Indian News channels are a security hazard?

Instead of questioning the narrative, news television and some print outlets have instead blatantly beaten the drums of confrontation, hyping even relatively calm statements by the army chief into belligerent displays of national machismo. Coming at a time when the government is attempting to move forward on dialogue with Pakistan that is very much in the national interest, the question should be asked: are some of India’s news channels, and their pursuit of eyeballs, turning into a national security hazard?

A handful of bellicose television supremos cannot be allowed to dictate a foreign policy that hurts the interest of India’s citizens.

Editorial in Business Standard. Here

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind to produce films and TV serials

The Kerala unit of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is getting into production of commercial films and serials, which will be telecast on its new venture, Mediaone TV. The Malayalam-language news and entertainment satellite channel is to go on air next month.

This is the first time a state unit of the Jamaat-e-Islami is venturing into visual media. Incidentally, Jamaat mouthpiece Madhayamam itself does not publish film advertisements, a policy it has followed since its launch 25 years ago.

The channel would be floated by the Kozhikode-based Madhyamam Broadcasting Corporation. A tie-up has already been worked out with Al Jazeera.

Jamaat’s ‘assistant amir (Kerala)’ Sheikh Mohammed Karakunnu, an Islamic scholar, said Mediaone would follow the same principles practised by Madhyamam. “Like the daily, the TV channel will give due space to issues of minorities, Dalits and the marginalised. The TV channel will also have regulations on accepting advertisements, (and on) content of the programmes,” he said.

Karakunnu confirmed that Mediaone would also produce its own films apart from sourcing films from outside. “Work on a film has begun,” he said.

Mediaone group editor O Abdurahiman said their aim was to give voice to the voiceless. “We want to develop an alternative media culture as our daily has done. Mediaone TV has entered into a tie-up with Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, mainly for sharing content on world affairs. The channel would be hived into news and entertainment after six months.”

Noting that the bar on film advertisement in Madhyamam had no link with Mediaone airing films, Abdurahiman pointed out that the Jamaat mouthpiece didn’t skirt film news either. “Our daily gives film reviews and covers film festivals exhaustively,” he said.

Among the film proposals the channel is considering, Abdurahiman said, was one based on the life of Kunhali Marakkar, a local king’s naval chief who had fought against Portuguese invaders after Vasco da Gama’s arrival on the Malabar Coast in the 15th century. The story falls neatly in line with Jamaat’s pet campaign: anti-imperialism.

Writer and social critic Prof N M Karassery said that as it strives for more space in the mainstream, it was but natural for the Jamaat-e-Islami to turn to new media. Films, which could be used for ideological campaigning, were an obvious choice. “The Jamaat is not a mere religious outfit, but a political one in disguise,” he noted.

Karassery, however, added that the move could also backfire on the Jamaat. “I do not think that the channel would make that organisation more liberal, but may expose their anti-women approach and their capitalistic intentions,’’ he said.

Prof Hameed Chendamangaloor, who studies Muslim organisations, too isn’t surprised by the Jamaat’s foray into TV media as it wants to wield more political clout and foster Islamic politics. “No Muslim organisation can stick on to the days when watching TV or enjoying music was taboo. Even if the ideology is for conservatism, political motives would spur the Jamaat and other organisations to embrace changes, he said.

A report by Shaju Philip in Indian Express Here.

My Kafeel has my passport : Travails of Indians in the Gulf

One evening, I walked into a small Internet café near my hotel. Two young Indian men managed the café. After I had answered my e-mails, I bought a coffee and we chatted. They were from Faizabad, a small town in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Sohail, the younger, a wiry man who served coffee and tea and cleaned the place, had been working there for a year. When I told him that I had been to his town several times as a reporter, his eyes brimmed with tears. “I worked in a garage as a mechanic, but I didn’t make enough. I got married and had a child. So I came here. I thought I am going to Mecca. I will get to perform the Hajj and earn a lot more than I ever would,” he said. “I didn’t know people here would treat us like dirt.” He pointed to a chubby Saudi boy, who was a regular at the café and called himself “Funky Monkey” (his video-game username). “Every time he feels like, he would slap me. It is the same with other local customers. You are a little late complying an order and they bark at you, slap you.” He added, “Here you can’t appeal to anyone. My passport is with my kafeel and I can only go home when he allows me to.” Imran, the older counterman, consoled him. “You are here now! Get used to it. Do I cry? I haven’t been able to return home in three years,” Imran said.

“Why not?” I asked Imran.

“My kafeel has my passport. He keeps making excuses, delaying it. He doesn’t want to lose business if I go away. And he has to pay all my money that is with him and buy me the return ticket home.”

And yet, Imran said, “We still have it easy. Working here is much worse for the maids.”

There are about one-and-a-half million female domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.

Basharat Peer in The New Yorker. Here

Arundhati Roy on Indian rape culture

Arundhati Roy: Why is this crime so clearly such a lot of outrage because it plays into the idea of criminal poor. You know the vegetable vendors, bus driver, gym instructor actually assaulting a middle class girl. Whereas when rape is used as a means of domination by upper caste, by the army or the police. It is actually go unpunished. Not even talked about.

TV Anchor: Is there any chance this kind of big protest lead to genuine change? Will the political class change?
Arudhati Roy: I think it would lead to certain laws perhaps. It may also lead to increased surveillence. But all of that, I will repeat, all of that will protect middle class women. But in other place when we are looking for laws there are laws. But when the Police themselves go and burn down villages and gangrape. I have personally listened to so many testimonies from women who were subjected to such heinous crime. I have heard so many testimonies from eye witnesses that how women were killed.

TV Anchor: This is such a contrast from the image being projected of a modern India by the film industry in Mumbai and by a new Tech India. It makes one feel there are many world competing one another here.
Arundhati Roy: There is one section of film industry which projects bubble gum chewing modern India. There is another section of film industry with rap singers, films porno films where they show bestial violence against women. Celebrating murder and rape.. etc. The idea of 'them' being criminal is.. Poor are projected as...

Urban Young women are vulnerable....

To watch Arundhati Roy Here

Hitler, Hindutva and Indian elite

My wife teaches French to tenth-grade students at a private school here in Mumbai. During one recent class, she asked these mostly upper-middle-class kids to complete the sentence “J'admire …” with the name of the historical figure they most admired.

To say she was disturbed by the results would be to understate her reaction. Of 25 students in the class, 9 picked Adolf Hitler, making him easily the highest vote-getter in this particular exercise; a certain Mohandas Gandhi was the choice of precisely one student. Discussing the idea of courage with other students once, my wife was startled by the contempt they had for Gandhi. “He was a coward!” they said. And as far back as 2002, the Times of India reported a survey that found that 17 percent of students in elite Indian colleges “favored Adolf Hitler as the kind of leader India ought to have.”

In a place where Gandhi becomes a coward, perhaps Hitler becomes a hero.

Still, why Hitler? “He was a fantastic orator,” said the 10th-grade kids. “He loved his country; he was a great patriot. He gave back to Germany a sense of pride they had lost after the Treaty of Versailles,” they said.

"And what about the millions he murdered?” asked my wife. “Oh, yes, that was bad,” said the kids. “But you know what, some of them were traitors.”

Admiring Hitler for his oratorical skills? Surreal enough. Add to that the easy condemnation of his millions of victims as traitors. Add to that the characterization of this man as a patriot. I mean, in a short dozen years, 

Hitler led Germany through a scarcely believable orgy of blood to utter shame and wholesale destruction. Even the mere thought of calling such a man a patriot profoundly corrupts—is violently antithetical to—the idea of patriotism.

But these are kids, you think, and kids say the darndest things. Except this is no easily written-off experience. The evidence is that Hitler has plenty of admirers in India, plenty of whom are by no means kids.

Consider Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography. Reviled it might be in the much of the world, but Indians buy thousands of copies of it every month. As a recent paper in the journal EPW tells us (PDF), there are over a dozen Indian publishers who have editions of the book on the market. Jaico, for example, printed its 55th edition in 2010, claiming to have sold 100,000 copies in the previous seven years. (Contrast this to the 3,000 copies my own 2009 book, Roadrunner, has sold). In a country where 10,000 copies sold makes a book a bestseller, these are significant numbers.

And the approval goes beyond just sales. Mein Kampf is available for sale on flipkart.com, India’s Amazon. As I write this, 51 customers have rated the book; 35 of those gave it a five-star rating. What’s more, there’s a steady trickle of reports that say it has become a must-read for business-school students; a management guide much like Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese or Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking. If this undistinguished artist could take an entire country with him, I imagine the reasoning goes, surely his book has some lessons for future captains of industry?

Much of Hitler’s Indian afterlife is the legacy of Bal Thackeray, chief of the Shiv Sena party who died on Nov. 17.

Thackeray freely, openly, and often admitted his admiration for Hitler, his book, the Nazis, and their methods. In 1993, for example, he gave an interview to Time magazine. “There is nothing wrong,” he said then, “if [Indian] Muslims are treated as Jews were in Nazi Germany.”

This interview came only months after the December 1992 and January 1993 riots in Mumbai, which left about a thousand Indians slaughtered, the majority of them Muslim. Thackeray was active right through those weeks, writing editorial after editorial in his party mouthpiece, “Saamna” (“Confrontation”) about how to “treat” Muslims.

On Dec. 9, 1992, for example, his editorial contained these lines: “Pakistan need not cross the borders and attack India. 250 million Muslims in India will stage an armed insurrection. They form one of Pakistan’s seven atomic bombs.”

A month later, on Jan. 8, 1993, there was this: “Muslims of Bhendi Bazar, Null Bazar, Dongri and Pydhonie, the areas [of Mumbai] we call Mini Pakistan … must be shot on the spot.”

There was plenty more too: much of it inspired by the failed artist who became Germany’s führer. After all, only weeks before the riots erupted, Thackeray said this about the führer’s famous autobiography: “If you take Mein Kampf and if you remove the word Jew and put in the word Muslim, that is what I believe in.”

With rhetoric like that, it’s no wonder the streets of my city saw the slaughter of 1992-93. It’s no wonder kids come to admire a mass-murderer, to rationalize away his massacres. It’s no wonder they cling to almost comically superficial ideas of courage and patriotism, in which a megalomaniac’s every ghastly crime is forgotten so long as we can pretend that he “loved” his country.

In his acclaimed 1997 book Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Daniel Goldhagen writes: “Hitler, in possession of great oratorical skills, was the [Nazi] Party’s most forceful public speaker. Like Hitler, the party from its earliest days was devoted to the destruction of … democracy [and to] most especially and relentlessly, anti-Semitism. … The Nazi Party became Hitler’s Party, obsessively anti-Semitic and apocalyptic in its rhetoric about its enemies.”

Do some substitutions in those sentences along the lines Thackeray wanted to do with Mein Kampf. Indeed, what you get is a more than adequate description of … no surprise, Thackeray himself.

Yes, it’s no wonder. Thackeray too was revered as an orator. Cremated, on Nov. 18, as a patriot.

Dilip D'Souza in The Daily Beast Here

Who Milks This Cow?

Nearly two thousand people died in the Bhagalpur riots. Many more were rendered homeless. Although Muslims were less than 20 per cent of the population, they constituted more than 70 per cent of those who had been killed or displaced. We visited a once-flourishing village of Muslim weavers, or julahas, whose homes and looms had been totally destroyed by a mob of Hindus. The survivors were being taken care of by a prosperous Muslim weaver in Bhagalpur town, who had laid out tents in his garden. Other refugees were being provided food and shelter by a Muslim religious organisation. Of government work in the resettlement and rehabilitation of the refugees there was not a sign.

I was shaken to see that my fellow Hindus would willingly partake of such savagery, and that my government would take no responsibility for the victims. Till then, the politics of religion had no place in my scholarly work or writing. My principal field of research was the environment. I had just published a book on the social history of the Himalayan forests, and had written scholarly essays on environmental conflicts in Asia and North America. However, I was now provoked to write an essay on the Bhagalpur riots for the Sunday Observer.

Ramachandra Guha in Outlook Here

Expat Ride: A book on Gulf NRIs

For long, the Middle East, which is commonly termed as 'Gulf', has been considered an El Dorado for Indians. The first wave of prosperity came in many parts of India, particularly, in South India, when lakhs of Indians got jobs in Middle East in 70s and 80s.

It is a fact that despite 5-7 million Indians working in Gulf countries, there is not enough focus in India on either their contribution to our economy or their problems.

For the record, the number of Indians in West Asian countries is at least four times the number of NRIs in America. Mohammed Saifuddin's book Expat Ride sheds light on the issues pertaining to Indians in Gulf.

Contrary to the belief that every person who goes to Gulf, manages to make moolah, it tells us how large number of people fail to save adequate money.

The semi-skilled workers face pathetic conditions, work hard by spending more hours in duty but don't get as much return for their efforts. From facing extreme weather and psychological issues due to living away from families, the book tells a lot about the situation on the ground.

The book tells us about challenges faced by expatriates in getting good education to their children. That they have to pay exorbitant fees to get admission in colleges in India and the quota initiated by AB Vajpayee-led BJP government remains limited to just a few educational institutions in India.

Saifuddin also touches the issue of taxes apart from exploitation by money-lenders and depression among Indians working in the region. As many as 70% of those who commit suicide in Dubai, are Indians! This is a shocker for everybody.

The author suggests that India should conduct surveys and take more steps to redress the issues of expatriate community. Another myth is busted in the book. Muslims are not favoured in Gulf countries. In fact, in key positions non-Muslims outnumber Muslims.

The number of Muslims among powerful Indians in GCC countries is just 18%. There are other serious issues like problems faced in repatriation of dead bodies to India.

These things need to be taken up on priority. It is true that Indian newspapers and Television channels seldom pay attention to these important aspects which affect a large number of people.

But when it comes to sudden disappearance or crime against an NRI in America or Britain, our media forgets all sense of proportion and lap it up, showing it for hours.

But there is no such interest visible in Gulf. This is despite the enormous regular contribution in terms of remittances--sending money back home on regular basis, that runs millions of households in India.

Saifuddin, who hails from Hyderabad, has over the years penned articles for Yahind.com portal. The book comprises these articles. One hopes that the book would draw the attention of policy makers towards Indian expatriates in the GCC countries--United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabic, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.

By Indscribe in AnIndianMuslim. Here and Here

India doesn't need FDI in retail to grow : Joseph Stiglitz

Inequality is bad for economy, democracy and society. Much of the inequality in the US arises out of rent-seeking -monopoly, exploitive practices by banks and corporate exploitation of public resources. In the Indian context, you will call it corruption but we call it corruption American-style, where you give away natural resources below market prices. India is doing it now but America has a long history of doing this.

There is a clear association between inequality and instability. People at the top don't spend too much, they save a lot but people at the bottom spend everything. So you redistribute income from the bottom to the top and demand goes down. That makes an economy weak. That is what happened in the US. We would have had a weaker economy, but the Feds stepped in by creating a bubble that created more demand to offset the demand that was going down. Of course, creating a bubble was creating instability.

The advocates of FDI have probably put too much emphasis on it. India is in a different position than a small, developing country. You have a large pool of entrepreneurs. They are globally savvy, have access to global technology and they have a lot of wealth. So, if there were large returns to large-scale supermarkets, the domestic industry would have supplied it. Not having access to FDI is not an impediment in India. Wal-Mart is able to procure many goods at lower prices than others because of the huge buying power they have and will use that power to bring Chinese goods to India to displace Indian production. So the worry is not so much about the displacement of the small retail store but displacement further down the supply chain. 

Joseph Stiglitz in The Times of India Here

Reaction to "Innocence of Muslims" movie : DVDs on Prophet Muhammad in 30 languages

Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo has launched a campaign to introduce Prophet Mohammed to the world by distributing DVD’s in 30 languages, explaining the message of Islam and the life of the Prophet.


At the same time, Dr. Abdul-Rahman Al-Barr, member of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau, has appealed on Muslim producers to use their artistic talents to create productions of the highest standards of quality, in all languages, to highlight aspects of greatness in the Messenger of God, to introduce him to the peoples of the whole world, and to use those productions to compete at international art festivals of all kinds.


"We must introduce the Prophet in an appropriately positive manner. When defending the Prophet, we must begin by understanding his life and his personality. Those who do not quite appreciate Prophet Mohammed must learn about him first, before talking about him. We should inform people about the Prophet, instead of pushing them away from him, from Islam."

Here

"Islamic Dawah is the best option to prevent the recurrence of dirty American film": Ameer-e-Jamaat

Amir Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umari has severely condemned the American film blaspheming the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him). Terming the release of this film as an act of hurting the Muslims of the world, he expressed grave concern over the fact that America fails in making concerted efforts to contain such anti-Islam activities in spite of expressing displeasure over them. 

The Jamaat chief expressed his confidence that conspiracies to tarnish the image of Islam and denigrate the personage of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) have failed earlier also. And even now no country or group, despite investing talents and resources, can harm the truth of Islam and the majesty of the Prophet who is the Mercy to mankind. Therefore, people should keep from destructive activities aimed at spoiling world peace and try to understand the Message of Peace and Salvation Islam gives and the position of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) as Mercy to all the worlds. 

Declaring the protests, being staged in Muslim countries against the heart-rendering American film, as Muslim masses’ love for and close affinity with their faith and the Messenger of God, the Jamaat leader said the Muslims should prove themselves as Khair-e-Ummat (the best nation) and Ummat-e-Wast (the moderate nation) in every action and every measure they take, and keep from every approach that can bring a bad name to the position and greatness of the community. It would not be right that the crime is committed by one and you punish someone else; it tarnishes the image of Islam.

The Jamaat Ameer appealed to the Islamic Movements and organisations world over to realise the Dawah responsibilities much more so that the common masses might be acquainted with the teachings of Islam, and the ignorance and misapprehensions of the world about Islam, its way of life and the Holy Messenger be allayed and the incidents like the release of the American film might not be repeated in future.

அகிலங்களுக்கெல்லாம் அருட்கொடையாய் வந்த இறைத்தூதரின் கண்ணியத்துக்கு ஊறு விளைவிக்கின்ற வகையில் தயாரிக்கப்பட்ட அமெரிக்க திரைப்படத்தை ஜமாஅத்தே இஸ்லாமி ஹிந்த் அகில இந்தியத் தலைவர் மௌலானா சையத் ஜலாலுத்தீன் உமரி கடுமையாகக் கண்டனம் செய்துள்ளார். உலகம் முழுவதும் இருக்கின்ற முஸ்லிம்களின் உள்ளங்களைக் காயப்படுத்துகின்ற செயல் இது என்றும் அவர் குறிப்பிட்டுள்ளார். இஸ்லாத்துக்கு எதிரான இத்தகைய நடவடிக்கைகள் குறித்து அதிருப்தியும் ஆட்சேபமும் அழுத்தமாகப் பதிவு செய்யப்பட்ட பிறகும் இது போன்ற அடாத செயல்களைத் தடுத்து நிறுத்துவதில் அமெரிக்க அரசாங்கம் தோல்வி அடைந்திருப்பது குறித்து அவர் பெரிதும் வேதனைப்பட்டார்.

இஸ்லாத்தின் மாண்பையும் அண்ணல் நபிகளாரின் மகத்துவத்தையும் கொச்சைப்படுத்து-கின்ற சூழ்ச்சிகள் இதற்கு முன்பும் தோல்வியையே தழுவி இருக்கின்றன. இப்போதும்கூட எந்தவொரு நாட்டாலும் அல்லது சமூகக் குழுவினாலும் - அவர்கள் தங்களுடைய ஆற்றல்களையும் வசதிவாய்ப்புகளையும் வளங்களையும் முழுமையாகப் பயன்படுத்தினாலும் - இஸ்லாம்தான் சத்தியமானது என்கிற உண்மைநிலையையும் அகிலங்களுக்கெல்லாம் அருட்கொடையாய் வந்த அண்ணல் நபிகளாரின் மகத்துவத்தையும் இம்மியளவுகூட ஊறு விளைவிப்பதில் வெற்றி அடையவே இயலாது.  எனவே உலக அமைதியைப் பாதிக்கக்கூடிய நடவடிக்கைகளிலிருந்து முற்றாக விலகி இருந்தவாறு அமைதி, ஈடேற்றத்திற்கான இஸ்லாத்தின் செய்தியையும் அண்ணல் நபிகளார்(ஸல்) அகில உலகங்களுக்கெல்லாம் அருட்கொடையாய் இருக்கின்ற சிறப்பையும் புரிந்துகொள்வதற்கு முயல வேண்டும்.

உள்ளங்களைக் காயப்படுத்துகின்ற அமெரிக்க திரைப்படத்திற்கு முஸ்லிம் உலக நாடு-களில் நடத்தப்பட்டு வருகின்ற ஆர்ப்பாட்டங்களும் போராட்டங்களும் தங்களுடைய மார்க்கத்தின் மீதும் அண்ணல் நபிகளார்(ஸல்) மீதும் அவர்களுக்கு இருக்கின்ற அளவிலா அன்பையும் இணையிலா பற்றையும் வெளிப்படுத்துகிறன என்றும் அவர் தெரிவித்தார். அதே சமயம் கைரே உம்மத் - சிறந்த சமூகம் என்றும் உம்மத்தே வஸ்த் - நடுநிலை மிக்க சமூகம் என்றும் இறைவனால் அறிவிக்கப்பட்ட முஸ்லிம் சமுதாயம் அந்தத் தகுதிநிலைக்கு இயைந்தவையாகவும் அதற்கு சான்று அளிப்பவையாகவும் தம்முடைய அனைத்து செயல்-பாடுகளையும் அமைத்துக் கொள்ள வேண்டும் என்றும் சமுதாயத்தின் தகுதிக்கும் அந்தஸ்துக்கும் மகத்துவத்திற்கும்  சற்றும் பொருந்தாத யாதொரு வழிமுறையிலிருந்தும் முற்றாக விலகி இருத்தல் வேண்டும் என்றும் அவர் அறிவுறுத்தினார். குற்றத்தை ஒருவர் செய்திருக்க, இன்னொருவரைத் தண்டிப்பது சற்றும் பொருத்தமற்றதல்ல. இது போன்ற செயல்களால் இஸ்லாம் பற்றிய சித்திரம் சிதைக்கப்படுகின்றது என்றும் அவர் சுட்டிக்காட்டியுள்ளார்.

முன்னெப்போதும் இல்லாத அளவுக்கு இஸ்லாமிய அழைப்புப் பணி தொடர்பான தம்முடைய பொறுப்புகளை உணர்ந்துகொண்டு, அவற்றை நிறைவேற்றுவதில் கவனம் செலுத்துமாறும், பொதுமக்களுக்கு இஸ்லாத்தின் உண்மையான செய்தியும் போதனைகளும் சென்றடையவும், இஸ்லாத்தைக் குறித்தும் இஸ்லாம் எடுத்துரைக்கின்ற வாழ்க்கைத் திட்டத்தைக் குறித்தும் அண்ணல் நபிகளாரைக் குறித்தும் உலக மக்கள் மத்தியில் காணப்படுகின்ற அறியாமை அகல்வதற்கும் தவறான கருத்துக்கள் களையப்படுவதற்கும் உறுதி செய்யுமாறும் ஜமாஅத்தின் அகில இந்தியத் தலைவர் உலக இஸ்லாமிய இயக்கங்களுக்கும் அமைப்புகளுக்கும் வேண்டுகோள் விடுத்தார். இஸ்லாத்திற்கு எதிரான அமெரிக்கத் திரைப்படம் போன்ற சூழ்ச்சிகள் மீண்டும் மீண்டும் தலைதூக்குவதைத் தடுப்பதற்கு இதுதான் சிறந்த வழி என்றும் ஜமாஅத் தலைவர் அறிவித்தார்.

Here

Tips to counter "Innocence of Muslims" movie

The dirty film by name "Innocence of Muslims" has enraged the Muslims all over the world. The following is a useful discussion on this issue.
Hats off to the youth behind this initiative.

Freedom of Expression or Freedom to Blaspheme?

FREEDOM of expression must not be confused with freedom from the consequences of expression. Exercising freedom and abusing it are not the same. The latter forfeits the former. Just because we are free to express ourselves, it doesn’t free us from the responsibility for what we express. We are responsible for what we say and do and for the consequences thereof and so must consider carefully what we want to express. This is the basis of what we call civilized socially responsible behavior. 

Useful tips to counter cyber war against Islam

முஸ்லிம்கள் என்ன செய்ய வேண்டும்?

புதிதாக தொடங்கியுள்ள இந்த சைபர் யுத்தத்தை முஸ்லிம்கள் கவனமா கவே கையாள வேண்டும். இது ஒரு வகை அறிவு யுத்தம். இதில் ஆயுதங் கள் உபயோகப்படுத்தப்படுவதில்லை. ஆதலால் இதில் வேகப்படுவது புத்தி சாலித்தனம் அல்ல.. விவேகமே இதில் வெற்றியைத் தரும்.

 

இதற்கான தீர்வுகள்

1 இதை வெளியிடும் இணையதள நிறுவனர்களிடம் நேரடியாக பேசி உண்மையை விளக்கி இதை அப்புறப்படுத்த வேண்டும்.

4138 - أَخْبَرَنَا إِسْحَقُ بْنُ مَنْصُورٍ قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الرَّحْمَنِ عَنْ سُفْيَانَ عَنْ عَلْقَمَةَ بْنِ مَرْثَدٍ عَنْ طَارِقِ بْنِ شِهَابٍ

أَنَّ رَجُلًا سَأَلَ النَّبِيَّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَقَدْ وَضَعَ رِجْلَهُ فِي الْغَرْزِ أَيُّ الْجِهَادِ أَفْضَلُ قَالَ كَلِمَةُ حَقٍّ عِنْدَ سُلْطَانٍ جَائِرٍ

رواه النسائي

1988 ஆண்டு சல்மான் ருஷ்டி சாத்தானின் கவிதைகள் The satanic verses எனும் நாவலை வெளியிட்டான்.

அச்சமயத்தில் இந்தியாவின் மாமேதை பேரறிஞர் அபுல் ஹஸன் அலி நத்வி (ரஹ்) அவர்கள் தாமே நேரடியாக இந்நூலை வெளியிட்ட கேம்ப்பிரிட்ஜ் பல்கலை.க்கு சென்று அந்நாவலின் கருத்துகள் பொய்யானது என்பதை ஆதாரங்களை சமர்ப்பித்து நிரூபித்தார்கள்.

கேம்ப்பிரிட்ஜ் நிர்வாகம் வெளியிட்டதற்கு மன்னிப்பு கேட்டது. தமது நூலகத்தில் இருந்து அதை அகற்ற ஒப்புக் கொண்டது. அகற்றவும் செய்தது. இவ்வழியை முஸ்லிம்கள் கையாள வேண்டும்.

 

2. இதை இஸ்லாத்திற்கு சாதகமாக மாற்ற வேண்டும்.

இதன் மூலம் எதிரிகள் இஸ்லாத்திற்கு கெட்ட இமேஜை ஏற்படுத்த முயற்சிப்பதைப் போன்று இதன் மூலமே நாமும் இஸ்லாத்தை வளர்க்க வேண்டும். தீமையையும் நன்மையாக மாற்றும் வலிமை நிச்சயம் முஸ்லிம்களுக்கு உண்டு.

5034 - حَدَّثَنَا عُثْمَانُ بْنُ أَبِي شَيْبَةَ وَإِسْحَقُ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ قَالَ إِسْحَقُ أَخْبَرَنَا و قَالَ عُثْمَانُ حَدَّثَنَا جَرِيرٌ عَنْ مَنْصُورٍ عَنْ سَالِمِ بْنِ أَبِي الْجَعْدِ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ مَسْعُودٍ قَالَ

قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ مَا مِنْكُمْ مِنْ أَحَدٍ إِلَّا وَقَدْ وُكِّلَ بِهِ قَرِينُهُ مِنْ الْجِنِّ قَالُوا وَإِيَّاكَ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ قَالَ وَإِيَّايَ إِلَّا أَنَّ اللَّهَ أَعَانَنِي عَلَيْهِ فَأَسْلَمَ فَلَا يَأْمُرُنِي إِلَّا بِخَيْرٍ

حَدَّثَنَا ابْنُ الْمُثَنَّى وَابْنُ بَشَّارٍ قَالَا حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الرَّحْمَنِ يَعْنِيَانِ ابْنَ مَهْدِيٍّ عَنْ سُفْيَانَ ح و حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو بَكْرِ بْنُ أَبِي شَيْبَةَ حَدَّثَنَا يَحْيَى بْنُ آدَمَ عَنْ عَمَّارِ بْنِ رُزَيْقٍ كِلَاهُمَا عَنْ مَنْصُورٍ بِإِسْنَادِ جَرِيرٍ مِثْلَ حَدِيثِهِ غَيْرَ أَنَّ فِي حَدِيثِ سُفْيَانَ وَقَدْ وُكِّلَ بِهِ قَرِينُهُ مِنْ الْجِنِّ وَقَرِينُهُ مِنْ الْمَلَائِكَةِ

رواه مسلم

நவீன உலகில் பேஸ்புக் சமூக வலைத்தளத்தை முஸ்லிமல்லா தவர்கள் தவறான செய்கைகளுக்கே பயன்படுத்தி வந்தனர். பேஸ் புக் என்றாலே ‘தீமையின் பிறப்பிடம்’ என்றே பார்க்கப்பட்டது. தீமைக்கு பயன்பட்ட அதனை நன்மைக்கு பயன்படுத்த முடியும் என்று முஸ்லிம்கள் நிரூபித்தார்கள்.

எகிப்து, துனிஷியா புரட்சியில் ‘பேஸ்புக்’ முக்கிய பங்கு வகித் தது.

சில ஃபித்னாக்கள் மூலம் இஸ்லாமிய வரலாற்றில் முஸ்லிம் களுக்கு நன்மை ஏற்பட்டுள்ளது.

உதாரணமாக அன்னை ஆயிஷா (ரழி) மீதான இட்டுக்கட்டு. அதற்காக நபி (ஸல்) அவர்கள் ஒரு மாதம் கவலைப்பட்டார்கள். என்றாலும் அதில் இந்த உம்மத்திற்கு பெரும் நன்மையை அல்லாஹ் நாடியிருந்தான்.

قال الله تعالي: إِنَّ الَّذِينَ جَاءُوا بِالْإِفْكِ عُصْبَةٌ مِنْكُمْ لَا تَحْسَبُوهُ شَرًّا لَكُمْ بَلْ هُوَ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مِنْهُمْ مَا اكْتَسَبَ مِنَ الْإِثْمِ وَالَّذِي تَوَلَّى كِبْرَهُ مِنْهُمْ لَهُ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ 24:11

 

ஆதலால் முன்னெப்போதும் இல்லாத அளவுக்கு நபி(ஸல்) குறித்த நூல்களை உலமாக்கள் அதிகம் வெளியிட வேண்டும்.

சி.டி.வடிவில் உரைகளை வெளியிட வேண்டும். நபி(ஸல்) அவர் களின்  பன்முகத்தன்மையை ஊடகங்கள், இணைய தளங்கள், தொலைக்காட்சி நேர்காணல்கள், பத்திரிகைகள், வழியாக நேரடி பிரச்சாரங்கள் மேற்கொள்ள வேண்டும். 
யூ ட்யூப் (youtube)  போன்ற வீடியோ தளத்துக்கு நிகரான தளங் களை உருவாக்க வேண்டும்.

கடந்த காலங்களி்ல் அறிவியல் துறையில் நாம் கவனம் செலுத் தாததால் தான் இணையதளங்கள் அமெரிக்காவில் அடைபட்டு விட்டன. இணையதள இயக்குனரகங்கள் இஸ்லாமிய உலகில் இருந்தால் இதுவெல்லாம் நடக்குமா?

2611 - حَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ عُمَرَ بْنِ الْوَلِيدِ الْكِنْدِيُّ حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ نُمَيْرٍ عَنْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ بْنِ الْفَضْلِ عَنْ سَعِيدٍ الْمَقْبُرِيِّ عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ قَالَ

قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ الْكَلِمَةُ الْحِكْمَةُ ضَالَّةُ الْمُؤْمِنِ فَحَيْثُ وَجَدَهَا فَهُوَ أَحَقُّ بِهَا رواه الترمذي وابن ماجه

 

3.உணர்ச்சிவசப்பட்டு, மூர்க்கமான வகையில் கோபத்தை வெளிப்படுத்தக் கூடாது.

قال الله تعالي: وَإِنْ عَاقَبْتُمْ فَعَاقِبُوا بِمِثْلِ مَا عُوقِبْتُمْ بِهِ وَلَئِنْ صَبَرْتُمْ لَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لِلصَّابِرِينَ 16:126

4. இதனை பரப்பக்கூடாது.

இதனை அலட்சியப்படுத்தி விட்டு. இனிமேல் அவ்வாறு யாரும் செய்தா லும் அது எடுபடாத நிலையை ஏற்படுத்த வேண்டும். தீமை பரவுவதற்கு நாமே காரணமாக ஆகக் கூடாது.

قال الله تعالي : إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يُحِبُّونَ أَنْ تَشِيعَ الْفَاحِشَةُ فِي الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالْآَخِرَةِ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنْتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ 24:19

அதிகமான நபர்கள் இக்காட்சியை பார்த்தால் வர்த்தக ரீதியில் வெளியிட்டவன் இலாபமடைவான்.இதற்காகவே இவ்வாறு அற்பர்கள் வெளியிடுகின்றனர் என்பது கவனத்தில் கொள்ளத்தக்கது.

 

ஆர்ப்பாட்டம் தீர்வா?

ஆதலால் ஆர்ப்பாட்டம் நடத்துவது இலகுவான, அதிக உழைப்பு இல்லாத, அறிவுக்கு வேலையி்ல்லாத, ஒரு நாளில் முடிந்து விடக்கூடிய எதிர்ப்பாகும். அது மட்டுமல்ல. இது ‘முஸ்லிம்கள் சகிப்புத்தன்மையற்றவர்கள்’ என்ற இமேஜையும் ஏற்படுத்தும். இதில் வன்முறை வெடித்தால் இதை பயன்படுத்தி இஸ்லாமிய விரோதிகள் தங்களின் காரியத்தை சாதித்துக் கொள்ளவும் வாய்ப்புகள் அதிகம்

மௌலவி.அபுல் ஹஸன் ஃபாஸி Here

"Educated people are more communal" : Nazrul Islam, Author and Police Officer

When I first came to college in the town of Behrampur, I saw that the educated people were more communal in their mindset than the simple people in my native village of Basantapur in Murshidabad district. People in the village were religious, no doubt, but were more tolerant of other religions and lived peacefully with other communities.I began to question religion, education, and started studying the different faiths, which resulted in the book “Banglay Hindu-Musalman Samparka” (Hindu-Muslim Relations in Bengal). 

Nazrul Islam in conversation with Anuradha Sharma. Here

India's 'silent' Prime Minister becomes a tragic figure

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's image has slowly given way to a dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government.

The story of Singh’s dramatic fall from grace in his second term in office and the slow but steady tarnishing of his reputation has played out in parallel with his country’s decline on his watch. As India’s economy has slowed and as its reputation for rampant corruption has reasserted itself, the idea that the country was on an inexorable road to becoming a global power has increasingly come into question.

“More and more, he has become a tragic figure in our history,” said political historian Ramachandra Guha, describing a man fatally handicapped by his “timidity, complacency and intellectual dishonesty.”

Damaging to his reputation is the accusation that he looked the other way and remained silent as his cabinet colleagues filled their own pockets.

In the process, he transformed himself from an object of respect to one of ridicule and endured the worst period in his life, said Sanjaya Baru, Singh’s media adviser during his first term.

Attendees at meetings and conferences were jokingly urged to put their phones into “Manmohan Singh mode,” while one joke cited a dentist urging the seated prime minister, “At least in my clinic, please open your mouth.”

Simon Denyer in The Washington Post. Here

The Rise and fall of Manmohan Singh

The leader of a party allied with the Congress described to me a meeting with Manmohan Singh in December 2005, two months after the release of the UN report investigating abuses in the Iraq Oil-for-Food programme. The report had implicated Natwar Singh, then the minister of external affairs, and he was forced to resign as a result, but it had also named Reliance Petroleum Limited as a beneficiary in the oil-for-food scam. The party leader said he had raised the issue with the prime minister, saying, “Sir, the report mentions not just Natwar, it also prominently mentions Reliance. Why are you not taking any action against Reliance?”

“With a sigh,” the party leader recounted, “Manmohan Singh said to us, ‘After all, what can I do? It is India’s largest corporate.’”  

Vinod K Jose in The Caravan Here and Here 

Narendra Modi, Manmohan Singh and Sheikh Saadi

 

It is related that, whilst some game was being roasted for Nushirvan the just during a hunting party, no salt could be found. Accordingly a boy was sent to an adjoining village to bring some. Nushirvan said: 'Pay for the salt lest it should become a custom and the village be ruined.' Having been asked what harm could arise from such a trifling demand, Nushirvan replied: 'The foundation of oppression was small in the world but whoever came augmented it so that it reached its present magnitude.'  
If the king eats one apple from the garden of a subject
His slaves will pull him up the tree from the roots.

For five eggs which the sultan allows to be taken by force
The people belonging to his army will put a thousand
fowls on the spit.

A tyrant does not remain in the world
But the curse on him abides for ever.

Sheikh Sa'di in The Gulistan of Sa'adi. More Here and Here

The acquittal of Faheem Ansari and some questions

The trial court in Ahmedabad created history of sorts by convicting a senior BJP leader and former minister in the Narendra Modi government, Mayaben Kodnani, and a former Bajrang Dal convener Babu Bajrangi along with 30 others for the massacre of innocent Muslims in Naroda Patiya. This is the first case in which political leaders, if one can call them that, have been found guilty. The tears streaming down the faces of the survivors of this terrible terrible massacre was indication of the suffering and trauma they have gone through in all these years.

The Supreme Court, while convicting Kasab, acquitted two Indian Muslims, Farheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, who had been accused by the Mumbai investigators of being co-conspirators. The lower courts had acquitted them, but clearly the authorities had gone in appeal to the apex court that has upheld the acquittal. Significantly, except for a few newspapers no one even bothered to speak of this important acquittal, and even the sections of the media that reported the facts did not dwell on the trauma that the two men and their families must have gone through.

Who is going to compensate them? Rehabilitate them and their families? There isn’t even a hint of an apology from the state government and all those responsible for keeping two innocent men in jail for a crime they clearly had no part in. In fact more and more reports from Maharashtra suggest that such arrests have become a common practice with the police and the politicians totally unaccountable for the numbers of innocent people they arrest, torture and jail without any proof whatsoever. So while the nation exults over the death sentence for Kasab, it should also pause to pay some thought to the two innocent men whose lives have been ruined in the process.

The second case of Naroda Patiya also has an untold story, of the 97 victims who were brutally raped and killed by a 5,000 strong mob on February 28,2002 of whom 32 have been convicted by the courts. But what about the rest? Where are they? Why have they not been arrested? This along with the trauma and the suffering of the victims is a story that needs to be tracked down, and told. For, while justice has been dispensed, the country needs to assess whether it has been enough, whether there are several loose ends that need to be tied so that the secular and just foundations of India are not just strengthened, but protected against future assault.

The investigating authorities seem to be falling short in more ways than one. Innocent persons are arrested, tortured, jailed and released only after the court’s intervene. Guilty persons are able to evade the investigators and walk free as the investigating agencies fail to collect sufficient proof, or at times, even find the accused even though they are giving interviews to the media. The point here is that while the higher judiciary at least is trying to do its job with a modicum of responsibility and honesty, politicization and corruption has hit the police and the investigating agencies to a point where fiction often replaces facts.

Seema Mustafa in DNA. Here

The Righteous Mind, Reason, Intuition and Islamic Dawah

You’re smart. You’re Muslim. You’re well informed. You think non-Muslims, non-believers are narrow-minded. You can’t understand why people worship statues, cow, film stars, sun, moon and etc etc. You figure they’re being duped. You’re wrong.

William Saletan in his article on the book "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt unravels of the mystery behind rejection and acceptance. Excerpts from his review in The New York Times

In “The ­Righteous Mind,” Haidt seeks to enrich liberalism, and political discourse generally, with a deeper awareness of human nature. Like other psychologists who have ventured into political coaching, such as George Lakoff and Drew Westen, Haidt argues that people are fundamentally intuitive, not rational. If you want to persuade others, you have to appeal to their sentiments. But Haidt is looking for more than victory. He’s looking for wisdom. That’s what makes “The Righteous Mind” well worth reading. Politics isn’t just about ­manipulating people who disagree with you. It’s about learning from them.

The problem isn’t that people don’t reason. They do reason. But their arguments aim to support their conclusions, not yours. Reason doesn’t work like a judge or teacher, impartially weighing evidence or guiding us to wisdom. It works more like a lawyer or press secretary, justifying our acts and judgments to others.

To explain this persistence, Haidt invokes an evolutionary hypothesis: We compete for social status, and the key advantage in this struggle is the ability to influence others. Reason, in this view, evolved to help us spin, not to help us learn. So if you want to change people’s minds, Haidt concludes, don’t appeal to their reason. Appeal to reason’s boss: the underlying moral intuitions whose conclusions reason defends.

****

Many of Haidt’s proposals are vague, insufficient or hard to implement. And that’s O.K. He just wants to start a conversation about integrating a better understanding of human nature — our sentiments, sociality and morality — into the ways we debate and govern ourselves. At this, he succeeds. It’s a landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself.

But to whom is Haidt directing his advice? If intuitions are unreflective, and if reason is self-serving, then what part of us does he expect to regulate and orchestrate these faculties? This is the unspoken tension in Haidt’s book. As a scientist, he takes a passive, empirical view of human nature.

 William Saletan in The New York Times. Here

Discussing the motives of the Afghan shooter

Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivated U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales to allegedly kill 16 Afghans, including 9 children: he was drunk, he was experiencing financial stress, he was passed over for apromotion, he had a traumatic brain injury, he had marital problems, he suffered from the stresses of four tours of duty, he “saw his buddy’s leg blown off the day before the massacre,” etc.

Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivates Muslims to kill Americans: they are primitive, fanatically religious, hateful Terrorists.

Even when Muslims who engage in such acts toward Americans clearlyand repeatedly explain that they did it in response to American acts of domination, aggression, violence and civilian-killing in their countries, and even when the violence is confined to soldiers who are part of a foreign army that has invaded and occupied their country, the only cognizable motive is one of primitive, hateful evil. It is an act of Evil Terrorism, and that is all there is to say about it.

Note, too, that in the case of Sgt. Bales (or any other cases of American violence against Muslims), people have little difficulty understanding the distinction between (a) discussing and trying to understand the underlying motives of the act (causation) and (b) defending the act (justification). But that same distinction completely evaporates when it comes to Muslim violence against Americans. Those who attempt to understand or explain the act — they’re responding to American violence in their country; they are traumatized and angry at the continuous deaths of Muslim children and innocent adults; they’ve calculated that striking at Americans is the ony way to deter further American aggression in their part of the world — are immediately accused of mitigating, justifying or even defending Terrorism.

There is, quite obviously, a desperate need to believe that when an American engages in acts of violence of this type (meaning: as a deviation from formal American policy), there must be some underlying mental or emotional cause that makes it sensible, something other than an act of pure hatred or Evil. When a Muslim engages in acts of violence against Americans, there is an equally desperate need to believe the opposite: that this is yet another manifestation of inscrutable hatred and Evil, and any discussion of any other causes must be prohibited and ignored.

Glenn Greenwald in Readexpress. Here

India's Exploding Digital Economy

Let's start with Internet access. Today, India's population of Internet users is 80 million, which equals a penetration rate of just seven percent (or 17 percent of the urban population). That is about to change. The government is rolling out what it calls its National Broadband Plan, a $4.5 billion initiative to build a country-wide fiber optic network that will connect an additional 160 million Indians by 2014. An Indian investment bank, Avendus, projects 376 million Indian Net users by 2015.

Part of what's fueling growth in Net penetration is an explosion in mobility. The Indian government sponsored the introduction of 3G services in 2011 with a $30 billion spectrum auction. Morgan Stanley projects that 3G penetration will reach 22 percent by 2015. Government and the private sector have spent something like $55 billion on related infrastructure. Further, we'll see a roll-out of 4G wireless services across the country in 2012. While there are nearly 800 million mobile subscribers in India, very few use smart phones; most have feature phones that deliver, at best, premium text-based services. As unit economics enable ever cheaper smart phones (the lowest price in the market is now $65), their penetration will rise.

Fueling this explosion is a fact of national culture: Indians love media. No one aware of the nation's obsession with "ABC" (Astrology, Bollywood, and Cricket) will be surprised to learn that the average Indian consumes 4.5 hours of media and entertainment a day, while 70 percent of the national population spends money on content, both online and off. Time spent online already comes to 40 minutes per capita per day.

Jeffrey F. Rayport in Harvard Business Review. Here

How to have a conversation

Perhaps it was the opium talking, but Thomas de Quincey once wrote that an evening in the company of Samuel Coleridge was “like some great river”. The poet “swept at once into a continuous strain of dissertation, certainly the most novel, the most finely illustrated, and traversing the most spacious fields of thought, by transitions the most just and logical, that it was possible to conceive”.

Most of us have hopefully felt the unmoored elation of staying up all night talking with a friend. But Coleridge was that rare thing, a conversationalist: eloquent, witty, with a seemingly bottomless reservoir of cultural knowledge. Nor was he the only one back then who could claim his company was a performance art. David Hume once engaged in so much raillery at a dinner party he left Jean-Jacques Rousseau clinging to a table leg.

What makes a good conversationalist has changed little over the years. The basics remain the same as when Cicero became the first scholar to write down some rules, which were summarised in 2006 by The Economist:

“Speak clearly; speak easily but not too much, especially when others want their turn; do not interrupt; be courteous; deal seriously with serious matters and gracefully with lighter ones; never criticise people behind their backs; stick to subjects of general interest; do not talk about yourself; and, above all, never lose your temper.”

John McDermott in FT Magazine. More Here and Here