Hits it on the nail.  Interestingly secular India was the first country to ban Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” to appease its Muslim minorities. Secularism in India has come to mean pandering to minority demands.

India Appeases Radical Islam
By SADANAND DHUME, November 27, 2007; Page A18
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119613137833704851.html? (subscription based)

Friday’s multiple bomb blasts in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh — which killed 13 people and injured about 80 — ought to give pause to those who see the world’s largest democracy as a linchpin in the war on terror. India’s leaders and diplomats seek to portray the country as a firebreak against radical Islam, or the drive to impose the medieval Arab norms enshrined in Shariah law on 21st century life. In reality, India is ill- equipped to fight this scourge.

Like neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh, (and unlike Turkey or Tunisia) India has failed to modernize much of its Muslim population. Successive generations of politicians have pandered to the most backward elements of India’s 150-million strong Muslim population, the second largest in the world after Indonesia’s. India has allowed Muslims to follow Shariah in civil matters such as marriage, divorce and inheritance. An increasingly radicalized neighborhood, fragmented domestic politics and a curiously timid mainstream discourse on Islam add up to hobble India’s response to radical Islamic intimidation.

Most Indian Muslims have nothing to do with terrorism, and are more concerned with the struggles of daily life than the effort to create a global caliphate. Muslim contributions to the fabric of national life — most visible in sports, movies and the arts — should not be dismissed.

Furthermore, religious zealotry in India is not a Muslim monopoly. Still, the notion that Indian Islam is uniquely tolerant, or somehow immune to the rising tide of world-wide radical sentiment, is a myth.

Last year, Haji Muhammad Yaqoob Qureshi, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, publicly offered a $11 million bounty for beheading the Danish cartoonists who had drawn the prophet Mohammed. In high-tech Hyderabad, parts of which are Muslim strongholds, three sitting legislators of a local Islamic party recently roughed up Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi author critical of her country’s treatment of its Hindu minority and her faith’s treatment of women. Last week, the government of West Bengal state in eastern India had to call in the army to quell Muslim rioters in Calcutta, whose demands included Ms. Nasreen’s expulsion from the country.

India’s historically weak-kneed response to radical Islamic intimidation only encourages such behavior. In 1988, India was the first country to ban Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses.” (Ayatollah Khomeini issued his infamous death sentence on the author only after reading about disturbances in India.) In 1999, after terrorists hijacked an Indian aircraft to then Taliban-controlled Kandahar, New Delhi responded by releasing three prominent Islamic militants from prison in Kashmir. One of them, the British-Pakistani London School of Economics dropout Omar Saeed Sheikh, went on to mastermind the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

True to form, the authorities have responded to the latest outbreak of violence in Calcutta by bundling off Ms. Nasreen to distant Rajasthan, and from there to Delhi.

As in other democracies — Britain and Holland to name just two – a permissive approach toward radical Islam has only made the country more vulnerable to terrorism. In August this year, 42 people died in attacks on a Hyderabad restaurant and an open-air auditorium. Last year, a series of explosions on commuter trains in Bombay killed over 200 people. Two years ago, the Hindu festival of Diwali was rung in with bombs that claimed 62 lives in Delhi. 

New Delhi has blamed the attacks on groups such as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and Bangladesh’s Harkat-ul Jihad-al-Islami. Though much of India’s terrorism problem is imported, part of it is homegrown. Instead of reflexively blaming Islamabad, Indians need to ask themselves why foreign terrorists appear to have little trouble recruiting accomplices from India.

(The Uttar Pradesh attacks appear to be the work of a previously unknown outfit called Indian Mujahideen.) The bromide about the lack of Indian Muslim involvement in international terrorism, accepted unquestioningly by much of India’s liberal intelligentsia, must be called into question after the involvement of Indian doctors in this year’s failed attacks in London and Glasgow.

India’s experience offers important lessons to other democracies struggling to integrate large Muslim populations. It highlights the folly of attempting to exempt Muslims from universal norms regarding women’s rights, freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. It reveals that democracy alone – when detached from bedrock democratic principles — offers no antidote to radical Islamic fervor.

*Mr. Dhume is a fellow at the Asia Society in Washington, D.C. “My Friend the Fanatic,” his book about the rise of radical Islam in Indonesia, will bepublished by Melbourne next year*.  _________________________________________

Also see : What Islamic Invaders Did To India

Also see  Frontpage interview with  Moorthy Muthuswamy, “an expert on terrorism in India. He grew up in India, where he had firsthand experience with political Islam and jihad. He moved to America in 1984 to pursue graduate studies. In 1992, he received a doctorate in nuclear physics from Stony Brook University, New York. Since 1999 he has extensively published ideas on neutralizing political Islam’s terror war as it is imposed on unbelievers. He is the author of the new book, The Art of War on Terror: Triumphing over Political Islam and the Axis of Jihad.”

The article clearly shows double standards and selective interest of our human rights organizations, media and government.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/071124/43/6nmu6.html

Two bakers and how human rights went wrong in Kashmir

By IANS

Saturday November 24, 09:23 AM

Srinagar, Nov 24 (IANS) As Kashmiri leaders across the political spectrum vociferously condemned – and rightly so – last week’s killing of a baker allegedly by the Indian Army, four days later another baker in the same area fell to bullets – this time from suspected militants. But the second incident attracted no political or public outcry.

For the past 18 years, there has been a death dance in Kashmir, but these two killings have unravelled the reality about the politicisation of human rights in Kashmir. What prompts condemnation is who the killer is, not the fact that innocent blood has been spilled.

Riyaz Ahmed Sofi was the baker allegedly killed by the troops of 9 Rashtriya Rifles in Kulgam district of south Kashmir Nov 17, while Manzoor Ahmad Wani was the baker found shot Nov 21 in the same district. Suspected militants had kidnapped Wani from his home two days before his blood-ridden body was discovered in an orchard.

Riyaz’s killing sparked mass protests and the government ordered a probe into the incident after a case was registered against the army. Politicians, separatists as well as nationalists, decried the ‘cold blooded murder’.

But the political spectrum remained absolutely quiet about Wani’s murder. There was no statement from the Mirwaizs or Geelanis, Muftis or Abdullahs. Wani’s killing could have hardly provided spice to their speeches. It was a non-issue for all of them because militants were suspected to be behind the killing.

This phenomenon is not new but has been in vogue since violence got mingled with politics in Kashmir. Human rights groups and political parties have always been very choosy about protesting killings. People like Wani die without attracting any attention. And this compartmentalisation of human rights has raised the question of relevance and credibility of rights groups .

It’s time for rights groups in Kashmir to learn to respect human life. While the slain villagers shared similar stories of death, their life was not too different either. Ironically, both Sofi’s and Wani’s wives are pregnant.

The contrasting ways in which politicians and people have responded to the two tragedies reveal one of the biggest ironies of Kashmir – that it is a land where the identity of the killer makes the deceased a ‘martyr’ or an ‘unsung’ victim.

(Sarwar Kashani is a journalist. The views expressed here are personal. He can be contacted at s.kashani@ians.in)

A fine example of Muslim tolerance in a secular democracy.

Muslim groups: Revoke Taslima visa 

Asian Age, By PARUL CHANDRA

New Delhi, Nov. 23: The demand for the revocation of controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen’s visa by several Muslim organisation has become strident once again. The organisations have stepped up their campaign seeking revocation of the Bangladeshi author’s visa following her flight from Kolkata on Thursday after violent protests there by the All India Minority Forum against her and on the issue of Nandigram a day earlier.

Speaking for their respective organisations, those who voiced the demand for revocation of Taslima’s visa said that while they were all for freedom of expression and speech, this should not be at the cost of hurting a community’s religious sentiments. On Friday, the general secretary of the All India Milli Council, Manzoor Alam told this paper, “Nobody can hurt a community’s religious sentiments on the pretext of freedom of expression.”

Attacking Taslima for her writings, he said “In a recent article in a Bengali magazine, she has written malicious things about the prophet.” He added, “She had to leave her country. She is a guest in our country. But she is violating the decency shown by the people here. A guest should keep in mind the sentiments of the host.” Mr Alam said that the Bangladeshi author has “not behaved as a gentle lady in an international dimension.” Therefore, he said the Indian government should revoke her visa and ask her to leave the country. Mr Alam accused the government of not being bothered about the views of the Muslim community.

“Both the government and the state government (West Bengal) only understand the voice of agitation. While we do not advocate that people should take law into their own hands, the government should understand what the community what the community has been demanding,” he stated.

“She is a headache for our country,” said S.Q.R. Ilyas, a member of the Central Advisory Council of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Dr Ilyas said that though Taslima has been given shelter in India, “She repeatedly writes provocative articles. Her statements on different aspects of Islam are repeatedly hurting the community.”

He said the violence in Kolkata was not a sudden outpouring of anger. Rather, he said that several Muslim organisations have been seeking revocation of Taslima’s visa for many months now. “But the government has paid no heed to this demand,” he remarked. “We are opposed to the freedom of speech. But there are certain limitations to it,” Dr Ilyas added. Abdul Hameed Noumani, the secretary and spokesman of the Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind, yet another organisation seeking Taslima’s exit from India. “Let her not stay in any part of the country. Send her out. You cannot put the entire country at stake for her sake.”

Stating that he has read 14 of the author’s works, he said that her writings on Islam are provocative and painful for Muslims. He said while the Jamiat is critical of the violence that occurred in Kolkata, “Till such incidents happen, governments do not wake up.”

For getting the status of an intellectual, the caste, religion, sex, age, language or any other regional or linguistic parameters are not a criteria. 

* It is easy to get the status, if you are a Hindu who always criticizes his own religion and sanathana dharma

* Your education qualification, actual intelligence, vocabulary, position, etc do not have any bearing for getting the status.

* You should always be little and denigrate Indian heritage and culture, whenever you get opportunity or even by creating opportunity. 

* Always make fun of Hindu dharma and ancient Hindu scholars, saffron colour, Omkar, temples and priests 

* You have to make the show that you have the authority to criticize Hindu dharma. 

* Try to find a good place in the electronic media screen and print media. Keep a charisma for attracting the media people; give them whatever they need for doing so.  Keep the relation with them very strong. 

* Tell always the positives about other religion while degrading and denigrating Hindu dharma. * This will give a good image as an ‘impartial and unbiased scholar’

* You will automatically become famous as a true secular leader and gain respect from other other intellectuals.

* You should never quote anything from Indian heritage or ancient Indian books because it is cheap and unscientific to quote indigenous knowledge.  Quote always the West, Russian, Chinese or even from Iraq leaders.  If you are compelled to quote from India, quote only from Jawaharlal Nehru’s words. 

*Use as many quotations as possible from foreign and locals cholars of your status for denigrating Indian heritage and culture.  Some good examples are strongly anti Hindu Harvard Sanskrit Professor Michael Witzel, marxist historian Romilla Thapar or Hindu baiter Kancha Iliah.

*Never, never  praise the past – present and future India. 

* Always share your views with the objective of further degrading our cultural heritage.  And remember, tell all the memorable negatives about Hindu dharma so that people will appreciate you secular, rational and scientific vision which can even fetch you some awards. 

* Appreciate only foreign scientists and scholars, if possible from the West or communist countries.

* Belittle and denigrate Indian scientific and technological heritage whenever and wherever possible and encourage younger generation to do so. 

Always be the first to put the first signature in anti Hindu pro-minority mass memorandum or petition, preferably in presence of the media photographers. * Do not follow law and order; this can get a place in media easily.

*Make sure to tell good about Mother Teresa, Bukari Imam and St Xavier Francis, even though he has destroyed 480 temples and converted thousands of Goan Hindus to Christianity in Goa.

Create an image that you are also aware about what is happening around us. * Make the people aware that you know what are all happening in Iraq, Houston, Iran, Korea,  Lanka and also in Mizoram.  But never say any negative about Kashmir and Nagaland or the activities of the minorities in those States.

*Tell anything negative about Military or police action in Kashmir or Nagaland making sure that you do not touch anything against minorities.

*Even if you have to say something about minority fundamentalism, say that it is due to majority fundamentalism. 

*While delivering lectures to Christians tell that in the next janma you want to be Christian, to the Muslim audience tell that you want to become a Muslim, in the next janma. *Tell them, in your speech that Upanishads and Vedas are taken from Koran and Bible.

*Try to attend ‘all religious meet” as a representative of Hinduism and tell negative about Hinduism. It will be printed in big letters in media. *Learn two or three lines from Koran or Bible and quote appropriately for getting the applause.

*If you want to write a book there are many Christian writers who write about Hinduism, they will help you how to write on the subjects in which you are fully ignorant. * You can start writing against Hinduism first, with their help, so that the marketing is easy and building your career also becomes easy.

*Many churches and Christian agents will help you directly and indirectly for propagating your anti Hindu messages.

*Be in contact with the media people, whenever you are travelling. Build strong relationship with minority leaders during travelling from place to place. This relation will give you enormous credibility as an intellectual and will last for a long time.

In short remember, your success as an intellectual in India is directly proportional to your statements you make against Indian culture, tradition and religion. The more you look down upon it and talk well of minority religions, you will be respected by one and all.