BijuShet wrote
I am sticking my neck here but I request a shot at this. In most countries, ideas and propoganda of fringe elements/groups are either ignored or mocked at by the majority. When it comes to Pakistan that is simply not true. The vernacular and english media puts forth enough material to convince all the nay sayers that almost all Pakis have an us versus Kufr worldview.
To illustrate let me recount a personal incident. I was in Europe in october 2001 i.e. immediately after Sep 11. A paki team mate employed in the european office (very white collar with an engg degree from a rated Paki Tech Institute and working for one of the Big three consulting firm) was trying to explain to me that the Taliban in Afghanistan was a misunderstood group. In his view they were being wrongly blamed for the ills of Afghan society and that they were reformers who were trying to bring order in a chaotic situation. He also did the customary highlighting of Kashmiri plight being the thorn in the bed of roses otherwise known as Indo-Pak relations. He wanted the big brothers sacrifice from India. I had been a BRFite for a long time and thus recognize Pakiness when presented with a specimen. I chose to avoid him and his views for the rest of my short time there. I did not want to fight him as it would have been a disaster for my team, my firm and the client who were innocent parties in this small indo-pak mushaira. The point of my story is that here was a guy who had a decent middle class upbringing (He was not a Rape and surely did not smell like one as that was one reason all fellow team-mates from 5 other countries avoided him like the swine flu.) This seemingly normal guy with an upbringing/education/career similar to mine could not understand the ills of jehadi terrorism and that too a month after sep 11 convinced me that Pakis are a special breed.
I am still playing devils advocate partly.
So this is just one "Paki" who has been met by an Indian, and who manages to convince the Indian about the "Pakiness" of all "Pakis". Now is not that a very very small sample? I have met a significant number of Indian Muslims, and Ulema, who openly confessed to their dream of establishing Sharia in India, and who blame non-Muslims for the loss of "legitimate" power and glory of Muslims over all of the subcontinent. They had also defended openly the right to hold Jihad if it becomes necessary to "protect" Islam. In India, whenever the Ulemaic leadership growl about "Sharia" being compromised, there is no general outpouring of protests from the IM about the illogicality/illiberality of the demands of the Ulema.
Why so? Compared to TSP, there is not going to be any state-sponsored and protected backlash against such protests? Why is it we see however strong public mobilizations when its a case of chasing out Tasleema Nasreen or burning the book of Salman Rushdie?
So if I now start claiming based on the limited sample of IM that I have personally experienced, that the minuscule proportion of Muslims I have seen in India allows me to generalize their mindset to all IM in India - would I be wrong?
As for "similar liberal educational/economic" background, yet producing a virulent anti-India, pro-Taleban world-view - is nothing surprising. The educated elite of any nation, who has found reasonable socio-economic success and status - will reflect, in general, the world-view of the nations dominant elite and their imposed rashtryia philosophy. Take a representative sample of Indians with higher education and coming from liberal-upward-economic origins - the dominant trend will be that of the "centre-left" and p-sec.
If, those who have the choice of having a liberal education (IM children have legal rights to demand place in a Government run school instead of enlisting in a Madrassah), who have the choice of protesting the outlandish demands of the Ulema or fanatical Islamist preachers demanding someone's head because of his creations, without any fear of the rashtra stifling such protests - still choose to remain silent, why expect "liberal" outlook from those who are denied any alternative education/opinion building/exposure to alternative philosophies?
Each and every argument used to suppress and deny the role of the Islamist theology and its theologians in shaping the behaviour of Islamic communities, can be equally applied to suppress and deny the role of a nationhood which is hypothesized to be devoid and completely disconnected from Islamist theology but yet carries out each and every atrocity supported and called fro by that theology against "non-believers". Every criticism to trash such arguments in one case is also applicable to trash such arguments in the other.
If one case is ridiculous or dumb or asinine as argument, then the other is ridiculous or dumb or asinine as well.
By the way, the word "kufr" should perhaps be avoided to describe the target of hatred of a Paki! Because that word solidly equates the Paki with Islamic. I gained the impression that we have to toe the line that "Pakiness" has no connection with Islam.