From: amber@crhc.uiuc.edu (Amber Roy Chowdhury)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: Re: Muslims and India
Date: 6 Nov 1992 16:07:20 -0600
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
NNTP-Posting-Host: bangkok.crhc.uiuc.edu

uds@trace.eng.wayne.edu (Seetamraju Udaybhaskar) writes:

>Definitely! Who says U cant  share your rich religion and cutlure with your brothers.
>But since Ur predecessors didnt want to share `indian' cultural history and heritage, pakistan
>was created for that sole purpose.  If U too dont want to share, go to pakistan.

Your definition of "Indian Culture" is pretty vague here. There have been Muslims in
India for over  1000 years. Many have been rulers and have contributed to Indian art,
architecture and music. Would you deny the "Indianness" of the Taj Mahal because it
was built by a Muslim ruler? Many if not most masters of "Hindu"stani classical
music happen to be Muslim. Does that make Hindustani classical music any less
an Indian classical music form? Is this indicative of their apathy to "Indian"
culture ? 


Sure, Pakistan was created for those Muslims (and may I add, Hindus) who thought
that they couldn't get along. However, India was created on secular principles
(and still is secular, at least officially). Should we penalise those who chose to stay
on in a secular state?

There are as many interpretations of "Indian" culture as there are religious
and linguistic minorities. A Hindu and a Muslim in West Bengal speak the same
language, read the works of the same authors and listen to the same music and
even food habits (with the exception of beef) are similar. So culturally,
a Bengali Hindu is more similar to a Bengali Muslim, than, say, to a Hindu
from Uttar Pradesh. Who amongst these is the true Indian? 
To  perceive that a community is not "sharing" in the mainstream culture just
because they observe different cultural practices than you do and to suggest
that they would be better off in a foreign country smacks either of fascism or
short-sightedness (I hope the latter). 

>U make it sound as if hindus are against letting muslims do waht they want.  Even today
>a majority of hindus DO NOT disagree with the nehruvian decision to give muslims
>a private home of their own.  The point is, even after that, why are the people who
>are remaining in india, forced to still, ``accomodate'' and adjust their cultural
>idealogy for the very same people, for whom pakistan and even bangladesh was
>created ?

I'm not sure what you mean by accommodating. Who is doing the accommodating,
Hindus or Muslims? I presume you are a Hindu. In what way have you been forced
to accommodate to Muslims? Are you forced to eat beef and pray in Mosques? Or do you
equate anyone with a liking for ghazals or urdu poetry as being forced to
"accommodate" muslim culture? 


>Seetamraju Udaya Bhaskar Sarma
>(email : seetam @ ece7 . eng . wayne . edu)

The bottom line: India is a diverse democracy. Don't assume that someone whose
cultural practices are different from yours is not Indian. To paraphrase
Rodney King - "Let's all get along"


Amber
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