India - Muslims and Liberals

Gandhi: Greatest martyr for Muslims in India

Mustafa Malik — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 14:56:20 +0000

WHEN INDIAN PRIME Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech, was extolling Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as one of India’s national heroes, Mahatma Gandhi’s soul must have responded, “I forgive you, Vinayak!” In 1965 an inquiry commission was set up under the former Indian Supreme Court Justice Jiwan Lal Kapoor to investigate the Gandhi assassination....

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India’s lesson for Lebanon

Mustafa Malik — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 04:36:47 +0000

India and Pakistan could have been spared catastrophes by power-sharing systems they rejected. The Lebanese should hold on to the one they have. I NORMALLY CAN’T stand Boris Johnson because of his demagoguery and conservative political creed. But last week Emmanuel Macron made me appreciate the British prime minister, for the first time. The French...

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China plots to encircle India

Mustafa Malik — Sat, 01 Aug 2020 02:17:54 +0000

“Yay!” I exclaimed within myself. China was going to upgrade the Sylhet airport, said a blurb on the Internet. Sylhet is my hometown in northeastern Bangladesh. Sylhet’s Osmani airport is rather small and every time I fly in to the city, I have to hustle through a crowded arrival lounge into the hurly-burly of a...

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Mahmud Ali: Generals wrecked Pakistan

Mustafa Malik — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 15:53:34 +0000

MAHMUD ALI’S BIRTH centenary on September 1 reminded me of a comment Jawaharlal Nehru made during his meeting with George Bernard Shaw in London. Independent India’s first prime minister, a driven Fabian socialist, had been invited to attend the June 2, 1953, coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey. That was “a formal occasion,”...

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India’s empty threat to Pakistan

Mustafa Malik — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 21:41:32 +0000

Pakistan was protesting, vociferously, India’s decision to wipe out the “special status” of the part of the Jammu and Kashmir state under its occupation. Rajnath Singh, the Indian defense minister, told Islamabad to hush up. He said New Delhi may be changing its “no-first-use” policy on firing nukes. India adopted the policy of not using...

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Bangladesh, Pakistan trade luck

Mustafa Malik — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 04:28:20 +0000

I FEEL GOOD about living to see this day. Bangladesh, whose creation I once opposed, is belying my forebodings about its future. It has surpassed Pakistan and, in some cases, the economic behemoth of India in economic development and well-being. Bangladeshi economic performance glows brighter when you compare that with the near-meltdown of the Pakistani economy. Here’s...

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Modi, Bibi, Trump & liberal order

Mustafa Malik — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 22:17:09 +0000

Need a new world order that protects autonomous religious and ethnic communities.

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‘Islamic bomb’ scare, again!

Mustafa Malik — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 21:15:15 +0000

“Persuading Pakistan to rein in its nuclear weapons program should be an international priority. “The major world powers spent two years negotiating an agreement to restrain the nuclear ambitions of Iran, which doesn’t have a single nuclear weapon. Yet there has been no comparable investment of effort in Pakistan.” – The New York Times Editorial Board...

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Bringing Indian Muslims out from cold

Mustafa Malik — Sat, 07 Jun 2014 14:16:09 +0000

THE INSTALLATION of India’s Narendra Modi government has triggered concerns among many Indian Muslims. Prime Minister Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) has included in his Cabinet some of the well-known Muslim baiters such as Indresh Kumar and Sadhvi Rithambara. He has given top administrative posts to bureaucrats accused of involvement in anti-Muslim...

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Struggle for Bangladesh’s cultural soul

Mustafa Malik — Fri, 09 May 2014 03:00:23 +0000

SYLHET, Bangladesh: Is modernity finally putting brakes on the Islamization campaign in Bangladesh? Is it eroding the nation’s ethnic culture? These questions keep haunting me during trips to Bangladesh. A visit yesterday to Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Sylhet lent the two questions special poignancy. The population of what is now Bangladesh is...

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