Mr.Santosh,
Can you please let me know your height ( in feet and inches) ? I need to make effigies in preparation for the orders from the Indian American Intellectual Forum that will inevitably follow and would like a headstart
-Your friendly neighbourhood effigy maker

Mr.Santosh,
Can you please let me know your height ( in feet and inches) ?I need to make effigies in preparation for the orders from the Indian American Intellectual Forum that will inevitably follow and would like a headstart
-Your friendly neighbourhood effigy maker

Please make sure they send me photos of the effigy burnings

You seem to be pretty interested in their activities? So what does that make you? A leftist communist? A muslim appeasing hindu having no idea of yoru own history or a sikh pride zealout playing victimized card ? A western ghat convert by missioanries teaching to write your signature and proving two meals to your family? A dravidian jeaous of fair colored south indian who despise the idea of being ruled by hindi speaking hindus or a muslim trying to convince all of us how much the country india beongs to you as a former ruler?
Who are you?

Who are you?

The quintessential philosophical question.

I answer with a classic quote

Alice came to a fork in the road. “Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” responded the Cheshire cat.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Sometimes I feel like Alice in Wonderland.

So you are exacty what i thought you are. Just like the rest of disoriented indians who dont know where do they want to go and where do they want to see their nation.

Atleast these folks from Indian American Intellectual Forum seem to have a direction.

One reason why ALice is lost is becasue he doesnt want to confront the idea of choosing one direction over another.

Thats the problem with disorianted indians of today. In their quintessential quest to avoid conflict, they are leading india to nowhere as a society. With potential of good men making a choice and facing the consequences, the -ive elements have taken over.

So you are exacty what i thought you are. Just like the rest of disoriented indians who dont know where do they want to go and where do they want to see their nation but want to comment on and have a say on, everything.

Atleast these folks from Indian American Intellectual Forum seem to have a direction.

One reason why ALice is lost is becasue he doesnt want to confront the idea of choosing one direction over another. he is greedy. Just like the indians who rever the kings and the life of pleasure that their title entitles them to and want to have it all. He is excused becasue he is kid and kids want it all. Men dont and shoudl not. And its that community which is in short supply in india.

In their quintessential quest to avoid conflict, Indian youth are leading india to nowhere as a society except for perhaps commenting on it, which is even worse cos that tells me that the good men are in plenty. Without the men with potential of goodness and nerves of steel and able to make decisions and facing the consequences, the -ive elements who have made a choice as far as which direction to take, have taken over. They are atleast brave.

And so are people at this Indian…forum who are trying to counter them boldly. Who cares about their intentions. Indians overvalue intentions in spheres of life. Its the direction and a self belief that if its a direction of your choosing, once you join that direction you would not let the wheel stray.

The fate of a nation is either in the hand of Alices like you or the antinationlists who are in majority or the minority folks whose hearts seem to be bleeding from commenting on all the wrong doings in india but who is gutless like a kid.

Its time you choose a direction Alice. And grow up.

With Malice towards one and all

So you are exacty what i thought you are.

You got me there, Miss Cleo.

One reason why ALice is lost is becasue he doesnt want to confront the idea of choosing one direction over another.

Don’t pick on Alice, ok? “He” is one cool dude.

In a country where journalists write to get popular votes rather than a thoughtful opinions that reflect depths on the issues they are commenting on, the hope for a bright future is low.

Their writings may win them fans and they may claim that just like fimstars ( indians are so obsessed with fame) they have a following too and people perceive them as intellectuals but they ignore the true power they are blessed with (of maintaining a journaist bog site) and the potential it carries. Such is the misfortune of country like India where its capable citizens engaged in social professions cant see beyond themselves and are unable to leave the mark and stay insignificant.

They also ignore the history of great nations who became great based on the power of pen first and foremost.
These great countries were bessed with real intelectual journalism that shaped many a strategic thoughts towards a strong nation.

In india its the story of the day and worse just a comment on the story of the day.

I wonder if you have ever read “indian defense review” and KPS Gill’s writings to know more about the problems that plague our nation and threaten its security.

and btw - Did you delete Osama’s comment?

“Did you delete Osama’s comment?”

Nice guess. We don’t have the time for drivel like that.

Rohit,
That last post of yours, irrespective of whether I agree with or not, was actually slightly better worded and more in the form of a discussion than any of your previous ones and so I’ll answer your original question.
My major problem with groups like Indian-American intellectuals or whatever their name is, is that they raise a big hue and cry about non-issues like historical inaccuracies in movies, nude paintings and gods on thongs, while ignoring some major social and political issues facing the Indian community in America.
As for the rest of your ramblings, I suggest you take the time to read through our blog, the (large) variety of posts and then come to a conclusion instead of indulging in a drive-by character assassination based on one 2-sentence post and then if you choose to, we can discuss a topic instead of you trying to lecture us.
Thank you, come again.

historical distortion is NOT a non issue. If you dont know your history, how far can you go? A great nation ensures it knows its history and learns from it and ensures mistakes dont happen again.

Indian soil’s history changed for ever when Prithvi Raj Chauhan instad of killing ghori pardoned him. He went back came back witha bigger army defeated prithvi raj and dragged him all the way to kabul in chains to brutally murder him there and a showcase of his win. After that, what muslim invaders did for centuries and still are doing ( the guriella wars in india) come from the Ms Cleo like psychotics impressions that they are superior to indian race and subdue it anytime to their demands. How ese woud you justify killings of Gulshan kumar and have you read about Rajiv Rai and how much he had to run to save him from the like of Abu salem? All this in independent india? When musims knock at any door at midnight, they dont ask if u r secular or broadminded ignorant indian who has no interest in the history they woud kill you for being born a hindu. How do you justify that in india there are separate laws for muslims? Our and is not the land of one law.

To show akbar as great king when he ordered massacre of 30000 people in chittorgarh for not converting and having multiple wives and 300 + women in haram is a distortion in a land where everyday a movie comes which shows muslim terrorists in humane light for ex black and white from subhash ghai recently.

As far as nude paintings go, maybe you are a communist or atheist but if u were not, how would u fee if the god you pray to every morning is shown nude or having sex or in any other indignant form?

The major issue facing indian community in america is that its a divided house. Punjabis, gujratis, bengalis and tamilians which form the four pillars of our nation in terms of warfare, business, art and science are not coming together because they dont know their history or have forgotton it.

A united community can move mountains but its not. Tamillians give unfair preference to other tamilians in job over north indians. some punjabis still fund terrorist organizations, gujjus have their own community and communist bengalis fund and encourage voting for a party that puts chinese interest at par or above india’s interest in indian affairs - cia had publlished evidence in this regard some time back.

You call my writings rambling but this is debate too. I am open to being proven wrong.

Rohit: This is the definition of debate.

de·bate
n.
1. A discussion involving opposing points; an argument.
2. Deliberation; consideration: passed the motion with little debate.
3. A formal contest of argumentation in which two opposing teams defend and attack a given proposition.

This short post was about “INDIAN AMERICAN Intellectual Forum” and not the “Indian Intellectual Forum”. Your rants might be true of latter, but our grouse is about the fact that these “Indian American intellectuals” don’t have better things to do and about the fact that they seem to have taken a leaf out of the Hindu fundamentalist handbook from desh.

Now, what you are trying to do here is indulge in some old fashioned off the topic rambling. You go from historical anecdotes about oppression by Muslim invaders to a current affairs diatribe about the lack of a Uniform Civil Code. Let’s try to knock them one by one and this will be a civil debate, and only if these are related to this post. Till that happens, your comments will be labeled the ramblings of a common Internet troll.

But, let me humor you and tell you something that I believe in. It is impossible to justify current affairs with historical anecdotes. In the non-ideal world, I can’t hope to find solutions to my problems from a history book, because modern day history books are like paintings made with a biased viewpoint. For every rape by Ghori’s men, I could write a book about his good deeds, but that is besides the point.

So, go find a better place to rant.

I’ve some problems with the questions you asked, and I’m speaking about my beliefs here, not about anyone else’s. I understand your question about one’s identity when they do not agree with the protests mentioned in the actual article above. Just because one does not take a positive stand does not mean they are confused about their identity or beliefs. I don’t know what my beliefs were when I was born, but I know what I can stand for today. If I was a born Muslim I’m sure my views about religions would have been quite similar to what I believe now. Can you swear on your conscience and tell me if you would be the same person you are today, if you were born in a minority family?

I’m a secularist.

(1) The improvement of this life by material means.
(2) That science is the available Providence of man.
(3) That it is good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good

source: wikipedia

I’m not sure what happened in Prithvi Raj’s time, and even if what you said about Ghori is true, what can we d about it today? Hate next door biology teacher Mohammad Ali because Ghori was named Mohammad Ghori some 800 years ago? ANd I find it totally shocking when u say “muslim invaders” are still doing it today? Invaders??? I hope you don’t see horsemen with spears and swords outside your patio, the militants from across the border - if you mean, are the outcome of hatred of millions of people on ether side of the border. Killing begets killing, and that is what as a secularist I would like to stop, and I don’t mean by encouraging extremists and supporting crimes, we can stop it, I want to begin with stopping normal people from becoming hardliners by adopting a negative stance. That maes them insecure and resort to extremist thinking, I believe in co-existence.

There are separate laws in India for Muslims agreed, did you also know there are separate Hindu laws? Transition is a management term, and it doesn’t happen overnight. TO bring a community into the bigger, larger, diverse society, provisions have to be made, but when politicians start appeasement for vote bank politics, the cause is lost. One more reason why I”m a secularist.

Gulshan Kumar and Rajiv Rai were killed for MONEY. You sound as if Abu Salem is a sultan enforcing religious persecution. There are criminals in every community, heck they even go on to become the chief ministers of states too.

One primary reason why I watched Jodha-Akbar is Aishwarya Rai, it’s good that I doubt the factual accuracy of the movie because of the protests, but burning up cinema halls, resorting to violence, what kind of people do that? You make a movie with facts and if it has Aishwarya Rai in it, I’ll watch it and praise your movie too. Rest assured, there will be people protesting against it.

You talk about Tamilians in general giving preference to one of their own kind, WHICH COMMUNITY DOES NOT DO THAT??? THat’s something to do with an individual’s nature , whatever region or religion they belong to. Most of the time for their own selfish reasons, to feel more secure, to dominate someone else, to gain fame in the community, a sense of giving back to the name of the community.

And talk about MF Hussein, haunt him until death for something he painted in the 1970’s???? How can you limit or control art, you stay away if you don’t like it, make it a miserable piece of art, and force such an idea to be obsolete! The more fuss we create, the more opportunity we give others to provoke us. I’m probably offended when someone paints a nude portrait of a goddess I worship daily, I can show you a hundred thousand instances of a goddess with beheaded heads in her arms who is semi-nude and painted road side in every street. Oh wait, the painter might not be insulting her as we don’t know his religion?

We may be divided in Ameirca, but the major issue is our differences in INDIA. 60 years of independence later, innocent people are beaten up because they came from the north and “stole” jobs exclusively from Mumbaikars. People having fun in a restaurant on a weekend are beaten up because their state “stole” water reserved for another state.

As a secularist, I’m not bothered about differences only when religion comes into picture, every issue creating a crack in our unity, you try to hold this in your way, as you have a direction. I’ll try it in mine, as long as we don’t interfere with each other. You see I’m also a libertarian.

Sidhu,

You have a sensitive soul. i admire that. To say that what would be my stance if I was born a minority say of great empathic view. My grouse (sorry for borrowing the word form you mr santosh) is not against any one minority.

I grew up in Punjab and whie growing up I reaized that in punjab you cant get into a fight with Sikh. it wil take religious color fast. my community is not a warrior community and it wont come forward to protect me

Lliving in mumbai and jaipur, I realized that you cant take fight with musllims, it will take a religious color very fast. my community is not a warrior community and it wont come forward to protect me

Living in gurgaon, I reaized that you cant take a fight with jat, cos there i am punjabi and it will take religious/ cast colors. my community is not a warrior community and it wont come forward to protect me

I lived in nagpur and there I realized I cant take a fight with marathis cos I am an outsider. my community is not a warrior community and it wont come forward to protect me.
I faced this outsiderness some 20 years ago and to me its no surprise seeing whats happening in mumbai today.

So you see, I am actually a minority and my thoughts are that of minority. And you call me fundamentalist hindu.

In our country everyone is minority esp the non warrior hindu.

And Everyone IS INDEED different than everyone else. Every state in fact is a nation. But probems get acute cos we dont emphasis on our history and the bond that brings us together. Its only our commmon history that people and religions born on our land share that can keep india united. Hindu as you many know is NOT A RELIGION but a name given to all of us by Muslim invaders.

Country will get divided even if not officially if we continue to ignore history. for ex. today, no punjabi wants to go work in chennai and no madrasi is happy in punjab. offcourse outsides are no more welcome in mumbai and pune. noone goes to east anyway. Yes there are many other examples and few exceptions. So where is the united india anyway?

92% of indian muslims some 60 years ago had voted for a separate musllim state on Jinaah’s appeal and subsequent voting. Ony 30% left. What can we do about it today? We cant send the rest 60% back but we can learn from our mistakes and stop minority appeasement policies. We must realize that that historic voting day which is a national holiday in pakistan made muslims different than sikhs and hindus in a way. A uniform civil code is important but whats more important is understanding who we are what do we stand for - not as individuals but as a nation.

Can we allow dubai based mafia to threaten rich citizens? Is making money a crime as you say they were killed for money? - again ignorance about history. Rajiv rai was not kiled but he spent years in hotels in UK and USA with his wife and family before he could go back and make a movie pyar ishq mohabbat with MONICA BEDI in it.

its a fact that majority of non hindu warrior is at risk by all who are willing to resort to guns.

what are the common threads? I stand by this forum who are portesting what husain did and about jodha akbar but no where i am suggesting that you resort to voient means. But there actions should not be encouranged in our country and it should not be allowed. Just becasue we cant take up guns doesnt mean we continue to be insulted in the name of secularism. Hussain and Makers of Jodha akbar are guilty and must ATLEAST apologize publicly. I dont care about rajputs. They fought on the mughal sides anyway and most battlelines were drawn on non religious lines. But portraying akbar as romantic and monogamous and respectful of hindu traditions is what i object to. Thisis muslim propoganda machine brainwashing general population. Who funded this movie?

Among hindus, now biharis, UP and haryana jats have resort to gun culture too. They kill at will too. Go live in gurgaon and you will know what I mean. That makes us even more minority in our country.

The reality is that the world we live in is voilent. The empathatic people like you are few. To prevent voilence we must stand together and have common terms for mutual respects. The law of the land is comedy if we dont know why is it there in the first place. That needs reforms. But it cant happen if there are no common values esp among people who hate gun culture. I do. You do. perhpas Santosh and his nonsensical friend anantha too.

America is considered a voilent country but there is less voilence here than what we have in india today. They have means to punish and prevent. Their journalists are also intellectual enough to prevent brainwash - a good ex is Alexandra by oliver stone. Community didnt accept it.

Rage is rampant in india. The loser is the guy without the gun. Cos he neither has gun nor a system in place to protect him and his family. This is true of peace loving muslim too but I know very few democratic muslims. I know one who ate beef sitting next to me and when I asked do you get it in india, he took pride in saying that they have been doing it since childhood. No respect (read no fear -any doubts read KPS gill’s readings and Indian defence review) for fellow hindus.

There is a difference between dubai dons and home grown corrupt ministers. The former contributed to terrosit activities and later do not. There are laws to punish later but former have enemy’s protection.

And how many muslims do you see coming on the street to clean up the jihadi mess? Sikhs did it themselves - cos they knew that their turban WAS a symbol of fairness and strength to an average indian who would trust a sikh turban blindy and some including kps gill took the tasks of cleaning the mess themseves to restore some of that.

Should we give away kashmir? Should we tolerate dubai dons? should we tolerate train bombs? Shoud we tolerate unwarranted calls for hafta? why is it that front men for all these terrorizing crimes are muslims? You may say uneducated lots but these uneducated lots but I dont care. Law is Law.

Do we - the non warrior patriots have any choice but to be fundamental - to pick up the gun perhaps? We are a divided house to do anything about it through debate by shaping a political concensus as anantha proves by what he writes.

Ateast this indian american forum has a politica agenda. Politics is not bad. its your very non violent means to promote your agenda. unfortunately, folks like santosh and company who run this “my commments on daiy news” blog neither understand it nor participate in it but feel intellectual enough to comment on everything and paint everyone the way they seem right.

Rohit,
My brother … please take a deep breath and calm down. I wanted to respond to one common thread in your posts : why do you consider Indian Muslims to be invaders? The Hyderabadi Muslim is Hyderabadi, the Pune Muslim is Maharashtrian ,The Kerala Muslim is Malyali - they are INDIANS. Of course there is a lunatic fringe amongst Muslims that put religion above country - but then so do the hardline Hindutva types.As for Muslim criminals - please don’t insult my intelligence by claiming that there are/were no Hindu dons ( Varadarajan Mudaliar,Anna Shetty,Chhota Rajan,Arun Gawli ).To me - anyone who breaks the law in India is anti-Indian : not just the Muslim dons in Dubai - also those who flout the law with impunity for personal gain : every person who does not pay tax is anti-India.Raj Thackeray is anti-India - why point fingers only at shadowy creatures in Dubai?

True that we need a Uniform Civil Code but that has nothing to do exclusively with our Muslim brothers.Hindus/Jains/Parsis -everyone will benefit.

And when you say that the issue can only be resolved when non-warrior patriots ( whatever that means) pick up guns - it scares me.Who will you shoot? My best friend - who is Muslim? My brother-in-law who is Christian ? Or me - because -though born a non-warrior Hindu - I do not agree with you?

Runa,

Tell your muslim friend to join the debate. Its unfair that they are not participating. Lets see if they are capable of pursuing non voilent confrontation without getting their voilent and jihadi peers involved eventually.

Also, You miss the point. The ORIGINAL INDIA and the idea of it that our MILITARY (noone else - politicians and you included) holds dear was a vision of two great men - nehru and Patel. Nehru faltered on the internal security but succeded at industrilization and education. We are far from closing the gap in terms of their penetration but we are moving fast. The idea of capitalization has takenn root and jiyo aur jeene do is its byproduct anyway nad its far better than jobs provided by religion and politics. But internal security front, we are doing poor. There is no LAW and no ORDER as babar praising muslim Edsa pointed out earlier.

Today’s INDIA is bruised, on the verge of DISINTEGRATION - not officially but unofficialy as I mentioned in my post.

WE - You the young generation has to make one afresh. And the start of the poitical voice should take root among us the American Indians. How can we do it, Only by understading the history and culture of our land and its people and accepting the differences first before we can walk towards building a strong nation with strong internal security like that of america, by picking the common threads. In those common threads, muslims have little space and a lot to prove. Criminal hindus should be punished too with little sympathy and the mistakes of prithvi raj chauhan should not be repeated by pardoning the culprits or letting them go.

How to do it without violence? History proves Politics is the only platform that can garner enough strength to make a change but putting tyrants to death bed requires some violence on human part - even if it means death sentence in legal courts.

In that NEW India, Edsa would be tried for treason for praising babur and distorting history. And so would be makers of jodha akbar. I will leave MF hussain to hindu fundamentalists. If one makes mockery of Sikh or muslim or christans or hindu gods, one should know what one is getting into. He is no exception unless he does simiar stint for muslim gods in which case he is pardoned and a true secularist. otherwise he is like that indian secularist gay from united nations - i forgot his name but he said something like “painting hindu goddess nude is art and painting muhammed cartoon was unnecessary provocation” ballless hindu he mostly spends time to justify/ defending his statements in his writings.

And yes,

Keep thy religion to thyself.

But if you impose it on me or make mockery of mine, I am not going to forgive and forget.

Rohit

Hey Rohit,
You just personally insulted one of our bloggers up there. Go join your friends at the Rediff messageboards and the idiots … err… intellectuals forum. Have fun protesting movies, paintings and thongs. Namaskar.

*sigh*

People like Rohit do make me sad, not because of their beliefs, which they are entitled to, but because of their inability to comprehend what is being said to them.