Asghar Ali Engineer Quotes
Nothing can be more valued than our diversity. Our diversity is the core of our democracy. Freedom becomes meaningless without respect for this diversity. Fundamentalism and fanaticism are becoming stronger in all the countries of Indian subcontinent or South Asia, particularly in India and Pakistan. Forces of fanaticism are gaining upper hand. In my opinion this is as grave a challenge as the challenge of freeing our country from the British rule. It requires mass mobilisation once again on the scale our leaders of freedom struggle did during the British rule. It was easier however, to mobilise the masses against British rule; it is much more difficult to do so against our own internal enemy.
Asghar Ali Engineer, Reformer, India, Director, Institute of Islamic Studies, India, Chairman, Indian Center for Study of Society and Secularism, “Plurality Or Polarity?” Islam 21, November 2001
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“Musalmans” was then another English term for Muslims. At the time, the Hindus and Muslims of India were both under the rule of the British. As bad as Colonial Rule was, it had some advantages for the subjects and their desire to reform government and education. Ironically, there is no Islamic nation today, with the exception of Turkey, where Muslims have the rights, freedom and privileges as they had at the turn of the century in Colonial India.
This famous quotation, from this important address, at such a critical time in history has been admired for years. Despite his great oratory, the next months were to see almost 2 million Indians of all faiths killed in what was probably the worst internecine violence in human history. Ironically, the politically motivated terrorism had stopped since all the decisions had been made. The motivation for the frightful atrocities that took place from then on was vengeance and fear of more vengeance." 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Jinnah himself preached non-violence. At the time there was vicious sectarian violence throughout India but especially in The Frontier Province. However, the Muslims of the day did not heed him or Nehru or Gandhi for that matter and the violence continued. Jinnah however was a particularly shrewd politician who successfully used the threat of Muslim violence to obtain a separate Islamic state with Indian independence. He pointed to the threatening resolution issued earlier {627153}. The man who publicly preached peace, privately threatened violence.
Singh is a Sikh cleric. Sikhs are the third largest religious group in India.
Nguyen Ai Quoc was early pseudonym.
English history has been replete with Catholic-Protestant conflict and because of the British Empire, the British historians were very familiar with the Islamic conflict with Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and other religions. Toynbee was very worried about the future religious struggles and he turned out to be right. Freedom isi amenable to different interpretations and compromise. Religion also has different interpretations, but many of the religious fundamentalists see compromise as an offence to God and his word. So religion is less amenable to political, civil or social structuring and compromise.
In an unprecedent event for Broadway, Victor Dixon, as the cast was taking its curtain call of the then hootest musical play, "Halilton", read aloud this statement to the audience and the new Vice President Elect, Mike Pence who was attending the show. The document had been written and endorsed by the entire cast as a group. The trigger for this unusal happening was the winning of the presidency by Donald Trump who had throughout the campain made many racist statements about monorities and a contual tirade of sexist, anti-female statements. It had also been revealed that Tromp had been sexually accosting women. During and after the campaign, Pence had not himself made any of these statemetns or even indicated that he agreed with them, but he did not public;y deagree or disavow them. The message was clarly meandt for Donald Trump. The Vice President then walked out, and many in the audience booed him in the process. Victor Dixon asked them not do boo the vice president as the cast was trying to keep thir message on a high plane, but the audience wanted to express their view. Pence was hot offended personally by the message but walked out in defference to Trump. Teh President elect however was outraged and in the early morning hours went on one of his many tweeting tirades against the cast of Hamilton--to many an overreaction to criticism to which Presidents in America have to become accostomed.
Asghar Ali Engineer was an Indian reformist-writer and social activist. Internationally known for his work on liberation theology in Islam, he led the Progressive Dawoodi Bohra movement. The focus of his work was on communalism and communal and ethnic violence in India and South Asia. He was a votary of peace and non-violence and lectured all over world on communal harmony.
