I was really shocked, not just at their views, but how comfortable they felt opening expressing these views in a classroom

Yes, the level of bigotry openly aired in India is shocking, to me at least.

Maybe it is not only secularism as I previously thought, but also her habit of holding up a mirror to the mob.

yes, those who hate a roy love lynching muslims. no wonder you are a fan.

Her “eloquent” essay reads like a hack writer from NRO parodying left.

The usual punishment for a bad author is to not read her. That A Roy faces anger suggests that it is not her writing but something else that rankles. Maybe it is not only secularism as I previously thought, but also her habit of holding up a mirror to the mob.

Globalization is definitely at fault. Imagine you are an upper middle class Pakistani and you are spending your WoT bonus. You go to some high end Swedish import house and you are shown a footstool called an “Ottoman”. A glorious civilization reduced to a support for someone’s dirty feet. Would it not make your blood boil Sir/Madam ?!

I was just reading some of the comments that argue that in Pakistan people are taught to hate the ‘other’ (i.e. Indian, Hindu, etc). I just wanted to point out that the same is very often done in India. I can recall very distinct cases of racism against Muslims voiced very openly in front of me in India. In one case, I was teaching an English class an a international institute in Delhi to a group of businessmen. We were discussing culture and traditions and they started asking me about cultural norms in the U.S. I was explaining that in the U.S. there are people from all over the world and of many religions, so there are lots of different traditions.. I mentioned that Muslims lived in the U.S. and suddenly my students started going on a tirade against Muslims.. they were called cheaters, and one guy said they should all be removed and sent to Pakistan. And everyone (who all happened to be Hindu) in the room agreed (except one guy who kept silent) and began slandering Muslims as a group until I put a stop to it. I was really shocked, not just at their views, but how comfortable they felt opening expressing these views in a classroom.

This is just one of the many experiences I had on this issue.. but I think that this acceptance of hatred and labeling people as ‘other’ is rampant not just in Pakistan.

They’re thought from a very young age to look down on us.

i have watched an india-pakistan cricket match (in the 2003 world cup) with an all-india crowd and the gleeful vitriol against pakistan and pakistanis was no less. this is not to deny that the rivalry with india dominates pakistan’s consciousness to an unwholesome extent, and there is a lot of propaganda, but i don’t think this disgusting behavior is one-sided in the least.

i also used to play cricket fairly regularly with a mixed pakistani-indian crowd (different indian crowd than above) and things were always wonderful, but i do know that at least some of the indians thought that the pakistani players could inherently not be trusted to be fair. just another instance of this kind of distrustful/hateful behavior going in the other direction.

What????

What is it with these wealthy, westernized “lefties”? I think it’s because they know they have the money and international fame to flee Pakistan and India in a second should anyone try and force Islam on them and so they do not have to worry about their countries becoming an Islamic state. But the common citizen does not have this alternative and therefore it is the ordinary daal-bhaat Pakistani or Indian who can’t sleep secure at night in fear of these armed and dangerous radical religious nut-jobs. For the famous lefties though, all is hunky dory in their jet-set world. Yep, globalization truly IS the enemy here.

I thought being Punjabi was about looking at the good in life and enjoying life.

Forgetting Khalistan and the associated Khali-Satan, are we?

someone up there wont even call him a man since hes not 21 (as if that’s some magic manly number)

it is due to the britneyization of our culture.

Turkey. Rest are in Marin or cowering in D-Pac chOprah’s cabana. I was reading the website of a Sindhi pro-independence group, they make the distinction between Sufi Sindh and the rest of Pakistan.