PS
It is your fixation that makes you think women are being discriminated against becasue they are not allowed to mix with men in the mosque.

Again let me emphasise here it is not so much they are not allowed into mosques as they are not allowed to mix with males in a prayer enclosure.

Where separate enclosures are available for women then women are certainly allowed into mosques. A case in point is the Grand Mosque in Mecca and Madina and many other mosques in rest of the Muslim world. Maybe in India due to paucity of real estate or sheer ignorance custodians of such mosques do not allow women inside with a blanket ban.

There is no relation with my description of your glee at the cartoons as sadism and my defence at the restrictions against women where separate enclosures are not available because the cartoons issue is something done by non-Muslims on a faith which is not theirs while the women in mosque issue is about our own women that too on which the majority of women accept the recommendation.

KM

KM,

I think your help is needed for those who would like to keep Dalits out of the temples beacuse they are supposedly "unclean". . Your defense of keeping women out of mosques for "obvious reasons" is ridiculous and could never convince me (and I guess anyone who claims to be a rationalist)

Also, it is amusing to note that in your perspective, my defence of an artist's right to print (of all things) cartoons constitute "sadism" whereas your defence of a blatant violation of human rights of Muslim women is "good" according to "god given scriptures".  We definitely have different world views and as I said we have to wait and see whose views survive in the long run.

PS

You have not been reading my comments to you. I have clearly answered to your question if only you care to read all my comments carefully. However, if you have difficulties in comprehension then let me once again clearly state that women or men are not allowed to stand shoulder to shoulder in mosques for obvious reasons. In any home of prayer, be it a mosque or any other, the emphasis is on prayer and therefore in Islam mingling of the sexes in a prayer enclosure is not allowed. Absolutely not. In fact it men who are not allowed to mix with women rather than women who are discouraged meaning to say it is not any reflection of any demeaning of women but to keep men in a leash in a prayer enclosure.

As for your sadism at the cartoons, I do not accept them as the Prophet's (PBUH) cartoon at all as some Muslims have fallen for. How can it be his image at all when we have not seem him nor have Muslims down the ages sketched his image any thime in the past? It is nothing more than a figment of some clown's imagination.
Therefore I do not attach much importance to those cartoons.

On the other hand the Archibishop's stand is not a figment of imagination but the result of deep research into the social conditions now available in the UK.

KM

KM,

You started by asking me to get enlightened and not fall for the western propaganda. I just asked a simple question, whether your mosque allows women to pray. 

Do you think it is western propaganda that Muslim women are denied entry into Indian mosques?. I asked another question that you felt proud that an ex-Dalit (later converted Muslim) was praying along with you,  will you feel proud that a Muslim woman prays along with you?. Looks like you are the one who need to get enlightened. 

Anyways our views and perceptions differ. You are happy that the British Archbishop calls for implementation of Sharia. I'm happy that all the important Danish newspapers published the Mohammad cartoons.  We'll wait and see whose views matter in the long run.

writespice
Ignorance and immaturity! Dead right you are. These two can be breeding ground for political divisive forces like the BJP and they have certainly used it to good effect.

Anyway, I gues we have reached some kind of common understanding on the causes and remedies for whatever suspicion there might exist between Hindus and Muslims.

KM

Your comment does have a soothing effect I have to admit. It wipes away a lot of hurt. If more Muslims give such reassurances even BJP will kneel. Remember Advani had thanked Zaheer Khan when he spoke in favor of Indian secularism in Pakistan. If only Muslims could stop portraying themselves as aggressive, the problem would decline on its own. Ignorance is there in both the communities and that can be eradicated but bigger than that there is the immaturity to see, admit and handle the truth.

writespice

It is unfortunate that you had to experience the company or interact with those kind of Muslims you talk of. But let me share with you the yard stick I use when I am put in a postion of evaluating a person for his character or even his social etiquete etc. It goes like this; how fortunate in education and good breeding might that person have been in relation to me? How can I compare him with me when I am not ready to compare myself with someone who may have had a better education or even better breeding or family background or social standing than me?
For every one Muslim who might celebrate a Pakistan victory there are hundreds who celebrate India's victory as they should if they are true Indians. For every Muslim who thinks only Muslim ladies are clean there are hundreds of Muslims who have similar good thoughts about millions of ladies from other communities. Ignorance is something which we all have to fight and one of the good things about the Sachar Commission report is just that. But the BJP will not have it.
Please rest assured that those you came across do not represent the cross section of Muslims thoruoghout India. But the BJP would have those few remain as they are.

KM

Sure KM

I think I had spelled out some of my observations about Muslims in my first comment to you but you had called them prejudiced. In any case, I will tell you my experiences with Muslims living in North India. When it comes to interactions with the so called ignorant lot – I have come in contact with Muslims living in bastis (slums) in Delhi during my stints at social work. Though they had no qualms in interacting with us, they kept their kids from intermingling with Hindus of neighboring slums. They definitely did not do so from fear but from arrogance and superiority complex. Muslims of many areas in UP like Meerut, Muzaffarnagar are known to openly side with Pakistan and even celebrate its independence day. When it comes to the educated ones, at my ex-workplace, Muslim colleagues from Bihar supported Pakistan during Indo-Pak matches. In another of my offices, a Muslim at the manager level openly stated that only Muslim women were decent. I can go on and on. Its not just the sheer disloyalty but the arrogance with which Muslims do this that makes me angry.

writespice

Nobody targets fascist forces for nothing. My blog is not about Hindu and Muslim as you like to think, although I do not blame you for it, for it could be the result of some nuance in my writing, but I take it you are more intelligent than it takes to read between the lines and come to the conclusion that I write only about the BJP and its Parivar stritcly as political players and not as Hindus.

Talking about the masses may I remind you once again the key word here as far as masses in the sub-continent are concerned is 'Ignorance". It is this that makes them in India gullible to fall for unsavoury propaganda against Muslims, which is destructively divisive in nature, by irresponsible political parites like the BJP. It is unfortunate for India that we have a party which calls itself a national party which cannot get a decent bread and butter for itself without targeting Muslims in particular and other minorities in general.
You talk about a section of the Muslims giving such forces reasons to act as they do. Here may I ask you to spell out what you have in mind, and also may I beg you to keep in mind the proportionality matter in mind here. Finally, I am confident that law enforcement in India and its general readiness to tackle any anti-India action by any person or organistion is not in doubt. A political party does not have to take the law into its own hands.

KM 

Your last few statements or rather questions display the clash of our interests. It is not about BJP or Congress, it is about Hindus and Muslims. You say that BJP acts upon perceiving support on these issues in the masses. So who has the controls here? Obviously the masses. Perhaps a section of the Hindu masses want the Muslims in the country to leave. Perhaps a section of Muslims give them reasons to want so. Congress is supposed to have a hand in the anti-Sikh riots that happened in 1984 Delhi. But personally I think it was the open way with which Sikhs distributed sweets and congratulated each other on the murder of Indira Gandhi on the streets that struck home Hindus the fact of how much taken for granted they were in their country. This happened in my neighborhood and therefore I know it’s a fact. Although there were instances of Hindus protecting the Sikhs, the riots may have been fanned by this fact because it was talked about a lot then.

I still think you are targeting BJP for nothing. As unintended results go, BJP may actually be protecting the Muslims by not carrying out their threats against Muslims, while giving Hindus a platform to vent their anger. BJP knows its not practical, for one there are too many members of each communities here. If I talk about my community, in Delhi itself, 3 millions Keralites live here.

We cannot reach a consensus without completing our learning process.