Wednesday, May 24, 2006

British rule was a learning experience


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British rule was a learning experience


By Priyadarsi Dutta





Shri Ashok Chowgule, in his intervention ‘British did not benefit Hindus’ (May 14, 2006) flatly rejects Shri MSN Menon’s thesis that British rule substantially benefitted the Hindus (Think It Over: Another view of the British, May 5, 2006, Organiser). This contention arises because while it might be academically correct that British rule benefitted us substantially, as Shri MSN Menon demonstrates, it is politically incorrect to acknowledge it, as Ashok Chowgule’s reply reveals. I agree with Shri Chowgule that Hindus, led by Maratha confederacy, had already marginalised the “Later Mughals”, by the time the British took over. Was the recovery of Hindudom from Islam a distant mirage if the Maratha Empire was not finished in the Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817-1818), and Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Sikh kingdom was first restrained by British from expanding east of Sutlej by friendship treaty (1809) and later conquered through two Anglo-Sikh wars after his death?


British did not wrest most of India from the Muslims, but despite a popular misconception, from the Hindus, both through war and shrewd diplomacy. Ashok Chowgule, as a proud Maratha, might still suffer from the historic pain of losing two Anglo-Maratha wars despite having trounced the British in the first one through battle of Wadgaon (1779). I, as a Bengali, am beholden to British, for recovering Bengal from clutches of Muslim rule at Battle of Plassey (1757), and making the Bengal Renaissance possible, despite idolising since childhood the revolutionaries of Bengal, who comprised 90 per cent of political inmates in Andaman’s Cellular Jail.



But it’s high time, Hindus got over seeing British only as invaders, like Turks and Afghans in the medieval times. With the advent of Turks, Mughal and Afghans the Hindus shrank spatially, psychologically and intellectually. In British times, Hindus recorded expansion in these fields. Very few Hindus today remember (refer to Veer Savarkar’s Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History section 495 to 503) that Hindus had ceased faring the seas in the medieval ages. This happened at a time when Islam was unfurling itself in the Indian Ocean from Mombassa to Malacca. Hindus imposed this prohibition upon themselves to prevent them being killed, converted or sold in slavery by the Muslims. Islam dominated the Indian Ocean for seven hundred years, making it out of Hindu bounds, until the Portuguese ousted them in 1509/1510.


The British exhumed the Nalanda, Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Amaravati; deciphered Kharosti and Pali leading to rediscovery of lost Buddhist heritage. It seems miraculous that the British rewritten Indian history, printing press, railways, electricity, archeology, seafaring, geological survey, modern astronomy.


The advent of British into India was a logical corollary of the rise of the sea-borne empires in Europe viz. Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch and French that was reshaping the world-order previously dominated by Islam from Morocco to Malaya. In British era, Hindus began to fare the seas again, to places where their forefathers had never gone. Be it as indentured labourers, religious preachers, students, lawyers, political activists, revolutionaries Hindus were seeing and knowing a whole, wide world as never before. In 1843, the British took over Sindh, from medieval forces of Fateh Ali, where Hindus stood oppressed and marginalised for seven hundred years. In 1870, a Sindhi Hindu was having a firm in Cairo, after Suez Canal opened in 1869.


Soon ‘Sindhiworkies’ spread all over the British empire. They dominate 90 per cent of retail trade in Gibraltar, and many of them are proud of Hindus. A lot of people from Gujarat went to East Africa (Kenya, Uganda) to work in railways, which came to be nicknamed ‘Patel Railways’. Today when a Hindu proudly says his daughter studies in Princeton University or son stays in Sydney ; or a Hindu Yogi who got preach Hinduism in London and Paris, let them acknowledge the British contribution.


Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith in 1450 invented the printing press. In 1476, William Caxton established the first printing press of England in London. In 1790s, British evangelist William Carrey sent up the first printing press (English, Hindi, Bengali, and Sanskrit) of India in Seerampore, of Calcutta. Thus, it had taken more than 300 years for printing press to come to India. By contrast it took less than 30 years for India’s first train to run between Bombay and Thane (1853), after world’s first locomotive rolled between Stockton to Darlington in England in 1825. In the first case, there was no British empire in India, in the second case there was an Empire.


Whether it was the maritime exploration of the world, or invention printing press, there is nothing accidental about these things being done by Europeans, and not Indians. These were backed up by a sustained intellectual development in Europe since renaissance. No such movement, for whatever reason, was possible in India. Does it strike you that all through medieval ages, we produced little secular literature, scientific treatise, unlike in ancient India? Drama is the highest form of art (because it involves acting, singing, dancing, make-up) that was present in ancient India like ancient Greece. King Harsha Vardhana perhaps wrote the last known Sanskrit dramas. Why, after a hiatus during the medieval ages, dramas began to write in British period?


Another discipline that Europeans had invented was archeology. The British exhumed the Nalanda, Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Amaravati; deciphered Kharosti and Pali leading to rediscovery of lost Buddhist heritage. It seems miraculous that the British had rewritten Indian history, printing press, railways, electricity, archeology, seafaring, geological survey, modern astronomy, could these things have come from Marathas, Sikhs, Rajputs or any Hindus? No doubt, British enslaved Hindus, but they enslaved their enemy viz. Muslims as well. The concept of civil society was possible only in British times. Thus RSS-founder Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in 1925 could start uniting the Hindu society with symbolic weapon of a lathi. In Mughal times, Guru Govind Singh could raise Khalsa, and protect the honour of Bhagwa Dhwaj, only under the shade of the sword.




Thursday, May 18, 2006

The Vadodara riots and the media mischief

The Vadodara riots and the media mischief

By K.G. Acharya




All the so called secular (read anti-Hindu writers and media) have not considered news of the following type: Malaysian authorities have demolished a century-old Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur on April 21. While bulldozing the temple, devotees, numbering about 300, begged authorities to stop the demolition, until, at least, they finished their prayers. The prayers went unheeded. Authorities said: The demolition is sought to make way for a building project



In the interest of development, we hope that the stay granted by the Supreme Court to further demolition of illegal structures in Vadodara and other parts of Gujarat will be revoked at an early date. The Supreme Court had acceded to the Central Government’s urgent plea for the stay in the wake of the violence in Vadodara, as a sequel to the demolition of an illegal mosque. The Central government’s argument in the Supreme Court based on the report submitted by the Minister of State S P Jaiswal, that the State Government had not duly discussed the sensitivities involved, is not correct.


In fact, at 9.30 a.m. on Monday, the May 1, 2006, a delegation of Muslims was invited to a meeting with the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) to evolve a consensus to remove the dargah. The VMC had also shown its readiness to offer an alternative place to build the dargah, there, but the Muslims were very obstinate. The VMC had earlier tried to serve a notice to Muslims in the dargah about the demolition, but they refused to take the notice. As a result the notice was pasted on the walls of the dargah on April 26. Muslim leaders had resisted this move with official petitions on April 29, 2006. In the meeting on 1 May, 2006, mayor Sunil Solanki, city BJP president Shabadsharan Brahmabhatt and municipal commissioner Rohit Pathak tried to convince the Muslim leaders about removing the structure. The dargah, which finds mention in the Baroda State’s city survey of 1911, was not a protected monument and neither did it have ownership papers.


As a result, the dargah was considered by the VMC as an unauthorised structure and demolished. Along with the dargah, at least half a dozen temples were also demolished, but Hindus did not resist. Muslims attacked not only the police, but also attacked vehicles and men in the courts of the district Magistrate and the Sessions, since they did not give stay for the demolition of the dargah. They burnt many vehicles in the premises of the courts. It must be noted that the VMC had to remove unauthorised structures to comply with the order of the Gujarat High Court. The Supreme Court should have asked for these facts before giving the stay as all this information was not given to it by the Central government which wanted the stay at any cost to serve its vote bank politics.


Minister of State for Home Affairs, S.P. Jaiswal visited Vadodara immediately after the demolition and instead of persuading the Muslims to refrain from violence, played politics and blamed the administration. He said in his report to the Home Ministry: Vadodara administration should have avoided the demolition of the dargah in view of the people’s sentiments associated with the old shrine.


Home Ministry issued a notice to the Gujarat government asking for a report on the burning of a Muslim in a car. He did not bother about the stabbing and killing of two Hindus by Muslim goons. The Indian Express, dated May 3 has reported the relevant story in detail. Two Hindus were waylaid and stabbed by a Muslim mob. One was Subedar Ramchandra Meena (35), belonging to the Patiala unit of the EME Corps, and another named Biren Shah (23). The partisan media, however, gave wide publicity only to the burning of the Muslim and this infuriated the Muslims further, who transformed the secular act of demolition into communal riots, which was most unfortunate.


A large section of the anti-Hindu media used the opportunity to blame Hindus, the BJP and the Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The Hindustan Times wrote in its editorial, “Climate of distrust” (May 3, 2006): The violence and distrust are an indictment of Shri Narendra Modi and the BJP”. The HT, in its issue dated May 8, 2006, has given a photo of a car in flames with the footnote, “File picture of the vehicle which was burnt down on May 2, killing Rafiq Vora”. HT has not given the photo of Hindus stabbed earlier in the riots. In fact, reminding the riots of 2002 again and again by anti-Hindu forces creates distrust among Muslims for Hindus. In The Indian Express, Ayesha Khan has blamed the demolition of illegal mosques in her article, “Sacred space uncommon ground” (May 3, 2006) and indirectly encouraged Muslim goons to transform a secular act into communal riots. She has written: “The municipal authorities stick to the latest mantra - of development of the larger good - which is a convenient mask.” Sitaram Yechury wrote in his column “Returning to Gujarat 2002” in The Hindustan Times (May 4, 2006) and tried to divide the nation further on religious ground. Otherwise, there was no reason, why he should remind the past unhappy history of communal riots in the state. He has mentioned only the burning of a Muslim in Vadodara, where Hindus were also stabbed to death. The NDTV tried its best to highlight the incident of burning of the Muslim in a car to infuriate Muslims while suppressing the incidents of stabbing to death of the two waylaid Hindus. It is possible that the burning of a Muslim was in retaliation of the stabbing of Hindus. On May 3, NDTV asked a question on its channel about the burning of a person (read Muslim) and gave three alternative answers. One of them was whether it was a victory of religion (read Hinduism). Clearly the message was an attempt by the channel to malign Hindus. It must also be noted that there were many communal riots between the time of the Gujarat riots of 2002 and the recent few incidents in Vadodara. For example: riots in Marad, Kerala; Mahu and Aligarh in UP: Bhiwandi, Kalyan and many other parts of Maharashtra. But the media did not cover them at all or as they did in the case of Gujarat. This was right. But why should they have another approach only for Gujarat? Javed Anand (Ansari), co-editor of Communalism Combat and husband of Teesta Setalvad has written the article, “There is a Taliban in Gujarat”. The motive is to dilute the threat of Talibans to humanity and condemn Gujarat, Shri Modi and the BJP. Javed says: The conduct of the state administration in Vadodara was far from even handed. So why is everyone only talking about Taliban? It must be noted that all the so called secular (read anti-Hindu writers and media) have not considered news of the following type: 1) Malaysian authorities have demolished a century-old Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur on April 21. While bulldozing the temple, devotees, numbering about 300, begged authorities to stop the demolition, until, at least, they finished their prayers. The prayers went unheeded. Authorities said: The demolition is sought to make way for a building project 2) In Pakistan and many Muslim countries also old mosques are demolished in the development process. For example, the mosque of Bilal, the direct disciple of Paigambar was removed in Saudi Arabia for extension of the palace. Clearly the motive of the anti-Hindu brigade consisting of the Communists and the Sonia Congress is to infuriate Muslims, encourage fundamentalist Muslims, destroy liberal Muslims and strengthen the Muslim vote bank.

The coming clash of religions

The coming clash of religions

By Subramanian Swamy




Most of our temples and holy spots have already been targeted by these terrorists just because these are sacred to Hindus. What harm did Hindus do to Islam that they should be targeted like this? In the answer to this question lies the concept of the divide or ‘fault lines’ as Huntington calls it.



Harvard’s Samuel Hunting-ton is famous for his thesis on the ‘Clash of Civilisations’. In a simplified formulation it is this: The Cold War of economic and political ideology is no more relevant because of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. And hence, according to Huntington, it will be replaced by a new conflict caused by a civilisational divide induced by religious fundamentalism. Christians, Jews and Hindus will have to band together on one side of the divide, to confront terrorist Islamic ideology. China faces the same problems with Islam, but it has been kept under wraps and away from media glare. China will be for now a passive partner in this divide.


Confrontation, as in the Cold War, will be inevitable. If indeed Christians, Jews and Hindus do forge an active alliance, Islamic terror will be no match in the ensuing context and confrontation. Such an alliance is being facilitated ironically by Osama Bin laden and his ilk against whom it will be directed!! Osama, Zarqawi, Moussauvi, and others Islamic terrorists are already propagating that Christians, Jews and Hindus are enemies of Islam. Hindus are already targeted in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and within our nation, such as in Kashmir and Mau just because they are Hindus. Recently, in Doda, Hindus were first segregated from Muslim residents, and then shot dead mercilessly by Pakistan based Islamic terrorists. Most of our temples and holy spots have already been targeted by these terrorists just because these are sacred to Hindus. What harm did Hindus do to Islam that they should be targeted like this? In the answer to this question lies the concept of the divide or ‘fault lines’ as Huntington calls it.


Close cooperation between India, Israel and US is already covertly and overtly beginning to happen partly in response to Osama’s threats and Islamic terrorism.


Cold War hangover and vote bank politics in India however is delaying the fructification of a formal alliance. But if the Hindus consolidate into a vote bank, instead of being divided in castes, regions and languages— thus rendering each Hindu segment a smaller vote bank than Muslims— then US-India-Israel alliance against terrorism would be easy to effect and make into a natural compact. India shall not then be inhibited by any fear of voters’ religious backlash.


Hindus once sufficiently consolidated should insist that Muslims in India must acknowledge that their ancestors are Hindus and that they are proud of the lineage. Those Muslims who claim that they are descended from Babar, Ghazni or Ghori have no right to be in India or at least a voter. A separate country of Pakistan was created 1947 for those Muslims who do not consider Hindus as part of their family tree. An India that is perceived as a land of Hindus and those whose ancestors are Hindus is Hindustan. The Indian identity is thus established, and Hindus , Muslims and Christians become equal legatees to the glorious continuing Hindu civilization.


The US, Israel, and India can confront and easily pacify militant Islam and it’s murderous terrorists arm by a combination of zero tolerance for terrorism, selective regime change where there is a brutal pro-terrorist dictatorship, and by commercializing new energy sources such as hydrogen fuel cells and thorium refining that will undermine the oil-financing capacity for terrorists. This three pronged approach will decimate and castrate Islamic terrorist movement. The problem is thus tractable and can be solved within a decade.


However, a new problem will arise thereafter that will confront the Hindus, namely that arising from proselytising crusading Christian missionaries under the guidance of the Opus Dei and the Vatican, and concomitantly from US-based evangelist organisations. These outfits are alarmed at the decline in Christian population and adherence to the religion in Europe. Hence, it had been decided in a conclave in Dallas in USA held in September 2005 that in one decade hence, a billion people would be converted to Christianity.


Obviously, Hindus would be a target for this conversion goal-in fact for India the goal set in the conclave by Reverend Pat Robertson is to convert a 100 million Hindus to Christianity. The Pope of Vatican who came to India in November 1999, surprisingly on the invitation of the NDA government, declared in New Delhi that Christian missionaries would work to make the 21st century a Christian one for Asia. It is significant that when the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalitha got a legislation enacted to bar forcible or money-induced conversion, the US Consul General in Chennai visited her to protest and warn her of US Congressional resolutions in this matter. Ms. Jayalalitha chickened out and withdrew the Act. Christian agenda is thus explicit and clear, and reserved for vigorous implementation once the ‘civilisational conflict’ is ended.


There is another factor which makes for the United States to be concerned about Hindustan once the Islamic terrorists threat has been met. It is the 200 million Indian youth just out of college and interested in research&development work. These bright youngsters might just out-innovate the Americans thus overtaking the US in it’s main USP.


Americans have stayed ahead of all others during the twentieth century by just being pioneers in technological and managerial innovation. India threatens that need not only because our youngsters are very bright and fast on the uptake, but unlike in China, function in a democratic system. The climate to innovate is much better in free societies where a questioning mind is a great asset for research and innovation. This attribute of India, which we owe to the Hindu tradition of argumentativeness and shashtratha, will put India in competition with the US. Given the hullabaloo over BPO from US to India which actually benefits US in net cost, we can imagine the howl that will be heard if India out-innovates the US. Of course we Indians have much to gain from technological cooperation with the US, and hence we must try to soften the coming blow to US lead in innovation. Nevertheless, as in the Indo-US nuclear agreement, the US goal will always be clear: how to restrain India from getting ahead in innovation. How we resolve this contradiction between being friendly with the US and at the same time resisting their booby traps in our path to innovative independence, will test our cognitive, emotional and moral intelligence to the maximum.


Once the Huntington clash of civilization is over, the clash of religions will begin—i.e., the clash between Hinduism and Christianity. It will not be a hot clash as with Islam, but a clash rooted in subversion: i.e., subvert or be subverted. To stave off being subverted by Christian foreign forces, Hindus will need a new mindset and a clear concept of identity. What these are I have written about earlier in these columns [or see my forthcoming book Hindus Under Siege—The Way out]. Hindus will also have to seek allies in this subversion game. Who can be these allies? I will write about that in my next column.

Marad memories haunt Hindus in Kerala

Statescan

BJP files PIL
Marad memories haunt Hindus in Kerala
Congress, Left united in suppressing facts, shielding guilty


By S. Chandrasekhar




The Justice has called for a detailed probe by a Special Investigation Team into the role of several fundamental and extremist organisations like Muslim League and NDF. The report has opined that Muslim League Leader and close confidant of IUML strong man Kunjalikutty, Mayin Haji had prior knowledge of the conspiracy that led to the murder.


The report was handed over to him two months back, but Chandy says that he has had no time to go through the report and that it should be tabled in the assembly before making it public. Chandy’s remarks are a challenge to the Hindus of Kerala.



May 2, 2003 is a day that no self-respecting and devout Hindu can ever erase from his mind. The day when eight Hindu fishermen were brutally murdered, women and children assaulted and humiliated and houses, boats and property worth lakhs destroyed in the fishing hamlet of MARAD near Kozhikode by jehadi extremists.


Massive agitation were organised throughout Kerala by RSS demanding CBI probe into the massacre and adequate compensation for the nears of the victims. After several rounds of discussions between the then Chief Minister A.K. Antony and RSS/BJP leaders a compromise formula was arrived. The Government announced a judicial probe by Thomas P. Joseph to go into all aspects of the massacre and also to probe the role of fundamentalists and extremist organisations. Also compensation of Rs.10 lakhs for dependents of the murdered, jobs for widowed women, repair of houses, replacement of boats, setting up of police station at MARAD etc. were also announced and later implemented.


Based on media reports, the Justice Thomas P. Joseph Commission has come down heavily on the UDF Government for not ordering a CBI probe into the massacre. The Justice has called for a detailed probe by a Special Investigation Team into the role of several fundamental and extremist organisations like Muslim League and NDF. The report has opined that Muslim League leader and close confidant of IUML strong man Kunjalikutty, Mayin Haji had prior knowledge of the conspiracy that led to the murder. The probe panel says that the role of the Crime Branch was eliminating key persons and organisations from the gambit of the probe and save them. Moreover, the act of the then District Collector T.O. Sooraj, a Muslim, in allowing Muslim League leader and now MoS in Union Cabinet, E. Ahmed, to offer namaz at the Marad mosque (which was sealed due to discovery of massive quantity of arms and weapons) at the period of an explosive situation has come in for criticism in the report. Finally the Commission says that the adamant role of the government not to go in for CBI probe is mysterious and its grounds flimsy.


Although the report was handed over to him two months back, but Chandy says that he has had no time to go through the report and that it should be tabled in the assembly before making it public. Chandy’s remarks are a challenge to the Hindus of Kerala, since hardly a month back; a special session of the Kerala Assembly was convened to pass an unanimous resolution by both LDF and UDF members calling upon Tamilnadu Government to release Madhani who is lodged in Coimbatore Jail. For Madhani assembly can be convened, for Marad. No. What double face, Chandy?


Both the A.K. Antony Government and the Oommen Government want to protect the Muslim League, a major partner in the ruling UDF and its new ally jehadi NDF.


Oommen Chandy wants to scuttle and derail any investigation into ‘MARAD’ massacre at any cost since his brief is to protect Muslim League, NDF, Mayin Haji and ultimately Kunjalikutty at any cost, since without Muslim support he cannot rule.


The state BJP president, P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Kerala High Court seeking directions to the state Government to release to the public the panel report and order CBI probe into the massacre and its conspiracy.


The Sabarimala Temple of Lord Ayyappa, to which crores of people from all the globe come, is a thorn in the eye of the Christian Community. They cannot tolerate a casteless consolidation of Hindus in the name of Lord Ayyappa since their aim is maximum conversion of the backward Hindus. In the mid eighties they planted a cross in Nilakkel, which is the base camp of Sabarimala pilgrims. Later due to massive agitations by RSS and other Hindu organisations it was removed. Harassment of pilgrims from other states by Christians is going on unabated.


The government at the instance of the Christian Church, Christian Land lobby, Christian encroachers and Ganja cultivators has revoked its earlier order of allotting 313 acres of revenue land to the forest department at Kambakkallu in lieu of forest department land given to Sabarimala temple for its development. Thus by revoking its earlier order the Oommen Chandy Government has succumbed to Christian pressure groups who want to torpedo Sabarimala development at any cost. It was this same Oommen Chandy who tried to prevent Mata Amritanandamayi from building homes for Tsunami affected, at the instance of church.


The BJP has demanded a Judicial Investigation into the moves to thwart Sabarimala development. The Hindu Aikya Vedi and VHP state Organising Secretary Kummanam Rajasekharan have also announced massive agitations if the 313 acres of land at Kambakkallu is not handed over to the forest department.

Bangladeshi infiltration--Borduwa, Shankar Dev’s seat of Vaishnavism in Assam, under siege

Bangladeshi infiltration
Borduwa, Shankar Dev’s seat of Vaishnavism in Assam, under siege


By Jyoti Lal Chowdhury



Silchar: Debate and oratory over the infiltration of Bangladeshis in Assam and their ever swelling number bares out the stark reality of how even Borduwa, the seat of Shankar Dev’s Vaishnavism, is under siege. During the recent polls, no political party except BJP brought into sharp focus the threat to the famous holy shrine and its near extinction due to systematic and designed encroachment by Bangladeshis.


Borduwa, has come to be synonymous with Assamese religious and cultural philosophy, an epitome of Hinduism. There is no authentic record about the date of birth of the great saint and sage. All that can be said about this Great Soul is that he died in 1568 and lived a longer life. Contemporary historical events suggest 1486 as his probable date of birth. He was born in a village called Ali Pukhuri in the district of Nagaon.


After the death of his parents, Shankar Dev was brought up by his grand parents and well-educated in Sanskrit school and in the process developed Vedic mind and deep aesthetic sensibility. At the age of 19, he shifted with his family to Borduwa which became the seat of his holy teachings and preachings.


In order to propound and propagate his religious movement, Shankar Dev moved to Darrang district, then in North Lakhimpur, Barpeta and lastly to Majuli. Rupak Bordoloi, a resident of Borduwa, like many others of the area, is a witness to Bangladeshis encroaching upon a vast tract of the holy shrine. He said, “Quite pathetic, though Borduwa as heritage site is on tourist destination of Assam, it is plunged into darkness after evening.


Purnachandra Dev Goswami, chief of the Narua Satra (Vaishnavite monastery), said besides Narua Satra, Rampur and Kubaikota satras have also been occupied by the illegal migrants. These satras are located in close proximity to Borduwa. Octogenerian Nav Kanta Thakuria bemeans to look at these monasteries founded by Shankar Dev himself. He recalls how Kubaikota satra was occupied by the Bangladeshis in 1983 when anti-foreigners’ movement was at its peak. He asks “Against whom did AASU then launch the movement?”


The State of Assam instead of evicting these encroachers of holy shrine and monasteries have issued land pattas to them. Dev Goswami is entrusted with the responsibility of collecting revenues from them to make their settlements legal and permanent. Even 182 bighas of land given to Borduwa—than (managing committee) by the state for afforestation are gradually slipping into the hands of Bangladeshis. A member of the managing committee admitted 80 bighas have gone under illegal occupation. Still tragic, all that remains of Narua monastery is a small room used as place of worship. And of once thriving Kubaikota monastery, only nam-ghar (prayer hall) now stands there.


If Borduwa is lost, it will mean a great blow to the rich cultural and religious heritage of Assam. It was Shankar Dev who ushered in neo-Vaishnava renaissance which freed the Assamese society in the middle ages. His religious movement swept some of the tribes too.


Shankar Dev’s cherished idea basically was to build up a harmonious society without caste, creed and cultural barriers. Many non-Aryans in Brahmaputra Valley gradually came into Vaishnav circle of their own. Shankar Dev’s message went deep inside tribals from the hills under threat from the Christian missionaries. This brought out Narottam Ata, a Naga, Govinda Ata, a Garo, and Bolai Ata, a Mikir, among others, who took up cudgels against proselytisation and to protect their own faith and culture.


Shankar Dev was an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna whom he named as Madan Gopala and installed him in his prayer hall called nam-ghar. His keen interest in Bhagavat Gita, Markandeya Purana and Garuda Purana enriched his philosophy. His religion is known as Eka Sarania Dharma (religion of refuge in one God), quite akin to Buddhism. He went on pilgrimage to Gaya, Kashi, Puri, Vrindaban, Mathura, Kurukhetra, Pushkar, Dwarka, Rameshwar and other holy shrines to spread Vaishnavism. Through religious discourses and kirtans. Nothing can be more painful than to remain mute spectator to the sinking of Borduwa and the monasteries around into oblivion. Will the indigenous people of Assam rising above all means and petty considerations give little thought to save the holy shrine of Shankar Dev?

Ethics: A gift of India to the west

Think it over

Ethics: A gift of India to the west


By M.S.N. Menon



We are told that the world is copying western values. What are the facts? The facts are otherwise.


Universal violence—this was how the history of man began. It was India, which set out to contain this violence in man.


True, Aryan India too was full of violence. But Aryans got together to establish peace. In the process, they created the Dharma Shastras, the first ethical codes.


But the rest of the world seethed in violence for centuries. “Why are you living in this dangerous forest?” Confucius (6th c BC) asked an old woman. She replied: “Because these wild animals are less dangerous than men!” Such was the state of the world.


Ethics was almost unknown to the Greeks, the most illustrious people of the west. They made their gods in their own image. Rome, as we have seen, was already a brutal society. The Romans made a gory display of their cruelty. The Assyrians were perhaps more brutal. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”—this was the law of these lands. The only exception was the small Jewish community with their Ten Commandments.


It was at this that the ethical thoughts of India began to take shape. The Vedas and the Upanishads were the first to provide a new life. Then came Buddha and Mahavira, the true pathfinders. The Ramayana propagated the ideal man, the ideal wife, the ideal brother and the ideal servant. It was all about establishing ideal human relations. Rama was the very image of Dharma! The Mahabharata was treasure of moral maxims. It deals with state, society and men. These found their way to the Middle East and the Mediterranean.


Thanks to Ashoka, the message of the Buddha was carried to the far corners of the world. According to Manu Samhita, neither birth nor age nor wealth, is the true measure of greatness. Then, what is the true measure of greatness? Knowledge and wisdom, it said.


It was at this time that the Greeks produced their greatest moral teacher—Scorates. But, by then, India was already at the highest level of its moral perception and practice.


Perhaps the invasion of India by Alexander, the Great (3rd c BC) was the beginning of a long relationship between India and Greece. Alexander stayed in India and made contact with Taxila and the sages of India. Pythagoras was in India for years.


But more significant and lasting than all these was the growth of India’s didactic literature (fables) of an ethical nature. They spread to Persia, Middle East, Egypt and the Mediterranean countries.


Panchatantra was the most popular story of all. It taught ethics. It also entertained. It has been translated into almost all languages of the world, and is next only to the Bible in circulation. It held the world in a spell with its 200 versions. The Arabic version came out in 750 AD. Vishnu Sharman, its author, prescribed it as a Niti Shastra (The Way).


The Mirror of Princess—an English version of Panchatantra—was designed to instruct the royalty. It influenced Machiavelli, the Italian author of the Prince—a political treatise.


Through the centuries, the Panchatantra fables were modified, moralised and Christianised. Its attraction continued.


Sindbad was another great story designed to promote an ethical life. It took a psychological look at men and women. The Arabs turned it into an adventure story. Its original name was Siddhapathi. The Romans called it The Seven Sages of Rome and gave it back its ethical direction. Sindbad was so popular that 40 different versions of it, including an English version called The Seven Wise Masters, appeared in a short time.


Until the 16th century these tales remained more or less associated with India. Even when these were Christianised, the scenes of these stories remained largely Indian. In a way, these Indian fables were a continuation of the romance literature based on Alexander, the Great.


There are many other books of fables, perhaps less famous with an ethical content. For example, Hitopadesa, Buddhist Jhataka, Dhammapada, Dasakumara, Brihatkatha, Katha Sarit Sagara, Suka Saptahi, Brihatkatha Manjari, Vikramaditya tales and others.


On Katha Sarit Sagara, its English translator says of its author: “His knowledge of human nature, the elegance of his style, the beauty and force of his descriptions and the wit and wisdom of his aphorisms are masterly.”


When Europe came into contact with India and it realised that India was no Christian country, the orthodox European Christians were reluctant to spread the “heathen tales” of India among European Christians. But these stories were so popular that they had been adapted and absorbed into Christian sermons from an early age. The “oriental” tales were used as parables for religious instruction.


Public preachings in those days were confined to Bishops. Two preaching orders—the Dominicans and the Franciscans—were created in the 13th century for this purpose. They made sermons very popular with illustrations from Indian fables. Later, the Bishops themselves invented such stories. But as these stories came to be more entertainment, they were banned in 1528. But their popularity continued. Thy remained part of European literature.

Friday, May 12, 2006

List of major killings in kashmir - Manmohan Talks Peace Over River Of Hindu Blood




May 14, 2006




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Home > 2006 Issues > May 14, 2006





Special Report

Plans to gift Siachin to Pakistan
Manmohan Talks Peace Over River Of Hindu Blood


From Prakriiti Gupta in Jammu



Jammu: Thirty-eight-year old Gilo Devi is fighting a battle for survival at Jammu hospital ignorant of the fact that she is a widow and also lost her daughter. Her three-month old son cries bitterly looking for mother piercing the deadly silence of ICU unit of hospital. She is one of the victims who fell to the bullets of Islamic terrorists who perpetuated a naked dance of death killing at least 38 Hindus at two separate places in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan supported Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorists brutally killed 22 Hindus in Panjoli and Thava hamlets of Kulhund village in Doda, about 200 km from Jammu. Eight others were seriously wounded.


A day prior to this carnage, gun trotters had abducted 18 cattle grazers in Lolan Galla in Basnatgarh area of neighbouring Udhampur district. Since two of them being Muslims were freed, bodies of 13 Hindus were found in nearby forests, three are still missing.



The slaughter of Hindus by Pakistan supported Islamic militants in Jammu and Kashmir is not recent phenomenon. They have killed over 350 of them in separate incidents. And more importantly, the recent killings happen when Congress led government both at Centre and state are claiming normalcy and change of hearts of Pakistan and Islamic separatists in Jammu and Kashmir.


Recalling the harrowing incident, Gian Chand, another victim at hospital said that the entire village was asleep when at around 11.30 pm, a group of armed men in guise of Indian security personnel donning olive uniforms knocked at doors asking them to assemble at local sarpanch house for a matter of immediate concern. The Sarpanch Gopi Chand, however, has died in the shooting. “As we started assembling there, they lined us up and began shooting for over five minutes. Many fell on ground with blood oozing out of chest, screams filled the surroundings,” said Gian Chand.


The last biggest massacre of Hindus in the state was executed in Shopian in Pulwama district in 2003 when 24 Kashmiri Pandits were massacred in dark of night.


Ironically, the gruesome act has happened in home district of Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad who was voted to state Assembly through record voting percentage of 76 only few days back through support of Hindus who comprise nearly fifty per centage population of Doda district.


Azad appealed to the state’s Muslim clerics to issue a “fatwa” against militants but six days after the attack, none has done so. Meanwhile, Intelligence sources have stated that wireless intercepts of militants in the past few weeks were already indicating that militants could execute some major carnage since they were getting such orders from their mentors across the border. Both military intelligence and internal security agencies say infiltration this April has been higher than that in the same month last year. Military sources say that at least 1200-1400 are present in Pir Panjal heights of Jammu and Kashmir despite the fact that Indian government officially claim that infiltration levels on borders is almost zero. Even on carnage night, security forces had foiled infiltration bid near Line of Control in Sawjian area of Poonch district killing one militant.


The infiltration is expected to rise further since this is the time the snow melts in high mountain passes. The survivors of the Doda massacre have threatened to migrate from this hilly hamlet if they are not provided with weapons to defend themselves from terrorists. There are 512 families in the Kulhund and Tharva hamlets of Doda district. There are already hundreds of Hindus who are living in shelter camps in Udhampur district following massive killings of Hindus in 1996-2000 in Doda district. Many of them have sold off or mortgage their children to support families.


Hindus have rebuffed militant attacks on several occasions in past as part of local Village Defence Committee (VDC) members acting as first line of security and spying for Indian security agencies in remote mountainous Doda region. Doda was the first district in Jammu and Kashmir where the concept of VDC was introduced. People of remote villages were armed with weapons, mostly .303 rifles, to defend themselves. Deputy Commissioner G.A. Qureshi, however, said “no migration has taken place from anywhere in the area. People have come here to put forth their demand before the district administration.” Massive operations are on to track down the militants responsible for the act, Doda SSP P R Manhas said. Several Hindus protested at Ramlila ground Doda shouting slogans against Home Minister Shivraj Patil for not visiting them. Rakesh Kumar, who lost his brother in the May 7 terrorist attack, says: “We do not want to live here with a permanent scare and a feeling of insecurity. A police post would not suffice and we need weapons to defend ourselves.”


Meanwhile, state RSS chief Prof K.L. Bhatia and BJP chief Nirmal Singh strongly condemning the killings of Hindus said that it indicates towards total collapse of the coalition-led government’s administration in the state. BJP president Raj Nath Singh who was during his tour of Jammu and Kashmir when carnage occurred has sought governor rule in the state due to failure of ruling government to provide security to innocent civilians. He also asked the Central Government to tell Hurriyat in clear terms that no talks would be held with them until they stop demanding inclusion of Pakistan in talks. The killings also raise questions over the peace process that is being currently followed in Jammu and Kashmir underlining the fact that militants rule roost in state. It must be mentioned that Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is likely to visit Srinagar later this month to attend second roundtable conference of Kashmir.




A calander of major killings of Hindus in Jammu and Kashmri


(excluding attacks at Raghunath Temple, Kaluchak carnage and Qasim Nagar carnage in 2002 in Jammu killing over 70 Hindus)










































1. August, 1993,17 Hindus killed in Sarthal in Bhaderwah area of Doda when Hindus were segregated from bus.
2. January 5, 199616 Hindus killed in Barshala in Kishtwar, Doda
3. January 12, 1996Seven Hindus killed in Bhaderwah, Doda
4. 6 May, 199617 Hindus killed in Sumbar Ramban tehsil of Doda
5. June 7-8, 1996Nine Hindus killed in Kamladi village of Doda
6. April 7, 1997Seven Kashmiri Pandits killed in Sangrampur, Kashmir Valley.
7. September 24, 1997Seven Hindus killed in Sawari village of Rajouri.
8. January 26, 199823 Kashmiri pandits killed in Wandhama in Valley.
9. April 17, 199829 Hindus killed in Prankot and Dhakikot villages of Udhampur
10. May 5, 1998Five Hindus killed in Surankot Poonch
11. May 6, 199811 Hindu Village Defence Committee members killed.
12. June 19, 199829 Hindu baratis including three grooms were killed in Chapnarai, Doda.
13. July 27, 199820 Hindus killed in Kishtwar, Doda
14. February 13, 1999Five Hindus killed in Udhampur
15. February 19, 199919 Hindus killed in Rajouri, 4 in Udhampur
16. June 29, 199912 Hindu labourers from Bihar killed in Santhu village of Annatnag
17. July 1, 1999Nine Hindus killed in Mendhar Poonch.
18. July 15, 199915 Hindus of Thathri village of Doda killed
19. Februrary 28, 2000Five Hindus in Mendhar killed
20. Feb 29, 2000Five Sikh drivers killed in Qazikund, Kashmir Valley.
21. March 20, 200036 Sikhs killed in Chattisinghpora Kashmir.
22. August 1, 200028 Aamarnath pilgrims killed.
23. August 2, 200012 Hindus killed in Banihal area of Doda.
24. August 2, 20008 Hindu VDC members killed in Marwah, Doda
25. November 24, 2000Five Hindus killed in Kishtwar, Doda
26. February 3, 20018 Sikhs killed in Majhoor Nagar, Srinagar
27. May 10, 20018 Hindus killed in Paddar Kishtwar, Doda
28. July 21, 200113 Hindus killed in Amarnath attack
29. July 21, 200120 Hindus killed in Kishtwar, Doda
30. August 4, 200115 Hindu killed in Kishtwar area, Doda
31. January 1, 2002Six Hindus in Magnar village of Poonch.
32. February 17, 2002Eight Hindus killed in Rajouri
33. March 23, 200324 Kashmiri pandits killed in Shopian, Pulwama.



It’s shocking,

Sarsanghachalak K.S. Sudarshan



“The news of brutal killing of 19 Hindus in Doda and 15 at Vasantpur area of Udhampur district in Jammu and Kashmir has completely shaken the Hindu society. Is it the fate of the Hindus to be continuously killed by the bullets of terrorists? The army and the central security forces were withdrawn from these areas in the name of peace dialogue and by dissolving the special task force the state government left the people of the region at the mercy of Pakistani terrorists. Instead of decreasing, such incidents have increased since the Congress-PDP led coalition government came to power in the state. This government has no right to remain in the office. The Central Government should impose President’s rule in the state by dismissing the state government, deploy security forces immediately and repeal the Article 370, which has strengthened the separatist mentality.”








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Muslims, Respect Hindu Sentiments

In the mid-nineteenth century, the United States was still a largely unexplored territory and a columnist of that period, J.B.L. Soule, now long-forgotten, gave a bit of sound advice to young Americans. The advice was brief, but to the point. He wrote: “Go west, young man”. Thousands went west, settled down in unknown territory and made America what it is today.

If today, one were to give any direction to one’s fellow Muslim countrymen it would be: Look Inward, Friend. For there is much to discover. This thought has been provoked by a very thoughtful article in Economic and Political Weekly (April 8) on Indian Muslims, Past, Present and Future, by J.S. Bandukwala.

Shri Bandukwala’s advice to his fellow Muslims, unstated but obvious is that they should look inward and chalk a new path for themselves and come out of their shells and “plunge into science and technology”. As he put it: “To close our eyes to the future and live in a fantasy of a glorious past is an ideal concoction for social disaster.”

The trouble seems to be that Muslims in India today are still trying to re-live the thousand years when their co-religionists ruled most parts of India.

According to Shri Bandukwala “religious association with the rulers gave the vast poor multitude a sense of empowerment. But the collapse of Muslim rule also brought with it a deep insecurity, for both the nobility and the poor Muslims. The response was to turn towards religion and equally a rejection of all symbols of the new rulers, including English, Science an Modernity.” Are Hindus to be blamed for this? It has become customary for Muslims—and their secularist misguides—to lay the blame for everything that has gone wrong with Muslims to Hindus. Even Bandukwala himself succumbs to this approach by saying that “the Babri demolition and more important the Gujarat killings, have altered the world views of Muslims”. Let this be pointed out, though.

In a two-volume study of ancient Hindu temples, Messrs Ram Swarup, Arun Shourie et al gave a list of 2,000 mosques that were built on Hindu temples and the list, may it be added, was based not on hearsay but on books written by Muslim historians themselves and the inscriptions in mosques. No Muslim ruler had any business destroying temples whether in any part of India and least in Ayodhya, Banaras and Mathura.

Shri Bandukwala says that while in the first phase when Muslims from Arabia came to India their rigourous moral code won them many admirers. But when the second phase started around 1050 all those who came were “raiders from Central Asia who loved the loot”. “It is this phase” writes Shri Bandukwala, “that arouses the passions of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh”. But why shouldn’t it? Whatever benefits, if any, were bestowed on India during Islamic rule, it is, as Shapespeare put it, “the evil that men do that lives after them”. Had Muslim leaders realised the hurt that Islamic rule had done to the Hindu psyche, they would have graciously agreed to the dismantling of the Babri masjid to be re-built elsewhere to let a temple of Shri Ram built on the vacated space. Their insistence on living in a world of fantasy would not permit them to be gracious and accommodating to hurt Hindu sentiments. Ayodhya led to Godhra and Godhra to riots. Muslims have yet to come to terms with reality. Instead of living in the present, Muslims everywhere continue to live in the past with disastrous consequences to themselves. Islamic self-assertion takes strange and often violent forms. Consider some of these reports: The children’s website Al Fateh, property of the Palestinian terrorist group “Hamas”, demands the return of the Spanish city of Seville to Islamic rule because it was once part of Muslim Spain! Just over two years ago, al-Qaeda linked bombers killed 191 passengers and injured almost 1,000 in devastating train bombings in the Spanish capital and it was reported that the bombers had planned to carry out further attacks in Spain! It sounds ridiculous but just a few days after the Madrid explosions, the Spanish police found 12 kilograms of explosives near Toledo.

What is it that the Spaniards have done to Islam to get this treatment? In the second week of March this year, a Hindu temple was blasted in Indonesia. On April 5 Press Trust India reported that six Harkat-ul-Jehad al Islami (HUJI) terrorists, including the mastermind behind the Varanasi blasts, had hatched a conspiracy to blow up the two Hanuman temples in the city on Rama Navami. In Nalgonda in Karnataka, the district police have identified seven ISI activists, three Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), nine Deendar Anjuman and two activists of Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) involved in terrorist activities.

On March 11, the Goa police arrested a terrorist reportedly hailing from Jammu and Kashmir who was in the possession of two kgs of RDX and hand grenades. Bhatkal, in coastal Karnataka which has a large Muslim population has been a centre of communal trouble since 1993 when an attack on a rath yatra was deliberately made leading to more than six months of communal violence.

According to the findings of justice K.Jagannath Shetty Commission of Inquiry the attack was pre-planned but despite instructions by the government, the district administration and the local police have failed in arresting “suspected communal goondas”.

There were more disturbances in March/April this year. The standard approach of our secularists is that the VHP or the RSS is behind all this. There is no RSS in Spain or Indonesia or in Pakistan where two churches, a school and other public property were ransacked and torched by Muslim goondas. Islam is equated with mindless violence. The world will be a more peaceful place if Muslims forget that there ever existed an Ottoman or Mughal Empire and come to terms with reality. Writes Shri Bandukwala: “Muslims must reach out to Hindus. Our words and deeds must never be such that they alienate Hindus. Their goodwill is essential as we struggle to give our community a place in the Indian sun.” But who will listen to the Bandukwalas? Bandukwala is against reservations. He wants Muslims to stand on their own feet. He says he is “convinced most Hindus are good and secular at heart”.

Respect Hindu sentiments and then theirs will be the world to share with their Hindu compatriots. But this calls for statesmanship. But can we expect that from the mullahs and jehadists? The way to progress is not through madrasas but through Science and Technology. There hasn’t been a single Muslim Nobel Prize winner. And that says a lot.

Friday, May 05, 2006

The myth and truth of Godhra

The myth and truth of Godhra
By Arvind Lavakare

Since no ‘secularist’ or ‘liberal’ or ‘objective’ person ever challenged the above sets of figures, some questions arise: Who killed 200-odd Hindus so early in those riots? Was it the police or the Hindus themselves? And what made those 40,000 Hindus rush to relief camps? Was it fear of Hindu mob violence, rape, arson and murder?

Two recent ‘news briefs’ in print are critical evidence of a reality that’s been totally ignored by our ‘liberals’ who have, for four years running, gone on and on and on about the ‘genocide’ of Muslims in Gujarat after the sudden inferno in the S-6 compartment of Sabarmati Express had consumed 58 Hindus, including 26 women and 12 children, returning home after performing kar seva at Ayodhya.

In its edition of March 19, 2006, The Sunday Express carried the following report from Ahmedabad:

“Post-Godhra riot case: 7 get lifer
The city sessions court on Friday convicted seven people in a post-Godhra riot case and sentenced them to life term for the murder of 35-year-old Mukesh Panchal, a resident of Lambha. He was attacked by the accused and went missing on November 7, 2003 from Shah-e-Alam Darwaza. His mutilated body was found near Chandoka Lake on November 11. One of the seven accused—Javed Shaukat Ali—meanwhile managed to give the cops a slip and fled from the court.”

In its edition of Wednesday, March 29, 2006 The Indian Express carried the following report, also datelined Ahmedabad:

“Nine get jail in post-Godhra riot case
The city sessions court on Tuesday convicted nine accused in a post-Godhra riot case. Additional Sessions Judge Sonia Gokani sentenced Mushtaq alias Kanio Ahmed Sheikh to 10 years in jail for murder and attempt to murder. Eight others were sentenced to 18 months in prison for unlawful assembly, possessing weapons and rioting.”

Out of the five convictions so far in l’affaire Godhra, the above two rip the blindfold on Godhra that the country was subjected to since March 2002. Those two convictions conclusively prove that even as some Hindus in Vadodra, Ahmedabad and a few other parts of Gujarat were provoked into insane killing, arson and loot by the S-6 carnage, the Muslims in that state were hardly the cattle hiding from the slaughter house that they have been made out by the “secularists” in and outside our national English media. Do you, for instance, recall reading about the mutilation of Mukesh Panchal’s cadaver in any of the English print media? Did you hear a sound byte about it on our TV?

Yes, despite all the media and the consequent political, propaganda about the ‘genocide’ of Gujarat’s Muslims, the reality is that some of that community were also engaged in murder, rioting and unlawful assembly with arms in hand.

This trend was discernible to the objective person four years ago itself. Thus, in its issue of April 28, 2002, The Times of India reporter, Sanjay Pandey, told us that of the 726 people who had been killed by then in the post-Godhra riots, 168 were Hindus. In its issue of June 24, 2002, India Today carried an article saying that the official figure of all people killed in Gujarat in the three months following the S-6 massacre was 800, of which a quarter were Hindus. The Union Home Ministry’s Annual Report 2002-03 said that about a third of the total dead in the Godhra riots were Hindus. It also said that, at one stage, 40,000 Hindus were in riot relief camps.

Since no ‘secularist’ or ‘liberal’ or ‘objective’ person ever challenged the above sets of figures, some questions arise: Who killed 200-odd Hindus so early in those riots? Was it the police or the Hindus themselves? And what made those 40,000 Hindus rush to relief camps? Was it fear of Hindu mob violence, rape, arson and murder?

More proof of the blindfold on Godhra came in 2005, when the UPA coalition (comprising the ‘secular’ friends of Muslims) made a statement in Parliament that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims were killed in those riots.

But our national media simply refused to remove the blindfold on Godhra. Hence it was that the elites of our society continued to rant about the Gujarat ‘pogrom of genocide’; some cussed Indians even conspired to deny a US visa to the Chief Minister of one of the country’s fastest developing states.

Aiding and abetting that conspiracy were reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International et al. The National Human Rights Commission joined in; written lies by the likes of Arundhati Roy and fake e-mails added fuel to the fire. All of them went to town about the Gujarat ‘genocide’ with blinkers on, a blindfold underneath. None wanted to touch upon the minority community’s role in that tragedy.

But the latest criminal conviction of 16 Muslims evokes the recall of the Justice Tewatia Report on the Godhra issue published on April 26, 2002 under the aegis of the Council For International Affairs And Human Rights, based in New Delhi.

It was a report based on a six-day field study of a team headed by Justice D.S. Tewatia, former Chief Justice, Calcutta High Court and Punjab and Haryana High Court. Its other members were Dr J.C. Batra, senior advocate, Supreme Court, Dr Krishan Singh, academician, Jawahar Lal Kaul, veteran journalist, and Prof. B. K. Kuthiala, Dean, Faculty of Media Studies, G.J. University, Hisar.

The five-man team visited three affected areas and relief camps in Ahmedabad, interacting freely with the public and members of both communities, and without government interference. In Godhra, five delegations from both communities and also of mixed composition presented their views and facts to the team. Similarly, free discussions with the public and affected communities were held in Vadodra at seven affected areas and five relief camps. It collected information from the staff at the Godhra Railway Station, district administration, including the Collector and Police Commissioner, passengers traveling in Sabarmati Express on 27.02.02 in S-6 compartment as well as in other compartments, staff of the Fire Brigade, Godhra, reports in 22 newspapers and nine magazines (local, regional and Delhi) and views on media coverage articulated by some 500 persons including intellectuals like lawyers, doctors and businessmen. The site where the train was initially stopped and stoned was also visited. A high point was that 13 delegations consisting of 121 citizens met Justice Tewatia’s team and presented their viewpoints and information. The delegations ranged from the Association of Hoteliers to a group of Vanvasis and affected Muslim as well as Hindu women.

Based on the considerable oral, audio and visual evidence obtained from the above interactions, the Justice Tewatia team’s conclusions most relevant to the blindfold on Godhra were as follows:

1.

Burning of 58 Hindu pilgrims on February 27, 2002 was an act carried out at the behest of then government of Pakistan which had planned to burn the entire Sabarmati Express carrying some 2000 passengers. The primary objective was to create Hindu-Muslim communal conflagration in India. The actual perpetrators were jehadi elements in the predominantly Muslim town of Godhra where
1.

a very high traffic of telephone calls was recorded between Godhra and Pakistan, especially Karachi, before the date of the carnage
2.

an abnormally large number of passports were issued,
3.

there was a large number of persons without ration cards
4.

a large number of unemployed Muslims had mobile phones,
5.

though there is no tradition of being a Muslim pilgrim center and the local Muslims are not affluent, three istema (religious gatherings) have been held and attended by large numbers of foreigners, and
6.

an Assistant Collector (a young Muslim from eastern UP) went on leave two days before the gory incident and did not return till the middle of March though the district of his posting was aflame with communal riots much earlier.
2.

The vacuum pipe between the Coaches No. S-6 and S-7 was cut thereby preventing any further movement of the train. Miscreants threw bricks and stones at the train as soon as it left Godhra railway station. The stoning intensified after it finally stopped about 700 metres from the station. The passengers of the train, particularly Coaches S-5, S-6 and S-7, were the main targets. Burning missiles and acid bulbs were thrown on and in the coaches. One such acid missile landed in Coach S-7 and a fire started which the passengers were able to extinguish. But the attack continued and more burning missiles were thrown into the Coach S-6.
3.

In an effort to control the subsequent riots, the Gujarat government
4.

Publicly announced its decision to employ the Army on the evening of the day riots began on February 28 (Within less than 24 hours at least one brigade of Indian Army had air-landed at Ahmedabad),
5.

Made preventive arrests of over 33,000 people,
6.

Fired over 12,000 rounds of bullets,
7.

Fired over 15,000 rounds of tear gas shells,
8.

The involvement of Vanvasis in the post-Godhra riots added a new dimension to the communal violence. In rural areas the Vanvasis attacked the Muslim moneylenders, shopkeepers and the forest contractors. They used their traditional bow and arrows as also their implements used to cut trees and grass while attacking Muslims. They moved in groups and used coded signals for communication. Apparently, the accumulated anger of years of exploitation by Muslim moneylenders (interest of 50 per cent per annum), shopkeepers and forest contractors had become explosive after moneylenders sexually exploited their womenfolk.
9.

The media selected, distorted and added fiction to prove their respective points of view. The code of ethics prescribed by the Press Council of India was violated by the media with impunity. It so enraged the citizens that several concerned citizens in the disturbed areas suggested that peace could return to the state only if some of the TV channels were closed for some weeks. Even the Vanvasis complained that the media had no time to hear their agony and was spreading canards against the Hindus. Newspapers published in English from Delhi invariably editorialised the news. Direct and indirect comments in the news writing were so telling that the personal likes and dislikes of the news reporters were too obvious to be missed. They appeared to have assumed the role of crusaders against the State Government from day one. It coloured the entire operation of newsgathering, feature writing and editorials.

Conclusions 1 to 4 above are indicators as to why our national media, ever afraid to criticise the Muslim and ever ready to indulge in BJP/Hindu bashing, bypassed the Justice Tewatia Report, despite its high credentials and the fact that it was publicly released at a press conference in New Delhi. After all, our ‘secular’ national media simply could not have tolerated giving even a line to report’s conclusion 5 above. Hence, they simply buried the whole report itself, put a blindfold on the country vision of it. After all, they had found their Hindu-bashing agenda in the post-Godhra riots and they were hell-bent in pushing it full steam, right up to the Supreme Court and beyond to the United Nations.

Will the criminal conviction of 16 by two separate sessions judges in Ahmedabad remove the blindfold on Godhra that the ‘monster media’ put on the people of this country?

(The writer can be contacted at 202, Dosti Erica, Antop Hill, Wadala (E), Mumbai 400 037.)

Buddhism in china

To live and unlearn
- Satiricus

Reading that defining dogma of communism—Religion is an opiate of the masses. Well, not any more—not for the Chinese communist masses. For not only are growing numbers of Chinese returning to the Buddhist religion, but the first ever officially sponsored religions conference in Communist China, called the World Buddhist Forum, has also been held the other day. An official statement from Beijing described the Forum as “a high-level platform for Buddhists from around the world”.

One lives and unlearns. Especially when one tries to learn communism in general and Chinese communism in particular. When, for instance, Satiricus read not long back about Chinese communism spawning billionaires looking for brides, he learnt that Karl Marx’s Capital and its latest Chinese edition are two entirely different things, and while Marx taught how to be a good communist, the present-day Chinese communist is now learning how to be a good capitalist.

Apparently, original communism may be about money matters, but money matters for modern, Chinese communism. Then there is this matter about religion. Satiricus recalls reading that defining dogma of communism—Religion is an opiate of the masses. Well, not any more—not for the Chinese communist masses. For not only are growing numbers of Chinese returning to the Buddhist religion, but the first ever officially sponsored religions conference in Communist China, called the World Buddhist Forum, has also been held the other day. An official statement from Beijing described the Forum as “a high-level platform for Buddhists from around the world to have dialogue, exchanges and cooperation and a stage for Chinese Buddhists to exercise their wisdom.” Good God! Does that mean Chinese Communists now need the wisdom of Chinese Buddhists? Does that mean the slaughter of students in Tien-an-Men Square was not exactly wise by Shakya Muni’s standards? Nowhere the mass killings of the ‘Cultural’ Revolution? Going even beyond that, in the year 1940, nine years before the Communist Party seized power, Mao Tse-tung had set out his plans for a “New China”, which would take certain steps... to confiscate land from rural landlords under the principle of “land to the tiller”.

And what did these “necessary steps” involve? They involved widespread slaughter. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of land-owning rural residents and their families were executed or beaten to death by fellow villagers. Would the Buddha have smiled? Satiricus thinks not. But then, that was then, this is now, and Chairman Mao’s culture has been so radically revolutionised by Chairman/President Hu Jintao that the culture made by Mao and the culture hyped by Hu are as different as chalk is from cheese.

Hu says China is currently in the throes of a profound crisis because of unprecedented economic inequality, growing political unrest, and a moral vacuum. This is profoundly puzzling for Satiricus, as he is neither a communist nor a Chinaman. Was not communism all about eliminating economic inequality? Then how could there exist economic inequality—let alone in unprecedented measure—in China after half a century of communism in power? Next, how could political unrest exist in China, let alone grow? Is it not a time-honoured tradition in communist rule to eliminate political unrest by the simple process of eliminating those who cause it? And finally this moral vacuum business is surpassingly strange.

Since when did materialist communism have anything to do with morality? Accordingly to old reports the pornography business has prospered in China. So Satiricus supposed that being a prosperous pornographer was the same as being a good communist. And according to new reports, it is becoming increasingly fashionable among young Chinese newly-weds to get themselves photographed in the nude.

Satiricus was admittedly rather taken aback, but perhaps the young comrades were only highlighting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the naked truth about Chinese communism. In such a situation where do moral values come in? Still Hu holds that there is a moral vacuum in the Chinese communist society, and the way to fill it up is—believe it or not—the revival of the ancient Chinese culture, including Confucianism. Aha!

Confucius preached the virtues of the ‘superior man’, and Hu hopes they will contribute to the making of the superior communist. Not content with invoking Confucius and Buddha, the President of Communist China has actually issued a set of eight commandments to improve the moral standards of the Chinese people: 1. Love the motherland. 2. Serve the people, don’t dissever them. 3. Uphold science, don’t be ignorant. 4. Work hard, don’t be lazy. 5. Help each other, don’t exploit others. 6. Be honest, don’t profit at the cost of your values. 7. Be law-abiding instead of lawless. 8. Know plain living, do not wallow in luxuries.

Satiricus is stunned. To his hopelessly Hindu mind all this sounds suspiciously like Manu Smriti. Actually he had read not long ago that an ancient manuscript of Manu Smriti was indeed found during an archeological excavation somewhere in China, but he had no idea the Communist President would plagiarise from it. Otherwise the edicts are anti-communist from beginning to end—at least in the beginning and at the end. For the first commandment asks the Chinese to love their motherland, but does not ask the Tibetans to love their annexed motherland. And the last edict asks them not to wallow in luxury. But how can a Chinaman be a billionaire communist and not wallow in luxury? It seems a Chinese puzzle, if you ask Satiricus.

But there are China-watchers who are not as innocent (read ignorant) as Satiricus. They say this whole morality-mongering is for stemming the growing corruption in the Party and state organs all over the country, which threatens to become all-pervasive.

Does that mean Chinese communism is a triple failure—in Economics, Politics and Morality? Satiricus does not know, as he is neither a communist nor a Chinaman. All he can say is that no communist dogma remains undiscarded by Chinese communists. Poor Karl Marx. He may be turning in his neglected grave in London, capital of the original capitalist country.

Caste as oppression in India

Caste as oppression in India
By M.S.N. Menon

Was oppression of weaker section so terrible? Yes, it was. But not half as terrible as the oppression meted out by Rome and Greece to their peoples, or by Christianity and Islam to humanity.

But it was by no means without parallel in world history as is being made out now by some politicians. But do these worthies know anything of world history? They do not. Let me recount. But on this later.

The ancient world was violent. It was being tamed by ethics. Buddha was the first to do so in India, Socrates in Greece, Zoroaster in Persia, Confucius in China and Jesus Christ in the Middle East. Till then it was violence that ruled the world. Might prevailed.

The question is not whether these societies were brutal, but who was more brutal? Who was more humane?

A.L. Basham, author of “The Wonder That Was India,” did try to answer this question. He writes: “...the lot of the humble (in India) was generally hard. Yet our overall impression is that in no other part of the ancient world were the relations of man and man and of man and the state, so fair and humane. In no other early civilisations were slaves so few in number, and in no other ancient law book are their rights so well protected as in Arthashastra. No other ancient law-giver proclaimed such noble ideals of fair-play in battle as did Manu...To us, the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilisation is its humanity.” It is this humanity that gave birth to tolerance—a unique feature of the Hindu civilisation.

More need not be added to this judgement. It says all. And yet let us have a look at the history of other peoples, of other civilisations.

Do you know that the Semitic faiths divided men into two hostile camps—that of children of God and children of the Devil? The concept of a human family, of a human brotherhood, is foreign to all Semitic faiths.

According to Seignobos, author of History of Ancient and Modern Civilisations, Europeans did not have the intellectual preparation for the assimilation of such a highly ethical religion as Christianity. Which Christianity? The Christianity of Jesus, not of the church.

He goes on: “They may baptise their children, they may take the sacrament, they may flock to the church. All this they may do, and yet be as far removed from the spirit of Christianity as when they bent their knee before their idols.” The point is: Roman Christianity carried the congenital weakness of the Roman civilisation, namely its tradition of violence.

Only against this background can we explain the association of Christianity with the most terrible episodes of history. For example, its support to the African slave trade, the genocide of the Red Indians, the burning of apostates, atrocities in colonies and the holocaust. The entire Christian world is a legatee of this tradition of violence, more so the West.

Roman cruelty is thus without parallel. The Romans razed Carthage, the richest city in the world, to the ground, massacred the entire population, threw salt on the ruins and ploughed back the country to the desert it was. Why? All because Carthage had emerged as a commercial rival of Rome!

Seneca, the orator, writes that even for very small mistakes on the part of servants, “we often strike too hard and shatter a limb or break a tooth.” Domestic servants were thrown into fish ponds as “food for the lampreys”. Others were thrown into dungeons where they rotted away. Slaves were tied to the galleys by iron chains and whipped till they died.

The brutal instincts of the Romans were displayed in their utmost hideousness in the bloody games of the amphitheatre, where the gladiators fought fierce animals and other gladiators.

Greeks were racists like the Romans. Alexander expected his subjects to prostrate before him. The social status of a person in Greece was judged by wealth. Before Socrates, the Greeks were more often sanguinary, violent, deceitful, jealous, vindictive and dissolute.

Draper admits in Intellectual Development of Europe, “Upon the whole, then, we must admit that Greek mythologies indicate a barbarous social condition.” The idea of law was foreign to Homer, the epic writer. And where there was no law, there was no justice.

Millions have perished during invasions and conversions. Whole cities were razed to the ground and their population massacred. Such was the case with Vijayanagar, the most illustrious city in the world.

The invaders used to carry tens of thousands of captives to be sold in Central Asia. Timur ordered the massacre of a hundred thousand captives he was carrying from India when he ran short of food!

Islam reduced man to a plaything. He was no more free. The Quran says: “It is not for any believer, man or woman, to have any choice in the affair when God and his messenger have decreed in the matter.” Yes, man has no choice in Islam. But the person belonging to the weaker section of the Hindu society was a free man even in the caste system. And he was living in a society less prone to brutality. It was more humane.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

BBC admits Aryan Invasion was a myth

BBC admits Aryan Invasion was a myth
By Arabinda Ghose

Ever since the German philosopher Max Muller had propounded the theory that the Aryans were not indigenous Indians and had actually come from outside, probably Central Asia, the whole world believed in it. Even eminent Indian historians had religiously given credence to this theory and Muller’s assertion that the Vedas were composed sometime during 1500 BCE or later.

The following paragraphs, downloaded from the internet by the quarterly magazine Asian Agri History edited by Dr. Y.L. Nene and others,Vol.10.No.2 (April-June,2006) unambiguously accepts that Max Muller was entirely wrong. We give the website details at the end of this article.

Here is the full text of the paragraphs published by magazine: “One of the most controversial ideas of Hindu History is the Aryan Invasion theory, originally devised by F. Max Muller in 1848,traces the history of Hinduism to the invasion of India’s indigenous people by lighter skinned Aryans around 1500 BCE. The theory was reinforced by other research over the next 120 years, and became the accepted history of Hinduism, not only in the West but in India. There is now ample evidence to show that Muller, and those who followed him, were wrong.

Why is the Theory no longer accepted?
“The Aryan invasion theory was based on archaeological, linguistic and ethnological evidence. Later research has either discredited this evidence or provided new evidence that combined with the earlier evidence and makes other explanations more likely. Modern historians of the area no longer believe that such invasions had such great influence on Indian history. It is now generally accepted that Indian history shows a continuity of progress from the earliest times to today. The changes brought to India by other cultures are not denied by modern historians, but they are no longer thought to be a major ingredient in the development of Hinduism.

“Danger of the Theory
The Aryan Invasion Theory denies the Indian origin of India’s predominant culture, but gives credit for Indian culture to invaders from elsewhere. It even teaches that some of the most revered books of Hindu scripture are not actually India, and it devalues India’s culture by portraying it as less ancient that it actually is. The theory was not just wrong, it included unacceptably racist ideas:

1.

It suggested that Indian culture was a culture in its own right and a synthesis of elements from other cultures;
2.

It implied that Hinduism was not an authentically Indian religion but the result of cultural imperialism
3.

It suggested that Indian culture was static, and only changed under outside influences;
4.

It suggested that the dark-skinned Dravidian people of the South of India had got their faith from light-skinned Aryan invaders;
5.

It implied that indigenous people were incapable of creatively developing their faith;
6.

It suggested that indigenous people could not acquire new religious and cultural ideas from other races, by invasion or other processes;
7.

It accepted that race was a biologically based concept (rather than, at least in part, a social construct)that provided a sensible way of a ranking people in a hierarchy, which provided a partial basis for the caste system;
8.

It provided a basis for racism in the Imperial context by suggesting that the peoples of Northern India were descendants from invaders from Europe and so racially closer to the British Raj
9.

It gave a historical precedent to justify the role and status of the British Raj, who could argue that they were transforming India for the better in the same way that the Aryans had done thousands of years earlier;
10.

It downgraded the intellectual status of India and its people by giving a falsely late date to elements of Indian science and culture”.

The website is :http://www.bbc.co.UK/religion/religions/hinduism/history/history5.shtml

Organiser has carried in the past scholarly articles by, among others, N.S. Rajaram. However, the admission by the British Broadcasting Corporation that Max Muller had deliberately given a “falsely late date to elements of Indian science and culture, should now open the eyes of those scholars who still swear by the Aryan Invasion Theory.

One may add here that in the articles of the date of Lord Rama’s date of birth published in the Organiser of February 5 and 26, 2006,this writer had quoted a researcher Pushkar Bhatnagar of Delhi as claiming that the date was January 10, 5114 BCE. This showed that the Ramayana written by sage Valmiki places Indian civilisation at least seven thousand years from present. One has to add that it must have taken Indians of those days to develop the society in which Lord Rama was born at least two to three thousand years from primitive state. This puts Indian civilisation to at least ten thousand years from the present. Since the Rigveda is older than the Ramayana, the date of its composition should be at least the seventh millennium before Christ. Shri Bhatnagar’s claim that the remnants of the bridge built by Lord Rama’s army for the invasion of Lanka also proved its antiquity to seven thousand years before present.(This remnant is not the one said to have been photographed by NASA, the American Space Agency, which had denied that the photograph taken by it pertained to the old “Setu” built by Nala and other engineers accompanying Lord Rama).

Supreme Court to the rescue of hapless Muslim women

Supreme Court to the rescue of hapless Muslim women
Mullahs again confront apex court
By Bharata

Najma Bibi and Sheikh Sher Mohammad of Orissa’s Bhadrak district are the latest victims of the obnoxious and obsolete laws. The couple incurred the wrath of fundamentalist Islamic clerics after the husband pronounced triple talaq in a drunken state in 2003. However, on realising his ‘terrible mistake’ the very next morning, he decided to live with his wife and three children.

However, the mullahs in Bhadrak thought otherwise. They issued the much-misused fatwa (religious edict) declaring that the couple were divorced and hence cannot live together. Najma along with her children were forcibly sent to her father’s house.

The Muslim clerics said if Najma wanted to live with her husband, she must perform halala, which meant she must marry another man and the marriage must be consummated, after which she can get a divorce and then re-marry the first husband. The couple were also ostracised by the Muslim community in Bhadrak.

However, Najma refused to do so and instead knocked at the doors of the High Court against the fatwa and sought police protection from her community men who were harassing the couple.

The incident created a nation-wide controversy with various women’s organisations and civil society groups taking cudgels on behalf of the couple.

In a landmark judgment on April 21, the Supreme Court directed the Orissa government to provide police protection to the Muslim couple.

“No one can force them to live separately. This is a secular country. All communities— Hindus or Muslims—should behave in a civilized manner”, a bench of Justice Ruma Pal, Justice C.K. Thakker and Justice Markandey Katju observed.

The response of Muslim groups to the apex court’s verdict was on expected lines. Taking strong exception to the ruling, the Orissa unit of Jamiat-ul-Ulema threatened to further ostracise the couple if they went by the court decision.

“The Supreme Court has no power to intervene in religious matters. The apex court should have confined itself to other litigations. It should have consulted religious institutions and clerics before taking such a decision”, roared Aamir-e-Shariat (President) of the Jamiat, S.S. Sajideen Quasmi.

“We will certainly drive the couple out of Muslim society if they stay together defying the decisions of the clerics and abide by the Supreme Court verdict”, he said.

Jamiat, the highest religious body of the Sunni sect in the state, also announced plans to write to the President, the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister and Law Ministers of both the state and central governments to look into the matter. It demanded that the whole issue should be discussed in Parliament “which should take a firm decision on religious freedom”.

Residents in Najma’s native village also opposed the reunion saying: “We will not let anybody defying the fatwa stay among us”.

Najma’s case is not an isolated one. From the historic case of Shah Bano, which changed the political contours of the country, to the saga of Saddiqunissa and the soul-stirring tale of Gudiya, Muslim women have been at the receiving end of the obscurantist mullahs, who have not even spared tennis sensation Sania Mirza and suggested an Islamic dress code for her.

And slowly but steadily, the Muslim women are rising up against the blatant discrimination and inequality being perpetrated upon them.

“The lives of Muslim women cannot be governed by archaic practices like triple talaq. Muslim women should be governed by laws that treat them as equal citizens of democratic India”, says Supreme Court advocate Sona Khan.

After a survey of Muslim women in Bihar’s Darbhanga district some years ago, Sabina Hussein of the Delhi-based Centre for Women’s Development found that eight among a random sample size of 100 were divorced. Only three among the eight had received their mehr and that too in paltry irregular instalments.

It is not for the first time that the courts have come to the rescue of the hapless Muslim women. In a landmark judgment in 2002, the Bombay High Court had ruled that divorce between Muslim couples will have to be “convincingly proved in a court of law under the civil procedure code and Indian Evidence Act”. A mere statement, written or oral, by a man divorcing his wife won’t be enough proof of his having obtained a divorce.

Delivered by a full bench of the court, the ruling is now binding for Maharashtra. The 88-page judgment came after hearing in a case filed by Latur resident Dagdhu Pathan challenging the maintenance claims by his wife Rahimbi. The judgment categorically states that for divorces to be deemed legal, husbands must prove in court all requirements of divorce under Muslim laws, like reconciliation, arbitration and payment of mehr.

In the matter of Saddiquinissa too, the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court pointed out that talaq could not be given by the husband in one instance and only comes to force after a certain time which is meant for reconciliation and arbitration by friends and relatives. It also ruled that talaq has to be confirmed by a court, which has to hold that the marriage was dissolved on valid grounds. Only then would talaq become final.

Over two decades back, another Muslim woman, Shah Bano, asked a court to ensure support from her husband who had divorced her after 43 years of marriage and thrown her out on the street. The Supreme Court had at that time ruled it could not accept her husband’s plea that he was only bound by Islamic laws. A husband must assist his wife financially after a divorce if she has no other means, it ruled.

However, such was the fury of fundamentalist Muslims against the ruling that the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1986 diluted it through a legislation in Parliament. The result was that in several states, divorced Muslim women cannot claim maintenance beyond the ‘iddat’ (three menstrual cycle) period.

It remains to be seen whether the apex court’s latest verdict too would face a similar fate, given the Congress-led UPA government’s past approach towards its rulings including that on IMDT.

The powers that be would do well to remember that even in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a husband has to notify an arbitration council/Shariat court about the Talaq immediately after its pronouncement. The effect of the notice is to freeze the talaq for 90 days during which the council tries to bring about a reconciliation. After the expiry of 90 days, the talaq takes effect unless there is a patch-up. Moreover, the man has to apply to the council to marry a second time giving exact reasons why he wants to do so.

Demanding an amendment of the maintenance legislation passed by Parliament in 2001 to include Muslim women, Advocate Sona Khan says, “Destitution, vagrancy, trafficking of neglected women do not vary with region, religion, caste and creed. The response to the basic right to life based on religion, with which the issue of maintenance of woman is linked, is unconstitutional and unethical.”

Are the mullahs and vote-catchers of the Congress listening?

US-funded NGOs spreading disaffection

US-funded NGOs spreading disaffection
By Sandhya Jain

The American Academy for Religion (AAR) has sought data on the number of major Hindu temples in India that are patronized by caste Hindus and have ex-untouchable priests. This is doubly mischievous because if AAR means OBCs when it talks of ‘caste Hindus’ as opposed to upper caste Hindus.

Under the guise of human rights and freedom of religion, America has for some time been promoting certain activists from weaker sections, who regularly report to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, about India’s internal affairs. Now, American academics are synergizing their work with the political concerns of their government, seeking to aggravate and exploit differences in Hindu society.

The American Academy for Religion (AAR) has sought data of a number of major Hindu temples in India that are patronized by caste Hindus and have ex-untouchable priests. This is doubly mischievous because if AAR means OBCs when it talks of ‘caste Hindus’ as opposed to upper caste Hindus, then it would know very well that it is the OBCs who oppose the entry of SCs/STs in temples. This kind of study by an outside agency is dangerously divisive, and a combative Hindu intellectual has countered that Indian intellectuals should in turn ask how many American churches attended by White people have Black priests.

In any case, since the Hindu tradition is not centralized in the manner that denominational churches are, it is unlikely that any such statistics would be available in Hindu society, and the concerned academics would certainly know this. They would also be aware that there are several gurus and paramparas in India today that are training SCs/STs as priests, should they desire to be priests. What is interesting to note, however, is that SC/ST desire to have temples with Brahmin priests, because they feel confident that they know the proper way to conduct pujas!

Another question is how many formerly lower caste Hindu leaders have a significant following among the other castes. Politically, Smt Mayawati is way ahead of all leaders in Uttar Pradesh, and in Bihar, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan has a certain following. In the spiritual tradition, one of the most important leaders is Ma Amritanandamayi, a woman from the fisherman caste, whose most loyal devotees belong to the upper castes. Thus, the tradition of overlooking the caste of a realized saint is very much alive in India. But I can’t think of a single significant Black politician in the United States who would be cultivated by White people; not even the late Martin Luther King, or a Hispanic or Native American spiritual leader with a White Anglo Saxon following.

Becoming more overtly political, the American scholars want to know how many SCs/STs figure on the VHP’s governing board. Here I think the more pertinent question would be how many such persons figure in the Congress Working Committee, especially as that party flourished for decades on SCs/STs support, and is today headed by a White European Catholic, whose Government is committed to such token affirmative action. Even more pertinently, since the Church has long evangelized most of the African continent, how many Black cardinals are there in the Vatican, and how many bishops in the Baptist, Adventist, Methodist and other churches?

The American scholars wonder why former weaker sections form separate sects of their own rather than with other castes; and whether they prefer to call themselves Dalits or Harijans in order to gain the respect of caste Hindus. It is obvious that the questions are more political than academic, and such studies are intended to promote the agendas of successive American administrations in interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

Hindu society does not have sects; by definition, sects are splinter groups within monotheistic religions. I do not know if American Blacks are a separate sect or not, but it is a fact that covert discrimination even today compels them to have separate churches, and this apparently applies to other ethnic minorities in that country. Moreover, those minorities do not get respect by calling themselves Christian, but they get a political value by calling themselves Black, Hispanic, Korean, Chinese and seeking safety in numbers. Hindu society is a concentric circle of jatis, which are cohesive social groups claiming descent from a common ancestor, or some other common affinity. Thus, SCs/STs that adopted the Sikh faith constituted themselves into the Ramgarhia community, to distinguish themselves from their former Hindu brethren. Proliferation and distinction go hand in hand in India, and do not lead to disintegration or division.

In this context, it is worth mentioning that just as the dominant White Christians have failed to assimilate other groups on an equal basis in their own societies, despite converting them to their faith, so also in India the church has failed to uplift the weaker sections despite luring them away from Hindu society on the pretext of granting them social equality and economic mobility. The church has inflicted grievous injuries upon its constituents from weaker sections, forcing them to build separate churches or to sit in segregated areas of the church, take their dead to separate cemeteries, take holy water and communion separately.

Christian activists of weaker sections estimate that church institutions and Christian NGOs together receive approximately Rs. 2,500 crore of foreign aid annually, but there is no intra-community transparency regarding the utilization of these funds. Christian bodies earn huge incomes from elite schools, colleges and hospitals managed by them, as also from massive commercial properties they own in major cities. Yet weaker sections which comprise the bulk of the community get no share of its enormous wealth.

It is a travesty of justice that the church is now shifting the burden of its responsibility to the Indian Government and demanding reservation benefits for the weaker section Christians. The latter were misled away from the Hindu fold and then betrayed by denying them a just share in the church’s colossal resources.

According to Census 2001, there are 24.20 million Christians in India, more than half of whom belong to the weaker section of South India. Yet power in the Indian church is jealously guarded by priests belonging to upper castes. The 200-member Catholic Bishops Conference of India will never disclose the number of bishops or cardinals from weaker sections, possibly because there are none. The UPA government has done the rich Christian educational institutions a favour by exempting minority institutions from the burden of reservation quotas that have been (and are being) extended elsewhere, so they are literally without accountability to their poorer brethren.