RE: Romila Thapar's new book sheds light on Ghazni's Invasion of Somanatha

[Ravi Sharma]

I am still wondering about this: Is Romila being the bug that's biting the 
Hindu Rightwing or vice versa ?

Maybe that's the very idea of some of these intellectual fronts: To bite 
each other up until...let alone thinking spirit or fighting spirit...they 
become incapable of living itself.

It just so happens that when you characterize history in terms of Present 
political scenario, their work becomes a "Novel" more like some of Salman 
Rushdie's.

Romila's logic tends to make impressionable minds dysfunctional and afloat 
in the fantasy of becoming enlightened and intellectual. There's no spirited 
"Debate" in her works, but more and more of spewing venom at the supposedly 
venom spewing Hindu Rightwing!

It's as though that the hindu Rightwings are solely responsible for pitting 
Hindus against the Muslims, that there are no groups within muslims that 
have no tolerance.

Why did BJP, the Hindu nationalist party, increase the Haj subsidy for 
Muslim pilgrims to Mecca at the Indian tax payer's expense ?

Being a Poilitician, Mr. Advani had "Big Reasons" for cultivating a 
political movement and will for resurrecting some of these temples.

If the present day Muslims don't condone what Md. Ghanzni or Babar did, then 
they should evoke a sense of harmony by offering to build Temples at 
Somnath, Ayodhya, Kasi and Mathura, just as the Shiv Ritualists helped in 
building Mosques at that time, a thousand years ago( From Romila's 
research.)

If these Shiv Ritualists supposedly, and whole-heartedly, participate in 
building Mosques that long ago, it certainly suits Muslims doing the same in 
Moderate, and supposedly enlightened, times such as NOW.

The USICRF says Indian Justice system is "very slow" and the Softliner Hindu 
righwing waited patiently for a court's decision since the early 1900s.

"If the Muslims stand behind their Hindu brethern, there will be no question 
of Hindus facing Mulims"

Ravi




From: "Mona Mehta" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Romila Thapar's new book sheds light on Ghazni's Invasion of 
Somanatha
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 16:34:51 +0000

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There is no silence KSB. It is precisely knee-jerk reactions like �Double Standard� (as Khelan SB argues) that Romila Thapar is tying to argue against. Thapar is attempting to challenge the �football view of history� propagated by the Hindu Right in which Hindus and Muslims are always pitted against each other and trying to score points. South Asian history is so much more complicated than that and I think it would be a terrible misreading of Thapar�s work to see it as a justification of the destruction of Hindu temples by Mhd. Ghazni.
 
 
Mona Mehta

>From: "Khelan S. B." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
>Subject: RE: Romila Thapar's new book sheds light on Ghazni's Invasion of Somanatha 
>Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 23:35:17 -0600 
> 
> 
>It seems that Ahmed's summary of Thapar's book justifies the 
>destruction of Hindu temples by Mhd. Ghizni and the invading Muslims 
>since 'other Hindus were doing it too.'  I would like to echo a bit 
>of logic every 3rd grader has heard at least once or twice, 'if ___ 
>jumped off a bridge would you do it too?' 
> 
>What if, in the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust, the Nazi's 
>argued that they should be given leniency since 'Stalin killed his 
>own people too' or 'some Catholics looked the other way while we 
>were gassing Jews' ???  How DARE anyone even suggest such a thing? 
> 
>Why the silence now?  Where are the voices of objection on this 
>board? 
> 
>Two words: Double Standard. 
> 
>-KSB 
> 
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