Institutionalised Bias?

L.K. Advani with security guards (file photo)

The last-minute removal of two Muslim policemen from the security duty of BJP leader L.K. Advani who visited Khozhikode on Tuesday has elicited strong reactions from some political parties and prominent Muslims.

Muslims have alleged "religious discrimination" by National Security Guard (NSG) which was the in charge of the security arrangements at the helipad in Khozhikode. The Muslim policemen, who had undergone special training for VIP duty, were deputed to be part of Advani's motorcade. At Khozhikode, NSG officials sought the list of police personnel on duty. After scrutinising the list two Muslim policemen were dropped from the motorcade without assigning any reason.

"This is an insult to the secular face of the state. Both policemen had participated in the training sessions for VIP visit. But last minute, they were removed on religious grounds. That should not have happened in Kerala," Indian Union Muslim League state general secretary P K Kunhalikutty said.

Following protests from the Indian Union Muslim League, the Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has ordered the probe.

The Kozhikode City Police Commissioner Anup Kuruvilla John has denied that the exclusion was on religious grounds as altogether six drivers had been dropped in the final round.

"A total of 12 police drivers were chosen for the motorcade, comprising six vehicles during the trial run. Six drivers were dropped which included non-Muslims also. Only that out of the six, two happened to be from the minority community," he said.

His claim is hotly contested by many.

Yoginder Sikand, author of many books on Muslim issues, has termed this incident as part of anti-Muslim agenda. "It only shows how pervasive and widespread anti-Muslim prejudice, stoked by Hindutva terrorists has become," he told Qaum.

Nigar Ataullah, associate editor of Banglore-based Islamic Voice says that these kinds of incidents tarnish the image of Muslim community. "Acts like these all add up to produce a wrong image of Muslims," she said.

Seema Mustafa, senior journalist and editor of Covert magazine says that the same thing happened to Sikhs 1980s. She is concerned about the growing intolerance and rising Islamophobia. "Sikhs were not allowed to be inside Asian Games taking place at that time. Muslims feel victimised because of the growing Islamophobia. Muslims are made to feel as 'others'," she said.

She blamed M.K. Narayanan, NSA (National Security Advisor) for the goof-up.

"National Security Advisor owes an answer not to the Muslims but to the country," she insisted.

Senior writer Mustafa Khan feels that this incident puts a question mark on the loyalty of Muslims. "The removal of the two Muslim cops shows that the right-wing leaders do not think that Muslims are loyal. Moreover they are abysmally low in their opinion about the minorities," he said.

Anti-Muslim bias of the security agencies is a well-known fact. India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has diagnosed this disease very early. Not many would know that Nehru was asked by IB (Intelligence Bureau) to remove Muslim cooks from his kitchen because of the angers of Partition. He categorically refused saying there is no question of it. His daughter Indira Gandhi did the same. She refused to suspect all the Sikhs after Operation Bluestar.

The grandson of noted parliamentarian Humayun Kaqbir was denied entry into RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), India's external intelligence agency because of his religion. There is an unwritten code which does not allow Muslims to become part of the premier intelligence agencies.

Nazia Erum, a Delhi-based journalist feels that Muslims are caught in the no man's land. "Very often Muslims are blamed not to be part of the national mainstream. And when we try to become part of the so-called 'mainstream' we are often pushed back to our ghetto," she told Qaum. "The idea of a pluralistic India is under threat from those who are supposed to be law-keepers," she remarked.

Qaum - Inquilab, October 18, 2008

Police added to Malegaon Terror

Covert copy: Scanned version of the original piece

MALEGAON: Mohammed Ishaque, 20, was sipping tea at Nisar Diary in Bhikku Chowk when a crude bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded, killing five and injuring at least 89. "It was as devastating as lightening," recalls Ishaque lying on a bed in Noor hospital. He suffered serious leg injuries.

The killer bike was parked outside Shakeel Goods Transport, barely 10 metres from Daregaon Police Chowki. Abdullah Ansari, the 75-year-old owner of Shakeel Goods, had instructed Iqbal, a waiter from Nisar Diary, to tell the police about the unattended bike. "The police was informed at 8.20 p.m., an hour and 15 minutes before the blast, but they failed to act," Ansari told Covert, pointing to his watch which had stopped at 9.35 p.m. Ansari is in hospital with head injuries.

Muslims of the area gathered, aggrieved about the police's failure to act. People were also angry that the police then attributed the blast to a gas cylinder burst. The mob attacked the police chowki; so the police responded with a lathicharge and finally resorted to firing the bullets to disperse people. About 35 policemen have been injured, including Deputy Superintendent of Police Virish Prabhu (IPS), whose condition is now stable.

Eyewitnesses said at least two persons were killed and 22 injured in the police firing. Maharashtra Home Minister and Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil told Covert, "Nobody died in the police firing, Police fired 58 rounds in the air so no one was injured."

This claim is hotly contested at Malegaon. Shoaib Ansari, editor of Urdu weekly Zaban-e-Khalk pulled up his sleeve to show a bullet injury on his right arm. "I had gone there to cover the incident. The bullet grazed me on the right arm," he said.

Nadeem Ahmed, a 17-year-old labourer passing by Bhikku Chowk, was hit by a bullet just below his kneecap. "I was not part of the mob. I was going to work at the powerloom factory when the police bullet hit me from behind," he told Covert. The attending doctor, Dr V.P. Vaidya, confirmed that Nadeem was hit by a police bullet. "The police wanted the recovered bullet but I have refused. I can't hand it over unless there is a Panchnama," he said.

A young man named Mushtaque Ahmed is also believed to have been killed in the firing. "My son was martyred in the police firing," his father Yusuf told Covert. Dr Saeed Farani of Faran hospital, where most of the injured were brought, is more hesitant. "I think at least three of the injured have bullet wounds. But I can't say with certainty since we have not recovered any bullets," he said.

The motorbike was traced to Eknath Pingle, a lab assistant in Panchavati College, Nasik. Pingle told the police he had sold it in 2002 to a dealer in second-hand vehicles. The second-hand dealer confirmed the purchase, but could not provide any information about the buyer.

Sanjeev Dayal, Additional Director General of Police (State Law and Order), has ruled out the involvement of the Indian Mujahideen in the blast at Malegaon because there were no similarities either in the mode or in the execution of the blast. He added that radical Hindu groups were also under the scanner.

The police is said to have detained at least six persons from neighbouring Chalisgaon and Malegaon, but Nasik SP (Rural) Nikhil Gupta denied this. Combing operations have been carried out at Jaffer Nagar, Golden Nagar and Naya Bazaar. The people are terrified of large-scale arrests. Mustafa Khan, a resident of Jaffer Nagar, pointed out, "Nothing will happen. Only the innocent will be harassed and victimised".

COVERT, October 15 - October 31, 2008

Malegaon Bomb Blast: The Smell of Blood is Still in My Head

Azmi Farzan: The youngest victim of Malegaon bomb blast

The deadly bomb blast which ripped apart the bodies of believers on September 29 has left a deep scar on the psyche of the town. Without losing any time, I was at Bhikku chowk, the epicentre of the blast, which resembled more like a battlefield than an ordinary chowk in a Muslim neighbourhood. The members of leaderless Muslim community were busy helping the injured in their own individual way. A few emotional Muslims protested against the police claim that it was a cylinder blast. It hurts me deeply that a stone-pelting incident can alter the destiny of my community. Clashes between Muslims and Police followed. Police first-lathi-charged and then opened fire. People fell like a pack of cards.

From Bhikku chowk I rushed towards Noor hospital like a madman searching for sanity. Police bullets seem to have an ingrained bias against Muslims. Bullets chase Muslims till death. As I entered the hospital to inquire about the injured, I could hear the gunshots being fired outside (in Mushawerat chowk). With each shot, I trembled with rage and fear. Each shot increased my heartbeats. The palpitation was so seismic that I feared that my heart would jump out and leave me dead. On one hand Dr. Saeed Faizee, Dr. Sohail and Dr. Faisal continuously worked to restore the faith of Muslim community, outside the naked dance of official bias was at play. Where was the humanity of the people?

The scene at Faran hospital – where the majority of the injured (58) were brought – was chaotic. Curios onlookers and some family members of the injured were caught in the mêlée outside the Faran hospital. As I entered the hospital the smell of fresh blood became unbearable. It is still in my head. The injured were being treated by Dr. Saeed Farani and his dedicated team of doctors. The entire hospital was in collective mourning. The cry of a toddler will haunt me for the rest of my life. It could have been my nephew or anybody else’s. A bared burnt back of a bearded old man almost brought me to the brink of cry. But then the call of my métier restrained me. I made sure that tears didn’t spill out of my eyes. In the operation theatre, I saw an open surgery being performed on one of the injured. The ruptured veins of his left foot were a terrible sight to behold. I could stop there while beholding the sanguine scene or gently pass out. The sight of the three dead bodies neatly lined one after another froze my soul. I felt as if I was in the awesome presence of death. As I clicked their pictures, a thought crossed my mind: Is it fair for a journalist to take pictures of the victims mowed down by flying balls, nails and bullets? It was a call of the conscience. In the spilt of a second, I decided to go ahead. I thought I was Muslim as well as a journalist. The job of a journalist is not to write but to communicate. The Muslim in me thought that I must communicate to the world that my own community has been hit in its own backyard. Not once, but twice.

When the guns fell silent, I returned to Bhikku chowk at 3am. Uninformed media persons were orchestrating the official line that the bomb blast site is below the building where Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) once had its office. But nobody bothered to say that the bomb blast site is rather in front of a Police chowky as well. These are matters of perception.

Why was Bhikku chowk chosen for the blast site? Bhikku chowk represents a strong Muslim identity where Muslims from all diverse sects and walks of life gather for a cup of tea or socializing after traweeh prayers in Ramadan. The attack was on Muslim identity. Why can’t the security agencies accept that there is in essence a turf-war going on between communalists of different faiths in the form of bomb blasts? It is unfortunate that in this war Police often seem to be on the side of the majority community. It is a bitter truth albeit uncomfortable.

Next day, home minister RR Patil uttered the usual platitude of repeated bombings of recent past. “It was an attack on national integration.” I am sorry, Mr. Patil. Bhikku chowk is not the place for bridging the gulf that has divided two communities. It is a traditional Muslim ghetto. The attack was on Malegaon’s Muslim identity and not on national integration. There were eyebrows raised when I bluntly asked him ‘How many people have died in the police firing.’ He paused for a moment; Nikhil Gupta, Nasik SP, bent and whispered something. “Nobody has died in the police firing. Police had fired 58 rounds in the air so no one was injured,” Patil claimed. This goes against the public perception and a doctor’s claim in Malegaon. According to Dr. Saeed Farani at least 3 persons have been injured in the police firing. The actual figure is obviously higher but nobody is willing to say because the town is reeling under fear.

Each Muslim mother in Malegaon is praying lest her son becomes a “suspect.”

Things will never be the same in this forsaken corner of Maharashtra but this much is certain: Indian Muslims will not allow India to become another Pakistan.

Media, Muslims and Mujahideen

A bomb does not discriminate between a Hindu or a Muslim (File Photo)

Now that the Delhi Police has “cracked” the bomb blasts, I can make my own confessions. Suspicion is not a fundamental right enshrined in Indian Constitution but it is an unalienable right in a flourishing democracy. Suspicion is the fundamental premise on which the edifice of our intelligentsia stands. Therefore, intelligence agencies cannot be denied the right to suspect. The same right to suspect cannot be denied to ordinary Indians. Equality is the hallmark of a true democracy.

The journalist in me has a problem when an official declaration, a chronological monologue, is treated as the gospel. It is not the job of a journalist to arrive at conclusions. The job of a journalist is to stand outside the circle and communicate nuances and niceties taking place inside the circle. When a journalist jumps into the circle, he becomes part of the story. Proximity breeds bias. Bias breeds bigotry. A true journalist can be anything but he can never be a bigot.

Journalistic bigotry is dangerous for it plays a vital role in shaping public opinion. Each such story leaves an imprint on public consciousness. In each blast, media, the fourth estate, behaves like fourth mistake. The needle of suspicion automatically swings towards Muslims whether it is Mecca Masjid blast or Malegaon blasts in which devout Muslims were specifically targeted inside their mosques. Every time there is a blast, Muslims find themselves in the no man's land. They are caught in the crossfire between intelligence agencies and terrorists. Neither of them will trust Muslims. The day-today Muslim problem is bread and butter rather than the bomb.

Each blast is viewed from the green lens of Islam although saffron lens is equally making India red. One of the reasons for these blasts is to put the entire Muslim community in the defensive mode by systematically manipulating Islam. The trick is like a psychological warfare before the beginning of actual war.

It is true that a minuscule minority among Muslims has become radical. It is equally true that a minuscule minority among Hindus has gone on the extreme. SIMI, RSS and Bajrang Dal, are competing identities, each one claiming to represent their respective community. It is competitive extremism at work which can be summed up in one-line: My version of extremism is better than yours! Media plays safe when RSS and Bajrang Dal are involved in bomb blasts while it indulges in triumphant journalism when SIMI comes under the scanner. The reason for this differential approach is commercial: No businessman would want to antagonize the majority Hindu readers. Media, therefore, claims to be nationalistic but it only practices majoritarian nationalism.

From a journalistic point of view, I have a problem when Police changes the names of ‘alleged’ (it is one adjective which we in the media have abused and used at will) masterminds overnight. First it was Abdus Subhan Qureishi (alias Tauqeer), now it is Atif, the “terrorist” who has been gunned down.

The journalist in me finds it hard to digest that Mufti Abul Bashar, the alleged mastermind of Ahmedabad blasts, is linked to Delhi blasts. If Bashar is really connected to Delhi blasts, the bomb blasts should never have taken place since he was in police custody when the blasts took place. How can Bashar, a poor madrasa-educated person mastermind Ahmedabad blast with such precision? When did Indian Madrasas start producing tech-savvy Muslims? Indian government would love that to happen! There won’t be any need for Central madrasa board for modernization then!

Police says that the educated Muslims are involved in the blasts yet they arrest who will not be termed ‘educated’ by worldly standards. Mufti Bashar is just one example. A section of the mainstream media is extremely behaving like the nautch girl of Indian intelligent agencies. Instead of investigating the police claims, media is promoting self-contradictory journalism.

The journalist in me has a problem when a TV correspondent spits out the intelligence feed that there was a meeting of SIMI in 2001 where 200 youth were recruited to wreak havoc across India. What was our intelligence agency doing for the last 8 years?

Muslim accused are being branded as terrorists before the proper investigation and filing of the chargesheet. The actual trial by a court of law is yet to begin but the trial by media has already passed its judgement. Sample this:

“Mohammed Saif, the terrorist (emphasis added) who was arrested after Friday’s encounter, even possessed a fake voter card.” (TOI, September 21, page 1, Delhi edition)

Isn’t it a perfect example of Judgemental journalism?

Meanwhile Muslims live under siege and fear. State, said Mahatma Gandhi, is nothing but organized violence. Friday’s encounter of Jamia Nagar in Delhi raises some disturbing questions. Local Muslims have termed it as “dubious.” They have reasons to believe so. As a Delhi friend put it, “No one saw cross firing yesterday. Only the police claim it happened. Did you read in any report that anyone actually saw cross-firing?” She added, “How come the two so-called terrorists managed to flee? There was only one exit.” She asked, “If they knew they were going for a possible encounter, why wasn’t the building or the area properly covered by the police?”

Her conclusion was chilling and disturbed me:

“But the point is that they can kill anyone anywhere. Tomorrow my brother might be the target and on flimsiest of grounds with no chance of proving the innocence. You are guilty just because they say so.”

“It makes me bloody angry.”

Indian Muslims live with fear, security, discrimination and terror tag. A bunch of the so-called ‘Muslims’ have hijacked their Faith. I detest when somebody says those who planted the bombs were Muslims. Indian Mujahideen, a faceless body, has launched a faceless jihad for the sake of Indian Muslims. A true jihad can never be faceless. If one peers through Islamic history, he will come to know that a jihad is a battle which is fought under the banner of recognition and not anonymity.

I see a problem when a country of more than one billion people can’t arrest a loose bunch of murderers who want to convert India into a slaughterhouse.

Indian intelligence agencies have some much input yet they produce zero output.

India’s 160 million Muslims have a problem: fear. And nobody is willing to even listen to them. They are the in-betweens of India’s fight against terrorism. They want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. India needs to integrate them. A Muslim friend put it bluntly, “Rabindranath Tagore’s poem ‘Where the mind is without fear’ no longer adorns my wall.”

Raj with No Reason

Raj Thackeray: Emergence of an Indian Raj!

The worst way to reason is to have no reason. There may be reasons not to have a reason. No reason is a good way to keep people guessing the reason. If you have the reason, you can’t actually fool people not to know the reason. The reason has to be real and not imaginary.

Raj Thackeray, the nefarious nephew of Bal Thackeray, has been on rampage citing a single reason: imagined insult to Marathi language. Does speaking Hindi or any other language in the state of Maharashtra belittle Marathi? Jaya Bachchan’s unintentional utterance that ‘she will speak Hindi because she is from Uttar Pradesh’ did not go well with Raj although Jaya had apologized right there to the people of Maharashtra for not speaking in Marathi. Is Hindi, our national language, a threat to Marathi, Maharashtra’s official language? Can’t Hindi and Marathi co-exist in Maharashtra? Language should promote harmony and not hatred.

Raj must salute India’s tolerant democracy that allows him to indulge in lingual terrorism. Raj believes in lingual hegemony of aggression. He portrays himself as a messiah of Marathi language and Marathi manoos (Marathi population). Will his intolerant attitude towards Hindi promote Marathi? Aggression does not promote a language. It degrades the language and covers it with the dirt of exclusivity. If Raj sincerely wants to promote Marathi, he should rebrand his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) as Multi-National Sena!

He is using his mother-tongue to flex his political muscle and put himself on the state’s political radar. Politics is the art of the impossible and Raj is very keen to master that ‘art’ even if he has to coin his own slogan of regionalism which is an antithesis to the very idea of Indian nationalism.

Raj’s theatrics began with the formation of MNS when he felt that he is being ‘sidelined’ by Udhav, Bal Thackeray’s son. A political party needs an ideology and issue to keep breathing. Raj raised an issue which became the core ideology of MNS: to check uncontrolled migration to Bombay from North India especially from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. This might have been a valid issue to an economically-impoverished Marathi but Raj’s constant maneuvering and tirade transformed it into venom. Raj suddenly jumped to language from economics. What happens when a politician propagating regional economics tries to become a linguist? He becomes a political snake whose bite is communicable.

Bal Thackeray became the first victim of the snake-bite when he blasted Shahrukh Khan as an “outsider” who calls himself a “Dilliwala.” Why should Bollywood become a battleground for the uncle-nephew political rivalry? The answer lies in one question: What have the uncle-nephew done to improve the lot of hapless Marathis? They have only paid lip-service while Bollywood has paid fat cheques. Not many would know that Bollywood, the world’s biggest film industry, employs thousands of Marathis. To cover their collective failure, Bal Thackeray and Raj are competing with each other to target a symbol of economic success: Bollywood.

Why has been the state acting like a mute spectator? The Congress-NCP alliance is in no mood to offend Marathi sensibilities. It has adopted an old British dictum: Divide and rule. It has tacitly supported Raj’s rants in order to divide Sena’s Marathi votes. Any official utterance is bound to have a long-term consequence. Marathi mass will not gain from this political triangle because players involved in this game are concerned about their private rather than public interests.

It is a dangerous game where Indian nationalism is being challenged by Marathi jingoism.

Lingual compulsions cannot succeed in a country like India. How would Raj react if Marathis working in the Middle East are forced to speak Arabic at public functions? Will Raj support the compulsion?

Bombay is a city that does not belong to any particular community. It is a city of Suketu Mehta and Salman Rushdie. It equally belongs to Dileep Padgaonkar and Shobhaa De`. It is a city of dreams where a Marathi as well as a Bihari co-exist to eke out a living. It is a city of irony where thousands come for bread and butter. And a few have come here in search of the bomb as well. Bombay is Bombay not because of Marathis like Raj but because of Gujaratis and Parsis who have nurtured this city into a cultural mega polis.

Having stayed in Poona, I know the fact that Marathi is a civilised language. Deep down in my heart, I curse myself that I don’t know enough Marathi to converse with government officials. I am not against any language; I am against the lingual compulsion.

Tailpiece: India bleeds by alarming regularity with the reemergence of Indian Mujahedin (IM). With Delhi blasts on Saturday, one thing is certain: Contrary to Gujarat Police claim that they have busted the real culprits, cyberpunks of IM are still at large and openly threatening to wreak havoc in India. A question which every Indian must ask: Is there any intelligent design behind it?

Ahmed Faraz: Death of a Romantic

Ahmed Faraz: Main jaa chuka phir bhi teri mehfilon mein hoon! I am not an obit writer; nor do I aspire to become one. August was a month of poetic obituaries; it was a month when angel of death plucked out longstanding poetic trees in two different countries: first it was Mahmoud Darwish of Palestine, and now Ahmed Faraz of Pakistan who died on August 25 at the age of 77. If Darwish penned the pain of Occupied Palestine, Faraz mourned a militarist Pakistan. Both voices signified the poetry of protest which is the last refuge of Muse. Surprisingly both bore an uncannily pictorial resemblance. The poetry of Darwish and Faraz reflected internal struggles within the Muslim world. Their sane and at times insane voices provided an alternative platform for love as well as lament. For Faraz, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq’s military rule was boon as well as bane. He was arrested and later had to leave Pakistan. It left him bitter but at the same time it gave him enough space to popularize ‘protest poetry’. As Faraz once said, “Yet it (military rule) also provided ample food for thought for the poet and made protest poetry so popular in Pakistan.” Faraz was a limited man but with unlimited ambition. Although Faraz was a wearer of many hats; his poetry can be summed up in two nouns each beginning with R: Romance and Revolution. Teenagers took comfort in his couplets while aspiring revolutionaries quoted him at length to drive their point. His ghazal Sunaa hai log use aankh bhar ke dekhte hain was an international hit. Faraz was not just a poet of romance and love; he was a poet of masses as well as mass hysteria – a syndrome which has consumed so much of Pakistan. His poetry gave voice to the suppressed souls of a depressed Pakistan. He spoke against the Partition as well: Ab kis kaa jashn manaate ho us des kaa jo taqsiim huaa Ab kis ke giit sunaate ho us tan-man kaa jo do-niim huaa (taqsiim=divided; do-niim=cut in two) He breathed life into the idea of romance in contemporary Urdu poetry. His romantic couplets may have sparked millions of romances all around the Urdu-knowing world but yet his writings failed to bring a revolution in his troubled homeland. Perhaps therein lies the irony of Ahmed Faraz. He was a crusading poet who did not believe in the idea of crusade. He preferred verse over weapon. He never shied away from raising the standard of revolt against the Pakistani establishment. He was an asset to Pakistan but Pakistan government treated him like a liability. He was a dissenting poet disenchanted by his own military government. It is primarily for this reason that he went into a self-imposed exile for six years. He told people of Pakistan to dream because he believed that dreams do not die. In his poem titled Khvaab marate nahiin (Dreams do not die), he said: Dreams are not hearts, nor eyes or breath Which shattered, will scatter (or) Die with the death of the body. Dreams do not die. Dreams are light, life, wind, Which can not be stopped by mountains black, Which do not burn in the hells of cruelty, Like light and life and wind, they Do not bow down even in graveyards. Dreams are letters, Dreams are illumination, Dreams are Socrates, Dreams are Mansur! Faraz was a poet of official dislike and unofficial like. Pakistan of Pervez Musharraf tried to woo him with the Hilal-i-Imtiaz in 2004. The trick did succeed initially. But the tricky success did not last. Faraz returned the award two years later because he was a man of conscience. He said, “My conscious will not forgive me if I remained a silent spectator of the sad happenings around us. The least I can do is to let the dictatorship know where it stands in the eyes of the concerned citizens whose fundamental rights have been usurped. I am doing this by returning the Hilal-e-Imtiaz (civil) forthwith and refuse to associate myself in any way with the regime...” Faraz had compared his life to that of a candle. Main bhi chup ho jaaunga bujhti hui shama’on ke saath… (Shama’on = candles). It will not be easy to forget Faraz. He will be remembered though he is not in our ‘mehfil’: To laut kar bhi ahle-tamanna ko kush nahi Main lut kar bhi wafa kay inhi kaaflon mein hoon Badla na mayray baad bhi mozon-e-guftagu Main jaa chuka phir bhi teri mehfilon mein hoon… We have lost Faraz forever. In his own words: Ab ke ham bichhde to shaayad kabhi khwaabon mein milen Jis tarah sukhe hue phool kitaaboN mein milen Those who know Urdu will understand the essence of the above verse because these lines will get derailed in English!

Dispossessed Gets Possession

Mahmoud Darwish: An icon says goodbye



Mahmoud Darwish, the “sightless vagrant” finally got a place, a grave to declare as his own. All through his life he lived the life of a gypsy who finally found his resting place, Do gaz zameen (Two yards underground), in Ramallah. He was an important pillar of Palestinian Dream. Like the late Edward Said, Darwish employed his pen to shape the Palestinian Dream. The former chose prose while the latter stuck to poetry.

Darwish, 67, who passed away following heart surgery in a Houston hospital on August 9, must have been aware of a word called death. It is an inescapable noun which puts a full stop to a short as well as a long sentence called life. Darwish knew this pretty well. In a recent poem titled ‘The Dice Thrower’ Darwish saw death knocking on his doorstep.

“To Life I say: Go slow, wait for me until the drunkenness dries in my glass.
I have no role in what I was or who I will be.
It is chance and chance has no name.
I call the doctor 10 minutes before the death, 10 minutes are sufficient to live by chance.”

Mahmoud Darwish, the internationally renowned poet, was a man of pain and poems. Darwish was part of the Arab Exodus of 1948. If his forced exile signified pain his poems stood for Palestine. When he was stripped of an Israeli passport in 1971, he penned a poem called ‘Passport’ in which he challenged the idea of passport:

Stripped of my name and identity?On a soil I nourished with my own hands?
All the hearts of the people are my identitySo take away my passport!

Mahmoud Darwish was an epitome of dispossession, subjugation, and exile. In his poetry Palestine was a “metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.”

Israel always saw Darwish as an enemy but Darwish was not against the Jews. He was against the State’s policy towards fellow Palestinians. In an interview with Susan Sachs he had made it abundantly clear:

“The accusation is that I hate Jews. It’s not comfortable that they show me as a devil and an enemy of Israel. I am not a lover of Israel, of course. I have no reason to be. But I don’t hate Jews. (New York Times, March 7, 2000).

A cursory glance through Darwish’s poem reveals that he wrote poems for Palestine but it had universal appeal. His poetry infiltrated Israel but yet he was not allowed to set foot in Israel for almost 30 years!

His love for fellow human beings reflects in the following extract of his speech:

“I will continue to humanise even the enemy... The first teacher who taught me Hebrew was a Jew. The first love affair in my life was with a Jewish girl. The first judge who sent me to prison was a Jewish woman. So from the beginning, I didn’t see Jews as devils or angels but as human beings…These poems take the side of love not war.”

His poem ‘Identity Card’ chillingly summed up the complications of being a Palestinian in Occupied Palestine. It warns of hunger as well as anger; the only weapon of the dispossessed:

I have a name without a title
Record on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper’s flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger!

His poetic brevity did what a book can’t do. Sample the following couplet:

A woman told the cloud: cover my beloved
For my clothing is drenched with his blood.

To writers all across the world, he communicated the pain of his writing:

Writing is a puppy biting nothingness
Writing wounds without a trace of blood.

People find love in life but Darwish was an exception. He found love in death; in meeting with his beloved land:

I am the lover and the land is the beloved.

The man who used his pen to ‘cultivate hope’ is gone but he kept hope alive in the form of bitter sarcasm:

The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty!

Darwish, the man who talked about identity all through his life, went prepared. 'I am not Mine' was the title of one of his poems.

Even if I spell it (my name) wrong on the coffin – Is mine..

Darwish can now claim to be an owner. At least of his name if not his land.

Hikma’s Innovation, R&D Leads to Global Expansion

Hikma being listed at London Stock Exchange

“Innovation, said Steve Jobs, “distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” By that standard, Jordan-originated multinational company Hikma Pharmaceuticals falls in the category of a ‘leader.’

With a modest start from Jordan in 1978, Hikma has grown into a global pharmaceutical giant with 176 pharmaceutical products in 397 dosage strengths and forms in 40 different countries.

In the beginning, Hikma’s “primary focus” was to develop branded pharmaceuticals business across Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Today, the company has become a leading pharmaceutical giant having a significant presence in MENA, United States and Europe. The company’s strength can be gauged from the fact that its total revenue shot to $448.8m in 2007, an increase of 41.6% from the previous year, underlying revenue growth of 28%.

The buzzwords that sum up Hikma’s miraculous rise are: Innovation, Research & Development, and Acquisitions. These words define the corporate identity of Hikma. These words have breathed life into Hikma or vice versa.

Since its inception, Hikma has persistently indulged in innovation. No wonder in barely three years after entering the United States, it became FDA compliant in 1994. Two years later, it became the first Arab company to get FDA approval.

It was because of Hikma’s innovation that it started manufacturing injectable pharmaceutical products in Portugal in the year 1997. Four years later, it began manufacturing injectable powdered cephalosporin for the MENA and Portugal. Since then, as the company website puts it, Hikma has expanded significantly, both organically and through acquisition.

Hikma's business

Hikma’s business can be broadly divided into three categories: Branded, Generics and Injectables.

With an impressive experience of almost three decades in pharmaceuticals, Hikma has an array of branded products of “consistently high standard.” It is because of this reputation that multinationals turn to Hikma to manufacture and market their branded pharmaceuticals under in-licensing agreement. Hikma has 236 branded products (including 33 in-licensed products). In 2007, Branded products yielded a whopping profit of $198.9m.

In Generics, the company sells unbranded generic products in the United States, one of the world’s most competitive pharmaceutical markets. To satisfy “cost-conscious” customers, Hikam sells a broad range of high and low volume products. This business operates under West-ward label. The company has 44 non-branded generic products whose profit was $124.2m in 2007.

In Injectable business, Hikma manufactures and sells generic injectable pharmaceuticals as well as some branded injectable products under license. Hikma is becoming a leader in this category with their injectables being sold in MENA, Europe and United States. Injectables, consisting of 73 products, produced a profit of $121.2m.

A Strong R&D team

Hikma success also lies in its strong research and development team. The company has 127 scientists and experts dealing with pharmaceutical formulation, process optimization, analytical chemistry and drug delivery. The R&D team consists of strong technical expertise which focuses on niche and higher margin products. The team looks for products with a strong market potential or the products which are fast growing in therapeutic categories.

Hikma’s R&D capabilities have been taken seriously. In 2007 alone, the company received 129 product approvals in a range of therapeutic categories. With effective R&D, Hikma has a strong pipeline of products waiting approval.

Strategy Emboldened by LSE (London Stock Exchange) Listing

Hikma’s listing on LSE (London Stock Exchange) in November 2005 marked the beginning of a new era in the Company’s development giving it major financial flexibility.

Hikma’s strategy is simple: to build a strong and diverse product portfolio; to expand geographic reach; to develop and leverage global research and development capabilities. Its strategy also aims to “maintain the very high standards” for manufacturing capabilities.

Across its three core businesses (Branded, Generics and Injectables), Hikma has three strategic aims:

1. To consolidate strong market position in the MENA region by launching new products, expanding geographic reach and increasing market share.

2. To grow Injectable business by expanding product portfolio, developing manufacturing capabilities and strengthening sales and marketing network.

3. To continue to pursue profitable growth and maintain significant cash generation in the United States by focusing on high margin, niche product opportunities.

For Hikma, 2007 was the year of acquisitions. Hikma made four acquisitions: Alkhan Pharma (Egypt), Arab Pharmaceutical Manufacturers - APM (Jordan and Saudi Arabia), Ribosepharm and Thymoorgan (Germany).

On Course for Major Global Expansion

In just a year’s time Hikma’s product portfolio base has been transformed: It launched 28 new products, received 167 approvals across all businesses and geographies and submitted 74 regulatory filings in Jordan, the US and Europe alone.

Said Darwazah, Chief Executive of Hikma, is confident that the company has never been in such a strong position before.

“Our position as a leading pharmaceutical manufacturer in the MENA region is stronger than ever,” he said. He was equally confident about the company’s portfolio base and manufacturing capabilities.

“We have an excellent product portfolio, a large and growing sales and marketing team and excellent manufacturing capabilities that enable us to take advantage of the extremely favourable market environment in which we operate,” he said.

Acquisitions in MENA region have boosted the morale of its Chairman. “Through the two acquisitions we made in the region this year, we are rolling out our successful business model into new markets like Egypt and strengthening our position in our core and developing markets like Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries,” he said.

With an enviable balance sheet, Hikma’s future looks radiant. The Group gross margin made a healthy 49.3%, 14.8% increase in profit attributable to shareholders, which strengthened its balance sheet and the company’s ability to finance future growth. The company also raised gross proceeds of $160m to fund acquisition of APM.

Mr. Darwazah is hopeful that 2008 will be extremely fruitful for the company.

“We expect another year of strong performance in 2008 driven by our Branded and Injectable businesses as we continue to grow Hikma into a leading specialty pharmaceutical company and deliver high returns on investment to our shareholders,” he said.

Copyright Material: http://www.dinarstandard.com/innovation/Hikma071308.htm

A Poona Diary

Poona: Rise in high-rises

What do you do when a torrent of thoughts keep pouring in like Poona's intermittent raindrops? You try to store them in transient human memory. But human memory is no safe deposit vault. Reliance on human memory is untenable in today's fast-paced world where history is being digitally recorded. So how does one treat the torrential thoughts? Should the thoughts be allowed to fall like Niagara Falls or should we make those thoughts still like dam water? Words are the only way one can standstill the moments.

As the rain gods emptied their water drums, I was compelled to uncork my bottled thoughts. If rains can wash away the layered dirt, thoughts can cleanse one's conscience. Poona is the city of purity!

Poona, once a grand empire of Maratha emperors, has become an emperor of education. It was Nehru who had crowned Poona as "Oxford of the East." Poona is a towering educational hub for Easterners who look at Oxford with awe and reverence. I was lucky to be part of the great Indian "Oxford" which taught me common sense as well as the fine art of unravelling a communal mind. When Gujarat 2002 genocide took place under the edgy knife of the great Indian butcher, I was in the second year of my graduation. In those days the best way to recognize a communalist was to give him morning newspaper and observe his wrinkles making various angles. Most of the student faces wouldn't frown; they would develop some uneasy lines and the lines suggested a sinister smile. That smile was a defeat of human conscience.

In the last six years Poona has transformed into an adult city. If adolescence creates hormonal imbalances adulthood makes visible signs of its arrival. Poona, no doubt, has become adult, but it suffers from mall mentality; the newest economic disease plaguing India. High-rises do not reflect a city's growth; it mirrors corporate greed. Should we measure a city's growth by abundance of malls and high-rises or by number of beggars on a posh M.G. Road? The answer lies in the economic principle of moderation. In economics, too much of anything is bad.

Poona is Bombay's competing cousin: frequent traffic jams, rising pollution levels, sudden increase in crime and violence. But yet Poona is a far better cousin than Bombay. The difference between Poona and Bombay is that of a noun and an adjective: Poona is fun, Bombay is funny!
Was 'Poona' a spelling mistake? Or a result of colonial hangover?

No. Poona is more civilized than Pune.

Raj Thackeray's threat is visible on nameplates of foreign fast food giants like Pizza Hut and Dominos: they have learned to write their names in Marathi. It is altogether a different matter that Maharashtra assembly has passed a resolution to this effect. I am not against Marathi language; I am against the compulsion. Raj threat can result in electoral loss of the ruling class so there is a race to appease the Marathi Manoos. Not long ago, Uddhav Thackeray and Ramdas Athavale were at loggerheads to appease the Marathi Manoos: Shiv vada pav versus Bheem vada pav! Can vada pav economically uplift a community? My Marathi friends don't think so!

A short visit to Symbiosis, my alma mater, reveals that it has changed completely. Printed forms are history and internet is no longer a mystery! There are no queues. It offers an excellent lesson to Bombay's colleges.

Poona is a city of endless opportunities where opportunity knocks as well as lingers.

Afterthought: Why is Mulayam getting really Mulayam for Sonia Gandhi? Because he is the velvet carpet of UPA chairperson!

The Ritual of Recommendation

The Man of Recommendation: Dr. Mahmud-ur-Rahman in Malegaon

If communalism is BJP’s base, appeasement is a Congress tradition. If BJP has been hostile towards Muslims, Congress has been indifferent. If BJP pours its venom of communalism openly, Congress keeps that venom afloat and takes out when there is any need for political display. To an Indian Muslim, BJP is an open enemy while Congress has been an unfaithful friend.

Is there any difference between an enemy and an unfaithful friend?

In the eighties and nineties, BJP became visible from negligible because of its anti-Muslim politics and the so called “old wound” on Indian civilization: Babri Masjid. For Congress, Babri Masjid was a game of hide-and-seek. It flirted with the Hindus as well as the Muslims. If Rajiv Gandhi did not understand the seriousness of Masjid-Mandir politics, Narsimha Rao was well aware of its consequences yet he believed in the official art of winking! That fateful day, he did not wink, he was in fact sleeping!

If Hindu fanatics of RSS, Bajranj Dal and BJP brought down Babri Masjid, secular men of Congress gave us Liberhan commission; the country’s longest running inquiry commission yet to submit its report after 16 years! If BJP demolished Babri Masjid in a day, Congress indecision has taken 16 years. If BJP has physically desecrated the Muslim heritage, Congress has mentally raped Indian Muslims for 16 years.

Is there any difference between an enemy and an unfaithful friend?

Post-Babri demolition, Congress continued its policy of hide-and-seek. It is altogether a different matter that Congress does not know the trick to hide and the sense to seek. It is a party whose fate is always in a state of permanent confusion. When at the Centre, it keeps dangling between right and left. Pendulum politics has been eating up its electoral share. When will Congress learn to be in the centre?

BJP, on the other hand, has always been a right-wing party but like Congress it too does not enjoy consistency and political permanence. When it comes to power, it quietly changes its colour from saffron to green. Green is not the colour of Islam it is a colour of peace. BJP advocates peaceful negotiation of Babri Masjid-Ram Mandir dispute. It undresses its violent robes and dons the dress of masses. Can an Indian survive for 16 years on a one-meal-called Ayodhya? BJP knows that Ayodhya can’t feed India’s farmers so it’s better to talk about governance. Good governance is better than Lord Ram!

Good governance is good but trumpeting good governance is bad! BJP learned this political lesson when it slipped on India shining campaign.

Congress which benefited from BJP’s debacle thought it obligatory to reward its Muslim vote-bank. It was indeed an honourable intention. Congress, India’s oldest party, is yet to learn how to reward loyalty. One should pay royalty to reward loyalty! Alas, Congress continued its old and grand tradition of going into stone-age. It stuck to its old tools of appeasement: Committee and Commission; the 2cs which have become the destiny of Indian Muslims.

It’s like using telex in an age of internet!

First it was the Sachar committee report. Then came the mute Ministry of Minority Affairs. It is a crawling ministry whose only function is to distribute fallen crumbs after the cream has been licked by the upper crust. BJP behaved like a barking dog. The Indian Muslim was caught in this crossfire and felt guilty of being ‘appeasement.’ Fallen crumbs don’t fill a community’s stomach.

Congress was so pleased with its crumb-distributing ceremony at the Centre that it decided to set up one such state ministry in Maharashtra!

Sachar committee was not enough! On May 11, Vilasrao Deshmukh announced formation of a six-member research committee to analyse social, educational and economic conditions of Muslims in Maharashtra. Dr. Mahmud-ur-Rahman, a former Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, is the chairman of the committee which will submit its provisional report on June 30.
When this columnist asked the chairman (who was in Malegaon recently) why do we need a separate committee when Sachar Committee has already done the job assigned to this committee, he said, “Sachar has only diagnosed the disease. We will offer prescription in the form of policy and schemes.”

Will the findings and recommendations of this committee have a binding on the state government? The answer is obviously no. If the Congress-NCP alliance is really sincere in uplifting Muslims, they should follow the example of Shahu Maharaja of Akola, the father of social reform. He did a lot to uplift lower castes way back in the first quarter of 19th Century. And he did not need any committee to do that. He only believed in one word: legislation.

The day average Muslims realize the fundamental difference between recommendation and legislation, Congress will never ever come back to power again.

So is there any difference between an enemy and an unfaithful friend?

Looming Crisis of Powerlooms

Powerloom: When clatter and clang came to a standstill

As powerloom weavers of Maharashtra observed state-wide bandh (on June 16) called by Indian Powerloom Federation and Maharashtra Powerloom Federation over escalating yarn prices and dwindling prices of grey-cloth, a question must be posed: who must be blamed for this textile crisis which is threatening the 19 lakh strong powerloom industry for the past two months?

Should we blame the local trader who very often resorts to black marketing and hoarding in order to artificially raise the yarn prices? Or should the blame be passed on to the spinning mill owners who are well aware of the art of market manipulation?The above two questions very often determine the fate of the weavers but this time the real reason behind the ongoing recession lay somewhere else. The crisis is wrapped in two words: cotton export.

According to Cotton Advisory Board (a government body under the Central Textile Ministry) the cotton export for the year 2007-2008 is 8.5 million bales, (one cotton bale consists of 170 kgs) out of which 60% has gone to China alone!

India's cotton-based textile industry had been doing extremely well during the year 2003 to 2007, due to the adequate availability of good quality home grown cotton. But during the year 2007-08, apart from various other factors like sudden appreciation of rupee against US dollar, escalation in bank interest rate, slump in the local and export markets, the abnormal cotton price has totally paralysed the performance of the textile industry and in this scenario, even the top ticket mills are incurring huge losses.

If Shri J.Thulasidharan, Deputy Chairman of SIMA (The Southern India Mills' Association) is to be believed government of India did not take necessary steps to control the unabated export of the cotton. He has gone on record to say that many multi national cotton traders, unlike previous year, have entered into the Indian market and dominated the cotton purchases from the beginning of this season. He has warned that if the present trend continues, the spinning mills would be closed soon.

The one cotton candy (which consists of 356 kgs) is normally priced at Rs. 19,000 but this year because of scarcity of the cotton it is being sold at Rs. 25,000 per candy, an increase of more than 35%.

Even CITI (Confederation of Indian Textiles Industry) chairman PD Patodia has warned that "unchecked cotton exports is not healthy for domestic firms. The government has to give heed to industry's concern."

The textiles industry has already asked to put a curb on cotton exports in order to keep a check on prices but the government is in no mood to listen. In an interview given to Reuters on May 8, Union Textile Minister Shankar Singh Vaghela was ecstatic about cotton production. "If the monsoons are good", he said, "We may see production of 35 million bales in 2008-2009." He did not speak a single word about escalating cotton export, which is having a disastrous impact on the powerloom weavers across the country. Interestingly, it is not the farmers who are making money out of the cotton exports but the intermediaries.

Steep cotton prices directly affect yarn prices. And a steep yarn price means an increase in the cost of production of grey-clothes.

Before 2003, when the excise was imposed on powerloom industry, weavers did not know the terminology of loss. With the implementation of free quote trade from January 1, 2005, plain shuttle powerloom products are facing a stiff competition.

In such a scenario, what the powerloom weavers of Maharashtra should do? Blaming the local trader or baniya will not serve the purpose. Market does not always dance to a Baniya or Marwari's tunes; it functions on an economic term called market forces. Our government needs an effective regulation to curb the undue cotton export to the foreign countries. Government must ensure that the cotton is supplied in the domestic market first. Foreign players, offering lucrative prices, must wait in a queue.It is only by altering the government's policy towards the cotton export; weavers can overcome the present crisis of the power loom industry. Are they ready to compel the government to change its policy?

The Irony of IPL

Too Pawar-ful to handle: Shane Warne and Sharad Pawar at IPL Final

Nobody would have though that Yusuf Pathan, the son of a muezzin, would make Rajasthan Royals truly royal with his bat and ball. If his father made his bread by his sonorous voice, Yusuf made his butter by his bat and ball. Yusuf, like his younger brother Irfan, is a shining example of a torrential transformation of a young Indian Muslim. The blood brothers have redefined the concept of economic empowerment for a community whose majority is yet to grapple with the comprehensive meaning of the terminology. The two brothers who grew up playing cricket inside a mosque and a nearby ground wouldn't have dreamt to come so far. If international cricket gave Irfan an opportunity, IPL transformed his brother's shaky cricket career into a stable one. An impoverished family has become stable because of the cricket. IPL has further pushed it into an economic exaltation.

I find it strange why Rajasthan Royals, champions of the first T20 IPL tournament, were billed as underdogs. The underdogs – a coinage of some contemptuous commentators – have proved to be super-dogs. Is there any criterion in cricket to affix the label of underdogs? It was because of the psychology of superiority that our men of mike didn't term Mumbai Indians or Bangalore Royal Challengers as underdogs. After all they are owned by the high and mighty of the corporate world. Cricket is a funny game. Even a Nostradamus can't predict a team's fallout.

The good thing about IPL is that it was the triumph of humility over arrogance. Rajasthan Royals, IPL's cheapest franchisee, was an extremely courteous team. Their win signifies victory of courtesy over callousness. Men of bang were reduced to a whimper: Sachin Tendulkar, Shoab Akhtar, Rahul Dravid; the list is long.

The first IPL tournament was an exercise of "ego-driven carnage" where corporate cats (half of them directly or indirectly related to BCCI) bid to buy cream players. It is altogether a different matter that they couldn't milk enough cream out of them. Corporate greed stings. It has stung liquor baron Vijay Mallya who still believes that money can buy you everything. You can buy men with money but not their talent. That brings us to some interesting questions: Should cricket players be treated as a commodity? Or should they offer themselves for a price, that too in an auction? Is commodification of cricket quite similar to prostitution? Did IPL contaminate the purity of a game called cricket? Although I am not a purist but these harsh questions deserve honest answers.

IPL pioneered the concept of hired cheerleading in the Indian cricket. Whether cheerleaders need a cover drive or an extra cover is a different debate but one thing is certain: we ordinary Indians don't know how to cheer! Since cheering was assigned to surgical babes of Russia and elsewhere, we Indians were left with one thing: cricketing voyeurism! When was the last time, spectators witnessed a surge in their testosterone levels?

In an age of globalization, cricket is shedding nationalistic inhibitions. IPL blurred borders. The wall of race, religion and colour came down crumbling: When did you see Sourav Ganguly hugging Shoab Akhtar? Can an IPL improve Indo-Pak relations? If the answer is yes, we should play more T20 matches.

The irony of IPL lies with the iron man of Maharashtra: Sharad Pawar. A strange sense of nostalgia engulfed me as I watched Sharad Pawar distributing medals and prizes. His was a truly remarkable gesture of honouring men who deserved it. The iron man happens to be India's agriculture minister as well. Had he rewarded India's farmers, things would have been different. All he did was to dish out a dole of loan-waiver. The loan-waiver means nothing to a farmer who wouldn't have repaid it anyway. Thousands of farmers have committed suicide in Vidarbh region in Maharashtra. Sharad Pawar should have remembered them at his finest moment of 'cricketainment' career. The game of cricket can never take place without a farmer's cotton. The "stench" of money in IPL can make one nauseating. May be IPL should donate some for the have-nots. A question for Sharad Pawar: Can't IPL have a farmers' fund?

In the first half of twentieth Century Cricket was part and parcel of the British colonization. In the twenty first Century, Indians are colonizing fellow Indians.

State Win and a Capital Dream

Saffron Travels South: A BJP Worker celebrates in Karnataka (Pic: PTI)

Change is the only constant factor in the Indian politics. Political parties are not winning by chance but by the slogan of change. From Mayawati to Malegaon, change is the only constant noun voters are keen to pronounce. This seismic change-flow has the potential to change a young man’s dynastic dreams! After Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh in North, change is threatening to travel to a dreaded territory: Southern India.

BJP’s impressive and historic delivery in Karnataka was a result of a clever conception. BJP planned a political pregnancy much ahead of Congress party. Congress would love to get politically pregnant but it does not know the time of its conception. In-vitro-fertilization does not work in politics. Congress thought November to be an auspicious month of delivery while BJP delivered a full-grown baby in the last week of May!

Five months’ delay in a political delivery can make you wait for another five years.

Rahul Gandhi, “the future Prime Minster of India,” had planned to impregnate Karnataka in five hours. He visited Karnataka for a day and dedicated barely five hours to woo (campaigns, of course) its voters. Even a Romeo would not be so harsh for his Juliet!

For Janata Dal (S), Karnataka election was a total dejection. Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda’s political career has been eclipsed by 30-seat loss. Deve Gowda considered Karnataka as his mother-in-laws’ house where he will only be pampered by votes but the verdict proved to be totally different. You can’t fool the same set of people again and again. Before Deve Gowda could outdo BJP by playing caste card; BJP wrote a political obituary of Janata Dal (S). Voters don’t forget politicians who don’t honour their words. Public memory is definitely not short. Deve Gowda must always remember one thing: In politics, loyalty can turn lethal if you don’t distribute royalty!

What brought saffron party to power is an interesting question. It portrayed itself as the only “alternative.” A party whose fate has suffered “backstabbing” and “betrayal” can expect public healing. It was the wave of change that worked in favour of the BJP. Public believed in BJP but yet Rajnath Singh did not believe in himself. “BJP is an all-India party now,” he said. That statement lay between excitement and hysteria. Nobody said that BJP is a regional party.
One might term this ludicrous but I firmly believe that four pillars of UPA government have played a pivotal role in BJP’s victory: Sharad Pawar, P Chidambaram, Manmoham Singh and Sonia Gandhi.

Sharad Pawar, who has a penchant for cricket (its no longer cricket, it should be called moneytainment), does not have time for agriculture ministry. He only believes in politics and not policy. All of a sudden he wakes up from his deep slumber and declares total ban on the wheat export. Is that policy? That’s the politics of next general election to control the monster of inflation. Our union finance minister, who wears a sophisticated dhoti, does not know a thing or two about the inflation. Does he know that 19 lakh power loom weavers across the country are incurring losses because of the inflation? When his ministry could not contain inflation, all he did was to threaten steel and cement companies. To him, inflation is like a desert storm which comes all of a sudden with no prior warning. Manmohan Singh, India’s gentlest Prime Minister, believes in delegation but not in responsibility. He keeps himself in mute-mode and perhaps considers assertion a sinful indulgence. Even if he tries to assert himself, our Finance Minister does not care. Sonia Gandhi, a woman of conscience, observes but still keeps her cool. Where is the power of authority?

Mismanagement at the Centre had an impact in Karnataka. It’s high time that Congress learns from sins of omission and commission. In an era of coalition politics, Congress is still searching political partners in order to get pregnant in the second half of 2009. Conception depends on the right match. Will Congress find one or many? Ground is fertile but Congress does not have a conception plan yet. BJP has just won a state; it can win entire India if Congress continues its policy of indifference.

Is Maharashtra Heading for a Big Riot?

Shiv Sena people distributing the controversial CD in Aurangabad

There have been four riots in April in the Mara­thwada region: Sevali (3 April, Jalna district); Rav­er and Chopda (13 and 22 April, Jalgaon district); Bharari (18 April, Aurangabad district). The rea­son was the same. A controversial CD with a song, Kasam Ram ki khate hain, Mandir wahin banayenge (We take oath on Ram, we will build the temple there — Ayodhya), is being played in public, inciting anger among Muslims.

In Muslim-majority Sevali, Muslims objected when the song was played at a paan stall just outside a mosque. The in­cident blew up. Muslims resorted to stone pelting and stab­bing. At least seven Hindus have been stabbed. As a pro­test, Hindu organisations like the VHP, Bajrang Dal, BJP, Shiv Sena and Arya Samaj called for a district bandh. Volun­teers forced shops to down their shutters. Public buses were stoned. Slogans like "Anyone living in this country will have to say Vande Mataram" were raised.

Hundreds — belonging to both communities — have been arrested.

"Some Muslims here have become so sensitive, they al­ways overreact," said Amit Pradhan, a resident of Sevali.

"As far as the controversial CD episode is concerned, it was just one of the manifestations of communalism. Mara­thwada is communally sensitive. The basic cause of commu­nalism in Marathwada region is that people harbour a sense of revenge against the Nizam's rule (the region belonged to the pre-partition Hyderabad state)," scholar Ashgar Ali Engi­neer, who has documented almost each and every riot since 1961, told Covert.

In Raver, Jalgaon, the VHP annd Bajrang Dal organised a re­ligious procession without clearance from the police on Ram Navami. As it passed a Muslim mohalla near Kotlawada Masjid, provocative slogans were raised and somebody threw gulal on the mosque. Muslims reacted.

"The police tried to pacify the people, but nobody would listen. At least seven policemen have been injured in the communal clash," said Mushtaq Karimi, a social worker.

Both Hindus and Muslims have suffered. Most houses set on fire belonged to Hindus, while Muslims are being ha­rassed after the event. Of the 60 arrested, 50 are Muslims and ten Hindus.
"Muslim youths have been terrorised by mindless arrests. They are fleeing from their villages to the safer ghettos. It's the same story everywhere," Engineer lamented. Argues Ab­dul Karim Salar, a Jalgaon-based former politician and ed­ucationist, "It is a fact that Hindus have suffered more in financial terms, but does that give licence to the police to terrorise an entire community?" No action has been taken against the 'illegal' procession.

A Scuffle between a Hindu and Muslim in Chopda, Jalgaon, built quickly into a confrontation. Two Hindus died in po­lice firing. Shops and houses belonging to Muslims were set on fire.

"Police acted only when rioters started using kero­sene. Rioters turned their rage on the police, and one cop, Prakash Hake, was dragged by the collar for about 20 feet," one eyewitness said on the condition of anonymity. "The mob poured kerosene on him, but before he could be set alight, police opened fire and two Hindus died on the spot." 19 Hindus have been arrested so far.

In Aurangabad's Muslim majorirty Bharari village, the con­troversial song was being played outside a mosque as Mus­lims were offering the evening prayer. Minutes later, a near­by paan stall owned by a Muslim was attacked. Muslims allege that rioters wore saffron masks and raised provocative slo­gans. Muslims cowered in the mosque, shielded by the po­lice. Mumtaz Khan Pathan, owner of Yash Photo Studio who used to provide pictures to the press in Aurangabad district, became a story himself. "All my belongings worth Rs 240,000 have been vandalised," he said.

Ashgar Ali Engineer described the Marathwada region as communally "overactive" while western Maharashtra is mere­ly "active". He warned the state government that communal forces might try to stoke communal passions all across Maharashtra.

COVERT Magazine, May 15 – May 30

http://www.covert.co.in/mubasshir.htm

'Fitna' of Geert Wilders

Geert Wilders: Hate lies in the eyes of the beholder!

In just six different verses of the Qur’an, Geert Wilders – the infamous Dutch Parliamentarian who had once said that the Qur’an must be banned – sums up the world’s fastest growing religion: Islam is essentially an intolerant and violent religion. This approach itself is a fanatical example of Fitna. In Arabic, the word Fitna means tumult or oppression. The selective approach reflects a sordid act of oppression. Cinematic oppression based on bias, hatred and a half-hearted understanding of a Christian fundamentalist who does not know the comprehensive meaning of the word ‘freedom.’

I can quote six, sixteen and even sixty verses from the Old and New Testament which openly advocate violence. Does that make Judaism and Christianity violent religions? I can quote the same number of violent verses from Bhagavad Gita in which Krishna tells Arjuna to wage war (Dharma Yuddha) on his own brothers and relatives. Does that make Hinduism a violent religion? The answer is a firm no.

Text and context of the violent verses must be kept in mind. I am not an Islamic scholar, but it is true that plenty of verses of the Qur’an were revealed in the midst of a battlefield when Prophet recited them in a state of trance. Also, one would be shocked and not surprised to find out that the Qur’an contains naskh (abrogating) and mansukh (abrogated) verses. Qur’an says, “When We substitute one revelation for another – and Allah knows best what He reveals (in stages) – they say, ‘Thou art but a forger’: but most of them understand not.” (16: 101)

Be aware of the learned man’s false knowledge! Don’t be surprised if you come across scholarly essays which argue that Qur’an is full of contradictions! Even a scholar like Fareed Zakaria’s stature has suffered from this syndrome.

Conjecture is a dangerous approach when speaking of the Qur’an. Conjecture follows lines, which reflect the lust of men’s own hearts.

Abdullah Yusuf Ali, the ace commentator of Qur’an, describes them as “men with a manifest turn of mind” and whose knowledge will be “limited to the narrow circle in which their thoughts move.”

Qur’an must not be interpreted on the basis of some verses it must be interpreted in its totality. To quote professor Abdur Rahman I Doi would be apt:

“Supposing someone takes the Qur’an in his hand at random, then begins to read it by grouping together all the chapters dealing with the same topic or rearranging them subject-wise or according to order of their revelation, and then begins to interpret it according to this newly designed system and looks for some hidden meanings within the text. Then this would be wholly inconsistent with the spirit of the Book, because the Qur’an in fact reflects the totality of vision, and with perfect comprehensiveness, it presents an integrated picture of life. While treating the study of the Qur’an like the study of any other book, many superfluous scholars have gone wrong.”

The 17 minute documentary opens with the cartoon of Prophet Muhammad in whose turban a live-bomb is attached. Verses from the Qur’an are pitted against the various terrorist activities and bombings worldwide as if every suicide bomber and martyr wants a virile virgin in the Paradise. Social and economic issues – the root causes of most of the violent activities all across the globe – have been carefully overlooked as if Islam is the opium whose sole quality is to stimulate violence.

What troubles Wilders is Islam’s growing “spell” on Netherlands and Europe. No doubt, Islam is on the rise. In fact it has been resurgent in Europe and America. The hate speech of Pope Benedict XVI in September 2006 reflects official Christendom’s discomfort with the growing Islam. Pope’s rant (“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”) does not find any takers in today’s globalised world where Islam’s rate of growth is simply based on one word: Peace!

Which Islamic army went to China, America, Indonesia, Japan and many more countries where Islam has spread by other means? Suffice it to note that Islam spread to China because of business ethics. Muslim traders taught Chinese what business honesty means.

Wilders’ wildest fantasy is to “defeat” Islam the way Nazism and Communism were defeated in 1945 and 1989 respectively. Islam is different from ‘isms’ and ‘ideologies.’ Isms and ideologies can be defeated but Islam can never be defeated. Am I sounding like a fatal fundamentalist? No. The reason is simple: Islam is not a religion but a way of life. Can you defeat a way of life?

Wilders understanding the word ‘freedom’ is flawed. He only believes in the bodily forms of liberation. No wonder he is concerned that there is no ban on burqa in Netherlands! We are living in a strange world where bikini is ‘civilised’ and burqa is ‘barbaric!’ What we do is ‘freedom’. What others do is ‘fanaticism!’

Wilders can’t digest the flourishing Halal-investment industry in Netherlands. What would happen if Muslims suddenly withdraw their savings and investments from various financial institutions of Netherlands? The country would receive an economic jolt. Should we call it an economic boycott or an economic Jihad?

Wilders carefully avoids portraying his own faith. The history of Christianity is bloodier as well as more spiteful than the history of Islam. Any historian blessed with common sense would agree. One only needs to read M.J. Akbar’s The Shade of Swords. In a chapter called Circle of Hell, the author conclusively proves that the hate culture of Christendom was more venomous than that of Islam. To deny Jesus is to deny Islam. “Islam can survive with Jesus as a Prophet; Christianity cannot if Muhammad, and not Christ, is the last Messenger,” Akbar writes.

Qur’an is not a book of hatred but a book of humanity. Qur’an calls Christians and Jews as Ahle-Kitaab, People of the Book, a respectable title indeed. It does not call them ‘pigs’ as the documentary purports.

The documentary ends when the live-bomb attached to the Prophet Muhammad’s turban explodes. By portraying Prophet Muhammad in offensive cartoons, the ‘enlightened West’ is using its best weapon: ridicule.

A messenger of hate bares the strategy of ridicule:

“The ridicule-armed warrior need not fix a physical sight on the target. Ridicule will find its own way to the targeted individual…To the enemy, ridicule can be worse than death. At least many enemies find death to be a supernatural martyrdom. Ridicule is much worse: destruction without martyrdom: A fate worse than death.”

Islam is not a religion of ridicule; it is a religion of reason. “Invite (all) to the Way of thy Lord,” says the Qur’an, “with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious…(16: 125)

Sane voices do good things in strange ways. Not many would know that Dutch Jewish TV producer, Harry De Winter has criticised Fitna, which he calls as “anti-Semitic.” Harry has come out with a bold advertisement on the front page of the newspaper Volkskrant. The ad reads:

What is your message?

“We Jews know better than anyone else what this sort of discrimination can lead to. Wilders claims that the Muslims must be dealt with and that the Koran is a fascist book. That’s how the persecution of Jews once started, by generalization. Therefore, it is time for a sharper criticism from the Jewish community. If you say the same thing about the Jews or Israel, you are considered an anti-Semite and ostracized. It is good that this feeling of justice is so strong, but, for me, there is no difference between the yarmulke and the headscarf.

If Wilders had said the same thing about Jews (and the Old Testament) as he does about Muslims (and the Koran), he would have been ostracized a long time ago and accused of anti-Semitism.”

Rabble-rousers like Wilders will not flourish in today’s multi-cultural society. They would go down in the dustbin of history as nobodies.

Hyper-reactions, Akbar writes sensibly, tend to suggest nervousness. “Islam is not a weak doctrine; it is built on rock, not sand. Reason is a more effective weapon than anger.”