From: mghayalo@uceng.uc.edu (Manoj Ghayalod)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Wall Street Journal article by ImranAnwar
Date: 3 Jan 93 18:14:16 GMT
Organization: University of Cincinnati

In article <9301022358.AA16314@public.btr.com.BTR.COM> a9@public.btr.com (Ashar Nisar) writes:
>
>
>The following article by Imran Anwar appeared on December 31 issue of 
>Wall Street Journal, next to the editorial.  The following is reproduced
>for newsgroup readers and may contain several typos and missing punctuation.
>
>sender: Krishnan Srinivasan
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>	INDIA: The Ugly Religious Reality Behind the Secular Myth
>
>			by Imran Anwar
>
>		[ Mr. Anwar is an information technology entrepreneur
>		  and financial services consultant with offics in
>		  Pakistan and Newyork  ]
>
>

This author is a Pakistani and in this article all he is trying to do is
justify the formation of Pakistan.

>Economic issues can be the basis for a destructive chain of events like the
>one we are witnessing in India between the Hindus and Muslims, but in this
>case they are not the source, merely a catlyst.  Religious hatred and 
>persecution of minorities are the root of what heppended recently, an what
>will happen in the future, in India.
>
>This newspaper's Dec.8 editorial "Crusading in India" mentions that conv-
>entional wisdom relates this issue to a quarrel over a single patch of land.
>The editorial tried to say that simple economic depravity in Indian society
>is the sole cause.  Both these assertion are far from accurate.
>
>At the time of this writting more than 1200 people have already died in the
>riots triggered by Hindu militants' destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya; 
>the vast majority of the victims were muslims. Western journalists have 
>confirmed that law-enforcement organizations also took the opportunity to
>side with the Hindu majority, proving once again that India's claims of a
>secular country are farcical.

India never releases the religious proportion of people who died in rioting.
But I am not doubting his figures, it may be true that more Muslims have
died.  But this is not due to any bias on the part of the police.  A few 
years ago Hindu fundamentalists I think led by the BJP held a rath yatra,
the UP govt did not allow them to pass through their state, saying it would
flame communal hatred.  When the yatra tried to enter UP, they arrested
Advani, and the police fired at the fundamentalists. Hundreds were killed
in the shooting.  This is the reason the BJP came to power in this state,
the UPites felt that the Police was too brutal on a peaceful rally.  The point
is that more Hindus died then because the Police was trying to control a
Hindu mob, and more Muslims died now because the Police was trying to control
a Muslim mob. But these incidents are tragic, but IMHO the police did the
right thing, we cannot allow the mob to take the law into its own hands.
 
>
>Let us look first at India's creation. Even as the British were leaving the 
>subcontinent, it was apparent to the Muslims that they would immediately 
>face severe retaliation from a Hindu majority that would try to make up for 
>several centuries of Muslim rule.  It was this fear, even certain knowledge,
>of persecution that provided the impetus for migration of millions of 
>people in 1947.
>
>The Muslims were willing to take a separate homeland even though it meant a
>new country created in two separate entites, East and West Pakistan, 
>separated by the entire mass of the remaining India.  They were willing to pay
>an economic cost by migrating because they knew that in a United India
>there would be a lose-lose situation.  Economic and educational opportunities
>would be limited, and religious persecution would be widespread.
>
>This is borne out by the fact that even though Muslim are 12% of the Indian
>population, their share in everything from top government job to post-
>graduate degree opportunity is much smaller.

This is true that their share to to top govt post and post gradaute degree 
is smaller.  But this proves nothing.  The Rajputs in India form more than
12% of the population.  They too have a much smaller share in these two areas.
It means that either
1. They are not interested in those jobs
or
2. They do not have the educational traditions to compete with others,
   in India getting these opportunities is really difficult.  All have
   competative examinations, and the examiners do not know the identity
   of the examinees.  So there is no question of bias.

But the Rajputs have a higher representation in politics and land ownership.
Similiarly the Muslims have higher representation in the Indian
film industry and politics.
>
>Even to India's forefather, the obvious threats to unity of an Indian nation
>were relegious differences.   They knew that even with the mass exodus of
>Muslims to Pakistan, there would still be the likelihood of religious 
>trouble later.  It was with this in mind that the Indian leaders raised
>the flag of secularism.  They must have hoped that secular dream would keep 
>the Indian unit intact, but both their fears and the hypocrisy of indian
>secularist statements are exposed today.

As I said he is trying to justify Pakistan.  I think Javed and Syed are
doing a good job in presenting the Indian and Pakistan point of view, so I
will nont comment on this.
>
>There are three major religious groups in India. Hindus are the predominant
>majority, followed by Muslims and Sikhs.  It should come as no surprise
>that the two biggest internal threats to India are the continuing struggle
>by Muslim Kashmir to end Indian occupation and obtain its right of self-
>determination and efforts by Sikh Punjab to secede from the union that has
>brought it nothing but persecution based on differences in reiligion.
>

Sikhs are the largest subgroup in the Indian army, they are also one of the
richest communities in India. The CM of Punjab is a Sikh and the number 2 man
in the Indian govt is a Sikh. I dont know what persecution he is talking 
about.

>Your writers credit Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao "with his free-
>market reform program" as some kind of visionary who brought his vision to
>Indian leadership.  The sad truth is that from the time of independence
>until recently, India aggressively follwed the Soviet agenda, including
>adherence to the socialist economic model.  As a result of running of
>options, the self-destruction of the socialist model, and neighbouring
>Pakistan's aggressive privatization and economic liberalization program, 
>India woke up too.  Mr. Rao may have ideas of his own, but in this case he
>has simply been reactive, not proactive.  He did what any other person
>in this situation would have to do, to prevent India from going bankrupt.

Is he envious of the high regard our PM enjoys here?  What does this 
paragraph have to do with the Ayodhia situation?

>
>A reuters news report said Prime Minister Rao called the demolition of the
>Mosque preplanned and his Congress Party blamed the BJP, the main 
>opposition in Parliament, for trying to capture power by arousing
>religious frenzy among India's majority Hindus.  Yet, Mr. Rao did not do
>what any other leader in his position would have, and should have done.  He
>did not take any measures to safeguard the mosque in Ayodhya, and the lives
>of Muslims.  He allowed the genocide to take place.

The demolition of the Mosque may be preplanned, but that does not mean
PVNR knew about the plan in advance.  Kalyan Singh was responsible to protect
the Mosque, which he promised to do, there was no reason for him to take
precautions from his side.  When the BJP did not live upto its promise
did he not dismiss all the BJP govts, arrest their leaders and ban their
grass root organisations.  Also he does not criticize the GOP and GOB
for not taking any measures to safegaurd their minorities, it was more
obvious to them that there was going to be a retialation. I also suspect
he does not know the meaning of genocide.
>
>The Muslim minority does not represent an economic threat to the hindu 
>majority, nor does the destruction of mosques and the killing of Muslims
>open up new avenues of economic prosperity for Hindus. Instead, it just
>sends out a signal that ethnic cleansing has commenced, and now no mosques
>or Muslims are safe.

Does he mean to say that killing for economic gain is acceptable?  
The signal that Ayodhia sends is that no fundamentalism will be accepted in
India.  The ruling and all the opposition parties came against the BJP,
all Indians have condemned this action.  Even Advani said that Dec 6 has
been the saddest day in his life, remember this is the guy whose family
had to leave Pakistani Sindh in a hurry.  

>
>Reuters' report mentioned a statement from the former government minister
>and Janata Dal party leader Sharad Yadav, a lower caste Hindu:  "The 
>essence of India's problem is not a Hindu-Muslim problem, but the inability
>of the so-called liberal Hindus to accept the brutality of their faith, 
>the brutality of the caste system".
>
>Mr. Yadav tried to transfer attention to the economic persecution, again
>based on releigious hatred, that Hindus belonging to the lower rungs of a
>rigid caste system faced from upper-caste Hindus. He said they were as
>exploited as the country's 100 million muslims.
>
>This also points out the ugly truth about religious domination in India.
>Upper caste Hindus, the Brahmins, have dominated throught history and 
>continue to dominate the top position of power. They persecute and exploit
>of people of the lower castes of their own religion, so the Muslim's -
>who have a completely separate, monothesitic religion and who had been
>India's rulers for hundreds of years - get even worse treatment.

It is an accepted fact that the Hindu caste system was barbaric.  But let us
not dwell in the past, now the Backward castes have reservations in all
areas and also they have been CMs in almost all states of India.  No other
community has enjoyed so much power in India.  Also our vice president is
a Harijan.  He says that the Yadav claims that the bacward class recieves
the worst treatment in India.  He does not know anything about Indian
politics, all politicians claim that their communities recieve the worst
treatment.  I will give you some examples, the South Indian politicians
were always claiming that they have no voice in North Indian majority India,
they stopped complaining when we elected a South Indian as the PM.  The 
politicians of Bombay claim that Delhi ignores them even though they 
collect the highest amount of revenue.  The upper class politicians claim
that the GOI is pro backward class, and many upper class students commited
public suicides, when the reservation percentage was increased by V P Singh.
We in India do not elect politicians if they are not professional bitchers.

>
>As the Indian prime minister said, the mosque's desctruction was preplanned.
>It was not the act of a mob of economically deprived Hindus going out of
>control against a well-off Muslim minority.  Instead, the whole effort
>was orchestrated by rich Hindus to achieve their goal of a Hindu empire
>to make up "Mother India".  When you see that one of the main characters
>in this case is V.H.Dalmia, whose family owns one of the well-known
>industrial groups in India, you can understand how "economic" problems
>are just an excuse.
>
>Fanatic hate-mongers will always use any excuse to cover their message of
>hate and bigotry. Neo-Naziz in Germany and Serbs in Bosnia today are on a
>rampage with the same old hate, again using economic conditions as an excuse
>to kill, destroy and loot.  Hindus are using a similar pattern of economic 
>excuses to cloak centuries-old desires to destroy Muslims.

This guy is a hate-monger.  What centuries-old desire?  Read any Indian
history book, Akbar is known as one of the greatest kings to rule India.
Our national pledge says all Indians are our brothers and sisters, and we
Hindus have always been sensitive to our Muslim brothers and sisters 
wishes.  We have a different laws for Muslims, Vande Matram was not
made our national anthem when Muslims objected, the GOI plays a big
role in helping Muslims visit to Mecca.  We were one of the first countries
to ban Satanic Verses, we did not interfere in Afghanistan and Iraq as Indian
Muslims may see that as anti Islam.

Manoj
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