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Saturday, November 29, 2008

Re: [chottala.com] Wahhabi teaching on the rise in Bangladesh: Saudi Arabia provides the money

The constitution now states that "absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah shall be the basis of all actions." As a former law student and a student of politics and Public Ad, I think Jamat is the one who is following one of the major provisions of the amended constitution that is in existence as of today. Am I right?

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 7:46 AM, Syed Aslam <Syed.Aslam3@gmail.com> wrote:

Islamic World News
26 Nov 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Wahhabi teaching on the rise in Bangladesh: Saudi Arabia provides the money


http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1019


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Compiled by Syed Asadullah

 

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Bangladesh faces Islamist fanatics

"Pakistan is the breeding ground and the brain and Saudi Arabia provides the money." Saudi Arabia is a major founder of madrassas and mosques in Bangladesh, for example – and it is no coincide that Wahhabi teaching is on the rise.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

By Benedict Rogers

Bangladesh is a country associated more with floods, cyclones and poverty than terrorism or radical Islamism. Indeed, it is a country founded on secular, democratic values and widely regarded as a moderate Muslim state. In recent years, however, militant Islamism has quietly been taking ground – and Bangladesh's survival as a progressive state is on a knife-edge.

The warning signs have been there for some years, and some commentators have been sounding the alarm. In 2002, Ruth Baldwin wrote a piece in The Nation headlined: "The 'Talibanisation' of Bangladesh." Hiranmay Karlekar wrote Bangladesh: The Next Afghanistan? While Maneeza Hossain's Broken Pendulum: Bangladesh's Swing to Radicalism and Ali Riaz's God Willing: The Politics of Islamism in Bangladesh are all important contributions.

Perhaps the most visible and dramatic sign of the growth of extremism came three years ago. On 17 August 2005, between 11 and 11.30 am, 527 bombs were exploded in a massive attack on all but one of the country's 64 districts. Such a carefully co-ordinated campaign of terror shocked the nation – but in many respects it was just the tip of the terror iceberg. Other terrorist incidents, including an attack on the Bangladeshi-born British High Commissioner, members of the judiciary and sporadic attacks on religious and ethnic minorities are further indicators of the presence of well-organised terrorist networks.

However, it is not simply the acts of violence that should cause concern. The Islamists' ideological influence has spread to almost all parts of Bangladeshi society – not least the political arena.

The umbrella organisation is Jamaat-e-Islami, a radical group founded in India in 1941 by Mawlana Abul Ala Maududi. According to one analyst in Bangladesh, Jamaat's objective is to create "a monolithic Islamic state, based on Shari'ah law, and declare jihad against Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and free-thinking Muslims." Religious minorities – and Muslims regarded by Jamaat as heretical, such as the Ahmadiyya sect – are targeted for eviction, according to one human rights activist, "or at least to be made into a 'non-existent' element whose voice cannot be heard."

Jamaat's tentacles now reach into major sectors, including banking, health care, education, business and non-profit organisations, and they aim to "destroy" the judicial system, according to one critic, including by "physically eliminating judges." In 2001, Jamaat won 17 parliamentary seats in alliance with the governing party, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), and became a partner in the coalition government until its overthrow by the military in 2007. Elections scheduled for next month could result in Jamaat's return to government, if BNP wins, and even in the current caretaker administration there are believed to be Jamaat-sympathisers.

While Jamaat is the umbrella, according to journalist Shahriar Kabir and the Forum for Secular Bangladesh there are over 100 Islamist political parties and militant organisations in Bangladesh. Only four of these have been banned, and even they continue to operate under alternative names. Extremist literature, audio and video cassettes are widely distributed, and thousands of madrassas teach radical Islamism.

All this is completely at odds with the vision of Bangladesh's founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led the struggle for independence from Pakistan in which at least three million were killed, ten million displaced and 250,000 women raped. According to Hiranmay Karlekar, at the heart of the birth of Bangladesh was a belief that "the Bengali identity had prevailed over the Islamic identity." The preamble of the first constitution explicitly stated a commitment to secularism and democracy, and political parties were banned from using religion as a basis for their activities.

Bangladesh began sliding slowly towards Islamism following the assassination of Rahman in 1975. In 1977, references to secularism were deleted from the constitution and the phrase "Bismillah-Ar-Rahiman-Ar Rahim" ("In the name of Allah, the Beneficient, and the Merciful) was inserted. Five years later, General Ershad – one of the military dictators who ruled the country in the alternating competition between the army and the democrats – introduced the Eighth Amendment, making Islam the state religion. The constitution now states that "absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah shall be the basis of all actions."

There remain some provisos, which give religious minorities protection. For example, while Islamic principles are set out as guiding values, the constitution states that they "shall not be judicially enforceable." The Chief Justice has said clearly that Shari'ah does not constitute the basis of the country's legislation. Religious freedom, including "the right to profess, practice or propagate any religion", is protected, and discrimination on religious grounds prohibited.

Nevertheless, in practice Christians, Hindus and Buddhists are denied promotion in the government and the military and in the view of one Bangladeshi journalist; religious and ethnic minorities have seen "unprecedented persecution" in recent years.

In 1998, for example, three Christian sites in Dhaka were attacked – a Catholic girls' school, an Anglican church and a Baptist church. A mob set fire to the school, destroyed property, burned books, pulled down a cross and smashed statues of the Virgin Mary and St Francis of Assisi. Death threats were issued from the nearby mosque. Since then, sporadic attacks on churches have escalated. In 2007, at least five churches were attacked. Hindus and Ahmadiyyas face similar violence.

Cases of abduction, rape, forced marriage and forced conversion of religious minority women – and particularly young girls – are increasing, in a trend worryingly reminiscent of Pakistan. On 13 February 2007, for example, Shantona Rozario, an 18 year-old Christian student, was kidnapped. She was forced at gunpoint to sign a marriage document with her kidnapper, and an affidavit for conversion to Islam, witnessed by a lawyer, a mullah and a group of young men. After a month she managed to escape, but others are not so fortunate. On April 30 of this year a 14 year-old Christian girl, Bituni de Silva, was raped at gunpoint, and on May 2 a 13 year-old daughter of a pastor was gang-raped.

Apostates in Bangladesh face similar severe consequences for leaving Islam as they do throughout the world. On 1 February this year, a 70 year-old woman convert to Christianity from Islam, Rahima Beoa, died from burns suffered when her home was set ablaze after her conversion.

In 2004, a Jamaat Member of Parliament attempted to introduce a blasphemy law in Bangladesh, modelled on Pakistan's notorious legislation. Attempts have been made to ban Ahmadiyya literature. And even during the State of Emergency, when protests and processions are supposed to be banned, extremists led by groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir have held angry rallies. On 17 September 2007, for example, a cartoon was published in a satirical magazine, Alpin, featuring a conversation between a child and an imam, in which the boy was told that he should always use the prefix 'Mohammed' before a name. The boy then decided to call his cat "Mohammed Cat." The cartoon sparked outrage, and effiges of the newspaper editor were burned in street protests. The cartoonist and the editor were arrested, charged with sedition, and the publication was closed down. In April this year, large protests were held after Friday prayers in major cities, opposing the government's plans to legitimate women's rights in the constitution. Maulana Fazlul Haq, chairman of the Islami Oikya Jote, described such a policy as "anti-Qu'ran" and "anti-Islamic."

An estimated 2.5 million people in Bangladesh belong to indigenous ethnic tribal groups, sometime sknown as "Adibashis." There are at least 40 different ethnic groups, mainly inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the plains area around Mymensingh. Most of these tribal groups are non-Muslim – predominantly Buddhist, Christian and Animist. Since the late 1970s, the Bangladeshi government has actively sponsored the resettlement of Bengali Muslims into the tribal areas – resulting in the construction of mosques, land-grabbing, evictions and discrimination against non-Muslims. One indigenous rights campaigner said: "Our way of life is an open society. Men and women can work anywhere. We are more flexible on gender issues. But the settlers have come in and built mosques, and they use their loudspeakers which affects us culturally and psychologically."

In one village near Mymensingh, for example, a Bengali Muslim married a Christian from a tribal group. All the other villagers are Christians. After a few years, he decided he needed a mosque – even though he was the only Muslim in the area. So now he is building a mosque – and the likelihood is he will bring in an imam, who will bring his family, who will bring their relatives: and the slow, subtle, insidious repopulation of a non-Muslim, non-Bengali area will unfold. When I visited the remote jungle village, the atmosphere was tense – and the imam, sitting at the mosque construction site, was unwelcoming.

The prediction of Bangladesh's "Talibanisation" may sound extreme, and in the immediate term the likelihood of Bangladesh becoming like Afghanistan is far-fetched. Bangladesh has not gone as far down the road of radicalisation as Pakistan, for example. Nevertheless, the warnings need to be taken seriously. If it continues as it is, Bangladesh will go the way of Pakistan – and then the risk of Talibanisation becomes realistic.

Indeed, it is Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that are fuelling the Islamisation of Bangladesh. As one person put it, "Pakistan is the breeding ground and the brain, and Saudi Arabia provides the money." Saudi Arabia is a major founder of madrassas and mosques in Bangladesh, for example – and it is no coincidence that Wahhabi teaching is on the rise.

A prominent church leader predicts that full Shari'ah law will be implemented if the situation does not change. "Some day, it will happen. Maybe not immediately, but it will happen … The support of voices in the international community is very much needed. More people need to come and find out what is happening here." As Ali Riaz says, "there is no doubt that if the present trend continues, the nation will inevitably slide further down the slope toward a regime with a clear Islamist agenda … What is necessary is a decisive change in the direction of the nation." Such a decisive change is vital, to restore the founding principles of Bangladesh – secularism, democracy, equal rights. There is still a thriving civil society, with bold intellectuals, journalists and human rights activists willing to challenge radical Islamism – and that is a cause for hope. Bangladesh has not been lost to radical Islamism completely – but it will be if the alarm bells are not heard.

Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist with Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and serves as Deputy Chairman of the UK Conservative Party's Human Rights Commission. He is the author of A Land without Evil: Stopping the Genocide of Burma's Karen People (Monarch, 2004). He writes for The Cutting Edge News.

Source:


http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1019


Allama Sir Muhammad Iqbal
The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam
Biography, Audio

Videos
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The Message 1976
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Noam Chomsky on
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Fake Christians fabricate
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Wedding day massacre

Stop the Clash
of Civilizations

Re: Stop the Clash
of Civilizations

Case stories on Bangladesh
Case story: July, 2007: 17 year old girl gang raped and threatened with death
The GHRD-Dhaka representative investigated the brutal gang rape of an Adibashi (indigenous) adolescent, which occurred on the 19th July 2007.

Case story: July, 2007: 19 year old girl gang raped and killed, and her body disfigured with acid
The melted dead body of a missing college girl from the Rampal upazila was recovered on 11 July, 11 days after she went missing.

Case story: April, 2007: 17 year old minority girl gang raped by two men
GHRD investigated the alleged gang rape of a minority teenager (17) from the South Taktabunia P.S.- Amtali, District – Barguna, on the 13th April 2007.

Case story: April, 2007: 20 year old minority woman raped by her neighbour
GHRD investigated a report that on 15th April a 20 year old Hindu housewife was raped in the Barguna District by her neighbour.

Case story: April, 2007: 10 year old girl raped by 42 year old male
On 24th April, a 10 year old impoverished minority girl was raped in the district of Brahmanbaria by a 42 year old male.

Case story: Kabita Rani Sarkar, 15, gang raped by seven men
Kabita Rani Sarkar, 15, was gang raped by seven men when she was walking home from school.

Case story: Shymoli Das, 20, Gang Raped
Shymoli Das, 20, was gang raped in Satbaria under Kaliganj Upazila of Jhenaidaha District on June the 20th, 2006.

Case story: Rani (18) committed suicide after rape
Beauty Rani Das (18) was sent to work as a maid-servant by her father, due to family poverty.

Case story: Jhuma Rani Roy, 14, gangraped
A destitute Minor Girl – Jhuma Rani Roy (14) daughter of Amar Chandra Roy at Kakbali, Jagannathpur P.S., District Sunamganj in Bangladesh brutally gang-raped.

Case story: Ms. Mukta Rani Roy ( 3 and half years old ) a Minority Child raped
A minor child aged about 3 and half years belonging to minority community – Ms. Mukta Rani Roy daughter of Bimal Chandra Roy of Khutamara Union under Jaldhaka police station at Nilphamari has been the victim of rape on 5th of April, 2006 at about 2 p.m.

Case story: Minority Hindu girl brutally gang raped
Ms. Shilpi Rani Shil (19) daughter of Mono Mohan Shil of village Agla, Rupganj PS, Dist. Narayanganj is a poor law-abiding youngest girl of Shil family and is the permanent citizen of Bangladesh.

Case story: Babita, 18, gang raped by police officers
Babita Rani Boby, 18 belonging to Indigenous Harijan community was given intoxicated medicine pills and thereafter she was gang-raped.



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Re: [chottala.com] Re: I am not surprized by the action of Election commission.

Dear Mr. Sobhan,

Would you please elaborate? What is the real issue here? Is this about
voter registration and have you approached late? I just wanted to have
a clear picture, if you please spend couple of minutes. Thanks in
advance.

Best regards,
Professor Emarat Hossain Pannah
University of Maryland (UMUC), USA
...................................


--- Mohammad Sobhan <sobhanma_asme@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear All
>  
>     I  have arrived at Dhaka few days ago and contacted the election
> commission at Agargao HQ. I was told that the time is over to vote
> even you are coming to Dhaka from any foreign country. I am not
> surprized to see  Begam Zia to be a voter to day ( 29 Nov 2008). Can
> we term this injustice to all Bangladeshis living abroad. We must not
> be happy at the election commission but it is reality. We are not
> voters.
>  
> Regards.
>  
> Mohammed Sobhan
> Uttara
> Dhaka
> Bangladesh.
>
>
>
>
>


------------------------------------

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[chottala.com] FW: [khabor.com] Please be aware from those extremist==Enemy of civilization

Dear All,

If we want to sustain as a community and hope to do well in our future, and the future of our future generations; rather than being extinct from the rest of the human society; we should carefully listen to the author of the following article.

Thanks,
KR


To: khabor@yahoogroups.com
From: bhuiyanmr@hotmail.com
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 02:41:01 +0000
Subject: [khabor.com] Please be aware from those extremist==Enemy of civilization

Dear

Community members,

It has been come to our notice that a group of religious extremist has been frequently and very nakedly writing about against Hindu ism, meaning against India. They have been trying to prove themselves, as the best Muslim lover and religion saver, but in a sense, they are deeping down our religion under the water. I believe, every single religion in the world has created for a reason, depending on situation and the cultural faith of that specific region. All religion in the earth circulates great message to their followers and believers. There are not a single religion in the world talks against peace or humanity or teaches discrimination. But there are some bad religious ignorant people always spread wrong messages to the community and trying to divert others in to their own believes. That is extremely wrong. I do not think that, any conscious person would go with that wrong concept. I think, those extremist should abstain from such kind of activities. With such kind of activities, It would only open individual's naked mentality and meanness rather than become a hero. Bangladesh became as an independent country ensuring same facilities and right to the all religion and the faith. All those previous brutal attack around the world that including recent destruction in Mumbai, who were the master-minder and who leaded that cruel activities. It is not a good sign for anyone in the civilized world. Pulling individuals leg, nothing there to gain. It is only the activities of those individual's whose are zealous seeing India's recent progress of economy and technological advancement. It is the time for all civilized nations to stand together and fight against those terrorist are against humanity and civilization. Mark them as the enemy of humanity, peace and civilization. Teach them great real lesson from religion and the history of human civilization.

Mizanur Bhuiyan,

virginia













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FW: [chottala.com] Civilized Denmark


THERE IS NO WORSE BEAST THAN MEN WHEN CRAZE DRIVE THEM TO BE TOO LOW!


To: chottala@yahoogroups.com
From: nazmul2567@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:38:30 -0800
Subject: [chottala.com] Civilized Denmark

<













---Subject: Civilized Denmark
Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 1:16 AM

This happens in Denmark !
Pass it on to your friends around the world! It is OUTRAGEOUS! Make Denmark STOP!






























While it may seem incredible, even today this custom continues, in Dantesque - in the Faroe Islands , ( Denmark ). A country supposedly 'civilized' and an EU country at that. For many people this attack to life is unknown– a custom to 'show' entering adulthood. It is absolutely atrocious. No one does anything to prevent this barbarism being committed against the Calderon, an intelligent dolphin that is placid and approaches humans out of friendliness.
 

WHAT A SHAME, A SAD SCENE! THIS MAIL HAS TO BE CIRCULATED. THERE IS NO WORSE BEAST THAN MAN!
Circulate this! Make this atrocity known and hopefully stopped!
 




 
 



 





 












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RE: [chottala.com] Will there be Elections in 2008?



The author concluded the following article by saying, "Fixing the mess is not impossible, but time is running out for this government to avoid the inevitable consequences of its inaction. Bangladeshis now face a twin dilemma: either postpone the promised elections—and face potential sanctions from nations whose aid and imports are critical for the economy; or saddle the people of Bangladesh with the same bad government and massive corruption they had know for decades."

I believe both of these dilemma can be avoided if the plans in the article below are adopted.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

WHAT EXIT STRATEGY SHOULD BE FOR THE C.T.G. & MILITARY?

Army backed CTG assumed power a little less than two years ago, while a general election was promised to be held within two years. It seems that the CTG has kept its promise and is trying to meet the originally promised milestone for election. However, it is observed that both the army and CTG are facing a host of problems in making the election happen in due time. Various political parties are buzzing differently. Some of them declared the election boycotts, some of them are putting hard and fast conditions, and some of them are asking to release their favorite people who are now under government custody for the charges of monetary corruptions. Grabbing political power by the military of the country is the highest form of political corruption. But the most arrogant behavior of the incumbent administration, the most dubious activities of the President, and the most destructive activities of the opposition compelled the highest fire-power of the country to step in to stop all those nonsense activities and save the people of the country from the extreme violence orchestrated by the so called politicians of both major parties.

After taking over the administrative power, both the CTG and the military, made a lot of mistakes one after the other. One dreadful mistake was lingering the monetary corruption drive for too long time without starting immediate due process for trial and punishment. Monetary corruptions are criminal offenses that had to be tried promptly by the law of the court, and move on. This is haunting this government severely. How come so many people are imprisoned without convicting any of the corrupted politicians? The government is releasing these corrupted politicians now without any legal due processes. So, what does that mean? Are they all innocent? If so, why they were in prison in the first place? If they were guilty, they must be punished. But why they are being released if they were suspected to be guilty when they were arrested? Does it mean that this government is whimsical? Where did the law and fairness go? All the mistakes done by the government have eroded the high praise that they won by significantly improving the law and order situation of the country.

No one in the world is without any errors, and not everybody has the utmost efficiency in their jobs. While the CTG and Army had no previous experience of running a country, they are expected to make some mistakes, but that should not let the sky fall. Solutions have to be searched by the government as well as everybody else in the country. It is the duty of all citizens of the country to try to help the government whatever way they can, and the government should make the environment such that people can interact with the government facing no troubles. Otherwise, a peaceful transition of power won't happen.

The present government is composed of two components, a civil CTG and an armed Military. Army came to power in the form of physical takeover, just short of declaring Martial Law. Improving the Law and order situation throughout the country is real praiseworthy. The country must have, for all times, this type of excellent law and order situation, no matter, who rules or what type of government runs the country. If the government can not provide law and order, everything of the country falls into the puddle. Until RAB was formed, the street thugs, hoodlums, private tax collectors, robbers, and illegal arm bearers would reign the entire country, bypassing the government. Sometimes these bad elements would even have the influence on the government and the government would have to favor them. That situation has been tackled wisely by the present government and so the people of the country started liking this government quite well. However, the CTG or the Army can not rule the country for too long time. But it is also true that the people of this country have not seen this sort of peace in law and order for the past several decades. Should people give it away soon? I don't think anybody would like to do it. So, what is the solution that this present government should look for such that a peaceful transfer of power would happen and the similar law and order, as we have today, will continue in the future days also?
It is real hard to find out any real and practical solution to keep peace as well as to get the democracy back. However, we need to make transition, and we must keep peace in the country by maintaining the law and order situation. How it can be achieved?

The existing political parties have already shown that they are extremely party aligned and the party leaders are not open enough to cooperate with the other parties. It has been seen in the past that the political parties are after their part interests only and not for the benefit of the people of the country. In this situation, if those old parties come to power again, definitely there will be no peace. In order to establish the legacy of the lasting peace in the country, there has to have some other ways, and some other means that the present government has to follow during the power transfer.

Government should form search committees, commissions, and enlightened groups to look for various options how the democracy can be established and the law and order can be maintained unconditionally. We lost already a lot of lives, properties, economic progress, fames, and fortunes because of the chaos, conflicts, and lawlessness in the country for quite a long time. Let's not repeat those unfortunate happenings in our country again. Reconciliation, Unity, Mutual Understanding, Ethics, Respect for Law, and to avoid all anarchism for ever can bring the country together towards a lasting peace. The traditional democracy is good where society is bonded and do not erupt suddenly with tiny bit of sparks hitting somewhere in the country. Bangladesh is still far away from reaching to that state. A lot of cultural and social traditions and bindings make that to happen. We need some time to learn those things.

Reforming the administrative structure of the government is necessary to be able to perform good governance for the country. One suggestion would be to modify the administrative structure of the government from one layer to three different layers. If the multi-layer government could be instituted, it would be very beneficial for the general public in order to be able to provide public administration services effectively creating a check and balance amongst the layers.

The first layer shall be county level, second layer shall be the district level, and the third level shall be the federal level for the entire country. Each level shall have the fully independent government, not being the part of the other levels. All districts shall be divided into four, five or six counties. Thereby the whole country would be divided into about 250 to 300 counties. Set up a local government for each county. This local County Government shall be responsible for all local administrations such as local legislative houses, local administrative boards, police, court, schools, land record and revenue, real estate development and zoning, taxation, business licensing and controls, roads, bridges, and other development works, hospitals, transportation, safety, security, public welfare, child protection, social work, industry, fishery, animal husbandry, agricultural, forestry, mining, water, electricity, gas, and other supplies, etc. All elementary, middle, and high schools in the county shall be run with the personal property taxes and other taxes collected form the county including the grants from the district government and federal government. All other components of the county government shall be run by the tax collected from the residents and businesses of that county plus the district and federal government grants and aids.

Let the District Administrations have the coordination, training and supervisory duties to look after the county administrations. District administrative employees shall be highly trained and well rounded professionals but the District Government shall be lean, less people but highly efficient at work with impressive compensation. The District Government shall have the administrative council and legislative bodies including the counterparts of each of the departments of the counties. Only at times of need they should deploy their respective teams to help the counties, should any need or crises arise. District administration should be able to collect moderate amount of tax from the incomes of the citizens and businesses in the district. Districts may set up model institutes, extra-ordinary schools and colleges. The universities shall be run by the districts. Inter-county commerce shall be controlled by the district. Districts shall build all transportation and communication highways, railways, airports, river and water development projects, research institutes, large scale hospitals, highway traffic police, district courts, district prisons, utility oversight boards, regulatory bodies, parks, museums, zoos, etc.

The federal government shall be the ultimate administrative, legislative, and regulatory body in the country. The administrative head may be a president or a prime minister based on whether parliamentary or presidential democracy is chosen by the people of the country. It can be decided by the polls or primary elections. Federal Government shall be in charge of key issues of the nation such as Military, Money, Foreign Policy, Inter-District and Foreign Commerce, National Affairs & Policies, Drug and Gangs Control, National Safety-Security-Homeland Protection, Industry Regulation, Financial & Market Economy Safeguarding, Deregulating and Privatizing Public Utilities, Foreign Aid Collection-Distribution-Payment, National highways & Transportation, and establishing Counterpart Departments to train and provide supports to the same in the district governments and in the county governments. Two tier legislative houses (upper & lower) would prepare laws of the country.

Why should we have this three tier governments in lieu of the present on tier Government of Bangladesh? The main reason is the focus of the government. It is always better to be the master of a trade instead of being the jack of all trades. When a one tier government takes care of all affairs in a nation, none of the affairs can be taken care of well. It puts the government into the situation of the jack of all trades. If the government has three tiers/layers then each layer can focus on the issues differently. The local government can take care of all peoples' affairs in its own territory such as public protection, law & order, schools, real estates, businesses, banking, transports, roads & highways, agriculture, industry, markets, health, hospitals, child welfare, land, forestry, fishery, animal husbandry, minerals, mining, and so on and so forth.

When area becomes smaller, most people know each other. Almost everyone knows who is a good person and who is a bad person. With this public knowledge, people can elect or select good people in the politics and administration. Bad, greedy, thugs, and cheats can be stopped this way to take the advantage of coming into politics and ruining the political environment. While public is administered by all these local county governments, the district and federal government can focus on support and policy making jobs. Since the district and federal government will not directly handle the real estates, properties, industries, and public directly, it will provide them an opportunity to be less greedy for real estates, properties, bribes, and hoarding. Also, the law & order and public protection services will be provided by the local government and so the district and federal government won't have to spend too much time on these crucial issues which will provide a very good opportunity to spend more time on researching and making public policies for the national stability and upliftment. The federal government will also get more opportunity to interact with the foreign government and international institutions such as IMF, World Bank, UNO, and other international organizations. This will greatly facilitate the federal government in bringing more international helps to build and progress the nation.

Aside from governance, this three tier government system in the country will provide a great opportunity to the people of the country to run the country with less dependence and helps from the politicians. It has been seen in the past that the election and politics in the third world countries in Asia and Africa has become the means of grabbing the state power and hoarding the wealth of the nation. When politicians fail, military takes over, and do the same thing. So, it is necessary to reduce the dependence of the public on the politicians and on the military of the country for public administration. A one tier government grabs all affairs of the administration in the country and so leaves no alternatives to public other than fully to depend on who grabbed the power (politicians or military). Alternatively, in the three tier/layer government, the local county government is composed of mainly the locally known famous persons regardless of their political affiliations. Military take over of the local government is highly unlikely mainly because the military always belongs to the central government and at the time of national crises, military takes over the central government.

If t three tier governments exist, even if the military takes over, the local government must remain functional and the military won't have enough manpower and resources to replace all the local civil governments to local military governments. So, even in the event of military takeover, all public will be basically administering the local county civil governments. This will affect very less the public and business lives of the country. Country will remain lot more stable as far as the public lives, economic and business operations. Moreover, a head of the county can be elected by the local people of the county who will better know who is a good leader, good social worker, honest, and basically a good person, no matter what party he/she is in or even an independent person. This way if the county people locally employ 250 to 300 county heads (with designation such as administrator, supervisor, chairman, president or CEO) in the entire country and they are given the status of being the member of parliament then this group of county administrators initially can engage into discussions with the present CTG and military rulers to formulate a permanent settlement on the transfer of power of the federal government to a settled civilian federal government.

If this power transfer job is handled by the political parties only, definitely there will be a lot of games on muscle, greed, power grabbing strategies, chaos, confusions, and it is feared that the pre one eleven situation will come back again to the country. This must be avoided al all costs by all patriotic honest people of the country. Only the dishonest traitors, cheaters, hoarders, and musclemen will be benefited by the repetition of the situation of pre-one eleven. The old politicians are all corrupt, dubious, inefficient, greedy, and outrageously dishonest. It is only hope that the new politicians out of new blood will emerge in future in the country to take the country into the right direction but it will definitely not happen if the pre-one eleven situation comes back in the country.

So, the suggestion to the CTG and the Military Government leaders to think about and form this three tier/layer government in the country before transferring the power to any other government. Elections did never solve our national problems, and will never do it unless it is done properly in a proper environment. Definitely elections will be needed for us to assume the democratic government but the situation of Bangladesh is at present in such a condition that a mere election will not resolve our acute national strife.

We must first put the nation in order. Create appropriate situation which I believe can be achieved by establishing this three tier government in the country now, leaving behind all other national power transfer activities. It is almost guaranteed that if it is not done today, it will never be done by the other governments in future mainly for the reason that the present condition of Bangladesh will not support or give birth to selfless politicians, rather will all be corrupt. The corrupt politicians will not adopt the three tier/layer government because it will stop them from looting and hoarding the state money and properties and will not provide the scope of reigning with their own gang of terrors and tax collectors (chadabuz). A country like ours must avoid going down the spirals of these unfortunate pitfalls for ever. It must be stopped somewhere and try to re-run with fairness, honesty and aptitude. The political bullies keep the good and honest people to take part in administration of the country politically or otherwise. So, if their scope of capitalizing the political muscle in public administration, they will try to adjust themselves also. So, let us try to establish these institutions for the good governance of the country before any other changes.

Let the public administration be run by these local governments for a test period of two, three or five years to see how effectively they are running the administration. In the mean time let all these 250 to 300 honest and independent county heads attend the temporary parliament and give their consensus on future national adoptions, policies and changes for the country; and see where they can take us. We have seen the politicians for long time; let us give chance to the independents to give a test run for the bright and stable future of our country.

If this process can be established, it will be the real people's participatory democracy, in essence what democracy really means (people's participation). In the current forms of party oriented democracy, either American style Presidential form of democracy, or the British style paliamentary democracy, people really participate only once during the election, while the members get elected in the house of reprsentatives. Afterwards, during the entire term of 4 years or 5 years, whatever be each country's rule, the common people of the country have no direct participation in the political process. Being the owner of the country, they just get ruled by the opportunist influentials instead of getting the chance of ruling their own country. Only they can barely beg something to their own elected representative, but most of the time, it does not work. Usually the representatives do not show up much in their own constituencies to see the problems of the people. Most of the time they live in the capital. Lobbies, rich corporations, foreign pressure, opportunists, and most of all the corrupt politicians ruin the welfare of the country.

If the party does not dictate, many sharp individuals will take politics as the profession, build themselves sincerely like other professionals do, and since everybody wants the own good, these people will be the keeper of beneficial public policies in the country and will certainly do good to the public, who essentially the people who they live with, and will get better in their actions day by day. Often times the party bullies the good non-aggressive but tolerant people and hire the musclemen to be powerful against the other parties. In a non-party system, this will stop for ever. Good people will come to politics, make it as life long career, do good for the people around, provide the chances to others to come in politics too; because most people someday will come to their committees as member by turns.

The committee members from all over the country, will be able to decide on the issues (political, administrative, judgemental, national security, physical planning, infrastructure improvement, national development, etc.) in each committee separately in each locality, send their decisions through the internet expeditiously to the upper levels; letting their decisions to know to all layers of the committees upto the top layer in the center of the country. The top management and administrative people in the country will thereby know the public support, that will help them to know instantaneously what to do in crafting the policies based on the public supports, and run the country smoothly, without rifting or creating the future turmoils, avoiding the ones that happened in the pre 1/11 period.

_______________________________________________________________________

Thanks and have a great day.


Regards,

KR

 

 





Will there be Elections in 2008?

Dr. Richard L. Benkin

Mahboobur Rahman's recent article in Weekly Blitz, "Rigidity of both AL & BNP foils government's efforts," should cause readers to wonder if the caretaker government will come through on its promise to hold democratic elections before the end of 2008. Bangladeshi representatives in Washington continue to stand behind their previous assurances to the US State Department that the elections will proceed as scheduled on December 18; but one source speaking on the condition of anonymity told me that he is not so sure. He refused to say, however, how the government would explain itself if the elections were not held this year. And while there are some explanations for a postponement that the US and others might accept, the closer we get to the election date, the less likely that becomes.
Since the spring, I had been counseling a proactive course to prepare the international community—and especially the United States whose imports drive the Bangladeshi economy—for the possibility of no elections in 2008. That course also involves a measure of transparency and honesty, qualities that Washingtonians do not associate with Bangladesh's representatives. That was not heeded, and now any postponement would now be laid at the feet of the current government. When western powers pressed for a commitment to hold elections in 2008, the government assented instead of taking a stand as, for instance, the Turkish military has in several similar situations and making it clear that genuine elections might not be possible by the end of 2008. In other words, it over promised. The caretaker government committed itself to accomplishing something that was not within its control. The problem is made even larger since Bangladesh's track record in Washington is one of broken promise after broken promise regardless of individual ambassadors and governments. Many in DC were hoping that the current government was bringing something new to the table.
And so were most Bangladeshis. It was impossible to find any Bangladeshi not happy about the military intervention of January 11, 2007—except for those who had reason to fear being called to account for their past misdeeds. I had arrived in the capital three days earlier with just under two weeks before scheduled elections. The situation was chaotic with Awami League head Sheikh Hasina publicly calling for her followers to "shut down the country," with violence if necessary; and her followers were listening to her. She did this even though the international community already supported her contention that rival Bangladesh National Party (BNP) had rigged the upcoming elections in their favor. In fact, in a historically unparalleled move, every western democracy was urging the Bangladeshis not to hold their election, so transparent was BNP's fraud. With both major parties now out of control and a far more dangerous situation looming for Bangladeshis, the military intervened.
The new government started out with a pledge to sweep away the corruption that was preventing truly free elections. It fearlessly arrested former corrupt officials who had been robbing the people of Bangladesh for decades with complete impunity. With the arrests of Hasina and BNP leader Khaleda Zia, it looked like the government was trying to create an entirely new political dynamic in the country and exclude the old parties from any new elections. Donor and importing nations were quiet at first, speaking in general platitudes about "speedy" elections, and left it to the government to define what speedy is. The government could have referred to its gargantuan task of undoing decades of corruption, inefficiency, and sponsorship of radical Islam; but rather than insisting on Bangladesh's sovereign right to determine when elections would bring real democracy to the people, it scurried to placate the international community. Nor did it take any action when groups with ties to both BNP and especially Awami labeled it as a military dictatorship in many of those capitals. Once that happened, the same powers that called for the 2007 election halted insisted on holding them now. Thus was squandered a great deal of time and Bangladesh's ability to control its own destiny.
Recent negotiations with the two major parties have brought the process full circle. There no evidence that either party is any different today than they were on in January 2007, but the caretaker government has tacitly let the parties know that their participation is critical for the election's credibility. How bizarre is that? The two parties responsible for a halt to elections are now told they are necessary for elections. Nor has their participation been made contingent on actions to end their corruption, sponsorship of radicals, and oppression of minorities. What assurances do the people of Bangladesh have that they will not see a return to the previous status quo when Awami and BNP both used the Bangladeshi treasury as their personal ATM machines? How can the tens of millions of minorities see any hope for them in either party? There also is no evidence that the caretaker government tried to make a case for itself with the international community. Its Anti-Corruption Committee had uncovered piles of evidence indicting the parties and their leaders with massive corruption. Figures on the amount of spoils Awami and BNP reaped from the racist Vested Property Act are alone enough to discredit them before the international community; but that was never done.
Fixing the mess is not impossible, but time is running out for this government to avoid the inevitable consequences of its inaction. Bangladeshis now face a twin dilemma: either postpone the promised elections—and face potential sanctions from nations whose aid and imports are critical for the economy; or saddle the people of Bangladesh with the same bad government and massive corruption they had know for decades.
http://www.weeklyblitz.net/index.php?id=172





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RE: [chottala.com] Fw: Interesting Yahoo! News Story - Behind the Mumbai Massacre: India's Muslims in Crisis - Yahoo! News

The same drum beaters should beat the drum for the muslims to give up terrorist actvities. The heinous and notorious terrorist actvities are not providing the muslims any good results. Rather muslims are day by day falling into the cracks because of the extreme irrational behavior to the human society in general such as extremism, terrorism, egomaniac, and self-centeredness. Muslims must give up these irrationalities and adopt normalcy in thoughts and behavior for the sustainance and progress in future.


To: chottala@yahoogroups.com; baainews@yahoogroups.com
From: chottalasultan@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 05:19:04 -0800
Subject: [chottala.com] Fw: Interesting Yahoo! News Story - Behind the Mumbai Massacre: India&#39;s Muslims in Crisis - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081127/wl_time/08599186265000

Behind the Mumbai Massacre: India's Muslims in Crisis

By ARYN BAKER Aryn Baker – Thu Nov 27, 11:35 am ET

The disembodied voice was chilling in its rage. A gunman, holed up in Mumbai's Oberoi Trident hotel where some 40 people had been taken hostage, told an Indian news channel that the attacks were revenge for the persecution of Muslims in India. "We love this as our country but when our mothers and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?" he asked via telephone. No answer came. But then he probably wasn't expecting one.

The roots of Muslim rage run deep in India, nourished by a long-held sense of injustice over what many Indian Muslims believe is institutionalized discrimination against the country's largest minority group. The disparities between Muslims, which make up 13.4% of the population, and India's Hindu population, which hovers around 80%, are striking. There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking Muslim Indians have shorter life spans, worse health, lower literacy levels, and lower-paying jobs. Add to that toxic brew the lingering resentment over 2002's anti-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat. The riots, instigated by Hindu nationalists, killed some 2000 people, most of them Muslim. To this day, few of the perpetrators have been convicted. See pictures of the terrorist shootings in Mumbai.

The huge gap between Muslims and Hindus will continue to haunt India's, and neighboring Pakistan's, progress towards peace and prosperity. But before inter-communal relations can improve there is an even bigger problem that must first be worked out: the schism in subcontinental Islam, and the religion's place and role in modern India and Pakistan. It is a crisis 150 years in the making.

The Beginning of the Problem
On the afternoon of March 29, 1857,
Mangal Pandey, a handsome, mustachioed soldier in the East India Company's native regiment, attacked his British lieutenant. His hanging a week later sparked a subcontinental revolt known to Indians as the first war of independence and to the British as the Sepoy Mutiny. Retribution was swift, and though Pandey was a Hindu, it was the subcontinent's Muslims, whose Mughal King nominally held power in Delhi, who bore the brunt of British rage. The remnants of the Mughal Empire were dismantled, and five hundred years of Muslim supremacy on the subcontinent was brought to a halt.

Muslim society in India collapsed. The British imposed English as the official language. The impact was cataclysmic. Muslims went from near 100% literacy to 20% within a half-century. The country's educated Muslim Élite was effectively blocked from administrative jobs in the government. Between 1858 and 1878, only 57 out of 3,100 graduates of Calcutta University - then the center of South Asian education - were Muslim. While discrimination by both Hindus and the British played a role, it was as if the whole of Muslim society had retreated to lick its collective wounds.

From this period of introspection two rival movements emerged to foster an Islamic ascendancy. Revivalist groups blamed the collapse of their empire on a society that had strayed too far from the teachings of the Koran. They promoted a return to a more pure form of Islam, modeled on the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Others embraced the modern ways of their new rulers, seeking Muslim advancement through the pursuit of Western sciences, culture and law. From these movements two great Islamic institutions were born: Darul Uloom Deoband in northern India, rivaled only by al-Azhar University in Cairo for its teaching of Islam, and Aligarh Muslim University, a secular institution that promoted Muslim culture, philosophy and languages, but left religion to the mosque. These two schools embody the fundamental split that continues to divide Islam in the subcontinent today. "You could say that Deoband and Aligarh are husband and wife, born from the same historical events," says Adil Siddiqui, information coordinator for Deoband. "But they live at daggers drawn."

The campus at Deoband is only a three-hour drive from New Delhi through the modern megasuburb of Noida. Strip malls and monster shopping complexes have consumed many of the mango groves that once framed the road to Deoband, but the contemporary world stops at the gate. The courtyards are packed with bearded young men wearing long, collared shirts and white caps. The air thrums with the voices of hundreds of students reciting the Koran from open-door classrooms.

See TIME's Pictures of the Week.

Founded in 1866, the Deoband School quickly set itself apart from other traditional madrasahs, which were usually based in the home of the village mosque's prayer leader. Deoband's founders, a group of Muslim scholars from New Delhi, instituted a regimented system of classrooms, coursework, texts and exams. Instruction is in Urdu, Persian and Arabic, and the curriculum closely follows the teachings of the 18th century Indian Islamic scholar Mullah Nizamuddin Sehalvi. Graduates go on to study at Cairo's al-Azhar and Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, or found their own Deobandi institutions.

Today, more than 9,000 Deobandi madrasahs are scattered throughout India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, most infamously the Dara-ul-Uloom Haqaniya Akora Khattak, near Peshawar, where Mullah Mohammed Omar, and several other leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban first tasted a life lived in accordance with Shari'a. Siddiqui visibly stiffens when those names are brought up. They have become synonymous with Islamic radicalism, and Siddiqui is careful to disassociate his institution from those that carry on its traditions, without actually condemning their actions. "Our books are being taught there," he says. "They have the same system and rules. But if someone is following the path of terrorism, it is because of local compulsions and local politics."

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, founder of the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College at Aligarh in 1877, studied under the same teachers as the founders of Deoband. But he believed that the downfall of India's Muslims was due to their unwillingness to embrace modern ways. He decoupled religion from education, and in his school sought to emulate the culture and training of India's new colonial masters. Islamic culture was part of the curriculum, but so were the latest advances in sciences, medicine and Western philosophy. The medium was English, the better to prepare students for civil-service jobs. He called his school the Oxford of the East. In architecture alone, the campus lives up to that name. A euphoric blend of clock towers, crenellated battlements, Mughal arches, domes and the staid red brick of Victorian institutions that only India's enthusiastic embrace of all things European could produce, the central campus of Aligarh today is haven to a diverse crowd of male, female, Hindu and Muslim students. Its law and medicine schools are among the top-ranked in India, but so are its arts faculty and Quranic Studies Centre. "With all this diversity, language, culture, secularism was the only way to go forward as a nation," says Aligarh's vice-chancellor, P.K. Abdul Azis. "It was the new religion."

This fracture in religious doctrine - whether Islam should embrace the modern or revert to its fundamental origins - between two schools less than a day's donkey ride apart when they were founded, was barely remarked upon at the time. But over the course of the next 100 years, that tiny crack would split Islam into two warring ideologies with repercussions that reverberate around the world to this day. Before the split manifested into crisis, however, the founders of both the Deoband and Aligarh universities shared the common goal of an independent India. Pedagogical leanings were overlooked as students and staff of both institutions joined with Hindus across the subcontinent to remove the yoke of colonial rule in the early decades of the 20th century.

Two Faiths, Two Nations
But nationalistic trends were pulling at the fragile alliance, and India began to splinter along ethnic and religious lines. Following
World War I, a populist Muslim poet-philosopher by the name of Muhammad Iqbal framed the Islamic zeitgeist when he questioned the position of minority Muslims in a future, independent India. The solution, Iqbal proposed, was an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India, a separate country where Muslims would rule themselves. The idea of Pakistan was born.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Savile Row-suited lawyer who midwifed Pakistan into existence on Aug. 14, 1947, was notoriously ambiguous about how he envisioned the country once it became an independent state. Both he and Iqbal, who were friends until the poet's death in 1938, had repeatedly stated their dream for a "modern, moderate and very enlightened Pakistan," says Sharifuddin Pirzada, Jinnah's personal secretary. Jinnah's own wish was that the Pakistani people, as members of a new, modern and democratic nation, would decide the country's direction.

But rarely in Pakistan's history have its people lived Jinnah's vision for a modern Muslim democracy. Only three times in its 62-year history has Pakistan seen a peaceful, democratic transition of power. With four disparate provinces, over a dozen languages and dialects, and powerful neighbors, leaders - be they Presidents, Prime Ministers or army chiefs - have been forced to knit the nation together with the only thing Pakistanis have in common: religion.

Following the 1971 civil war, when East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, broke away, the populist Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto embarked on a Muslim identity program to prevent the country from fracturing further. General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq continued the Islamization campaign when he overthrew Bhutto in 1977, hoping to garner favor with the religious parties, the only constituency available to a military dictator. He instituted Shari'a courts, made blasphemy illegal, and established laws that punished fornicators with lashes and held that rape victims could be convicted of adultery. When the Soviet Union invaded neighboring Afghanistan in December 1979, Pakistan was already poised for its own Islamic revolution.

Almost overnight, thousands of refugees poured over the border into Pakistan. Camps mushroomed, and so did madrasahs. Ostensibly created to educate the refugees, they provided the ideal recruiting ground for a new breed of soldier: mujahedin, or holy warriors, trained to vanquish the infidel invaders in America's proxy war with the Soviet Union. Thousands of Pakistanis joined fellow Muslims from across the world to fight the Soviets. As far away as Karachi, high-school kids started wearing "jihadi jackets," the pocketed vests popular with the mujahedin. Says Hamid Gul, then head of the Pakistan intelligence agency charged with arming and training the mujahedin: "In the 1980s, the world watched the people of Afghanistan stand up to tyranny, oppression and slavery. The spirit of jihad was rekindled, and it gave a new vision to the youth of Pakistan."

But jihad, as it is described in the Koran, does not end merely with political gain. It ends in a perfect Islamic state. The West's, and Pakistan's, cynical resurrection of something so profoundly powerful and complex unleashed a force whose roots can be found in al-Qaeda's rage, the Taliban's dream of an Islamic utopia in Afghanistan, and in the dozens of radical Islamic groups rapidly replicating themselves in India and around the world today. "The promise of jihad was never fulfilled," says Gul. "Is it any wonder the fighting continues to this day?" Religion may have been used to unite Pakistan, but it is also tearing it apart.

India Today
In India, Islam is, in contrast, the other - purged by the British, denigrated by the Hindu right, mistrusted by the majority, marginalized by society. India has nearly as many Muslims as all of Pakistan, but in a nation of more than a billion, they are still a minority, with all the burdens that minorities anywhere carry. Government surveys show that Muslims live shorter, poorer and unhealthier lives than Hindus and are often excluded from the better jobs. To be sure, there are Muslim success stories in the booming economy.
Azim Premji, the founder of the outsourcing giant Wipro, is one of the richest individuals in India. But, for many Muslims, the inequality of the boom has reinforced their exclusion.

Kashmir, a Muslim-dominated state whose fate had been left undecided in the chaos that led up to partition, remains a suppurating wound in India's Muslim psyche. As the cause of three wars between India and Pakistan - one of which nearly went nuclear in 1999 - Kashmir has become a symbol of profound injustice to Indian Muslims who believe that their government cares little for Kashmir's claim of independence, which is based upon a 1948 U.N. resolution promising a plebiscite to determine the Kashmiri people's future. That frustration has spilled into the rest of India in the form of several devastating terrorist attacks that have made Indian Muslims both perpetrators and victims.

A mounting sense of persecution, fueled by the government's seeming reluctance to address the brutal anti-Muslim riots that killed more than 2,000 in the state of Gujarat in 2002, has aided the cause of homegrown militant groups. They include the banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which was accused of detonating nine bombs in Bombay during the course of 2003, killing close to 80. The 2006 terrorist attacks on the Bombay commuter rail system that killed 183 people were also blamed on SIMI, as well as the pro-Kashmir Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Those incidents exposed the all-too-common Hindu belief that Muslims aren't really Indian. "LeT, SIMI, it doesn't matter who was behind these attacks. They are all children of [Pervez] Musharraf," sneered Manish Shah, a Mumbai resident who lost his best friend in the explosions, referring to the then president of Pakistan. In India, unlike Pakistan, Islam does not unify, but divide.

Still, many South Asian Muslims insist Islam is the one and only force that can bring the subcontinent together and return it to preeminence as a single whole. "We [Muslims] were the legal rulers of India, and in 1857 the British took that away from us," says Tarik Jan, a gentle-mannered scholar at Islamabad's Institute of Policy Studies. "In 1947 they should have given that back to the Muslims." Jan is no militant, but he pines for the golden era of the Mughal period in the 1700s, and has a fervent desire to see India, Pakistan and Bangladesh reunited under Islamic rule.

That sense of injustice is at the root of Muslim identity today. It has permeated every aspect of society, and forms the basis of rising Islamic radicalism on the subcontinent. "People are hungry for justice," says Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist and author of the new book Descent Into Chaos. "It is perceived to be the fundamental promise of the Koran." These twin phenomena - the longing many Muslims have to see their religion restored as the subcontinent's core, and the marks of both piety and extremism Islam bears - reflect the lack of strong political and civic institutions in the region for people to have faith in. If the subcontinent's governments can't provide those institutions, then terrorists such as the Trident's mysterious caller, will continue asking questions. And providing their own answers.

With reporting by Jyoti Thottam / Mumbai and Ershad Mahmud / Islamabad

See TIME's Pictures of the Week.

View this article on Time.com

Related articles on Time.com:

·        Pakistan: Divided by Faith - 60 Years of Independence

·        India: The Terrorists Within

·        Clashing Over Kashmir

 

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