A cloud over India's Muslims

[Kharian_Beast]

hmm
so you were expecting that US would implicate Pakistan directly

BTW you have claimed in the thread 'captured CST terrorist that US is not blaming Pakistan and also in this thread you claimed Even the US is backing down from anti Pak rhetoric .

But in the quoted post you are saying that you could see it coming(that US would implicate Pakistan)
So it seems that what you post , you dont believe in that or you think something and post something else

Please, don't put words in my mouth, otherwise I'll put my foot in yours.

I didn't say anyone could have seen the US implicate Pakistan, I said anyone could have seen that the US would tell Pakistan to act on intelligence and cooperate with India, something Pak has been saying from day 1. Now you and your school boy friends please piss off.

 

[Kharian_Beast]

@ mr. munshi

ur article is just real crap, stop posting these nonsense


@ zaheerkhan, @ nihat, @ gareebnawaz

u r the ppl who makes us even prouder

u r just real brother of us

ppl like u can take india and sacred religion like islam forward

and guys thanks a lot to present our(indian) view towards this rubbish article so strongly

u really deserve , and a big

Listen and get this through your thick skull, the Los Angeles Times is in a different league compared to the hoodlums you have mentioned.

 

[proud_indian]

Listen and get this through your thick skull, the Los Angeles Times is in a different league compared to the hoodlums you have mentioned.

this topic is abt indian muslim not those ******* u r talking abt.

and these ppl are well safe in india as usual as they have cleared in this thread earlier. And u r the one who is trying to put words in their(indian muslim brothers) mouths
so its better to put ur foot in ur own mouth

 

[Kharian_Beast]

Actually you don't know what I'm talking about, if you perhaps open your fxkd eyes and read maybe you will see I was responding to someone else that has nothing to do with India's Muslims but with the twisting of my words. Take your proud a** out of here.

 

[roadrunner]

wrong .
Rice tells Pakistan to act ‘or US will’ -DAWN - Top Stories; December 06, 2008

I had posted this link in the forumn captured CST terrorist. But reading your distasteful comment here couldnt stop myself from reposting it

The US is not the final authority on whether something is right or wrong. One only need recall the WMD in Iraq.

The US isn't going to bomb Pakistan. There's not a chance of that. And neither will India, because too much is at stake. Some drones is a possibility. Imo, Pakistan should be shooting them down.

 

[BanglaBhoot]

@ mr. munshi

ur article is just real crap, stop posting these nonsense

I assume your view is entirely unbiased and without prejudice.

If the Indian government really believed that Pakistan was behind the Mumbai attacks they would have certainly built up troops along the border by now. The Indians appear to have realized this is an inside job by Hindus for Hindus and by killing Hindus. That is fanaticism in the true sense.

 

[devgupt]

Please, don't put words in my mouth, otherwise I'll put my foot in yours.

I didn't say anyone could have seen the US implicate Pakistan, I said anyone could have seen that the US would tell Pakistan to act on intelligence and cooperate with India, something Pak has been saying from day 1. Now you and your school boy friends please piss off.

Rice tells Pakistan to act ‘or US will’ -DAWN - Top Stories; December 06, 2008

If after reading this article it appeared to you that US is saying what Pakistan has been saying from day1 then I must say that you have completely misunderstood the article and its intent.this attitude is called living in denial
I seriously hope that your leadership is not as naive as you and it doesn't misreads the signals from international community else it would be you who willcome to harm.

 

[Vanguard_786]

I agree its a whole lot harder for Indian Muslims now given what our cousins across the border have done in the past few weeks.. However India is much safer ,has more opportunities (for muslims) and less discrimination than what my cousins are facing in Karachi as mohajirs !!!

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Letter To President-Elect Barack Obama from Coalition of Concerned Indian Americans

December 8, 2008

President-Elect Barack Obama
C/o Mr. John Podesta
Co-Chair of the Obama-Biden Transition Project
Obama Campaign
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

Re: US Policy on Hindu Nationalist Groups in India and the US

Cc: Honorable Hillary Clinton, incoming Secretary of State
Mr. John Podesta, Ms. Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Peter Rouse, Co-Chairs, Obama-Biden Transition Project
Ms. Sonal Shah, Member, Transition Advisory Board


Dear President-Elect Obama,

As Indian-Americans working for human rights, peace and justice, we are elated with your agenda on civil rights, which includes expanding hate crimes statutes, ending racial profiling, and combating workplace discrimination. And we welcome the diversity of talents in your transition team, including the appointment of several fellow Indian-Americans.

As a coalition representing India’s diversity, and committed to promoting the secular and pluralistic nature of its democracy, we are particularly sensitive to the status of Muslim and Christian minorities in India, who have been facing growing hostility from Hindu nationalist groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and their various affiliates, in several states of India. Unfortunately, every terrorist incident directed against the people of India, like the heinous attack on Mumbai last week, seems to only strengthen the hands of these groups, who relentlessly propagate religious stereotypes and commit violent acts against minority communities with impunity. We are writing to you to share our deep concerns in this regard, before your administration shapes its policy priorities towards India.

The alarming rise of Hindu nationalists and the consequent increase in bigotry, violence, and violations of religious freedom have been extensively documented by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as well as by the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Reports. To cite just two glaring examples:

* RSS and VHP led widespread pre-planned attacks against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, ostensibly in ‘reaction’ to the burning of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims in which sixty people died. In the ensuing days, with the full connivance of the state, rampaging mobs gruesomely murdered over 2,000 Muslims, destroyed their businesses, gang-raped women, and expelled thousands of Muslims from their villages. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Gujarat has been widely held responsible for the worst communal violence in post-independent India. Mr. Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister, who scornfully justified the massacres as a “lesson” to the Muslims, has been censured by India’s Supreme Court as a “modern day Nero” and denied entry into the US by the State Department on grounds of “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”


* VHP and its affiliates have been orchestrating a systematic hate campaign for years against India’s tiny Christian minority, in response to what they allege are ‘forced’ religious conversions of Hindus and tribal people, despite the fact that even in states with anti-conversion laws on the book there have been virtually no complaints of coercion. The violence against Christians and their places of worship touched new heights recently, when Hindu militias in the state of Orissa (with a BJP supported government) forcibly evicted thousands of tribal Christians from their villages, molested nuns, targeted pastors/priests, and coerced people to ‘reconvert’ to Hinduism. India’s National Commission for Minorities has indicted the state government for failing to curb the violence. The central government too has done very little to prevent the spread of anti-Christian violence to other states and has ignored calls for banning the VHP and its violent street militia, the Bajrang Dal. (Members of VHP have been recently accused of terrorist attacks against Muslims in 2006 in the state of Maharashtra and are being investigated by India’s Anti-Terrorism Squad, some of whose members lost their lives in the recent Mumbai attack.)


We cite these two examples to underscore the role of the Hindu nationalist groups in endangering human rights and peace in India, through their insidious combination of politics and the threat of violence. When faced with the escalating terrorist attacks from within and outside India, such as the recent carnage in Mumbai, they tend to further target the most vulnerable sections of the minorities. Indeed, the two types of terror seem to constantly feed off each other. The crucial difference, however, is that violence instigated by Hindu nationalist groups against minorities often have not led to fair investigations or justice.

As your administration works to strengthen US-India relations and develops strategies to combat terrorism, it is imperative that it exerts all its diplomatic leverage with the Government of India to stem the politics of hatred, through clear signals such as continuing the current policy of denying entry to Mr. Modi.

Our second concern relates to mounting evidence that Hindu nationalist groups have been receiving considerable patronage from certain Indian-American NGOs and related charities in the U.S., ostensibly for legitimate social and educational work, which brings them considerable recognition and support from the community. We are specifically concerned with organizations such as VHP America, India Development and Relief Fund, and Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation, all of which claim to be independent of RSS and VHP in India, but are indeed connected with them through shared ideology and project partnerships. We urge your administration to closely scrutinize these organizations for their linkages to forces spreading communal hatred and violence in India.

In this context, we would like to bring to your attention the case of Ms. Sonal Shah, whose appointment to the Transition Board was widely applauded by sections of Indian and Indian-American community, but who has been less than candid about her connections with the VHP. We have written a letter to her (attached) seeking answers to a number of questions raised by her recent public statement and are awaiting her response.
In the mean time, we sincerely hope that your Transition Board will put in place a process to fully vet all South Asian appointees to the new administration for any direct or indirect association with hate mongering, violence-prone groups; and, if they are found to have had such connections, to restrict their role in any South Asia-related policy matters and as interlocutors of their community (along similar lines as the ethics rules laid out for lobbyists on the team.)

In closing, we would like to reiterate our full support for your plans to enhance equal opportunities at home and to end human rights abuses abroad. And we particularly hope to be of service in your efforts to further strengthen bilateral ties with India by addressing mutual national security goals in a way that safeguards civil liberties, especially those of minorities.

We wish you all success in meeting the extraordinary challenges ahead and we look to working with your incoming administration.

Sincerely,

Coalition Against Genocide (CAG) – A Coalition of Concerned Indian Americans

For further information on this letter, please contact:

Rasheed Ahmad, rasheed_imc@yahoo.com
Dr. Alex Koshy, alex_koshy2002@yahoo.com
Ravi Ravishankar, ra.ravishankar@gmail.com

Endorsing Organizations:

American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin (AFMI), Farmington, MI
American Muslim Physicians of Indian Origin (AMPI), IL (American Muslim Physicians of Indian Origin)
Association of Indian Muslims in America (AIM), Washington DC
Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH), CA (Campaign to Stop Funding Hate)
Friends of South Asia (FOSA), San Jose, CA (Friends of South Asia (FOSA))
India Foundation, Okemos, MI
Indian Minorities Advocacy Network (ImanNet), New York
Indian Muslim Council (IMC), Morton Grove, IL (Indian Muslim Council-USA | ESTABLISHED 2002)
Indian Muslim Education Foundation of North America (IMEFNA), (Indian Muslim Education Foundation of North America)
Indian Muslim Relief and Charities (IMRC), Palo Alto, CA (IMRC: Indian Muslim Relief and Charities | Qurbani/Udh'hiya Program 2008 - 1429 Hijri | Please, Online, Qurbaniudhhiya, Days, Donate)
International Service Society, MI
Network of Progressive Muslims
Non-Resident Indians for a Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI), MI
Sikh American Heritage Organization, Wayne, IL
South Asia Forum, Madison, WI
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD), Greater Vancouver, Canada (Untitled Page)
Supporters of Human Rights in India (SHRI), MN
The Coalition for a Secular Democratic India (CSDI), Chicago, IL
Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment, MI
World Tamil Organization, Inc., Cary, NC

Individual Endorsements:

George Abraham
Girish Agrawal
Habeeb Ahmed, Long Island, NY (member Long Island Peace coalition)
Rasheed Ahmed
Dr. Syed S Ahmed, Chicago, IL
Dr. Waheeduddin Ahmed, Milwaukee, WI
Shahid Ali M.D, Chief, Dept of Medicine, Schuyler Hospital, New York
Aliuddin Azam, Binghamton, NY
Khalid Azam
Dr. Chinmoy Banerjee, Secretary, SANSAD
Dr. Angana Chatterji, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies
Nasir Chippa
Gautam Desai
Shalini Gera
Sapna Gupta
Ammar Husain
Nishrin Hussain, Daughter of congress MP Ehsan Jafri killed in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat
Mohammad Imran
Imtiazuddin, D.I.C. London, Consultant and Social Activist
Dr. Pushpa Iyer, Assistant Professor, Monterey Institute for International Studies, CA
Kaleem Kawaja
Attaulla Khan
Hyder M. Khan, MD, Ph. D.
M. A. Muqtedar Khan, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Director of Islamic Studies, University of Delaware
Wasim Khan, MD, MPH
Dr. Alex V. Koshy, Founder General Secretary of World Malayalee Council and Board Member of MLK Commission of New Jersey
Thillai Kumaran
Khursheed A. Mallick, M.D.
Anu Mandavilli
Gulamrasul Mansuri, Former President Gujarati Muslim Association of America, Chicago, IL
Biju Mathew, Associate professor of Business, Rider University, NJ
A. R. Nakadar, M.D.
Saeed Patel
Shrikumar Poddar
Raju Rajagopal, Entrepreneur and Social Activist
Ravi Ravishankar
Shaik Saad, Long Island, New York
Dr. Sornam Sankarapandi, Ellicott City, MD
Dr. Shaik Sayeed, Milwaukee, WI
Dr. Svati Shah, Postdoctoral Fellow, Duke University
Dr. Hari P. Sharma, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Simon Fraser University
and President, SANSAD
Ramkumar Sridharan
Raja Swamy
Syed Azmatullah Quadri, Founding Chairman, ImanNet, Chicago, IL
Dr. Shaik Ubaid, Founding President, ImanNet, Chicago, IL
Firoz Vohra

 

[BanglaBhoot]

AN OPEN LETTER TO MS. SONAL SHAH, MEMBER OF PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA’S TRANSITION ADVISORY BOARD

“Your recent statement on Hindu nationalist groups raises more questions than it answers.”


November 20, 2008

Dear Ms. Shah,

We are a coalition of Indian-American groups and individuals representing diverse faiths, interests, and political affiliations, who are looking forward to working with the administration of President Obama to ensure that the interests of all Indian-Americans have a place in its policies. We represent families who have grievously suffered from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) led pogroms against Muslim minorities of Gujarat in 2002; Christians, whose communities and places of worship are under assault by VHP and its various creations for no other reason than the faith they were born in, or chose; Hindus and human rights activists who have been fighting, often at great peril to their persons, against religious bigotry and violence being fanned by the VHP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and their various incarnations in India as well as in the United States (the Sangh Parivar).

As you can understand, we are legitimately concerned about reports of your personal links with the VHP -- whose social values, politics, and actions are antithetical to President-elect Obama’s message of hope and inclusiveness -- and how those links might possibly influence your role in the transition team and the new administration’s policies towards India and Indian-Americans.

Your recent public statement, therefore, that your “personal politics have nothing in common with the views espoused by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or any such organization” is a welcome one, and we fully expect that your actions on the transition team will be faithful to that assertion.

However, your statement does not allay all of our concerns, given the irrefutable public record of your and your family’s linkages to the VHP and other Sangh Parivar organizations, as confirmed in recent utterances by RSS circles in India and by VHP America. We would like to share those concerns with you in the hope that you will respond to them:

To begin with, like you, many of us were engaged in relief work in the aftermath of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, when we came away with admiration for Gujarat’s civil society, despite persistent allegations that VHP and RSS were cynically using the disaster relief efforts to further their sectarian agendas. Many of us returned to Gujarat promptly in 2002 to provide relief and succor to battered Muslim (and Hindu) families, following the unprecedented violence directed against them -- this time despite the openly obstructionist tactics of the Gujarat government. This period was followed by systematic intimidation of activists by the state: e.g. frivolous lawsuits against Ms. Mallika Sarabhai, a renowned artist and community activist, which prompted the Supreme Court of India to intervene on her behalf. And more recently, emboldened by their impunity in Gujarat, the Sangh Parivar has been orchestrating wide-spread violence against Christians in several BJP and BJP-partnered states of India, which has renewed the public demand for a ban on the VHP and its affiliate, the Bajrang Dal.

We remind you of this recent history to express our dismay and disappointment that at no time during this terrible period are we aware of any statement from you dissociating yourself from these dreadful acts of VHP and RSS, especially given your proximity to these organizations: As a person associated with VHP/RSS’s earthquake relief efforts in 2001, we are not aware of any acknowledgment from you of their widely reported sectarian bias in providing relief. We are not aware of any assistance from you or by IndiCorps to the thousands of families affected by the 2002 communal pogroms, nor are we aware of your speaking out against the funding of organizations implicated in these hate campaigns by charities in the United States, with some of whom you have been partnering. And, more recently, we have not heard any condemnation from you of the spate of violence against Christian Adivasis being orchestrated by VHP, for which the BJP-partnered government in Orissa has been severely indicted by India’s National Commission for Minorities.

In the face of these facts, your bold assertion that you have “always condemned any politics of division, of ethnic or religious hatred, of violence and intimidation as a political tool” is deeply troubling.

Furthermore, the revelation that you were part of the inner circle of VHP America at the time of the Gujarat earthquake indicates that your role was not confined only to humanitarian relief -- an important detail that you did not address in your statement. And your consistent support for Ekal Vidyalayas (a VHP-founded movement with the major objective of countering Christianity among Adivasis), which has been found by the Human Resources Ministry of Government of India to be conditioning the minds of young children against religious minorities, adds to our fear that you have not fully distanced yourself from VHP’s intolerant, anti-minority ideology.

As you know better than most of us, President-elect Obama set a high standard of openness and personal accountability for himself during the campaign. We note from recent events that he is setting a similar standard of transparency for the transition team. In that spirit, we hope that you too will take personal responsibility for your undeniable past links with the Sangh Parivar and reconcile your recent statement against the VHP and the RSS with your silence amidst the most egregious human rights violations by them in Gujarat and elsewhere. We further hope that you will unequivocally disown and repudiate your and your family’s past and current associations with the VHP and all other Sangh Parivar organizations.
And, as a prominent Indian-American, we hope that you will join us in our call to the governments of India, Gujarat, and Orissa to speedily bring justice and rehabilitation to the thousands of victims of the Sangh Parivar’s anti-minority violence and to take immediate and effective measures to prevent such violence in the future.
These steps will lend much credence to your statement that you do not subscribe to the views of Hindu nationalist groups.

As for your comment that you have been the subject of “Ridiculous tactics of guilt by association”:

Being everyday victims of guilt by association in the US as well as in India for being Muslims, especially in Gujarat, many of us can and do recognize the insidious nature of blog postings that you may be the subject of. Others among us have been the target of preposterous accusations by supporters of VHP and RSS and have been labeled as anti-Hindu, anti-Indian, pro-terrorist, etc., for seeking justice for India’s minorities.

In contrast, your family’s connections with the Sangh Parivar have been long, deep, well documented, and presumably continue to this day. So we must respectfully reject any parallels drawn between attempts during the campaign to find President-elect Obama guilty by association and legitimate questions about your past affiliations.

In closing, the Indian and Indian-American media have widely covered your appointment to the transition team with justifiable pride, and have spoken very highly of your credentials. We join them in congratulating you and in applauding President-elect Obama for demonstrating his commitment to true diversity by appointing an Indian-American woman to his closest advisory board. We have no doubt that you will bring your expertise to bear upon the many difficult decisions that the transition team will have to make in the next few weeks. But we also sincerely hope that your actions on the team will be mindful of the welfare and aspirations of all Indians, including minority communities, which are under unprecedented attacks by Hindu nationalist groups.

We wish you all the best in your endeavors and we look forward to your response.


Sincerely,

A Coalition of Concerned Indian-Americans

 

[ngold]

I assume your view is entirely unbiased and without prejudice.

If the Indian government really believed that Pakistan was behind the Mumbai attacks they would have certainly built up troops along the border by now. The Indians appear to have realized this is an inside job by Hindus for Hindus and by killing Hindus. That is fanaticism in the true sense.

Munshi How surprising that u don't know that this Pakistani Government is Pro Indian.. and u can smell RAW's involvment and support to existing Pakistani Govt.. So India does not need to built up along Pak border.
Look how the GoP has started action against terrorist outfits after acknowledging that terrorists wr Pakistani Nationals.. sooner they will hand over them to India.. So now wake up and bring some really new theories to entertain us..

 

[Robin234]

I assume your view is entirely unbiased and without prejudice.

If the Indian government really believed that Pakistan was behind the Mumbai attacks they would have certainly built up troops along the border by now. The Indians appear to have realized this is an inside job by Hindus for Hindus and by killing Hindus. That is fanaticism in the true sense.

Stop making dirty controversial theories .They will lead you no where .

 

[Vinod2070]

Stop making dirty controversial theories .They will lead you no where .

After the action by Pakistan against LET, shouldn't such idiots be also given exemplary punishment?

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Vindo2070,

I guess you didn't like the two letters I put up to the Obama transition team.

As the case may be Pakistan is being pressured to take action against LeT but this does not clarify who was involved in the Mumbai attacks. That will only become apparent when intelligence on both sides is shared so we know what the Indians have and also what Pakistan has in terms of evidence.

Exemplary punishment should be given to those who did not see the Hindu hand in past terrorist attacks.

 

[Nihat]

again this Hindu - Muslim stuff.

Quit the obsession with religion people.

If we so proudly say over here that Terrorism has no religion then it applies to these people also that discriminators and communal flamers also have no religion.

By giving such activities a religious tag - no one does civil society any good service.

I too have a very brutal video of 2 guys from Jamia Milia Islamia University fighting each other like wild dogs , beating up with cricket bats , rods , what not.

Would anyone in the forum want me to rename the title of the thread to "Civil war in India" and post it here. Huh !!