We have mentioned Saqib Ali several times previously on Sepia Mutiny. Anna mentioned a personal challenge he and his wife faced a few years ago here. We also had posts on his campaign for the Maryland state legislature here, and then again after his election victory here

Now Saqib Ali, one of a very small number of Muslim candidates elected to public office anywhere in the U.S., has taken a public stand in favor of granting gays and lesbians the right to marry. He published an op-ed in the community paper the Gazette: here. It was also covered yesterday on NPR, which is how I heard about it. What I like about Saqib Ali’s approach is the directness with which he handles the religious prohibition on homosexual acts in Islam:

It feels like the nature of the fight for equality has changed. It has gone from being a rather niche liberal issue to perhaps the most pressing civil rights issue of this generation. And marriage equality throughout the land now feels like an eventual inevitability.

I expect some day people will look back at this fight for equality like we now look back on oddly antiquated anti-miscegenation laws. I’m proud that I’ll have stood on the right side of history: In support of full marital rights for same-sex couples.

My stance on this issue isn’t politically expedient. I am the first Muslim in the legislature. Homosexuality is strictly forbidden in Islam. As such I have evinced much grief from my most conservative supporters.

But I recognize that I represent people of all faiths and no faith at all. If I tried to enforce religion by law — as in a theocracy — I would be doing a disservice to my both constituents and to my religion. (link)

What’s clever about this is the twist on religious morality. Normally, opponents of gay marriage apply a version of a presumed Judeo-Christian morality as support for their position. Saqib Ali, coming from an Islamic background, knows full well that his invocation of “theocracy” has extra rhetorical weight; the last sentence in the paragraph quoted above hits home. Continue reading →

There has been a new wave of anti-Christian communal violence in Pakistan, with a riot involving as many as 20,000 people in the town of Gojra, west of Lahore.

We normally use the phrase “communal violence” in the Indian context, but reading the particulars of this story in the New York Times, the idea of “communalism” (a particularly South Asian expression of communitarian religious hostility) seems to fit. The recent riots were not on a huge scale — 100 houses belonging to local Christians were burned (compare to 3000 homes of Christians burned in the violence in Orissa last year) — but it’s still frightening and sad.

There is a history of this kind of violence in Pakistan. I don’t know the history in great detail, but Wikipedia has links to several similar incidents in just the past few years. (It often starts with the claim that someone has desecrated the Koran.)

One oddity in the Times coverage was the way they described the size of the Christian community in Pakistan, as comprising “less than five percent of the population.” I gather the number is more like 1.6% — why not simply say, “less than 2%”? Maybe that’s a nitpick.

As a response, the Christian schools in Karachi are on strike for three days. A number of arrests of those involved in the attacks have been made, and President Zardari has strongly condemned them. The Daily Times newspaper has a story with a subheader that the DPO (police chief) in the district has been “booked” as well, but the text of the story actually states that authorities are at this point just thinking about charging him with failing in his duty to keep the peace.

Incidentally, the town of Gojra is in the Toba Tek Singh District of Punjab, an area made famous by Sa’adat Hasan Manto’s story about Partition, “Toba Tek Singh.” Though we’re no longer talking directly about partition, that story about the madness that can sometimes overtake people in the name of religion still feels relevant. Here is a translation of the story, and Professor Fran Pritchett has both the original Urdu and a Devanagari version of the story linked from her site: here. Continue reading →

Three stories caught my eye in the New York Times this weekend, but I found reading all three in a row a little dizzying. All three relate to love, dating, and marriage, and say something about life in the Indian diaspora. But the pictures painted by the respective stories seem to have little to do with one another. What happens if we line them up together?

The first, from our news tab, is the story of a marriage between a Sikh, Parminder Suchdev, and an African-American woman, Danielle Jackson. Both have advanced degrees in public health and medicine, with resumes a mile long. Because the Times Weddings/Celebrations section is also kind of a “society” page, they also mention how successful and accomplished their parents are (especially Danielle’s parents, in this case; wow). I walked away thinking, what a wonderful, accomplished couple… and, man, am I a slacker.

Next, a second-gen named Ranu Sinha, in a first-person account of being introduced to a guy who at first seemed to be interesting because of the commonality of “Brownness and Bhangra.” But later she gets mad at him, and it leads her to a blanket condemnation of modern Indian culture:

When I took too long on a buffet line, he was furious for having been left to eat alone. I couldn’t understand at first, but then it hit me: In India, solitude is feared more than anything else. Another time, when I surprised him with a homemade picnic, he agreed reluctantly and then left early. His parents needed him at home. For him, family obligations came first. The ladder of his priorities was long and I, the newcomer, found myself on the bottom rung. But it was from that vantage point that I grew up.

Underneath his modern American clothes, his American degree and his American accent, I discovered the beauty of an ancient Indian hierarchy that could not be taken off — of kinship, of family, of honor among men, of the traditions. In his world, the needs of the dozen always override the needs of two.

And with that, I uncovered, what I had never really understood. India is a place where love of tribe trumps romance-novel love.

Where heritage is still sacred and change skin deep. Where the sights, sounds, smells of Western modernity are mimicked, perfectly, as if Indians were characters on a Hollywood movie set. But when the lights go down and the costumes come off, India is exactly the same — just as she always was. A place, held together, by the kind of human bonds that last. (link)

Do you agree with her main point? I don’t; while it is true that there you will find a fair number of people out there for whom tribe and family work like this, it’s dangerous to extrapolate on the basis of one experience. Another thought: it’s sentiments like these that give second-gens (ABDs) a bad reputation with other Indians (“first know something about Indian culture before you turn up your nose, yaar”).

Still, at least some of what she’s saying rings a bell: “India is a place where love of tribe trumps romance-novel love.” Maybe, though that doesn’t mean the trump card always wins the hand.

Finally, Harsimarbir Singh, with a column in the Times describing coming to the U.S. to get a Master’s in Engineering at Duke. Most of it made me roll my eyes, though I did chuckle at the following paragraph:

Though it’s been a short time for me at a top-tier American university, I have had the opportunity to see the party culture that the American student craves. The American passion is extended here as well, with young guys and girls passing out and losing control after consuming alcohol. Being a teetotaler, I have stayed away from drinks, but not from the joys, of the American celebration. (link)

That last sentence, somehow, made me laugh. Continue reading →

Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving member of the squad that allegedly carried out the terrorist attack in Mumbai last November, has reversed his plea for a second time. He had initially admitted involvement in the attacks, and then denied it, saying his first confession had been produced under torture. But he decided to do his latest, and presumably final, confession in open court, where there’s no question of coercion. Also, he gives some new details about how he got involved with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani Jihadi group, to begin with. Interestingly, it wasn’t a driving ideology initially, but rather the desire to learn a certain “skill set”:

Moments before the trial’s 135th witness was to take the stand, the defendant, a young Pakistani named Ajmal Kasab, stood up and told the judge that he had participated in the attacks.

Speaking softly in a mix of Hindi and Urdu to a stunned and spellbound courtroom, he gave a detailed recounting of the planning and execution of the operation, beginning with his introduction to a Pakistan-based Islamic extremist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and ending with the rampage that hit two luxury hotels, a railway station, popular cafe and a Jewish center.

“I don’t think I am innocent,” Mr. Kasab, 21, declared toward the end of his daylong confession. “My request is that we end the trial and I be sentenced.”

Mr. Kasab spoke extemporaneously, without forewarning even his own court-appointed lawyer, and the court must now decide how to proceed.

Revealing new details, Mr. Kasab described how he became a Lashkar-e-Taiba soldier, a rare glimpse into the motivations of extremist recruits. He said he was working for a pittance at a decorating shop in the town of Jhelum, in Pakistan, a job he hated. He and a friend decided to become armed robbers.

Mr. Kasab said they went to the garrison city of Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, with the idea that they would ask a jihadi group to train them to be militants. They would then use those skills to become expert robbers. They asked around in the city’s market for the mujahedeen fighters, and someone directed them to Lashkar-e-Taiba’s office. (link)

He decided to come out with the confession because he apparently heard about the secret dossier that Pakistan had delivered to India last week at a meeting in Cairo, confirming that Kasab was in fact a Pakistani citizen. The contents of the dossier had already been leaked to the Indian media.

To my ear, the details all fit together relatively well, including the timing of the current confession. What do people think? Is this “Tamasha” effectively over?

A few more links:

Reuters: Key Facts on Ajmal Kasab

TOI: Partial transcript of the confession in Urdu (Has anyone seen a full transcript of the confession anywhere?)

Daily Times, Pakistan: India leaks Contents of Confidential Dossier to Media Continue reading →