What a timely and vital contribution on Roma (below). Congratulations to the esteemed writer for his knowledge and motivation.
We ask, "What kind of GOVERNMENT or PARLIAMENT do we have in PARTITIONED India that is only concerned with keeping the natives ignorant of their own "tribe" or family AT HOME and scattered far and wide, some due to previous INVASIONS as in the 11th century AD and some SINCE 1947 due to Partition and subsequent mismanagement, corruption and death or neglect of moral fibre and NATIVE religions of our nation as typified by Nehru's deletion of the word HINDU from his Constitution straight after CONCEDING Islam in our five provinces turned over to separatist ISLAM overnight, and later by arrogant rule by semi dictator Indira "Gandhi" (who married Feroze KHAN) and her notorious rootless son who brought a foreign female and became notorious as "BOFORS' Chor".
Among those badly or deliberately neglected and BETRAYED were the happy and peaceful Buddhists of Chittagong, Skardu, Baltistan and Gilgit and the Hindus of North & even South Kashmir, East Bengal and Sindh, and the prosperous INDIAN settlements in Uganda, Fiji and Northern Sri Lanka as well all the Shinti and Roma, the lost children of Bharatvarsha.
While Bharat was the lucrative target for all the PREDATORS from the Middle East and the Europeans until 1947 the country that was partitioned with more Muslims left inside than driven outside, has been virtually suffocating under ONE dynasty since. We see the power and might of Italian born Catholic Sonia "Gandhi" and even her offspring Priyenka and Rahul who are provided security at the expense of poor tax payers as if they were royalty.
Among the tragic victims of this neglect are the Roma and Shinti. A nationalist, and truly patriotic, Government would have taken stock of situation and created a special Ministry for recovery and consolidation of our lost and wasted assets.
There appears to be a sham of an office in Chandigarh that is supposed to be responsible for gypsies but its role has not been appreciated or even understood. Just recall the last international Roma Conference held there over a decade ago and see who was the "man from government"? Did he have a clue to the history of western India where repeated invasions drove the whole population away?
As long as the Hindu nation does not take stock of its own affairs and as long as the Hindu nation does not grasp the implications of partition of 1947 and snatch its destiny from dynasty, India will develop in a lopsided manner. We shall certainly go on admiring those big countries like China and small countries like Czech Republic and Lithuania where national affairs are firmly in the hands of natives.
There is NO sign of the likes of Khans of Boollywood there who mesmerise the nation, nor a prime minister's son or daughter becoming the prime minister. With regard to latter, let us see the gruelling dual between Obama and Hillary in the USA. How tenaciously are they FIGHTING for their own nomination. Had it been our own Bharatvarsha, Clinton's wife Hillary would have AUTOMATICALLY become the President after her husband.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Black money India top the list
Black Money In Swiss Bank ~ Swiss Banking Association report 2006
by Naman Sood on Apr 15, 2008 01:44 PM
Deposits in Banks located in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries
Top 5 India---- $1456 billion
Russia----- $470 billion
UK-------- $390 billion
Ukraine $100 billion
China------ $96 billion
Now do the math India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks
than rest of the world COMBINED.
Public loot since 1947: Let us bring back our money
M R Venkatesh April 15, 2008 09:34 IST
It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind -- the loot of the aam aadmi (common man) since 1947 by his brethren occupying public office.
It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen.
The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear.
What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world's best known tax havens.
And to that extent the Indian economy has been striped of its wealth.
Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens.
However, one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones.
In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries.
By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich.
In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe.
The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens.
Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker -- in his widely celebrated book titled Capitalism's Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System -- estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970s. It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world's population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens. How much of this is from India is anybody's guess. What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means. Naturally the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term 'tax havens' suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts?
by Naman Sood on Apr 15, 2008 01:44 PM
Deposits in Banks located in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries
Top 5 India---- $1456 billion
Russia----- $470 billion
UK-------- $390 billion
Ukraine $100 billion
China------ $96 billion
Now do the math India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks
than rest of the world COMBINED.
Public loot since 1947: Let us bring back our money
M R Venkatesh April 15, 2008 09:34 IST
It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind -- the loot of the aam aadmi (common man) since 1947 by his brethren occupying public office.
It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen.
The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear.
What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world's best known tax havens.
And to that extent the Indian economy has been striped of its wealth.
Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens.
However, one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones.
In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries.
By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich.
In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe.
The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens.
Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker -- in his widely celebrated book titled Capitalism's Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System -- estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970s. It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world's population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens. How much of this is from India is anybody's guess. What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means. Naturally the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term 'tax havens' suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts?
why Hindus lost
Think it overWas caste a decisive factor in India’s defeat?By M.S.N. Menon
No, I do not think so, Why? Because the caste system was not so oppressive as is being made out. Let us see what A.L. Basham has to say on the matter. He says: “In no other part of the world were the relations of man and man and of a man and the state as fair and humane” as in India. (The wonder that was India). He was perhaps comparing the lot of the Scheduled Castes in India with the lot of the slaves in Greece and Rome. It is, therefore, wrong to say that the caste system was responsible for the defeat of the Hindus at the hands of the Muslim invaders. There is no evidence that the Scheduled Castes were ready to join hands with the invaders against their so-called “tormentors”. It is also wrong to say that Vaishyas and Shudras did not take part in battles. They did. Vastupala, the great warrior under the Chalukya king Lavanaprasada, declares with great pride: “It is a delusion to think that the Kshatriyas alone can fight and not vaniks (merchants). Did not Ambada, a vanik kill Mallikarjuna, the warrior, in battle? I, a vanik, am as well known in the shops as in the battlefield.” (Art of War in Ancient India by Prof. P.C. Chakravarty) The Kashmiri and Hoyasala (Mysore) kings recruited Shudras for their armies. Shudras could attain imperial positions under the Rajput rulers. The ruler of Sind during the visit of Juan Chwang, the Chinese pilgrim, was a Shudra. The Nandas were Shudras. And in order to protect Hinduism and the Hindu society, Shankara created ten Saiva acetic orders, made up largely of Shudra recruits. He also freed these para-military forces from the caste system. What can we infer from all these? We can infer that the Vaishyas and Shudras had not accepted the caste system, that they were as good fighters as the Kshatriyas, that the kings had no objection to the recruitment of Shudras as soldiers, that Shankara did not believe in the caste system, that the orders he created had no caste. Not only these. The lower orders of Hindu society could hold high positions in the state. Thus, Kumarapala, the Chalukya king, appointed Sajjana as governor of Chittor, He was a potter. It is such recognition of their worth that kept the Shudras within the Hindu fold. Jawaharlal Nehru said that the caste system was flexible before the Muslim advent, which is why it was bearable. There is an impression that the caste system was deeply entrenched all over India. Not true. It was prevalent only in some parts of the country. Thus, it had no deep roots in the South, in Sind, Magadha and Anga. In Kerala, the entire army was made up of the so-called Shudras. The Himalayan territory was mlecha region. The ultimate damage of the caste system, says Nehru, was what it did to the self -respect of the lower orders of Hindu society. It degraded a mass of human beings and gave them no opportunity to get out of their predicament. This feeling of degradation might have warped their outlook and their willingness to fight for their country. But we can only speculate on these matters. It is time to ask the question: did caste cause our defeat? I believe caste was only a marginal factor. It was not for want of brave men that the Hindus got defeated. It was not even because the Muslims were superior. It was because, for the first time, the Hindus, a highly civilised people were facing a barbarous enemy who had no rules of war and were prepared to take to unheard of brutalities. Thus, we have Haajaj, the governor of Iraq, exhorting bin Qasim to follow the injunction of Allah in the Quran (47.4) that is to strike off the head of any infidel. No wonder, when Debal, capital of Sind, fell to bin Qasim, he ordered the massacre of the entire population. The killing went on for three full days. And the loot went on for even longer. Serge Trifkovic writes (The Sword of the Prophet): “The massacres perpetrated by Muslims in India are without parallel in history.” This is confirmed by Ziyauddin Burani, a contemporary of Khusrau. He says that “wars against Hindus were not ordinary wars. They were massacres of extermination.” There are many such instances. Amir Khusrau writes: Had not the Shariah granted exemption from death by payment of the poll tax (Jaziya), “the very name of Hind, root and brach, would have been extinguished.” And Al-Biruni himself writes that the invasions of Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country. “The Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions.” The invaders singled out the Rajputs and their families for massacre. This must have demoralised the Rajputs. Remember, dear Reader, during the Second World War, the Japanese, surrendered to the Allies, although they were far more superior to the American men. Why did they do it? Because the ruthless Americans were ready to exterminate the Japanese. The Hindus were in a similar plight. They were face to face with an enemy who observed no rules of war, who were determined to exterminate the Hindus. Resistance would have brought extermination. I think it was this dilemma which forced the collapse of the Hindu resistance. Not because of caste factors. (But I am not making any “final statement”)
No, I do not think so, Why? Because the caste system was not so oppressive as is being made out. Let us see what A.L. Basham has to say on the matter. He says: “In no other part of the world were the relations of man and man and of a man and the state as fair and humane” as in India. (The wonder that was India). He was perhaps comparing the lot of the Scheduled Castes in India with the lot of the slaves in Greece and Rome. It is, therefore, wrong to say that the caste system was responsible for the defeat of the Hindus at the hands of the Muslim invaders. There is no evidence that the Scheduled Castes were ready to join hands with the invaders against their so-called “tormentors”. It is also wrong to say that Vaishyas and Shudras did not take part in battles. They did. Vastupala, the great warrior under the Chalukya king Lavanaprasada, declares with great pride: “It is a delusion to think that the Kshatriyas alone can fight and not vaniks (merchants). Did not Ambada, a vanik kill Mallikarjuna, the warrior, in battle? I, a vanik, am as well known in the shops as in the battlefield.” (Art of War in Ancient India by Prof. P.C. Chakravarty) The Kashmiri and Hoyasala (Mysore) kings recruited Shudras for their armies. Shudras could attain imperial positions under the Rajput rulers. The ruler of Sind during the visit of Juan Chwang, the Chinese pilgrim, was a Shudra. The Nandas were Shudras. And in order to protect Hinduism and the Hindu society, Shankara created ten Saiva acetic orders, made up largely of Shudra recruits. He also freed these para-military forces from the caste system. What can we infer from all these? We can infer that the Vaishyas and Shudras had not accepted the caste system, that they were as good fighters as the Kshatriyas, that the kings had no objection to the recruitment of Shudras as soldiers, that Shankara did not believe in the caste system, that the orders he created had no caste. Not only these. The lower orders of Hindu society could hold high positions in the state. Thus, Kumarapala, the Chalukya king, appointed Sajjana as governor of Chittor, He was a potter. It is such recognition of their worth that kept the Shudras within the Hindu fold. Jawaharlal Nehru said that the caste system was flexible before the Muslim advent, which is why it was bearable. There is an impression that the caste system was deeply entrenched all over India. Not true. It was prevalent only in some parts of the country. Thus, it had no deep roots in the South, in Sind, Magadha and Anga. In Kerala, the entire army was made up of the so-called Shudras. The Himalayan territory was mlecha region. The ultimate damage of the caste system, says Nehru, was what it did to the self -respect of the lower orders of Hindu society. It degraded a mass of human beings and gave them no opportunity to get out of their predicament. This feeling of degradation might have warped their outlook and their willingness to fight for their country. But we can only speculate on these matters. It is time to ask the question: did caste cause our defeat? I believe caste was only a marginal factor. It was not for want of brave men that the Hindus got defeated. It was not even because the Muslims were superior. It was because, for the first time, the Hindus, a highly civilised people were facing a barbarous enemy who had no rules of war and were prepared to take to unheard of brutalities. Thus, we have Haajaj, the governor of Iraq, exhorting bin Qasim to follow the injunction of Allah in the Quran (47.4) that is to strike off the head of any infidel. No wonder, when Debal, capital of Sind, fell to bin Qasim, he ordered the massacre of the entire population. The killing went on for three full days. And the loot went on for even longer. Serge Trifkovic writes (The Sword of the Prophet): “The massacres perpetrated by Muslims in India are without parallel in history.” This is confirmed by Ziyauddin Burani, a contemporary of Khusrau. He says that “wars against Hindus were not ordinary wars. They were massacres of extermination.” There are many such instances. Amir Khusrau writes: Had not the Shariah granted exemption from death by payment of the poll tax (Jaziya), “the very name of Hind, root and brach, would have been extinguished.” And Al-Biruni himself writes that the invasions of Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country. “The Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions.” The invaders singled out the Rajputs and their families for massacre. This must have demoralised the Rajputs. Remember, dear Reader, during the Second World War, the Japanese, surrendered to the Allies, although they were far more superior to the American men. Why did they do it? Because the ruthless Americans were ready to exterminate the Japanese. The Hindus were in a similar plight. They were face to face with an enemy who observed no rules of war, who were determined to exterminate the Hindus. Resistance would have brought extermination. I think it was this dilemma which forced the collapse of the Hindu resistance. Not because of caste factors. (But I am not making any “final statement”)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Invason of India
Daily demographic invasion of IndiaBy J.G. Arora
Tragically, the Indian government, mainstream media and all major political parties are silent spectators when Bharat is being grabbed bit by bit by Pak-Bangla terrorists and infiltrators everyday. Despite the Supreme Court’s judgments, no infiltrator has been deported by the government. Rather, the government is busy with terrorist and infiltrator-friendly ‘confidence building measures’ like soft borders, peace talks, Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangladesh bus and rail links, which are bringing more and more Pak-Bangla nationals into India everyday. And instead of being deported, infiltrators are being given voting rights.
According to Barbara W. Tuchman, American historian and author of The March of Folly, “disasters of history are the result of government’s folly and perverse persistence in pursuing the policies contrary to national interests.” Indian government’s persistent inaction against demographic invasion by crores of Pak-Bangla infiltrators is generating a historical disaster since the said invasion aims to dismember India and plant more Pakistans and Bangladeshs on Indian soil. Bharat Varsha comprising the present day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan etc. used to be Hindu land with zero Muslim population till Muhammad bin Qasim’s Arab army attacked Sindh in 711. Despite fighting valiantly to defend their dharma and motherland during repeated Muslim invasions for over a thousand years, Hindus lost Afghanistan in 987, and present day Pakistan and Bangladesh to Muslims in 1947. After 1947, truncated India i.e. Bharat has seen genocide and eviction of Hindus from Muslim majority Kashmir. Many Hindus apprehend that because of higher Muslim growth rate and infiltration from Pakistan and Bangladesh, they in India too will be outnumbered by Muslims in a few decades, and face the misery undergone by Hindus in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which also used to be Hindu lands. Pak-Bangla axis To prevent plantation of more Pakistans and Bangladeshs on Indian soil, one must know how Pakistan and Bangladesh were created. After overthrow of Muslim rule, India was under the British from 1857 to 1947. Formed in 1906, Muslim League demanded Pakistan in 1940 with Muhammad Ali Jinnah proclaiming that Hindus and Muslims belonged to two different religions, civilisations and nations which could never live together in one country; and demanding Pakistan, a separate country for Muslims, comprising Muslim majority areas in India. In 1945-46 elections, Muslims voted for creation of Pakistan. In 1947, the Muslims got a third of Bharat’s land as Pakistan. In 1971, East Pakistan became Bangladesh while West Pakistan was renamed as Pakistan. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh are Islamic Republics and have driven out most of Hindus and Sikhs from their land. However, most of Indian Muslims who had demanded Pakistan and exchange of population did not go to Pakistan. Rather, the present percentage of Muslim population in India is much higher than that in 1947. Pakistani army, which is ideologically anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat, actually rules Pakistan and nurtures terrorism. In their bid to dismember and bleed India through “a thousand cuts”, Pakistan and Bangladesh have sent countless terrorists and crores of their nationals into India. At present, Hindu civilisation is a demographically challenged civilisation. Because of infiltration, many districts in India bordering Bangladesh have seen abnormal increase in Muslim population. In 1996 itself, Shri T.V. Rajeshwar, former Intelligence Bureau Chief (and the present U.P. Governor) had warned about emergence of one more Islamic country because of Bangladeshi infiltration. In 1998, Shri S.K. Sinha, the then Governor of Assam, also sounded similar caution. Warnings of Shri T.V. Rajeshwar and Shri S.K. Sinha have been fortified by census of 2001. Pak-Bangla infiltrators are entering India through many points on India’s soft borders everyday. With each passing day, India is being made more Islamic and less Hindu. No action on Supreme Court’s judgments AASU leader Sarbanand Sonowal took the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration to the Supreme Court. By its judgment dated July 12, 2005, Supreme Court struck down the Illegal Migrants (D.T.) Act, 1983 as unconstitutional; and termed Bangladeshi infiltration as “external aggression” and directed that “Bangladeshi nationals who have trespassed into Assam or are living in other parts of the country have no legal right of any kind to remain in India and they are liable to be deported.” Shockingly, instead of deporting the infiltrators, on Februaty 10, 2006, UPA government brought in the Foreigners (Tribunals for Assam) Order to nullify the apex Court’s judgment. But on December 5, 2006, Supreme Court quashed this Order also as unconstitutional, and called for implementation of its earlier judgment dated July 12, 2005 for deporting illegal immigrants. Despite the Supreme Court’s above-mentioned judgments, no infiltrator has been deported by the government. Rather, the government is busy with terrorist and infiltrator-friendly ‘confidence building measures’ like soft borders, peace talks, Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangladesh bus and rail links, which are bringing more and more Pak-Bangla nationals into India everyday. And instead of being deported, infiltrators are being given voting rights. Tragically, the Indian government, mainstream media and all major political parties are silent spectators when Bharat is being grabbed bit by bit by Pak-Bangla terrorists and infiltrators everyday. Way out After bravely fighting foreign invaders for over 1,200 years, Bharat has meekly surrendered before Pak-Bangla demographic invasion. We must do everything to save Bharat and its heritage for the coming generations the way our ancestors saved the same for us. Since we cannot expect others to fight our battles, all nationalist organisations and individuals must assert themselves to force the government to act as follows to prevent the creation of more Pakistans and Bangladeshs on Bharat’s land.
i. The Supreme Court’s judgments dated July 12, 2005 and December 5, 2006 must be implemented to deport the infiltrators and curb their daily influx. Infiltrators must be treated as invaders, and not as vote banks.
ii. Since ‘confidence building measures’ with Pakistan and Bangladesh are suicidal for Bharat, all Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangla road and rail journeys, cultural and sports relations, and peace talks must be discontinued.
iii. India must protect its borders to prevent aggressors from entering India.
iv. Enemies must be crushed; not embraced. History teaches the crushing of enemies before the enemies crush us.
v. Terrorist network in Pakistan and Bangladesh must be smashed to take the war into enemy territory.
vi. Any move to form a confederation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh must be rejected since such a step would help Islamisation of India.I had started this write-up with Barbara W. Tuchman’s observation. How I wish Indian government safeguards India’s national interests and takes the above-mentioned steps with alacrity to prevent the creation of more Pakistans and Bangladeshs on Indian soil! (The author is former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax and can be
Tragically, the Indian government, mainstream media and all major political parties are silent spectators when Bharat is being grabbed bit by bit by Pak-Bangla terrorists and infiltrators everyday. Despite the Supreme Court’s judgments, no infiltrator has been deported by the government. Rather, the government is busy with terrorist and infiltrator-friendly ‘confidence building measures’ like soft borders, peace talks, Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangladesh bus and rail links, which are bringing more and more Pak-Bangla nationals into India everyday. And instead of being deported, infiltrators are being given voting rights.
According to Barbara W. Tuchman, American historian and author of The March of Folly, “disasters of history are the result of government’s folly and perverse persistence in pursuing the policies contrary to national interests.” Indian government’s persistent inaction against demographic invasion by crores of Pak-Bangla infiltrators is generating a historical disaster since the said invasion aims to dismember India and plant more Pakistans and Bangladeshs on Indian soil. Bharat Varsha comprising the present day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan etc. used to be Hindu land with zero Muslim population till Muhammad bin Qasim’s Arab army attacked Sindh in 711. Despite fighting valiantly to defend their dharma and motherland during repeated Muslim invasions for over a thousand years, Hindus lost Afghanistan in 987, and present day Pakistan and Bangladesh to Muslims in 1947. After 1947, truncated India i.e. Bharat has seen genocide and eviction of Hindus from Muslim majority Kashmir. Many Hindus apprehend that because of higher Muslim growth rate and infiltration from Pakistan and Bangladesh, they in India too will be outnumbered by Muslims in a few decades, and face the misery undergone by Hindus in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which also used to be Hindu lands. Pak-Bangla axis To prevent plantation of more Pakistans and Bangladeshs on Indian soil, one must know how Pakistan and Bangladesh were created. After overthrow of Muslim rule, India was under the British from 1857 to 1947. Formed in 1906, Muslim League demanded Pakistan in 1940 with Muhammad Ali Jinnah proclaiming that Hindus and Muslims belonged to two different religions, civilisations and nations which could never live together in one country; and demanding Pakistan, a separate country for Muslims, comprising Muslim majority areas in India. In 1945-46 elections, Muslims voted for creation of Pakistan. In 1947, the Muslims got a third of Bharat’s land as Pakistan. In 1971, East Pakistan became Bangladesh while West Pakistan was renamed as Pakistan. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh are Islamic Republics and have driven out most of Hindus and Sikhs from their land. However, most of Indian Muslims who had demanded Pakistan and exchange of population did not go to Pakistan. Rather, the present percentage of Muslim population in India is much higher than that in 1947. Pakistani army, which is ideologically anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat, actually rules Pakistan and nurtures terrorism. In their bid to dismember and bleed India through “a thousand cuts”, Pakistan and Bangladesh have sent countless terrorists and crores of their nationals into India. At present, Hindu civilisation is a demographically challenged civilisation. Because of infiltration, many districts in India bordering Bangladesh have seen abnormal increase in Muslim population. In 1996 itself, Shri T.V. Rajeshwar, former Intelligence Bureau Chief (and the present U.P. Governor) had warned about emergence of one more Islamic country because of Bangladeshi infiltration. In 1998, Shri S.K. Sinha, the then Governor of Assam, also sounded similar caution. Warnings of Shri T.V. Rajeshwar and Shri S.K. Sinha have been fortified by census of 2001. Pak-Bangla infiltrators are entering India through many points on India’s soft borders everyday. With each passing day, India is being made more Islamic and less Hindu. No action on Supreme Court’s judgments AASU leader Sarbanand Sonowal took the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration to the Supreme Court. By its judgment dated July 12, 2005, Supreme Court struck down the Illegal Migrants (D.T.) Act, 1983 as unconstitutional; and termed Bangladeshi infiltration as “external aggression” and directed that “Bangladeshi nationals who have trespassed into Assam or are living in other parts of the country have no legal right of any kind to remain in India and they are liable to be deported.” Shockingly, instead of deporting the infiltrators, on Februaty 10, 2006, UPA government brought in the Foreigners (Tribunals for Assam) Order to nullify the apex Court’s judgment. But on December 5, 2006, Supreme Court quashed this Order also as unconstitutional, and called for implementation of its earlier judgment dated July 12, 2005 for deporting illegal immigrants. Despite the Supreme Court’s above-mentioned judgments, no infiltrator has been deported by the government. Rather, the government is busy with terrorist and infiltrator-friendly ‘confidence building measures’ like soft borders, peace talks, Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangladesh bus and rail links, which are bringing more and more Pak-Bangla nationals into India everyday. And instead of being deported, infiltrators are being given voting rights. Tragically, the Indian government, mainstream media and all major political parties are silent spectators when Bharat is being grabbed bit by bit by Pak-Bangla terrorists and infiltrators everyday. Way out After bravely fighting foreign invaders for over 1,200 years, Bharat has meekly surrendered before Pak-Bangla demographic invasion. We must do everything to save Bharat and its heritage for the coming generations the way our ancestors saved the same for us. Since we cannot expect others to fight our battles, all nationalist organisations and individuals must assert themselves to force the government to act as follows to prevent the creation of more Pakistans and Bangladeshs on Bharat’s land.
i. The Supreme Court’s judgments dated July 12, 2005 and December 5, 2006 must be implemented to deport the infiltrators and curb their daily influx. Infiltrators must be treated as invaders, and not as vote banks.
ii. Since ‘confidence building measures’ with Pakistan and Bangladesh are suicidal for Bharat, all Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangla road and rail journeys, cultural and sports relations, and peace talks must be discontinued.
iii. India must protect its borders to prevent aggressors from entering India.
iv. Enemies must be crushed; not embraced. History teaches the crushing of enemies before the enemies crush us.
v. Terrorist network in Pakistan and Bangladesh must be smashed to take the war into enemy territory.
vi. Any move to form a confederation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh must be rejected since such a step would help Islamisation of India.I had started this write-up with Barbara W. Tuchman’s observation. How I wish Indian government safeguards India’s national interests and takes the above-mentioned steps with alacrity to prevent the creation of more Pakistans and Bangladeshs on Indian soil! (The author is former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax and can be
Indianness
ESSENCE OF INDIANISMBy Deepak Dasgupta
We, the Indians should convey the message to the world that we can convert this fighting world into a peaceful living abode. Rabindra Nath Tagore dreamt and foresaw that India will lead the world. We must wait to see the day when India will lead the world and we are sure that the day will come soon.
Indianism is a feeling of being an Indian. Irrespective of caste, creed or religion, when we feel ourselves to be the members of a single family, we feel oneness and that is Indianism. It is also part of national integration. Even those who live abroad claim that they are Indians and mainly they claim themselves as Hindu. But what qualities they should have to prove their claim? Let us discuss those factors: In India, there is unity in diversity.
There are people whose languages are different, wear dresses differently, eat with various food habits and above all, living style is also different, but all of them feel and think alike and are proud of being Indian. Even the Non-Resident-Indians (NRI) staying all around the world are proud of being Indian origin. Sometimes when they come to India or come across the people from India or gather in any Indian festival, fair, seminar or assembly, they feel like an Indian. It has been noticed that during their social rituals like marriage, upanayan (sacred thread ceremony) and sradh (post death ceremony), they want that every step be performed according to the Vedic rituals. This means, whether they stay elsewhere scattered around the world, they have not lost their identity as being Indian. We appreciate and salute them. If we want to measure the openness and broadness in Indianism, it is no doubt unparallel. About the word ‘Hindu’, it is defined as Hinan Dushayati iti Hindu, which means that the virtue by means of which the heinous or mental lowness of a person is refined to purity is called Hindu. So, by the word Indianism, it also includes Hindu culture. India is not only a geographically bounded land, it is an idea. Our seers and saints have pronounced, “Ayam nija parovti ganana laghu chetasam, Udaracharitanam tu Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, which means ‘low minded people think that this is mine, that is of yours, but broad minded people always say that people of whole the universe are our kith and kin, our own relatives and everything on this earth is for our mutual benefit. It is also quoted, “Bhrataro manuja sarve, swadesho bhubanatrayam.” This means, all human beings are my brothers and sisters and the universe is my own country. Here we find the extent of feeling oneness with the universal traits. During tarpan, (a ritual by means of which we offer our respect or tribute to our forefathers) we pray to the almighty with the mantra, “Abrahma stamba paryantang Jagat tripyantu.” This means, let all the souls from the biggest to the smallest creations of the universe be free from any bondage, let them get salvation of body, mind and soul. Here, not only we pray for our forefathers but we also pray for all souls. This reveals the extent of broadness of our morality. In Srimad Bhagavad Gita (Ch.V, Sloka 18) Lord Krishna says that to a truly learned person, there is no difference among an educated humble Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a low profile shudra. Our saints, sages and mahatmas have taught us to think for all, to share their well and woe and pray to God to root out their sorrows and to work for all to bring prosperity in their lives. Kaamaey dookhya taptanang praninam arti nasanam,” which means that I don’t want the happiness of being a king of a kingdom, nor the heaven, nor the boon of complete salvation, but I pray for wiping out the sufferings of the poor and the destitute beings. This reveals that a truly devotee of God can not desire for earthly or heavenly happiness, even he refuses the desire of complete salvation or mokhsa or freedom from the cycle of rebirth, but he prays for all and desires that the sufferings of the multitudes be rooted out. Lord Gautam Buddha refused his kingship and preferred to work for the cause of the sufferings of all. From the above quoted versions, I have just tried to establish the truth that in Indianism there is no scope of hatred against anybody. We fight on the streets with each other or in the communities between men to men to get minor interests but we should not forget that we are the descendents of the eternal souls or Amritasya putrah. We should not act or behave in any such manner that the credit of being born as the supreme creation in the universe goes in vain. Man is supreme of all creations in this mortal world. We are born with the theological and theosophical brain and with an eternal soul. We only have the capacity to understand the difference between good and bad, between just and unjust, between right and wrong. We, the Indians should convey the message to the world that we can convert this fighting world into a peaceful living abode. Rabindra Nath Tagore dreamt and foresaw that India will lead the world. We must wait to see the day when India will lead the world and we are sure that the day will come soon. The thought of Mahatma Gandhi, which is based on Gita, has already spread all over the world. He has become a symbol of liberation in the world. He advocated not only to get rid of foreign rule but also to get rid of economic disparity between rich and the poor and administered mantra of social reforms. He taught us to win with truth over falsehood. He has become the symbol of Indianism. He sits above all international barriers showing the path of liberation to all at large. Once, when the Europeans and Americans were rushing to send missionaries to India to civilise our people and to transform them by religious conversion, Swami Vivekananda opposed this foreign idea and stopped their move by saying, “Don’t send missionaries to India, rather, send machineries to India.” At that time India was weak in technology, so we required its development and machine could do that. But from very olden days, India is rich in spiritual and philosophical thoughts and it is the seat of high moral values. At present, India is passing through a traumatic stage to identify its identity. All the people of the world should know about our identity. We should not forget that we are the Amritasya Putrah or the children of the eternal soul. Whether an Indian residing in India or abroad, whether he or she is of Indian origin, it is immaterial but who believes in Indian thought or culture will think about the above guidelines and will live life accordingly. (The writer can be contacted at 16/23 W.E.A 1st Floor, Karol Bagh, New Delhi-110 005.)
We, the Indians should convey the message to the world that we can convert this fighting world into a peaceful living abode. Rabindra Nath Tagore dreamt and foresaw that India will lead the world. We must wait to see the day when India will lead the world and we are sure that the day will come soon.
Indianism is a feeling of being an Indian. Irrespective of caste, creed or religion, when we feel ourselves to be the members of a single family, we feel oneness and that is Indianism. It is also part of national integration. Even those who live abroad claim that they are Indians and mainly they claim themselves as Hindu. But what qualities they should have to prove their claim? Let us discuss those factors: In India, there is unity in diversity.
There are people whose languages are different, wear dresses differently, eat with various food habits and above all, living style is also different, but all of them feel and think alike and are proud of being Indian. Even the Non-Resident-Indians (NRI) staying all around the world are proud of being Indian origin. Sometimes when they come to India or come across the people from India or gather in any Indian festival, fair, seminar or assembly, they feel like an Indian. It has been noticed that during their social rituals like marriage, upanayan (sacred thread ceremony) and sradh (post death ceremony), they want that every step be performed according to the Vedic rituals. This means, whether they stay elsewhere scattered around the world, they have not lost their identity as being Indian. We appreciate and salute them. If we want to measure the openness and broadness in Indianism, it is no doubt unparallel. About the word ‘Hindu’, it is defined as Hinan Dushayati iti Hindu, which means that the virtue by means of which the heinous or mental lowness of a person is refined to purity is called Hindu. So, by the word Indianism, it also includes Hindu culture. India is not only a geographically bounded land, it is an idea. Our seers and saints have pronounced, “Ayam nija parovti ganana laghu chetasam, Udaracharitanam tu Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, which means ‘low minded people think that this is mine, that is of yours, but broad minded people always say that people of whole the universe are our kith and kin, our own relatives and everything on this earth is for our mutual benefit. It is also quoted, “Bhrataro manuja sarve, swadesho bhubanatrayam.” This means, all human beings are my brothers and sisters and the universe is my own country. Here we find the extent of feeling oneness with the universal traits. During tarpan, (a ritual by means of which we offer our respect or tribute to our forefathers) we pray to the almighty with the mantra, “Abrahma stamba paryantang Jagat tripyantu.” This means, let all the souls from the biggest to the smallest creations of the universe be free from any bondage, let them get salvation of body, mind and soul. Here, not only we pray for our forefathers but we also pray for all souls. This reveals the extent of broadness of our morality. In Srimad Bhagavad Gita (Ch.V, Sloka 18) Lord Krishna says that to a truly learned person, there is no difference among an educated humble Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a low profile shudra. Our saints, sages and mahatmas have taught us to think for all, to share their well and woe and pray to God to root out their sorrows and to work for all to bring prosperity in their lives. Kaamaey dookhya taptanang praninam arti nasanam,” which means that I don’t want the happiness of being a king of a kingdom, nor the heaven, nor the boon of complete salvation, but I pray for wiping out the sufferings of the poor and the destitute beings. This reveals that a truly devotee of God can not desire for earthly or heavenly happiness, even he refuses the desire of complete salvation or mokhsa or freedom from the cycle of rebirth, but he prays for all and desires that the sufferings of the multitudes be rooted out. Lord Gautam Buddha refused his kingship and preferred to work for the cause of the sufferings of all. From the above quoted versions, I have just tried to establish the truth that in Indianism there is no scope of hatred against anybody. We fight on the streets with each other or in the communities between men to men to get minor interests but we should not forget that we are the descendents of the eternal souls or Amritasya putrah. We should not act or behave in any such manner that the credit of being born as the supreme creation in the universe goes in vain. Man is supreme of all creations in this mortal world. We are born with the theological and theosophical brain and with an eternal soul. We only have the capacity to understand the difference between good and bad, between just and unjust, between right and wrong. We, the Indians should convey the message to the world that we can convert this fighting world into a peaceful living abode. Rabindra Nath Tagore dreamt and foresaw that India will lead the world. We must wait to see the day when India will lead the world and we are sure that the day will come soon. The thought of Mahatma Gandhi, which is based on Gita, has already spread all over the world. He has become a symbol of liberation in the world. He advocated not only to get rid of foreign rule but also to get rid of economic disparity between rich and the poor and administered mantra of social reforms. He taught us to win with truth over falsehood. He has become the symbol of Indianism. He sits above all international barriers showing the path of liberation to all at large. Once, when the Europeans and Americans were rushing to send missionaries to India to civilise our people and to transform them by religious conversion, Swami Vivekananda opposed this foreign idea and stopped their move by saying, “Don’t send missionaries to India, rather, send machineries to India.” At that time India was weak in technology, so we required its development and machine could do that. But from very olden days, India is rich in spiritual and philosophical thoughts and it is the seat of high moral values. At present, India is passing through a traumatic stage to identify its identity. All the people of the world should know about our identity. We should not forget that we are the Amritasya Putrah or the children of the eternal soul. Whether an Indian residing in India or abroad, whether he or she is of Indian origin, it is immaterial but who believes in Indian thought or culture will think about the above guidelines and will live life accordingly. (The writer can be contacted at 16/23 W.E.A 1st Floor, Karol Bagh, New Delhi-110 005.)
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Mahrishi mahesh Yogi passes
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi DiesBy Mike Corder, Associated Press WriterThe Associated PressTuesday, February 5, 2008(02-05) 15:37 PST The Hague, Netherlands (AP) -Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles whointroduced the West to transcendental meditation,died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town ofVlodrop, a spokesman said. He was thought to be 91years old."He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.," said BobRoth, a spokesman for the TranscendentalMeditation movement that the Maharishi founded.
Hesaid his death appeared to be due to "naturalcauses, his age."Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindupractice of mind control that Maharishi taught,called transcendental meditation, gradually gainedmedical respectability.He began teaching TM in 1955 and brought thetechnique to the United States in 1959. But themovement really took off after the Beatles visitedhis ashram in India in 1968, although he had afamous falling out with the rock stars when hediscovered them using drugs at his Himalayanretreat.With the help of celebrity endorsements, Maharishi— a Hindi-language title for Great Seer — parlayedhis interpretations of ancient scripture into amulti-million- dollar global empire.After 50 years of teaching, Maharishi turned tolarger themes, with grand designs to harness thepower of group meditation to create world peaceand to mobilize his devotees to banish povertyfrom the earth.Maharishi's roster of famous meditators ran fromThe Rolling Stones to Clint Eastwood and new agepreacher Deepak Chopra.Director David Lynch, creator of dark and violentfilms, lectured at college campuses about the"ocean of tranquility" he found in more than 30years of practicing transcendental meditation.Some 5 million people devoted 20 minutes everymorning and evening reciting a simple sound, ormantra, and delving into their consciousness.
"Don't fight darkness. Bring the light, anddarkness will disappear," Maharishi said in a 2006interview, repeating one of his own mantras.Donations and the $2,500 fee to learn TM financedthe construction of Peace Palaces, or meditationcenters, in dozens of cities around the world.
Itpaid for hundreds of new schools in India.In 1971, Maharishi founded a university inFairfield, Iowa, that taught meditation alongsidethe arts and sciences to 700 students and servedorganic vegetarian food in its cafeterias.Supporters pointed to hundreds of scientificstudies showing that meditation reduces stress,lowers blood pressure, improves concentration andraises results for students and businessmen.Skeptics ridiculed his plan to raise $10 trillionto end poverty by sponsoring organic farming inthe world's poorest countries.
They scoffed at hisnotion that meditation groups, acting like psychicshock troops, can end conflict."To resolve problems through negotiation is a verychildish approach," he said.In 1986, two groups founded by his organizationwere sued in the U.S. by former disciples whoaccused it of fraud, negligence and intentionallyinflicting emotional damage. A jury, however,refused to award punitive damages.Over the years, Maharishi also was accused offraud by former pupils who claim he failed toteach them to fly. "Yogic flying," showcased asthe ultimate level of transcendence, was neverwitnessed as anything more than TM followerssitting in the cross-legged lotus position andbouncing across spongy mats.Maharishi was born Mahesh Srivastava in centralIndia, reportedly on Jan. 12, 1917 — though herefused to confirm the date or discuss his earlylife.
He studied physics at Allahabad University beforebecoming secretary to a well known Hindu holy man.After the death of his teacher, Maharishi wentinto a nomadic two-year retreat of silence in theHimalayan foothills of northern India.
With his background in physics, he brought hismessage to the West in a language that mixed theoccult and science that became the buzz of collegecampuses. He described TM as "the unified field ofall the laws of nature."Maharishi's trademark flowing beard and long,graying hair appeared on the cover of the leadingnews magazines of the day.
But aides say Maharishi became disillusioned thatTM had become identified with the counterculture,and he spent more time at his ashram in Rishikeshin the Himalayan foothills to run his globalaffairs.In 1990 he moved onto the wooded grounds of ahistoric Franciscan monastery in the southernDutch village of Vlodrop, about 125 milessoutheast of Amsterdam.Concerned about his fragile health, he secludedhimself in two rooms of the wooden pavilion hebuilt on the compound, speaking only by video toaides around the world and even to his closestadvisers in the same building.
John Hagelin, a theoretical physicist who ran forthe U.S. presidency three times on theMaharishi-backed Natural Law Party, said that fromthe Dutch location Maharishi had daylong access tofollowers in India, Europe and the Americas."He runs several shifts of us into the ground,"said Hagelin, Maharishi's closest aid, speaking inVlodrop about his then-89-year- old mentor. "He isa fountainhead of innovation and new ideas — fartoo many than you can ever follow up."- - - Amsterdam-based Associated Press writer Arthur Maxcontributed to this report.http://www.sfgate. com/flat/ archive/2008/ 02/05/news/ archive/2008/ 02/05/internatio nal/i152501S66. html?tsp= 1Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi Om Shanti
Hesaid his death appeared to be due to "naturalcauses, his age."Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindupractice of mind control that Maharishi taught,called transcendental meditation, gradually gainedmedical respectability.He began teaching TM in 1955 and brought thetechnique to the United States in 1959. But themovement really took off after the Beatles visitedhis ashram in India in 1968, although he had afamous falling out with the rock stars when hediscovered them using drugs at his Himalayanretreat.With the help of celebrity endorsements, Maharishi— a Hindi-language title for Great Seer — parlayedhis interpretations of ancient scripture into amulti-million- dollar global empire.After 50 years of teaching, Maharishi turned tolarger themes, with grand designs to harness thepower of group meditation to create world peaceand to mobilize his devotees to banish povertyfrom the earth.Maharishi's roster of famous meditators ran fromThe Rolling Stones to Clint Eastwood and new agepreacher Deepak Chopra.Director David Lynch, creator of dark and violentfilms, lectured at college campuses about the"ocean of tranquility" he found in more than 30years of practicing transcendental meditation.Some 5 million people devoted 20 minutes everymorning and evening reciting a simple sound, ormantra, and delving into their consciousness.
"Don't fight darkness. Bring the light, anddarkness will disappear," Maharishi said in a 2006interview, repeating one of his own mantras.Donations and the $2,500 fee to learn TM financedthe construction of Peace Palaces, or meditationcenters, in dozens of cities around the world.
Itpaid for hundreds of new schools in India.In 1971, Maharishi founded a university inFairfield, Iowa, that taught meditation alongsidethe arts and sciences to 700 students and servedorganic vegetarian food in its cafeterias.Supporters pointed to hundreds of scientificstudies showing that meditation reduces stress,lowers blood pressure, improves concentration andraises results for students and businessmen.Skeptics ridiculed his plan to raise $10 trillionto end poverty by sponsoring organic farming inthe world's poorest countries.
They scoffed at hisnotion that meditation groups, acting like psychicshock troops, can end conflict."To resolve problems through negotiation is a verychildish approach," he said.In 1986, two groups founded by his organizationwere sued in the U.S. by former disciples whoaccused it of fraud, negligence and intentionallyinflicting emotional damage. A jury, however,refused to award punitive damages.Over the years, Maharishi also was accused offraud by former pupils who claim he failed toteach them to fly. "Yogic flying," showcased asthe ultimate level of transcendence, was neverwitnessed as anything more than TM followerssitting in the cross-legged lotus position andbouncing across spongy mats.Maharishi was born Mahesh Srivastava in centralIndia, reportedly on Jan. 12, 1917 — though herefused to confirm the date or discuss his earlylife.
He studied physics at Allahabad University beforebecoming secretary to a well known Hindu holy man.After the death of his teacher, Maharishi wentinto a nomadic two-year retreat of silence in theHimalayan foothills of northern India.
With his background in physics, he brought hismessage to the West in a language that mixed theoccult and science that became the buzz of collegecampuses. He described TM as "the unified field ofall the laws of nature."Maharishi's trademark flowing beard and long,graying hair appeared on the cover of the leadingnews magazines of the day.
But aides say Maharishi became disillusioned thatTM had become identified with the counterculture,and he spent more time at his ashram in Rishikeshin the Himalayan foothills to run his globalaffairs.In 1990 he moved onto the wooded grounds of ahistoric Franciscan monastery in the southernDutch village of Vlodrop, about 125 milessoutheast of Amsterdam.Concerned about his fragile health, he secludedhimself in two rooms of the wooden pavilion hebuilt on the compound, speaking only by video toaides around the world and even to his closestadvisers in the same building.
John Hagelin, a theoretical physicist who ran forthe U.S. presidency three times on theMaharishi-backed Natural Law Party, said that fromthe Dutch location Maharishi had daylong access tofollowers in India, Europe and the Americas."He runs several shifts of us into the ground,"said Hagelin, Maharishi's closest aid, speaking inVlodrop about his then-89-year- old mentor. "He isa fountainhead of innovation and new ideas — fartoo many than you can ever follow up."- - - Amsterdam-based Associated Press writer Arthur Maxcontributed to this report.http://www.sfgate. com/flat/ archive/2008/ 02/05/news/ archive/2008/ 02/05/internatio nal/i152501S66. html?tsp= 1Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi Om Shanti
India 4 th Top Holder of world currency
The world's top holders of foreign currency reserves are:
1) China - $1.5 trillion;
2) Japan - $948 billion;
3) Russia - $479.4 billion;
4) India - $279.5 billion;
5) Taiwan - $272.8 billion;
6) South Korea - $261.8billion;
7) Singapore - $163.6 billion;
8) Brazil- $163.5 billion; and
9) Hong Kong - $146.9 billion.
1) China - $1.5 trillion;
2) Japan - $948 billion;
3) Russia - $479.4 billion;
4) India - $279.5 billion;
5) Taiwan - $272.8 billion;
6) South Korea - $261.8billion;
7) Singapore - $163.6 billion;
8) Brazil- $163.5 billion; and
9) Hong Kong - $146.9 billion.
Pakistan may get Divided
February 1, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Drawn and Quartered
By SELIG S. HARRISON
Washington
WHATEVER the outcome of the Pakistani elections, now scheduled for Feb. 18, the existing multiethnic Pakistani state is not likely to survive for long unless it is radically restructured.
Given enough American pressure, a loosely united, confederated Pakistan could still be preserved by reinstating and liberalizing the defunct 1973 Constitution, which has been shelved by successive military rulers.
But as matters stand, the Punjabi-dominated regime of Pervez Musharraf is headed for a bloody confrontation with the country’s Pashtun, Baluch and Sindhi minorities that could well lead to the breakup of Pakistan into three sovereign entities.
In that event, the Pashtuns, concentrated in the northwestern tribal areas, would join with their ethnic brethren across the Afghan border (some 40 million of them combined) to form an independent “Pashtunistan.”
The Sindhis in the southeast, numbering 23 million, would unite with the six million Baluch tribesmen in the southwest to establish a federation along the Arabian Sea from India to Iran.
“Pakistan” would then be a nuclear-armed Punjabi rump state.
In historical context, such a breakup would not be surprising. There had never been a national entity encompassing the areas now constituting Pakistan, an ethnic mélange thrown together hastily by the British for strategic reasons when they partitioned the subcontinent in 1947.
For those of Pashtun, Sindhi and Baluch ethnicity, independence from colonial rule created a bitter paradox. After resisting Punjabi domination for centuries, they found themselves subjected to Punjabi-dominated military regimes that have appropriated many of the natural resources in the minority provinces — particularly the natural gas deposits in the Baluch areas — and siphoned off much of the Indus River’s waters as they flow through the Punjab.
The resulting Punjabi-Pashtun animosity helps explain why the United States is failing to get effective Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorists. The Pashtuns living along the Afghan border are happy to give sanctuary from Punjabi forces to the Taliban, which is composed primarily of fellow Pashtuns, and to its Qaeda friends.
Pashtun civilian casualties resulting from Pakistani and American air strikes on both sides of the border are breeding a potent underground Pashtun nationalist movement. Its initial objective is to unite all Pashtuns in Pakistan, now divided among political jurisdictions, into a unified province. In time, however, its leaders envisage full nationhood. After all, before the British came, the Pashtuns had been politically united under the banner of an Afghan empire that stretched eastward into the Punjabi heartland.
The Baluch people, for their part, have been waging intermittent insurgencies since their forced incorporation into Pakistan in 1947. In the current warfare Pakistani forces are widely reported to be deploying American-supplied aircraft and intelligence equipment that was intended for use in Afghan border areas. Their victims are forging military links with Sindhi nationalist groups that have been galvanized into action by the death of Benazir Bhutto, a Sindhi hero as was her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The breakup of Pakistan would be a costly and destabilizing development that can still be avoided, but only if the United States and other foreign donors use their enormous aid leverage to convince Islamabad that it should not only put the 1973 Constitution back into effect, but amend it to go beyond the limited degree of autonomy it envisaged.
Eventually, the minorities want a central government that would retain control only over defense, foreign affairs, international trade, communications and currency. It would no longer have the power to oust an elected provincial government, and would have to renegotiate royalties on resources with the provinces.
In the shorter term, the Bush administration should scrap plans to send Special Forces into border areas in pursuit of Al Qaeda, which would only strengthen Islamist links with Pashtun nationalists. It should help secular Pashtun forces to compete with the Islamists by pushing for fair representation of Pashtun areas now barred from political participation.
It is often argued that the United States must stand by Mr. Musharraf and a unitary Pakistani state to safeguard Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. But the nuclear safeguards depend on the Pakistani Army as an institution, not on the president. They would not be affected by a break-up, since the nuclear weapons would remain under the control of the Punjabi rump state and its army.
The Army has built up a far-flung empire of economic enterprises in all parts of Pakistan with assets in the tens of billions, and can best protect its interests by defusing the escalating conflict with the minorities. Similarly, the minorities would profit from cooperative economic relations with the Punjab, and for this reason prefer confederal autonomy to secession. All concerned, including the United States, have a profound stake in stopping the present slide to Balkanization.
Selig S. Harrison is the director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy and the author of “In Afghanistan’s Shadow,” a study of Baluch nationalism.
Op-Ed Contributor
Drawn and Quartered
By SELIG S. HARRISON
Washington
WHATEVER the outcome of the Pakistani elections, now scheduled for Feb. 18, the existing multiethnic Pakistani state is not likely to survive for long unless it is radically restructured.
Given enough American pressure, a loosely united, confederated Pakistan could still be preserved by reinstating and liberalizing the defunct 1973 Constitution, which has been shelved by successive military rulers.
But as matters stand, the Punjabi-dominated regime of Pervez Musharraf is headed for a bloody confrontation with the country’s Pashtun, Baluch and Sindhi minorities that could well lead to the breakup of Pakistan into three sovereign entities.
In that event, the Pashtuns, concentrated in the northwestern tribal areas, would join with their ethnic brethren across the Afghan border (some 40 million of them combined) to form an independent “Pashtunistan.”
The Sindhis in the southeast, numbering 23 million, would unite with the six million Baluch tribesmen in the southwest to establish a federation along the Arabian Sea from India to Iran.
“Pakistan” would then be a nuclear-armed Punjabi rump state.
In historical context, such a breakup would not be surprising. There had never been a national entity encompassing the areas now constituting Pakistan, an ethnic mélange thrown together hastily by the British for strategic reasons when they partitioned the subcontinent in 1947.
For those of Pashtun, Sindhi and Baluch ethnicity, independence from colonial rule created a bitter paradox. After resisting Punjabi domination for centuries, they found themselves subjected to Punjabi-dominated military regimes that have appropriated many of the natural resources in the minority provinces — particularly the natural gas deposits in the Baluch areas — and siphoned off much of the Indus River’s waters as they flow through the Punjab.
The resulting Punjabi-Pashtun animosity helps explain why the United States is failing to get effective Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorists. The Pashtuns living along the Afghan border are happy to give sanctuary from Punjabi forces to the Taliban, which is composed primarily of fellow Pashtuns, and to its Qaeda friends.
Pashtun civilian casualties resulting from Pakistani and American air strikes on both sides of the border are breeding a potent underground Pashtun nationalist movement. Its initial objective is to unite all Pashtuns in Pakistan, now divided among political jurisdictions, into a unified province. In time, however, its leaders envisage full nationhood. After all, before the British came, the Pashtuns had been politically united under the banner of an Afghan empire that stretched eastward into the Punjabi heartland.
The Baluch people, for their part, have been waging intermittent insurgencies since their forced incorporation into Pakistan in 1947. In the current warfare Pakistani forces are widely reported to be deploying American-supplied aircraft and intelligence equipment that was intended for use in Afghan border areas. Their victims are forging military links with Sindhi nationalist groups that have been galvanized into action by the death of Benazir Bhutto, a Sindhi hero as was her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The breakup of Pakistan would be a costly and destabilizing development that can still be avoided, but only if the United States and other foreign donors use their enormous aid leverage to convince Islamabad that it should not only put the 1973 Constitution back into effect, but amend it to go beyond the limited degree of autonomy it envisaged.
Eventually, the minorities want a central government that would retain control only over defense, foreign affairs, international trade, communications and currency. It would no longer have the power to oust an elected provincial government, and would have to renegotiate royalties on resources with the provinces.
In the shorter term, the Bush administration should scrap plans to send Special Forces into border areas in pursuit of Al Qaeda, which would only strengthen Islamist links with Pashtun nationalists. It should help secular Pashtun forces to compete with the Islamists by pushing for fair representation of Pashtun areas now barred from political participation.
It is often argued that the United States must stand by Mr. Musharraf and a unitary Pakistani state to safeguard Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. But the nuclear safeguards depend on the Pakistani Army as an institution, not on the president. They would not be affected by a break-up, since the nuclear weapons would remain under the control of the Punjabi rump state and its army.
The Army has built up a far-flung empire of economic enterprises in all parts of Pakistan with assets in the tens of billions, and can best protect its interests by defusing the escalating conflict with the minorities. Similarly, the minorities would profit from cooperative economic relations with the Punjab, and for this reason prefer confederal autonomy to secession. All concerned, including the United States, have a profound stake in stopping the present slide to Balkanization.
Selig S. Harrison is the director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy and the author of “In Afghanistan’s Shadow,” a study of Baluch nationalism.
Friday, January 25, 2008
India's real History .Never told ,Now Just read it
Rewriting Indian Historyby Francois Gautier
http://www.indiastar.com/wallia10.htm
" Forgive -- but never forget – history "
======================================================="From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian." c.j.s. wallia=======================================================
Rewriting Indian History is a provocative new book by the French writer Francois Gautier, who currently serves as the political correspondent in India for France's top newspaper, Le Figaro, and for Switzerland's leading daily, Le Nouveau Quotidien. Having lived in India for 25 years has helped him "to see through the usual cliches and prejudices in India to which I subscribed for a long time, as most foreign (and sometimes, unfortunately, Indian) journalists, writers, and historians do."
Rewriting Indian History,the author prefaces, "might well be called an antithesis" for it questions many of the assumptions in the "standard" treatises by Euro-centered colonialist historians and their imitations by Indian Marxist writers.
Gautier focuses mainly on the Muslim period of India's history. "Let it be said right away: the massacres perpetrated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese."
However, the British, in pursuing their policy of divide-and-rule, colluded "to whitewash" the atrocious record of the Muslims so that they could set up the Muslims as a strategic counterbalance to the Hindus. During the freedom struggle, Gandhi and Nehru went around encrusting even thicker coats of whitewash so that they could pretend a facade of Hindu-Muslim unity against British colonial rule. After independence, Marxist Indian writers, blinkered by their distorting ideology, repeated the big lie about the Muslim record.
Gautier cites two eminent historians who wrote free of any colonialist or ideological agendas, basing their accounts on documents by contemporary Muslim chroniclers themselves: Alain Danielou in Histoire de la Inde: "From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoilations, destructions.
It is, as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilisations, wiped out entire races." And the well-known American historian Will Durant in The Story of Civilization: "...the Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within." (From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.)
Gautier should have continued with the Will Durant quote: "The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war; they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of life; they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India's boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in. For four hundred years (600-1000 A.D.) India invited conquest; and at last it came.
This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life. The bitter lesson that may be drawn from this tragedy is that eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry."
About Gandhi's whitewash of Muslims, Gautier observes: "Ultimately, it must be said that whatever his saintliness, his extreme and somehow rigid asceticism, Gandhi did enormous harm to India... The British must have rubbed their hands in glee: here was a man who was perfecting their policy of divide-and-rule, for ultimately no one contributed more to the partition of India, by his obsession to always give in to the Muslims; by his indulgence of Jinnah, going as far as proposing to make him the prime minister of India."
Worse yet, Gandhi's anointed disciple, Nehru, propagated false readings of Indian history in his books and speeches. Gautier quotes Nehru's "amazing eulogy" of the tyrant Mahmud Ghazni, the destroyer of Mathura's great Hindu temples, Gujarat's Somnath, and numerous other Hindu and Buddhist temples.
When Nehru, the arrant appeaser of Muslims, became India's first prime minister, he appointed a fundamentalist Muslim, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, as the first education minister. Under Nehru's pseudo-secular rule, "Hindu-bashing became a popular pastime." Moreover, Nehru "had a great sympathy for communism....
He encouraged Marxist think-tanks such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU] in New Delhi, which has bred a lot of 'Hindu-hating scholars' who are adept at negating Muslim atrocities and running to the ground the greatness of Hinduism and its institutions." These Marxist "historians," well-ensconced at JNU, have long been masterminding the politically correct textbooks of India's history used in Indian schools. No wonder, JNU is also known as "the Kremlin by the Jumna." For a long time, the Indian Marxists had been so brainwashed that whenever it rained in Moscow -- the capital of their "only true fatherland"-- they opened their umbrellas in Delhi.
To be sure, dissenting voices were raised against Gandhi's whitewash of Muslims. Before the partition of India, Aurobindo Ghosh, the great Hindu poet-philosopher, posed the question about Islam: "You can live with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live with a religion whose principle is 'I will not tolerate you'? How are you going to have unity with these people?... I am sorry they [Gandhi and Nehru] are making a fetish of Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus will have to fight Muslims and they must prepare for it. Hindu-Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of Hindus. Each time the mildness of the Hindus has given way. The best solution would be to allow the Hindus to organise themselves and Hindu-Muslim unity will take care of itself, it will automatically solve the problem. ...I see no reason why the greatness of India's past or its spirituality should be thrown into the waste basket, in order to conciliate the Muslims who would not be conciliated by such policy." Another strong dissenter was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Seeing through Nehru's pseudo-secularism, Patel commented, "There's only one nationalist Muslim in India: Jawarharlal Nehru."
Gautier warns: "Even today, there is no doubt that Islam has never been fully able to give up its inner conviction that its own religion is the only true creed and that all others are kafirs, infidels. In India it was true 300 years ago, and it is still true today. Remember the cry of the militants in Kashmir to the Pandits: 'convert to Islam or die!' ... The Hindu-Muslim question is just plainly a Muslim obsession, their hatred of the Hindu pagans, their contempt for this polytheist religion. This obsession, this hate, is as old as the first invasion of India by the original Arabs in 650 AD. After independence, nothing has changed: the sword of Allah is still as much ready to strike the kafirs, the idolaters of many gods."
The source of Muslim's fanatical aggression, Gautier points out, is the Koran itself, from which he quotes: "Slay the infidels, wherever ye find them and prepare them for all kind of ambush"; and "Choose not thy friends among the infidels till they forsake their homes and the way of idolatory. If they return to paganism then take them whenever you find them and kill them."
In the section on Ayodhya, Gautier says that demolishing the Babri Masjid has proved that Hindus too can fight. He criticizes Nehruvian "secularism" as interpreted by the Congress party to mean "giving in to the Muslims' demands, because its leaders never could really make out if the allegiance of Indian Muslims is first to India and then to Islam or vice-versa." For many of India's Hindu journalists, this pseudo-secularism has meant "spitting on their own religion and brothers." Curiously, Gautier does not mention Arun Shourie's well-researched, lucidly articulated columns, which, in recent years, have laid bare the pretentions of Nehruvian pseudo-secularism.
From my own perspective as a secular humanist, I believe that any whitewashing of historical record is counterproductive. No matter how lofty the ideals of a current cause, any whitewash of history tempts the fates. To forget history will always be fateful; to forgive its horrendous facts can be redemptive. Forgive -- but never forget -- history. A salient example of making sure that the horrors of history are not forgotten is the contemporary German state's law prohibiting any World War II history that whitewashes the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis on the Jews, Gypsies, and Poles. The Jews rightly insist that the world must never forget what happened to them. Where is the Hindu Holocaust Museum?
The historical record of the Muslim rule in India is soaked in blood -- just take a look at the documents left by contemporary Muslim chroniclers. Yet, as a secular humanist, I would like to make a distinction between an ideology and its adherents, especially those born into it. From my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.
In the opening chapter, Gautier briefly examines the "tainted glasses" which made Euro-centered historians expound gross "disinformations" about ancient India: the discredited Aryan invasion theory; the deliberate mistranslations of the Vedas; and the erroneous theory of the origin of the caste system.
Throughout the book, Gautier quotes Sri Aurobindo, and in the concluding chapter, "The Final Dream," pays an inspired homage to the great visionary's writings.
Like Konraad Elst's Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Francois Gautier's Rewriting Indian History contributes to the growing literature of dissent against the "standard" textbooks of India's history.
http://www.indiastar.com/wallia10.htm
" Forgive -- but never forget – history "
======================================================="From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian." c.j.s. wallia=======================================================
Rewriting Indian History is a provocative new book by the French writer Francois Gautier, who currently serves as the political correspondent in India for France's top newspaper, Le Figaro, and for Switzerland's leading daily, Le Nouveau Quotidien. Having lived in India for 25 years has helped him "to see through the usual cliches and prejudices in India to which I subscribed for a long time, as most foreign (and sometimes, unfortunately, Indian) journalists, writers, and historians do."
Rewriting Indian History,the author prefaces, "might well be called an antithesis" for it questions many of the assumptions in the "standard" treatises by Euro-centered colonialist historians and their imitations by Indian Marxist writers.
Gautier focuses mainly on the Muslim period of India's history. "Let it be said right away: the massacres perpetrated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese."
However, the British, in pursuing their policy of divide-and-rule, colluded "to whitewash" the atrocious record of the Muslims so that they could set up the Muslims as a strategic counterbalance to the Hindus. During the freedom struggle, Gandhi and Nehru went around encrusting even thicker coats of whitewash so that they could pretend a facade of Hindu-Muslim unity against British colonial rule. After independence, Marxist Indian writers, blinkered by their distorting ideology, repeated the big lie about the Muslim record.
Gautier cites two eminent historians who wrote free of any colonialist or ideological agendas, basing their accounts on documents by contemporary Muslim chroniclers themselves: Alain Danielou in Histoire de la Inde: "From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoilations, destructions.
It is, as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilisations, wiped out entire races." And the well-known American historian Will Durant in The Story of Civilization: "...the Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within." (From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.)
Gautier should have continued with the Will Durant quote: "The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war; they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of life; they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India's boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in. For four hundred years (600-1000 A.D.) India invited conquest; and at last it came.
This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life. The bitter lesson that may be drawn from this tragedy is that eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry."
About Gandhi's whitewash of Muslims, Gautier observes: "Ultimately, it must be said that whatever his saintliness, his extreme and somehow rigid asceticism, Gandhi did enormous harm to India... The British must have rubbed their hands in glee: here was a man who was perfecting their policy of divide-and-rule, for ultimately no one contributed more to the partition of India, by his obsession to always give in to the Muslims; by his indulgence of Jinnah, going as far as proposing to make him the prime minister of India."
Worse yet, Gandhi's anointed disciple, Nehru, propagated false readings of Indian history in his books and speeches. Gautier quotes Nehru's "amazing eulogy" of the tyrant Mahmud Ghazni, the destroyer of Mathura's great Hindu temples, Gujarat's Somnath, and numerous other Hindu and Buddhist temples.
When Nehru, the arrant appeaser of Muslims, became India's first prime minister, he appointed a fundamentalist Muslim, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, as the first education minister. Under Nehru's pseudo-secular rule, "Hindu-bashing became a popular pastime." Moreover, Nehru "had a great sympathy for communism....
He encouraged Marxist think-tanks such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU] in New Delhi, which has bred a lot of 'Hindu-hating scholars' who are adept at negating Muslim atrocities and running to the ground the greatness of Hinduism and its institutions." These Marxist "historians," well-ensconced at JNU, have long been masterminding the politically correct textbooks of India's history used in Indian schools. No wonder, JNU is also known as "the Kremlin by the Jumna." For a long time, the Indian Marxists had been so brainwashed that whenever it rained in Moscow -- the capital of their "only true fatherland"-- they opened their umbrellas in Delhi.
To be sure, dissenting voices were raised against Gandhi's whitewash of Muslims. Before the partition of India, Aurobindo Ghosh, the great Hindu poet-philosopher, posed the question about Islam: "You can live with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live with a religion whose principle is 'I will not tolerate you'? How are you going to have unity with these people?... I am sorry they [Gandhi and Nehru] are making a fetish of Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus will have to fight Muslims and they must prepare for it. Hindu-Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of Hindus. Each time the mildness of the Hindus has given way. The best solution would be to allow the Hindus to organise themselves and Hindu-Muslim unity will take care of itself, it will automatically solve the problem. ...I see no reason why the greatness of India's past or its spirituality should be thrown into the waste basket, in order to conciliate the Muslims who would not be conciliated by such policy." Another strong dissenter was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Seeing through Nehru's pseudo-secularism, Patel commented, "There's only one nationalist Muslim in India: Jawarharlal Nehru."
Gautier warns: "Even today, there is no doubt that Islam has never been fully able to give up its inner conviction that its own religion is the only true creed and that all others are kafirs, infidels. In India it was true 300 years ago, and it is still true today. Remember the cry of the militants in Kashmir to the Pandits: 'convert to Islam or die!' ... The Hindu-Muslim question is just plainly a Muslim obsession, their hatred of the Hindu pagans, their contempt for this polytheist religion. This obsession, this hate, is as old as the first invasion of India by the original Arabs in 650 AD. After independence, nothing has changed: the sword of Allah is still as much ready to strike the kafirs, the idolaters of many gods."
The source of Muslim's fanatical aggression, Gautier points out, is the Koran itself, from which he quotes: "Slay the infidels, wherever ye find them and prepare them for all kind of ambush"; and "Choose not thy friends among the infidels till they forsake their homes and the way of idolatory. If they return to paganism then take them whenever you find them and kill them."
In the section on Ayodhya, Gautier says that demolishing the Babri Masjid has proved that Hindus too can fight. He criticizes Nehruvian "secularism" as interpreted by the Congress party to mean "giving in to the Muslims' demands, because its leaders never could really make out if the allegiance of Indian Muslims is first to India and then to Islam or vice-versa." For many of India's Hindu journalists, this pseudo-secularism has meant "spitting on their own religion and brothers." Curiously, Gautier does not mention Arun Shourie's well-researched, lucidly articulated columns, which, in recent years, have laid bare the pretentions of Nehruvian pseudo-secularism.
From my own perspective as a secular humanist, I believe that any whitewashing of historical record is counterproductive. No matter how lofty the ideals of a current cause, any whitewash of history tempts the fates. To forget history will always be fateful; to forgive its horrendous facts can be redemptive. Forgive -- but never forget -- history. A salient example of making sure that the horrors of history are not forgotten is the contemporary German state's law prohibiting any World War II history that whitewashes the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis on the Jews, Gypsies, and Poles. The Jews rightly insist that the world must never forget what happened to them. Where is the Hindu Holocaust Museum?
The historical record of the Muslim rule in India is soaked in blood -- just take a look at the documents left by contemporary Muslim chroniclers. Yet, as a secular humanist, I would like to make a distinction between an ideology and its adherents, especially those born into it. From my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.
In the opening chapter, Gautier briefly examines the "tainted glasses" which made Euro-centered historians expound gross "disinformations" about ancient India: the discredited Aryan invasion theory; the deliberate mistranslations of the Vedas; and the erroneous theory of the origin of the caste system.
Throughout the book, Gautier quotes Sri Aurobindo, and in the concluding chapter, "The Final Dream," pays an inspired homage to the great visionary's writings.
Like Konraad Elst's Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Francois Gautier's Rewriting Indian History contributes to the growing literature of dissent against the "standard" textbooks of India's history.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Congress support to Jihadi families
Now, dole for jihadis' kin
Pioneer News Service New Delhi
January 24, 2008
The Centre has decided to provide a relief package to the dependents of militants killed in encounters with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
The decision, which is first of its kind in India, will cover hundreds of families whose men took up guns and led the Pakistan-backed separatist movement killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians and men of security forces.
According to a PTI report, besides a relief package for the dependents of the militants, the Government will also come out with an aid package for the Kashmir pandits.
The twin measures were finalised at a meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to evolve a "blueprint for a new future" in Jammu and Kashmir.
The agency quoting official sources said the high-level meeting also firmed up steps for easing travel between the two parts of Kashmir and decided to take up the matter with Pakistan at the earliest.
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and National Security Advisor MK Narayanan were present at the meeting.
The package would be in place soon after holding consultations with other Central Ministries, including Finance Ministry, sources said.
With 2008 being the election year in militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir, an announcement of people-friendly packages is likely to be made by the Prime Minister at a later date when he is likely to travel to the border State.
Manmohan Singh reviewed the recommendations of the Standing Committee and a Monitoring Mechanism set up after the third round table on Kashmir last year for ensuring implementation of suggestions made by the working groups on Kashmir.
The Prime Minister, while setting up the two committees last year, had said that his Government was keenly working for a "blueprint for new future" for the State.
The meeting favoured increased cross-LoC movement of people and goods and said consultations with Pakistan should be held for easing the travel of people from Jammu and Kashmir.
The Prime Minister asked the officials in the militancy-hit State to reduce the amount of time taken in clearing passengers for across LoC bus travel, they said.
During the meeting, it was decided to take up the issues of promoting pilgrim tourism in either parts of Kashmir, no travel permit requirement for senior citizens and increase goods exchange with Pakistan, they said.
The important issue to resolve the problems of refugees from Pakistan, who migrated to Jammu and Kashmir in 1947, in a time-bound manner was also taken up during the meeting and all concerned Ministries were asked to make a speedy assessment before a package is finalised for them as well, sources said.
The State Chief Minister has been raising the voice for providing financial relief to the kin of militants killed in police encounters, reasoning that it was not the fault of widows and orphans if their bread-earners had taken to gun.
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Pioneer News Service New Delhi
January 24, 2008
The Centre has decided to provide a relief package to the dependents of militants killed in encounters with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
The decision, which is first of its kind in India, will cover hundreds of families whose men took up guns and led the Pakistan-backed separatist movement killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians and men of security forces.
According to a PTI report, besides a relief package for the dependents of the militants, the Government will also come out with an aid package for the Kashmir pandits.
The twin measures were finalised at a meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to evolve a "blueprint for a new future" in Jammu and Kashmir.
The agency quoting official sources said the high-level meeting also firmed up steps for easing travel between the two parts of Kashmir and decided to take up the matter with Pakistan at the earliest.
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and National Security Advisor MK Narayanan were present at the meeting.
The package would be in place soon after holding consultations with other Central Ministries, including Finance Ministry, sources said.
With 2008 being the election year in militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir, an announcement of people-friendly packages is likely to be made by the Prime Minister at a later date when he is likely to travel to the border State.
Manmohan Singh reviewed the recommendations of the Standing Committee and a Monitoring Mechanism set up after the third round table on Kashmir last year for ensuring implementation of suggestions made by the working groups on Kashmir.
The Prime Minister, while setting up the two committees last year, had said that his Government was keenly working for a "blueprint for new future" for the State.
The meeting favoured increased cross-LoC movement of people and goods and said consultations with Pakistan should be held for easing the travel of people from Jammu and Kashmir.
The Prime Minister asked the officials in the militancy-hit State to reduce the amount of time taken in clearing passengers for across LoC bus travel, they said.
During the meeting, it was decided to take up the issues of promoting pilgrim tourism in either parts of Kashmir, no travel permit requirement for senior citizens and increase goods exchange with Pakistan, they said.
The important issue to resolve the problems of refugees from Pakistan, who migrated to Jammu and Kashmir in 1947, in a time-bound manner was also taken up during the meeting and all concerned Ministries were asked to make a speedy assessment before a package is finalised for them as well, sources said.
The State Chief Minister has been raising the voice for providing financial relief to the kin of militants killed in police encounters, reasoning that it was not the fault of widows and orphans if their bread-earners had taken to gun.
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Indian politics owned by Familys now
Citizens must participate in own affairs23 Jan 2008Tarun VijayTimes of India
Are we a republic? On the eve of Republic Day, it's rather sacrilegious to ask this question, but on seeing the passive voter who has learnt to bash governance at each step and on seeing political parties being run as family fiefdoms, it's more appropriate to say we are a nation trying to emerge as a republic. What's the status of inner party democracy and how are parties commonly described?
Congress under Sonia, BSP under Mayawati, DMK and ADMK under Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa respectively, RJD under Lalu and Rabri, National Conference under the senior and junior Abdullahs and the Samajwadi Party under Mulayam Singh are some of the expressions used.
Words like elections, democratic norms, republican sentiments and acceptance of differing viewpoints are replaced with nominations, authoritarian dictates, crowd-pulling capacities and 'follow or out' norms. Still, we think at least we are doing better than Pakistan and Bangladesh and perhaps Myanmar too. Democratic values are defined not only through personal, political and economic freedoms but also through peoples' actions and strength of the non-political leadership. Those who do not necessarily seek political and public office, yet are determined to correct socio-political wrongs.
Those who volunteer to take the lead and be the first to face the bullets but do not don the mantle of rulers. If roads are dirty, temples littered rivers filthy and railway platforms stinking, it's not just the bad ruler and the incompetent bureaucrat to be blamed. The failure of inactive. self-centred people to rise and revolt is equally responsible for a failing state.
The other day, ADMK leader Jayalalithaa issued a statement against Chief Minister K. Karunanidhi over the government's attitude towards Rameshwaram temple where 15 cows had died due to negligence.
I was there a couple of weeks ago and saw the world famous temple in a pathetic state. The main door, through which devotees enter the corridor leading to the sanctum sanctorum, had a huge billboard of Karunanidhi as if a darshan of the Chief Minister, an atheist, is compulsory before Lord Shiva's darshan.
The corridor was littered with spilled prasadam, flowers and dirt. At the entrance itself, inside the temple precincts, an ugly cabin of Tamil Nadu Tourism had been erected and next to it was a cycle and scooter stand for government employees working there. On the right was a marble plaque announcing the opening of the Mandapam and unveiling of a statue of Raja Bhaskar Sethupathy on February 11, 1974. He was a protector of the Ram Sethu and belonged to a warrior clan created with the sole purpose of protecting the great bridge that Ram built.
Inside the temple area, the grandeur of the Rameshwaram pillars is a mesmerising sight – 400 in all in a 4,000-feet long corridor. It's a world heritage site built in the 12th century by the Lankan King Parakram Bahu. Later kings of Ramanathpuram and Travancore kept on adding to the structure. Swami Vivekananda visited the temple on January 27, 1897 and a stone engraving cherishes that memory; his praise of the temple priests has been inscribed in his own handwriting.
The Shiva lingam at the temple is believed to have been built by Sita with clay and is one of the 12 jyotilirlingas. Such an ancient temple and world heritage site is in utter neglect and is losing its pristine glory and charm.
The well inside the room where prasadam is prepared and the kitchen are in shambles, darkness prevails with a feeble lamp adding confusion to the smoky and darkened room. Devotees are given stale and badly cooked bhog.
Still, thousands of Hindus visit the place from across the world. They see, murmur some complaints, have a darshan and go away. The temple management is in the hands of the Tamil Nadu government led by Karunanidhi who is infamous for issuing insulting and sarcastic statements about Ram and Sita. But what about the millions of devotees living around Rameshwaram?
We have seen nationwide agitations for and against reservations but people have never demonstrated to save rivers or cleanse temples. There is an organisation in Tamil Nadu with a Hindu tag that objected to a dress worn by an actress at a public function.
They said it hurt Hindu sentiments. But these Hindus never get hurt when Sanskrit is abolished or the Hindu population declines or when poor Hindus are converted to other religions.
Hypocritical Hindus worship Durga for Shakti, Saraswati for knowledge and Lakshmi for prosperity. But the same Hindu also commits female foeticide in large numbers. And this is true for other religious communities equally. True, there are organisations opposing it and spreading awareness and this has provided positive results. But foes of the girl child abound.
In Gaumukh, the source of Ganga, pilgrims leave bindis, plastic bags, incense sticks and other non-perishable items after the puja to 'absolve' themselves of all their sins. Should we blame the government alone if the glacier is shrinking and the heavenly place defining the solitude of divinity looks as if it has been defiled by the devotees themselves?
The republic is not just about casting votes, that too at less than 50 per cent roughly along caste lines. Republic is the active participation of people in their own affairs with righteousness as the benchmark of decisions and Gandhi's talisman as a touchstone. It calls for rising above immediate self-interest. That decides the levels of happiness in a society, not bank balances and a mention in Fortune 500 lists. Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khana was a great poet and benefactor of the poor and needy.
Every evening, a large number of people would visit him seeking help. He would refuse none, but always looked down while giving alms. Once a gentleman asked why do you not even glance at the person who is receiving the money? He replied: "Denhaar koi aur hai, devat hai din rain, log bharam mo pe karein, tase neeche nain ("The real giver is someone else [God], but people perceive I am the one. Hence the eyes look down in embarrassment!). It's bliss to have such humility and it is this pure heart that sanctifies a republic and raises her people's happiness level.
The republic thrives on the spirit of giving. Everyone says everything should be done by government and everyone seems to be dissatisfied with everything - municipal corporators, parliamentarians, officers, doctors and drivers.
The crowd in religious places is hardly seen to be carrying the responsibility of applying in the outside world what they obtained inside the congregation hall.
No one says hate others, yet hate spreads astonishingly. Intolerance increases intolerance and accumulation of ill-gotten wealth further whets the appetite.
This is the time when the people of the republic should seriously come together to find way for eliminating religious intolerance and hate based on ideological apartheid. Recently a step was taken in this direction with religious leaders having a global presence and appeal sharing the dais for exactly this purpose – strengthening peace and plurality and resolving conflicts.
Led by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the day-long deliberations saw Sri Sri Ravishankar, the Dalai Lama, Swami Ramdev, Deoband's Mohammad Madani, Mumbai's Archbishop Oswald Gracious and of course former President Abdul Kalam. Such efforts need peoples' support if the republic has to live its ideals. Once we saw JP movement. It failed. Gandhians have become merely sarkari jholawalas. The last hope lies in those who would unshackle themselves from burden of historical sins and write a fresh new republican order to throw off the fossilised system and its offshoots.
The new rebellious generation, already showing signs of revolt and free from the colonial mindset and obsolete ritualism, shall create a new path like Adi Sankara , with just one religion in heart - the good of humanity and elimination of the unrepentant wicked. Trust your tricolour, its going to happen before we leave the world. The author is the editor of Panchjanya, a Hindi weekly brought out by the RSS. The views expressed are his personal.
Are we a republic? On the eve of Republic Day, it's rather sacrilegious to ask this question, but on seeing the passive voter who has learnt to bash governance at each step and on seeing political parties being run as family fiefdoms, it's more appropriate to say we are a nation trying to emerge as a republic. What's the status of inner party democracy and how are parties commonly described?
Congress under Sonia, BSP under Mayawati, DMK and ADMK under Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa respectively, RJD under Lalu and Rabri, National Conference under the senior and junior Abdullahs and the Samajwadi Party under Mulayam Singh are some of the expressions used.
Words like elections, democratic norms, republican sentiments and acceptance of differing viewpoints are replaced with nominations, authoritarian dictates, crowd-pulling capacities and 'follow or out' norms. Still, we think at least we are doing better than Pakistan and Bangladesh and perhaps Myanmar too. Democratic values are defined not only through personal, political and economic freedoms but also through peoples' actions and strength of the non-political leadership. Those who do not necessarily seek political and public office, yet are determined to correct socio-political wrongs.
Those who volunteer to take the lead and be the first to face the bullets but do not don the mantle of rulers. If roads are dirty, temples littered rivers filthy and railway platforms stinking, it's not just the bad ruler and the incompetent bureaucrat to be blamed. The failure of inactive. self-centred people to rise and revolt is equally responsible for a failing state.
When political parties comprise climbers and seekers alone at the micro levels as well and peoples' organisations run after government grants and patronage, republics turn into banana republics. In spite of a spectacular urban economic growth and mushrooming religious organisations with astonishing clout, India is witnessing an abysmally low level of non-political leadership that can change the spectrum for the general good of the masses. Temples in most of the holy towns and pilgrim centres remain dirty, priests do not utter mantras correctly and take money from devotees and then we expect the government to do something about it. The government takes over temples, resulting in further deterioration.
Delhi is on the banks of the Yamuna, one of the greatest rivers of the land, yet it's impossible to take a guest for a walk along the Yamuna or use a few drops for religious chores. Yet the government is petitioned, urged, requested to do something about it. That's how the devotees of Krishna, whose life would remain incomplete without the Yamuna, continue with their daily routines.
Delhi is ruled by Hindus, so are other states where we have holy shrines. Yet not only do the Hindu rulers belonging to any which party or ideology shy away from making pilgrim centres the best managed centres of faith in the world, but even Hindu billionaires and the socially effective glitterati find the civil dharma too mean to be engaged in.
The other day, ADMK leader Jayalalithaa issued a statement against Chief Minister K. Karunanidhi over the government's attitude towards Rameshwaram temple where 15 cows had died due to negligence.
I was there a couple of weeks ago and saw the world famous temple in a pathetic state. The main door, through which devotees enter the corridor leading to the sanctum sanctorum, had a huge billboard of Karunanidhi as if a darshan of the Chief Minister, an atheist, is compulsory before Lord Shiva's darshan.
The corridor was littered with spilled prasadam, flowers and dirt. At the entrance itself, inside the temple precincts, an ugly cabin of Tamil Nadu Tourism had been erected and next to it was a cycle and scooter stand for government employees working there. On the right was a marble plaque announcing the opening of the Mandapam and unveiling of a statue of Raja Bhaskar Sethupathy on February 11, 1974. He was a protector of the Ram Sethu and belonged to a warrior clan created with the sole purpose of protecting the great bridge that Ram built.
Inside the temple area, the grandeur of the Rameshwaram pillars is a mesmerising sight – 400 in all in a 4,000-feet long corridor. It's a world heritage site built in the 12th century by the Lankan King Parakram Bahu. Later kings of Ramanathpuram and Travancore kept on adding to the structure. Swami Vivekananda visited the temple on January 27, 1897 and a stone engraving cherishes that memory; his praise of the temple priests has been inscribed in his own handwriting.
The Shiva lingam at the temple is believed to have been built by Sita with clay and is one of the 12 jyotilirlingas. Such an ancient temple and world heritage site is in utter neglect and is losing its pristine glory and charm.
The well inside the room where prasadam is prepared and the kitchen are in shambles, darkness prevails with a feeble lamp adding confusion to the smoky and darkened room. Devotees are given stale and badly cooked bhog.
Still, thousands of Hindus visit the place from across the world. They see, murmur some complaints, have a darshan and go away. The temple management is in the hands of the Tamil Nadu government led by Karunanidhi who is infamous for issuing insulting and sarcastic statements about Ram and Sita. But what about the millions of devotees living around Rameshwaram?
We have seen nationwide agitations for and against reservations but people have never demonstrated to save rivers or cleanse temples. There is an organisation in Tamil Nadu with a Hindu tag that objected to a dress worn by an actress at a public function.
They said it hurt Hindu sentiments. But these Hindus never get hurt when Sanskrit is abolished or the Hindu population declines or when poor Hindus are converted to other religions.
Hypocritical Hindus worship Durga for Shakti, Saraswati for knowledge and Lakshmi for prosperity. But the same Hindu also commits female foeticide in large numbers. And this is true for other religious communities equally. True, there are organisations opposing it and spreading awareness and this has provided positive results. But foes of the girl child abound.
In Gaumukh, the source of Ganga, pilgrims leave bindis, plastic bags, incense sticks and other non-perishable items after the puja to 'absolve' themselves of all their sins. Should we blame the government alone if the glacier is shrinking and the heavenly place defining the solitude of divinity looks as if it has been defiled by the devotees themselves?
The republic is not just about casting votes, that too at less than 50 per cent roughly along caste lines. Republic is the active participation of people in their own affairs with righteousness as the benchmark of decisions and Gandhi's talisman as a touchstone. It calls for rising above immediate self-interest. That decides the levels of happiness in a society, not bank balances and a mention in Fortune 500 lists. Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khana was a great poet and benefactor of the poor and needy.
Every evening, a large number of people would visit him seeking help. He would refuse none, but always looked down while giving alms. Once a gentleman asked why do you not even glance at the person who is receiving the money? He replied: "Denhaar koi aur hai, devat hai din rain, log bharam mo pe karein, tase neeche nain ("The real giver is someone else [God], but people perceive I am the one. Hence the eyes look down in embarrassment!). It's bliss to have such humility and it is this pure heart that sanctifies a republic and raises her people's happiness level.
The republic thrives on the spirit of giving. Everyone says everything should be done by government and everyone seems to be dissatisfied with everything - municipal corporators, parliamentarians, officers, doctors and drivers.
The crowd in religious places is hardly seen to be carrying the responsibility of applying in the outside world what they obtained inside the congregation hall.
No one says hate others, yet hate spreads astonishingly. Intolerance increases intolerance and accumulation of ill-gotten wealth further whets the appetite.
This is the time when the people of the republic should seriously come together to find way for eliminating religious intolerance and hate based on ideological apartheid. Recently a step was taken in this direction with religious leaders having a global presence and appeal sharing the dais for exactly this purpose – strengthening peace and plurality and resolving conflicts.
Led by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the day-long deliberations saw Sri Sri Ravishankar, the Dalai Lama, Swami Ramdev, Deoband's Mohammad Madani, Mumbai's Archbishop Oswald Gracious and of course former President Abdul Kalam. Such efforts need peoples' support if the republic has to live its ideals. Once we saw JP movement. It failed. Gandhians have become merely sarkari jholawalas. The last hope lies in those who would unshackle themselves from burden of historical sins and write a fresh new republican order to throw off the fossilised system and its offshoots.
The new rebellious generation, already showing signs of revolt and free from the colonial mindset and obsolete ritualism, shall create a new path like Adi Sankara , with just one religion in heart - the good of humanity and elimination of the unrepentant wicked. Trust your tricolour, its going to happen before we leave the world. The author is the editor of Panchjanya, a Hindi weekly brought out by the RSS. The views expressed are his personal.
PM Manmohan dividing Country favor to muslims
Aiding communalism with Plan FundR. Balashankar,
Organiser
January 27, 2008
This Organiser Special on Republic Day is dedicated to national unity.
The idea is to fight communalism. The UPA Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has communalised the polity with his cynical Muslim first plank. He introduced an obnoxious 15-point programme for Muslims and reserved 15 per cent of the 11th Plan Fund for minorities along with religion-specific banking, budgeting and education.
In the following pages our expert analysts will show how the UPA plan divides and discriminates the people of this country and how the initiatives the ruling conglomerate has undertaken are akin to the 14-point demands of the pre-1947 Muslim League.
We want to forewarn the nation through this exercise how in the guise of secularism the national government has become a tool in the hands of destructive and divisive elements and how it has acquired an unprecedented anti-Hindu agenda.- Secularism, to begin with, was a positive, almost indulgent rhetoric under Jawaharlal Nehru; understandable in the aftermath of Partition for which the League and its supporters in India were responsible. Under Indira Gandhi it became vote bank politics. Rajiv Gandhi and his successors made it appeasement.
- Under the UPA, secularism is interpreted as brazenly anti-Hindu to the extent of denigrating Hindu ideals becoming state policy.
In one of the most significant books written on minority problem in India, Indian Muslims: Where Have They Gone Wrong?, Dr. Rafiq Zakaria says, "The British got, naturally, worried and they did whatever they could to disrupt that (Hindu-Muslim) unity. They engineered riots, they played politics by giving separate electorate to the Muslims, they devised various methods both political and social—to keep the two communities apart. They dangled grants and concessions alternately to both the religious groups.- Ultimately they saw to it that the country was divided, through the distrust that they had so assiduously built up between the two over the decades. To perpetuate their rule, they followed the Roman policy of 'Divide and Rule'. But as Maulana Mohammad Ali rightly put it: 'We divided and they ruled.' The blame rests as much on our joint leadership as on the British; however in the last stage it was Jinnah's obduracy which struck the final blow to our unity."
The UPA under Sonia Gandhi is playing the role of the British, to divide and rule.
The historic parallels are strikingly similiar and ominous. Take this instance, "Before he opted for Pakistan, Muslim League leader (Shaheed) Suhrawardy had decided to stay in India and lead the Bengal Muslims in India.- His letter to (Chaudhary) Khaliquzzaman on September 10, 1947, was eloquent and made interesting reading. He was faced with the dilemma that unless Muslims derived their strength on account of group solidarity they would not be respected by the Hindus. At the same time solidarity and strength would raise suspicion about their bona fides. Hence he suggested formation of strong Muslim pockets dotted all over the country. His other alternative that both India and Pakistan should strive to destroy the complex of superiority of their majority populations and they should accept their minorities as their own was a cry in the wilderness so far as Pakistan was concerned." (Islam: In India's Transition to Modernity by M.A. Karandikar, Page 276-77)
Manmohan Singh seems to have entirely adopted Suhrawardy's advice in the last four years as Prime Minister.
The central government has identified 90 districts in the country as minority concentrated for special development plans. An intriguing aspect of this idea is that known Muslim-majority districts say in UP, Assam, West Bengal, J&K or Kerala are not included in the select 90 list.- It is said that altogether the Congress is thus focusing on nearly 250 Lok Sabha constituencies for doling out excessive privileges and central funds so as to develop them as captive pocket boroughs. This may or may not work but the damage to the national fabric is intrinsic.
In a similar instance, the centre has a plan to make minority students reap benefits of dual scholarships which is not normally allowed in the case of non-Muslim students. According to a plan announced by the UPA in December 2007 Muslim students can avail scholarships simultaneously from the Ministry of Minority Affairs and the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. This is under a 15-point programme of the Prime Minister meant only for Muslims.
The Minority Affairs Ministry will distribute Rs 100 crore annually for scholarships for Muslim students.- This will run parallel to the initiatives of other ministries targeted for the Muslims under the PM's new programme. The result is, the same set of people getting pampered through numerous sources.
- A report said that 3,200 students will get this benefit in the current academic year. The UPA followed it up with reservations in educational institutions and recruitment. It made an unsuccessful attempt to divide the Indian Army on communal lines. All this is supposedly to empower the Muslims.
The UPA asked the banks and other financial institutions to have special provisions for interest-free loans for Muslims along with a package for 15 lakh special scholarships for Muslim students. - The Prime Minister has announced another programme to offer free coaching for Muslim students preparing for the competitive examinations, for which parents cough up lakhs. In the centrally funded Aligarh and Jamia Milia Universities almost the entire seats and jobs are reserved for this community.
Through a Constitution amendment, the UPA reserved majority seats in all the non-aided educational institutions for the minority communities setting them free from giving reservation quota for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.- But this benefit is not available to Hindu-run self-financing institutions. This is a blatant discrimination that will make these institutions financially unviable and covertly promote religious conversions.
Under the UPA, Muslims need not follow any rule that is compulsory for other citizens. They need not sing Saraswati Vandana or Vande Mataram though there is nothing religious about it. There is no need to salute the national flag or sing the national anthem.- They need not register marriages. In the event of terror attacks—nearly 6,000 people have been killed in the last four years—there will be no combing operations in Muslim localities. Not a single terror attack has been solved during this period.
And now comes the permanent scourge in the form of communal budgeting and plan allocation. All these are over and above the existing schemes in the Departments of Social Welfare, Education etc. for promotion of madrasas, Urdu, and reservation in various ministries for removing backwardness. The UPA has also created a separate ministry for minorities, now presided over by A.R. Antulay, a crude practitioner of minority politics. - During the four-year UPA rule, the Haj subsidy has grown 200 times! The Muslims' "right first to the national resources", as Manmohan Singh coined his absurdly ruinous idea, has become the only existential agenda of this government
- . Should the majority Hindus take this nonsense in stoic silence? Should not we get up and stop this outrage on national security? This is worse than the regenerate Wahabism introduced by Mahathir in Malaysia.
Manmohan Singh has no use for the more enlightened views of Jawaharlal Nehru, who as India's first Prime Minister laid the foundations of Indian planning.
Calling planning the first attempt in India to integrate agriculture, industrial, social, economic and other aspects of the country into a "single framework of thinking" in his speech on first draft five-year plan, Nehru said, "It has made people think of this country as whole. I think it is most essential that India, which is united politically and in many other ways, should, to the same extent, be united mentally and emotionally also.- We often go off at a tangent on grounds of provincialism, communalism, religion or caste. We have no emotional awareness of the unity of the country. Planning will help us in having an emotional awareness of our problems as a whole. It will help us to see the isolated problems in villages or districts or even provinces in their larger context. Therefore, the mere act of planning, the mere act of having approached the question of progress in this way and of producing a report of this type is something on which we might, I think, congratulate ourselves."
Again, in a speech Laying the Foundations (Broadcast from the Delhi Station of All India Radio, December 31, 1952), Nehru after a visit to Kanyakumari said, "From that southern tip of India, I pictured this great country spread out before me right up to the Himalayas in the north and thought of her long and chequered story. Ours is a wonderful inheritance but how shall we keep it? How shall we serve the country which has given us so much and make her great and strong?…"
"We look at our own country and find both good and ill, powerful forces at work to build her and also forces, which would disrupt and disintegrate her. We cannot do much to affect the destiny of this world as a whole but surely we can make a brave attempt to mould the destiny of our 360 (then) million people… In India, the first essential is the maintenance of the unity of the country, not merely a political unity but a unity of the mind and the heart, which precludes the narrow urges that make for disunity and which breaks down the barriers raised in the name of religion or those between State and State or, for that matter, any other barrier. We must aim at a classless society," Nehru said. He added, "Of course, you must plan for everybody.- No planning which is not for all is good enough. You must always have that view before you and you must prepare the foundations for the next step towards the final goal. And so, you ultimately start a process which grows by itself." Economic Democracy (Speech in Parliament, New Delhi, December 15, 1952, Jawaharlal Nehru's Speeches: 1949-1953, published by The Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India)
I have quoted Nehru on Planning, only to underline how flawed Manmohan Singh's approach is.
There is an interesting survey taken up by the Left leaning socio-scientific NGO Shastra Sahitya Parishad. Kerala: How it lives, How it thinks, released in December 2006. According to the survey, it is not minority Muslims or Christians but Hindus comprising
54.47 per cent of Kerala's 3.2 crore population who are at the economic downslide. The survey, by the Marxist NGO, says Hindus in the state form the major chunk of the state's poor with over 39 lakh living below poverty line. Condition of Hindus is worse than that of Christians and Muslims in employment, land holding and income. And the survey says the condition of so-called forward castes is more pathetic than that of the backward caste Hindus.
In March 2007, the CPM released a Charter of Demands for the Advancement of Muslim Community. A dangerous document reminiscent of the Muslim League demands under Mohammad Ali Jinnah.- Apart from focusing on a communal quota for Dalit Muslims—a term that violates the basic tenet of Islam, which professes equality of all members of the faith—the charter demands introducing a sub-plan only for Muslims for allocating separate development funds on communal lines.
- The party was not satisfied with the 2007-08 budget allocation of Rs. 500 crore for Muslim welfare.
- The wholesale adoption of the Sachar report by the CPM appears ridiculous considering the abysmal record of the party in Kerala and West Bengal in the social uplift of the Muslim community, as underlined in the report. But the CPM's Muslim courtship in Kerala is so brazen that it has left the Muslim League way behind in communal appeal. The Muslim League is being asked to prove its pro-Muslim character by more zealous outfits ensconced under the CPM perch.
Encouraged by the indulgence of the UPA, Muslim outfits organised a procession in the capital in March 2007 demanding state-wise quotas in proportion to their population. Almost all the known Muslim organisations came on one platform to seek full implementation of religion-based reservation in jobs, education and growth fund allocation all over the country. The UPA and the Sachar report have clearly uncorked the jinn of pre-Partition communal virus.
The UPA has cynically injected a vicious brand of communalism in the Indian polity with the hope that en bloc Muslim votes will permanently become its captive preserve. The insincerity and dishonesty of this Muslim appeasement is underlined by the poor record of its implementation. On ameliorating the genuine grievances of the Muslims both the Congress and the Communist-ruled states project a dubious record. Similar is the sub-text written by more virulent votaries of vote bank politics like Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad Yadav.
On the report of the Sachar Committee, the Prime Minister is again working on reservations based on religion. This is ultra vires and goes against every tenet of the Constitution. The Constitution does not allow this kind of discrimination on caste or religious lines. A constitutionally formed government is duty bound to treat everybody equal on legal and policy issues.
Even by Congress standards Manmohan Singh's prime ministership has touched a new low. Earlier our prime ministers used to exhort the countrymen to rise above caste, region and religion and be Indians first and everything else afterwards. Here is a Prime Minister who works overtime to violate the letter and spirit of the Constitution to divide and discriminate the countrymen on communal lines. And he, like his party, by no means appears contrite over such dangerous perversion. His government is aggressively working towards a polarisation of votes by pursuing a policy of minorityism, encouraging social tension and disquiet. Had the Congress been really sincere about uplifting the minorities or ameliorating their lot, it would not have resorted to such tactless exhibitionism and poisonous promotion of reactionary ideas.
On the Republic Day, 58 years after India became a secular democratic republic, we are inquiring as to how will this politics of appeasement affect national unity? Will it create contrived and bogus grievances deepening divisions in the society or will it strengthen our sense of oneness and belonging? The politics of appeasement started by the Congress under Mahatma Gandhi in the early 1920s, resulted in the country's vivisection. The tragic history is not forgotten. The wounds of Partition have not yet fully healed. But the UPA has embarked on a course that mocks at those who talk about national integration. They are not taking a calculated risk. The UPA is schemingly provoking a divide through dubious machinations.
The Planning Commission reports say that at least 26 per cent of India's
population is living below poverty line. If emancipation of this deprived segment is the priority why talk only of 13 per cent Muslims, all of whom in any case are not below poverty line? As such, learned maulanas of Muslim Personal Law Board have decreed that Muslims cannot take to banking or insurance, polio drops or yoga classes, as these militate against their religious dogmas.
The Sachar Committee claims that only three per cent of Muslim children go to madrasas. The evolutionary volume was an attempt to tell social scientists that the "Missing Muslim" in jobs was not the result of madrasa education. Sachar was trying to emphasise on a chimera of conspiracy against Muslims for their backwardness. At another place the report stated that the condition of Muslims is worse than that of Dalits.
The notorious record of the UPA government is that it sees citizens as communal compartments. By introducing the Sachar Committee and Ranganath Mishra Commission to devise communal quota, by soft-pedaling on terrorist outfits, indulging the Maoists by politicising internal security and Islamising the foreign policy the UPA has created a cantankerous mess of governance. Even its much-hyped Indo-US nuke deal is in doldrums. The UPA gives the impression that it is working on an agenda for national disintegration.
A valuable input in the debate came from Bibek Debroy, a well-known economist. In his column in The Indian Express (June 12, 2007), Debroy made an interesting observation. He said, "A 21st century government should recognise deprivation as an individual issue and defuse collective tension based on caste or religion. Wherever there is an attempt to segregate, mainstreaming never occurs and deprivation becomes permanent. Contrast economic development in special category Articles 370 and 371 states with Goa… Caste and religion are attributes that should remain in the private domain, irrelevant for public policy purposes. What should be relevant for policy is deprivation based on class. Government permitting that is precisely what should have happened…But governments won't permit and will intervene to encourage this collective caste-cum-religious identity. … It is a mindset that the UPA government has encouraged across the board."
The National Sample Survey undertook a study and concluded in June last year that jobless rate among Hindus and Muslims is almost equal. The Survey said that the Worker Population Ratio (WPR) for the male in the age group of 15 and above in the educational level in urban India among the Hindus and Muslims was equal at 71 per cent followed by Christians at 64 per cent. Outside the education parameter in urban India, the Survey says, the worker population ratio among the Hindu male was barely three per cent higher than that for the Muslims at 56 per cent. This was 51 per cent for Christians. This data was released by the NSSO under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for the year 2004-05. And this has exposed the bluff that far more Muslims were unemployed than the Hindus. If this Survey is any guide then it should be considered a big setback for the advocates of more religion-based reservations as part of the so-called affirmative action. The Survey said that the unemployment rate in urban areas for both the Hindus and the Muslims was the same at four per cent. This Survey revealed that both in urban and rural areas there was only a negligible difference in the literacy rate of the two communities. This revelation explodes the basis of the UPA-sponsored vote bank quota politics and brings us back to what we said in the beginning that deprivation has nothing to do with caste or religion in the present milieu of globalisation, growth and urbanisation. The allegations of rising income and wealth disparities between different castes or religious groups—except for Scheduled Tribes who live in concentrated blocks—has not been proved by any rational survey. But who cares for facts, since politics in India is all about myth making?
The UPA has done nothing to encourage national integration. Its actions are so communally charged that it has refused to give protection to Taslima Nasreen, even after she deleted all the objectionable passages from her book, only to please the perverted fanatics in her community. This might be the first instance in Indian history that the country has turned its back on an asylum-seeker, who was hounded out of her country, who was forced by her own hosts in West Bengal to vacate her second home and has no other place to go. But the UPA protects and felicitates
M.F. Husain about whose despicable, blasphemous cartoons Hindus have serious objection.
It seems there is no bottom to the depth to which the UPA can sink in furthering its goal. It has communalised budgeting; it has communalised banking and financial institutions; it tried even to communalise the armed forces. It has vitiated the academia spreading the venom of casteism and communalism and now it is out to destroy the country by identifying districts as Muslim majority and pampering them to promote communal segregation. It is bent on dividing the police force as Hindu, Muslim and Christian, and nobody knows what else remains to be fragmented on communal lines. Some more aggressively lunatic in its ranks have even suggested to introduce a communal quota in the judiciary as well and appoint judges after fixing their religion tag. Is there any guarantee that people who get their position only on their religious identity will behave impartially in their execution of duty? And what will happen to the faith of the citizens in the system and its commitment to delivering justice? What will happen to this country once the people lose all hope of fair play and fair deal under these votaries of fake secularism?
What is the BPL criterion? Those who earn above Rs 12 per day. But what about the lucky above BPL people? According to the report of National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), 394.9 million workers, i.e. 80 per cent of India's working population, are in the unorganised sector and 80 per cent of them are among those who live on less than Rs 20 a day. These are real poor and vulnerable, the report says.- We quote this statistics to show that poverty has nothing to do with religion. And that politics should be about marrying policies with the people.
A conservative estimate, supported by all empirical data, gives us a statistics of almost 30 to 35 per cent of India's population living in subhuman conditions. This is not a comforting thought in the 61st year of Independence. And to know that our political class has only archaic, time warped ideas for giving opportunity to the less privileged is a sad commentary.
The UPA as part of its poll-oriented thinking has constituted an equal rights panel to ensure Muslim representation level. How myopic can the ruling class get! In a country with over 35 per cent poor to have an equal rights panel only for the 15 per cent minorities! Does the government have no responsibility to the rest of the population?
If there is any poor, deprived in the country, it is the Hindu. His land was taken away, his homes and temples were looted for centuries, he was made to pay jazia, an oppression tax of slavery, for almost 800 years, for that long the Muslims and for another 150 years Christians ruled this country. How can the ruling class till 1947, become deprived needing special affirmative action? It is only the Hindu who has some claim to a special treatment. And Pakistan was created, after the bloodiest-ever holocaust in history, to pamper the Muslims.- Every corner of the country where Hindu is in minority is in the grip of insurgency and terrorism. A convincing Hindu majority is the only guarantee for the territorial integrity of this country. And by artificially identifying 90 Muslim-majority districts is Manmohan Singh trying to lay the foundation for another partition?
The Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has the gumption to claim that this will not divide the society. It is not entirely surprising, only God knows what more disastrous plans he has in mind to divide the society further, that he thinks all that he has done so far is not enough.
There is no economic or literacy backwardness that is exclusive to one community. Yes, social and religious attitudes can ghettoize a community. For that the state cannot do much. source: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=221&page=2
1)
Promoting many nations @ http://indiasecular.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/the-secular-road-to-hell/
2) Sachar's Bluff@ http ://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economic_State_Hindu_Muslim_equal_in_income/articleshow/1858719.cms
3) Quota vs. Caste @ http://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/apr/12ram.htm
4) Discrimination @ http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=195&page=43
The UPA Communal Award
FACT SHEET, Organiser
This might actually read like a communal manifesto. The measures the government has announced for the minorities, 15 per cent of the country, are a wish list and more. Hospitals, schools, scholarships, improved slums, houses, hard cash and the most elusive of all, employment opportunities under every conceivable scheme of the government. All these are being offered exclusively to the minorities, over and above all the benefits already available to them. And the government is doing a thorough job of a separate growth for them, right from the child's birth, by setting up anganwadis for "minority" children in thick minority-populated areas so that they would not mix with the children in the neighbourhood.
To begin with the 15-point programme.
Equitable availability of Integrated Child Development Scheme Services. Under this some percentage of anganwadis will be located in heavy minority-populated areas.
Improving access to school education: again a percentage of schools will be located in minority locations.
Greater resources for teaching Urdu: Central assistance for recruitment and posting of Urdu language teachers in primary and upper primary schools in which at least one-fourth belong to that language group.
Modernising madrasa education: Old wine in new bottle. Sachar says only three per cent of Muslims go to madrasas. Then why spend crores for three per cent of 13 per cent?
Scholarships for meritorious students from minority communities. Grossly unfair.
Improving educational infrastructure through the Maulana Azad Education Foundation.
Self-Employment and wage employment for the poor under the government schemes (mainly) Swarnjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna, Swarnjayanti Shahary Rozgar Yojna, Sampurna Grameen Rozgar Yojna,
Upgradation of skill through technical training: ITIs to be located in areas predominantly inhabited by minority communities.
Enhanced credit support for economic activities: Not only the national Minorities Development & Finance Corporation helps the minorities, all the banks, government credit agencies and cooperatives to reserve a percentage of their loan disbursal for minorities.
Recruitment to state and central services: The selection commissions to be altered to include mandatory representatives of the minority communities to give "special consideration" to minorities. An exclusive training scheme for minority candidates to prepare them to compete in these services.
Equitable share in rural housing scheme: a share of the rural housing schemes for minorities.
Improvement in condition of slums inhabited by minority communities: Even in slums the government discriminates. It wants to improve the condition of the slums predominantly occupied by minorities only.
Prevention of communal incidents: This is the best example of the government's communal colour. It wants to post police officials of the highest known efficiency, impartiality and secular record in the areas prone to riots. The rest of the country can do with less honesty and less efficiency.
Prosecution for communal offences: How does punishing the offender in riots come under the minority category is not explained but this is one of the salient points.
Rehabilitation of victims of communal riots: Again, putting routine administrative work of rehabilitating the victims of riots as a promise to minorities. The message is clear. Minorities are the victims, always.
Other than these the government has introduced the following schemes, exclusively for the minorities. In most of the schemes the economic criterion is of income below Rs. 2.5 lakh annually.
Free coaching and allied scheme
This is over and above the combined scheme being implemented from 2001, for SCs/STs/OBCs and minorities under the ministry of social welfare.
Other than the tuition fee to the coaching centres, the students will also get a stipend of up to Rs. 1500.
A separate budget and proposal for monitoring and disseminating the schemes. The government has invited applications from agencies to monitor and report back the progress so as to reach maximum benefit.
Merit-cum-means scholarship20000 scholarships every year, maintenance allowance of Rs. 10,000 for hostlers and 5000 for day scholars plus the course fee up to Rs. 20,000
Post-matric scholarship:Students with just 50 per cent marks from the minority community can get this scholarship amount up to Rs. 10,000.
All these schemes and provisions would have been fine if the money came from the party funds of the UPA allies. That it goes from the tax paid by Indians, a category the UPA does not probably recognise any more, is objectionable.
(Compilation and comments by R. Balashankar)
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=221&page=5
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Americans are becoming Hindus
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Heaven is A Place On Earth
Scientologists don't believe a newborn is the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard: 'Never, never, never.'
By Lisa Miller
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 2:44 PM ET Jan 19, 2008
Reincarnation, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is "rebirth in new bodies or forms of life; especially: a rebirth of a soul in a new human body." This ancient belief, a core belief of more than 800 million Hindus, has been in the news, most recently because of allegations in Andrew Morton's new book, "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography." In his book, Morton says some Scientologists hoped that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's gorgeous daughter, Suri, would be the reincarnation of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, a man who died more than 20 years ago. The Church of Scientology denies this in a statement: "The church does not and never has believed any newborn is the reincarnation of its Founder, Mr. Hubbard—never, never, never."
placeAd2('printthis','88x31',false,'');
Heaven is A Place On Earth
Scientologists don't believe a newborn is the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard: 'Never, never, never.'
By Lisa Miller
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 2:44 PM ET Jan 19, 2008
Reincarnation, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is "rebirth in new bodies or forms of life; especially: a rebirth of a soul in a new human body." This ancient belief, a core belief of more than 800 million Hindus, has been in the news, most recently because of allegations in Andrew Morton's new book, "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography." In his book, Morton says some Scientologists hoped that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's gorgeous daughter, Suri, would be the reincarnation of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, a man who died more than 20 years ago. The Church of Scientology denies this in a statement: "The church does not and never has believed any newborn is the reincarnation of its Founder, Mr. Hubbard—never, never, never."
Whatever some Scientologists think of Suri's soul, reincarnation is an increasingly mainstream belief. Madonna has said she's a believer. So has Kate Hudson. According to a 2003 Harris poll, 40 percent of people aged 25 to 29 believed they would return to earth in a different body after they die. Popular New Age movements such as Scientology and Kabbalah teach some version of reincarnation, and best-selling books, notably by the Yale-trained psychiatrist Brian Weiss and by the therapist Carol Bowman, have brought the concept into the mainstream. Weiss and Bowman each argue that people can find happiness and peace through "regression therapy," in which they learn about the problems faced by their former selves. (Weiss is also teaching a controversial new therapy he calls "progression therapy," in which he helps people see their future selves as well.)
Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University and a student of Hinduism, has an interesting theory about Americans' interest in reincarnation. As life in America gets better and better, as people become more prosperous and more educated, the idea of leaving the earth forever—even with a mitigating belief in heaven—has less appeal than the idea of coming back. "We all want the here and now, and reincarnation is about the here and now," Prothero writes in an e-mail. "Reincarnation is fueled because now people want to come back and live again."
Reincarnation would seem to be at odds with mainstream Christianity, the majority religion in the United States. Traditionally, Christians have believed that, after death, their body and soul separate temporarily only to be reunited, at the end of time, in the general resurrection of the dead. Belief in reincarnation presents logistical—not to mention theological—problems. If souls keep cycling back to earth, which body is theirs at the resurrection? What happens to all the other bodies they've inhabited? Prothero argues that the popularity of reincarnation correlates to a waning of belief in physical resurrection among Christians. That's why a third of Americans choose to be cremated these days, up from virtually none 30 years ago: they believe their souls are eternal, not their bodies.
"Americans," Prothero says, "are becoming more Hindu."
Traditional Christians are urgently trying to reclaim Christianity from encroaching Eastern and New Age beliefs. Jeffrey Burton Russell, a Christian theologian and emeritus professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has spent his career trying to formulate ideas of the afterlife that jibe with Christian tradition but remain appealing to contemporary believers. These do not include, he says, either "reincarnation or an afterlife where people eat Hershey bars." As for Suri Cruise, she's much cuter than Hubbard—and as any parent will tell you, all children come straight from heaven.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/96398
© Newsweek Mag
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