A Fatwa against terrorism was recently issued in India:

Maulana Khalid Rashid of the 300-year-old Dar-ul-Itfa Firangi Mahal, one of the most conservative and most respected seminaries in the country has issued a fatwa against terrorists.

And on a different line of thought, Nehru’s interview with Playboy magazine. As Ritu points out, the man himself was a playboy, so it makes a kind of sense. But whatever you think of Nehru, can you imagine any contemporary Western leader saying the following:

Many years ago I read in the writings of George Bernard Shaw a passage that moved me and found an answering echo in my mind and heart. He wrote: ‘This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.’ The only ambition I have is that, to the end of my days, I should work my hardest, and then, when I have done my job, that I should be thrown on the scrap heap. When I have done my job, there is no need to bother about me further.

Can you imagine Bush saying this? or Paul Martin, Tony Blair, or any major Western politician?

Me neither.

Ritu’s LJ, by the way, is here.