Looting of Hindu temples in Kerela

The Hindu people of India, even if belatedly, are now awakening to the humiliation, tragedy and tremendous loss inflicted on them through the savage destruction of their ageless, holy temples by invading hordes in the name of their religion of the Arabian desert.

In spite of this heartening fact that the nation has now woken up and is carefully taking stock of the unspeakable atrocities and national loss it had suffered at the hands of the butchering, bestial invaders, sadly enough the devastation suffered by the temples of Kerala has not attracted the nation's attention. On the one hand the impression that the Kerala temples had escaped destruction has gained ground: probably because unlike in the other parts of India, in Kerala mosques are not seen squatting on top of temple foundations; nor is the Kerala landscape pockmarked with heartbreaking rotting mounds that were once the holy temples of the Hindus.

But it certainly is not that Kerala was more fortunate than the rest of India in the matter of the destruction of temples. The stark truth is that the devastation suffered by Kerala temples at the hands of foreigners and local quislings is as direful as that suffered by temples elsewhere in India. The only difference is that as most of the damage was perpetrated by the cunning British, it was accomplished insidiously, like murder being committed by slow suffocation without any wound being seen on the outside.

While the rabidly fanatic Tipu Sultan "the bandit of Mysore" destroyed two thousand temples in the Malabar region to establish Islam, it was the British rulers acting at the behest of Christian missionaries who, starting from two hundred years ago, dug the grave of the Kerala temples. The wily British accomplished this not by resorting to anything so crude and beastly as demolishing them: but by simply confiscating all of them "in the name of the state of course" along with all their landed properties and then making sure that the temples rotted away from calculated, steady attrition.

The present [1991] United Democratic Government of Kerala, under the command of the Muslim League and the Kerala Congress (a front party for the Churches) is now living up to the tradition of all former Kerala governments by following this same policy with enthusiasm and vigour.

Not only the British overlords but also the governments that came into power in Kerala after 1947 were never content with this wholesale robbery alone of temple properties. They continuously plundered, and helped others plunder, the relatively better off temples of even parts of the grounds the temples stood on; and also of the offerings of devotees. The latest of these forays is the still standing order (now under review by the High Court) of K. Karunakaran, the Chief Minister of Kerala, that the Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple Dewaswom (the management appointed by the Government) withdraw ten crores from the banks and deposit the amount with the state treasury to help the Government out of its present financial crisis.

This grave and sinister development has for once jolted the lethargic Hindus of Kerala out of their perennial slumber and into awareness of the pitiful plight their temples have been reduced to as a direct result of the suzeranity the Kerala Government had usurped over them. When Hindu organisations and long-suffering devotees vehemently protested, the chief minister issued an unctuous rationale to the effect that the ten crores would be as safe with the Government as with the banks, and that interest would be paid. He also added duplicitously that "there will be no compulsion to obtain funds from the houses of worship of any religion". He was feigning that the places of worship of all religions had always been treated equally by the state, when the truth is that it was the temples and temples alone "that had been subjected to ruthless plunder by the Government; so much so that they now have practically no assets left except the offerings of devotees. And this too had been steadily looted by the politicians running the Government.

This operation to annihilate the temples of Kerala was first organised and put into effect two hundred years ago by Colonel Munro, the British Resident in the erstwhile State of Travancore (the former princely States of Travancore and Cochin, along with Malabar, formerly a district of the Madras Presidency, together form the Kerala State). The British in 1810 made the then ruler of Travancore, Rani Lakshmi Bai, appoint the British Resident, Col. Munro, as Dewan of the state also. With supreme audacity Munro would convert his "advice" to the Rani as Dewan into commands by virtue of his position as Resident. Munro who was a committed Christian missionary as well as a ruthless colonialist, naturally considered it his pious duty to debilitate the Hindu religion and at the same time foster Christianity. He also realised that this would help cement Christian colonialism in the region. He achieved both these aims at one shot by the simple expedient of taking over by fiat (euphemistically called "proclamation") nearly all the temples of Travancore and Cochin and also by seizing all their landed properties without any compensation whatsoever. When he was thus busily confiscating temple lands without compensation, Munro parallelly issued hundreds of munificent land grants to the Christian Churches.

The cultivated and cultivable temple lands thus expropriated were so vast and the income from them so enormous that within the year the annual land revenue accruing to the state doubled. Of course as part of his well-laid plan to extirpate the Hindu religion and temples, Munro kept all the income from the expropriated temple lands with the state and did not remit any amount at all to the temples. Very soon the temples, thus impoverished and effectively devitalized, fell into wrack and ruin.

The disorganised, apathetic Hindus were very slow to awaken to the catastrophe inflicted on them by Munro. Apart from the usual spiritlessness of the Hindus, this submission was also due to the fact that at that time the Christian and Muslim population was very small and Hindus for this reason deluded themselves into believing that the confiscated lands, even if with the Government, still belonged to them.

Soon vast demographic changes took place. The Muslim population through forcible conversions by Tipu Sultan and the Christian population through British sponsored fierce proselytism, increased by leaps and bounds. These now powerful minorities lost no time in making it clear to the faction ridden, enervated Hindus that the temple lands, now that they had been vested with the state, belonged to them as much as to the Hindus.

When at long last the Hindus awoke to the awful disaster that had been wreaked upon them and made bold to demand the return of the seized lands to the temples, they found to their dismay that Munro had been too clever for them. The Resident Dewan missionary had seen to it that the records of the sequestered temple lands and of state-owned lands were thoroughly intermixed; so much so that it had been made quite impossible to catalogue temple lands separately from government lands.

This convenient excuse "that it was no longer possible to distinguish temple lands from state lands "which made shameless use of outright brigandage, was to be used in the future times without number by the Government and double crossing politicians not only to hang on to the temple properties but also to foil the feeble attempts made by Hindus from time to time to claim compensation for the seized lands.

To remit even part of the huge income from the confiscated lands to the temples for their upkeep was not even thought of. It was a full hundred years later that a commission was appointed to look into the matter. This commission determined the income from the temple lands at the absurdly low rate of land revenue levied on them; and recommended not that at least this puny amount be paid to the temples, but only that the interest due on it and that too only at three percent be paid. Even this the Government did not do for a decade. This commission's recommendation that the temples which were falling into ruins be repaired by the Government (as it had taken over their property) was studiously ignored.

After years of agitation, in 1922, the interest on the income payment of compensation or of the actual income was never again to be considered at all due to the temples was fixed at a paltry twenty-two lakhs. In 1948, again after prolonged agitation the amount was increased to fifty one lakhs, but without any provision for compensation for inflation. This amount of fifty one lakhs today is worth less than one lakh at 1948 value of the rupee. And yet the Kerala Government has arrogantly ignored the urgent pleas of Hindu organisations for upward revision of the amount to compensate for the dismal fall in the value of the rupee.

Because of the wholesale confiscation of the properties bestowed on the temples for rituals and upkeep, thousands of temples in Kerala do not have the wherewithal even for token rituals; thousands more have fallen into ruins. Thus the shrewd and crafty missionary-cum-Resident-cum-Dewam accomplished through his single bloodless coup the ruin and devastation of Hindu temples and Hindu pride "which the Muslim raiders through the centuries and local born despicable tyrants like Aurangzeb could only do after numberless battles, massacres, rape and arson.

This war of attrition waged on the temples of Kerala for a century and a half actually picked up momentum after independence. The double dealing politicians, wearing the mask of secularism, were only too glad to betray the Hindu community by heaping further blows on the temples. For they knew that this would secure their positions with the "minorities", who with their monolithic, anti-secular and powerful organisations were holding the reigns of power in the state. Very soon after independence the Congress Government enacted the Land Reforms Act which was so crafted that it effectively denuded the temples" but not the churches and mosques "of what little bits of land that still remained with them. The Central Government also did its secular act of destroying temples by confiscating by special legislation "again with absolutely no compensation the vast forest lands of the Malabar temples which were promptly taken over by Christian and Muslim encroachers. It is well known that the greatest beneficiaries of the Land Reforms Act in the whole of Kerala were Christians and Muslims, and the greatest losers the Hindu temples and Hindus.

While this sequestration and annexation of temple lands had been going on for the last two hundred years, no Government of Kerala past or present, had ever dared to take over one single church or mosque or just one cent of their vast land holdings. Not only this; some years ago the Kerala Government with much fanfare sanctioned as annual grant "that is to say, a yearly free gift for all time to come of fifteen lakhs for pension for the mukris of mosques. This when priests of the temples, properties of which had been stolen by the state, had no such pension and were miserably paid besides. Moreover, to get Muslim goodwill all the immense wakf properties in Kerala (and in the whole of the rest of India, as this is a Central Government Act) have been exempted from the Buildings and Rent Control Act, which is now strangling the remaining few buildings of temples and ashrams in Kerala, not to speak of the rest of India.

At present forty-five percent of the population of Kerala is Christian and Muslim and a section of Hindus, being communists, are atheists. Hence the Government is not only mostly non-Hindu, but anti-Hindu. In these circumstances, and also being fervidly "secular", the only right course for the Government to follow is to dissociate itself completely from the temples and vest their administration with true devotees. But with unbelievable brazenness and hypocrisy the Kerala Government is not only clinging to ownership rights over the temples but is also claiming rights the maharajas of old, who were real protectors of temples, never even dreamed of. Today it is heart breaking to see the holy, ancient temples of Kerala debased to the status of a lowly, inconsequential department of a Government that is in effect run by Christian and Muslim religious leadership. This is not all; the temples are also under the mercy of greedy quislings all too ready to further bleed them to satisfy their masters.

While the number of grand churches and mosques in Kerala has increased more than a hundred times in the last five decades, not a single temple of significance has been built during this time. Worse still, during this period hundreds of temples have fallen down and disappeared into the dust.

When India was at war with China, the Guruvayur Dewa-swom was "persuaded" to transfer to the Central Government a huge quantity of gold. As far as is known this gold was never returned to the temple. The Guruvayur Dewaswom was also "persuaded" by the Kerala Government to invest one crore of rupees in the Indira Vikas Patrika. Huge amounts were plundered for political shows like the Congress Party souvenir. A nondescript motion picture was also made on Guruvayur temple which made the temple poorer by twenty lakhs. It has become a practice to disburse money under false headings to politicians, their relatives and friends. More crores would have been looted from the temple by politicians but for the timely intervention of courageous devotees who blew the whistle in time.

Not even during times of national emergency like the time of war when Hindu women donated their gold mangalya sutras, did the Kerala Government dare to make any effort to obtain deposits from the opulent churches and mosques—nor did the bishops or the moulvis offer any deposit or donation. To put it in a nutshell, where the Hindus are concerned, for the Kerala Government it is loot, loot, loot; and where the churches and mosques are concerned, it is give, give, give.

While the Kerala Government thus considers the accumulated offerings of devotees at the great temples as their own to pocket and squander as they please, they consider it an anathema to provide even the minimum facilities for pilgrims at the great temples of holy pilgrimage. Repeated frantic requests for a few acres of forest land for the provision of some basic amenities for the millions of pilgrims converging on the forest temple at the Sabarimala Sri Sasta Temple have been flatly turned down on the ground that forest land cannot be alienated without the permission of the Centre. At the same time ten hectares of forest land were granted in a jiffy to build a church" proclaimed by the bishops as a rival pilgrim centre "close to the Sabarimala temple. And the successive Governments of Kerala in the last fifteen years have been falling over each other to provide free titles to the well organised, Church-backed encroachers—all of them Christians of course "to huge areas of forest land, running into more than a million acres.

Thus it is not only that every government in Kerala had been ruthlessly sabotaging and destroying temples for the last two centuries with no let up till today; these governments have also during this time deliberately and eagerly functioned as the transhipment point for the transferring of Hindu wealth to non-Hindus.

It is against this shockingly larcenous background that the latest demand of the Kerala Government for ten crores from the Guruvayur temple should be viewed by the Hindus of India. While much noise is being made about the availability of ten crores with the Guruvayur Dewaswom (offerings of mostly poor devotees for temple purposes only), the case of thousands of temples in Kerala without the wherewithal for rituals or repairs is carefully concealed. And this ten crores with the Guruvayur Dewaswom is but a microscopic sum when compared to the vast funds—running into thousands of crores "available with the lavishly foreign-funded churches and mosques. And of course they have kept their colossal landed properties also. It is well-known that the Churches in Kerala are the biggest landowner after the state. In just one instance, a missionary outfit in Malabar owns such a huge area of land in a single holding that they renamed the place "Bibleland". And what is more the Postal Department of secular India has also named their office in the area Bibleland Post Office. The Churches own countless plantations which have been carefully left outside the purview of the Land Reforms Act.

In addition the Churches in Kerala own vast extents of urban land in the best part of every city and town. (This is of course the case in the rest of India also.) In Tiruvananthapuram the palace of just one bishop—among several bishops and their palaces "stands on nearly thirty acres of land abutting on the Raj Bhavan compound. This bishop, not one to hide his might and power, has also built a high-profile church practically touching the Raj Bhavan entrance. And this bishop, and the other bishops and convents own hundreds of acres in the city. The Churches have been for quite some time investing in a big way in multi-storeyed shopping and office complexes. They also have huge holdings in other real estate, publishing houses, banks and companies.

But of course in Kerala the limitless flow of treasure into the Churches is from the education sector. They have established from British times a near monopoly in education, from primary schools to first grade colleges. More than fifty percent of the hundreds of crores the Kerala Government spends on education is commandeered by the bishops and mother superiors.

In spite of this golden flow from the state into the Church coffers, and in spite of all their colossal wealth and foreign funds, the Government will never dare to request them for funds, no matter how critical the financial crunch. At the same time the Government considers the small bits of the remaining assets and funds of the temples to be their ordained targets for regular booty taking much of it to be used to further destroy the temples.

For the Hindus of Kerala to retrieve even part of their lost honour and dignity, firstly the present niggardly payment of fifty one lakhs (such is the perfidy and hatred of the perfidy and hatred of the anti-Hindu politicians towards the temples that they regularly refer to this sum as a "grant"), should be raised sufficiently to tally with the income from the seized temple lands at present rates. A small beginning can be made by increasing the present insulting, measly payment of fifty one lakhs to compensate for the steep fall in the value of the rupee since 1948; and this newly determined amount should be revised every year henceforward. After all the Kerala Government is doing exactly this in every area except, of course, in the case of the temples.

Secondly, the Hindus have to get the confiscated temples released from the stranglehold of the politicians (themselves the willing hostages of the Muslim League, Kerala Congress and atheists) who happen to be born as Hindus but are avowedly anti-Hindu by conviction. Interestingly these politicians who declare they are not Hindus see nothing dishonourable and dishonest in voting on temple matters as Hindus "with the open aim of snatching the maximum spoils for themselves and their cohorts.

When the Kerala chief minister equates the depositing of Guruvayur temple funds with the treasury with bank deposits the crucial fact that there is no withdrawal facility in the treasury is kept under wraps. And if by some horrible chance the ten crores are placed in the treasury, we can expect a replay of the Munro scenario—the Government seizing the capital for ever, and later with pious protestations of fair intentions, offering to pay the interest on the interest on the ten crores "if and when it chooses.

We hear a great deal day in and day out about the wonderful religious harmony that prevails in Kerala as exemplified by a church, a mosque and a temple standing close together in Palayam, in the heart of Tiruvananthapuram. One close look at these places of worship will prove that what they actually demonstrate is something quite different: the impoverishment, abasement and servitude of the Hindus. The church in Palayam is a magnificent edifice on a vast tract of priceless land; the mosque too is an imposing new building on spacious grounds. But the temple it is just a dilapidated hutment standing on just four cents of land.

This in general is the pathetic, degraded condition of the Hindu temples, brought on by the ceaseless plundering first by the British colonialists intent on spreading Christianity, by the studied negligence of the state governments, wholesale destruction by Tipu Sultan, and in post-independence days, by the looting by governments owned and operated by powerful Christian and Muslim vested interests; not to mention the greedy quislings out to fatten themselves at the expense of the temples.

How did it happen that the Hindus of Kerala stood silently by when their hallowed, highly venerated temples were thus plundered, dishonoured and reduced to beggary? The fact is, in the course of centuries of slavery we Hindus have assiduously taught ourselves to mistake apathy for tolerance, servility for gentleness and cowardice for pacifism. The process is still continuing, with the Hindus tricked into accepting self-hate and self-destruction as secularism.

Thorough rethinking and strong corrective measures based on the truly Hindu principles of truth and fearlessness on the part of the downtrodden Hindus of Kerala has become imperative if the Hindu temples, religion and culture are to survive at all. Fearless and concerted action is also needed for regaining the lost honour and dignity of the Hindus.

http://hamsa.org/appendixes.htm

Gandhi, the moulana of Muslim appeasement-II

Posted on 28 December, 2006
The atrocities committed by the Moplah rebels were widely reported in the English and vernacular newspapers of the day throughout India and the British Empire. Mahatma Gandhi was fully aware of every development in Malabar during this time. But his overweening egoism blinded his eyes to such an extent that he was unable to see the realities on the ground. - V SUNDARAM

Dr B R Ambedkar paid his tribute to the Muslim Appeasement Bible of Moulana Mahatma Gandhi in these brilliant words: 'Gandhi has never called the Muslims to account even when they have been guilty of gross crimes against Hindus. It is a notorious fact that many prominent Hindus who had offended the religious susceptibilities of the Muslims either by their writings or by their part in the Shudhi Movement have been murdered by some fanatic Musalmans. The leading Muslims never condemned these criminals. On the contrary, they were hailed as religious martyrs.... This attitude of the Muslims is understandable. What is not understandable is the attitude of Mr Gandhi.'

Dr Ambedkar was not talking through his hat about the anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim attitude of Mahatma Gandhi. When thousands of women were raped and many of them killed by the Moplah Muslims during the Moplah rebellion in 1921, the brutalised women of Malabar led by the senior Rani of Nilambur gave a heart-rending petition to Lady Reading, the wife of the then Viceroy of India. I am quoting only the first two paragraphs from this historic petition:

'We, the Hindu women of Malabar of varying ranks and stations in life who have recently been overwhelmed by the tremendous catastrophe known as the Moplah rebellion, take the liberty to supplicate your Ladyship for sympathy and succour.'

'Your Ladyship is doubtless aware that though our unhappy district has witnessed many Moplah outbreaks in the course of the last 100 years, the present rebellion is unexampled in its magnitude as well as unprecedented in its ferocity. But it is possible that your Ladyship is not fully appraised of all the horrors and atrocities perpetrated by the fiendish rebels of the many wells and tanks filled up with the mutilated, but often only half dead bodies of our nearest and dearest ones who refused to abandon the faith of our fathers; of pregnant women cut to pieces and left on the roadsides and in the jungles, with the unborn babies protruding from the mangled corpses; of our innocent and helpless children torn from our arms and done to death before our eyes and of our husbands and fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive; of our helpless sisters forcibly carried away from the midst of kith and kin and subjected to every shame and outrage which the vile and brutal imagination of these inhuman hellhounds could conceive of; of thousands of our homesteads reduced to circular mounds out of sheer savagery in a wanton spirit of destruction; of our places of worship desecrated and destroyed and of the images of the deity shamefully insulted by putting the entrails of slaughtered cows where flower garlands used to lie, or else smashed to pieces; of the wholesale looting of hard earned wealth of generations reducing many who were formerly rich and prosperous to publicly beg for a pie or two in the streets of Calicut, to buy salt or betal leaf rice being mercifully provided by the various relief agencies of Government. These are not fables. The wells full of rotting skeletons, the ruins which once were our dear homes, the heaps of stones which once were our places of worship these are still here to attest to the truth. The cries of our murdered children in their death agonies are still ringing in our ears and will continue to haunt our memory till our own death brings us peace.'

The atrocities committed by the Moplah rebels were widely reported in the English and vernacular newspapers of the day throughout India and the British Empire. Mahatma Gandhi was fully aware of every development in Malabar during this time. But his overweening egoism blinded his eyes to such an extent that he was unable to see the realities on the ground. A Peoples' Conference presided over by the Zamorin, Maharaja of Malabar, was held in 1921. The following resolution was passed at this Conference:

'This Conference views with indignation and sorrow the attempts made in various quarters by interested parties to ignore or minimise the crimes committed by the Moplah rebels such as:

a) Brutality dishonouring women

b) Flaying people alive

c) Wholesale slaughter of men, women and children

d) Burning alive entire families

e) Forcibly converting people in thousands and slaying those who refused to get converted

f) Throwing half dead people into wells and leaving the victims for hours to struggle for escape till finally released from their suffering by death

g) Burning a great many and looting practically all Hindu and Christian houses in the disturbed areas in which even Moplah women and children took part and robbing women of even the garments on their bodies, in short, reducing the whole non-Muslim population to abject destitution.

h) Cruelly insulting the religious sentiments of the Hindus by desecrating and destroying numerous temples in the disturbed areas, killing cows within the temple precincts, putting their entrails on the holy image and hanging the skulls on the walls and roofs.

Annie Besant was a fearless and impartial woman quite unlike Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi was a double talking, multiple tongued Moulana layer upon layer of orchestrated fraud, dissemblance and deceit. Annie Besant had been elected President of the Indian National Congress in 1913 two years before the final return of Mahatma Gandhi to India from South Africa. She was one of the tallest leaders of India at that time and loved by the masses of India. She created a new public awakening about the intentions of the Moplah marauders. Annie Besant visited the affected areas of Malabar soon after the Moplah rebellion in 1921 and wrote a series of powerful articles about the carnage let loose by the Moplah Muslims which opened the eyes of the government of India and that of Britain. I am quoting below a few words from Annie Besant's article titled Malabar's Agony in New India of 29 November, 1921: 'It would be well if Mr M K Gandhi could be taken into Malabar to see with his own eyes the ghastly horrors which have been created by the preaching of himself and his 'LOVED BROTHERS' Muhommad and Shaukat Ali. The Khilafat Raj is established there; on 1 August, 1921, sharp to the date first announced by Gandhi for the beginning of Swaraj and the vanishing of British Rule, a Police Inspector was surrounded by Moplahs, revolting against that Rule. From that date onwards thousands of the forbidden war knives were secretly made and hidden away and on 20 August, the rebellion broke out. Khilafat flags were hoisted on Police Stations and Government Offices. .... Eyes full of appeal, and agonised despair, of hopeless entreaty of helpless anguish, thousands of them camp after camp which I visited. Mr Gandhi says 'Shameful Inhumanity'. Shameful inhumanity indeed, wrought by the Moplahs, and these are the victims saved from extermination by British and Indian Swords. For be it remembered the Moplahs began the whole horrible business; the Government intervened to save their victims and these thousands have been saved. Mr Gandhi would have hostilities suspended so that the Moplahs may swoop down on the refugee camps and finish their work! Mahatma Gandhi was least concerned about the Hindu victims of Moplah violence in Malabar at that time.

Annie Besant exposed the atrocities committed by the Moplah rebels in Malabar as a fearless journalist. Let us hear her describe an act and scene of rape in Malabar: 'Words fail to express my feelings of indignation and abhorrence which I experienced when I came to know of an instance of rape, committed by the rebels under Chembrasseri Thangal. A respectable Nair lady at Melathur was stripped naked by the rebels in the presence of her husband and brothers who were made to stand close by with their hands tied behind. When they shut their eyes in abhorrence, they were compelled at the point of a sword to open their eyes and witness the rape committed by the brute in their presence. I loathe even to write of such a mean action. This instance of rape was communicated to me by one of her brothers confidentially. There are several instances of such mean atrocities which are not revealed by people....'

Mahatma Gandhi at that time gave a great finding to the effect that every Muslim is a bully and every Hindu a coward. On the one hand he called every Hindu a coward and on the other hand he exhorted all the Hindus to remain calm and non-violent even when they went all out to defend themselves against the attacking Moplah Muslims. The truth is Mahatma Gandhi displayed all his courage only to suppress the Hindus. In so far as the Muslims were concerned, he was a typical Hindu coward. He was mortally scared of them. So was Jawaharlal Nehru. Therefore Gandhi had no moral sanction to talk about the cowardice of the Hindus. And here is the callous, sadistic and barbarous message he gave to the Hindu victims of Moplah rebellion in Young India of 29 September, 1921: 'The ending of the Moplah revolt is a matter not only of urgency, but of simple humanity. The Hindus must have the courage and the faith to feel that they can protect their religion in spite of such fanatical eruptions. ... Be the Moplahs be ever so bad, they deserve to be treated as human beings.' By saying all this, Mahatma Gandhi broke the track record of Babar, Nadir Shah and Aurangazib in the never ending vistas of Islamic compassion and Hindu fundamentalism.

(To be contd...)

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)

e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com

http://newstodaynet.com/2006sud/06dec/2712ss1.htm

Gandhi, the Moulana of Muslim appeasement

Posted on 26 December, 2006
Mahatma Gandhi was a devout Hindu, yet he turned more and more anti-Hindu after 1920 as his public life progressed. - By V Sunderam

It is a well known fact of history that although personally Mahatma Gandhi was a devout Hindu, yet he turned more and more anti-Hindu after 1920 as his public life progressed. The driving passion of his political life was to throw the British out of India. In order to achieve this objective, he was obsessed in his conviction that Hindu - Muslim unity was absolutely necessary and indispensable. There can be two views or more on whether he was right or justified in holding these convictions. However, the irrefutable fact is that again and again he demonstrated his combat readiness to sacrifice or sell out vital Hindu interests, Hindu honour and Hindu blood all the time in deference to the feelings of minorities in general and Muslims in particular. To quote the appropriate words of Prafull Goradia in this context: 'For Mahatma Gandhi, no price was too great for appeasing Muslims, so that they did not oppose Hindus. That he did not understand the Muslims was proved by the conduct of the Muslim League and by the vivisection of the country.'

After the Mutiny of 1857, the incidence of Hindu-Muslim riots in India had come down sharply. By lending support to the Khilafat Movement of Ali Brothers in 1920, Mahatma Gandhi inaugurated a new era of a fresh wave of Hindu-Muslim riots. Mahatma Gandhi was a confused man. How could his Satyagraha which was to be effective for attaining our Swaraj could be equally effective for saving the Caliph on his Turkish throne. Gandhi did not understand that restoration of the Caliph would only result in making him again a shining symbol of Pan-Islamism or the Supranationalism of Islam as a world religion with its people forming the Ummah. This inherent impending danger was clearly foreseen by Sir.Sankaran Nair, a Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council in 1922. In his book prophetically titled as 'Gandhi and Anarchy' published by Tagore and Company, Madras in 1922 he wrote: 'It is impossible to believe that Gandhi and his adherents are not aware that this claim of the Mahomedans to be judged only by the Law of the Koran, is a claim which is the fons et origo of all Khilafat claims of whatever kind. It is well to be clear about this, for not only does the acceptance of the claim mean the death knell of the British Empire or Indo-British Commonwealth, WHATEVER NAME WE MAY CARE TO GIVE TO THE GREAT FRATERNITY OF NATIONS TO WHICH WE BELONG, BUT SPECIFICALLY AS REGARDS INDIA IT MEANS A REAL DENIAL OF SWARAJ. FOR IT INVOLVES MAHOMEDAN RULE AND HINDU SUBJECTION.' Thus Sir Sankaran Nair clearly saw the danger signal when Mahatma Gandhi was leading the Muslims of India to convert the Hindus into permanent Serfs. Dr Manmohan Singh's recent declaration on Muslim hegemony is only a logical culmination of the process initiated by Mahatma Gandhi and clearly foreseen by Sir Sankaran Nair in 1922.

During the Moplah rebellion in Kerala in 1921, thousands of Hindu men, women and children were killed by the Muslims. Hundreds of women were raped. And yet Gandhi supported the Moplahs and not the Hindu victims of Moplah violence and oppression. In fact Gandhi had no sympathy for the Hindus. Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his 'Young India', 'it is wrong to say that Islam has employed force. No religion in this world has spread through the use of force. No Musalman, to my knowledge, has ever approved of compulsion.' Does this not show that Gandhi practiced political deception? According to Gandhi, the Moplah Muslims were guilty of no crime.

But the politically spurious and culturally disastrous view of Mahatma Gandhi on the Moplah rebellion was not shared by Lord Reading, the then Viceroy of India and Sir.Sankaran Nair, a member of his Council. Sir.Sankaran Nair wrote: 'For sheer brutality on women, I do not remember anything in history to match the Malabar rebellion. It broke out on 20 August, 1921. Even by the 6 September, the results were dreadful. There was complete breakdown of Civil Government resulting in widespread disorder, in political chaos, in anarchy and in ruin.' Let us contrast this with Mahatma Gandhi's conclusion: 'The Moplahs are among the bravest in the land. They are god-fearing.' How did Gandhi overlook the brutal fact that Moplah Muslims were men-slaughtering, children-strangling and women-raping? I am asking this question in the light of the speech of Lord Reading, viceroy of India, on 20th of August 1921: 'A few Europeans and many Hindus have been murdered, communications have been obstructed. Hindu temples sacked, houses of Europeans and Hindus burnt. According to reports Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam... The result has been the temporary collapse of the Civil Government and offices and courts have ceased to function and ordinary business has been brought to a standstill. European and Hindu refugees of all classes are concentrated at Calicut and it is satisfactory to note that they are safe there. One trembles to think of the consequences if the forces of order had not prevailed for the protection of Calicut. Those who are responsible for causing this grave outbreak of violence and crime must be brought to justice and made to suffer the punishment of the guilty.'

Annie Besant wrote a series of articles in her journal 'New India' on 29 November and 6 December 1921 under the caption Malabar's Agony. She challenged the stand taken by Mahatma Gandhi on the peaceful and humanitarian overtures of the Moplah Muslims towards non-Muslims in Malabar. The shock of the Moplah riots was so widespread that a Committee of Distinguished Citizens was appointed to tour the affected areas. The Committee consisted of K P Keshava Menon, Secretary Kerala Provincial Committee, T V Mohammed, Secretary, Ernad Khilafat Committee, K Madhavan Nair, Secretary, Calicut District Congress Committee and K V Gopal Menon. In their fact-finding report they concluded: 'Truth is infinitely of more paramount importance than Hindu Muslim unity or Swaraj and therefore we tell the Maulana Sahib and his co-religionists and India's revered leader Mahatma Gandhi� IF HE TOO IS UNAWARE OF THE EVENTS HERE� that atrocities committed by the Moplahs on the Hindus are unfortunately too true and that there is nothing in the deeds of Moplah rebels which a true non-violent, non-co-operator can congratulate them for.. Their wanton and unprovoked attack on the Hindus, the all but wholesale looting of their houses.. Brutal murder of inoffensive Hindus, men, women and children in cold blood without the slightest reason except that they are Kafirs... Their wholesale conversion through threat of death.'

Mahatma Gandhi treated the report of the above Committee with Islamic contempt. Mahatma Gandhi and the Working Committee of the Congress shamelessly whitewashed the criminal atrocities committed by the Moplah Muslims against the Hindus of Malabar by passing the following resolution:

'The Working Committee places on record its sense of deep regret over the deeds of violence done by Moplahs in certain areas of Malabar, these deeds being evidence of the fact that there are still people in India who have not understood the message of the Congress and the Central Khilafat Committee, and calls upon every Congress and Khilafat worker to spread the message of non-violence even under the gravest provocation throughout the length and breadth of India.'

This was political rascality of the meanest kind. Gandhi's callousness rose to Himalayan heights when he wrote the following in 'Young India' on 29 September : 'We have forgotten the divine out of dying for our faiths without retaliation... 'Be the Moplahs be ever so bad, they deserve to be treated as human beings.'

Dr Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Arjun Singh, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, Karunanidhi and many other known Islamists in Indian politics owe the fountain head of their infatuation for the peace loving and compassionate Muslims to the sage like wickedness of Mahatma Gandhi detailed above.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)

http://newstodaynet.com/2006sud/06dec/2612ss2.htm

THE MAN WHO KILLED GANDHI10

THE MAN WHO KILLED GANDHI10/28/2006 1:36:05 AM M P Ajithkumar
Reality always differs from ignorant popular beliefs brought in by propaganda. This is what happened in the general belief regarding the Mahatma Gandhi murder case. Brought down to the level of an election propaganda subject, the issue of Gandhi murder case has been exploited by the very party, which though garlanded the photo of Gandhi, had treated him (to quote Gandhi himself) like a ‘sweeper’. Ceased to be even a four ana member of the Indian National Congress, Gandhi turned out to the leading Congress workers something moth-like to be brushed aside with indifference. And had he lived for more years than he did he would have been spurned with vengeance by his own party workers to whom the Gandhian ideals would have proved real hindrance in their unscrupulous way to eke out a recklessly luxurious life. By the time India got independence Congress had changed so much, had been irreparably damaged to the state of being not only non-Gandhian but anti-Gandhian too. The prestigious patriotic outfit of India, which enjoyed the leadership of the leonine figures like Lajpatroy, Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, C R Das, Sri Aurobindo, and Gandhi later, became the asylum of unscrupulous politicians with no regard for the people or democratic values. Naturally in a party wherein bandicoots abounded Gandhi became an odd man deservedly to be out. The Congress had thus completed the ideological murder of the Mahatma prior to his being physically assassinated by Godse. And even the physical assassination, the Congress workers and leaders have been exploiting at the hustings as a political bullet against their enemies. Those who have defiled his ideals are capitalizing on his death for defiling the nation he made independent of foreign domination. But still they pretend to be the followers of Gandhi and the champions of Gandhian values! The devil is audaciously quoting the Bible!
\n False propaganda had always an ample bearing upon the political psyche of the people with the result that political parties tried to tarnish the image of their opponents by blackmailing them with allegations, which may bring national chorus of disapproval upon the latter. No example would be more fitting for this than the allegation the Indian National Congress leveled against its most implacable foe, the Bharathiya Jana Sangh, the predecessor of the present BJP, which was backed by the RSS, that an RSS man had murdered Mahatma Gandhi. The BJS spearheaded in Indian politics and Parliament by Dr. Syama Prasad Mookherji was a terror to the leaders with their heads sparse of both hair and ideas. His personal integrity, pugnacious patriotism and the undaunted sincerity in regard to each and every issue that adversely\n affected the national cause were qualities the Nehruvians hated. And it became a political imperative that the rightist wing of Indian politics was to be cowed down, and they designed many weapons to this end. One of them, indeed the most powerful, was the story of RSS and Gandhi murder. Otherwise what was the need of the Congress workers’ stereotyping the allegation even as all the evidences regarding the Mahathma’s murder ran in contrast to the cooked up story of the RSS involvement? \n Or was it indeed an RSS man that killed Gandhiji? Evidences rule it out. Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the then Home Minister of India wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru on 27 February 1948 that amidst many findings regarding the Mahathma’s murder “It also clearly emerges from the statements that the RSS was not involved in it at all” (Sardar Patel’s Correspondences, Vol. VI, 1945-50, edited by Durga Das). It is interesting to note that Sri. C K Daphtary, the then Advocate General, Bombay who was in charge of the prosecution did not involve RSS in the controversy. The prosecution did not even hint, much less prove even the remotest connection of RSS with the murder of the Mahathma. RSS is not blamed anywhere in the judgement delivered in the case.",1]
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False propaganda had always an ample bearing upon the political psyche of the people with the result that political parties tried to tarnish the image of their opponents by blackmailing them with allegations, which may bring national chorus of disapproval upon the latter. No example would be more fitting for this than the allegation the Indian National Congress leveled against its most implacable foe, the Bharathiya Jana Sangh, the predecessor of the present BJP, which was backed by the RSS, that an RSS man had murdered Mahatma Gandhi. The BJS spearheaded in Indian politics and Parliament by Dr. Syama Prasad Mookherji was a terror to the leaders with their heads sparse of both hair and ideas. His personal integrity, pugnacious patriotism and the undaunted sincerity in regard to each and every issue that adversely affected the national cause were qualities the Nehruvians hated. And it became a political imperative that the rightist wing of Indian politics was to be cowed down, and they designed many weapons to this end. One of them, indeed the most powerful, was the story of RSS and Gandhi murder. Otherwise what was the need of the Congress workers’ stereotyping the allegation even as all the evidences regarding the Mahathma’s murder ran in contrast to the cooked up story of the RSS involvement?
Or was it indeed an RSS man that killed Gandhiji? Evidences rule it out. Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the then Home Minister of India wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru on 27 February 1948 that amidst many findings regarding the Mahathma’s murder “It also clearly emerges from the statements that the RSS was not involved in it at all” (Sardar Patel’s Correspondences, Vol. VI, 1945-50, edited by Durga Das). It is interesting to note that Sri. C K Daphtary, the then Advocate General, Bombay who was in charge of the prosecution did not involve RSS in the controversy. The prosecution did not even hint, much less prove even the remotest connection of RSS with the murder of the Mahathma. RSS is not blamed anywhere in the judgement delivered in the case.
\n Not even a single inquiry the Government of India later made into the Mahatma murder case involved the RSS in it. In 1966 the government set up a commission under Sri. J L Kapur, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, to make a fresh and thorough inquiry into the conspiracy that led to the murder of Gandhiji. The Commission, which sat at different places and examined about 101 witnesses and 407 documents, published its reports in 1969. It nowhere blamed RSS as the Gandhi assassin, and cleared the organisation of any connection with the crime. One of the important witnesses, Sri R N Banerjee, ICS (witness 19) who was the Home Secretary of the Central Government at the time of Gandhi murder had given the evidence that “It has not been proved that they (the accused) were members\n of the RSS” (Kapur Commission Report, Part I, p. 165). The witness further says that even if the RSS had been banned earlier, it would not have affected the conspirators or the course of events, “because they have not been proved to have been members of the RSS nor has that organization been shown to have a hand in the murder” (Kapur Commission Report, Part I, p. 186). R N Banerjee further stated, “ Although RSS was banned it should be taken to be an acceptance by the Government of the allegation that the murder of Mahatma Gandhi was by the members of RSS as such” (Kapur Commission Report, Part II, p. 62). The Commission further comments: “In Delhi also there is no evidence that the RSS as such was indulging in violent activities as against Mahatma Gandhi or the top leaders of the Congress” (Kapur Commission Report, Part II, p. 66). The facts are thus by all means self evident and more eloquent than all the propaganda by the interested parties.\n \n RSS was thus not the organization that assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Then who killed him physically and later ideologically? It was as Vallabhai Patel’s letter stated a “wing of the Hindu Maha Sabha that hatched plot and saw it through”(Sardar Patel’s Correspondence, Vol, 6, 1945-50, edited by Durga Das). But it is also important that one may take into account many unknown aspects of this most serious case, which shuddered the conscience of our nation as well as the entire world. First, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the first accused in the case was never guilty conscious of what he did and which he firmly believed was for the sake of his nation. He justified his action in his one hundred and fifty points statement presented to the jury wherein he accused Gandhiji as having “proved to be the Father of Pakistan” instead\n of the “Father of the nation – an epithet of high reverence”. Gandhiji, Godse accused, through the successive policies like the support given to the extra territorial and purely communal issue of Khilaphat, the moral support to Suhrawardy, the final silence over the plan of partition, the post-partition days’ fasting to mobilize money to Pakistan and many such pro-Muslim policies was pampering the venom of Muslim communalism. The Father of the nation forgot his “paternal duty”, he said in his statements. And to the very time of his being hung to death he stuck to his own convictions. We may also look into the statements of Justice G D Khosla who was involved in the Gandhi murder case trial. Concluding his book ",1]
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Not even a single inquiry the Government of India later made into the Mahatma murder case involved the RSS in it. In 1966 the government set up a commission under Sri. J L Kapur, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, to make a fresh and thorough inquiry into the conspiracy that led to the murder of Gandhiji. The Commission, which sat at different places and examined about 101 witnesses and 407 documents, published its reports in 1969. It nowhere blamed RSS as the Gandhi assassin, and cleared the organisation of any connection with the crime. One of the important witnesses, Sri R N Banerjee, ICS (witness 19) who was the Home Secretary of the Central Government at the time of Gandhi murder had given the evidence that “It has not been proved that they (the accused) were members of the RSS” (Kapur Commission Report, Part I, p. 165). The witness further says that even if the RSS had been banned earlier, it would not have affected the conspirators or the course of events, “because they have not been proved to have been members of the RSS nor has that organization been shown to have a hand in the murder” (Kapur Commission Report, Part I, p. 186). R N Banerjee further stated, “ Although RSS was banned it should be taken to be an acceptance by the Government of the allegation that the murder of Mahatma Gandhi was by the members of RSS as such” (Kapur Commission Report, Part II, p. 62). The Commission further comments: “In Delhi also there is no evidence that the RSS as such was indulging in violent activities as against Mahatma Gandhi or the top leaders of the Congress” (Kapur Commission Report, Part II, p. 66). The facts are thus by all means self evident and more eloquent than all the propaganda by the interested parties.

RSS was thus not the organization that assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Then who killed him physically and later ideologically? It was as Vallabhai Patel’s letter stated a “wing of the Hindu Maha Sabha that hatched plot and saw it through”(Sardar Patel’s Correspondence, Vol, 6, 1945-50, edited by Durga Das). But it is also important that one may take into account many unknown aspects of this most serious case, which shuddered the conscience of our nation as well as the entire world. First, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the first accused in the case was never guilty conscious of what he did and which he firmly believed was for the sake of his nation. He justified his action in his one hundred and fifty points statement presented to the jury wherein he accused Gandhiji as having “proved to be the Father of Pakistan” instead of the “Father of the nation – an epithet of high reverence”. Gandhiji, Godse accused, through the successive policies like the support given to the extra territorial and purely communal issue of Khilaphat, the moral support to Suhrawardy, the final silence over the plan of partition, the post-partition days’ fasting to mobilize money to Pakistan and many such pro-Muslim policies was pampering the venom of Muslim communalism. The Father of the nation forgot his “paternal duty”, he said in his statements. And to the very time of his being hung to death he stuck to his own convictions. We may also look into the statements of Justice G D Khosla who was involved in the Gandhi murder case trial. Concluding his book
The Murder of the Mahatma, Khosla wrote, “I have … no doubt that had the audience of that day been constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task of deciding Godse’s appeal, they would have brought in a verdict of ‘not guilty’ by an\n overwhelming majority” (G. D. Khosla, Murder of the Mahatma, Jaico, Bombay, 1977, p. 306). But to quote Godse, his life also came to an end simultaneously with the shots fired by him at Gandhiji. And the reasons for the trial done in secrecy and the authorities’ reluctance to reveal before the public Godse’s replays to the charges leveled against him still remain something enigmatic. And, he walked away to the world of the dead, carrying with him in his hands the Bhagavad Gita, the map of undivided Hindustan and a Saffron flag.\n No doubt it was Godse who physically assassinated Gandhiji. But he did not continue to kill Gandhiji and his lofty ideals, like the political bandicoots falsely claiming to be the descendents of Gandhian tradition.\n It is an irony of history that the Mahatma who led India’s pilgrimage to freedom ceased to be even an ordinary member of the Indian National Congress in the evening of his life. It may not be surprising to hear that it was Gandhi’s suggestion to give the Prime Ministerial chair to Jinnah as the last ditch attempt to avoid the partition, a suggestion that dashed itself on the rock of Nehru’s power hunger. Such an act, Gandhiji knew, would make Jinnah’s contention that in a Hindu ruled India Muslims would be a suffering lot untenable. But by that time Gandhiji had become an archaic object to be defied and defiled at will to the new leader who claimed himself as the great disciple of Gandhiji. However, it would surely be most surprising to know that the very Father of the nation was the only\n individual who never saluted India’s National Flag! It was perhaps one of his last desires that his most trusted disciple threw to winds. India’s old man with no desires however had the desire to see the national emblem representing the working class of India. A hard worker, Gandhiji identified himself with the working community of the nation whose toil and sweated labour formed the national life and vitality. He had given the masses a symbol of their work, which they were advised to work on while chanting the spell of freedom from the alien rule. The spinning wheel thus became a household instrument in each Indian family whose members were pugnacious freedom fighters. The humming sound of the spinning wheel imparted music to the patriotic slogans. It was this wheel that speeded up India towards freedom. Naturally Gandhiji’s desire to see the National Flag of India designed with spinning wheel was born out of his strong conviction that India and her new emblem should\n symbolize the toiling masses that formed the main stay of the nation he made free. But to Nehru it appeared a cranky old man’s mad dream. India’s National Flag was to him not an object upon which Gandhi’s ‘toy’ was to be placed! Thus the Asokan wheel, the wheel of law that rolled in with the imperial orders of an ancient monarch became the new national symbol instead of the Gandhian wheel, which was not the symbol of imperial force, but of the soul-force. But nothing could be done to correct an incorrigible dilettante whose readings about the heartbeats of an ancient culture Gandhiji had represented fell wide off the mark. No wonder, when requested to pay his obeisance to the National Flag the Mahatma had his clear reservations. He would not salute it ‘however artistic’ it might be. But whether Gandhiji saluted it was not the concern of the new generation of the Leaders of the Congress who swept him to the dustbin of history and trod a totally anti-Gandhian\n track to feather their nest. In their squalid fight for power and their lust to cut a figure for them in the modern world Gandhiji turned out to be an archaic object of little relevance. And he remained as irrelevant as dead till he breathed the last though in later time he continued to be politically capitalized by the very people who assassinated his ideology. The issue of Gandhi murder lubricated the Congress’ wheel in its march against the opposing political parties at the hustings. It gave political mileage to the Congress, an organization, which Gandhiji wanted to see dispersed after achieving independence. But that the means which Gandhiji used to reach the end, the national independence, became an end in itself turning out to be the means to mock even his memory with the new ‘Gandhis’ with no Gandhism stealing the Congress show, remains an\n irony.",1]
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The Murder of the Mahatma, Khosla wrote, “I have … no doubt that had the audience of that day been constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task of deciding Godse’s appeal, they would have brought in a verdict of ‘not guilty’ by an overwhelming majority” (G. D. Khosla, Murder of the Mahatma, Jaico, Bombay, 1977, p. 306). But to quote Godse, his life also came to an end simultaneously with the shots fired by him at Gandhiji. And the reasons for the trial done in secrecy and the authorities’ reluctance to reveal before the public Godse’s replays to the charges leveled against him still remain something enigmatic. And, he walked away to the world of the dead, carrying with him in his hands the Bhagavad Gita, the map of undivided Hindustan and a Saffron flag.

No doubt it was Godse who physically assassinated Gandhiji. But he did not continue to kill Gandhiji and his lofty ideals, like the political bandicoots falsely claiming to be the descendents of Gandhian tradition.

It is an irony of history that the Mahatma who led India’s pilgrimage to freedom ceased to be even an ordinary member of the Indian National Congress in the evening of his life. It may not be surprising to hear that it was Gandhi’s suggestion to give the Prime Ministerial chair to Jinnah as the last ditch attempt to avoid the partition, a suggestion that dashed itself on the rock of Nehru’s power hunger. Such an act, Gandhiji knew, would make Jinnah’s contention that in a Hindu ruled India Muslims would be a suffering lot untenable. But by that time Gandhiji had become an archaic object to be defied and defiled at will to the new leader who claimed himself as the great disciple of Gandhiji. However, it would surely be most surprising to know that the very Father of the nation was the only individual who never saluted India’s National Flag! It was perhaps one of his last desires that his most trusted disciple threw to winds. India’s old man with no desires however had the desire to see the national emblem representing the working class of India. A hard worker, Gandhiji identified himself with the working community of the nation whose toil and sweated labour formed the national life and vitality. He had given the masses a symbol of their work, which they were advised to work on while chanting the spell of freedom from the alien rule. The spinning wheel thus became a household instrument in each Indian family whose members were pugnacious freedom fighters. The humming sound of the spinning wheel imparted music to the patriotic slogans. It was this wheel that speeded up India towards freedom. Naturally Gandhiji’s desire to see the National Flag of India designed with spinning wheel was born out of his strong conviction that India and her new emblem should symbolize the toiling masses that formed the main stay of the nation he made free. But to Nehru it appeared a cranky old man’s mad dream. India’s National Flag was to him not an object upon which Gandhi’s ‘toy’ was to be placed! Thus the Asokan wheel, the wheel of law that rolled in with the imperial orders of an ancient monarch became the new national symbol instead of the Gandhian wheel, which was not the symbol of imperial force, but of the soul-force. But nothing could be done to correct an incorrigible dilettante whose readings about the heartbeats of an ancient culture Gandhiji had represented fell wide off the mark. No wonder, when requested to pay his obeisance to the National Flag the Mahatma had his clear reservations. He would not salute it ‘however artistic’ it might be. But whether Gandhiji saluted it was not the concern of the new generation of the Leaders of the Congress who swept him to the dustbin of history and trod a totally anti-Gandhian track to feather their nest. In their squalid fight for power and their lust to cut a figure for them in the modern world Gandhiji turned out to be an archaic object of little relevance. And he remained as irrelevant as dead till he breathed the last though in later time he continued to be politically capitalized by the very people who assassinated his ideology. The issue of Gandhi murder lubricated the Congress’ wheel in its march against the opposing political parties at the hustings. It gave political mileage to the Congress, an organization, which Gandhiji wanted to see dispersed after achieving independence. But that the means which Gandhiji used to reach the end, the national independence, became an end in itself turning out to be the means to mock even his memory with the new ‘Gandhis’ with no Gandhism stealing the Congress show, remains an irony.

",1]
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(The author of this article is a Lecturer in History, Sanathana Dharma College, Alappuzha)

Europe’s demographic crisis

Europe’s demographic crisis
The three time bombs and civilized depopulation

By Daya Krishna

Europe is facing a population crisis of a very serious nature. Home to the 22 of the 25 lowest fertility rate countries of the world, Europe will lose 30 million people by 2030, in spite of the strong currents of immigration. The biggest decline is in rural Europe. As Italians, Spaniards, Germans and other Europeans produce barely three-fifth of the children needed to maintain a status quo in the population. It is due to a triple time bomb: i) Too few children, ii) Too many old people, and iii) Young people leaving the villages in search of better means of livelihood in the towns and cities.


Demographic Change

Rural Europe is an interesting study of the demographic change. In a Greek village only a dozen old people are left out of a population of 1,000 a few decades back. With the death of these 12 persons everything will be abandoned. Never has the rural birth rate been so slow as it is now. The governments are devising policies for slowing down the rate of demographic decline. In France and the UK, large parts of countryside are reviving due to influence of families from urban middle class. A Swedish investor has brought an entire village and turned it into a complex of hotels for tourists.


But, once the baby boomers people born at the end of World War II in 1945 start dying around 2020, population will start declining at an accelerated rate and there will not be enough people for every town. Experts call it “Civilized Depopulation”.


In Eastern Germany, expenditure of $234 billion in rural areas has not brought any fall in the speed of decline of population. Some districts started one room schools, but in many places even this was difficult to sustain. In Sweden, a university is pushing online learning in order to make students stay in their villages while getting education.


Another pioneer in a small town in Spain has started offering “free airfare and housing” in order to make people settle in a town of about 600. Now this town has 130 families mostly from Argentina and Romania. The town’s only school now has 54 students.


Increasingly worried European governments are crafting policies to nudge people to have more children. They hope to copy France, which first implemented such policies in the 1930s and remains one of the Europe’s few growing countries. But, while these measures might raise the birth rate slightly across much of the ageing continent, there are few potential parents around.


In several areas there is a trend for abandoning productive land. But for thousands of years, Europeans have been used to fields and orchards and pastures around their towns. It is now part of their genes.


The landscape called Kulturlandscaft—a landscape shaped by centuries of human care. Today’s unprecedented decline of population, amplified by the shifting economies of farming, puts in doubt the future of many of those precious heritages.


Many Europeans are reluctant just to let nature do its thing. They cry when the woods close in. But, this is the cycle of nature they cannot reverse.

A strategy to combat terrorism in India

By Subramanian Swamy

Recognising that targeting of Hindus is being widely perceived, and that Muslims of India are mostly just passive spectators, the foreign patrons of Islamic terrorists led by Pakistan are beginning to engage in terrorist acts that could pit Muslims against Hindus in nation-wide conflagration and possible civil war as in Serbia and Bosnia. The incident in Malegaon has therefore to be seen in that light.

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh after meeting Pakistan President Musharraf in Havana recently made a ridiculous statement that Pakistan is also a “victim of terrorism” like India ! Has the PM’s loyalty to Ms. Sonia Gandhi fogged his cognitive faculties?


It may be true that Musharraf is personally a target of terrorists because of his association with US President Bush. But who can now deny that training camps breeding terrorists exist all over Pakistan? The world knows that ISI, the Pak Intelligence agency is financing any and every anti-Indian terrorist organisation that exists anywhere in the world. Is this the definition of a victim ? This is instead the definition of a terrorism facilitating state. Pakistan is a cesspool for terrorist breeding.


Terrorism is defined as the use of force to overawe the civilian population to do or not do an act against their will and well being. By this definition all the recent acts of violence in India have been terrorists attacks. In 2004, according to the US National Counter-Terrorism Centre publication: A Chronology of International Terrorism, “India suffered more terrorist acts than any other country”. According to India’s Union Home Ministry 2004-05 Annual Report to Parliament, of the 35 states of India, 29 are afflicted by terrorism. There are about 25 terrorist attacks per month in the country. That, Mr. Prime Minister, is the definition of a victim !!


What is significant for us in India is that these attacks have been carried out to target and demoralise the Hindu, to make Hindus yield that which they should not, with the aim of undermining and ultimately to dismantle the Hindu foundation of India.


Even in the latest atrocity in Mumbai, of killing nearly two hundred and maiming almost a thousand in the suburban train bombings, the target may be taken to be Hindus because the bombs were detonated in the first class compartment in which Hindu traders from South Mumbai usually travel to their homes in the suburbs, while Muslims and Christian commuters, mostly employees and labourers, do not.


Recognising that targeting of Hindus is being widely perceived, and that Muslims of India are mostly just passive spectators, the foreign patrons of Islamic terrorists led by Pakistan are beginning to engage in terrorist acts that could pit Muslims against Hindus in nation-wide conflagration and possible civil war as in Serbia and Bosnia. The incident in Malegaon has therefore to be seen in that light.


Hence, the fundamental truth about terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed to slide into committing suicide terror attacks against Hindus. It is to undermine the Hindu psyche, and create fear of civil war to make Hindus capitulate that terror attacks are being organised.


And therefore, since the Hindu is the target, Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated or worse, be complacent because he or she is not personally affected. Nor should the Hindu rationalise his being passive as in the interest of communal harmony. The pious bleating of Ms. Sonia Gandhi that ‘the people must remain calm’ is a prescription for the collapse of India’s Hindu foundation.


Instead, we need a mindset that if a Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat Hindu[ for fuller discussion of the concept of virat Hindu, see my Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out; Haranand, 2006].


Therefore we have to have a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the terrorist. In this response, Muslims and Christians of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. They can begin to do that if they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims or Christians, their ancestors are Hindus. That is, they affirm their Hindustani identity. That is India is their matrubhoomi.


The Islamic terrorist outfits, e.g., the SIMI being the latest, have already resolved that India instead is Darul Harab, and they are committed to make it Darul Islam. That makes them free of any moral compunction whatsoever in killing or humiliating Hindus. Therefore, if a Muslim of India does not believe that our nation is Darul Harab, then he must declare with pride that his ancestors are Hindus.


Do not Muslims in India already so acknowledge their obvious Hindu past? My last one year study of the communal problem leads me to believe that at the individual level, they do. But something goes wrong with their outlook at the collective level. Recently, in a tour of Tamil Nadu I had visited two areas—one, Thondi in Ramanathapuram district and another Rasathipuram in Vellore district, where Muslims are in a majority and have captured the muncipality through the ballot box. In these two areas the Hindu minority is facing deprivation because the Muslim-led muncipality has shut off water supply, stopped civic works and collection of garbage. The word is out there that unless the Hindus convert to Islam, the deprivation will not end. In case the reader of this column thinks that there is an isolated case, let him know that same situation prevail in pockets of Meerut, Mau, Assam, Kerala, not to mention the Kashmir valley and the plight of Kashmiri Pundits.


There is a mentality problem with Muslims. Their behavioral pattern differs when in majority and in minority. Even if they are in a minority in an all India context, in a micro setting, if Muslims are in a majority, they behave differently even while as a minority in the macro all India context. The paradox in India is that Hindus are, as of now, 83 per cent of the population, i.e., in the macro context. And yet Darul Islam has arrived in pockets of India. Islamic India exists in pockets today !


Hence, to begin with, any policy to combat terrorism requires that each and every Hindu become committed to being virat Hindu, or otherwise be regarded a ‘tankhiya’ by Hindu society. By this it is meant that it is not enough commitment if one claims to be Hindu, or goes to temples, does puja, and celebrates festivals. That is not sufficient to be a committed or virat Hindu. To be a virat Hindu one must have a Hindu mindset.


That mindset requires that Hindus never capitulate to, and never concede any demand of the terrorists. Terrorists are encouraged by appeasement but never satisfied by it. Therefore, no matter how many Hindus have to die for it, the basic policy has to be: never yield to any demand of the terrorists. That necessary resolve has not been shown in our recent history. Instead ever since we conceded Pakistan in 1947 under duress, we have been mostly yielding time and time again.


Such a mindset also requires that whatever and however small the terrorist incident, the Hindustan must retaliate-not by measured and “sober” responses but by massive retaliation. For example, when Ayodhya Temple was sought to be attacked, or the Institute of Science in Bangalore was targeted, these were not big terrorist incidents but we should have massively retaliated. If we have clinching proof of terrorist training camps in PoK and Bangladesh, we should bomb them by despatching our airforce. There is some evidence that the US agency, the FBI, has presented to a district court in California satellite photos that do establish that terror training camps exist in near Balakot in northeast Pakistan. Indian government claims proof which has not been made public that there are 57 terrorist training camps in Pakistani—held territory and 36 such camps in Bangladesh.


If instead of being supportive, Pakistan and Bangladesh protest or retaliate if India bombs these camps, then it means that they are sponsors and not unwilling hosts to free lancing terrorists. Hence we should be ready for war. We could retaliate then by fulfilling our pre-1947 commitment to NWFP, and openly help the Baluchis and Sindhis to meet their legitimate aspirations. We could demand territory from Bangladesh for all those illegal Bangladeshis settled in India. After all, Partition was for those Muslims who could not bear to live with Hindus. Hence, the territory of Bangladesh should be reduced in proportion to millions of Bangladesis that have come to India and the Hindus pushed out since 1947. Strategically, northern one-third of Bangladesh cutting across from Khulna to Sylhet could then be annexed if Bangladesh goes to war with us.


Otherwise what is the alternative? Expect that our “sober” responses will be rewarded by our neighbours and their patrons ? We will be back to 1100 AD, by our suicidal credulity. We should not be ghouls for punishment from terrorists and their patrons. This is Kaliyug, and hence there is no room for sattvic responses to evil people. Hindu religion has a concept of apat dharma for such dire circumstances, and we should invoke it.


What then should be our measured retaliatory response to terrorist attacks, viz., our strategy to deter terrorists? It is argued by secular ‘liberals’ that no retaliation against terrorists can be effective because of the nature and character of terrorists.


What motivates the Islamic terrorists in India ? Many are advising us Hindus to deal with the root “cause” of terrorism rather than concentrating on eradicating terrorists by retaliation. And pray what is the root “cause”?


According bleeding heart liberals, terrorists are born or bred because of illiteracy, poverty, oppression, and discrimination. They argue that instead of eliminating them, the root cause of these four disabilities in society should be removed. Only then terrorism will disappear. Moreover they argue, terrorists cannot be deterred by force since they are irrational, willing to commit suicide, and have no ‘return address’. Before replying to this, let us understand that I have serious doubts about the integrity of these liberals, or more appropriately, these promiscuous intellectuals. They seek to deaden the emotive power of the individual and render him passive. A nation cannot survive for long with such a capitulationist mentality.


That is, more than the overt threat of the terrorists in India, the more sinister corrosion of our nation state occurs from within. This corrosion provides ‘a force multiplier’ to the terrorists. That is, the terrorists are able to leverage the influence of highly placed individuals in the government, media and academia, posing as liberals or human rights activists, who have been compromised by the terrorists and blackmailed on sex, drug money and illegitimate favours, into collaborating with them.


It is rubbish to say that terrorists who master-mind the attacks are poor. Osama Bin laden for example is a billionaire. Islamic terrorists are patronised by those states that have grown rich from oil revenues. In Britain, the terrorists arrested so far for the bombings are all well to do persons. Nor are terrorists uneducated. Most of terrorist leaders are doctors , chartered accountants, and teachers. Islamic terrorists certainly do not face discrimination and oppression in their own countries. In fact in these countries it is the non-Islamic religious minority which is discriminated and oppressed. In Kashmir valley, where Muslims are in majority, not only Article 370 of the Constitution provides privileges to the majority but it is the minority Hindus who have been slaughtered, or raped, and dispossessed. They have become refuges in squalid conditions in their own country. The gang of 9 persons which hijacked four planes on September 11, 2001 and flew them into the World Trade Towers in New York and other targets were certainly not discriminated or oppressed in the United States. Hence it utter rubbish to say that terror is the outcome of the poverty of terrorists.


It is also a ridiculous idea that terrorists cannot be deterred because they are irrational, willing to die, and have no ‘return address’. Terrorist master-minds have political goals and a method in their madness. An effective strategy to deter terrorism is therefore to defeat those political goals and to rubbish them by counter-terrorist action. How is that strategy to be structured ? In a brilliant research paper published by Robert Trager and Dessislava Zagorcheva this year [“Deterring Terrorism” International Security, vol. 30, No.3, Winter 2005/06, pp. 87-123] has provided the general principles to structure such a strategy.

Unusual CPM lobbying

It is unprecedented in the country’s democratic history that a political party interferes with the foreign policy and foreign direct investment issues. The Congress, the BJP or smaller regional formations have never pressurised their governments to support a particular country or a firm as blatantly as the CPM is doing today. And with every passing day this pressure is becoming increasingly audacious.


Take for instance the CPM stand on Chinese investments in 13 Indian ports. The other day party general secretary Prakash Karat asked the government to spell out the security considerations for blacklisting the Chinese companies wanting to invest in Indian ports. The Cabinet Committee on Security had earlier vetoed Chinese investments and management of Indian ports. The Chinese had plans to invest Rs 61,000 crore in 13 Indian ports. Security agencies rejected the Chinese initiative, pointing out that the Chinese Harbour Engineering Company was building a strategic port, Gwadar Deep Sea Port in Pakistan and it could pose a serious threat to India’s maritime security. The Intelligence Bureau, RAW and the defence ministry are unanimous that Chinese entry in the Indian Ocean is a serious national security threat.


The CPM’s latest intervention came as a sequel to the Chinese envoy in India Sun Yuxi’s allegation of unequal treatment for Chinese businessmen. The CPM leader echoing the Chinese envoy says, “What are these security considerations? We would like to know why this old mind-set. George Fernandes had called China enemy number one. I am sure the Congress does not think on these lines. Then why are Chinese companies being blacklisted?”


Since when has your party become a lobbying firm for foreign firms on FDI, comrade? Are you getting a cut for facilitating such clearances? In the hey-day of the Indo-Soviet friendship, it used to be the practice that for all transactions with that country the Indian communists got a dividend. Normally, responsible political parties keep a safe distance from such deals.


The Communist Party in India split on the question of a section’s support to China during the 1962 war with India and the CPM is made up of that faction. But the party all these years kept its Chinese patriotism behind a clever façade. But the power without responsibility status, the party has come to enjoy, has made it very brazen.


In a characteristic disdain for national sentiment, in another instance, the CPM central leadership asked the President of India to pardon terrorist Mohammad Afzal. They want the President to stop the death sentence from being carried out. The party’s J&K unit had earlier made a similar demand. A few months ago the party had demanded the release of the Coimbatore blast accused Madani after entering into a pact with the fanatic Muslim outfit PDP.


Similarly, the party wanted the centre to bend before Pervez Musharraf at Havana, and was hassling the Prime Minister for this. The CPM’s admiration for the Venezuelan leader is such that it wants India to canvass for that country’s Security Council seat. What does all this add up to? Has the CPM lost all sense of propriety? Or is it determined to cross all limits to project itself as the umbrella party of terrorists, ruffians, commission agents and India-bashers?


When it comes to China, CPM does not mind brokering deals. When it comes to conceding the country’s geographic boundaries, the CPM has no problems, if the beneficiaries are China, Pakistan or Bangladesh. Even a Supreme Court verdict can be set aside, if it will save the life of a Muslim terrorist, who attacked Indian Parliament, so goes the CPM argument. The party will plead for a UN Security Council membership for Hugo Chavez—after all he is good at abusing President Bush—even if that will undermine India’s chance for a seat in the UNSC. The party has no qualms in cohabiting with Hajis and namazis, bartering support for votes with SIMI, Jamaat-e-Islami or Madani’s PDP. But it will punish its minister for visiting a temple. It would blame Hindus for the spread of Islamic terrorism, and will even condemn the police for trying to search in Muslim localities, for the criminals of serial blasts in different parts of the country. It will promote special economic zones (SEZs) in West Bengal, but protest them in Congress and BJP-ruled states. Political hypocrisy cannot be more immodest. Treason has never been so couched in dialectical secular mask. Ideological double-speak never had such currency as now under the UPA regime.

Salva Judum experiment in Chhattisgarh

Salva Judum experiment in Chhattisgarh
Political offensive and ideological architecture
By Dr Parakala Prabhakar

The gruesome massacre of tribals in Chattisgarh is a typical Maoist retaliation. Anybody who is familiar with their tactics will not be surprised at the barbarity of the attack. The State as well as those who are out to destroy it have trained their guns against each other in the thick Bastar forests. The irony, however, is that on both the sides the arms are mounted on the shoulders of the simple and the credulous tribal.

The police term the tribal outfit Salva Judum as the people’s response to the left-wing extremist group. Military training and material is provided by the police to the tribal youth to fight the Maoists. The number of tribals fighting on the side of Maoists is put at about a thousand under the leadership of the wily plainsmen mostly from the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

The newly formed small State is now a testing ground both for the police as well as the extremists. Happenings in these jungles will have long term implications for both the combatants in the larger theatre. On the one hand the police will know whether it is politically and militarily sustainable to wage a proxy war against the Maoists by arming and training the local population. The extremists, on the other hand, will discover whether their strategy to bleed the Indian State white from a thousand cuts is practicable in the face of a determined and armed opposition from the local people.

For both the combatants, this is a new situation. The extremists so far could take the sympathy of the local populations for granted. Whether in tribal areas or in plains, in their fight against the State, the Maoists hitherto did not have to work hard to earn the goodwill of the locals. In fact, it was always the police that had to operate under the unsympathetic and at times hostile gaze of the local people. Even the few informants they had were available only for monetary rewards. From that dismal situation to a stage where large groups are motivated to bear arms is, indeed, a big leap for the forces of the State.

But is this situation sustainable there? And is it replicable elsewhere? These are the questions before the State. And can the locals who took arms against the Maoists be terrorised into submission by such inhuman acts is the question before the extremists. The nature and form of the future engagements between the State and its challenger will depend upon the outcome of their Chattisgarh experiment.

The Maoists are very clear about their objectives and the means they will adopt to achieve them. They have never minced words. Even before, during, and after the aborted peace talks with the AP government, they made it clear that the ceasefire was only a tactical move and a temporary phase in their march to seize power. They never swore by any values. Nor have they made themselves accountable to any norms in so far as their means are concerned. They conceded no room to the Constitution nor agreed to give up arms.

But what about our Establishment? Examine the kind of reaction whenever there is mindless bloodletting by the Maoists, like the one in Erraboru. Undoubtedly, there is an all round condemnation. But it is laced with an unstated yet noticeable endorsement of their self-proclaimed objectives. The Establishment voices ask, ‘Do these acts serve the poor’? As though it is alright if they do! Does the Establishment, in effect, concede that while the challenger’s ends are lofty, it is only his methods that are objectionable?

One of our distinguished leaders in the past said that the naxals were patriots; others declared that their agenda was the same as the Maoists’. Some others said that Maoists were misguided only about the means but their objectives were splendid. If these leaders really meant what they said, they are first rate subversives of their own creed. And if they didn’t, it is utter hypocrisy. It shows that they lack courage of conviction to stand up and be counted. Why is it that they can’t say that not only the extremists’ means but their ends too are despicable; and that the ends they espouse are against the grain of the Constitution and democratic values on which our civic life stands?

It is not merely a question of unacceptability of Maoist’s means. It is a fundamental clash between divergent world views and antithetical belief systems. Wherever the cohorts of our Maoists seized power, they turned those countries to open air prisons and pushed the populations to death, starvation, squalor and utter poverty. Doesn’t our Establishment remember the Soviet gulags, Siberian exiles, Stalinists murders, Cambodian Pol Pot, the Hungarian Caucescaeu, the Vietnamese Khmer Rouge, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution? The Establishment need not espouse its own values with guilt conscience and shame; and with a low ideological self-esteem. It doesn’t have to be unsure about its own moral superiority. Even the most fall guy of our Establishment is perhaps morally far superior to the ones who presided over those brutal dispensations.

Public discourse should, therefore, condemn not only the means of the Maoists. It should unsparingly interrogate their ends. Not only their means be fought politically, but the poison hidden in ends of their project should also be exposed. Without proper ideological architecture that supports this political offensive, any number of socio-economic measures will not win this war for the establishment. It is time that the Clauswitzian dictum that ‘war is a continuation of politics by other means’ is reversed. It is politics that should now be a continuation of war by other means. Only then can the cancer of extremism be excised from our body politic.

Was the Kaaba Originally a Hindu Temple? By P.N. Oak

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Was the Kaaba Originally a Hindu Temple? By P.N. Oak (Historian)
Glancing through some research material recently, I was pleasantly surprised to come across a reference to a king Vikramaditya inscription found in the Kaaba in Mecca proving beyond doubt that the Arabian Peninsula formed a part of his Indian Empire.The text of the crucial Vikramaditya inscription, found inscribed on a gold dish hung inside the Kaaba shrine in Mecca, is found recorded on page 315 of a volume known as ‘Sayar-ul-Okul’ treasured in the Makhtab-e-Sultania library in Istanbul, Turkey. Rendered in free English the inscription says:
"Fortunate are those who were born (and lived) during king Vikram’s reign. He was a noble, generous dutiful ruler, devoted to the welfare of his subjects. But at that time we Arabs, oblivious of God, were lost in sensual pleasures. Plotting and torture were rampant. The darkness of ignorance had enveloped our country. Like the lamb struggling for her life in the cruel paws of a wolf we Arabs were caught up in ignorance. The entire country was enveloped in a darkness so intense as on a new moon night. But the present dawn and pleasant sunshine of education is the result of the favour of the noble king Vikramaditya whose benevolent supervision did not lose sight of us- foreigners as we were. He spread his sacred religion amongst us and sent scholars whose brilliance shone like that of the sun from his country to ours. These scholars and preceptors through whose benevolence we were once again made cognisant of the presence of God, introduced to His sacred existence and put on the road of Truth, had come to our country to preach their religion and impart education at king Vikramaditya’s behest."
For those who would like to read the Arabic wording I reproduce it hereunder in Roman script:
"Itrashaphai Santu Ibikramatul Phahalameen Karimun Yartapheeha Wayosassaru Bihillahaya Samaini Ela Motakabberen Sihillaha Yuhee Quid min howa Yapakhara phajjal asari nahone osirom bayjayhalem. Yundan blabin Kajan blnaya khtoryaha sadunya kanateph netephi bejehalin Atadari bilamasa- rateen phakef tasabuhu kaunnieja majekaralhada walador. As hmiman burukankad toluho watastaru hihila Yakajibaymana balay kulk amarena phaneya jaunabilamary Bikramatum". (Page 315 Sayar-ul-okul). [Note: The title ‘Saya-ul-okul’ signifies memorable words.]
A careful analysis of the above inscription enables us to draw the following conclusions:
That the ancient Indian empires may have extended up to the eastern boundaries of Arabia until Vikramaditya and that it was he who for the first time conquered Arabia. Because the inscription says that king Vikram who dispelled the darkness of ignorance from Arabia.
1. That, whatever their earlier faith, King Vikrama’s preachers had succeeded in spreading the Vedic (based on the Vedas, the Hindu sacred scriptures)) way of life in Arabia.
2. That the knowledge of Indian arts and sciences was imparted by Indians to the Arabs directly by founding schools, academies and cultural centres. The belief, therefore, that visiting Arabs conveyed that knowledge to their own lands through their own indefatigable efforts and scholarship is unfounded.
An ancillary conclusion could be that the so-called Kutub Minar (in Delhi, India) could well be king Vikramadiya’s tower commemorating his conquest of Arabia. This conclusion is strengthened by two pointers. Firstly, the inscription on the iron pillar near the so-called Kutub Minar refers to the marriage of the victorious king Vikramaditya to the princess of Balhika. This Balhika is none other than the Balkh region in West Asia. It could be that Arabia was wrestled by king Vikramaditya from the ruler of Balkh who concluded a treaty by giving his daughter in marriage to the victor. Secondly, the township adjoining the so called Kutub Minar is named Mehrauli after Mihira who was the renowned astronomer-mathematician of king Vikram’s court. Mehrauli is the corrupt form of Sanskrit ‘Mihira-Awali’ signifying a row of houses raised for Mihira and his helpers and assistants working on astronomical observations made from the tower.Having seen the far reaching and history shaking implications of the Arabic inscription concerning king Vikrama, we shall now piece together the story of its find. How it came to be recorded and hung in the Kaaba in Mecca. What are the other proofs reinforcing the belief that Arabs were once followers of the Indian Vedic way of life and that tranquillity and education were ushered into Arabia by king Vikramaditya’s scholars, educationists from an uneasy period of "ignorance and turmoil" mentioned in the inscription.
In Istanbul, Turkey, there is a famous library called Makhatab-e-Sultania, which is reputed to have the largest collection of ancient West Asian literature. In the Arabic section of that library is an anthology of ancient Arabic poetry. That anthology was compiled from an earlier work in A.D. 1742 under the orders of the Turkish ruler Sultan Salim.
The pages of that volume are of Hareer – a kind of silk used for writing on. Each page has a decorative gilded border. That anthology is known as Sayar-ul-Okul. It is divided into three parts. The first part contains biographic details and the poetic compositions of pre-Islamic Arabian poets. The second part embodies accounts and verses of poets of the period beginning just after prophet Mohammad’s times, up to the end of the Banee-Um-Mayya dynasty. The third part deals with later poets up to the end of Khalif Harun-al-Rashid’s times.
Abu Amir Asamai, an Arabian bard who was the poet Laureate of Harun-al-Rashid’s court, has compiled and edited the anthology.
The first modern edition of ‘Sayar-ul-Okul’ was printed and published in Berlin in 1864. A subsequent edition is the one published in Beirut in 1932.
The collection is regarded as the most important and authoritative anthology of ancient Arabic poetry. It throws considerable light on the social life, customs, manners and entertainment modes of ancient Arabia. The book also contains an elaborate description of the ancient shrine of Mecca, the town and the annual fair known as OKAJ which used to be held every year around the Kaaba temple in Mecca. This should convince readers that the annual haj of the Muslims to the Kaaba is of earlier pre-Islamic congregation.
But the OKAJ fair was far from a carnival. It provided a forum for the elite and the learned to discuss the social, religious, political, literary and other aspects of the Vedic culture then pervading Arabia. ‘Sayar-ul-Okul’ asserts that the conclusion reached at those discussions were widely respected throughout Arabia. Mecca, therefore, followed the Varanasi tradition (of India) of providing a venue for important discussions among the learned while the masses congregated there for spiritual bliss. The principal shrines at both Varanasi in India and at Mecca in Arvasthan (Arabia) were Siva temples. Even to this day ancient Mahadev (Siva) emblems can be seen. It is the Shankara (Siva) stone that Muslim pilgrims reverently touch and kiss in the Kaaba.
Arabic tradition has lost trace of the founding of the Kaaba temple. The discovery of the Vikramaditya inscription affords a clue. King Vikramaditya is known for his great devotion to Lord Mahadev (Siva). At Ujjain (India), the capital of Vikramaditya, exists the famous shrine of Mahankal, i.e., of Lord Shankara (Siva) associated with Vikramaditya. Since according to the Vikramaditya inscription he spread the Vedic religion, who else but he could have founded the Kaaba temple in Mecca?
A few miles away from Mecca is a big signboard which bars the entry of any non-Muslim into the area. This is a reminder of the days when the Kaaba was stormed and captured solely for the newly established faith of Islam. The object in barring entry of non-Muslims was obviously to prevent its recapture.
As the pilgrim proceeds towards Mecca he is asked to shave his head and beard and to don special sacred attire that consists of two seamless sheets of white cloth. One is to be worn round the waist and the other over the shoulders. Both these rites are remnants of the old Vedic practice of entering Hindu temples clean- and with holy seamless white sheets.
The main shrine in Mecca, which houses the Siva emblem, is known as the Kaaba. It is clothed in a black shroud. That custom also originates from the days when it was thought necessary to discourage its recapture by camouflaging it.
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Kaaba has 360 images. Traditional accounts mention that one of the deities among the 360 destroyed when the place was stormed, was that of Saturn; another was of the Moon and yet another was one called Allah. That shows that in the Kaaba the Arabs worshipped the nine planets in pre-Islamic days. In India the practice of ‘Navagraha’ puja, that is worship of the nine planets, is still in vogue. Two of these nine are Saturn and Moon.
In India the crescent moon is always painted across the forehead of the Siva symbol. Since that symbol was associated with the Siva emblem in Kaaba it came to be grafted on the flag of Islam.
Another Hindu tradition associated with the Kaaba is that of the sacred stream Ganga (sacred waters of the Ganges river). According to the Hindu tradition Ganga is also inseparable from the Shiva emblem as the crescent moon. Wherever there is a Siva emblem, Ganga must co-exist. True to that association a sacred fount exists near the Kaaba. Its water is held sacred because it has been traditionally regarded as Ganga since pre-Islamic times (Zam-Zam water).
[Note: Even today, Muslim pilgrims who go to the Kaaba for Haj regard this Zam-Zam water with reverence and take some bottled water with them as sacred water.]
Muslim pilgrims visiting the Kaaba temple go around it seven times. In no other mosque does the circumambulation prevail. Hindus invariably circumambulate around their deities. This is yet another proof that the Kaaba shrine is a pre-Islamic Indian Shiva temple where the Hindu practice of circumambulation is still meticulously observed.
The practice of taking seven steps- known as Saptapadi in Sanskrit- is associated with Hindu marriage ceremony and fire worship. The culminating rite in a Hindu marriage enjoins upon the bride and groom to go round the sacred fire four times (but misunderstood by many as seven times). Since "Makha" means fire, the seven circumambulations also prove that Mecca was the seat of Indian fire-worship in the West Asia.
It might come as a stunning revelation to many that the word ‘ALLAH’ itself is Sanskrit. In Sanskrit language Allah, Akka and Amba are synonyms. They signify a goddess or mother. The term ‘ALLAH’ forms part of Sanskrit chants invoking goddess Durga, also known as Bhavani, Chandi and Mahishasurmardini. The Islamic word for God is., therefore, not an innovation but the ancient Sanskrit appellation retained and continued by Islam. Allah means mother or goddess and mother goddess.
One Koranic verse is an exact translation of a stanza in the Yajurveda. This was pointed out by the great research scholar Pandit Satavlekar of Pardi in one of his articles.
[Note: Another scholar points out that the following teaching from the Koran is exactly similar to the teaching of the Kena Upanishad (1.7).
The Koran:"Sight perceives Him not. But He perceives men's sights; for He is the knower of secrets , the Aware."
Kena Upanishad:"That which cannot be seen by the eye but through which the eye itself sees, know That to be Brahman (God) and not what people worship here (in the manifested world)."
A simplified meaning of both the above verses reads:
God is one and that He is beyond man's sensory experience.]
The identity of Unani and Ayurvedic systems shows that Unani is just the Arabic term for the Ayurvedic system of healing taught to them and administered in Arabia when Arabia formed part of the Indian empire.It will now be easy to comprehend the various Hindu customs still prevailing in West Asian countries even after the existence of Islam during the last 1300 years. Let us review some Hindu traditions which exist as the core of Islamic practice.
The Hindus have a pantheon of 33 gods. People in Asia Minor too worshipped 33 gods before the spread of Islam. The lunar calendar was introduced in West Asia during the Indian rule. The Muslim month ‘Safar’ signifying the ‘extra’ month (Adhik Maas) in the Hindu calendar. The Muslim month Rabi is the corrupt form of Ravi meaning the sun because Sanskrit ‘V’ changes into Prakrit ‘B’ (Prakrit being the popular version of Sanskrit language). The Muslim sanctity for Gyrahwi Sharif is nothing but the Hindu Ekadashi (Gyrah = elevan or Gyaarah). Both are identical in meaning.The Islamic practice of Bakari Eed derives from the Go-Medh and Ashva-Medh Yagnas or sacrifices of Vedic times. Eed in Sanskrit means worship. The Islamic word Eed for festive days, signifying days of worship, is therefore a pure Sanskrit word. The word MESH in the Hindu zodiac signifies a lamb. Since in ancient times the year used to begin with the entry of the sun in Aries, the occasion was celebrated with mutton feasting. That is the origin of the Bakari Eed festival.
[Note: The word Bakari is an Indian language word for a goat.]
Since Eed means worship and Griha means ‘house’, the Islamic word Idgah signifies a ‘House of worship’ which is the exact Sanskrit connotation of the term. Similarly the word ‘Namaz’ derives from two Sanskrit roots ‘Nama’ and ‘Yajna’ (NAMa yAJna) meaning bowing and worshipping.Vedic descriptions about the moon, the different stellar constellations and the creation of the universe have been incorporated from the Vedas in Koran part 1 chapter 2, stanza 113, 114, 115, and 158, 189, chapter 9, stanza 37 and chapter 10, stanzas 4 to 7.
Recital of the Namaz five times a day owes its origin to the Vedic injunction of Panchmahayagna (five daily worship- Panch-Maha-Yagna) which is part of the daily Vedic ritual prescribed for all individuals.Muslims are enjoined cleanliness of five parts of the body before commencing prayers. This derives from the Vedic injuction ‘Shareer Shydhyartham Panchanga Nyasah’.Four months of the year are regarded as very sacred in Islamic custom. The devout are enjoined to abstain from plunder and other evil deeds during that period. This originates in the Chaturmasa i.e., the four-month period of special vows and austerities in Hindu tradition. Shabibarat is the corrupt form of Shiva Vrat and Shiva Ratra. Since the Kaaba has been an important centre of Shiva (Siva) worship from times immemorial, the Shivaratri festival used to be celebrated there with great gusto. It is that festival which is signified by the Islamic word Shabibarat.Encyclopaedias tell us that there are inscriptions on the side of the Kaaba walls. What they are, no body has been allowed to study, according to the correspondence I had with an American scholar of Arabic. But according to hearsay at least some of those inscriptions are in Sanskrit, and some of them are stanzas from the Bhagavad Gita.
According to extant Islamic records, Indian merchants had settled in Arabia, particularly in Yemen, and their life and manners deeply influenced those who came in touch with them. At Ubla there was a large number of Indian settlements. This shows that Indians were in Arabia and Yemen in sufficient strength and commanding position to be able to influence the local people. This could not be possible unless they belonged to the ruling class.It is mentioned in the Abadis i.e., the authentic traditions of Prophet Mohammad compiled by Imam Bukhari that the Indian tribe of Jats had settled in Arabia before Prophet Mohammad’s times. Once when Hazrat Ayesha, wife of the Prophet, was taken ill, her nephew sent for a Jat physician for her treatment. This proves that Indians enjoyed a high and esteemed status in Arabia. Such a status could not be theirs unless they were the rulers. Bukhari also tells us that an Indian Raja (king) sent a jar of ginger pickles to the Prophet. This shows that the Indian Jat Raja ruled an adjacent area so as to be in a position to send such an insignificant present as ginger pickles. The Prophet is said to have so highly relished it as to have told his colleagues also to partake of it. These references show that even during Prophet Mohammad’s times Indians retained their influential role in Arabia, which was a dwindling legacy from Vikramaditya’s times.
The Islamic term ‘Eed-ul-Fitr’ derives from the ‘Eed of Piters’ that is worship of forefathers in Sanskrit tradition. In India, Hindus commemorate their ancestors during the Pitr-Paksha that is the fortnight reserved for their remembrance. The very same is the significance of ‘Eed-ul-Fitr’ (worship of forefathers).The Islamic practice of observing the moon rise before deciding on celebrating the occasion derives from the Hindu custom of breaking fast on Sankranti and Vinayaki Chaturthi only after sighting the moon.Barah Vafat, the Muslim festival for commemorating those dead in battle or by weapons, derives from a similar Sanskrit tradition because in Sanskrit ‘Phiphaut’ is ‘death’. Hindus observe Chayal Chaturdashi in memory of those who have died in battle.
The word Arabia is itself the abbreviation of a Sanskrit word. The original word is ‘Arabasthan’. Since Prakrit ‘B’ is Sanskrit ‘V’ the original Sanskrit name of the land is ‘Arvasthan’. ‘Arva’ in Sanskrit means a horse. Arvasthan signifies a land of horses., and as well all know, Arabia is famous for its horses.
This discovery changes the entire complexion of the history of ancient India. Firstly we may have to revise our concepts about the king who had the largest empire in history. It could be that the expanse of king Vikramaditya’s empire was greater than that of all others. Secondly, the idea that the Indian empire spread only to the east and not in the west beyond say, Afghanisthan may have to be abandoned. Thirdly the effeminate and pathetic belief that India, unlike any other country in the world could by some age spread her benign and beatific cultural influence, language, customs, manners and education over distant lands without militarily conquering them is baseless. India did conquer all those countries physically wherever traces of its culture and language are still extant and the region extended from Bali island in the south Pacific to the Baltic in Northern Europe and from Korea to Kaaba. The only difference was that while Indian rulers identified themselves with the local population and established welfare states, Moghuls and others who ruled conquered lands perpetuated untold atrocities over the vanquished.
‘Sayar-ul-Okul’ tells us that a pan-Arabic poetic symposium used to be held in Mecca at the annual Okaj fair in pre-Islamic times. All leading poets used to participate in it.
Poems considered best were awarded prizes. The best-engraved on gold plate were hung inside the temple. Others etched on camel or goatskin were hung outside. Thus for thousands of years the Kaaba was the treasure house of the best Arabian poetic thought inspired by the Indian Vedic tradition.
That tradition being of immemorial antiquity many poetic compositions were engraved and hung inside and outside on the walls of the Kaaba. But most of the poems got lost and destroyed during the storming of the Kaaba by Prophet Mohammad’s troops. The Prophet’s court poet, Hassan-bin-Sawik, who was among the invaders, captured some of the treasured poems and dumped the gold plate on which they were inscribed in his own home. Sawik’s grandson, hoping to earn a reward carried those gold plates to Khalif’s court where he met the well-known Arab scholar Abu Amir Asamai. The latter received from the bearer five gold plates and 16 leather sheets with the prize-winning poems engraved on them. The bearer was sent away happy bestowed with a good reward.On the five gold plates were inscribed verses by ancient Arab poets like Labi Baynay, Akhatab-bin-Turfa and Jarrham Bintoi. That discovery made Harun-al-Rashid order Abu Amir to compile a collection of all earlier compositions. One of the compositions in the collection is a tribute in verse paid by Jarrham Bintoi, a renowned Arab poet, to king Vikramaditya. Bintoi who lived 165 years before Prophet Mohammad had received the highest award for the best poetic compositions for three years in succession in the pan-Arabic symposiums held in Mecca every year. All those three poems of Bintoi adjudged best were hung inside the Kaaba temple, inscribed on gold plates. One of these constituted an unreserved tribute to King Vikramaditya for his paternal and filial rule over Arabia. That has already been quoted above.
Pre-Islamic Arabian poet Bintoi’s tribute to king Vikramaditya is a decisive evidence that it was king Vikramaditya who first conquered the Arabian Peninsula and made it a part of the Indian Empire. This explains why starting from India towards the west we have all Sanskrit names like Afghanisthan (now Afghanistan), Baluchisthan, Kurdisthan, Tajikiathan, Uzbekisthan, Iran, Sivisthan, Iraq, Arvasthan, Turkesthan (Turkmenisthan) etc.
Historians have blundered in not giving due weight to the evidence provided by Sanskrit names pervading over the entire west Asian region. Let us take a contemporary instance. Why did a part of India get named Nagaland even after the end of British rule over India? After all historical traces are wiped out of human memory, will a future age historian be wrong if he concludes from the name Nagaland that the British or some English speaking power must have ruled over India? Why is Portuguese spoken in Goa (part of India), and French in Pondichery (part of India), and both French and English in Canada? Is it not because those people ruled over the territories where their languages are spoken? Can we not then justly conclude that wherever traces of Sanskrit names and traditions exist Indians once held sway? It is unfortunate that this important piece of decisive evidence has been ignored all these centuries.
Another question which should have presented itself to historians for consideration is how could it be that Indian empires could extend in the east as far as Korea and Japan, while not being able to make headway beyond Afghanisthan? In fact land campaigns are much easier to conduct than by sea. It was the Indians who ruled the entire West Asian region from Karachi to Hedjaz and who gave Sanskrit names to those lands and the towns therein, introduce their pantheon of the fire-worship, imparted education and established law and order.
It may be that Arabia itself was not part of the Indian empire until king Vikrama , since Bintoi says that it was king Vikrama who for the first time brought about a radical change in the social, cultural and political life of Arabia. It may be that the whole of West Asia except Arabia was under Indian rule before Vikrama. The latter added Arabia too to the Indian Empire. Or as a remote possibility it could be that king Vikramaditya himself conducted a series of brilliant campaigns annexing to his empire the vast region between Afghanisthan and Hedjaz.
Incidentally this also explains why king Vikramaditya is so famous in history. Apart from the nobility and truthfulness of heart and his impartial filial affection for all his subjects, whether Indian or Arab, as testified by Bintoi, king Vikramaditya has been permanently enshrined in the pages of history because he was the world’s greatest ruler having the largest empire. It should be remembered that only a monarch with a vast empire gets famous in world history. Vikram Samvat (calendar still widely in use in India today) which he initiated over 2000 years ago may well mark his victory over Arabia, and the so called Kutub Minar (Kutub Tower in Delhi), a pillar commemorating that victory and the consequential marriage with the Vaihika (Balkh) princess as testified by the nearby iron pillar inscription.
A great many puzzles of ancient world history get automatically solved by a proper understanding of these great conquests of king Vikramaditya. As recorded by the Arab poet Bintoi, Indian scholars, preachers and social workers spread the fire-worship ceremony, preached the Vedic way of life, manned schools, set up Ayurvedic (healing) centres, trained the local people in irrigation and agriculture and established in those regions a democratic, orderly, peaceful, enlightened and religious way of life. That was of course, a Vedic Hindu way of life.
It is from such ancient times that Indian Kshtriya royal families, like the Pahalvis and Barmaks, have held sway over Iran and Iraq. It is those conquests, which made the Parsees Agnihotris i.e., fire-worshippers. It is therefore that we find the Kurds of Kurdisthan speaking a Sanskritised dialect, fire temples existing thousands of miles away from India, and scores of sites of ancient Indian cultural centres like Navbahar in West Asia and the numerous viharas in Soviet Russia spread throughout the world. Ever since so many viharas are often dug up in Soviet Russia, ancient Indian sculptures are also found in excavations in Central Asia. The same goes for West Asia.
[Note: Ancient Indian sculptures include metal statues of the Hindu deity Ganesh (the elephant headed god); the most recent find being in Kuwait].
Unfortunately these chapters of world history have been almost obliterated from public memory. They need to be carefully deciphered and rewritten. When these chapters are rewritten they might change the entire concept and orientation of ancient history.
In view of the overwhelming evidence led above, historians, scholars, students of history and lay men alike should take note that they had better revise their text books of ancient world history. The existence of Hindu customs, shrines, Sanskrit names of whole regions, countries and towns and the Vikramaditya inscriptions reproduced at the beginning are a thumping proof that Indian Kshatriyas once ruled over the vast region from Bali to Baltic and Korea to Kaaba in Mecca, Arabia at the very least.