Stop this animal rights nonsense

Courtesy: fanpop.com
(nothing against this site or this image if it was their work,
just tried to pick up an image of the kind that television ads
use)

I've seen some ads on television lately, with sorry-looking dogs and cats, sad music that should induce pity, all focused on prevention of cruelty towards animals.

A worthy cause? Perhaps. But what riles me up is that these ads (and the organizations that run them?) are all focused on animals that are pet-worthy. What about animals that only provide service to humanity? What about cows, goats, or horses?

I suspect a large number of these animal rights activists are meat-eaters, enjoying a good hamburger or steak. A dog receiving a kick drives these sensitive men and women to tears, but the cow being separated from its calf and taken to the slaughterhouse, or the calf being starved to make its bones chewy only makes them salivate?

By all means, let's stop people from being cruel to pets, but there is such a thing as having extremely lopsided and hypocritical priorities, which appears to me to be the case with people running and supporting these organizations. If there was any real pity for animals, these people would stop animal slaughter and turn vegetarian. At the least, inhuman religion-approved practices such as bleeding animals to death would be what these people should take cudgels to fight.

Next time you come to me with the video of a sad-looking dog and want my money, have the paperwork on your eating habits and acknowledgement of equality of animals ready. Otherwise, you and your "let's save dogs but look the other way when putting cows on buns" organization can go to animal hell. 

Old fashioned suggestions to young women...

Image courtesy: facenfacts.com

After politics, the topic that Delhi is most associated with these days is rape. I don't want to refer to the topic using euphemisms such as 'safety issues for women', 'sexual assault' (this is a good one). Plainly and simply, it is rape.

The typical news item goes like this. 2-3 goons get hold of a large enough car or SUV, give some woman a lift (or force her in) and drive her around town all day while taking turns raping her. No laughing matter, but we are all mostly helpless at the end of the day. (Maybe Rahul bhaiyya can help us out by 'urging' that the police do their job better and things will change magically).

I'm not going to offer solutions to the menace, but wanted to review some of the retorts each time an old fashioned suggestion is given to young women for their safety.

Some typical old fashioned suggestions are:

1. Don't wear revealing (read western) clothes.
2. Don't go out after dark.
3. Don't be alone with boys (at odd hours), even if you know them well.
4. Don't be in a place where people are drinking (alcohol)/ Don't drink, ever!  

If I had a daughter or sister (or someone else I was responsible for) I would give all of the above pieces of advice and enforce to the extent possible. However, what's the reaction you get when these are suggested in public? Typically not positive. These are the typical retorts I've heard...

Don't wear 'fancy' (read western or revealing) clothes.

1. "Women should have the freedom to wear what they want."
2. "If men can't control themselves when they see a woman in modern clothes, then they must be taken to task."
3. "Stop advising my daughter and go talk to your son."
4. "The rapist's attitude comes from within. The clothes don't do anything to stimulate him."

I agree with all the retorts above being at least partly valid, but the last one is clearly not. Sure, when the rapist has decided to pick his prey, not much is going to change his actions. However, isn't a scantily clad woman not going to add more fuel to the fire? I think we can all agree that that's the case. So, while pepper spray is an acceptable suggestion, why is more conservative dressing not, when it comes to safety? Both are having to do something that one doesn't want to do. The goal ultimately is to keep our women safe, and if anything can help them be even a tad safer, isn't that a good thing?

Don't go out after dark.

I don't know if there are any major retorts to this suggestion, except perhaps "Don't infringe on someone's freedom. Improve law and order if you want." This was good advice that our women stuck to until two decades or so ago. Statistically, dark places and places without crowds are unsafe, and so this advice seems to me like a no-brainer to follow. All the BPO worker situations that we hear about, such as the driver who's supposed to drop off a young girl at 2AM veering off the road on purpose, are not necessarily 'just past sunset', but still, sunset is a good threshold to be home by. No?

Don't be alone with boys (especially at odd hours), even if you know them well.

This is a tough one. I can't think of too many retorts, except perhaps these teenage ones: "If you can't trust friends, who can you trust?". "I know my friends well. Maybe you did not have good friends."

Familiarity always breeds trust, especially if it's fun to hang around a person or a group. Friendship is good if it is backed by the families involved (whether boy-boy or boy-girl or girl-girl). If your parents don't approve of you being friends with someone, they perhaps saw something that you were not mature enough to see. If you know the family of the boy and your family knows him well, then the trust has some solid foundation. Even then, a mature parent knows that boys will be boys (in groups) and it's never a good idea to be in situations where you can be taken advantage of. Date rapes (and similar "i knew the guy before" rapes) are a large percentage of rapes these days, and this advice too seems fair to me, although I'd consider it a tad paranoid if I was the one receiving advice. 

Don't be in a place where people are drinking (alcohol)/ Don't drink, ever!

"Social drinking is fine, no different from drinking juice."

"There were a lot of other girls there."

"Not every boy was drinking."

"I never get high, I always know when to stop."

I don't need to sell the absurdity of these retorts hard. Alcohol loosens people, both men and women. A drunk woman (partially or not, high or not) is always putting herself at risk. Being around a drunk man (nice guy normally or not) is also not a good idea. Being in control of oneself (100%, not the illusory "i am not high" kind) at all times and not being around others who may not be in control of themselves is a great idea. There's probably a lot of statistics to prove that alcohol is a strong factor in women's safety.

I am all for ensuring law and order, keeping our sons on leashes, allowing women all the freedom they want, etc. Still, these old fashioned suggestions, while being paranoid in some cases, are definitely good to try to adhere to. 

Angry retorts result when people make these old fashioned suggestions in response to a rape incident, perhaps inadvertently (or on purpose in some cases) suggesting that the victim was dressed scantily or was drunk, etc. And of course the media will end up with a field day with the ultra conservative old fashioned buffoon who isn't in tune with the times and who is seen as 'blaming the victim'. 

"Do we want our women to wear the burkha to avoid rape? The nation responds to our survey.", you can hear your favourite news anchor bellowing. As soon as the Twitterati and opinion peddlers respond, the news anchor will claim that they now know the pulse of the common man, with a pie chart to prove the case. The common man will continue to give his daughter old fashioned advise to help keep her safe.

BIG differences between religious nationalism and cultural nationalism

Image courtesy: Wikipedia

There are big differences between religious nationalism and cultural nationalism, and the sooner we, the civilized world, realize it the better. This is especially critical for a country like the US, which has the resources to aid insert groups (freedom movements?) in places of conflicts, and some times even make or break nations.

Cultural nationalism is pride in one's land, its traditions, an acknowledgement of its weaknesses, and a common aspiration for all of its people to move forward. All this, usually, with little or no hint of religious or ideological intolerance towards one another.

Religious nationalism, on the other hand, tends to include only one aspect of cultural nationalism. Pride in one's land, sure. Its traditions, more often not. A common aspiration for all of its people to move forward, no. Religious or ideological tolerance and acknowledgement of weaknesses are probably the worst casualties.

1. Take the example of Persia/Iran. Iranian nationalism today is largely driven by (Shia) Islam. Its traditions are important, sure, but not its pre-Islamic tradition. The Zoroastrianism, its indigenous religion and culture, was displaced rather quickly by oppressive economic sanctions (the Islamic Jizya) against the Dhimmi, any non-Muslim. Clearly, one cannot expect tolerance of any other religion like Christianity or Hinduism. The Shah's times were different; the popular revolution took the country back to its Islamic grafted roots.
• Most other countries that are today majority Islam have similar stories, of cultures past more or less buried in the sand, suppressed, with Islam either claiming all the glories for itself or the like.
• If this sounds like Islam bashing, show me other examples of a religion supplanting whole cultures in the way Islam has (and its influential adherents attempting to do so even today), and I hope you see my point.
2. What about Bangladesh and Pakistan? Religious nationalism has always held sway, although cultural aspirations of the Bengalis do bubble up once a while, with many Muslim women in Bangladesh continuing to wear the bindi, for one. Still, its large minority Hindu population is blatantly targeted while the world watches. When a Bangladeshi announces that its country's Islamic aspirations on a British TV show, none dares (or knows to) ask what its 10% Hindu population wants. The Pakistan/Bangladesh cases are well documented, so there isn't much for me to go into here.
3. In the Middle East, while some sections of the populations may be desirous of tolerant, progressive, secular societies, the Arab Spring has only brought right wing Islamic groups into power. Case in point, Egypt. 
• And, here is one major 'degrees of comparison' error most (even intelligent) people make. This is due to the 'right wing' label applied without regard to 'how far right and deep' a group is at. An American party being right wing and an Egyptian party being right wing are not the same thing! The American right winger isn't going to hold a sword to his neighbour to threaten that he convert, he's probably going to be vociferous about his economic theories. It's much easier to imagine the Egyptian right winger putting a sword to his Coptic Christian neighbour's neck.
4. I hate to see Kashmir having become one of those hotbeds of Islam-driven religious nationalism where cultural nationalism has no place, unless it is consistent with Islam. And what should worry Indians and the world alike is the lack of understanding of cultural nationalism among the majority of its political class, and most importantly the right way to deal with religious nationalism, which is not to be tolerated in any form, whether for the short term or the long term.

Overall, I don't see many examples of cultural nationalism in today's world. India, for sure. See this short video of a Canadian TV show with a Pakistani Canadian talking about India's secularism. [The title of the video might indicate this is some fringe video I pulled out of the depths of Youtube to prove a point about India being superior to India, but no. Tariq Fatah makes a wonderful point about Pakistanis not acknowledging their cultural oneness with India...] 

Most Western (Christian?) countries today appear to be very tolerant. I can certainly speak for the US and Canada, which are models for the rest of the world. However, their naivete in understanding the differences between cultural nationalism and religious nationalism, may well turn out to be extremely short-sighted for the future. 

The hypocrisy of demographics...

Lahore of today - courtesy Wikipedia

Demographics undid India once. And my theory is that demographics, because of the role it plays in modern democracy, could repeat the undoing once again if left unchecked.

It was perhaps when the first elections were held in a semi-independent India (1937 Provincial Elections) that demographics emerged in India as an important element in her politics.

The Indian National Congress pretty much swept the elections, including in Muslim dominated regions like the Northwest Frontier Province(NWFP). Some, not all, Muslims started considering modern democracy an unfair system given that the Muslims were in a minority. The Hindus were about 2/3rds of the population in undivided India, though the Muslims were local majorities in a few provinces like Sindh, Bengal, and Punjab.

Leading up to 1947, demographics became the focal point for a call for Pakistan, and the partition of India. The Muslim-majority provinces would become Pakistan (originally including all of Punjab, Assam, etc. which eventually did not happen). The unfortunate fact during this time is that none of the politicians of that time, including Gandhi and Nehru, appear to have acknowledged the existence of other minorites (communities more deserving of the 'minority' tag such as Parsis, Jains, Jews, or Christians, and Sikhs). This was a major failure of the political class of that time. The Muslims were a large minority, and the success of some elements in making a successful (violent) case for victimhood (largely unjustified, victimhood really was underdevelopment) will forever haunt the patriotic Indian psyche.

After the Kashmir debacle post-partition, the demographics of the State of Jammu and Kashmir (the Indian side) has been kept unchanged. Or shall we say, barring the forced exodus of Hindu Pandits from the Kashmir valley, no other entry of non-Kashmiris has been allowed on the Indian side. All this with a view to keeping Jammu and Kashmir 'intact' until resolved (see the Omar Abdullah interview on Dawn News where he talks about this). On the other hand, while Pakistan professes self-determination of Kashmiris and such, the 'Kashmiri' character of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is long gone. There is no equivalent in Pakistan to India's Article 356.

Forced demographic change is outlawed in principle in all countries, and by law in some states in India. These are directed in particular against funded conversions by Christian evangelical groups that prey on the underprivileged folk and tribals of India. The execution of the rule of law, of course, leaves much to be desired in India.

The Uniform Civil Code remains a pipe dream in India, one that should have been straightforward to legislate if not for all the 'demographic' politics. Sure, a 15% strong group of people can have their own civil laws, marry at any age their community 'leaders' determine is appropriate, and govern their own lives within a federal India. If there seems nothing wrong with this (in particular to the Congress party), why did the Congress and Nehru have to reject the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946? In principle, the Plan largely appears to me to be the same as an India with separate civil laws for particular religious groups.

I used a photo of a street from Lahore in this article to highlight the fall from grace of one of India's most multicultural cities up until Independence. Lahore was about 60% Muslim and the rest were mostly Sikhs and Hindus. A cosmopolitan city that rivaled Bombay and Delhi, it perhaps had more character than any other city in India, especially as a microcosm of India. A city that I have not ever visited enchants me so much just based on accounts of its beauty and its people of the days past.

Finally, I am unsure to what extent the governments of India and (especially) Pakistan have implemented the Nehru-Liaquat pact of 1950 for the protection of minorities across the subcontinent. This held (in hindsight) the promise of a strong Indian union where borders would become meaningless and religious freedom would be honoured in true Indian spirit. If some diplomat is reading this, I urge them to consider reviving the 1950 pact in some form, to include Bangladesh of course. What better confidence building measure (CBM) could there be. And, while at it, work a solution for Kashmir in. It appears to me more and more these days that a solution to the Kashmir issue is not going to be possible without making demographics irrelevant, by taking India to the pre-1937 demography-agnostic days. And, no, if we cannot maintain law and order (which incidentally Jinnah considered key to a nation), all of this would be moot.

Credible mainstream Indo-Pak experts

There are a bunch of mainstream public figures (as well as journalists or diplomats) who I think all have mainstream credibility (I mean the common man) on either side of border. These are also what you would consider relatively less hawkish on Indo-Pak relations.

Pervez Hoodbhoy

My first pick is Pervez Hoodbhoy, a PhD from MIT and professor of Physics at Quaid i Azam University in Islamabad, and a voice against nuclear arms race, generally speaks out against Pakistan's support of terrorism.

Professor Hoodbhoy writes a lot, is an invited speaker at fora in the US and India, is a very respected researcher, and in my opinion holds a lot of credibility primarily due to his honesty in criticizing Pakistan (which of course the hawks in Pakistan don't like) as well as sincere push for Pakistan toeing the path of progress. YouTube carries a lot of videos, mostly talkshows in Pakistani television. There is a recent talkshow that he participated in with Mani Shankar Aiyar, hosted by Barkha Dutt.

G Parthasarathy

Parthasarathy is an IFS officer, has been a consul general at Karachi, and is considered somewhat of a 'hawk'.

Other than that, I know very little about G Parthasarathy and his views, mostly gained from his appearances on Indian television shows.

Parthasarathy is now a fellow at at least two think tanks.

Hassan Nisar

Hassan Nisar is a personal favourite.

Nisar is a long-time journalist, doesn't appear to mince his words in taking on the establishment in Pakistan, and is a frequent participant on television talk shows in Pakistan. He even appears on his own weekly show in Urdu called 'Meray Mutabiq'. 

Nisar's views are largely well known to the public, and he has fans from both countries. His father migrated to Lahore (or was it Lyallpur?) from Jalandhar, and Nisar's fondness for east Punjab is very apparent. When he breaks into Punjabi, it's really sounds wonderful..

I consider Nisar a 'dove' given his push for normalization of ties between the two countries, and prodding the Pakistani establishment to look inward to solve its problems instead of blaming outside 'forces'. Nisar is also for 'letting go' Kashmir so Pakistan can focus on bettering its existing citizenry.

You will find a lot of Hassan Nisar videos on YouTube, and they are usually very entertaining.

Mani Shankar Aiyar


Mani Shankar Aiyar is well known, a former IFS officer, consul general at Karachi, was on the East Pakistan desk (later the Bangladesh desk), and has been a cabinet minister in Congress governments.

It's tough to find someone with experience being both a diplomat and a politician. Although he was close to Rajiv Gandhi (who brought him into politics), he seems to have lost favour with the present Gandhi family.

Mani Shankar is a 'dove' and has good credibility in Pakistan. I'm not sure I agree with his views, but he's definitely an honest and experienced voice.

KC Singh


KC Singh is an experienced diplomat, most recently the secretary of the ministry of external affairs at retirement. KC Singh has never served in Pakistan, but has been ambassador to Iran, so definitely understands the regional dynamics well.

I've seen him appear on television talk shows recently, and like his observations and views.

I think he's neither a 'hawk' nor a 'dove' but lies somewhere inbetween which is wonderful from a 'credibility on both sides' perspective.

Najam Sethi


Najam Sethi is another of my favourites in Pakistan. He's a Punjabi, educated at Cambridge, has a lot of contacts in, and ground-level experience in India, and enjoys a lot of patronage from think tanks and organizations in the West, especially the US.

He appears in a weekly (?) television talk show on Geo TV in Pakistan, and his views and observations are usually well researched. Except when the discussion is on regional politics in Pakistan, his shows are very interesting to the average Indian audience.

Sethi appears occasionally on Indian talk shows and is very comfortable in Urdu as well as English.

He has run into rough weather with politicians in Pakistan in the past, adding to his credibility, but appears to be well connected ('najam sethi ki chidiya').

Siddharth Varadarajan


Siddharth Varadarajan has been a journalist for a long time, including during the Taliban era and the NATO war in Yugoslavia. He has taught at LSE (?) and Columbia University.

Most recently, Varadarajan became the editor of The Hindu (certainly better than N Ram). I've seen him in talk shows that included participants from both countries, and he did seem to come across as well informed.

Not sure how much of an expert he is on Pakistan..
Certainly has a good command over Urdu (and by that I mean, knows when to say 'dehshadgardi' instead of 'aatankvad').

Karan Thapar


This choice may be somewhat unusual. Karan Thapar is well known as tough interviewer. He has a PhD in international relations and has interviewed a host of biggies in international politics, from Kissinger to Benazir Bhutto.

Many know Thapar's early connection to Pakistan. Thapar was a friend of Benazir Bhutto since their Oxford days (or was it Cambridge?). Thapar wrote a famous obituary for Benazir when she was assassinated, in 2007.

Karan Thapar has focused on Pakistan a lot in his journalism career, and at one point even was a 'clandestine' intermediary between the Pakistan high commissioner Ashraf Qazi and LK Advani (then home minister in the NDA government). See Thapar's account of him being a facilitator of meetings between the two.

Karan Thapar is well connected in Pakistan and makes frequent trips there.

Mushahid Hussain

The last on my list is Mushahid Hussain, a school of foreign service graduate from Georgetown University, and cabinet minister in both Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf governments.

Mushahid was most recently the Pakistan Muslim League (N) candidate for president but he lost of Asif Ali Zardari.

Mushahid has been involved deeply in Indo-Pak relations at the government level, and I consider him to be somewhere between a 'dove' and a 'hawk'.  A well educated man who enjoys good credibility in India, he has appeared on television in India.

So, that was my list. These people aren't necessarily 'power centres', but hold credibility among the public in either country, most likely in both countries.

Why status quo with Pakistan on core issues is good

Image courtesy: pon.harvard.edu

I am a firm believer in normalizing India's ties with our neighbour across the northwest border. However, in the last 1-2 decades, the strategic positions of the two countries have changed so drastically that India has the opportunity of a lifetime to set right the diplomacy follies of the Nehru era.

Pakistan has successfully made Kashmir a core issue in diplomacy with India, amply aided by Nehru shooting himself in the foot over what the world would have considered a case of aggression by Pakistan. By taking the matter to the United Nations, some of India's position on Kashmir has been diluted. Still, the United Nations resolution on Kashmir is impractical, not only from India's perspective, but firstly from Pakistan's perspective since the resolution calls for Pakistan withdrawing troops from the state of Jammu and Kashmir (including Gilgit, Baltistan (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir)). Aksai Chin is of course a related, more tricky, matter to deal with.

During India's first Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Ministry of External Affairs is said to have had successfully negotiated a 'borderless Kashmir' with General Musharraf of Pakistan. While this may not appear to be a bad thing at face value, the unfolding of the war on terror in Af-Pak and Pakistan's increasingly solidifying pariah status in the world lead me to believe that this softening of the LoC border may have turned out to be a diplomatic blunder (partly in hindsight of course).
 
Now, for some context - the high voltage bilateral issues between India and Pakistan appear to be:

1. Kashmir. Enough said.
2. Water. Pakistan accuses India of building dams on the Indian side to stop water from reaching Pakistan. Some of the accusations (probably just the media talking heads) go to the extent of blaming India of engineering the recent floods in Pakistan. Many in Pakistan also believe that the water issue has a strong diplomatic framework in the form of the Indus Water Treaty (1970s) that has worked well for both countries.
3. Terrorism. This has been India's concern, and thankfully the world has woken up to the danger that Pakistan presents to the region and beyond.

Maintenance of status quo has normally been to India's benefit. Whatever Kashmir resolution is arrived at would likely mean India giving up more than it can get. Hence, Pakistan has more incentive to bring India to the table, which I think India has successfully avoided in the recent past. Given that Pakistan's standing in the world has been on a downward spiral, and better support for India's position in general, it is in India's best interests to maintain the status quo while Pakistan weakens further (which is inevitable, in my opinion, over the next decade or two). A weaker Pakistan will have much less negotiation power at the table.

India is also doing the right thing by insisting on tangible action on terrorism as a pre-requisite for any negotiation on other outstanding issues. Here, Pakistan can make it a win-win situation, by rooting out terrorism emanating from its land, but this is easier said than done even if the Pakistan government wanted to do something about it.

The water issues, I think, is a non-issue with the diplomats raising the issue, if at all, only as a populist measure. 

India's 'involvement' in Balochistan flared up as an accusation by Pakistan at Sharm al Sheikh, but that seems to have died down despite Prime Minister Singh 'acknowledging' the issue in the joint press release.  

Trade may actually be an important conduit for India to help Pakistan while making its own negotiation power higher. Pakistan's agriculture, small scale, and other industries stand to benefit significantly by expansion of trade with India. India, on the other, will benefit no doubt, but being deprived of this trade will not cause any massive impact. Once Pakistan reciprocates and accords India the Most Favoured Nation status, I would expect Pakistan's economy's dependence on India to increase significantly. If this were to happen, the threat of suspension of trade ties by India would be an important tool in India's diplomatic arsenal.

Bottom line, India stands to gain by maintaining diplomatic status quo on the issues that Pakistan stands to gain by any sort of resolution being reached (while Pakistan is on its downward spiral). Enhancement of trade with Pakistan can make India's diplomatic position stronger, with the added benefit of a new market and cheaper agricultural products for northwest India. 

Understanding the mind of the South Asian Jihadi - part 1

Zaid Hamid - image courtesy pakteahouse.net

2008 was the year my interest in learning more about extremist and Jihadi ideologies was kindled...

I was watching CNN and saw that they were covering the infamous Mumbai attacks live. The next day I was searching for other media coverage on the attacks on Youtube, and chanced upon on a Pakistani 'news show', what really seemed at best like irresponsible journalism.  One of the participants on the show was the gentleman on the left, Zaid Hamid, with statements and conspiracy theories that seemed so outrageous I was appalled. I decided to watch more of Pakistani television, and have since tried to piece together what I think is in the mind of the South Asian (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) Jihadi. Here's part 1, for I'm sure there's more to come.

You will see a lot of Pakistani television talk shows that discuss/debate topics like 'What is wrong with Pakistan?', 'Kerry-Lugar ke paise lene ke liye hum beygairat qaum nahin hain', 'Pakistan mein jamhuriyat ya kisi aur ki hukumat honi chahiye', etc. A lot of existential questions, a lot of questions that may only appear on an Indian television channel on Independence Day, for example. However, these are weekly affairs on Pakistani television channels, with many hosts and participants just rambling on and on, sometimes using expletives. It definitely is fun to watch, and I have caught a lot of Urdu words along the way too..

Zaid Hamid is a good example to stick to in understanding the Jihadi because he spent a lot of time on TV (many of these archived on Youtube) doing his 'security and geopolitical' shows where he spewed his conspiracy theories against all and sundry. He is seen lesser these days..

In summary, there are a few beliefs that I think the extremist South Asian holds. I say South Asian, because there may be people in India, and most definitely Bangladesh too, that hold some of these beliefs, not necessarily just in Pakistan.

1. India is a Hindu country.
• This is not a good assumption. True, India is predominantly Hindu, 80+%, but most states have healthy minority percentages and religion as such is less a problem in India than are class and other such issues. There is no religious persecution in India, has never been, beyond occasional minor skirmishes. So, when the ignorant Pakistan tries to equate Pakistan's 98% Muslim majority and its air-sucked-out-of-the-atmosphere environment to India's Hindu, but secular peoples and environment, they are quite off the mark. However, you do need to imagine things a certain way to feed the frenzy.
2. The Hindu was 'our slave' for a thousand years.
• Indira Gandhi is rumoured to have said that India's role in liberating Bangladesh was a reply to the Hindus having been slaves of the Muslims for a 1000 years (or words to that effect). I don't know if there is documented evidence of her having said this, but even if there is, I don't think the statement itself is accurate. True, the Delhi sultanate kings ruled large parts of north India, even down to south central India for a long time, and later the Mughals. And during this time, a lot of conversions took place (forced or otherwise, a different topic). It is not as if the downtrodden Muslim was 'ruling' over the Hindu. Other than the ruling classes, the ordinary Muslim was nowhere close to slave owner status. 
• One need only pick out other Pakistani public figures like Nasir Naji or Hassan Nisar who agree with this straightforward fact, something apparently so difficult for the average Pakistani to understand?
3. We suffer from terrorism too.
• True, Pakistan suffers the most from terrorism. It is for this reason one of the most dangerous places on earth now. The problem with this statement though is that this terrorism is the Pakistan state's (and non state actors') own doing. There is a lot of documented evidence of public and overt fund raising for jihad in Kashmir. Pakistan's role during the Soviet-Afghan war in the late eighties, and subsequent Taliban support, diversion of terrorists into India as a central tool of their state policy, etc. is all too well known. That their state's agencies have now lost control of these groups, and see them attacking their own people, is their own doing. As you sow, so shall you reap. The rest of the world is unwilling to listen to Pakistan when it says it suffers from terrorism too. You can hold all the talk shows you want and repeat the victimhood claim, but nobody is going to listen, sorry.
4. Spain hamare haath se chalaa gaya.
• A lot of commentators agree with what I have to say on this matter, so this isn't new from me.
• Much of the Jihadi's ideology comes from a glorification of the 'Muslim' past. A glorification that makes many Pakistanis see Mahmud of Ghazni as their ancestor, rather than as an aggressor. In the same vein, a glorification of the khilafa (the Islamic khalifates, of which the Ottoman empire was the last) is still an ongoing spur for terrorism in many parts.
• Spain was conquered by the Arabs sometimes during the 9th century (or thereabouts) and they held it for about 200 years. The capital of the Arabs in Spain was Cordoba. They were ultimately driven out, and Spain is probably the only Western country that they ever held, even if for a short period. While the Arabs may feel pride in having held Spain (though they were aggressor anyway, much like the British were imperialists later on), the Pakistani has no business in imaging this glory as being their own, merely on the basis of sharing the same religion. 
• India is the only other country (Spain is the other) that ever 'went out of the hands' of Muslim aggressors, and it is for this reason that I think that the Jihadi ideologies views these two countries as prime targets.
• Interestingly, the mosque ('Islamic center') being built near the September 2011 crash site in New York is called Cordoba House, which name hasn't attracted much attention.

There's more to come. Add comments if you think you agree/disagree with me.