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The perpetually hurt strike again

It's been a busy week: After the "You are dead meat!!!" kind of threats, came the abuse-of-server-by-rediff.com-via-Varsha kind of intimidation, which was then topped by: "Your company is registered on the NASDAQ in the US and you perhaps do not realize that such blunt hate mongering... would not only ruin investor confidence but will not be tolerated for long by the international market, particularly if US-based advocacy groups such as the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), of which I am an active member, start a campaign against your company. CAIR has tackled the likes of Disney, Nike, Burger King, LA Times, Washington Post etc and made them retract from their anti-Islamic stance in the past. Note also that many Christian advocacy groups in the US will be ready to team up over such a cause."

This... hmm... "entity," called Khalid Azam, active member of this august institution, had earlier rebutted my "I realised that such Muslims hate writers of my tribe because they're afraid of us," in The direct lines to God, with "Suffice it to say that people need not necessarily hate pigs because they are afraid of them :-). There are more than one reasons for hatred and you certainly are off mark in your above prediction!" Note: "pig," "hatred."

To my question that does the Muslim have a right to act by violent Quranic dictates simply because the journalist is voicing views that are unpleasant for Muslims, the reply was that the BJP is "actively using its police and paramilitary forces to abduct, kidnap, torture and kill minor Muslim children as well as youth and adult Muslims on a massive scale... Let it be on the record that several Muslim journalists have been killed by drones (sic) of 'peace loving', 'geeta reciting' bhikshus and karsevaks facing the very situation that you are whining about."

To my relating the news about the ISI maggots of SIMI in the Aligarh Muslim University, the response was, "Make me the Police Commissioner of your city for a few days and I promise that I will make you publically (sic) confess that you are the key mastermind terrorist involved in the recent round of bombings that is shamelessly being blamed on the Deendar Anjuman!"

And so on and so forth, all of which I ignored. But the latest missive from the dipweed attacks my integrity: "This is not to discount the subtle fabricated lies that she passes as 'Facts' to rouse her emotional audience to drive them to the oppression of minorities! The policies of propaganda your company uses are clearly an image of the Nazi regime: 'Speak a lie so many times that it appears as truth'!"

I just love it when somebody gives me a platform to demonstrate my meticulousness. Following are the sources of my information, all national "secular" newspapers:

Fact: "How it is in close touch with fundamentalist and militant organisations like SIMI, the Students Islamic Movement of India, which had been set up in 1977 by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind." The Observer of Business and Politics, December 16, 1994.

Fact: "It was pointed out that as far back as in 1991-92, Pakistan's ISI had selected key functionaries of SIMI for providing platform to Sikh extremists. The absconders of Al Umma, having connection with Lashkar-e-Taiyba, were under specific advice to take shelter with SIMI cadres, central agencies have said." The Asian Age, September 6, 2000.

Fact: "How in early 1993, the Majlis-e-Numaindgan (the Council of Representatives) of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind asked its general secretaries to set up an underground organisation, how its rukuns (active members) were asked to develop links with other Islamic bodies in every state." The Observer of Business and Politics, December 16, 1994.

Fact: "The intelligence reports record how Muslims young men have been recruited for training in arms and explosives through organisations like SIMI, and the Islamic Sevak Sangh now rechristened as the People's Democratic Party in Kerala, how the functionaries of these organisations have played host to militants and the recruiting agents." The Observer of Business and Politics, December 16, 1994.

Fact: "The Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Ali Shah Gilani is exhorting Indian Muslims to join Jihad in Kashmir. He has been 'warning' Indian Muslims that if they fail to do so, they may one day be 'answerable'." The Free Press Journal, March 27, 1997.

Fact: "Rajasthan government has ordered a probe to find out how a letter, apparently from Pakistan's Gen Pervez Musharraf to Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Gilani reached the Hurriyat leader in a Jodhpur jail. The letters relate to Pakistan's new 'five-point' policy on Kashmir." The Indian Express, December 16, 1999.

Fact: "AMU has been in the eye of controversy recently. Besides frequent occurrence of violence in campus, the latest is the arrest of Abdul Mubin by the Agra police. Before this an AMU identity card was recovered from a hardcore terrorist who was killed in an encounter with the army during the massacre of Amar Nath pilgrims in J&K." The Hindustan Times, September 9, 2000.

Fact: "Muslim organisations like SIMI and BMAC also carried on propaganda... Some Muslim extremists and fundamentalists seized upon this opportunity to canvass that their religious interests were at stake... This call to religion found a ready response amongst the Muslim youth..." From the Srikrishna Commission Report.

That done, let's hone in to the crux of the issue: "Journalists such as Varsha Bhosle have raised the altar of separatism and communal hatred to a new frothing high! Quotes such as 'freeing that **bastard** Masood and raising the Haj subsidy' and calling Muslims en masse as 'gutter creatures' and reputed Muslim university (AMU) as a 'fringe institution' and its students as 'terrorists' and 'fringe lunatics' (Sept 11th alone) speak volumes for themselves."

Now, I'd like to ask every Indian Muslim reader who resents my calling Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar a bastard -- not on the basis of "proper" language, but on that of sentiment -- to step forward, please. Apropos the Haj subsidy, does anybody have a rebuttal to my questions...?

As for "See, I'd asked 7 questions in that article, none of which was answered by even one of the gutter creatures," I find it amusing that just about every Muslim and, of course, every "secularist," has taken it as an allusion "en masse." Maybe it's the Ummah thing that does not let them separate themselves from the gutter creatures who wrote me the unprintable mail. I don't use "some" or "a section of" or other such ass-saving devices: My problem is, I tend to overestimate the intelligence of the reader and expect him to exercise his common sense. As for "fringe institution" and "fringe lunatics," LOL! What does he want me say?! Corr, what a joker, hahahaha...

I first heard of Azam's cuckoo group in November 1998 when Edward Zwick -- director, writer and producer of films like Glory and Legends of the Fall -- was sought to be terrorised by American Muslims into withdrawing his movie, The Siege. Not being a Hindu, Mr Zwick fought back -- and kept his movie intact. He depicted global Islamic terrorism; I write about Islamic terrorists, whether they are the bastards from across the border, or their henchmen in AMU, SIMI and Deendar Anjuman. Therefore, I reproduce extracts from Mr Zwick's hilarious defence, published by the NYT, since it *exactly* echoes my sentiments:

"What the critics are saying, as best as I can understand it, is that any portrayal of the life of Muslims that includes representations of violence -- no matter how well documented -- is not only offensive, but also inflammatory. Forget the World Trade Center and the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania; their position, simply put, is that all one billion Islamic people in the world can be portrayed only in their most positive aspect...

"I sense a fear that the image of Arabs and Muslims in America is so poor that any negative depiction, even if part of a balanced whole, is inherently perilous. This argument has been promulgated before: by Jewish Americans, Italian-Americans and many others. It is a time-honored expression of the insecurity of any new immigrant group, so worried about the pains of acculturation. But the logic, so emotionally persuasive and understandable, is, I'm afraid, finally as reductionist and disrespectful as the imputed offenses that it protests...

"Movies about aliens and asteroids can't offend anybody, but neither do they try to hold up a mirror to unattractive aspects of our country. And the truth sometimes hurts. In what a friend of mine calls 'the new American hurt game,' if you're not offended by somebody, you're nobody. These days, it seems, people wake up in the morning not only waiting to be offended, but also hoping to be offended. Central to any multicultural orthodoxy is the notion that, unless you are offended, you have no ontology...

"I am not accustomed to defending [my films]. What I'm trying to do as a film-maker is to look at the world. And write about what I see. To shrink from any subject because it is hurtful or politically sensitive or politically incorrect, or Islamically incorrect, is to deny one of the most important functions of art, which is to be provocative. So, I'm sorry I offended anyone. But I'm really not." RAH, RAH, RAAAH!

Khalid Azam, and CAIR, and all the menacing Muslim dorks, you threaten rediff.com with "investor confidence." Very clever. Unfortunately, two can play the game: As my US attorney assures me, "If anybody bars you, then come visit USA, we will be very rich. We will sue them for violation of basic constitutional rights. You get the money, share it 50-50, and off we go." And I have all the mail and my references well documented.

Then, you "remind" rediff.com of "the prospect of legal battles and media campaigns." Problem is, my facts are researched, and my writing is fully within the purview of the US Constitution as enshrined in the Amendments Article I, which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Tell me, do I seem as mercenary as the makers of Mickey Mouse to you...? Do you think I'm in this for the money...? Do you think that if I'm removed by rediff.com, I will never have a voice...? Do you think I'm going to start "consulting" with Ibrahim Hooper before each column...? Do I seem like the past and present governments of India, all of which have trembled before the "might" of the minority vote...? Do you think that you frighten me?! Try me! In America, or on my own turf.

Varsha Bhosle