On Monday 04 May 2009 12:00:50 am Zainab Bawa wrote: I have some views on the situation of Muslims in India which have been gelling in my mind for a few months now. I will try and be brief - I feel a book coming out of all these thoughts.
But first let me start with this quote from the article: > Time and again it is proved that maulvis and madrassas are unable to > influence Muslim votes. I can tell you that on most Indian issues > there are vertical and horizontal divides amongst Muslims. It is a > stereotype to say that Muslims are one bloc. May I point out a paradox? Hindus do not vote as one bloc and the title of this thread suggests that it is OK to refer to Hindus groups as blocs that might behave in a particular way. So we have a nomenclature problem with Muslims. We invariably lump them all together as one bloc "MUSLIMMMS!!" and invariably fail to see that they have dividng lines that cut across the community. The article itself states the truth plainly: > Muslims do not vote en > masse. Like Hindus they are also divided into castes. It would be far better to refer to Muslims by caste. I suspect that this would not be taken lying down by the very maulvis who claim inability to influence Muslims vote. I believe that Muslims (and Christians) of India were done in very badly by popmous and ignorant representatives of their own religions when they claimed (just to spite caste ridden Hinduism) that there is no caste in Islam or Christianity. At independence Hindus decided "OK - so you folks have no caste - your religion unites you right? So we Hindus will handle caste matters and you look after your affairs" (This has a bearing on the "rise" of Hindutva - which I will post in a separate message if anyone is interested) In 2009 the caste factor among Muslims and Christians is becoming an issue because you generally need to be Hindu to gobble the sops that some castes get, and Hindus are in no mood to give any sops to Muslims or Christians because "Caste is part of Hinduism. Christianity and islam are egalitarian - all equal equal in God's eyes. Not unequal like among Hindus" Muslims really need to be seen as castes, shias, sunnis, Barelvis, Deobandis, Ahmedis, ashraf and aljaf. The ashraf and aljaf factor has really conspired to screw Indian Muslims. But Muslims are seen as one solid fascist bloc. I am tring to go into the historic reasons for the ceration of such and impression among Hindus. I suspect that while there may be many Muslim leaders who are unable to influence votes - they are certainly able certainly influence Muslims to their own detriment and they too play football with Muslims like the following statement, about which I have some comments: > Muslims are the football of three players, namely the Samajwadi Party, > the BSP and the Congress. These parties are playing football in one team that calls itself the "secular" team in an ongoing match against team BJP which is called the "communal" team The word secular is coming under increasing attack from Hindus in India because "secularism" is seen as "appeasement" and the Congress party in particular is seen as a party that will use appeasement for votes. When I study the events of the immediate post insependence years it appears very clear that many of the actions taken in those years can in retrospect be clasified as "appeasement" merely in order to mollify and soothe passions at a difficult time. It does seem that certain reforms and changes were brought in for Hindus and not for Muslims because the latter "were not ready to accept them" (I have a cite). It seems to me that independent India wanted nothing from Muslims other than for them to live in India looking like poster boy Muslims so that India could demonstrate to Pakistan and the world that India was a secular state with all religions living in harmony. I have wrtten an article on this - it is online here: "The Partition factor in the status of Indian Muslims: The moulding of Hindu attitudes towards Muslims, and the outcome for the Muslims of India" http://www.adl.gatech.edu/research/brmsrr/2008/BRMv7No1PartitionFactor080806.pdf > We believe that if the > Taliban [Images] was not fighting with America then they would not > have got any kind of support whatsoever in the Islamic world. This is a bad statement and should not have been included in that article. It is a self goal against Muslims. The statement means that "Muslims support the Taliban as long as they can be shown to be fighting against the US" shiv
