Two Faces of India

It is not as if the whole Muslim minority is conspiring againt mother India. Although it is a pity that you would not tell this from reading most of the comments, filled as they are with unmasked hatred agianst the Muslim minority. I wonder if most Indians so full of rage and bias against Muslims, and are not ashamed of betraying their feelings, then how is it possible that Muslims can get an quitable share of the pie of so-called Indian prosperity.

Jayhind,
If the discrimination that you are talking about is related to offering additional quotas for the minority students in educational institutions..I agree ....being a minority helps in a good way..
Other than that I would completely disagree that the minorities are discriminated in India.
If you think that the religious minorities are being discriminated, then work towards improving their situation, rather than complaining in this forum.

Muslims and Christians are systematically discriminated on the basis of their beliefs. All those, who are criticizing the author for stating the facts, should have courage to accept facts. Unfortunately, truth bites.

Well Mr Sameer, your statements that the India's economic boom is not being shared with Indian Muslims reflects your ignorance. I seriously doubt if you grew up in India. The bollywood is ruled by Khans (Muslims).

If Indians muslims get liberal and start sending their daughters to schools and colleges, only then will they be a part of the economic boom. You have no proof to show that the muslims in Pakistan are florishing better than the muslims in India...Majority of the muslims remain below poverty line because they tend to be conservative.

Please never ever write articles for international media without adequate homework. (Revisit your history books..if you ever did read about India)

Deepti Reddy

think if indians stop blogging at Newsweek they will stop publsihing this type of articles, now our replies are giving them the fuel of money to continue this media attack on top of the Mumbai attacks, with each of our click.

I think if indians stop blogging at Newsweek they will stop publsihing this type of articles, now our replies are giving them the fuel of money to continue this media attack on top of the Mumbai attacks, with each of our click.

Dear Sameer, you write well and your writing style is nice but your article is devoid of any substance and logic. It is shallow and born of ignorance or half truths. There is no denial that the Muslims in India, with many notable exceptions, are not faring well. But same can be said of many castes and sub castes in India regardless of religion. So the economic and social deprivation in India is not limited to Muslims and other Indians are in the same, if not worse, predicament. And that dissatisfaction is occasionally manifests in movements such as the Naxalite activities. On the other hand other minority communities, in spite of their own and sometimes legitimate grievances, have flourished. Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians (Parsees) are few examples. Your assertion that the disparity in socio-economic status alone is the root cause or justification for terrorism rings hollow. Yes, the disparity gives an excuse to people from outside India to exploit the situation, but the community as a whole must make a conscience efforts to put a stop to that. What showed your (mis)understanding was when you used the words like ???Muslims and Indians often live side by side???. Indians have never thought Muhammad Rafi, Dilip Kumar, Shabana Azmi, Dr. Abdul Kalam, Dr. Zakhir Hussain. Ifran Pathan etc to be anything but Indians, not to mention the man in the street who just happens to be a Muslim, as much as he could have been a Sikh or a Buddhist. Your alluding to underlying causes for terrorism, such as poverty, are well known and often discussed elsewhere. Your mentioning them in this article has added nothing more except introducing a red herring in the myriad and complex issues surrounding terrorism. I give you one thing- may be you are familiar with the mores and culture of south Bombay. From your article seems like the editors of Newsweek were seeking something in haste and you happened to have an article ready. In one of the comments regarding your article, someone put your name and that of Fareed Zakaria in the same sentence. Fareed???s writing is erudite, informed, analytical and often insightful. I have read Fareed Zakaria, I like his analysis though I may not agree with it all the time. Sameer, you are no Fareed Zakaria.

Dear Sameer, you write well and your writing style is nice but your article is devoid of any substance and logic. It is shallow and born of ignorance or half truths. There is no denial that the Muslims in India, with many notable exceptions, are not faring well. But same can be said of many castes and sub castes in India regardless of religion. So the economic and social deprivation in India is not limited to Muslims and other Indians are in the same, if not worse, predicament. And that dissatisfaction is occasionally manifests in movements such as the Naxalite activities. On the other hand other minority communities, in spite of their own and sometimes legitimate grievances, have flourished. Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians (Parsees) are few examples. Your assertion that the disparity in socio-economic status alone is the root cause or justification for terrorism rings hollow. Yes, the disparity gives an excuse to people from outside India to exploit the situation, but the community as a whole must make a conscience efforts to put a stop to that. What showed your (mis)understanding was when you used the words like ???Muslims and Indians often live side by side???. Indians have never thought Muhammad Rafi, Dilip Kumar, Shabana Azmi, Dr. Abdul Kalam, Dr. Zakhir Hussain. Ifran Pathan etc to be anything but Indians, not to mention the man in the street who just happens to be a Muslim, as much as he could have been a Sikh or a Buddhist. Your alluding to underlying causes for terrorism, such as poverty, are well known and often discussed elsewhere. Your mentioning them in this article has added nothing more except introducing a red herring in the myriad and complex issues surrounding terrorism. I give you one thing- may be you are familiar with the mores and culture of south Bombay. From your article seems like the editors of Newsweek were seeking something in haste and you happened to have an article ready. In one of the comments regarding your article, someone put your name and that of Fareed Zakaria in the same sentence. Fareed???s writing is erudite, informed, analytical and often insightful. I have read Fareed Zakaria, I like his analysis though I may not agree with it all the time. Sameer, you are no Fareed Zakaria.

Hey all Indian American Hindus who voted and worked for the MF liberals, getting vote for Obama (on the premise that Palin is bad evangelical candidate) this is what you get from these liberals. This is one of the several articles which appeared in Newsweek regarding India's bad treatment of Muslims. Do you know that Muslims have increased clout in the political process these days? They were even able to crash the Wallstreet for Obamas sake. I am not saying he is Muslims, but ofcourse the midle easterners think he will have atleast some affinity to them. They are playing by the game book of another politically strong community, establishing controll of media, universities etc. Within the last 10 years they have found more money to channel into American politics bcause they cannot send their Sakath money to outside countries to help terrorism. Now they spend it here. Open your eyes and see. Newsweek is the worst. They publish this crap without any base what soever. Go see how the"fully Muslim" countries are functioning, how they treat their own people. How much freedom they give to other religions.

Shame on you Mr Reddy. I hope you are not born & brought up in India, as you sound like the condescending elitist who want to ???uplift??? the poor in third world countries. I hope you did not get paid to write this article as it looks like a compilation of bad blogs you find if you google India + Muslims. I am a hindu & have many muslim friends & we have all done well because we worked the skin off our back. If others want the richness & fame, they will have to do the same. Please DON???T EVER AGAIN try to justify killing innocent people to lost opportunities. Terrorism, whether from Muslim or Hindu or Christian radicals is to be condemned.

akjshdijed

It baffles me that autors of Reddy's ilk trying to even compare Islamic terrorism with hindu fundamentalism !!! Are you guys smoking pot? Wake up..Pakistan was created out of Islamic ideology and the Bin Laden and cronies wont rest until caliphate rule is established from morocco to Indonesia..Blaming hindus, christians and jews for islamic terrorism is like you blaming your daughter for not being nice with a rapist instead of kicking his nuts.....The scope and vision of these terrorists are far beyond what you try to justify by blaming hindu fundamentalists ...

It is blatantly false that muslims are denied opportunities in India. I rile at these journalists perpetrating this folklore to the whole world which is now bandied as a convenient excuse to justify these atrocities??? Minorities of other countries will envy the amount of constitutional protection given to Indian minorities..Heck.. as an Indian citizen, I wont be allowed to even buy land in Kashmir !!! Majority of the Indian private schools are run by minorities. Muslims themselves need to introspect as to why they are breeding like pigs, consequently living in ghettos and sending their kids to madrassas not being able to escape the poverty cycle. Smarter muslims in India has learned to adopt family planning, give their kids good education and succeed in life, but even they balk at speaking against the mullahs and radicals.. I also feel ashamed of the acts done by hindu fundamentalists against their brethren, but pretending that hindus are to be blamed for these monstrous acts make me throw up..

I have never seen such slanted coverage against hindus until i started reading NYT, Newsweek, Time and watching CNN. Now I understand why fox news is more popular in USA. I would recommend Indian govt to follow footsteps of Chinese and act tough before the menace of Islamic terrorism engulf the whole of India ???. I shouldn???t say this..but unless the Jaysree???s, Khanna???s, Reddy???s and Zakaria???s family gets riddled and mutilated by Bin Ladens bullets, bombs and grandes, they wont realize that writing these kind of articles are promoting terrorism???

I have posted my comment at 12.25AM today and returned to find so many readers agitated after reading the trash written by the columnist and the meaningless messages he tried to convey, which I think should incidentally outrage my fellow Indians of Islam religion as they were practically implied as doers of this heinous crimes. The dumb author implies that Muslim community is not inclusive in the wealth effect, due to a hatched plan or a societal conspiracy, causing a generation of downtrodden Muslims and an unhappy neighbour (Pakistan) next to us leading to dire consequences. I am not a biased person to interpret this article incorrectly, but I am a regular citizen who wants India to be a peaceful and prosperous country.

Biased and uncontrolled articles like this are nothing but small acts of web wars, committed by ill-informed or vested interests. In any case there should have been editorial scrutiny before this got published on a web-site like Newsweek. If the author published it on his own stupid blog nobody would have cared, but to put it as a jouranlism article on a website it should have gone through lot more editorial control and in this case should not have made it to exclusive. All the offended Indians (all faiths) and friend of India please contact the editor at the following E-mail Id to express your anguish. Also please cancel your subscription to Newsweek, if this author continues to write, I will do the same with mine.

Editorial questions and comments: WebEditors@newsweek.com
(If writing about a particular article, please include the author's name in the subject line of your email.)

A dispossessed minority? Give me a break. They ruled India for 1000 years! Its nobody's fault that they are too narrow-minded to absorb knowledge and good ideas from the rest of the world.

I was born and bred in Malaysia, a muslim country and I believe my experience as a Chinese from Malaysia will give a more balanced truth about what it is that motivate Muslims to commit such horrendous atrocities as 9/11 and this attack on Mumbai. After reading the many readers' responses, I agree with the majourity view that it is ideaology that motivates the Muslim terrorists.
Discrimination and the lack of opportunities for advancement is not the motivation whatsoever. The truth is the Muslims are dreamers and for them the ultimate purpose in life is to achieve martyrdom; Muslims live in the world of the hereafter and be rewarded with the gift og 28 virgins in heaven. I say this because Malaysia is the reverse of the Muslims' living conditions as that found in India. In Malaysia there are 68% Muslims and 32% Chinese & Indians; as in India, Muslims see themselves as the dispossessed class, although Muslims in Malaysia HAVE ALL THE RIGHTS TO ACCESS THE ENTIRE WEALTH OF THE NATION. The Laws are entirely and unjustly skewed to directly and unashamedly bestow all the economic benefits on the Muslims (really everything for the Malays who are Muslims). I entirely agree with an opinion expressed earlier that Muslims are intend on conquering the world by demographics, by overwhelming the world's population through untremmelled population explosion. This arguement is borne out by developments that has and still is taking place today. At the outset of independance for Malaysia, we had 55% Malays, 40% Chinese and 5% Indians in a total population of 10 million, but today (50 years on) we have a total population of 28 Million( 5 million Chinese, 2 million Indians and 21 million Malays).
However in Malaysia, although the Malays are given 100% places in our local universities and none for the other minority races, the government has not been able to produce any sufficiently functional graduates to fill positions in both the government and the private sectors. It is an absolute disgrace that just yesterday it was proposed by the Malay government that the PASS MARK for the assessment of school children in the areas of Maths, Science and English is set at 20% out of 100% so that more of the Malays can graduate from high school; this is the level of competence that the Muslim government has stoop to after 50 years of independance. That being the case we can all agree that it is not any of the claims of Sameer that motivates the Muslims to commit acts of terrorism but that the culprit is Muslim Idealogy.

Comment: " Pseudo armchair experts" like Mr Khanna always attributes all the muslim terrorism in the world to "oppression of muslims around the world". Iam sick of newsweek trying to reason the acts of terrorism based on economics instead of blaming the fregging ideology all the muslims share...That they want to rule to world !!
Any sane person can look around the globe and see that muslims or sections within the muslim population will not rest under they establish the caliphate and impose sharia rule . The rigid indoctrination of koran makes them incapable of co existence with any other race/ ethinic group until they become rulers. The so called moderate muslims will come up with the explanation of 'oppression of muslims' instead of standing up against the cancer within. Poverty is not an excuse for killing others if you keep on sending your 10 kids to madrassas instead of free government education and affirmative action provided by the govt. in India. Most of the recent muslim terrorists who were arrested in India have engineering/ medical degrees. How will you attribute the deeds of home grown british terrorists to oppressive living conditions?

The muslim elders and mullahs should stop gloating about muslims ruling the world many centuries back and instigating the youth to be confrontational to rest of the world by instilling grievance and revenge instead of hope, dedication and hard work to succeed in life. The rapid explosion of muslim population around the world by not opting for birth control measures is adding to the pool of potential young terrorists.

In spite of having 'moderate muslim friends' and listening to all sides, the events of last few years have convinced me that a civilizational war fuelled by petro dollars and internet is inevitable with major repercussions to the world. The civilized world should decimate islamic terorism with brute force, else the chickens will come home to roost and it will be too late.

I feel like yanking out the balls of authors like Reddy who try to justify such barbaric acts by trying to come up vague insinuations instead of calling the spade a spade.

It is dumb and ignorant of someone to interpret in such a manner, it shows the writers clear lack of ability to comprehend the complexities of eastern cultures and islamic idealogies and terrorism.