Halcyon Days at AMU 12-8-8

Halcyon Days at AMU &

Reflections on Riots of Oct.1961

By

Mirza A. Beg

August 8, 2012

Published; October 17, 2012

Sir Syed Day magazine of Aligarh Alumni association

Introduction

Life at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was much simpler in the early 1960s. Or so it seems, from the vantage of five decades in the evening of a long life. Those days are reminiscent of a long autobiographical movie, with panoramic scenes rich in the cast of characters; some intimate and essential to the story; others make cameo appearances as markers of time. Occasionally when I hear about old friends, images emerge from the enveloping mist of a bygone era, sporadically crisp and clear, often as apparitions communicating in the quietness of thoughts.

At the time AMU was considered a large residential university with about 5,000 students. It has been dwarfed by the present strength of more than 30,000.  Of the 5,000 students, about 3,000 lived in the hostels, and about 2,000, were non resident students. Students living adjacent to the university were classed as (NRSC-A) and those living in the old Aligarh city, a couple of miles away were (NRSC-B).

Though large, AMU had a quality of a small cozy place, because of its unique tradition. A simple act of salutation to strangers when our paths crossed broke the ice. Salamwlaikum, answered by an almost simultaneous Salamwalikum was amazingly binding. Strangers were strangers no more, the strangeness melted away. Those with whom our paths crossed every day, hurrying from class to class became unspoken friends even if we did not know their names. I have been to scores of universities around the world, but have not seen anything like it. After leaving the university in 1962, I came back for a visit a year later with a friend from Lucknow University. Walking around the campus, so many people greeted me. Many even stopped to inquire about my health and long absence, as if they missed me. Impressed, my friend commented, “You must have been very popular.” I simply replied, “This is AMU, every one is as popular.”

The flow of life at AMU

AMU’s academic calendar was a decagonal (ten sided) cycle. It started with admission, followed by introduction, election, Dassehra vacation, examination, winter vacation, exhibition, preparation, followed by the final examination and a long summer vacation.

The year started with admissions of fresh new students in July. It was much anticipated by the returning students, particularly by the half baked second year seniors, looking forward to about two weeks of “introduction”, when these newly minted seniors, did to others what was done to them the year before. Occasionally, it was a harrowing experience for some new students, but mostly it was mild ragging that did not cause permanent scars. To make up for the ragging, well meaning senior students some times invited the juniors for tea.  September was the start of election fever that culminated with election for the office bearers of the Students Union followed by Dassehra vacation. Coming back from vacation was a time for some serious studying for the midterm examination in December, followed by a much needed winter vacation that brought in the New Year. Classes started again in January. We looked forward to the annual exhibition on the outskirts of the old Aligarh city in early February. It was a time for week long revelry. Evenings spent with friends dressed in the required AMU uniform, black shervani (buttoned-up long coat). It was a time of seeing and being seen, stealing a glance or two at the denizens of the AMU girls college (Abdullah Hall). It was a thrill to have the glance returned with a smile. Almost every one indulged in the culinary delight of the famous Kababs and Parathas dripping with oil, washed down with sweet hot tea to avoid sore throat. Warm March winds ushered in the time for serious preparation for the approaching final examination. They took place from mid April to early May, followed by a much anticipated summer vacation.

This cycle repeated every year. The graduating old faces departed in May to face the challenges of life in the world beyond, making way for fresh young faces arriving in July. However for a few seniors, building seniority was a calling in itself. They managed to hang on to become fixtures at AMU as super seniors, as if they were tenured senior students. They held court as arbiters of AMU traditions.

Election for the AMU Students Union

Of this cycle the most colorful were the elections. Most students, including me did not know or care for the intricacies of the university politics, if there was one, and were oblivious to the existence of two ideological groups, allegedly active behind the scenes. The Student’s Islamic Organization, ostensibly an arm of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Students Federation, ostensibly an arm of the Communist party. One heard of behind the scene maneuverings of these groups, mostly at the time of the Student’s Union elections held in early October. Among the many candidates for president, the two better known and financed were often rumored to be supported by these groups.

The most important and hotly contested position was the presidents’. Other positions were vice president, secretary, and ten cabinet members. There had been some legendary presidents who had made a name for themselves in late1950s, such as Saeed “Anda” and Abidullah Ghazi. The post was considered to be a possible stepping stone to a future in politics.

I had enjoyed the general elections of 1952 and 1957 for the UP legislature and the parliament with childish curiosity and enthusiasm. They were a serious affair with a festive veneer of musical propaganda and rhyming ditties in an effort to reach an uneducated and uniformed populace.

But the elections for the Students Union were in a class by themselves, an experience to remember. They were urbane when face to face, but the pamphleteering was often cleaver and occasionally acerbic.  Active canvassing period was limited to the last two weeks of September. Attired in black shervani and topi, the candidates made rounds of the hostels and the nonresident student’s centers. As the election grew closer, especially in the last few days, the activity reached a fever pitch. We looked forward to cleverly devised pamphlets aimed at giving the candidates a positive image with enumerated qualifications. Some of them were very creative, such as mimicking a telegram or a postcard slipped under our doors in the middle of the night. The most dreaded and inventive were the pamphlets deriding the opposing candidate with biting wit, especially on the eve of the election, so that the other party did not have time to respond. They were popularly known as “Anti” for anti-propaganda.

I had enjoyed the commotion of two elections, by the time the third election in October 1961 came around, we knew what to expect, and were looking forward to the wit and cleaver barbs. In the beginning it did not appear to be much different than the earlier ones, though there were forces at work behind the scenes that would have momentous consequences. A difference did emerge, and in retrospect, it turned out to be consequential. For the first time a Hindu candidate was also contesting for president. If my faded memory serves, his name was Iqbal Singh.

AMU, as the name indicates was founded as MAO College in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan to bring modern western education to the educationally back sliding Muslim community.  So a vast majority of the students are Muslims, and as a norm, no Hindu had ever contested the presidency before, though traditionally there was at least one Hindu elected to the cabinet.

I had known Iqbal Singh cursorily from my Morrison Court days. For a short time, he lived with Amar Singh whom I knew a bit better. They lived a few rooms away from mine. I remember his name only because of what happened later. The other presidential candidate was insipid at best. I do not remember his name.

Attack on the University on October 3, 1961

Following is my recollection, albeit a bit faded account of the events. Memories, especially with the passage of half a century are likely to have gaps and may be at variance with the memory and personal experiences of others.

Finally the voting took place on the1st of October, it was an uneventful day. The results were declared rather late that night, and as expected the Muslim candidate won the presidency. The next day was Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. It was normal, except what I heard from Kalyan Singh, a Sikh friend in my geology class, who lived in the Ziauddin Hostel. He casually told me that some altercation had taken place in his Hostel in the wee hours of the morning. That evening I did hear that some shots may have been fired, but no one was injured. Unwelcome news indeed. We thought, it was just an after election stupidity emanating from a tradition gone awry - teasing the loosing candidate by taking out a fake funeral procession.

On the 3^rd of October in the morning, we did notice that our mathematics class was less than full. My section of the geology class consisted of only three students, of which Kalyan Singh and I were present, but my friend Ramesh Tayal who lived in the city was absent. The significance of the low attendance dawned on us later in the day. It was due to the absence of non-resident students from the city. My last class was in the physics department at the periphery of the main campus.

We came out of the physics class at about 2 PM and noticed that the campus looked ghostly quiet. Some one told us that the university had been attacked by a large Hindu mob from the city and they had burned the Shamshad market, the popular and only shopping street next to the university. It was almost next door to the Aftab Hostel, where I lived. Reflexively, I ran towards my room with a cavalcade of thoughts crowding my mind, including the possibility of my burned ransacked room. Breathless, I reached the hostel. It was a relief to see the serene building as I had left in the morning. I saw some students running towards the Shamshad market with long bamboo sticks used for holding up our ubiquitous mosquito nets, a nightly refuge from the teaming buzzing Aligarh mosquitoes. I ran to my room and pulled out a stick from my mosquito net and ran towards the Shamshad market, to join what I considered to be a student protection squad against the attackers.  

On the way I met my senior and a close friend, Haris Bhai (Haris Ansari). It turned out that the attacking mob from the city was long gone, but we saw some university students venting their frustration on a dilapidated shop, presumably belonging to Hindus. Some students were trying to pry and break the lock on its weather beaten wooden doors. A few students, including Haris Bhai and I instinctively felt the injustice of the mindless revenge and jumped in front of the shop to shield it.

We did succeed in saving that poor shop from the reprisal by the madness of infecting sectarian anger. The crowd moved on. We also moved on and saw some partly damaged building fronts and blackened shutters of the popular Friends Book Depot owned by Muslims. Apparently the mob from the city had tried to set fire to them. Further down the road we were shocked to see the ransacked Rama Book Depot and Krishna Book Depot. As the name indicated, they were owned by Hindus. I had been to these stores many times. The books were strewn in front of the broken doors, as if staring at me, in protest at the indignity heaped on these repositories of knowledge and wisdom, used to a place of respect on book shelves. No apparent damage was done to the businesses further down the road and to the university buildings and hostels.

Though most of us including the late arriving reporters had not witnessed the attack, in the charged communal atmosphere, it was easy to surmise that the Hindu mob from the city had run out of steam and did not enter the AMU campus doing only minor damage to the Muslim business establishments. And the looting of the Rama and the Krishna book depots was done by the vengeful Muslim students from the university. In the emotionally taxing environment, the conclusions seemed obvious.

Student life in the aftermath of the attack

We returned to our hostels, with mixed feelings of sadness over the destruction of the book stores, and anxiety over our safety. Those were the days without the instruments of mass communications - no telephones or even radios in the rooms. If the authorities made an effort to console and guide the students, I am not aware of it. Obviously the authorities knew more, but perhaps were busy devising plans for the protection for the students with the district administration. With the setting sun, we feared that the mob from the city would return in the darkness of night to attack the hostels. With no means of instant communication, the hostels were like isolated islands shrouded in the dark oppressive quietness of the night.

In our charged imaginations, a possible massacre was not out of the question. Most of the residence halls were quadrangles with one or two gated entrances, such as SS Hall. Even the newer hostels such as Ziauddin and Saifi were enclosed structures. But the three hostels closest to the main road, MacDonald, Aftab and Mumtaz were three sided graceful structures with verandahs adorned with Moorish arches. The fourth side was open to the road separated by an ornamental iron fence.

In frustration, some even criticized the bad design of our hostel, suggesting it should have been a fortress like closed quadrangle. Forgetting the irony that we took pride in the aesthetics of the aftab hostel, unlike those cooped up in closed quadrangles. Fear changed the perception and the cooped up design looked safer.

We felt completely exposed and vulnerable. Again those were the days when violence meant fist-a-cuff. We did not have, nor did we imagine anyone should have a revolver or a gun. Some one suggested that there was a big pile of broken bricks from some collapsed old structure, behind our hostel. Within minutes we got to work and carried loads of broken brick to the roof of Aftab hostel. We were not sure how effective brick throwing would be against the invading mob with fire arms. It was a good way to feel useful and use up our youthful adrenalin.

Tired, after hard physical work, I fell in deep sleep. Waking up next morning, it took a few seconds to be jarred by the returning memory of the eventful yesterday and the anxiety of a night time attack. I was still alive, the hostel was still there and nothing untoward had happened, at least not in our little corner of the world. It was hard to believe that yesterday was not just a bad dream. The October sky was a brilliant azure blue, even though we felt in our bones that the horizons were red with turmoil. Apparently every one assumed that there would be no classes and therefore there weren’t. There were rumors that hundreds of Muslims had been killed in the old Aligarh city. It was not deemed safe to travel as the miscreants may have carried the virus to other cities spreading mayhem from town to town.

Later that day a police constable showed up at my room, with a letter from the District Magistrate (Collector), Mr. Joshi inviting me to his office in the collectorate. I knew he was my father’s colleague at an earlier posting and apparently my father had called him. He offered to send me home accompanied by a police constable to navigate the long journey home. I felt irritated by the offer. I thought he was not doing his job of saving the innocent victims in the city. I felt that a strong district magistrate had enormous authority and could have nipped the rioters at the first sign of trouble. In solidarity with my friends who I felt were trapped, I declined the offer and came back to Aftab hostel and my other friends in other hostels in similar predicament.

The first thing on everyone’s mind was to inform their worried families of their safety. Long lines formed at the telegraph office as soon as it opened. Telegraphic shorthand in English is not everyone’s forte. Many students sent a crisp though unintended alarming message home, “still alive”. Aligarians are known for their sense of humor, gallows humor was rife. There was an undercurrent of subdued panic, based on the rumors of hundreds of deaths in the city. Some students mispronounced the unfamiliar word “Panic”; others did it intentionally with a broad smile.

Mr. Joshi informed my father that I was safe and would be coming home shortly. In a couple of days the papers reported that the riots had been quelled and it was safe to travel. AMU was closed for about ten days. We went home. The journey was charged with consternation, but uneventful.

There were two Hindu students in our hostel of eightyeight. Des Raj was much senior to me. He was a research scholar probably in political science and was teaching part-time at a local college. Dhyan Prakash was a year junior to me and we knew each other well. We were mindful of their emotional well being, and made an effort to make them feel a part of us in these terribly emotionally divisive times.

All my life I had attended schools with an overwhelming majority of Hindu kids. Almost all of my school friends from school days were Hindus. Many of them are still cherished friends after many decades. So even though AMU hostels were demographically overwhelmingly Muslim, I had many Hindu friends, mostly my class fellows from different hostels. Some names are still fresh in my mind - Sushil Tomar, Kalyan Singh, Ramesh Tayal, Ravindra Rustagi, Vinod Singh, Ambrish Kumar. Ravi Rustagi remained a close friend until he passed away a few years ago in Australia and Ramesh Tayal and I still correspond.

I did not see them until after the vacations, when the University finally opened in mid-October. What ever residue that remained in the minds of the students was gone and we were close as ever.

Many newspapers were very critical of the university. They blamed AMU for the inculcated communal atmosphere, based on the election results, appearing to justify the riots in the city. The photographs of the ransacked Rama and Krishna Book Depots were used as exhibits of vandalism. They had built up a case, completely ignoring the planning by the interested parties in the old Aligarh city to use the inevitable results as a pretext to engineer the planned carnage. K L Shrimali, the new education minister in the Central Government, accused AMU of communalism. When informed that there was a very strong influence of the communist party at the university, he scoffed that they are communal communists. Disheartened at being battered by a partisan press, we felt much better when Chnchal Sarkar of “The Statesman” a respected news paper spent time interviewing students at the university and the citizens of the old city. He published two incisive articles on November 6^th and 7^th. It gave some respite to AMU. Sarkar passed away in October 2005. 

Engineering of the 1961 riots

Many books and articles have been written on the subject.  The following analysis is gleaned from an excellent book by Paul R. Brass, “The production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, published in 2003”; and an excellent analysis in the report by the India Policy Institute, published on the internet in January 2004. “Communal riots in India: A Sketch of History and Causes.” (www.indiapolicy.sabhlokcity.com/.../lbs-comm-notes.doc - India

In the wake of the British occupation of India for three centuries ending in 1947, the ruling class of Muslims was thrown off kilter. The Aligarh movement was started by Sir Syed to help Muslims retain their Islamic moorings while regaining their footing in the flow of history. He started the MAO College in 1875 to check the backsliding and help them join the modern scientific trend. Hindus were not only welcome, but many helped him in his efforts.

Soon after the MAO College became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920. The idea of imminent freedom for India from the British Raj was in the air. Sectarian forces were also working overtime and the specter of separatism was on the rise. The popular belief with some justification is that hatred germinated under the aegis of the British policy of divide and rule. The Pakistan Movement of 1930s and 40s became a potent force and did a lasting damage to the amity between the two communities. Many students and faculty at AMU bought into the two nation theory and were active in the creation of Pakistan. This left a very deep animus to wards AMU among many Hindus.

Aligarh had a sizable Muslim Population. It diminished after the partition.  But over the years it has gradually increased by accretion. Muslims educated at AMU and the AMU faculty have settled down in new neighborhoods close to the university. AMU being a residential university, it legally gives preferences to students educated at AMU in coveted professional courses. With a stiff competition for professional education in India many Hindu students have also gravitated to AMU to qualify for the professional courses in the internal quota. Most of these students live away from the campus and have not been able to integrate in the residential student body.  The local Hindu colleges have tried many times, to swamp AMU demographically by getting a change in the AMU charter, to get affiliated, thus becoming a majority.

With this background the Student Union election of 1961 became a watershed. The resentments were simmering. The Hindu communal class’ resistance to AMU was well established and the Muslim communal resistance to Hindu incursion in AMU had grown over the years. Growing Hindu and Muslim communalism symbiotically found sustenance in exaggerated and often invented grievances.

Usually the Student Union election was contested by candidates from the right and the left of the political spectrum who happened to be Muslims. In1961, the sectarian Hindu forces decided to put up candidates for all the posts of the Students Union knowing that Muslim vote would be divided among many Muslims. It became apparent to the rightwing Muslims, that with about 40 percent Hindu students the Muslim vote would be divided and the Hindus will sweep the elections, particularly the coveted presidency.  A successful effort was mounted to make all Muslim candidates withdraw leaving a single insipid consensus candidate for each office.

The stage was set for the clash of two communalisms with a foregone conclusion. In the course of time, had an accomplished Hindu student contested the presidency it would have been notable and a positive evolution. But the way it was planned by the communal BJP minded Hindus was diabolically cleaver. They relied on the knee jerk push back by the myopic Muslim communalists. The dice was cast. If a Hindu candidate won with the agenda of harming the tranquility of AMU, so much the better, but as expected if he lost, it was trumped up as causes belie. An average student had no inkling of the gathering storm. The authorities were also caught napping.

After the contrived post election incident at the Ziauddin Hostel, early morning on the 2^nd of October authorities should have been more vigilant. The propaganda in the colleges of the old city was allowed to fester. It resulted in the attack on the university. As it turned out it was only a side show to malign the AMU, the real atrocities were committed in killing innocent people in the city. The official figures were fifteen innocent people killed and hundreds injured, of which an overwhelming number were Muslims.   

The authorities had clamped a curfew on the town. That is the least they could have done. As it often happens they called the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) for help to oversee the curfew. One may think that people would feel safer. But far from it, the record of the PAC has been blatantly anti-minorities over the years. So much so that in mid the1950’s commenting on the role of the PAC in a case before the court, Justice Ananand Narain Mulla of the Allahabad High Court (1954-61) is said to have included a comment in his judgment, that the UP police was the most organized group of Thugs (goondas) in the state.

It has been proven time and again, that Muslims do not fear their Hindu neighbors with whom they have lived in harmony, and most of us have experienced it all our lives. The problem arises when the riots are engineered by vested communal interest and the police particularly the highly partisan PAC is called. That is when the real atrocities take place, as it has been conclusively proven by the hundreds of photographs published internationally as evidence in the February- March 2002 Gujarat massacre. The published photographs show the miscreants throwing fire bombs protected behind the police lines towards the cordoned off hapless Muslims.

A long view

It was a lesson to me that the riots were engineered by a very small coterie of vested interest waiting to find a cause, or invent one when needed. Knowing the intensity and passion of the Student Union elections, they engineered a cause and when successful fanned the flames. All of my Hindu friends and teachers were good to me and remained my friends. Their attitude towards me was the same before and after the riots.

After graduating from AMU I joined Roorkee University for my master’s degree. In a class of ten students, to my pleasant surprise, I found two friends from my batch at AMU, Kalyam Singh a Sikh and Ravi Rutagi a Hindu of merchant cast. There were seven other students, three from BHU and one each from Lucknow, Jaipur and Patna universities. I was the lone Muslim. In the beginning there was a silent competition among us as flag bearers of our universities. Ravi and Kalyan were even more concerned and enthusiastic than me not to let AMU down. And succeed we did.

The problem of sectarianism (communalism) is endemic all over the world. It manifests it self as tribalism in African countries, as religious conflict in European countries up until the 19^th century, as racism in the United States, and as communalism in Pakistan India, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar) and other countries.

Rising from medieval civilization based on uniformity of power structure, the molding of a modern secular nation is difficult. It becomes that much more challenging after a long period of colonialism, especially when the society is economically poor and there is competition for meager resources. In India the religious divide between Hindus and Muslims and the cast divide among the upper and lower cast Hindus and the untouchables has been a bane to the progress of the nation. Yet India has adhered to secularism under very difficult circumstances.

There is no wall of separation between the state and religion in the Indian constitution. The state is supposed to be neutral, yet most people often vote on the basis of caste. In the Indian social milieu religion is supposed to act as a motivating positive force, not a force against other religions. But the bane of democracies is that unscrupulous politicians exploit religion to their selfish ends, injuring the fabric of the nation.

After the Aligarh riots of 1961, I found myself caught in the riots in Calcutta, twice. The first time it was in January 1964 while on a geological tour as a student; and again in January 1967 as a faculty in charge of the students. Both the times I was the only Muslim among my colleagues. The riots in Calcutta were intense. They were sparked by the flooding of Hindu refugees from the riots in the erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) resulting from the atrocities on the Hindus by a Muslim majority. Obviously the times were tense, but the bonds of friendship and decency were a lot stronger than the beckoning force of sectarianism. I never felt threatened. Though there were some who tried to provoke me, but my Hindu friends stood by me.

Time is a friend as well as a foe. The passage of time often smoothes the sharp edges of the sad events and diminishes the sting, though memories remain, but in the process it also robs us of the innocence of the idyllic days of our youth.

As old men having lost the innocence we become cynical and lose trust in the innate goodness that is significant part of humanity. Young people do damage out of inexperience and foolishness. Old people know better, therefore they are guilty of criminal selfishness.

It does not have to be this way. Germany and France have fought three increasingly horrible wars within a period of seventy years - The War of 1870, The First World War (1914-18) and the most horrible of all wars The Second World War (1939-45). Making them the most hated enemy of each other. Nobody could have predicted that within a couple of generations they would be the best of friends with open borders and the most important bull work of the Economic Union of modern peaceful Europe.

Yet the hatred of what we consider “the other” continues. I keep reading about mayhem in many parts of the world from the Northern Ireland and Bosnia in Europe to endemic riots and wars in many parts of Asia and Africa. These fault lines are not only racial, but religious and within religions, casts and tribes. The solutions are so obvious. Countries that treat there citizens with justice do better economically. Larger countries do even better. The divisiveness can be ameliorated with cooperation that enhances economic development. According to a well known aphorism, “A rising tide lifts all boats”. But time and again the vested interests are able to invoke our baser nature and cause havoc on other humans caught in a vicious cycle of revenge with self-serving narratives of who started it.

I hope some day the world would be a better place for our children, but in the near future it is disheartening. I wrote the following lines about four years ago to express this conundrum.

Elusive thoughts at Midnight

Mirza A. Beg
April 3rd, 2008

Miiddle of the night
Is never perfectly dark
The restful dark
Of deep slumber

Stray eerie light seeps in
From the streets of the
Smoldering day, from the
Tormented world beyond

Eyelids quiver with twilight
Of wakeful concerns of the day,
Of wars, real and imagined
Of inhumanity and lost friends

Inducing an amorphous ache
From myriad hazy sources
Flooding the heart and mind
And engulfing the soul

With countless Images
Of tortured bodies
Of hungry faces
Of loss and injustice

Of slings and arrows
Of lost opportunities
Of what could have been
Should have been, but is not

In the name of
Egotistic power
Misbegotten ideology
And misused religion

In the deathly stillness
Of a body, dormant
The restless mind soars
To resonate with the spirit

Inspiring visions
Of possibilities of peace
Just and humane
Clear and concise

To capture lost opportunities

Transcending arrogance and pride
To mend the frayed fabric
And make shattered souls, whole

Slowly the sleep returns
To cloud the vision
Clarity dissolves in a mist
Leaving only a few kernels

Morning is melancholy
I stare at a blank page
Failing to capture that

Fleeting flawless vision

Mirza A. Beg may be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com. 

His essays and poems are on my blog  http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Bigotery in Election 11-6-20

Republican Debate - Stealth Agenda of Gingrich and Cain

Mirza A. Beg

Saturday, June 20, 2011

Counter Currents June 23, 2011

http://www.countercurrents.org/beg230611.htm

Media Monitor Network, June 23, 2011

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/87349

Tuscaloosa News, Sunday, June 26, 2011

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20110626/NEWS/110719975

OEN OpEdNews.com, June 28, 2011

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Republican-Debate--Stealt-by-Mirza-Beg-110624-554.html

The Republican debate of June 13^th moderated by John King of CNN was generally a collegial affair. It was essentially a “Knock Obama” rally, with understated minor differences among the candidates.

Except, when CNN moderator John King asked former Godfather Pizza magnate, Harman Cain, “You recently said you would not appoint a Muslim to your cabinet and you kind of backed off a little bit and said you would first want to know if they’re committed to the Constitution. You expressed concern that, quote, “a lot of Muslims are not totally dedicated to this country.” Are American-Muslims as a group less committed to the Constitution than, say, Christians or Jews?”

Cain backpedaled a bit and said,” I would not be comfortable because you have peaceful Muslims and then you have militant Muslims, those that are trying to kill us. And so, when I said I wouldn’t be comfortable, I was thinking about the ones that are trying to kill us, number one. Secondly, yes, I do not believe in Sharia law in American courts. I believe in American laws in American courts, period. There have been instances –“

John King turned to other candidates and asked their views on the subject. Some candidates were uncomfortable, but not former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

Trying to resuscitate his dying campaign, stridently he said, “Now, I just want to go out on a limb here. I’m in favor of saying to people, if you’re not prepared to be loyal to the United States, you will not serve in my administration, period.” He added “We did this—we did this in dealing with the Nazis and we did this in dealing with the communists. And it was controversial both times, and both times we discovered after a while, you know, there are some genuinely bad people who would like to infiltrate our country. And we have got to have the guts to stand up and say no.”

For those who do not know, Gingrich was approvingly referring to the Red baiting campaign of early 1950s by the Republican senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and his cohorts. It has been widely condemned as the most shameful period in modern US history. It lives in infamy as McCarthyism. As Gingrich says, there were “some genuinely bad people”- but it is opposite of the way he construes. The bad people were, Senator McCarthy and his minions, who maligned and tried to destroy decent Americans by innuendos, as Gingrich does.

Yes, a few Muslim citizens have engaged in terrorism against the US, but an overwhelming majority of Muslims are productive and loyal citizens. It is no secret that Muslim bashing is popular among some in the Republican Party. They conveniently forget that some of the plots were thwarted by Muslims contacting the police.

Sadly not one candidate on the podium admonished Cain and Gingrich, as they would have, if such a sweeping statement was made to malign other minorities such as Jews or Blacks. Even sadder yet, it did not elicit much comment in the popular media either.

Not too long ago some Republicans did stand up to challenge such remarks, but the party has changed.

In 2007 Republican debates, while others remained quiet, John McCain condemned Mitt Romney’s remark that he will not appoint any Muslim to his cabinet. McCain said, “I’m proud of the Muslims who are currently serving in the United States armed forces and my sense is that if they can serve in that manner, they can serve in any position of responsibility in America.”

In December 2002, an intemperate remark by Senator Trent Lott cost him the leadership of the Republican Party in the Senate. Celebrating the 100^th birthday of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, Senator Trent Lott, the Republican leader in the Senate said, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.”

Those remarks were construed as racist, because in 1948 Strom Thurmond broke with the Democratic Party on the issue of enforcement of civil rights legislation and ran for the Presidency as a State’s Rights Party candidate.

The US Constitution is secular. Thankfully our laws are not based on religious preference. Although when not in conflict with the civil laws, in some jurisdictions it has accommodated people, who by mutual agreement wanted their personal disputes settled by arbitration by religious tribunal. Courts have enforced the result of such arbitration in case of Jewish, Mormon and other religions as in contract law.

The spurious injection of Sharia in the debate is a “Red Herring” to divert attention and garner cheap popularity from the considerable weight of the xenophobic wing of the Republican Party. There is no monolithic Sharia law. These laws were developed by different schools of thoughts in the 9^th century to check the creeping autocracy of the rulers. They are open to debate, and have evolved on diverse lines through the ages.

The irony is that most rightwing Republicans are opposed to the idea of separation of “Church and State” notwithstanding the first amendment. That is why Rev. Pat Robertson found so much traction in the Republican primaries in the 1980s. Rev. Charles Kimball writes in his book, “When Religion Becomes Lethal “ that Ralph Reed, the head of the Christian Coalition, famously referred to the practice of running “stealth candidates” where the radical agenda would be hidden from voters by focusing on hot button issues such as abortion or homosexuality. By the time the voters knew what victorious candidate really advocated, they would not know what hit them.

Some of the 2012 Republican aspirants are not much different. Some want the United States to be under the Biblical laws, while others in an effort to dupe them are stealthily raising a bogus threat from the Sharia laws. To protect all, multi-religious as well as irreligious citizens, would it not be better to, honestly adhere to the principle of “Separation of Church and State”, no lying, no ifs and no buts?

Instead of the loyalty test for ordinary law abiding citizens of any faith or no faith, the electorate should reject stealth candidates whose support for the US Constitution is dubious. If elected they would have to take the oath of office with fingers crossed.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Eartquake in Haiti 10-01-13

Earthquake in Haiti
Some Thoughts

Mirza A. Beg
Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Earthquake in Haiti
Tens of thousands dead
Perished without warning
Silencing thoughts and feeling
Mourned by dazed family and friends

Another human calamity
As in disasters before
Earthquakes and Tsunamis
Volcanoes and typhoons
In times and places before

A wrath of God, fury of nature
Or simply an occurrence
Powerful and amazing
As Galaxies colliding
Indifferent to humanity

An event predetermined in time
Propelled by the laws of nature
With no malice or blame
Ants crushed by a bulldozer
Insects under passing feet

Geologic plates moving, colliding
Directions determined eons ago
By forces of cosmic creation
Unconcerned by our feelings
Humbling the arrogant humanity

Inadvertently the Nature tests
Our own nature and values
Some condemn the victims
For inviting the wrath of God
Some don’t even notice and go on

But many find morality in piety
Helping the injured and destitute
Giving meaning to our lives
Compassion for fellow beings
Scripts the nobility of being

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Greetings for 2009 08-12-18

A Wish for the Year 2009

Mirza A. Beg
December 18th, 2008

On December 31, the year 2008 will fade into history. Though January 1, 2009 will not be materially different, but the year 2009 can be, and I hope will be a harbinger of better tomorrows. Many will take stock of their hopes and desires for the future, but some will find refuge in this season of festivities and let desires negate hope and trump reality. The poor and dispossessed of the world will go on toiling towards dashed hopes and early deaths. The challenge is to bring changes to these lives and usher in a new millennium of peace and cooperation that is still waiting for the last eight years of the chronological millennium.

The year 2008 has been one of the most miserable years in more than half a century. Not only do the wars still rage in Iraq and Afghanistan, but no less devastating regional civil wars in Sri Lanka, Darfur, Congo and many other places go on unabated; Mr. Mugabe, in resource-rich Zimbabwe has led its citizens to unbelievable destitution, while the world can awkwardly condemns as a bystander. The terrorism of state and non-state actors in many regions is on the rise.

Dictators and oppressors persist and terrorist attacks come with the regularity of tides. We have only limited attention span, and are overwhelmed by so many crises. The crisis of the past month fades, replaced by a new crisis of the month or even the week. The Junta in Burma (Myanmar) perseveres in its horrible record of oppression. The world focused on it for a few weeks, then moved on.

All the crises have been dwarfed by the economic meltdown of 2008, which started with the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States. This was only the proverbial straw. If not this, some other unraveling of the economic pyramid scheme would have burst the bubble of unregulated greed of unscrupulous funds managers on Wall Street, who ran amok under a blind eye of a government that willfully dismantled the instruments of governmental regulatory responsibilities.

To dispel all doubts that we are living in a global economy, the US economic crisis has reverberated through the world economies, including the very poor countries that are dependent on the aid and charity of the wealthier nations. The governments of all major economies, including the United States, have come to realize that they can not manage it alone and have been forced to coordinate their efforts to dig themselves out of this self-made morass.

But the year 2008 has also been a watershed year. The situation became so bad that it may have woken us from a long slumber of complacent inattention.

In America, in the wake of the shock of 9/11 in 2001, fear took hold. Loud voices of the prophets of fear and greed found a fertile ground. Americans opted for erosion of their constitutional freedoms in exchange for a feeling of safety.

After eight years of utter mismanagement, Americans realized that their pocket-books are dwindling and even the substandard employment of eight years is about to turn in to unemployment and their future as a great nation has been jeopardized.

Against all odds, in contradiction of the conventional wisdom, Americans rose above their prejudices and voted Barack Obama as the president-elect of the United States. No one could have even ventured to predict that a black American could win the election in 2008.

This is of even greater significance because Mr. Obama avoided the mean and negative campaigning that has been the hall-mark of the past successful elections. A majority of Americans rejected the petty politics of fear and rose to vote for a future of hope and equity. Americans voted for Mr. Obama even though he did not take the bait of demonizing those who disagreed with American policies and offered dialogue to reach a better and equitable understanding instead of hubris.

The American Revolution was one of the most important engines for the flowering of democracies in the world. This change in American attitudes and government is a harbinger of a better tomorrow of dialogue and understanding among the peoples of the world. In this interconnected world of fast communications and global economy, no place is too far, or too insulated to escape the consequences of oppression of supposedly distant people. It is time to think of others empathetically to develop common platforms and aspirations.

Industrial revolution has conclusively proven that prosperity is not a zero-sum proposition. For some to be rich, many do not have to be poor. Human ingenuity can help produce more with less effort and invent new techniques and materials of comfort, for the betterment of all.

This is not a new idea; European prosperity rose from the ashes of the conflagration of two world wars on this concept. Leaders reflect our collective will and hopes. No leader, including Mr. Obama by himself can bring about the millennium of peace and cooperation, but with the help of all those who choose a better tomorrow, not only for themselves, but for all, this may be a time for that momentous change. Let us make the year 2009 the start. With best wishes,

Mirza A. Beg may be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com.
His essays are available at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Congrats Pres Obama 08-11-4

Congratulation President-Elect Obama

Mirza A. Beg
Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Dear President-elect Obama,

Congratulations on a very well deserved victory. More importantly, it is a very convincing affirmation of the lofty ideal of the founding of the United States of America.

The ideals that led to the declaration of independence, later enshrined in the American constitution have often suffered on the shoals of populism constricted by deeply ingrained prejudices. It has been a protracted struggle for the United States as well as other democracies. It has taken America a long time to overcome many deep-rooted prejudices to elect you as the next president.

It is indeed a new dawn for our country. The world has looked up to the idea of America and the ideals of the American creed, but has been disappointed and rebuffed many times. Particularly the last eight years have been an antithesis of American Ideals.

This is a bitter sweet moment for you. The passing of your grandmother, a day before your well earned victory is indeed very sad. A modicum of satisfaction for you is that she knew you are what she had dreamed and hoped for you to be.

You are about to assume the leadership of a great country that suffered the indignity of being lead by a coterie of narrow-minded thugs who violated every principle this great country stood for. They were able to do it by fear mongering to exploit the tragedy of 9/11. The foreign policy is in shambles. In the name of fighting terrorism they abandoned all moral principles to the extant that the world sees us as a nation led by a rogue President. They handed the economy to the Kleptocrats on the Wall-street in the name of deregulation. These are very tough times for our country and the world.

The good news is that the world still is waiting for a sane and principled leadership. The greatest gift of our democracy is that every four years we get a chance to chart a new course. About four years ago in the last election Americans stirred from a nightmare but were frightened into closing their eyes to fall into a deeper nightmare. Finally we have been shaken up from our worst nightmare to reject the purveyors of fear.

This is our opportunity to pull back from the precipice of the misguided Bush doctrine of leading by brawn in the manner of a small-minded street fighter. A great leader leads by thoughtful principled analysis of problems. You have proven your capabilities in the last two years of grueling campaign.

You are starting with a national mandate and universal goodwill. The challenges are enormous and our resources are stretched very thin. You have no time to relax in the glow of this historic victory.

You have to devise an economic program that gives people hope, provides job, rewards hard work, curbs greed and punishes those who exploit our freedoms and the economic system.

You have to reassure the world that America values principles and respects all nations and peoples who want to live in peace and justice. You need to take strong steps to resolve the festering Israeli-Palestinian problem equitably. It is the key. It has not only hampered the American ability to solve many other problems, but has helped create many of the festering problems of the last few decades.

The wars are not always avoidable, but they should be the last resort, only when all else fails and the nation is in mortal danger. Unprincipled wars of supremacy are feudalistic and can not succeed in the age of instant communications. The Iraq war needs to end as you promised. The war in Afghanistan needs a very strong component of diplomacy and mercy towards those who can be drawn back from Taliban’s cruelty, so that we do not create more enemy as we have been doing by indiscriminate bombing of civilians almost on a monthly basis. It only weakens our cause and makes the enemy stronger. As you said we need to negotiate with our enemies on the basis of equity and not supremacist ultimatums.

We have supported you in the hope that you will govern with courage, thoughtfulness and justice. We will offer our constructive criticism as citizens of a great and free nation. We stood up against the intimidation of the last eight years to elect you. We intend to protect that precious right and will show dissent in the best and most valuable American tradition when warranted. With best wishes to you and our country, Mirza

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or through the blog http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Karadzic Arrested 08-07-22

Karadzic, the Serbian Butcher of Bosnia, Arrested

Mirza A. Beg
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Pine Magazine, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.pine-magazine.com/maincat.php?category_id=2
Media Monitors Network, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/53127
The American Muslim, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/karadzic_the_serbian_butcher_of_bosnia_arrested/0016437


The arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the leader and one of the main architects of Serbian atrocities and genocide against the Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats is not only good news, but much needed victory for the cause of justice. He, as the civilian leader, along with Ratko Mladic, the military leader of the Serb forces, was the main culprit in the civil war in Bosnia from 1991 to 1996. They rained death and destruction on Sarajevo and directed the genocide in Bosnia that killed more than 200,000 Bosnians and Croats. They were indicted for their crimes against humanity by the international court of justice at The Hague and have eluded arrest for the last thirteen years.

As children, we are taught and fortunately we believe that evil does not pay and justice triumphs in the end. It is an uplifting message to imbibe. It gives us an ideal to aspire for, rooted in the purity of innocence. Perhaps that early implant of idealism is what keeps the world from spinning completely out of control and falling irredeemably into chaos.

Unfortunately, as adults we come face to face with the reality, leading to disillusionment. We sadly come to realize that tyrants, exploiters and killers are only occasionally brought to justice to face deserved punishment. Most tyrants not only thrive, but are even celebrated; especially when they are supported by a sectarian populace. If they live long enough and mellow with age, their sectarian good deeds help cover up their terrible crimes.

The best known extreme examples are Hitler who came to a well deserved ignominious end, but Stalin was celebrated until his natural death by his beleaguered countrymen. History is full of such pairs. In modern times many horrible killers and dictators retired and found refuge in other countries to live and die in isolated luxury. Tyranny by stronger countries on weaker countries is often celebrated in the hallowed name of patriotism and nationalism by the strong.

Occasionally when tyrants, killers and genocide perpetrators are caught and brought to the bar of slow grinding sporadic justice, a modicum of humanity is reclaimed, a few tears are wiped and it rekindles hope.

Often tyrants are replaced by other tyrants, or even unintended tyranny of war of hubris, such as the fate of Saddam Hussein. Many dictators and evil systems fall to leaders full of promise who adapt the same methods, once in power, as in the case of Idi Amin of Uganda and Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately most major countries have been guilty of selective violations of human rights of beleaguered minorities; there are many current examples of such ongoing conflicts.

After the unprecedented carnage of the WW II, the stunned world came to its senses to establish a world-wide organization, The United Nations (UN), to be a world assembly where a consensus could be reached, so that such carnages could be avoided for a better future.

Though the UN has been immensely successful through its many agencies in helping the poverty-stricken peoples of the word, unfortunately it has failed in its primary purpose of outlawing wars and carnage. The main impediments are the five major powers, the victors of the WW II; Great Britain, France, the United States, China and now Russia in place of the Soviet Union. They reserved for them-selves the power of veto, the right to individually kill any resolution in the Security Council, the executive arm for world peace in the UN. Thus many regional wars and even genocides have continued, in which either the powers them-selves were engaged or it involved their client states.

The UN also created the International Court of Justice, headquartered at The Hague in the Netherlands, to be the impartial arm of justice for those who had no other recourse. The most powerful country, the United States refused to join it. Therefore, the International Court of Justice works only when the less powerful tyrants are defeated and caught.

Nevertheless, the arrest of Radovan Karadzic after thirteen years of eluding half-hearted attempts by the Serbian and the UN peace-keepers is a small victory for the ideals that we were raised on, and it keeps the flickering flame of justice alive.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com .

Passing of Nirmala 08-5-5

The Passing of Nirmala Deshpande

Mirza A. Beg
Thursday, May 1, 2008

Counter Currents, Friday, May 2, 2008
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg020508.htm

The American Muslim, May4, 2008
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/the_passing_of_nirmala_deshpande/0016195


Nirmala Deshpande, 79, a veteran Gandhian, died in her sleep at her home in Delhi, Thursday morning. It is natural to mourn the passing of a dear friend. Though I did not know her personally, I mourn her passing as if she was a close friend. We knew of her great sacrifice and struggle to keep the flame of humanity and justice alive against powerful winds of hatred and strife around the world, particularly in her homeland, India, the land of Gandhi.

Her being was a source of strength to many who saw and felt her piety. Many took sustenance from her selfless work for the downtrodden and marginalized in a fast changing society, where sectarianism has become entrenched in the halls of power. In that respect she became a dear friend to all who cared. To them she was popularly known as “Didi” (respected elder sister in Hindi).

Her passing is particularly sad, because she was a great soul. She was seventy-nine years old and no one has defied the law of nature to live forever. Her life was a beacon and her death should be a time of reflection. People like her are a gift to humanity by the providence. Fortunately humanity continues to produce people like her in every generation to carry the torch of humane concerns. Democracies, though imperfect, provide secular saints such as Nirmala Deshpande a modicum of sustenance to nudge the conscience of many to uphold the values we often preach, but do not practice.

All freedom and justice-loving Indians loved and respected her. Muslims, Christians and untouchables in India are especially indebted to this frail woman born in a Brahmin family, for her tireless efforts against discrimination and marginalization. Her fearless stand rallied many Indians against the pogrom carried out by the fascistic provincial government of Gujarat against Muslims in 2002, in which about 2,000 Muslims were brutally burned and massacred.

She saw the tyranny of governments cloaked in crass nationalism, used as an excuse to foster hatred. She tried to bring the peoples of India and Pakistan, former brothers, now contentious neighbors, towards understanding and amity. She knew that constitutional safeguards work only when the majority community considers it a duty to protect the minority rights. Therefore she took up the cause of marginalized minorities in India.

In her memory, Muslims all over the world, especially in India and Pakistan, owe it to Islam and humanity to convince the Muslim majorities in all countries to protect the rights of minorities. Thoughtful Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh have found their voices in Nirmala’s Gandhian tradition to speak up for Hindu and Christian minorities. Their rights have been violated by some out of visceral hatred or financial gains, especially resulting from seemingly good, though egregious blasphemy laws.

Protecting the minorities is a test of civilization. It protects the rights of all. Looking the other way or ignoring small violations of human rights leads to greater discrimination and injustice.

She adhered to the best of the creeds that humanity offers. Widely known as a Gandhian, she was able to carry the torch of Gandhi Ji’s ideals at a time when Gandhi Ji’s name is reviled by a large section of Indian polity or at best is used only for ceremonial purposes by those who profit from his name, but consider his ideology and humanity to be impractical or at best, quaint.

Of course the Gandhian path that Nirmala Deshpandey traveled is difficult to follow. Gandhi Ji did not live an easy or opulent life. It is certainly much more difficult than succumbing to self interest in the pursuit of wealth and political power to the detriment of the weaker sections of the society.

Humanity has innate potential to rise above its selfish baser instincts, but only a few harness it to help lead their people towards a better tomorrow. She lived in the tradition of the great conscience keepers of their nations.

Mirza A. Beg writings are available at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/
Mirza can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com

Midnight Thoughts 08-04-03

Elusive thoughts at Midnight

Mirza A. Beg
April 3rd, 2008

Middle of the night
Is never perfectly dark
The restful dark
Of deep slumber

Stray eerie light seeps in
From the streets of the
Smoldering day, from the
Tormented world beyond

Eyelids quiver with twilight
Of wakeful concerns of the day,
Of wars, real and imagined
Of inhumanity and lost friends

Inducing an amorphous ache
From myriad hazy sources
Flooding the heart and mind
And engulfing the soul

With countless Images
Of tortured bodies
Of hungry faces
Of loss and injustice

Of slings and arrows
Of lost opportunities
Of what could have been
Should have been, but is not

In the name of
Egotistic power
Misbegotten ideology
And misused religion

In the deathly stillness
Of a body, dormant
The restless mind soars
To resonate with the spirit

Inspiring visions
Of possibilities of peace
Just and humane
Clear and concise

To capture lost opportunities
Transcending arrogance and pride
To mend the frayed fabric
And make shattered souls, whole

Slowly the sleep returns
To cloud the vision
Clarity dissolves in a mist
Leaving only a few kernels

Morning is melancholy
I stare at a blank page
Failing to capture that
Fleeting flawless vision

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com
His Essays and Poems are available at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Thoughts for 2008, 07-12-20

Will the year 2008 be Different?

Mirza A. Beg
Tuesday, December 20, 2007

Counter Currents, Wednesday, December21, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg211207.htm

The American Muslim, Tuesday, December 20, 2007
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/will_the_year_2008_be_different/0015294

Media Monitors Network, Monday, December 24, 2007
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/48396

My News India, Sunday, December 30, 2007
http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=1601

Asia Peace, Article of the month, December 2007
http://www.asiapeace.org/article_of_month.htm

January 1, of the year 2008 of the Julian-Gregorian calendar will be just another day in the steady flow of time. Some will celebrate because it is customary, while others will rejoice in the ever present hope of renewal, but most of the teaming poor and dispossessed of the world will not notice it. The wars will go on as legalized murder. It will be yet another day of misery and deprivation.

Most people, across the globe, at least wish for peace on Earth and equity and justice for all. They are kind and considerate as individuals. But as a group, “us versus them”, we conveniently forget that it requires treating the distant “others” as we, the “us” would like to be treated. It is easy to find tortuous reasons to justify selfish interests, resulting in wars based on the worst of lies, the self serving lies that we tell ourselves. They propel us to support the politicians who lie most convincingly that killing neighbors or a people in far off lands is necessary to preserve our way of life.

Religions become the most convenient hand maiden of the propagandists, and we willingly with enthusiasm profane what we purport to hold sacred.

Eventually all wars do end, often with the exhaustion of all sides. In the past two centuries, the quantum growth in modern technology has provided unimaginable material conveniences. It has brought prosperity, but sadly there is even a greater growth in weapons to feed the wars; weapons that can be used without any danger to the user; impersonalized weapons.

In my name, with my taxes, a neighborhood full of people with similar dreams as mine, in a far off place, will be destroyed by a rocket delivered by a remote controlled plane, while I am celebrating the New Year festivities and talking of peace and goodwill. If confronted by the deception, the trite explanation will be “collateral damage”, or at best an oft repeated hackneyed phrase “Oops, a mistake for which we are extremely sorry.”

Ours is an age of information and instant communication. No technology can be secret for very long. Every weapon invented by an established government to oppress others in the name of crass nationalism will eventually leak out or are sold to those fighting the oppression, who after gaining power, in turn become oppressors.

The wars can not be fought or sustained unless the populace is duped into believing that the “ungodly other” or “beastly other” is trying to destroy them. The propaganda is self-sustaining and it grows until we are jolted after falling off the precipice.

Those who see injustice and keep quiet, end up being silent supporters of oppression. The "innocent" bystanders are no longer as innocent as they want to believe, especially in a democracy. If we do not object to our own government's misdeeds at home and abroad, we are guilty, because in a democracy we are the government.

Many of us were not taken in by the lies of warmongers. We foresaw and wrote about the quagmire and destruction that the war would bring, but being right before a majority realizes the folly is perceived as a greater political folly. The strength of ethical principles and intellect is branded as weakness of brawn by the glib power seekers who keep trying to deceive the electorate by appealing to the baser instincts.

We need to speak in louder and clearer voices to inject backbones in politicians who want to be with the winning side. We also need to convince the popular media that people do want to hear the other side as well. It is not economically injurious. They do not need to imitate Fox news. Unless we do it in greater numbers, the malfeasances of the Bush administration in domestic policy and endless indiscriminate wars in the name of peace will continue to create more terrorists and wider wars.

The warmongers had their run. They have sown terrible death and destruction. They have the power of the latest weapons, but they suffer a great disadvantage. They have to be against others to be hegemonic. They thrive on hatred, pitting “us” against “them”.

The ideals of peace and of consideration of others as human beings may appear to be powerless, but they have one great advantage. They can unite across the false divide created by forces of ignorance and war. They extend a hand of friendship across the artificial rift. They can erase the dishonest division.

Let us make the year 2008 a watershed, when the 21st century emerges from the deathly clutches of the wars of the 20th century to claim its much needed place to unfold an era of peace in the flow of time.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com and at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

AMU Paralyzed again 07-09-17

Aligarh Muslim University Paralyzed Again

Mirza A. Beg

Monday, September 17, 2007

TwoCircles.net Tuesday, September 18, 2007
http://www.twocircles.net/2007sep18/aligarh_muslim_university_paralyzed_again.html

Indian Muslims.info, Tuesday, September 18, 2007
http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2007/sep/18/aligarh_muslim_university_paralyzed_again.html

Khabrein.info, Wednesday, September 19, 2007
http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6410&Itemid=88

Counter Currents.Org, Wednesday, September19, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg190907.htm

Indian Express, Thursday, September 20, 2007
http://www.indianexpress.com./story/218755.html


About five month ago Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was in turmoil. Two students had been killed and the administration was moribund. The Vice Chancellor, Mr. Naseem quietly abdicated or felt forced to abdicate and skipped town through the back door. Alumni and well-wishers of AMU were abuzz with righteous hand winging and heartfelt advice. I expressed my views in an article, on the vicious cycle at the AMU. http://www.countercurrents.org/beg200407.htm,
http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2007/april/12/articles/the_vicious_circle_at_aligarh_muslim_university.html

A month later a new vice Chancellor was ushered in with fanfare. He made much needed changes in the administrative staff. Most, who claim to be in the know, seemed to have approved.

Suddenly on the 12th of September the news of rape of a student in the Abdullah Girls Collage hit the news. On September 16th another student was murdered in the heart of the campus by unknown assailants. These two events are unspeakably horrible. All efforts should be made to bring the culprits to the bar of justice. Instead, they trigger a mass violent protest and the university is closed for indefinite period (Sine die). Slide back to nightmarish yesterday again.

It is a vicious cycle indeed. If we keep repeating our nightmarish yesterdays, the bright mornings of hope will for ever elude us and be beyond our reach.

Terrible things happen from time to time. How do we react and conduct ourselves is the measure of civilization, decency and courage. It appears that we always fall short, and keep repeating the same mistakes, as if we are locked on a treadmill, condemned to tread the same strip over and over again. The obligatory condemnations pour in from all quarters and we feel ever so slightly better.

Rape and murder are criminal offences of exceedingly grave nature, and a purview of the police investigation. They are not, and can not be construed as an internal disciplinary matter of the university.

There are mechanisms in place to handle such cases in the penal code, albeit the wheels of bureaucracy and justice grind slowly. That is where the clout of the university administration and the political leverage of the students and the community could have been brought to bare to move the process as fast as judiciously possible.

It appears that the administration does not know how to take immediate action to let the students and their parents know that they are not asleep at the switch.

The students or at least many of them have no idea of the purpose of the university and the importance of their being on the campus. It appears that they wait for a provocation and go on a rampage destroying and burning the very structures of the hallowed institution that is supposed to show them the path to success, so that they can be responsible for their own and the community’s destinies, so that such events do not happen.

Instead of pillaging the students could have given a little time to the administration to gather its wits and take action. Granted, the past administrations from time to time have been corrupt or at the very least inept. They could have kept a close watch on the progress of the investigations. They could have written, and in time deluged the relevant offices with petitions. In the absence of proper response, carried out large peaceful and quite vigils every day at a certain appointed times, and not disrupted their own and others education.

Islam teaches us self-control and relentless pursuit of justice with the right means, avoiding injury to innocent others. In the land of Mahatma Gandhi the lessons and effectiveness of peaceful protests are engraved in our history. They have been successful and are part of the unread pages of the history books. They ought to be engraved in our hearts, but sadly they are obscure even in the institutions of learning.

An institution dedicated to intellectual development and pursuit of the betterment through learning can ill afford a lock of reoccurring yesterdays on our psyche to blind us to the waiting tomorrows.

There are many good students and very good faculty members, but they are effectively prisoners of impetuous few who would rather destroy and burn the halls of learning. Until the students realize that they are at AMU to get the best education they can and stop listening to those who preach otherwise; the members of faculty realize that they are there to intellectually serve the institution the best they can and shun the deleterious groups; and most of all the community demands that of its children to behave, no one can be found to govern an institution where education is treated as incidental. Most intellectuals will tend to shy away from such an impossible task.

I have written this before, “This is a microcosm of the Muslim community as well. Great Leaders are born occasionally, their appearance can not be willed. They are exceptions not a norm. Individuals make a Community; we as individuals need to take up the challenge to improve. Most societies improve with individual responsibilities not with slogans shouted behind a time serving leader.”

The first responsibility of the administration is to bring the rapist and murderers to justice. The second responsibility is to take much needed steps to make the campus safe. And the third responsibility is to punish those students who destroy and burn the university property and disrupt the education by force.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com, or http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/