What I meant by this as follows: Man could not explain many things. But they existed. They threatened his existence. Some were helpful too. Uncertainties made him imagine a force or opposing forces. He thought by making these forces happy, he would have good life. Is this not his religious belief? Why should we be so egoistic as to nullify their beliefs and claim our ones to be the only religions?
From: qar <qrahman@netscape.net>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: ধরা যাবে না, ছোঁয়া যাবে না, বলা যাবে না, এমন এক বিচার...!interesting poems by Dr Puspita
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: ধরা যাবে না, ছোঁয়া যাবে না, বলা যাবে না, এমন এক বিচার...!interesting poems by Dr Puspita
"Religion has existed since the first day of human civilization." No sociologist agrees with this observation.
-----Original Message----- From: Kamal Das <kamalctgu@gmail.com> To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Sun, Feb 26, 2012 6:58 am Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: ধরা যাবে না, ছোঁয়া যাবে না, বলা যাবে না, এমন এক বিচার...!interesting poems by Dr Puspita
"Religion has existed since the first day of human civilization." No sociologist agrees with this observation.
2012/2/26 subimal chakrabarty <subimal@yahoo.com>
1. Last question first. Religion has existed since the first day of human civilization. We have seen only reforms and different names. I will say in general in a given geographical area any reform was better than the earlier ones or earlier religious teachings. That's one of the reasons for the new "religion"'s wide acceptability in that area. My point is that there are progressive elements in a religion."Sobar uporey manush sotyo, tahar uprey nai", "jeebey prem korey jei jon, seijon sebichhe eeshwor", or "jethay thakey deener ho'tey deen, seikhaney je choron tomar rajey", and so on. You can quote many more. God is implied in all the three quotations; but it is also implied that "man" is the key element. Yes, I agree with you. Religion has been a major cause of hatred, bestiality, and arrest of human progress from tome to time. But you are not blaming other major forces which include politics and economics. I am not going into the details now. Everybody knows about it.2. I agree condions of Indian muslims are not good. Are the conditions of Hindus or other religious groups or tribes good? Without going into detailed statistics we can probably agree to the "no" answer. For the muslims definitely madrasa education system is a factor. I have doubt that it is the single most negative factor. India is shining. We marvel at that. After 65 years has India been able to reasonably solve the socio-economic problems of its common masses? Again, the answer should be a big "no". What is to blame for the backwardness of the non-muslims?3. Do American blacks play victims? Yes. But that is not a full truth. Many people want to show this as a full truth out of the racism that still prevails in their hearts. This is generally true for the Indian muslims also. I guess the Indian muslim political organizations which apparently speak on behalf of their muslim citizens do not do it out of sympathy for them, they do it for politics. Probably they do not want them to be with mainstream Indians.
From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 8:18 PMSubject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: ধরা যাবে না, ছোঁয়া যাবে না, বলা যাবে না, এমন এক বিচার...!interesting poems by Dr Puspita
From: qar <qrahman@netscape.net> Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: ধরা যাবে না, ছোঁয়া যাবে না, বলা যাবে না, এমন এক বিচার...!interesting poems by Dr Puspita To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com Date: Friday, February 24, 2012, 7:01 AM
There are no countries in this world who "Got it right" when it comes to have a "Perfect system". India enjoys a lot of advantage for being a democratic country and for having a strong press (Which occasionally defends common people!).
Even those members of this forum knows a bit about USA knows it is also far from being perfect. It has a near perfect constitution but implementation of it often were influenced by culture and race relations. So dark skinned African-Americans had to wait hundreds of years to have the right to vote or sit in the same restaurant with white Americans. Women were given right to vote around 1920.
The Indian "Muslim" story is similar. There are advantages for being part of India and at the same time historical discrimination is still there. Like most countries of the world these biases has been passed down from generations to generations. West Bengal is known to be a liberal state of India but the state of Muslims in that state is pretty bad. Not too long ago Muslim students had the change their names (A religion neutral names like Chowdhury or Halder) when applying for jobs or sitting for exams. Currently most Muslim men are so frustrated with the "System" that many of them stopped going to higher education. They go to big cities with some training on craftsmanship (Like Gold smith) and set up their own businesses. Lately many of them were harassed because Mumbai police assumed that they were from Bangladesh (Since they were Muslims from west Bengal). Having said that, things are gradually improving in India and denying it would not be fair. When Dilip Kumar (Actual name Yusuf Khan) started acting in movie he was "Forced" to change his name into a "Hindu name". Today Khans rule a great deal of Indian movie industry.
Secular Indian philosophy has been a fertile ground for religious proselytizers, and Hindus have been the major victim of such activities due to their loose religious affiliation.>>>>>>> As you have pointed out the "Hindu culture" (It is not exactly a religion in traditional sense) is fragmented by it's nature. It only comes together when there is a common enemy (British rulers). Discrimination of Hindus BY Hindus is more common than discrimination by any other groups. From my personal experience, I saw the Hindus from southern India never very comfortable with "Northern people". Because of centuries of discriminatory treatment they received from them. They do not embrace "Hindi language" as shamelessly as a common Bengali Hindu or Muslim would (We Bengalis always prefer foreign people, goods etc). Today there are many Indian states they do not "FEEL" close to Indian union as they should. So there are insurgencies and unrest within Indian union. Christian missionaries take advantage of this situation. They target the very people common Indians looks down to. I heard about a statistics about Pakistan as well. In Pakistan more people converted to Christianity in last 60 years than previous 200 years under British rule. The scholar who described it said, it was the fault of our "Privileged Muslims" who sunned Islamic teaching of treating ALL people with respect and dignity and opted for "Cultural orientation". So Hindus and Muslims who felt oppressed in "Islamic Pakistan" felt more comfortable being a Christian in it than staying Hindus or Muslims. It would be impolite for me as a Muslim to comment about Hindus in India but I bluntly say we Muslims failed to deliver teaching of Islam (Which I feel is beautiful) to most Muslims. Had Muslims practiced Islam properly, we Bengalis would not feel cheated by the Pakistanis. From Pakistani stand point it was a disaster in grand scale. I find it strange that the founding father of Pakistan was not even a practicing Muslim and he wanted to see a secular Pakistan which would provide safety to Muslims. Today the most popular politician in Pakistan is not a religious scholar but a former cricket player and NO ONE would mistake him for a Mullah (To say the least!!). Yeah truth is stranger than fiction!Today most Muslims (Like their Hindu brothers/sisters) feels very comfortable in victim hood. Where they feel "Others" and the whole world is conspiring against them and they are under assault. I do not think it is entirely true in most cases (Only cases like Iraq, Palestine are clear). Sadly Pakistan is obsessed with India and most Indians are afraid of Pakistanis as well. They are the same in most cases. India is a very imperfect democracy (With huge fault lines) but still it has better system than Pakistan or Bangladesh. We Bangladeshis we some cultural advantages though. Most Bangladeshis are peace loving people by nature and we are a small country. So all we need is solid leadership for couple of decade to get to our "Promise of Independence" ( Ekatturer shopner desh). Our common people have good relationship with both India and Pakistan. So we have the potential to play a leadership role in not only improving our country but to contribute greatly in regional Eco-system. So, when Bangladeshi politicians talk about the influence of Indian "Babus" or "Dadas" on Bangladeshi policies, they mean influence of Indian Hindus on Bangladesh; nothing can be further from the truth.>>>>>>>>> You are right to some point. But no one with even a little knowledge of our politics would not deny outside influences in our politics. You can read Indian newspapers few years ago and current news papers to see the difference as well. We live in an interdependent world, so I am not against having friendly relationship with India or any specific country but without wise leaders we stand to lose a lot if they are not careful while dealing with India or other foreign nations.Our current government gave golden opportunity to India for better relationship couple of years ago. But so far Indians are losing it and Indian bureaucracy is Indian's worst enemy. Our people are always ready to sacrifice for good relationship with India. But constant betrayal over the years eroded any credibility India had among common people. So politicians want to score points in this atmosphere. Politicians are unique breed and mostly work the same way all over the world. If you go to west Bengal you will hear similar untrue statement about Bangladesh and Muslims as well. Lastly I would encourage all of you NOT to give up on people of Bangladesh. They are good people and with good leadership they can do miracles. :-)Shalom!!-----Original Message-----From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>Sent: Fri, Feb 24, 2012 8:31 amSubject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: ধরা যাবে না, ছোঁয়া যাবে না, বলা যাবে না, এমন এক বিচার...!interesting poems by Dr Puspita
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