CAPA pays tribute to Dr Mehdi Ali Qamar

From the comments section in the Dawn, Mian Waheed, President, Community Association of Pakistani Americans (CAPA), pays a moving tribute to the memory of Dr Mehdi Ali Qamar.

Incidentally, we visited the CAPA (Central Ohio) web-page and there seems to be a very healthy Pak-Am community (with nice pictures celebrating the 66th birthday of Pakistan).

A community which will be forever scarred by the memories of a good life which came to an end too quickly and brutally (we did not know that he died in front of his family...truly shocking, the killers should have just had mercy and killed all of them).

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I am making this announcement with a very heavy and grieving heart that one of our Pakistani community member, a friend of mine, an intelligent person, a friendly guy and a poet with a very soft and romantic heart, Dr. Mehdi Ali Qamar has been assassinated in Pakistan a couple of days ago. 

Dr. Mehdi was on a visit to Pakistan with his wife and kids and had gone to graveyard of his ancestors to say prayers for them when two persons on a motorcycle opened fire on him. Dr. Mehdi died in front of his family.


This will be a very shocking news to the Pakistani community of Ohio, he was well known to a lot of us. Our prayers are with the family and hope the assassins of Dr. Mehdi will be captured and brought to justice swiftly.


President CAPA
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Link (1): http://www.dawn.com/news/1108902/murder-in-rabwah

Link(2): http://capaohio.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/capa-ohio-arranged-a-community-picnic-to-celebrate-pakistans-66th-birthday/
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regards

Khaap inside Indian Constituent Assembly

Few excerpts via @genderlogindia

 

(high-explosive) Toys for child soldiers

“They [army] would give us one gola (grenade) each and send us to throw them on the Indians,” Ali, a cook at Nadra, said. “The children were small and were hard to detect at night. And plus we knew all the inside routes that even the adults didn’t. So they gave us a gola each and off we went, running up the hills.”

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Kargil is/was hopefully the last time that we will see hand to hand combat in South Asia. While war is exciting for some people, for us ordinary humans, it is the human factor that is of primary interest, the fact that war (always) creates hidden victims who will never find the support they need from a society which has forgotten them.

On the Indian side, one example was particularly shocking. This was the Adarsh society scam, a building which was intended for widows of the Kargil war dead (soldiers). The top people from politics, bureaucracy and (shamefully) military were involved. Here is the kicker- after all the investigations (as they say in vernacular) not even a single hair was touched. The culprits (alleged) are all out on bail due to a technicality (CBI did not charge-sheet them in a timely manner...why was that??). Ashok Chavan resigned as Chief Minister of Maharashtra and now elected as Member of Parliament in the latest Lok Sabha elections.

People who opine that corruption is the necessary grease that propels developing nations towards developed nation status should stop and reflect about the implications of Adarsh (and a thousand other scams, most of which have not seen any light of the day) and what it means for a country to disgrace the memory of her fallen soldiers.

On the Pakistani side, the report below confirms what was well known- the fact that Pakistan Army disowned its own soldiers as mujahideen and went to the extreme extent of refusing to take the bodies back. The soldiers (who fought for a lost cause) did not get a penny as compensation for their heroics in the battlefield.

However the most shocking revelation (for us) is as follows: child soldiers who were advised by the Army to lob grenades at the enemy. We are not from a military tradition so we would not know about all the intricacies, but it seems that the lines between a professional force and a religious cadre bent on jihad is a very thin one. 
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11 bullets? one, two..not enough??

Moral of the story: it is hazardous to do good deeds on this earth and in this life, even though you may benefit from it in the next life. These incidents have become commonplace now, the only reason this story is being covered is because the good doctor was an American.

We are curious but is APPNA (and any other medical association of Pakistani doctors in America) also segregated by communities? Will anybody on BP be knowing the family? It must be a terrible thing for them as a family and as well as the community. How do people heal after something like this? Please note our sincere condolences.

And this must be emphasized above all: please do not risk your life and limb (as well as inflicting terminal harm to your immediate family) by taking unnecessary risks such as traveling to your native land. If you must engage in charity work please carry on by any remote means possible (or better yet focus on opportunities in your adopted country). Please.
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An American volunteer cardiologist was shot dead in Pakistan on Monday, a member of his minority Ahmadi community said, the latest attack on a group which says it is Muslim but whose religion is rejected by the state.

Mehdi Ali had taken his five-year-old son and a cousin to a graveyard in Punjab province at dawn to pray when he was shot, said Salim ud Din, a spokesman for the Ahmadi community.

"He came here just one or two days ago to work at our heart hospital, to serve humanity and for his country," Din said. "Two persons came on motorbikes. They shot 11 bullets in him."

Ali was born in Pakistan but moved abroad in 1996. He had returned to do voluntary work at a state-of-the-art heart hospital built by the Ahmadi community in the eastern town of Rabwah.

Ali, 51, moved to Columbus, Ohio, in the United States, where he founded an Ahmadi centre and raised funds for medical charities in Pakistan, Din said. He is survived by a wife and three young sons, Din said. 

The US embassy said it was providing consular assistance but declined to give further details. "We express our deepest condolences to his family and friends," the embassy spokeswoman said.
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regards

Great Expectations

The novel had imparted quite a nasty shock at an impressionable age, hopefully the real-life drama will play out on a happier note for the sake of India and Indians.

Key takeaways (yes we know, the following are all anecdotes):

(1) Indian elites are really really shallow (as expected). To them Hindutva is a visit to the mandir a few times in their lives, on happy occasions as well as sad, and sometimes because your bike ran out of gas (as you were on a solo trip to Rhotang pass) and you saw an abandoned temple by the road-side and you were gullible enough to believe some made-up story about how the Devi appeared in a vision one night.

So do businessman Vipul and Shilpi Sharma, both 33.....Long-term BJP supporters, the Sharmas are not attracted by the nationalism, or the religious revivalism that is part of the party's ideological heritage, but because "India has been under-performing" at home and abroad during the last decade of Congress government. Shilpi believes that with Modi in charge she will have a better chance of realising her dream to have a holiday in Europe, the UK or Canada.

(2) India's poor are really, really idealistic. They are politically aware, and do have lot of expectations from the government (why not?) and they have hopefully lost the humbleness that you have to bow before the king throws a bit of alms your way. They are the first pillar of democracy. If the revolution ever comes, they will be slaughtered to the last (wo)man, and this will be explained away by the need to lose memories of the poor.

Sanjeev Pal ...has rent to pay, loan instalments on his new car to meet and a family to look after back in his village 500 miles away. Time is tight.
Not tight enough to stop him voting though. "This was a duty, not a right only. We had to pick the best man to represent us," the father-of-two said.

(neo)Maoism for memory loss (in 3 steps)

Sometimes it takes just one line (or a few words) to make things crystal clear. Normally when we talk about totalitarian ideologies we have only a vague understanding of what it means (and we working class folks pride ourselves in being intellectually, a grade above trust-fund a-holes).  
In our opinion, the quote below* fairly captures the sentiment and motivation of Mao, and possibly that of the neo-Maoists, who yearn intensely for utopia on earth.
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In Mao’s terms, suffering clears your head — even death clears your head, using “your” in the plural. China had suffered for hundreds of years, becoming enslaved by people they considered barbarians.  
When Mao says “chaos” he’s not talking like that trust-fund asshole in your dorm who used to spray-paint circles with an ‘A’ in the middle when he was sure nobody was looking.  
He’s talking about mass death for generation after generation. That’s how you get a clear head: you sweep all the “human, all too human” baggage out of it. Once you have that “mind of winter,” you can face down the nukes easily. Which he did. 
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If any Dear Leader is planning to be implement this "chaos" plan in India today, he or she must have the fortitude (and vision) to get rid of people located at the bottom of the pyramid (which is where most people live). Maoists however may argue that in order to remove mental baggage of the society most effectively, we must start (and finish) with the bourgeoisie because it is they who tend to have the longest memories (this is how it worked in the cultural revolution as well).

A three step program is suggested
(1) We have 40% of the country suffering from malnutrition, so they must be at the head of the queue (memories of extreme poverty will go with them).
(2) Next up the order will be muslims and christians. Off with their heads as well (memories of colonization over a thousand years will vanish). 
(3) Depending on our tolerance level for enhanced culling, we can perhaps eliminate all except the (neo) middle class, which clocks in at about 20% of the population.

The principal payoff for having sent 1 Bil people to the gas chambers will be that the memories of mass poverty and colonization will be lost for good. That would indeed make India a wonderful place to live in. Not to forget, there will be now many more kids who are trust-fund a-holes.

regards

* Reference: comments section in http://brownpundits.blogspot.in/2014/05/ineuqality-caused-by-neoliberal.html 

Shri Hemkunt Sahib

Guru Govind Singh meditated at this spot, high up on the Garhwal Himalayas.
The nearby valley of flowers is an unforgettable place to visit as well.

 
While the fact is that lakhs of pilgrims would love to visit the place, we wish they take all appropriate precautions. We forget easily even the most horrible events (it is probably a defense mechanism, else we all will go mad). But last year's tragedy must still be fresh in people's minds.

If any BPeeps are headed that way we will appreciate if you share your travel experiences.
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Inequality caused by "neoliberal, neopatriarchy"

Please everybody, stop with the NEO- prefix, for some reason it causes our brain wires to short-circuit (already there is a new meme that neo-Hindu, neo-middle class was responsible for the Modification of India). This is just like that -GATE thingy, every single scandal is tainted by that suffix.

Beatrix Campbell in the Guardian makes a (not so) neo-point that a neo-woman's revolution is required (yes, we did add the NEO-s on purpose). A commentator "royaltea" then responds to a particularly egregious claim that Chinese women were better off under Maoist times. 

It underlines the motto of the left. We should be all equal and poor. Inequality is bad because some of us are winners and others are losers (even while we are all richer). 

BTW "royaltea" is being kind when he (we presume) says that millions starved to death under Mao. It was in pure and simple terms, the genocide of 45 mil (of their own people). It should be the benchmark by which other genocides are ranked. The fact that it is not (along with Stalin's gulags) has to do with the West-Left assertion that communism was good for mankind but was poorly implemented.
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Feelings (fears) of a (expat) Coconut

If this is the best of times for Gujarati expats, it is also the worst of times for non-Gujaratis like Saptarshi Ray.

These non-Gujju expats - (mostly) upper-caste folks, brought up in the non-UKIP, non-Tea Party traditions of the West, which celebrates minorities (and some minorities more than others) - are also known as Coconuts (his expression).  
Right now, the Coconuts are suffering from a complex set of emotions:
(1) burning shame (our motherland is now run by RSS fascists who even make Nazi like salutes),
(2) bright-white anger and bewilderment (how could they vote for a shudra chaiwallah, we thought BJP is a manuvadi, Brahmin dominated party, controlled by Brahmin bosses from Nagpur) and,
(3) a tiny, little, nanoscopic bit of envy (these Gujarati baniyas, we will never give them our hard-earned money even if they promise better returns).

The following excerpts (expanded below) summarize the fears and feelings of a Coconut as he views India under Hindutva rule:
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The money train of the Indian diaspora is especially pronounced among Gujaratis, and so many of them seem to love Modi, as rupees, pounds and dollars from around the world fund everything from schools to political campaigns. As chief minister of their home state, he is held up as a man who can do business, and do politics. He’ll make India great, goes the argument, and a great India certainly doesn’t kowtow to any NRIs. Especially ones who disagree.

Modi and his goons—both within and without the mother country—want a mythical India that celebrates Hinduism at the cost of other religions, rides rough over its neighbours and looks purely inward. This is not the India I know and love. A more confident India is to be welcomed, but a global India is even better. 
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On Tianenmen 25 Yr eve, tanks roll out in Urumqui

The Silver Jubilee of the massacres in Tianenmen Square (dated June 05, 1989) is just around the corner. The episode is mostly forgotten.

If people remember it at all, then the sentiment is most likely to be open admiration- there are no dearth of Chicom fan circles in the left-liberal universe in the West, and amongst dictator wannabes (hint, hint) in the third world.

However people who forget history (and historical crimes) are justly condemned to experience it once more....right now the tanks are rolling out in Urumqui, Xinjiang (aka Chinese Kashmir). The islamist nut-jobs have (in our opinion) made a terrible mis-calculation. The Han Chicom leadership is a very different proposition than Vladimir Putin, George Bush, Binyamin Netanyahu and even Narendra Modi.

There are four great lakes in Xinjiang, natural wonders all of them. These can all (are about to) turn red any moment. There is nothing anyone can do to save these people.