Saturday 24 January 2009

Taliban and Arjun Singh

Rarely have I been as scared in the recent past as I was while reading this article in the NYT earlier today. It describes the Taliban gaining consolidation in the Swat valley in Pakistan and their flouting of every law of the land while spreading a wave of unspeakable terror among the natives. Every line is shocking beyond description. Doubts to whether the US reporting was cooked came to my mind, so I did a simple search on google Pakistani newspaper reports on the same issue. They resonated with the NYT report, for instance this one and this one. The Dawn article also glibly reports some spineless political moves that the civilian government is making to "keep the Taliban at bay".

Among the many things that the Taliban have kept themselves busy with, one is the "blowing up of approximately 150 schools in the Swat area" 100 of which were schools for girls. As the Dawn article states, one of the 'strategic measures' being employed by the Zardari government to reach a compromise with the Taliban is the promulgation of Shariah law in the region. Shariah, among many other things, forbids women from attending schools and permits only madrasa education for the men. In the light of all this, let us also remember with pride that not more than a few days ago, our wonderful HRD minister passed a law which places madrasa certificates on par with CBSE and SSC certificates (Read this article) for government job applications. What a travesty!

There is another thing that deeply bothers me. I haven't yet come across one article in the Indian free press questioning this decision. Google for the subject and you will find a couple of dozen newspapers reporting the decision but I would be grateful if someone could find me an article by any journalist/op-ed speaking critically on this issue. One only finds comments and outburst such as the following (taken from an online discussion forum) :

The foolish rulers thinking this step will bring the muslim community in to national mainstream,no. psudo secularists betrayed hindu community by giving unconstitutional rights to minorities. where is our SNDP,NSS leaders who are always talking and fighting each other in the name of reservations? Why they are not open their mouths

hindu wake up.. wake up.

--------------------------

BJP will do nothing
If any one expects to BJP to do any thing, they are living in a fantasy world. BJP too is now behaving "secular" and would agree with this move. It is upto a Hindu at an individual level to understand his true situation and make his kids hard fighters. Let them use the existing schools and facilities, study hard and win in competetive exams. No madrassah based idiot would even come close. And let hindus start getting into every government job through sheer merit. Muslims then can do what they do best, Jehad and kill innocents.


A nation where public dialogue is of such stellar quality deserves such laws :-)


3 comments:

Philip Carey said...

Varun actually supported this, I got angry and stopped talking at that time. His twisted view was that it will help integrating the community!

Karthik Shekhar said...

I remember having a conversation with him but I don't recall him going in support (or was it you only?).

If that's an argument, why just madrasas - let the UPA demonstrate its magnanimity to the Muslim Personal Law Board by allowing it to practice Shariah in its raw naked form. What can better bind any community than a religious law where apostasy is punishable by death?

Rhetoric aside, the picture painted by the Sachar committe report is grave and needs to be addressed if we want to ensure that the socio-economic gaps that disenfranchise a large part of the muslims are bridged. But such short-cut policies are nothing short of irresponsible and morally perfidious (though we know that impending elections provide a much better rationalization)

Sush said...

The reports about taliban have been really disturbing, and to imagine it's almost in India's backyard, the threat's much closer than we think.

I'm surprised that I was unaware abt the new act by Arjun Singh, even though I've been following news regularly and I can't stop feeling disgusted with these short-sighted steps taken in view of vote-bank politics.