Reports of Communist Maoists Turning To Cannibalism In Orissa, India
News Post India
January 19, 2008
http://www.newspostindia.com/report-32222
Maoists are turning cannibals. They eat human flesh to terrorize villagers. This was revealed by the residents of Bandiguda, 45 km from the district headquarters town of Malkangiri. The district police, under the leadership of daredevil SP Satish Kumar Gajbhiye, risked in organizing a community policing programme in a far-flung area, known as the Red Terror Zone of the district. On August 3, 2007, the people of Bandiguda saw Mukunda Madhi of their village being lifted by 'Papular Dalam Commander' Bhagat, as Mukunda was suspected by the Maoists as a police informer.
Next morning, Mukunda was brought back to the village, where he was killed in a most gruesome manner. And Bhagat even ate his flesh as the villagers looked on in horror. The reign of terror forced Mukunda's family members to keep telling the police for several days that he was not at home as he had gone to a relatives house. 'Commander' Bhagat was acting under the orders of Ganapathy, general secretary of the CPI(Maoist), according to sources. The Maoists, who had suspected Mukunda as a police informer, were taking the revenge on him for the arrest of their dreaded colleague Sriramulu Srinivas.
However, January 12 was a totally different day for the village, which is located between Balimela and Bejingwada. Gajbhiye made all efforts to ensure safety for the horror-stricken tribal villagers. With successful confidence-building operations by the police, the tribals came forward to organise a community policing programme in the village. More than 1,500 men, women and children gathered to participate in sports events, a cultural extravaganza and a health camp.
It may be mentioned here that under Security Related Expenditure (SRE) such programmes are being organised in the Maoist-prone district. Earlier, the police endeared themselves to the common men at Salimi and Bonda ghats through such programmes. SDPO Sanjeev Arora also joined the programme at Bandiguda. The lunch was sumptuous and the villagers immensely enjoyed the feast. It was celebration time for the innocent tribals, who have been trying to fight terrorism. Giving out the hard realities about the Maoists, a senior villager said the extremists were initially good as they used to take up their causes and highlight their plights. But they now have turned as a gang of robbers and killers.
The programme was also attended by the family members of Mukunda. Initially, the villagers were reluctant to attend the event, despite wide publicity. However, the crowd grew gradually with all the villagers joining the programme. The eldest resident of the village was felicitated as Bhumiputra along with others, who have extended support for the anti-terrorism drive. The most important aspect of the programme was the daring attitude shown by the district police since the area is considered as a 'den of Maoists'. Policemen and other officials do not even dare to go there in disguise.
Editorial Note : A truly shocking incident taking place in the heart of India. Surprisingly not given due coverage by the left leaning mainstream media, hopefully the state administration and nation in whole will wake up to the evil that engulfs us as we start out this new year.
Sethusamudram poses a security threat: Coast Guard
Indiatimes News Network, The Times of India
January 31, 2008
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sethusamudram_project_a_threat_Coast_Guard/articleshow/2745768.cms
Adding another twist to the Sethusamudram controversy, Director General of the Coast Guard on Thursday said that the project poses a security threat to the country.
Vice Admiral RF Contractor said that there is a strong possibility of the canal being used by militants.
Without mentioning the LTTE directly, Contractor said that the narrow canal would put the ships moving through it at a greater risk of attack by terrorists active in the region.
He also confirmed that he has already conveyed his views about the project to government.
Earlier, Naval chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta's had said that the Sethusamudram project would be useful only for small ships.
He added that the project was economically unviable as both the Navy and international shipping agencies would not be able to use the canal. The project, if it becomes operational, would incur a loss of Rs 3,000 crore every year, he claimed.
The Sethusamudram canal would be only 12 meters deep, and only ships weighing up to 30,000 tonnes would navigate through it.
Indiatimes News Network, The Times of India
January 31, 2008
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sethusamudram_project_a_threat_Coast_Guard/articleshow/2745768.cms
Adding another twist to the Sethusamudram controversy, Director General of the Coast Guard on Thursday said that the project poses a security threat to the country.
Vice Admiral RF Contractor said that there is a strong possibility of the canal being used by militants.
Without mentioning the LTTE directly, Contractor said that the narrow canal would put the ships moving through it at a greater risk of attack by terrorists active in the region.
He also confirmed that he has already conveyed his views about the project to government.
Earlier, Naval chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta's had said that the Sethusamudram project would be useful only for small ships.
He added that the project was economically unviable as both the Navy and international shipping agencies would not be able to use the canal. The project, if it becomes operational, would incur a loss of Rs 3,000 crore every year, he claimed.
The Sethusamudram canal would be only 12 meters deep, and only ships weighing up to 30,000 tonnes would navigate through it.
Rights groups blame Indian state for land violence
Reuters
January 15, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSDEL54126
The communist government of an eastern Indian state conspired with party workers accused of killing and raping villagers opposed to selling land for an industrial project, global human rights groups said on Tuesday.
"There was a close connivance of district officials, the state government, the state machinery and communist party workers to dictate and determine the course of events," said Mukul Sharma of Amnesty International's Indian unit.
"People who abused, who attacked, who took recourse to violence to establish their political dominance were neither booked nor arrested by state agencies," he told a news conference.
Nandigram, a cluster of villages in West Bengal, has been the flashpoint of a conflict between mostly poor farmers and the state government since early 2007 over the refusal of the villagers to sell their land for a chemicals industry complex.
Nearly three dozen people are known to have been killed, and police have found several unmarked graves in the area. Villagers say the toll could be much higher as people remain missing or deaths could have been concealed.
The state backed down on plans to acquire the land after fierce protests early last year, but police and party workers were still unable to enter the area for months.
Communist party cadres returned in force in November to violently reclaim control of the area. At least six people died and thousands were displaced in that round of clashes.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said authorities in West Bengal were aware party workers were collecting arms in the Nandigram area ahead of the November clashes but failed to do anything to stop it.
The West Bengal government, the world's longest serving democratically elected communist regime, has denied complicity and says party workers were merely returning home in November.
But an investigation by the rights groups said the state government had failed to protect the people of Nandigram and to prosecute those accused of violent attacks, including rape and beatings, harassment and making threats.
"The report concludes that the inaction of the West Bengal state government, including tacit acceptance of the violent operations of the armed supporters ... resulted in serious human rights abuses," a joint statement from the groups said.
It called for an independent and impartial inquiry of the trouble at Nandigram and said the findings should be acted upon within two or three months.
Failure to do so could trigger fresh trouble in the state as the chemicals project was being shifted to a new location and victims of violence in Nandigram would be seen as not having got justice, Sharma said. (Reporting by Y.P. Rajesh; Editing by Simon Denyer and Alex Richardson)
Reuters
January 15, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSDEL54126
The communist government of an eastern Indian state conspired with party workers accused of killing and raping villagers opposed to selling land for an industrial project, global human rights groups said on Tuesday.
"There was a close connivance of district officials, the state government, the state machinery and communist party workers to dictate and determine the course of events," said Mukul Sharma of Amnesty International's Indian unit.
"People who abused, who attacked, who took recourse to violence to establish their political dominance were neither booked nor arrested by state agencies," he told a news conference.
Nandigram, a cluster of villages in West Bengal, has been the flashpoint of a conflict between mostly poor farmers and the state government since early 2007 over the refusal of the villagers to sell their land for a chemicals industry complex.
Nearly three dozen people are known to have been killed, and police have found several unmarked graves in the area. Villagers say the toll could be much higher as people remain missing or deaths could have been concealed.
The state backed down on plans to acquire the land after fierce protests early last year, but police and party workers were still unable to enter the area for months.
Communist party cadres returned in force in November to violently reclaim control of the area. At least six people died and thousands were displaced in that round of clashes.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said authorities in West Bengal were aware party workers were collecting arms in the Nandigram area ahead of the November clashes but failed to do anything to stop it.
The West Bengal government, the world's longest serving democratically elected communist regime, has denied complicity and says party workers were merely returning home in November.
But an investigation by the rights groups said the state government had failed to protect the people of Nandigram and to prosecute those accused of violent attacks, including rape and beatings, harassment and making threats.
"The report concludes that the inaction of the West Bengal state government, including tacit acceptance of the violent operations of the armed supporters ... resulted in serious human rights abuses," a joint statement from the groups said.
It called for an independent and impartial inquiry of the trouble at Nandigram and said the findings should be acted upon within two or three months.
Failure to do so could trigger fresh trouble in the state as the chemicals project was being shifted to a new location and victims of violence in Nandigram would be seen as not having got justice, Sharma said. (Reporting by Y.P. Rajesh; Editing by Simon Denyer and Alex Richardson)
Motorcycle thief could help expose HuJI network
Vicky Nanjappa, Rediff.com
January 30, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/30vicky.htm
Mohammed Raziuddin Nasir, a resident of Hyderabad, arrested in Karnataka for his alleged terror links, has turned out to be a prize catch for the police and Intelligence Bureau.
Nasir, also known as Mohammad Ghouse, was arrested in Honnali, a village in Karnataka, on charges of motorcycle theft. He was arrested along with his accomplice Assadullah Abbubukar.
Nasir is being interrogated by the Karnataka, Hyderabad and Delhi police. The Intelligence Bureau believes that Nasir is aware of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) network in the country. The HuJI has been held responsible for the Hyderabad, Ajmer and Uttar Pradesh blasts.
The police grew suspicious of Nasir when he refused to reveal information easily. The police suspect that the vehicles were stolen for use in terror attacks. Authorities believe that Nasir and Abbubukar had planned an attack on the Hubli airport, among other operations in Karnataka.
The IB says Nasir could throw more light on several cases, including the Haren Pandya muder case. Nasir's father, Mohammad Nasiruddin, who was backed by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, is currently in prison for his alleged role in the murder.
Nasir's elder brother Yaser, however, says that their father was not arrested in connection with the Haren Pandya murder, but in the Border Conspiracy Case. He says that his father used to fight the injustice meted out during the Godhra riots and when was held by the police.
Yaser also claims that Nasir is innocent and says that they would fight legally to ensure that he is released.
Although 24-year-old Nasir is a small fry in the entire operation, he could provide vital information regarding his father.
The investigators also hope to get information regarding India's most wanted terrorist, Shahid Bilal, who is the commander of the HuJI.
Information gathered from Nasir could play a vital role in tracking down Bilal. The police, however, have reason to believe that Bilal may be camping in Bidar in Karnataka as he is familiar with the terrain. Bilal was in Bidar in 2005, from where he masterminded several operations.
"I am no ordinary cycle chor," Nasir said during a police interrogation.
Nasir also revealed that he had been to Jeddah in March 2005, where he met Shahid Bilal's brother Abdul Samad. It was during this meeting that he was allegedly influenced to become a Fidayeen and serve in Afghanistan against United States forces.
Following his meeting with Samad, he was introduced to man by name Fazal, who helped him get a Pakistani visa. Nasir said he had visited Karachi in October 2005.
He said a man named Abu Rafey took his passport away and he was then escorted to a place called Gulsha-e-Iqbal in Karachi.
Initially, Nasir worked as a volunteer and took up relief work in Muzaffarabad, which had been rocked by an earthquake, he told the police. He was then taken to Jamat-ul-Dawa, a training base of the LeT, where he trained along with 20 other recruits. There he was taught to handle an AK-47, other firearms and was also taught how to make explosives, he told investigators.
During the interrogation, he explained the harsh conditions during training. He said that they had to trek miles through the jungles without proper food. He said trainees mainly survived on fruits, which they got in the jungles.
Divulging the details of his training, Nasir said that each trainee was asked to master a particular profession as 'safe cover'. He took up cooking so that he could pose as a cook. He also trained in the Daur-Lashkar, a course on wireless communication and intelligence gathering. The training lasted 60 days, he said.
He was also trained to use explosives such as C3, C4 and RDX. He said that they were taught how to make IEDs in thermal flasks, shoes and TVs.
He said that he could not attend commando training, which was imparted by retired officers of the Special Surveillance Group, as he suffered from Asthma.
Nasir met Shahid Bilal for the first time in January 2007. He said that he wanted to go to Iraq on a Fidayeen mission, but could not do so as the borders were sealed and security was tight.
Vicky Nanjappa, Rediff.com
January 30, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/30vicky.htm
Mohammed Raziuddin Nasir, a resident of Hyderabad, arrested in Karnataka for his alleged terror links, has turned out to be a prize catch for the police and Intelligence Bureau.
Nasir, also known as Mohammad Ghouse, was arrested in Honnali, a village in Karnataka, on charges of motorcycle theft. He was arrested along with his accomplice Assadullah Abbubukar.
Nasir is being interrogated by the Karnataka, Hyderabad and Delhi police. The Intelligence Bureau believes that Nasir is aware of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) network in the country. The HuJI has been held responsible for the Hyderabad, Ajmer and Uttar Pradesh blasts.
The police grew suspicious of Nasir when he refused to reveal information easily. The police suspect that the vehicles were stolen for use in terror attacks. Authorities believe that Nasir and Abbubukar had planned an attack on the Hubli airport, among other operations in Karnataka.
The IB says Nasir could throw more light on several cases, including the Haren Pandya muder case. Nasir's father, Mohammad Nasiruddin, who was backed by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, is currently in prison for his alleged role in the murder.
Nasir's elder brother Yaser, however, says that their father was not arrested in connection with the Haren Pandya murder, but in the Border Conspiracy Case. He says that his father used to fight the injustice meted out during the Godhra riots and when was held by the police.
Yaser also claims that Nasir is innocent and says that they would fight legally to ensure that he is released.
Although 24-year-old Nasir is a small fry in the entire operation, he could provide vital information regarding his father.
The investigators also hope to get information regarding India's most wanted terrorist, Shahid Bilal, who is the commander of the HuJI.
Information gathered from Nasir could play a vital role in tracking down Bilal. The police, however, have reason to believe that Bilal may be camping in Bidar in Karnataka as he is familiar with the terrain. Bilal was in Bidar in 2005, from where he masterminded several operations.
"I am no ordinary cycle chor," Nasir said during a police interrogation.
Nasir also revealed that he had been to Jeddah in March 2005, where he met Shahid Bilal's brother Abdul Samad. It was during this meeting that he was allegedly influenced to become a Fidayeen and serve in Afghanistan against United States forces.
Following his meeting with Samad, he was introduced to man by name Fazal, who helped him get a Pakistani visa. Nasir said he had visited Karachi in October 2005.
He said a man named Abu Rafey took his passport away and he was then escorted to a place called Gulsha-e-Iqbal in Karachi.
Initially, Nasir worked as a volunteer and took up relief work in Muzaffarabad, which had been rocked by an earthquake, he told the police. He was then taken to Jamat-ul-Dawa, a training base of the LeT, where he trained along with 20 other recruits. There he was taught to handle an AK-47, other firearms and was also taught how to make explosives, he told investigators.
During the interrogation, he explained the harsh conditions during training. He said that they had to trek miles through the jungles without proper food. He said trainees mainly survived on fruits, which they got in the jungles.
Divulging the details of his training, Nasir said that each trainee was asked to master a particular profession as 'safe cover'. He took up cooking so that he could pose as a cook. He also trained in the Daur-Lashkar, a course on wireless communication and intelligence gathering. The training lasted 60 days, he said.
He was also trained to use explosives such as C3, C4 and RDX. He said that they were taught how to make IEDs in thermal flasks, shoes and TVs.
He said that he could not attend commando training, which was imparted by retired officers of the Special Surveillance Group, as he suffered from Asthma.
Nasir met Shahid Bilal for the first time in January 2007. He said that he wanted to go to Iraq on a Fidayeen mission, but could not do so as the borders were sealed and security was tight.
Putting Jodha Akbar on trial
IBOSNetwork.com
January 25, 2008
http://www.ibosnetwork.com/newsmanager/templates/template1.aspx?articleid=21118&zoneid=5
There might be many issues in the coming months, for which Ashutosh Gowarikar, Hrithik Roshan and crew will be taken to task for in making their Jodha Akbar. Let's get right down to it and address some of them here.
Akbar's cinema crew are going around passing around posters and CDs of Jodha Akbar to viewers showing just two people, ie a 'king and the queen' of hindustan pedigree. All we see are Hrithik Roshan and a mustache and a head queen, played by one Aishwarya Rai. On top of that you have rent-my-voice Amitabh Bachchan narrating this thing in sincerity as if he's getting ready to recite Hindustan's freedom movement. How wonderful and generous of them...and weird.
'Hum Hindustan Ko Galat Haathon me nahi jaane denge', Akbar is heard saying in Jodha Akbar
Because ladies and gentlemen, there is a central question of whether there even was any real Jodhabai truly, who was considered head queen of Akbar that Aishwarya Rai is fantacizing herself to be in this movie (as compared to being another harem queen) in 16th century Muslim ruled India.
And regardless of any Jodha Bai and her real stature, is the basic premise of what an 'epic romance' is and should be.
For much of the people, an 'epic romance' is a relationship implied between two people committed to each other and each other only. Made for each other, till death do them part...so go all the epic tales. Look it up. Laila-Majnu, Heer-Ranjha, Romeo-Juliet, or if you want an intercommunal equivalent cinematic reference even: Tara Singh-Sakina from Gadar. Imagine if in Gadar, Tara had 50 other Sakinas on the side, alongside the one main one he really claimed to love. What would the reaction have been?
A big question and problem Gowarikar and his people are going to have then is that Akbar did not have just one Jodha Bai in his chamber. He had a number of 'Jodha Bais' by the hundreds. In fact according to the biography by Vincent Smith, Akbar enjoyed 'a harem consisting of 5000 women, mostly Hindus'. Given this many concubines and 'Bais' in his harem; countless 'harem-zades' must have been born out of his 'love stories' and 'romances' with those all females on various occasions. In fact there were. Did that not seem like a point worth considering in trying to sell this off as some noble love story? What's coming next, the epic romance of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinksy?
How exactly does Gowarikar plan to get around this fundamental polygamist reality in his so called 'epic romance' which he's implying to the public was a primarily bigamous affair? Is he going to advocate polygamy, or deny basic reality?
Gowarikar's premise, a muslim prince and a hindu princess in this fictional 1 to 1 romance of Jodha-Akbar therefore, is fundamentally misleading.
More importantly, so is the general implication of Akbar's secularism. It is easy to get worked over a Narendra Modi in today's times at the same while hailing dead men like Akbar as Akbar the Great. But history is proof that on February 24, 1568, Akbar (the great) called for a pogrom and brutal massacre of 30,000 defenseless Hindus of Chittorgarh, Rajasthan who had refused to convert to Islam. Unlike what Jodha-Akbar would be implying, in reality countless Rajput women committed 'Jauhar' instead of being taken by muslim kings. Some Hindus gave in to the Mughals and they are in the midst as muslims in the country today, but most Hindus didn't. Despite the difficulties, they considered any idea of Man Singhs and Jodha Bais as treason and kept resisting and defying the muslim onslaughts. And it is because of that defiance and determination that Hindu culture and civilization has outlasted the mughal rule and is able to mount back with a massive army and nuclear arsenal capable of obliterating the entire Middle-east today. Fact of the matter is if Akbar and Mughals had their way, Hrithik Roshan would be named Hakim in real life, Aishwarya Rai would be Hamida in a veil somewhere, and this article be asked to be written in some Urdu-Turko script.
So what will not be missed is that this film's maker is not just playing with his own personal hallucinations. He is seeking universal approval for a questionable historical and political agenda using the cover of Hindu voices and faces on the Indian screen.
Bollywood has long been doing this unquestioned of course. The implication that Salim aka Jahangir (Mughals' selected heir to Akbar) was born out of this romance is another myth or unverifiable allegation propogated in modern fantasy primarily, such as the earlier costume drama Mughaleazam. Real Akbar loved this 'Jodha Bai' so much that far from building any Taj Mahal, any school, any building whatsoever for her, he did not even so much as mention the woman any where. Nor does Mr. Salim in his autobiography hint anywhere that his female parentage was not Muslim. Because most likely that was not the case. Most likely, Jodha Bai's offsprings were just wandering around the harems also like her. In any case, given that a number of Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs (Sikh Guru Arjan Dev was slaughtered by him for not accepting Islam) were murdered by Mr. Salim during his stay in power also, it is hard to imagine what good it did anyway for greater benefit of humanity as a whole. What lasting positive influence this supposed Akbar-Jodha cross-religion drama had on India, except for strengthening Akbar and Muslim hold over India till they were themselves overrun by the British. So far as secularism in contemporary India is concerned, regardless of its merits, it is largely a creation of the Hindu (and sustained *by* the Hindu, due to multiple pathway principle intrinsic in Hindu polytheist culture it should be added), not driven by anything to do with Akbar or Baabur or that Nehruvian visionary Aurangzeb. There is a reason why Pakistan which flies the Mughal flag and sees itself as the modern state of the Mughal empire, has pretty much eliminated its Hindu population, and is the kind of society it is compared to India's.
Given the extremely leftist tilt of Bollywood and much of media today, it is not surprising to see the advocacy around Jodha Akbar. They trump it as the ultimate film for all times as hope for peace and harmony and this and that. What they don't realize is that it's a dangerous mirage. The way to advance real peace in the subcontinent is by having a strong Hindustan, capable of avenging and defending its people and its borders, whereby the consequences of trying to destabalize the Hindus (and perhaps those muslims who have chosen to bear allegiance to Hindustan's ancient history) are not worth the incentives that may come with it. That will not however happen by Bollywood imagining up false realities to dupe themselves and the public into 'feeling better' about this era of the history, and by trying to bury significant events, differences and issues under the surface using the rose colored glasses and safety net of Indian cinema.
It is conceivable that the filmmaker and crew have tapdanced their way around some of these hard issues cleverly and if they haven't, they will be in trouble. The underlying themes behind Jodha Akbar in the end are far bigger than a 3 hour movie in some theater. And they're going to have to deal with the various aspects and consequences that are bound to be held against Ronnie Screwvala and the Jodha Akbar promoters, regardless of how big a hit or flop this film on celluloid turns to be.
IBOSNetwork.com
January 25, 2008
http://www.ibosnetwork.com/newsmanager/templates/template1.aspx?articleid=21118&zoneid=5
There might be many issues in the coming months, for which Ashutosh Gowarikar, Hrithik Roshan and crew will be taken to task for in making their Jodha Akbar. Let's get right down to it and address some of them here.
Akbar's cinema crew are going around passing around posters and CDs of Jodha Akbar to viewers showing just two people, ie a 'king and the queen' of hindustan pedigree. All we see are Hrithik Roshan and a mustache and a head queen, played by one Aishwarya Rai. On top of that you have rent-my-voice Amitabh Bachchan narrating this thing in sincerity as if he's getting ready to recite Hindustan's freedom movement. How wonderful and generous of them...and weird.
'Hum Hindustan Ko Galat Haathon me nahi jaane denge', Akbar is heard saying in Jodha Akbar
Because ladies and gentlemen, there is a central question of whether there even was any real Jodhabai truly, who was considered head queen of Akbar that Aishwarya Rai is fantacizing herself to be in this movie (as compared to being another harem queen) in 16th century Muslim ruled India.
And regardless of any Jodha Bai and her real stature, is the basic premise of what an 'epic romance' is and should be.
For much of the people, an 'epic romance' is a relationship implied between two people committed to each other and each other only. Made for each other, till death do them part...so go all the epic tales. Look it up. Laila-Majnu, Heer-Ranjha, Romeo-Juliet, or if you want an intercommunal equivalent cinematic reference even: Tara Singh-Sakina from Gadar. Imagine if in Gadar, Tara had 50 other Sakinas on the side, alongside the one main one he really claimed to love. What would the reaction have been?
A big question and problem Gowarikar and his people are going to have then is that Akbar did not have just one Jodha Bai in his chamber. He had a number of 'Jodha Bais' by the hundreds. In fact according to the biography by Vincent Smith, Akbar enjoyed 'a harem consisting of 5000 women, mostly Hindus'. Given this many concubines and 'Bais' in his harem; countless 'harem-zades' must have been born out of his 'love stories' and 'romances' with those all females on various occasions. In fact there were. Did that not seem like a point worth considering in trying to sell this off as some noble love story? What's coming next, the epic romance of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinksy?
How exactly does Gowarikar plan to get around this fundamental polygamist reality in his so called 'epic romance' which he's implying to the public was a primarily bigamous affair? Is he going to advocate polygamy, or deny basic reality?
Gowarikar's premise, a muslim prince and a hindu princess in this fictional 1 to 1 romance of Jodha-Akbar therefore, is fundamentally misleading.
More importantly, so is the general implication of Akbar's secularism. It is easy to get worked over a Narendra Modi in today's times at the same while hailing dead men like Akbar as Akbar the Great. But history is proof that on February 24, 1568, Akbar (the great) called for a pogrom and brutal massacre of 30,000 defenseless Hindus of Chittorgarh, Rajasthan who had refused to convert to Islam. Unlike what Jodha-Akbar would be implying, in reality countless Rajput women committed 'Jauhar' instead of being taken by muslim kings. Some Hindus gave in to the Mughals and they are in the midst as muslims in the country today, but most Hindus didn't. Despite the difficulties, they considered any idea of Man Singhs and Jodha Bais as treason and kept resisting and defying the muslim onslaughts. And it is because of that defiance and determination that Hindu culture and civilization has outlasted the mughal rule and is able to mount back with a massive army and nuclear arsenal capable of obliterating the entire Middle-east today. Fact of the matter is if Akbar and Mughals had their way, Hrithik Roshan would be named Hakim in real life, Aishwarya Rai would be Hamida in a veil somewhere, and this article be asked to be written in some Urdu-Turko script.
So what will not be missed is that this film's maker is not just playing with his own personal hallucinations. He is seeking universal approval for a questionable historical and political agenda using the cover of Hindu voices and faces on the Indian screen.
Bollywood has long been doing this unquestioned of course. The implication that Salim aka Jahangir (Mughals' selected heir to Akbar) was born out of this romance is another myth or unverifiable allegation propogated in modern fantasy primarily, such as the earlier costume drama Mughaleazam. Real Akbar loved this 'Jodha Bai' so much that far from building any Taj Mahal, any school, any building whatsoever for her, he did not even so much as mention the woman any where. Nor does Mr. Salim in his autobiography hint anywhere that his female parentage was not Muslim. Because most likely that was not the case. Most likely, Jodha Bai's offsprings were just wandering around the harems also like her. In any case, given that a number of Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs (Sikh Guru Arjan Dev was slaughtered by him for not accepting Islam) were murdered by Mr. Salim during his stay in power also, it is hard to imagine what good it did anyway for greater benefit of humanity as a whole. What lasting positive influence this supposed Akbar-Jodha cross-religion drama had on India, except for strengthening Akbar and Muslim hold over India till they were themselves overrun by the British. So far as secularism in contemporary India is concerned, regardless of its merits, it is largely a creation of the Hindu (and sustained *by* the Hindu, due to multiple pathway principle intrinsic in Hindu polytheist culture it should be added), not driven by anything to do with Akbar or Baabur or that Nehruvian visionary Aurangzeb. There is a reason why Pakistan which flies the Mughal flag and sees itself as the modern state of the Mughal empire, has pretty much eliminated its Hindu population, and is the kind of society it is compared to India's.
Given the extremely leftist tilt of Bollywood and much of media today, it is not surprising to see the advocacy around Jodha Akbar. They trump it as the ultimate film for all times as hope for peace and harmony and this and that. What they don't realize is that it's a dangerous mirage. The way to advance real peace in the subcontinent is by having a strong Hindustan, capable of avenging and defending its people and its borders, whereby the consequences of trying to destabalize the Hindus (and perhaps those muslims who have chosen to bear allegiance to Hindustan's ancient history) are not worth the incentives that may come with it. That will not however happen by Bollywood imagining up false realities to dupe themselves and the public into 'feeling better' about this era of the history, and by trying to bury significant events, differences and issues under the surface using the rose colored glasses and safety net of Indian cinema.
It is conceivable that the filmmaker and crew have tapdanced their way around some of these hard issues cleverly and if they haven't, they will be in trouble. The underlying themes behind Jodha Akbar in the end are far bigger than a 3 hour movie in some theater. And they're going to have to deal with the various aspects and consequences that are bound to be held against Ronnie Screwvala and the Jodha Akbar promoters, regardless of how big a hit or flop this film on celluloid turns to be.
Hizbul's south Kashmir commander killed in encounter
Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar, Rediff.com
January 30, 2008
http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/30hizbul.htm
With the killing of the group's district commander and three other militants in south Kashmir's Kulgam district on Wednesday, the Kashmir police claim to have eliminated an entire group of the Hizbul Muzahideen operating in the district.
Police and security forces had early on Wednesday cordoned off the Watipora village, 80 kms from Srinagar [Images], following a tip off about the presence of a group of heavily armed militants of the Hizbul Muzahideen.
"As the troops of 1 Rashtriya Rifles and the police started zeroing on the militants this morning, they came under heavy fire, triggering an encounter that ended late this afternoon," a senior police officer said on Wednesday.
"We have killed the Hizbul Muzahideen district commander Sajad Ahmed Bhat alias Tahir Maqsood and three other militants. With their elimination, we have almost wiped out the entire group of Hizbul militants operating in Kulgam," S M Sahai, Kashmir inspector general of police said.
He said that the local police had been in, "hot pursuit of the militants and the continuation of operations against them would result in their complete elimination".
The police said arms and ammunition were recovered even as a search of the encounter site continued.
Sahai said the slain Hizbul district commander had been involved in the June 2006 massacre of labourers in south Kashmir's Anantnag district.
Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar, Rediff.com
January 30, 2008
http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/30hizbul.htm
With the killing of the group's district commander and three other militants in south Kashmir's Kulgam district on Wednesday, the Kashmir police claim to have eliminated an entire group of the Hizbul Muzahideen operating in the district.
Police and security forces had early on Wednesday cordoned off the Watipora village, 80 kms from Srinagar [Images], following a tip off about the presence of a group of heavily armed militants of the Hizbul Muzahideen.
"As the troops of 1 Rashtriya Rifles and the police started zeroing on the militants this morning, they came under heavy fire, triggering an encounter that ended late this afternoon," a senior police officer said on Wednesday.
"We have killed the Hizbul Muzahideen district commander Sajad Ahmed Bhat alias Tahir Maqsood and three other militants. With their elimination, we have almost wiped out the entire group of Hizbul militants operating in Kulgam," S M Sahai, Kashmir inspector general of police said.
He said that the local police had been in, "hot pursuit of the militants and the continuation of operations against them would result in their complete elimination".
The police said arms and ammunition were recovered even as a search of the encounter site continued.
Sahai said the slain Hizbul district commander had been involved in the June 2006 massacre of labourers in south Kashmir's Anantnag district.
Buddhadeb a greater fundamentalist: Mahasweta Devi
Rediff.com
January 31, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/31taslima.htm
Eminent writer Mahasweta Devi has accused West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of being a 'greater fundamentalist' who 'had conspired to throw Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen [Images] out of the state' and demanded his resignation.
"Bhattacharjee has said his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi [Images] is a fundamentalist, but what is he doing here? He hounded Taslima out of the city to get Muslim votes in the coming Panchayat polls in the state," the Magsaysay award winning writer told a press conference in Kolkata on Wednesday.
"The chief minister is a greater fundamentalist. He hatched a conspiracy to hound her (Taslima) out of the state. He should resign," she charged, demanding that Taslima be allowed to return to Kolkata.
She said she had spoken to Taslima, who is staying at undisclosed destination in Delhi, on Tuesday night.
"She is ill. Proper treatment was not given to her. As a writer, I demand that she be allowed to return to Kolkata," she said flanked by noted Hindi poet Kedar Nath Singh and Bengali poet Joy Goswami.
Virtually accusing Bhattacharjee of organising the violent protests by Muslims on November 21 demanding Taslima's ouster from the metropolis, Mahasweta Devi said the chief minister perhaps thought that all Muslims were fundamentalists, which was not true.
She wanted to know where Taslima was lodged and said writers in Delhi wanted to be by her side. She also asked Booker prize winner writer Arundhati Roy to talk to social activist Medha Patkar on the issue.
"We will take the issue to the international forum," she said, adding the Amnesty International had been informed.
Rediff.com
January 31, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/31taslima.htm
Eminent writer Mahasweta Devi has accused West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of being a 'greater fundamentalist' who 'had conspired to throw Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen [Images] out of the state' and demanded his resignation.
"Bhattacharjee has said his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi [Images] is a fundamentalist, but what is he doing here? He hounded Taslima out of the city to get Muslim votes in the coming Panchayat polls in the state," the Magsaysay award winning writer told a press conference in Kolkata on Wednesday.
"The chief minister is a greater fundamentalist. He hatched a conspiracy to hound her (Taslima) out of the state. He should resign," she charged, demanding that Taslima be allowed to return to Kolkata.
She said she had spoken to Taslima, who is staying at undisclosed destination in Delhi, on Tuesday night.
"She is ill. Proper treatment was not given to her. As a writer, I demand that she be allowed to return to Kolkata," she said flanked by noted Hindi poet Kedar Nath Singh and Bengali poet Joy Goswami.
Virtually accusing Bhattacharjee of organising the violent protests by Muslims on November 21 demanding Taslima's ouster from the metropolis, Mahasweta Devi said the chief minister perhaps thought that all Muslims were fundamentalists, which was not true.
She wanted to know where Taslima was lodged and said writers in Delhi wanted to be by her side. She also asked Booker prize winner writer Arundhati Roy to talk to social activist Medha Patkar on the issue.
"We will take the issue to the international forum," she said, adding the Amnesty International had been informed.
Australia to Apologize to Aborigines
Rohan Sullivan, Associated Press
January 30, 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7268921,00.html
As a girl, Mari Melito Russell felt out of place. She was darker than the other kids at school, she felt more comfortable in the forest than her suburban home and she had vivid dreams of an Aboriginal woman beckoning her.
At age 24, she learned a shocking truth that helped explain her unease and set her on an agonizing search for an identity snatched away from her the day she was born.
Russell is among thousands of Australian Aborigines who were forcibly removed from their families under policies that lasted for decades until 1970, leaving deep scars on countless lives and the nation's psyche.
Australia's government said Wednesday it would formally apologize to the so-called ``stolen generations'' next month, as the first item of business of the new Parliament.
The issue has divided Australians for decades, and an apology would be a crucial step toward righting injustices many blame for the marginalized existence of Australia's original inhabitants - it's poorest and most deprived citizens.
``It's not going to bring back my life,'' Russell, 72, told The Associated Press Wednesday at her home on Sydney's outskirts. ``It's not going to bring back my mum. It's not going to take away the abuse that I had to endure when I was growing up.''
``But at least it's a start.''
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected last November and whose pledge to apologize overturns a decade of refusals by his predecessor, has ruled out paying compensation. But he says he is determined to help all Aborigines achieve better health, education and living standards.
``This is about getting the symbolic covenant, if you like, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia right and then moving on,'' Rudd said thiairs Minister Jenny Macklin said Wednesday the apology would ``be made on behalf of the Australian government and does not attribute guilt to the current generation of Australian people.''
Her statement reflects the lingering concerns of many Australians that they should not be made responsible for mistakes by their forebears.
Aborigines - 450,000 among Australia's population of 21 million - are the country's poorest ethnic group and are most likely to be jailed, unemployed and illiterate. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than other Australians.
From 1910 until 1970, some 100,000 mostly mixed-blood Aboriginal children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws that argued the race was doomed and that integrating the children was a humane alternative.
An inquiry by the national Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission concluded in 1997 that many stolen generation children suffered long-term psychological effects stemming from their loss of family and culture. It recommended that state and federal authorities apologize and pay compensation to those who were removed. All state governments have apologized, but the question of compensation was left to the federal government.
Then-Prime Minister John Howard steadfastly refused to apologize or pay compensation, saying his government should not be held responsible for past policies.
Although the last laws granting authorities the power to take Aboriginal children from their families were abolished in 1970, many Aborigines say statistics show the government is still far more likely to take Aboriginal children into foster care than white children.
Last summer, the government passed a package of bills to fight what it said was rampant child abuse among Aborigines in the Northern Territory, fueled by widespread alcoholism, unemployment and poverty. The legislation, which included a controversial plan to take control of some Aboriginal lands, was condemned by critics as a racist attack on indigenous rights.
Aboriginal leaders generally welcomed Wednesday's pledge to issue a formal apology.
``Older people thought they would never live to see this day,'' said Christine King, whose group the Stolen Generations Alliance was consulted by the government about the apology.
Others still want compensation. Michael Mansell of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center wants the government to set aside $882 million for compensation.
Russell grew up in Sydney with parents of Scottish and Irish backgrounds. She says her father beat her and sexually abused her. Russell's mother once scolded her for bringing an Aboriginal girl home to play, calling them ``dirty'' people.
She recalls having vivid dreams of an Aboriginal woman who sat on a rock and said, ``Come back to your culture.'' Confused by the dream then, she now believes it was her ancestors beckoning her.
For Russell, the first hard evidence that she was adopted came after her mother died in 1959 and her aunt sent a letter saying she did not belong in the family and was no longer welcome.
She began scouring hospital records, birth and marriage registries and even shipping logs to try to discover her true identity, but clues were few.
In the mid-1990s, changes to the law made it easier for adopted children to access birth records and Russell discovered her true heritage: She was born to a 13-year-old Aboriginal girl named Joyce Russell, from whose arms she was taken on the day of her birth on Sept. 4, 1935.
A group called Link-Up, established to reunite families of the stolen generations, helped Russell trace her birth mother to a nursing home in Easton, Pa., and a nervous reunion between mother and daughter was finally arranged in 2001.
``I was trying to be really strong and not cry,'' Russell recalled. ``It was a bit of a shock when they brought her up because the resemblance between me and her was really strong. She kept grabbing my hand, she kept walking with me everywhere. She wouldn't let me out of her sight.''
At first the elderly woman didn't realize who the younger woman was, and welfare workers asked gently probing questions to try to prompt her memory, mentioning Mari Russell's birth date and the hospital she was born in.
``She started crying, and then she got so angry and she was sobbing,'' Russell said. ``She said `I had a baby girl and they took her away from me. Why did they do that? Why did they do that?'''
``I said to her, 'It's OK mum, I'm that little girl.'''
Russell spent two weeks with her mother in Pennsylvania. Joyce Russell died last month at the age of 84, and her daughter was bringing her ashes home for burial.
For Russell, the apology is a positive step but will never replace what she and so many others lost.
``We missed out on our culture, our language, our history,'' she said. ``You can never get back those lost years, you just can't.''
- Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk contributed to the story from Canberra.
Rohan Sullivan, Associated Press
January 30, 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7268921,00.html
As a girl, Mari Melito Russell felt out of place. She was darker than the other kids at school, she felt more comfortable in the forest than her suburban home and she had vivid dreams of an Aboriginal woman beckoning her.
At age 24, she learned a shocking truth that helped explain her unease and set her on an agonizing search for an identity snatched away from her the day she was born.
Russell is among thousands of Australian Aborigines who were forcibly removed from their families under policies that lasted for decades until 1970, leaving deep scars on countless lives and the nation's psyche.
Australia's government said Wednesday it would formally apologize to the so-called ``stolen generations'' next month, as the first item of business of the new Parliament.
The issue has divided Australians for decades, and an apology would be a crucial step toward righting injustices many blame for the marginalized existence of Australia's original inhabitants - it's poorest and most deprived citizens.
``It's not going to bring back my life,'' Russell, 72, told The Associated Press Wednesday at her home on Sydney's outskirts. ``It's not going to bring back my mum. It's not going to take away the abuse that I had to endure when I was growing up.''
``But at least it's a start.''
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected last November and whose pledge to apologize overturns a decade of refusals by his predecessor, has ruled out paying compensation. But he says he is determined to help all Aborigines achieve better health, education and living standards.
``This is about getting the symbolic covenant, if you like, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia right and then moving on,'' Rudd said thiairs Minister Jenny Macklin said Wednesday the apology would ``be made on behalf of the Australian government and does not attribute guilt to the current generation of Australian people.''
Her statement reflects the lingering concerns of many Australians that they should not be made responsible for mistakes by their forebears.
Aborigines - 450,000 among Australia's population of 21 million - are the country's poorest ethnic group and are most likely to be jailed, unemployed and illiterate. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than other Australians.
From 1910 until 1970, some 100,000 mostly mixed-blood Aboriginal children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws that argued the race was doomed and that integrating the children was a humane alternative.
An inquiry by the national Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission concluded in 1997 that many stolen generation children suffered long-term psychological effects stemming from their loss of family and culture. It recommended that state and federal authorities apologize and pay compensation to those who were removed. All state governments have apologized, but the question of compensation was left to the federal government.
Then-Prime Minister John Howard steadfastly refused to apologize or pay compensation, saying his government should not be held responsible for past policies.
Although the last laws granting authorities the power to take Aboriginal children from their families were abolished in 1970, many Aborigines say statistics show the government is still far more likely to take Aboriginal children into foster care than white children.
Last summer, the government passed a package of bills to fight what it said was rampant child abuse among Aborigines in the Northern Territory, fueled by widespread alcoholism, unemployment and poverty. The legislation, which included a controversial plan to take control of some Aboriginal lands, was condemned by critics as a racist attack on indigenous rights.
Aboriginal leaders generally welcomed Wednesday's pledge to issue a formal apology.
``Older people thought they would never live to see this day,'' said Christine King, whose group the Stolen Generations Alliance was consulted by the government about the apology.
Others still want compensation. Michael Mansell of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center wants the government to set aside $882 million for compensation.
Russell grew up in Sydney with parents of Scottish and Irish backgrounds. She says her father beat her and sexually abused her. Russell's mother once scolded her for bringing an Aboriginal girl home to play, calling them ``dirty'' people.
She recalls having vivid dreams of an Aboriginal woman who sat on a rock and said, ``Come back to your culture.'' Confused by the dream then, she now believes it was her ancestors beckoning her.
For Russell, the first hard evidence that she was adopted came after her mother died in 1959 and her aunt sent a letter saying she did not belong in the family and was no longer welcome.
She began scouring hospital records, birth and marriage registries and even shipping logs to try to discover her true identity, but clues were few.
In the mid-1990s, changes to the law made it easier for adopted children to access birth records and Russell discovered her true heritage: She was born to a 13-year-old Aboriginal girl named Joyce Russell, from whose arms she was taken on the day of her birth on Sept. 4, 1935.
A group called Link-Up, established to reunite families of the stolen generations, helped Russell trace her birth mother to a nursing home in Easton, Pa., and a nervous reunion between mother and daughter was finally arranged in 2001.
``I was trying to be really strong and not cry,'' Russell recalled. ``It was a bit of a shock when they brought her up because the resemblance between me and her was really strong. She kept grabbing my hand, she kept walking with me everywhere. She wouldn't let me out of her sight.''
At first the elderly woman didn't realize who the younger woman was, and welfare workers asked gently probing questions to try to prompt her memory, mentioning Mari Russell's birth date and the hospital she was born in.
``She started crying, and then she got so angry and she was sobbing,'' Russell said. ``She said `I had a baby girl and they took her away from me. Why did they do that? Why did they do that?'''
``I said to her, 'It's OK mum, I'm that little girl.'''
Russell spent two weeks with her mother in Pennsylvania. Joyce Russell died last month at the age of 84, and her daughter was bringing her ashes home for burial.
For Russell, the apology is a positive step but will never replace what she and so many others lost.
``We missed out on our culture, our language, our history,'' she said. ``You can never get back those lost years, you just can't.''
- Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk contributed to the story from Canberra.
This leader has no followers
Swapan Dasgupta, The Pioneer
January 21, 2008
The mushrooming of non-official awards resembles a competitive theatre of the absurd. Last Thursday, many Indians must have been as puzzled as me on seeing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh being honoured with a Leader of the Year award by a leading media house.
Now, there are many things goings for the Prime Minister. He is a soft-spoken and an innately decent man who doesn't like throwing his weight around. Unfortunately, he is about as much a leader as Pervez Musharraf is a democrat. This, in fact, was quite apparent at the televised version of the awards ceremony itself. Called to present another award to Rajnikanth, Manmohan stood stiff and purposeless on stage, staring into space while some TV presenter conducted an inane Q&A between the Tamil idol and other celebrities.
True, the PM was a model of civility but the mere fact that some insolent journalists could take him so much for granted suggests there was something inappropriate about the award he received. Can you imagine Indira Gandhi being similarly slighted or even the much-reviled Narendra Modi? For the past three years, the lack of a decisive head of Government at the Centre was attributed to the quirks of someone's "inner voice". However, as the country moves steadily into election mode, the Congress has to confront the question which it knows has to be answered: Who will be its Prime Ministerial candidate in the next General Election?
Of course, it could persist with the Leader of the Year. However, apart from the jury members who lured him into attending the function with this sop, it is unlikely that this resounding faith in the Prime Minister is shared by the voting classes. Whether it was in Punjab (ostensibly his home State), Bihar or Gujarat, Manmohan's election rallies could well have been mistaken for book release functions. During the Gujarat campaign, Modi evoked derisive laughter from his crowds when he said: "We have a Prime Minister. Do you know his name?"
The political problems of facelessness wouldn't have been a source of anxiety had it been apparent that elections were won in Sonia Gandhi's name. Although there are flatterers who insist that this has been the case since she entered politics in 1998, empirical evidence suggests otherwise. In 2004, the vote was against NDA rather than in favour of Sonia. The three occasions the Congress secured re-election in States -- Madhya Pradesh in 1998, Delhi in 2003 and Assam in 2004 -- was on account of a strong Chief Minister and (in the case of Assam) opposition disunity.
The Congress' reverses in a series of Assembly elections last year was, of course, mainly due to local factors. However, the defeats also demonstrated that neither Sonia nor the Centre has an autonomous vote-pulling capacity. In Uttarakhand, for example, the Centre's mismanagement of prices was a factor in pulling voters away from the Congress. In other States, notably Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, the UPA Government's pro-aam aadmi sops and handouts proved utterly ineffective. And, in all states the Centre's inept handling of internal security played its role in creaming support away from the Congress.
To put it bluntly, there is nothing in the recent poll results to show that Sonia can buck anti-incumbency. In fact, if it hadn't been for the hands-off approach towards entrepreneurship -- its flip side is the complete halt in the economic reforms process -- the UPA Government's problems would have been far uglier.
The CAG report on the NREG programme which points to a disastrous delivery record may be a pointer to why there is no great enthusiasm for the UPA Government. Like the spurious garibi hatao slogan of the 1970s, the aam aadmi approach has raised expectations without any prospect of delivery. Likewise, the exaggerated rhetoric of minorityism has whetted Muslim appetite for power but the UPA dare not begin translating it into reality. The retreat over another States Reorganisation Commission may have been prompted by the scare that a Harit Pradesh may see a Deoband-controlled province in the heart of India.
In 2004, Sonia steered the UPA into prioritising welfare and minorityism. Three years later, both the NREG and the Sachar allurements threaten not only to carry diminishing returns but even become the Congress' swan songs.
For the Congress if the present is bad, the future looks alarming. There is no great enthusiasm anywhere except at the AICC headquarters for Rahul Gandhi. He stands for nothing in particular, has shown no flashes of brilliance and has demonstrated no inclination to get his hands too dirty. His Uttar Pradesh campaign yielded as many lost deposits as in the past and, in Gujarat, the party had to ferry bus loads of support from neighbouring Maharashtra. In Surat, the city which he was supposed to mesmerise on the final day of the campaign, the BJP increased its popular vote share exponentially.
If only Indian elections were a face-off between Rahul G and Bilawal B, life would be uncluttered.
Apart from a Manmohan-like decency, the only thing going for Rahul is his age. In a country where there is a glaring mismatch between the demographic pattern and political authority, the heir-apparent has the potential of relating a little better to the under-35s. However, in the three years he has been in politics, has Rahul demonstrated either spark or commitment? He remains mired in his babalog inheritance. He is happiest in the company of PLUs and the most uninhibited asking Shah Rukh Khan a pre-arranged question. At this rate, he may even be in line for next year's Leader of the Year award from NDTV.
Maybe, they will persuade Mayawati or Modi to hand over the prize.
Swapan Dasgupta, The Pioneer
January 21, 2008
The mushrooming of non-official awards resembles a competitive theatre of the absurd. Last Thursday, many Indians must have been as puzzled as me on seeing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh being honoured with a Leader of the Year award by a leading media house.
Now, there are many things goings for the Prime Minister. He is a soft-spoken and an innately decent man who doesn't like throwing his weight around. Unfortunately, he is about as much a leader as Pervez Musharraf is a democrat. This, in fact, was quite apparent at the televised version of the awards ceremony itself. Called to present another award to Rajnikanth, Manmohan stood stiff and purposeless on stage, staring into space while some TV presenter conducted an inane Q&A between the Tamil idol and other celebrities.
True, the PM was a model of civility but the mere fact that some insolent journalists could take him so much for granted suggests there was something inappropriate about the award he received. Can you imagine Indira Gandhi being similarly slighted or even the much-reviled Narendra Modi? For the past three years, the lack of a decisive head of Government at the Centre was attributed to the quirks of someone's "inner voice". However, as the country moves steadily into election mode, the Congress has to confront the question which it knows has to be answered: Who will be its Prime Ministerial candidate in the next General Election?
Of course, it could persist with the Leader of the Year. However, apart from the jury members who lured him into attending the function with this sop, it is unlikely that this resounding faith in the Prime Minister is shared by the voting classes. Whether it was in Punjab (ostensibly his home State), Bihar or Gujarat, Manmohan's election rallies could well have been mistaken for book release functions. During the Gujarat campaign, Modi evoked derisive laughter from his crowds when he said: "We have a Prime Minister. Do you know his name?"
The political problems of facelessness wouldn't have been a source of anxiety had it been apparent that elections were won in Sonia Gandhi's name. Although there are flatterers who insist that this has been the case since she entered politics in 1998, empirical evidence suggests otherwise. In 2004, the vote was against NDA rather than in favour of Sonia. The three occasions the Congress secured re-election in States -- Madhya Pradesh in 1998, Delhi in 2003 and Assam in 2004 -- was on account of a strong Chief Minister and (in the case of Assam) opposition disunity.
The Congress' reverses in a series of Assembly elections last year was, of course, mainly due to local factors. However, the defeats also demonstrated that neither Sonia nor the Centre has an autonomous vote-pulling capacity. In Uttarakhand, for example, the Centre's mismanagement of prices was a factor in pulling voters away from the Congress. In other States, notably Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, the UPA Government's pro-aam aadmi sops and handouts proved utterly ineffective. And, in all states the Centre's inept handling of internal security played its role in creaming support away from the Congress.
To put it bluntly, there is nothing in the recent poll results to show that Sonia can buck anti-incumbency. In fact, if it hadn't been for the hands-off approach towards entrepreneurship -- its flip side is the complete halt in the economic reforms process -- the UPA Government's problems would have been far uglier.
The CAG report on the NREG programme which points to a disastrous delivery record may be a pointer to why there is no great enthusiasm for the UPA Government. Like the spurious garibi hatao slogan of the 1970s, the aam aadmi approach has raised expectations without any prospect of delivery. Likewise, the exaggerated rhetoric of minorityism has whetted Muslim appetite for power but the UPA dare not begin translating it into reality. The retreat over another States Reorganisation Commission may have been prompted by the scare that a Harit Pradesh may see a Deoband-controlled province in the heart of India.
In 2004, Sonia steered the UPA into prioritising welfare and minorityism. Three years later, both the NREG and the Sachar allurements threaten not only to carry diminishing returns but even become the Congress' swan songs.
For the Congress if the present is bad, the future looks alarming. There is no great enthusiasm anywhere except at the AICC headquarters for Rahul Gandhi. He stands for nothing in particular, has shown no flashes of brilliance and has demonstrated no inclination to get his hands too dirty. His Uttar Pradesh campaign yielded as many lost deposits as in the past and, in Gujarat, the party had to ferry bus loads of support from neighbouring Maharashtra. In Surat, the city which he was supposed to mesmerise on the final day of the campaign, the BJP increased its popular vote share exponentially.
If only Indian elections were a face-off between Rahul G and Bilawal B, life would be uncluttered.
Apart from a Manmohan-like decency, the only thing going for Rahul is his age. In a country where there is a glaring mismatch between the demographic pattern and political authority, the heir-apparent has the potential of relating a little better to the under-35s. However, in the three years he has been in politics, has Rahul demonstrated either spark or commitment? He remains mired in his babalog inheritance. He is happiest in the company of PLUs and the most uninhibited asking Shah Rukh Khan a pre-arranged question. At this rate, he may even be in line for next year's Leader of the Year award from NDTV.
Maybe, they will persuade Mayawati or Modi to hand over the prize.
India worried about Al-Qaida hold on Pak
Indrani Bagchi, The Times of India
January 31, 2008
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_worried_about_Al-Qaida_hold_on_Pak/articleshow/2744456.cms
As Pakistan continues to wallow in instability, India's internal assessment about the internal situation in Pakistan is looking more and more grim. Despite all the protestations from Pakistan's leadership, India has concluded that the Al-Qaida is now in virtual control of Pakistan's tribal areas, and Islamabad and the Pakistan army are making little headway.
The proliferation of militants and terrorists is having an exponential increase on India's threat perception from across the border, said high level sources in the government, citing their most recent assessment.
The real fear is that the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and those controlled by the Pakistan intelligence agency, ISI, may undertake "maverick missions" which is spook-speak for assassination attempts on high-profile targets.
The recent threats to Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, BJP president Rajnath Singh and even the Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, Satyabrata Pal, have been identified with specific intelligence. The government estimates that more such threats to high-profile personalities in India may be on the rise. It was also the reason for the unusually high security measures before Republic day, which has been a traditional hunting day for terrorists.
Waziristan, Swat and adjoining areas, says the government's assessment, are virtually in the hands of the Al-Qaida — which in Indian reckoning, includes the Pakistan Taliban and other allied groups. "The reports are very negative," said sources.
Terrorism analyst B Raman said the Pakistani army is fighting a four-front war against jehadis — "against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in South Waziristan, against the Tehrik and the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the sensitive Darra Adam Khel-Kohat area of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Shia-dominated Kurram Agency of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas, against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-Shariat-e-Mohammadi headed by Maulana Fazlullah and the Jaish-e-Mohammad in the Swat Valley of NWFP."
The Pakistan army and Al-Qaida (the loose term encompassing all these groups) are involved in a "hot war", said Ajai Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management, "where the divisions between the two sides are not very clear". "The very fact that Mullah Omar has supposedly dismissed Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud for working against the Pakistan army shows that there is some degree of collaboration/cooperation/control of these outfits by the ISI."
The ISI, said security sources, continues to maintain its policy of "death by a thousand cuts" against India, and the availability of hardcore militants, terrorists and killers has now increased hugely inside Pakistan. The old policy of deflecting the attention on the internal situation by "heating up" Kashmir could well be activated.
India is gearing up for not only a vicious "spring offensive" in the Pakistan-Afghanistan area, but also inside India, with more terror infiltration from Pakistan. There has also been some concern about reports that the ISI has resurrected Dawood Ibrahim to launch high-profile attacks against Indian personalities.
- indrani.bagchi@timesgroup.com
Indrani Bagchi, The Times of India
January 31, 2008
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_worried_about_Al-Qaida_hold_on_Pak/articleshow/2744456.cms
As Pakistan continues to wallow in instability, India's internal assessment about the internal situation in Pakistan is looking more and more grim. Despite all the protestations from Pakistan's leadership, India has concluded that the Al-Qaida is now in virtual control of Pakistan's tribal areas, and Islamabad and the Pakistan army are making little headway.
The proliferation of militants and terrorists is having an exponential increase on India's threat perception from across the border, said high level sources in the government, citing their most recent assessment.
The real fear is that the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and those controlled by the Pakistan intelligence agency, ISI, may undertake "maverick missions" which is spook-speak for assassination attempts on high-profile targets.
The recent threats to Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, BJP president Rajnath Singh and even the Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, Satyabrata Pal, have been identified with specific intelligence. The government estimates that more such threats to high-profile personalities in India may be on the rise. It was also the reason for the unusually high security measures before Republic day, which has been a traditional hunting day for terrorists.
Waziristan, Swat and adjoining areas, says the government's assessment, are virtually in the hands of the Al-Qaida — which in Indian reckoning, includes the Pakistan Taliban and other allied groups. "The reports are very negative," said sources.
Terrorism analyst B Raman said the Pakistani army is fighting a four-front war against jehadis — "against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in South Waziristan, against the Tehrik and the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the sensitive Darra Adam Khel-Kohat area of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Shia-dominated Kurram Agency of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas, against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-Shariat-e-Mohammadi headed by Maulana Fazlullah and the Jaish-e-Mohammad in the Swat Valley of NWFP."
The Pakistan army and Al-Qaida (the loose term encompassing all these groups) are involved in a "hot war", said Ajai Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management, "where the divisions between the two sides are not very clear". "The very fact that Mullah Omar has supposedly dismissed Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud for working against the Pakistan army shows that there is some degree of collaboration/cooperation/control of these outfits by the ISI."
The ISI, said security sources, continues to maintain its policy of "death by a thousand cuts" against India, and the availability of hardcore militants, terrorists and killers has now increased hugely inside Pakistan. The old policy of deflecting the attention on the internal situation by "heating up" Kashmir could well be activated.
India is gearing up for not only a vicious "spring offensive" in the Pakistan-Afghanistan area, but also inside India, with more terror infiltration from Pakistan. There has also been some concern about reports that the ISI has resurrected Dawood Ibrahim to launch high-profile attacks against Indian personalities.
- indrani.bagchi@timesgroup.com
Mahatma Gandhi, Dr B R Ambedkar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Christian Missionary Work
Dr T Hanuman Chowdary, CrusadeWatch.org
April 20, 2007
http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=740&Itemid=128
"Only the other day a missionary descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple, and demolished it. This is outrageous." – Mahatma Gandhi (Harijan: November 5, 1937)
Sri John Dayal and other strident spokespersons of Christian Church and missionaries have faulted Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Prime Minister, for the public expression of his opinion that the humanitarian services that the Christian missionaries are rendering through their schools and hospital have a conversion motive. It is really astounding for them to disown the conversion motive. It is not only Atal Bihari Vajpayee who has asserted this truth of the missionaries’ motives, but no less a person than Mahatma Gandhi himself has on several occasions asserted this opinion publicly and in writings in the Harijan and Young India journals he edited.
Swamy Vivekananda during his sojourn in the USA, after attending the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in October 1893, had also brought out this prime motive of the Christians and spoke against it. This is what he said to the Christian missionaries. “You train, educate and pay men to do what? Come over to my country to curse and abuse all my forefathers, my religion and everything. They walk near a temple and say , you idolaters will go to hell. They dare not do that with the Mohammadens of India. The sword will be out. …… if all India stands and takes all the mud that is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and throws it up against the Western countries, it will not be doing an infinitesimal part of that which you are doing to us. (History of Hindu Christian Encounters. Page 241). Mahatma Gandhi had tried to put the Christian missions in a tight spot by proclaiming that proselytization was morally wrong and spiritually sterile, if not counter-productive.
Here are excerpts from what Mahatma Gandhi said and wrote.
Mahatma Gandhi advised the missionaries to serve the spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytizing but continuing their philanthropic work.
…” Although the missionary went to the foreign fields to win souls for Jesus, the results of his labours also meant the extension of commerce. Trade would follow the banner of the Cross, as readily as it would the Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes, or any of the other national emblems and usually it cost a good deal less.”…. (Young India of February 8, 1923)
“I am sorry to have to record my opinion that it (Christian missionary work) has been disastrous. It pains me to have to say that the Christian missionaries as a body, with honourable exceptions, have actively supported a system which has impoverished, enervated and demoralised a people considered to be among the gentlest and the most civilized on earth.”. (Young India Feb 8, 1923)
Mahatma Gandhi further wrote: “…it (the missionary’s work) is not unusual to find Christianity synonymous with denationalization and Europianisation….” It was precisely for this reason that Dr B R Ambedkar refused to become a Christian. While renouncing Hinduism he converted to Buddhism and not Christianity, saying that if he converted to Christianity he would cease to be Indian. Mahatma Gandhi wrote “If instead of confining themselves to purely humanitarian work such as education, medical services to the poor and the like, they use these activities of theirs for the purpose of proselytizing, I would certainly like them to withdraw. Every nation considers its own faith to be as good as that of any other. Certainly the great faiths held by the people of India are adequate for her people. India stands in no need of conversion from one faith to another. Gandhiji gave an interview to the press on March 21, 1931. Gandhiji made no concession to conversion by “modern methods”, which “has nowadays become a business like any other. He was reminded of “a missionary report saying how much it cost per head to convert and then presenting a budget for the ‘next harvest’.
He then asked some very pertinent questions: “Why should I change my religion because a doctor who professes Christianity as his religion has cured me of some disease or why should the doctor expect or suggest such a change whilst I am under his influence? Is not medical relief its own reward and satisfaction? Or why should I, whilst I am in a missionary educational institution have Christian teaching thrust upon me?”
The Harijan dated May 11, 1935 published an interview given by Gandhiji to a missionary nurse before that date. The nurse asked him, “would you prevent missionaries coming to India in order to baptize? Gandhiji replied, “If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytizing. It is the cause of much avoidable conflict between classes and unnecessary heart-burning among the missionaries”.
In Hindu households the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink”. The nurse commented, “Is it not the old conception you are referring to? No such is now associated with proselytisation”. Gandhiji was well-informed about the missionary methods. He said, “The outward condition has perhaps changed but the inward mostly remains the same. Vilification of Hindu religion, though subdued, is there……”
About the humanitarian work Gandhiji had this to say. , “ the other day a missionary descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine-stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple and demolished it. This is outrageous. The temple could not belong to the converted, and it could not belong to the Christian missionary. But this friend goes and gets it demolished at the hands of the very men who only a little while ago believed that God was there.”
The incident of a Polish student asking Gandhiji’s autograph, on the photo, is very revealing of the motives of the missionaries. A Polish student brought a photograph to Gandhiji and got it autographed by him. “There is,” he said, “a school conducted by Catholic Fathers. I shall help the school from the proceeds of the sale of this photograph.” Gandhiji took back the photograph from the student and said, “Ah, that is a different story. You do not expect me to finance the Fathers in their mission of conversion? The Harijan dated July 18, 1936, published a discussion which Gandhiji had with Pierre Ceresole (PC), his very admiring Christian friend and some Christian missionaries.
(PC) Would you be really happy if I stayed at home?
(Gandhiji)I cannot say that. But I will certainly say that I have never been able to understand your going out of America. Is there nothing to do there?
(P.C) Even in America there is enough scope for educational work.
(Gandhiji) That is a fatal confession. You are not a superfluity there. But for the curious position your Church has taken you would not be here. …… There is a kink. At the back of your mind there is not pure service for its sake, but the result of service in the shape of many people coming to the Christian fold.
The same issue carried the following dialogue between Gandhiji and a Missionary Lady (ML).
ML: …..the Church at home would be happy through our hospital more people would be led to Christian lives
Gandhiji: But whilst you give the medical help you expect the reward in the shape of your patients becoming Christians.
ML: Yes, the reward is expected. Otherwise there are many other places in the world which need our service. But instead of going there we come here.
Gandhiji: There is the kink. At the back of your mind there is not pure service for its sake, but the result of service in the shape of many people coming to the Christian fold.
The definite views of Gandhiji fearlessly expressed and recorded and published and the conviction of Dr B R Ambedkar vindicate what Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee said about the “humanitarian” motives of Christian missionaries. Let us not dismiss them as pre-Independence situation. Government of Independent India appointed the Niyogi Commission to inquire into the reported unethical methods of Christian missionaries to gather harvest of converts. The Niyogi Commission found evidence of inducement, fraud, mis- and dis-information practised by Christian missionaries to convert Hindus, especially, the illiterate, isolated and destitute. It recommended the enactment of laws to regulate conversions. Only two or three Governments (Orissa for example) enacted the law. But in the last forty years less than a dozen conversions were reported in compliance with the relevant Orissa law. Obviously, the Christian missionaries have been disregarding the law with impunity. In light of the Pope’s call for a harvest of souls for Christianity from Asia (surely not from Islamic countries eg. Afghanistan where eight Christian UN aid workers are jailed and charged for attempting to convert Moslems to Christianity) i.e., the tolerant Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs and the feverish activity of missionaries supplied with fantabulous foreign funds and the alarm that their activity is raising among Hindus and the strife that would follow from Hindu resistance to conversion and defence of their religion, Government of India must first enforce a temporary halt to conversions to be followed by enactment of law to regulate conversions, to prevent fraud, inducement, mis-information and tricks to secure converts especially from vulnerable and defenceless sections of our country.
Dr T Hanuman Chowdary, CrusadeWatch.org
April 20, 2007
http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=740&Itemid=128
"Only the other day a missionary descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple, and demolished it. This is outrageous." – Mahatma Gandhi (Harijan: November 5, 1937)
Sri John Dayal and other strident spokespersons of Christian Church and missionaries have faulted Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Prime Minister, for the public expression of his opinion that the humanitarian services that the Christian missionaries are rendering through their schools and hospital have a conversion motive. It is really astounding for them to disown the conversion motive. It is not only Atal Bihari Vajpayee who has asserted this truth of the missionaries’ motives, but no less a person than Mahatma Gandhi himself has on several occasions asserted this opinion publicly and in writings in the Harijan and Young India journals he edited.
Swamy Vivekananda during his sojourn in the USA, after attending the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in October 1893, had also brought out this prime motive of the Christians and spoke against it. This is what he said to the Christian missionaries. “You train, educate and pay men to do what? Come over to my country to curse and abuse all my forefathers, my religion and everything. They walk near a temple and say , you idolaters will go to hell. They dare not do that with the Mohammadens of India. The sword will be out. …… if all India stands and takes all the mud that is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and throws it up against the Western countries, it will not be doing an infinitesimal part of that which you are doing to us. (History of Hindu Christian Encounters. Page 241). Mahatma Gandhi had tried to put the Christian missions in a tight spot by proclaiming that proselytization was morally wrong and spiritually sterile, if not counter-productive.
Here are excerpts from what Mahatma Gandhi said and wrote.
Mahatma Gandhi advised the missionaries to serve the spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytizing but continuing their philanthropic work.
…” Although the missionary went to the foreign fields to win souls for Jesus, the results of his labours also meant the extension of commerce. Trade would follow the banner of the Cross, as readily as it would the Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes, or any of the other national emblems and usually it cost a good deal less.”…. (Young India of February 8, 1923)
“I am sorry to have to record my opinion that it (Christian missionary work) has been disastrous. It pains me to have to say that the Christian missionaries as a body, with honourable exceptions, have actively supported a system which has impoverished, enervated and demoralised a people considered to be among the gentlest and the most civilized on earth.”. (Young India Feb 8, 1923)
Mahatma Gandhi further wrote: “…it (the missionary’s work) is not unusual to find Christianity synonymous with denationalization and Europianisation….” It was precisely for this reason that Dr B R Ambedkar refused to become a Christian. While renouncing Hinduism he converted to Buddhism and not Christianity, saying that if he converted to Christianity he would cease to be Indian. Mahatma Gandhi wrote “If instead of confining themselves to purely humanitarian work such as education, medical services to the poor and the like, they use these activities of theirs for the purpose of proselytizing, I would certainly like them to withdraw. Every nation considers its own faith to be as good as that of any other. Certainly the great faiths held by the people of India are adequate for her people. India stands in no need of conversion from one faith to another. Gandhiji gave an interview to the press on March 21, 1931. Gandhiji made no concession to conversion by “modern methods”, which “has nowadays become a business like any other. He was reminded of “a missionary report saying how much it cost per head to convert and then presenting a budget for the ‘next harvest’.
He then asked some very pertinent questions: “Why should I change my religion because a doctor who professes Christianity as his religion has cured me of some disease or why should the doctor expect or suggest such a change whilst I am under his influence? Is not medical relief its own reward and satisfaction? Or why should I, whilst I am in a missionary educational institution have Christian teaching thrust upon me?”
The Harijan dated May 11, 1935 published an interview given by Gandhiji to a missionary nurse before that date. The nurse asked him, “would you prevent missionaries coming to India in order to baptize? Gandhiji replied, “If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytizing. It is the cause of much avoidable conflict between classes and unnecessary heart-burning among the missionaries”.
In Hindu households the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink”. The nurse commented, “Is it not the old conception you are referring to? No such is now associated with proselytisation”. Gandhiji was well-informed about the missionary methods. He said, “The outward condition has perhaps changed but the inward mostly remains the same. Vilification of Hindu religion, though subdued, is there……”
About the humanitarian work Gandhiji had this to say. , “ the other day a missionary descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine-stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple and demolished it. This is outrageous. The temple could not belong to the converted, and it could not belong to the Christian missionary. But this friend goes and gets it demolished at the hands of the very men who only a little while ago believed that God was there.”
The incident of a Polish student asking Gandhiji’s autograph, on the photo, is very revealing of the motives of the missionaries. A Polish student brought a photograph to Gandhiji and got it autographed by him. “There is,” he said, “a school conducted by Catholic Fathers. I shall help the school from the proceeds of the sale of this photograph.” Gandhiji took back the photograph from the student and said, “Ah, that is a different story. You do not expect me to finance the Fathers in their mission of conversion? The Harijan dated July 18, 1936, published a discussion which Gandhiji had with Pierre Ceresole (PC), his very admiring Christian friend and some Christian missionaries.
(PC) Would you be really happy if I stayed at home?
(Gandhiji)I cannot say that. But I will certainly say that I have never been able to understand your going out of America. Is there nothing to do there?
(P.C) Even in America there is enough scope for educational work.
(Gandhiji) That is a fatal confession. You are not a superfluity there. But for the curious position your Church has taken you would not be here. …… There is a kink. At the back of your mind there is not pure service for its sake, but the result of service in the shape of many people coming to the Christian fold.
The same issue carried the following dialogue between Gandhiji and a Missionary Lady (ML).
ML: …..the Church at home would be happy through our hospital more people would be led to Christian lives
Gandhiji: But whilst you give the medical help you expect the reward in the shape of your patients becoming Christians.
ML: Yes, the reward is expected. Otherwise there are many other places in the world which need our service. But instead of going there we come here.
Gandhiji: There is the kink. At the back of your mind there is not pure service for its sake, but the result of service in the shape of many people coming to the Christian fold.
The definite views of Gandhiji fearlessly expressed and recorded and published and the conviction of Dr B R Ambedkar vindicate what Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee said about the “humanitarian” motives of Christian missionaries. Let us not dismiss them as pre-Independence situation. Government of Independent India appointed the Niyogi Commission to inquire into the reported unethical methods of Christian missionaries to gather harvest of converts. The Niyogi Commission found evidence of inducement, fraud, mis- and dis-information practised by Christian missionaries to convert Hindus, especially, the illiterate, isolated and destitute. It recommended the enactment of laws to regulate conversions. Only two or three Governments (Orissa for example) enacted the law. But in the last forty years less than a dozen conversions were reported in compliance with the relevant Orissa law. Obviously, the Christian missionaries have been disregarding the law with impunity. In light of the Pope’s call for a harvest of souls for Christianity from Asia (surely not from Islamic countries eg. Afghanistan where eight Christian UN aid workers are jailed and charged for attempting to convert Moslems to Christianity) i.e., the tolerant Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs and the feverish activity of missionaries supplied with fantabulous foreign funds and the alarm that their activity is raising among Hindus and the strife that would follow from Hindu resistance to conversion and defence of their religion, Government of India must first enforce a temporary halt to conversions to be followed by enactment of law to regulate conversions, to prevent fraud, inducement, mis-information and tricks to secure converts especially from vulnerable and defenceless sections of our country.
GoM on Ram Sethu fails to reach accord on affidavit
Priyanka P. Narain, LiveMint.com
January 30, 2008
http://www.livemint.com/2008/01/30234256/GoM-on-Ram-Sethu-fails-to-reac.html
The bridge has been at the centre of controversy with some right-wing Hindu organizations saying it would destroy the walkway, believed to have been built by Hindu god Ram
A group of ministers (GoM), tasked to draft an affidavit explaining the cultural significance of Adam’s Bridge (also known as Ram Sethu), met in New Delhi on Wednesday but failed to reach an agreement on the issue.
The bridge—an ancient coral walkway linking India and Sri Lanka—has been at the centre of controversy with some right-wing Hindu organizations saying the proposed Sethusamudram project would destroy the walkway, believed by them to have been built by Hindu god Ram. The Rs2,600 crore project envisages dredging the walkway to reduce sailing time for ships.
The GoM—comprising external affairs minister and the government’s chief negotiator Pranab Mukherjee, minister of culture Ambika Soni, and minister of shipping T.R. Baalu—was formed last week to resolve differences between two separate affidavits drafted by the ministries of culture and shipping. The affidavit has been sought by the Supreme Court.
Baalu, one of the staunchest supporters of the project, is in favour of taking a strong stand against the Hindu protesters. But his cabinet colleague Ambika Soni believes the move will further alienate Hindus in north India, and could cost the Congress party dear in five states where elections are due later this year.
The apex court has been awaiting this affidavit since 14 September, when the government withdrew its original statement and asked for three months to study the issue.
The Madras high court had originally asked the government to file an affidavit explaining the cultural significance of the Ram Sethu. The court had also asked if the government had conducted any archaeological study of the bridge. A three-judge bench of the court had upheld its order.
Litigant Subramanian Swamy says the government may refer this investigation to the National Heritage Commission, which would “put the project in cold storage for all practical purposes.” Calls to the ministry of culture and shipping went unreturned.
Priyanka P. Narain, LiveMint.com
January 30, 2008
http://www.livemint.com/2008/01/30234256/GoM-on-Ram-Sethu-fails-to-reac.html
The bridge has been at the centre of controversy with some right-wing Hindu organizations saying it would destroy the walkway, believed to have been built by Hindu god Ram
A group of ministers (GoM), tasked to draft an affidavit explaining the cultural significance of Adam’s Bridge (also known as Ram Sethu), met in New Delhi on Wednesday but failed to reach an agreement on the issue.
The bridge—an ancient coral walkway linking India and Sri Lanka—has been at the centre of controversy with some right-wing Hindu organizations saying the proposed Sethusamudram project would destroy the walkway, believed by them to have been built by Hindu god Ram. The Rs2,600 crore project envisages dredging the walkway to reduce sailing time for ships.
The GoM—comprising external affairs minister and the government’s chief negotiator Pranab Mukherjee, minister of culture Ambika Soni, and minister of shipping T.R. Baalu—was formed last week to resolve differences between two separate affidavits drafted by the ministries of culture and shipping. The affidavit has been sought by the Supreme Court.
Baalu, one of the staunchest supporters of the project, is in favour of taking a strong stand against the Hindu protesters. But his cabinet colleague Ambika Soni believes the move will further alienate Hindus in north India, and could cost the Congress party dear in five states where elections are due later this year.
The apex court has been awaiting this affidavit since 14 September, when the government withdrew its original statement and asked for three months to study the issue.
The Madras high court had originally asked the government to file an affidavit explaining the cultural significance of the Ram Sethu. The court had also asked if the government had conducted any archaeological study of the bridge. A three-judge bench of the court had upheld its order.
Litigant Subramanian Swamy says the government may refer this investigation to the National Heritage Commission, which would “put the project in cold storage for all practical purposes.” Calls to the ministry of culture and shipping went unreturned.
Sarkozy not to present award to Nasrin, still a target of Islamic fundamentalism
Nirmala Carvalho, Asia News
January 28, 2008
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=11338&geo=2&size=A
New Delhi tells Paris not to present the Bangladeshi writer with the Simone de Beauvoir Award on Indian soil. For years she has been the target of Islamic fundamentalists for her action on behalf of women.
The government of India has prevented France from honouring Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin with a prestigious literary award. Ms Nasrin, who is a refugee in India, is at centre of a controversy with Muslims and has been targeted by Islamic fundamentalists for her work on behalf of women.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is on an official visit to New Delhi for the celebrations of the founding of the Indian Republic, was supposed to personally present the prize to the writer.
The Simone de Beauvoir Award for Ms Nasrin was announced on 9 January and was supposed to be presented on Beauvoir’s 100th birth anniversary. But the ceremony was postponed to a date to be decided.
“We have no objections to the award being given to her anywhere else in the world”, an anonymous French official said.
In August of last year the writer was attacked by a mob as she came out of the press club in Hyderabad where she attended the launching of the Telugu edition of one of her novels, Shodh (Getting Even).
After a writing an editorial article in favour of women’s rights that was published in a weekly paper an Indian Muslim group put a price on her head worth half a million rupees.
Nasrin, 46, a medical doctor by training, left her native country in the 1990s and fled to Europe after a fatwa or religious edict was issued against another of her novels, Lajja (Shame). Her books are banned in Bangladesh.
For the past three years she has found refuge in India and lives in Kolkata, which she considers her second home.
She has also applied for Indian citizenship, a request that was turned under pressures from Indian Muslim groups.
Her current visa is valid till 17 February of this year and her future remains uncertain after that.
Nirmala Carvalho, Asia News
January 28, 2008
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=11338&geo=2&size=A
New Delhi tells Paris not to present the Bangladeshi writer with the Simone de Beauvoir Award on Indian soil. For years she has been the target of Islamic fundamentalists for her action on behalf of women.
The government of India has prevented France from honouring Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin with a prestigious literary award. Ms Nasrin, who is a refugee in India, is at centre of a controversy with Muslims and has been targeted by Islamic fundamentalists for her work on behalf of women.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is on an official visit to New Delhi for the celebrations of the founding of the Indian Republic, was supposed to personally present the prize to the writer.
The Simone de Beauvoir Award for Ms Nasrin was announced on 9 January and was supposed to be presented on Beauvoir’s 100th birth anniversary. But the ceremony was postponed to a date to be decided.
“We have no objections to the award being given to her anywhere else in the world”, an anonymous French official said.
In August of last year the writer was attacked by a mob as she came out of the press club in Hyderabad where she attended the launching of the Telugu edition of one of her novels, Shodh (Getting Even).
After a writing an editorial article in favour of women’s rights that was published in a weekly paper an Indian Muslim group put a price on her head worth half a million rupees.
Nasrin, 46, a medical doctor by training, left her native country in the 1990s and fled to Europe after a fatwa or religious edict was issued against another of her novels, Lajja (Shame). Her books are banned in Bangladesh.
For the past three years she has found refuge in India and lives in Kolkata, which she considers her second home.
She has also applied for Indian citizenship, a request that was turned under pressures from Indian Muslim groups.
Her current visa is valid till 17 February of this year and her future remains uncertain after that.
Family pension for jihadis
Chandan Mitra, The Pioneer
January 27, 2008
This chat was downloaded from the web. It is a conversation that took place between the commander of a jihadi outfit and a middle-rung functionary operating somewhere in Jammu and Kashmir. To mask their personalities, we decided to call them jihadi 1(J1) and jihadi 2 (J2) respectively.
J2: Salaam Waleiqum Boss, I have bad news to report. Infidel dogs of the Indian security forces have mounted a great deal of pressure on our jihadi groups. As it is, the cold wave in the Valley is at its peak. It has snowed all over and made movement difficult. The local population is less scared of us than before, so we are having trouble finding safe houses. Worse, we are having great difficulty recruiting. In spite of all our brainwashing efforts and sustained Pakistani support, we aren't getting enough locals to act as informers or porters. Even our hardcore people are getting frustrated and want to go back home. Tell me, Boss, what should I do? Really need your guidance now.
J1: Waleikum Salaam. You have turned out to be a real bewaqoof! Whoever made you Area Commander? I need to have that fellow's head examined, besides yours. Obviously you don't follow the news. Haven't you heard what the Indian Government has announced to help our jihadi cause?
J2: Indian Government is going to help us? I don't believe this! What are you saying Boss? Please don't communicate in riddles. True, I have been too worried about logistics the last week, having lost several boys in encounters with Indian forces. So, I haven't been able to keep up with the news. Please tell me.
J1: Listen properly you idiot. The Indian Government has made recruitment much easier for us. They have offered such attractive terms for jihadis that we won't have to send you assorted Afghans, Chechens, Sudanese and other outsiders. You will be able to recruit all the boys you need locally. I think they will queue up to join your ranks after last week's announcement. You should go from village to village giving the good news and reassure families of the boys already with us, and those who are likely to join us soon.
J2: Sir, please don't keep me in the dark any more. Tell me what is the great bonanza the Indian Government has announced.
J1: The Indian Government has declared that it will pay compensation to the family of every jihadi killed in encounters with security forces. I don't know yet if this means that the families will get a monthly pension or a hefty one-time compensation. But whatever it is, do you realise its significance? In my 10 years of service in different countries, Afghanistan and Chechnya particularly, I have never come across a Government that actually rewards us for killing their boys! This is quite incredible. It can happen only in India. It will make our recruitment drive so much easier. Now you guys spread out all over and tell villagers that enlisting as a jihadi is as good as enlisting in the police or Army. The service conditions are probably better with us. They will not only get regular salaries from us, but also opportunities to travel the world. Whenever we plan terror strikes outside India, we will consider sending them to places like Spain, Britain, Australia and other such countries. Of course, they may have to do stints in Africa and Russia too, but we will ensure they don't only get hardship postings. And who knows, as our terror net expands and we succeed in infiltrating into the US in big numbers, they may even get a chance to take part in something like 9/11.
J2: But, Boss, these service conditions exist already. What's new? We are currently offering new recruits a great package, much better than what we got. In fact I have mentioned my salary hike issue to you several times...
J1: Khamosh, budtameez! How dare you bring up your salary issue now? You are supposed to be working for a Great Cause. When you die fighting in a jihad you will get to heaven and have a pick of the choicest houris. But think of the future recruits. Now they can join our ranks, kill Indian forces at will and when they are eliminated in encounters, they would have died happily in the assurance that the Indian Government will take care of their families.
J2: Yes, Boss. It is a great offer. You are right we will be able to cajole hundreds into joining the jihad from now. Potential recruits were always worried what would happen to their families when they got killed. That's a worry that's gone forever. But tell me, Boss, what's wrong with the Indian Government? How could they make a promise like that? Won't people in India get outraged?
J1: The Indian Government has always been very considerate to jihadis in Kashmir. Don't you remember the time when quintals of delicious, mouth watering biryani was ferried into the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar where our boys were holed up for a few weeks? The boys got so used to biryani and kabab that they didn't want to leave! And as for public opinion, no Government in India cares about such things. Indian people are very docile. Everyday Maoists are killing dozens of security forces, but the Home Minister says that terrorists are poor, misguided youth! Remember the Parliament attack of December 13? So many Indian policemen died saving their leaders, but even now compensation has not been given, their family members don't have the jobs they were promised. Does anybody care? I am telling you, our sympathisers in the Indian media will soon start agitating to improve the compensation package offered to jihadis. They are all very considerate towards us and dead against their own security forces.
J2: You are right Boss. After all, when they released Azhar Masood Sahib, a top Minister even escorted him and his fellow jihadis back to Kandahar. I remember that very distinctly. Those who cried hoarse asking for his release, holding placards on Delhi's streets that time are now blaming the earlier Government for being chicken! It is a funny country, I must confess. Oh my God! Gunfire! I think the infidel dogs have discovered my hideout. I have to get out, Boss. Don't worry, I will launch a big recruitment drive very soon and explain the Government of India's generous compensation scheme. I assure you big success. Shukriya Boss.
J1: By the way, the State Government has started another programme to help us. It is going to kill 50 dogs in the next few days so that they don't bark and alert the security forces. I think they will gradually massacre all dogs in the Valley so our boys have a free run.
J2: Indian Government is great Boss! With enemies like them, who needs friends?
(The facts mentioned are real. The conversation, needless to add, is imaginary.)
Chandan Mitra, The Pioneer
January 27, 2008
This chat was downloaded from the web. It is a conversation that took place between the commander of a jihadi outfit and a middle-rung functionary operating somewhere in Jammu and Kashmir. To mask their personalities, we decided to call them jihadi 1(J1) and jihadi 2 (J2) respectively.
J2: Salaam Waleiqum Boss, I have bad news to report. Infidel dogs of the Indian security forces have mounted a great deal of pressure on our jihadi groups. As it is, the cold wave in the Valley is at its peak. It has snowed all over and made movement difficult. The local population is less scared of us than before, so we are having trouble finding safe houses. Worse, we are having great difficulty recruiting. In spite of all our brainwashing efforts and sustained Pakistani support, we aren't getting enough locals to act as informers or porters. Even our hardcore people are getting frustrated and want to go back home. Tell me, Boss, what should I do? Really need your guidance now.
J1: Waleikum Salaam. You have turned out to be a real bewaqoof! Whoever made you Area Commander? I need to have that fellow's head examined, besides yours. Obviously you don't follow the news. Haven't you heard what the Indian Government has announced to help our jihadi cause?
J2: Indian Government is going to help us? I don't believe this! What are you saying Boss? Please don't communicate in riddles. True, I have been too worried about logistics the last week, having lost several boys in encounters with Indian forces. So, I haven't been able to keep up with the news. Please tell me.
J1: Listen properly you idiot. The Indian Government has made recruitment much easier for us. They have offered such attractive terms for jihadis that we won't have to send you assorted Afghans, Chechens, Sudanese and other outsiders. You will be able to recruit all the boys you need locally. I think they will queue up to join your ranks after last week's announcement. You should go from village to village giving the good news and reassure families of the boys already with us, and those who are likely to join us soon.
J2: Sir, please don't keep me in the dark any more. Tell me what is the great bonanza the Indian Government has announced.
J1: The Indian Government has declared that it will pay compensation to the family of every jihadi killed in encounters with security forces. I don't know yet if this means that the families will get a monthly pension or a hefty one-time compensation. But whatever it is, do you realise its significance? In my 10 years of service in different countries, Afghanistan and Chechnya particularly, I have never come across a Government that actually rewards us for killing their boys! This is quite incredible. It can happen only in India. It will make our recruitment drive so much easier. Now you guys spread out all over and tell villagers that enlisting as a jihadi is as good as enlisting in the police or Army. The service conditions are probably better with us. They will not only get regular salaries from us, but also opportunities to travel the world. Whenever we plan terror strikes outside India, we will consider sending them to places like Spain, Britain, Australia and other such countries. Of course, they may have to do stints in Africa and Russia too, but we will ensure they don't only get hardship postings. And who knows, as our terror net expands and we succeed in infiltrating into the US in big numbers, they may even get a chance to take part in something like 9/11.
J2: But, Boss, these service conditions exist already. What's new? We are currently offering new recruits a great package, much better than what we got. In fact I have mentioned my salary hike issue to you several times...
J1: Khamosh, budtameez! How dare you bring up your salary issue now? You are supposed to be working for a Great Cause. When you die fighting in a jihad you will get to heaven and have a pick of the choicest houris. But think of the future recruits. Now they can join our ranks, kill Indian forces at will and when they are eliminated in encounters, they would have died happily in the assurance that the Indian Government will take care of their families.
J2: Yes, Boss. It is a great offer. You are right we will be able to cajole hundreds into joining the jihad from now. Potential recruits were always worried what would happen to their families when they got killed. That's a worry that's gone forever. But tell me, Boss, what's wrong with the Indian Government? How could they make a promise like that? Won't people in India get outraged?
J1: The Indian Government has always been very considerate to jihadis in Kashmir. Don't you remember the time when quintals of delicious, mouth watering biryani was ferried into the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar where our boys were holed up for a few weeks? The boys got so used to biryani and kabab that they didn't want to leave! And as for public opinion, no Government in India cares about such things. Indian people are very docile. Everyday Maoists are killing dozens of security forces, but the Home Minister says that terrorists are poor, misguided youth! Remember the Parliament attack of December 13? So many Indian policemen died saving their leaders, but even now compensation has not been given, their family members don't have the jobs they were promised. Does anybody care? I am telling you, our sympathisers in the Indian media will soon start agitating to improve the compensation package offered to jihadis. They are all very considerate towards us and dead against their own security forces.
J2: You are right Boss. After all, when they released Azhar Masood Sahib, a top Minister even escorted him and his fellow jihadis back to Kandahar. I remember that very distinctly. Those who cried hoarse asking for his release, holding placards on Delhi's streets that time are now blaming the earlier Government for being chicken! It is a funny country, I must confess. Oh my God! Gunfire! I think the infidel dogs have discovered my hideout. I have to get out, Boss. Don't worry, I will launch a big recruitment drive very soon and explain the Government of India's generous compensation scheme. I assure you big success. Shukriya Boss.
J1: By the way, the State Government has started another programme to help us. It is going to kill 50 dogs in the next few days so that they don't bark and alert the security forces. I think they will gradually massacre all dogs in the Valley so our boys have a free run.
J2: Indian Government is great Boss! With enemies like them, who needs friends?
(The facts mentioned are real. The conversation, needless to add, is imaginary.)
Cop’s lover runs to police for cover
Mumbai Mirror Bureau, Mumbai Mirror
January 24, 2008
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article§id=2&contentid=2008012420080124024707328b971d1e7&pageno=1
He had turned down marriage proposal from RPF constable girlfriend after their affair turned sour; she and her family are after his life now
A? small-time model has lodged a police complaint against a woman police constable of the? RPF, saying she has been threatening him with dire consequences if he doesn’t marry her.
The two had met through Internet chat about a year ago and fallen in love.
According to the Oshiwara police, Pankaj Aggrawal (30), a model staying in Lokhandwala, has lodged two non-cognisable complaints against Shama Sayyed (23), saying she and her family members have been threatening and harassing him to convert to her faith and marry her.
Aggrawal says he got to know Sayyed through a Reliance Web “find-a-friend” chat room in February last year. Soon, they were talking to each other on the phone and even exchanging pictures. Some time later, they met up and Cupid struck. “By April, we had decided we would get married soon,” said Aggrawal.
DADDY’S GIRL
Things ran smooth until the girl’s father learnt of the relationship in November. He said the two could marry only if Aggrawal converted. Sayyed took her father’s side but her lover refused to play ball.
He told Sayyed he was ready to marry her but would not convert. It was then that Sayyed and her family members allegedly started threatening Aggrawal. “I first thought these were initial hiccups we would tide over. But when Sayyed and her family members started threatening me with dire consequences, I realised I was with the wrong girl. I told them that I didn’t want to marry her anymore.”
However, it got worse for Aggrawal as he started getting threatening calls and SMSes.
Finally, on December 3, Aggrawal lodged a complaint with the police. But, undeterred by all this, Sayyed and her family asked Aggrawal to meet them at their house or face consequences.
When Aggrawal refused, they landed at his house on December 12 and started knocking on his door and abusing him. A scared Aggrawal called up the Oshiwara police, which sent a constable for help.
The next day, Aggrawal lodged another complaint.
When Sayyed learnt of this, she called Aggrawal to her office in Dadar on December 14, where her seniors tried to persuade Aggrawal to withdraw his complaints and marry the girl.
Finding himself cornered, Aggrawal then approached a human rights group for help.?
“Though the group has sent its report to the police, no action has been taken. I am very scared. They keep calling me till late in the night. The girl even reached my native place in Jabalpur.”
Sayyed, however, denied the charges. “I don't want to speak about my personal life in the press, but I can say that Pankaj is lying,” she said.
Senior inspector Kiran Sonone of the Oshiwara police station said, “The girl is now pressurising the boy to get married to her. We have registered two complaints. It is their personal matter and there is not much for us to do.”
Mumbai Mirror Bureau, Mumbai Mirror
January 24, 2008
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article§id=2&contentid=2008012420080124024707328b971d1e7&pageno=1
He had turned down marriage proposal from RPF constable girlfriend after their affair turned sour; she and her family are after his life now
A? small-time model has lodged a police complaint against a woman police constable of the? RPF, saying she has been threatening him with dire consequences if he doesn’t marry her.
The two had met through Internet chat about a year ago and fallen in love.
According to the Oshiwara police, Pankaj Aggrawal (30), a model staying in Lokhandwala, has lodged two non-cognisable complaints against Shama Sayyed (23), saying she and her family members have been threatening and harassing him to convert to her faith and marry her.
Aggrawal says he got to know Sayyed through a Reliance Web “find-a-friend” chat room in February last year. Soon, they were talking to each other on the phone and even exchanging pictures. Some time later, they met up and Cupid struck. “By April, we had decided we would get married soon,” said Aggrawal.
DADDY’S GIRL
Things ran smooth until the girl’s father learnt of the relationship in November. He said the two could marry only if Aggrawal converted. Sayyed took her father’s side but her lover refused to play ball.
He told Sayyed he was ready to marry her but would not convert. It was then that Sayyed and her family members allegedly started threatening Aggrawal. “I first thought these were initial hiccups we would tide over. But when Sayyed and her family members started threatening me with dire consequences, I realised I was with the wrong girl. I told them that I didn’t want to marry her anymore.”
However, it got worse for Aggrawal as he started getting threatening calls and SMSes.
Finally, on December 3, Aggrawal lodged a complaint with the police. But, undeterred by all this, Sayyed and her family asked Aggrawal to meet them at their house or face consequences.
When Aggrawal refused, they landed at his house on December 12 and started knocking on his door and abusing him. A scared Aggrawal called up the Oshiwara police, which sent a constable for help.
The next day, Aggrawal lodged another complaint.
When Sayyed learnt of this, she called Aggrawal to her office in Dadar on December 14, where her seniors tried to persuade Aggrawal to withdraw his complaints and marry the girl.
Finding himself cornered, Aggrawal then approached a human rights group for help.?
“Though the group has sent its report to the police, no action has been taken. I am very scared. They keep calling me till late in the night. The girl even reached my native place in Jabalpur.”
Sayyed, however, denied the charges. “I don't want to speak about my personal life in the press, but I can say that Pankaj is lying,” she said.
Senior inspector Kiran Sonone of the Oshiwara police station said, “The girl is now pressurising the boy to get married to her. We have registered two complaints. It is their personal matter and there is not much for us to do.”
I was administered wrong drugs: Taslima
Sify.com
January 30, 2008
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14597397
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi for "suspected drug effect" on January 26, said Wednesday that she had been administered wrong medicines by government deputed doctors leading to the hospitalisation.
In her first telephonic interview from her undisclosed address after she was discharged from the hospital Wednesday, the writer said: "I was living under stress and that caused hypertension."
According to Nasreen, she was not seen by a cardiologist when she felt uneasy. Instead, she was taken to some place where a doctor deputed by the government gave her "wrong drugs."
"I immediately fainted from the poisonous effect Saturday evening. Then I was taken to the AIIMS and there the doctors saved me. I was in the CCU," Nasreen said.
"I am not yet stable. I cannot consult doctor of my choice even now," said the writer who is also a physician herself.
"My blood pressure is fluctuating. I am not sure what to do. A wrong news that my visa has been extended is doing the rounds too."
Y K Gupta, chief spokesperson of AIIMS, said on Tuesday: "Taslima Nasreen was brought to our hospital January 26 night. She was admitted after initial investigation found that she was suffering from suspected drug effect. It could be the side effect of some drug as well."
He said the 45-year-old author was also "complaining of uneasiness and hypertension."
The writer was forced to leave Kolkata after a protest by a Muslim organisation against her continued stay in India turned violent November 21.
She was taken first to Jaipur and then to New Delhi by the Central Government and has since been kept in confinement at a safe house.
Sify.com
January 30, 2008
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14597397
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi for "suspected drug effect" on January 26, said Wednesday that she had been administered wrong medicines by government deputed doctors leading to the hospitalisation.
In her first telephonic interview from her undisclosed address after she was discharged from the hospital Wednesday, the writer said: "I was living under stress and that caused hypertension."
According to Nasreen, she was not seen by a cardiologist when she felt uneasy. Instead, she was taken to some place where a doctor deputed by the government gave her "wrong drugs."
"I immediately fainted from the poisonous effect Saturday evening. Then I was taken to the AIIMS and there the doctors saved me. I was in the CCU," Nasreen said.
"I am not yet stable. I cannot consult doctor of my choice even now," said the writer who is also a physician herself.
"My blood pressure is fluctuating. I am not sure what to do. A wrong news that my visa has been extended is doing the rounds too."
Y K Gupta, chief spokesperson of AIIMS, said on Tuesday: "Taslima Nasreen was brought to our hospital January 26 night. She was admitted after initial investigation found that she was suffering from suspected drug effect. It could be the side effect of some drug as well."
He said the 45-year-old author was also "complaining of uneasiness and hypertension."
The writer was forced to leave Kolkata after a protest by a Muslim organisation against her continued stay in India turned violent November 21.
She was taken first to Jaipur and then to New Delhi by the Central Government and has since been kept in confinement at a safe house.
Of SIMI, Jehad and the NE Reach
Bikash Sarmah, Sentinel Assam
January 24, 2008
In India, the genesis of Islamist fundamentalism, which has now transformed into a full-fledged jehad, can be traced back to the early forties of the 20th century. It was the Jamaat-e-Islami, founded by the influential Islamist ideologue Syed Abu Ala Maududi in 1941, that first sowed the seeds of a proposed Islamist dominion in pre-Independent India, to be governed by the Sharia. Naturally, as one of the experts, Praveen Swami, writes, ''the Jamaat-e-Islami went on to emerge as a major political party in Pakistan, fighting for the creation of a Sharia-governed state'' (Frontline, December 21, 2007).
Back in India, which was to emerge as a secular state without even the Constitution saying a word on ''secularism'' when it was adopted, the Jamaat was left with little option. Despite brewing with Islamist tendencies, it had to reconcile with the natural Hindu order that was quintessentially secular. But it soon set out in its own journey, establishing schools and study circles to counter the growing influence of secularists as an alternative stratagem to revive Islamism as opposed to secularism. And then, in 1956, the Jamaat's students' wing came into being - the Students' Islamic Organization (SIO) - headquartered at Aligarh. However, with the Muslims of North India distancing themselves from Syed Maududi's Islamist theory, as also the Jamaat's edifice, after being visited by communal violence that was reflective of Hindu supremacy, many SIO leaders surrendered to the inevitability of secularism in India, thus gradually jettisoning the notion of exclusivist Islamism.
This provoked a rift across the Jamaat fold, with many of its hardliners seeking to regain their 'past glory' and re-energize the declining SIO. Thus was born the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in April 1977.
That the SIMI initiative was the precursor to Islamist resurgence in India and the consequent jehadi indoctrination of many an illiterate but devout Muslim youth, is clear from its main slogan: ''Mohammad is our commander; the Quran our constitution, and martyrdom our one desire.'' The thesis of Mohammad being ''our commander'' in public life whose constitution is a ''Quranic'' subtext that would necessitate ''martyrdom'' in the jehad against non-believers, had and still has SIMI members and activists convince their brethren of the need to write a permanent disclaimer to the Indian secular order, which is ''Hinduist'' as they would assert. It is another matter that the SIMI has not succeeded in a way it believed it could.
Yet, the SIMI trajectory is portentous, especially when the highly erroneous concept of ''ghettoization'' of Indian Muslims pitted against the ''dominant, free and flourishing'' Hindu community is dovetailed to the jehad text. As Praveen Swami writes, ''Although it (SIMI) was proscribed in 2001, the organization remains the largest platform for radical Islamists in India. The serial bombings in Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi on November 23, the evidence so far available suggests, were organized by networks from SIMI's ranks. So, too, were at least half-a-dozen recent attacks in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh... From the outset, SIMI made clear its belief that the practice of Islam was essentially a political project. In the long run, it sought to re-establish the caliphate, without which, it felt, the practice of Islam remained incomplete. Muslims who were comfortable living in secular societies, its pamphlets warned, were headed for hell.''
The SIMI got its best inspiration from the Pakistan dictator General Zia-ul-Haq who passed the Islamist decree for his country soon after deposing the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose Leftist leanings, as many believe, could well have prevented Pakistan from slipping into an Islamic fiefdom. The SIMI fully supported the mujahideen war in Afghanistan against the erstwhile Soviet Union, launched at the behest of the US-Pakistan combine, which was to eventually lead to the rise of one of the most savage Islamist forces in the world - the Taliban. To quote the scholar in the field, Yoginder Sikand, ''SIMI's rhetoric grew combative and vitriolic, insisting that Islam alone was the solution to the problems of not just the Muslims of India, but of all Indians and, indeed, of the whole world.''
Therefore, it was natural for the SIMI to hail the Al Qaeda as it carried out the 9/11 attacks on the US, eulogizing Osama bin Laden as a true and infallible mujahid out to salvage the Muslims of the world from 'un-Islamic' orders and regimes, including that of India. The SIMI also supported the destruction of the famed Bamiya Buddhas by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Should one then be at all surprised if a growing breed of SIMI members has reportedly had training in jehad in the camps of the Laskar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI)? It is another matter that the SIMI has denied any such links. The fact remains that after its statement in 1996 that Indian democracy and secularism had failed to protect Muslims in the country, the SIMI put up posters calling on the Muslims of the country to tread the path of the 11th-century conqueror Mahmood Ghaznavi and made an ''appeal to Allah'' to send someone, as avatar, to wreak vengeance on those who had destroyed masjids in India. It is in the fitness of things to ask: How many of the Indian secularists, who are now alarmed by the SIMI's increasing network and sleeper cells, bothered or had the guts to ask its leadership and mentors at that time as to who would avenge the unprovoked demolition of mandirs in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Be that as it may, the bottomline is that the Indian nation-state, in its so-called secular bliss, more so under the UPA dispensation, has failed to demolish the SIMI citadel in entirety. An organization that talks of ''Islam'' of the Taliban brand as the ''only solution to the problems of not just the Muslims, but of all Indians'', as it comes across a perverse secular cardinality as the UPA's that punctuates even the counter-terrorism theory with ''the sensitivities of minorities'' dots, will only recuperate to new and emboldened jehadi heights after every setback whatsoever. Hence the ground for the SIMI fold to expand as more and more mercenaries of terror set out for India to bleed the country by a million cuts.
Of the most vulnerable areas in the country in terms of SIMI penetration and networking, Assam is one, thanks of course to the unbridled surge of the illegal Bangladeshi population in the State and the ISI's choice of the State as a prized catch in the making of a greater Islamic state in the subcontinent. In view of reports that several jehadi outfits have sprung up in Assam, notably the Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULTA), to orchestrate jehad in the State in tandem with fundamentalist and terrorist organizations based in Bangladesh, it is only too imminent that the SIMI, given the strategic expediency of Assam, will try to cover an extra mile in the region. While it will have no problems in adding to its recruits from among the illegally settled Muslims of Bangladesh in Assam who are mired in extreme poverty and need financial support of the kind that the SIMI would provide, funded as it is by oil-rich Islamic organizations based in West Asia and given the support it has earned from the influential Saudi Arabia-based International Islamic Federation of Students' Organization (IIFSO), it is New Delhi's known apathy to the region, as also the UPA government's perverse pseudo-secular restraint, that will serve as the best boon to the zealots. Is anyone concerned?
Bikash Sarmah, Sentinel Assam
January 24, 2008
In India, the genesis of Islamist fundamentalism, which has now transformed into a full-fledged jehad, can be traced back to the early forties of the 20th century. It was the Jamaat-e-Islami, founded by the influential Islamist ideologue Syed Abu Ala Maududi in 1941, that first sowed the seeds of a proposed Islamist dominion in pre-Independent India, to be governed by the Sharia. Naturally, as one of the experts, Praveen Swami, writes, ''the Jamaat-e-Islami went on to emerge as a major political party in Pakistan, fighting for the creation of a Sharia-governed state'' (Frontline, December 21, 2007).
Back in India, which was to emerge as a secular state without even the Constitution saying a word on ''secularism'' when it was adopted, the Jamaat was left with little option. Despite brewing with Islamist tendencies, it had to reconcile with the natural Hindu order that was quintessentially secular. But it soon set out in its own journey, establishing schools and study circles to counter the growing influence of secularists as an alternative stratagem to revive Islamism as opposed to secularism. And then, in 1956, the Jamaat's students' wing came into being - the Students' Islamic Organization (SIO) - headquartered at Aligarh. However, with the Muslims of North India distancing themselves from Syed Maududi's Islamist theory, as also the Jamaat's edifice, after being visited by communal violence that was reflective of Hindu supremacy, many SIO leaders surrendered to the inevitability of secularism in India, thus gradually jettisoning the notion of exclusivist Islamism.
This provoked a rift across the Jamaat fold, with many of its hardliners seeking to regain their 'past glory' and re-energize the declining SIO. Thus was born the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in April 1977.
That the SIMI initiative was the precursor to Islamist resurgence in India and the consequent jehadi indoctrination of many an illiterate but devout Muslim youth, is clear from its main slogan: ''Mohammad is our commander; the Quran our constitution, and martyrdom our one desire.'' The thesis of Mohammad being ''our commander'' in public life whose constitution is a ''Quranic'' subtext that would necessitate ''martyrdom'' in the jehad against non-believers, had and still has SIMI members and activists convince their brethren of the need to write a permanent disclaimer to the Indian secular order, which is ''Hinduist'' as they would assert. It is another matter that the SIMI has not succeeded in a way it believed it could.
Yet, the SIMI trajectory is portentous, especially when the highly erroneous concept of ''ghettoization'' of Indian Muslims pitted against the ''dominant, free and flourishing'' Hindu community is dovetailed to the jehad text. As Praveen Swami writes, ''Although it (SIMI) was proscribed in 2001, the organization remains the largest platform for radical Islamists in India. The serial bombings in Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi on November 23, the evidence so far available suggests, were organized by networks from SIMI's ranks. So, too, were at least half-a-dozen recent attacks in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh... From the outset, SIMI made clear its belief that the practice of Islam was essentially a political project. In the long run, it sought to re-establish the caliphate, without which, it felt, the practice of Islam remained incomplete. Muslims who were comfortable living in secular societies, its pamphlets warned, were headed for hell.''
The SIMI got its best inspiration from the Pakistan dictator General Zia-ul-Haq who passed the Islamist decree for his country soon after deposing the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose Leftist leanings, as many believe, could well have prevented Pakistan from slipping into an Islamic fiefdom. The SIMI fully supported the mujahideen war in Afghanistan against the erstwhile Soviet Union, launched at the behest of the US-Pakistan combine, which was to eventually lead to the rise of one of the most savage Islamist forces in the world - the Taliban. To quote the scholar in the field, Yoginder Sikand, ''SIMI's rhetoric grew combative and vitriolic, insisting that Islam alone was the solution to the problems of not just the Muslims of India, but of all Indians and, indeed, of the whole world.''
Therefore, it was natural for the SIMI to hail the Al Qaeda as it carried out the 9/11 attacks on the US, eulogizing Osama bin Laden as a true and infallible mujahid out to salvage the Muslims of the world from 'un-Islamic' orders and regimes, including that of India. The SIMI also supported the destruction of the famed Bamiya Buddhas by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Should one then be at all surprised if a growing breed of SIMI members has reportedly had training in jehad in the camps of the Laskar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI)? It is another matter that the SIMI has denied any such links. The fact remains that after its statement in 1996 that Indian democracy and secularism had failed to protect Muslims in the country, the SIMI put up posters calling on the Muslims of the country to tread the path of the 11th-century conqueror Mahmood Ghaznavi and made an ''appeal to Allah'' to send someone, as avatar, to wreak vengeance on those who had destroyed masjids in India. It is in the fitness of things to ask: How many of the Indian secularists, who are now alarmed by the SIMI's increasing network and sleeper cells, bothered or had the guts to ask its leadership and mentors at that time as to who would avenge the unprovoked demolition of mandirs in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Be that as it may, the bottomline is that the Indian nation-state, in its so-called secular bliss, more so under the UPA dispensation, has failed to demolish the SIMI citadel in entirety. An organization that talks of ''Islam'' of the Taliban brand as the ''only solution to the problems of not just the Muslims, but of all Indians'', as it comes across a perverse secular cardinality as the UPA's that punctuates even the counter-terrorism theory with ''the sensitivities of minorities'' dots, will only recuperate to new and emboldened jehadi heights after every setback whatsoever. Hence the ground for the SIMI fold to expand as more and more mercenaries of terror set out for India to bleed the country by a million cuts.
Of the most vulnerable areas in the country in terms of SIMI penetration and networking, Assam is one, thanks of course to the unbridled surge of the illegal Bangladeshi population in the State and the ISI's choice of the State as a prized catch in the making of a greater Islamic state in the subcontinent. In view of reports that several jehadi outfits have sprung up in Assam, notably the Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULTA), to orchestrate jehad in the State in tandem with fundamentalist and terrorist organizations based in Bangladesh, it is only too imminent that the SIMI, given the strategic expediency of Assam, will try to cover an extra mile in the region. While it will have no problems in adding to its recruits from among the illegally settled Muslims of Bangladesh in Assam who are mired in extreme poverty and need financial support of the kind that the SIMI would provide, funded as it is by oil-rich Islamic organizations based in West Asia and given the support it has earned from the influential Saudi Arabia-based International Islamic Federation of Students' Organization (IIFSO), it is New Delhi's known apathy to the region, as also the UPA government's perverse pseudo-secular restraint, that will serve as the best boon to the zealots. Is anyone concerned?
Heaven is A Place On Earth
Lisa Miller, Newsweek
January 28, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96398
Scientologists don't believe a newborn is the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard: 'Never, never, never.'
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.
Lisa Miller, Newsweek
January 28, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96398
Scientologists don't believe a newborn is the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard: 'Never, never, never.'
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.
Forgive but never forget history - Rewriting Indian History
Francois Gautier, Indiaview.wordpress.com
January 25, 2008
http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/forgive-but-never-forget-%e2%80%93-history/
Book Review: C.J.S. Walia
“From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.” c.j.s. wallia
Rewriting Indian History is a provocative new book by the French writer Francois Gautier, who currently serves as the political correspondent in India for France’s top newspaper, Le Figaro, and for Switzerland’s leading daily, Le Nouveau Quotidien.
Having lived in India for 25 years has helped him “to see through the usual cliches and prejudices in India to which I subscribed for a long time, as most foreign (and sometimes, unfortunately, Indian) journalists, writers, and historians do.”
Rewriting Indian History,the author prefaces, “might well be called an antithesis” for it questions many of the assumptions in the “standard” treatises by Euro-centered colonialist historians and their imitations by Indian Marxist writers.
Gautier focuses mainly on the Muslim period of India’s history. “Let it be said right away: the massacres perpetrated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese.”
However, the British, in pursuing their policy of divide-and-rule, colluded “to whitewash” the atrocious record of the Muslims so that they could set up the Muslims as a strategic counterbalance to the Hindus.
During the freedom struggle, Gandhi and Nehru went around encrusting even thicker coats of whitewash so that they could pretend a facade of Hindu-Muslim unity against British colonial rule.
After independence, Marxist Indian writers, blinkered by their distorting ideology, repeated the big lie about the Muslim record.
Gautier cites two eminent historians who wrote free of any colonialist or ideological agendas, basing their accounts on documents by contemporary Muslim chroniclers themselves: Alain Danielou in Histoire de la Inde: “From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoilations, destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of ‘a holy war’ of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilisations, wiped out entire races.”
And the well-known American historian Will Durant in The Story of Civilization: “…the Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within.”
(From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.)
Gautier should have continued with the Will Durant quote: “The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war; they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of life; they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India’s boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in. For four hundred years (600-1000 A.D.) India invited conquest; and at last it came.
This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life.
The bitter lesson that may be drawn from this tragedy is that eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry.”
About Gandhi’s whitewash of Muslims, Gautier observes: “Ultimately, it must be said that whatever his saintliness, his extreme and somehow rigid asceticism, Gandhi did enormous harm to India… The British must have rubbed their hands in glee: here was a man who was perfecting their policy of divide-and-rule, for ultimately no one contributed more to the partition of India, by his obsession to always give in to the Muslims; by his indulgence of Jinnah, going as far as proposing to make him the prime minister of India.”
Worse yet, Gandhi’s anointed disciple, Nehru, propagated false readings of Indian history in his books and speeches. Gautier quotes Nehru’s “amazing eulogy” of the tyrant Mahmud Ghazni, the destroyer of Mathura’s great Hindu temples, Gujarat’s Somnath, and numerous other Hindu and Buddhist temples.
When Nehru, the arrant appeaser of Muslims, became India’s first prime minister, he appointed a fundamentalist Muslim, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, as the first education minister.
Under Nehru’s pseudo-secular rule, “Hindu-bashing became a popular pastime.”
Moreover, Nehru “had a great sympathy for communism…. He encouraged Marxist think-tanks such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU] in New Delhi, which has bred a lot of ‘Hindu-hating scholars’ who are adept at negating Muslim atrocities and running to the ground the greatness of Hinduism and its institutions.”
These Marxist “historians,” well-ensconced at JNU, have long been masterminding the politically correct textbooks of India’s history used in Indian schools. No wonder, JNU is also known as “the Kremlin by the Jumna.”
For a long time, the Indian Marxists had been so brainwashed that whenever it rained in Moscow — the capital of their “only true fatherland”– they opened their umbrellas in Delhi.
To be sure, dissenting voices were raised against Gandhi’s whitewash of Muslims. Before the partition of India, Aurobindo Ghosh, the great Hindu poet-philosopher, posed the question about Islam: “You can live with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live with a religion whose principle is ‘I will not tolerate you’? How are you going to have unity with these people?… I am sorry they [Gandhi and Nehru] are making a fetish of Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus will have to fight Muslims and they must prepare for it. Hindu-Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of Hindus. Each time the mildness of the Hindus has given way. The best solution would be to allow the Hindus to organise themselves and Hindu-Muslim unity will take care of itself, it will automatically solve the problem. …I see no reason why the greatness of India’s past or its spirituality should be thrown into the waste basket, in order to conciliate the Muslims who would not be conciliated by such policy.”
Another strong dissenter was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Seeing through Nehru’s pseudo-secularism, Patel commented, “There’s only one nationalist Muslim in India: Jawarharlal Nehru.”
Gautier warns: “Even today, there is no doubt that Islam has never been fully able to give up its inner conviction that its own religion is the only true creed and that all others are kafirs, infidels. In India it was true 300 years ago, and it is still true today. Remember the cry of the militants in Kashmir to the Pandits: ‘convert to Islam or die!’ … The Hindu-Muslim question is just plainly a Muslim obsession, their hatred of the Hindu pagans, their contempt for this polytheist religion.
This obsession, this hate, is as old as the first invasion of India by the original Arabs in 650 AD. After independence, nothing has changed: the sword of Allah is still as much ready to strike the kafirs, the idolaters of many gods.”
The source of Muslim’s fanatical aggression, Gautier points out, is the Koran itself, from which he quotes: “Slay the infidels, wherever ye find them and prepare them for all kind of ambush”; and “Choose not thy friends among the infidels till they forsake their homes and the way of idolatory. If they return to paganism then take them whenever you find them and kill them.”
In the section on Ayodhya, Gautier says that demolishing the Babri Masjid has proved that Hindus too can fight.
He criticizes Nehruvian “secularism” as interpreted by the Congress party to mean “giving in to the Muslims’ demands, because its leaders never could really make out if the allegiance of Indian Muslims is first to India and then to Islam or vice-versa.”
For many of India’s Hindu journalists, this pseudo-secularism has meant “spitting on their own religion and brothers.” Curiously, Gautier does not mention Arun Shourie’s well-researched, lucidly articulated columns, which, in recent years, have laid bare the pretentions of Nehruvian pseudo-secularism.
From my own perspective as a secular humanist, I believe that any whitewashing of historical record is counterproductive. No matter how lofty the ideals of a current cause, any whitewash of history tempts the fates. To forget history will always be fateful; to forgive its horrendous facts can be redemptive. Forgive — but never forget — history.
A salient example of making sure that the horrors of history are not forgotten is the contemporary German state’s law prohibiting any World War II history that whitewashes the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis on the Jews, Gypsies, and Poles.
The Jews rightly insist that the world must never forget what happened to them.
Where is the Hindu Holocaust Museum?
The historical record of the Muslim rule in India is soaked in blood — just take a look at the documents left by contemporary Muslim chroniclers.
Yet, as a secular humanist, I would like to make a distinction between an ideology and its adherents, especially those born into it. From my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.
In the opening chapter, Gautier briefly examines the “tainted glasses” which made Euro-centered historians expound gross “disinformations” about ancient India: the discredited Aryan invasion theory; the deliberate mistranslations of the Vedas; and the erroneous theory of the origin of the caste system.
Throughout the book, Gautier quotes Sri Aurobindo, and in the concluding chapter, “The Final Dream,” pays an inspired homage to the great visionary’s writings.
Like Konraad Elst’s Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Francois Gautier’s Rewriting Indian History contributes to the growing literature of dissent against the “standard” textbooks of India’s history. http://www.indiastar.com/wallia10.htm
Francois Gautier, Indiaview.wordpress.com
January 25, 2008
http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/forgive-but-never-forget-%e2%80%93-history/
Book Review: C.J.S. Walia
“From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.” c.j.s. wallia
Rewriting Indian History is a provocative new book by the French writer Francois Gautier, who currently serves as the political correspondent in India for France’s top newspaper, Le Figaro, and for Switzerland’s leading daily, Le Nouveau Quotidien.
Having lived in India for 25 years has helped him “to see through the usual cliches and prejudices in India to which I subscribed for a long time, as most foreign (and sometimes, unfortunately, Indian) journalists, writers, and historians do.”
Rewriting Indian History,the author prefaces, “might well be called an antithesis” for it questions many of the assumptions in the “standard” treatises by Euro-centered colonialist historians and their imitations by Indian Marxist writers.
Gautier focuses mainly on the Muslim period of India’s history. “Let it be said right away: the massacres perpetrated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese.”
However, the British, in pursuing their policy of divide-and-rule, colluded “to whitewash” the atrocious record of the Muslims so that they could set up the Muslims as a strategic counterbalance to the Hindus.
During the freedom struggle, Gandhi and Nehru went around encrusting even thicker coats of whitewash so that they could pretend a facade of Hindu-Muslim unity against British colonial rule.
After independence, Marxist Indian writers, blinkered by their distorting ideology, repeated the big lie about the Muslim record.
Gautier cites two eminent historians who wrote free of any colonialist or ideological agendas, basing their accounts on documents by contemporary Muslim chroniclers themselves: Alain Danielou in Histoire de la Inde: “From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoilations, destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of ‘a holy war’ of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilisations, wiped out entire races.”
And the well-known American historian Will Durant in The Story of Civilization: “…the Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within.”
(From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.)
Gautier should have continued with the Will Durant quote: “The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war; they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of life; they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India’s boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in. For four hundred years (600-1000 A.D.) India invited conquest; and at last it came.
This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life.
The bitter lesson that may be drawn from this tragedy is that eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry.”
About Gandhi’s whitewash of Muslims, Gautier observes: “Ultimately, it must be said that whatever his saintliness, his extreme and somehow rigid asceticism, Gandhi did enormous harm to India… The British must have rubbed their hands in glee: here was a man who was perfecting their policy of divide-and-rule, for ultimately no one contributed more to the partition of India, by his obsession to always give in to the Muslims; by his indulgence of Jinnah, going as far as proposing to make him the prime minister of India.”
Worse yet, Gandhi’s anointed disciple, Nehru, propagated false readings of Indian history in his books and speeches. Gautier quotes Nehru’s “amazing eulogy” of the tyrant Mahmud Ghazni, the destroyer of Mathura’s great Hindu temples, Gujarat’s Somnath, and numerous other Hindu and Buddhist temples.
When Nehru, the arrant appeaser of Muslims, became India’s first prime minister, he appointed a fundamentalist Muslim, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, as the first education minister.
Under Nehru’s pseudo-secular rule, “Hindu-bashing became a popular pastime.”
Moreover, Nehru “had a great sympathy for communism…. He encouraged Marxist think-tanks such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU] in New Delhi, which has bred a lot of ‘Hindu-hating scholars’ who are adept at negating Muslim atrocities and running to the ground the greatness of Hinduism and its institutions.”
These Marxist “historians,” well-ensconced at JNU, have long been masterminding the politically correct textbooks of India’s history used in Indian schools. No wonder, JNU is also known as “the Kremlin by the Jumna.”
For a long time, the Indian Marxists had been so brainwashed that whenever it rained in Moscow — the capital of their “only true fatherland”– they opened their umbrellas in Delhi.
To be sure, dissenting voices were raised against Gandhi’s whitewash of Muslims. Before the partition of India, Aurobindo Ghosh, the great Hindu poet-philosopher, posed the question about Islam: “You can live with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live with a religion whose principle is ‘I will not tolerate you’? How are you going to have unity with these people?… I am sorry they [Gandhi and Nehru] are making a fetish of Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus will have to fight Muslims and they must prepare for it. Hindu-Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of Hindus. Each time the mildness of the Hindus has given way. The best solution would be to allow the Hindus to organise themselves and Hindu-Muslim unity will take care of itself, it will automatically solve the problem. …I see no reason why the greatness of India’s past or its spirituality should be thrown into the waste basket, in order to conciliate the Muslims who would not be conciliated by such policy.”
Another strong dissenter was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Seeing through Nehru’s pseudo-secularism, Patel commented, “There’s only one nationalist Muslim in India: Jawarharlal Nehru.”
Gautier warns: “Even today, there is no doubt that Islam has never been fully able to give up its inner conviction that its own religion is the only true creed and that all others are kafirs, infidels. In India it was true 300 years ago, and it is still true today. Remember the cry of the militants in Kashmir to the Pandits: ‘convert to Islam or die!’ … The Hindu-Muslim question is just plainly a Muslim obsession, their hatred of the Hindu pagans, their contempt for this polytheist religion.
This obsession, this hate, is as old as the first invasion of India by the original Arabs in 650 AD. After independence, nothing has changed: the sword of Allah is still as much ready to strike the kafirs, the idolaters of many gods.”
The source of Muslim’s fanatical aggression, Gautier points out, is the Koran itself, from which he quotes: “Slay the infidels, wherever ye find them and prepare them for all kind of ambush”; and “Choose not thy friends among the infidels till they forsake their homes and the way of idolatory. If they return to paganism then take them whenever you find them and kill them.”
In the section on Ayodhya, Gautier says that demolishing the Babri Masjid has proved that Hindus too can fight.
He criticizes Nehruvian “secularism” as interpreted by the Congress party to mean “giving in to the Muslims’ demands, because its leaders never could really make out if the allegiance of Indian Muslims is first to India and then to Islam or vice-versa.”
For many of India’s Hindu journalists, this pseudo-secularism has meant “spitting on their own religion and brothers.” Curiously, Gautier does not mention Arun Shourie’s well-researched, lucidly articulated columns, which, in recent years, have laid bare the pretentions of Nehruvian pseudo-secularism.
From my own perspective as a secular humanist, I believe that any whitewashing of historical record is counterproductive. No matter how lofty the ideals of a current cause, any whitewash of history tempts the fates. To forget history will always be fateful; to forgive its horrendous facts can be redemptive. Forgive — but never forget — history.
A salient example of making sure that the horrors of history are not forgotten is the contemporary German state’s law prohibiting any World War II history that whitewashes the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis on the Jews, Gypsies, and Poles.
The Jews rightly insist that the world must never forget what happened to them.
Where is the Hindu Holocaust Museum?
The historical record of the Muslim rule in India is soaked in blood — just take a look at the documents left by contemporary Muslim chroniclers.
Yet, as a secular humanist, I would like to make a distinction between an ideology and its adherents, especially those born into it. From my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.
In the opening chapter, Gautier briefly examines the “tainted glasses” which made Euro-centered historians expound gross “disinformations” about ancient India: the discredited Aryan invasion theory; the deliberate mistranslations of the Vedas; and the erroneous theory of the origin of the caste system.
Throughout the book, Gautier quotes Sri Aurobindo, and in the concluding chapter, “The Final Dream,” pays an inspired homage to the great visionary’s writings.
Like Konraad Elst’s Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Francois Gautier’s Rewriting Indian History contributes to the growing literature of dissent against the “standard” textbooks of India’s history. http://www.indiastar.com/wallia10.htm
Indian musician goes back toroots
OneIndia.in
August 23, 2006
http://entertainment.oneindia.in/music/news/aashish-khan-230806.html
For Ustad Aashish Khan tracing his roots and recognising it has made him adopt the ancestral title Debsharma. From now he will be known as Ustad Aashish K Debsharma. Talking to the reporters during his sojourn to the city, he said, "This is an attempt to recoginse the roots or going back to the roots. Present generation of our country are more Westerners than the Westerners themselves. This is my personal choice of using the title Debsharma."
Asked if he had taken the permission of his father, the great sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan, he said, "It is not a question of getting his permission. He never had any objection. Our family is liberal. We always worshipped Devi Saraswati and Goddess Kali. This is nothing new." "I am not removing Khan from my title altogether. It will remain my middle name. But I am adopting my ancestral title to recognise our original identity," Aashis said.
On whether the title Khan was a problem in the west nowadays, "I must say that there is a global movement and there are lot of problems if our skin colour is brown. We are always prospective terrorists. But my decison is not for that reason. For me its going back to the roots." He also added there was no need of reconversion, "as we are Hindus and had to take the title Sadhu Khan under unfavourable circumstances so there was no formal conversion to Islam and I dont need to convert again.
Historian Satyabrata Rai Chowdhury, a successor of the erstwhile Royal Family of Shibpur, Comillah, Bangladesh, has been personally intimate with the family of one of the greatest musical geniuses India has ever produced, the late Padmabibhusan Baba Alauddin Khan. He was founder of the Senia Maihar Gharana of Indian classical Music.
He does know, like may other eminent people of the intelligentsia of Bengal, that Baba Alauddin Khan, born in 1871, traced his lineage from a very high caste Hindu Brahmin family, and was a devotee of Maa Kali (the Goddess of power), Maa Saraswati (the Goddess of Learning), spiritual leader Sri Ramakrishna and Maa Sharada, Mr Chowdhury said.
Baba Alauddin Khan's successors are also no exception when it comes to their religious practice, so much so that his son Ali Akbar Khan's Calcutta residence at Ranikuthi is named as Maa Sharada Bhawan.
Baba Alauddin Khan's father, who was commonly known as Sadhu Khan, was originally Sadananda Debsharma. We all know that Debsharma, which means the almighty lord or Bhagawan himself, is a very distinguished honorary title rather than a mere surname, and it is very fondly used by high caste Hindu Brahmins.
Sadananda Debsharma, a master in the art of fighting with sticks and the chief guard of the great grandfather of speaker Maharaja Nabakishore Roy Chowdhury, killed an opponent in a clash between the southern Royals and the Royals of the middle of Shibpur, and escaped to "Mager Mulluk", the place where the Portuguese pirates lived in the border of India and the then Burma, and it was there that in order to hoodwink the British Police he changed his name to Sadhu Khan.
He was later brought back by Maharaja Nabakishore and was established at his native place of Bajainna Adi at Shibpur, but that is a different story altogether. However, then onwards they were recognised as Khans, and therefore, believed to be muslims.
Neverthless, form the present writer and also from the diaries of Maharaja Nabakishore Roy Chowdhuri and Baba Alauddin Khan, it is clear that his family was never converted into Islam.
Unfortunately, ignorant gossip-lovers left no stone unturned to spread all sorts of stories regarding their conversion into Islam.
However, the present writer and historical evidences keep no room for conflicting views in how the sacred thread bearer Sadananda Debsharma became Sadhu Khan.
Many are not aware of the fact that the word "Khan" does not necessarily mean Muslims. It is a Persian word meaning "a wise and learned man". The surname Khan is very common among the Hindus and the Christian as well.
Ustad Aashish gave his first public performance at the age of 13, with his grandfather, on the All India Radio "National Program", New Delhi, and in the same year, performed with his father and his grandfather at the "Tansen Music Conference", Calcutta. Besides his virtuosity as a traditional sarod maestro, Aashish is also a pioneer in the establishment of world music genre, as founder of the Indo-American musical group "Shanti" with distinguished tabla player Ustad Zakir Hussain in 1969 and 1970 and later, fusion group, "The Third Eye" and composed a Sarod Concerto in "raga" form.
With Pandit Ravi Shankar, he has worked on many musical products for both film and stage, including Oscar Winner Satyajit Ray's Apur Sangsar, Parash Pathar and Sir Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi.
He has also worked with Maurice Jarre on John Huston's film The Man Who Would be King, David Lean's A Passage to India, and composed the music for Tapan Sinha's films, Joturgriha and Aadmi Aurat.
In 1989, Khan was appointed to the prestigious post of the Composer and Conductor for the National Orchestra of All India Radio, succeeding Pandit Ravi Shankar.
Aashish has collaborated with such diverse western musicians as John Barham, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Charles Lloyd, John Handy, Alice Coltrane, Emil Richards, Dallas Smith, Don Pope, Jorge Strunz, Ardeshir Farah, and the Philadelphia String Quartet.
OneIndia.in
August 23, 2006
http://entertainment.oneindia.in/music/news/aashish-khan-230806.html
For Ustad Aashish Khan tracing his roots and recognising it has made him adopt the ancestral title Debsharma. From now he will be known as Ustad Aashish K Debsharma. Talking to the reporters during his sojourn to the city, he said, "This is an attempt to recoginse the roots or going back to the roots. Present generation of our country are more Westerners than the Westerners themselves. This is my personal choice of using the title Debsharma."
Asked if he had taken the permission of his father, the great sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan, he said, "It is not a question of getting his permission. He never had any objection. Our family is liberal. We always worshipped Devi Saraswati and Goddess Kali. This is nothing new." "I am not removing Khan from my title altogether. It will remain my middle name. But I am adopting my ancestral title to recognise our original identity," Aashis said.
On whether the title Khan was a problem in the west nowadays, "I must say that there is a global movement and there are lot of problems if our skin colour is brown. We are always prospective terrorists. But my decison is not for that reason. For me its going back to the roots." He also added there was no need of reconversion, "as we are Hindus and had to take the title Sadhu Khan under unfavourable circumstances so there was no formal conversion to Islam and I dont need to convert again.
Historian Satyabrata Rai Chowdhury, a successor of the erstwhile Royal Family of Shibpur, Comillah, Bangladesh, has been personally intimate with the family of one of the greatest musical geniuses India has ever produced, the late Padmabibhusan Baba Alauddin Khan. He was founder of the Senia Maihar Gharana of Indian classical Music.
He does know, like may other eminent people of the intelligentsia of Bengal, that Baba Alauddin Khan, born in 1871, traced his lineage from a very high caste Hindu Brahmin family, and was a devotee of Maa Kali (the Goddess of power), Maa Saraswati (the Goddess of Learning), spiritual leader Sri Ramakrishna and Maa Sharada, Mr Chowdhury said.
Baba Alauddin Khan's successors are also no exception when it comes to their religious practice, so much so that his son Ali Akbar Khan's Calcutta residence at Ranikuthi is named as Maa Sharada Bhawan.
Baba Alauddin Khan's father, who was commonly known as Sadhu Khan, was originally Sadananda Debsharma. We all know that Debsharma, which means the almighty lord or Bhagawan himself, is a very distinguished honorary title rather than a mere surname, and it is very fondly used by high caste Hindu Brahmins.
Sadananda Debsharma, a master in the art of fighting with sticks and the chief guard of the great grandfather of speaker Maharaja Nabakishore Roy Chowdhury, killed an opponent in a clash between the southern Royals and the Royals of the middle of Shibpur, and escaped to "Mager Mulluk", the place where the Portuguese pirates lived in the border of India and the then Burma, and it was there that in order to hoodwink the British Police he changed his name to Sadhu Khan.
He was later brought back by Maharaja Nabakishore and was established at his native place of Bajainna Adi at Shibpur, but that is a different story altogether. However, then onwards they were recognised as Khans, and therefore, believed to be muslims.
Neverthless, form the present writer and also from the diaries of Maharaja Nabakishore Roy Chowdhuri and Baba Alauddin Khan, it is clear that his family was never converted into Islam.
Unfortunately, ignorant gossip-lovers left no stone unturned to spread all sorts of stories regarding their conversion into Islam.
However, the present writer and historical evidences keep no room for conflicting views in how the sacred thread bearer Sadananda Debsharma became Sadhu Khan.
Many are not aware of the fact that the word "Khan" does not necessarily mean Muslims. It is a Persian word meaning "a wise and learned man". The surname Khan is very common among the Hindus and the Christian as well.
Ustad Aashish gave his first public performance at the age of 13, with his grandfather, on the All India Radio "National Program", New Delhi, and in the same year, performed with his father and his grandfather at the "Tansen Music Conference", Calcutta. Besides his virtuosity as a traditional sarod maestro, Aashish is also a pioneer in the establishment of world music genre, as founder of the Indo-American musical group "Shanti" with distinguished tabla player Ustad Zakir Hussain in 1969 and 1970 and later, fusion group, "The Third Eye" and composed a Sarod Concerto in "raga" form.
With Pandit Ravi Shankar, he has worked on many musical products for both film and stage, including Oscar Winner Satyajit Ray's Apur Sangsar, Parash Pathar and Sir Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi.
He has also worked with Maurice Jarre on John Huston's film The Man Who Would be King, David Lean's A Passage to India, and composed the music for Tapan Sinha's films, Joturgriha and Aadmi Aurat.
In 1989, Khan was appointed to the prestigious post of the Composer and Conductor for the National Orchestra of All India Radio, succeeding Pandit Ravi Shankar.
Aashish has collaborated with such diverse western musicians as John Barham, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Charles Lloyd, John Handy, Alice Coltrane, Emil Richards, Dallas Smith, Don Pope, Jorge Strunz, Ardeshir Farah, and the Philadelphia String Quartet.
For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats
John M. Broder, The New York Times
March 11, 2006
Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims.
Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.
In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.
She said the world's Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.
Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.
In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private.
"I believe our people are hostages to our own beliefs and teachings," she said in an interview this week in her home in a Los Angeles suburb.
Dr. Sultan, who is 47, wears a prim sweater and skirt, with fleece-lined slippers and heavy stockings. Her eyes and hair are jet black and her modest manner belies her intense words: "Knowledge has released me from this backward thinking. Somebody has to help free the Muslim people from these wrong beliefs."
Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, "The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling."
She went on, "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people."
She concluded, "Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."
Her views caught the ear of the American Jewish Congress, which has invited her to speak in May at a conference in Israel. "We have been discussing with her the importance of her message and trying to devise the right venue for her to address Jewish leaders," said Neil B. Goldstein, executive director of the organization.
She is probably more welcome in Tel Aviv than she would be in Damascus. Shortly after the broadcast, clerics in Syria denounced her as an infidel. One said she had done Islam more damage than the Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad, a wire service reported.
DR. SULTAN is "working on a book that — if it is published — it's going to turn the Islamic world upside down."
"I have reached the point that doesn't allow any U-turn. I have no choice. I am questioning every single teaching of our holy book."
The working title is, "The Escaped Prisoner: When God Is a Monster."
Dr. Sultan grew up in a large traditional Muslim family in Banias, Syria, a small city on the Mediterranean about a two-hour drive north of Beirut. Her father was a grain trader and a devout Muslim, and she followed the faith's strictures into adulthood.
But, she said, her life changed in 1979 when she was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At that time, the radical Muslim Brotherhood was using terrorism to try to undermine the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Gunmen of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said.
"They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, 'God is great!' " she said. "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god."
She and her husband, who now goes by the Americanized name of David, laid plans to leave for the United States. Their visas finally came in 1989, and the Sultans and their two children (they have since had a third) settled in with friends in Cerritos, Calif., a prosperous bedroom community on the edge of Los Angeles County.
After a succession of jobs and struggles with language, Dr. Sultan has completed her American medical licensing, with the exception of a hospital residency program, which she hopes to do within a year. David operates an automotive-smog-check station. They bought a home in the Los Angeles area and put their children through local public schools. All are now American citizens.
BUT even as she settled into a comfortable middle-class American life, Dr. Sultan's anger burned within. She took to writing, first for herself, then for an Islamic reform Web site called Annaqed (The Critic), run by a Syrian expatriate in Phoenix.
An angry essay on that site by Dr. Sultan about the Muslim Brotherhood caught the attention of Al Jazeera, which invited her to debate an Algerian cleric on the air last July.
In the debate, she questioned the religious teachings that prompt young people to commit suicide in the name of God. "Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?" she asked. "In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched."
Her remarks set off debates around the globe and her name began appearing in Arabic newspapers and Web sites. But her fame grew exponentially when she appeared on Al Jazeera again on Feb. 21, an appearance that was translated and widely distributed by the Middle East Media Research Institute, known as Memri.
Memri said the clip of her February appearance had been viewed more than a million times.
"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations," Dr. Sultan said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality."
She said she no longer practiced Islam. "I am a secular human being," she said.
The other guest on the program, identified as an Egyptian professor of religious studies, Dr. Ibrahim al-Khouli, asked, "Are you a heretic?" He then said there was no point in rebuking or debating her, because she had blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran.
Dr. Sultan said she took those words as a formal fatwa, a religious condemnation. Since then, she said, she has received numerous death threats on her answering machine and by e-mail.
One message said: "Oh, you are still alive? Wait and see." She received an e-mail message the other day, in Arabic, that said, "If someone were to kill you, it would be me."
Dr. Sultan said her mother, who still lives in Syria, is afraid to contact her directly, speaking only through a sister who lives in Qatar. She said she worried more about the safety of family members here and in Syria than she did for her own.
"I have no fear," she said. "I believe in my message. It is like a million-mile journey, and I believe I have walked the first and hardest 10 miles."
John M. Broder, The New York Times
March 11, 2006
Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims.
Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.
In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.
She said the world's Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.
Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.
In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private.
"I believe our people are hostages to our own beliefs and teachings," she said in an interview this week in her home in a Los Angeles suburb.
Dr. Sultan, who is 47, wears a prim sweater and skirt, with fleece-lined slippers and heavy stockings. Her eyes and hair are jet black and her modest manner belies her intense words: "Knowledge has released me from this backward thinking. Somebody has to help free the Muslim people from these wrong beliefs."
Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, "The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling."
She went on, "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people."
She concluded, "Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."
Her views caught the ear of the American Jewish Congress, which has invited her to speak in May at a conference in Israel. "We have been discussing with her the importance of her message and trying to devise the right venue for her to address Jewish leaders," said Neil B. Goldstein, executive director of the organization.
She is probably more welcome in Tel Aviv than she would be in Damascus. Shortly after the broadcast, clerics in Syria denounced her as an infidel. One said she had done Islam more damage than the Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad, a wire service reported.
DR. SULTAN is "working on a book that — if it is published — it's going to turn the Islamic world upside down."
"I have reached the point that doesn't allow any U-turn. I have no choice. I am questioning every single teaching of our holy book."
The working title is, "The Escaped Prisoner: When God Is a Monster."
Dr. Sultan grew up in a large traditional Muslim family in Banias, Syria, a small city on the Mediterranean about a two-hour drive north of Beirut. Her father was a grain trader and a devout Muslim, and she followed the faith's strictures into adulthood.
But, she said, her life changed in 1979 when she was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At that time, the radical Muslim Brotherhood was using terrorism to try to undermine the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Gunmen of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said.
"They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, 'God is great!' " she said. "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god."
She and her husband, who now goes by the Americanized name of David, laid plans to leave for the United States. Their visas finally came in 1989, and the Sultans and their two children (they have since had a third) settled in with friends in Cerritos, Calif., a prosperous bedroom community on the edge of Los Angeles County.
After a succession of jobs and struggles with language, Dr. Sultan has completed her American medical licensing, with the exception of a hospital residency program, which she hopes to do within a year. David operates an automotive-smog-check station. They bought a home in the Los Angeles area and put their children through local public schools. All are now American citizens.
BUT even as she settled into a comfortable middle-class American life, Dr. Sultan's anger burned within. She took to writing, first for herself, then for an Islamic reform Web site called Annaqed (The Critic), run by a Syrian expatriate in Phoenix.
An angry essay on that site by Dr. Sultan about the Muslim Brotherhood caught the attention of Al Jazeera, which invited her to debate an Algerian cleric on the air last July.
In the debate, she questioned the religious teachings that prompt young people to commit suicide in the name of God. "Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?" she asked. "In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched."
Her remarks set off debates around the globe and her name began appearing in Arabic newspapers and Web sites. But her fame grew exponentially when she appeared on Al Jazeera again on Feb. 21, an appearance that was translated and widely distributed by the Middle East Media Research Institute, known as Memri.
Memri said the clip of her February appearance had been viewed more than a million times.
"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations," Dr. Sultan said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality."
She said she no longer practiced Islam. "I am a secular human being," she said.
The other guest on the program, identified as an Egyptian professor of religious studies, Dr. Ibrahim al-Khouli, asked, "Are you a heretic?" He then said there was no point in rebuking or debating her, because she had blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran.
Dr. Sultan said she took those words as a formal fatwa, a religious condemnation. Since then, she said, she has received numerous death threats on her answering machine and by e-mail.
One message said: "Oh, you are still alive? Wait and see." She received an e-mail message the other day, in Arabic, that said, "If someone were to kill you, it would be me."
Dr. Sultan said her mother, who still lives in Syria, is afraid to contact her directly, speaking only through a sister who lives in Qatar. She said she worried more about the safety of family members here and in Syria than she did for her own.
"I have no fear," she said. "I believe in my message. It is like a million-mile journey, and I believe I have walked the first and hardest 10 miles."
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