Muslims and hindus....

[Nova]

Folks any idea what is the cause of extreme mistrust that these two groups have.....((Pakistan and india being only concrete menifestations of it)
What has prevented these two to assimilate and tolerate each other , even after spending close to a millinium together.
Hindu culture has been historically viewed as very diverse and capable of absorbing any invaders in the subcontinent...why didt this happen with muslims.
Given the sociological development which brings liberalism with it, one should assume that muslims who live in india should be on good terms with hindus, It would be interesting to know where thry stand in this respect. Its hard to get a non biased opinion regarding this, cause hindus exaggerate the degree of compatability as it suits their view, and muslims(Pakis) try to obviously highlite the differences among them , again as it suits there views.( Indian muslims are in a difficult position , either they would make india out to be heaven, to boost acceptance and self esteem , or make it out to be a hell , for teh same reason,,,,,I am yet to see a balanced Indian muslim view).
This post is to invite a sociological discussion , only to understand this phenomemnon better.....Ppl who wish to accuse each other can stay away....

[agni]

Distrust between Hindus and Muslims are primarily due to the different practices each religion ordains upon its followers. For example, Hindus pray towards the east where the sun rises. Muslims pray facing the west. Hindus write left to right (whatever language) while Urdu is written right to left.
Hindus do idol worship where as muslims believe that god is formless and islam prohibits idol worship.
These indeed are petty issues and actually shouldn't be the cause of enemity at all. But in the pre-independence society, illiteracy and ignorance was abound and jobless, impoverished folk like to feel good about themselves by finding fault with others. This is human nature. So the roots of the mistrust and hatred lie there. Wherever you have poverty, strife and discord will surely be around the corner.

IN other words, if the south asian region prospers economically quickly, the hatred and mistrust should vanish almost as quickly.

[BombayKid]

Since I'm an Indian, I guess my views would be biased, but I agree with agni's views that economic problems coupled with illiteracy are responsible to a great extent for the divide.
I feel that India is a good example where Hindus and Muslims have lived together in relative harmony. There are bound to be the odd communal riots but then there are riots in educated and prosperous western societies as well. In states like Kerela where there is 100% literacy communal problems have been few and far between, inspite of the large Muslim population in that state. Where as in states like U.P. or Bihar, there are more problems. I've noticed that even small flare-ups between the two communities is usually headline news in Pakistani newspapers while it is usually in on the third or fourth page in Indian newspapers. This doesn't help matters, unfortunately.

[Rani]

The absence of significant number of minorities in all the Muslim countries is a very telling sign.

There are lots of cultural differences between Hindus and Muslims, such as purdah, caste system etc., which have contributed to the gap between two communities.

A Indian Muslim friend of mine has relatives both on both sides of the border, recently made a comment that in Karachi it is not safe for a women venture out of house after 7:00 p.m. even accompanied by their husbands, whereas in India women can go anywhere alone at any time of the day.

In nutshell I have to say that one of the reason of the mistrust between Hindus and Muslims is adherence to different personal law and deep rooted cultural values, which have great impact on life style day to day life and limits the intermingling of two communities.

[Dehatan]

Rani Adaab,

Your statement, "..whereas in India women can go anywhere alone at any time of the day."

On a objective note, don't you think your statement is way Overbroad?

Frankly, I don't think there is "any" country/city out there in today's world, to which such a statement can be attributed, without either narrowing it down, and/or providing concrete examples proving that it is "Realistically" so.

In my opinion, your point would be a Societal/environmental/political situation related element.
Nothing to do with Religion, be it Hinduism, Islam, Christanity, or what may you and definitely neither a "cultural difference", nor a situation that could create "mistrust" between religions.

[This message has been edited by Dehatan (edited January 24, 2000).]

[Rani]

I was presenting an honest opinion not blaming anybody. In my view people of Pakistan and India have lot of cultural similarities but the difference is due to different believe system and personal laws based on the religion they follow i.e under Hindu law a man or woman can have only one spouse and in event of marriage break-up either can apply to the court for divorce. These difference in life style hinder intermingling and trust.

Maybe I went a little overboard by saying that women can move around, anytime but what I meant was that they can safely move around 9 or 10 o'oclock at night.



[This message has been edited by Rani (edited January 24, 2000).]

[Dehatan]

Hi again,

And Please don't think I thought you were blaming...Never! even though I am a Dehatan, I do understand that much! laugh!

But reading your new post and your statement, "..i.e under Hindu law a man or woman can have only one spouse and in event of marriage break-up either can apply to the court for divorce. These difference in life style hinder intermingling and trust."

I hope you understand, that even though Islam allows a man to have more than one spouse, four to be specific, (all that based on "certain" circumstances), Islam is also VERY Conducive and Open to the concept of Divorce - be it the man, asking for it, or the WOMAN!

This according to the Shariah Laws and probably contrary to how today's "so called" Muslims would "conveniently" prefer to interpret...but to that I would rather reserve my comments or else...laugh!!

[sabah]

Nice topic

Religious differences in its self do not create mistrust, hatred or anything, it’s the way a religion is practiced or misused. Our differences could be cultural, if we were living in India or Pakistan, but since most of us, on this forum are not living there and we have a mixed culture whether we accept it or not –we still don’t trust each other.

I think that we Pakistanis and Indians never got a fair chance to be friends with each. We can blame our medias for actively spreading hatred among us, lekin papers only print what we want to read. Then there is this sepecial desi ability of jumping to conclusions – doesn’t help improve the situation either. We saw examples of this after the hijack.
Another thing that plays a major part in increasing the gab, is that not many are willing to listen, or are ’discussing’ something to prove the other party wrong, we have great egos.

Some time back I would agree upon illiteracy and poor economy aspects, however after seeing the hatred among Indians and Pakistanis on the net, I’m convinced that these factors doesn’t play that big role as we want to assume they do.

[Nova]

Its interesting to see how no pakistanis have anyhting to say about this...

[Mr Fraudia]

Nova

Not having lived in india or pakistan for any considerable time I cant say from the perspective of people currently there.

I think highlighting differences has been one way for people in power to hold on to power or for people to get power. Hate politics in our region get more results.

It is something not unique to us. The yanks and ruskies hated one another for all sorts of reason and the mistrust was too much. Now the average citizen had no real reason to hate the counterpart but did due to propoganda, mistrust etc. Now has that not changed significantly from an average citizen's perspective.

Take same situation..add a common history and some dark chapters, from both sides perspectives, wide spread jahalat and a tilt towards using emotions rather than reason to deal with anything...

and you get...what we have.