[Reader-list] Remembering Debates on this List

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear Rakesh, dear all

Rakesh, I don't know who you are, but I would like to thank you for  
the great job that you are doing in response to yet another assault  
on our reason from the same quarters. When all else fails. Our holy  
hindu warriors bring out the tired trick of the charge of iconoclasm.  
We have been here many times before.

Some time ago (September -November 2007, and January 2008) this list  
went through a great deal of turbulence regarding the one sided  
dishing out of a so called history of iconoclasm in Kashmir.

Since the list has a working online archive, it is quite easy to  
revisit these debates. I enclose the links below for the perusal of  
readers such as yourself, who may have joined the list, subsequent to  
these exchanges.

1. Kalhan, Parihaspura and Komal Gandhar, September 6, 2007
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-September/010200.html

2. I wrote a series of postings titled 'Annotations to the History of  
Iconoclasm in Kashmir, Parts I-IV' which appeared serially, on the  
night of Diwali, November 2007 on the Reader List. The links to them  
are as follows

http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-November/011030.html
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-November/011031.html
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-November/011032.html
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-November/011033.html

In January, in response to a rebuttal of my arguments made in the  
November four part set of postings. I wrote another post.

Iconoclasm and a Quest for Hired Limousines - January 24, 2008
http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2008-January/011873.html

I am just forwarding the links to things I wrote, but many others  
participated vigourously (and in many cases perceptively,  
thoughtfully and with good deal of good humour) in these debates, as  
will be evident by following the trails of the relevant threads in  
the archives.

Some of you who may be new to the list may be shocked at some of the  
distinctly xenophobic, communal and hate filled statements made by  
some list members in some of the recent postings. You may also be  
wondering why they are not taken on. Well, partly because many of us  
have done this before. And because the list has an archive, we do not  
need to do it again and again. But the list itself has a long memory.  
These statements, each one of them, have been wrestled with before.  
And the hate-mongers have never been able to answer the criticisms  
levelled at them. Hence their tactic, of repetition, exhausting,  
monotonous, boring repetition. All you need to do is to look at the  
archive.

They have lost the most important social battles in this country.  
They are an exhausted, spent, defeated force. Their leadership is  
self-destructing before our very eyes. All that they have is a lot of  
time to waste on their keyboards. What they do not understand is that  
every time they make a hateful jibe, they lose more ground.

But keep the good fight going, and the best way to do that is by  
talking, also, of many things other than what exercises the spent  
imaginations of the partisans of Hindutva and hardline nationalism.

best

Shuddha


On 31-Jul-09, at 4:07 PM, Rakesh Iyer wrote:

> I think this is really getting on to too much. Just because Islamic  
> kings
> indulged in vandalism of dubious kinds, and some men like Kasab  
> indulge in
> unnecessary violence, Muslims all over the world, including India,  
> have been
> tainted with choicest abuses and been described as killers, murderers,
> rapists, butchers and what not. This is wrong, and must be harshly
> condemned.
>
> As for pseudo-secular politics, blame the Congress and its sister
> organizations and political parties, not the Muslims. The Muslims  
> never
> asked the Congress and others to appease them. They want progress  
> like other
> human beings, not appeasement. The Muslims have not come from other  
> planets,
> they were born on the earth like the rest of us and have same needs  
> as all
> others.
>
> Moreover, who called Hindus as fanatics? I have never called one.  
> Neither
> has the Congress called any Hindu a fanatic. This dubious sense of  
> being a
> 'victim' being portrayed by some members of this forum is highly  
> atrocious
> and needs to be seriously condemned, simply because all proper  
> evidence
> points to the contrary of their accusation that Hindus are being  
> insulted,
> deemed fools and also abused, or targeted in vicious ways.
>
> This seems to be the BJP line of argument always, and now it  
> continues among
> members of the society and on this forum too: Hindus are always  
> victimized,
> Hindus are always treated as second-class citizens, Hindus are always
> killed, Hindus lost lives, Hindus were raped, they are insulted in  
> their own
> country...blah...blah...blah...
>
> Which Hindus have been brainwashed, may I know? And please think about
> issues in their context.
>
> I challenge all these 'victims' to try playing this 'victim' in their
> personal relations, and then see how their own family members and  
> friends
> behave. I am 1000% sure their family members will be complaining  
> about these
> 'eternal victims'. And yet, they keep on behaving in the same  
> manner. What
> do these 'victims' expect me to do then?
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Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net