Externally, you just tell me one neighboring country of India that has been able to have a good smooth relations with India during the past 60 years. The Indian strategy to bring its neighbors to their knees by exploiting internal differences, instigating and fomenting insurgencies, and naked aggression whenever an opportunity arose is what Indians have been doing all along. Now Indians are collaborating with external powers to spread mischief in this region. I am sure it’ll only be the Indians who will emerge as the biggest loser at the end of the game. External powers are attempting to cripple Pakistan for advancing their global objectives. These powers are bound to see a devastating failure in their deadly game and will be pushed back to their own region. India will be left alone to face the wrath of regional players then.

A vast chunk of Indian population is struggling with crippling poverty – many kill themselves due to the hunger yet others sell their wife, daughters, and organs to fill their stomach with a few pieces of bread. The fanatic Indian government is spending billions of dollars in purchasing arms and weapon systems all under the claims that India live under a dangerous situation. This presumed dangerous situation, however, is the direct consequence of their suicidal policies of last 62 years. India needs a serious review of its internal and external policies. You need to win the friends in the region whereas your policies have been aimed at creating enemies. How long would you be able to live with those policies and survive is matter to see in near future.

BTW, Bande Ma Taram is a Hindu pagan war song that is supposed to be sung while killing Muslims. How can you expect a Muslim boy to sing it as a symbol of joy of his own death? Also, we respect mother land but it does not attain a status above our belief in Allah (SWT). Moreover, there is no concept of mother or father associated to Allah. In Islam, Allah is the creator of the whole universe and HE (SWT) is only and only one. No one is like HIM (leave alone equal to HIM). Gita has similar attributes to God.

“What I actually meant was that Hindus have not forgiven us Muslims, the inhabitants of the same land, for converting to Islam” I don’t think this is true. Most orthodox Hindus genuinely love and revere the Sufis, including:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moinuddin_Chishti
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirdi_SAI
Most of the many hundreds of million of pilgrims who have visited these sites (cumulatively over centuries) are not muslim. I would bet that most of the anti muslim Hindutva people also revere the Sufis (not that this justifies their politics.) AR Rahman was a Hindu who met an amazing Sufi devotee of God, and converted to Islam. There are many examples like him.

Perhaps you should speak to more Indian muslims. Yes, they face discrimination similar to what American blacks or latinos experience in the US; yet muslims are well represented among Indian business people, bankers, techies, elite civil servants, Indian Army officers, Bollywood, academia, and the arts. Consider googling a list of all venture capital backed companies in India. See for yourself how many muslims are part of their founding teams.

I am sure you are not one of the extremists, so this isn’t directed against you. Indian muslims experience a lot of discrimination from extreme salafis, including Arab Wahhabis and extremist Deobondis (many Wahhabis and Deobondis are not extremists.) Despite their mixed experiences in India, most Indian muslims are far more scared of the extremists who live inside Pakistan; and regard the persecution of mohajirs inside Pakistan as more serious than the discrimination they confront inside India. You can argue that this perception is incorrect; but it is widely believed by many Indian muslims. What makes it worse for many Indian muslims, as I am sure they would tell you, is that they are hated and targeted by extremists more than nonmuslim Indians are; and many Indians don’t realize this.

” It is unfortunate that Hindus, claiming themselves the sons of mother India, have shamelessly indulged into merciless killing the other sons of the same mother India just because they embraced Islam.” This isn’t as common as you believe. Remember that muslim emperors and aristocracy ruled most of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh between 1192 and the British Raj.

I was surprised to read your comments about “Bande Ma Taram.” I assume you know Hindu/Urdu and understand the words in the song. The song doesn’t seem to carry religious connotation to me. It refers to “Mother India” or “Mother God,” depending on how you interpret it. You could interpret it to mean Mother Allah if you prefer (since Allah transcends gender, this isn’t any worse than saying father Allah.) The song seems to me to be about love of the motherland (in the east country is thought of as mother.) What is it about the song you find offensive? I have never heard complaints about the song from muslims before.

Faisal, it is possible that there are many extremists in India that I don’t know about; but religious bigotry or any criticism or persecution other faiths is blasphemes to Hindus (who don’t have a word for “religion.”) It is common for Hindus to pray at mosques, even anti muslim ones. For that matter, the same is true of Sikhs, Jains, Indian Buddhists, Taoists, and the eastern faiths in general. Pluralism and diversity are in their DNA. The extremists you describe have to walk a very fine line of respecting the Islamic faith and muslim saints while denouncing specific bad muslims.

What I actually meant was that Hindus have not forgiven us Muslims, the inhabitants of the same land, for converting to Islam. It is unfortunate that Hindus, claiming themselves the sons of mother India, have shamelessly indulged into merciless killing the other sons of the same mother India just because they embraced Islam. I am sure that history offers solid evidence and supports my claim. The Muslims in the current India have been the constant victim of Hindu bigotry and still suffocating under the rise of saffron, at both official and unofficial levels, in India.

The Indus Valley civilization represent the shared ancestors of South and Central Asians. It belongs to all of us. Faisal bhai, South Asians share common ancestry, history, culture, values, perspectives for understanding the world, and interests.

“It may be a matter of shame for Hindus but we are happy and satisfied by adopting a divine ideology that is unadulterated. Your level of understanding, BTW, makes me feel pity. You need to shed temple-indoctrinated mentality about Pakistan and Islam.” I very much respect that many muslims believe that Hinduism is a faith without divine ordination and am not offended when you repeat this. Most Hindus that I know are also not offended by this. However, not all nonmuslims understand the islamic faith as well as they could, and are unnecessarily (and I think inappropriately) offended when they hear this. In view of this, perhaps you might consider expressing yourself differently (for example by not implying that Hinduism is adulterated.)

Regarding the Indus valley civilization, yes, it is true that Islam came much later. But the inhabitants of this region did not surrender their history by just embracing Islam. Yes, we are Muslims. But have been living here in these areas since much before Islam came here and we embraced it. It may be a matter of shame for Hindus but we are happy and satisfied by adopting a divine ideology that is unadulterated. Your level of understanding, BTW, makes me feel pity. You need to shed temple-indoctrinated mentality about Pakistan and Islam.

Look, nobody wants Pakistan to fail, or disappear off the map. That’s a very frightening thought.

uh what

“We are the inheritors of an ancient Indus valley civilization”

That’s taking romantic nationalism a bit far. That civilization existed millennia before Islam was first preached. In so far as there state institutions go, both Pakistan and India have British origins, especially with their armies and civil services.

Yes, Pakistan is overwhelmingly Muslim, but this doesn’t equate its cohesiveness as a state. Muslim solidarity wasn’t enough to prevent Bangladesh from seceding, or Kashmiris to want to be independent from both India and Pakistan, or Baluchis and Pashtuns to desire their own states.

It’s not that the Hindus have something that the Muslims lack, since they have far more heterogeneous beliefs, it’s that the Muslims in India have something that the Muslims in Pakistan have, which is some sort of legitimate future with both the state institutions and civic society in India.

In1930s, after Congress won the elections and formed government in a few states of British India, the narrow minded and mean Hindus order for a compulsory morning singing of ‘Bande Ma Taram’ in schools by all students including non-Hindu ones. This is an anti-Muslim song taken from a novel, written by a fanatic Hindu, where the children of Black Devi sing this song while killing Muslims and performing ethnic cleansing. Muslim kids in India are still forced in schools to sing this song even after 62 years of independence. The leaders of the second largest political party, BJP, are threatening Muslims and telling them to leave India and migrate to Pakistan if they do not want to sing that song. Is that your worth? Where is the identity crisis? In Pakistan or really in India. We thank God that we are not living with Hindus under a farce democracy.