[Reader-list] Remembering Debates on this List

Fri Jul 31 17:20:06 IST 2009

Dear Rakesh ,

I do not know who you are but would like you to read the facts about Kashmir
. Please go through the below links as well....

Iconoclasm in Kashmir - Motives and Magnitude -Part I
http://www.kashmirherald.com/main.php?t=OP&st=D&no=351

Iconoclasm in Kashmir - Motives and Magnitude -Part II
http://www.kashmirherald.com/main.php?t=OP&st=D&no=352

Iconoclasm in Kashmir - Motives and Magnitude -Part II
http://www.kashmirherald.com/main.php?t=OP&st=D&no=353

Regards

Pawan Durani

On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta<shuddha at sarai.net>
wrote:
> 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
>
>
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
subscribe in the subject header.
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