam style in Hyderabad at a book release event. Bravo Islam! Bravo Islamists!
@Anonymous:
Many Hindu goons had stripped down to their undies in a “chaddi banyan” protest when Fire was released in Bombay. Bravo Hinduism! Bravo Hindus!
Hope you see how ridiculous it sounds when you extrapolate the actions of a few to an entire creed…
@ Shan
How sad that you have to run up to the last decade to dig out an example to smear Hindus/Hinduism. Also did these goons go and throw chairs at Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das and threaten to kill them if they came to the neighbourhood? I don’t remember seeing that anywhere. Or maybe your imagination cooked that up for you as well
@Shan
Also, the post was not to compare Islam with Hinduism or any other religion or Islamists with Hindus. Is it such a scary thought for you to think of your community’s actions in isolation? So why don’t you cook up some excuses for your people instead of trying to compare? Maybe that might work
@Anonymous:
I have no desire to compare anything to anything else. My intention was to show how extrapolation based on one action is just silly and juvenile, and designed to fulfill preconceived notions of a particular creed.
I have NOT said anything against Hindus at all in my posts. That should be clear to any sane person. However, your references to “your community” and “your people” shows no such restraint or characteristic.
You are clearly a bigot. And what do you mean by “your community” anyway? How do you know what religion I am or what faith I belong to? How do you know I have any faith at all? Your presumptions actually preclude any possibility of intelligent discussions with you. You are a fundamentalist – pure and simple, no different from the mullahs you seek to vilify.
Again, let me state that no rational person can ever justify terrorism or any kind of violence. Unfortunately violence happens, as does fundamentalism. And we need to oppose ALL fundamentalists instead of falling into the all-too-easy trap of becoming one of one religion to oppose one of another religion.
But of course, these words will have no meaning for you. I can already see the sneer forming on your lips as you read this…
Forget it. There is no reasoning with blind hate.
PS – BTW, since you raise the issue, they did throw plenty of things, including stones and invective at Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi when they were trying to film a movie called Water in Varanasi. Because evidently the movie was “smearing” Hinduism, reality be damned.
Maybe you were part of that gang of goons?
I think the verses you referred are for Doom i.e Day of Doom and as you will better know if as “Qayamat”
And this belongs to everyone. When Qayamat is there everybody has to go thru the tests and those who is non believer in allah and prophet mohammad will have the same fate.
You can get more info from where did you get all this.
So Quran doesnt say that go and kill every Kafir. Hope this clears your disbeliefs.
Dont get angry and over react. I know that Half knowledge of anything is very dangerous and thats is what you are suffering from. You dont have proper knowledge thats why you over reacting.
Just think for a moment with neutral mind. That If Quran says so ( Killing all kafirs with different tryouts as you said earlier with references of verces) than do you think that by any chance you would have born ?
Its not the way you are thinking buddy.
If you want to study Quran go to some good Maulvi who can translate if to you properly. Its not like you read it once,twice,thrice and you think that you are a mulla.
Understand it with the references of what happened on that time so you will get a better idea.
Thanks,
Tarzan
@ Tarzan
You did not read my entire post and quotes and tried to respond to the ones u found easiest to spin.
Let me repeat
“But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads, Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted; And for them are hooked rods of iron.–22:19-21”
Dear Tarzan:
I have studied the Quran with a Islamic scholar from Egypt (if you cared to read my posts).
Unlike the Hadees, Quran is free from context (I am sure your Maulvi would have told you that) as it is considered the ultimate word of “Allah”.
So dont obfuscate.
@ Tarzan
you wrote:”That If Quran says so ( Killing all kafirs with different tryouts as you said earlier with references of verces) than do you think that by any chance you would have born ?
Rishi’s response:
Oh trust me, I was meant to be born.. if not any other Hindu Kafir, as your Quran describes it.
Me or any other Hindus birth is free from this doctrine of hate, my friend…..always remember that.
@ Rishi Khujur
I have read all your posts so dont bother to remind.
I will still be saying the same thing that the verce you pinpointed is written in context to ‘Qayamat’. Get in the real world mate.
You said that you got your ‘knowledge’ from a Islamic Scholar.
So he must be a follower of Quran Like me, isnt he ?
So did he after taking your class everyday went our for a killing spree screaming name of allah and jihaad ?
No, right ? Neither did I.
So as per your ‘knowledge’ him being a follower should go out for the same ?
get real buddy. Overcome your ego mate. Hatred never did anything good to anybody. It wont do good to you neither..
“Rishi’s response:
Oh trust me, I was meant to be born.. if not any other Hindu Kafir, as your Quran describes it.
Me or any other Hindus birth is free from this doctrine of hate, my friend…..always remember that.”
I know you were meant to be born, Thats why you are here. And i dont take credit for that.
I said my sentence in Sarcastic way to let you know that if they were bound to kill any Kafirs available ( As per your Knowledge) than there would be no you right ? hope you get the sarcasm in right sport.
See rishi this is why i dont get in argument with anybody on religion. Bcoz what ever the point may be it wil go on and on and on till eternity.
Neither you will say Islam is good nor i will say its bad.
Tarzan – The reason muslims don’t go on killing spree screaming in the name of allah and jihaad in India is because muslims are minority in this country and Hindus and Christians have kept muslims under control. Check any other country like mideast, pakistan, bangladesh where muslims are majority and check what is status of minority in those countries. The reason all muslims in India are not “jihadists” and “terrorists” is because very few muslims literally follow that book of “satanic verses” in India. State is not run by any religious book in India and that is precise reason India has not become taliban despite having large number of muslims.
@Vimala
Just a quick question
Ever been to mideast,Pakistan or any other countries where muslim is a majority ?
I have been. As per my knowledge i didnt see anybody going out with naked swords in his end. In Pakistan,Dubai and other Islamic majority cuntirs there are Hindus and Christians who are staying together with Muslims. and i dont think that they are having any problem staying together.
They are living together peacefully.
Tarzan,
Do you have any idea what is happening to Hindus, every day, in Bangladesh? Do you know how Pakistan got rid of its Hindu minority? Are you plain ignorant or are you something else?
Quran Sura 8:2 has this profound instruction:
“Instill terror into the hearts of the non-believers, chop above their necks and chop all their finger tips of them”
This should take care of any further argument Tarzan….
Take this to ur Maulvi…and ask him for a spin.
A dont come back to me saying that chopping a head doesnt mean “kill”.
@Rohan
Are you really sure that what is happening in Bangladesh, is done by Muslims ?
Are your very much sure that the people who are doing this are Quran Followers who are taking the verces and are on killing spree ?
Dont you see a single patch of political color on what is happening there ?
@ Hujur
I agree with you about Islam being the problem, and not the muslims themselves. Absolutely. It would indeed be nice if all the people in this country were homogenous in their faith. Infact, i believe that that’s one reason that has helped countries like the US of A and England. There, even though minorities exist, the citizens are primarily of one faith and belief. However, that would obviously end up sacrificing the ethnic diversity that we have, which isnt desirable either.
@ GB
“Most Muslims? I would not agree with that simply because if that was the case, we would have a civil war on our hands.”
Actually a civil war isnt an inevitable outcome considering that it wont get the muslims of India anywhere. I mean a civil war isnt going to change the demographics of a nation rite. What i’m saying is that there are so so many of them who just dont feel like they belong to this country. I agree that the “hindu terrorists”, some of them renowned, are to blame for this. But that’s the cause, it doesnt take away the effect.
@Tarzan:
Are you really sure that what is happening in Bangladesh, is done by Muslims ?
YES. Of course you may argue that people with the name Salim, Mohammed etc are not Muslims but actually Hindus conspiring with evil green aliens. You may even claim that Pakistan is not an Islamic republic but a Christian country where the constitution misspelt Christian as Islam. Seriously dude, what have you been smoking?
Political color? What’s that? In any country where Muslims dominate population-wise they oppress and decimate minorities. Is that politics? Or the fundamental nature of the religion of peace?
@ Rohan, Rohit, Vimala, Hujur:
The past day conversation with Tarzan and the comments he came back with, was exactly what I was trying to show through my earlier posts.
How a apparently perfectly logical, sane and humorous (Tarzan is funny sometimes as I can see from his earlier posts) gentleman of a person, like Tarzan, who otherwise could be anyone of us, is willing to stoop to illogical and sometimes unjustifiable reasoning for the sake of “defending” Islam.
Even when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary , he continues to stretch himself to unbelievable lengths to support Islam.
Tarzan, remember, at some point in history, your forefathers were Hindu Kafirs too.
and victims of the very Islam …..u are so har trying to absolve.
@ rishi khujur
Thank you for your kind words filled with lots of green water in that.
I tried to defend the best I can. hard for me to stay in touch with the goings on from this far from my country.
you wont believe but exactly know that i am and my forefathers were not converted.
I have a chain of names from where they started to put it on a wooden frame.
@ Rohit
Against of comparisons with other countries. we should not destroy our hut by seeing other’s bunglow eventually its we who are staying in a hut.
@ Tarzan
you wrote:
you wont believe but exactly know that i am and my forefathers were not converted.
I have a chain of names from where they started to put it on a wooden frame.
Rishi’s response.
Since you mention that,
All I need would be your sect, region of origin and lastname and I can tell you how and when your forefathers were converted.
99% of the Muslims in India are children of native converts.
Only around 1% are mixed populations, with almost no Arabic bloodline (except in small pockets of Mallapuram district in Kerala, which numerically is insignificant).
Most of that 1%, is Central Asian Turkik and Afghan tribal bloodline.
Most of the so called “Pathans” in the Northern India are actually converted Kshatriya groups (the Hindus of them around 9TH century CE, started calling themselves “Rajputs” and continue to use that name).
Interestingly, unlike the commonly accepted notion, most of the conversions were done by violent Sufi-sects under the patronage of Sunni rulers and not by the Sunni rulers like Aurangzeb themself.
This conversation is getting more personal than I would have expected it to be.
@ Everyone:
The politics and pattern of how 99% of the Islamic population in the subcontinent (including Sindh and Afghanistan) got converted, over a period of 1000 years, is a study worth its salt.
What is even more surprising is how that 99% native converts Islam continue to hope and believe that their forefathers came from across the Khyber Pass.
A deep and objective analysis of that would throw up surprising pointers to a very relevent issue, with which I began this discussion.
I love the debate going around here. I had always wondered where would I be able to have a platform to share my views on this topic. One suggestion though:
Please do not indulge into name callings and all that. I know that emotions are running high but this just inhibits rational dispassionate debate.
@Tarzan: Can you answer a question for us?
If you believe in the Quran then about the following quote:
“But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads, Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted; And for them are hooked rods of iron.–22:19-21?
Do you actually believe its true?
And if you believe its true then isnt’ this and example of barbarism that prevails in the reiligion?
And if anybody(muslim) is convinced that this is going to be the fate of fellow non-believers than what do you think will his attitude be towards them?
Now I am not saying that Islam is the only religion with problems, most(ok, all) of them have very grevious problems that need to be dealt with. But the fact remains that because something else is wrong does not justify that you can be wrong (Aside:Nirupa Roy in Deewar: “Kisi aur ke paap ginane se apne paap kam nahi ho jate” :))
I dont want to single out Islam here but that is what the current discussion is about.
please do reply,
Ameya
This is democracy. Majority always rules. One muslim tries to defend his religion and there is 100 others swirming in to stop his voice.
and we curse burkha dutt….
so you mean to say what is happening in pakistan we need to repeat the same in India only difference being this time muslims shud be in the receiving end.
Mr Rishi Khuzur I can’t say being a hindu I am proud of your words.
Kill the muslims….Hindustand Jindabad
Though I thought I would run away for eternity, but to where?
Hatred is omnipresent and nowhere to go from here.
ankon my young friend:
did you even care to read through the substance of the discussion.
Tell me where I was wrong.
Did I ever say, kill anyone?
By being this melodramatic and speaking totally out of context, you are not helping anyone…least of all the Muslims.
Dont trust in what I say, do your own research as you grow up…come to your own conlcusions.
The translations given by Rishi were illuminating. This again reaffirms my belief that Islam is the main culprit. Consider the social context then. The disunity amongst the Arabs. So the people who wrote that book, Quran, in order to bring more and more people under their fold, had to preach ‘universal brotherhood’, but amongst the followers only. And how to give the followers an extreme form of identity? By showing that they are in stark contrast to non believers. So non-believers were tainted and conversion was encouraged at the point of sword.
There is nothing to hide about this fact. Its all well documented in history. The numerous invaders, the acts of that fucker called Aurangzeb, are all well chronicled in history books. An educated Muslim should understand what to imbibe and what not to. So if someone says that “I believe in the Quran cover to cover”, then as Rishi correctly says that you believe in the doctrine of hatred too. Its plain and simple. See all these book…Quran, Mahabharat, Bible, etc etc were written many years ago. They have undergone several updations and additions across centuries. Any written work is bound to have prejudices of the writer. So understand that what you read as God’s word is actually someone’s version. I believe that a liberal muslim would selectively imbibe stuff from Quran and take the sayings which Rishi has pointed out with a pinch of salt. After all, they live in different times than when Quran was written.
At the same time you see how easy it is for a religious leader to use the same very words as an unparalleled tool for spreading hatred. “If the book says you must kill, well you must kill.” Its as simple as that. And if don’t do so, you are not a true moslem. So imagine the constraints of being a moslem.And the less said about Mohammedan women, the better. The reason why not too much communal violence takes place in the Middle East is because of economic prosperity. Poor people of poor countries like Pak, Bangla and Malayasia are more easily prone to religious bigotry and hatred towards non-believers. That is another thing about Islam. It has so many constraints. And the modern world is all about being free from them. So in that respect, it is a very retrograde and anachronistic religion, as are forms of religions which discriminate against gays, ban tv channels, or abortion, or stem cell research.
So the key for muslims to achieve emancipation from the clutches of radical Islam is to push the limits by as much as possible by staying withing Islam (they cannot leave Islam, doing so is very risky); and judge things using their judgment and prudence, rather than what the book says. And the key to that is mass education; and that does not mean Madrassa type education. But the possibility of such reforms appear bleak, as the Musilm religious leaders would realize that they would be contrary to their own interests, and proceed to stall them with manic meticulousness, all in the name of the Quran of course.
I have read it infact…and then lost interest as you became so much predictable.
i am not saying you are wrong in your stats because i don’t have the stats to prove you so. But by proving to a man that his religion is wrong and doesn’t come anywhere near hinduism which is the greatest of all(as I derived from your posts) I do not know and neither do I want to know what you want to prove. Religion is something i don’t understand and your religious fanaticism of attacking others religion and attacking others personal feeling is something i can not comprehend.
Probably you are right. This is the way of all religions in proving others wrong in showing its own greatness. I don’t have the slightest idea. You must be right as you speak with so much conviction.
as always running away like a coward,
Ankan
hey mate Ankan:
I never said Hinduism is the greatest….and please dont “derive” that from my post.
Arre…ekhane to aamra shudhu discuss korchi jaate amaader knowledge baare”….
eto dukhi hoyo na.
I will take issue to you calling me fanatic. If speaking with facts and holding up a mirror to a horrible truth, which has resulted in misery to millions of people around the world (Hindus or Muslims), makes me a fanatic in your eyes…tahole amaar shotti khub kahrap laagbe..
I would urge you to use the same standard of judgement with which you are opposing me, to every aspect of this discussion.
Apologies Rishi. no personal attack meant. But somehow I went on the wrong lines.
sorry…but how do you derive i am bengali and start writing in begali? Just becos i wrote a post in bengali in my blog? Well its a similar way i derived that you were a bit fanatic. But dont take it to heart. And yes i became a bit fanatic too though probably standing on the opposite end and trust me any kind of fanaticism can be dangerous.
I do wander religions are such a non issue here in UK i never even hear my friends who stay here talking about it. isn’t islamic terrorism a similarly large issue here also? Ppl just respect others religion. Thats what i don’t find in India. PPL are discussing but while doing so they are hurting thousand others which often goes unnoticed.
This kind of carelessness largely constitutes to what we face today.
In 1947 there were no terrorism but still ppl were killing each other in the name of religion. Hindus were equally responsible as muslims for what happened in bengal and Punjab. I believe the issue is with us. who take religion so seriously that we dont even care to think when we come down to the streets to kill each other.
get over it guys. Religion is for your own moksha. for your own internal peace. There is nothing to compare in it. If islam gives Tarzan peace, then so be it. why do we have to comment like what is there in quaran to be proud of??
A person can read a verse in various meanings. which one you take it there lies the falacy. fundamentalists surely read it the wrong way…whether hindu or muslim or cristian.
Once again sorry for calling you fanatic.
Now I am seriously running…gotta do lotta work,
Ankan
you wrote
In 1947 there were no terrorism but still ppl were killing each other in the name of religion. Hindus were equally responsible as muslims for what happened in bengal and Punjab.
You are wrong…but do your own research to find out the truth.
Start with “Direct Action Day” called by MA Jinnah.
take care Ankan…again do your own research…and come to your own conclusions..
i know about Direct Action Day and nothing is proved about who was responsible. And I don’t deny the fact MA Jinnah may have been the real culprit. But does that give you the right to question the base of a religion which is believed by a vast majority of this worlds population? That was politics and this is religion.
I am not against historic and contemporary research about religious behaviour and impact of politics. But what I am against is when you insult other people’s belief. Again we can go on and on and on. My point is rational discussion is fine but at any cost keep it rational.
@ Ankon
Which part of my comments was irrational? Please do let me know.
” I know about Direct Action Day and nothing is proved about who was responsible”
Just curious. Did you pull this out from some body orifice or was this what your Class X history teacher taught you? Next you will say that nothing is proved about who was responsible for the Holocaust.
Try to take off that albatross around your neck, Ancient Mariner !
Ankon:
“I do wander religions are such a non issue here in UK i never even hear my friends who stay here talking about it. isn’t islamic terrorism a similarly large issue here also? Ppl just respect others religion. Thats what i don’t find in India. PPL are discussing but while doing so they are hurting thousand others which often goes unnoticed.”
You are soooooooooooooooo naive, and if I may say, you deliberately shut your eyes to certain incidents and then argue endlessly without logic . Have you read this?
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0207/178.html
Dear Ankan,
Sorry to butt in between your conversation with Rishi.
You wrote: “In 1947 there were no terrorism but still ppl were killing each other in the name of religion. Hindus were equally responsible as muslims for what happened in bengal and Punjab.”
There was ample of Islamic terrorism in 1947 alright. It would help if you read these two online books below (that are extensive compilations of historical evidence and statistical data) about the killings in 1947 in Bengal and Punjab:
If you care to get a feel for the Islamic terrorism in 1947, check out the online book:
‘My People Uprooted: A Saga of the Hindus of Eastern Bengal’,
and the online book (especially the Appendices in):
‘Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947’
Where and why did the massacres of “Kafir idolators” start in the first place? Why was the Direct Action Day intended for? Why was there a massive upsurge for a separate state for “believers” in the land of the “Kafir idolators”? The Quran is the theological justification for the jihad that was unleashed on “Kafir idolators” by the so-called “Prophet” since the 7th century and continues in full vigor today.
The Proof is in the Pudding. Don’t simply believe a single word I wrote… Just find a copy of the Quran and read it. You can find it in your neighborhood library, mosque or Islamic websites online.
In general, when I read your comments, I see a well-meaning, good-hearted, naive, harmless, mild Hindu … but I am also reminded about the fabled ostrich that sticks its head in the sand, when confronted by the harsh, reality of Islam (as opposed to a mythical version of a “Hindu-like, gentle Islam” that you seem to have fantastically created in your mind).
Are you sure you are not assuming that Islam somehow mirrors the belief system that you were raised in (because of the deeply ingrained notions of “All Religions, cults and ideologies MUST be the same”), and extrapolating Hindu beliefs onto a cult that is far from it?
Knowledge is Power. So arm yourself with the facts. And always verify any facts yourself before accepting or rejecting them.
Fellas, I have got sick of it.
Don’t feel like answering your orifice question Rohan.
May be I am not eager to put off that albatross around my neck and may be I am so much ignorant that its my bliss that i can live my life without hating anyone from other caste other religion Or may be upto now I haven’t understood a thing of this conversation and writing bullshit. So be it.
Running away to sleep in peace.
Now dont chase me in my dreams…
Ankan
And one more thing, many people are spelling my name as Ankon!!! 😮
I think in the previous many posts i hve clearly written what my name is.
@Ameya:
Pls follow the posts to guess my answer.
really how i so believe that. That is fate afther death if you believe in life after death.
Let me say again that this is written in context of Qayamat.The day when your deeds will be your fate.
If a muslim who doesnt believe in mohammad he will be also given to the same fate as Kafir.
And I DO BELIEVE that.
@ Rishi
If someday i will not trust the family tree i will surely give you the info to find out who am I ?
On the conversion, i cant comment. non believer of that.
@Rohan
Do you think that M Jinnah was the only culprit ? Can you calp with one hand ?
Tarzan wrote:
If a muslim who doesnt believe in mohammad he will be also given to the same fate as Kafir.
And I DO BELIEVE that.
Rishi’s response:
Rest my case.
So the argument goes on & on 🙂
@ Yourfan2 & Rishi
I have problems with your strategy of selective- singling out of Islam. You might want to check out Garuda Purana, a Hindu text that details explicitly the kind of punishments that await sinners & disbelievers in the Afterlife. And disbelievers means, people who don’t believe in Hindu Gods, not the ‘One God’ Vivekananda referred to. So how is it any different from the verses of Koran we are discussing? My intention is not to do a ‘ my Daddy strongest’ argument, but merely point out the bias in your arguments.
Every religion believes it’s exclusive rights over Truth- that’s why all the major religions have survived more than a couple of milliniums- so it’s inevitable that you will find ‘strongly’ worded verses in all religions. Given sufficient time, I am sure we can find similar verses in all religions.. it’s just that Islam is more ‘top of the mind’.
Fast forward to the present times ! It’s no secret that philosophy of Veer Savarkar & Nathuram Godse forms the basis of RSS ideology.
Excrepts from Nathram’s Godse’s speech in court..
“All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.”
A priority item in the agenda of a prominent national party!
“I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.”
But who is the enemy here?
@ Ravi
You are absolutely wrong in your claim “every religion believes its exclusive rights over Truth”. Dont project your understanding of Islam onto the rest of humanity
And let me for a second assume that Garuda Purana has “a concept of disbeliever” in it. Not just the Garuda Purana, but Manu smriti (a time bound analysis) has many things that are extemely objectionable too.
Me, you or anybody will be more than willing to disown the Garuda Purana or Manu Smriti.
That does not make me any less a Hindu.
Is any Muslim willing to disown the Quran for the same reason?
Will the world of Islam allow an indivudual to critisize Mohammad and his doctrine of hate?
You got the answer to that ,in the thread before from a gentleman of Muslim in Tarzan.
Ravi, a thoughtful writer lile knew very well the answer to that even before our Muslim friend Tarzan opened up his heart.
But I appreciate your trying again Ravi.
@ ravi
Quick Question – is the garuda purana a definitive book of the Hindus as the Quran is for the Muslims. I for one have not heard of it ever and no one in family has either (and they are quite religious).
“I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.”
Dont know what you are trying to prove here. Since when did Godse’s sayings carry as much weight in Hinduism as Allah’s/Mohammed’s in Islam.
P.S: Nathuram Godse does not form the core philosophy of the RSS. I would again like to request you to refrain from using “generally accepted” theory and engaging in “simplified patternistic” behaviour.
Thanks
Sunil.
correction to my last post
You got the answer to that ,in the thread before from a gentleman of Muslim in Tarzan.
Ravi, a thoughtful writer like you, knew very well, the answer to that even before our Muslim friend Tarzan opened up his heart.
@ Sunil
What Ravi is trying here has been tried before by many generalizers I have discussed with.
Their argument has the following features
1. Every religion has something bad in it, so Islam is like every religion.
2. Intolerance is a general human quality (sic) and therefore Islam is not to be singled out for being a primary cause of it.
What distinguishes Islam though, and has resulted in so much human grief, is its ability to convince its followers in the infalliblity of its hateful message. And there can be degrees of separation to the amount of “action” in the application of Islam, by its followers.
What our Muslim friend Tarzan projected has nothing to do with how he is as a person. it has everything to do with how Islam as a belief system encroaches upon the human mind. I would have absolutely no problem with that too, as long as it doesnt effect the rest of us.
But we all know, and Ravi knows, the history of the world in the past 1400 years and we also know what is in store for humanity.
BTW, Tasleema was booked by police in Hyderabad for “hurting” Muslim sentiments.
@ rishi
I cannot really comment on what you have said since my knowledge in these matters is quite limited. However over the course of this discussion I have realised that most of the comments in defense of Islam have not really introduced conclusive facts but merely engaged in generalisations, obfuscations and melodrama. I dont understand why is it so difficult for people to say in the face of overwhelming evidence that some aspect of the religion they follow is not right and accepting that does not dilute their faith. All faiths have issues with them, why is it so difficult for educated/civilised people to accept the flaws and walk on.
I will contact you shortly for the data on Bangladesh.
Thanks
Sunil.
@ Sunil
“Quick Question – is the garuda purana a definitive book of the Hindus as the Quran is for the Muslims. I for one have not heard of it ever and no one in family has either (and they are quite religious).”
So you have not heard of Garuda Purana? How does that change anything? By ‘definitive’, did you mean popular or ‘defining’? It might be a difficult task to conclude in the case of Hinduism which has multiple texts.
“P.S: Nathuram Godse does not form the core philosophy of the RSS. I would again like to request you to refrain from using “generally accepted” theory and engaging in “simplified patternistic” behaviour.”
At the very least, you might want to read up on the historical roots of RSS, its alleged involvement in Gandhi’s assassination and its subsequent banning, recent spat between RSS & BJP over comments on Veer Savarkar etc. A little research might make you rethink your comments about the construction of my arguments.
@ Rishi
“You are absolutely wrong in your claim “every religion believes its exclusive rights over Truth”. Dont project your understanding of Islam onto the rest of humanity”
I have actually paraphrased a part of a Vivekananda’s speech. He says that all religions have three common features. 1) Book (Like Koran, Gita) 2) Prophet 3) Belief that it represents the ONLY way to God; he goes on to say that the third point is vital in uniting the followers – hence emphasized by the prophets & Advaita is the only ‘democratic’ stream of thought that allows people to follow ‘any’ path and reach the Truth.
You are not really claiming that Hinduism means only Advaita. Are you?
“Is any Muslim willing to disown the Quran for the same reason? Will the world of Islam allow an indivudual to critisize Mohammad and his doctrine of hate? “
Now you have hit the nail on the head. I don’t have data, but my hypothesis is- in percentage terms, Islam probably has a greater number of true-believers than Hinduism. Now that can be reasonably attributed to education (or lack of it) & economic status rather than the contents of Koran and hence this high percentage could be construed as a mere statistical fact. In other words, you can conclude that co-relation exists… not necessarily causation.
@ Ravi
I do not believe that Hinduism means Advaita. We went into a lot of detail on that in GB’s previous prost.
you wrote
Now you have hit the nail on the head. I don’t have data, but my hypothesis is- in percentage terms, Islam probably has a greater number of true-believers than Hinduism. Now that can be reasonably attributed to education (or lack of it) & economic status rather than the contents of Koran and hence this high percentage could be construed as a mere statistical fact. In other words, you can conclude that co-relation exists… not necessarily causation.
It has statistically been agreed upon (since you care about statistics), that Islam’s absolute control over the mind of its followers, IS NOT RELATED to economic status or education. Actually after September 2001, there have been many global studies done in this regard.
In fact, sometimes secular education and good economic status has been used as a tool to further Islam’s goal by its followers.
However, Ravi, adherence to pre-Islamic customs (like native language, native traditions and beliefs does have a inverse relation to adherence to Quran). In Rajasthan, resurgence of Rajput folk traditions has actually helped many Muslims to totally reject Islam and reconnect back with Hinduism.
So I can conclude that causation exists and not co-relation.
@ ravi
Just because Godse was part of the RSS (some research should tell you that he left the RSS much before he assasinated Gandhi) does not mean he defines RSS’ core philosophy. By that logic Sri Jyoti Basu defines the core philosphy of communism.
By definitive I mean a text that defines the religion completely , outlines the do’s and dont’s and forbids questioning and alteration of the text. Please PROVE to me that the Garuda Purana is such a text before comparing it to the Quran.
@ Rishi
“It has statistically been agreed upon (since you care about statistics), that Islam’s absolute control over the mind of its followers, IS NOT RELATED to economic status or education. Actually after September 2001, there have been many global studies done in this regard.”
Are you quoting from any study? Why is the control unrelated to education/economic status- sounds counter-intuitive to me! More education normally means less superstition!
“In fact, sometimes secular education and good economic status has been used as a tool to further Islam’s goal by its followers.”
Can you elaborate?
We have ignored the political dimension- the power exerted by clergy by use of Fatwa for example!
@ ravi
Since we are Godse, here you go my friend –
“The Hindu Mahasabha was vilified and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the RSS, was temporarily banned. However, later investigators could find no evidence that the RSS bureaucracy had formally sponsored or even knew of Godse’s plot. The RSS ban was lifted by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in 1949.”
Link – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathuram_Godse
It seems “a little research” is exactly what has eluded you so far.
@ Sunil,
Sure, no evidence THAT WAS ADMISSABLE in a court of law was found. My friend, to ban anything you need watertight evidence. And banning RSS can never be a piece of cake.
You might want check this links to gauge how close RSS, Godse & Savarkar (Godse’s mentor) were! Anyway my point was only to emphasize the proximity and the irrefutable ideological similarity.
A couple of sample links
http://www.hindu.com/2004/09/21/stories/2004092109381100.htm
http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2004/aug04/cover.html
Evidently you might want to do a ‘little’ more research before you get ‘down’ to ‘micro analyzing’ 🙂
@ Sunil
“By definitive I mean a text that defines the religion completely , outlines the do’s and dont’s and forbids questioning and alteration of the text. Please PROVE to me that the Garuda Purana is such a text before comparing it to the Quran.”
Hinduism is unique in the sense- it has multiple texts. How do you decide on one all-defining text? Vedas, Upanishads, Gita, Puranas, Ramayana, Mahabharata!!! What kind of ‘proof’ you expect? It definitely lists ‘dos and don’ts ‘because it clearly defines what actions attract what consequences, forbids alteration because it describes a conversation between Lord Vishnu and Garuda
@ravi
That is precisely my point. It is not comparable. Not sure if it forbids alteration (whether intentional or unintentional with the passage of time) or defines do’s and dont’s the way the Quran does though.
Thanks
Sunil.
@ Ravi
As I said, you probably missed out on “intuition” while entering this discussion.
Pew global attitudes project
Large majorities of Muslims in most predominantly Muslim countries surveyed think that it is very important that Islam play a more important and influential role in the world than that religion now does.
In Saudi Arabia 100%,
in Morocco, 84%
73% in Jordan,
70% in Pakistan
Here are some numbers on literacy rate /per capita income in these Islamic countries
Saudi Arabia – 79% literacy rate (2003), pre capita $ 12, 900 p.a
Pakistan – 48% literacy rate, per capita $ 720 p.a
Morocco- 43% literacy rate, per capita $ 3000 p.a
Jordan- 91% Literacy rate, per capita $ 4800 p.a
The countries that we need to look at, for the contrasting Islamic control and its inverse relation to Hindu-Buddhist survival are Indonesia, Bangladesh and India (in that order).
Now for the second part of your mail,
Take any leader of the Global Islamic movement beginning with Abu Azzam, Osama, Aiman-alzawahiri, Hambali and ofcourse our own MA Jinnah, HM Suhrawardy, Liaqat Ali Khan, Husaani Mohammad Ershad.
All with secular educated. Contrast that with the number of Madrassa educated Ummah leadership.
I will be very happy to look into the political aspect of Islam and how the Maulvis and Ulemas are empowered by the Quran (and not the other way round.
@ Sunil
“That is precisely my point. It is not comparable. Not sure if it forbids alteration (whether intentional or unintentional with the passage of time) or defines do’s and dont’s the way the Quran does though.”
The comparison, we are arguing about, is about some of the common themes that exist between both texts- not necessarily their structure & form.
The common theme – ‘Why be a good boy at all?’
My response to your Godse’s comment is awaiting moderation. Do go anywhere. 🙂
@ Rishi
“Large majorities of Muslims in most predominantly Muslim countries surveyed think that it is very important that Islam play a more important and influential role in the world than that religion now does.”
I don’t know about you… but I see political overtones in their wanting to play more influential roles. Where you see religious subservience, I see a politically motivated clever exploitation of a religious identity. By ‘political’, I don’t just mean need for power/ but a fundamental reaction to strengthen themselves in the ‘clash of civilizations’.
@ Ravi
Now that we have taken the “Muslims do it because of illiteracy and poverty” bugbear out of the equation, and I hope it has satiated other doubting Toms out here too… lets get down to the brasstacks of “political Islam”.
Yes, Islam in its totality, is political (not just overtones as you say), and by that, you are right…it not just power or clever exploitation of religious identity but the fundamental goal (not reaction as u call it) to strengthen themselves…againts the Kafirs and the Dhimmis
And that my friend Ravi, is the concept of Ummah….. a contrasting outcome to the Dar-al-Harb.
I think now we are coming closer in how we are thinking about this issue.
@ ravi
Agreed. But these themes cannot be compared without looking at where they appear and how much respect they command (not structure and form mind you). To give you an example, the code of conduct of Sikhs is governed by the Rahat maryada which is based on the rahit namas. One of the rahit namas by a certain Sardar Chaupa Singh states how a sikh should take a leak failing which he ceases to be a sikh. This rahit nama is considered insignificant. Thus in this situation you cannot say that the Sikh code of conduct includes the procedure of taking a leak.
My point is very simple – Hinduism as religion is very different from Islam. Dont generalise just for the sake of making them comparable. If you really think there is similarity between the two and they share common evils please prove it on the basis of logic and data, not generalisations and hearsay. Your contention that there is a line in one of the zillions of chalisas in hinduism that reflects the same sentiment as the Quran and hence they are the same is not logical by any standard.
As far as your Godse comment is concerned, I am open to all your suggestions as long as they are not on the basis of the “intuitive logic” (that has just been disproved by Rishi) that you seem to have the proclivity to employ. Dont quite understand what has gotten you excited enough during the course of this seemingly very civilised discussion to write something that requires moderation.
Thanks
Sunil.
@ Sunil
“My point is very simple – Hinduism as religion is very different from Islam. Dont generalise just for the sake of making them comparable. If you really think there is similarity between the two and they share common evils please prove it on the basis of logic and data, not generalisations and hearsay. Your contention that there is a line in one of the zillions of chalisas in hinduism that reflects the same sentiment as the Quran and hence they are the same is not logical by any standard.”
Clearly, you haven’t understood my point! Let’s do it slowly this time.
Garuda Purana deals with a very important religious aspect – life after death. Some of the verses are read during funerals in North India. The Purana also reappears during the Mahaprasthana Parva in Mahabharata which details the end of Pandavas. Now the latter half of the text describes explicitly what kind of rewards/punishments await the dead. And we discussed the verses in Koran which describe the fate of sinners- so you may want to rethink your comment. Am posting a couple of excerpts. (Not posting the links to avoid moderation)
“The South Gate is for the sinners who suffer the worst tortures in hell of the Baitarani river that holds boiling hot blood and flesh.”
Those atheists, immoral people who ignore these instructions, even their waters become impure. Deities and ancestors avoid their houses. They become poor, miserable and unhappy. Where no shraddha is performed, where Garuda Purana is not read, where other ceremonies are not performed, they are never released from the three types of rin or debts.
“As far as your Godse comment is concerned, I am open to all your suggestions as long as they are not on the basis of the “intuitive logic” (that has just been disproved by Rishi) that you seem to have the proclivity to employ.”
Don’t understand how he has disproved anything. We have just arrived at the conclusion that the problem is political –not religious. Clearly education & economic status don’t affect need for power, but definitely they are negatively co-related with superstition (are you going to contest this ‘intuitive’ truth too)
“ Dont quite understand what has gotten you excited enough during the course of this seemingly very civilised discussion to write something that requires moderation.”
Nothing controversial :). Just posted a couple of links that indicate RSS-Godse nexus
@ Ravi
you wrote,” Don’t understand how he (Rishi) has disproved anything. We have just arrived at the conclusion that the problem is political –not religious.
Rishi’s repsonse:
Not true Ravi…please dont obfuscate again.
the conclusion we reached is that Islam as a religion is political.
Thats why I have been constantly referring to terms from Quran while discussing the seamlessness between Islam and politics.
Please dont make me start quoting from the Quran again.
@ravi
Clearly I have not been able to understand your point and neither have you understood mine. So lets do it slowly again shall we. Does the Garuda Purana enjoy the same importance in the Hindu way of life as the Quran does? Does not following the Garuda Purana make you a non hindu. Does questioning the Garuda purana invite fatwas and excommunication? Do you have to believe the garuda purana absolutely and in totality to be a Hindu? The answer to all these questions is NO. Therefore the garuda purana and the Quran are not comparable. What it contains is irrelevant, since it is the importance of the text that determines its comparibility to other religious texts and not form and structure.
I hope the links are neutral or else you stand to be accused of the same data biases that you questioned Rishi on. Wonder why the links need to be moderated though if they are kosher?
P.S: Now that you have had to come around Rishi’s viewpoint on the lack of an inverse correlation between education and religious fundamentalism, you want to start and argument on superstition (where did this come from) – Grow Up please.
@ Ravi and Sunil:
I saw u guys discussing Garuda Purana, so just thought we get a basic idea of how the heirarchy of Hindu scriptures work (in a very broad and flexible sense)
The primary scriptures are the SHRUTIS(like the Vedas) whose philosophical extract is considered to be non-temporal
The Jaina and Bouddha streams need not consider it that way though.
In order of chronology
The Rig-Veda
The most important and, according to scholars, oldest of the Vedas. It is divided into ten books (called mandalas) and has 1028 hymns in praise of various deities. These include Indra, Agni, Vishnu, Rudra, Varuna, and other early or “Vedic gods.” It also contains the famous Gayatri mantra and the prayer called the Purusha Shukta (the story of Primal Man).
The Yajur-Veda
A priestly handbook for use in the performance of yajnas (sacrifices) It is divided into two sections, the earlier “black” and the more recent “white.”
Sama-Veda
This consists of chants and melodies to be sung during worship and the performance of yajna.
Atharva-Veda
Contains hymns, mantras and incantations, largely outside the scope of yajna.
Within each of the four books there are four types of composition, or divisions, as shown below. In the narrowest of senses, only the Samhitas comprise the true Vedas. The first two divisions relate to the performance of sacrificial rituals (the karma-kanda section), whereas the second pair consists of philosophy (and belong to the jnana-kanda section).
The Samhitas – literally “collections,” in this case of hymns and mantras. They form the Veda proper.
The Brahmanas – prose manuals of ritual and prayer for the guiding priests. They tend to explain the Samhitas. They also contain early versions of some stories.
The Aranyakas – literally “forest books” for hermits and saints. They are philosophical treatises.
The Upanishads – books of philosophy, also called “Vedanta,” the end or conclusion of the Vedas.
There are also two important bodies of supplementary literature, related closely to the Vedas themselves. They are:
The Vedangas, which expound the sciences required to understand and apply the Vedas.
The Upavedas (usually considered smriti) which deal with the four traditional arts and sciences.
The Six Vedangas (limbs of the Vedas)
Kalpa (ritual detail)
Siksha (pronunciation)
Vyakarana (grammar)
Nirukti (etymology)
Chandas (metre)
Jyotisha (astronomy/astrology)
The Four Upavedas (following the Vedas) explain arts and sciences
Ayur-veda (medicine)
Gandharva-veda (music and dance)
Dhanur-veda (warfare)
Shilpa-veda (architecture)
The LESS IMPORTANT and TIME BOUND texts are known as SMRITIS
They include the
Puranas (along with the Mahabharata and Ramayana)
Dharma Shastras (which includes the Manu Smriti and many other Smahitas
Also included is the option to add new Smritis and shastras as and when required
Now continue
If the banana eater had been named Haridas Pal —- peace would have reigned.
Hope the chicken was halal.
@ Sunil.
All the questions you refer to are ‘irrelevant’- we are comparing the contents of the religious texts, not some hypothetical scenarios. And specifically what God does to you if you commit sins-not what clergy/religious authority does to you.
On second thoughts, don’t bother. I give up
@ Rishi
No, I don’t understand you. Can you summarize your position- we have been arguing all over the place 🙂
@ Ravi
Oh boy 🙂
Here is the summary.
As humans, what we think, is what we are.
Islam as a belief system, has effected humanity (negatively and violently) by the message it gives through the Quran.
The lesser there are who believe in it, the better for humanity.
Before you come back to me with a cause-effect question, read the past 4 days conversation, once again
“Islam as a belief system has effected humanity (negatively and violently)”
Sounds logical except you may want to expand your definition to include all religions. Imagine a world free of religious beliefs & superstition … which ironically enough, I would like to call Heaven 🙂
Amen!
@ Ravi
I wouldnt…because there is a point of contraflecture (and thats subjective)…and I agree (and tried convincingly to make a case for) , on the “non-required” side of which, Islam lies.
@ Ravi
I would invite you to try and participate more activiely in the realm of implications. The offer to analyze daily updates from Bangladesh and Bengal, vis-a-vis the underground Jihad, to help me come up with a better strategy, still stands.
Your “intuitive logic” might well help me come up with a different strategy.
@ Ravi Ivaturi- Sorry for for missing your comment earlier.
“I have problems with your strategy of selective- singling out of Islam. You might want to check out Garuda Purana, a Hindu text that details explicitly the kind of punishments that await sinners & disbelievers in the Afterlife. And disbelievers means, people who don’t believe in Hindu Gods, not the ‘One God’ Vivekananda referred to. So how is it any different from the verses of Koran we are discussing? My intention is not to do a ‘ my Daddy strongest’ argument, but merely point out the bias in your arguments.”
Well there can be many other texts that say many other things. Remember, as I said they may not have been a religious text at all, but the fertile brainchild of some xyz which went down as a religious text. Whatever be the case, these do not hold as strong a grip on the psyche of Hindus as the Quran does. See there are no such a set of severe codes imposed upon Hindus. Much of the beauty of the religion comes through its openness. It does not say that “Followers who worship a black stone are your enemies. Seek em and ya shall gouge their eyes out”. But Islam means rigidity and a set code of rules, and the degree of tolerance from deviation from such rules is not much.
Also look at it this way. There is this Jungian thing that there are sides of you- a side that loves and a side that kills. My claim is that radical Islam is a tool par excellence of splitting up these sides of you into mutually orthogonal components- you love those who are similar to you, you hate those who are not. Islam due to its stringency affects its followers psychologically – slowly but steadily with its subliminal messages. Make no mistake, its a wonderfully bonding religion- much of the strength of the religion comes from imbuing within its followers a sense of oneness- and this is accentuated and exacerbated by a feeling of condescension and hatred for non-believers. Since you like statistics- I cant be a Bayesian person and at the same time believe the frequentist approach. Again- that either or thing. So you are correct that that follwers of Islam are more ‘religious’ than others. We are talking degrees of control, impact and psychological grip of the written word and the probability of extreme words being transformed into nefarious action.
Also a thought about being ‘true followers’: You see what happened to Salman Rushdie and Tasleema. Again it is my belief that there are many Muslims who seek emancipation, but are unable to do so. They see what are the consequences. So it is a wonderful ‘bonding’ religion. Say you are a sexy Hindu girl and Muslim guy dates you, he will insist that you change your religion and marry him. He wont change his religion. Heh even the great Kishore Kumar did that!
Also Ravi dont forget the closet liberal Muslims- those who are rich, appear liberal on the outside, but are radicals inside. Any operation needs funding-and if the machinations of violence perpetrated in the name of Islam were a business, it has at its own educated and rich CEO’s. Even an educated person can be a radical, but I still believe that modern liberal education can play a major role in reforming mass attitude. As a quote from Sherlock Holmes goes: ““Winwood Reade is good upon the subject,” said Holmes. “He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.”
So far all along this thread, what Rishi has done is to say with precision what an average number of people directly affected by Islam will be up to. His grouse is that their activities often affect ones who are nowhere related to Islam, thereby making them persons who are indirectly affected by Islam.
@Rishi,
can’t believe it…u still there!!!!
Ravi…keep on dude…u going far better than what i could say…yesterday i was trying to say something in the similar lines…but damn west bengal and its bengali medium schools….still can’t write proper english…
😦
just wondering where GB is??? knock knock?? no comments on such a long and fierce fight?
Thanks Ankan… but where is everybody else? Watching from the sidelines? Help 🙂
@ Sunil
“Does questioning the Garuda purana invite fatwas and excommunication? “
You might try sending an email to VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad); I am sure they would love to set a precedent 🙂
Dude, I ‘envy’ your world-view. In your view, no correlations exist, no comparisons are possible, and everything is unique. Your mind is free of biases and prejudices, truly a ‘blank’ slate.
@ Rishi
Like in the Rocky movies, ‘one more round’
I see religions as manifestations of the same disease –irrationality (‘Faith doesn’t need proof’ kind of stuff); sure some of the manifestations are more violent than the rest. I would be interested to hear how you can cure one manifestation without addressing the underlying cause.
@ ravi
The VHP or the RSS or any other Hindu organisation is not empowered by Hinduism to conduct the business of excommunication or issuing fatwas(Like the clergy in Islam is empowered). Just because some organisation appoints itself the protector of a religion and engages in puerile behaviour does not mean that the religion in question sanctions excommunication and issuing fatwas.
You have still not answered any of the questions that I have raised on the comparibility of the two texts.
If questioning biases, looking for logic and basing opinion on facts and data reflects that I have “blank slate” then I am quite happy with it rather than have a mind bedevilled with biases, generalisations, “I am always right” logic and “patternistic behaviour”.
Thanks
Sunil
@ Sunil
If questioning biases, looking for logic and basing opinion on facts and data reflects that I have “blank slate” then I am quite happy with it rather than have a mind bedevilled with biases, generalisations, “I am always right” logic and “patternistic behaviour”.
In case you have missed it, that’s why I envy you. I’m sure Steven Pinker (author of ‘Blank Slate’) would be proud of you 🙂
@ ravi
Not sure if that is what Steven Pinker meant with a “blank slate”. I thought the “Blank Slate” premise stated that people are shaped by their environment and that the human mind has no innate traits.
Thanks
Sunil.
@ Rishi
“The world now needs atheist missionaries to tell these young potential suicide bombers “look! if you strap a bomb to yourself, there is nothing waiting for you after, no paradise! no virgins! Zilch !, Zero!, this it ! go and enjoy your life now”. They should at least question the ‘ Old ‘ men who tell them to do it and why they are still here?.”
I found this in one of the blogs- an interesting comment, don’t you think?
@ Sunil
“Not sure if that is what Steven Pinker meant with a “blank slate”. I thought the “Blank Slate” premise stated that people are shaped by their environment and that the human mind has no innate traits.”
But clearly you are not! You reinvent the wheel-every single time! 🙂
You love micro-analyzing everything, don’t you? Including ‘innocent’ tongue-in-cheek digs
@ ravi
Could you be more specific about where I have reinvented the wheel or do you think I “generally” do it. Thanks.
Sunil.
p.s: Never knew microanalysis was such a crime (even for a finance professional.)
@ Sunil
Oh, boy.
You take nothing for granted, build your conclusions from scratch- in other words reinvent the wheel…
No, micro-analysis is a laudable and enviable trait especially if you are immortal and have got a couple of millenniums for this kind of discussion.Finance needs a bit of ‘realtime’ thinking!
Don’t mind my asking- did you face any kind of problems in RC (Reading Comprehension) in any of the competitive exams- specifically because you make no assumptions. 🙂
@ravi
I started this discussion so that I could fine tune or reform my opinion on the topic under discussion with the help of your knowledge and judgement. Since you have brought it down to a level where you deem it fit to use sarcasm and throw personal barbs without making a point on the topic, I find it pointless to continue this discussion lest it degenerate in to a slanging match (I can see that is the only way you can win an argument). Thank you for your time and patience.
Sunil.
@ Sunil
“Grow Up please.”
“I would again like to request you to refrain from using “generally accepted” theory and engaging in “simplified patternistic” behaviour.”
I suppose the above comments are impersonal and free of sarcasm! You’ve a problem if I reply in kind.
Winning was never the point (at least to me). The point was to learn and have fun. Since you seem to be generally well-meaning, I want to make the following point.
I have been a devout Hindu till 3 years ago, I have studied the Vedas & Upanishads in my college- can still recite a lot of hymns. I have studied a large amount of religious literature and written a couple of papers on comparative religious practices. I knew Vedic scholars (in college again) and had engaged with them in frequent lively debates. I debated & wrote on the concept on Heaven & Hell (Life after death) in different religious. Should you bother to analyze these ever, you will find striking similarities across religions. Refusing to compare two religious texts, -just because no fatwa accrues to you should you decide to disbelieve- I thought was a bit myopic. As discussed earlier, moderates versus extremists equation is more balanced in Hinduism and hence some of the features are not comparable. However as far is content is concerned, there are striking similarities.
The reason my tone turned sarcastic is because you took for granted that I am generalizing everything without even bothering to analyze what I’d written. Generalizing needs to be done selectively in a debate- suppose if we are discussing the existence of God, and I say ‘Science doesn’t find any statistically significant evidence for miracles’, – then I am not generalizing. I am stating what is currently accepted in the scientific circles.
@ Sunil
Read the last sentence as follows
“Then I am generalizing, but not in the sense you mean! I am stating what is currently accepted in the scientific circles.”
@ravi
Those comments were made in the context of the discussion and were not intended to be personal and sarcastic. I did not dedicate a full comment to conjecture on your character and RC skills.
Let us assume an illiterate uneducated person who has no idea of the markets comes up to you and asks you to sell Infosys stock. Then Warren Buffet comes up to you and asks you to sell Infosys stock. The content is the same. Would you still say that those two people are comparable investors???
I rest my case.
Thanks
Sunil.
@ Shan
“I have no desire to compare anything to anything else.”
Is that why you mentioned what some Hindus did in the 90’s in response to my post?
“My intention was to show how extrapolation based on one action is just silly and juvenile, and designed to fulfill preconceived notions of a particular creed.”
That’s quite convenient. Read the other posts here from Rishi and others- this is the latest in a series of mindless atrocities backed by “leaders” of said religion. The lack of dissenting voices/actions from the rest against the continued actions of these fundamentalists shows that the community backs them. YES, silence means acceptance!
“I have NOT said anything against Hindus at all in my posts. That should be clear to any sane person. However, your references to “your community” and “your people” shows no such restraint or characteristic.”
Yeah right. chaddis etc is just deifying them. LOL. Oh we’re ever so grateful for your restraint and characteristic. Please spread the word – some of us missed it.
“You are clearly a bigot. And what do you mean by “your community” anyway? How do you know what religion I am or what faith I belong to? How do you know I have any faith at all? Your presumptions actually preclude any possibility of intelligent discussions with you. You are a fundamentalist – pure and simple, no different from the mullahs you seek to vilify.”
Oh is that more of the legendary restraint and characteristic? We’re glad that’s showing. Erm… you do realize that you’re writing as “Shan”…? Attacking the other person with random bigotry is sure handy for your purposes of oversimplifying and covering your ass. Sure I’m the bigot and the “fundamentalist” for pointing out facts and being angry about them because the acts are perpetrated on a helpless woman by a bunch of losers while larger part of the same community has been silently watching. And you’re who-sane!
“Again, let me state that no rational person can ever justify terrorism or any kind of violence. Unfortunately violence happens, as does fundamentalism. And we need to oppose ALL fundamentalists instead of falling into the all-too-easy trap of becoming one of one religion to oppose one of another religion.”
No sh!t Sherlock! Hm, so who made the assumption that a post on shameless actions of Islamic fundamentalists is best rebutted by a dated one on Hindus? And I’m sure you’re not trying to stir up trouble- after all you’re who-sane, who assumes that I am *for* one fundamentalist group and *against* another just because you want it that way to make your sanity work.
“But of course, these words will have no meaning for you. I can already see the sneer forming on your lips as you read this…Forget it. There is no reasoning with blind hate.”
Oooh- more restraint and characteristic dripping from the sane individual. Is this in anticipation of running out of rhetoric? BTW why is your blog “indiapendent” blocked? Is it because of reasons of “sanity”?
“PS – BTW, since you raise the issue, they did throw plenty of things, including stones and invective at Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi when they were trying to film a movie called Water in Varanasi. Because evidently the movie was “smearing” Hinduism, reality be damned.”
Oh I missed seeing them approached close quarters and beaten up. Shabana herself says that all they did in Varanasi was shout slogans and there was a 400-strong RPF force protecting the crew because she was a sitting member of the Parliament at the time. But please go ahead, your imagination must have provided the details for your sanity. Anyway, does this incident make the MIM farce of last week digestible in your sane little world?
“Maybe you were part of that gang of goons?”
No I wasn’t- I do not condone violence on women. Are you part of the choos-li’s coterie that is protecting MIM?
@ Sunil
Didn’t understand your allusion. I am comparing the content only, not the Prophet & Lord Krishna (or Ved Vyasa or whoever!)
” I rest my case”
Whatever makes you happy 🙂
I give up a second time 😦
@ravi
Your contention has been – Since both the religions have common content they are same. In my example both the sources have the same content hence they are same (or are they?) I leave that to you to judge.
Thanks
Sunil.
@ Sunil
Ravi wants to turn the Islamists (suicide bombers) into atheists.
He also wants to turn everybody else athiests.
I do not have any problem with either. I would encourage him to try his luck out (especially the turning followers of Quran into atheist part).
With his “intuitive logic”, you nevere know what he may pull off. 🙂
@ Kolkatans
I just came to know froma not so reliable source, that there was an explosion at a Macdonalds in Kolkata. See nothing in the news. Can anyone very?
@ Rishi
“With his “intuitive logic”, you nevere know what he may pull off. “
Me- embarrassed and red in the face
“You overestimate my abilities. But I would like to try that first on the readers of this blog” 🙂
@ Ravi
as for the raders of this blog…well… your “intuitive logic” fell flat in front of a little more tangible thing called statistics. (Rishi’s post August 11, 5:55 pm)
That the same reason why I think it may work with Islam.
@ rishi
Good point. Is this called “Atheistic Evangelism” or “Atheistic fundamentalism”.
Anyway just went through Ravi’s Godse comment and “microanalysed” the following-
First he says this –
“Fast forward to the present times ! It’s no secret that philosophy of Veer Savarkar & Nathuram Godse forms the basis of RSS ideology.”
The there is a volte face and he says this –
“Anyway my point was only to emphasize the proximity and the irrefutable ideological similarity. ”
Then to substantiate it he gives us two links one of which rightly speaks about the ideological similarities (emphasis on similarities , not same) between Savarkar and Godse, while the other is from a magazine called “Communalism Combat”.
And he links “communalism combat” inspite of saying this in an earlier post –
“Dude, get real, this is not a scientific theory or a Black-Scholes equation that you can prove empirically… What is Rishi’s representative sample? If I talk to somebody from RSS, I would get a bleak view- of how Muslim Indians are taking over the country. If I talk to a Christian zealot, I would get a peep into the Second Coming of Christ and Armageddon. If I talk to a ‘former Muslim & a humanist’, I would get exactly the same data which Rishi got.”
Ravi, forgive my microanalysis please.
Thanks
Sunil.
@ Rishi
OK here we go again 🙂
Didn’t we agree that the reasons are more political in nature- such as seeking power/influence and exploitation of the ‘clash of the civilizations’ sentiment (US is the enemy etc)? Clearly education is not correlated with power-seeking behavior; but should be negatively correlated with superstition/blind belief (by definition, don’t you think?). So where did my ‘intuitive logic’ fall flat?
Or are you suggesting the religion itself sanctions ‘seeking power’? Even if that were true, power-seeking behavior has a biological component (read any good book on evolutionary biology- may be read ‘the selfish gene’) too. If you want to prove that as a race/religion, they have exhibited more hunger for power than the other races because of the religious sanction- then you will have to do a rigorous statistical analysis. What that means (since apparently your stats disproved my logic!) is this. You have to prove that the difference in ‘hunger’ (you have to find a way to quantify this trait) for power cannot be explained by the natural variance of the distribution. And if preponderance of evidence does support your null hypothesis, then the rest of us cannot reject your hypothesis. Mind you, in stats you either reject/not reject the null hypothesis. And not rejecting is not the SAME as accepting.
Or tell me a study/paper that appears in a peer-reviewed, top-tier journal that does all this. I’ll look it up.
@ Sunil
“Atheistic fundamentalism.”
Getting oxyMORONIC are we? 🙂
Re your micro-analysis, you might care to notice that I was commenting on the ideological similarities and speculating on whether this similarity throws any light on the Hindu right-wing politics. I was not predicting a holocaust as Rishi does. A big difference, don’t you think?
@ Sunil
Ravi wrote, “Or tell me a study/paper that appears in a peer-reviewed, top-tier journal that does all this. I’ll look it up”.
Then he gives material from “Communalism Combat”.
Thats the same organisation, based in India, that shows map of India and Pakistan with Kashmir as part of Pakistan.
What a way to combat communalism….by validation and supporting the Quranic Dar-al-Harb.
Ravi, you have your sources figured out.
@ Rishi
“Then he gives material from “Communalism Combat”.
Thats the same organisation, based in India, that shows map of India and Pakistan with Kashmir as part of Pakistan.”
I had no idea, OK! What I got in a 5 sec google search is what I gave in my response. And I was not endorsing the organization, not by a long way! I don’t buy your ‘all or nothing’ argument. One could agree with a point of view while not agreeing with the basic philosophy of the organization. AND I wasn’t making a ground breaking conclusion, I was merely commenting on the well-known RSS-Godse nexus which PROBABLY explains some of the right wing attitudes. You of all people should know the details of the connection well enough!
And you have conveniently ignored the rest of my argument using the above RED HERRING. You find it a little hard to comprehend- may be. Serious research is slightly different from story-telling & sermonizing.
As far as I am concerned, this is your ‘defining’ comment – it lifts your ‘academic/objective’ cloak and ‘reveals’ you
@ Ravi
Ok Ravi…Thanks.
Yourfan2
Thanks for a thoughtful response. A quick take on the below & on the rest, may be later!
“Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.”
I think what is being referred to above- are physical variables like height, weight.., financial variables etc that follow normal distribution or any other common distribution. And since the distributions of a population don’t change significantly, percentages remain constant. I am not sure if you could say the same thing about attitudes, Sherlock’s comment notwithstanding!
An alternative view point that challenges the conventional wisdom on suicide bombing!
Surprisingly, Robert Pape, a prominent American political scientist finds little correlation between suicide bombing and Islamic Fundamentalism. Interesting read!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Suicide_Terrorism
Very good link Ravi:
I partially agree with his hypothesis regarding suicide bombing vis -a- vis the United States and Western democracies (whose foreign policy is his main focus of concern).
He rightly says,
“Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland”.
It applies quite well to the current situation in Iraq or Israel’s presence in Gaza or West Bank at a operational level.
Let me see him try and apply the same theory to lets say, Bosnia Herzegovina, Kashmir and Southern Thailand.
Where it also falls apart is when you apply the same theory to lets say Sudan or Bangladesh or Kashmir. (which he apparently doesnt look at because his focus is just assymetric suicide warfare, where the Islamic groups are supposedly, responders to a militarily superior setup.)
He misses out on 2 basic points. And these are the same points that people like Peter Bergen (who happens to be one of the guys who has praised Pape) miss out during their analysis of Pakistan’s Musharraf regime, who btw, Mr Bergen was backing in 2003, when I had a discussion him, at an event in DC where he was a speaker at an event on Kashmir, I was moderating.
The points being.
1. Lack of indepth knowledge of Quran, and therefore ascribing the absolutist tendencies in Islamic countries to a more plausable (to the secularist); a secularist, cause-effect relation.
Case in point is the often repeated statement, “Muslims hate US because they have military bases in Saudi Arabia”, which btw is one of Pape’s gripes.
Yes they hate US because of the bases, true, at a operational level, but they would continue to hate the US or Austria or Spain because the are Kafirs and Dhimmis even if tomorrow a wall is built at the gates of Istanbul.
Tomorrow if Israel ceases to exist, and US pulls out of Iraq, they will continue to hate the US or Austria or Spain and the complain this time, which Osama-bin-Laden is famously known to have quoted when standing in front of the Al-Hamra in Spain (while still a US ally during Mujah-deen wars in Afghanistan against the Soviets).
“Some day I will see the flag of Islam flying high on this great symbol of Islam in the heart of this Western infidel world.”
2. Second point being, I wonder why Mr, Pape doesnt consider 1 single largest factor, which should have found mention in his incisive book.
Why is it that inspite of all the non-Islamic reasons that Mr Pape gives for operational reasons of suicide and strategic reasons for Islamic terror group to exist,
EVERY ISLAMIC SUICIDE ATTACK IS PRECEDED BY A CALL TO THE QURAN WITH A REFERENCE TO THE PROMISED 72 VIRGINS AND 28 YOUNG BOYS (GILMANS).
I guess Mr Pape doesnt trust evidence given by the suicide bombers themselves.
ps: btw, with reference to Peter Bergen, he is an expert on Qaeda and I agree with a lot of his views.
@Ravi- I beg to differ.What you are hinting at is the classic form of the CLT (Demoivre- Laplace- since Lyapunov, Lindeberg, Levy and Feller came later than Holmes) and although LLN, CLT and L. Iterated Log are related, my understanding is that the quote had more to with the second most famous theorem of Probability- the classic Strong Law of Large Numbers; the weak form (Bernoulli) of which says that as n–>infinity, sample mean converges to the population mean. So Rishi’s claim here is that given the right set of circumstances (analogous to say equal variance in WLLN case), a certain number (sufficiently large n and iid) of people directly affected by Islam will more likely than not exhibit similar (mean or expectation or first moment- which Holmes chooses to express as percentage) behavior towards non-believers which the universal Islamic population from which they are drawn manifest.
His theory is stochastic, not deterministic and hence is associated with the associated degrees of uncertainty. But that is the best that anyone can do.
I also strongly disagree with Pape’s statement : “Al-Qaeda is less a transnational network of like-minded ideologues . . . than a cross-national military alliance of national liberation movements working together against what they see as a common imperial threat”. He completely takes radical Islam out of the equation here. Even a Bin Laden would object to that!
@ Ravi
Regarding my previous Osama quote that he made in front of Alhamra in Spain, many western strategists try to be politically correct (gosh..how can they blame Islam) about the Quranic concept of Ummah, the Kafir and the Dhimmi.
So they came up with a term that is more acceptable to the geo-political dictionery and call it the “al-Andalus Syndrome”.
Rishi,
Here I am back again. Hope you wouldn’t mind if I am chirping the same old lines yet again. Leave alone all these stats, I do not understand it. But again trying to write my point in a bit different manner
My understanding about religion is its a personal revealing guided by some dharma granths. Most and all religions normally try to threaten the disbeliever(an atheist or a person of separate belief). now you can decipher a 1000 year old book in a hundred ways. Its unfortunate that Islamic states and the maulavis( who are less religious and more political netas) have chosen to decipher it the way they want. And its more unfortunate if this sort of visions of killings(like the fatwa against Tasleema) gets support in educated Muslims.
Now the problem that we see with Islamic terrorism is not because its Islam. It is because their religion is given a wrong meaning to some hateful bastards. Its a pure political thing. Lets take Kashmir for instance. The root cause of the problem is Pakistan’s greedy hands. But slowly Pakistan has somehow managed to drifted the focus so much that its often shown as a religion problem. It has been tried to impress upon on the minds of young uneducated kashmiris that since they are Muslims they belong to Pakistan. And the problem started. The kashmiri militants are often refered to as Islamic terrorists and a religious color is painted on a highly political problem. I think all the Islamic terrorism cases started with a political problem and then slowly a color of religion was given to it to realise some people’s self interest.
The other problem with Muslims is many of the Muslim states actually run under shariati laws. which I think many knows were made in dark ages. Unfortunately some Islamic states follow these and in those places people as they are often found to be are enough superstitious to believe them by heart.
Superstitions are the same way followed in Hindus also. Probably they are not as much destructive as in Islam.
having said all these all the characteristics seem to me lot more political and less religious.
My point is on the basis of this is it not wrong to catch hold of a normal peaceful Muslim and ask him why did you kill thousands. why are people from your religion so barbaric etc etc. When I objected to Rishi’s questions it was because of that. You unknowingly are accusing a person who is as much peaceloving as you may be. And who is as much ashamed of the crime that has been committed on humanity.
lot of english mistakes in my previous posts..If it is not readable enough please forgive me. I will try to download bengali fonts write english sentences in bengali fonts I wouldn’t have to worry about spellings atleast. 🙂
@ Ankan
since you mention Kashmir and gave your unique interpretation on its problems, please go through these links and educate your self about the history of Kashmir. Might help you look at things in a more informed way.
http://www.factusa.org/totalexhibit/exhibition.asp
http://www.kashmir-information.com/chronology.html
@ Ankan
Please visit the link in my id and go through the exhibition on Kashmir (especially its early history).
See if you still have the same opinion after that vis-a-vis Kashmir. Also type “Kashmir information Network” in google.
@ Ravi
“Atheistic Fundamentalism” is not an oxymoron. Please see excerpt from link below and educate yourself.
“Militant atheism
Miltant atheism has been criticised as being fundamentalist because of its aggressive criticism towards theism[citation needed]. For example, when Albania under Enver Hoxha declared itself an atheist state, it was deemed by some to be a kind of fundamentalist atheism and where Stalinism was like the state religion which replaced other religions and political idealogies. Any one practising a non-Stalinist religion or setting up a different political party would be sent to prison [citation needed].
In The Trouble With Atheism, Rod Liddle has criticised atheism in that it can be dogmatic and intolerant. He criticised Peter Atkins and Richard Dawkins as Britain’s fundamentalist atheists for their dogmatic intolerance to theists. Lord Winston has made similar comments [citation needed].
‘Faith and Reason online’ has criticised the Rational Response Squad as uneducated, dogmatic, aggressive and thoroughly ignorant of theology [9]”
Link: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism#Militant_atheism
On Godse: I have never said that there are no ideological similarities between him and the RSS. I have merely disputed the credibility of the following statement of yours.
“Fast forward to the present times ! It’s no secret that philosophy of Veer Savarkar & Nathuram Godse forms the basis of RSS ideology.”
And pointed out that you have done a Volte Face on it while quoting an article from a questionable source.
The only words I can think of now are the following –
“As far as I am concerned, this is your ‘defining’ comment – it lifts your ‘academic/objective’ cloak and ‘reveals’ you”
Thank You for your time and patience.
Sunil.
@ Sunil
I am honored to be considered an ‘atheistic fundamentalist’ along with the likes of Richard Dawkins. You have made my day 🙂
@ Rishi
Guess the truth is somewhere is in-between.
• What the PEW global surveys probably indicate is acceptance of terrorism as a tool for a secular and strategic goal- “to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland” . It probably helps that Koran also advocates a strong response to oppression. The way I see it- the upper echleon, the educated & rich fundraisers, leaders (like Osama) are motivated by a political ideology (or a freedom struggle) while the foot soldiers are fed with the religious opium. ‘72 virgins’ is used very smartly by the ‘befind the screen’ people to prepare the suicide bombers psychologically.
• I thought the theory fits Kashmir beautifully- India is seen as an agressor in Kasmir and the goal of terrorism is to force India withdraw its troops.
Gotta run and catch up with my offline life. But I loved discussion.
Hopefully peace will reign on this post now 🙂
@ravi
Dont thank me. Thank Yourself for annointing yourself an “Atheistic Fundamentalist” along the lines of Richard Dawkins.
I have merely proved that “Atheistic Fundamentalism” is not an OxyMORON, but an existing ideology.
Thanks
Sunil.
p.s: You said – “I am honored to be considered an ‘atheistic fundamentalist’ along with the likes of Richard Dawkins. You have made my day” – Replace Atheistic with Islamic and “Richard Dawkins” with Osama bin Laden and then maybe you will understand better how a Jehadi’s mind works.
@ Sunil
Do yourself a favor. Read up on Richard Dawkins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins)
before you start off with your inanities again. Dawkins was voted as the Britain’s top intellectual by Prospect magazine in 2004 with a very comfortable majority and in another poll for world’s top intellectual, he came third after Chomsky & Umberto Eco
Saying things you said in your comment will make you a laughing stock in any serious debate about atheism, religious beliefs and existence of God.
At the very least read up the recent cover story in Time- a debate between two heavyweights on God versus Science
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132,00.html
And yes, Dawkins is intolerant of stupidity, poor RC skills 🙂 & blind belief (the kind that needs no proof). If that ‘intolerance’ is fundamentalism, it’s clear to me that you can fight only with rhetorical labels and not rationality.
Do your homework before surfacing again- you may not get the ‘benefit of doubt’ next time around!
Rishi,
the links you gave had quite good information. Although I am not sure whetherr those are proved historical facts or opinions of some people who hosts the site. In the dark ages mass conversion and massacre on non compliance to Islam was not new. Aaurangzeb, tughlak and lot other rulers have done it. But that was the dark ages. I remember Kalapahar who was a hindu by heart but later when he converted to Islam became one of the most oppressing marcenaries in the history of Bengal. The problem is we never had a Hindu ruler once the Muslims took over. We can never know had we had a Hindu powerful ruler in middle ages whether the same sort of massacres could be done by Hindu rulers or not.
But when we are talking about terrorism we are talking about modoern ages is not it? In this age religion is being used to achieve political agenda. There is no tyrannical ruler here. Its a fundamentalist party who are poisoning people’s mind, and applying outsourced forces to achieve its own agenda.I think after reading your links that still it fits my example. I didnt give any explanation of my own. Your own sites show that its a highly political agenda which is using the difference in religion. The point we have come to discuss is whether Islam as a religion makes its followers fundamentalists or it is some other political factors. My vote would be for the later.
Rishi, another angle i would like to point out :
Another unfortunate fact is like Hinduism like christianity Islamic countries never had a period of Rennaissance(!!). In one age, we had great thinkers like Ram Mohan Roy, Vidyasagar, Swami Vivekananda where the very basics of Hinduism was discussed in great length. People dared to analyse and went against the masses to think differently. We came out of our shells and made our religion much modern and slowly the superstitions in the name of religion which reigned Hinduism in 18th century and before was washed off. I don’t think Islam had any such thinkers who actually dissected the religion and tried to make it meaningful for life in 21st century. Again due to the political nature of the islamic states which is ruled by maulavis and fatwas. Probably analysts from other religions have analysed Quaran more than the muslims have done. what do you think about this
Ravi,
Don go anywhere mate. need some help here.
Guys,
I do not know much about religions and history anyway. So I admit you may be right. I iam just learning from all your posts and trying to see whatever I think and i believe where does it stand with respect to you guys’ thoughts.
@Anonymous:
You continue to amaze and amuse me.
“Is that why you mentioned what some Hindus did in the 90’s in response to my post?”
No silly. You still don’t get the point. That was an example to throw your Taslima comment into sharp and ridiculous relief. The whole point was that my example was as ridiculous as yours – neither held any water empirically. And that not just “convenient”. In fact, for you that seems to have been decidedly inconvenient.
“Yeah right. chaddis etc is just deifying them.”
Umm…”chaddis” automatically indicated Hindus? Muslims go commando, is it? 😀
“you do realize that you’re writing as “Shan”…?”
And Shan is obviously a Muslim name. 🙂
“…acts are perpetrated on a helpless woman…”
Taslima Nasreen is a helpless woman? Haha…if it weren’t so funny it would be a cruel joke on all the truly helpless women oppressed by fundamentalists all over the world. Taslima has had more help from Indian and other foreign countries than you or I will ever have.
“…Sherlock…so who made the assumption that a post on shameless actions of Islamic fundamentalists is best rebutted by a dated one on Hindus?”
See first point above. It’s elementary, Watson.
“BTW why is your blog “indiapendent” blocked? Is it because of reasons of “sanity”?”
No clue. And between us, it’s not my sanity I’m worried about.
“Anyway, does this incident make the MIM farce of last week digestible in your sane little world?”
No, it does not. And THAT was my point. We need to be even handed in decrying fundies of both religions. Geddit? Let me repeat for you. By opposing them BOTH, not by becoming one to oppose the other.
@w.t.f. ittabari
mate dont blame evrything on bush and cheney. Agreed they are a bunch of loonies. Do you what the Taliban did in Afghanistan? If I remember they werent fighting any one then. That was radical islam. What about the Bali bombings. Who do you blame that on? What about the constant stream of extremist rhetoric that flows everwhere about shariat? What does shariat have to with Bush and Cheney? The main problem is you are oversimplifying and merging two different problems. Fighting against oppression by foreign forces and fighting against someone because of their religion is entirely different a point which should be noted. Islam has been radcalised and this is fact which stares at you in your face.
@ Ankan, The Ancient Mariner
You wrote:
Although I am not sure whether those are proved historical facts or opinions of some people who hosts the site.
Rishi’s response:
Interesting, so what the Ali shah Hamadani and Aurangzeb did in Kashmir is “opinion” of some people.
I guess self- delusion comes in more than one way.
you wrote:
In the dark ages mass conversion and massacre on non compliance to Islam was not new. Aaurangzeb, tughlak and lot other rulers have done it. But that was the dark ages.
Rishi’s response
Thanks for validating my point. Its happening even now. Visit Bangladesh, visit Kashmir or any place where Islam is in majority.
you wrote:
Another unfortunate fact is like Hinduism like christianity Islamic countries never had a period of Rennaissance(!!).
Rishi’s response:
Exactly, my point.
Ankan wrote:
I don’t think Islam had any such thinkers who actually dissected the religion and tried to make it meaningful for life in 21st century. Again due to the political nature of the islamic states which is ruled by maulavis and fatwas. Probably analysts from other religions have analysed Quaran more than the muslims have done. what do you think about this”.
Rishi’s response:
Again we are in agreement.
Ankan….Thank you for this post. We are in agreement for the most part.
You are looking at the effect. I am looking at the cause.
Will let the readers decide which helps more.
Dear Ankan,
I hope you read my post on Aug 10th, 2007 at 10:38 pm.
You will find the two online books useful.
Hujur
@ ravi
My comment is not on Dawkins at all. I have merely said that intolerance of any sort is fundamentalism whether it is of another religion/caste/community or the concept of GOD and religion itself.
Since you have said this –
“Sounds logical except you may want to expand your definition to include all religions. Imagine a world free of religious beliefs & superstition … which ironically enough, I would like to call Heaven ”
I have merely wanted to point out to you that the same thing if said by anyone replacing “religion” by “hinduism” or “islam” would have elicited responses asking for his head for preaching fundamentalism.
The wikipedia article merely says that Dawkins views have been questioned and the aggressive intolerance of religions practised by some Atheists is also a form of “Fundamentalism”
Giving me a bio of Dawkins merely proves your google skills and a proclivity to open up new debates when cornered on old ones. This debate is not on Atheism Vs Religion or Dawkins, but on how intolerance of any ideology (which you seem to have a lot of, intolerance that is) is a form of Fundamentalism that makes good well meaning people behave like inappropriately (which is what you have been doing, by engaging in name calling and personal slurs.)
I think it is you who needs to do some serious homework on logic (“intuitive” and otherwise) and the code of conduct during a debate since you display a significant lack of knowledge on both counts.
Once you have understood some of the basic ground rules of civilised conduct we might engage in a discussion again.
Thank You for your time and patience.
Sunil
P.S: Please give the benefit of doubt to yourself, you need it more than I do. Thanks.
@ All
Sorry for my first comment.. This looks like a rediff Blog..
This place is filled up with more intelligent people…
Damn my little knowledge of my own religion when other people know more abt it..
Thanks,
Tarzan
@Shan
So I see you chose to pick parts of sentences from the response to suit your limited options. I was expecting this from the smoke and mirrors that your kind use so often.
“No silly. You still don’t get the point. That was an example to throw your Taslima comment into sharp and ridiculous relief. The whole point was that my example was as ridiculous as yours – neither held any water empirically. And that not just “convenient”. In fact, for you that seems to have been decidedly inconvenient.”
Instead what you thought would be convenient threw egg and more yellow matter all over your face now that your wolf in sheep’s chaddi is showing. I did mention that this is not a single unrelated incident- or did you miss that? So why don’t you come out and say that you’re an Islamic fundamentalist who changes colors to suit the times. When it’s your goons that carry on the quick and dirty, you’ll cover for them. And of course if it is a demonstration at Varanasi on Water, you’ll twist facts and show how minor the incidents of your poor little brothers are.
“Umm…”chaddis” automatically indicated Hindus? Muslims go commando, is it?”
Didn’t realize who-sane can swallow his own tongue. Go back and see your own comment Mr restraint and characteristic
“And Shan is obviously a Muslim name.”
Yes it is.
“Taslima Nasreen is a helpless woman? Haha…if it weren’t so funny it would be a cruel joke on all the truly helpless women oppressed by fundamentalists all over the world. Taslima has had more help from Indian and other foreign countries than you or I will ever have.”
Hey brainiac, did you manage to see through the mists in your mind and get to see the TV coverage? She was standing there with just an elderly gentleman in front of her trying to placate your goons who meanwhile were throwing, among other things, vases and furniture two or three pieces of which found not only her head but this old man’s face. But I am sure that’s not helpless in your imaginary world. She was hurting your religious sentiments after all and she should be killed. Right?
“See first point above. It’s elementary, Watson.”
What’s elementary is that you would like to cover for your bretheren through all the muck that they can produce by throwing red herrings like this at people each time someone brings up what you bunch are upto. Good plan, Ugly Betty – might not work though.
“No clue. And between us, it’s not my sanity I’m worried about.”
That’s one good way of taking it. It’ll probably help when they put you away. So no clue, huh? It being your blog and all and people blocking it? So what kind of stuff do you write? Anti-India? Anti-social? Anti-sanity? “Indiapendent” sounds like some cheesy Kashmir sob story. Is it?
“No, it does not. And THAT was my point. We need to be even handed in decrying fundies of both religions. Geddit? Let me repeat for you. By opposing them BOTH, not by becoming one to oppose the other.”
This from Mr. restraint and characteristic who-sane who will do anything including twisting facts to cover for his buds and turn in vapid statements when facts are thrown in his face. Yeah, let’s all forget what the “minority” goons do today and in future since there are instances of what the mainstream have done in the past that people like you can quote to throw red herrings at.
After being enlightened by Tarzan’s far-fetched claims to “foreign” ancestry and his blind, unquestioning defense of Quranic hate for “idolator Kafirs”, I am reminded of two publications by V.S.Naipaul, who incidentally is the only other person of Indian origin to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature after Rabindranath Tagore.
Naipaul’s most recent book, titled “Beyond Belief”, is dedicated to his wife, the well-known Pakistani journalist Nadira Alvi.
Subtitled “Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples,” Beyond Belief follows up on his first book, “Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey”. Both books provide a deeper insight into the phenomenon of Islam and its aftermath, through extensive interviews in Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia.
In “Beyond Belief”, Naipaul quotes Salman, a Pakistani journalist, who gives us this profound insight:
“We have, nearly all sub-continental Muslims, invented Arab ancestors for ourselves. Most of us are Sayeds, descendants of Mohammed Himself, through his daughter Fatima and cousin and son-in-law Ali. There are others–like my family–who have invented a man called Salim al-Rai. And yet others who have invented a man called Qutub Shah. Everybody has got an ancestor who came from Arabia or Central Asia … If you read Ibn Batuta and early travellers you can sense the condescending attitude of the Arab travellers to the converts. The invention of Arab ancestry soon became complete. It has been adopted by all families. If you hear people talking you would believe that his great and wonderful land was nothing but wild jungle, that no human beings lived here.”
Wherever Naipaul goes, he finds two features very prominent. One is that the converts are trying to erase their past; the second is that though they were once victims of an aggression, they are now all for the aggressor, for the Arabs. Whether in Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, their fundamental rage is against the past, against history, and all this accompanied with the “impossible dream of the true faith growing out of a spiritual vacancy.”
The “convert” is more than a descriptive name. In the hands of Naipaul, it has become an important concept. Though on one side it stands for aggression, on the side of victims, it stands for self-alienation, for estrangement from one’s own people–a more important component of the concept. The converts have a special psychology. They became converts under great pressure; but subsequently they solve the problem by pretending that their conversion was voluntary. Their forefathers were defeated and humiliated; but they overcome this feeling by identifying themselves with the victors and the aggressors. Even after conversion the pressure continues; they try to prove they are more loyal than the king himself; they become ardent champions and standard-bearers of Islam.
@ Hujur
Naipaul did some bold work.
Remember Malik Kafur and his devastation of South India…highlights your and Naipaul’s point.
Found this illuminating post by a reader (Iqbal Hussain) on the blog of a “free” Pakistani woman: The URL is: apostate[dot]wordpress[dot]com and the topic therein is “Why I Left Islam”.
Iqbal Hussain // Jun 27th 2007 at 10:12 am
I was directed to this page from faithfreedom.org …..I have spend 6 long and agonizing years before, finally quitting Islam. Am from India and a technocrat specializing in hydro power project management.
We had a small stone in the family which the eldest son is supposed to preserve and hand over to the next generation. Curiosity about this very important stone in a north Indian staunch Sunni family, made me and one of my cousins to explore. The stone belonged to a brahmin family from South India, from a village that was attacked and looted by a moghul war lord. A 12-15 year girl was raped and taken away to north India to be a part of the harem maintained by this warlord…..this was my family’s introduction to Islam. I learnt this truth, after peacing together documents from Rameshwaram, a Hindu pilgrimage center in South India. No. Am not angry with that helpless girl that could not end her life before being raped.
This knowledge gave me a new vision to understand the koran that I was reciting from age 10. A single hole in the whole story was enough to drive me away from it. I left Islam, along with a cousin and my elder sister. Was beaten up mercilessly by my maternal uncle and his sons. I cant risk the lives of my son and daughter..so keep changing locations like a nomad and not making real life Muslim friends…. me and wife keep our Muslim names….my son and daughter already use their Hindu names. I am trying to put the record straight at least when I leave this world.
Rishi,
The good news is – Dr. Ali Sina’s message is being heard loud and clear …. and introspected upon by all rationalists and free-thinkers.
Iqbal Hussain’s testimony (above) is only the tip of the ice-berg. Vivid testimonials of similar ex-Muslims (apostates) can be read at the following web-portals:
Faith Freedom: www[dot]FaithFreedom[dot]Org[slash]Testimonials[dot]htm
Apostates of Islam: www[dot]Apostatesofislam[dot]com[slash]Apostates[dot]htm
The “Apostate Blogger” Project: www[dot]Apostate[dot]Wordpress[dot]Com[slash]This-Blog[slash]The-Apostate-Blogger-Project[slash]
Just replace the [dot] with a “.” and the [slash] with a “/ ”
My dear Ankan,
1) Very interesting that you bring up the instance of the Kalapahar, the trusted general of the invader of Bengal – Sulaiman Karrani who imposed Shariat in Bengal in the 16th century. There are two versions of Kalapahar’s origin, both of which attest to the point Rishi is making:
According to the first version, the general Kalapahar’s original name was Mian Allahadad (‘Given by Allah’) and he was an Afghan invader who got the Kalapahar (“Black Mountain”) title from Sulaiman Karrani as a result of “bravery” in fighting the Kafir idolators in Eastern India. Kalapahar indulged in mass slaughter of Hindus and full-scale destruction of several big temples in various parts of Eastern India and the smashing of sacred deities, including the famed Jagannath Temple in Puri (Orissa), the Kamakhya temple in Kamarupa (Assam), several temples in Coochbehar (Northern Bengal) and the failed attack on the Samaleswari temple in Sambalpur (Orissa). To this day, the ruins of the Kamakhya temple are still seen scattered all over the hill. During his conquest of Orissa, Kalapahar was informed, “that a huge Hindu idol was hidden by people on the bank of the sea at Puri. He at once reached the place and caught hold of the idol, and broke it into pieces. Nimatlullah in his Makhzan-I-Afghan also refers to the desecration of the Jagannatha Temple. It is said by Niamat Ullah that every Afghan, who took part in the campaign obtained as booty one or two gold images. Kalapahara destroyed the temple of Jagannatha in Puri which contained 700 idols made up of gold, the biggest of which weighed 30 mands.” Abul Fazal also mentioned that Kalapahara, the general of Sulaiman, on his conquest of the country” flung the image of Jagannatha into fire and burnt it and afterwards cast it into the sea.”
According to the second version, Kalapahar (“Black Mountain”) was born Rajiv Lochan Roy into a Hindu family. He led a peaceful, non-violent life as a Hindu until the day he converted to Islam. He got the Kalapahar (“Black Mountain”) title from Sulaiman Karrani as a result of “bravery” in fighting the Kafir idolators in Eastern India. It was well after his conversion to “The Religion of Peace” that Kalapahar indulged in mass slaughter of Hindus and full-scale destruction of several big temples in various parts of Eastern India and the smashing of sacred deities, including the famed Jagannath Temple in Puri (Orissa), the Kamakhya temple in Kamarupa (Assam), several temples in Coochbehar (Northern Bengal) and the failed attack on the Samaleswari temple in Sambalpur (Orissa). To this day, the ruins of the Kamakhya temple are still seen scattered all over the hill. During his conquest of Orissa, Kalapahar was informed, “that a huge Hindu idol was hidden by people on the bank of the sea at Puri. He at once reached the place and caught hold of the idol, and broke it into pieces. Nimatlullah in his Makhzan-I-Afghan also refers to the desecration of the Jagannatha Temple. It is said by Niamat Ullah that3 every Afghan, who took part in the campaign obtained as booty one or two gold images. Kalapahara destroyed the temple of Jagannatha in Puri which contained 700 idols made up of gold, the biggest of which weighed 30 mands.” Abul Fazal also mentioned that Kalapahara, the general of Sulaiman, on his conquest of the country, “flung the image of Jagannatha into fire and burnt it and afterwards cast it into the sea.”
Tell me, what is the subtle difference between the two versions? In both versions of the story, what “belief system” inspired and obligated Kalapahar to unleash hell on the poor Hindus of Eastern India? Was it the “Religion of Peace” or was it the “Religion of Kafir idolators” that was responsible?
2) Look into the similar story of the Gujarati-born Hindu boy, who in the 14th century, was captured during a raid and taken as a sex-slave (for the invading Allauddin Khilji), ritually castrated, converted to Islam and renamed “Malik Kafur”. He led a peaceful, non-violent life as a Hindu until the day he converted to Islam. That’s when Malik Kafur’s days of savagery, mass-murder and wanton destruction of every Hindu temple he could find in Southern India. Several acclaimed temples in Dwarasamudra, Halebid, Madurai, Srirangam and Chidambaram were destroyed by his Ghazi army and all their sacred murtis (icons) smashed by this fanatical believer of the “Religion of Peace”.
3) But wait, even closer home in Bengal, in the 15th century, there was a Hindu King named Raja Ganesh who did his best to rid Bengal of the invading Religionists of Peace. Wresting back a large part of Bengal (spanning modern-day Rajshahi, Pabna, Dinajpur and Bhaturia), Raja Ganesh waged a battle and eliminated Ghias-ud-Din Azam (the occupier who called himself the Nawab of Bengal and had continued the persecution of the native Hindus. But the influential Sufi “Saint”, Shaikh Nur Qutb Alam of Pandua, appealed to the Jaunpur “Sultan”, Ibrahim Shah Sharqi, to protect Islam and destroy Ganesh’s resistance. Accordingly, Sharqi’s large army of believers marched to present day Ferozepur, surrounded Raja Ganesh’s capital city and demanded that Raja Ganesh and his royal family surrender and convert to Islam or die. Both Raja Ganesh and his queen refused to convert to Islam. So, the Sufi “saint” Shaikh Nur Qutb Alam demanded that the Raja Ganesh to abdicate power and hand over his 12-year old son, Jadu to the Sufis for conversion to Islam. Once this pre-teen Jadu was forcibly circumcised and converted to Islam, he was re-christened as Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah and trained in the sacred Islamic texts (Quran, Hadiths, Sunnah, Shariah) in a Madrassa under the watchful eyes of the Sufis and. After being Islamized enough, the young Sultan Jalaluddin (who had been de-Hinduised by now) got his own father Ganesh beheaded for being a Kafir idolator trying to endanger Islam.
4) In recent times, now that India is celebrating six decades of “freedom”, if you were to go back to the tumultous events leading to partition, you will find that atleast some key players who championed and furthered the cause of the painful vivisection of their motherland were again the grand-children of Hindu converts to Islam:
a) Allama Mohammed Iqbal was the grandson of a Kashmiri Hindu Brahmin (Pandit) named Sahaj Ram Sapru (who, along with his Hindu family, had been forcibly converted to Islam by being given the choice of either being beheaded as Hindus or choosing to live as Muslims). One of the most prominent leaders of the All India Muslim League, Iqbal encouraged the creation of a “state in northwestern India for Indian Muslims” in his 1930 presidential address. Allama Iqbal is credited with first proposing the idea of an independent state for Indian Muslims, which would inspire the creation of Pakistan.
b) Mohammed Ali Jinnah was the grandson of a Hindu Lohana Rajput (Bhatia/Poonja) family who had been converted to Islam. After their conversion, the first two generations’ (Jinnah’s grandfather and father) ties to their Hindu roots existed and they continued to believe in the ten Avatars of Vishnu. But the grandson showed how loyalties to one’s roots wither away and proved his mettle by making the creation of an Islamic state on Indian soil a reality, resulting in the genocide of millions of Hindus, Sikhs and others.
c) In the seventies, Pakistani Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, vowed to wage a thousand-year old Jihad (Holy War) on the Kaffir Idolators of India. Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto’s mother was a Hindu who was converted to Islam. His daughter, Benazir Bhutto herself suggests on Page 26 of her autobiography “Daughter of the East” that her ancestors were Rajput Hindu converts who became Muslims in the 18th century.
5) Similar modern-day case-studies would be:
a) Dhiren Barot, the India-born, Hindu boy who converted to Islam in the UK when he was 20 and became a feared Jihadi terrorist called Bilal (a.k.a Abu Musa al-Hindi and Abu Eissa al-Hindi). Before conversion, he was a simple, crime-free Hindu boy who used to attend high school. After conversion, he fought pitched gun-battles against the Indian army in Kashmir and wrote a book, “The Army of Madinah in Kashmir”, in 1999, discussing his experience and describing ways to kill Indian soldiers.
b) Steven Vikash Chand, born in Canada to a Hindu family, converted to “The Religion of Peace” in his early 20s and changed his name to Abdul Shakur. He, along with another Sri Lankan Hindu convert to Islam, were arrested along with 15 other Jihadis for planning bomb attacks in Toronto and plotting to kidnap and behead the Canadian Prime Minister.
So please do ponder about one question and let me know….
How is that once any mild,gentle,peace-loving,bovine-adoring,earth-revering believer of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” abandons his beliefs and perverts (oops…I mean, converts) to a cult that is the anti-thesis of his birth religion (Sanatana Dharma), he begins to hate that all the goodness, harmony and peaceful beliefs that he was once taught and fully embraces and enforces the hate-filled, destructive “core-values” of the medieval cult onto people who are still wise enough to follow in the peaceful, constructive ways of tehir ancestors?
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where all the venom, hatred and divine orders to inflict untold misery on fellow-human springs from. Look no further than the cult of peace, the book of terror, the prophet of mass murder and the “god” of “divine retribution” for your answers.
All these Jihadis mentioned above are as much the victims of Islam as their Hindu victims.
@ Hujur
Thanks for a exhaustive set of examples….I think enough has been said regarding the culpablility of Islam and enough examples given to prove the point.
@ Hujur
Going thru your examples I figured out that after converting to Islam they got violent. Before conversion they were simple human loving persona who didnt do any crime to stay alive. Agreed with that.
Now tell me that if the main culprit is Islam than why i am not doing any masscares. I am following Islam as all my family and everyone whom I know in my city and my hundreds of relatives and friends. They are also following the same route. They are also following Islam and doing what they can do for Islam.
The reason for them going out for the massacre may be something else rathar then conversion to Islam.
Dont want to fight over this issue any more now.
But just think that if Islam is the problem than why my hands are not full of blood.
Forgive me for my childlike arguments. But you can still think over it.
Take care
Thanks,
Tarzan
I have read all the interesting comments. I would particularly like to thank Ravi Khujur and Sunil for there insights.
I also think that this guy Ravi Ivaturi is a bit clueless and patronising. Grow up Mr. Ivaturi and dont twist our brains with your relentless circular logic {which is brainless anyways}.
And thanks to Hujur for pulling together very relevent facts.
@ Tarzan
Take it easy mate.
To add to the conversations –
(sorry for not being able to give the online links)
Taslima Nasreen, in her interview to The Hindu (not to be confused as a RSS/BJP/ShivSena publication) commented that the intellectuals are not vocal enough with their protests as they have labelled the Muslims as the minority.
Yes, the intellectuals never seem to be vocal enough, the Communists (conscience keepers of the nation, except in case of Nandigram) shy away from anything the concerns the so called minority.
The forward thinking Muslims are forever saying “it wasnt me…” , not showing any of the courage to go up to the (as per their defination) backward, uneducated, braiwashed lot and telling them to change their ways.
.. Tarzan, would you (the non-backward, the educated, the ‘sane brained’) dare to have a conversation with the same conviction with your religious leaders? What makes you stop from questioning them?
Outlook (60th Independence edition) listed down the villains of our country over the ages, Nathuram Godse being first in the list. According to the article, the present day psychologist think that Godse’s action was more to do with his confused sexuality as he was brought up as a girl by his parents. It seems that his original name was not Nathuram, but this came from the nose ring or nath he used to wear. … Is that true? the magazine doesnot provide more details. Hujur, Khujur. et all, do write back.
And, Bal Thakrey made it to the villian’s list for his actions and his admiration of Hitler …as expected, his followers vandalised the magazine’s Mumbai office.
@ random inclusions
you wrote
“According to the article, the present day psychologist think that Godse’s action was more to do with his confused sexuality as he was brought up as a girl by his parents. It seems that his original name was not Nathuram, but this came from the nose ring or nath he used to wear. … Is that true? the magazine doesnot provide more details. Hujur, Khujur. et all, do write back”.
Rishi’s response:
hmmmm….
And my diatribe against Islam and Quran is because, as a pre-op male to female submissive transexual, I am trying to supress my otherwise overwhelming urge to be dominated by a Mohammad like figure, disciplining me in my leather Hijab.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/new-terror-have.html
if only Indian politicians read the comments section of RTDM.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indias_terror_death_toll_second_only_to_Iraq/articleshow/2312796.cms
Location: Gonga Sagor Mela, West Bengal
Date: June 12, 2008
A murderous mob of local Muslims, at least 6000-7000 strong ravaged the Hindu Samhati training camp at Ganga Sagar (West Bengal).
Ganga Sagar is a very reknowned Hindu Tirtha Kshetra (Place of
Sri Tapan Kumar Ghosh, the National Convenor of Hindu Samhati is conducting the main sessions of this camp. Other eminent people and local notables are also present. Everything went on smoothly until this evening, when suddenly the camp building was surrounded by a murderous mob of about 6000-7000 local Muslims bent on mayhem. Already 14-15 attendees of the camp have been injured in the carnage, and at least 7 of them are in very critical condition and are not expected to survive.
The local police-station (thana) has unfortunately sent in a small posse of 15 policemen who were totally inadequate for resisting such a huge Jehadi mob armed to the teeth. The police could control the mob of Muslims even after firing several rounds. Two policemen have hence been critically wounded in the mob attack.
The Muslim mob has been throwing petrol bombs and using gas cylinders to incinerate the whole camp. The entire camp building has been reduced to ashes. All 180 of our camp attendees (a large number of them women and children) and 15 policemen are trapped inside this burning camp along with Sri Tapan Kumar Ghosh.
The Friends of Hindu Samhati, USA strongly protests this outrageous attack on a peaceful, indoor religious function that was held behind closed doors. There was no provocation for this vicious assault nor was any outdoor procession held at the location. It is pitiable that the police could not provide security to its peace loving citizens and is instead insisting on closing the camp down.
UNFORTUNATELY THIS NEWS WILL NOT MAKE IT TO THE PSEUDO SECULAR MEDIA
This is happening in Bengal inside, “Hindu majority” India. The local South 24 Parganas district authorities and the media have completely blacked out the news.
There were hundreds of Bangladeshi Muslims along with Indian Muslims as part of the mobs that attacked the Sagor Island, Ganga Sagar Hindu Samhati camp, yesterday.
The attackers were well prepared with gas cylinders and molotov cocktails and kept on attacking incessantly for a few hours.
Many of our Hindu youth volunteers are in critical condition. Even 2 policemen were burnt.
List of missing persons:
Gautam Mondal – Bangaon
Kartick Biswas – Bangaon
Ram Shil – Bangaon
Palash Roy – Bangaon
Gopal Dolui – Amta
Piyush Senapati – Amta
Ashok Das – Amta
Shankar Nandi – Bangon
Subhash Roy – Bangaon
And here is the list of the seriously wounded in the assault:
Subodh Kundu – Bongaon
Bivas Mondal – Sarberia
Gopinath Biswas – Krishnachandrapur
Prasenjit Sardar – Canning
Gautam Halder – Kultali
I urge the hundreds of Bengalis who read this blog to call up the district magistrate’s office, to enquire about this incident. Alteast, they will know that people still care.
Contact: District Magistrate South 24 Parganas
Ph: 033-24793713
email: dm-ali@wb.nic.in
Jotin,
As of Friday evening (June 13, 2008), the assault by the Muslim mob at Hindu Samhati campsite in Gangasagar is still on, although the intensity has abated a little bit. Some more police force has reached the trouble spot, though the large force required to subdue a mob of this size and temperament is nowhere in sight. A recent update by phone from the camp is that along with the 14-15 attendees who were injured, 2 policemen have also been seriously injured due to the assault by the Muslim mob. Scores of other attendees to the camp has sustained minor injuries in this most cowardly assault including the National Convener of Hindu Samhati, Sri Tapan Kumar Ghosh. Thankfully his injuries are not serious.
Apart from throwing petrol bombs to incinerate the camp building, the Muslim mob also tried to breach the wall by exploding cooking gas cylinders against it. Failing to break into the camp, the rampaging Muslim mob has attacked and seriously damaged some nearby houses of the local Hindus. They have also seriously damaged and set fire to an adjoining Kali temple and a ‘Yatri Nivas’ (Travellers’ Lodge) run by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The fireball attacks have slightly abated but the vicious threats and stone pelting continues – all attuned to the collective chants of both ‘naara-e-takbir, allahu akbar’ (allah is the Greatest) and ‘inquilab zindabad’ (Long Live the Revolution).
Sagar island at the Ganga Sagar – the confluence of the Ganga and the Bay of Bengal – is one of the holiest pilgrimages of India, where millions of Hindus from all over India and the world gather during the ‘Makar Sankranti’ (Winter Solstice) for the ‘Punya Snan’ (Holy Bath) every year.
If a peaceful Hindu gathering can be assaulted with such viciousness and impunity in one of the most sacred Hindu sites of pilgrimage, one shudders to think what lies in store for the Hindus of West Bengal a few years hence.
@ Hujur ji
6 of the injured were discharged from the hospital yesterday.
The arrested Hindu Samhati leader has been moved to Alipore jail in Kolkata from Ganga Sagar Thana because of fears of another Muslim attack on the Thana complex itself. I spoke to the Kakdip thana officer, Jayanta Banerjee, and they also feel that they are ill-equipped to resist another attack.
It seems that Kakdip and Ganga Sagar Thana have recieved hundreds of international calls enquiring of the well being of the victims.
Such a swell of international support for the victims of this attack, inspite of the pseudo-secular Indian media completely ignoring this news.
Just for your information, the news came in The Pioneer and BBC, 2 days back.
Unreliable reports say that CPI(M) will announce the changing of its election symbol to a CONDOM as it might accurately reflect its present political stance.
A CONDOM allows inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, and gives you a sense of security while you are actually being screwed!
And the CONDOM will bear a proud tag: “MADE IN CHINA”.
@ Kishor: “We should give the same treatment of eating 50 bananas to Musharraf and Dawood Ibrahim will come out.”
@ Ravi Ivaturi: Priceless
@ Kishor : Thank you Ravi Ivaturi, but the question is who would wash Dawood Ibrahim then ?
Shan
^^^^^^^^
“”HHBB: Thank you Ravi Ivaturi, but the question is who would wash Dawood Ibrahim then ?
Shan””
—
:)))))))))))))
@BengalVoice- Pure Class. :)))
Affixed exclusively on the impending environmental crises, people are surely but slowly (far too slowly) waking up to the true catastrophe the world is facing now :
– Global SWARMING is far more dangerous than global WARMING.
– PRIMATE change will drown us far quicker than CLIMATE change.
CPI(M) slogan at Nandigram:
“Lal Salaam. Lal Salaam.
India ko hum banayenge China ka Ghulam.”
(Ghomta-wearing) Mamata’ Begum’s response at Furfura Sharif:
“Waalaikum Assalaam. Waalaikum Assalaam.
India ko hum banayenge Arab Deen ka Ghulam”.
What Is Politics?
A little boy in Kolkata goes to his father and asks, “Baba, what is Politics?”
The father, who is a card carrying Marxist, says, “Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I’m the boss of the family, so let’s call me Communism. Your Ma, she’s the administrator of the money, so we’ll call her the Government. We’re here to take care of your needs, so we’ll call you the People. The nanny (baby-sitter) who works for us, we’ll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we’ll call him our Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense.”
So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what dad had said. Later that night, he hears the sound of intruders and gets up from bed. He tiptoes down the stairs to the hallway and peeks silently to find the back door ajar, with intruders (thieves) helping themselves to the food in the refrigerator while brazenly ransacking the house.
Hearing his baby brother crying, so he gets even more worried and goes upstairs to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents’ room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny’s room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.
The next morning, the little boy says to his father, “Baba, I think I understand the concept of politics now.”
The proud father beams and says, “That is good. Son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.”
The little boy replies, “Well, while Communism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep while intruders are swarming inside and robbing us, the People are being ignored and our Future is in deep shit.”
@ Bengal Voice, HHBB, Piyali, Jotin, Shourideb
Tapan Ghosh has been released a 3 hours back. Got a call early dawn today. 15 days of non-bailable custody was enough to pacify the Koranic vote bank of South 24 Pargana district.
Rishi Khujur,
Thanks for the update.
I am moved by Tapan Ghosh’s letter and shocked by the photographs of the Ganga Sagar attack, available here:
http://HinduSamhati.blogspot.com/
What a tragedy ! What a travesty !
BV
Even our beloved socialist “Chacha” Jawaharlal Nehru had to admit of his bed-fellows:
“The way the Communists are functioning in India is a mere adventurism – no constructive ability, no reality of purpose.”
hey Bengal Voice
Why dont you write a book about quotable-quotes on Communists.
You seem to have a treasure trove of them.
On a serious note, I have known many “Communists” in Bengal who are not even communists. They are just parochial socialists.
CPI(M) to the rescue
When labourers digging in the Egyptian desert found an ancient mummy, they immediately notified the authorities.
The Egyptian authorities immediately asked for international experts to fly to Cairo and help identify and date the mummy.
The American Government sent its top archaeologist. The Russian Government sent its best radioactive-carbon-dating expert. The Indian Government sent two comrades: (i) “eminent” twistorian Romila Thapar and (ii) surprisingly, a CPI(M) worker !!!
The American archaeologist spent an entire day with the mummy, and then gave up.
The Russian radioactive-carbon-dating expert spent two whole days, but he too threw up his hands and left.
“Eminent” twistorian Romila Thapar wrinkled her nose and balked at touching the rotting mummy, refused to investigate the relic and quickly estimated the mummy to be that of Akbar and its age to be 153 years old — but her scholarly guesses were wrong, as usual.
Finally, the CPI(M) worker asked if he could study the mummy in a closed room. The Egyptian authorities hesitantly agreed.
Fifteen minutes later, the CPI(M) worker emerged from the room and announced the mummy’s name was Tutankhamen and it was 3,331 years, three months and seven days old.
The international team of experts and the assembled mediapersons were amazed and congratulated the CPI(M) worker.
As he was leaving for Cairo airport, one journalist asked the CPI(M) worker how he got the mummy’s name and age.
The comrade proudly smiled and replied: “Simple. I hit him black and blue until he confessed.”
—–
Moral of the story: After 30 years of Communist domination, this is why West Bengal has come to be described as “Waste Bengal”.
CPI(M) Politburo
The CPI(M) Politburo is like a tree full of monkeys. They are all on different limbs at different levels. Some are climbing up. Some are climbing down. The monkeys on the top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces. The monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but a bunch of assholes.