Thanks for your support.

I will respond to your comment in a separate post later today.

Prashant2:

I agree that well intentioned but poorly thought out positions cause harm to society.

Now coming to Alpana’s specific issue about the Delhi University Ramayan textbook controversy I have read reports that Professor Saiyid Jafri, head of History Department at DU refused to cooperate with ABVP activists when the activists tried to set up a meeting with the authorities to discuss issues in a civil manner. While the ransacking of the campus by ABVP is deplorable but does it not beg the question as to why Prof. Jafri did not play an active role in diffusing tension and confrontation?

If you cared to look at the link I provided you would have noticed that it is not about “one mosque demolished” but the vandalism the day before in Delhi University campus over paper on 300 Ramayanas. Funny, you think what happens in your own background is not of any importance rather what happens in Bangladesh or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia is.

In fighting against our enemies we become more and more like them. If you have any doubt, just browse through your blog dispassionately. Soon enough you will be able to see the face of some German intellectual who, blinded by their hatred of Jews thought that what was happening his own backyard was unimportant. Or may be some Pakistani think tank who thought that mullah-ism in their country was fine since it was directed against the other.

My only hope is that as long as such intellectuals remain restricted to personal blogging etc., they will not be in a position to do any serious damage to India. Given a free hand they can bring only civil wars, which they have done successfully in so many other countries.

No offence intended.

Deal?

Did it ever occur to you that you should really be thankful that India is indeed a Hindu majority country? Have you ever considered what it would have been like for the minorities if the majority were not Hindus?

Take your “favorite countries” — Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, etc — what does Islam have to say about the non-Muslims and what do the people of your favorite countries do? Here’s a clue: they wipe out the minorities.

I really should not be so impolite to a visitor to this blog but this has to be said. I think that your attempt at equating Islamic global terrorism with the idiocy of bunch of hooligans is stupid and lacks a sense of proportion and decency.

I don’t know what motivates the self-loathing in you that compels you to come to the defense of Islamic terrorism by reducing it to a minor inconvenience. I can understand an illiterate Muslim from Saudi Arabia doing so. I can imagine the a Pakistani when told that Islam destroys temples whenever and whenever it can, responding that “But didn’t Hindus destroy the Babri Masjid?” That one act of insanity committed by a bunch of thugs is now used as cover for hundreds of years of destruction of thousands of temples.

Shame on you and your fellow travelers. India would not see so many dead from Islamic terrorism but for the cover that the likes of you provide. You are the “moderate” face that encourages the “tiny minority of extremists” to terrorize the world by trivializing their terrorism.

In this comment I name you and the message is specifically to you. But in general, there is a significant section of India which actually displays the same behavior and due to the same reason — ignorance and illogic. This message is for them as well. India has paid a heavy price (and I don’t mean just the jiziya) and will continue to pay for the generalized stupidity.

It is all karma. We suffer the consequence of our actions that arise out of ignorance. That is the law.

Thank you for bringing our attention to Christopher Hitchens’ book. I’m really looking forward to reading it.

However I find it very strange that you fail to find it offensive when the same thing happens in your own country esp. by the goons of your favourite party:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=7d8c5175-e085-44cf-8ee6-059ef5ce4192&&Headline=BJP+warns+of+protests+on+DU+textbook+issue

India is a Hindu majority country and our future will be mostly detrmined by how Hindus behave (or mis-behave). Your concern against intellectual vandalism is laudable. The only thing is that it fails to carry any conviction because of your insistence that intellectual vandalism is harmful only when it comes from specific sources.