Jai Ho! —Nadeem Ul Haque

[Singh]

We should be grateful that some Muslims remained in India and learned to compete. These Muslims are going to compete internationally and give us something to be proud of while our elites in Pakistan, who shun excellence and hard work, maintain their privilege and extravagance

Many of us watched the Oscars with a lump in our throats when AR Rehman was given a standing ovation by the American movie establishment. Rehman, a Muslim from a country we don’t consider friendly to Muslims, was eulogised by the Hollywood establishment, traditionally controlled by those of the Jewish persuasion. Rehman’s obvious talent overwhelmed them all. Jai ho!

There he stood, saying simple but powerful words: “I had a choice between love and hate. I chose love!” A simple Muslim of simple origins made us all proud with his talent. Jai ho!

What would he have been had he been in Pakistan?

He converted from Hinduism to Islam in 1989. Here, such a conversion would have put him in grave danger; quite possibly, some zealot might even have snuffed out his talent. Yet in his acceptance speech at the Oscars, at one point he said “Allah-o Akbar!” Jai AR Rehman!

For many years we have comforted ourselves by saying that Muslims have no opportunities in India and that Pakistan was made to give Muslims opportunities. Indeed, Pakistan has given some a lot of opportunities to get rich. There are numerous stories of excess wealth gained through government-dispensed licenses and plots, misuse of power, and other abuses of public office. Wealth has been created and the new class of rich shows off its Porsches, Range Rovers and other expensive toys. Their lifestyles could even dwarf some of the well-heeled rich and famous in India and the West. While we laud wealth and power, talent has no place in Pakistan.

The rest of us run around serving these princes. Talented musicians like AR Rehman play at the pleasure of this class. They play at their parties and the expensive weddings of their children; they play and the aristocracy hardly notices them. They do not even stay quiet during performances, pay no attention to the artists or give them the feeling of stardom. Because the stars are the aristocrats who managed to make their money through corruption and manipulation. Jai power!

In Pakistan, this would have been the fate of AR Rehman. He would have been a mere court musician. No Oscars, no recognition. Many a talented Pakistani musician has been forgotten. They leave behind some good music, of which we buy pirated versions. None is honoured. There are no Nur Jehan avenues or airports. No Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan squares, universities or buildings. No concerts; no awards and certainly no major movies that could get them to the Oscars.

We are all aware of how Bollywood is full of Indian Muslims. And they are widely respected in India. Darwin’s ideas seem to be at work: Indian Muslims are flowering under competition and showcasing major talent. Jai ho!

Darwin is right here too. We in Pakistan face no competition. Our path to success is rapid gain through actions such as raiding the exchequer, befriending the powerful, influence-peddling or power-brokering.

Lives of privilege — where the taxpayer picks up the tab for everything: from umrahs to polo, from mujras to free air travel, and from plots to stocks — have led to generational deterioration. Hard work is looked down upon and he who competes internationally is only a kammi kamin. Ministers, the well-connected and the powerful, are not supposed to dirty their hands or even consort with kammis like AR Rehman and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Why? The answer is simple. Our leaders wanted to save themselves the hard work of competition. They wanted and got easy rents — handouts from the government. The army, the bureaucracy, the landed and the licensed industrialist all got it easily. They took no risks, they did not innovate, and they developed no products. They competed against no one for their ill-gotten gains, nor was there any accountability. Kids now see that the path to success is rents and influence, and that hard work and talent does not pay. After all, what did we do to Dr Abdus Salam? So why work hard?

We do produce talent, for no country of 200 million can be devoid of talent. Hashim Khan and his family, Imran Khan and his cousins, several cricketers and hockey players, the wrestler Bashir, and, of course, Abdus Salam. Now thankfully a few younger people like Mohsin Hamid and Daniyal Moinuddin are beginning to blaze some sort of trail. Will our musicians and artists have the opportunity to vie for the Oscars? No, for our elites are too busy destroying institutions, and talent cannot emerge without institutions.

These few talented people struggle against huge odds, with little recognition at home. But most of our younger generation is lost. Rich kids are given to pleasure and privilege, and the poor are turning to religion out of desperation.

We should be grateful that some Muslims remained in India and learned to compete. These Muslims are going to compete internationally and give us something to be proud of while our elites in Pakistan, who shun excellence and hard work, maintain their privilege and extravagance.

So thank you, AR Rehman. Jai Indian Muslims!

Nadeem Ul Haque is former Vice Chancellor of PIDE. Email: [email protected]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\04\10\story_10-4-2009_pg3_4

Editorial Published in Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper.

 

[Daredevil]

So, finally realization is dawning upon a minority of Pakistanis. It will be good if other Pakistanis realize the same.

 

[Vinod2070]

A good article but it's really funny how these Pakistanis consider themselves thekedars of Islam and even Indian Muslims!

This is just pathetic. They should learn to look within Pakistan. Indian Muslims achieving laurels has nothing to do with Pakistan! They best they can do for Islam and Indian Muslims is to stop sending terrorists here and worldwide.

I remember how Pakistanis were besides themselves with joy when the Glasgow bomber turned out to be an Indian Muslim. It was just like we are not the only terrorists.

At that time, there was no consideration of Islam or Indian Muslims!

 

[Daredevil]

Aim of Pakistan has always been to equate with India whether it is Military potential or terrorism despite there being a lot of disparity in the potential of these two countries. While India is aspiring to be a global super power with positive contribution, on the other hand Pakistan is aspiring to become (or it already became) a global terrorist power with negative contribution to the world.

 

[Singh]

Thinking outside the box


By Shandana Khan Mohmand

IF there is anything that the Mumbai terror attacks have made clear, it is that it’s time to think outside the box.

The manner in which we in Pakistan have thought, spoken and acted so far has led us here. If we want to move away from this spot, the same conventional thought process and attitude is no longer going to work. A dramatic shift is now required in the way we perceive our region and conceive our identity.

First: we need to be less defensive. There are many reasons for this, not least of which is the fact that it simply makes us look stupid. It is one thing to insist that you need more evidence in order to initiate action. It is quite another to question each piece of mounting evidence, especially in the face of a general popular acceptance of the fact that there are organisations here in Pakistan that openly purport the ideology that they are being accused of, about which we choose to do little.

Imagine this: a Pakistani organisation is so implicated in such activities that the United Nations actually sees fit to declare it a terrorist organisation, but we sit around and let it operate freely and openly until we get news of this declaration, at which point we spring into action.

What were we thinking until now? The banners hanging from most lamp-posts in Lahore for the last few weeks, asking people to contribute their “qurbani hides” to the organisation should demonstrate well the unfettered operations that this group enjoyed.

Being defensive, however, may be a hard behavioural trait to alter because it is firmly embedded even in our everyday social interactions. Mohammad Hanif , the brilliant author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes made a fantastic reference in a BBC article to “that uncle that you get stranded with at a family gathering when everybody else has gone to sleep but there is still some whisky left in the bottle” in describing Musharraf’s behaviour when he announced his coup against himself last year.

Taking this analogy further, this quintessentially Pakistani uncle has two other very familiar traits. One, he is extremely defensive about every one of his own identities — nationality, religion, sect, class, career — and has a deep distrust of all those who inhabit the realm of the “other”. And two, he resolutely believes that the only verification any fact needs is for it to be emitting from his mouth. Musharraf suffered heavily from this delusion, but so do so many of our other uncles, those in our homes, those at our parties, and those currently issuing statements on TV.

Second, we need to stop acting in a merely reactionary manner. The “if they were in our place they would have behaved in the same way” attitude isn’t going to get us very far. Many of us tried to point that out to the Pakistani government all the way back in May 1998 when India first tested its nuclear bomb.

Our government thought for about two weeks and then chose to act in exactly the same way, rather than to secure its position on the moral high horse by backing away from such childish tit-for-tat arguments and games.

Our ‘outside-the-box’ collective thinking now needs to demonstrate that though it may be true that if some other country had been in our position they may have acted with misguided nationalist bravado, we are capable of acting differently, not because it is demanded or expected of us, but because this is the right thing to do and because we take such terrorist attacks very seriously, both at home and abroad. The moral high horse may be the only thing that Pakistan can have going for it right now, and yet, even that is being squandered away by the defensiveness of those who claim to speak on its behalf.

Third, Pakistan needs to accept a very harsh reality — it is not the equal of India, and the belief that we can be compared has stunted our development no end. We cannot win a war against it, we cannot compare the instability of our political system to the stability of theirs, we cannot hope to compete economically with what is a booming economy well on its way to becoming a global economic power, and we certainly cannot compare the conservativeness of our society to the open pluralism of their everyday life.

Accepting these realities may allow Pakistan to give up its nationalistic bravado and posturing, and may actually allow it to accept its more realistic role in this region — one that requires that it live in peace with India, that it not unnecessarily provoke its wrath and that it understands that its most beneficial economic strategy would be to get in on the boom next door.

For that we need to think outside the box — outside the box of the two-nation theory, outside the box of the violence of 1947, and outside the box of the ill-conceived wars of the last six decades.

The writer is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.

http://www.dawn.com/2009/01/10/op.htm

 

[mehwish92]

in reply to the first article, someone should remind Nadeem Ul haque that India has just as many Muslims as Pakistan, if not more.

Him saying that "some" Muslims chose to stay back in India just sounds odd.

And India is not an anti-Muslim country. However, it is a corrupt country (unfortunately) as a result of which political groups play on religious sentiments to gain votes. I'd like to remind Nadeem that Pakistan also does the same, and has even divided the Muslims.

Also, I'd like to remind him that while the non-Muslim population in Pakistan has decreased from 20% to 4% in the past 60 years, India's Muslim and Christian populations are increasing at very fast rates. You see Indian Muslims everywhere you go. Where do you find Pakistani Hindus?

Secondly, Pakistanis have no reason to be proud of the accomplishments of Indian Muslims. We are different people, and have different ideologies. We are secular, they are not. The only thing we have in common is Islam, nothing else. (well that, and a common bloodline, but in terms of ideologies we are worlds apart).

 

[Rage]

in reply to the first article, someone should remind Nadeem Ul haque that India has just as many Muslims as Pakistan, if not more.

Him saying that "some" Muslims chose to stay back in India just sounds odd.

And India is not an anti-Muslim country. However, it is a corrupt country (unfortunately) as a result of which political groups play on religious sentiments to gain votes. I'd like to remind Nadeem that Pakistan also does the same, and has even divided the Muslims.

Also, I'd like to remind him that while the non-Muslim population in Pakistan has decreased from 20% to 4% in the past 60 years, India's Muslim and Christian populations are increasing at very fast rates. You see Indian Muslims everywhere you go. Where do you find Pakistani Hindus?

Secondly, Pakistanis have no reason to be proud of the accomplishments of Indian Muslims. We are different people, and have different ideologies. We are secular, they are not. The only thing we have in common is Islam, nothing else. (well that, and a common bloodline, but in terms of ideologies we are worlds apart).

Yeah baby ! You tell 'im gyall !

Btw gents, mehwishjaan is an Indian female muslim from Capital City.

 

[NikSha]

No offense but this article is written by some little shit who thinks every (HINDU) Indian goes around burning muslims and Muslims are struggling 24/7 because evil Hindus just make them suffer on every step of life.

Posting such articles makes no sense. Most of us recognise ourselves as "Indians" first and Hindu, Muslims or Christians later. But Pakistani fucks like him don't. They recognise us as "Hindu" and "Muslims" only. You can see it in his wordings:

So thank you, AR Rehman. Jai Indian Muslims!

Raise your hands if your first thought on Rehman winning Oscar wasn't "He is making India proud" over "He is making Indian muslims proud, whatever." (which is what Pakistanis and their types saw).

They are sorry about their current state, but they still won't stop trying to divide India based on religion, because that's what they grow up thinking. Most of us weren't taught to serve our religion in schools, we grew up thinking of India as just.. India. They however are Muslims first and Pakistanis second. Pretty much explains why they are in the shitter (and explains the comments people from their country post over Kashmir and Indian Muslims all over the net).

 

[mehwish92]

Posting such articles makes no sense. Most of us recognise ourselves as "Indians" first and Hindu, Muslims or Christians later. But Pakistani fucks like him don't. They recognise us as "Hindu" and "Muslims" only. You can see it in his wordings:



Raise your hands if your first thought on Rehman winning Oscar wasn't "He is making India proud" over "He is making Indian muslims proud, whatever." (which is what Pakistanis and their types saw).

Like I said earlier, there is an ideology difference; Pakistanis are obsessed with religion (for all the wrong reasons, if you ask me), Whereas Indians aren't

Like Dr Zakir Naik says, asking me to choose between my faith and country is like asking me to choose between my father and mother. Both are important to me, and I will never put one over the other

When A R Rehman and Resul Pookutty won Oscars (both of whom are Muslim by the way), I did not think "He's made Muslims proud", or "He's made Indian Muslims proud", I thought "He has made India proud".

But if you go onto youtube, you will see what Pakistanis and Arabs post on youtube. I find it annoying. Pakistanis, especially, don't see this as India's achievement, but as a Muslim achievement. They believe Indian Muslims are more closely related to Pakistan than to India, and thus it is an achievement for the Muslims of the subcontinent.

I guess its what one would expect, seeing that they themselves have never been able to accomplish something. They live their dreams through us :blum3: .

 

[Vinod2070]

^^ Great post mehwish92.

I think the more reasonable Pakistanis are realizing that religion is a part of one' identity but just a part. Its not the complete identity. That is why many of them are taking to claiming their IVC heritage (though still reluctant to claim the post IVC heritage for the most part), talking of "Pakistan first" which to me means having a national identity beyond just the Muslim ummah identity that they started with.

As a recent article I posted in "The state of Pakistan" thread mentioned, Pakistanis are mighty confused about their identity from day 1. I think its an insurmountable problem for them. They have no heroes from within Pakistan and run around like orphan kids claiming other's achiements.

 

[johnee]

Typical pak thinking on full diplay in the first article. The author is saying: "Hey, we are supposed to be the real muslims, we are supposed to be achieving everything and 'Indian Muslims'(the 'few' that chose to remain) were supposed to be murdered 24/7 by evil yindoos........, but life is not the same as we were thought in our nursery textbooks.......".

Notice, that paks view the world interms of religion, where as Indians view it interms of nation. Rasul Pookutty(an Indian Muslim) in his oscar winning speech was praising Om(a Hindu Mantra). A.R. Rahman and Rasul must not be insulted by bracketing them in the same league as Paks(just becoz they share same religion). Indians(irrespective of religion, region, caste....etc) have moved on and have achieved a lot when compared to Paks, who are still stuck in their narrow world-view.

 

[Vinod2070]

We should be grateful that some Muslims remained in India and learned to compete. These Muslims are going to compete internationally and give us something to be proud of while our elites in Pakistan, who shun excellence and hard work, maintain their privilege and extravagance.

You are right Johnee. This is so pathetic, these words!

India has almost as many Muslims as Pakistan. More Muslims left "Pakistan" in 1971 than ever left India during partition!

I don't see why Indian Muslims earning laurels should make him or his countrymen proud? They have not even been able to assimilate the "Muhajirs" after 60 years and talk smoothly of Indian Muslims.