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From: Kanchan
Kanchan Gupta
British Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly has initiated a lively debate on whether excessive emphasis on multi-culturalism has contributed to Muslim separatism in the UK. In comments that have understandably riled the Left and bleeding heart liberals who insist on being politically correct even when faced by the very real and very grim possibility of witnessing passenger airliners being blown up as jihad continues to claim fresh victims around the world every passing hour, Ms Kelly has bluntly asked, "In our attempt to avoid imposing a single British identity and culture, have we ended up with some communities living in isolation from each other with no common bonds between them?"
For good measure, she has added, "We must not be censored by political correctness and we cannot tiptoe around the issues... Our ideas and policies should not be based on special treatment for minority ethnic faith communities. That would only exacerbate division rather than help build cohesion." It would be facetious to suggest that all it took to force a rethink on the noble and politically correct, Left-sanctified concept of multi-culturalism in Britain, which has been the mainstay of Labour politics ever since Mirpuris, Sylhetis and Punjabis from Pakistan began to land on British shores, were the July 7 London Underground bombings of last year that left 52 people dead and the failed plot to blow up planes in midflight after taking off from Heathrow.
A more plausible explanation for Ms Kelly's concern, echoed by influential individuals across the political spectrum, can be found in the results of a recent YouGov survey which show that at least 53 per cent Britons believe that their country "faces a Muslim problem" and an increasing number of people are beginning to fear Islam as also its followers. The poll, conducted by The Daily Telegraph, further reveals that 18 per cent of the respondents are of the view that "a large proportion of British Muslims feel no sense of loyalty to this country and are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism." The other findings of the elaborate poll are even less flattering to Britain's Muslims, most of them from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Were an honest opinion poll to be conducted in India, with the agency not using "secular" filters to weed out "communal" responses, in all probability the findings would have been no different. With the Muslim leadership, such as India's 15-crore-strong "minority community" is blessed with, becoming increasingly intransigent and using external issues — the Danish cartoons allegedly lampooning Mohammed, the war in Iraq, the attempts to dismantle Iran's basement nuclear programme, the Israeli response to Hizbullah's terrorism — to foment internal dissent and disquiet, coupled with murderous jihadi assaults like the Mumbai bombings that have never fetched condemnation from the pulpit during Friday prayers, we would be, to quote Ms Kelly, "tiptoeing around the issues" if we were to pretend that all is fine and India is a shining example of excellent inter-community relations.
The rude truth is that Islamophobia is no longer a phenomenon restricted to the US or the UK. With every passing day as Islamists up the ante and push their agenda of imposing faith — never mind how misplaced it might be — over everything else, including their motherland, the ranks of those who believe "Muslims feel no sense of loyalty to this country and are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism" continue to swell. This is by no means a happy development and could, in the long run, cause irreparable damage to the way Hindus and Muslims look at the "other". It would be tragic if as a nation we were to gridlock ourselves in mutual suspicion and hate whose consequences are bound to visit future generations irrespective of their religious affiliation.
Yet, this is precisely what is being aimed: The UPA Government, driven by the most perverse notions of what constitutes "secularism" which are invariably conceived of by reigning stalwarts of the Congress, has chosen to make common cause with those sections of the Muslim leadership, especially the Ulema, whose loyalty to India is suspect and who make little effort to hide this fact; a strange alliance is taking shape between those who promise to put India on an unimaginable growth trajectory and facilitate its emergence as a power to reckon with, and clerics who are determined to ensure that the crescent of Islamist fanaticism does not bypass India. Pledges of modernisation are heard along with calls for Talibanisation. And, as the level of bigotry rises, the Government ups its offer to placate manufactured anger which is first generated and then skillfully used by the Ulema and other subscribers to pan-Islamism to leverage a better deal.
Haunted by the spectre of Islamist terrorism and the extra-territorial loyalties of the Queen's Muslim subjects, Britain is just beginning to discover that "ideas and policies should not be based on special treatment for minority ethnic faith communities" as they "only exacerbate division rather than help build cohesion." We in India came to realise this decades ago, but since we prefer to be duplicitous and cynically cunning in our politics and policies, we have chosen to pretend that the writing on the wall is no more than an illegible scrawl that need not bother us. Hence the reluctance to call the bluff of those who continue to exploit our emphasis on multi-culturalism and minority rights not for the welfare of the Muslim community but to force on secular India their vision of a separate Islamic identity which jars with that of the national Indian identity. The fatwa against Muslims singing Vande Mataram is only one example of how far the Ulema and the Islamists are willing to go to assert that the ikhwan may live in this country, but is not bound by its national identity.
No purpose shall be served by refusing to admit this truth and confront the reality. On the contrary, we may yet be able to retrieve the situation and prevent the inter-community gap from becoming an unbridgeable chasm by taking the lead from Britain and asking, with full sincerity, without being censored by political correctness or tiptoeing around issues: In our attempt to avoid imposing a single Indian identity and culture, have we ended up with an entire community living in isolation from the others with no common bonds between them? The answer holds the key to India's survival as a nation and a nation-state.
--
Kanchan Gupta
Associate Editor,
The Pioneer,
7 comments:
The right thing to do will be if all the "Khans" in Mumbai film industry to come together & form some sort of a patriotic ad, pref. vande mataram -- basically like rahman's rendition of the song that was often telecast on tv. This will serve two purposes:
1. this will send the message to indian muslims to stop looking to the mullahs before forming an opinion on any subject
2. this will help to reassure non-muslims that their intentions are good
of course, the stars' popularity also rises. alas, they won't do it because it'll be unislamic.
alas, they won't do it because it'll be unislamic.
Bala - the last statement rings so true. I am reminded in this context of Shah Rukh Khan not touching Lata Mangeshkar's feet on the grounds that it is against Islam. Not one of our 'editorialist's' asked at that time
1- Is it Islamic to make movies?
2- As a 'good' Muslim when will SRK give up his film career?
In fact I read apologias in our ELM press defending him on the grounds of personal choice.
In the minds of even the 'liberal' Muslims in India, to be Islamic has only defintion. To not be Hindu.
Hence if the Hindus do one thing (touch elders feet, think of the motherland as manifest divinity etc.), as Muslims they must as a symbol of adherence to their faith do the other (not touch feet, not sing Vande Maataram etc.)
Not convinced? Another test would be to find citations in the Koran and the Hadis that say that the hallmark of the faith is beef-eating.
OT:
Something interesting...
Ali Akbar's son claims to be Hindu
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1945418.cms
Anything can become unislamic. At the ground level, the bottom line is that Muslims will do things that benefit them, whether they are un-islamic. Take the following fatwa.
"The Darul Ifta of Deoband, the body authorised to issue fatwas, issued a fatwa saying that interest earned on bank deposits as well as insurance of life is illegal as per the Shariat, the supreme law for Muslims. And that Muslims should not go in for insurance or assurance of life which has been given to them by Allah." How many muslims refuse interest and insurance?
If one (BJP or any other organisation) wishes to highlight this contradiction, the organisation must somehow focus on things that are not beneficial to muslims and that are unislamic. While raising the Vande Mataram issue, BJP spokespeople should speak about the other unislamic things the person who refuses to sing Vande Mataram is doing and then give the person a choice. Be willing to lose the benefit, or be willing to follow in line.
Mind you, it is extremely important to keep in mind the sensibilities of an average godfearing muslim. Politics must be done in a workable way, not with confrontation every time. An average muslim, I believe, will have little problem in singing Vande Matarm. The muslim leaders have a vested interest in the islamic crusades. An efficient political party will realise this and work towards driving a wedge between vicious leaders and gullible commoners. BJP, I am afraid, is too rigid in its approach to be able to manage this.
Again, don't jump at me. Is there any single bank manager in India who has refused interest to a Muslim because the interest is unislamic? (For example, if a muslim has 20 Lac in a bank, and earned 1L or more in a year. The 'right thinking' bank manager can transfer 1L to some other account and then claim that he tried to help the customer follow Islam....Ever heard of such an incidence?).. I haven't. I bet you, had this "no interest" been a Hindu belief, there would have been dozens of muslim managers doing it. Of course, BJP would then have raised the issue in parliament for a couple of days.
virat0, if your spouse it thinking of ditching you, do, by all means, try to make sure she knows it will hurt her/him economically. But I would not like to digress.
Is BJP going to get a Muslim gathering to sing Vande mataram? My answer would be "NO".
Is BJP going to get more votes by raising Vande Mataram issue? I don't really know.
Is BJP going to get Muslims to be more patriotic by raising this issue? My answer would be "NO".
The trouble is, I feel BJP merely reacts to things, it is not proactive. If I was a BJP boss, and if my primary purpose was to get more votes, I would not stretch the vande mataram issue too far, just by shouting about it. The National song isn't on everyone's mind every day.
At the same time, I would catch this 'unislamic issue' thread and try to convince people that those who refuse to sing Vande Mataram do many unislamic things. I would also try to get UPA politicians to bend and crawl and I would try to get public to see the crawling.
Thanks to reader Shahryar for the following posting on my blog you never cease to amaze Shahryar; your ability to ferret out good news knows no bounds
Someone do the math on if we can afford Rs 1000 Cr. a year for 20 years.
excerpt from Honge Oil proves to be a good biodiesel.
In the 1930s the British Institute of Standards, Calcutta had examined, over a 10 year period, a series of eleven non edible oils as potential 'diesels', among them the oil from Pongamia Pinnata ['Honge' in Kannada]. In 1942, during those dark war years the prestigious US journal, 'Oil and Power' had in an editorial euologised Honge Oil as technically a fit candidate to generate industrial-strength power.
The Cinderalla oil:
What happened then?
War was over, oil fields were secure again, everyone got lazy and the petroleum industry got smart: it pumped out and flooded the world with fuels, at times cheaper than the cost of water. Honge oil fell from favour and waited like Cinderalla, for its prince charming. Even the rural Indian was moving away from remembered traditions: Kerosene had arrived in Indian villages.
And yet a Honge oil economy did survive in India, though once removed from direct contact with people. Dr.Shrinivasa estimates that the size of trade in Honge oil['Karanji' in Hindi and 'Pungai' in Tamil] controlled by the Bombay commodities market is 1 million tonnes feeding mostly soap making and lubricants industries. In Warrangal, Andhra Pradesh, the Azamshahi Textile Mills, set up by the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1940, generated all the power needs of the factory using non-edible oils until its recent closure; and it had surplus power left over for the city's needs!
However the Honge is a much ignored tree now. It grows on regardless, waiting for its virtues to be re-discovered. It is a hardy tree that mines water for its needs from 10 metre depths without competing with other crops. It grows all over the country, from the coastline to the hill slopes. It needs very little care and cattle do not browse it. It has a rich leathery evergreen foliage, that is a wonderful manure. From year-3 it yields pods and production is a mature average of 160kG per tree per year from year-10, through to its life of 100 years. Ten trees can yield 400 litres of oil, 1200 kg of fertiliser grade oil cake and 2500kg of biomass as green manure per year.
I am wondering is this news true ? (RSS-US meet), considering the source (indiamuslims.info)...
Haha looks like Muslims (as usual) are already working out a conspiracy theory involving their 2 most hated group of people/organizations.
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