thinking through

"K. Shahid, a newspaper editor working in Lahore, adopted vegetarianism few years ago and he describes the ‘slaughter-fest’ on Bakra Eid as one of the many reasons for his ‘conversion’."

https://nation.com.pk/28-Sep-2015/vegetarians-and-bakra-eid

"I have decided that enough is enough. I am out of the closet now. I am sick of your siri paye, qormas, seekh kabab, gurday kapooray or whatever. It is my choice to willingly forsake such pleasures, so please stop pestering me."

https://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/8836/the-tragic-tale-of-a-lahori-vegetarian/

"Vegetarianism, to me, is reflective of simple living; a life devoid of gluttony and indulgence. I felt that I had detached myself from the cruelty carried out against animals for appetitive desires."

https://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/23990/can-i-be-a-vegetarian-in-pakistan/

"When I tell them that my personal moral compass does not allow me to, they feel it's their duty to reason with me."

https://images.dawn.com/news/1173981

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

"उलझनोंऔरपरेशानियोंसेछुटकारापाएँऔरयोगकोअपनाएँ…"

("Get rid of stresses and strains; take to Yoga...")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI3OJWa-TCo

Pakistan Yoga Council conducts special lecture and training session in Lahore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YThPEgVMgt4

"Our current challenge is to reconnect with the many sources of our roots and heritage, while forging a new identity that will serve us well into the future."https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/opinion/yoga-pakistan-india.html

"Moral of the story, many Pakistanis are regulars, in one form or the other, at practising that wonderful Indian gift to the world: yoga. And most of them are practising Muslims."

https://www.dailyo.in/politics/yoga-in-pakistan-suryanamaskar-in-schools-modi-yoga-day-dar-uloom-deoband/story/1/4346.html

Yogi Shamshed Haider of Rawalpindi

http://yogihaider.org/

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22ebnx
-----------

It's not vegetarianism or Yoga, but beef and Islam that India has been exporting to the world.

India has been the world's top-most exporter of Islam for more than 100 years. I don't think even Saudi Arabia comes anywhere close to India in terms of this export prowess. India was the virtual Hejaz (housing Mecca and Medina), the centre of Islam, of the 20th century.

(India was also the fifth largest exporter of beef in the world in 2017.)

Here's how Islam -- made in India, Deoband in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh to be precise, and exported to the region that makes up Pakistan and Afghanistan -- created the Taliban which established the most virulently medieval Islamist regime in recent memory (in Afghanistan).

The Made-in-India Islam created the Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania in Akora Khattak in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is the alma mater of Taliban. It's founder Maulana Abdul Haq actually studied in Deoband in Saharanpur.

The Made-in-India Islam has been complicit in war, terrorism and ethnocide of epic proportion in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I keep saying to myself -- (since I am the best listener to my own 'wisdom') -- 'mass media' is a euphemism. All 'mass media' that exists in the world is actually a 'propaganda' system firmly embedded in what is called the 'political' system.

(The 'political' system is, of course, a purely 'abstract' and purely colonial-imperial domain, preying upon all human communities/cultures and their autonomy, and manipulating-abusing-perverting culturally derived moral norms.

Both these functions can be subsumed in the rubric of 'ethnocide' whose best academic explainers I know are Pierre Clastres and Robert Jaulin.

All 'mass media' is 100% per cent subservient to this colonial-imperial domain, working "to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind," as Orwell would have put it. Note, by the way, that here 'abstract' = 'pure wind'.

The 'progressive' view of 'political system' as an instrument for 'changing' or 'building''society' is, of course, the purest form of piffle you'll ever find.)

On 23 Jan. 2019, an apparently smart guy (@OkieTataBye) caught red-handed -- in fact, mic-handed -- an Aaj Tak reporter Mausami Singh (@mausamii2u) manufacturing 'news' in Allahabad, outside 'Anand Bhavan' to be precise.

@OkieTataBye not only caught her engaging in this fraud in broad daylight, but smartly made a few videos and posted them on Twitter. (It's a thread.)

These videos show how Mausami Singh (@mausamii2u) is producing-directing a drama of a political party's 'supporters' with the help of only about 15 people on a public road.

(It reminds me of a few 'demonstrations' -- staged -- that I was sent to cover as a reporter for PTI in the initial days of my 'employment'. More about that later.

I am sure all 'journalists' with substantial experience of 'employment' would be able to tell their own experiences of how 'news' are manufactured by the organizations they work for.)

This charlatan is the same Aaj Tak 'journalist' who was caught screaming like crazy in her attempt to block off a Republic TV reporter from taking part in a press conference with Mani Shankar Aiyar in December 2017. A supposedly 'less partisan' account of that press conference along with a video featuring this fraud reporter can be found in this News Laundry report.

What's more, this fraudster actually acknowledges @OkieTataBye's expose and brazens it out with a silly tweetin which she seems to be actually underlining her role as an agent.

(But then why is 'agent' a dirty word? Aren't all 'employees''agents' of their 'principals', i.e. 'employers'? As an 'employee' you are paid to do what your 'employer' wants you to do.

In the dystopian 'world' of today, you can't be anything but an 'agent' of some 'principal'.

Haven't you heard for the umpteenth time the sellers of snake oil who call themselves 'economists' -- and their accomplices in the 'mass media' of course -- asserting that what 'we' really need is 'employment' for millions of youth entering the 'job market'?

Now take a look at your young son or daughter and think that he/she is born to be in somebody's 'employment' -- and be very proud!)

-----------

It should be deemed profoundly offensive and abusive for anyone to have their culture, their traditions, and their mode of thinking labelled 'religion' -- considering that 'religion' was once another word for Judeo-Christianity which is the most systematically evil and predatory ethnocidal force the world has ever known.

(I think the word 'evil' would be evacuated of all its meaning if the world did not have the crime syndicate called 'Christian church' in it. Islam the cantankerous cousin of Judeo-Christianity is, of course, the second most evil ethnocidal force and a crime syndicate in its own right. Bear in mind, however, that Islam hyphenates most elegantly with Judeo-Christianity. Thus, Judeo-Christianity-Islam is, in that sense, a single and coherent evil force.)

And yet the people labelled 'Hindu' seem to embrace the abusive, colonial-imperial, ethnocidal concept of 'religion' as if their lives depended on it!

(I have come to believe for this reason that the 'educated' among the people labelled 'Hindu' make up a vast menagerie of duffers and dunderheads.)

All so called 'Hindus' who have bought into the fraudulent concept of 'religion' are already 'converted'. Christian missionaries (and Muslim muballighs) don't have to lift a finger!

Let me put it even more plainly to you.

If a person labelled 'Hindu' thinks they -- or their culture, or some element of their culture, or their tradition, or their way of thinking -- represent some 'religion', they are already 'converted'. Christian missionaries (or Muslim muballighs) need not make the slightest effort to 'convert' such a person.

Most 'educated''Hindus' that we see around us are thus 'converted''Hindus,' obsequiously spouting fraudulent concepts like 'religion' and such other nonsense.

Ridding the world of the ethnocidal concept of 'religion' is tantamount to decolonization of the world.

The best thing the people labelled 'Hindu' can do for themselves is to see through the fraud that 'religion' represents and then to take decisive steps to put an end to the colonial-imperial mislabelling of their incredibly wide variety of cultures, traditions and modes of thinking as 'religion'.

That's the most urgent 'Ghar Wapasi' that the dunderheads who call themselves 'Hindu' need for themselves!

Without this 'Ghar Wapasi', the people labelled 'Hindu' won't need any Christian and Muslim proselytizers to destroy whatever remains of the amazing Indic cultural matrix and the cultural autonomy, freedom and syncretism that we all enjoy. 'Hindus' will happily do the job themselves as they have long been doing.

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

Talking about 'conversion' (another fraudulent concept flowing from the impostor called 'religion'), Naila Inayat and Reham Khan are tweeting about the "conversion" and "forced marriage" of another 'Hindu' girl in Pakistan -- Anusha Kumari Meghwar.

Meghwar is a community designated 'scheduled caste' in India as well as in Pakistan.

In Pakistan this community is not 'oppressed' by any of the so called 'upper castes' or 'Brahmins' (of which there is hardly any significant number left there after the ethnic cleansing of 1947) but by the crime syndicate called Islam.

Sindh-based activist Mukesh Meghwar wrote not very long ago about how this crime syndicate has been seeking to wipe out whatever remains of the communities labelled 'Hindu' in Pakistan. I translated Maghwar's Urdu article into English here and into Hindi here.

(Wonder why Mukesh Meghwar calls himself a 'Hindu' -- not a Dalit Hindu', but simply a 'Hindu' -- and why doesn't he name the so called 'upper castes' as his oppressors? Read on.)

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

With the majority of 'Hindus' having been ethnically cleansed in 1947 -- and 'handled and managed' since then by Judeo-Christianity and Islam (the two self-proclaimed 'equalizers' of 'unequal' societies of the Indian subcontinent), the 'scheduled castes' among 'Hindus' of Pakistan, ‘converted’ and un-‘converted’ are in an increasingly miserable and precarious condition.

That just goes on to show what a huge fraud both Judeo-Christianity and Islam are. They are not 'equalizers'. They are ethnocidal empires, built upon falsehood, seeking to destroy the autonomy and syncretism of every human community/culture found on Earth.

Aasia Bibi, a 'Christian''converted' from so called 'scheduled caste', was abused by 'Muslim' women working with her for using a drinking vessel that her Muslim co-workers had reserved for themselves -- sparking an exchange that ultimately led to the blasphemy charge against her. There were no 'Hindus' involved here -- only 'Christian' and 'Muslim' women.

So why this segregation -- which is invariably described as 'untouchability' and fraudulently ascribed to the so called 'caste system' which in turn is ascribed to the so called 'Hinduism' the religion?

Because such practices have nothing whatsoever to do with the non-existent thing called 'Hinduism' the religion; they are practices rooted in social relations, which have been there regardless of whether the people of the communities concerned are labelled 'Hindu' or 'Muslim' or 'Christian' or 'Sikh' or any other.

Even if you insist on tracing such practices to some ancient 'book' (which hardly anybody has ever read), that still does not bespeak the fraudulent concept of 'religion' that Judeo-Christianity and Islam and their fake 'books', claiming immutable and absolute truth, represent.

In India, the lives of communities and cultures have never been bound by the dead letter of any 'book'. Here cultures have been ever changing, ever dynamic, as all human cultures ought to be when they are uncolonized by that impostor called 'religion'.

Allowed freedom from the vicious propaganda of 'religion', 'cultures' have the capacity to sift out the undesirable practices from their midst. Not when you allow the impostor called 'religion' the free run of the place, as India has done for so long.

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

To wit, 'Churha', a community in Punjab whose members traditionally engaged in -- or had little choice but to engage in -- sweeping and picking up garbage, continue as before in Pakistan despite 'converting' to the 'equalizing' Christianity and despite been surrounded exclusively by 'equalizing' Islam (and free of the allegedly 'unequalizing' effects of so called 'Hinduism' the religion).

The experience of the ‘Churha’ community in Pakistan, which had long ago 'converted' to 'Christianity', has been captured in this short video produced by Punjab Lok Sujag, a Pakistani NGO.

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

Portraying the killing of P. Pranay Kumar in Miryalaguda town in Telangana in Sep. 2018 for marrying Amrutha Varshini as "caste-based violence" and the killing of a "Dalit" is a lovely example of the ethnocidal propaganda that mass media and academia have for decades been carrying out in the service of their imperial masters.

Since these imperial masters have super-imposed fake categories of "religion" and "caste" on the amazing Indic cultural matrix -- (notice that both words "religion" and "caste" are foreign in origin) -- one is compelled to take a look at these two grotesqueries vis-à-vis the victim.

So, what is the "religion" of Pranay Kumar?

The Print informs us that Pranay Kumar was a "Dalit Christian".

OK, so he was a 'Christian' which is supposed to be some appellation denoting some weird, idiotic category called "religion"!

But what on earth is "Dalit Christian"???

If the category 'Dalit' is supposed to be an equivalent of 'scheduled caste' -- i.e. part of an alleged "caste system" of an alleged "religion" called "Hinduism" -- then a 'Christian' is certainly free of it; isn't he?

The whole point of 'conversion' that 'Christian' criminals have been imposing on communities and cultures across the globe through their world 'evangelization' projects (such as Lausanne Movement and Joshua Project) is the break and separation from the alleged 'religion' of the person they target and 'conversion' into so called 'Christianity'.

(Christian 'conversion' in India is packaged and sold, first and foremost, on the promise of 'freedom' from the alleged 'caste system' of the alleged 'religion' called 'Hinduism'.)

So, the 'Christian' Pranay Kumar had nothing whatsoever to do with 'caste'; he was free of any 'caste' affiliation. He could not have belonged to 'Dalit' or any other category that denotes what is deemed as 'caste' or presupposes what is deemed as a 'caste system'.

Conversely, going by the logic of Christians missionaries themselves, if Pranay Kumar really belonged to some 'caste' which is 'ordained' by an alleged 'religion' called 'Hinduism', then he certainly could not have been a 'Christian'. He could not have been both a 'Christian' and a 'Hindu'!

Going by the 'Christian' argument itself, the term 'Dalit Christian' is bogus -- just as the term 'Catholic Hindu' or 'Methodist Hindu' or 'Baptist Hindu' would be deemed spurious.

Openly fabricated terms like 'Dalit Christian' are 'Dalit Muslim' flow from fraudulent concepts/categories like "religion' and "caste" which in turn are part of an epistemology that the West has foisted upon the peoples and communities of the whole world over 500 years of colonialism and imperialism.

This imposition has taken place through undermining of the autonomy of communities/cultures (and their own epistemologies) across the world along with the glorification and progressive expansion of 'mass education' whose ultimate designers and arbiters are the imperialist academic institutions and universities of the West.

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

Sufiya Pathan and her co-writers wonder in their book, 'Western Foundations of the Caste System', "...If the 'caste system' is a unit in the Western experience of India, why do so many Indians talk about it as though it describes their own experience?"

The writers explain elsewhere, "When the colonized learn to see themselves in the way the colonizer describes them, they too lose access to their earlier experience of their culture. Their native culture is distorted in many ways, but most crucially, it is rendered as necessarily an immoral culture within these descriptions.

"As Balagangadhara notes, colonialism denies the colonized peoples and cultures their own experiences by actively preventing descriptions of their own experiences except in terms defined by the colonizers. The colonized people thus become alien to themselves."

"Thus, lay Indians, researchers, academics are all subject to the education they have received over centuries. This is not an easy legacy to shake. However, it is the primary challenge any serious researcher working on the caste system today has to face. What we see among the recent works on the caste system, instead, is their apologetic defence of a lack of clarity about the problem and the domain that the term 'caste system' refers to, coupled with the adamant insistence on 'fighting it'.

"They begin with the assumption that 'casteism', even though they can give no coherent account of what it refers to, is immoral and barbaric and therefore it should end. This is the basic feature of colonial consciousness as Balagangadhara describes it: the conviction that the native culture is immoral, coupled with the inability to provide a scientific description of the phenomena one is engaged in studying."

"...The domain of caste studies, to use a contemporary analogy, is much like an instance of location-based augmented reality games like Pokémon Go. Once one starts playing the game, it is both rational and profitable to take the scenario created by the game 'seriously'. In technical terms, such a scenario is called mediated reality, where technology modifies one's current perception of reality. The modification may take any route (diminishing or augmenting one's perception of the reality) provided the content of the modified reality is overlaid on the real world.

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

I have long been saying in my writings that 'religion' is a purely abstract category imposed on the communities and cultures of the world through colonialism and imperialism. It's an entirely fake and fabricated category with no real existence -- since the core of the concept of 'religion', namely 'faith' or 'belief', is unknowable and unascertainable.

Just look out of the window of your room and try writing down in a neat sentence or two --- much like Islam's shahada or kalma (if not the wordier Nicene Creed of some 'Christian' denominations) --- the 'faith' or 'belief' of the first person you see. Better still, do this exercise for your mother/father, sister/brother, daughter/son, friend, anyone close to you.

Even better still, try doing it for yourself. I am sure most people wouldn't be able to encapsulate their own 'belief' or 'faith' in a sentence or two, or even a paragraph or two -- since the so called 'beliefs' of ours are ever changing. While you try this silly exercise, you'd realize the pointlessness of it and the outright fraud that the fabricated concept of 'religion' represents.

It's an obvious fraud to claim that the whole geographies of the world with millions of inhabitants have a single 'belief' or 'faith'.

It should be easy to see for any sensible person that 'Christian' and 'Muslim' are false labels introduced and maintained through colonial-imperial epistemologies and propaganda systems (which are often what mass education is).

In the neo-colonial world (with continuing battles between empires) the non-sensical religious identifiers such as 'Christian' and 'Muslim' act primarily as demographic markers and a tool of imperial contestation which results in conflict, mass violence and suffering for peoples and communities that are being used as pawns -- not to mention the continued destruction and shrinkage of cultural diversity across the world.

Mind you, it's 'culture' the real category (representing the wholeness of human life including moral norms) that 'religion' the fake category has been undermining and choking off.

A simple way to explain the difference between 'culture' the real category and 'religion' the fake category is to invoke the concept of 'syncretism'.

'Syncretism' is the co-existence in a single community of all kinds of thoughts, thought-streams, and 'beliefs' -- even those that are opposed or antithetical to each other. 'Syncretism' is the oxygen that keeps alive all human communities/cultures found on Earth (even those that exist within the fraudulent empires of Christianity and Islam).

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

Read the first three paras (copied below) of an article published in July 2018 in Thoughtco.com to get a sense of what I am saying.

Does religion exist? Most people will certainly say “yes, ” and it seems incredible to think that there is no such thing as “religion,” but that’s exactly what at least a few scholars have tried to argue.

According to them, there is only “culture” and some aspects of “culture” have been arbitrarily singled out, grouped together, and given the label “religion.”

...while there is a staggering amount of data, phenomena, of human experiences and expressions that might be characterized in one culture or another, by one criterion or another, as religion — there is no data for religion. Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study. It is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization. Religion has no existence apart from the academy.
- Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion

Smith’s comment here may be the most forthright and straightforward statement of the “there is no such thing as religion” school of thought: religion, insofar as it has any existence, exists merely in the minds of scholars studying culture. There is plenty of data for “culture,” but “religion” is merely an arbitrary grouping of cultural features created by academic scholars for the purpose of study, comparison, and generalization.

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

Australian scholar Thomas David DuBois wrote the following in HuffPost in Dec. 2011.

"Having spent the past 10 years writing and teaching on Asian religions, I now have something to confess:

Asia does not have religion."

"...The fact is that the Western idea of religion did not reach Asia until very recently. When it did, the concept was so foreign that many Asian languages had to invent a new word for it (specifically for making diplomatic treaties with the Western powers who insisted on a clause protecting “religious freedom”). This puts Asia’s own traditions into a strange bind. Even now, we face the problem in deciding just what to call the ideas of Confucius or the Buddha. Calling them “religions” clearly doesn’t work, because Asian traditions look and behave so differently from what we know in the West."

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

If you are an Indian you are in the "10/40 Window (from North Africa to South East Asia) which is where most of the non-Christian religions hold sway".

"Collectively they are known as the THUMB people (Tribal, Hindu, Unreligious, Muslim, Buddhist)."

"Jesus said that the Gospel of the Kingdom would be preached as a testimony to Ta Ethne, i.e. all People Groups, and then The End would come."

"Less than 3% of our total cross-cultural missionary force is working with Unreached Peoples Group (UPGs). We must go to the Unreached."

"At the same time it is estimated that over 350 UPGs are living in the United States today as immigrants, refugees, and international students. We must welcome the Unreached."

"Christ commands us to make disciples of all nations. Jesus is alive. His mission for us is clear. Yet the task stands incomplete. Together we can change that."

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

Iain Buchanan in 'The Armies of God: A Study in Militant Christianity'

The frontline missionary does not operate in a vacuum. Indeed, the guile is thoroughly and intricately institutionalized. The village missionary/aid worker is supported by a network of agencies both locally and globally – and all are ostensibly secular, or at least largely so.

There are transport agencies, research agencies, medical agencies, computer service agencies, and a host of other supply and support bodies with which field workers are integrally connected. All such groups, whether openly Christian or not, present themselves first and foremost as secular workers, in aid and relief, in government service, in private institutions such as schools, hospitals, and commercial businesses. The real purpose for the presence is carefully obscured, or else acknowledged with a dismissive shrug: “Of course we are Christian – but we do not proselytize. We merely set an example, and if others choose to follow, there is nothing we can do about it.”

In any case, the evangelical worker in a foreign land is significantly protected by the punitive pressure of the U.S. Government – particularly as expressed in the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, and the sanctions (including trade embargo) available under this to ensure protection of Christians.

Essentially, then, evangelization is a process of multi-layered deception: deception about the actual intent, deception about the line between religious and secular, deception about the actual lines of accountability and responsibility. And intrinsic to the whole process is the fact of plausible deniability.

Much as the CIA has traditionally operated, and in the same way that multinational corporations have long evaded sovereign liabilities such as taxation, evangelical bodies now employ a complex sleight of hand which allows for plausible deniability whenever it is needed. This is achieved in a number of ways: a confusion of subsidiaries, a concealing of accountability, the use of non-Western proxies, and the deliberate use of misleading names for proselytizing bodies, and outright lying. It is a deception meant to weather even the direst adversity.

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

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/02/04/missionary-john-chaus-father-blames-extreme-christianity-for-his-sons-death/

Missionary John Chau’s Father Blames “Extreme Christianity” for His Son’s Death
By Sarahbeth Caplin, Feb. 04, 2019, Patheos.com

While the evangelical organization that trained John Alan Chau for his fatal mission trip to North Sentinel Island considers him a martyr for his faith, not everyone is convinced that’s the case. Chau’s own father had some harsh words about the Christian group his son got involved with, according to J Oliver Conroy in The Guardian.

Dr. Patrick Chau is also a devout Christian, and, like his son, a graduate of Oral Roberts University. But he blames “extreme” religion for pushing his son into a death trap.

… I had thought [Dr. Chau] might want to defend evangelical doctrines against the unsympathetic media coverage sparked by his son’s death. In an email, however, he called religion “the opium of the mass[es]”.

“If you have [anything] positive to say about religion,” he told me, “l wish not to see or hear” it. He said his son’s zeal was a longstanding point of contention and that they’d agreed not to talk about John’s missionary work.

“John is gone because the Western ideology overpowered my [Confucian] influence,” he said. He blamed evangelicals’ “extreme Christianity” for pushing his child to a “not unexpected end”, and he referred with particular bitterness to the Great Commission, Jesus’s injunction that Christians spread the gospel to all peoples.

There are many Christians who take the Great Commission seriously and still consider Chau’s work as nothing more than a suicide mission. Perhaps the Gospel writers considered scenarios like Chau’s, which is why they included the following in Matthew 10:14: “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.”Chau’s father isn’t the only one with reservations about his work:

Like Patrick Chau, Justin Graves, a pastor and a friend of John’s from linguistics school, has blamed evangelical culture for enabling Chau’s death. “John Chau was a good man,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “He was a loving, passionate individual I was blessed to befriend, and the loss of his light on this earth was devastating. But it cannot be left as a mere tragedy. His death brings to light a multitude of issues with Evangelical views” and “hell-based ethics”.Chau himself recorded in his journal that he thought he could be more useful alive than dead. But he proceeded with his mission anyway… and we all know how that ended.

It’s one thing to admire people who died for their beliefs, but many of Christianity’s martyrs were victims of legitimate persecution — they didn’t go actively seeking it. Chau’s death may be a tragedy, but it was entirely preventable, and has already spawned copycats.

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

What exactly is the righteous way for the humanity to urinate --- in standing position or in sitting position? Does the applicable standard of righteousness apply the same or differently to men and women?

Here's Mufti Tariq Masood answering these clamant moral questions in light of Sunnah -- i.e. the way Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) liked to perform the act, as recorded in authentic Hadith collections.

For those not blessed with an appreciation of erudite Urdu and Islamic terminology, Mufti Sahib is saying in this video that "Urinating in standing position is not Sunnat. That Rasul Allah Sali Allah Aleh Wasallam -- i.e. Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) -- forbade the standing position. There are many corroboratory utterances of the Sahaba -- i.e. close companions of the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) -- on record."

Mufti Sahib also says that the same standard applies to women (even though different views on this question have been expressed.)

(That, in my view, is the beauty of Islam. There are no different standards for men and women. Both are treated the same. I hope Hindu-Manuvadi-Brahmanical-Fascist patriarchs are taking note.)

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

I must say Mufti Tariq Masood of Jamiatur Rasheed-Karachi(a Deobandi cleric whose family moved to Pakistan from Kanpur) explains the Sunnat on this issue so beautifully!

Sub-haan Allah!

May Allah shower his blessings upon him! And give him appropriate (and ample) place in Jannat!

Ameen.

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

An experienced khateeb that he is, Mufti Tariq Masood has made even this serious discussion quite engaging. (The bits of mimicry that he has inserted in this enlightening discussion is directed at Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza, a Punjabi cleric who seems to have pretensions of being a rival to this khandani Deobandi mufti. Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza's opinion as to what Hadith says on the righteousness or otherwise of urinating in standing posture can be checked in this video.)

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

Here's researcher Yoginder Sikand describing a very moving experience of his of having to answer the call of nature in a public toilet at a railway station in Hyderabad (Sindh) -- in his book 'Beyond the Border: An Indian in Pakistan'.

"I desperately needed to relieve myself, but Khurshid cautioned me against using the men’s toilet. ‘I assure you it is absolutely, completely, wholly unusable,’ he warned. But, unable to control myself any longer, I rushed to the toilet, which I located from the powerful stench of fetid urine that led like a trail to a dark room near the entrance to the station.

I looked about for a cubicle, but there was none. Instead, a long, open drain, clogged with urine and bits of excreta, stretched below a wall, before which a row of men squatted, the tails of their kameezes lifted to reveal their hairy buttocks.

I selected a vacant corner, and urinated while standing. Hardly had I started than the man sitting next to me angrily growled, ‘Hey, you bloody animal! What do you think you are doing? Don’t you know it’s against Shariah to stand and piss! Bloody dog!’
I turned around to see half a dozen angry men sitting on their haunches, their stony eyes fixed on me. I ducked down, stripped my jeans to my knees and tried urinating Muslim-style. It was simply impossible to manoeuvre in that awkward position. I wet my jeans, but at least I saved myself from being lynched."
---------------

Shariat informs and enlightens all aspects of human life, nothing excluded. It teaches us the righteous way of doing everything by explaining to us as to how exactly Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) performed a certain act.

The Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him), for instance, told men to grow their beards, but trim their moustaches. He (Peace Be Upon Him) also liked to use henna on his beard.

And He (Peace Be Upon Him) ordered men to wear pajama/trousers in a way that the legs of the pajama/trousers don't cover the ankles.

He (Peace Be Upon Him) also liked to use perfume on his holy person, miswak (tooth-cleaning twig) on his holy teeth, and loved eating dates.

[No prizes for guessing why the blessed followers of the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) tend to keep Sharai daarhi (Shariat-compliant beard) with moustache reduced to a stubble or altogether shaven -- and elderly maulavis tend to dye their beard with henna.]

---------

Shariat also has rules for the righteous way for men of the universe to clean themselves after Janaba (ejaculation on account of sex or a wet dream). Here it is (from Sahih al-Bukhari Vol. 1, Book 5, Hadith 257).

Narrated Maimuna [i.e. one of the 13 wives of the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him)]
"I placed water for the bath of the Prophet. He washed his hands twice or thrice and then poured water on his left hand and washed his private parts. He rubbed his hands over the earth (and cleaned them), rinsed his mouth, washed his nose by putting water in it and blowing it out, washed his face and both forearms and then poured water over his body. Then he withdrew from that place and washed his feet."

---------

There are also rules in the Hadith for ghusl or washing for women who have had a 'discharge' while sleeping -- i.e. equivalent of men's wet dream. Being the Rehamt-ul-Aalmeen (the doer of kindness to the whole universe), the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) deliberated on every aspect of human life and provided his holy guidance to the humanity.

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

By the way, a fine point to note here is that Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) used his left hand -- not the right hand -- to wash his holy penis.

The Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) is quite clear in instructing the men of the universe not to touch their penises with their right hand while urinating "or wipe himself with his right hand after relieving oneself".

In fact, the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) clearly favoured the use of right hand for other acts too, and disfavoured the use of left hand.

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

"Right hand" reminds me of other things ----- such as that beautiful Hadith in which Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) has prohibited to the men of the universe "all women except those that their right hand possesses".

"And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess. [This is] the decree of Allah upon you. And lawful to you are [all others] beyond these, [provided] that you seek them [in marriage] with [gifts from] your property, desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse. So for whatever you enjoy [of marriage] from them, give them their due compensation as an obligation. And there is no blame upon you for what you mutually agree to beyond the obligation. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise."

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

I must admit this. The more I read about Islam, the more I am becoming enamoured of its beautiful, all enveloping moral code. (I wonder if it's the light of Allah that's kindling in me.)

I hope Hindu-Manuvadi-Brahmanical-Fascist patriarchs will also learn something from the example of Rehmat-ul-Aalmeen and start treating their women better.

Insha-Allah!

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

In this video Mufti Tariq Masood of Jamiatur Rasheed-Karachispeaks on another moral dilemma that the humanity has encountered since time immemorial.
Is it permissible for a woman to remove her pubic hair? If so, what are the Sunnat-complaint ways of removing pubic hair?
[The thumb nail of the video says in Urdu: क्याऔरतअपनीशर्म-गाहकेबालब्लेडसेसाफ़करसकतीहै? And Sunnat is, of course, what the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) said or did 1400 years ago, as recorded in one of the six authentic Hadith collections.]
1. The following is the English translation of Mufti Tariq Masood's pronouncement in Urdu on this important issue.
"Yes, it's permissible, but it would be better if men use blade to remove their pubic hair ('ज़ेर-ए-नाफ़') and women use some kind of ointment or cream. For women to use blade is against the Sunnat.
By the way, as far as hairs growing in armpits are concerned, the Sunnat is to pull them out (by the roots), not shaving them with blade, which counterproductively causes even denser regrowth.
Now you might ask, 'Won't pulling them out will damage the skin?'
In fact, use of blade makes the growth so hard that it's no longer possible to pull the hair out.
So use of wax, followed by use of a (strip of) cloth to pull out the hair will do the job fine.
That will also soften the roots, so that it would become easier to pull out hairs.
Thus, the Sunnat for both men and women is to pull out the hair -- that, for one, it is Sawab (reward flowing from a good/pious deed) to pull out the hair, thus fulfilling the Sunnat.
The second benefit is that there is no early re-growth; whatever grows is also light and easy to remove.
Do you understand?
So removing armpit hair with a blade will cause stubborn regrowth -- like the jungle of Thailand.
A lot of people don't even bother to remove hair, either with blade or...
Our hazrat (Rashid Ahmad Ludhianvi, the founder of Jamiatur Rasheed-Karachi) tells us, There was this worker we had in our village who once lay on his back to repair a tractor... So the gaze of hazrat, who was very particular about cleanliness, fell on his armpits. They looked as if lice and mites are having a game of Kabaddi... (laughs)… they do become fully grown jungles of Thailand..."
------------------
Sub-haan Allah!
We can see clearly here that quite contrary to all the media propaganda portraying Islam as a retrogressive system, Islam is, in fact, surprisingly in sync with the times.
Mufti Sahib beautifully combined the wisdom of the Allah Almighty as revealed to the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) with all the modern knowledge of waxing and other ways of hair removal to come up with a solution to a nagging problem that women across the world face every other day -- a solution that, in my view, ought to sound not just righteous and compliant with Sunnat and Shariat, but also pragmatic to any sensible woman across the world.
That, in my view, is the beauty of Islam!!!
Despite being on a rather dry subject of hair on a particular part of a woman's body, this video has so far received about 1,34,500 views and 945 likes until late night 14 Feb. 2019 since being posted on YouTube on 29 Sep. 2018.
---------------
Fortunately for women, a number of other Islamic scholars have also given their pronouncements on the vital question of whether it pleases Allah and the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) if women were to remove hair growing on their vaginas and what might be the righteous/pious ways in which this act can be performed.
It's such a blessing that women (and all those concerned about their health, hygiene and beauty) can have a very deep and comprehensive view of this problem and its solution by listening to not just one Islamic scholar, but many!
------------
Advocate Faiz Syed of Islamic Research Centre-Aurangabad (Maharashtra), for instance, believes that there is absolutely no prohibition on women to use an iron blade to remove their pubic hair, as the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) has clearly stated -- in fact encouraged -- in Hadith No. 5245 of Sahih Bukhari that women should use hadeed (Arabic word for 'iron') on their private parts.
2. Advocate Faiz Syed's pronouncement can be watched on this YouTube video -- the Urdu description on whose thumbnail reads the following.
ज़ेर-ए-नाफ़बालउतारनेकासुन्नततरीक़ाऔरदौरानिया
क्याऔरतशर्म-गाहकेबालोंकोउतारनेकेलिएउस्तरायाब्लेडइस्तेमालकरसकतीहै?
Since being posted in Dec. 2016, this video has so far received two million and 97 thousand views.
The following is the English translation of the relevant portion of Advocate Faiz Syed's erudite talk on the serious issue concerning women's pubic hair.
"Once, a Sahabi -- a companion of the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) -- was riding in great hurry on his camel towards his home; so the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) asked the Sahabi: 'What's the matter with you? Why such hurry?'
The Sahabi responded: I have just got married. So the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) passed an order directed at women that 'If your husbands are returning from abroad, you should make use of iron' and then told the husband that go and have sexual intercourse with your wife.
Since the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) (again) tells women that 'You should make yourself properly neat and clean because your husband is returning home after many days' ---- mind you, the word hadeed (iron)has been usedas in 'you should make use of iron' --- where exactly will a person use a piece of iron? -- so the clear indication is that 'Go remove the hair on your vagina as your husband is returning, so that (he finds) you to be neat and clean. The clear use is of the word hadeed; so all those who say that women can't use iron are clearly going against the Hadith and the utterance of the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him).
So make use of hadeed, meaning make yourself clean -- (makes scraping gestures with the fingers of both hands) because scraping the vagina by a piece of iron is needed in order to remove the hair that are liable to collect muck or urine drops.
(Makes stronger scraping gestures twice, emphasizing the point) SCRAPING -- SCRAPING with a piece of iron, so that the skin is scoured free of hair and becomes clean. This is ESSENTIAL. It is HADITH. And the men were told to perform THAT act upon returning home... meaning (smiling) perform the act that results in childbirth...
So the woman is clearly permitted to use the blade."
-----------------
In fact, Advocate Faiz Syed cites other Hadiths (Jami At-Tirmidhi Hadith No. 2759 and Sunan Abu Dawood, Hadith No. 4200) to pronounce the exact number of days within which pubic hair as well as hair growing in the armpits should be removed. That limit is 40 days.
---------------------
Although it really is Allah's blessing for women to be able to benefit from a wide spectrum of enlightening jurisprudential views on this vital issue, I think they should also check the cited Hadiths online, so that they have a clearer idea of the precise intent and purpose of the Holy Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) -- which is quite easy these days because of the wide availability online of all the Hadith collections and other Islamic knowledge.
If you check online, you will find that Hadith No. 5245 of Sahih Bukhari is available on Sunnah.com as Sahih al-Bukhari 5079 in the Book of Nikaah and it is as follows.
Narrated Jabir bin `Abdullah:

While we were returning from a Ghazwa (Holy Battle) with the Prophet, I started driving my camel fast, as it was a lazy camel A rider came behind me and pricked my camel with a spear he had with him, and then my camel started running as fast as the best camel you may see.

Behold! The rider was the Prophet (ﷺ) himself. He said, 'What makes you in such a hurry?" I replied, I am newly married "
He said, "Did you marry a virgin or a matron? I replied, "A matron."
He said, "Why didn't you marry a young girl so that you may play with her and she with you?"
When we were about to enter (Medina), the Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Wait so that you may enter (Medina) at night so that the lady of unkempt hair may comb her hair and the one whose husband has been absent may shave her pubic region."
--------------------------
3. Here's Shaikh Muhammad Khair Makki Sahib --- an Islamic scholar of Pakistani origin who resides in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) and holds a scholarly lecture everyday -- pronouncing his verdict as to whether a woman is permitted to use a blade or a razor or a machine to remove her pubic hair.
Since Shaikh Makki Sahib is reportedly the senior-most Hanafi (a Sunni school of jurisprudence) Shaikh in Mecca, women will do well to listen to his judgement very carefully.
---------------------------
4. Here's Shaykh Muhammad Salah on Huda TV expressing his opinion on whether removing pubic hair and armpit hair is Sunnah.
-------------
5. Here's Sheikh Assim Al Hakeem explaining the issue with the opening statement that 'We have hair on our body that we are prohibited from removing and there are hair on our body that we are obliged to remove'.
---------------------------
6. Dr. Farhat Hashmi of International Islamic Research Centre has also given her verdict on this issue in the light of Sunnah and Shariah. She is a Pakistani and has gained popularity as a feminist scholar of Islam.
I think it would be worthwhile for women to also examine a feminist standpoint on this issue and then try to do a comparative analysis of the whole spectrum of jurisprudential views that they have examined so far -- even as they keep their minds open to the ever evolving landscape of Islamic fiqhi perspectives.
--------------------------------------
7. Here's Mufti Amjad Rizvi delivering his opinion in the light of Sunnah as to whether a woman can use blade and such other means to depilate her vagina.
--------------------------
8. Here's Mufti Muhammad Akmal Qadri of Pakistan explaining the Shariah and Sunnah as regards clipping of nails and removal of pubic hair. He explains the three degree of pleasure/displeasure of the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) as regards the number of days in which cutting/depilation is performed.
------------------
9. Here's Advocate Faiz Syed in another erudite talk on this important subject.
---------------
10. Here's a video in which Mufti Tariq Masood's verdict has been juxtaposed with the view of Advocate Faiz Syed, so that women can easily do a comparative analysis.
-----------------------------
May Allah grant you, the pious women, all the sense and sensibility needed to understand his ways as expressed in the exalted character of the Holy Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him), as regards the Shariah and Sunnah of removing hair from your vaginas.
Aameen!
-------------------

Why is Hijab a matter of choice and should be celebrated, but Sindoor or Karwa Chauth a symbol of patriarchy? Kindly elaborate @FeminismInIndia. Why this double standards?

Maya Sharma (@IamMayaSharma) asks Feminism in India magazine in this tweet.

---------

Is Hijab really "a matter of choice" when Sunnat on a woman's pubic hairis not, I wonder.

Mufti Tariq Masood of Jamiatur Rasheed-Karachi explains in this video that the requirement for Hijab flows directly from an authority that's higher than even the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him).

It's Allah the Almighty Himself. And "it's only for the benefit and protection of women".

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

Dr. Farhat Hashmi of International Islamic Research Centre, the feminist scholar of Islam from Pakistan, has had a lot to say on Hijab, as evident in a number of videos she posted on YouTube.

She says in this video: "The concept of Hijab in Quraan has it that women should hide their beauty from men, so that the women do not come to any harm."

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

'Feminism in India' reminds me of the thumbs-down this magazine gave to the "patriarchal" Raksha Bandhan as well as Kavita Krishnan's exposé of RSS' appropriation of Raksha Bandhan for its "communal campaign" calling "Hindu men to protect Hindu women from Muslim men."

The jottings below were made some weeks ago.

The bottom paras show why I suspect Hindu-Manuvadi-Brahmanical-Communal-Fascist-Patriarchal RSS, after destroying India, might also have begun to creep into the Islamic-progressive society of Pakistan.

May Allah save us!

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

The "retrograde" and "degenerate" views of the Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh (RSS) make them privilege "sibling love" over "romantic love," Shutapa Paul wrote in an article published in DailyO in June 2017.

Hence their predilection for the festival of Raksha Bandhan, which is of course the cover Sanghis need in their campaign to divide Hindus and Muslims -- indeed an "insurance" cover "preventing romantic liaisons among young Muslims and Hindus".

"Rakhi as a symbol of protection among brothers and sisters is yet another weapon aimed at vilifying romantic love across religious lines," wrote Paul.

Having learnt about the RSS plan that its Muslim wing would organize Raksha Bandhan celebrations in 12 states, Shutapa Paul was "pleasantly surprised" only to realise later that the RSS’ programme was "for Muslim girls to tie Rakhi on Hindu boys and vice versa"

"This is not a celebration but segregation, a marking of human territory, forcing both communities to literally draw the line of human bonding. Sibling love is fine you see but not romantic love. One must hand it to the RSS to come up with novel ways of further dividing the populace."

Under cover of Raksha Bandhan, the RSS actually intended to fight against "Love Jihad".

So Shutapa Paul gives a clear thumbs down to this'bandhan' -- and a clear thumbs up to that'bonding'.

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

Writing in the same magazine around the same time, Gunjeet Sra sees an even deeper problem in Raksha Bandhan; she calls it the "brotherly embrace of oppression".

"It would be a convenient lie to deny the fact that the festival has its roots in patriarchy," she declares.

Sra says she does not have a male sibling, but thinks that if she really had one "the agents of patriarchy would have been closer home, and maybe I would have been repressed."

"I would still have my voice but it would be a different voice."

The oppression Gunjeet Sra might have suffered if she had a brother makes one shudder!

So Gunjeet Sra also gives a thumbs down to this'bandhan' (and an implicit thumbs up to that'bonding').

---------

Writing for FeminismInIndia.com in Sep. 2018, Akshita Prasad applauds AIB for making a post on Facebook about the "inevitable hypocrisy" of Raksha Bandhan "owing to its patriarchal roots" -- in keeping with the comedy group's "tradition of not condoning patriarchy".

She interprets AIB's Facebook post as making the point that "the reason women are unsafe in this country is due to patriarchy and for the same patriarchy to birth a tradition which allows its beneficiaries, that is men, to protect women, whose lives patriarchy negatively affects, is audacious and fatuous."

"... In the form it (Raksha Bandhan) has historically existed, it is patriarchal, sexist, and toxic, and it is time we do away with the underlying idea of men protecting women that formed its basis," she writes.

So Prasad also gives a thumbs down to this'bandhan' (but does not juxtapose it with that'bonding').

-----------

The AIB Facebook post declared: "Patriarchy is the sole reason why women aren't safe in the first place and the same patriarchy has made Raksha Bandhan a festival about a brother protecting his sister."

AIB exhorts people (presumably male siblings): "Do not protect her, rather try and change the system with her, a system where she is safe to begin with."

In keeping with their noble vocation, the AIB couched its message (that Akshita Prasad approved and lauded) in 'hip' language with phrases like "fuck around" and "jizzing to oneself".

(In the unlikely case you don't know the meanings of these two phrases, look them up yourself. Hint: both phrases convey an activity that came to characterize the 'controversies' in which AIB members subsequently found themselves.)

-----------

A year after that social media post, three AIB members, Utsav Chakraborty, Gursimran Khamba, and co-founder Tanmay Bhat, found themselves facing 'MeToo'accusations of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct -- and the group distanced itself from the three.

I don't know if Akshita Prasad of FeminismInIndia.com found any "inevitable hypocrisy" or "patriarchy" in the alleged conduct of the three AIB members. (Or whether Shutapa Paul and Gunjeet Sra, for that matter, would find the conduct of AIB members any less hypocritical than Raksha Bandhan itself).

You never know, given how much Akshita Prasad cares for 'anti-patriarchy' messaging; she obviously could not have guessed the sincerity of AIB's Facebook message from, say, its 'hip' phrasing.

(Shutapa Paul and Gunjeet Sra are women who seem to care a lot for that'bonding'. So I am not going to second-guess whether their conceptions of that'bonding' might include the possibility of the kind of conduct that the three AIB members have been accused of.)

---------

Google the word 'Raksha Bandhan' and you can find dozens of articles -- published over several years -- finding fault with Raksha Bandhan, even expressing loathing for the festival and calling for forsaking participation. So the campaign against Raksha Bandhan is well under way.

---------

In an article titled 'Rape and Rakhi – Patriarchal-Communal Narratives', published in Kafila.online in Aug. 2014, Kavita Krishnan, the Polit Bureau member of CPI(Marxist-Leninist), wrote: "Brothers are expected to keep their sisters under surveillance, and there is tremendous social sanction for their role in preventing the sister from pursuing love affairs with the man from the ‘wrong’ caste or community".

"Rakhi, then, has all the elements available ready-to-hand, suitable for the communal campaign of the RSS that calls on Hindu men to protect Hindu women from Muslim men," Kavita Krishnan wrote.

Krishnan cares a lot for "love affairs," specially "interfaith" relationships of "Hindu-Muslim" variety, as reflected in the quantity of commentary citing her on things like Valentine's Day.

“[It] is no longer just an annual Valentine's Day affair, but instead organized everyday violence against women's autonomy and interfaith relationships," Krishnan is cited as saying in an article, 'The War on Valentine's Day in India', published in Feb. 2018 in The Atlantic.

One of Krishnan's tweets about the killing of Ankit Saxena -- the young man murdered by the family of his Muslim girlfriend for having that affair -- read: "After son’s murder, Ankit Saxena's parents plans to help interfaith couples. What remarkable and beautiful people."

---------

It's unclear how exactly Ankit Saxena's parents would find (if at all they would) "interfaith couples" in order to "help" them, much less how exactly this "help" would be rendered.

(Would they ask for the "faith" of each person making up a "couple" they meet in public parks and bazars in order to decide their "inter-faith-ness" so that they can "help" them? First determining whether two people make a "couple" would be quite a job in itself!)

Kavita Krishnan, of course, can always draw on CPI(ML) cadre to find out not just "couples," but also the "faith" and "inter-faith-ness" of those "couples" so that she can "help" them.

(It seems CPI-ML cadre failed to discover Ankit Saxena and his Muslim girlfriend in time in order to "help" them or save him from being hacked to death by her father Akbar Ali. But then Krishnan can take heart in the fact that the RSS also failed to use the poisonous festival of Raksha Bandhan to turn Ankit and his girlfriend into Bhai-Behan.)

Since "faith" and "inter-faith-ness" is pretty central to the work of this Marxist-Leninist fighter for equality and freedom, I am sure Kavita Krishnan would be an asset in a place like Pakistan where "faith" is everywhere (not much "inter-faith-ness" though, except frequent reports of abduction of 'Hindu' girls and their forced marriages with 'Muslim' men).

It's a shame that Pakistan's "faith" has never allowed much of Marxism and Leninism to grow, but I have no doubt Pakistan needs people like Krishnan, especially because "patriarchy" and "communalism" are rearing their ugly head there too (which is surprising considering there isn't much of RSS and festivals like Raksha Bandhan in Pakistan).

-------

Pakistan's ARY News reported on 12 Jan. 2019, for instance, that the University of Agriculture-Faisalabad (UAF) has decided to observe this year's Valentine's Day (February 14) as "Sisters' Day" with an aim to "promote culture and Islamic traditions among the youth".

The report quotes UAF Vice Chancellor Zafar Iqbal Randhawa as saying: “We are enriched in our culture, norms, and Islamic values. We are mulling distributing scarves, shawls and gowns printed with UAF insignia among female students on the day.”

“In our culture, women are more empowered and earn due respect as sisters, mothers, daughters and wife. We are forgetting our culture and western culture has taken root in our society. Nations that forget their cultural values are diminished from the map of the world,"Randhawa said.

Krishnan would naturally be dismayed by Randhawa's shockingly regressive view.

It's unclear what Randhawa means by "eastern culture". Since Pakistan is 96 per cent Muslim, he probably means "middle-eastern culture" even though his "Sisters' Day" plan has an 'eerie' similarity to the "patriarchal-communal" festival of Raksha Bandhan.

The Nation reportedthat the UAF celebrated 14 Feb 2019 by “distributing 800 headscarves to females as a gesture of respect from their alma mater and to promote eastern values in the society”.

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

It's a very disturbing thought but voice I must it.

Can there possibly be some 'Brahmanic' influence on Pakistan, which is 96.4 per cent Muslim and largely 'Hindu'-free with an insignificantly tiny number of evil Brahmins?

Kavita Krishnan will hope not, even though one cannot completely rule out the possibility.

Nor can one completely rule out the possibility of RSS somehow being able to smuggle the virus of "patriarchy" and "communalism" in the predominantly Islamic-progressive society of Pakistan.

It's pretty weird but why would Muslim men of Pakistan need "Sisters' Day" to protect Muslim women from other Muslim men?

I am sure we will know a satisfactory answer when Kavita Krishnan or CPI(ML) comes up with a more rigorous analysis of this awkward situation.

Until then let's lighten the mood by this tweet on the ARY News report posted by Pakistani journalist Naila Inayat.

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

Balakot sounds like Faridkot. Has anyone in the Indian media sought Jugnu Mohsin's comments on Balakot?

Oh! I remember Indian media -- (such as "an Indian journalist" who wrote a book looking at Ajmal Kasab "from the classical poverty angle" -- "placing Faridkot in an imaginary terrain existing at a distance from… civilisation”) -- loves "mystery"!

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

https://www.dawn.com/news/765854

The unending Faridkot mystery
Dawn, 21 November 2012
LAHORE: Ajmal Kasab, the ‘baby-faced butcher’, arrived on the scene in November 2008 and even though he was executed in a Pune jail about four years later on Wednesday, his image and his stereotype threatens to live on without being fully probed.

The criminal investigation or a lack of it apart, no serious study to understand his coming about has yet been undertaken and none is likely if the conventional and convenient methods of investigation continue to be obsessively applied.
Ajmal Kasab was the lone survivor among the 10 Mumbai attackers. In late November 2008 intelligence leaks to Indian media claimed he was a Pakistani hailing from a village named Faridkot. A search was launched by media in Pakistan and many Faridkots beckoned out of their unnoticed existence on the map.

Finally, after a series of blanks, a tip from Okara in central Punjab said Ajmal Kasab’s family might be living in Faridkot village bang on the Kasur-Depalpur road, not far from Depalpur town.
An investigation by a Dawn reporter confirmed that Amir Kasab, identified by Indian media as the father of Ajmal, had indeed settled in Faridkot many years ago after arriving from nearby Haveli Lakha, and that among his children was a son who had left home some time ago.
Two Dawn journalists arrived in a neat-looking Faridkot lane in the first week of December, 2008. They were looking for the Kasab home and were met on the way by a man of medium build, clad in shalwar kameez. “Do you know someone from the Kasab family? Are they home?,” the man was asked.
“I am Kasab,” he replied. Then quickly and mechanically, he took out his identity card from his chest pocket, as if he had kept it handy for an impending identification. “Amir Kasab,” the card read.
In a few seconds, the journalists were inside Amir Kasab’s house. A pale-eyed woman sat on a charpoy, introduced to the visitors as Ajmal’s mother. Two younger women who stood by were identified as Ajmal’s sisters. Also around and visibly intrigued by the visit was a young boy in winter school uniform. He was said to be Ajmal’s younger brother.
A few hours earlier, the same journalists had found the details in the Indian media’s breaking stories on Ajmal Kasab a bit too difficult to stomach --- an example of how intelligence agencies used media to forward their own interests, how too much information gave a story-teller away. It was a story they were desperate to disprove, ready to suffer the embarrassment that awaits pursuers at the end chasing a red herring.

In these stories, the attacker was painted as a poor runaway boy who, after wandering through Lahore, had met his jihadi handlers in Rawalpindi. However, in the poor and well-kempt courtyard of the Kasab family that afternoon, the probing journalists found some striking similarities between their surroundings and the bits reported in Indian media accounts of Ajmal’s confessions.

The reports said Amir Kasab was a snacks-seller in Faridkot, and now a handcart stood in one corner of the yard, stacked with steel plates and glasses washed and ready to serve. Amir said he sold pakoras in the village, a collection of quite spacious brick-houses against a background of richly cultivated fields and smoke-emitting factories that had been under-projected in the media leaks.
Much more devastating, the master of the house admitted the pictures flashed in media were his son’s. “Initially, I did not own up to this. But now I know that this is my son,” he said.
Then he sobbed and his wife’s face disappeared in the chador she had on her. The younger lot of the family looked on, as did the small crowd that had gathered inside the house, probably neighbours not all of whom were comfortable with the content of the unfolding conversation.
There were a few points which Amir Kasab adamantly denied. The media had implied that he had taken money against Ajmal’s services to the ‘handlers’ of the Mumbai attack --- an accusation that has been repeated after the execution now. “He had asked me to buy Eid clothes for him. When I refused he got angry and left,” Amir’s simple explanation said.
That was apparently the only exchange between the Kasab family of Faridkot near Depalpur and the media. Over the following hours, the village was besieged by journalists faced by a local nazim and his men determined to prevent any further prying into their lives, even if it required manhandling the nosey journalists.
One reporter working with a British paper located the Kasab name on an electoral roll. Yet, no clue was available to the whereabouts of Amir Kasab and his family. They had simply vanished from the scene.
The first reaction in Pakistan back then was to disown Ajmal Kasab. Now, amid a debate as to who should claim his body, people in Faridkot are still reluctant to admit he belonged to their village. It needed some persuasion before a couple of them shared a few bits of information with Dawn on Wednesday.
One villager said Amir Kasab and his wife had briefly been in Faridkot a few times. From among those who did acknowledge the Kasabs had once been Faridkot residents told Dawn their house had since been “rented out”. The current occupants say they have been living there for three and a half years.
The house looks the same as it did in December 2008, but an animal shed has since taken up some part of the courtyard.
The advice given by elders to the locals has been to not discuss Ajmal Kasab with anyone. A local imam masjid reportedly used the mosque’s loudspeaker to tell his audience to stay away from the affair. It is this shield of silence that greeted journalists in Faridkot as they converged on the village again looking for stories to mark Ajmal Kasab’s hanging in distant Pune.
In the days following the Faridkot revelation in 2008, Pakistan and India remained locked in a tense exchange over the identity and origins of the Mumbai attackers. Pakistan was initially reluctant to admit that Ajmal was its national as the Indian side demanded action against the “Pakistan-based” perpetrators of the terrorist act.
Then, on Dec 10, 2008, Mahmood Durrani, adviser to the prime minister, did finally accept that Ajmal was a Pakistani citizen — a disclosure that cost Durrani his job. Around the same time, PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif told journalist Kim Barker of evidence which suggested that Ajmal did indeed belong to Faridkot. As the facts emerged, in time, Islamabad did shift from an outright denial to insisting on a distinction between the “state actors” and “non-state” actors, under pressure from India and the West to investigate and try Lashkar-e-Taiba men accused of masterminding Mumbai attacks.
Away from the trials and governmental standoffs, the phenomenon called Ajmal Kasab has received but only superficial attention and that too by and large from journalists working by short deadlines. The prosperous fields, the smoke-emitting mills and Amir Kasab’s own not-so-poor status have not prevented observers from looking at it from the classical poverty angle.
There is a book written by an Indian journalist which “dedicates several chapters to highlighting the Pakistani paradoxes that gave birth to Ajmal the terrorist” placing Faridkot “in an imaginary terrain existing at a distance from… civilisation”.
Task done? No need to explore any further and find out other linkages between Ajmal Kasab and his act, reasons such as enshrined in the thesis about clash between civilisations?

It is this single-track approach that lends greater mystery to the affair, in the name of simplified reading and where discussion is stunted and an earnest probe is put on hold, denial comes easy. In the hush-hush of whispers Faridkot remains largely undiscovered beneath a pile of nationalist to administrative to faith-based excuses.
------------

"The narrative, based on half-truths, selective interpretation of the history and unidimensional thinking created the image of India as an occupier and colonial".

A Twitter thread on Kashmir by Khalid Shah @khalidbshah, whose Web-link is pasted below, matches with what I wrote of my own experience at IANS.

https://twitter.com/khalidbshah/status/1107556622950236160

-----

India, the creator of Pakistan, does not need any external enemy...…. obviously!

-----

In the context of Balakot air strikes, here are some dots for you to connect. Pakistan might have begun to be pushed towards a "Chinese model" of the mass media, according to a senior Pakistani journalist that the video linked below features.

(Is it any surprise that no one in India seems to be talking about what's been happening to Pakistani media for months?)

https://twitter.com/FawadHazan/status/1106891797454835712

(The main piece in this Twitter thread cites Pak journalist Matiullah Jan as saying in Urdu that "With greater interference in politics by the military establishment, the media began to report the evidence of 'political engineering' before the last elections'. We are now seeing a response to that.)

The video is posted on the following link.

https://www.facebook.com/SochVideos/videos/637812409988418

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

The boy who killed his teacher in #Bahawalpur says his teacher was a #blasphemer and spoke against #Islam. He says he is happy he killed him.

https://twitter.com/TahaSSiddiqui/status/1108419037095251968

---------

https://www.dawn.com/news/1470814/bahawalpur-student-stabs-professor-to-death-over-anti-islam-remarks

Bahawalpur student stabs professor to death over 'anti-Islam' remarks
Dawn, 20 March 2019

A third-year student at Bahawalpur's Government Sadiq Egerton College on Wednesday allegedly stabbed a professor to death over what he vaguely described as the academic's "anti-Islam" remarks, police sources and persons familiar with the incident said.
Associate professor Khalid Hameed, the head of the English department, was seated inside his office at the college when he was allegedly accosted and attacked with a knife by the student.
According to initial information noted by police at the scene of the crime, Khateeb Hussain, a 5th-semester BS student enrolled in the English department, had exchanged hot words with Prof Hameed at around 8:40am over the arranging of a 'welcome party' at the college.

The event, which Hameed was overseeing, was to be held on March 21 to welcome new students to the college, police said.
Police sources told DawnNewsTV that Hussain was averse to the event being organised because he viewed the mingling of male and female pupils at the function as "un-Islamic".
---------

Prof. Khalid Hameed's murder reminds me of the case of Prof. Brij Narain, who taught economics at Punjab University and was a resident of Lahore at the time of the Partition.

Rather strange that 'Left-leaning' Prof. Brij Narain (who did prodigious amount of research work in 'progressive' economics) is not commemorated by our JNU 'progressives'.

No body seems to talk about Prof. Brij Narain in India!

I had never heard of Prof. Brij Narain until I chanced upon Ishtiaq Ahmed's book on Partition.

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

Also reminds me of the following nazm of Jaleel Haidar Lashari of Multan -- especially the last couplet.

कैसीबख़्शिशकायेसामानहुआफिरताहै

शहरसाराहीपरेशानहुआफिरताहै

एकबारूदकीजैकेटऔरनारा-ए-तकबीर

रास्ताख़ुल्दकाआसानहुआफिरताहै

कैसाआशिक़हैतेरेनामपेक़ुर्बांहैमगर

तेरीहरबातसेअनजानहुआफिरताहै

हमकोजकड़ाहैयहाँजब्रकीज़ंजीरोंने

अबतोयेशहरहीज़िन्दानहुआफिरताहै

शबकोशैतानभीमाँगेहैपनाहेंजिससे

सुबहवहीसाहिब-ए-ईमानहुआफिरताहै

जानेकबकौनकिसेमारदेकाफ़िरकहके

शहरकाशहरमुसलमानहुआफिरताहै

---------

Naila Inayat नायलाइनायत
@nailainayat‏

Teenage Hindu sisters Raveena and Reena Menghwar abducted from Ghotki, Sindh. On Holi, Hindu community stages sit-in on national highway against the refusal of police to register a case. Another case of forced conversion and as always the family is helpless.

https://twitter.com/nailainayat/status/1108714794801090560
------------------------

The two girls made to utter Kalma before camera.

-----------------
Faisal Dayo

@FaisalDayo1

جن کو کلمہ تک صحیح سے پڑھنے نہیں آ رہا وہ اتنی جلدی اسلام سے کیسے متاثر ہوگئیں .

ﮨﻢ ﺟﺸﻦ ﮐﺎ ﮐﯿﺴﮯ ﺫﮐﺮ ﮐﺮﯾﮟ
ﮐﭽﮫ ﺳﻮﮒ ﺍﺑﮭﯽ ﺑﺎﻗﯽ ﮨﯿﮟ
जिनकोकलमातकसहीसेपढ़नानहींआरहा, वहइतनीजल्दीइस्लामसेकैसेमुतासिरहोगईं?

हमजश्नकाकैसेज़िक्रकरें

कुछसोगअभीबाक़ीहैं.
https://twitter.com/FaisalDayo1/status/1108684959160635392

---------------
Mukesh Meghwar
@Mukesh_Meghwar
Once again Two More
Hindu Sisters Reena and Raveena are abducted from Daherki District Ghotki Sindh Pakistan by unknown people.

Holi turns into mourns.
Still FIR not lodged, police is not cooperating.
#StopForcedConversions #HindusOfPakistan

https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108642777481515008
-----------------
Just spoken to Mukhi of Hindu Community in Dehrki. He said #Police is not interested into lodged FIR. Because main kidnaper belongs to Sayed family.
@sindhpolicedmc plz look into this matter.

@ShireenMazari1 ur action needed.
https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108649512955011072

--------------
Congratulations to all Pakistani Hindus that you got gift on the day of holi by religious extremists who abducted two teenage sisters and forced converted:

1. Reena
2. Raveena
Don't worry you keep silent and wait for your number !!

https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108659988715708416
----------------
کیا کبھی کسی نے سوچا ہے؟

صرف 18 سال سے کم عمر ہی ہندو لڑکیاں کیوں مسلمان ہوتی ہیں؟ عمر رسیدہ یا جوان کیوں مسلمان نہیں کی جاتی۔ ؟
क्याकभीकिसीनेसोचाहै?

सिर्फ़ 18 सालसेकमउम्रकीहिन्दूलड़कियांहीक्योंमुसलमानहोतीहैं?

उम्र-रसीदायाजवानक्योंमुसलमाननहींकीजातीं?
https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108665353188638720

---------------
سب مایا ہے

(सबमायाहै)
@AikAamAadmi
کیونکہ عمر رسیدہ میں جوانی کا جوس ختم ہو چکا ہوتا ہے-چھوٹی بچی کو سیکس کرنے کو تبدیلی مذہب کا ڈرامہ رچاتے ہیں

क्योंकिउम्र-रसीदामेंजवानीकाजोशख़त्महोचुकाहोताहै. छोटीबच्चीसेसेक्सकरनेकेलिए
तब्दीली-ए-मज़हबकाड्रामारचातेहैं.
https://twitter.com/AikAamAadmi/status/1108671577074397184
------------------
Mukesh Meghwar
@Mukesh_Meghwar

صرف لڑکیاں ہی کیوں! لڑکے بھی مسلمان کرو، صرف بیوی بنانے کے لیے ہی کیوں بہن بنانے کے لیے مسلمان کرو،

نو عمر ہی کیوں ، عمر رسیدہ عورتوں کو بھی مسلمان کرو، تاکہ آپ کا ایمان تازا رہ سکے، اور پاکستان میں کوئی ہندو باقی نہ رہے۔

सिर्फ़लड़कियांहीक्यों!

लड़केभीमुसलमानकरो. सिर्फ़बीवीबनानेकेलिएहीक्यों, बहनबनानेकेलिएभीमुसलमानकरो.

नौ-उम्रहीक्यों, उम्र-रसीदाऔरतोंकोभीमुसलमानकरो, ताकिआपकाईमानताज़ारहसकेऔरपाकिस्तानमेंकोईहिन्दूबाक़ीनरहे.
https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108666517938491392

--------------
تاریخ میں یہ بھی لکھا جائے، کہ پاکستان میں جو بھی ہندو لڑکیان مسلمان کی گئیں وہ اسلام کی تبلیغ کے لیے نہیں، بہن بنانے کے لیے بھی نہیں۔ صرف رکھیل بنا کر رکھنے کے لیے۔

तारीख़मेंयहभीलिखाजाएकिपाकिस्तानमेंजोभीहिन्दूलड़कियांमुसलमानकीगईंवहइस्लामकीतब्लीग़केलिए

नहीं, बहनबनानेकेलिएभीनहीं, सिर्फ़रखैलबनाकररखनेकेलिए.
https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108667452823609345
-------------
سندھ حکومت اور پاکستان حکومت ھندو کمیونٹی کو تحفظ دینے میں کیوں ناکام ھے۔1947 میں 25 فیصد آبادی اور آج صرف %2 فیصد۔

सिंधहुकूमतऔरपाकिस्तानहुकूमतहिन्दूकम्युनिटीकोतहफ़्फ़ुज़देनेमेंक्योंनाकामहै?

1947 में 25 फ़ीसदआबादीऔरआजसिर्फ़दोफ़ीसद।
https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108671156494786561
-----------------
Abducted & forced converted Reena & Raveena are 12 and 14 years old. FIR has been lodged but result expected same as in previous cases. Where is child marriage law?
Where is Sindh government?

Where r women organizations?
Where r minority parliamentarians?
#StopForcedConversions

https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108724332816199682
------------------
یہ ریاست کرپشن سے پاک ھو نہ ھو لیکن ھندوؤں سے پاک ضرور ھو جائیگی۔
यहरियासतकरप्शनसेपाकहोनहो, लेकिनहिन्दुओंसेपाकज़रूरहोजाएगी।

https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108739013517676545

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

Child sexual abuse, also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation.
Sunnah means "the way of the prophet". The Sunnah is made up of the words and actions of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Muslims believe Muhammad's life is a good model for them to follow in their own lives.
------------
Naila Inayat नायलाइनायत
@nailainayat‏
This Molvi justifies an illegal under-age marriage, conversion, then says "we Muslims" should protect girls as they're being threatened by their own. Father of Reena & Raveena helplessly cries outside the police station, does he seem to be a threat to anyone? @GirlsNotBrides
https://twitter.com/nailainayat/status/1109460625820999680
------------
Mukesh Meghwar
@Mukesh_Meghwar
کیا کبھی کسی نے سوچا ہے؟
صرف 18 سال سے کم عمر ہی ہندو لڑکیاں کیوں مسلمان ہوتی ہیں؟ عمر رسیدہ یا جوان کیوں مسلمان نہیں کی جاتی۔ ؟

क्याकभीकिसीनेसोचाहै?

सिर्फ़ 18 सालसेकमउम्रकीहिन्दूलड़कियांहीक्योंमुसलमानहोतीहैं?

उम्र-रसीदायाजवानक्योंमुसलमाननहींकीजातीं?

Has anyone ever given it a thought?
Why is it that only girls under the age of 18 become Muslim?
Why aren't older women made Muslim?
https://twitter.com/Mukesh_Meghwar/status/1108665353188638720
---------------
The majority of traditional sources state that Aisha was betrothed to Muhammad at the age of six or seven, but she stayed in her parents' home until the age of nine, or ten according to Ibn Hisham, when the marriage was consummated with Muhammad, then 53, in Medina.
---------------
Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband (Saharanpur, India) on Muhammad's 'marriage' with Aisha
http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/ur/History--Biography/1923
सवालनम्बर 1923 (कैनेडासे)

मेरासवालयहहैकिहज़रतआइशाकीउम्रउनकीशादीकेवक़्तकितनीथी? हमेंतोयहीपताहैकि 09 सालथी, लेकिनअभीहमेंयहपताचलाहैकियहग़लतहै; उनकीउम्र 19 से 21 केदरम्यानथी. क्यायहसहीहै? जल्दजवाबदें.

Question No. 1923 (from Canada)
My question is: What was Hazrat Aisha's age at the time of her wedding? We'd known it to be 09 years, until we learnt it was wrong. Her age was between 19 and 21. Is that correct?
Do respond early.
-----------
जवाबनम्बर 1923
फ़तवा: 672/,=663/,

हिजरतसेतीनसालक़ब्लमाह-ए-शव्वाल 10 नबवीमेंहज़रतआइशाकानिकाहहुआ. उसवक़्तउनकीउम्र 06 सालकीथी. हिजरतसे 7-8 महीनेबादशव्वालहीमेंरुख़्सतीहुई. उसवक़्तउनकीउम्र 09 साल औरकुछमाहथी.
नौसालआनहज़रतसलीअल्लाहआलीवसल्लमकीज़ौजियतमेंरहीं।
जिसवक़्तआनहज़रतसलीअल्लाहआलीवसल्लमकाविसालहुआतोहज़रतआइशाकीउम्र 18 सालकीथी.
अड़तालीस (48) सालआपकेबादज़िंदारहींऔर 57 हिजरीमेंमदीनामुनव्वरामेंवफ़ातपाई.
वफ़ातकेवक़्त 66 सालकीउम्रथी.
बुख़ारीमुस्लिमकीरवायतोंनेज़सीरतऔरअस्मा-उर-रज्जालकीकिताबोंमेंयहतफ़्सीलातलिखीहुईहैं.
आपकोजोपहलेसेमालूमहैकि 09 सालकीउम्रमेंरुख़्सतीहुई, वहीसहीहै, औरजोबातआपकोबादमेंकहींसेपताचली, यानि 19-21 सालकीउम्रकीबातनिकाहकेवक़्त, यहग़लतहै.

वाअल्लाहतआलाआलम

दारुलइफ़्ता, दारुल-उलूमदेवबंद

Answer 1923 (Published on November 07, 2007)

Fatwa: 672/,=663/,
Hazrat Aisha had her Nikah in the month of Shawwal, 10 Nabvi, three years before Hegira. Her age then was 06 years. She left her parental home 7-8 months after Hegira. Her age at that time was 09 years and some months.
She spent 09 years in state of marriage with Aan Hazrat (PBUH).
When Aan Hazrat (PBUH) died, Hazrat Aisha was 18 years of age.
She lived for 48 years after Your (PBUH) death and died in 57 Hegira in Madina Munawwara.
She was 66 when she died.
These details are recorded in Bukhari Muslim and the books of Seerah and Asmaa ur-Rijaal.
The earlier information you had, namely that she left her parental home at the age of 09 years, is correct. What you picked up later from somewhere, namely her Nikah at the age of 19-21, is wrong.

Allah, the Highest in the World
Dar-ul Ifta, Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband
----------------------------------------------
My glossary
Muhammad was born in 570 AD and died in 632 AD.
Aisha was born in 613/614 AD and died in 678 AD.
The year of Hegira (Muhammad's migration from Macca to Madina) is 622 AD, which is also the start of Muslim calendar.
The Muslim calendar (or Hijri calendar) is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days.

Muhammad is believed to have his first 'revelation' (start of his supposed 'Nabvat' or 'prophethood') in 610 AD. (That is, before Hegira).

10 Nabvi is 10th year from the time Muhammad is believed to have his first revelation.
-------------

“This is a war between the pure and the impure... The people here may have Muslim names and call themselves Muslims. But they are Hindu at heart. We are now sorting them out... Those who are left will be real Muslims. We will even teach them Urdu.”

--- A Pakistani army major to Anthony Mascarenhas, a British journalist based in Pakistan, who was the first to break the news of the Bengali genocide in international media.

On the fateful night of March 25, 1971, the Pakistani army officially launched its campaign of genocide in erstwhile East Pakistan, by unleashing death squads that mercilessly killed 7,000 unarmed, innocent Bengalis in one single night.

The prime targets of Operation Searchlight were the Dhaka University teachers and students, the lifeblood of the resistance movement, who were exterminated in their hundreds. The Pakistani army sought out those especially likely to join the resistance—young boys. In the next morning, bodies of young men would be found in fields, floating down rivers, or near army camps.

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

গোলাপ
@royalbd_tigress
“Operation Searchlight” was the largest genocide of the 20th century.
On the night of March 25th 1971, around 70,000 Bangladeshis in Dacca & nearby were murdered by Pakistani military. More ppl died per minute on this one night than during WWII. Where is the reconciliation?

https://twitter.com/royalbd_tigress/status/1110760286363934720

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

sarmad sultan

@sarmads00529534

مارچ۔۔1971۔۔آج سےتقریباً چالیس سال پہلے۔۔مشرقی پاکستان میں۔۔آپریشن سرچ لائٹ کا آغاز ہوا۔۔اس آپریشن کا پہلا نشانہ۔۔مشہور زمانہ ڈھاکہ یونیورسٹی تھی۔۔اس آپریشن کا داغ آج تک۔۔دیش کی تاریخ کے ماتھے کو۔۔سیاہ کئے ہوا ہے۔۔
9:14 AM - 26 Mar 2019

मार्च 1971... आजसेअड़तालीससालपहलेमशरक़ीपाकिस्तानमें'ऑपरेशनसर्च-लाइट'काआग़ाज़हुआ. इसऑपरेशनकापहलानिशानामशहूर-ए-ज़मानाढाकायूनिवर्सिटीथी. इसऑपरेशनकादाग़आजतकदेशकीतारीख़केमाथेकोस्याहकियेहुएहै.

Forty eight years ago, in March 1971, Operation Searchlight started in East Pakistan. The first target of this Operation was the renowned Dhaka University. This Operation continues to be a black chapter in the country's history.

https://twitter.com/sarmads00529534/status/1110575660936937473

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

Kindly bring this post to the attention of Mamata Banerjee, Jignesh Mevani, Kavita Krishnan, Hartosh Singh Bal, Harsh Mander, Apoorvanand, and Siddharth Varadarajan.
They must know how Hindu-Manuvadi-Brahmanical-Fascist-Patriarchal bastards are striking at the very roots of Pakistan's Islamic-Progressive society by conspiring to root out whatever remains of the Scheduled Caste communities in Pakistan.
And ask Hartosh Singh Bal to do a caste analysis of all the girls of Pakistan converted and married off in the last 10 years -- as a result of the aforementioned conspiracy.

#Manuvad_Murdabad

#Brahmanvad_Murdabad

#Jai_Bheem

#Dalit_Muslim_Ekta_Zindabad!!!!!

-------------
The Sindhi Narrative
@TSNARRATIVES
List of girls abducted and forcibly converted in Sindh in past 45 days.
29 March 2019
https://twitter.com/TSNARRATIVES/status/1111543148810063872
--------
Komal (Tando Allyar) is Scheduled Caste
Lakshmi (Karachi) is Scheduled Caste
Sonia (Karachi) is Scheduled Caste
Sonia Bheel (Hyderabad) is Scheduled Caste
Mala Meghwar (Jam Khan Pitafi) is Scheduled Caste
Gaini Kohli (Badin) is Scheduled Caste
Lacchmi (Tarai Badin) is Scheduled Caste
Gawaari (Tarai Badin) is Scheduled Caste
Champa (Budho Qambrani) is Scheduled Caste
Reena (Ghotki) is Scheduled Caste
Raveena (Ghotki) is Scheduled Caste
Sonia Kumari (Mirpur Khas) is Scheduled Caste
Lachmi Kumari (Salehpat) is Scheduled Caste
Kalim Kumari (Salehpat) is Scheduled Caste
Basheeran Kumari (Salehpat) is Scheduled Caste
Manta Bheel (Shahdadkot) is Scheduled Caste
--------
Naila Inayat नायलाइनायत

@nailainayat‏
Kids 'chose' to marry men who have kids! Safdar Khobar and Barkat Malik the men Reena and Raveena Meghwar were wedded to are married. Khobar has 3 children, while Malik has one. #stopforcedconversion
28 Mar 2019

https://twitter.com/nailainayat/status/1111308884441006081

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

S.M.Umair

@smumairquadri
Replying to @nailainayat
اس شادی کا فائدہ اُس مولوی کو بھی ہے جس نے جبری مذہب کو تبدیل کرکے نکاح کرایا تاکہ وہ بھی حلالی سہاگ رات منا سکے ۔اگر ایسا نہیں تو پھر مولویوں کو چاہیے کے ہندو لڑکوں کو بھی مسلمان کرکے اپنی بہن بیٹیاں بیاہ دیں۔اب تک کتنے مولویوں نے یہ کام کیا ہے؟

इसशादीकाफ़ायदाउसमौलवीकोभीहैजिसनेजब्रीमज़हबकोतब्दीलकराकेनिकाहकराया, ताकिवहभीहलालीसुहाग-रातमनासके. अगरऐसानहींतोफिरमौलवियोंकोचाहिएकिहिन्दूलड़कोंकोभीमुसलमानकरकेअपनीबहन-बेटियांब्याहदें. अबतककितनेमौलवियोंनेयहकामकियाहै?
Such a wedding also benefits the Maulvi who officiated the forced conversion and the Nikah, allowing him to enjoy sex through Halala. Otherwise, Maulavis should also be converting Hindu boys to Islam and getting them to marry their sisters and daughters. How many Maulvis have ever done that?
28 Mar 2019
https://twitter.com/smumairquadri/status/1111314457513226240

---------

Mukesh Meghwar
@Mukesh_Meghwar

Do u think this girl is 18 years old. Look at this man & look into the eyes of Sonia Bheel. Irony is that there is no any legal safeguard to protect minorities minor girls.
Let's stand for this slogan.
#PassAntiForcedConversionBill
28 Mar 2019

https://twitter.com/raheelricky/status/1111499931829891072
------------
Reham Khan

@RehamKhan1
I am literally in tears of rage. This is legalised #paedophilia.Will the parliamentarians of Pakistan be questioned by the world why this child abuse is being freely practised?
Will any politician try to save these children or are you to busy saving your careers?
28 Mar 2019

https://twitter.com/RehamKhan1/status/1111408880838311936

----------

Raheel Hakeem
@raheelricky
Wtf? There is age and consent!!! Do you think a Hindu boy would ever be allowed to fall in love and marry a Muslim girl? He would be fucking killed.

28 Mar 2019

https://twitter.com/raheelricky/status/1111499931829891072
----------------
Saadat Ali Zia
@my55cents
This is absolutely appalling. This is child abuse. And the state needs to get it's act together and prosecute these pedophile monsters.
29 Mar 2019
https://twitter.com/my55cents/status/1111525819975905280

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

Paedophilia: Sexual feelings directed towards children.
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation.
Sunnah means "the way of the prophet". The Sunnah is made up of the words and actions of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Muslims believe Muhammad's life is a good model for them to follow in their own lives.
Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband says Ayesha was nine and Muhammad was at least 51 when Muhammad consummated his ‘marriage’ with Ayesha. Read Dar-ul-Uloom's fatwa on this subject here.
--------------
Jogendra Nath Mandal, Pakistan's first law minister who belonged to a Scheduled Caste community from Bengal, said the following in his resignation letter to Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan.
Leaving aside the question of East Pakistan, let me now refer to West Pakistan, especially Sind. The West Punjab had after partition about a lakh of Scheduled Castes people. It may be noted that a large number of them were converted to Islam.
Only 4 out of a dozen Scheduled Castes girls abducted by Muslims have yet been recovered in spite of repeated petitions to the Authority. Names of those girls with names of their abductors were supplied to the government. The last reply recently given by the Officer-in-Charge of recovery of abducted girls said that "his function was to recover Hindu girls and 'Achhuts' (Scheduled Castes) were not Hindus".
*********
After anxious and prolonged struggle, I have come to the conclusion that Pakistan is no place for Hindus to live in and that their future is darkened by the ominous shadow of conversion or liquidation.
The bulk of the upper-class Hindus and politically conscious scheduled castes have left East Bengal. Those Hindus who will continue to stay accursed in Pakistan will, I am afraid, by gradual stages and in a planned manner be either converted to Islam or completely exterminated.
----------

“In a shocking revelation of new information, it turns out that the government of India, in 2009, had issued a sovereign guarantee on behalf of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), which is at the centre of what is fast turning out to be one the biggest financial scandals in India,” writes Sucheta Dalal in an article published on 01 April 2019 in Moneylife.in magazine of which she is the managing editor.

The article is headlined: ‘IL&FS Shocker: Govt Quietly Paying Up on Sovereign Guarantees to ADB and KfW for Failed Group’s $50.4 Million Loan’.

“Sovereign guarantees are only issued for government projects or, occasionally, for public sector companies,” she writes.

Having known Sucheta Dalal for a long time, I am surprised that she found it “shocking” that the government in 2009 (of Manmohan Singh) had been issuing sovereign guarantees to a ‘private company’ like IL&FS.

It’s because The Economic Times had been reporting about such a sovereign guarantee to a Japanese loan to IL&FS-controlled Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) Development Corporation in 2008; take a look at this July 2008 report , for instance.

This 05 Oct 2008 report of the Economic Times said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "intervened" to get the Finance Ministry to extend sovereign guarantee to a Japanese loan on-lent to DMIC Development Corporation (DMICDC) which was controlled by IL&FS.

Owned 51 per cent by IL&FS and IDFC and 49 per cent by the government, DMICDC was designated a 'private company' under government rules, and was operating from the ministry of industry’s office in Udyog Bhawan!

So sovereign guarantees WERE being extended 10 years ago by Manmohan Singh government and the media WAS talking about it.

How come a senior journalist like Sucheta Dalal missed all of that?

I thought she knew all along that IL&FS was a dubious, crony-capitalist organization that was allowed by the government to monopolize the fraudulent Public-Private Partnership (PPP) sector right from the early 1990s when the very first PPPs, such as Delhi-Noida Toll Road project, were conceived.

Sucheta Dalal told me as far back as April 2011, in response to my question, that she actually wanted to write on the goings-on involving IL&FS.

I wonder if she did write and publish anything on IL&FS in 2011 or immediately afterwards.

(Since I'd go through Moneylife website quite frequently then, I don't think she published anything probing and IL&FS-specific in 2011 or afterwards.)

The following is what I wrote to Sucheta Dalal in an email dated 13 April 2011.

"...I was contemplating doing a research-based story on another shockingly dubious phenomenon called 'Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS)'.

IL&FS is now the virtual government, central as well as many states', (with zero accountability, of course) when it comes to hatching and awarding PPP projects. This 'private company' operates from ministries, including Udyog Bhawan, and hundreds of SPVs to efficiently siphon off public assets through PPPs.

The IL&FS story is on hold because I am likely to be busy for the next few weeks...

I wonder if you have the interest and human resources to pursue the story on IL&FS. (As also, of course, a lot more that needs to be written on PPPs, project wise and policy wise.)"

In her reply on the same day, Sucheta Dalal said the following.

“On IL&FS... I am very keen on following it up- in fact did you see my piece on NSDL? We need to find a way to file a PIL on how these guys, including the National Stock Exchange have become a law unto themselves which high self-rewards for management and no accountability.”

In the same mail, she said: "I did spend a lot of time on your blog."

Since she spent "a lot of time on my blog," she might have seen the article headlined 'Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor: Devious Scheme, Dubious Deals', which I published on 13 March 2011 (the same day my article on Manmohan Singh-Rajat Gupta 'partnership' was posted which she read and liked).

In that article, I wrote about the government, in a “highly dubious move,” issuing sovereign guarantee to a 75 million US dollar loan from Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to IIFCL for on-lending to DMICDC.

I also wrote: The loan agreement was signed between Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL) and DMICDC in December 2009.
The General Financial Rules (GFR 2005) of the central government clearly say that the “government guarantees shall not be provided to the private sector.”
“It should be out of question to extend sovereign guarantee to a loan that will benefit a private company and yet the government has done it; it’s a dangerous precedent,” a senior Planning Commission official told this writer.

In fact, the government itself let it be known, willy-nilly, in 2007 that there were serious problems in PPP projects -- and in IL&FS' conflict-ridden monopolization of the sector.

For instance, the Planning Commission commissioned Sheoli Pargal to do a study of Delhi-Noida Toll Road Project , which was published in 2007 on a website run by the Commission.

It's pretty damning study. Pargal says IL&FS awarded the project to itself, there was no cap on project cost, making for open-ended base for profits which were guaranteed, without risks, and massively inflated.

Pargal’s study shows that privileging IL&FS and making it the main thekedar of the whole PPP racket actually goes back to early 1990s when first PPPs (such as Delhi-Noida Toll Road) were conceived.

The Planning Commission had commissioned another study on a PPP and published it on its website in 2007. Done by Bharat Salhotra, it was the study of Nhava Sheva Container Terminal project. Salhotra says the concessionaire "extracted inadmissible returns of Rs 524 crore, which translated into annual returns of over 100 per cent on its equity".

I had published an article on IL&FS' dubious role in another PPP -- i.e. Tirupur water supply project – which was based entirely on the investigation by an NGO called Manthan. I had also done another article on Tirupur water supply project for Governance Now magazine.

By the way, Sunil Jain, who then worked for Business Standard, had reported in July 2010 about an "issues paper" (called ‘Sub-prime Highways?’) leaking out of the Planning Commission.

Jain's detailed reports on that "issues paper" made for quite an alarming reading -- such as the fact that "public-sector banks and other financial institutions have been lending money to the road PPPs far in excess of the approved total project costs (TPC)."

For instance, central government-owned IIFCL was willing to lend Rs 832 crore, which is 324 per cent higher than the TPC of Rs 196 crore in the case of Panaji-Karnataka Border highway stretch.

I not only wrote a series of articles on PPPs, including a 5000-word, fully-referenced critique of the PPP policy and a 3000-word critique of the DMIC, I followed that up by lending my name and journalistic work to a petition to the Delhi High Court in 2011 against the corruption in DMIC (the largest PPP scheme ever conceived in India with full personal involvement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and one whose IL&FS-controlled SPV, a 'private company', was given sovereign guarantee by Manmohan Singh.)

After Delhi HC dealt only superficially with my petition, I went to the Supreme Court with an SLP which I filed in 2012 through Prashant Bhushan who was not only reluctant but resistant, but he did eventually file it.

(The Supreme Court, I was told, asked us to go back to Delhi High Court with a review petition. The case ended there, I having been resource-less, helpless.)

Interestingly, a day before Prashant Bhushan was to file my SLP on DMIC, Manmohan Singh cabinet convened specifically to declare that the government will bring the private equity in DMICDC down in order to change the status of this SPV from 'private' to 'public'.

It goes without saying that sovereign guarantee to the 'private company' (DMICDC) was one of the important points in my petition.

-----
What Sucheta Dalal calls "IL&FS scam" is actually a misnomer, in my opinion. It should be called 'PPP scam'. (Imagine government-backed private goondas demanding money of citizens for the use of public roads/bridges. What gall!)

I believe PPPs have always been a swindle, planned and pushed by the Congress governments, but something to which BJP governments gave their full approval.

In fact, all other parties (as well as the mass media) gave their approval, explicit or implicit, to the PPP fraud -- considering that since the early 1990s, when the first PPPs were conceived, there has NEVER been any real accounting or questioning of the PPP policy, which has absolutely no legislative backing.

I seriously doubt if this policy can pass muster in a Constitutional test.
I have never even seen any fairly comprehensive and critical article of the PPP policy as a whole in the media.

I have shown above that a senior journalist like Sucheta Dalal also knew all along about the clearly dubious role of the IL&FS in PPP projects, but she wrote nothing to shed light on the wrong-doing involved.

Even activists like Medha Patkar and Prashant Bhushan never ever filed any petition asking for a judicial review of the whole PPP policy.

I think there has been 'lag-bhag' (to use a Kejriwalism!) complete 'elite consensus' on PPP policy -- and the 'elite' includes 'activists' and the judiciary.

(Medha Patkar-led National Alliance of People’s Movements or NAPM did make some feeble noises about the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor in 2010-11 and then shtummed up!)

So, it seems both Congress and BJP are on the same page. (Someone like Nitin Gadkari is, after all, the poster boy of PPP road projects.)

-----
By the way, Modi government has taken no action on my complaint against Public Health Foundation of India or PHFI, an entirely unlawful and corrupt entity fraudulently embedded in the government by Manmohan Singh and run by Dynasty-loyalist crook called K. Srinath Reddy -- even after Reddy allowed a huge bank swindle in which Rs 100 crore of public money has been lost.
PHFI is not even PPP, but is an outright fraud in the name of PPP. It continues to run its illegal empire in the government, corrupting/controlling Secretary-level officials.
It's one case in which I seriously believe that Manmohan Singh should have gone to jail.
However, last year a defamation notice was sent to me -- a mere anonymous blogger -- which shows that my work really hurt the crooks like Reddy.)
------

In the early 2000s when I was still a newbie at the Press Trust of India (PTI) I asked one of my seniors at the desk if it was OK to describe a political party as 'right wing'.

I don't think I understood the implications of what I suggested then. I would then watch a lot of 'Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer' on CNN and was probably impressed by the eloquence and the sophisticated crosstalk of the so called 'political' discussions in which people and groups were very cleanly and definitively 'right wing', 'conservative', 'liberal' and 'left wing'.

My senior at the PTI desk regarded the question as if she thought the suggestion inherent in it was outlandish or unwarranted (both of which it was, not to mention productive of prejudice, tendentiousness, and, nowadays, even cultivated hatred). So she told me, very wisely indeed, to stick to the way we'd describe political parties, i.e. sans the 'wings' and any descriptor of that sort.

It may not occur to the younger journalists today that until only 8-10 years ago, Indian media would not describe any person or group as 'right wing' or 'left wing' (except of course the self-described 'left wing' people or parties).

Until I worked at PTI (2000-05), I had never seen a copy where a person or group was described by the journalist writing that copy as 'left wing' or 'right wing' (except self-descriptions). Even the Maoists and Naxalites were described as Maoists and Naxalites, not 'Left-Wing Extremists'.

I think it must have been 2008 or 2009 when I discovered the term 'Left-Wing Extremism' or LWE for the first time and realized that it has been given an official stamp by the central government (most probably by then Home Minister Chidambaram). It's possible LWE existed earlier than that, but I have no idea if it did.

Today, almost every media outlet in India bandies about the descriptors 'right wing' and 'left wing' in line with their destructive agendas as to who (or what) they want to belittle/slander or be seen through their distorted lens.

The 'journalists' working for these media outlets are witting or unwitting foot soldiers of these vicious propaganda wars. Some of the 'journalists' or other commentators -- such as a silly gasbag like Rupa Subramanya -- hardly engage in any communication without branding someone or the other as 'right wing' (mostly) or 'left wing'; they seem to think they sound very 'intellectual' and 'Western' in hurling these labels.

The 'right wing', 'left wing' descriptors have not only ravaged whatever remained of the healthy practice in Indian media of not prejudging people and groups, they have bred a culture of overt demonization, dehumanization and hate mongering, which has been pushing India inexorably towards bloodshed and civil war.

The 'workers' of self-described 'Left Wing' in Kerala, for instance, NEVER kill any human beings; they are not in that line of business.

What they merely do very often is to eliminate 'Hindu Right Wing workers' (often by chopping their bodies into pieces in front of their wives or children).

Each one of us can 'see' the hate-filled, dehumanizing and genocidal path we have all been put on -- and yet we cannot see. We don't seem to do anything about it. We have somehow been made a part of it.

It's about time people make an effort to see through not just the fraudulence and perniciousness of labels like 'right wing' and 'left wing', but also seek to wise up to the colonial-imperial domain that goes by the name of 'political' and seem increasingly to vitiate and envenom all human relationships.

--------------
Times of India journalist Piyush Rai dismisses reportage by Swarajya journalist Swati Goel Sharma as the work of "right wing mouthpiece". The subject is an allegation by a woman student of a Meerut law college alleging "sexual harassment" by her class fellows on account of her being a 'Muslim'.

Rai describes his own work in contrast as a "journalist's report," (implying that Swati Goel Sharma's work is not even a 'journalist's report'.)

Piyush Rai

@Benarasiyaa

Comparing any journalist's report with a right wing mouth piece doesn't make for a good argument guys. People tagging me and my employer in random rants should not waste their time. I will write what I feel is right based on facts and not on what is being peddled on social media.
9:48 AM - 9 Apr 2019

https://twitter.com/Benarasiyaa/status/1115657807699701762
-----------

I wrote and posted this piece on the so called 'political spectrum' in April 2015. It's relevant to what I say above.

The 'political spectrum' is a tool of imperialism in the hands of the West

I regard the whole concept of a 'political spectrum' - book-ended as it is by the 'Left' and the 'Right' - as an open fraud on the peoples of the world. 'Political spectrum' subserves the needs of the Empire that the West is - the need to track, label/mislabel and manage the minds and thinking of people and societies across the world.
On the one hand the Western knowledge system progressively validates the use of its 'political spectrum' across the world, and on the other the Western institutions use it to perversely mislabel and straitjacket the great diversity of thinking found in human societies across the world into narrow and arbitrarily defined categories like 'Left', 'Right', 'Centre', 'progressive', 'conservative', etc.
So 'political spectrum' is a tool -- (a sort of branding iron that is heated and used to brand livestock and was once also used on the bodies of criminals and slaves) -- in the hands of the West to sustain and expand its interventionist and imperialist role in the world.
The West has had the effrontery to wield this tool while presenting itself to the world as made up of 'liberal' States. Could there be anything more illiberal than a system of branding people? How can the world acquiesce in this open fraud?
How can any self-respecting person allow themselves, without resistance, to be labeled and framed within a system of imperial and abusive categories thought up by the agents and apologists of the West?
The 'political spectrum' has been reproducing across the world the increasingly idiotic and sclerotic political theatre of the West. All countries seem to be moving inexorably towards a suffocating sameness characterized and brought about by the Western categories of Left, Right, Centre, etc.
------

The full post on 'political spectrum' can be read on this link.
------

Gurmeet Singh (of Dera Sacha Sauda) episode has intrigued me for a long time -- particularly the eventful days around his conviction for rape by a special CBI court in August 2017.
That's because I distinctly remember that many moons ago I had read a detailed article in Frontline (labelled a 'leftist' magazine from The Hindu Group) portraying Dera Sacha Sauda and other such 'Deras' in Punjab and Haryana as prime examples of Dalit assertion against the 'oppression' by the 'upper castes' of the so called 'Hinduism' and "Sikhism'.
(Not sure if I can ferret out that particular article, but I have given some examples below that will bear me out.)
So, Frontline made Dera Sacha Sauda and other Deras look clearly like Dalit assertion against the so called 'Right Wing Hindutva' -- which is why I couldn't believe my ears when the 'leftist' media did a volte-face and began to portray Gurmeet Singh as protected and patronized by the same 'Right Wing Hindutva' just when the long-reported terrible criminal acts of Gurmeet Singh began to get their comeuppance in 2017.
How come a sect representing Dalit assertion against 'Right Wing Hindutva' overnight became a part of the same 'Right Wing Hindutva'?
Take a look at the reportage of 'leftist' papers in recent times, such as this report in The Hindu and this video feature published by The Wire -- in which Dera Sacha Sauda has been portrayed as a criminal cult headed by a 'rapist' Gurmeet Singh.
So what became of Dalit assertion? And how come a sect representing Dalit assertion suddenly became a criminal cult and joined hands with their exploiters and oppressors?
What kind of spin, lies and fraud goes into this kind of volte-face?
What kind of charlatans are people like N. Ram and Siddhartha Varadarajan to engage in this kind of fake 'sociology' and deceitful chicanery?
This is what Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta, a dyed-in-the-wool fraud journalist of The Hindu stable, wrote in an article published in Frontline in Jan-Feb 2012 (Volume 29 - Issue 02).
"With the decline of Sikh identity politics, a progressive trend has emerged with the rise of assertive caste groups. The Dera Sacha Sauda, a predominantly Dalit organisation, was instrumental in the Congress' victory in Malwa in 2007. There are numerous Deras (independent sects that attract the backward classes and Dalits because of their exclusion in Sikhism) that have started to influence electoral results. Similarly, the backward communities, such as Rai Sikhs and Kambojs in the border areas, are asserting their rights and privileges."
Another article published in June 2007 in Frontline has been referenced (with URL) here on Ecoi.net website. The following is what Ecoi.net piece says.
"An article published in Frontline in June 2007 noted that while Guru Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is himself from a jat family, the egalitarian message of the Dera Sacha Sauda has attracted many people within the dalit community, with informal estimates by Punjab police indicating that up to 70 percent of Dera followers may be dalits (Swami, P. & Sethi, A. 2007, ‘Politics, Religion, and Resistance’ The Hindu, 4 June
http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/04/stories/2007060402631100.htm– Accessed 11 March 2008 – Attachment 11)."
-------
I believe the entire 'sociology' pushed for years by the self-described 'leftist' media and academia is a lie and a fraud on people of this country.
And the controllers of 'leftist' media and academia, like N. Ram and Siddharth Varadarajan, are liars and fraudsters.
---------

The family of Amrit Pal Singh's parents was forced to flee their home in Hazara district of North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan) at the time of Partition.

(So did the families of both my parents. My father was born in 1939 in Haripur in Hazara district. My mother was born sometime around 1944 in a village in the same district. Hence my affinity for Amrit Pal Singh's work in documenting the violence against Hindus and Sikhs at the time of Partition. His YouTube videos account for the first time I have heard someone giving a well-researched and chronological account of Partition violence in Hazara as well as other districts of that region. That is, 'first time' after having grown up listening to the reminiscences of my father who was an eight-year old boy in August 1947.)

According to Amrit Pal Singh, the violence against Hindus and Sikhs in the region that came to be West Pakistan had first started in Hazara district - as early as in December 1946 - before spreading to Rawalpindi and other districts.

I believe Gurbachan Singh Talib (1911-86), who wrote a book titled 'Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947' commissioned by Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee, and Pakistani-Swedish academic Ishtiaq Ahmed, who's written 'The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed', have given the same chronology in their works.

In his YouTube channel, Amrit Pal Singh describes himself as a "Sikh urban hermit, an independent researcher, a seeker of truth, and a follower of Advaita philosophy".

Almost all his videos are in Hindi or Punjabi.

Amrit Pal Singh has posted his talk in Hindi on violence in Hazara district in five parts.

Here's the first of those five video clips. The series is titled 'Hazara me Hindu-Sikhon ka Qatl-e-Aam' ('The Massacre of Hindus-Sikhs in Hazara')

Amrit Pal Singh has similarly published a five-part series on violence against Hindus/Sikhs in Pothohar region (i.e. Rawalpindi, Chakwal and Jhelum districts of Punjab) whose first video can be seen here.

Here's his video on Thoha Khalsa massacre of March 1947 in Rawalpindi district in which 200 Sikh men, women and children were killed, including 93 who jumped into a deep well to escape being raped or abducted by the attackers.
Here's an analysis Amrit Pal Singh has done of massacre in Hazara and Pothohar, in which he also talks about the undeniably common family/community/cultural origins of Hindus and Sikhs.

Here's the first of the three video clips on massacre in Lahore.

The first of the two video clips on 'Punjab: before the massacre' is here.

There are a lot more videos on Partition and other subjects posted on his YouTube channel.

---------
PS: If you'd like to hear a first-hand account of what happened at Thoha Khalsa in Rawalpindi district in March 1947, here's a survivor Pritpal Singh telling his heart-wrenching story in Punjabi to Keshu Multani who specializes in interviewing Partition survivors and has his own YouTube channel to publish his work.
---------

Vegetarianism and Yoga in Pakistan

How Uttar Pradesh helped ravage Af-Pak

On 'mass media' and 'employment'

'Ghar Wapasi' that 'Hindus' need

'Religion' and 'caste' are fake categories kept alive by colonial-imperial knowledge system

You have been sized up and framed in a 'window'; you are the target!

Urinating in standing position is not the Sunnat of the Prophet of Allah (Peace Be Upon Him)

Is it Sunnat for a woman to remove her pubic hair?

Raksha by Hijab versus Raksha Bandhan

Balakot sounds like Faridkot redux

How Indian media has been building a fake narrative about Kashmir

Prof. Khalid Hameed of Bahawalpur has been killed as was Prof. Brij Narain of Lahore

Minor girls Reena and Raveena of Sindh abducted and converted to Islam

Reena, Raveena, and Sunnah

March 25 was a gravely significant day

Dalit-Muslim Ekta Zindabad!!!

'IL&FS scam' is a misnomer; it should be called 'PPP scam'

You may get killed for having a 'wing'

Dera Sacha Sauda, and the fake 'sociology' and fraudulent 'journalism' of the 'leftist' media

Amrit Pal Singh on ethnic cleansing of Hindus and Sikhs during Partition