I hope you do not mind me asking a personal question, Ms. Majid.
Do you really have a PIO Card? As far as I know, if you, your parents or grandparents were ever a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh, you would not be eligible. According to the initial proposal, people who or whose parents/grandparents were Indian citizens as per the 1935 Citizens of India Act would be eligible. However, when that proposal actually became a bill, an exception was made for excluding people of Pakistan and Bangladesh background. For that reason, I know quite a few Bangladeshi Hindus who are US citizens and interested in the PIO status could not apply for it. (Of course, in legal terms, for people of Pakistan/Bangladesh background, India has been treating the Muslim hate-mongers and the non-Muslim victims the same way.)
Talking a bit more about people like Tarek Fatah and Farida Majid, whose ancestors were born in a place that is a part of today's secular India, it is easy for them to feel proud of India, as compared to how a non-Muslim whose family got displaced from Pakistan and Bangladesh is likely to feel about his/her ancestral homeland that has been going down the ditch of religious fanaticism.
Sukhamaya Bain
========================================
From: Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 8:06 PM
Subject: RE: [mukto-mona] Fw: India is a gift that keeps on giving | Tarek Fatah's column in The Toronto Sun
Hey, I'm not only a PIO (a person of Indian origin) I was born in Kolkata where most of my family resided before the dreadful Partition. My father is from West Bengal. I am not so sure, but i may be eligible for a NRI status.
I am proud to say that I straddle India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in my background and my cultural being.
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
From: subain1@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:20:13 -0700
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Fw: India is a gift that keeps on giving | Tarek Fatah's column in The Toronto Sun
I am proud to say that I straddle India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in my background and my cultural being.
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
From: subain1@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:20:13 -0700
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Fw: India is a gift that keeps on giving | Tarek Fatah's column in The Toronto Sun
Indeed, Tarek Fatah has expressed his emotions for his ancestral homeland of centuries.
We need to realize though that a mother or motherland always gives to her children, irrespective of how rich or poor she is. A child has to appreciate the mother/motherland without looking at how much talent she produced. We do not have to look at the Nobel Laureates and big talents to appreciate India.
In fact, in terms of Nobel Laureates, India has been quite poor. For example, I was looking at the University of Chicago undergraduate admissions information brochure recently. That one university has had a total of 87 Nobel Laureates over the years among its professors.
BTW: Most "Indian Restaurants" in New York City are probably owned/operated by Bangladeshis right now; thanks to the lottery visas. There the Bangladeshis do no mind being "Indians." I personally call myself an American of Indian origin (of course, I mean a cultural India as opposed to today's political India).
SuBain
==========================================
From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2013 11:09 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Fw: India is a gift that keeps on giving | Tarek Fatah's column in The Toronto Sun
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2013 11:09 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Fw: India is a gift that keeps on giving | Tarek Fatah's column in The Toronto Sun
"India is a gift that keeps on giving."
Tarek Fatah's comments are heartfelt; they speak the truth. No matter where we come from (India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan) our identity is forever Indians. It's hard to find people who can speak his/her mind without reservation, as he did. Fragmentation of India was the worst thing that could have happened to the people of India; it was a grand conspiracy to keep this region unstable forever, and it's working like a charm. The greatest losers are the people of Pakistan and Bangladesh, who have been fighting among themselves ever since independence from India, and there is no end in sight.
Jiten Roy
From: SITANGSHU GUHA <sbguha@yahoo.com>
To: "khabor@yahoogroups.com" <khabor@yahoogroups.com>; "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2013 10:21 PM
Subject: [mukto-mona] Fw: India is a gift that keeps on giving | Tarek Fatah's column in The Toronto Sun
To: "khabor@yahoogroups.com" <khabor@yahoogroups.com>; "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2013 10:21 PM
Subject: [mukto-mona] Fw: India is a gift that keeps on giving | Tarek Fatah's column in The Toronto Sun
----- Forwarded Message -----
Subject: India is a gift that keeps on giving | Tarek Fatah's column in The Toronto Sun
Subject: India is a gift that keeps on giving | Tarek Fatah's column in The Toronto Sun
"Whether we are Nobel laureates like Amartya Sen and V.S. Naipul or heads of government like prime ministers Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trindad and Navin Ramgoolam of Mauritius; journalists like CNN's Fareed Zakaria or musicians like Ravi Shankar and Bismillah Khan, India is a gift that keeps on giving. Jai Hind!"
August 14, 2013 India is a gift that keeps on giving
Tarek Fatah
The Toronto Sun
It's mid-August, the time of the year when more than a billion people of Indian ancestry around the globe will celebrate the defining moment that triggered the end of European colonial rule over much of Asia and Africa.
August 15, 1947 marked the end of 200 years of British colonial rule. That precious moment of joy has been captured forever in the stirring words of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru as he spoke to the country's constituent assembly on the eve of independence. Nehru said:
And in his newfound "utterance," Nehru summed up the essence of public service, so elusive in today's era of cynical power and politics. He reminded his fellow legislators, ordinary Indians on the street, and to the world that was listening:
He then turned to those Indians who had been "partitioned" away by the departing British and were told they were no longer Indians. Britain had literally amputated the very limbs of Mother India by slicing off what is today Bangladesh in the east and Pakistan in the west. To these "former" Indians, Nehru said with a broken heart:
Within hours of Nehru's speech describing Pakistanis as "they are of us," the joy of India's greatest accomplishment was drowned in a bloodbath in which a million Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus slaughtered each other.
And from the ashes of that bloodbath arose Pakistan, created by the Anglo-American enterprise after the end of World War II as a buffer between the USSR and India.
When Nehru talked of those "who have been cut off from us," he was also referring to my parents who fled Bombay in 1947 to the new promised homeland for Muslims. Otherwise sane and rational people, they, too, were caught up in the frenzy of Hindu-hatred let loose by the Islamists of the time.
This spring, my wife Nargis and I went on a pilgrimage to India for the first time. It was to reclaim our heritage, and as Muslims own up to our Hindu ancestry with pride. I kissed the soil my parents had abandoned 65 years ago. And at that moment, I, too, became an Indian, for India is not just a country, but also an idea, God's gift to the rest of you.
Whether we are Nobel laureates like Amatya Sen and V.S. Naipul or heads of government like prime ministers Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trindad and Navin Ramgoolam of Mauritius; journalists like CNN's Fareed Zakaria or musicians like Ravi Shankar and Bismillah Khan, India is a gift that keeps on giving. Jai Hind!
Tarek Fatah
The Toronto Sun
It's mid-August, the time of the year when more than a billion people of Indian ancestry around the globe will celebrate the defining moment that triggered the end of European colonial rule over much of Asia and Africa.
August 15, 1947 marked the end of 200 years of British colonial rule. That precious moment of joy has been captured forever in the stirring words of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru as he spoke to the country's constituent assembly on the eve of independence. Nehru said:
"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance."
And in his newfound "utterance," Nehru summed up the essence of public service, so elusive in today's era of cynical power and politics. He reminded his fellow legislators, ordinary Indians on the street, and to the world that was listening:
"The ambition of the greatest man of our generation (Gandhi) has been to wipe every tear from every eye ... Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart."
He then turned to those Indians who had been "partitioned" away by the departing British and were told they were no longer Indians. Britain had literally amputated the very limbs of Mother India by slicing off what is today Bangladesh in the east and Pakistan in the west. To these "former" Indians, Nehru said with a broken heart:
"We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good and ill fortune alike."
Within hours of Nehru's speech describing Pakistanis as "they are of us," the joy of India's greatest accomplishment was drowned in a bloodbath in which a million Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus slaughtered each other.
And from the ashes of that bloodbath arose Pakistan, created by the Anglo-American enterprise after the end of World War II as a buffer between the USSR and India.
When Nehru talked of those "who have been cut off from us," he was also referring to my parents who fled Bombay in 1947 to the new promised homeland for Muslims. Otherwise sane and rational people, they, too, were caught up in the frenzy of Hindu-hatred let loose by the Islamists of the time.
This spring, my wife Nargis and I went on a pilgrimage to India for the first time. It was to reclaim our heritage, and as Muslims own up to our Hindu ancestry with pride. I kissed the soil my parents had abandoned 65 years ago. And at that moment, I, too, became an Indian, for India is not just a country, but also an idea, God's gift to the rest of you.
Whether we are Nobel laureates like Amatya Sen and V.S. Naipul or heads of government like prime ministers Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trindad and Navin Ramgoolam of Mauritius; journalists like CNN's Fareed Zakaria or musicians like Ravi Shankar and Bismillah Khan, India is a gift that keeps on giving. Jai Hind!
__._,_.___
