Thursday, June 05, 2008

Lets wait until the next terrorist bomb explodes.

The Chindu is often a picture of unintentional comedy. It charges windmills, tries to rail against phantoms of its imagination and more often than not makes a big fool out of itself. One of the key writers who ensures time and again that the Chindu appear like a dunce to the world is the Hon. Harish Khare. Readers of this blog know Harish and his pompous grandstanding ways filled with apathy and bigotry. Recently leaders of the Islamic community in Delhi decided to condemn terrorism by what else but reading out another pointless but laughable fatwa. (The concept of fatwa's and its relevance in modern society is another topic for discussion).
Harish takes this as an occasion to filibuster the audience with his standard litany of complaints against everyone and sundry. He starts of ranting against the BJP who happened to hold their national conference a day after the Deoband fatwas,
and the party found itself welcoming the fatwa. L.K. Advani even felt it expedient to exhort his party to reach out to Muslims.

Then he goes on to establish the Darul Uloom Deoband as the most respected Islamic seminary. But he does not care to define respected. By all rational standards, the institution is a Madrassa and has links to some of the recent terror attacks around the world including the Taliban. Given that they have given no indication of any internal cleansing this statement seems quite hollow. Check out the Deoband's website for more details including a one-page vitriolic article against Christianity.
Harish then goes on to group the canny terrorists, the communal Sangh Parivar, the imperialistic US, incompetent UPA Government for all the problems Indian Muslims are facing today.
With some help from a bumbling Bush administration, the terrorists have succeeded in their game plan: of generating irrational fears and a sense of insecurity among the majority community, and of invoking ham-handed administrative response from incorrigibly incompetent police personnel to create resentment, which in turn is used to find potential recruits in Muslim bastis and kasbas.

Isn't the responsibility of every active citizen to inform the law and order officials any information about potential terror activities? He then shifts his attention to the rapt reader his grand plan for how the Muslim leaders could integrate their flock into the mainstream. He talks about leaving the traditional secular camp (aka Congress) to better alternatives. Wonder who that could be? (If not the communal NDA, incompetent Congress then who?)
To Harish's credit he does make a couple of good points about how Muslims should avoid international distractions and focus on domestic issues. He also points out the obvious fact that Muslims should reject the oil money from the Sheiks. However the larger fault is that he paints Muslims as victims and giving them a free chit to escape what has happened over the last few decades with stupid statements like these,
The rest of India needs to summon responsible politics to help the Muslim discover the joys of harmonious co-existence.

Another irresponsible quote blaming the media is,
Admittedly, the media and other public opinion forums are dominated by non-Muslim personnel; but that need not be a discouragement to correcting institutionalised biases in an unrepresentative media profession.

Does he not read the "secular" media which from time to time fills the airwaves with pro-minority news?
There are several questions left unanswered as to how the religion should transform to adapt to a modern democracy and adopt a uniform policy towards other religions and women.
There are several communities which have similar social and economic conditions and are trying to adapt and come into the mainstream. Why is it that one specific community should be given a free pass?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Secular Khare somehow finds a tenous link between BJP's victory in Karnataka and the Jaipur terrorist bomb attack.

"For instance, it is possible to suggest that the outcome of the recent Karnataka elections could have been anybody's guess had there been no Jaipur."

He just stopped short of saying that BJP plotted the Jaipur bomb attack to gain "communal" advantage in Karnataka!

His reasoning otherwise is also muddled. For example, to quote:

"....when Muslims from all over north India met to register their anger over the blasphemous Danish cartoon and other American imperialist offences, including bullying New Delhi into the famous vote against Iran." The so-called blasphemous Danish cartoon seems to be part of American imperialist offences!

In describing the middle east "sheikdoms", Khare is careful and clever not to use the word "feudal" which Chindu reservs only for the Dalai Lama, it seems.

Dirt Digger said...

anon #1,
Thanks for your support.

Dirt Digger said...

anon #2,
I agree. There is no evidence to suggest that the Karnataka elections were decided based on the Jaipur blasts and Harish is clutching at straws in this instance.
As you correctly point a few more instances where this article steps out of bounds like a steroid addicted rhino and tries to attack anyone remotely connected.
I wonder if there will be any criticism for this article or just the usual cats applauding such insane shenanigans.

Anonymous said...

What! Khare offend Muslims! Fire him!!

http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/07/stories/2008060754430802.htm

Dirt Digger said...

Anon,
good one wish it would be the LiC getting the pink slip.