Imam Bukhari
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- Jul 5, 2012
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Preamble Note of Caution: This is going to be very controversial and may touch a few raw nerves. I apologize in advance if anyone feels hurt or upset. But I request all readers to first take a deep breath to let all the hasty emotions subside, and then recite "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un" 10 times so as to avoid any knee-jerk responses.
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We often see that there is an almost obsessive, compulsive desire on part of some of our countrymen to repeatedly tell themselves that minorities in India are helplessly suffering from rabid discrimination and horrific oppression at the hands of the Hindu-majority.
The issue in this thread is not whether this is true or not as an absolute. I think we can take it for granted that there is (100% sure, no doubt) discrimination and oppression of minorities in India.
The nuanced issue here is one of degree. After all, Blacks & Hispanics also encounter discrimination in the United States, and Muslims & Asians also experience discrimination in England. That is almost universal, given that no place is perfect and all the people in world will have their prejudices. The issue in this thread is how intense is this discrimination & oppression against minorities in India and how do our countrymen in Pakistan go about forming their views on this subject. Do they use reason with facts, proportions, and contexts? Or do they use emotions?
Here is one example of an "infinitely-intense discrimination" psychology: Dr. Haq's Views & Opinions on the Whole Universe
Readers can keyword search "Minorities" "Discrimination" "Muslims" "Oppression" at the site to see the extent to which this particular author takes his belief of "absolute evil". In particular, I quote this particular author's belief that:
"The best proof of India's discrimination against Muslims is in the vast difference between the Muslims of Pakistan and Muslims of India since 1947. Without a doubt, Muslims of Pakistan are far better educated, healthier and richer than Indian Muslims today"
This may or may not be true. But what is the psychology behind this somewhat needy-clinging to this belief? Could it be that what the author really meant to say was:
"The best validation of the creation of Pakistan is in the vast difference between the Muslims of Pakistan and Muslims of India since 1947. Without a doubt, Muslims of Pakistan are far better educated, healthier and richer than Indian Muslims today"
Here is why I make this key distinction:
Why should he care so intensely about any discrimination against India’s Muslims? Why does he keep making the comparisons that he makes? After all, we have nothing to do with the Indians, do we? We are a completely separate people with a distinct culture and separate history, are we not? We did shut our doors on faces of India's Muslims in 1951, did we not?
THE TWO-NATION THEORY --ALTAF HUSSAIN
So clearly we owe India's Muslims nothing. We do not owe them 1-cent more than we owe Muslims of Burma. Do we care about discrimination against Muslims in Burma? No, we do not. What about the Muslims Thailand, Sri-Lanka, Vietnam, China, Laos, Cambodia, South-Africa? No, no deep sympathies there.
So is there a hidden reason for the fact that some of us so compulsively obsess about the discrimination against Muslims and other minorities in India? What is so special about India?
Could it be because of the underlying implication of this discrimination & oppression on the validation of the two-nation theory that lies at the foundation of our country?
Let us play a mind-game: Hypothetically speaking, assume for a moment that Pakistan peacefully and voluntarily dissolves into the Independent Republics of Punjab, Sindhudesh, Balochistan, Pashtunistan etcetera. In this scenario would anybody care much about the state of India’s Muslims or minorities?
I don’t think so. We note that even though Bangladesh was created as part of Pakistan as per the Quaid's two-nation theory, it has since split away into an ethno-linguistic Bangla-speaking state. Since then, barring a few JeI activists, we don’t see as many Bangladeshis obsessing over India’s Muslims any more than they would over Sri-Lankan or Thai or Chechen or Palestinian Muslims. This is because they now have an clear identity of their own and do not see Indian Muslims speaking Urdu, Tamil, Awadhi, Malayalam, Konkani, Gujarati, etcetera, as somehow their brethren.
In the same way, I would conjecture that if any subah of Pakistan secedes, it will first move away from Hindustani (Urdu-Hindi), then establish its own language (Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto etc.) as the new National Language (like Bengali in Bangladesh), and finally cease to compulsively obsess about the state of “India’s Muslims”.
So obviously, it is not the sad-state of India’s minorities itself that interests us as Pakistanis. Rather, it is the fact that such a sad-state provides the much-needed validation to our foundational story. "See, see!”, some of us say to ourselves, "we were right to secede, otherwise we would have also have been suffering like those minorities in India today".
In fact, to take this logic further, I think that some of us would not like --and here is the schadenfreude-- to see India’s Minorities do well, because their success might conversely discredit our foundational story. We might then ask, "if India's minorities are doing well, then why was Pakistan created?".
So it is my hypothesis that it is very important for the psychological-health of some of our countrymen that minorities in India keep suffering. And the more they suffer, the better it would be for our sense of collective identity.
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I could be wrong. This is just my theory. Like most Psycho-babble theories, I am sure there is a lot of "hoo-haa" in it. I just thought it would be interesting if readers would look deep inside and come up with their own views on this theory. Does not have to be in absolutes of True/False, Yes/No only. Posters could also examine finer nuances like "Yes, but", "No, although", "Unlikely, but possible", "Improbable, but not impossible" etcetera.
------
We often see that there is an almost obsessive, compulsive desire on part of some of our countrymen to repeatedly tell themselves that minorities in India are helplessly suffering from rabid discrimination and horrific oppression at the hands of the Hindu-majority.
The issue in this thread is not whether this is true or not as an absolute. I think we can take it for granted that there is (100% sure, no doubt) discrimination and oppression of minorities in India.
The nuanced issue here is one of degree. After all, Blacks & Hispanics also encounter discrimination in the United States, and Muslims & Asians also experience discrimination in England. That is almost universal, given that no place is perfect and all the people in world will have their prejudices. The issue in this thread is how intense is this discrimination & oppression against minorities in India and how do our countrymen in Pakistan go about forming their views on this subject. Do they use reason with facts, proportions, and contexts? Or do they use emotions?
Here is one example of an "infinitely-intense discrimination" psychology: Dr. Haq's Views & Opinions on the Whole Universe
Readers can keyword search "Minorities" "Discrimination" "Muslims" "Oppression" at the site to see the extent to which this particular author takes his belief of "absolute evil". In particular, I quote this particular author's belief that:
"The best proof of India's discrimination against Muslims is in the vast difference between the Muslims of Pakistan and Muslims of India since 1947. Without a doubt, Muslims of Pakistan are far better educated, healthier and richer than Indian Muslims today"
This may or may not be true. But what is the psychology behind this somewhat needy-clinging to this belief? Could it be that what the author really meant to say was:
"The best validation of the creation of Pakistan is in the vast difference between the Muslims of Pakistan and Muslims of India since 1947. Without a doubt, Muslims of Pakistan are far better educated, healthier and richer than Indian Muslims today"
Here is why I make this key distinction:
Why should he care so intensely about any discrimination against India’s Muslims? Why does he keep making the comparisons that he makes? After all, we have nothing to do with the Indians, do we? We are a completely separate people with a distinct culture and separate history, are we not? We did shut our doors on faces of India's Muslims in 1951, did we not?
THE TWO-NATION THEORY --ALTAF HUSSAIN
So clearly we owe India's Muslims nothing. We do not owe them 1-cent more than we owe Muslims of Burma. Do we care about discrimination against Muslims in Burma? No, we do not. What about the Muslims Thailand, Sri-Lanka, Vietnam, China, Laos, Cambodia, South-Africa? No, no deep sympathies there.
So is there a hidden reason for the fact that some of us so compulsively obsess about the discrimination against Muslims and other minorities in India? What is so special about India?
Could it be because of the underlying implication of this discrimination & oppression on the validation of the two-nation theory that lies at the foundation of our country?
Let us play a mind-game: Hypothetically speaking, assume for a moment that Pakistan peacefully and voluntarily dissolves into the Independent Republics of Punjab, Sindhudesh, Balochistan, Pashtunistan etcetera. In this scenario would anybody care much about the state of India’s Muslims or minorities?
I don’t think so. We note that even though Bangladesh was created as part of Pakistan as per the Quaid's two-nation theory, it has since split away into an ethno-linguistic Bangla-speaking state. Since then, barring a few JeI activists, we don’t see as many Bangladeshis obsessing over India’s Muslims any more than they would over Sri-Lankan or Thai or Chechen or Palestinian Muslims. This is because they now have an clear identity of their own and do not see Indian Muslims speaking Urdu, Tamil, Awadhi, Malayalam, Konkani, Gujarati, etcetera, as somehow their brethren.
In the same way, I would conjecture that if any subah of Pakistan secedes, it will first move away from Hindustani (Urdu-Hindi), then establish its own language (Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto etc.) as the new National Language (like Bengali in Bangladesh), and finally cease to compulsively obsess about the state of “India’s Muslims”.
So obviously, it is not the sad-state of India’s minorities itself that interests us as Pakistanis. Rather, it is the fact that such a sad-state provides the much-needed validation to our foundational story. "See, see!”, some of us say to ourselves, "we were right to secede, otherwise we would have also have been suffering like those minorities in India today".
In fact, to take this logic further, I think that some of us would not like --and here is the schadenfreude-- to see India’s Minorities do well, because their success might conversely discredit our foundational story. We might then ask, "if India's minorities are doing well, then why was Pakistan created?".
So it is my hypothesis that it is very important for the psychological-health of some of our countrymen that minorities in India keep suffering. And the more they suffer, the better it would be for our sense of collective identity.
------
I could be wrong. This is just my theory. Like most Psycho-babble theories, I am sure there is a lot of "hoo-haa" in it. I just thought it would be interesting if readers would look deep inside and come up with their own views on this theory. Does not have to be in absolutes of True/False, Yes/No only. Posters could also examine finer nuances like "Yes, but", "No, although", "Unlikely, but possible", "Improbable, but not impossible" etcetera.
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