Muslim leadhership in India can be described as spoiled brats.- Tarek Fatah

Muslim leadhership in India can be described as spoiled brats.- Tarek Fatah

“If there is anything to be learned from this is that what is needed today is a robust challenge to not just terrorism, but the ideology of Islamism. The Islamist addiction to self-imposed victimhood must also be exposed. This does not happen in India (or even in Canada) where vote bank politics trumps the truth.”

At the eye of the storm — again

The university refused to elaborate on the ‘unavoidable reasons’ that led to the cancellation of my talk with students

By Tarek Fatah ,Toronto Sun

First posted: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 06:15 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 02:06 AM EDT
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/04/16/at-the-eye-of-the-storm–again#comment-865800025
While visiting India, columnist Fatah meets with India’s Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid.
SUPPLIED PHOTO
I am in India doing research for my next book, Jinnah’s Orphans, the story of how a single man left a permanent scar on India’s face and seriously damaged the psyche of a people. And as I write this sitting in the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, the very place where Pakistani terrorists committed mass murder in the name of Islam in 2008 — I have managed to embroil myself in a controversy over free speech and the rise of Islamism in India.

India is the birthplace of my Muslim parents, their grandparents and generations before them who, by the the mid 1800s, converted from Hinduism to Islam.

In my desire to get a sense of how Indian Muslim youth see the future and to know where they stand on the rise of radical Islamism across the world, I had requested my hosts arrange a visit to the prestigious Jamia Milli Islamia Univesity (JMI) in New Delhi. JMI is headed by Najib Jung, one of India’s most enlightened Muslims, a leading figure in the community and well respected for his progressive outlook.

JMI agreed to my talk, but merely hours before the event on April 11, the university sent out a cryptic press release stating: “An interactive session with Mr. Tarek Fatah, a Canadian writer and broadcaster and a secular Muslim activist has been CANCELLED due to some unavoidable reasons.”

The university refused to elaborate on the “unavoidable reasons” that led to the cancellation of the event.

It didn’t take long before I discovered it came as a result of a handful of Islamist youth who had threatened to disrupt the event. They created a situation where university administrators were coaxed into shutting down the event instead of risking a flare up on campus.

Soon the news of this cancellation hit India’s most prominent media outlets, and now the issue has taken on a life of its own.

If there is anything to be learned from this is that what is needed today is a robust challenge to not just terrorism, but the ideology of Islamism. The Islamist addiction to self-imposed victimhood must also be exposed. This does not happen in India (or even in Canada) where vote bank politics trumps the truth.

One rare example of straight talk came from the man who just might scrape through to become India’s next prime minister.

In January 2010, a group of students at the Aligarh Muslim University aired the sense of Muslim victimhood when they heckled Rahul Gandhi, demanding to know “Why has India not had a Muslim prime minister?”

While the question by the Muslim students was rhetorical, Rahul Gandhi’s answer was refreshingly bereft of political correctness or vote-bank pandering. The young MP who most likely will lead the Congress into India’s next general elections in 2014, shot back at the students: “Can you name five young Muslim leaders?”

What India’s current flock of Islamic leaders do best is cajole the majority into what is referred to as a ‘Hindu guilt’.

The same happens in the U.S. and Canada where it is ‘White liberal guilt’ that precludes any challenge to Islamist ideology.

What has been observed of the Muslim leadhership in India can be described as spoiled brats. This attitude erupted last week when India’s national TV broadcaster, DDR, aired a recipe that contained pork on a cooking program. All hell broke loose with Muslim leaders claiming offence and demanding an apology. These are the same leaders who slaughter cows regularly in a country where most people consider cows sacred.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that — I probably just got into trouble again.

Shabnam Hashmi’s ANHAD is majorly Church funded

By Japan K Pathak
Ahmedabad, DeshGujarat, 16 April 2013

With official documents in hand, in this series I am trying to narrate the details of crorepati non-government organizations functioning in Gujarat – author

When I read status updates on left-winger NGO operator Shabnam Hashmi’s foreign tours, when I look at her anti-Modi ad anti-Right campaigns on Facebook, when I learn that she travels in planes, and manage to have a house in Amdavad, when I learn she camped in Gujarat before the assembly elections for weeks and weeks, the questions arise in my mind: how one manage to spend so much without doing job or business like normal people!

But after getting hold of the official documents on foreign funded organizations in India, I have been able to find some answers.

Shabnam Hashmi runs ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy) with registered address as 23, Canning Lane (Pandir Ravi Shankar Shukl Lane) in New Delhi.

Her association is described as Cultural, education and social. Yes, the word ‘political’ is not part of the description.

Hashmi’s NGO received Rs. 1,66,10,753.60 foreign fund in year 2011-12 for “strengthening communal harmony and democracy.”

Now let’s do dissection of the foreign fund, Shabnam Hashmi received during that year.

The highest foreign fund was donated by Britain based organization Christian Aid. ANHAD has received around Rs one crore fund in a year from this organization.

Among the other organizations that made donations to Ms. Hashmi’s ANHAD are IMRC (Indian Muslim Relief and Charities) headquartered in Palo Alto California and Church Auxiliary for Social Action(CASA).

Now let’s move on to the figures of year 2010-11.

ANHAD received foreign donation of Rs 1,65,25,433

ANHAD received foreign donation of Rs 1,65,25,433. Christian Aid was again the main donator with donation in this year worth Rs 84 lakh around.

In both 2011 and 2010 OXFAM was also one of the major donors of ANHAD.

Interestingly Action-Aid India is also one of the major donors of ANHAD. We accessed the funding details of Action-Aid Associations and found that in same year Action Aid was donated Rs 46053800.00 by a single donor – Google India Private Limited for “welfare of other backward class.”

ANHAD was established in March 2003, as a response to 2002 Gujarat riots by Shabnam Hashmi, Marxian historian Prof. K N Panikkar and social activist Harsh Mander. As per its Wiki page, ANHAD plays a major role in Gujarat to fight against human right violations,as well as in the Kashmir Valley.ANHAD is registered as a trust and has six trustees. They are Shabnam Hashmi, K N Panikkar, Harsh Mander, Shubha Mudgal, Kamla Bhasin, Saeed Akhtar Mirza.

Next article: Harsh Mander’s CES received Rs 12.33 crore foreign/Church fund in two years