TURNING POINT IN THE HISTORY OF INDIAN SUBCONTINENT

[Sashan]

Haven't you answered your own post in the last line you wrote?

Sorry - I did not get you. My gist of the argument is for nation building it is alright for religious rights of people to get squashed and confine their rights to their homes.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Without doubt, the Uniform Civil Code has been hijacked by nuts among the right wingers who use it for their own purposes and while there are genuine reasons to worry what the Muslim personal law does to the women of that religion, I'm reasonably sure that is not what concerns the Hindu right wingers. What they are concerned with is "polygamy" part in the law. While I am not particularly sure that it makes a real difference, it still creates a negative perception about the behaviour of the Muslim community especially in population control, something that worries many Hindus. However irrational that fear is, it is a big source of friction and is used by the right wingers to build up resentment. The law is also remarkably sexist seeing Muslim women or even converted women as lesser beings. Communal harmony requires a Uniform Civil code to work best. The price the Muslim community is paying because of these archaic laws is huge. That society is simply not being allowed to evolve like the others and we will all pay the price for that. I simply don't understand why a female citizen of India, just because she is a Muslim has to suffer laws that are extremely prejudicial to her interest while her Hindu counterparts get a much better deal.

Your point about a community being happy with its own social progress and not bothering with the other while sounding very idealistic borders on the dangerous. You are placing emphasis on the "other" as if they were a completely separate entity.That idea has already got this sub continent enough grief and I don't think any of us wants a repeat performance. For someone believing in secular values, that argument is odd because you are willing to let society divide themselves on the basis of religion with those of one religion not bothering about the other. Not something this nation needs. Not in the least.

I have said this elsewhere and this may partially support your position, we need a voluntary uniform civil code to start with but compulsory for all inter-religious marriages regardless of whether there has been a conversion(at any time) or not. That will make it impossible for a Muslim man to take a convertee as his second,third,fourth wife or marry someone else while being married to her. It will both take the wind of the propagandists sails, as well as preserve the right of atleast those women who had it before they married . Start there and maybe we can build something, even if it remains a long, slow process.

Shorn of your very subtle but very valid point about conversions, the situation that prevails is exactly that - a voluntary Civil Code available for adoption. For the rest of your post, I must plead fatigue. At this moment, at least.

One contributing factor is that there has been a lot of hard thinking about the Aryan problem, and I believe that it is explainable, in terms of an immigration of small but dominant numbers, of their constant reinforcement, and of their increasing prevalence in the north-west. It seems likely, although I do not wish to introduce 'spoilers' here, that the loss of memory of their urheimat happened in the Punjab, on the composition of the Rg Veda, which quickly won acceptance in the war-band/bardic atmosphere that seems to have prevailed, and that seems to have wiped out, or, more tempting, subsumed older traditions.

More, after I have prepared an alternative dating chronology which accommodates a flourishing Saraswati within the other factors.

 

[Sashan]

Excellent!

If all are agreed that laws must be brought in, a Uniform Civil Code should be brought in, then where is the problem? My message to the backers of a UCC, go ahead, legislate. Just do it. But if you can't, then don't come and moan in the posts of the Pakistan Defence Forum that you wanted to do something wonderful for your country, but the damn' fools didn't let you do it. Either it is the demand of the majority of Indians, or it is not. Please make up your own mind which it is.

Sorry - the backers of a UCC are not significant nos though I believe they are the rational ones. The problem is that illiterate below BPL ones form a significant chunk of the population and does not get to think about these issues and would rather go for the remnants of the pseudosecular brigade on the promise of roti kadpda aur makan. And the minority pandering does not help here as well. On top of it, there is a right wing hindutva bogeyman.


So at the end of the day we can shout through the roof and wait for the educated ones to grow in significant nos. Beyond that, I do not want to get worked up here.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Joe sir - not surprised you will throw this googly at me - In fact I was expecting this when I wrote this - can you show me statistics that polygamy is not one of the reasons for the higher TFR of muslims" - I consciously wrote this line expecting a similar response above from you that you will quote other reasons as well.

Thank you for making this simple: look at the Women's Reproductive Rate.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Sorry - the backers of a UCC are not significant nos though I believe they are the rational ones. The problem is that illiterate below BPL ones form a significant chunk of the population and does not get to think about these issues and would rather go for the remnants of the pseudosecular brigade on the promise of roti kadpda aur makan. And the minority pandering does not help here as well. On top of it, there is a right wing hindutva bogeyman.


So at the end of the day we can shout through the roof and wait for the educated ones to grow in significant nos. Beyond that, I do not want to get worked up here.

But we are on the same page, then.

All I have been saying is that until education weakens the hold that dead superstition has on men and women today, we cannot bring in major reforms. They will remain reforms like the Sarda Act: an excellent act, and one that is most frequently flouted. Why bring in a Uniform Civil Code that will promptly be flouted?

And what you ended by saying was that at the end of the day, we can shout through the roof (I really wish you wouldn't; you have no idea what roofing costs are these days) and wait for the educated ones to grow in significant nos.

Would you like to point out the significant differences in our positions?

Sorry - I did not get you. My gist of the argument is for nation building it is alright for religious rights of people to get squashed and confine their rights to their homes.

That was after I had already cited the circumstantial evidence that poverty brings in high birth rates. Poverty is eradicated by education. Therefore high birth rates are eradicated by education.

I can put this in equation form if you like - but not now, not today.

 

[Sashan]

Thank you for making this simple: look at the Women's Reproductive Rate.

I have looked up and here are the nos - muslim women have 4.1 children on average while hindu women have only 2.9 children. But there are couple of other authors who have attribute the high birth rate to religious customs and practices. I will do some research when time permits and will come up with nos and publish here. May take days due to the time available for me during the weekdays.

 

[Sashan]

I can put this in equation form if you like - but not now, not today.

Joe sir - I would appreciate that but I want to courteously point out that you promised me couple of responses long back.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Joe sir - I would appreciate that but I want to courteously point out that you promised me couple of responses long back.

I was joking. Here it goes, and you will see why I am joking:

Let P=Poverty
B=Crude Birth Rate
E=Education

P=B

If P*E=1, THEN B*E=1

 

[Developereo]

Dear Developreo

Please understand that i have no prejudice against u or Islam or Muslims in general other than acrimony on certain points.

I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. Please understand that I consider you to be one of the most reasonable posters on this forum and not anti-Muslim in the slightest. There are legitimate gripes against Muslims, past and present, and the mark of a reasonable person is whether they confine their criticism to the culprits or use their actions to demonize the wider community and promote racist stereotypes.

Reputations on this forum are formed over months and years, over hundreds if not thousands of posts. We know exactly which way most of the old timers lean and, a couple of posts here and there are not going to make a difference. The leopard shows his spots sooner or later.

You can believe it at face value or reject this statement. Further to this, this talk of Aryan 'modus operandi' has to be proved and still is disputed right?? Bang galore has raised some fair points in opposition and who knows in future u could be proved right or wrong. However the Muslim Invasions are recent right?

Again, I fully admit that what I presented is a mere conjecture. It is based on my firm belief that human nature and human societies follow the same patterns across the world and throughout history. All religions are acquired ideologies; they all spread using a combination of military conquest, righteous examples, and economic incentives (convenience). Islam and Christianity are the newcomers on the stage, and did their dirty deeds during the historic period, so they get singled out. The older faiths wrapped it all up millenia ago, but human nature remains human nature.

I have clearly said that these comparisons can be made with intellectuals having a historical bent of mind only. A person with cold logic on this matters will be hard to find.

You are right that the academics' voices are drowned out by emotional tub thumpers. Appeal to emotions often wins out over logic, but the fight must go on. To let the extremists go unchallenged is not an option.

Regarding blaming Pakistan, what can u do when a large chunk is torn from u based on religion and people living with u want to leave suddenly because of this religion??

Arundhati Roy has said that Indian Muslims are held hostage to Kashmir. Now we are told that they are held hostage to Pakistan. How on earth can you (not YOU) hold Indian Muslims responsible for the actions of the Pakistani military?

This, by itself, should raise flags that the hate mongers will latch on to any excuse to demonize and marginalize Indian Muslims. All the arguments that are used against Indian Muslims (vote bank, special preferences, high birth rates, mixed allegiance, etc.) may sound reasonable to some people but, for those of us who are familiar with the history of race relations in Western countries, these are all standard, off-the-shelf tactics used by hatemongers to stigmatize a minority.

Once again, there is nothing new under the Sun; human nature remains the same.

 

[Rig Vedic]

All religions are acquired ideologies; they all spread using a combination of military conquest, righteous examples, and economic incentives (convenience).

This may be true for Abrahamic doctrines.

However, as I mentioned in another post, the organic growth of Dharma in India may be likened to the development of European Mathematics, with early contributors like Euclid, and many other contributors at various times, from various places.

 

[Rig Vedic]

Dharma spread in an organic way beyond India too. Consider how it was absorbed by Indonesia, Cambodia, China, Japan, Tibet etc.

And other peoples, such as Tibetans, have made important contributions to Yoga and Buddhism.

Central Asia also had a significant Dharmic presence before the advent of Islam. But now there is only the Russian Republic of Kalmykia that retains its Buddhist culture.

 

[indushek]

I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. Please understand that I consider you to be one of the most reasonable posters on this forum and not anti-Muslim in the slightest. There are legitimate gripes against Muslims, past and present, and the mark of a reasonable person is whether they confine their criticism to the culprits or use their actions to demonize the wider community and promote racist stereotypes.

Reputations on this forum are formed over months and years, over hundreds if not thousands of posts. We know exactly which way most of the old timers lean and, a couple of posts here and there are not going to make a difference. The leopard shows his spots sooner or later.



Again, I fully admit that what I presented is a mere conjecture. It is based on my firm belief that human nature and human societies follow the same patterns across the world and throughout history. All religions are acquired ideologies; they all spread using a combination of military conquest, righteous examples, and economic incentives (convenience). Islam and Christianity are the newcomers on the stage, and did their dirty deeds during the historic period, so they get singled out. The older faiths wrapped it all up millenia ago, but human nature remains human nature.



You are right that the academics' voices are drowned out by emotional tub thumpers. Appeal to emotions often wins out over logic, but the fight must go on. To let the extremists go unchallenged is not an option.



Arundhati Roy has said that Indian Muslims are held hostage to Kashmir. Now we are told that they are held hostage to Pakistan. How on earth can you (not YOU) hold Indian Muslims responsible for the actions of the Pakistani military?

This, by itself, should raise flags that the hate mongers will latch on to any excuse to demonize and marginalize Indian Muslims. All the arguments that are used against Indian Muslims (vote bank, special preferences, high birth rates, mixed allegiance, etc.) may sound reasonable to some people but, for those of us who are familiar with the history of race relations in Western countries, these are all standard, off-the-shelf tactics used by hatemongers to stigmatize a minority.

Once again, there is nothing new under the Sun; human nature remains the same.

Thank you for your kind words about me. That is the irony of human nature as you aptly put. Let us hope that all around education is achieved and similar to Europe we too achieve a kind of detente where we will not be at throats of each other. My sincere hope is atleast the future generations are free of this evil and i pray for this to happen.

 

[Developereo]

Joe sir - not surprised you will throw this googly at me - In fact I was expecting this when I wrote this - can you show me statistics that polygamy is not one of the reasons for the higher TFR of muslims" - I consciously wrote this line expecting a similar response above from you that you will quote other reasons as well.

I think Joe may already have answered this question, but I suggest you do a little research for yourself. Contrary to 'logic', birth rates are actually lower in polygamous households than in monogamous ones.

High birth rates are usually related to low socio-economic indicators.

 

[Sashan]

I think Joe may already have answered this question, but I suggest you do a little research for yourself. Contrary to 'logic', birth rates are actually lower in polygamous households than in monogamous ones.

High birth rates are usually related to low socio-economic indicators.

He did not close out this question. What he has pointed out as the major reason is the women fertility rate and also the poverty.(see post #726) - I am doing my research on the two authors pointing out the higher birthrate to religious customs.

 

[neokautilya2]

I think Joe may already have answered this question, but I suggest you do a little research for yourself. Contrary to 'logic', birth rates are actually lower in polygamous households than in monogamous ones.

High birth rates are usually related to low socio-economic indicators.

birth rates are LOWER in polygamous households- i will be highly obliged if u can prove it

really sir u ppl are awesome!!!

once i was having a discussion with a very SO CALLED EDUCATED MUSLIM man and he said population is not a problem for india and just because AMERICA has portrayed it as a problem we are believing so