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.
Friday, January 25, 2008
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.
Reply
Forward
Reply by chat to
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.
Reply
Forward
Reply by chat to
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
Sponsored By
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."
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
Saturday, January 19, 2008
WhY american Like our Bajans
- Americans Liking Hindu BajansHindu Bajans are devotional songs about Hindu Gods.
- They are greatly appreciated and listened to by Hindus.
- They are sung by great artists and heard by many Indians.
- But, recently Bajans are becoming popular among Americans.
- The Americans are going and paying a good amount of money to listen to American bands sing Bajans.
- This is a new phenomena.
- I had a Sivananda Yoga Center in Delaware and every Sunday we used to sing Bajans. Mostly Americans used to come to my center for Satsang.
- I was recently talking to one of our regular attending American men and he has recently formed a band to sing Bajans. Many Americans come to hear his Bajans.
- Many Bajans are in Sanskrit and Hindi. I hear there are many bands that have developed in America that sing Bajans.
- Richard Alpert, the professor of Harvard University, went to India and became Hindu and he changed his name to Ram Dass.
- He has written many books on Hindu philosophy. One is a very popular book, "Be Here and Now." He is very popular among young Americans. He started singing Bajans.
- One of his disciples is a great singer of Bajans. His name is Bhagavan Das. "He brought traditional Indian chants together with contemporary beats and loops," says his official website. He goes around the world to sing his Bajans and people pay money to listen to him. He has many recordings and they are very popular.
- Even my wife bought his Bajan records and I remember she enjoyed listening to them. He has made Hindu Bajans very popular in America. If you are interested, you should look into his music and songs.The International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) not only spreads Hinduism around the world but singing Bajans.
- They are also contributing to this new trend in America for sure, but I don't know about overseas.God is always there and when you sing his glory, it brings love and peace in peoples heart. It does not matter if you sing in English, Sanskrit, Hindi or any other language.Bharat J. Gajjar
Friday, January 18, 2008
Soon Muslim will rule India
The Secular Road to Hell
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14590568
Ramananda Sengupta Sify.comjanuary 17, 2007
Secularism.
I have always wondered how such a seemingly innocuous word has turned into such a politically loaded noun in India.
By definition, the word essentially means separating religion from matters of state.
'WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens,' goes the first line of the Preamble to our Constitution.
But hold on a second.
The original framers of our constitution did not put the word Secular there.
It was added by the Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency, through the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976, along with 58 other changes. The word 'Socialist' too was added, while 'Unity of the nation' was changed to 'unity and integrity of the nation.'
Perhaps, just perhaps, it was well intentioned. But the road to Hell, they say, is paved with good intentions.
Also read: 'Secular' Muslims want Taslima back in Kolkata Temple demolitions: Why is our govt mum?
After having inserted the word, however, the 'secular' Congress Party blocked all subsequent attempts to officially define it. And that has been the bane of our polity - and our nation - since then.
Because without a clear definition, secularism means nothing. Or rather, it means different things to different people.
For politicians, it means liberty to play vote bank games based on religion. In the same way that VP Singh, the 10th Prime Minister of India, brutally and callously divided the nation along caste lines for political mileage in 1990.
For religious leaders, it means liberty to exploit politicians for their own petty gains, in return for assuring them the vote of 'their people.'
For the common man, it means confusion, chaos and often violence spawned by the viciously divisive 'Us and Them' philosophy promoted by our religious and political leaders.
Attempts were even made recently – on the basis of something called the High Level Committee for Preparation of Report on Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India, better known as Rajinder Sachar Commission Report -- to introduce this division among the most secular institutions in the country, the Indian Army.
Thankfully, the Army would have none of it.
But we haven't heard the last of that yet; because reservation for minorities is seen as a sure way to get their vote.
This divide and rule policy that our politicians practice ensures that We the People of India, as the framers of our constitution so grandly described us, cannot agree even on things that are obviously good for us all. Like secularism as the dictionary defines it.
Instead, even as we proudly tout our so-called secular credentials, successive governments have clearly used religion for political gain.
But how can we be a secular state when we have separate laws based on religion?
How can we be a secular state when the government selectively funds pilgrimages and religious institutions?
How can we be a secular state when the government allows schools and colleges to have quotas based on religion, and actually tries to extend that to the corporate sector and even to the armed forces?
How can we be a secular state when politicians campaign on purely religious platforms, and win?
And most importantly, how can we be a secular state without clearly defining what it means?
Yes, we are certainly better off than some of our neighbours, like Pakistan and Bangladesh, and perhaps even Nepal, till recently known as the only Hindu kingdom.
Pakistan and Bangladesh (and a host of nations in the Persian Gulf and Africa) proudly declare Islam as their state religion, and make no pretence about being secular.
Who killed 254 Hindus in Gujarat? 'Let us all salute Narendra Modi'
Pakistan was born because Indian Muslims -- egged on by the devious departing British -- demanded a separate state for themselves. And despite separating from Pakistan in 1971, Islam is the state religion of Bangladesh too. Which explains why the non-Muslim population in both these nations is rapidly dwindling.
Our politicians, however, in order to prove that we are secular, and of course, in order to garner our votes, have gone to the other extreme, taking steps which can easily -- and in most cases correctly -- be construed as "minority appeasement."
Things have reached such a pass that whoever uses that last phrase is immediately branded as 'anti-secular' and a right wing bigot.
Things have reached such a pass that some years ago, some Muslim men prevented firemen from rescuing a woman from a burning Kolkata tenement, saying it would be against their religion to let an unknown male touch her. The woman burned to death.
Instead of booking the men for murder, as any 'secular' state would have, however, the West Bengal government grandly declared that they would induct women fire fighters to assist in such cases.This peculiar brand of secularism trumped free speech, also enshrined in our Constitution, when it came to Taslima Nasreen, a rather insipid but feisty writer who invoked the wrath of the mighty Maulanas of our Islamic neighbour, Bangladesh.
Her crime? To attest that "If any religion allows the persecution of the people of different faiths, if any religion keeps women in slavery, if any religion keeps people in ignorance, then I can't accept that religion." Taslima fled, and finally landed on Secular India's shores. But not to be outdone, our very own Maulanas too started baying for her head. And we all know what happened since: Goodbye free speech. Hello secularism.
Many many moons ago, I came across an old school friend of mine whose family owns a large, upmarket tailoring shop in Kolkata. He was going to get married, he told me; for the third time.
"My Maulana has told us that being a democracy, we can turn India into a Muslim country purely on the basis of votes. And we will. Perhaps not today. But someday, our children will rule, for sure. Nothing can stop us," he said matter of factly, before going on to explain how that would be a wonderful thing, where the rule of God and the rule of the land would be synchronised. A land where everyone could live without fear, and so on.
At that time, I had laughed out loud, saying that he obviously had not paid attention during our classes on "civics", where we had learnt all about "unity in diversity" and the unflinchingly Secular ethos of our nation.
Today, I flinch when the word is mentioned.
Secularism should be made of sterner stuff.
The author is the Chief Editor of Sify.com.
The views expressed in the article are of the author's and not of
Sify.com.
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14590568
Ramananda Sengupta Sify.comjanuary 17, 2007
Secularism.
I have always wondered how such a seemingly innocuous word has turned into such a politically loaded noun in India.
By definition, the word essentially means separating religion from matters of state.
'WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens,' goes the first line of the Preamble to our Constitution.
But hold on a second.
The original framers of our constitution did not put the word Secular there.
It was added by the Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency, through the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976, along with 58 other changes. The word 'Socialist' too was added, while 'Unity of the nation' was changed to 'unity and integrity of the nation.'
Perhaps, just perhaps, it was well intentioned. But the road to Hell, they say, is paved with good intentions.
Also read: 'Secular' Muslims want Taslima back in Kolkata Temple demolitions: Why is our govt mum?
After having inserted the word, however, the 'secular' Congress Party blocked all subsequent attempts to officially define it. And that has been the bane of our polity - and our nation - since then.
Because without a clear definition, secularism means nothing. Or rather, it means different things to different people.
For politicians, it means liberty to play vote bank games based on religion. In the same way that VP Singh, the 10th Prime Minister of India, brutally and callously divided the nation along caste lines for political mileage in 1990.
For religious leaders, it means liberty to exploit politicians for their own petty gains, in return for assuring them the vote of 'their people.'
For the common man, it means confusion, chaos and often violence spawned by the viciously divisive 'Us and Them' philosophy promoted by our religious and political leaders.
Attempts were even made recently – on the basis of something called the High Level Committee for Preparation of Report on Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India, better known as Rajinder Sachar Commission Report -- to introduce this division among the most secular institutions in the country, the Indian Army.
Thankfully, the Army would have none of it.
But we haven't heard the last of that yet; because reservation for minorities is seen as a sure way to get their vote.
This divide and rule policy that our politicians practice ensures that We the People of India, as the framers of our constitution so grandly described us, cannot agree even on things that are obviously good for us all. Like secularism as the dictionary defines it.
Instead, even as we proudly tout our so-called secular credentials, successive governments have clearly used religion for political gain.
But how can we be a secular state when we have separate laws based on religion?
How can we be a secular state when the government selectively funds pilgrimages and religious institutions?
How can we be a secular state when the government allows schools and colleges to have quotas based on religion, and actually tries to extend that to the corporate sector and even to the armed forces?
How can we be a secular state when politicians campaign on purely religious platforms, and win?
And most importantly, how can we be a secular state without clearly defining what it means?
Yes, we are certainly better off than some of our neighbours, like Pakistan and Bangladesh, and perhaps even Nepal, till recently known as the only Hindu kingdom.
Pakistan and Bangladesh (and a host of nations in the Persian Gulf and Africa) proudly declare Islam as their state religion, and make no pretence about being secular.
Who killed 254 Hindus in Gujarat? 'Let us all salute Narendra Modi'
Pakistan was born because Indian Muslims -- egged on by the devious departing British -- demanded a separate state for themselves. And despite separating from Pakistan in 1971, Islam is the state religion of Bangladesh too. Which explains why the non-Muslim population in both these nations is rapidly dwindling.
Our politicians, however, in order to prove that we are secular, and of course, in order to garner our votes, have gone to the other extreme, taking steps which can easily -- and in most cases correctly -- be construed as "minority appeasement."
Things have reached such a pass that whoever uses that last phrase is immediately branded as 'anti-secular' and a right wing bigot.
Things have reached such a pass that some years ago, some Muslim men prevented firemen from rescuing a woman from a burning Kolkata tenement, saying it would be against their religion to let an unknown male touch her. The woman burned to death.
Instead of booking the men for murder, as any 'secular' state would have, however, the West Bengal government grandly declared that they would induct women fire fighters to assist in such cases.This peculiar brand of secularism trumped free speech, also enshrined in our Constitution, when it came to Taslima Nasreen, a rather insipid but feisty writer who invoked the wrath of the mighty Maulanas of our Islamic neighbour, Bangladesh.
Her crime? To attest that "If any religion allows the persecution of the people of different faiths, if any religion keeps women in slavery, if any religion keeps people in ignorance, then I can't accept that religion." Taslima fled, and finally landed on Secular India's shores. But not to be outdone, our very own Maulanas too started baying for her head. And we all know what happened since: Goodbye free speech. Hello secularism.
Many many moons ago, I came across an old school friend of mine whose family owns a large, upmarket tailoring shop in Kolkata. He was going to get married, he told me; for the third time.
"My Maulana has told us that being a democracy, we can turn India into a Muslim country purely on the basis of votes. And we will. Perhaps not today. But someday, our children will rule, for sure. Nothing can stop us," he said matter of factly, before going on to explain how that would be a wonderful thing, where the rule of God and the rule of the land would be synchronised. A land where everyone could live without fear, and so on.
At that time, I had laughed out loud, saying that he obviously had not paid attention during our classes on "civics", where we had learnt all about "unity in diversity" and the unflinchingly Secular ethos of our nation.
Today, I flinch when the word is mentioned.
Secularism should be made of sterner stuff.
The author is the Chief Editor of Sify.com.
The views expressed in the article are of the author's and not of
Sify.com.
Unholy ways of Holy
Unholy ways of Holy Missionaries
U. Mahesh Prabhu.
Recently I happened to read Edward Gibbons 'Decline and Fall of Roman Empire'. In the book he makes observation on early Christians and their tactics for conversion. Here he quotes a Roman proconsul who wrote that Christians have a very effective method of getting noticed and portraying themselves as 'Victims' in order to advance their cause.
Whenever, a minute transgression or even an attempt is made to implement law against them they make such a fuss and in such a rowdy manner that one would think that a 'great injustice' had been committed to them.
Christianity does not have a notable reputation for tolerance and respect for other religions. 'The Christian need to convert the entire world' has been an historical obsession that continues in major Christian fundamentalist groups even today, both Protestant and Catholic.
The Christian Missionary's failure to honor other religions, particularly non-biblical traditions, is well known, with Christians still denigrating the sophisticated yogic traditions of Asia as mere superstition, idolatry and polytheism. Christian missionaries have had a reputation for using methods to promote conversion that are not always honest, including employing military and political force during the colonial era.
Their targeting of the poor and illiterate for conversion shows that they don't like open debates in the light of the day. Yet Christians like to ignore such inconvenient facts while posing as peaceful people concerned with human welfare, not with conversion. They are surprised if members of other religion are suspicious of them, even if they look at these religions and condemn them as works of the Devil. They feel easily hurt and insulted should anyone question their motives.
They offer no freedom of choice about the 'savior' or the book or the creed that can bring salvation and there is little tolerance for those who choose another way outside their faith. Europe had to reject the church and Christian dogma in order to become democratic over the past several centuries, considering this; Christian churches are the last people on earth who should be talking about 'democratic rights'. It is merely a smokescreen for promoting their own agendas, spreading their authoritarian and exclusivist beliefs, recklessly eliminating other cultures and religions along the way.
Years before there were serial church bombings in South India.
It proved that the charges made by Christian leaders against Hindu organizations for the bombings were unfounded, if not malicious. However instead of admitting their mistake Christian leaders and organizations started a propaganda campaign, again blaming the Hindu organizations for 'creating an atmosphere' that led to these crimes!
U. Mahesh Prabhu.
Recently I happened to read Edward Gibbons 'Decline and Fall of Roman Empire'. In the book he makes observation on early Christians and their tactics for conversion. Here he quotes a Roman proconsul who wrote that Christians have a very effective method of getting noticed and portraying themselves as 'Victims' in order to advance their cause.
Whenever, a minute transgression or even an attempt is made to implement law against them they make such a fuss and in such a rowdy manner that one would think that a 'great injustice' had been committed to them.
Christianity does not have a notable reputation for tolerance and respect for other religions. 'The Christian need to convert the entire world' has been an historical obsession that continues in major Christian fundamentalist groups even today, both Protestant and Catholic.
The Christian Missionary's failure to honor other religions, particularly non-biblical traditions, is well known, with Christians still denigrating the sophisticated yogic traditions of Asia as mere superstition, idolatry and polytheism. Christian missionaries have had a reputation for using methods to promote conversion that are not always honest, including employing military and political force during the colonial era.
Their targeting of the poor and illiterate for conversion shows that they don't like open debates in the light of the day. Yet Christians like to ignore such inconvenient facts while posing as peaceful people concerned with human welfare, not with conversion. They are surprised if members of other religion are suspicious of them, even if they look at these religions and condemn them as works of the Devil. They feel easily hurt and insulted should anyone question their motives.
In the modern secular world, Christians along with Muslims, now demand conversion as a democratic right, even though their religion is authoritarian, and not democratic, accepting only one way, and not honoring pluralism in approaching the Divine.
They offer no freedom of choice about the 'savior' or the book or the creed that can bring salvation and there is little tolerance for those who choose another way outside their faith. Europe had to reject the church and Christian dogma in order to become democratic over the past several centuries, considering this; Christian churches are the last people on earth who should be talking about 'democratic rights'. It is merely a smokescreen for promoting their own agendas, spreading their authoritarian and exclusivist beliefs, recklessly eliminating other cultures and religions along the way.
Years before there were serial church bombings in South India.
It proved that the charges made by Christian leaders against Hindu organizations for the bombings were unfounded, if not malicious. However instead of admitting their mistake Christian leaders and organizations started a propaganda campaign, again blaming the Hindu organizations for 'creating an atmosphere' that led to these crimes!
- The arrests in this regard, in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, had shown that Deendal Anjuman, a Muslim organization led by a Pakistani National was behind most of the bomb blasts and attacks on Christian groups in South India. The Christian response has been to ignore or deny the report, though it is quite well documented. For further details, I suggest you to, read 'Church Blasts: Truth and Propaganda' by S Y Seshagiri Rao.
Christians in India, who exaggerate such minor incidents into a National or International anti-Hindu propaganda, somehow never speak of the fact that
' Several dozen black American churches were burnt to the ground. Christian priests and ministers are also robbed, assaulted and sometimes killed in all Western countries.- We should note that many more priests in America have been arrested for sexual molestation of children than have priests been assaulted in India. Should we use that to make conclusions about the nature of Christianity?
Did you know the fact that Christians killed many more pagans, and thousands of pagan temples were destroyed throughout Europe? The great Greek (Neo Platonic) Academy in Alexandria was destroyed and its scholars like Hypatia killed by Cyril – 'Saint Cyril'. The number of Native Americans killed or forcibly converted by Catholics was also in the many millions, and yet the Catholics emphasize a few priests martyred by Native Americans as being the real victims. Such and more are stories of 'Christian Oppression'.
Hinduism is a religion of openness. We appreciate all gods and deities. We have never said that we are the 'only way' like many of the Semitic faiths.- But Christian missionaries have, instead, used it as a pretext to promote Christian superiority, not to reciprocate with honoring Hinduism and its sages and yogis.
- They say Christ must be great because Hindus honor him. They don't honor Hindu teachers in return. The hypocrisy of the whole thing is easy to see. It shows the condescending attitude towards Hindus, thinking that they can bully them or appeal to their tolerance by a feigned persecution. It wholly proves that Christians Missionaries are still promoting a medieval religion that will not honor other religions and is still seeking world domination by any means fair or foul. If we count the victims of Christian aggression on one side and the Christian themselves who have been victimized we will find that the victims of Christianity are overwhelming in the majority.
- While some Christians have apologized to African and Native American groups for such missionary misdeeds, the Hindus have so far not received any such apology, though they have suffered from the same methods. The reason is that the missionaries have not yet triumphed in India. The apology, like crocodile tears, comes only after the victim is dead.
I would trust those missionaries only if they say that Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and other Indian religions are as good as Christianity. Let Christians say clearly that members of other religions will not go to hell but will gain immortality in the presence of God by following what is good in their own teachings.
Writes David Frawley 'As a former Catholic I know in what little esteem the Church holds Hinduism and Buddhism with all their great sages and yogis. Christianity, like Islam, sees tolerance not as a virtue to be emulated but as a weakness to be exploited. Were Christians really to honor Hinduism as a valid religion all Hindu-Christian hostility could easily come to an end. As long as Christians hold that their alone is the True Faith and are working to convert the members of other religion in one way or another, they should not be surprised if members of other religions do not welcome their presence.' In his book 'The Missionary Ploy.'
It is only a matter of time before Missionary Christianity is seen for what is imperialism in the name of God and Christ, the proverbial wolf in the sheep's clothing. It is a political, worldly movement with little spirituality in it. Unfortunately such Christians confuse the real Divine work, which is improving us through introspection, with the institutional work of imposing a single belief upon all humanity. This political view of religion has no place in global age of consciousness that is dawning in enlightened minds all over the world today. The quicker it comes to an end, the better it will be for all of humanity. http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/india-usa-blog-column65.htm
PERSECUTION INDUSTRY @ http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=697&Itemid=128
INVADING THE SACRED @ http://worldmonitor.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/invading-the-sacred/
Strong nexus between missionaries and Naxals@ http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/08vhp.htm
Modi sets an example how to rule
A victory for Indian democracy
Written by
N. Murugan IAS (Rtd)
Everyone has agreed on one basic fact, regarding the Gujarat election results, that they are truly a personal triumph of Mr Narendra Modi. Many had predicted it even before the announcement of the poll process.
The outcome surely wouldn't have surprised those who have been closely observing the politics in that state.This electoral success has also lead to many healthy signs.
It has proved that
[a] personal integrity of a leader can attract the unanimous endorsement of the masses even in these times,
[b] anti-incumbency factor needn't work to eliminate a ruling party on all occasions,
[c] internal bickering in a political party need not affect the election results
[d] minority support alone is not enough to win an election and [d] any amount of attractive promises like free television sets or food grains will not fool the masses.
Further, it has also been proved that an electoral victory is possible without conducting political processions, seven miles long, without cut-outs and massive serial lightings.
This is a welcome development, because it throws some hope for the future success of honesty and integrity in public life in our democratic setup.
In the background of all these stand the sky high qualities of a single man, Narendra Modi.
What are those characteristics in him that made this possible?
They are:The bachelor Chief minister, Modi lives in his house with three person; a cook and two peons.
His habit is to take his simple food all alone in his house.
If his cook is on leave one of the two peons cooks his simple food.
In his office he has two personal assistants – these are not IAS officers – who discharge the chief minister Modi.
They attend to his phone calls, particularly, to note who called and connecting them to the Chief Minister, if necessary, or noting down messages from them.
They also fix up his tour programs and personal appointments and attend to other routing items of work.
They do not have access to the residence of the Chief Minister.
Gujarat is the first amongst the most industrialised States in India.
Its speedy progress has been achieved during the tenure of Mr Modi. Under his rule, local and foreign investments have seen geometric progression in this state.
In spite of this, none of those who opposed him in the recent polls could make a single accusation of graft – because there was none.
Companies seeking to start an industry in Gujarat would be granted appointments with Mr Modi after relevant applications have been processed through the concerned departments.
Subsequent to a meeting with the CM in the presence of his bureaucrats, fast-track clearances are accorded in a routine manner.
Before the elections, a journalist posed a question to Mr. Modi: “What are the achievements of your government?” To this Mr. Modi answers, “Instead of asking this question to me, wouldn't it be better if you asked the same thing to the common public, experts in political, economic and industrial fields?".
The correspondent queried professors in economics. Their replies brought forth three points enumerated below:* Out of the 97 Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) signed between the government and industrial houses, 89 have already borne fruit.* The remaining eight are in various stages of completion.*
Water and electricity are available in the rural areas without impediments.Mr Modi never seeks personal praise.
When he was to be sworn-in in 2002, Modi's mother attended the function, but the CM simply ignored her. She watched the ceremony like the rest of the members of the common public, seated on a chair provided by someone who recognised her and placed in a corner. This incident is particularly relevant to be noted by those in a State [readTamilNadu] wherein the CM's near and dear occupies a special dais to "inspect" processions of the party-faithfuls.Such things lead to the virtual absence of anti-incumbency factor.Significantly, even in states like Tamil Nadu, it is true that anti-incumbency acts and those in power have been defeated, but it is because all those in power just indulge in corruption and irregularities.
Developmental plans' proper fructification and absence of freebies during electioneering are two other aspects of Modi's triumph.
That the Congress lost despite promising free colour television sets during the run-up to the elections is worth remembering here.
Politicians in Tamil Nadu are of the firm belief that attempting to pander to the wishes of the highest denomination of the masses by announcing subsidies and indefinite procrastination in matters concerning unpopular decisions are a sure path to victory.
On the contrary, despite bringing farmers who defaulted in electricity payments to book, Mr Modi won in Gujarat.In several States, many in power believe that issuing election tickets to those who are corrupt because they represent a 'powerful' caste or two and thus ensuring victory.
This has been proved ingenuine.Upon Modi's personal intervention, 47 ruling party legislators were denied tickets for bad performance and complaints. These tickets were in turn distributed amongst more deserving candidates by the BJP. Of those 33 emerged triumphant.In a word, antagonising seniors who were either corrupt or dullards and ignoring caste-based votes were welcome highlights of Modi's return to power – which may sound the death-knell to such practices.And this was not all.Newspapers, television channels, central ministers and self-side goals by a few bigwigs within his own party assailed Mr Modi simultaneously.
One can only hold Mr Modi who overcame all these impediments with aplomb in awe.A few in the know aver that the real reasons for all this are that Mr Modi understood the ground reality and comprehended the mindset of his people.Another important fact of these election results is that the people have understood the real import of terms like secularism and phrases like mollycoddling of minorities in the name of their security.
When asked during the elections as to what were his plans for the development of the minorities in Gujarat, Mr Modi replied, "My plans are for the development of the entire State in which minority and majority sections are included anyway."Everyone concerned knows that the minorities are being looked after properly in all states by India.Political observers have found that in the name of getting the endorsement of the minorities, when politicians pander to their whims and fancies, the majority would take a firm stand.On that note alone, Mr Narendra Modi's victory is a victory for Indian democracy.
Written by
N. Murugan IAS (Rtd)
Everyone has agreed on one basic fact, regarding the Gujarat election results, that they are truly a personal triumph of Mr Narendra Modi. Many had predicted it even before the announcement of the poll process.
The outcome surely wouldn't have surprised those who have been closely observing the politics in that state.This electoral success has also lead to many healthy signs.
It has proved that
[a] personal integrity of a leader can attract the unanimous endorsement of the masses even in these times,
[b] anti-incumbency factor needn't work to eliminate a ruling party on all occasions,
[c] internal bickering in a political party need not affect the election results
[d] minority support alone is not enough to win an election and [d] any amount of attractive promises like free television sets or food grains will not fool the masses.
Further, it has also been proved that an electoral victory is possible without conducting political processions, seven miles long, without cut-outs and massive serial lightings.
This is a welcome development, because it throws some hope for the future success of honesty and integrity in public life in our democratic setup.
In the background of all these stand the sky high qualities of a single man, Narendra Modi.
What are those characteristics in him that made this possible?
They are:The bachelor Chief minister, Modi lives in his house with three person; a cook and two peons.
His habit is to take his simple food all alone in his house.
If his cook is on leave one of the two peons cooks his simple food.
In his office he has two personal assistants – these are not IAS officers – who discharge the chief minister Modi.
They attend to his phone calls, particularly, to note who called and connecting them to the Chief Minister, if necessary, or noting down messages from them.
They also fix up his tour programs and personal appointments and attend to other routing items of work.
They do not have access to the residence of the Chief Minister.
Gujarat is the first amongst the most industrialised States in India.
Its speedy progress has been achieved during the tenure of Mr Modi. Under his rule, local and foreign investments have seen geometric progression in this state.
In spite of this, none of those who opposed him in the recent polls could make a single accusation of graft – because there was none.
Companies seeking to start an industry in Gujarat would be granted appointments with Mr Modi after relevant applications have been processed through the concerned departments.
Subsequent to a meeting with the CM in the presence of his bureaucrats, fast-track clearances are accorded in a routine manner.
Before the elections, a journalist posed a question to Mr. Modi: “What are the achievements of your government?” To this Mr. Modi answers, “Instead of asking this question to me, wouldn't it be better if you asked the same thing to the common public, experts in political, economic and industrial fields?".
The correspondent queried professors in economics. Their replies brought forth three points enumerated below:* Out of the 97 Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) signed between the government and industrial houses, 89 have already borne fruit.* The remaining eight are in various stages of completion.*
Water and electricity are available in the rural areas without impediments.Mr Modi never seeks personal praise.
When he was to be sworn-in in 2002, Modi's mother attended the function, but the CM simply ignored her. She watched the ceremony like the rest of the members of the common public, seated on a chair provided by someone who recognised her and placed in a corner. This incident is particularly relevant to be noted by those in a State [readTamilNadu] wherein the CM's near and dear occupies a special dais to "inspect" processions of the party-faithfuls.Such things lead to the virtual absence of anti-incumbency factor.Significantly, even in states like Tamil Nadu, it is true that anti-incumbency acts and those in power have been defeated, but it is because all those in power just indulge in corruption and irregularities.
Developmental plans' proper fructification and absence of freebies during electioneering are two other aspects of Modi's triumph.
That the Congress lost despite promising free colour television sets during the run-up to the elections is worth remembering here.
Politicians in Tamil Nadu are of the firm belief that attempting to pander to the wishes of the highest denomination of the masses by announcing subsidies and indefinite procrastination in matters concerning unpopular decisions are a sure path to victory.
On the contrary, despite bringing farmers who defaulted in electricity payments to book, Mr Modi won in Gujarat.In several States, many in power believe that issuing election tickets to those who are corrupt because they represent a 'powerful' caste or two and thus ensuring victory.
This has been proved ingenuine.Upon Modi's personal intervention, 47 ruling party legislators were denied tickets for bad performance and complaints. These tickets were in turn distributed amongst more deserving candidates by the BJP. Of those 33 emerged triumphant.In a word, antagonising seniors who were either corrupt or dullards and ignoring caste-based votes were welcome highlights of Modi's return to power – which may sound the death-knell to such practices.And this was not all.Newspapers, television channels, central ministers and self-side goals by a few bigwigs within his own party assailed Mr Modi simultaneously.
One can only hold Mr Modi who overcame all these impediments with aplomb in awe.A few in the know aver that the real reasons for all this are that Mr Modi understood the ground reality and comprehended the mindset of his people.Another important fact of these election results is that the people have understood the real import of terms like secularism and phrases like mollycoddling of minorities in the name of their security.
When asked during the elections as to what were his plans for the development of the minorities in Gujarat, Mr Modi replied, "My plans are for the development of the entire State in which minority and majority sections are included anyway."Everyone concerned knows that the minorities are being looked after properly in all states by India.Political observers have found that in the name of getting the endorsement of the minorities, when politicians pander to their whims and fancies, the majority would take a firm stand.On that note alone, Mr Narendra Modi's victory is a victory for Indian democracy.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Who is helping Jihadis
How US helps fund jihad
Kanchan GuptaThe PioneerJanuary 17, 2007
American Government and military officials have told The New York Times that much of the aid provided by the Bush Administration to Pakistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban has been diverted for Islamabad's jihad against New Delhi.
According to The New York Times report, funds have been "diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India" and pay "tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs". An European diplomat, aware of this diversion, has told the newspaper, "I wonder if the Americans have been taken for a ride."
The revelation has been greeted with sullen silence by the Bush Administration, which continues to invest faith in Gen Pervez Musharraf and still treats him as a "staunch ally" in the war on terror even as Pakistan falls, bit by bit, to the advancing hordes of barbarians who think nothing of slaughtering both believers and non-believers to further the cause of fanatical Islam. Pakistani officials, however, are "incensed at what they see as
American ingratitude for Pakistani counter-terrorism" efforts.
In India, there is a sense of outrage and those who are not particularly fond of America (all of them aren't card-carrying Communists) have bitterly pointed out how the US will never learn from its past mistakes.
They have a point. Gen Zia-ul Haq, and later 'elected' Governments and the ISI, used military hardware and funds supplied by the US during the Washington-sanctioned Afghan jihad against Soviet troops to wage a covert war against the Indian state and extract a terrible toll of innocent lives.
Just as that diversion was no secret for American officials, this diversion, too, is known to them. If despite such knowledge they have chosen to keep quiet and ply Gen Musharraf with more funds -- the Bush Administration has sought a billion dollars in non-food aid to Pakistan during fiscal 2008 -- the Americans have only themselves to blame for floundering so miserably in the war on terror.
Worse, thanks to America's stupendous folly, the lives of millions of people in the region have been imperilled as never before. The fidayeen attack on Kabul's Serena Hotel is the harbinger of further dreadful news, as is the suicide bombing in Lahore.
This is not to suggest that all Americans are equally blind to the Bush Administration's shocking inability to see through Pakistan's charade. Voices are being increasingly heard on Capitol Hill, demanding that the Pakistani establishment be held accountable for its failure to deliver on promises.
There are also demands that further American aid to Pakistan should be linked to actual performance on the ground in the war on terror. But every time this is mentioned, officials in Islamabad slyly let it be known that "any attempt to link American aid to certain conditions could impede Pakistan's role in the war on terror and hurt bilateral ties". And a hush descends on Washington, DC.
The stakes for Pakistan are obviously very high, given the quantum of American non-humanitarian aid it has been receiving since 9/11. A recent report on 'Direct Overt US Assistance and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY 2001-FY 2008', prepared by the Congressional Research Service, provides interesting details of American funds that have reached Islamabad and a clue to how much has been diverted to acquire weapons targeted at India and to pay inflated, bogus bills. For instance, between fiscal 2002 and 2007, the US has given Pakistan $1.3 billion towards foreign military financing and an additional $418 million towards 'other security related aid'. The US has provided a whopping $5.7 billion to Pakistan during this period as 'Coalition Support Funds', which is "Pentagon funding to reimburse Pakistan for its support of US military operations". The total 'Non-food Aid Plus Coalition Support Funds' that were transferred from American to Pakistani accounts added up to $9.8 billion.
In sharp contrast, American food aid was a piffling $177 million. It would appear that the Bush Administration believes all Pakistanis shop at Harrod's. Ironically, a poll conducted by International Republican Institute, founded by the Congress and run by prominent Republicans, to gauge the issues that are likely to dominate the general election scheduled for February 18, shows 53 per cent Pakistanis view inflation as the biggest issue, followed by unemployment (15 per cent), poverty (nine per cent) and terrorism (six per cent).
Acquisition of military hardware targeted at India and accumulation of riches in numbered Swiss bank accounts, facilitated by unrestricted flow of dollars from the US, may thrill Pakistanis in khaki, but the people of that benighted country are not impressed, least of all by the war on terror which has resulted in greater collateral damage than tangible, verifiable results simply because the Americans are happy to trust -- some would say stupidly so -- a wily General.
Astonishingly, in spite of the huge body of evidence that amply demonstrates America's post-9/11 policy on Pakistan has been an unmitigated disaster, opinion-makers who influence those who write out cheques in Washington, DC -- their influence would considerably increase if the Democrats were to capture the White House later this year -- continue to peddle the old line, counselling engagement with those very elements who are singularly to blame for the mess that prevails in Pakistan today.
In a policy brief, 'Pakistan -- Conflicted Ally in the War on Terror', Ashley J Tellis, senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues, "Although Pakistani counter-terrorism effectiveness has fallen short of what Americans expect, Islamabad's failures in this regard are not simply due to a lack of motivation. Instead, the convulsive political deterioration in the North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan, Islamabad's military ineptitude in counter-terrorism operations, and the political failures of the Karzai Government in Afghanistan have exacerbated the problem."
If being accorded the status of 'staunch ally' in the war on terror (notwithstanding the fact that Gen Musharraf has done nothing to put down even those whom he could, for example, Jaish-e-Mohammed's chief Maulana Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba's leading jihadi Hafeez Saeed) and being provided with billions of dollars are not motivation enough, then we need to redefine this word. Mr Tellis also conveniently ignores the fact that the situation in the North-West Frontier Province and in Afghanistan is entirely the creation of Pakistan -- no doubt helped in great measure by American aid.
Kanchan GuptaThe PioneerJanuary 17, 2007
American Government and military officials have told The New York Times that much of the aid provided by the Bush Administration to Pakistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban has been diverted for Islamabad's jihad against New Delhi.
According to The New York Times report, funds have been "diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India" and pay "tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs". An European diplomat, aware of this diversion, has told the newspaper, "I wonder if the Americans have been taken for a ride."
The revelation has been greeted with sullen silence by the Bush Administration, which continues to invest faith in Gen Pervez Musharraf and still treats him as a "staunch ally" in the war on terror even as Pakistan falls, bit by bit, to the advancing hordes of barbarians who think nothing of slaughtering both believers and non-believers to further the cause of fanatical Islam. Pakistani officials, however, are "incensed at what they see as
American ingratitude for Pakistani counter-terrorism" efforts.
In India, there is a sense of outrage and those who are not particularly fond of America (all of them aren't card-carrying Communists) have bitterly pointed out how the US will never learn from its past mistakes.
They have a point. Gen Zia-ul Haq, and later 'elected' Governments and the ISI, used military hardware and funds supplied by the US during the Washington-sanctioned Afghan jihad against Soviet troops to wage a covert war against the Indian state and extract a terrible toll of innocent lives.
Just as that diversion was no secret for American officials, this diversion, too, is known to them. If despite such knowledge they have chosen to keep quiet and ply Gen Musharraf with more funds -- the Bush Administration has sought a billion dollars in non-food aid to Pakistan during fiscal 2008 -- the Americans have only themselves to blame for floundering so miserably in the war on terror.
Worse, thanks to America's stupendous folly, the lives of millions of people in the region have been imperilled as never before. The fidayeen attack on Kabul's Serena Hotel is the harbinger of further dreadful news, as is the suicide bombing in Lahore.
This is not to suggest that all Americans are equally blind to the Bush Administration's shocking inability to see through Pakistan's charade. Voices are being increasingly heard on Capitol Hill, demanding that the Pakistani establishment be held accountable for its failure to deliver on promises.
There are also demands that further American aid to Pakistan should be linked to actual performance on the ground in the war on terror. But every time this is mentioned, officials in Islamabad slyly let it be known that "any attempt to link American aid to certain conditions could impede Pakistan's role in the war on terror and hurt bilateral ties". And a hush descends on Washington, DC.
The stakes for Pakistan are obviously very high, given the quantum of American non-humanitarian aid it has been receiving since 9/11. A recent report on 'Direct Overt US Assistance and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY 2001-FY 2008', prepared by the Congressional Research Service, provides interesting details of American funds that have reached Islamabad and a clue to how much has been diverted to acquire weapons targeted at India and to pay inflated, bogus bills. For instance, between fiscal 2002 and 2007, the US has given Pakistan $1.3 billion towards foreign military financing and an additional $418 million towards 'other security related aid'. The US has provided a whopping $5.7 billion to Pakistan during this period as 'Coalition Support Funds', which is "Pentagon funding to reimburse Pakistan for its support of US military operations". The total 'Non-food Aid Plus Coalition Support Funds' that were transferred from American to Pakistani accounts added up to $9.8 billion.
In sharp contrast, American food aid was a piffling $177 million. It would appear that the Bush Administration believes all Pakistanis shop at Harrod's. Ironically, a poll conducted by International Republican Institute, founded by the Congress and run by prominent Republicans, to gauge the issues that are likely to dominate the general election scheduled for February 18, shows 53 per cent Pakistanis view inflation as the biggest issue, followed by unemployment (15 per cent), poverty (nine per cent) and terrorism (six per cent).
Acquisition of military hardware targeted at India and accumulation of riches in numbered Swiss bank accounts, facilitated by unrestricted flow of dollars from the US, may thrill Pakistanis in khaki, but the people of that benighted country are not impressed, least of all by the war on terror which has resulted in greater collateral damage than tangible, verifiable results simply because the Americans are happy to trust -- some would say stupidly so -- a wily General.
Astonishingly, in spite of the huge body of evidence that amply demonstrates America's post-9/11 policy on Pakistan has been an unmitigated disaster, opinion-makers who influence those who write out cheques in Washington, DC -- their influence would considerably increase if the Democrats were to capture the White House later this year -- continue to peddle the old line, counselling engagement with those very elements who are singularly to blame for the mess that prevails in Pakistan today.
In a policy brief, 'Pakistan -- Conflicted Ally in the War on Terror', Ashley J Tellis, senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues, "Although Pakistani counter-terrorism effectiveness has fallen short of what Americans expect, Islamabad's failures in this regard are not simply due to a lack of motivation. Instead, the convulsive political deterioration in the North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan, Islamabad's military ineptitude in counter-terrorism operations, and the political failures of the Karzai Government in Afghanistan have exacerbated the problem."
If being accorded the status of 'staunch ally' in the war on terror (notwithstanding the fact that Gen Musharraf has done nothing to put down even those whom he could, for example, Jaish-e-Mohammed's chief Maulana Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba's leading jihadi Hafeez Saeed) and being provided with billions of dollars are not motivation enough, then we need to redefine this word. Mr Tellis also conveniently ignores the fact that the situation in the North-West Frontier Province and in Afghanistan is entirely the creation of Pakistan -- no doubt helped in great measure by American aid.
But who is to tell the Americans that they are utterly, horribly wrong? Most of us would rather tell the naked king that he's wearing a splendid robe in the hope he will be pleased and throw some crumbs our way, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)