Indian dhimmitude. From Express News Service, with thanks to RZ:
New Delhi, February 22:1 THE editor of a magazine being published under the banner of a news channel has been arrested for reprinting the controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohammad. The cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper last September, have caused outrage among Muslims and led to violent protests in many countries.However, Vijay Dixit, group chairman of Senior Media Ltd, said the cartoons were merely part of an article by Senior India editor Alok Tomar which set out to criticise the Danish cartoons.
The February 28 edition of Senior India had already reached Delhi newsstands and police had to rush to seize copies of the magazine today before matters got out of hand. Senior officers have told police in other states to seize copies of the magazine.
Dixit said: “Our purpose was not to publish the cartoons to make fun of the Prophet. Alok Tomar had written an article denouncing the publishing of the cartoon strip. His only fault was that he published the controversial cartoon strip too.”
It looks like "freedom of the press" is alive and well in India too. yeah right!
Disseminating, or even discussing respectfully, the work of K. S. Lal, Francois Gautier, Koenraad Elst, and especially those too-easily dismissed as Hindutva fanatics, such as Sita Ram Goel -- that is impermissible. Even noting the 60-70 million Hindus killed under Muslim rule is considered bad form. Daring to ask Indian Muslims if they have ever bothered to think about what must have been the conditions that led their ancestors to convert to Islam, raising the matter of how unique Akbar was, how usual were the cruel Aurangzebs, wondering why the Hindu population of Afghanistan almost completely disappeared under the Taliban, why the Hindus went from 15% to 1.5% of the population of Pakistan, why non-Muslims went from 34% to 8% of the population of Bangladesh -- these are impermissible questions. No Indian should raise them, for to do so is to be guilty - as Hindus and Sikhs apparently so often are -- of "communalism."
But Muslims are blameless. The Muslim conquerors, the Muslim conquest, the destruction of temples and people -- that is not to be discussed. What Ibn Battuta so matter-of-factly recorded, is not to be discussed.
And not to be discussed, or shown, are even some anodyne Danish cartoons. The advanced world means more than a rise in GNP. It means more than Infosys, more than Azim Premji talking to Charlie Rose, more than those Bangalore computer-and-tutor companies. It means, for India, no longer letting the attitude of accommodation to Muslim demands, forced by Muslim masters in their centuries of rule, continued now by an official thought-control policy of "tolerance" (one-way tolerance) and absence of "communalism" (an absence only on one side) that will somehow buy -- but for how long -- a semblance of civil peace.
If the United States is to entrust nuclear and other knowhow to India, it has to be sure that the India it entrusts such secrets to, and cooperates with, is not secretly or openly islamizing, or is permanently in thrall to fear of Muslim mob violence.
This is not the way to allay American fears, or to demonstrate a fearless attachment to Western notions of individual rights.
Those cartoons should not be of note. They should be so common as to evoke the same yawn of indifference that any similar efforts, directed at any other target, would evoke.
CelticCoyote
Freedom of the press is a fiction in India. If one wants to express negetive feelings about groups that don't exist in India, or that are too miniscule, that is okay. However, apart from Muslims/Islam, try criticizing Gandhi, for example, and see his clan as well as the Congress thugs come down on you like a ton of bricks. It is possible to criticize Nehru and his clan only because a solid 50% of Indians are opposed to dynastic rule, and therefore aren't going to put up with any such ban.
The Delhi cops should have impunded Alok Tomar, who wrote denoucing the cartoons, so that they could have got the clear message.
As for the Muslims, the problem in India is that people don't react strongly to Muslims when the object of their attacks is the West, Israel, et al. However, when the Muslims do turn on Hindus, they do get paid back with interest, as happened in Gujarat, and as would happen in any state that they tried to pull that off.
Indians (Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis, etc) need to counter-protest whenever Muslims protest against any anti-Islamic events happening outside India. They should stop taking the attitude that what is directed at those Westerners/Jews do not concern them. They should remember that they are infidels whom Muslims hate. After all, why don't other groups - Christians, Sikhs, Jains etc demand their own separate countries?
Also, is Azim Premji Muslim or Parsi? Also, he runs Wipro, not Infosys. In any case, he is the only prominent Muslim in India's high tech industry - that is mainly an infidel undertaking.
India is second to none in flaunting its dhimmitude.
This is neither freedom of press nor secularism.
It should not be forgotten that India banned Satanic
Verses by Rushdie even before Iran did in the
eighties to appease the muslim vote bank. Banning
of Satanic verses and overturning of the judiciary
in muslim alimony case of Shah Bano by the legislative led to an intellectual rebellion that resulted in a phenomenal rise of BJP from two seats in 1984 to a majority party.
Unfortunately the battle against Islamic extremism
cannot be won in India or Pakistan unless it is won
in the middle east. India needs to seriously ponder
why troops cannot be sent alongside NATO to middle east if need arises ? Is US is willing to play ball with India, lets do the same.
With an impending energy crisis, the world cannot afford to strike at middle-east right now. The disaster will be ours, not just theirs. How do you win an ideological war???? Not thru violence, but weakening the base... the middle-east will be back to being a desert once we move away from oil economy and start using alternative fuels. With $10/b oil the middle-east will have to reform from the inside, and its only capital will be the citizens, not free flowing oil. And it will be a good one too. They will need smart people, so they cant spend too much time reading quran or nurturing hate. Two things can happen; another somalia or reform. For some reason though, the way they treat half their workforce (women) I think the former is more likely.
Another News Article on Muslim Bullying of Hindus and Other Indians ( They make up 13% of the population now - can you imagine if they were ever the majority)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4774684.stm
This is abt Muslim protests over the Bush visit to India - demanding that Hindus in Lucknow close their shops as a sign of solidarity - When the Hindus refused - Guess What??? - another communal riot
The statement from the Lucknow Police Chief:-
"Muslims after offering prayers went around ordering shops to down their shutters to protest President Bush's visit to India which sparked off the clashes because the Hindus objected," police chief Ashutoch Pandey told the AFP news agency on Friday.
I'm not going to that Delhi any more.
What cartoons? Hillary just closes the blinds!