Monday, November 24, 2008

Complaining about the Iraq occupation

One of Chindu's pet peeves is complaining about the US occupation of Iraq and gives space for any left leaning writer from Chennai to China to Cuba to rant on the topic. The most recent being 'Killers call the shots in ‘justice’ system'.
I empathize with the suffering of the common people in Iraq and their concerns of lack of law and order. However the writer suffers from a clear case of hindsight and does not compare the current situation with that of decade past. Couple of questions:
Where were these people when Saddam and his minions were torturing civilians for decades?
When the piece focuses on the suffering, what solutions does it offer?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Chindu is always kind to its readers and it makes sure that the readers are never devoid of the required daily dose of secularism.

Now a serving judge of the Supreme Court bats for Chindu in its glorious game of secualrism.

The main thrust of the article(actually in two parts) is innocuous enough: launching of The Kalidas-Ghalib Academy for Mutual Understanding.

Now this: The academy, formed by some "patriotic intellectuals" of our country — with the aim of "promoting India's composite culture and opposing divisive forces."

So, we know what predictably is on offer:

"It is true that the Muslim invaders who initially invaded India destroyed many Hindu temples. However, the descendants of these invaders who settled down in India and became local rulers in various parts of the country gave many grants to build Hindu temples.... Hence in their own interest, the Muslim rulers gave grants to build Hindu temples, and fostered communal amity."

Thankfully, the author accepts the Islamic visitors as invaders, who perhaps liked it so much in Hindustan that they comfortably "settled" down, to make our land truly secular. And they "became" local rulers and what else they did in their generosity? They "gave" grants to the Hindus! The grants did not come out of the Arabian desert or central Asia, but from the wealth plundered from the Hindus and "given" back. That is truly secular, indeed.

The author very much regrets that the "story" of grants by local Muslim rulers in India to build Hindu temples and their celebrating Hindu festivals, has been deliberately suppressed and omitted from our history books. He only has to ask the folks from JNU and they will write out a nice story for him (in fact, they have already written several).

We even have in our midst a person who calls himself a "Nawab" and who is never tired of reeling out a similar story of his folks. Perhaps, he has already been made a big office-bearer of the Kalidas-Ghalib Academy. If not, the judge should immediately seize the opportunity and honour the Nawab, as our Chief has already done.
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Take on this intellectual challenge

Markandey Katju

http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/25/stories/2008112555590800.htm