Politics.

Well am getting a few emails nowadays about politics from my old buddy. Since information should be shared whether it be bad or good I thought I post up all the emails I get.

It is up to you to understand and gather more informtaion about where-ever read here. You are born with brains and the internet so use them both to formulate your own thoughts. Note: All names, email addresses have been removed.

Here is the email:

Kurma is an excellent Indian Muslim dish. The diference between a kurma and a curry is in the chilli.
A curry is reddish because it uses dried red chillies and also dried chilli powder. A kurma does not use dried red chillies or dry chilli powder. Instead a kurma is cooked with fresh green chillies. The taste
and the colour are therefore different. Both are excellent methods for
cooking poultry, mutton, beef, duck and even fish. Kimma is of course the Kongres Indian Muslim Malaysia, which is the 'mamak' version of the Kongres India Malaysia or Malaysian Indian Congress or MIC which itself is a namesake of the Congress Party of India. The MIC was founded by Mr John Thivy of Ipoh in the 1940s as the Malaysian chapter of Nehru's Congress Party of India.

It is really ignorant of the KIMMA members to claim that they are Malays when their party is still named after the Congress Party of India. This is a case of extremely serious mamak confusion. An Indian Muslim can be anyone of Indian ancestry who is a Muslim. Tamils, Keralas, Punjabis, Sindhis, Mahrattas, Hydrabadis etc are all Indian Muslims. But in Malaysia a large majority of Indian Muslims are Tamil speaking. Hence the term Indian Muslim is generally applied to the Tamil speaking Indian Muslims. In Malaysia, Indian Muslims are also known as mamaks, DKK (darah keturunan keling), Kelings and Jawi Peranakan. The last one Jawi Peranakan is a strange misnomer. There is even a recent book written about the Jawi Peranakan which actually talks about the Indian Muslims.

In contemporary Malaysia Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhari, Zainuddin Mydin, Siti Nurhaliza binti "Thaarudeen" , Justice Haidar Mohd Noor, Ahmad Nawab, Akbar Nawab, P Ramlee, Man Bhai, Tan Sri Elyas Omar, Tan Sri Ali Abul Hassan are all Indian Muslims or descended from Indian Muslims. Malaysia's first Speaker of Parliament Tan Sri CM Yusuf was a mamak. So was the permanent Chairman of UMNO Tan Sri Sulaiman "Ninam" Shah. 'Ninam' is actually truncated Tamil for 'Naina Mohamed'. Former Sabah Chief Minister Dato Harris Salleh and present Chief Minister Musa Aman are all mamaks. They are not Pushtuns, Pakistanis or Yemenis.

Among our Prime Ministers Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is the son of an Indian Muslim. Abdullah Badawi has mamak blood from his father's side. Toh Puan Sharifah Radziah Syed Alwi Barakbah, the wife of our first PM Tunku Abdul Rahman, had mamak ancestry. The Tunku himself was of mixed Thai and mamak parentage. Ex DPM Dato Sri Anwar Ibrahim's father is a mamak. The intellectuals KassimAhmad and Farish Noor have Indian Muslim fathers while the late Tan Sri Muhammad Noordin Sopiee had a mamak grandfather. Munir Majid is a Tamil speaking mamak and Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor is a mamak too.

Here it is pertinent to note the "Syed" and "Sheikh" name. Among Indian Muslims the name Syed or Sheikh is common, its no big deal. The names "Shah" and "Khan" are also very common mamak names. Other 'Malay' names like 'Chik', 'Tamby Chik' and 'Keling' are definitely of mamak origins too. The name 'Shah' is not common among the Malays but strangely enough it is very common among the Malay sultans, for example Sultan Azlan Shah and Raja Nazrin Shah. Shah is NOT an Arabic name. It originates from Persia and comes to Malaysia from India through the Indian Muslim influence. This is just more indication of the mamak ancestry of our Malay rulers.

But among kampong Malays the name Syed and Sheikh are supposed to indicate Arab ancestry, the name Syed being associated with 'keturunan nabi' or lineage from the Prophet. To the kampong Malays these names are a really big deal. This is the furthest thing from the truth. Another common mamak name is 'Maricar'. Actually it is 'Marikiyaar' . This has evolved into 'Merican'. Hence the thousands of Malays who bear the 'Merican' name today are also of mamak ancestry. They call themselves Jawi Peranakan. They are actually mamak.

Many smart Indian Muslims realized very early on this Malay liking for Arabic names and Arab ancestry. So they started passing themselves off, (or did not object if they were referred to) as Arabs, usually of Yemeni descent. In Malaysia too many Syeds and Sheikhs from among the Malays today are actually recycled mamaks. One good example is Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhari. Among the Malayelite Tan Sri Syed Mukhtar Bukhari passes of as being of Yemeni descent. His family actually comes from India. The former mayor of KL Tan Sri Elyas Omar is also of Tamil mamak origins from Penang.

Among the Malays it is also 'ok' if a mamak is from Pakistani descent. Perhaps Pakistan is closer to Bollywood. So some clever mamaks claim to be from Pakistan. The former Sabah Chief Minister Harris Salleh and present Chief Minister Musa Aman are said to be 'of Pakistan origins' but in actual fact they are of Indian mamak ancestry, and usually Tamil speaking. Mamaks come in all colours and complexions from the dark skinned to the light skinned, green eyed and brown eyed types. A visit to the Masjid Kapitan Keling in Pitt Street in Penang or Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur on a Friday will witness all varieties of mamak.

The Indian Muslims in Malaysia today can be classified as follows :
1.Those mamaks who have inter married with Malays for generations and have actually become Malays. You can only know their mamak ancestry by their mamak sounding names like Merican, Shah, Syed, Sheikh etc, by heir 'Indian' appearances - prominent nose, rounder eyes etc.
2.Those mamaks who have not inter married with Malays but who have assimilated closely into the Malay culture. They can only speak Malay and have cut off almost all their links with India. These would include thousands of mamaks in Penang, Kedah, Melaka and other parts of the country. Only their DNA remains Indian. But practically, for all intents and purposes they are Malay.
3.Those mamaks who are still very much Tamil and who can only speak pasar Malay. They may not have links with India but they watch Tamil movies and do not read the Malay papers or know much about the Malays. Despite being born in Malaysia they still would not know a 'kuih talam' from an 'otak-otak'. Many KIMMA members fall in this category. That is why they still call themselves Kongres Indian Muslim Malaysia after the Indian Congress Party of Panditji Jawaharlal Nehru.
4.Those mamaks who are still very much Tamil and who cannot even speak pasar Malay despite being born in Malaysia. They will not know 'nasi lemak' from a hole in the ground. They will have strong family ties to India. They watch Tamil movies and know more about Tamil Nadu politics than Malaysia politics. They read Tamil Nesan and Malaysian Nanban religiously everyday to find out what is happening in Tamil Nadu and India.

Again many KIMMA members also fall into this category. Before 1970 the last two classes of Indian Muslims above (no.3 & 4) were usually overtly prejudiced against the Malays. Before 1970 many of them were not even citizens of the country. Their slang term for Malays was 'valayan-katti' . This is a term invented by Tamil estate workers but which became widely used by most Tamils including Indian Muslims to describe Malays. A 'valayan' means wire. 'Katti' means to tie something. So 'valayan-katti means 'a person who ties a wire'. What does this mean? In the early days of the rubber industry, the British tried to get the Malays to tap the rubber trees. However the native Malays had problems tapping the rubber tree in the proper manner and ended up injuring the tree, reducing the output of rubber. The British had better luck getting the trees properly tapped with the Tamils from India. Malays were then
delegated the simpler job of using wire (valayan) to tie (katti) the little latex cups to the rubber tree.

Hence the name 'valayan-katti'. Another Tamil term used for Malays is 'naattu kaaran' or 'naattan'
which means 'native'. Before 1970 the type 3 and 4 mamaks above and everyone else did not see much in the Malays. But post 1970 and the New Economic Policy the mamaks realized that they suddenly depended on the Malay for everything, especially the ever precious 'Entry Permit' to get Permanent Resident status in Malaysia. Until then few mamaks got married in Malaysia. They always went back to India to get married. After 1970 and the NEP, the trend disappeared in a hurry. The Malays refused to give Entry Permits for mamak brides and grooms from India. All of a sudden mamaks realized that they were short of wives and husbands. Hence the rate of inter marriage between mamaks and Malays increased tremendously after 1970.

After 38 years of the NEP, the mamaks are even more assimilated now through marriage than ever before. Today there is rarely a mamak family which does not have a Malay son or daughter in law. Post 1970, the mamaks realized that real political power and with it economic largesse had shifted to the Malays. But many mamaks included in class 1 and 2 above had no problem with this shift in power because often they were the ones holding high office. For example the first Speaker of Parliament CM Yusuf, a mamak, was his own power in his day. It was only the class 3 and 4 mamaks described above who were (and still are) slow in assimilating into becoming Malaysians. The KIMMA represents many of these people.

Hence the present scramble among them to be recognized as bumiputras, to get Malay classification in the Birth Certificate, BIN in the IC etc. But it is a fact that the Indian Muslims are heavily intermarried with Malays. This trend started over 600 years ago and continues until today. They and their offspring have played major roles in the history of this country. Sang Nila Utama, Parameswara, Tun Ali, Hang Kasthuri, Hang Tuah, Mani Purindan, Tun Teja, Abdullah Munshi and ALL the Malay Sultans are descended from Indian Muslims. The Perlis Royal family is almost certainly of mamak/Thai mix.

It is also true beyond any single doubt that from their earliest history here, the mamaks have had extreme affection which the Indian Muslims have had for the Malays throughout history. This could be attributed to the similarities in religion but there are also other Muslims in the country (including from India) like Pakistanis, Punjabi Muslims, Patans and also others like the Chinese Muslims.

Although the Indian Muslims are generally friendly with all races there is not as much intermarriage between Indian Muslims and other Muslims compared to the heavy intermixing and intermarriages between Indian Muslims and the Malays. And it is an established fact (evidenced by all the names mentioned above) that throughout history the Indian Muslims have always stepped forward to defend the rights of the Malays. In the process many of the Indian Muslims have lost their identity almost completely to the Malays.

Who are the descendants of the Tamil educated Munshi Abdullah today? No one knows. A DNA test will reveal Indian DNA among all our Malay rulers but which Sultan can or wants to retrace his Indian ancestry? These are the mamaks who assimilated into the Malay community from generations ago. Fast forward to today : in UMNO there are thousands of mamaks fighting for Malay rights. In PAS there are mamaks fighting for Islam (aka Malay) rights. PAS stalwart Hanipa Mydin is a pure mamak while Deputy MB of Kelantan Dato Husam Musa may have mamak blood. In the old Keadilan 'brother' Abdul Rahman Othman, another mamak tulen, became party secretary general and then quit later - to join PAS. In the Civil Service and in the Melayu korporat sector there are thousands of mamaks helping the NEP 'social engineering' come true.

In Penang pure Malays are a rarity. As late as the 80s, they could only be found in Sungai Ara, Balik Pulau and other places where there were no roads. In all other places in Penang, mamak blood is almost a certainty. Hence words like 'chacha' and 'nana' are a part of Penang Malay. In Kedah and Melaka the mamak 'penetration' of the Malay populace is much more earlier than in Penang. Which means the mamaks in Kedah and Melaka have diluted their DNA into the Malay population from much earlier (from Portugese, Dutch and British times). In short mamaks are a permanent feature of the Malay 'make up'. It is the karma of the mamaks that they have become kurma in Malaysia.



A beautiful piece of observation to be shared as an Indian.

       *Indian Muslims*

The largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia and the second largest is not Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, or Pakistan. It is India. With some 150 million Muslims, India has more Muslims than Pakistan. But here is an interesting statistic from 9/11: There are no Indian Muslims that we know of in al-Qaeda and there are no Indian Muslims in America's Guantanamo Bay post-9/11 prison camp. And no Indian Muslims have been found fighting alongside the jihads in Iraq.

Why is that? Why do we not read about Indian Muslims, who are a minority in a vast Hindu-dominated land, blaming America for all their problems and wanting to fly airplanes into the Taj Mahal or the British embassy? Lord knows, Indian Muslims have their grievances about access to capital and political representation. And inter-religious violence has occasionally flared up in India, with dis­astrous consequences. I am certain that out of 150 million Muslims in India, a few will one day find their way to al-Qaeda ,before it can happen with some American Muslims, it can happen with Indian Muslims. But this is not the norm. Why?

The answer is context and in particular the secular, free-market,
democratic context of India, heavily influenced by a tradition of
nonviolence and Hindu tolerance. M. J. Akbar, the Muslim editor of the Asian Age, a national Indian English-language daily primarily funded by non-Muslim Indians, put it to me this way: "I'll give you a quiz question: Which is the only large Muslim community to enjoy sustained democracy for the last fifty years? The Muslims of India.

I am not going to exaggerate Muslim good fortune in India. There are
tensions, economic discrimination, and provocations, like the
destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya [by Hindu na­tionalists in 1992]. But the fact is, the Indian Constitution is secular and provides a real opportunity for economic advancement of any community that can offer talent. That's why a growing Muslim middle class here is moving up and generally doesn't manifest the strands of deep anger you find in many non-democratic Muslim states." Where Islam is embedded in

authoritarian societies, it tends to be­come the vehicle of angry protest Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. But where Islam is embedded in a pluralistic democratic society Turkey or India, for instance those with a more progressive outlook have a chance to get a better hearing for their interpretation and a dem­ocratic forum where they can fight for
their ideas on a more equal foot­ing. On November 15, 2003, the two
main synagogues of Istanbul were hit by some fringe suicide bombers.

I happened to be in Istanbul a few months later, when they were
reopened. Several things struck me. To be­gin with, the chief rabbi
appeared at the ceremony, hand in hand with the top Muslim cleric of
Istanbul and the local mayor, while crowds in the street threw red
carnations on them both. Second, the prime minis­ter of Turkey,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who comes from an Islamic party, paid a visit
to the chief rabbi in his office the first time a Turkish prime
minister had ever called on the chief rabbi. Lastly, the father of
one of the suicide bombers told the Turkish newspaper Zaman, "We
cannot under­stand why this child had done the thing he had done. ..
First let us meet with the chief rabbi of our Jewish brothers.
Let me hug him. Let me kiss his hands and flowing robe. Let me
apologize in the name of my son and offer my condolences for the
deaths . . . We will be damned if we do not reconcile with them."

Different context, different narrative, different imagination.

I am keenly aware of the imperfections of Indian democracy,
starting with the oppressive caste system. Nevertheless, to have
sustained a functioning democracy with all its flaws for more than
fifty years in a country of over one billion people, who speak
scores of different languages, is something of a miracle and a great
source of stability for the world.  Two of India’s presidents have
been Muslims, and its current president, A.P.J.  Abdul Kalam, is
both a Muslim and the father of the Indian nuclear missile program.
While a Muslim woman sits on India's Supreme Court, no Muslim woman is allowed even to drive a car in Saudi Arabia. Indian Muslims, including women, have been governors of many Indian States and  the wealthiest man in India today, high on the Forbes list of global billionaires, is an


Indian Muslim: Azim Premji, the chairman of Wipro, one of India's most important technology companies. I was in India shortly after the United States invaded Afghanistan in late    2001, when Indian television carried a debate between the country's leading female movie star and parliamentarian  Shabana Azmi, a Muslim woman -- and the imam of New Delhi's biggest mosque. The imam had called on Indian Muslims to go to Afghanistan and join the jihad against America and Azmi ripped into him, live on Indian TV,    basically telling the cleric to go take a hike. She told him to go to Kandahar and join the Taliban and leave the rest of India's Muslims alone. How did she get away with that?  Easy. As a Muslim woman she lived in a context that empowered and protected her to speak her mind even to a leading cleric.

This is not all that complicated: Give young people a context where
they can translate a positive imagination into reality, give them a
context in which someone with a grievance can have it adjudicated in a court of law without having to bribe the judge with a goat, give
them a context in which they can pursue an entrepreneurial idea and
become the richest or the most creative or most respected people in
their own country, no matter what their background, give them a
context in which any com­plaint or idea can be published in the
newspaper, give them a context in which anyone can run for office
and guess what? They usually don't want to blow up the world. They
usually want to be part of it.

A South Asian Muslim friend of mine once told me this story: His
Indian Muslim family split in 1948, with half going to Pakistan and
half staying in Mumbai. When he got older, he asked his father one
day why the Indian half of the family seemed to be doing better than
the Pakistani half.  His father said to him, "Son, when a Muslim
grows up in India and he sees a man living in a big mansion high on
a hill, he says, 'Father, one day I will be that man.' And when a Muslim grows up in Pakistan and sees a man living in a big mansion
high on a hill, he says, 'Father, one day I will kill that man.'"
When you have a pathway to be the Man or the Woman, you tend to
focus on the path and on achieving your dreams.  When you have no
pathway, you tend to focus on your wrath and on nursing your memories.


India only twenty years ago, before the triple convergence, was
known as a country of snake charmers, poor people, and Mother
Teresa. Today its image has been recalibrated. Now it is also seen
as a country of brainy people and computer wizards. Atul Vashistha,
CEO of the outsourcing consulting firm NeoIT, often appears in the
American media to defend outsourcing. He told me this story: "One
day I had a problem with my HP printer the printing was very slow. I
was trying to figure out the problem. So I call HP tech support.

This guy answers and takes all my personal information down. From
his voice it is clear he is somewhere in India. So I start asking
where he is and how the weather is. We're having a nice chat. So
after he is helping me for about ten or fifteen minutes he says,
'Sir, do you mind if I say something to you?' I said, 'Sure.' I
figured he was going to tell me something else I was doing wrong
with my com­puter and was trying to be polite about it. And instead
he says, 'Sir, I was very proud to hear you on Voice of America. You
did a good job. ...' I had just been on a VOA show about the
backlash against globalization and outsourcing. I was one of three
invited guests. There was a union of­ficial, an economist, and
myself. I defended outsourcing and this guy heard it."

Remember: In the flat world you don't get just your humiliation
dished out to you fiber-optically. You also get your pride dished
out to you fiber-optically. An Indian help-line operator suddenly
knows, in real time, all about how one of his compatriots is
representing India half a world away, and it makes him feel better
about himself.

The French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Indian
democracy, and even e-bay are all based on social contracts whose
dominant feature is that authority comes from the bottom up, and
people can and do feel self-empowered to improve their lot.  People
living in such contexts tend to spend their time focusing on what to
do next, not on whom to blame next.