Comment by Riaz Haq on May 14, 2016 at 10:57pm

US-based Separatist Baloch journalist Malik Siraj Akbar lambastes "nasty" Tarek Fatah #Balochistan #Pakistan #India http://www.balochhal.com/2016/05/11/dangerous-interlocutors/ …

The Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organization (UNPO) organized an excellent conference on Balochistan on Tuesday in Washington D.C. I describe it as a successful conference because the organizers managed to bring some notable speakers, including Senator Paul Strauss of the District of Columbia and representatives from globally respectable organizations such as the Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The conference discussed various aspects of the conflict in Balochistan but, unfortunately, it turned ugly at the end when panelist Tarek Fatah used extremely filthy language against a Pakistani reporter whom he accused of being “an ISI agent” even before the poor reporter from the ARY News could ask his question. When a Baloch father present at the conference felt uncomfortable with the use of vulgar language in front of two of his daughters and insisted that this was not the Baloch way of conducting dialogue even with one’s worst enemies, an unapologetic Fatah lambasted him too.

While the UNPO had provided the Baloch a unique opportunity to voice their grievances, it is entirely upon the Baloch people to take advantage of these opportunities to put their case forward. Washington is undeniably the most important world capital for the Baloch if they want to get international support for their movement. Emotional and abusive supporters of the Baloch cause, such as Mr. Fatah, certainly look entertaining on an Arnab Goswami talk-show but they will have a damaging effect on the Baloch movement.

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 24, 2016 at 8:07am

By comparing Akbar to Hitler, BJP shows there’s no place for even a 'good' Muslim in India’s history
by Shoaib Daniyal 


While Akbar and Aurangzeb are attacked for their faults – an easy enough thing to do given how different modern values are from medieval times – Pratap is let off. Temple destruction is a hot topic of debate but untouchability and caste is silently forgotten. Tsunamis of uninformed outrage crash onto the internet over the Mughal treatment of Hindus but there is pin-drop silence on the Rajput treatment of Dalits. If one is objective about using 21st century values to judge 16th century potentates, no one will come out smelling of roses.

------


Akbar made alliances with Hindu Rajputs, who were the backbone of his army – even at Haldighati, Akbar entrusted his forces to a Rajput, Man Singh (who has his own Delhi road). He had a Khatri, Todar Mal, for his finance minister, whose revenue system more than anything, ensured that the Mughals ruled for three centuries. Theological debates were organised by the emperor at a time when religious-driven prejudice was so strong that most Indians wouldn’t even so much as touch each other for fear of losing their jati and "upper" castes thought most of their countrymen subhuman. Jalaluddin, it seems, even left formal Islam, founding a religion called the Deen-e-Ilahi, angering the Muslim clergy – a grudge held till today by conservative Muslims.

The clamour to rename Aurangzeb Road was pinned on the man being a tyrant. However, in spite of these spades of liberalness, why is Akbar in the cross-hairs today?

The answer is simple: the powerful demand to strike out Akbar Road shows rather clearly that the move to rename Aurangzeb Road had very little to do with the character of Aurangzeb itself. While modern scholarship has shown that the colonial binary between Akbar and Aurangzeb was a false one, making cardboard cut-outs of complex historical figures and administrative systems, at the end of the day, in the public sphere, Akbar or Aurangzeb really doesn’t matter: any Muslim ruler simply has no place in the popular historical imagination as an Indian anymore.

http://scroll.in/article/808377/by-comparing-akbar-to-hitler-bjp-sh...

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 3, 2016 at 6:11pm

From #Modi's Guru Golwalkar to #GOP's #Trump: #India's #Hindu Nationalists Cheer & Pray for #Trump. #Islamophobia
http://www.dawn.com/news/1274763/from-golwalkar-to-trump

INDIA’S Hindu right is desperately seeking a role in the American elections even if it’s a walk-on appearance in a crowd scene. It asks if its right-wing friends from Israel can tip the balance in a keen American contest, why can’t the Hindu right be at least a cheerleader. After being rapped on the knuckles by Barack Obama a few times — following the cordial talks with Prime Minister Modi in Delhi, for example — the Hindu right wants a less censorious incumbent in the White House. Public prayers and weird voodoo rituals have been invoked to boost the chances of Donald Trump.

The two have much in common. Mr Trump claims to speak for core American values, passing off contrived fear for nationalist fervour. In India, the Hindu right has laid claim to defining — rather, it has been allowed by a somnolent opposition to prescribe — what is nationalist and what isn’t. Someone’s stand on the Kashmiri uprising is the signal for praise or rebuke. They both hate Muslims. And, as Mr Trump’s aversion of Latinos expands his arena of nurtured prejudices the Hindu right targets the tribal communities of the northeast.

Hindtuva goons, raised on political patronage, periodically bludgeon Manipuri and other people from the northeast in Delhi and elsewhere. Mr Trump’s veiled fear of African Americans mutates in India into physical assaults on students and visitors of dark complexion. As with Muslims and Dalits, African residents find it difficult to rent a house in Delhi.

Mr Trump and the Hindu right have a common ancestor too: Adolf Hitler. As such, they are joined at the hip in their biases. About Muslims, Trump says: “They’re not coming to this country if I’m president. And if Obama has brought some to this country they are leaving, they’re going, they’re gone.”

Trump and the Hindu right have a common ancestor: Adolf Hitler. As such, they are joined at the hip in their biases.
As his wife plagiarised from Michelle Obama’s speech, Trump borrowed without attribution from Guru Golwakar’s book We or Our Nationhood Defined. The early pioneer of the Hindu right wrote: “The non-Hindu people of Hindustan must either adopt Hindu culture and language, must learn and respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but of those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture ... In a word, they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment — not even citizens’ rights.”

There was a notable difference though. Golwalkar’s reference to non-Hindu people included Indian Christians. This should not deter any alliance of two utterly right-wing demagogues. After all, Golwakar’s praise of Germany’s treatment of Jews didn’t deter his followers from bonding with right-wing leaders in Israel.

“To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races — the Jews,” Golwalkar wrote with approval. “Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by. Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 30, 2016 at 7:05pm

Row breaks out over #TarekFatah's insults at Panjab University in #chandigarh #India | The Indian Express

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/row-breaks-...

A HUGE row broke out between Panjab University students and Pakistan-born Canadian writer Tarek Fatah after the latter allegedly called a J&K student terrorist. Tarek had been invited to deliver a Tedx talk on Balochistan. After the fracas, the organisers called off his talk, scheduled for Thursday.
Gagandeep Singh Dhillon, a PhD scholar in geography, said: “I was sitting at the physics canteen when Tarek came and began an informal interaction with students. We were discussing yesterday’s Nagrota terror attack. When he was talking to us, the department librarian came. When the students rose to show respect, Tarek told them, ‘Indians need to stop giving such treatment to their seniors’.”

Dhillon said Tarek mocked at the librarian and asked him to tell the students to sit. Immediately, an altercation ensued. Among those arguing was Mustafa, a PhD scholar from Kargil. “Tarek was saying, ‘He would not stand up for his own father, why are you all standing up for this person’. When I objected, he told me, ‘Hey you gori chamdi, where are you from?’ When Mustafa replied, Tarek allegedly responded with ‘You’re a Pakistani terrorist, you’re an anti-national’.”
Also, Tarek allegedly told Dhillon, “You are a Khalistani.”
Another PhD student Ganeshwari said when she asked Tarek his opinion about her, he said, “You are the real patriot because of your religion.”
Tarek said he called Mustafa a Pakistani “because he was behaving like one”. He said before the altercation, the group was discussing Tuesday’s terror attack. “My view was that India needs to retaliate in the strongest terms. That upset him leading to an argument.”
According to Tarek, suddenly, “a dozen men” arrived. “This was an attack planned by the Congress youth wing and people backing Left ideology.”
A PU spokesman said, “The university neither invited anyone nor cancelled any event.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 24, 2016 at 7:20pm

Stanford scholar Audrey Truschke on #Muslim rule in #India: #Mughal rulers were not hostile to #Hindus https://shar.es/1YGNDz via @Stanford

Truschke, one of the few living scholars with competence in both Sanskrit and Persian, is the first scholar to study texts from both languages in exploring the courtly life of the Mughals. The Mughals ruled a great swath of the Indian subcontinent from the early 16th to the mid-18th centuries, building great monuments like the Taj Mahal.

Over several months in Pakistan and 10 months in India, Truschke traveled to more than two dozen archives in search of manuscripts. She was able to analyze the Mughal elite's diverse interactions with Sanskrit intellectuals in a way not previously done.

She has accessed, for example, six histories that follow Jain monks at the Mughal court as they accompanied Mughal kings on expeditions, engaged in philosophical and religious debates, and lived under the empire's rule. These works collectively run to several thousand pages, and none have been translated into English.

Truschke found that high-level contact between learned Muslims and Hindus was marked by collaborative encounters across linguistic and religious lines.

She said her research overturns the assumption that the Mughals were hostile to traditional Indian literature or knowledge systems. In fact, her findings reveal how Mughals supported and engaged with Indian thinkers and ideas.

Early modern-era Muslims were in fact "deeply interested in traditional Indian learning, which is largely housed in Sanskrit," says Truschke, who is teaching religion courses at Stanford through 2016 in association with her fellowship.

Hybrid political identity
Truschke's book focuses on histories and poetry detailing interactions among Mughal elites and intellectuals of the Brahmin (Hindu) and Jain religious groups, particularly during the height of Mughal power from 1560 through 1650.

As Truschke discovered, the Mughal courts in fact sought to engage with Indian culture. They created Persian translations of Sanskrit works, especially those they perceived as histories, such as the two great Sanskrit epics.

For their part, upper-caste Hindus known as Brahmins and members of the Jain tradition – one of India's most ancient religions – became influential members of the Mughal court, composed Sanskrit works for Mughal readers and wrote about their imperial experiences.

"The Mughals held onto power in part through force, just like any other empire," Truschke acknowledges, "but you have to be careful about attributing that aggression to religious motivations." The empire her research uncovers was not intent on turning India into an Islamic state.

"The Mughal elite poured immense energy into drawing Sanskrit thinkers to their courts, adopting and adapting Sanskrit-based practices, translating dozens of Sanskrit texts into Persian and composing Persian accounts of Indian philosophy."

Such study of Hindu histories, philosophies and religious stories helped the Persian-speaking imperialists forge a new hybrid political identity, she asserts.

Truschke is working on her next book, a study of Sanskrit histories of Islamic dynasties in India more broadly.

Indian history, especially during Islamic rule, she says, is very much alive and debated today. Moreover, a deliberate misreading of this past "undergirds the actions of the modern Indian nation-state," she asserts.

And at a time of conflict between the Indian state and its Muslim population, Truschke says, "It's invaluable to have a more informed understanding of that history and the deep mutual interest of early modern Hindus and Muslims in one another's traditions."

- See more at: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/september/sanskrit-mughal-empire-090915.html#sthash.... 

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 16, 2017 at 10:18am

#American Scholar Debunks Myth of #India’s Medieval #Muslim 'Villains' like Aurangzeb. #BJP #Modi https://thewire.in/18919/high-time-discarded-pernicious-myth-indias... … via @thewire_in


by Audrey Truschke

Going back more than a millennium earlier, Hindu rulers were the first to come up with the idea of sacking one another’s temples, before Muslims even entered the Indian subcontinent. But one hears little about these “historical wrongs”


Whatever happened in the past, religious-based violence is real in modern India, and Muslims are frequent targets. It is thus disingenuous to single out Indian Muslim rulers for condemnation without owning up to the modern valences of that focus.


The idea that medieval Muslim rulers wreaked havoc on Indian culture and society – deliberately and due to religious bigotry – is a ubiquitous notion in 21st century India. Few people seem to realise that the historical basis for such claims is shaky to non-existent. Fewer openly recognise the threat that such a misreading of the past poses for modern India.

Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal Emperor (r. 1658-1707), is perhaps the most despised of India’s medieval Muslim rulers. People cite various alleged “facts” about Aurangzeb’s reign to support their contemporary condemnation, few of which are true. For instance, contrary to widespread belief, Aurangzeb did not destroy thousands of Hindu temples. He did not perpetrate anything approximating a genocide of Hindus. He did not instigate a large-scale conversion program that offered millions of Hindu the choice of Islam or the sword.

In short, Aurangzeb was not the Hindu-hating, Islamist tyrant that many today imagine him to have been. And yet the myth of malevolent Aurangzeb is seemingly irresistible and has captured politicians, everyday people, and even scholars in its net. The damage that this idea has done is significant. It is time to break this mythologized caricature of the past wide open and lay bare the modern biases, politics, and interests that have fuelled such a misguided interpretation of India’s Islamic history.

Aurangzeb, for instance, acted in ways that are rarely adequately explained by religious bigotry. For example, he ordered the destruction of select Hindu temples (perhaps a few dozen, at most, over his 49-year reign) but not because he despised Hindus. Rather, Aurangzeb generally ordered temples demolished in the aftermath of political rebellions or to forestall future uprisings. Highlighting this causality does not serve to vindicate Aurangzeb or justify his actions but rather to explain why he targeted select temples while leaving most untouched. Moreover, Aurangzeb also issued numerous orders protecting Hindu temples and communities from harassment, and he incorporated more Hindus into his imperial administration than any Mughal ruler before him by a fair margin. These actions collectively make sense if we understand Aurangzeb’s actions within the context of state interests, rather than by ascribing suspiciously modern-sounding religious biases to him.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 22, 2017 at 9:22am

From #Pakistan to #Zee News: Why #India’s #Hindu Nationalists love #TarekFatah. #BJP #Modi #Hindutva https://scroll.in/article/827173/from-pakistan-to-zee-news-why-indi... … via @scroll_in

Writer and columnist Tarek Fatah’s Twitter timeline is a place of immense activity. On it, Fatah is simultaneously calling the Kolkata Police napunsak (impotent), accusing a Muslim cleric of wanting to murder him and alleging that “Islamists working within Google” had conspired to suspend his email account.

The activity – and content ­– is reflective of Fatah’s current role in India, where he has become a sought-after columnist and intellectual. Fatah, who often functions as a strident critic of a great many facets of modern Islam, seems to be almost everywhere, writing columns, hosting television shows and speaking at conclaves. In particular, he has carved out a niche within India’s Right Wing, which nods along with his angry attacks against the supposed ills that affect Muslims in India, making Fatah a rare Muslim face in Hindutva circles.

Karachi to Canada
Born in Karachi, Fatah worked as a television producer in Pakistan till the 1970s, when he emigrated to Saudi Arabia. He would move again, this time heading to Canada, where he began with his current role: a strident commentator concentrating largely on Muslim affairs.

Amongst his other positions, Fatah has supported Donald Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from entering the United States and has pushed the far-Right conspiracy theory that accuses the director of the US’s Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, of having secretly converted to Islam.

His involvement with India started rather late and it is only in the last four years that Fatah has emerged as a prominent commentator in the Indian media. This is driven by the increased importance of social media – where Fatah is a star – in public affairs as well as the country’s general move towards the Right after the Bharatiya Janata Party general election win in 2014. Both events created a ready market for Fatah’s views.

Fatah sees himself as a reformer, drawing a sharp distinction between what he calls “mullah Islam” and “Allah’s Islam”. “The basis of Tauheed [monotheism in Islam] is that you will not bend yourself to any human except the creator, “ explained Fatah, speaking to Scroll.in. “Everything in shariah is man made. It’s written by men!”

“The mullah,” argued Fatah, “is embarrassing Mohammad and embarrassing Islam in front of non-Muslims by uttering garbage”.

Right-Wing favourite
Fatah’s stridency means he has come to the notice of India’s Right Wing which is looking to expand its intellectual footprint in India in the wake of Narendra Modi’s win in the 2014 general elections.

Fatah has a large Right-Wing support base on Twitter, which has now been extended into brick and mortar as well. In 2016, he was invited to participate in Right-Wing intellectual summits such as the India Ideas Conclave, hosted by the India Foundation, a body with strong ties to the Modi government, as well as the Jaipur Dialogues, hosted by a senior bureaucrat working for the BJP government of Rajasthan. He also spoke at the 2016 Lok Manthan summit in Bhopal organised by a group with close ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. A potential January 7 talk by Fatah on Baluchistan and Kashmir in Kolkata – which was eventually cancelled due to alleged pressure from the West Bengal government – was hosted by the Swadhikar Bangla Foundation, a body headed by a local BJP leader.

This Right-Wing interest in Fatah has peaked with Zee News – which has earlier faced allegations of pushing the BJP’s views – hosting a weekly debate show called “Fatah ka Fatwa”, focussed on discussing issues within Indian Islam.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 28, 2020 at 7:11pm

Tarek Fatah, the unrelenting #FakeNews peddler who targets #Indian #Muslims and #Pakistan regularly

POOJA CHAUDHURI 28 January, 2020 9:00 am IST

https://theprint.in/hoaxposed/tarek-fatah-the-unrelenting-fake-news...

Tarak Fatah tweeted a video of Burqa-clad women dancing at a wedding, asking if it was from Shaheen Bagh. Fatah had tweeted the same video three years ago, twice.


prominent name on social media, Tarek Fatah is an active Twitter user with over 6 lakh followers. But on numerous occasions, the Pakistani-Canadian writer has been found circulating misinformation along communal lines, particularly targeting Indian Muslims. A matter of even more concern is Fatah’s failure to take down misleading tweets despite being made aware of the misinformation. In fact, in the latest spree, he took an extra effort to ensure that his followers remain misled.

Fatah tweeted a video of Burqa-clad persons dancing to a Bollywood number. He questioned – “Could someone confirm if this video is from the #CAA_NRCProtests at #ShaheenBagh or nor?” There are enough hints in the video which suggest that it does not represent protests at Shaheen Bagh against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The group is dancing around a woman dressed as a bride. Quite ironically, Fatah had tweeted the same video three years ago…twice. When he was slammed for the same, Fatah quietly took down his tweet from August 2017. However, he missed doing the same for the video tweeted earlier in May 2017.

1. Tweeted morphed image to claim Madrasa teacher portraying Islam superior to Hinduism
Last year in June, Tarek Fatah tweeted a photograph claiming that it depicts a madrasa teacher coaching his students that Islam is superior to Hinduism. He later took down the tweet, however, not before it drew numerous retweets.

The image tweeted by Fatah was morphed. In the original photograph, published by several media organisations including ANI, the blackboard has words written in Sanskrit. The teacher was giving the students a lesson on the language. Incidentally, this piece of misinformation had been debunked by Alt News just days before Fatah’s tweet.

2. False claim that a girl was assaulted for not wearing Hijab
Similar to the earlier misinformation, Fatah had claimed that a girl was hit on the head by a man who disapproved of her cycling without wearing a Hijab (archive).

Alt News found multiple Turkish reports which stated that the man had indeed assaulted the 9-year-old. However, none of the reports mentioned a lack of Hijab as the motive of the crime. The incident had gained much prominence in Turkey after the perpetrator was released from jail and referred to a mental health facility. Despite Fatah’s tweet being debunked two years ago, he is yet to take it down.

3. Tweeted video of Islamic flags being raised during Ramzan as Pakistani flags
In his latest bout, Fatah tweeted a video where bike-borne men can be seen waving green coloured flags. The Pakistani-Canadian writer claimed that the flags were of Pakistan and were raised during Ramzan in Tamil Nadu (archive).

However, the flags were not of Pakistani but were Islamic flags often used by the Muslim community in the sub-continent. Alt News’s detailed fact-check can be read here.

4. Tweeted old video to claim Muslims celebrated Congress’s victory by waving Pak flags
The “Pak flags” theory has been propagated by Fatah several times. Last year, after Congress won the assembly polls in Rajasthan, he claimed that the victory was celebrated by Muslims in the state by raising Pakistani flags. Fatah later deleted the tweet but an archived version can be accessed here.

The flags in the video were actually representative of the ‘Indian Union Muslim League’ and not Pakistan. Alt News’s fact-check can be read here.

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