Will Modi prove Jinnah was right ?

This week the neighbours of the sub continent , India and Pakistan,  are celebrating the 70th anniversary of getting independence from British rule.

The paths followed by the two new nations were divergent , Pakistan becoming an Islamic state and India choosing a secular path with no state religion and many state sponsored support system for minorities and Dalits to ensure they can thrive in the society.

But in recent years the paths are converging. India under Hindutva leader Modi is becoming more and more like Pakistan.

India and Pakistan are also remembering the 70th anniversary of bloody partition which saw millions die. Jinnah, the most forceful proponent of Pakistan insisted on partition warning that Muslims in a predominantly Hindu India would be severely suppressed. Now it seems Modi and the Sangh are proving Jinnah was right.

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Beliefs that creates murderers

The gruesome mob killing of Mashal Khan is sending shock waves across the liberal minority in Pakistan. It will be good if they realise that religion & religion based politics  is the root of the problem. This article in the Dawn it seems shows such realisation.

Because while the videos will have caused many to recoil, the visuals and the audio will have made others rejoice.

Turn up the volume and hear the howls and screams. This wasn’t ignorance or the lack of knowledge; it was total belief and piety.

They weren’t screaming for blood; they were chanting the name of God.

The videos are an advertisement and an admonition: this is what we will do, this is what you need to do and this is what must be done.

Like snuff films for the masses, it took minutes and hours for the videos to spread; it’s taken days for the state to respond — a gap that may as well have been an eternity because of the effectiveness of the former and the flaccidness of the latter.

And in the state’s claim that no crime was committed by the victim lies a denial of reality — it doesn’t matter to the murderous that an innocent life was taken.

An innocent life is a price worth paying to defend the higher cause — that no one in no way and at no time may ever even think of doing what the dead man was accused of doing.

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Ambedkar on Islam, Partition and Hindu Raj

Dr B R Ambedkar, Dalit icon and architect of Indian Constitution was a personality whose writings are used by all kinds of people to highlight their points. The  Marxist Left in India use them to fight Hindutva Right, the non Marxist Left and the centrist Congress use them to fight the Hindutva and the Communists, the Hindutva Right use it to attack Islam and the Dalits try to use them for their own survival.

So what did Ambedkar write about Islam ?

In his book Pakistan Or The Partition Of India, a collection of his writings and speeches,  published in 1940 Ambedkar wrote :

Hinduism is said to divide people and in contrast Islam is said to bind people together. This is only a half truth. For Islam divides as inexorably as it binds. Islam is a close corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is a fraternity, but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity. The second defect of Islam is that it is a system of social self-government and is incompatible with local self-government, because the allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his but on the faith to which he belongs. To the Muslim ibi bene ibi patria is unthinkable. Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin.

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Campus murder by mob for blasphemy

A 23 year old was killed by a mob of fellow students in a University in Pakistan. Mashal was killed by the mob for alleged disrespect for Sunni Islam.

MARDAN: Hundreds of students beat to death a classmate known for his liberal views on a university campus in the country’s conservative northwest Thursday, police and witnesses said.

Mashal Khan, a journalism student, was stripped, beaten, shot, and thrown from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan university in Mardan, sources at the university said.Graphic video footage from the scene shows dozens of men outside the hostel kicking and hurling projectiles at a body sprawled on the ground.

Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive charge in the conservative Muslim country, and can carry the death penalty. Even unproven allegations can cause mob lynchings and violence.

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They kill to “purify” their religion

There was no need to guess the timing of the attack on the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in the town of Sehwan Sharif in Pakistan’s Sindh province. Thursdays are the most important in the week for Sufis and the shrine is particularly crowded with devotees. The Thursday evening attack by an Islamic State bomber claimed more than 72 lives, including that of women and children, and injured more than 150, which makes it one of the deadliest on Pakistani soil in recent years.

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Pakistan Court bans Valentine’s Day

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday prohibited the celebration of Valentine’s Day in public spaces and government offices across the country ‘with immediate effect’.

A day before Valentine’s Day, the Federal Ministry of Information, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) and the Islamabad High Commission were told by Justice Shaukat Aziz, who was hearing the case, to submit their replies regarding the immediate execution of the court’s orders.

Print and electronic media have also been warned to “stop all Valentine’s Day promotions immediately”, while Pemra has been ordered to monitor all mediums and send out notifications banning any related promotions.

AFP Photo/RIZWAN TABASSUM)

AFP Photo/RIZWAN TABASSUM)

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Draconian blasphemy laws haunts Pakistan

His father was shot dead by his Islamist bodyguard because he asked for amendments to draconian blasphemy laws of Pakistan. Now Shaan Taseer is facing blasphemy charges. His “crime” was he asked for prayers for victims of the law.

To honour his father on his sixth death anniversary, the slain governor’s son, Shaan Taseer, posted a video on Facebook wherein he spoke about what his father taught him and called for equal rights for all Pakistanis, regardless of their faith.

“We live in a society which oppresses its weakest section and where no Ahmadi, Shia and Christian can live their lives according to their wishes,” he said.

He continued, “This year Pakistan will become 70 years old and this is the country which was constituted to safeguard the lives and interests of the Muslim minority of the South Asia.”

“Today, being a nation, let’s commit ourselves to treat every Pakistani equally whether they are Shia, Sunni, Ahmadi or Christian… One nation, one blood, one Pakistan… Pakistan for all… Long live Pakistan!” he concluded.

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More than 50 killed in latest terror attack in Pakistan

The death toll in the latest terror attack on a Police recruitment facility in Quetta, Pakistan currently stands at 59. Three gunmen stormed a Police training college on Monday night, started firing randomly and detonating bombs.

Talking to the media, Balochistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti said that the operation against the terrorists has been completed and the affected area has been cleared by security forces who fought valiantly against the terrorists.

Bugti said that 700 police recruits were present at the time of the attack.

IG FC Major General Sher Afghan informed the press that the attackers were getting directions from Afghanistan and the initial investigation suggests that the terrorists were affiliated with Lashkar-e- Jhangvi Al Almi.

Hospital sources said that at least 57 dead bodies have been shifted to different hospitals while 116 people including police recruits and several Frontier Corps (FC) personnel have also been injured in the terrorist attack.

According to sources, three terrorists have been killed and 250 police recruits freed after the attack.

Unknown assailants stormed the hostel of the police training centre and opened fire on recruits.

Image from BBC - Credit EPA

Image from BBC – Credit EPA

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17 Indian soldiers killed in terrorist attack in Kashmir

Islamist terror strike from across the border on an Indian Army camp in Kashmir resulted in deaths of 17 soldiers. All four terrorists were killed later in a gun battle.

Terrorists have killed 17 Army soldiers and injured 19 in a suicide attack on an Army camp in Kashmir. Four terrorists struck the camp close to the headquarter of the 12th Brigade at Uri in Baramulla District . This makes it one of the deadliest terrorist strikes on security forces in recent times.
To put the death toll in perspective, seven military personnel had been killed in the Pathankot terror attack in January 2016. The attack on the Indian Air Force base there has since become a major international diplomatic incident.
The high number of casualties in the Uri terror attack could be attributed to the fact that a large number of soldiers, from the Dogra Regiment, had been stationed at the camp in tents and other temporary structures. Some of these tents caught fire during the attack, and the fire spread to other parts of the barracks. The soldiers had been stationed there as they were turning over from a tour of duty.

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Credit – BBC

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A fatwa in support for transgender rights

Homosexuality is legally disallowed in all countries of Indian subcontinent. But transgender people, though abused and pushed into sex trade, have some legal provisions to protect their rights. Now we have an Islamic fatwa too, supporting transgender rights, from Pakistan.

A man offers money to Sonia, 26, a transgender Pakistani, while dancing at a birthday party in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

A man offers money to Sonia, 26, a transgender Pakistani, while dancing at a birthday party in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

At least 50 clerics affiliated with a little known Tanzeem Ittehad-i-Ummat have issued a fatwa (religious decree) that marriage with a transgender person is lawful.

The fatwa, released on Sunday, said a transgender person having “visible signs of being a male” may marry a woman or a transgender with “visible signs of being a female” and vice versa.

But, the fatwa added, a transgender person carrying “visible signs of both genders” may not marry anyone.

It declared that robbing transgender people of their share in inheritance was unlawful and that parents who deprive their transgender sons/daughters of inheritance were “inviting the wrath of God”.

The clerics called upon the government to take action against such parents.

The decree also dwelt upon societal attitudes towards transgenders. It went to the extent of terming ‘haraam’ any act intended to “humiliate, insult or tease” them.

The fatwa ended with a word on last rites, declaring that all funeral rituals for a transgender person will be the same as for any other Muslim man or woman.

So if a devout Muslim abuse a transgender person, he can be at least told that what he is doing is haraam ( against Islam). No such fatwa for homosexuals though. They remain haraam.