Organization: Penn State University
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 09:51:06 EDT
From: <DXA4@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Muslim Intolerance

In article <AeXjgmy00aw=QOe1s1@andrew.cmu.edu>, "Arun K. Gupta"
<ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu> says:
>
>Mr. Dinkar Bhat, Mr. Dinesh Agrawal: you are well aware there
>is racism in this country. Does that make you spit at every
>white American that you meet ? On the contrary, you have come
>quite willingly to this country and you say -- racism is from
>the bad people, but not all people are bad.
>
There is no racism in the incidents and context we are talking about. It is
purely religious intolerance of not a set of people but the entire nation(s)
which claims to be the leader of Islamic world and the land of the holiest
shrines and the birth place of the Prophet. And do not forget that other
Islamic nations or to-be Islamic nations draw their inspiration from these
leader-nations, and sometime get pressurized to change the laws, as happened
in Bangala Desh 1982 when it became from  secular state to a Islamic
theocratic state supposedly under the pressure from Saudi Arabia (if it was
not done they threatened to stop the economic aid), and recently to further
Islamize the Pakistan's constitution and justice system by incorporating
laws which are medieval in nature and barbaric (again on the behest of SA).
This may happen in Kashmir to-day, Kerala and elsewhere tomorrow. Do not try
to argue that it is due to my Hindu or Muslim paranoid, we are talking here
real possibilities.

>It seems, however, that the words Muslim and Islam short circuits
>something in your head. Yes, we all should be angry at what goes
>on in the Middle East with the Indian workers. (Ask Pakistanis --
>they are Muslim, but they are not treated very much better.) But
>transferring your anger from a specific set of people to the whole
>population is stupid. I don't expect logical consistency, but by
>the same reasoning you should be joining some black-power movement.
>You should also recognize the total illegitimacy of caste Hindus
>because all of them, of course, are responsible for oppressing the
>lower castes for the last two thousand years or more, and so on.
>
Again an attempt to ofbuscate the real issue by referring to the mistreatment
of some Pakistanis (which has nothing to do with their religious beliefs) or
raising and equating the treatment of the lower cast Hindus by uper cast Hindus
in India. Which again you are picking this out of context and drawing a
parallel between two incongrueous situations. The mistreatment of lower casts
is not a law of land enshrined in the constitution, it is condemned by every-
body,and serious and concerted attempts are being made to eradicate this social
problem, and more over there is no Hindu scriptutral sanction for such a shame-
ful treatment of a large part of our society. Now can we say the same about the
incidents occurred in the above two Islamic republics? NO! So there is no
parallel.

 THE ISSUE HERE IS THE RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE WHICH HAS BEEN SANCTIONED BY
THE HOLY BOOK AND IS PRACTISED, STRICTLY ENFORCED BY EXTREME PUNISHMENT, IN
SEVERAL ISLAMIC REPUBLICS WHICH CLAIM TO BE THE LEADERS IN THE ISLAMIC AFFAIRS.
THIS IS NOTWITHSTANDING OF THE NUMEROUS QUOTES FROM QURANIC TRANSLATIONS POSTED
RECENTLY TO SUGGEST OTHERWISE. ONE WONDERS WHETHER THE TRANSLATIONS COMMUNICATE
THE TRUE MEANING OR THE ORIGINAL ARABIC VERSION FROM WHICH THESE ISLAMIC
REPUBLICS CLAIM TO HAVE BASED THEIR LAWS AND PUNISHMENTS.

Dinesh Agrawal...

>-arun gupta
>ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu