To Mohammad Saleem Akhtar, The Lion-Hearted Solitary Defender

Submitted by Swahili Dinaz (India), Oct 16, 2005 at 12:32

If only more followers of Islam were in your image, the world would have been that much better a place to live in, with free and open debate. Genuine modesty is an important virtue after all.

From what the 10/8 earthquake continues to reveal, even the separatists are having second thoughts. (See: http://www.kashmirlive.com/full_story.php?content_id=56711&type=ei)

"Most pakistanis eg belong to the 'Sufi' class of Islam. They have not read Koran or arabic. They think its a divine book, they dont know the meaning of it."

--I was under the impression that Pakistan is a Sunni-majority State, which is why the Shias, Ahmediyas and other Muslim minority sects are constantly the targets of violence?

The Sufis are not fully accepted by mainstream Islam, and many of them were brutally massacred throughout its history. Much research is currently underway in the UK for example, that shows that the tenets of Sufi devotion have been derived from Hindu Advaita. Majority Kashmiri Muslims are Sufi, and it is the awoved goal of the Pakistan-backed terrorists to wipe out this gentle influence from their midst. Also, the Kashmiris believe that Jesus travelled in India as a yogi and took his final samadhi in Kashmir!

"Its just like hinduism trying to integrate Dalits in itself now. Although the progress is slow at least something is being done to manage the plight of 200 million low-caste hindus."

--This is a part of the diabolical "thousand cuts" strategy of those who hate India and the Hindus. There is no such monolithic entity in India as '200 million low-caste hindus'. Under the umbrella of Hinduism blossomed scores of divergent reformist faiths, without discrimination. Unlike Christianity in India, there have been venerated Saints from nearly all Dalit groupings, and women too, even during the medieval era of Muslim conquest. Their anniversaries are celebrated in pilgrim places like Pandharpur, Alandi and even Amritsar, without a thought to their low caste status! Most Indian Saints belong to the lower strata, and even Brahmin-born saints like Dnyaneshwar suffered atrocities at the hands of rigid priesthood because they preached universal compassion and love hundreds of years ago! Moreover, the very institution of the venerated Sadhus is in outright denial of caste, clan or regional origins of renunciates!

Moreover, Lal Dedh or Lalla Yogishwari, the naked woman of faith, is considered the patron saint of Kashmir by both Sufis and Hindus, in the universal vision of devotion in India! And she was not the only one in any era.

Hinduism produced from its midst, great reformers like Mahavir, Buddha, Nanak and Kabir in ancient times, and the tradition continues to this day. Buddhism was so pacifist that it was simply wiped out of India in the times of Muslim conquests. Sage yogis who had foreseen this eventuality, helped secure a shelter for Buddhism in the Far East, while Hinduism was secured in many ways by savants, including a safe house for its yogic knowledge in Tibetan highlands and Himalayan caves!

Even then, India was the richest nation on earth in pre-colonial times, the only one that produced diamonds, and it was finally European colonial rule that reduced it to utter poverty. It is a recorded fact that the great Bengal famine of 1940 was a man-made disaster through reprehensible politics of the colonial power. After brutalising India through its utterly racist and rapacious divide-and-rule policy, following a vigorous freedom struggle, once the British left, there were no more great famines on the scale witnessed in the previous 200-odd years. This was in spite of all the wars imposed on it in the name of geopolitics. Despite all heinous propaganda against India and Hinduism by vested interests, Indians in the main live in harmony and happiness together. Indian authorities have been conducting excursions for Kashmiris to visit the far-flung areas of India to see for themselves how peaceful and prosperous modern living in India is, despite all the hate-propaganda they are fed with day-in and day-out. When they meet normal Indian citizen in the streets, they often break down in the face of the love and sympathy from the most ordinary people!

This much clarification was necessary to counteract the oft-repeated foul propaganda about casteism in India. It is simple logic that a nation cannot progress unless there is democracy and equality, and the level of prosperity India has achieved within a span of almost 60 years after independence, is a slap in the face of its detractors. After British misrule, it was like starting from Ground Zero for a once great nation. Speaking of internal divisions, if I am to repeat an old axiom, "Who can cast the first stone?"

As for your comments, I think it is a good sign if majority Muslims, like you, are preparing for deliverance from the Mullahs, the terrorists and military dictators by the coming Imam Mahdi. This in effect gives the lie to Islam's assertion that Muhammad was the last Prophet! But unlike Muslims who cannot do a thing to stop the terrorists in their midst (See http://www.kashmirlive.com/full_story.php?content_id=52581&type=ei), Indians of all kinds have unflinchingly stood up to powerful bullies in their midst, without waiting for God's advent on earth. This is why the Number One Terrorist in the world, Dawood Ibrahim, had to leave India decades ago and seek shelter from the ISI in Karachi, following which, as you well know, the drugs and crime scene in that city has shot through the roof!

In the end, we come back to the earlier question about Islam, can it be reformed, or not? The second part is, who is to do it? Also considering the reply of the long-suffering Mohammad Saleem Akhtar, how to isolate the bullies like the Sunni Wahhabis and their ilk, who obviously don't speak or terrorise on behalf of majority pacifist Muslims around the world?

So when will this majority learn to make common secularist cause with the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Jews, Christians and others, in open revolt against the purveyors of inequality, misogyny, dictatorship, death and violence in the name of Islam? Lastly, what does one then make of the anomaly of the hydra-headed Muslim associations, including the students' associations, who appear to speak in one voice, or at best, want it both ways?

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