Muslims should be communal for their own good', Shazia Ilmi says

[Mariyam]

You have been answered on this question several times.Musims were not the oppressed in Indian history. They were rulers. In no way their condition could be compared with blacks of USA. Before partition they had voice in name of Muslim league to whom 90% of muslims supported at that time. I think Blacks of should be given 2 countries from USA , where they reduce whites to minisicule minority then in the 3rd bigger white majority nation we should see the rights given to blacks

That is a very disingenuous way of putting it across. Sure, Muslim dynasties ruled India for a long period of time. You could say that the rulers of India were Muslims. But Muslims of India were never the rulers of India. Almost all of the rulers were from outside the subcontinent. And most of the Muslims of the subcontinent are not really connected to those rulers in any way. Neither in rituals nor by blood.

[Tiger80]

That is a very disingenuous way of putting it across. Sure, Muslim dynasties ruled India for a long period of time. You could say that the rulers of India were Muslims. But Muslims of India were never the rulers of India. Almost all of the rulers were from outside the subcontinent. And most of the Muslims of the subcontinent are not really connected to those rulers in any way. Neither in rituals nor by blood.

Yes Foreign muslims arrived in India and ruled but you cannot say that 2-3 generation after they remained foreigners. They married Indian ladies who converted to islam , so after 2-3 generation you simply cannot say that they are not Indian muslim. Also the point is about religion and giving the religion special treatment.There is no way we can say that muslim s were discriminated by rulers of India.Infact they were given favourable treatment my muslim rulers , so under no circumstance there condition could be compared with blacks of USA who were enslaved and went through horrible treatment by white colonisers

[hhunaeh]

Contrast the narrative in the last few posts with the one in keyboardwarrior's missile thread.

[Mariyam]

Yes Foreign muslims arrived in India and ruled but you cannot say that 2-3 generation after they remained foreigners. They married Indian ladies who converted to islam ' date=' so after 2-3 generation you simply cannot say that they are not Indian muslim.[/quote'] Agree that they eventually settled down, but still that is not the same as saying Muslims ruled India. Will you say Christians ruled India, because of the British Raj? There were just a handful of Muslims who ruled. The lot of the vast majority of the Muslims was/is just as bad as the others.

[Mariyam]

Contrast the narrative in the last few posts with the one in keyboardwarrior's missile thread.

Sorry. I lost you there.

[hhunaeh]

Sorry. I lost you there.

In that thread it was being argued that muslims in pakistan converted from hinduism after they were beaten by waves of invasions from the west, here it is being argued that muslims of india were rulers for centuries.

[Mariyam]

In that thread it was being argued that muslims in pakistan converted from hinduism after they were beaten by waves of invasions from the west' date=' here it is being argued that muslims of india were rulers for centuries.[/quote'] :cantstop: Good spot that!! But to be fair, Ghazni and Ghauri were just plunderers. They had no intention of settling down in India.

[Tiger80]

Agree that they eventually settled down, but still that is not the same as saying Muslims ruled India. Will you say Christians ruled India, because of the British Raj?

Yes if I have to answer a question which religion ruled India then I will Christians ruled India.but still there is difference between Britishers and Muslim invaders as the Britishers were not much interested in Religion. They did not destroy temples and mosques to convert them into churches .Also they did not assimilate themselves in Indian population while most of muslim rulers assimilated themselves in Indians.

There were just a handful of Muslims who ruled. The lot of the vast majority of the Muslims was/is just as bad as the others.

Well this is true for for all religions. handful of rulers enjoy while large population suffer

That Blacks in the USA analogy in not too good. I agree. But a community doesn't have to be oppressed necessarily to remain backwards. The tribals of Central India, for instance haven't really been oppressed. By and large they were left alone by the successive wave of rulers. But they still are backwards. This entire method of tying in backwardness with historical oppression is farcical. Backwardness is primarily due to a prevalent state of mind/thinking. No amount of sops or freebies can change that. I'm not in favour of religion based reservation at all. For a government with a will, there are many more substantial things to bring those left behind at par than these superficial attempts via reservation based on religion.

I partially agree with you . prevalent state of mind and thinking are responsible , but you cannot rule out history .Take the case of India , at present the biggest asset is land and majority of its holders are upper caste and upper OBCs.Landless poors still suffer the most.Even traditional businesses are still hold by communitties , so history cannot be completely ruled out. Dalits are still among the largest community of landless workers

[Muloghonto]

Agree that they eventually settled down, but still that is not the same as saying Muslims ruled India. Will you say Christians ruled India, because of the British Raj? There were just a handful of Muslims who ruled. The lot of the vast majority of the Muslims was/is just as bad as the others. That Blacks in the USA analogy in not too good. I agree. But a community doesn't have to be oppressed necessarily to remain backwards. The tribals of Central India, for instance haven't really been oppressed. By and large they were left alone by the successive wave of rulers. But they still are backwards. This entire method of tying in backwardness with historical oppression is farcical. Backwardness is primarily due to a prevalent state of mind/thinking. No amount of sops or freebies can change that. I'm not in favour of religion based reservation at all. For a government with a will, there are many more substantial things to bring those left behind at par than these superficial attempts via reservation based on religion.

The blacks in USA analogy *IS* a good one and I've seen it cited by academia. Where the parallels are, is not blacks in USA in the 1700s and 1800s but blacks in USA since early 1900s. Technically blacks got a vote but no one cared about them. There were a few blacks who were in positions of power but vast majority of them were living like 2nd class citizens at the whims of the white man. Same thing essentially for non-muslims in India for the most part. Except for a ruler or two and except for the Malayalis & Gujju muslim rulers, most muslim rulers of India enacted the jaziya, pillaged hindu temples and spread Islam by unequal policies towards Islam. The thing with Islam is, it is inherently unjust and unequal, since Islam believes in subjecting society to unequal rights based on what one believes. Nowhere in the bible or hindu/buddhist texts say that your rights to government are different if you are a believer/non-believer but in Islam it clearly states so, so by even enacting 'islamic laws only', islam is by default, being spread by unfair means.

[gs]

In that thread it was being argued that muslims in pakistan converted from hinduism after they were beaten by waves of invasions from the west' date=' here it is being argued that muslims of india were rulers for centuries.[/quote'] On the surface it does seem contradicting, but when you consider the sequence of events there is none. The waves of Islamic invasions pummeled the native inhabitants like Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs etc. into submission by sheer barbarity and savagery which led to forcible mass conversions. After conversion, the ones who converted and their descendents received relatively better treatment and served as tools for their masters to administer the newly conquered lands. Over a period of time, the converts and their descendents became the rulers until the next wave of savages attacked from the west. Mohammad Ghor- Qutb ud din Aibak - Slave dynasty is one such example. Rinse and repeat for 800 years. So basically, the muslims (who came from outside or the homegrown ones) either ruled or received preferential treatment at the hands of the Islamic rulers. Most Pakistanis and some Indian muslims with the proverbial convert's zeal seem to associate themselves with their conquerors instead of their true ancestors!! To put things into perspective, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs etc. went through a holocaust and were the deprived lot for nearly 800 years of Islamic rule. If anything they need "reservation" or "appeasement" for having gone through what no other civilization has.

[Muloghonto]

That is a very disingenuous way of putting it across. Sure, Muslim dynasties ruled India for a long period of time. You could say that the rulers of India were Muslims. But Muslims of India were never the rulers of India. Almost all of the rulers were from outside the subcontinent. And most of the Muslims of the subcontinent are not really connected to those rulers in any way. Neither in rituals nor by blood.

That is not true. From 1250s to 1550s (when Babur showed up), virtually all the Islamic rulers in Indian subcontinent were local origin. afghans are the subcontinent and the Delhi sultans that ruled much of India were pucca Afghans for a solid 3 centuries before Babur showed up. Even after Akbar, most mughal rulers were atleast 50% desi, if not more and almost all rulers of local dynasties were desis as well. Foreign muslim rulers who ruled India were the arabs who held a tiny corner of Sindh in 700s, Ghazni (up to north Punjab only, he didnt rule south of that), Ghori, the Ghori slaves like Iltutmish, Qutb ud din Aibak, Bhaktiyar Khilji, Babur, Humayun, akbar and briefly, Abdali. The rest all either were locals (as noted above) or passing through in pillage (but exerted little effective control). Nader Shah, Timur didn't rule India, they came, they raped, they left.

[Muloghonto]

:cantstop: Good spot that!! But to be fair, Ghazni and Ghauri were just plunderers. They had no intention of settling down in India.

Ghazni did not, Ghori most definitely did. Ghori's situation is interesting: not many people know that Ghori was never a sultan (king). He had an older brother (much older IIRC) who was the actual ruler but he had no children. Ghori did much of his conquering on his brother's name (who was actually a noted scholar, not a warlord) but Ghori himself was childless: its speculated that they were both either sterile or in Mohammed Ghori's case, gay. Ghori most definitely wanted to carve out his own domain in India, ruled under nominal suzereinty of his brother but Ghori died untimely and since he was childless, he'd trained approx. 5000 of his personal slaves- mostly turkic nomadic boys bought young- in statecraft, warefare, reading, writing and taxation. It is because Ghori produced these 5000 odd super-soldier-administrator slaves that came to India with him was the reason for the stunning victories of the Ghorids. The Indians in response, didn't have so many elite soldiers who were also excellent administrators work together in combat & pacification of an area post conquest. But those 5000 were created specifically with the intent of the Ghoris to settle down in India and add to their domains.

[Muloghonto]

On the surface it does seem contradicting, but when you consider the sequence of events there is none. The waves of Islamic invasions pummeled the native inhabitants like Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs etc. into submission by sheer barbarity and savagery which led to forcible mass conversions. After conversion, the ones who converted and their descendents received relatively better treatment and served as tools for their masters to administer the newly conquered lands. Over a period of time, the converts and their descendents became the rulers until the next wave of savages attacked from the west. Mohammad Ghor- Qutb ud din Aibak - Slave dynasty is one such example. Rinse and repeat for 800 years. So basically, the muslims (who came from outside or the homegrown ones) either ruled or received preferential treatment at the hands of the Islamic rulers. Most Pakistanis and some Indian muslims with the proverbial convert's zeal seem to associate themselves with their conquerors instead of their true ancestors!! To put things into perspective, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs etc. went through a holocaust and were the deprived lot for nearly 800 years of Islamic rule. If anything they need "reservation" or "appeasement" for having gone through what no other civilization has.

Err, you cannot be serious with the last part of your post. What your ancestors suffered has nothing to do with you. Appeasement and reservations IMO should be pertinent to those who's lives are directly disadvantaged, not hypothetical disadvantage from thousands of years ago due to social unjustice to people 20+ generations go. TBH, the barbarity associated with the muslim conquerors is a little bit misplaced. There have been plenty of muslim conquerors who didn't just rape & pillage a land they looted, instead they carefully preserved it. The Ottomans are a good example of that. Same with the muslim rulers of indonesia and south-east asia. They carefully preserved their past too. India had the bad luck of not just facing muslim invaders, they faced muslim invaders who were Turko-mongol and had the typical ruthlessness and jaded vision of life as the central asian nomad does. And the only thing worse than a mongol warlord or a muslim zealot, is a mongol warlord who is a muslim zealot. India faced that for most of its history.

[gs]

Err' date= you cannot be serious with the last part of your post. What your ancestors suffered has nothing to do with you. Appeasement and reservations IMO should be pertinent to those who's lives are directly disadvantaged, not hypothetical disadvantage from thousands of years ago due to social unjustice to people 20+ generations go. TBH, the barbarity associated with the muslim conquerors is a little bit misplaced. There have been plenty of muslim conquerors who didn't just rape & pillage a land they looted, instead they carefully preserved it. The Ottomans are a good example of that. Same with the muslim rulers of indonesia and south-east asia. They carefully preserved their past too. India had the bad luck of not just facing muslim invaders, they faced muslim invaders who were Turko-mongol and had the typical ruthlessness and jaded vision of life as the central asian nomad does. And the only thing worse than a mongol warlord or a muslim zealot, is a mongol warlord who is a muslim zealot. India faced that for most of its history.

I was being sarcastic there with the double quotes on the words reservation and appeasement. Unlucky as it maybe, but the genocide that took place in the subcontinent under the Islamic rule is of holocaust proportions and that's an undeniable fact.

[Muloghonto]

I was being sarcastic there with the double quotes on the words reservation and appeasement. Unlucky as it maybe' date=' but the genocide that took place in the subcontinent under the Islamic rule is of holocaust proportions and that's an undeniable fact.[/quote'] Yes, that i agree with. Muslims need to understand that their faith is broken. Not just because it can be exploited to do untold crimes against humanity ( i don't care about muslim apologists who will twist the koran to their liking to say killing is not permitted in the koran. That is nonsense. It is a historical fact that many of these butchers got declared ghazis by muslim imams and scholars in their time, thus proving that Islam and authorities of Islam have waged genocide). It is also broken because implementation of Islamic law requires one to give different rights to citizens based on what they believe, which is completely against the ethos of a just and fair society. If one has different rights in society, it should be based on a concrete criteria: such as different capabilities, deficiences, linguistic or cultural handicaps (Not saying that affirmative action is correct, just saying that these should be criterias for affirmative action/different rules). And what one is entitled to from the government plus what one is beholden to the government, should be equal to ALL citizens exactly, differing only on the basis of their criminality (ie, criminals get less rights). But sharia makes it so that one could have different rights just because one chooses to believe one set of unproven Godly book over another. That is just nonsense, unjust and basing society upon unproven stuff over the real world.

[gs]

Yes, that i agree with. Muslims need to understand that their faith is broken. Not just because it can be exploited to do untold crimes against humanity ( i don't care about muslim apologists who will twist the koran to their liking to say killing is not permitted in the koran. That is nonsense. It is a historical fact that many of these butchers got declared ghazis by muslim imams and scholars in their time, thus proving that Islam and authorities of Islam have waged genocide). It is also broken because implementation of Islamic law requires one to give different rights to citizens based on what they believe, which is completely against the ethos of a just and fair society. If one has different rights in society, it should be based on a concrete criteria: such as different capabilities, deficiences, linguistic or cultural handicaps (Not saying that affirmative action is correct, just saying that these should be criterias for affirmative action/different rules). And what one is entitled to from the government plus what one is beholden to the government, should be equal to ALL citizens exactly, differing only on the basis of their criminality (ie, criminals get less rights). But sharia makes it so that one could have different rights just because one chooses to believe one set of unproven Godly book over another. That is just nonsense, unjust and basing society upon unproven stuff over the real world.

Agreed

[diga]

nice points @Muloghonto Most of them converted to Islam probably in the last century or even before, rejecting their caste..(doubt if any conversion to Islam took place in 20th century) Now why again ask for reservation based on their backwardness? Arent they responsible for their own backwardness ? What does it say if they fail to improve even after a 100 years? There are thousands of backward people in India belonging to all religions & everyone is entitled to any affirmative action by the govt, not just one community. On another note, India's population is soon going to cause lot more problems than one can imagine

[randomGuy]

Technology can help make religion irrelevant. for ex. - project loon can help bring near free and ubiquitous internet. Cheap devices - Google is planning to launch 100$ NEXUS 6. We could aim at bringing the cost further down to say 10$ (500-600Rs) for 1 billion devices. People will then be watching all sorts of porn(kinky porn, interracial porn etc..) on these devices for free and will forget their religion..

[bulbul]

Technology can help make religion irrelevant. for ex. - project loon can help bring near free and ubiquitous internet. Cheap devices - Google is planning to launch 100$ NEXUS 6. We could aim at bringing the cost further down to say 10$ (500-600Rs) for 1 billion devices. People will then be watching all sorts of porn(kinky porn, interracial porn etc..) on these devices for free and will forget their religion..

That is for future. But what AAP is doing at present to counter religious fanatics like Illmi who is hell bent on destroying secular fabrics of this country? :((

[someone]

One user talked about Muslim representation, wonder what will he say about so called secular parties? Like in WB, 30% Muslim population and yet only 3% in government service. Just for comparsion, Gujarat has 9% Muslims population and has 5% in government service.