Refugees – Ramana's Musings

Let It Be.

“Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.” Brene Brown in The Gifts Of Imperfection.

All the religions of the world have a closing word or phrase or invocation after a prayer or a hymn or a discourse. Amen, Ameen, Aymeen in the Abrahamic religions and Thathaasthu and Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu, or Shanti, Shanti, Shanti in the case of Buddhists and Hindus respectively.

Those endings are what I had in mind when I suggested this topic for this week’s Loose Bloggers Consortium where five of us currently write a post with the same topic every Friday.

The four other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order; Ashok, gaelikaa, Maxi, and Shackman. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too! Ashok too is having prohlems with his blog being down and may or not participate this week.

I use Thathaasthu often. Thathaasthu directly means “Let it be.” This is to agree with someone, usually after a blessing or a statement of import. Just this morning I sent a mail to some friends, some of who are among the readers here, reading as follows.

The Taliban in Karachi

There has already been a lot of turf wars between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns in Karachi and this news item gives me more cause for alarm due to the sheer numbers involved.

And a much earlier piece.

Sind is already a volatile place and the Mohajirs who do not speak Sindhi are not exactly popular. Westward, the Balochis do not like either the Mohajirs or the Pashtuns. And all of them dislike the army which is predominantly Punjabi.

Things are getting from bad to worse in Pakistan with the government / army constantly under attack from the Taliban and local nitwits like the LeT and its offshoots besides the very large presence of Al Quida there. The drug cartels are all jockeying for position and that too will be a problem on this side of the border with Punjab already a major drug problem state. The Mohajirs have roots on this side of the border. I have been predicting that we will have a massive refugee problem sooner or later and the climate in India will simply be devastating to the refugees and their relatives on this side of the border. American withdrawal will speed up the process. What a world we live in!

I got a cryptic response from a friend within five minutes of sending that mail. “Thathaasthu”.

In this case, he agrees that the nightmarish scenario presented by me is inevitable and so says, don’t fret, let it be. It will all work out! He has faith and wants me to keep faith too!

What do you think about that cryptic message? Do you agree? Will you let it be?

Our 26/11 Anniversary.

Last year, after the Mumbai terrorism, I had written many posts and responded to comments and my regular readers will recollect the mention I had made of my friends and their son Kaizad. Kaizad was a budding chef in the Taj Hotel, and he was deliberately shot and killed by the scum. I reproduce the article interviewing Nawaz and Noshir that appeared in our local newspaper by a scanned copy as the article is not appearing in the eversion of the newspaper. By clicking on the image, you can enlarge the image to read better and you will also see the photograph of Kaizad the gentle giant.

My young friend Sandeep has written a poignant post in his blog about Mumbai and you can see my comments on it here.

The Times of India has published another very interesting article which is worth reading as is the article in the Independent.

Pakistan has indicted seven people in Pakistan for the roles played by them in the massacre but the key players still enjoy official protection and patronage. Pakistan is imploding everyday and I envisage major problems for Pakistanis, refugees from there who would like to come over to India and Indian Muslims who would like to help them, in the days to come. I hope that the Pakistani establishment would get a grip on its country, its economy, its development and its people to avoid becoming like Somalia.

Pakistani Militant Confesses.

I draw the attention of my readers to this article in the New York Times.

Pakistani establishment has been accepting, denying and casting aspersions on everybody else in the world like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand.

The leadership is scared of the ISI and the militants who enjoy official patronage. They dare not take action against these elements within their borders.

Indians will live with terrorism and chest thumping by this rogue state which has its begging bowl out for dole from the rest of the world. India will survive. Pakistan I suspect will not. Even the Kashmiris, have now shown that they would rather be with India in the recent elections held there. I am not surprised. Who in his right mind will want to join a failing state whose sole purpose to exist seems to be to promote terrorism within its borders, export it to neighboring countries and to get it all financed by the gullible Americans and other Western Countries.

I further draw the reader’s attention to an article and another earlier article in The Economist. Such an impartial publication cannot be too far off the mark.

A number of us in India dread the prospect of “moderate” English speaking urban Pakistanis flooding into India as refugees when the Taliban and the Al Quida convert Pakistan into their country for which they have been longing for for all this time. In India we consider the Pakistani belief that the Taliban is encouraged by India as the biggest joke of the century. Are these people blind, deaf and completely immune to the global media?

I lived in Delhi when we had Afghan refugees coming into India en route to Western Countries. Perhaps the same will happen in the case of Pakistan. I doubt that Indians will extend the same hospitality to the Pakistanis if they do decide to flee the Taliban and the Al Quida. The Indian Muslims will be first ones to turn them away after they have seen the duplicity of the so called Pakistani neutral press in the recent past.

Every Dollar and Euro and Pound that goes to Pakistan as aid, hastens this prospect.

Give Your Voice For Refugees.

My friends Tikno and Jim Belshaw have written about the problems of refugees, on this, the Refugee Day for bloggers to unite on the cause of refugees. Tikno in fact had blogged about it last week and I had responded to his blog about which, I shall elaborate here.

India has a tradition of offering refuge from time immemorial. The Zoroastrians fleeing persecution in Iran, the Jews, Armenians, escaped slaves from the Mughals, Tamils from Burma, the Dalai Lama and his followers fleeing China, Tamils from Sri Lanka, Muslim and Hindu Pakistanis from what was originally East Pakistan, and now, Muslim Bangladeshis crossing over into India causing major problems in our North East.

India not only offered refuge to these refugees, it allowed them to practice their religions in peace and assimilated them into the local society, on the principle “Aditi Devo Bhava” – The guest is God.

What originally started off as religious persecution, driving people to becoming refugees, has now become far more complex with economic opportunities and fleeing from cross fire problems in power struggles for political supremacy.

In India, we have a vicious system of political patronage that converts the sufferings of refugees into vote banks which has alienated the local populace to such an extent that recently genocidal riots have taken place in some sensitive areas. This in turn begets backlash from religious extremists and as I write this, an end does not seem to be in sight.

India has seen the worst of the refugee problem based on religion from the time of the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. The generation of Hindu and Sikh refugees that came into what is now India have completely merged with the nation and have prospered and contributed greatly to Indian, economic, political and other activities.

The recent problems of economic refugees from Bangladesh however is creating problems of a different kind which is what prompted my comment on Tikno’s first post.

I am now 65 years old. I wonder if, in my life time, I will see a world free of this problem. Do you think that you will?