Sorry it took so long to get back to you Chitta.
The flag-waving fire-works kept me at bay, as you
must have noticed. Hope it was an enjoyable
display :-).
It is the religion combined with language
combined with an alien culture that has been
causing the >discomfort. If there are millions
of khukri wielding Saulor phut luwa Daajus and
Kaanchas also, the >reaction of the local
populace would have been similar.
*** That is your explanation. OK, fair enough.
Let me ask you this: What is your reaction to
garish alien culture temples pock-marking the
once beautiful Assamese landscape, including
smack-dab in the middle of Kaziranga ? When was
the last time you can point to anyone complaing
about that?
Or for that matter full 25 % of Karbi Anglong
population is Hindi speaking, about to get its
own autonomous defense establishment? Or of
Tinsukia ?
Ram will intervene here with his trump card: Illegality ! Let us examine that:
Ram, Krishnendu , probably you, and
number of other netters past and present, who
joust with me on these issues always
invoke the 65% or whatever other voter
participation
as proof of Assam's fealty to Indian
rule. In a developed democracy that could be a
valid
yardstick, where a large percentage of
the voters have an idea what it is all about,
issue
oriented ,nominally informed even
though at times can be entirely ideologically
driven.
So the uninformed ( about the
desi-condition and realities) might surmise that
geez-- they
go vote, elect a government of their own
, believe in the rule of law ( as opposed to might
is right, mob rule etc.) and endowed with
that vaunted 'free-press' keeping guard
over democratic values from being eroded
by 'authorities' and holding public servants
accountable; what more can one ask for?
Now then a huge problem facing the
'Oxomiya' identity not to mention
'national-security'
and complete destruction of the rule of
law ( as aptly pointed out by Ram) has been
brewing and building for over a quarter
century -- the lungi menace. A select group of
Oxomiyas ( I won't attempt to label it,
but I could :-)) and a certain segment of the
English
language press have been wailing about
it, charging ULFA with carrying out ISI orders to
gift wrap Assam over to Islamists from
the east, and to be fair, when challenged, at
least
nominally admitting GOVERNMENTS'
responsibilities over the issue: Upholding the
laws
of the land.
For over twenty five years this
dereliction of governmental duties ( as pointed
out by Ram,
the Sentinel, Dilli based security
analysts etc.) for failing to stem the flow of the
lungi-menace has been going on, unabated.
Do the governments care? What are the
governmental duties? Whose duty is what? What
have they been doing?
Would it be reasonable to say almost NOTHING?
If so, don't the voters who vote so
intelligently ( as I was corrected by outraged
netters
for my temerity to question that recently
) CARE about this abject dereliction of
governmental duties?
Would it be reasonable for us to conclude
THEY DON'T, as soundly affirmed by the
re-election of the Assam government by a huge 65% voter turnout?
So Chitta, tell me why anyone should BELIEVE
that your outrage over the 'lungi-menace' or
Ram's or of the others like you, is over
ILLEGALITY of the immigrants?
That leaves the Islamophobia , as the
pre-eminent reason, as is evidenced by a
pervasive and ancient animus. Oh I know that
most know how to package it in genteel and
secular wraps. And it is not as virulent as say
Togadia's, or the RSS' or VHP's or displaced
Sileti Hindus' . I point here to the RSS'
Jagadamba Mall's article in its mouthpiece the
Organizer, quoted in Sanjib Baruah's Post
Frontier Blues as an example.
But even in its benign wrappings, the outcry,
replete with claims of a grand conspiracy to hand
Assam over to B'desh, over their own
'democratically elected' government conspiring to
certify illegals as genuine, of ULFA as an ISI
agent doing its bidding to help overrun Assam
with the lungi-menace, of posing shrill questions
like 'how is it that Arunachal or Nagaland can
throw them out but we can't' ; the message is
very clear to all those who are not inferentially
challenged.
Who are we kidding?
I am not suggesting the outrage is not
justifiable. There is some justification to
it--as far as
governmental dysfunction is.
But where is Assam's intelligentsia or for that
matter India's, to act to help change the
unresponsive and dysfunctional system? When have
you seen an editor-for-hire write an editorial on
HOW to change the dysfunctional government.
Last but not the least is the absence of a
remotely informed and intelligent discourse on
HOW can the B'deshi problem , both real and
imagined , be resolved, if at all?
Can YOU explain why it is missing ? I have some
ideas. But I know it will distract everyone from
the subject as it always does, when I share my
views :-). Want to give it a try?
m-da
At 6:21 AM -0700 8/14/07, chittaranjan pathak wrote:
Well, yes Mahanta da, I am still at loss.
Please explain to me and to others like Ramda,
more explicitly why you try to make the Assamese
Hindus suffer from collective guilt complex by
dubbing their anti BDesh stance as an anti
Muslim one. Decrying others of being
unnecessarily sensitive to lungi menace and
yourself garbing a selectively broadminded
image-this is quite beguiling!! Or is there a
hidden motive and may be you also have the same
level of jingoism you accuse your fellow
Assamese Hindus of harbouring, which for the
time being may be you have kept in suspended
animation for some technical reasons.
By the way, a clarification on why I used the
term Assamese Hindus (at which you jumped to
emphasize that the usage of that term itself
exposed every thing-I dont know what you meant)
1) I believe amongst the Assamese speakers-they
(Hindus) are still in majority in Assam. Or do
you think otherwise?
2) They are the more vocal on this issue infiltration by BDeshis
3) This feeling of paranoia is present amongst
Assamese speaking Muslim also. But their
protestations are not that loud as their Hindu
counterparts as they are less in number, many
come from more disadvantaged back ground. Many
of those who are economically well off,
educated, learned and city bred (say from
Lakhtokiya of Guwahati), same religious
affiliations and post 9/11 more cohesive feeling
make it some what difficult for them to be as
vocal as their Hindu counterparts. Most of the
educated Assamese Hindus understand this dilemma
and should not have qualms about it.
So I hope it is now clear why I used the term Assamese Hindus?
CM said
*****Are only 'Assamese Hindus' burdened by
illegal immigrants? Is Assam the home of B'deshi
despising Hindus only? And if they are the only
ones outraged or aggrieved, then is it ALL of
Assam's Hindus or most or just a handful of
them? And is it because of:
The offenders' name?
The color of their skin?
Their cuisine?
The language they speak?
The lungis they wear and the skull-caps they flaunt?
The unkind cuts the male of their species live with?
The high wage jobs they deprive the natives of?
The economy they depress by their dependence on public charity?
The criminal activities they spread in society?
The corruption they promote by bribery of public officials?
The economic progress they thwart by their habitual sloth?
Inundate the free public health-care system?
Flood the public school system with children of
the non-producing, lowering the quality of
education?
Usurp and rob the Oxomiya bhaxa of its purity and ownership?
Other ills I have not mentioned, deliberately or otherwise?
Or is it because of their religious persuasion?*****
Your numerous clues did not help me much. If the
last line was your punch line it is again the
same hackneyed manifestation of your covert
agenda. As I told you many times before-it is
not the religion alone. It is the religion
combined with language combined with an alien
culture that has been causing the discomfort. If
there are millions of khukri wielding Saulor
phut luwa Daajus and Kaanchas also, the reaction
of the local populace would have been similar.
So I am still at dark about your attempts.
Please explain more explicitly and clearly
unlike those numerous inconclusive mails where
you end by saying something like I will explain
later if you want or by adopting those avoiding
techniques saying that I will explain if you
first answer this question.
Come on Mahanta da enlighten us on the eve of 60th Independence Day of India.
Regards
Chittaranjan Pathak
Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=47093/*http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222>Comedy
with an Edge to see what's on, when.
_______________________________________________
assam mailing list
[email protected]
http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
