Traitors And Anti-nationals In India!

09-20-2004, 12:19 AM

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/n3.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='n3.gif' />
QUOTEHey, anyone have any links to show a naive person why they should not give $$ to Arundhati WhineRoy's "AID"? 

Why has it become so cool to hate India?
QUOTEOur own, Arundhati Roy, who feels compelled to go all over the world and announce that "India is an artificial state", recently along with some other anti-India stalwarts attended a meeting to remember Marxist-Leninist separatist Naxals. Mind you, these are the same Naxals who recommend partitioning the country and happily extort and kill innocent Indian citizens. The Bidwais, Pandeys and Roys had to honor them, but, would they ever visit the families of soldiers who died at Kargill? Nope, and nobody called them on it â no protests, no editorial scolding. Our politicians outdo all this. .

This Woman Has Gone Real Crazy, Arundhati Roy Abusing Freedoms

David Barsamian: You grew up in Kerala. Whatâs the status of women there?
<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/n3.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='n3.gif' /> for Kerala Women-must read
QUOTEArundhati Roy: Women from Kerala work throughout India and the world earning money to send back home. And yet theyâll pay a dowry to get married, and theyâll have the most bizarrely subservient relationships with their husbands. I grew up in a little village in Kerala. It was a nightmare for me. All I wanted to do was to escape, to get out, to never have to marry somebody there. Of course, they were not dying to marry me [laughs]. I was the worst thing a girl could be: thin, black, and clever.

09-21-2004, 01:53 AM

Remember the pictures of A Roy sharing table with Hamil Gul during her book signing tour of TSP - anyone know as to how much of that 'moolah' went to aid and where?

Also, whatever's happened about the issue with her bunglow built on some preservation(?) land?

utepian · 04-25-2005, 09:52 PM

Sandeep Pandey and co halted by Pakistan at Wagah. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /> Denied Visa to enter. 

This has to be the lowest of the low down dirty shame Pandey and Deshpande (Nirmala) indulge in. Even Pakis consider them a security threat!!! :f*(k

QUOTEIndia-Pakistan peace march left in the dust

* 22 Indians supposed to arrive not issued visas

By Waqar Gillani

LAHORE: The 22 Indians supposed to arrive at Wagah today were unable to cross the border at Wagah because they were not granted visas due to âsecurity concernsâ, said Karamat Ali of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research.

Pakistani Peace Coalition, an informal alliance of non-government organisations, temporarily halted the peace march which started in New Delhi and is scheduled to end in Multan on May 11.

âThough we received a report from India early yesterday (Tuesday) stating that the Indian activists had been granted visas and would arrive in Lahore accompanied by nine Pakistanis today, by late night we knew that their names had not been cleared by Pakistan,â Ali told Daily Times at Wagah, where he received the nine Pakistanis.

He said that the NGOs were pursuing the matter with the Interior Ministry. âWe have been told that the Pakistani High Commission in India is not clearing the names as a security measure. We believe there is no security risk for Indians marching to Multan.â

Ali added the march would be halted in Lahore. âWe have requested the nine Pakistanis to wait at least a week before returning home.â The future of the march depends on the arrival of the Indians. He said that a meeting would be held in Multan on April 24 to formulate a strategy for the peace march. âAs a last resort, we can ask the Pakistani marchers to walk to Multan and conclude the march in May.â

Arrival of Pakistanis The nine Pakistanis arrived at Wagah on Wednesday afternoon. They were received by dozens of peace activists, who chanted slogans saying the Kashmir issue should be solved with dialogue and not guns. The marchers went to India last week to cross into Pakistan with their Indian counterparts.

The 200-strong turnout at Wagah was much lower than the organisersâ claims. The departure time for journalists to Wagah from the press club was changed twice. During the journey, the organisersâ vehicle was called back, and the press people had to go the rest of the way on their own. Due to this, a dispute arose between the organisers and journalists at the border. The media people criticised the organisersâ attitude after they refused to acknowledge the oversight. Later, they demanded an apology from the pressmen. The main organisers reached the border late. The organisers had also avoided the media people before the arrival.

The Pakistani peace activists who crossed the border condemned the government for not issuing visas to the Indians. They said that the act was a contradiction of the governmentsâ claims of peace.

Residents of Jalo More and Shalimar Garden arranged a reception in honour of the Pakistani activists.

Gentle Jingos, go on the rampage <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rocker.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rocker.gif' /> (sang to the tune of "Life is a lemon and I want my money back, by meatloaf)

04-25-2005, 09:56 PM

QUOTESandeep Pandey and co halted by Pakistan at Wagah
Wah!!! <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /> Let me send them Laddos from Kalaiva to these moron.
Houston AID contribution which was meant for poors in India now in <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' />
Only positive outcome I can see is they can't use funds for India in Pakistan now. <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

utepian · 04-26-2005, 08:44 PM

This gets as anti-national as can be.

Sandeep Pandey makes the following points very clear:

1. J&K is *not* an integral part of India.

2. That those who believe J&K *is* an integral part of India are feudals or have feudal mindset. We are to assume millions of our soldiers are nothing but feudals, millions of our farmers are feudals. Millions of Indians are fuedals. Why majority of Indians are feudals.

3. That Pakistan also shares his opinion that Kashmir *is not* an integral part of India is quite immaterial.

4. Concept of Nationhood is dead. That a clay-potter in WB cares less about an India-Pak cricket match automatically means clay-potter does not care about territorial integrity of India or does not care about the a nation called "India".

x-posting from Sulekha:

http://www.sulekha.com/news/nhc.aspx?cid=422487



View from the ground

Sandeep Pandey

QUOTEAs part of the ongoing Pakitan-India Peace March we came across the first resistance to our position on Kashmir when we reached Phillaur from Ludhiana. Our host here was Mr Johal, president of the committee which runs the Gurdwara where we were to stay. He registered his protest as soon as we arrived, rejecting our position on the Kashmir issue as according to him, it favoured Pakistan. He believed that Kashmir was an integral part of India and only Indians had a right to decide about the future of Kashmir. It was obviously a narrow nationalist position, shared by some other Indians too.

We were gathered at a Hanuman temple, and Mr Johal snatched our signature campaign sheet and started striking out the statement on Kashmir. He managed to damage two sheets by the time he was made to understand the people who had signed the sheets agreed with the position of the Peace March and did not share his opinion on Kashmir. The peace marchers tried to avoid getting into an unpleasant situation with their host for the rest of the evening. They tried to reason with him but he was not in a mood to listen to any other point of view.

At night after dinner at the Gurudwara he and his associates joined a meeting we were holding to discuss how to tackle such a situation in future. There was another round of discussions on Kashmir and we tried to reason with them that any possible humane solution to the problem must involve the people of J&K. We explained to him that the narrow nationalist view held by Indians from outside Kashmir, or for that matter Pakistanis outside Kashmir, was born out of a feudal mindset and in a world in which people were more sensitive to human rights violations and also a democratic way of thinking, the conventional nationalist Indian and Pakistani views could not be imposed on the people of Kashmir.

Also, in a world where economic policy of globalization is taking over, the concept of a nation state is weakening and even the two governments probably realize that staying ahead in economic development is more important than in an arms race; this will take away pressure from the governments to make a prestige issue out of Kashmir.

We also pointed out that a major section of our societies, including dalits, tribals, women, and other marginalized sections, do not share the traditional concept of nationalism as they are busy with more basic struggles for life and livelihood. For example, they are not likely to feel the same enthusiasm if India beat Pakistan in a game of cricket compared to people who were close to the ruling class. We don't know whether this discussion had any affect on the associates of Mr. Johal but he did come to see us off in the morning and seemed to be calmer than the previous evening. He may have reconciled to the differences in our points of view.

Our march in Ludhiana was shown on the national TV in Doordarshan news. As we were walking from Phillaur to Phagwara we were stopped by a buffalo-trader who recognized us and crossed the road to stop us. His name is Paramjit and he expressed his happiness that such a march was taking place; he confidently told us that we were sure to get visas to cross over into Pakistan.

By then, we had learnt that the Pakistani government was refusing to allow the marchers from Pakistan to cross over into India. But Paramjit's resolve reflected the opinion of the common people that people should be allowed to cross the border freely. Little did we know that two days later Pakistan's Interior Ministry would actually grant permission to some Pakistani marchers to join the march. This also opened the possibility of us going to Pakistan and realizing our dream of a joint march through the territories of India and Pakistan, and then together crossing the Wagha border.

As we walked out of Phagwara towards Jalandhar, a bicyclist crossed us, and got down after stopping next to me. Surjit Singh earns his living as a Tadi Kirtan singer; his wife is also in the same vocation. He congratulated us on the march and said that he had signed our signature campaign which my colleague Chandralekha from Hardoi District of U.P. was carrying walking behind me.

He then offered a suggestion that pleasantly surprised me, saying that the third point in the signature campaign, about allowing people from two countries to meet freely and, if possible, doing away with the passport-visa system, should have a higher priority than the first two points.

The first point states that both sides should resolve their disputes peacefully through dialogue, including the issue of Kashmir according to the wishes of the people of J&K. The second point is about doing away with nuclear weapons, land mines and reducing the defence budgets so that resources could be spent on development of poor people on both sides of the border. Surjit argued that the third point is closest to the hearts of the common people from India and Pakistan and is also probably the easiest for the two governments to agree to. It would also create an atmosphere in which the governments would find it easier to make progress on the first two points.

Surjit Singh is a representative of the common people. Only somebody like him could have thought like this because we intellectuals often cannot free ourselves from our preferences and biases. I'm glad I met him, and thank him for educating me about the priorities of the issues as common people see them.

I kept cursing myself on not seeing this simple logic while drafting the signature campaign text. Anyway, we're glad that we've collected over 5000 signatures on this statement and so far except for Mr. Johal, nobody seems to have any problems with the point of view that we're putting forward during the India Pakistan Peace March.

The writer is a prominent social worker based in Lucknow. He is among the Indian peace marchers currently camped at Wagah border waiting for permission to enter Pakistan<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbup.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbup.gif' /> 

Columnists based at IF and other outlets, please note and use this effectively to educate AIDers and ASHAvadis. All 5000 of them who have signed the petition of this imbecilic ignoramus.

04-27-2005, 01:04 AM

From the dark evil evil side..

http://march4peace.blogspot.com/

<!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

utepian · (This post was last modified: 04-27-2005, 07:18 PM by utepian.)

My News clipping for Pandeyji's *Kashmir not integral part of India* story <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

QUOTEIn a cheap attempt to schmooze his reluctant hosts Pakistan, head-honcho of US based charity ASHA for Education Sandeep Pandey reiterated Pakistan's stance that Kashmir was not an integral part of India. Pandey, a dreaded Naxalite caused a security concern even in the world's most dangerous place and was halted in his march across the border. A written statement from Pandey in the Pakistani newspaper The Daily times stated assertively that only feudals believed Kashmir was an integral part of India.Â In support of his assertion Pandey pointed out that poor people in India did not care about Indo-Pak cricket matches. This pleasantly stunned fund managers across the world who have successfully invested in television rights and assorted services for Indo-Pak cricket matches as it revealed practically all Indians were wealthy feudal lords. Pandey also surmised that people in India in accordance with the global Ummah did not believe in nation states.

04-27-2005, 08:27 PM

Good to see someone keeping tabs on Laloo's enforcer - RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin
http://siwantimes.blogspot.com/

04-28-2005, 03:22 AM

Kul brasht Nayar among Bharat Shiromani awardeesQUOTENew Delhi, April. 27 (PTI): Star cricketer Virender Sehwag, fashion designer Rohit Bal, IOA Secretary General Raja Randhir Singh, and noted columnist Kuldip Nayar, were among those awarded the Bharat Shiromani Award 2004 here today by former Prime Minister I K Gujral

04-29-2005, 07:48 PM

QUOTEAdmiral Ramdas Son-In-Law is Nephew of Iqbal Ahmad ?

Zulfiqar Ahmad's uncle was Eqbal Ahmad, the famous intellectual, academic figure and activist in the United States and Pakistan who was good friends with Noam Chomsky and historian Howard Zinn. In 1971, Eqbal was indicted with Daniel and Philip Berrigan and four others on charges of conspiracy to kidnap Henry Kissinger and bomb the Pentagon. The trial of the "Harrisburg Seven'' ended in a hung jury, and Eqbal Ahmad (who died in 1999) resumed his academic career.

SOURCE :
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...5.DTL&type=news

Listen to Ramdas Paki son-in-law on SHIV SENA

http://elxr.com/dfp/dfpaudio/dfp5/10.Zulfiqar_Ahmed.mp3

utepian · 05-04-2005, 03:34 AM

http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2005/05/...rsial-best.html

QUOTETeesta Setalvad : The controversial Best Bakery case
The controversial Best Bakery case
by K.G. Acharya

(Justice on trial)


There have been many cases in which criminals have been acquitted for want of evidence, thanks to the law in our land. However, in the case of the similarly placed Best Bakery case, the Supreme Court took an exceptional view and transferred the case for its retrial in Mumbai. Many luminaries in the legal circles have vehemently criticized this landmark judgement. The decision may have extremely serious consequences on the judiciary, secularism, communal harmony and democracy in the country. Two prominent individuals involved in the case, Zaheera Sheikh, a key witness in the case and Teesta Javed (Ansari) Setalvad, a controversial activist, were friendly at the beginning of the case but have now turned foes.

Being a Gandhian and an Ambedkarite human rights activist, I, cannot remain a silent spectator of the happenings regarding the case and have, therefore, filed a PIL PIL- Review of the Judgement of Transferring the Best Bakery case in the Supreme Court for review of its landmark judgement of transferring the Best Bakery case from Gujarat to Maharashtra, for investigating the role of Teesta Setalvad and her NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace and also for censuring the National Human Rights Commission and a section of the media.

The latest developments in the case like Zaheera Sheikh turning hostile and her allegations that Teesta Setalvad threatened her to change her testimony for the sake of religion ( "kaumke liye" ) have vindicated the Gujarat High Court observations: " There seems to be a definite design and conspiracy to malign people by misusing this witness, Zaheerabibi, who is hardly 19 years old and can easily fall a prey to anyone and play into the dirty hands of anti-national elements."

The Supreme Court has, therefore, erred in not believing in the High Court judges, but believing in Teesta Setalvad, her NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace and the National Human Rights Commission and was swayed by media reports.

In the petition, I have illustrated at length, how the above persons, the above organizations and the above institutions have lost their credibility in many ways. Teesta Setalvad, according to the petition, is not a true social activist, but an anti-Hindu and anti-BJP politician engaged in maligning Hindu organizations. One of the many examples, cited in the petition is her attending a Sunday mass in a church and blaming Hindu organizations for rape of nuns though the heinous act was committed by Christians.


I have similarly illustrated anti-Hindu outbursts of other members of the NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, and said that though the word "citizen" adorns its name, the organization is not open for all citizens, has no Constitution and has very few members- about ten. The president of the NGO is the famous Marathi writer Vijay Tendulkar, who had threatened to shoot Narendra Modi, if given a gun, and who said very recently that Mahatma Gandhi was most violent person.

The petition contains many examples to illustrate how the NHRC is anti-Hindu, but pro-Muslims, pro-Pakistan and pro-terrorists. An example is that the NHRC issued a suo moto notice to the Gujarat government when its police killed Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists Ishrat Jahan Sheikh and her two accomplices with AK-56 guns, ammunition and dreadful RDX explosives. This bias against the Gujarat government made the NHRC not to apply its mind and make a petition to the Supreme Court to transfer the Best Bakery case outside Gujarat.

The petiioner has prayed the Supreme Court that the perjury of Zaheera Sheikh not only after her estrangement from Teesta Setalvad, but also before that must be investigated by the CBI or a Special Investigating Team (SIT) monitored by a retired Supreme Court or High Court judge. The petitioner has also questioned the credibility of a section of the media for extra-judicial trial of a sub-judice matter. He has quoted the former High Court judge P.B.Sawant, former Chairman of the Press Council of India, who had remarked that many journalists are on the pay roll of foreign intelligence agencies.

In democracy the people are more supreme than the Supreme Court and therefore they must consider cases of vital national importance. In particular, the people must think whether it is proper for the Supreme Court not to pay any heed to this petition dated 17 December 2004 and subsequent reminders. That the Supreme Court ordered its Registrar General, subsequently, on January 10, 2005 to investigate who is telling the truth, whether Zaheera Sheikh or Teesta Setalvad and to complete the report within 3 months. This order suggests that it had erred earlier in believing in Teesta Setalvad.

It is also worth consideration that the Registrar General is yet to take note of the following vital information to find out the truth as to who, of the two women, is telling the truth:
It is reported in the media that Teesta Setalvad helped Zaheera Sheikh to open a bank account in the Syndicate Bank, Bhayander, near Mumbai, on May 21, 2002. In the bank, an amount of Rs 2.9 lakh was deposited from November 11, 2003 to March 4, 2004. This is the period in which Zaheera Sheikh was under the alleged confinement of Teesta Setalvad. Zaheera has denied that she deposited the money in the Bhayander bank.

At about the time, when Zaheera Sheikh had a press conference in Vadodara on November 3, 2004, in which she made various allegations against Teesta Setalvad, the bank was burgled twice on Nov. 2 and Nov. 12 by breaking open the grills at night. Robbers rummaged through records without touching the cash. This is very significant. This shows that robbers wanted to destroy the evidence as to who helped Zaheera to open the account and who deposited the money to the Bhayander bank etc.

It must be also noted that though it is very difficult to get a ration card, some Asghar Ali helped Zaheera to get a ration card as a proof of residence, which is necessary for opening the bank account. The needle of suspicion in these incidents regarding the Bhyander bank account of Zaheera points to Teesta Setalvad, who is influential and capable enough to do such things.

The Supreme Court had ordered investigation of bank accounts of Zaheera Sheikh, though she had submitted her bank papers to the trial court in Mumbai earlier. It is surprising that the apex court has not so far asked Teesta Setalvad to submit her bank papers also, though Zaheera Sheikh's counsel, senior advocate P. N. Lekhi has requested the Supreme Court for that. The apex court has , thus, not placed the two women on the same level field. P.N. Lekhi had alleged in the Supreme Court that Teesta Setalvad, alias Teesta Javed Anand ( alias Ansari) had minted money by selling the Best Bakery case abroad. This allegation is surely more serious.

It is believed that Teesta Setalvad had used this money to pay for Zaheera's expenses when the latter was in Teesta's confinement and influence for about two years, and arranged to deposit some part to the Bhayander account of Zaheera Sheikh.

05-04-2005, 04:52 AM

QUOTE(utepian @ May 3 2005, 06:04 PM) The Supreme Court has, therefore, erred in not believing in the High Court judges, but believing in Teesta Setalvad, her NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace and the National Human Rights Commission and was swayed by media reports. 
Time to act <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' />
http://www.petitiononline.com/ngoi/petition.html

05-10-2005, 05:24 PM

Searching for the reason(s) why anti-democratic pinkos get into fields like "Anthropology", came across this...

QUOTEThe decline and fall of anthropology 
by Stephen Goode

Summary: Anthropology has lost much of its luster in recent years. The glamour days of Margaret Mead are long gone, and the discipline's leaders now squabble amid increasing irrelevancy. At issue are questions that go to the foundation of academic study - how to measure one society against another and whether one con judge based on one's own values. 

Time was when anthropology was the most romantic of academic disciplines, luring students with the promise of studying in the South Pacific or doing field work in the far north among the Eskimo - a discipline, too, that dubbed itself the science of man and promised to unlock secrets of human behavior and how societies were formed.

No longer. In many of the cultures once studied firsthand by such famous researchers as Margaret Mead, anthropologists have been declared persona non grata, busybodies whose help Third World governments don't want and whose snooping is deemed deeply suspicious. {What better than third worlders themselves to dump on their own societies? Like a pig in the mud cheaterjis of the world will thrive on this} 

At a deeper level, the discipline itself is in crisis. Stephen Tyler, professor of anthropology at Rice University in Houston, says that with the exception of economics, no field is now more "dishonest" in its pretensions to scientific truth and precision. 

Among anthropologists, Tyler claims, there is "dissatisfaction with the way we do things." At bottom, he says, "it is a crisis of discourse" - a failure of communication so profound that anthropologists have little left to say to one another, let alone the public.

Marvin Harris, longtime anthropologist at Columbia University and now at the University of Florida in Gainesville, fears the field may degenerate into little more than "a literary form," with specialists merely talking about what earlier anthropologists have written. Much of contemporary anthropology he describes as "dadaism, ego-tripping and self-gratification." 

To an outsider, these comments don't seem far off base. Academic stars of the profession, such as Tyler and Clifford Geertz of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., have called into question whether various societies can even be usefully compared, because languages and cultures differ o radically Stanford University's Renato Rosaldo has written, "My own group aside, everything is alien to me."

Anthropology's past, too, is suspect. The work of onetime greats such as Mead and Ruth Benedict is in disrepute these days, in part because their excessive zeal led them to paint rosy pictures of the societies they studied, in part, too, because they deliberately (according to critics) omitted data that contradicted the pictures they painted of harmonious, happy (nonmodern) cultures. As one prescient critic of the field put it many years ago, an anthropologist is someone who believes every cultural pattern but his own is good. {Now, for pinkos it is revolutionary society vs. democratic societies}

What, then, do anthropologists do if they find their field so undermined by the limitations of language and culture, and their own culture so dissatisfying? 

Says Robert Edgerton, "When asked that question, their answer is typically lame. They reply that our duty is to go into the field and point out how distorted previous accounts are." Edgerton, a professor of anthropology and psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, is the author of just such a corrective. His recent book, Sick Societies, not only takes to task many colleagues but also outlines criteria for judging societies as sick and in need of help.

The idea of judging other societies flies in the face of the most treasured orthodoxies of modern anthropology, a widely accepted tenet of which is that every society evolves the institutions it needs. Related to that is the belief that it's certainly not the duty of outsiders to subject those institutions to critical scrutiny based on the attitudes of the researcher's own society

Edgerton, by contrast, comes down heavily on practices he regards as wrong. These include foot binding in China, the burning of widows on their husband's funeral pyres in India, tattooing, and institutionalized feuding that leads to murder.

Each of these traditions - and the full list is much longer - has been justified by anthropologists in Darwinian language as "adaptive," a society's way of handling its unique problems. Adaptive traditions, by definition, are above reproach because they are necessary, just as a bird needs feathers to fly. Removing ritual feuding from tribes in Papua New Guinea would be like removing feathers from a bird. The result in both cases would be disaster.

Edgerton calls all this nonsense - and notes that anthropologists defend in other societies practices they would never tolerate in their own. His larger purpose in the book is to attack the notion that small, premodern societies are harmonious and well-off in ways that large, modern societies are not.

The message has not made him popular inside or outside the profession. In letters and on radio talk shows promoting the book, he has been denounced as ethnocentric, indicted for attempting to judge the world by American standards and values. Edgerton says he's unhappy about the charge since "it's precisely what I'm not trying to do." His goal, he says, is to establish guidelines for determining when things go wrong with a society - guidelines that can be applied to all societies at all times.

Edgerton's quest for universal guidelines is strikingly ambitious for a field of study that otherwise seems lost in a deep funk. Wilcomb Washburn, director of American studies at the Smithsonian Institution, describes anthropology as a field in which researchers have tended to adopt every new jargon-laden academic fashion with a rapidity that borders on the unseemly - from Darwinism to Marxism, structuralism to deconstructionism. 

Opinions are "passionately held, but never quite validated," says Washburn, before a "monkey wrench is hurled into the theory" and it's shown to be a dead end. The result: a discipline whose foundations, if they still exist, are shaky indeed. Anthropology, as Washburn sees it, "clasped too close to its bosom the values of the non-West." It's an understandable fault, he says: "When you have an experience in an exotic place, a kind of bonding goes on."

But this love affair with the subjects of their research blinds anthropologists to faults in the societies they study - and and at the same time causes them to reject the values of their own societies; hence the overwhelmingly leftist politics of the field.

The irony, according to Washburn, and a source of deep frustration for anthropologists, is that the small-scale societies they glorified increasingly exclude them. Even more humiliating, says Washburn, is the fact that many Third World governments actively recruit Western agronomists, medical technicians and other experts while shunning anthropologists. When anthropologists offer their research into ritual, symbolic systems or mores, those governments are likely to reply, "So what?"

Partly for this reason, anthropologists have been forced to fall back on studies of their own culture, researching American or European "subcultures" such as law firms or welfare systems, an academic pursuit that doesn't distinguish the field all that much from sociology. {Perfect wasteleands for Pinkos}

Nor do such studies promise a cure to the profound malaise in the profession - exemplified in the soul-searching debate over whether anthropology has contributed anything worthy of consideration to the fund of human knowledge. At the heart of this debate is the question of whether anthropology is, in Edgerton's words, "perhaps a flawed science, a science in the making," but nonetheless "a science capable of making generalizations." "If it's not, he says, "We are in the wrong business."

Rice's Tyler, at the forefront of what might be called the field's most adventurous wing, does an end run around the question. He calls Western science itself "oppressive," an outgrowth of imperialism and colonialism. Anthropologists pretending to be disinterested seekers after scientific truth are not dissimilar, in this view, from colonists carrying guns.

Western science is hypocritical, Tyler says, because it requires that to be objective one must suspend belief in everything - except science itself - to discover truth. There are many sciences - Hindu, Chinese - that are as true as Western science, he argues.

Far from seeking universally valid truths through science, Tyler has written, contemporary anthropology "denies that the discourse of one cultural tradition can analytically encompass the discourse of another cultural tradition."

Translated, that means that foreign languages and cultures - the traditional subject matter of anthropologists - can't be objectively explained or studied by Western scholars.

It's a view that fills opponents with outrage, says Florida's Harris. Science is not an oppressive invention of Western powers out to rule the world, he says emphatically. This is "an argument that has no proof in fact or history. The whole 20th century, the century of broken dreams," argues to the contrary. Not lesser doses of objectivity and science, but greater ones might have warded off the likes of Hitler and Stalin, both of whom rejected modern science as "bourgeois" and "too rational."

Harris says the idea that knowledge should dissolve into a maelstrom of sciences - Hindu, Chinese or Japanese - reminds him of nothing so much as Lysenkoism, the doctrine of a Soviet biologist backed by Stalin that subordinated science to politics and attempted to explain biology in Marxist terms. "Monstrous," says Harris, to underline the gulf that separates him (and other anthropologists who agree) from Tyler and his numerous like-minded colleagues.

Nothing could be more antagonistic to the views of Tyler than Edgerton's attempt to set up objective criteria for judging societies. He proposes a threefold test for anthropologists to determine if a society is sick. One, if a population is failing to survive, that's a clue things are going wrong. Two, a society can be deemed sick if dissatisfaction with the way things are is so widespread that it threatens "the viability of the system." And three, a sick society is one in which poor nutrition, bad hunting or farming techniques, or other poorly chosen habits put people under mental stress and physical disability

Edgerton hopes these guidelines will bolster the objective and scientific side of anthropology. In addition, he hopes they will undermine the extreme cultural relativism that is a hallmark of the field. In mild form, he notes, cultural relativism has almost universally been regarded as essential to anthropology. When it first appeared in the writings of such greats as Franz Boas of Columbia in the early part of the century, anthropologists saw it as an antidote to the racism rampant among earlier anthropologists, many of whom wrote about what they regarded as the clear superiority of the West.

Carried to an extreme, though, cultural relativism began to bother many people, including cultural relativists themselves. In the 1950s, notes Edgerton, some anthropologists observed that far from being happy with their own customs and rejecting the West, many small-scale societies wanted precisely what America and Europe had to offer. They wanted iron instruments. They wanted Western medicine. They didn't want to live in ways that made survival contingent on killing "the kids and granny." (Anthropologists had declared both infanticide and geronticide "adaptive" in the societies that practiced them.) {No wonder commies can justify anything with an anthropology degree - earner or assumed} 

Customs such as female circumcision also made even relativists squeamish. Common in several African and Arab societies, the practice was defended by committed relativists, who said it was a society's way of protecting the virtue of its unmarried women. Other anthropologists responded that many societies have found far less drastic ways to defend chastity, and that the pain caused girls who are so treated, not to mention the lifelong physical and emotional difficulties to which they are prone, hardly justified its continuation.

In such debates, considerations of right and wrong began slowly to I wedge their way back into anthropology. At first, in the 1960s, many anthropologists still regarded it as improper to assert their own values in their work. They feared losing contact with societies whose practices they condemned, says Edgerton. Harris, for example, was strongly criticized for attacking cannibalism in his popular 1977 book, Cannibals and Kings. Reviewers called him unprofessional.

Now, however, even as avant-garde an anthropologist as Tyler (although there are many others who won't go even this far) says that he'd condemn practices - such as animal sacrifice - that the encountered 20 years ago during field work in India. He wouldn't have dreamed of openly condemning them then, he says. Tyler urges intellectual "modesty," however, advising that the anthropologist say "in my opinion" rather than "according to anthropology."

There are horror stories aplenty - of anthropologists behaving like bulls in china shops - to support the call for modesty. Colin Turnbull, for example, worked among the Ik of Uganda in the 1960s, researching his book The Mountain People. Turnbull found the Ik so completely demoralized and uncertain of their future that he suggested to a Ugandan official that the tribe be dismantled and its members distributed among other peoples of the country.

Many thought Turnbull had gone too far. None knew of any instance where the lot of people from a small-scale society was improved by uprooting them and planting them elsewhere.

And their fears were justified. Subsequent investigation showed that Turnbull was wrong in much of what he wrote about the Ik. He later admitted that he hadn't bothered to learn the language. Much of his information was superficial - and had been gleaned from an interpreter.

Such stories tend to make anthropologists cautious, as do the inevitable questions hurled at adaptivists. Should anthropologists say that the effort at "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs is adaptive to that society and therefore good for Serbian society? Was Hitler adaptive to German society? Hmm.. wonder what cheaterji will say....

More and more, says the Smithsonian's Washburn, anthropologists admit that professionalism should not extend to remaining mute in the face of evil, much less justifying it.

Edgerton sees his three guidelines influencing the field in another way: by making anthropology more useful as a tool in studying what happens as societies evolve - and how, perhaps, they can be altered if sick institutions and customs develop. But usefulness (once the oft-stated goal of many in the field) isn't a side of anthropology that he's happy with these days.

Describing the state of his profession, he writes: "A lot [of anthropologists] lose sight of the goal of contributing to the well-being of society by spending too much time on studies that have no practical applicability." His pessimistic conclusion: "It is increasingly true that only anthropologists read anthropology," which makes the field very parochial indeed.

It wasn't always so. In the 1930s, notes Washburn, anthropologists were among those chosen by Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier to draw up new tribal constitutions based on traditions and needs. The result was a system of law that provided, in many cases, meaningful tribal sovereignty and autonomy, says Washburn, who has written widely on American Indian affairs.

Things began to change after World War II. The 1947 statement submitted by the American Anthropological Association to the newly formed United Nations is a case in point. Drawn up by Northwestern University Professor Melville Herskovits, one of the best-known anthropologists of his time and an ardent defender of cultural relativism, it purported to be the collective wisdom of anthropology on the subject of human rights. Herskovitz urged tolerance of others, something few would disagree with. But he went on to condemn the values of America and Europe, an early example of the rejection of the West now commonplace on American college campuses. 

He noted that democracy need not be admired - since in many cases it was the product of slave-owning societies. And he wrote, "The history of the expansion of the western world has been marked by the demoralization of human personality and the disintegration of human rights." 

From there it was but a short step to the 1960s fashion of anthropologists condemning as traitors anyone of their number who aided the U.S. government by supplying information on Vietnamese society. Anthropologists began to find themselves frozen out of government agencies and committees, says Washburn, as their anti-Western rhetoric became more shrill. 

Anthropologists indeed began talking only to each other, and the politicization of the field was nearly complete. 

Things have changed little since then. In 1986, Washburn tried - to no avail - to get the American Anthropological Association to condemn "necklacing" in South Africa - the execution by black radicals of other blacks suspected of being government informers by placing gasoline-filled tires over their heads and setting fire to them.

On another occasion, he asked the organization to investigate an anthropologist who had allied himself with a maverick group of Hopi Indians who hoped to take over the tribe. (His argument was that if the association called into question service to the government in Vietnam, it was wrong for an anthropologist to ally himself with an Indian political group.) Not surprisingly, he lost this one, too.

In 1988, however, he gained his first success. After a struggle, Washburn convinced the association that it should condemn apartheid in Burundi - a black African nation where individuals are segregated by tribe - just as it had condemned South Africa.

For a profession in such flux, the question of what to teach and how to train students is problematic.

Some opt for a familiar, traditional approach of sitting at the feet of masters, as it were. Grant Jones, a professor of anthropology at North Carolina's Davidson College, for example, teaches a course based on the writings of famous anthropologists, from A. R. Radcliffe-Brown to Geertz. Even earlier figures, such as Bronislaw Malinowski, from anthropology's golden age (the 1920s and 1930s), still are read by undergraduates and in graduate school, he says. But they are read more with an eye toward analyzing rhetorical excesses (where the anthropologists went wrong) and as a cautionary tale than for their methodology and sense of discovery.

Not surprisingly, Tyler advocates a radically different pedagogy. He regards books as "irrelevant" in today's world. There are too many books and respect for them diminishes as their number increases, he says. In their place, he recommends multimedia events - much like performance art - that include "handouts, slides, blackboards," and anything the imagination comes up with, "including the professor acting things out."

The only published notice of such events would be short abstracts in learned journals. Word of the event might be passed on informally by professors sending messages back and forth through their computers. Tyler has a very contemporary sounding name for this. "the presentness of the presentation." It's a novel vision of the teacher-researcher's role, and probably one that few professors would be able to live up to - even if they so desired.

The field of anthropology also has some perpetual problems - no doubt a result of human nature itself. Edgerton admits it's still common for anthropologists to hedge when it comes to telling the whole story about societies they study. "Wife-beating and conspicuous cruelty are ignored," he says. As are the torture of animals (a widespread practice) and ridicule of the handicapped.

Over coffee or cocktails, says Edgerton, anthropologists will talk about these things among themselves, but they don't put them in their books or articles. He concedes, "I haven't written about these things as much as I could have."

There are optimists, albeit cautious ones. Washburn thinks the "tumultuous" nature of anthropology is likely to continue, but says that's all to the good. It's part of a process of cleansing the field of too much theorizing, too much wishing that societies were the way anthropologists want them to be.

"We're discovering the world is a great deal more complex than we thought it.was," Washburn says, and not easily reducible to anyone's set of principles or changeable by the latest agenda. He discerns a "greater toleration" among anthropologists. "They have become noticeably less dogmatic in asserting their own points of view," he says.

Florida's Harris is more combative. "For a long time I thought it would go away," he says about what he calls the loss of direction in anthropology Contact with the real world, he hoped, would bring some common sense to the debate and dissolve the "general ennui" But he concludes that the only answer to the ongoing tumult between those who say anthropology can know little and those who think it a science with claims to accuracy is to "salvage the Western tradition of objective science."

In the final analysis, he says, "it is the only thing we have left." Harris does add a caveat: "We must remain skeptical" and accept "nothing with finality."

06-02-2005, 12:37 AM

Eight-year gap between brigadier âselloutâ and war

06-25-2005, 06:18 AM

CD showing gun totting shahabudin

06-30-2005, 07:57 PM

http://www.indlawnews.com/B723DCE2353C38...168094AA11

QUOTESC Panel To Visit Vadodara On June 30 For Best Bakery Case
25 June, 2005

The Supreme Court Committee probing Best Bakery prime witness Zahira Sheikh's recantations and her charges of abduction against Mumbai-based social activist Teesta Setalvad, will visit Vadodara on June 30 for recording of statements.

The committee, headed by SC Registrar, B M Gupta is scheduled to record the statements of Zahira's elder brother Nafitullah and former Vadodara Deputy Mayor and NCP councillor Nisar Bapu, who allegedly played a key role in the controversial Tehelka sting operation to expose the financial deal in the Best Bakery case.

Official sources here said the committee had planned a two-day visit to the city from June 30, as a part of its investigation after the former deputy mayor failed to appear before the panel in Delhi on June 18 for questioning, citing his ill-health.

In December, 2004, the Tehelka tape had shown Mr Bapu in conversation with Vadodara Congress councillor Chandrakant Srivastava and his cousin and local BJP MLA Madhu Srivastava, who reportedly admitted to the alleged settlement with Zahira for Rs 18 lakh for her U-turn in the trial of the case in a Vadodara fast track court in 2003. The NCP councillor later denied the Srivastava brothers charges that he was hand-in-glove with the Tehelka reporter to trap the two brothers.

Nisar said as he was unable to move to Delhi because of ill health, therefore, the SC Committee has decided to visit the city for recording of his deposition at any of the three places - the District court, hospital or his residence.

"I have chosen the third option," the NCP leader said.

Besides Zahira and Teesta, the committee had already recorded the statements of the Srivastava brothers and two Vadodara-based lawyers - Shailesh Patel and Tushar Vyas, who were also shown on the Tehelka tape.

utepian · 07-07-2005, 09:09 PM

Gang warfare in Mumbai streets. A criminal lawyer named Majeed Memon is shot.

QUOTEHigh-profile criminal lawyer Majeed Memon (59) and son Zulfi (28 ) were on their way from their home at Ashiana building, Bandra, to the Bombay High Court on Monday morning when they were fired at.

At 9.05 am, their black Mitsubishi Lancer had halted at a traffic signal. ââWe heard a round of firing and only then did we realise that the attack was on us,ââ said Zulfi, an advocate who assists his father. ââI saw two men, one on a bike and the other standing next to the bike reloading the pistol.ââ 

Memon's resume reads as follows:

QUOTE* Defended accused of the 1993 serial blasts
* Defended accused in Ghatkopar blast trial, got an acquittal
* Fought for missing Ghatkopar blast accused Khwaja Yunus
* Defended accused in Gulshan Kumar case, got an acquittal 

Two unidentified men are on the run. Hit ordered from Australia. Man claims the lawyer is an agent of ISI and that he is only assisting the police.

QUOTEIs this Ravi Pujari? What number is this, where are you?
Yes. This is a Russian SIM and I am in Brisbane, Australia.

Did you order the attack?
Yes. Iâve been tracking Majeed for a month. I have confidential information about his ISI links. He helps accused linked with blast trials, heâs is a desh drohi (traitor).

Which blast?
Ghatkopar blast trial.

But why are you interested in him being eliminated?
I am a supporter of the police. The cases that Majeed has handled have portrayed the Mumbai police badly.

Was this a publicity stunt?
Why do I need publicity? I got that during the Deepa Bar firing. Why would I send my men at a place where I know there is police security just for publicity?

Are you linked with any gang?
I work independently. I have around 400 men under me in Mumbai, Mangalore, Banglore and Ulhasnagar.

Arenât you afraid of being arrested?
Who isnât? But Iâm a well-wisher of the police, so itâs my duty to eliminate Memon. I failed today, but I am planning the next attempt.


Famous Bollywood director Mahesh Bhatt and India's most intrepid "social activist" Teesta Setalvad are among the first to visit the lawyer in the hospital.

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory...sid=137738

utepian · 07-07-2005, 09:27 PM

Mahesh Bhatt, Teesta call on CM
QUOTEA STAFF REPORTER | Thursday, July 07, 2005 12:27:54 IST
Demand probe into the attack on Memon
Bollywood director Mahesh Bhatt and civil rights lawyer Teesta Setalvad yesterday called on the Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and demanded a high-level probe into the murderous attack on criminal lawyer Majeed Memon on July 4.The Chief Minister assured them that he would look into their demand, said Mahesh Bhatt.They were accompanied by lawyer Zulfi Memon, son ofÂ Majeed Memon and tourist and travel operator Arshad Siddiqui.Memon's son Zulfi told the Chief Minister that despite the protection given by police at their doorstep, his family did not feel safe.

However, Mahesh Bhatt said that the family of Memon smelt an 'enemy' within the police force."The enemy within the force are out to liquidate Majeed", the family feels, he said."I told the Chief Minister if educated people have to live with such fear, the state should give assurance for their safety and convince them that their fear is baseless," Bhatt said.


http://www.cybernoon.com/DisplayArticle.as...ay_standard7239

Bharatvarsh · (This post was last modified: 07-09-2005, 11:46 PM by Bharatvarsh.)

Dr Rafiq Zakaria passes away

July 09, 2005 11:11 IST
Last Updated: July 09, 2005 12:26 IST

Veteran Congress leader, Islamic scholar and distinguished writer Dr Rafiq Zakaria passed away at his residence in Mumbai early on Saturday, family sources said.

He was 79.

Zakaria complained of acute back pain shortly before he breathed his last at around 7am.

His body will be shifted to a city hospital as one of his sons Farid is expected to come from the United States only on Sunday.

An outstanding academic achiever, Zakaria had won the Chancellor's Gold Medal in the MA examination of Bombay University.

He received a PhD from the University of London and qualified for the bar from Lincoln's Inn.

A versatile scholar on Indian politics, Zakaria was closely associated with India's freedom struggle and spent over 25 years in public service.

He had also represented India in many countries and also at the United Nations in 1965, 1990 and 1996.

A prolific writer on Indian affairs, Islam and British imperialism, Zakaria had authored several books including A Study of Nehru, Rise of Muslims in Indian Politics, Struggles Within Islam, Conflict Between Religion and Politics.

His other books include Iqbal, The Poet and The Politican, The Price of Partition, Gandhi and The Break-up of India, Indian Muslims: Where Have They Gone Wrong? and Sardar Patel and Indian Muslims.

Zakaria's interest in literature and journalism went back to his student days when he worked for the News Chronicle and The Observer in London.

He also ran a regular bi-weekly column in The Times of India.

http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/jul/09dead.htm

Good riddance to bad rubbish, I am very happy with the death of this traitor. He is supposedly a liberal Muslim, but his main hobby was always spewing venom against Hindus and he even wrote an article in the Asian Age about how Abdul Kalam was not a real Muslim.

07-10-2005, 12:59 AM

Here Zakaria mind set and hatred towards Hindu

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