Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Amaresh Mishra -a case of intellectual rottenness

(Update - audio of an interview with Amaresh Mishra by ABN.)

Till recently I did not know very much about Amaresh Mishra but that he had written a book that appeared to be of dubious merit and dodgy scholarship. I briefly touched on it in an earlier post- Amaresh Mishra opens my third eye and piques my sixth sense. I have not read the book(or his other books) -only about the book -so I reserved my more substantial judgment on Mr. Mishra's intellectual outpourings.

Now it seems that that dodginess runs deep indeed -deep into the dark recesses of conspiracy theories. He suffers from the same strain of kookiness that Union Minority Affairs Minister A R Antulay does. Here is Mr. Mishra's searchlight of an intellect throwing light on the Mumbai terrorist attacks-

Mumbai is under attack. People and forces who killed Mahatama Gandhi, who demolished the Babari Mosque have triumphed. More than 16 groups of terrorists have taken over Taj, Oberai and several hotels. Hundreds of people are dead. For the first time no one is blaming Muslim organizations. The Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare and other officers of the ATS have been killed. These were the same people who were investigating the Malegaon Blasts - in which Praggya Singh, an army officer and several other noted personalities of the BJP-RSS-Bajrang Dal-VHP were arrested. Karkare was the man to arrest them. Karkare was receiving threats from several quarters. LK Advani, the BJP chief and several other prominent leaders of the so-called Hindu terrorism squad were gunning for his head. And the first casualty in the terrorist attack was Karkare! He is dead - gone - the firing by terrorists began from Nariman House - which is the only building in Mumbai inhabited by Jews. Some Hindu Gujaratis of the Nariman area spoke live on several TV channels - they openly said that the firing by terrorists began from Nariman house. And that for two years suspicious activities were going on in this house. But no one took notice.

Our worst fears have come true. It is clear that Mossad is involved in the whole affair. An entire city has been attacked by Mossad and probably units of mercenaries.
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RSS type forces and Israel are all involved in not only destabilizing but finishing India. India should immediately snap all relations with Israel. We owe this much to Karkare and the brave ATS men who had shown the courage to arrest Praggya Singh, Raj Kumar Purohit, the army officer and several others.

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This is a moment of reckoning especially for Hindus of India. The killers of Gandhi have struck again. If we are true Sanatanis and true Hindus and true nationalists and true patriots we have to see this act as a clear attack by anti-national deshdrohi forces. Praggya Singh, Advani and the entire brand is anti-national. They ought to be shot. Any Hindu siding with them is hereafter warned of serious consequences.

This is a question of nationalism. If no one else, the Indian army will not take this lying down. Communal, anti-national forces have attacked the very foundation of the Indian constitution and the nation. We will fight a civil war if need be against the pro-Hindutva, communal forces and their Israeli backers.


He belongs to that overflowing breed of intellectual/media/pundit/academic class that sees Mossad and CIA (or America and Israel) as the fountainhead of most evil in the world.Kookiness is not an aberration in this circle but a feature.This class will loathe Bush for 'torture' and then go smooch a murderous leftist and/or anti-American dictator(Castro, Chavez, Saddam, Ahmedinajad).

It appears that Amaresh Misra is a gentleman too-
The Citizens for Justice and Peace had hosted a meeting at the St. Xaviers College Hall to condemn the horrific terror attacks and to outline an action plan for youth and citizens. All of us were gathered there, scattered in the quadrangle and the hall. Swami Agnivesh and Mufti Fuzail Ul Rahman Hilal Usmani, our special guests, were also present having been escorted by my husband and colleague, Javed Anand. Suddenly Mr Amaresh Mishra arrived on the scene and first started using abusive language against M Rajdeep Sardesai, editor in chief of CNN-IBN at which point his mother Smt Nandini Sardesai also intervened. He then started haranguing Swami Agnivesh our guest, "warning" him on how he should speak related to the recent terror attacks in Mumbai! He soon turned to abusing both Mr Javed Anand and journalist Sajjid Rashid in offensive and unprintable language. In fact our daughter hurried to me at this point thinking that her father, Javed Anand was about to be assaulted. One of the over dozen witnesses, Shahbaz Khan intervened at this point and escorted Mr Amaresh Mishra out of the college.

Sir, there were many witnesses present that day, December 4, 2008 when Mr. Mishra in fact did his best to disrupt our meeting and abuse Mr.Rajdeep Sardesai, Mr. Javed Anand and others. I believe he did this because he is threatened by the scope and reach of our activities and
especially the role of MSD in drawing the Muslim community into Civic, Secular Democratic issues breaking the manipulative stereotypes perpetrated by the Hindu right wing -- the RSS, the Bajrang Dal and the VHP among many other organizations -- against the entire community. Specifically, I believe that Mr Amaresh Mishra was out to discredit the courage and initiative shown by both Mr Javed Anand and myself in suggesting to Indian Muslims all over the country to demonstrate in one voice against the enemies of India and the forces of terror following the recent attacks on Mumbai on November 26, 2008.
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There are more falsehoods, Sir, in Mr Mishra's claims. He mentions three respected members of the Muslim clergy who he says also condemned M Javed Anand for "ostensibly attacking Mr Mishra (sic)". One of the three respected persons Maulana Mustaqeen Azmi specifically spoke to me, categorically refuting Mr Mishra's claim that he had issued any such statement of condemnation. Finally, Mr Mishra ends his diatribe stating that he spoke to some persons that include Mr Javed Akhtar, Ms Shabana Azmi and me, Ms Teesta Setalvad about the incident. This is an absolute lie. He did not speak to either of us and has not for some time.


The above was written by Teesta Setalvad as a response to an article in the Rashtriya Sahara Urdu, Mumbai edition, in which Mr.Mishra's scholarship on the Mumbai attacks scorches the newsprint. In fact Mr. Mishra is on a scorching spree-
A group of Muslim leaders on Wednesday decided to float a political party in Maharashtra, just in time to contest the Lok Sabha and
assembly elections.

Senior cleric Maulana Badruddin Ajmal will lead the front, which will be launched in 40 days. The name proposed for the new party is Maharashtra United Democratic Front.
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The cleric-led front has appointed journalist-historian Amresh Mishra, a known Sangh Parivar-baiter, as its spokesperson. Explaining the reasons why a Muslim-based party was the hour's need, Misra said that the Congress "lost the confidence'' of the community years ago.

Here is Mr. Mishra's new boss fighting for freedom of speech, dissent and freedom-
Maulana Ajmal demands extradition of Taslima Nasrin

President of Assam United Democratic Front, Maulana Badruddin Ajmal demanded extradition of Taslima Nasrin in a letter written to the Prime Minster Mr. Manmohan Singh.

Blaming both left and right wing of Indian political scene of using Nasrin as political gimmick, he requested the prime minster to extradite her from India. ---------------------------------------------------------------
“It will undoubtedly be a wise decision on behalf of seventeen crore Muslims in India,” said Maulana in the letter. He added that “no mainstream Muslim or Muslim organization favours her stay in our country” blaming her for her insults on Prophet of Islam and Islamic doctrines.

(Note -it seems that either the reporter who wrote the above or Maulana Badruddin Ajmal or both are confused about the meaning of 'extradition'. I suppose they mean 'expulsion'.)

But hey who are we plebeians to quibble?
Aren't we told that Amaresh Mishra is a renowned historian? I am glad we were enlightened or we might have come to the conclusion that he is a conspiracy mongering lout.

(emphasis mine)

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