So many browser tabs, so little time
[ by Charles Cameron — Hindutva vs Ghazwa-e-Hind, India vs Pakistan, battle of the girl orators, flags flying in the other guy’s capital, Zaid Hamid, erased from the map, what have I missed? ]
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For starters, when I saw the blurry headlines under 13-year-old Sadhwi Balika Saraswati‘s speech to a Vishwa Hindu Parishad gathering, I wasn’t sure whether to pair her speech with Zaid Hamid‘s image of the Pakistani flag flying over Delhi’s Red Fort:
or with the Ayatollah Khamenei‘s recent statement about the “fake” Zionist regime disappearing from the “landscape of geography”:
I mean, there are parallels there, and differences, in each case.
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And then, when I did a little more digging, all hell broke metaphorically loose, and I couldn’t get enough tabs on my browser to hold all the videos I seemed to want to check out.
I’ve combed through my history and sorted things out now, so I can point you, for starters, to:
13 yr old Hindu girl speaks out against Anti-India forces at a VHP rally — a Youtube video of the relevant part of her speech with English subtitles. You can read a transcript of the speech — missing all the excitement — here. And to give you an idea of its (relative) popularity, one YouTube version of this speech without subtitles, has had 410,535 views, with 1,503 likes and 1,589 dislikes, while another has had 200,964 views, with 801 likes and 491 dislikes… Bear in mind, though, that the Indian population exceeds one billion.
A Pakistani girl replies to 13 yr old Hindu girl who spoke against pakistan — sadly, no subtitles here, but at least it’s a response from someone of roughly equivalent age..
Reply to bajrangdal’s girl by Zaid Hamid which is also interesting, as he’s the spokes-guy for the Ghazwa-e-Hind idea…
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Which in turn brought me back to thinking once again about the Ghazwa, and:
Ghazwa-e-Hind is our destiny — Zaid Hamid himself addressing the topic (posted this month) — “and we invite the Muslims from Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and the rest of the Muslim world to come and join us in the fulfilment of this most fascinating destiny which awaits us now: recapturing of India.”
Ghazwa-e-Hind Hadith Explaination — the picture is very blurry , is that our old friend Sheikh Imran Hosein, perhaps? — and
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I’m afraid Zaid Hamid wouldn’t be satisfied with India alone, though:
That’s him, top left, overseeing everything.
Oh, and for good measure, here’s a humorous response to Hamid, zaid hamid latest about india — featuring a barking dog.
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Look, I don’t think Pakistan is about to capture India, or vice versa, any time soon.
If the two countries feel the need to face off, I hope they will limit themselves to a little ritual drama and some fierce stares, and they do every day in the border ceremonial at Wagah:
Beyond that, I’m an advocate for conflict-resolution and peace-making.
What I do think is that undercurrents of the kind found in the incendiary rhetoric of both sides are worth the attention of analysts.