I would like to participate in the discussions on this and will do my best to reply to your comments asap.I want to refer this page to my friends who are involved in this area of work to review the comments here and maybe learn something from intentblog.

Maybe it has to do with diet. Carbohydrates block amino acids in the brain that produce excitatory neurotransmitters.

A high carbohydrate diet creates a docile bunch of workers that don’t question and follow instructions.

High Carb = Dull Minded

This is why in the US they had carbs at the top of the food pyramid, to keep the US population dull minded.

Just a thought.

Vijay:

"Dil ke bahlane ko Ghalib yeh khayal achha hai!"

(Its a good thought to kid yourself, Ghalib)

The complex and circuitous definitions by US of WMD, War on Terror and Al Qaeda notwithstanding, there is no such thing as AL QAEDA which exists in its ENTIRETY or EXCLUSIVITY!

To take it any other way is nonsensical.

To understand the import of this statement - please seriously and in detail study the HIJACKING of the INDIAN AIRLINES flight from Kathmandu to Kandahar - where Jaswant Singh so infamously released the folks there.

The arms in Kathmandu for the hijackers were provided by the officials of the Pak Embassy in Nepal using the shroud of their counsulate powers.. the hijackers took the plane to Pakistan - where one passenger with slit throat was thrown out and more arms took on board.. and the plane taken to Kandahar. Taliban then took over the entire drama to help them. The guys released started Jaish-e-Mohammad which is a strong alliance with Lashkar-e-Taibba and "Al Qaeda".

Now, from where I am looking - ISI, Pak Army, Terror groups like Jaish, LeT - TOGETHER COMBINE to form AL QAEDA..

There is no separate thing.

To further reinforce this stance - it is widely recognized and known that the chief of ISI had helped to wire USD 100,000 to Mohd. Atta.

So, if we say well, Al Qaeda is this different thing compared to LeT or Jaish or any of those terror groups - then we are just kidding ourselves.

Hence the above statement and the article in ToI do give us a sense of SECULARISM ACCOMPLISHED.. but in reality .. it aint so!

My humble submission - the PREMISE OF THE QUESTION you have asked is MISTAKEN.

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

Dear Vijay - You have written on a topic dearest to my heart. I have thought of this issue a great deal and the only conclusion that seems plausible is the one you have suggested. There is something inherent in the Indian traditions that has a salutory effect on other traditions. I think it is the complete indifference that Hindus have in matters of religion that makes all the difference.

Historically, Indians have always believed in debate. So if a Buddha came along with a new philosophy it was up to him to establish his credentials by out-arguing his opponents. Whether his opponents respected his views or not, he was not tortured to death for them but instead given a platform to express his ideas. There was also an important concept of purva-paksha or studying your opponents viewpoint thoroughly before engaging in debate and thus the level of debates was very sophisticated. Constrast this with the West and Arabia where there was one official version of the truth upon pain of death. Intolerance is the natural outcome of such societies.

The reverse of this phenomenon is unfortunately also true. The absence of dharmic consciousness in India and the insulation of the Indian elite from their traditions, plus the general weakening of our traditions have turned the Indian traditions into variants of the western traditions and we see a lot of communal disharmony in India now.

Another point to note is that while there are no Indian Muslims in Al-Queda yet, the intellectual base of the Deobandi school was largely derived from graduates of Aligarh Muslim University. So while the common muslims in India may not have intolerant tendencies, the intellecuals and the terrorists do manage to flourish in India and create problems not only in India but all over the world.

Vijay,

I may not look at it this way. When you ask "Why there are no Indian muslims in Al Qaeda", you make an assumption that muslims, in general, are supportive of Al Qaeda. However I think it is otherwise. Most normal muslims don't give a damn to Al Qaeda. Only few radical ones are interested in terrorist organizations. If you see it, even Iraq didn't supply any muslims to Al Qaeda till the recent past. Most of the muslims are normal people like you and me. I also read the article you mentioned. I felt that they are demeaning muslims in India by such an argument. Any violence in India is due to Hindu-Muslim issue. It is due to mutual hatred between hardliners on both sides. We don't have to consider the muslims in India to have "terrorist" tendencies. In this respect, I wouldn't even wonder why they don't support Al-Qaeda. Any violence in India between Hindus and muslims is more like a brother sister kinda fight. It is not at all related to anything else in this world. It is a local problem. I will say that putting muslims in India in the "domain of Al Qaeda" is a great insult to them. Instead of asking why there are no Indian muslims in Al Qaeda, if people had asked why Al- Qaeda cannot attract Indian muslims, then there is some validity to the question. This question can be answered by some of your suggestions and also with another important point. We (Indians as a whole) don't hate the west. I do agree that there are some radical Hindus and muslims who hate the west. But Indians (both Hindus and muslims included) do not hate the west. This could be a reason why Al-Qaeda's tactics doesn't work in India.

Not sure. I somehow think that all of us (Desh, Divya and me) are trying to convey the same point from different angles. Maybe I am wrong. But it was my first impression after browsing through the three comments.

Desh,

So who is really behind the creation of AL QAEDA, those that benefit from the threat?

Is AL QAEDA a fabrication that is actually constructed using psycological manipulation by those that would benefit?

Are members in the terrorist groups that think they are getting messages from Bin Lauden really getting messages from Intelligence Agencies?

Is that why they never told us Bin Lauden was dead because they are using his image as a tool?

Do we create our enemies?

'..The fact that there is no glass ceiling in India and any talented individual is enabled to rise to the top irrespective of his background - poor or rich - and community - Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh or whatever - eliminates the sense of desperation and deprivation which drive people to embrace extremism..'

Huh?
what is this? The Constitution of Neverland?
A new bill of rights?

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'

Well, it indeed gave the CIA the power and budget
for the persuit of ...and ... for all ;)

'..no glass ceiling in India..'
- Sure, Disneyworld..;)

The glass ceiling would be The Berlin wall,
just outside one's conditioning,

Love, Peace and Spirit!

Terrorist cells may not really know who they are really working for.

Perhaps Indians are to smart to fall for the BS that the handlers would try to feed them.

You guys know the whole Pearl Harbor thing was intitiated by the British feeding false intelligence to the Japanese. The US knew it was coming it was needed as justification to get the US into the War. The German influence in congress was keeping us out.

So was allowing the bombing of Pearl Harbor a good thing since it stopped Hitler and Germany?

Could they use the same justification for a terrorist threat, to head off some greater threat we are not aware of?

Desh,
Point taken and I completely understand your views,but I think the gist of the article in TOI was a followup to one in Washington post and highlight the diversity of social power of India.
Let,JeM have some links with Al Qaeda, but they are not AQ. the mission of AQ is different from the ones based in Pakistan, even though they are all terrorist organizations. In the world of counter terrorism, including in India, AQ is considered few steps ahead of all others and have separate strategies for them. Also the terrorist who were released where not Indians, they were paksitanis.

"Dear Vijay - You have written on a topic dearest to my heart"-Divya.

Divyaji, chalo, then this blog is dedicated to you. Igot to run now for campaigning, but will read the rest of comments later this evening and reply to the,
Cheers
VJ

Vijay - I also think that the current state of affairs will not last much longer. As others have pointed out, there are many active terrorist groups in India or just conveniently across the border. Now animosity against Muslims is spreading in society as Indians in general are becoming suspicious of Islam - with good reason. The saddest consequence of this is the need that some Hindus feel to organize against Islam. An organized form of Hinduism goes against the spirit of our traditions and to think of Hinduism modeled after the church or the mosque is a frightening thought. At the same time it is understandable to see this reaction among Hindus when confronted with aggressive ideologies. If Hindus don't organize they will perish.

This is the reason you find me railing against commies so much. The only benevolent tools that Indians have to cope with social problems are those that stem from our traditional heritage. We certainly cannot look to the west for inspiration in this regard unless we want to resort to wholesale slaughter and aggressive conversion tactics. However, if we strengthened and nurtured our yogic roots - which the commies don't allow us to do - we would be able to cope with these problems much better. I think it would help India - both its Muslims and its Hindus - if certain laws with regard to religion were strictly implemented. (1) Foreign funding must stop. (2) Politicians must not be allowed to play to religious sentiments (3) One common law for all.

India has the longest experience of living with Muslims than any other country on this planet. You'd think the west would want to learn from our experience or at least have the curiosity to figure out how Hindus are able to co-exist with other religions. I suspect that they nobody turns to India to find a solution to this problem is because they know that the answer lies in the acceptance of multiple gods. They don't want to hear this and that's a pity.

Lastly, your question actually has a wider application, and not just with regard to Muslims. Refugees such as Jews fleeing Roman oppression around 72 CE, Syrian Christians fleeing persecution in Syria in the 345 CE, Parsis fleeing Iran around 750 CE, Tibetans fleeing Chinese oppression since 1950 have all been welcome in India. Among 148 countries Jews have lived in, India is the only one in which they were never persecuted. And to think that our Hindu elite looks to the west for lessons in democracy and secularism!

"Why there are no Indian Muslims in al Qaeda"
This is an incorrect heading. It is an incomplete sentence because it draws conclusion from the nascent available facts which are brought to light through the scarce means available to all those who are engaged in this one-of-a-kind third world war which has just begun and is only in it's infancy.
There are other logical possibilites which have to be included so that all of us remain alert and do not lapse into the false security of self-assigned credit to Vedantic reasoning which, given a moment of reflection, makes it abundantly clear that it was horribly lop-sided and could only work if reasonable, civil and amicable people were discussing and hammering out their differences.So,a long moment of embarrasing silence for forgivance of those who have or hence forth quote Dharma,Vedanta and Eastern tolerance and WHO SHOULD INSTEAD instead focus on the new EASTERN philosophy and mind set of China and the New emerging INDIA.
It is possible that so far the better educated sophisticated Indian muslims have avoided capture.
It is possible that their brain power is being utilised for computer programming, electronic war-fare skills.
It is possible that they have realised that a whole lot of reciprocal death and destruction may rain upon their bretheren in India.
It is possible that they are truly moderates who express their support to peace by remaining low profile and silent.
It is a fact that in every recent terrorist attack on the Indian soil there has been more than one Indian muslim Man or Woman directly involved in it.
Your fault lies in seeking comfort and superficial security because of lack of the AL-QAEDA label.

Richard:

Well AlQaeda to me is a highly fluid structure that has been demonised as an identifiable unit - which I am pretty sure it aint. And to me the support of ISI to Atta (which incidently Dan Pearl was out to expose when he was taken off the planet)or the IA hijacking (which was according to many analysts - a dress rehearsal for 9-11) do show that its NOT 4 or 10 people whom you can call Al Qaeda.

Vijay: What you say is a matter of opinion and semantics.. it has not been easily established in the analysts circles!

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

Hi Vijay,

You mentioned a lot of highly plausible and possible explanations for why there aren't any Indian muslims in Al-Qaeda: "Is it the tolerance of Hinduism, India’s acceptance of diversity, government policies towards minorities, the good work of law enforcement in India, the patriotic values of Indians (including Muslims)"......

The one word that I thought might be key to explaning this puzzle is "democracy", which divya has alluded to. Thomas Friedman (NY Times columnist) had written an article in 2002 on pretty much the exact question that you pose, and his suggestion was democracy, so although I'd like to think its my idea, it isnt :)

Of course, democracy is a highly contested term, so the kind of democracy you see in India, where despite the high levels of intra-administration corruption, you simulataneously see high levels of administration accountability to the public...this sets India apart in many ways to countries like say Indonesia (the world's largest Muslim country), where the "democractic process" might be superficially instituted, but there is almost no line of separation between the civilian and military governments. And of course this is evident in the number of Islamic-based separatist movements in Indonesia (Aceh, The Malukkus, etc).

I think democracy permits the space for the growth and nurture of civil society which along with the government (not the military) in turn plays an essential role in providing community services to citizens....in states like Indonesia (that are superficially democratic) the engorged military apetite for state revenues leaves very little for the civilian government to invest back into its people, thus allowing Islamic groups to provide those servies (schools, shelter) to those who need it and garnering support from the people for their ideological leanings...this doesnt happen in India because most government services (however poorly allocated) are not hijacked by Islamic groups on the large scale we see in other Islamic states...just some thoughts.

'..Among 148 countries Jews have lived in, India is the only one in which they were never persecuted. And to think that our Hindu elite looks to the west for lessons in democracy and secularism!..'
Posted by: Divya

Please do, put Poland, on that list, Divya,
for they have been welcome guests by Polish Kings through the centuaries, the foreigh
'overrulling', and graveyards and concentrationcamps for their accounts,

and I would like to add a distinction,
between the people and the 'administration'
the spirit of the time, and curcumstances,

'..And to think that our Hindu elite looks to the west for lessons in democracy and secularism!..'

So too does East-Europe, and kiss ass, while they at it, see the Polish 'contribution' in
the Bush-I-do! Ego-trip in the homecounty of some
of the finest Princesses of Arabian 1001 nights
of pure..and..hot! ..(passion, offcourse ;) what else,

anyway, I'm drifting away,
the topic, right, what was,
as caputured in the words of Tolstoj,
wich indeed was a correspondence friend
and influence on Mahatma Gandhi,
if I remember correctly,
“Why do you live?, How do you live?
and How should you live?”

We could call these questions in 2005,
Spiritual ponderings, on (material) abundance..

Love, Peace Passion!
Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.
War and Peace (1865-69) Book IV, Chapter 11

VJ,

A quick note...i have not read all the above blogs but here is my 2 cents.

Having lived in India, Middle East, North Africa, US and in Europe I feel I have a broader perspective of the thinking of people specially the muslims.

The root cause of the terror problem is the unresolved issue of Palestine which helps Al Queda recruit it's members. Indians muslims really have no clue as to what's going on there. In fact I am quite surprised when even educated Indians in India have no clue about Jews or Israel etc. This has also got to do with Indian media which lays not much interest in that part of the world and the mid east conflict compared to the rest of world including ones with larger muslim population.

Dalbir

You'd think the west would want to learn from our experience or at least have the curiosity to figure out how Hindus are able to co-exist with other religions- Divya.

Divya, you are out of your mind. more muslims were killed in Gujrat and post Babri Musjid riots then 9/11. More sikhs were killed post Indira Gandhi's death then the muslims killed in both the riots and then they should be called pograms opr genocide and not riots. Not to mention christina missionaries and dalits getting killed.

dear 'TruthHurts'
(the anonimity is getting a bitsy annoying,
nevertheless

know this quote..?
'To get rid of an enemy one must love him'

It's like cancer..read some Louise L. Hay on that,

Love, Peace Passion,

The disastrous communal riots in India - TruthHurts, you raised a really good point. In India, there's a whole other set of Muslim grievances (suitably politicized by the Advanis and Uma Bhartis of the time) that are very different from the Palestinian issue, which as Dalbir said is not a mobilizing issue for Indian Muslims at all. Perhaps because the Palestinian question is an Arab question as well as being a Muslim one.

However, I disagree that the Palestinian question is the only point of mobilization for Muslims recruited to Al-Qaeda. A bigger problem is that unemployed, and uneducated young Muslims are growing up in dictatorships that are propped up by the US, and not liking the massive nepotism, wealth, and unilateral power exercised by their political elites, thereby turning to religious leaders who have a moral claim to expounding values that can help these youth lead a "better" life, or at least one that's free from dependence on the moral values encouraged by the West (such as those available to them by watching American soaps on digital cable).

oh yes divya, why is there no hate crime law in india? where else in the world a place of worship is torn down (babri masjid) and the state does nothing, and the government storms a place of worship (golden temple) and the churches burnt and all the culprits go scottfree?

Sid harth - I totally see your point of view and did not mean to imply any kind of a Vedantic cop-out as a solution. You are very right and I want to repeat your point that decency only works among decent people. This is why I tend not to get too excited about Deepak's peace proposals.

In its most prosperous eras, Indian society was structured in a manner that there was an adequate military to take care of its needs. Not only that, there was a kshatriya ethos that prevailed side by side with the Brahmanic ethos. Meanwhile Jains, Buddhists, Christians and Hindus lived side by side and flourished. Why was India not able to handle the muslim invasion? Part of the problem may have something to do with the over-emphasis on Ahimsa that Buddhism brought with it which completely altered Hindu culture. Centuries later Gandhi carried forward the same torch and also had a disastrous influence in this respect. Another reason - and this I firmly believe - is that Hindus have no concept of the nature of religion, i.e., xtianity and islam. Hindus could not and still cannot grasp the relentlessness with which these religions are bent on taking over the world. Knowing one's enemy is winning half the battle. Perhaps that is why the US is struggling in Iraq and Afghanistan - they have no clue about other cultures.

Reviving the traditional Indian ethos would include the revival of the kshatriya ethos as well. Vedanta cannot save us from nuclear bombs. However, if Indians had pride in their culture, and appeared to be strong, we would not face terror threats like we do now but instead foster better assimilation. We're basically taken for pussies right now and that is the biggest problem.

Marek - Sorry for overlooking Poland. I guess the statistitions did not include it because of the sorry events of the 20th century. I understand Poland was traditionally very tolerant up until the 18th century - perhaps they followed the orthodox church. I find orthodox xtians are less aggressive amd do not proselytise.

Divya, you mean Poland's non-'existance'?,
but you know what the funny thing was,
eventhough we kicked Mohammed's ass at Vienna,
and therefor saved the rest of Europe,
but you know, in Europe's history, a song
very often sung ;),

The emperor ever did on formal occasions,
still acknowledged, the 'absence' of a state-formaly-known-as Poland, (we will leave the term 'sovereighn' for another ;)
when the rest of Europe already had 'divided' the Polish 'loot',

So eversince there has been a special bond
Between Mohammed and Janusz, (we will leave our ever dilligent Jewish bud out of this, they were into banking ;)
anyhow,
wich led to many
adventures Inc. (trading promostly ;) and the love of, for, a good exotic but domestic female
creature, wich kept the whole thing togheter..;)

..Love, Passion!

Marek - We have a left brain/right brain divide! I'm not so sure I understand what you write - even if I enjoy it. Yes, I guess it would be the time of Poland's non-existence. Who on earth is Janusz though?

TruthHurts - the topic we're discussing is why Indian Muslims are more moderate than other muslims. If the best you can do is come up with the Babri Masjid example (which I already granted in saying that Hindus feel compelled to react to Islam) that's rather pathetic. Please do your homework and find out how other religions are treated in Islamic countries. You'll find you pretty much don't have a leg to stand on. How do you like the idea that India treat its Muslims the way Muslims treat Hindus in Islamic countries? Hope this little thought experiment is able to put the matter in better perspective.

Marek - We have a left brain/right brain divide! I'm not so sure I understand what you write - even if I enjoy it. Yes, I guess it would be the time of Poland's non-existence. Who on earth is Janusz though?

TruthHurts - the topic we're discussing is why Indian Muslims are more moderate than other muslims. If the best you can do is come up with the Babri Masjid example (which I already granted in saying that Hindus feel compelled to react to Islam) that's rather pathetic. Please do your homework and find out how other religions are treated in Islamic countries. You'll find you pretty much don't have a leg to stand on. How do you like the idea that India treat its Muslims the way Muslims treat Hindus in Islamic countries? Hope this little thought experiment is able to put the matter in better perspective.

Question Divya,

I really enjoyed your blog today, have one question though:

Do you think India should continue to do business with the west specifically IT outsourcing?

Just wanted to know how far your views of the west extend?

Steve

I don't understand one thing. Many supposedly intellectuals who criticize the radical islam are themselves radical Hindus. Are they hypocrites really or they do not really realize that they are similar to radical islamists with Hindu coating? In my opinion, people who support hatred in Hinduism have no face to talk about hatred in Islam or christianity. For me it is sheer hypocrisy. Someone who criticize hatred in Islam and Christianity SHOULD criticize the same kinda hatred that exists in Hinduism also. As long as they ignore the radical Hinduism and criticize radical islam and radical christianity, they are just plain hypocrites and not intellectuals. They are no different from mullahs preaching hatred and evangelicals preaching hatred. Unfortunately, we are seeing many supposedly educated Hindus who are like this. I consider it the biggest failure of modern day hinduism.

Steve, my earlier comment should answer your question too.

Divya,

I think that is really cool that India is so tolerant.

I think that is has a lot to do with "consciousness" which rubs off and effects events and the reality around it. So the consciousness in India could be what is different.

I am creating a new planetary rule, no one can force their beliefs on anyone or dictate behavior to anyone.

Any institution that does religious or government will be dissolved with words an intelligence.

There will be no use of force, you must use gravity, that way we preserve free will.

Truthhurts, there are many people who longe here who think that India is a Hindu country. It is not. India is a secular country. Comparing a secular country with what happens in a islamic country is like comparing democracy with dictatorship. While dicussing the failings of a democracy, if anyone compares with dictatorship and justifies the failings, it just shows their ignorance. Same is the case in which a secular country is compared with religious state.

Richard,

When did you last see India? India is not tolerant any more.

Ambasteve - Why should India stop doing business with the West? Unless they're being gypped in some way (which they often are). If there's anything to gain by doing business then by all means they should do so.

Krish - I assume your comments were addressed to me. I have openly stated that I despise Islam and Christianity. What is hypocritical about this? I despise them prescisely because they are inherently intolerant. If Hindus develop intolerance towards these religions it is way better than kissing their ass. Even better would be if we could revive our traditions so that people like you would begin to know the difference between various traditions and not come up with knee-jerk moronic statements implying that we should all appreciate jihadi genocide mongers.

There I broke my own rule of ignoring your posts, but what the heck.

Well hello there,

Our resident brilliant intellectual scholar, Divya, second to none, is talking about pussies, folks! Whoa, pussies! Div, control yourself, my fair lady! Whoa!

Well hello, Div, whoahahaha!

"We're basically taken for pussies right now and that is the biggest problem," says Divya.

You see, even intellectuals like our one-and-only Divya is talking pussies. Whoahahaha. Ha!I am liking , Div.

It must be the weekend! And what is the most popular thing on a potent man's mind on the weekend? You guessed it!

Well hello!

Big D.

Am out.

Divya,

Do you really "despise Christianity/Islam" or are you really trying to say that you despise all Christians and Muslims? Afterall a religion is all about the members' behavior/actions.

Also where in the teachings/texts of the abovementioned religions that you find references to intolerance?

Ambasteve

Omigod Diablo - you had me running to the dictionary. Here's what I found:

Language Advisory
The dictionary entry you requested contains language that may be considered offensive.
puss·y [ pssee ] (plural puss·ies)

pussy n 1. the vagina. 2. a physically weak person; WIMP. ("He is such a pussy.")

Look at the second meaning. Hope that clarifies this delicate matter.

Ambasteve - I just mean to talk about the ideologies and not the people. Most xtians and muslims I know are basically into Santa Claus, Easter bunnies and tandoori chicken. But there's a whole other set that keeps the ideology alive - i.e., there is only one way to God and you better believe it or else - that's what I don't have any tolerance for.

Divya,

You can not say that look at how muslims are treated in india vs. hindus treated in muslim countries. What are you trying to say? Should they be treated badly? Muslims in India are Indians, and why should they be treated any differntly then other indians. On the contrary in Hindism we do not treat everyone equally.

Secondly Indians could not stand muslim invasion was because muslims were superior fighters. We lost it somewhere in the begening of the AD. There is no ahimsa in Hinduism when it comes to protecting yourself or fighting for the right, look at mahabharata and ramanaya.

And if hindus are treated badly in muslim countries then they should not stay there. Every one has a choice.

TH

Indians and Pussies?

Omigosh, Divya, you make me wonder where you coming from. I hear just the opposite that we Indians are an emerging power, both economically and militarily. Do not forget we are nuclear power and the 3rd richest guy in the world is an Indian and he is no pussy.

Jeeez.

Dalbir

Divya,

How about the Christians and Muslims who are generous, good helping neighbors, charitable, caring, and basically good decent citizens? These are the ones that I know and have lived as neighbors all my life in the US.

I assume you live in India, I may be wrong, but myself-living in sunny California you may be in for a big suprise.

Ambasteve

Krish:
Arguing against a strong current of reasoning and sanity is just insane.
There is the written word....The Scriptures, The Holy Books etc; AND then there are the people who read and interpret them.
You must read the Koran and the Bible, specially the Old Testament, and must come to the immediate and complete understanding of the intolerance and extreme bigotry and violence they narrate and thus espouse AND then compare it against any Eastern book of knowledge and realise that they[JUDEO-CHRISTIAN AND ISLAMIC] are explictly sanctioning and rewarding violence and killing of an entire population of humanity who has a belief system different from theirs.
The current discourse on this blog centers around this basic fact of such hate- mongers who quote the WRITTEN WORD as the basis of justifying the senseless killings in the name of their religion. In such a scenario THERE IS NO MODERATE MUSLIM because he/she knows he/she will be the first one to be killed for being a KAFIR/APOSTATE.
Sometimes it serves well to open the windows to the mind feel the fresh air and let the stale ideas out.
I want you to understand clearly I DON'T condone violence or hatred of any ignorant,mis-informed,mis-guided person who runs under the banner of Hindutva BUT I would not hesitate one bit to defend the sanctity of my culture,my faith and belief system if it is blatantly attacked by those who label me as a "non-believer" or destined for Hell and hence in the need for being 'saved' through forced conversion.
My belief in non-violence comes from a firm understanding of mutual respect for cordial and civil co-existence and I WANT every full-blooded person who has read the ancient HINDU books of knowledge and wisdom to reach this same conclusion which affords dignity,equality and assures the deserved survival of our cultural identity and people.
I take the word 'non-violence' to have meaning only when it applies to both sides which are faced with a conflict or disagreement and are prepared not to resort to violence.
I take the word 'violence' to have a much deeper and wider spectrum than the mere physical infliction which describes it superficially.
When a bunch of Hindus, incited by malicious crooked politicians under the banner of Hindutva,go on a rampage of UNPROVOKED killing then it is a most heinous crime BUT STILL these hooligans will NEVER be able to quote a line or a phrase from their scriptures or holy books to justify their crime BUT SADLY SO ,YOU DO NOT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THIS MOST VITAL DIFFERENCE of crime committed by Hindus versus CHURCH/MOSQUE SANCTIONED AND BIBLE/KORAN BACKED atrocities,genocides,ethnic cleansings that have gone on and are still taking place under the guise of conversions,economic sanctions media propoganda mind-control.
The instant you realise what I have explained, it is my belief that you will clearly understand the meaning of 'non-violence' and the "dharmic" role of violence in restoring dignity and sanctity of peaceful co-existence.Until then one-sided talk of 'non-violence' will remain the butt of Hindu cowardice jokes in non-Hindu circles.

TruthHurts, you mention the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. But you fail to mention why it was stormed: terrorists were hiding in there stockpiling weapons and they were given many warnings to come out. What other method do you suggest to flush terrorists out? There's no division between Hindus and Sikhs that I'm aware of. Sikhism was invented to protect Indian spirituality from the Islamic hordes of the time (the Mongols and others).

Divya, Krish, et al: The problem with discussion this with foreigners is that they are completely ignorant about our history, our situation today, the politics and dynamics in the subcontinent. The invasion of Iraq proves this too. Just barge in throwing lowyield nuclear weapons and then find out the groups, divisions, history of the country. So Indians can discuss this in context. I always have a problem discussing these things with non-Indians. It's akin to an Indian telling Americans their country is racist by pointing at the situation of the blacks, the situation post-Katrina. It's much more complex than black-&-white.

Well I don't know that much, but I do know that when people call the help desk in the US, people in India answer at the other end.

Perhaps this is somedeeper meaning to this.

I should give some historical background on Punjab:

Sikhs and Hindus are indigenous Indian traditions and share many spiritual characteristics. They have never ever been at loggerheads. Sikhs and Hindus intermarry. All the "gurus" of Sikhism were born Hindus. There is no animosity between common Sikhs and HIndus in present-day India. Even the most militant of Sikhs hates not HIndus in general, but the Congress govt.

Now about the storming & related events:

- A Sikh separatist movement (clearly instigated and funded by Pakistani propaganda to get back for their loss of East Pakistan) erupted in Punjab in the late70s-80s to fight for a independent country for Sikhs, notwithstanding the fact that Punjab is also home to Hindus. Our President at the time was a Sikh, btw. Indira Gandhi ordered the army to flush out the terrorists. The fight last many many years. They took refuge in Sikhism's holiest shrine, stockpiled weapons in the temple (!!) and started operating from there, betting that Gandhi wouldn't have the nerve to get them there. After much handwringing and many warnings over loudspeakers, Gandhi ordered Gen.Vaidya to storm the Golden Temple. Both of them paid for this with their lives (Gen.Vaidya was killed by an assassin in Pune many many years later) by Sikh gunmen acting "in defence of the faith" and to revent the violation of the sanctity of the Temple. In the weeks after Gandhi was assassinated, the enraged Congress leaders used their party workers to organize revenge killings of many Sikhs in Delhi.

So yeah, the conclusion you draw is that Hindus are an intolerant bunch.

Oops, I meant: Sikhism & HInduism are traditions. But you can connect the dots, I hope.

The strange/odd thing is; people succumb to diversity; it is not necessarily well-accepted by all being affected by it. Succumbing the people to fear: this is the major factor, that feeds the frenzy of politicaly manipulated politics of women, and children impoverished worldwide. Yes, men too, of course.

In my humble opinion of people in general; so not from a political point of view; I think people make personal choices on how they want to deal with anger and hatred; on their own terms.

What makes a man, hurt a child by rape?
What makes a woman, kill without blinking?

Desperation.

Desperation; is the direct puppetry-string, marrionettes called corrupt political leaders use to manipulate the mass's. Keep the people dependant, and in a constant state of fear and confusion, etc.

Mental terrorism; is not just used by terrorists for war against nations; it is often used against the most vulnerable of society.

Poverty, starvation and desperation; boils a pot of boiling fear; that could force any man/woman, to make sub-standard human decisions for a loaf of bread, a sip of water.

North

Sorry for the spamming, but again like 2 mention that our Congress govt today is ironically led by a Sikh. Our President is Muslim. Our majority leader is an Italian-ethnicity Christian. Folks, religion is not relevant in everyday life in India, at least in the urban areas. Unless some group makes a big deal about it, then ppl start to mark that group out.

About Gujarat: Long story short: A travesty! But there is still a "but". You can't have Kashmir on the boil, Pakistan always proclaiming their Islamic designs on India, and not have any reaction in India. Look at America: Just one 9/11 and then went and bombed two countries!

Let us not forget that terrorist outfits do not emerge from out of the blue.

Bhindranwale was the creation of Indira Gandhi. Osama was the creation of the CIA. At some point the dog started attacking the handlers.

Vish; could it be, they realized one day; all is not as it seemed it should be?

One must seep into the mind of a terrorist; to understand HOW to diffuse their anger/hatred; and dispel the curse's of ancient belief-systems.

North

Dear Friends,
I don't know why people who keep on quoting Gujarat riots, storming of Golden temple, demolition of Babri masjid fail to also quote the following:

1. Gujarat riots were an aftermath of setting of fire of a trainful of Hindus by Muslims in Godhra. Hindus were burnt alive. Gujarat riots happened after an act of extreme provocation.

2. Golden temple was stormed by the Indian forces to flush out hard-core terrorists hiding inside them stockpiling weapons as Indojin correctly points out. They were given several warnings to come out. There isn't much difference between the Hindus and the Sikhs anyway.

3. Babri masjid was built by razing down a temple in the first place. I agree that the matter was sub-judice at that time and people should have waited for the verdict to come out.

The point I make is that Hinduism is a much more tolerant organised religion than either Islam or Christianity, sometimes even to its detriment.
In ancient times, India was inhabited largely by people practicing Hinduism only, it was only due to their tolerant attitude that Muslims were successful in invading and ruling this country for centuries, followed by centuries of colonization by the Christians (British).

Cheers!
Navin

in mumbai,an al queada terrorist,mohammed afroz was convicted last month.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/03/10/stories/2002031001370900.htm

Sid darth,

Did I say Hinduism is bad. No. I am not against Hinduism. I am against Hindutva. Opposing Hindutva DOESN'T mean I am opposing Hinduism. Let me be clear on it. Also if you are a person who also condemn Hindutva violence and the violence in christianity and Islam, I am not talking against you. I am ONLY talking against people who condemn the violence by Christian and Islamic fundamentalists BUT condone Hindutva violence. There is a difference between such people and people who condemn violence in all religions.

"Gujarat riots were an aftermath of setting of fire of a trainful of Hindus by Muslims in Godhra. Hindus were burnt alive. Gujarat riots happened after an act of extreme provocation"

Totally wrong statement. Forensic evidence HAS CLEARLY PROVEN that it is a wrong story. This is yet another Hindutva propaganda used to justify their violence.

There's no iota of doubt that hinduism is one of the most inclusive and tolerant religions of the world.

That a certain aggressive variant has begun to emerge of late has got reasons. The pressure on hinduism to remain wedded to its philosophy while everyone else goes for an ideological stake-out has called the bust.

The philosophy of non-violence inherent to this religion has been equalised, by the powers that reign, to unconditional non-assertion. If it asks for even an inch, cries of bigotry, fundamentalism, and nonsense fill the skies.

Take mass media. My work makes me somewhat familiar with its inner workings. The extent to which anything remotely pro-hindu is blocked-out is not funny. Anything pro-hindu has to be softened down to an ideological equivalent of wet paper before it can see the light of the day. People writing anything pro-hindu are labelled bigots and have serious trouble finding their next job. Taking up issues for any other religion? Gee, no trouble at all, sir!

Scan the dailies: Mumbai bomb blasts are justified as an angry reaction by the hurt muslims to the Babri demolition. But Godhra is excluded from a similar argumentative track. Conveniently. It is labelled genocide by narrrow-minded hindus.

Go back to the early 80s. Imams issue perfectly-timed fatwas during election years asking muslims to vote for a particular political party en-masse. No one bats an eyelid. Cut to early 90s when some political voices begin to address the hindus and well, everything goes berserk.

Such examples are many. So let's not jump it and start labelling hinduism as intolerant for jam. Let's understand that just because it has followed a largely inclusive and spiritual line of thought over the centuries can not come to mean it has lost the right to take care of itself.

Yes Sachin,

So there we have it.

Cold, hard, silent. And staring at us.

Vijay:

I believe that there were two points that your article really brought up:

1. Existence of Al Qaeda sympathizers within the Indian Muslims

2. Tolerance of Indian society inherently.

My opposition to your first point was more technical while, it seems, your was more philosophical.

As regards second, I stand on the same side as Divya does. Indian society had inherently been more tolerant to welcome most of the folks who were persecuted outside with open arms. Over the centuries the light has dimmed.. and I strongly believe that a large part of the blame has to be with those who entered but abused the hospitality and partly to the romantic but unpragmatic values of most of the prevalent rulers then.

The tolerance that is still left is a remnant of the original Sanatan tradition of Mysticism and Vedanta (not "Vedic" thought necessarily).. which despite being abused by Shiv Sena and VHP for their own ends.. still does bring in that rare element of ASSIMILATION that is absent in any other "Hindu" tradition or other "religions".

According to me, Tolerance is multi-dimensional word. There are enough folks who, given to their lack of reasoning rigor will confine it to the stats in certain journals or papers - but it encompasses at least three things:

1. Philosophical and social construct which allows for assimilation such that the other person is free to practice his/her beliefs.

2. Assimilation in Peaceful times and/or sections

3. Restraint in times of provocation and high stress.

I guess I would say that the Indian society has traditionally scored HIGH POINTS on the FIRST TWO values over the centuries and still does. The third value is where it has consistently lacked and is no better than any other.

To properly put this is perspective and to CONSTRUCTIVELY argue against the INHEFRENT tolerance of a VEDANTIC-HINDU society - I challenge the detractors to substantiate their arguments with intolerance within Indian aosciety AGAINST ????

Against Islamic societies?

Against Christian-inspired societies?

Against Buddhist societies??

At least for an argument, one has to, at the VERY LEAST, announce the context one is ARGUING WITHIN!!

Self-deprecating looks cute .. but thats about as much marks a serious and honest analyst will give to such arguments.

Cheers,
Desh

Firstly, there is no confirmed information that there are no Indian Muslims in the cadre of Al-Queda. It could be just that so far none was known or captured. That does not necessarily mean that there is none. As soon as one is know or found, this myth could easily be re-written. There is another myth in your post, which needs a detailed explanation,

It is the much-touted tolerance. It is true that India generally has accepted other ethnic groups or foreigners and did not try to eradicate them with violence. And ‘Hinduism’ claims the credit.

Generally, the Indian society was based on graded inequality. There was minimal or no interactions between different communities, with some exceptions. Each community had its own culture and its own system of worship. Don’t mistake it to take as the freedom of worship. It was not. The so called low caste communities were not allowed to worship some deities that belonged to higher castes (eg: Sree Narayan Guru). There were different legal codes, like lighter punishment for Brahmins where as a severe one for shudras for the same crime. ( http://www.dalitstan.org/holocaust/method/tortures.html ) Higher caste people did not consider people from lower castes as fellow citizens. And in short, there was no Hindu community existed then and there. ( http://www.dalitstan.org/books/offence/offence2.html ). Brahmins had never considered the shudras as members of their fold.

The same can be deduced from the historical fact that India could not defend itself against the invaders effectively. Some attribute the cause to Bushism and its preach of non-violence. The truth is that most of the members of the society were indifferent towards it, as they had no say in the affairs of the state and they did not benefit anything from it. The state did not interfere in their life positively to make them think that they need to defend it. Thus majority of the society did not see any reason to fight to protect the boundary of the country. The same trend – most of the common men abandoning the movement - can be seen in the freedom fight, until the entry of Gandhiji. He famously observed: “Illiterate they may be, but they are not blind. They see no reason to support those who are waiting to take the role of British in the name of freedom”

It is into this society that the migrants sought refuge. And there were no Hindu community –as we know it today - to show tolerance. The upper castes called the new communities ‘mlechas’ (hardly a sign of tolerance!). Meanwhile, the communities in the periphery accepted them, shared the culture with them and mixed with them. Why can’t then we consider this as Hindu tolerance. It is because what is referred to as Hinduism today is nothing but Brahminism.

Kancha Ilaiah says in an interview: “As Dr.Ambedkar says, Hindutva is nothing but Brahminism. And whether you call it Hindutva or Arya Dharma or Sanatana Dharma or Hindusim, Brahminism has no organic link with Dalit-Bahujan life, world-views, rituals and even politics. To give you just one example, in my childhood many of us had not even heard of the Hindu gods, and it was only when we
went to school that we learnt about Ram and Vishnu for the very first time. We had our own goddesses, such as Pochamma and Elamma, and our own caste god, Virappa. They and their festivals played a central role in our lives, not the Hindu gods. At the festivals of our deities, we would sing and dance--men, women and all-- and would sacrifice animals and drink liquor, all of which the Hindus connsider 'polluting'.

In fact, many Dalit communities preserve traditions of the Hindu gods being their enemies. In Andhra, the Madigas enact a drama which sometimes goes on for five days. This drama revolves around Jambavanta, the Madiga
hero, and Brahma, the representative of the Brahmins. The two meet and have a long dialogue. The central argument in this dialogue is about the creation of humankind. Brahma claims superiority for the Brahmins over everybody else, but Jambavanta says, 'No, you are our enemy'. Brahma then says that he created the Brahmins from his mouth, the Kshatriyas from his
hands, the Vaishyas from his thighs, the Shudras from his feet to be slaves for the Brahmins, and of course the Dalits, who fall out of the
caste system, have no place here. This is the Vedic story. But Jambavanta says that this is nonsense. He says that prakriti [nature] created him and Shakti [the female power principle], and through his union with Shakti, the trimurti [Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva] were born.

Q: And then what happens to Brahma?
A: That is most interesting. You see, Jambavanta defeats him by argument, not by killing him. In the Dalit-Bahujan tradition there is no defeat by
killing your enemy, which is so central to Brahminism, be it the Gita or the Puranas. This Dalit-Bahujan tradition of overcoming your enemy through logical persuasion runs right from the Buddha to Ambedkar. The understanding is that you must establish your philosophical superiority
and defeat the enemy on the moral ground. “
(From: http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-ilaiah050304.htm )

It should be clear now that it is the erstwhile Brahminism that is referred to as Hinduism today and nothing called Hinduism existed in the history. Historically Brahminism was as intolerant as any other intolerant ideology and it continues to be so even now, refusing even to see and treat men equally. Thus if some one claims that Hinduism - as it is seen today – has shown tolerance, it is nothing but a myth.

I agree with Desh. The premises you started were wrong and the conclusions you reached naturally are wrong as well.

Desh - you might find your answer in this article - The Tolerant Hindu as the Village Idiot. It just depends on how infatuated one is with delusional ideals. Vijay (and all) you must read this too. This is definitely an opinion piece and one I happen to agree with but my interest in posting this is basically to highlight how deeply Hindus have internalized alien notions so as to become totally self-alienated in the process.

http://www.vigilonline.com/news/plain_speak/ps_view.asp?plainSpeakId=59

Luscious Moon-
Democracy,I think should be on the top of it.

Czesc Marek- Don't know a lot and don't have too much time now to research, but I know there was holocaust, now I don't know whether it was by Polish people or Nazis. The Main Judiac Library in Tlomackie has some memorials from the Warsaw ghetto. Never the less, Polish people are very nice and sweet. The claim that India is the only country where Jews have not been prosecuted is something that I have seen many times in email forwards, but the govt of India has nothing to prove it and does not put forth the claim.

Dalbir-
Terrorism didn't start with the Palestine problem, it has been there for thousands of years. Yes, modern day Islamic terror is largely fuelled by the palestine issue, even though I don't beleive that a resolution through 242 and 338 will bring an end to terror. It might have been the reason to start, but definetly doesn't end there, atleast now.
Indojin-
Operation Blue star was a political decision that went so wrong that India is still paying for it and I agree with most other things you have to say in some form, but for the comment that foreigners are ignorant of Indian history. Hell no!

Hey Navin, long time.
1) That is a theory which has not been proven and the forensic evidence was not even close to it. That being said, 54 hindus were killed 2000 muslims were killed. Hindu women were raped becuase they married muslims, a whole colony of war veterans were burnt and killed because they were muslims; people who fought and defended this country were burnt alive becuase they were muslims. I'm a staunch Hindu and this is not the hinduism I learnt.

2)Operation Blue star is something every analyst will say was stupid. Even the people who planned it regret it to this day.I bet you are a hindu to say that there is not much difference between Hindu's and Sikh.Tell that to a Sikh and keep some distance!

3)Do you still believe that! comeon, that was an fabricated story for political gains. There is not an iota of evidence for that claim. Whats next Mathura and Taj Mahal.

Every religion is tolerant, some people interpret it in a different way but some propogate it in a bad way. not good.

Krish:
You still missed my point.....There is a core difference between religious violence and ideological fanatic FAITH-BASED AND CHRUCH/MASJID APPROVED DECREE/FATWA THAT CALLS FOR A SCRIPTURE SANCTIONED CRUSADE/JIHAD.
VIJAY:
It pains me to see you take the eastern apologist's view:"Every religion is tolerant".This leaves wide room for mis-understanding and confusion and the natural follow-up of an apologist is"all religions are equal and they preach peace and harmony".
Pruning of a religion or it's written book to suit one's view-point is preaching selective morality and rationalising it's unsavory chapters by denoting them as 'metaphors' is disingenuous hypocrisy.
There are chapters in BRAHMASUTRABHASYA and MANUSMRITI which embarrass me thoroughly and put me to shame but I have never tried to delete them from any discussion or discourse because to do so would be adharmic and lead to an ulcerative self-deception that will eat away at my conscience.

>but for the comment that foreigners are ignorant
>of Indian history. Hell no!

Vijay: Then what r v 2 make of truthhurts' statements where he picks and chooses random events out of indian history without any context whatsoever to prove us as intolerant. Note how he doesn't mention Kanishka 1988, a bombing by a Sikh extremist (now living freely in Canada) that killed hundreds of Indians of all faiths, but he is quick to mention the Golden Temple which wasn't even destroyed, merely stormed to root out the terrorists, and it was hardly an act of intolerance against Sikhism.

I say, if non-Indians don't know the whole story, they shouldn't preach to us or judge us, but rather be humble about learning it. And if they do know the whole story, then it's highly suspicious if they mention selective events to suit their argument.

Indojin,

Do you read? The guys who blew up Kaniska will obviously go tp hell. So will everyone who kill innocents.

When you say that Golden Temple was not destroyed you are totally ignorant. Just do a simple google and you will find numerous images of Golden Temple pre and post blue star.

Here is one link that i could quickly find (but this looks like the site of some fanatic as well). Look at the image of Golden Temple that you guys never got to see.

http://www.sikhlionz.com/operationbluestar.htm

pardon me for being selective, I am making a point.

TH

Divya,

Million thanks for sharing the link.

I just read the article. More than just exceptionally insightful, it's searing, unforgiving and punchy.

Right on the nose.

One of those interesting questions Vijay where one tends to say 'yes and no' and agree with different opinins.

It's a fact that out of all the differing nationalities involved in major Al Qaida operations world wide there is no single Indian. To the many reasons given here I would also like to add one more as a possible explanation. Basically Islam in India is still influenced by the more mystical and generally benevolent nature of religion. Sufism being just one example. This has withstood the rather aggressive nature of the Wahibi trend. Unlike Pakistan, which was of the same strain as us, has over a period of time moved more to Wahibism. Perhaps it has a lot to do with the fact that for long, Pakistan was greatly dependent on the Saudis for financial goodwill and the fact that the Saudis poured in more money into their religious institutions and extracted a price. The Wahibis certainly look down with contempt on the Sufis and they would most certainly have had a great influence in promoting their own brand. This has fortunately not been the road travelled by Indian Muslim society. This coupled with the inherently tolerant nature of Hinduism appear to me be the two most prominent reaons.

Of course one cannot say that the Indian scene is free of the Al Qaida, we certainly don't know that for sure. As I understand it, the Al Qaida is really a loose conglomeration of a host of Islamic militant organisations around the globe which flourish in Islamic States. Since we do have trained militants who have carried out terrorist acts and whom we know have, at times, received critical support from militant organisations outside the country linked to the Al Qaida I am not too sure whether we can deny the existance of Al Qaida in India.

TH, yes, it was a fight with terrorists. But the temple itself still stands, has been repaired. I don't tie it to any intolerance against Sikhism being involved here. I believe Gandhi would have done the same thing whether it were a HIndu temple or a Muslim mosque or whathaveyou. If you're convinced you're right based on this incident, and those pictures, you may please yourself.

Culprits have gone and do go scotfree in India in many cases. And not just in cases involving ppl who happen to be Sikhs or Muslims either, which should tell you something if you're smart.

TH:

People always seemed to know half of history, and to get it confused with the other half.

— Jane Haddam:

I would say that you have a rather simplistic and ONE-dimensional way of looking at events and happenings. Like they say, to one who only has a hammer everything seems like a nail.

So once you have decided the conclusion - you can very well "paint" any event or act in the light you may want to. The fact however is that there are - at most times - SEVERAL aspects and angles to everything.

Now, for the OPERATION BLUESTAR:

The main reason - by intelligence experts in their reports that I have read in some columns - attributed to the quick and a rather unplanned attack on Golden Temple by Indira Gandhi was an intelligence report.

It seems that the Russian Intelligence had intercepted voice messages (something akin to that infamous taped phone message of Musharraf in hotel room in China with his top commander at the height of Kargil War) - a tape of which was played to IG .. where it had been discussed between Khalistanis inside Golden Temple and Pakis .. that while Bhindranwale will announce "Freedom" for Khalistan .. the Paki army will enter from the Amritsar border and cut off as much area as possible and Khalistan will be declared and recognized by Pak. Almost a tit-for-tat for Bangladesh formation!

It was IN THAT scenario that IG ordered immediate and relentless flush out.. with little eye for much niceties.

So while you may call it an act of "Religious" Intolerance - if this report may have any truth .. it may VERY WELL have been an act of towards National Security!

There are several reasons why such acts are attempted... and I think IG was correct in this. Yes, she deservedly paid for having created the Bhindranwale frankenstein monster.. but she should be judged for individual acts separately.

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

Dear Vijay,
Hi buds, how are you.

1. Both you and Krish have said something like "Forensic reports have proved that", but fail to elaborate on that. What exactly are you both saying here? That the Godhra incident never happened? That Hindus who were travelling in the train were not set on fire? Or Muslims did not set fire to that train?
I would like to see the full forensic report which you are talking about and how it "HAS CLEARLY PROVEN" what conclusion and then the authenticity of that report. Should we believe it "has clearly proven" just becoz Krish says so? LOL.
If you say 54 Hindus were killed in Godhra and 2000 Muslims were killed in the aftermath, then it will be a good deterrent for such provocative incidences in future.

2. Whether Operation Blue Star was stupid or not is a very subjective statement and will differ with person to person. My common sense says that no terrorist should be allowed to hide and stockpile arms in any place of worship, whether a temple, mosque or gurudwara. I also remember some time back terrorists were flushed out from a Swami Narayan temple also in a similar fashion.

I have no need to keep a distance from Sikhs as some of my best friends are Sikhs. The ground reality is that there is a free intermingling of Hindus and Sikhs and they even marry into each other's families without any problems.

3.Yes, I do believe that Babri masjid was built over a temple, there have been several archaeological evidences to that being the birth place of Rama and remains of a temple were dug up. This again is a subjective point of debate, Vijay, which will differ from person to person. How can you prove or disprove anything here?

Cheers!
Navin

Navin,

As far as I know it is still an open question about whether the Babri was built over a destroyed temple. To my knowledge this matter is still pending in the court. I wish that this is settled once and for all and quickly.

The real problem as far as I am concerned is that both the Babri Masjid affair and the storming of the Golden Temple, both shameful incidents to any self respecting Indian, are products of political indecision, bungling and lack of strng governance to take timely action.

Krish,

I would like to suggest that India is not as tolerant as it was and is far from being an intolerant society. I think it is still a relatively tolerant country politically. Socially its people have an innate sense of tolerance even now. That does not mean that extremists will not gain the upper hand at times and cause immense damage to the fabric of its society.

Dear Indojin,

Let me refresh your memory. The guys at Kaniskha were tried by a court of law, and freeded because of lack of evidence. At least they were tried. I am not saying that it is right or wrong, we will never know and I feel sorry for the relatives.

But every single person involved in the killing of muslims (in Gujrat), in demolition of Babri Masjid, in the killing of christian missionaries and congress workers who killed sikhs post gandhi are scottsfree. They were not even tried. What do you say to that? And please...you really think they would storm a hindu temple? They would not even arrest a bollywood star after he kills pedestrians while drinking and driving.

Dear VJ,

While you point out an important distinction, there is a lot more potential in India. It is true that majority of the muslims in India are non-violent, but there is much that needs to be done.

I have seen muslims being discriminated against in all walks of life. Starting with finding a job. If there were two equal candidates applying for a job, the first preference would go to the hindu. Educated muslims do find jobs, but it is not as easy as it is for hindus (not that it is easy to find jobs in India, but I am making a point). If I were to rent out my apartment, I would hesitate to rent it to a muslim. This subtle and sometimes overt discrimination has alienated muslims and has ghettoised them. I believe they can be much better integrated into the mainstream and reducing communal tensions even better and increasing their participation in nation building substantially.

Some of the blame definitely goes to the muslims as well. Their religious book prescribes a way of life that's appropriate for the sevent century Arabia. If you notice, there is a tendency among muslims, especially among the conservative ones, to dress like arabs, grow beards, put a veil on their women. This monolithic, almost borglike, appearance, alienates them with most of the cultures they live in and India is no exception. Many muslims do in fact continue to practice their old cultural habits, but the more conservative ones tend to stand out. This creates a xenophobia among the other populations. In an ideal world, this should not be a problem, but we don't live in one.

The same hipocrisy, that Krish accuses the supporters of hinduism in this forum, also applies to many of the intellectuals on the left. The communists and the socialists depend heavily on the muslim votebank. The continued abuse of politics by Congress and leftist parties for the forty years since independence resulted in the political pendulum swinging to the right in 1990s. Therefore you have the spectacle of Shivsena (mercifully in decline) and VHP. I believe last parliamentary elections were a good lesson to the moderates in the BJP community. I hope they continue to develop their base.

I think many muslims have seen through the duplicity of congress and other left leaning parties. That's why their decline in the big states of UP and Bihar.

As much as I decry violence and desecration of cultural and religious symbols, I beleive the destruction of Babri masjid was a good thing. Prior to 1992, muslims in India were the agressors and if there was a hindu reaction it was always muted one. People in power never acted to correct muslim atrocities. Babri acted as a reminder to muslims that they live in a hindu majority country and they need to stop their world-conquering practices and respect the sentiments of the majority. The hindu-muslim riots have decreased considerably since then, Godhra and Gujrat being exceptions.

Another sore point with many staunch hindus is the muslim personal law (there similar laws for hindus and christians as well). This law basically permits muslims to have different rules as far as the family is concerned. For example, a muslim is allowed to have four wives and their inheritance laws are different. This should go. All citizens of India should be subjected to the same set of rules. I don't know if that's even on the agenda of BJP, leave alone Congress.

We must continue to encourage moderate muslims and moderates in general and stop extremists from gaining upper hand in political discourse. This is a matter of principle, not of politics. Too many times in the past (Shah Bano case for one) the principle has been sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. Politicians like Laloo and his ilk should be shown the door, and I believe it is beginning to happen.

We must develop infrastructure and educational facilities in muslim dominated areas. Try to encourage the youth with gainful employment. Young people with good jobs rarely tend to engage in riots and violence. Actively discourage madrassas from teaching hate, and those that do must be shutdown. Strengthen the borders along Bangladesh and deport illegal aliens.

Regards,

Ravi Kulkarni

Dear Divya,

You said:

"Why was India not able to handle the muslim invasion? Part of the problem may have something to do with the over-emphasis on Ahimsa that Buddhism brought with it which completely altered Hindu culture."

Actually I think muslims and other invaders found it easy to conquer India, because India was never a monolithic country, at least not during the last two millennia, until 1947. We have always been divided based on religion, ethnicity, language, culture and what have you. The kings and the queens of the middle ages were not saints. There were many many wars between the states (and they continue even today, though in different disguises) and even within the same royal families. There was always a disgruntled sibling or cousin to aid the invader.

The migration of people across the country witnessed in the last few decades is there a good thing. Now the regional loyalties are slowly being replaced by a national one. It will probably take another generation before we see a major shift in our perception our concept of a nation.

Regards,

Ravi Kulkarni

LOL Truthhurts,
I quote you:"They would not even arrest a bollywood star after he kills pedestrians while drinking and driving." Unquote

Do you know that you are talking about Salman Khan here? And is he a Muslim or a Hindu? This shows that India is still a relatively tolerant society, many notches higher than the other countries of the world. As someone said before, the President of India is a Muslim, the Prime Minister is a Sikh, the Bollywood and the Sports arena is littered with Muslim success stories. Do you think this would have been possible if there was any discrimination to the scale some guys are insinuating?
The link that you gave showing a picture of Golden temple is not even a real picture, it is a doctored one.

Dear Dara,
I fully agree with you. That is precisely my point. What is happening here on this thread is a "your word against mine" kind of situation. Everything everyone's saying is subjective and each one will put his/her own meaning to things. Claims are being made here as if they were the final authority on the issue.

And I also fully agree with you that both Babri Masjid and Golden temple could have been averted if there were some farsighted decisions taken by the concerned governments of that time.

If you ask me personally, what religion I belong to, then my answer would be none. I am posting here just for the sake of discussion. And the ground reality is that in our day to day lives, no one is even bothered whether you are dealing with a Muslim or a Hindu or a Sikh. We are all human beings and that is the only identity we have, it is stupid to identify oneself with the religion one was born into. People are more concerned about raising their standard of living here. It is only because of political and organised religion inciting that people lose their heads and become violent, otherwise people from all religions want to live in peace and harmony with their neighbours.

Providing a decent and comfortable life for your kids is a more important issue than arguing about religion. It is rightly said that "religion is the opium of the masses". The political/religious leaders just work things up to make money. Now I'm going to check out the other thread about Money buying you Happiness.

Cheers!
Navin

Czesc Marek- Don't know a lot and don't have too much time now to research, but I know there was holocaust, now I don't know whether it was by Polish people or Nazis.

- '..for they have been welcome guests by Polish Kings through the centuaries, the foreigh
'overrulling', and graveyards and concentrationcamps for their accounts..,'

- and there was not a 'nation' that 'saved' more
Jews than the one, on wich soil most were indeed,
well, you know the stories,

Marek - We have a left brain/right brain divide! I'm not so sure I understand what you write - even if I enjoy it. Yes, I guess it would be the time of Poland's non-existence. Who on earth is Janusz though?

-We can him Tomek, if you like ;)

Never mind, they all into Daliya, Dilek, Fatma, Fayza, Jamila, Jasmine etc, http://disney.go.com/princess/html/main_iframe.html
and vice versa,

..Love, Passion

'..Every religion is tolerant, some people interpret it in a different way but some propogate it in a bad way. not good..'
Posted by: Vijay Sappani

Czesc Vijay ;),

Amen to that, if I may draw an analogy with law,
the constitution(s), on paper are great, though,
it's the 'administration' that..well we all know
the outcomes, leadership, 'politics', tyranny...
different worlds..

Divya, I am of the upmost conviction that Diablo,
was not reffering the latter etymological meaning, what he, surely, meant was:
Sponsor 'peace.' Give your boyfriend 'lust.' Show your appreciation for 'candy.'

How was your saturday night, D.?

Send in Diablo as a peace negotiator!
He has my vote!

Love, Peace, Passion!

Vijay - I am shocked, shocked, in shock and awe. Do you really not know whether the holocaust was caused by the Nazis or the Polish? Poland was the first country invaded by Hitler, so there you go. I'm hoping I misconstrued your response but what you said would have you flunk Politics 101 for sure. Hope you had a good day on the campaign trail.

Ravi - your theory doesn't do much for me. How can it be that starting from the 9th century and straight on through to the 17th century a small minority of Muslims could take over the entire Indian subcontinent? In-fighting cannot be the answer since that has always been around. In any case this is the only answer people come up with and it betrays a lack of interest in the subjet more than anything else. The social fabric of society must have been deeply altered in some other ways. Remember Buddhism flourished in India for almost a 1,000 years. I think the change must have started right from Ahoka's time in fact.

TruthHurts - I don't know what you're trying to prove but whatever it is you don't pull out one single incident from a 5,000 year old history to prove your point. Exceptions do not prove the rule. And I was in Delhi at the time of the Bhrindanwale incident and lived there right through it. He was completely and totally a creature of Indira Gandhi's making. This is *not* a religious issue. It is 100% a political fabrication. In fact the Congress party organized the riots in Delhi following Indira Gandhi's well-deserved assassination. Of course, neither you or Vijay may bother to check your history on this but it's out there. This is not a matter of opinion.

You My Man Marek, Superstar extraordinaire and unequalled Academic:

From the Vistula to the North Sea, to all over cyberspace, the night was good and profitable. Whoa, dude Marek, how was your Saturday night, bro? And thanks for straightening out Divya on her etymological faux pas!

Dude, you are a genius! No question!

The Ranch was hot last night, you can only imagine!. D is king of his domain!

Yes, it was Saturday night in the city and you know how it is, everyone came out to play and play hard they did. Whoahahaha!

Am out! It's time to get some sleep!

Big D. Love Passion & Compassion!

To the administer,

I would like to know whether I am completely barred to post comments here, as a comment that I posted few hours ago has not appeared yet. You do not need to tell me the reason but just let me know yes or no Then I will not waste time writing comments that will not appear.

Czesc Marek,Dzień dobry, Jak sie masz? Wesołych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia!Zpoważaniem. Vijay.

Divya- I went back and looked into my comment. yeah its open to interpreatation. What I meant was that there were Jews from the Warsaw ghetto who were forced into concentration camps. What I was not sure if it was the Nazis or polish supporters of the Nazi who pushed them. Poland has a great history with Jews and every jew has to pay atleast one visit to the memorial in Warsaw. We owe a lot to poland.

Ravi- Well put. your 2nd para on dress sense etc, err I call it freedom of expression. I think the same will apply to women wearing saree and salwar in western world. but then as you say
"In an ideal world, this should not be a problem, but we don't live in one."

Navin- well said
"Providing a decent and comfortable life for your kids is a more important issue than arguing about religion" I hope you will also apply this to your daily life and practice what you preach. If we all do this, life gets better for everyone. goodpoint.

I can ressonate with most of you here. I used to defend everything about India,Hinduism, Judaism etc., but I realised that by blindly supporting them I'm not doing any good, and over a period of time, I have learnt that development and improvement can come by looking at it from a neutral prespective and respecting the other person's views and engaging our own people.

I see people here are defending gujarat riots, Golden Temple and Babri masjid demolition. At one side you claim to be the most tolerant religion and at the other side commend the acts of hindu fanaticsm. It doesn't make sense. The worst is that you say hindus and sikhs are same and yeah right it was ok to send tanks inside golden temple in the name of terror.
Navin, using RTI you can get any declassified files now in India.You can get the godhra report. This debate can go on and on, but all I can is lets not add fuel to the selfish political agenda's of certain politicians whose religion as a tool for political gain.

Najeeb,

Nope, no one is barred in this site, except spammers. I think it might be some software issue. I'm going to look if I can do something about it. This applies to everyone, all the times.
Cheers!
VJ

Sid darth,

I don't want to comment on whether christianity and islam supports violence by scripture or not. It is definitely not an apologist view but I consider it as none of my business. However, I have a question. For a moment, let us assume that your point is completely valid (I am not going into the arguement whether it is valid or not). Let us assume that christianity and islam supports violence by scripture and Hinduism does not. My question is. What is the point? Even without any support from scripture, Hinduism has so much violence. If a religion can resort to violence without anything in scripture, isn't it a failure? In spite of all these modern day spiritual gurus like Desh try to justify violence using Gita. My argument is it is not worth talking crap about other religion when our own religion has too much of such baggage.

Dara, I fully agree with you. My argument was relative to what it was a decade or so back. But I agree that it is still one of the most tolerant societies.

Ravi, I have made it clear several times. Why do you consider people who oppose hindutva as opponents of hinduism. In my opinion, the greatest strength of hinduism is that you can st8ill be a hindu and oppose what is wrong in the religion. In fact, Hinduism even supports atheism. Please understand that opposing hindutva is different and oppposing hinduism is different.

Vijay,

" I realised that by blindly supporting them I'm not doing any good, and over a period of time"

Well said. This is my view. But if you have this view, you are anti Hindu. Isn't it typical of fundamentalists in christianity and islam? But people will start whining if they are called fundamentalists. They will have view similar to fundamentalists but they cannot be called one. Hallmark of Hindu fundamentalists.

Firstly, there is no confirmed information that there are no Indian Muslims in the cadre of Al-Queda. It could be just that so far none was known or captured. That does not necessarily mean that there is none. As soon as one is know or found, this myth could easily be re-written. There is another myth in your post, which needs a detailed explanation,

It is the much-touted tolerance. It is true that India generally has accepted other ethnic groups or foreigners and did not try to eradicate them with violence. And ‘Hinduism’ claims the credit.

Generally, the Indian society was based on graded inequality. There was minimal or no interactions between different communities, with some exceptions. Each community had its own culture and its own system of worship. Don’t mistake it to take as the freedom of worship. It was not. The so called low caste communities were not allowed to worship some deities that belonged to higher castes (eg: Sree Narayan Guru). There were different legal codes, like lighter punishment for Brahmins where as a severe one for shudras for the same crime. ( http://www.dalitstan.org/holocaust/method/tortures.html ) Higher caste people did not consider people from lower castes as fellow citizens. And in short, there was no Hindu community existed then and there. ( http://www.dalitstan.org/books/offence/offence2.html ). Brahmins had never considered the shudras as members of their fold.

The same can be deduced from the historical fact that India could not defend itself against the invaders effectively. Some attribute the cause to Bushism and its preach of non-violence. The truth is that most of the members of the society were indifferent towards it, as they had no say in the affairs of the state and they did not benefit anything from it. The state did not interfere in their life positively to make them think that they need to defend it. Thus majority of the society did not see any reason to fight to protect the boundary of the country. The same trend – most of the common men abandoning the movement - can be seen in the freedom fight, until the entry of Gandhiji. He famously observed: “Illiterate they may be, but they are not blind. They see no reason to support those who are waiting to take the role of British in the name of freedom”

It is into this society that the migrants sought refuge. And there were no Hindu community –as we know it today - to show tolerance. The upper castes called the new communities ‘mlechas’ (hardly a sign of tolerance!). Meanwhile, the communities in the periphery accepted them, shared the culture with them and mixed with them. Why can’t then we consider this as Hindu tolerance. It is because what is referred to as Hinduism today is nothing but Brahminism.

Kancha Ilaiah says in an interview: “As Dr.Ambedkar says, Hindutva is nothing but Brahminism. And whether you call it Hindutva or Arya Dharma or Sanatana Dharma or Hindusim, Brahminism has no organic link with Dalit-Bahujan life, world-views, rituals and even politics. To give you just one example, in my childhood many of us had not even heard of the Hindu gods, and it was only when we
went to school that we learnt about Ram and Vishnu for the very first time. We had our own goddesses, such as Pochamma and Elamma, and our own caste god, Virappa. They and their festivals played a central role in our lives, not the Hindu gods. At the festivals of our deities, we would sing and dance--men, women and all-- and would sacrifice animals and drink liquor, all of which the Hindus connsider 'polluting'.

In fact, many Dalit communities preserve traditions of the Hindu gods being their enemies. In Andhra, the Madigas enact a drama which sometimes goes on for five days. This drama revolves around Jambavanta, the Madiga
hero, and Brahma, the representative of the Brahmins. The two meet and have a long dialogue. The central argument in this dialogue is about the creation of humankind. Brahma claims superiority for the Brahmins over everybody else, but Jambavanta says, 'No, you are our enemy'. Brahma then says that he created the Brahmins from his mouth, the Kshatriyas from his
hands, the Vaishyas from his thighs, the Shudras from his feet to be slaves for the Brahmins, and of course the Dalits, who fall out of the
caste system, have no place here. This is the Vedic story. But Jambavanta says that this is nonsense. He says that prakriti [nature] created him and Shakti [the female power principle], and through his union with Shakti, the trimurti [Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva] were born.

Q: And then what happens to Brahma?
A: That is most interesting. You see, Jambavanta defeats him by argument, not by killing him. In the Dalit-Bahujan tradition there is no defeat by
killing your enemy, which is so central to Brahminism, be it the Gita or the Puranas. This Dalit-Bahujan tradition of overcoming your enemy through logical persuasion runs right from the Buddha to Ambedkar. The understanding is that you must establish your philosophical superiority
and defeat the enemy on the moral ground. “
(From: http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-ilaiah050304.htm )

It should be clear now that it is the erstwhile Brahminism that is referred to as Hinduism today and nothing called Hinduism existed in the history. Historically Brahminism was as intolerant as any other intolerant ideology and it continues to be so even now, refusing even to see and treat men equally. Thus if some one claims that Hinduism - as it is seen today – has shown tolerance, it is nothing but a myth.

I agree with Desh. The premises you started were wrong and the conclusions you reached naturally are wrong as well.

"Indira Gandhi's well-deserved assassination"

Such people consider themselves intellectuals. Shameful. Opposing someone politically is different calling someone's death as well deserved is pure cannibalism. I wouldn't consider any Hindutva's guys death that way even though I am dead against Hindutva. Shameful cannibal attitude. Ans this person calls death penalty barbaric. Height of hypocrisy.

haha,
how cool,
Wszystkiego najlepszego!, zycze zdrowych,
cieplych i przedewszytkim rodzinnych swiat 2005!

Love, Passion, i dobra imprezka!
on everybody's health! na zdrowko!

TH: "But every single person involved in the killing of muslims (in Gujrat), in demolition of Babri Masjid, in the killing of christian missionaries and congress workers who killed sikhs post gandhi are scottsfree. They were not even tried. What do you say to that? And please...you really think they would storm a hindu temple? They would not even arrest a bollywood star after he kills pedestrians while drinking and driving."

What I say to that is that the legal process is weak in India because of corruption. And it affects not just non-Hindus. Why do you think India is still a 3rd world country? Both the Bollywood stars who've drunk and driven and went scotfree are Muslims, btw, which makes my point instead of yours.

And about storming Hindu temples, as someone mentioned, that happened quite recently. As well as a mosque in Srinagar a couple of years ago.

So let me see, ppl stockpiling weapons in holy places are not violating the sanctity of the place according to you, is it? The terrorists are peaceloving and innocent, while ppl trying to stop them and prevent innocent deaths are intolerant?

Killing of Christian missionaries: I know that one of the persons who led the Staines mob was sentenced to life imprisonment or something like that. If only you'd ask yourself why missionaries are being killed all of a sudden in the country which has had Catholic schools and the oldest Christian group in the world for decades.

I don't disagree that Hindus are becoming more and more intolerant, especially of Islam and Christian missionaries (not against anyone else). And it is justified within limits. Gujarat for example was NOT justified: killing innocent men, women and children for something they never did was abhorrent. I hope India never goes the way of Pakistan or other Islamic countries in terms of extremism because we can see where that has led them, to ruins. The path of secularism and true equality among ppl is the only guarantee of a country's economic progress.

And while you moan about Muslims being persecuted and hated, did you know that the richest man in India today, a self-made IT billionaire happens to be Muslim? Did you know that the most popular filmstar in India happens to be Muslim? The scientist who led the team that made our nuclear bomb and is our beloved and visionary President (may he live long) happens to be Muslim? The teenage tennis idol in our country who's revolutionzing women's tennis is Muslim and proud to be Indian? And no one care's about their religion, unless a big deal is made out of it. So much for Hindus hating and abhorring Muslims in India.

Yes, many ppl are starting to, but you have to look at what the Muslims in general have done for this to happen too, don't you?

A nice article relevant to the topic.

Clash of cultures
Tavleen Singh

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=83734

Dear Vijay,
I never commended or condoned acts of violence by any religion. The point I made was that you cannot and should not post isolated incidents of violence perpetrated by Hindu extreme wingers without mentioning the violent acts of Fundamentals of Muslim or any other religion. When we speak the truth, we should speak the whole truth, coz half-truths are lies.

Cheers!
Navin

And for those who don't know, Tavleen Singh is a Sikh woman, educated in a convent, once married to a Pakistani Muslim. So I wouldn't be quick to brand her as an "intolerant Hindu".

Marek
Dziekuje brat, Przyjemnego dnia I think I need to polish my polish! ha!

Navinji, I just condemn violence in the name of religion. period.
Kris agree with you. don't know who said that aboug Indira, but pathetic.

Regarding IG's assassination - when a person has limitless power, and uses it as a killing machine, and imposes an emergency regime, there are no fair ways to deal with such a person. In any case I do not subscribe to the normative thinking disease that most western-bred people are inflicted with. What's right in one situation may be wrong in another. There is no comparison between killing a powerful dictator and a poor prisoner.

As for the one and only defense that the likes of Najeeb come up with - our caste system - there is no such concept in India. What we have are jaatis and there are thousands of them. Some are oppressed and this is a *social* issue and not a religious issue. Similarly there are oppressed people in the US, Europe and of course in Islamic countries.

And yes, there are thousands of gods and most of us do not know their names. So what?

The Ramayana was written by a so-called low caste. If Tulsidas was so oppressed, pray where did he learn to write poetry? The so-called lower castes also had the most exquisite temples. Where did they get the wealth if they were supposedly oppressed. Dalistan.org is funded by missionaries/and mullahs and is a blatant hindu-bashing site.

As for temple entry, Bhramins are not allowed into harijan temples either. This is our tradition. The jaatis are (were) guilds and not any old disrespecting person could be part of it. Can anyone go to lunch at the Harvard club? What is the difference? None at all.

Islam and Christianity are centred around drawing as many people into their fold as possible and therefore they allow people in. Hinduism has no such ambitions and that is the only difference with regard to accepting the whole world or only those you feel belong. Come to think of it, I would be instantly beheaded if I attempted to go to the Kaaba.

Vijay - to your point against the tolerance of Hindus - please note communal harmony is maintained in India only if Hindus do not react to the violence inflicted on them by Muslims and Christians. Once in a while even the most brain-dead happen to react. The situation now is critical and the response of Hindus is understandable.

You got to be kiddin' me, vijay :),
I thought you had a polish friend nearby..;)

the best X-mas wishes! ;)

Good luck on your campagne and mentoring the immigrants, I did a little of a same for polish people, here, with some law advise in a former venture of mine, though in the netherlands the term would be 'illigal worker' (very common in West-Europe, they love the Polish here, do twice the work, for half or less the pay, without social security or medicals, and they don't wine and grine about it ;)

poverty, discrimination, labor laws and the EU...mhhmnn.. much room for improvement!

Good luck and kick some ass!

Love, Passsion!

Nah,

I have polish friends and picked up a few words from them and it is good to know a few lines if you are hitting on someone :)
Moge Cie pocalowac? Jestes tak piekna! hmnn yeah
Ozenmy sie!! Pragne sie z Toba kochac, Jestes seksowna ;)

Now we will have to teach you some Indian language words. Pols are very funny people and Me and my wife are thinking of a visit there next year for holidays with some polish friends.

Indojin - Good points in your posts above. Btw, I love Taveleen Singh (and Sandhya Jain too). And there used to be one Varsha Bhonsle but I no longer come across her writings.

I just want to add to your comments regarding the prominent Muslims in India - Abdul Kalaam (the only politician I respect) and Azim Premji - Both of these individuals are frowned upon by the hardcore muslim community as they are not muslim enough.

As for poor Sania Mizra - the vultures descended upon her too for not being muslim enough and criticized her dress, etc. In reading her responses notice how she had to defend herself by saying how good a muslim she was and that she said her prayers multiple times a day, etc. This is unthinkable at that level of society among Hindus. "None of your business how many times I pray" would be the most normal response if such an absurd question was even raised.

Notice also, how the Muslims instantly claimed Sania - Like she's not a product of India at all but owes everything to being muslim. This type of thinking is deeply entrenced and encouraged among muslims and they repeatedly display no desire to assimilate. Where are the Shahrukhs and Sanias of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? I resent it when prominent muslims do not acknowledge the Indian side of the equation. (AK and Premji do).

wohohaha
haha, ;)
Great, Vijay!, I love that in a woman!,
Want to get married? We could leave for Vegas right now and be married in about 4 or 5 hours,
But wait a minute... do you think you can
support the both of us on your income? I really
want to be a stay at home husband... you know,
keep an eye on the TV and such ;)
http://www.doubleyourdatingresources.com/

'..Now we will have to teach you some Indian language words..(to pick up Idian gals..?)
Me and my wife are thinking of a visit there next year for holidays with some polish friends.'

always a good plan!
I love my women in-spirit! ;)
and the holidays in Poland ;),
ain't nothing like it! you'd be amazed!,
the Magic of the Polish Christmas Spirit,
my friend,

With Love, Passion,

Hey Divya!

Nice to know that there is someone else who has been a Varsha Bhonsle fan! Btw, she is Asha Bhonsle's daughter and an AWESOME writer!

IN this world of political correctness and self deprecation just to look cute while talking secular nonsense that no one benefits from... she was a breeze of fresh air!

Cheers
Desh
Drishtikone.com

Yo my Man M,

Quoting you, verbatim, from your most recent post, post immediately above, "Great, Vijay!, I love that in a woman!, Want to get married? We could leave for Vegas right now and be married in 4 or 5 hours, ..." Marek.

Do you really want to get married to Vijay in Vegas, my man? Dude, whohahaha, you must be just kiddin', right? Did you know...?

I didn't know that you are gender neutral! BTW, Vijay is a guy! Whohahaha!

Now, do you still want to elope to Vegas to indulge in quickie wedlock? Whoahahaha!

Marek, faux pas?

Love you, bra! LOL!

Hi Desh - I had no idea she was Asha Bhosle's daughter!! Where has she disappeared though? I haven't seen anything by her in ages. I was beginning to get a bit concerned since she was very outspoken. And specially in light of soultrip's comments on the media earlier in this blog it makes wonder even more if all's well.

Desh, I've noticed that Maharashtrians tend to be the most outspoken and plainspeaking about these things. It could be that they aren't encumbered by Muslim history, thanks to the Marathas. Especially the women in the South, who haven't undergone Islamization (stay indoors, stay covered, meekly obey, etc) like the North. And there's no malice in the articles either. It's just plain honest truth, which is the seed of change.

Vijay is a guy! Whohahaha!
-Diablo

D.,don't you think I know that?
whohaha,
haha,

Joke's on you bro! whohaha,
But, I do see in a milliseccond, how one could,
make such a faux pas? ;) especially with such,
a headshot on top of a Blog..

Love, Passion!,
How people can get confused, when a Polish gentleman is just playing..gee..beats me..;)
Polish up your Polish, D.,
than one could dance too! ;)

anyhow, D, not for your eyes..
Moge Cie pocalowac? Jestes tak piekna! hmnn yeah
Ozenmy sie!! Pragne sie z Toba kochac, Jestes seksowna!

Well, Well, Well! Hey, Hey, Hey!

Well okay then. I stand corrected, attorney Marek! You still de man, dude! Whoahahahaha!

D. Am out!

PS: What's up with our Damsel in Distress in Hotlanta? Is she going to continue with that Monday morning humor thing, as she promised? Last, she appeared genuinely frazzled by some of the vitriolic comments to her "Tarsh Talk' post.

Hi Desh,
Have you managed to stay warm with scarf and cap, in Boston? Burrr...it is wintery looking here in my southern town!

Vijay, you say: "I’m a strong proponent of diversity and equality, something that I learnt from my religion and schooling in India."

Equality - is what 'religions' preach. At it's core, such a unifying principle! Yet, I see - once it strays from this principle, well.... diversity seems not to be wanted nor cultivated.

~~ Kate

hello dear Sachin!

Diablo,
Marek and I were having some fun with Polish.

Kate-yeah, and do we wonder where all this chaos in our planet comes from.

Indojin, Just read all of Talveen Singh's column. You will know what she is. I have been in confrontation with her for her Hindutva views for a long timne. Just because she is a sikh and once married to muslim doesn't give her any credibility.

Hi Vijay,

Thanks and there is one typo ! It must be adminstrator.

For every Valmiki, there are thousands of Dr.Palpu and millions of unknown. For every Tuldsidas, there are thousands of KR Narayanan and millions of unknown. It is the history, life as encountered by ordinary people for hundreds of years and is still encountering.

There is support for such discrimination in the scriptures. It can be seen in many including Manusmrity. Some claims that it has never practised in India. A lie. Golwalker says Manu is the most benevolent law giver in the world (the audacity is amazing)and once RSS has the power, it will be implemented. (A hope that is never going to happen)

Vijay,

That comment was made by our resident fundamentalist who makes Modi look like Gandhi.l

Najeeb - since you are reproducing your lies once again, please also tell us when exactly the Manusmriti was the governing law in India? The legal authority in India has never been the vedas or the bhagwad gita or the Manusmriti. Yes, Hinduism does not claim that everyone is equal. Only pedophile rapists like the Prophet Mohammad would make such a claim because they know its never going to be practiced anyway. There is way, way, way more social oppression in Muslim society in spite of the Koran that says people are equal. This is a social problem in spite of what the scripture says. Similarly the caste problem is a social problem in spite of what the scripture says.

Divya,

You tell them, girl!

Wow! You are so damn good!

Wow!

Spencer, don't jump up and down. She talks the same way about christianity too. For her Hinduism is sane everything else is crap. Just a cheap Hindu fundamentalist. You all can whine anything for using this term. Any sane person who reads her will concur with me.

Thank you Spence. Hope you don't get too much hate mail on my account.

My philosophy is simple. Christianity and Islam do nothing but trash the indian traditions. And they do it at the state, governmental, academic, levels as well as through the media which are in their pockets. Not to mention the army of NGO's, missionaries and mullahs whose sole job is to tell the world that idol-worshippers are despicable. It boggles my mind that hindus should bend over backwards and not say a thing or two back. Besides I genuinely feel sorry for the Muslim women and specially the young girls. On top of that I am concerned at the damage islam is doing to Indian society. So there is a serious vested interest in what I write and I'm not doing it just to while away the time.

Krish,

"Only pedophile rapists like the Prophet Mohammad would make such a claim because they know its never going to be practiced anyway," states, Divya.

Krish, anytime someone have the courage to speak their mind in such an assertive and athoritative manner like Doivya, I am thrilled. Looks good on you Divya. Now, when you can give all religions the boot with such commanding force, I will come to NY and have a cup of tea with you.

Cheers!

Spencer - There is a lot of strong, wholesome, hard-hitting critique of Christianity available right through the ages and from the pens of giants in literature, science and the arts. Only in the last 50 years it has become wrong to talk about such things. You don't find the same for Islam because of the worldwide fear factor and therefore I spend more time criticizing Islam. As for Judaism, I don't attack judaism even though it may be intolerant because Christians and Muslims are busy doing the same number on Judaism as they do on Hindus.

Paganism is not religion so I don't recognize hinduism to be a religion so your question is moot here. Regarding the social problems in our traditions I do participate on forums where we discuss social reform but that is not something I would discuss on a forum such as this because I don't see it leading anywhere among other reasons. Ditto for Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.

Krish,

Is Hiduism a religion? Divya, doesn't think so?

Cheers!

Krish:
You respond............"Let us assume that christianity and islam supports violence by scripture and Hinduism does not. My question is. What is the point?"
THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT.
There is inherent violence in every human animal.It is brought into play through various factors...self-protection survival instinct; protection of family,tribe,race, nation etc; This trait lends itself to exploitation through factors of ignorance,fear,political pressure and so on BUT,THE MOST HEINOUS MANIPULATIVE FORCE IS THAT OF WRITTEN SCRIPTURAL SANCTIONS AND LIBERTIES WHICH NOT ONLY ABSOLVE THE VIOLENCE COMMITTING PERPETRATORS....JIHADISTS/CRUSADERS OF ANY CRIME BUT PROMISE THEM HEAVENLY REWARDS OF 72 VIRGINS OR NUBILE YOUNG MEN.
This leads this insane people to commit horrific crimes without an iota of guilty conscience because their KORAN/BIBLE NOT ONLY CONDONES BUT SPECIFICALLY COMMANDS THEM TO DO IT.
FINALLY,IF YOU ARE PAYING ANY ATTENTION TO AL-JAZEERA AND FOX NETWORK NEWS[THE MOUTH-PIECES OF ISLAM AND 'JUDEO-CHRISTIANITY] YOU WILL REALISE HOW CLEARILY THEY ARE ADDRESSING EACH OTHER AS"CRUSADERS"AND "JIHADISTS".
IF THESE TWO ARCH ENEMIES FULLY UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER AND HAVE NO TROUBLE WITH PROCEEDING TOWARDS MUTUAL DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, IT IS EXASPERATING TO SEE WHY YOU ARE HAVING SUCH DIFFICULTY DOING SO.
TO EACH HIS OWN I GUESS.I WILL NOT BELEAGUER/BELABOUR THIS POINT ANYMORE.

Gandhiji said: "India lives in her villages"

The easy and most convinving way is to catch the next flight back to India and go to villages. Live there, learn their way of life, learn their past, learn the causes, learn the discreminations, learn the causes ...........

Krish, I would like to add this bit in ur comment: " makes Modi look like Gandhi" and Gandhi look like Modi!

Somebody claimed that there is no difference between Gandhi and Modi and mind you, he proved it logically too!!

From a different point of view... not the one that brings up history at every corner, not the one that points at political views(though I will say that I have been through this arguments time and again and some of the comments here surely bought that tendency to argue again)

I am sure a lot of us have friends from different religions and ethic background... no surprise there. Why is it that we can have one on one personal relationships with differnt kind of people but when the mob mentality sets in everyone starts to follow one stream or the other? Does this really have to be pertaining to religion? A fine example will be fashion trends and for that matter morals are also decided by 'the majority'. isn't it?

What makes the characterstic of a religions group -- what majority of people follow, what the powerful people of that religion follow, what the media projects, what the religious scriptures say? Or is religion simply one individuals choice?

We can always have this dicussion that I(we) am right. But to what end? We can always point fingures at other religions. But again to what end? There is no end to it.

At one point there were three of us living together one muslim, one christain and me hindu. Problems because of religion NONE! And all of us are believers of our own religion(well read too).

I don't think this will be practicle in this world because we as human being will always fight for some sort of group to rule over the other. I sometimes wonder were humans ever meant to live in harmony? Or our egos or power hunger too huge to let that happen? Why do we all claim to know the truth? Why is it that always our version of history is to be correct? Or is it that we naturally lack the moral fiber? Can we actually argue over what we "believe"? Do we know the the truth about anything?

I can go on with these questions of mine one leading to the next... but again I think it leads to no end.

The only thing that will make a difference is the good that we pass on to the lives of people who cross our path.

Spencer,

"anytime someone have the courage to speak their mind in such an assertive and athoritative manner"

Hitler used to speak like this. Are you impressed with him?

Divya -

You say, "As for poor Sania Mizra - the vultures descended upon her too for not being muslim enough and criticized her dress, etc. In reading her responses notice how she had to defend herself by saying how good a muslim she was and that she said her prayers multiple times a day, etc. This is unthinkable at that level of society among Hindus"

Hmm...seems to me as though its a case of choosing you evidence carefully...what about the enormous fuss that religious HINDU women kicked up about Sushimita Sen stating that the "essence of a woman was about caring, sharing and showing a man what love is all about" (or something close along those lines, I dont recall exactly) when she won the Miss Universe title in 1994...I mean, isnt that one of many examples of where Hindus have used religious values to justify that a public statement made by a Hindu woman (forget the Indian bit, and also the part that she had just won an international title for India in like 25 years or something ridiculously long) was offensive to Hindus, and Indians in general...

Of course this was a relatively small group of women but with enough vested interests to make an inordinately huge deal out of abosolutely nothing...so I really don't think its fair to say that Muslims have been the only ones responsible for public retribution!!

It seems as though Indians in general love to have opinions on absolutely everything under the sun that might not involve them at all...and I suppose I can say this with enough certainty being one myself. Hardly a Hindu/Muslim fault...

Only pedophile rapists like the Prophet Mohammad ...Divya you are funny.

And your hindu gods are washed in milk? Come on Divya, when you have perverts like K****** who would perve on gopis bathing, or your pandav brothers who would sleep with the same wife. For whatever the prophet was atleast he has the biggest fanatic follwers. Sorry to my hindi brothers, but Divya is asking for it, I do respect all you guys.

TH

TruthHurts - Could it be you are jealous that you don't get half the action that Lord Krishna got? If you read the descriptions in the Rasa Lila they describe how esctatic the gopis were. I'm keeping this down to a literal reading here but that's okay too. In other words Krishna was not into rape. I hope you can see the difference. If you are not comfortable with the idea of multiple sexual partners that's your problem.

That said, we do have stories of Rishis deceiving women to sleep with them, and Lord Indra raping someone off and on. In all such cases these gods or rishis experience some form of punishment - they lose their powers, lose the rights to live in heaven etc. Basically these are just stories to bring home certain points about cause and effect. In any case, hindus make no truth claims. These are stories and if they disgust you that's perfectly fine. Maybe they're meant to. Many stories disturb me and I draw significant lessons from them. Only idiots take them literally and make an issue of it.

Mohammad was a living breating person who claimed to have a direct line to God. Meanwhile, he went about raping, pluderning and of course pedophilia. These acts of Mohammad are glorified by Muslim historians themselves, in many different authorotative texts. It is your choice if you want to glorify such a person. I happen to take a stand against it.

What is more fundamentalist by the way? Accepting truth claims or challenging them? Is it more fundamentalist to believe God lives in heaven and Allah is his true prophet or is it fndamentalist to say this is bullshit?

vijay,
it looks you know only abt al queda,there are various others terrorist organisation like lashkar-e-tioba,harkat-ul-mujhaeedin for whom indian muslims work.they have been captured and some of them are in jails.

and just to refresh your memory you just forget delhi balsts.

Divya:

Dont know what happened to Varsha. Yeah she is the progeny of one of the greatest Indian singer. In fact, she did write a few articles on family also.. including one in which she chided Sanjay Dutt's behavior because of the "problems" he had faced in his life.. and brought out her pains growing up with an abusive father and always working Ms. Bhonsle to make ends meet!

She had that certain irreverent touch to her writings.. which incidently I do find in your posts also! I may or may not agree with everything that you or she wrote.. but I admire the chutzpah and daring in your words as I have in hers!

Talking of Krishna's romantic endevours - I think people of lesser intellect have consistently got it wrong - as they have about the Sufis too - whom they consider drunkard and love lorn idiots.. little realizing that the language has a way of expression and poets and writers took liberty in way of expression.

When Bulle Shah as "Kanjri" (prostitute) dances to his lover - it was nothing related to anything wordly but the height of Bhakti Yoga... but I have met enough people who have taken those verses for the literal meaning that they present.

I am convinced that it really doesnt matter whether Krishna, Jesus, or Mohd walked on this planet ever or not.. they represent concepts.. and of all the fountain heads - I honestly find the legacy of Mohd. the most difficult to reconcile to spirituality.

And one of the most significant reasons for that is - almost TOTAL absence of Mohd.'s mention or reference (reverence) in ANY SUFI rendering that I have come across although they ALL followed the "ISlamic" tradition.. (while there are enough mentions of Ram in some of their poetry) Was it oversight or deliberate .. I aint sure. But something to me was amiss there!

The ABSOLUTE non-critical eye that most analysts and commentators have used to "evaluate" Islam or its creators is the phenomenon that I discussed in my post on DC's blog.. its a Catch-22.. It doesnt matter who it is .. Aurangzeb, Genghiz Khan, Osama.. there has been a consistent urge in tyrants to make use of the teachings as a way to kill with abandon.. and there is YET to be a person who can articulately argue with such folks on how wrong they are.. except uttering the platitudes of "They are not Muslims" ... yeah right! They kill everyone who THEY think aint! SO that doesnt get us anywhere!

Thats why I have such low levels of sympathy or respect for people who consider Non Violence a vocational necessity.. NONE of them HAVE EVER put their lives or reputations on line to argue against the traditions that has spurred the most violent crimes in history of mankind.. but who cares .. thats politically incorrect. Meanwhile they will keep on writing .. shouting about RSS and Shiv Sena.. who are but toddlers in this game of mayhem when you put historical numbers and events into HONEST and UNAMBIGIUOUS perspective!

Cheers,
desh
Drishtikone.com

"Hitler used to speak like this. Are you impressed with him?" Krish.

Krish, apparently, you are an educated fella but you have not demonstrated such savvy in your response to my question "Is Hinduism a religion?"

Instead of answering the question, you, tangentially, wrote about Hitler. I do not see the corelation between my question and your answer. If I were your prof., I would have to score you 0 marks for this answer. I expected a relevant, intelligent response to aforementioned question. I am disappointed.

Cheers!

Ineteresting post! I agree that most Indian Muslims just want peace and harmony and dont care about the "secular" politics as imposed on them by secular politicians.

But time and again, politicians like Laloo Yadav derive political advantage by creating drifts between introducing alienating concept of exclusive secularism. Like in the last Bihar elections, Laloo had a Osama look alike as his "star campaigner". (check out the photo on: http://communismwatch.blogspot.com/2005/11/laloo-master-osama-clown.html)

So AQ's jihad on India has a lower priority because they know Indian politicians will do their job!!

In response to Richard Thomas' post early-on in this thread.

I would recommend a documentary that was shown on the BBC earlier this year called "The Power of Nightmares" which deals with alQaeda, neo-Conservatism and the Politics of Fear:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html

I don't think any US network would touch it, but it has been edited and had a theatrical release in the US.

The link posted above has error (extra parenthesis). The correct link:

http://communismwatch.blogspot.com/2005/11/laloo-master-osama-clown.html

TruthHurts - Could it be you are jealous that you don't get half the action that Lord Krishna got?

Come on Divya, grow up. Then i should be jealous that James Bond gets to sleep with all the beautiful women. It's all fiction and mythology. And BTW you seem to be the frustrated one here. Which other major religion allows multiple sex partners...islam ofcourse, not like you where you need to cheat.

If Muhammed was a rapist then this guy was a gigalo. I am surprised that you are glorifying such acts. ATleast try to be open minded.

TH - that comment was just meant to highlight the irrelevance of your point regarding Krishna.

The main point I was trying to make is that Indian traditions are relayed through stories. Stories are neither true nor false. They just are. You can make of them what you will. It's fine if you don't approve of multiple sexual partners, and it's also fine if you do. In fact as Desh pointed out, it's not even about sex. But it is never fine to rape, murder and be a pedophile.

Stories are neither true nor false, then how come such stories inflame you so much? Even the world Hindu came from the muslims...so be thankful to their founder for giving a name to all this and the heros of the stories you worship as god.

Spencer, I have told my views on Hinduism long back. I consider Hinduism as a way of life. But fanatics consider it as a religion as in christianity and Islam. if one considers Hinduism in its TRUE FORM, they shouldn't be talking crap about other religions. The moment they talk crap about other religions, it is clear that they follow an adultrated version of Hinduism. But you didn't answer my question. Do you admire Hitler too as this person't attitude is similar to him?

There are so many murderers and rapists in Hindu religion who are human beings. They go under the name of Sankaracharya and Sai Baba. Hindu religion is no different from other religions when it comes to murder, child molesting and rape.

I agree there are many murderers and rapists who wear the convenient garb of yogis. And they must definitely be exposed. They do nothing but give the real yogis a bad name. This does not change the fact that there are real yogis out there who aspire for yogic ideals. Similarly there are crooks in this world but there are honest businessmen also. Ditto for every other sphere of life.

The problem with Islam first of all is that there is no real God and this imaginary god has only one true prophet and he happens to be a rapist and a murderer. Big difference. It is his true followers we see today who are doing the exact same thing in his name, and have done so through the centuries.

I have been reading few of your comments and I am compelled to write few things here.

Divya and Krish, I think when we talk about any religion we need to be very careful as to what to write in this forum. Every one of us has a different opinion on each religious belief. In a common platform like this we need to show some civility.

There are lots of people who consider very offensive when it comes to religion. Many blogs turn into hatred platform.

To come to this post:

BJP was never a know party in the eighties. I remember when BJP Called for "yatra" to Ayodhya, People turned out in masses. All on a sudden I felt that there is some revolution going on. One of the reasons why BJP came to power was that people are so tired of this Kashmir issue and want to show India’s real muscle. I don’t think this has ever happened in India in terms of religion.

But then, the people also quickly threw out BJP.

At times I think that our democracy is a real joke (Check out tehelka how our beloved MP'S taking bribe).

As far as the Muslims in Al Qaeda, I think our democracy is somewhat working.

Yogi ( not a real yogi!!)

Vijay,
I think there is something about India in general which, leads instances like:-
1. No Indian muslim in Al Qaida.
2. No Miliary Rule or Coup in India.
3. No dictator in India.
Though as u pointed these things are common in our neighbouring countries.
It has something to do with the general mental make-up of people in this country, they will not tolerate a dictator , a military government, etc. Besides I think people in India have tasted virtues of democracy and civil liberties hence anyone who subverts them is kicked out of power. As the Indian muslims , u will agree are Indians , so they too have this character of Indianness, hence they are not seen in organizations like the al-qaida.
Even a war is not favoured by the Indian public in general as they know it will drag us back by 20 years, not that we are timid, but we are sensible enough to realize the futility of such practises.

Yogi - I understand your concern. Please notice something carefully next time - Whenever there is a discussion on any issue to do with India it will get sidetracked to one and only attack against hindus and that is the caste system. When this happens, nothing's sacred for me any more. By the way this is true everywhere, not only on this forum.

Also, even though no-one likes to confront issues about traditions they have grown up with and it is a highly emotional matter, I firmly believe that it is more beneficial to deal with these issues than to live forever in the delusion that everything's fine. Do you seriously think that the notion of God is appropriate in the 21st century? Shouldn't we be focusing our energies on human beings instead? Why should it be wrong to talk about this?

Quoting Divya, "The problem with Islam first of all is that there is no real God and this imaginary god has only one true prophet and he happens to be a rapist and a murderer. Big difference. It is his true followers we see today who are doing the exact same thing in his name, and have done so through the centuries."

Well hello omigod Divya? Whoa! Whoahahahaha! You de woman! Gosh, I love your style!

Spoken like a champ!

Divya, do you realize that some Islamic fundmentalists/fanatics would be seeing red if they read this? You are indeed very self-assured and strong, in addition to being so well read.

Whoa, Div, you go girl. The world needs a whole lot more enlightened folks like you who can so clearly articulate their views on religion. Damn!

I may be young but my gut feeling tells me not to waste precious time and energy on religion but to go on and celebrate life and fully indulge in all its wondrous pleasures. This appears to be our only chance at it, so get on down and boogy on the dancefloor of life.

Love vibrations and love to you Div. Whohahahaha!
Am out.

Yogi,

There is no major connection between BJP's rise and Kashmir issue. If Kashmir issue was the reason, they should have got the popularity long before they actually got it.

The real reason (as I see it) is the following. Congress party through its cheap politics made sure that the opposition space is vacant. They thought by keeping it vacant, they can be in power as long as they wanted. BJP touched the raw nerve of Hindu nationalism using Ayodhya issue (much like how Bus used the fear after 9/11 to his political advantage). Especially someone touches such emotional issues, people refuse to think. Hence the surge in popularity of BJP. Once people started realizing their stupidity (unfortunately educated people supporting BJP are yet to realize this) and realized that hatred is not the way of life, its popularity has started eroding. How else could you describe the defeat of a ruling party when the economy was going strong. I do agree that part of the reason for their defeat is smart coalition formation by Sonia and the disillusionment with the lower echelons of the society with BJP's policy. This translated into lesser number of seats. However, you can also see that their support base has eroded a lot. This is due to the disillusionment with hatred based politics of BJP. There is no way BJP won because of Kashmir issue. To be frank, a vast majority of people who voted for BJP was not even bothered about Kashmir. They got carried away by the emotional Hindu nationalism campaign. You can see a correlation between this surge and the surge in popularity of Bush. As long as he could keep the fear about 9/11 in the minds of people, his popularity was touching the roof. The moment he lost the "ability" to keep the fear in people, they started thinking and the result is the lowest numbers for Bush. Same is the case of BJP. As long as people didn't think and was emotional, BJP had popularity. The moment people started thinking, they were shown the door in spite of booming economy. Remember it is the only party to lose under a booming economy. A clear indication of people getting frustrated with its divisive policies.

Diablo,

Actually I see no difference between uma bharti and divya. Both are uneducated morons but a toungue like my maid servent. I bet my maid will impress you as well. I have not seen one intelligent post from divya, but i will admire her that she doesn't flip flop and is consitent with bashing any religion but her own.

If muslims have one imaginary god, the hindus have 33 million (according to vedas) imaginary gods. How do you say that the earth rests on the head of a snake and that ganesh was born out of the scum from parvati's skin. And that hanuman was the son of wind god.

A little education for some of you here. Christians, Muslims and Jews all belive in the same god...ok, the difference is that for some christians, jesus is god or son of god but for muslims he is one of god's prophets. During judgement day which all muslims believe in, they will go to Jesus who they call prophet isa.

TruthHurts - If xtians, jews and muslims believe in the same god it does not make that god real. However, all 3 religions insist that their God is real and the bible is the Truth, etc. etc. and they will even kill you for not agreeing.

Hindus do not make any truth claims about their gods - or anything else for that matter. If you want to hold it true its fine and if you take it as a story it's fine and there is no official version of the so-called truth.

Anyway, I think there's nothing more to be gained from this discussion so like Diablo, Am out.

Just wondering....

If Hindu society is this violent even without any mention in the religious texts/religion and such a strong preaching for tolerance (many people in this blog don't know the meaning of this though), what would have happened if the religion had advocated violence. Can't even imagine. Even in the absence of anything that suggests violence, some people tend to find ways to justify violence (http://www.drishtikone.com/?q=node/667). I am thankful that Hindu religion doesn't mention violence as a way of life. Else I don't know what these people (Hindus filled with nothing but hatred) would have done.

Krish:

Thanks for the mention of my blog post.. but, notwithstanding your fantastic scientific upbringing and virtual blessings from Dirac, I have yet to see nor do I have any hope of seeing any sophistication in thought from you!

What I have mentioned is the basic difference in approach between Gita and Bible..I have presented my understanding .. AND a question.. .for which I HAVE NO ANSWER! However, instinctively I HAVE ALWAYS been on the side of NON VIOLENCE.. which I have written about time and again here.. but to you it just doesnt matter.. for you have an axe to grind .. and so it will be!

Btw, At not ONE place in that post have I alluded that I side with violence. At best this is an exploratory thought. I DO NOT have a habit of approaching any issue with a close, bigotted, and screwed up mindset as yours.. so I choose to ask questions of myself and others.

As far as violence or any "moral" stand is considered - I tend to question the importance of "moral codes" in the first place as regards to spiritual progress which I have addressed in various posts of mine Under the books - "Thoughts on Spirituality"

I know I know.. you have an aversion to Spirituality..and I dont expect an intelligent from you either... so dont even bother to respond on this one!

NOW GET THIS LOUD AND CLEAR.. if you cannot get stuff in your thick brain .. dont even bother to bring in my thoughts to question when you cannot handle any power of discretion of thought!

And to think of it .. you have the impudence and temerity to comment on superstitions and dogmas of religious leaders.. GET REAL!

Desh
Drishtikone.com

If calling a spade a spade is lack of sophitication for you, I am proud of it.

Also I didn't post the link because it is there in your blog. I posted it because you offered the link as an argument against the principle of non violence. Since you used this while arguing against the concept of Gandhian non violence, I quoted above. I just wanted to show that how Gita is being used in the context of violence.

Desh & Krish,

You two older 'boys', with this ego thing happenin', remind me of Bush and Sadam, you know, that tussle leading up to the war? No kiddin'!

Cheers.

Debby:

Arguments are the spice of life. They help us all to thrash out issues. Irrespective of what "stance" we take in an argument - the gain from such arguments incur to us ONLY when we have the humility to learn from the other even in the heat of argument.

I believe that both Krish and I believe in Non Violence per se. The difference is that while I am questioning Non Violence as a principle of state craft or policy, he talks of it in a context-less world.

Well to me it would have been fine if he could have show-cased an iota of quality that would suggest that his money was where his mouth is. When I read Kavita's last blog post where she said this:

"Krish and Desh were kind enough to take their heated discussion to another blog and I distinctly remember Krish writing on the post that Kavita, Desh is not stopping so I have to retaliate."

I broke out laughing. To me it was singularly instructive that a mind full of vengeance was trying so vehemently to argue that Non-Violence is the ONLY quality irrespective of the context!? How very cute and ....hypocritical!

Non Violence on the Grand Scale of a populace is never an option.. but the CHANCES reduce even more when on a personal level of mind it loses all relevance. If words were bullets and the power to use them as easy as the right to write, those who swear by non-violence to the level of fanaticism would have killed as many as Hitler did.

The trouble with our age is that we have enough people today who take up "Values" in a CONTEXT-LESS world with the zeal of a fanatic. And the tragedy is that they are now matched with people who TRASH those values with equal zeal without any thought for others. Any talk of adding a CONTEXT to the Values to make them more realistic and practical brings ridicule from both the sides thus rendering these VERY VALUES veritable NON STARTERS to begin with!

This results is nothing but mindless suffering for all... but how does it matter that we care so less for a piece of tomato.. the "Free Tibet" t-shirts, however, need to be sold in record numbers! (to borrrow from Rahul Pandita's awesome story here on intent).

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

Dear Vijay,

Newsweek Asia's latest cover story is the on the female suicide squad of Al-Qaeda. The cover shows the veiled face of a female recruit and the caption tells us it's taken in Kashmir.

Time, is it not, to reduce the size of the smile and take this nonsense someplace else?

hi,there r no indian in alqueda bcoz indian muslim knows that it is illegal by quaran and the only indian knows it is wrong.our muslim is first indian after muslim or other religion.they bslongs to sprituality.

hey friend i can speak clear in hindi so ple dont ind indian or all muslim in world all know quran & hadish say first save your iman after that u save u r contry my AAKA MOHMAMAD SALLALAHO ALEH WASALM fight other cabilas pepole when he was only 7 year old n save his cabila quran bhi phale iman bad me desh ke hifajat ka sandesh deta hai aur sare indian muslim bhai apne desh se pyar kerte hai jo nahi kerta wo sayad muslman nahi ho sakta i love allah & mhomand n after that i love my desh (INDIA) BUT I HATE america n their polices abaut muslim n all other contry america wana be only one power full contry not have any others reltation they want only money n power allah unko garat kare

Indian Muslims are the second largest community on religious basis (over 20% of India's population is Muslim). Now, of course, to an outsider a Muslim is a Muslim is a Muslim. But is it true? No!, says Mohib. Here is why:
Poverty amongst Indian Muslims and the Reasons