Utah temple attracts Hindus from all around the West
Heidi Atkin, The Slat Laie Tribune
February 21, 2008
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8326431
The edifice is the beginning of several years of development
The Sri Ganesha Hindu Temple in South Jordan is a transcendent icon for Hindus hundreds of miles around.
"This is the only mainstream Hindu temple between Denver and Las Vegas. If you want a temple as it is in India, this is the one," said Indra Neelameggham, who is a founding member of the temple and the current office manager.
She suspects Sri Ganesha's patrons come from Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming and parts of Colorado to pray in the temple.
The temple, located at 1142 W. 10400 South, opened officially in the summer of 2003, and is now used by more than 1,000 prescribed worshipers and many more who are not tracked in a local Hindu database.
Sivprasad Sappidi from Boise, Idaho and three other Boise families traveled to the temple to pray. Sappidi and his friend Kiran Kumar Sreeram explained they came for no specific reason other than to pray. However, they hoped the long trip would be well worth it because Ganesha, to whom they have come to pray for blessings, is the lord of success and the remover of obstacles.
Hinduism is the oldest-known religious tradition. Also, defining it as a religion seems confining, said Neelameggham, because Hinduism does not possess any of the many prescribed tenants of a religion. Hindus do not have a prophet or a central church leadership; they do not congregate as a whole or even worship the same God.
Instead, Hinduism should be seen as a way of life.
Lynn Napper, a recent worshipper at the temple, said everyone is Hindu, but they just don't know it.
Napper's wife, Vicki, a self-described non-traditional Hindu, described her faith as to "walk the path of Sanatana," or "service to humanity."
After 38 years of studying India's philosophies and culture of India, she is comfortable being among traditional Hindus in the temple. "It represents to me a coming together with people who understand my beliefs," Napper said.
This community spirit is felt in the temple. Though the main hall is dedicated to prayer and quiet meditation, there are other rooms where people socialize and discuss their beliefs. Hinduism's social tenants are as important as its spiritual tenants, Neelameggham said.
The temple is only the beginning of what might be several years of development for Salt Lake Valley's Hindu community. Next on the agenda for the temple's committee is the construction of an Indian cultural center, which they hope to house in the parking lot adjacent to its South Jordan location.
During 2008, the temple committee will focus on fundraising for the center.
"Having a temple is really great. But, we have now come to a point when the temple alone cannot provide nourishment for all our culture and traditional values; in order to provide that lively experience the already contemplated Indian Cultural Center is the appropriate solution," said Satish Bhatnagar in recent publication called "A Temple to Call Our Own."
On any day of the week, anyone can enter the temple to pray alone or with a priest employed by the temple. Daily operating hours are 8:30 a.m. until 9 p.m .
Stage set for all-women's religious fest
PTI, The Hindu
February 21, 2008
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/002200802211269.htm
Women in thousands have started pouring in to participate in Friday's 'Pongala' festival at Attukal temple, famed as 'Women's Sabarimala' for attracting one of the world's biggest female congregations.
The Attukal Bhagavati temple here had entered the Guinness Book two years back as a unique religious event that draws over a million women on a single day.
The whole city would turn into a sea of women as sun rises on Friday with the road, pavements and by-lanes about an area of six km around being occupied by devotees with the earthen pots placed on brick hearths in front of them to prepare the 'prasadam' (sweetened pudding).
The ritual consists of preparation of the prasadam of rice, jaggery, coconut and spices, to be offered to the Goddess to invoke her blessings for peace and prosperity.
According to a legend, 'pongala' is closely linked with Tamil epic Silappadikaram. It commemorates the hospitality accorded to Kannagi by women in Attukal while she was on way to Kodungallur near Thrissur after destroying the city of Madurai to avenge the injustice done to her husband Kovilan.
The Temple Trust authorities said 2.5 million devotees are expected this year and elaborate crowd-management and security arrangements had been made with the help of government agencies and voluntary outfits.
PTI, The Hindu
February 21, 2008
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/002200802211269.htm
Women in thousands have started pouring in to participate in Friday's 'Pongala' festival at Attukal temple, famed as 'Women's Sabarimala' for attracting one of the world's biggest female congregations.
The Attukal Bhagavati temple here had entered the Guinness Book two years back as a unique religious event that draws over a million women on a single day.
The whole city would turn into a sea of women as sun rises on Friday with the road, pavements and by-lanes about an area of six km around being occupied by devotees with the earthen pots placed on brick hearths in front of them to prepare the 'prasadam' (sweetened pudding).
The ritual consists of preparation of the prasadam of rice, jaggery, coconut and spices, to be offered to the Goddess to invoke her blessings for peace and prosperity.
According to a legend, 'pongala' is closely linked with Tamil epic Silappadikaram. It commemorates the hospitality accorded to Kannagi by women in Attukal while she was on way to Kodungallur near Thrissur after destroying the city of Madurai to avenge the injustice done to her husband Kovilan.
The Temple Trust authorities said 2.5 million devotees are expected this year and elaborate crowd-management and security arrangements had been made with the help of government agencies and voluntary outfits.
Berlin's Hindus to build two new temples - Feature
DPA, Earthtimes.org
February 23, 2008
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/187663,berlins-hindus-to-build-two-new-temples--feature.html
After years of praying in a cellar in a west Berlin street, the German capital's 6,000 Hindus can look forward to worshipping in two brand-new temples. A local Hindu group this week announced plans to build a temple to the god Murugan, just three months after other Hindus conducted a ground-breaking ceremony for one dedicated to the elephant-headed deity Ganesha.
"We want to create a religious place for worshippers from the south of India and Sri Lanka," said Nadarajah Thiagarjah, chairman of the Sri Mayurapathy Murugan temple association.
The association has agreed terms with local officials in the Berlin suburb of Neukoelln to buy a 744-square metre plot of land for the temple for 170,000 euros (260,000 dollars).
Total cost of the project is expected to be around 600,000 euros, with the bulk of the funding coming from donations from Hindus in Germany, Britain and other countries, said Thiagarjah.
"We hope that construction work can start in July when a festival dedicated to Murugan takes place," he said.
When completed at the end of 2009 the temple will be able to accommodate 120 worshippers. It will have an 11-metre-high tower, that its designers say will symbolize the link to heaven.
"Our present quarters in the Urbanstrasse are too small," said Thiagarjah, a 62-year-old former radio officer in the Sri Lanka navy who has lived in Germany since 1981.
Thiagarjah says the new temple is not meant to rival the larger one dedicated to Ganesha, which will also be built in Neukoelln, a working-class district with a large immigrant population and widespread unemployment.
"We are on very friendly terms and often meet up together," he said of the two groups.
Vilwanathan Krishnamurthy, vice president of the Sri Ganesha Hindu Temple Committee, said the Murugan temple backers were asked if they wanted to join forces for a single project.
But they declined because they wanted one to their own god, who stands for war as well as beauty and family values. Most of the Murugan worshippers are Tamils from southern India and Sri Lanka.
Work on the Ganesha temple is expected to begin in April. Original plans called for it to be completed in 2009, but it looks as though it will not be finished until a year later.
The temple trustees say they have already amassed the 900,000 euros needed to for the complex from donations made by Indian businessmen and other worshippers.
The temple will be constructed in a corner of the 84-hectare Hasenheide park after officials in Neukoelln allowed the Hindu community to use the land rent-free until 2080.
The original design comes from an Indian specializing in temple architecture. German architects had to vet the drawings to make sure they conformed to German building requirements.
A 17-metre ornamental tower dominates the entrance to the complex, which will contain one large temple with seating capacity for more than 350 and four smaller temples.
"Work on the tower and its ornamental carvings will take more than one year," said Krishnamurthy, who also chairs Berlin's Tamil Cultural society and gives dance and music classes in his spare time.
Stone carvings decorating the entrance will be imported from India.
The Berlin sites will bring to three the number of Hindu temples in Germany after the one in Hamm, a city of 150,000 in the populous western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
When completed, the Ganesha temple will be the second biggest in Europe after the Shri Venkateswara, which opened near Birmingham, England, in August 2006.
DPA, Earthtimes.org
February 23, 2008
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/187663,berlins-hindus-to-build-two-new-temples--feature.html
After years of praying in a cellar in a west Berlin street, the German capital's 6,000 Hindus can look forward to worshipping in two brand-new temples. A local Hindu group this week announced plans to build a temple to the god Murugan, just three months after other Hindus conducted a ground-breaking ceremony for one dedicated to the elephant-headed deity Ganesha.
"We want to create a religious place for worshippers from the south of India and Sri Lanka," said Nadarajah Thiagarjah, chairman of the Sri Mayurapathy Murugan temple association.
The association has agreed terms with local officials in the Berlin suburb of Neukoelln to buy a 744-square metre plot of land for the temple for 170,000 euros (260,000 dollars).
Total cost of the project is expected to be around 600,000 euros, with the bulk of the funding coming from donations from Hindus in Germany, Britain and other countries, said Thiagarjah.
"We hope that construction work can start in July when a festival dedicated to Murugan takes place," he said.
When completed at the end of 2009 the temple will be able to accommodate 120 worshippers. It will have an 11-metre-high tower, that its designers say will symbolize the link to heaven.
"Our present quarters in the Urbanstrasse are too small," said Thiagarjah, a 62-year-old former radio officer in the Sri Lanka navy who has lived in Germany since 1981.
Thiagarjah says the new temple is not meant to rival the larger one dedicated to Ganesha, which will also be built in Neukoelln, a working-class district with a large immigrant population and widespread unemployment.
"We are on very friendly terms and often meet up together," he said of the two groups.
Vilwanathan Krishnamurthy, vice president of the Sri Ganesha Hindu Temple Committee, said the Murugan temple backers were asked if they wanted to join forces for a single project.
But they declined because they wanted one to their own god, who stands for war as well as beauty and family values. Most of the Murugan worshippers are Tamils from southern India and Sri Lanka.
Work on the Ganesha temple is expected to begin in April. Original plans called for it to be completed in 2009, but it looks as though it will not be finished until a year later.
The temple trustees say they have already amassed the 900,000 euros needed to for the complex from donations made by Indian businessmen and other worshippers.
The temple will be constructed in a corner of the 84-hectare Hasenheide park after officials in Neukoelln allowed the Hindu community to use the land rent-free until 2080.
The original design comes from an Indian specializing in temple architecture. German architects had to vet the drawings to make sure they conformed to German building requirements.
A 17-metre ornamental tower dominates the entrance to the complex, which will contain one large temple with seating capacity for more than 350 and four smaller temples.
"Work on the tower and its ornamental carvings will take more than one year," said Krishnamurthy, who also chairs Berlin's Tamil Cultural society and gives dance and music classes in his spare time.
Stone carvings decorating the entrance will be imported from India.
The Berlin sites will bring to three the number of Hindu temples in Germany after the one in Hamm, a city of 150,000 in the populous western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
When completed, the Ganesha temple will be the second biggest in Europe after the Shri Venkateswara, which opened near Birmingham, England, in August 2006.
50 people looking for solar image of Mary lose sight
Don Sebastian, DNA (Daily News & Analysis)
February 26, 2008
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1152984
At least 50 people in Kottayam district have reportedly lost their vision after gazing at the sun looking for an image of Virgin Mary.
Though alarmed health authorities have installed a signboard to counter the rumour that a solar image of Virgin Mary appeared to the believers, curious onlookers, including foreign travellers, have been thronging the venue of the ‘miracle’.
St Joseph’s ENT and Eye Hospital in Kanjirappally alone has recorded 48 cases of vision loss due to photochemical burns on the retina. “All our patients have similar history and symptoms. The damage is to the macula, the most sensitive part of retina. They have developed photochemical, not thermal, burns after continuously gazing at the sun,” Dr Annamma James Isaac, the hospital’s ophthalmologist, said.
The hospital has been receiving patients with these abnormal symptoms since Friday. When the doctors found a pattern in the case sheets, they reported it to the district medical officer.
The health department has now put up a signboard at the hotelier’s house near Erumeli, where the divine image is said to have appeared, warning people against exposing their eyes to sunlight.
Even the churches in the vicinity disowned the miracle during Sunday mass after health officers and doctors approached the clergy. The house in question has been the centre of local rumours for a few months. The hotelier, who has since moved to another house, had claimed that statues of Mother Mary in his house have been crying honey and bleeding oil and perfumes.
Though people have been flocking to the “blessed land” - hastily christened Rosa Mystica Mountain - for long, the mad rush for the image in the sky began a week ago.
There are quite a few people still seeking the miracle, despite the experiences of their unfortunate predecessors and strict health warnings against gazing at the sun with the naked eye.
“The patients show varying degrees of severity. They are mostly girls in 12-26 age group. Our youngest patient is 12 and the oldest 60. Most of them were looking at the sun between 2 and 4 pm, when UV1 and UV2 rays are harshest,” Dr James Isaac said. He added that they could identify the problem as solar retinopathy because they were aware of the local sensation.
“Most patients may hopefully improve their vision. But there may be long-term effects on the retina,” he added.
Don Sebastian, DNA (Daily News & Analysis)
February 26, 2008
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1152984
At least 50 people in Kottayam district have reportedly lost their vision after gazing at the sun looking for an image of Virgin Mary.
Though alarmed health authorities have installed a signboard to counter the rumour that a solar image of Virgin Mary appeared to the believers, curious onlookers, including foreign travellers, have been thronging the venue of the ‘miracle’.
St Joseph’s ENT and Eye Hospital in Kanjirappally alone has recorded 48 cases of vision loss due to photochemical burns on the retina. “All our patients have similar history and symptoms. The damage is to the macula, the most sensitive part of retina. They have developed photochemical, not thermal, burns after continuously gazing at the sun,” Dr Annamma James Isaac, the hospital’s ophthalmologist, said.
The hospital has been receiving patients with these abnormal symptoms since Friday. When the doctors found a pattern in the case sheets, they reported it to the district medical officer.
The health department has now put up a signboard at the hotelier’s house near Erumeli, where the divine image is said to have appeared, warning people against exposing their eyes to sunlight.
Even the churches in the vicinity disowned the miracle during Sunday mass after health officers and doctors approached the clergy. The house in question has been the centre of local rumours for a few months. The hotelier, who has since moved to another house, had claimed that statues of Mother Mary in his house have been crying honey and bleeding oil and perfumes.
Though people have been flocking to the “blessed land” - hastily christened Rosa Mystica Mountain - for long, the mad rush for the image in the sky began a week ago.
There are quite a few people still seeking the miracle, despite the experiences of their unfortunate predecessors and strict health warnings against gazing at the sun with the naked eye.
“The patients show varying degrees of severity. They are mostly girls in 12-26 age group. Our youngest patient is 12 and the oldest 60. Most of them were looking at the sun between 2 and 4 pm, when UV1 and UV2 rays are harshest,” Dr James Isaac said. He added that they could identify the problem as solar retinopathy because they were aware of the local sensation.
“Most patients may hopefully improve their vision. But there may be long-term effects on the retina,” he added.
Gujarat to connect 16,000 villages via broadband
IANS, The Economic Times
February 25, 2008
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Gujarat_to_connect_16000_villages_via_broadband/articleshow/2813822.cms
After launching Jyotigram Yojana which aims at supplying electricity to all villages, Gujarat is planning another ambitious project to provide broadband links to its rural areas.
Presenting the 2008-09 state budget in the Vidhan Sabha(state assembly) Monday, Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala said the plan, first of its kind in the country, would provide broadband connections to 16,000 villages across the state.
This is the first budget of the Narendra Modi government after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the December 2007 assembly elections. The broadband connectivity will make all villages e-Gram-Vishwa-Gram and help villagers avail all advantages of information technology (IT), said Vala.
He said the state was also keen on improving its standing in the Human Development Index (HDI). According to him, the budget revolves around the concept of HDI as the UNDP study has said that Gujarat should play a greater role in improving the HDI.
"We have to increase rural prosperity through agriculture development, and increase employment opportunities. But our stress will be on providing common man with nutritious diet, pure drinking water, extension of quality education and extension of health facilities," he said.
The government has also decided to set up a Children's University in Gujarat, which again will be the first of its kind in India, Vala said. The project will take off as an institution called Bal Gokulam but will ultimately be transformed into a Children's University.
The state was already moving towards achieving a growth rate of 11.3 percent, a notch ahead of 11.2 percent indicated by the Planning Commission, the minister said.
Vala said the state had achieved an average growth rate of 10.4 in the last year against a target of 10.2 percent. For the 11th plan, a challenging target of 11.2 percent has been set.
He indicated that the annual plan outlay for 2008-09 will be Rs 190.3 billion ($4.7 billion) compared to Rs 160 billion approved for 2007-08, reflecting an increase of 18.93 percent.
Earlier, the opposition Congress staged a walkout from the Assembly minutes before the finance minister moved the budget. The Congress wanted special discussion on the Patan gang rape case and killing of a tribal in Sabarkantha district.
They sought adjournment motion but it was rejected by Speaker Ashok Bhatt. Protesting this, the Congress MLAs walked out shouting slogans against Modi.
IANS, The Economic Times
February 25, 2008
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Gujarat_to_connect_16000_villages_via_broadband/articleshow/2813822.cms
After launching Jyotigram Yojana which aims at supplying electricity to all villages, Gujarat is planning another ambitious project to provide broadband links to its rural areas.
Presenting the 2008-09 state budget in the Vidhan Sabha(state assembly) Monday, Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala said the plan, first of its kind in the country, would provide broadband connections to 16,000 villages across the state.
This is the first budget of the Narendra Modi government after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the December 2007 assembly elections. The broadband connectivity will make all villages e-Gram-Vishwa-Gram and help villagers avail all advantages of information technology (IT), said Vala.
He said the state was also keen on improving its standing in the Human Development Index (HDI). According to him, the budget revolves around the concept of HDI as the UNDP study has said that Gujarat should play a greater role in improving the HDI.
"We have to increase rural prosperity through agriculture development, and increase employment opportunities. But our stress will be on providing common man with nutritious diet, pure drinking water, extension of quality education and extension of health facilities," he said.
The government has also decided to set up a Children's University in Gujarat, which again will be the first of its kind in India, Vala said. The project will take off as an institution called Bal Gokulam but will ultimately be transformed into a Children's University.
The state was already moving towards achieving a growth rate of 11.3 percent, a notch ahead of 11.2 percent indicated by the Planning Commission, the minister said.
Vala said the state had achieved an average growth rate of 10.4 in the last year against a target of 10.2 percent. For the 11th plan, a challenging target of 11.2 percent has been set.
He indicated that the annual plan outlay for 2008-09 will be Rs 190.3 billion ($4.7 billion) compared to Rs 160 billion approved for 2007-08, reflecting an increase of 18.93 percent.
Earlier, the opposition Congress staged a walkout from the Assembly minutes before the finance minister moved the budget. The Congress wanted special discussion on the Patan gang rape case and killing of a tribal in Sabarkantha district.
They sought adjournment motion but it was rejected by Speaker Ashok Bhatt. Protesting this, the Congress MLAs walked out shouting slogans against Modi.
MP madrassas boycott Iskcon's mid-day meals
Suchandana Gupta, The Times of India
August 17, 2007
http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2286310.cms
Madrassas in Ujjain have boycotted the Madhya Pradesh government's mid-day meal scheme for students on the ground that the food is being prepared by Iskcon, the Hindu religious organisation spreading Krishna consciousness throughout the world.
The madrassas in Ujjain, 200 km from Bhopal, have demanded that raw materials for food, and funds be given directly to them so that they can prepare mid-day meals for students. Muslim clerics argued that food prepared by Iskcon is first offered to Lord Jagannath as 'bhog' (offering) before being distributed among the students.
"We can't accept this as it hurts our religious sentiments," Ujjain Qazi Khaleeq-ur-Rahman told TOI .
"Minister of state for education Paras Jain came here and lectured us that we needed to change our mentality. We want to specify that the matter is far above mentality. It is our faith. How can our students eat a meal which has been served to a Hindu god?"
Iskcon, however, denied that the food prepared for madrassa students is offered to Lord Jagannath. Iskcon's spokesman in Ujjain Raghav Das said, "According to our understanding with the Ujjain Municipal Corporation, we supply prepared food to 22,000 students in town. We make 66,000 'chapatis', 140 kg of vegetables (curry) and 45 kg of lentils (dal) per day. We then take just one 'thali' from the kitchen to the temple of Lord Jagannath. The rest of the food is not taken to the temple. It is transported from our kitchens to the schools."
Iskcon has been preparing midday meals for schools in urban areas since July. "We constructed a kitchen large enough to prepare the mid-day meals for more than 20,000 students. Keeping hygienic conditions in mind, we even got automatic roti makers which prepare 10,000 rotis per hour. We are not in this for profit.”
Suchandana Gupta, The Times of India
August 17, 2007
http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2286310.cms
Madrassas in Ujjain have boycotted the Madhya Pradesh government's mid-day meal scheme for students on the ground that the food is being prepared by Iskcon, the Hindu religious organisation spreading Krishna consciousness throughout the world.
The madrassas in Ujjain, 200 km from Bhopal, have demanded that raw materials for food, and funds be given directly to them so that they can prepare mid-day meals for students. Muslim clerics argued that food prepared by Iskcon is first offered to Lord Jagannath as 'bhog' (offering) before being distributed among the students.
"We can't accept this as it hurts our religious sentiments," Ujjain Qazi Khaleeq-ur-Rahman told TOI .
"Minister of state for education Paras Jain came here and lectured us that we needed to change our mentality. We want to specify that the matter is far above mentality. It is our faith. How can our students eat a meal which has been served to a Hindu god?"
Iskcon, however, denied that the food prepared for madrassa students is offered to Lord Jagannath. Iskcon's spokesman in Ujjain Raghav Das said, "According to our understanding with the Ujjain Municipal Corporation, we supply prepared food to 22,000 students in town. We make 66,000 'chapatis', 140 kg of vegetables (curry) and 45 kg of lentils (dal) per day. We then take just one 'thali' from the kitchen to the temple of Lord Jagannath. The rest of the food is not taken to the temple. It is transported from our kitchens to the schools."
Iskcon has been preparing midday meals for schools in urban areas since July. "We constructed a kitchen large enough to prepare the mid-day meals for more than 20,000 students. Keeping hygienic conditions in mind, we even got automatic roti makers which prepare 10,000 rotis per hour. We are not in this for profit.”
Archbishop: Pakistani Extremists an Increasing Threat
Zenit.org
February 27, 2008
http://zenit.org/article-21912?l=english
Calls on Government to Protect Right to Religious Freedom
The president of Pakistan's episcopal conference called on the government to protect Christians in the wake of increased violence and pressure to convert to Islam.
In a statement coinciding with last week's presidential elections, Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore described to Aid to the Church in Need the growing "hatred and intolerance" of militant groups whom, he said, were contravening Pakistan's constitution by trying to force Christians to turn to Islam.
Archbishop Saldanha highlighted the case of a young Catholic father of four who was kidnapped and threatened with death.
During his captivity, last month, the banker, whom the archbishop referred to as Haroon, was ordered to phone his wife and tell her that he would be killed if she dared to inform the police. He was later able to escape.
His kidnappers are part of Jamaat-ul-Dawah, which has been classified as a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom, Pakistan and other countries.
Stressing how religious freedom is enshrined in Pakistan's constitution, Archbishop Saldanha called on the government to crack down on extremism.
He wrote: "Haroon's story illustrates a new trend that underlines the difficulties and pressures of living in a land where extremism is growing and there is little tolerance for people who are non-Muslims.
"Especially Christians who live in remote and isolated towns are vulnerable. Here the level of hatred and intolerance is even more intense.
"Fortunately Haroon is an educated man and strong in his Catholic faith. He was able to resist his attackers."
Forced marriages
In the message, Archbishop Saldanha went on to describe the plight of Christian girls who are abducted and forced to marry Muslim boys and change their religion.
These events follow warnings issued by Archbishop Saldanha last May that Muslim extremists were now trying to force Christians to convert by threatening violence.
In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, the archbishop highlighted a case where about 500 Christians had received anonymous letters warning of violent retribution if a mass conversion to Islam did not follow within 10 days.
At the time, Archbishop Saldanha said: "It distresses us that Christians are threatened in an attempt to force them to convert to Islam. This is something that has never happened before. We Christians are citizens, just like everyone else, and wish to have the same rights."
Aid to the Church in Need provides over $850,000 annually to support Christians in Pakistan.
Zenit.org
February 27, 2008
http://zenit.org/article-21912?l=english
Calls on Government to Protect Right to Religious Freedom
The president of Pakistan's episcopal conference called on the government to protect Christians in the wake of increased violence and pressure to convert to Islam.
In a statement coinciding with last week's presidential elections, Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore described to Aid to the Church in Need the growing "hatred and intolerance" of militant groups whom, he said, were contravening Pakistan's constitution by trying to force Christians to turn to Islam.
Archbishop Saldanha highlighted the case of a young Catholic father of four who was kidnapped and threatened with death.
During his captivity, last month, the banker, whom the archbishop referred to as Haroon, was ordered to phone his wife and tell her that he would be killed if she dared to inform the police. He was later able to escape.
His kidnappers are part of Jamaat-ul-Dawah, which has been classified as a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom, Pakistan and other countries.
Stressing how religious freedom is enshrined in Pakistan's constitution, Archbishop Saldanha called on the government to crack down on extremism.
He wrote: "Haroon's story illustrates a new trend that underlines the difficulties and pressures of living in a land where extremism is growing and there is little tolerance for people who are non-Muslims.
"Especially Christians who live in remote and isolated towns are vulnerable. Here the level of hatred and intolerance is even more intense.
"Fortunately Haroon is an educated man and strong in his Catholic faith. He was able to resist his attackers."
Forced marriages
In the message, Archbishop Saldanha went on to describe the plight of Christian girls who are abducted and forced to marry Muslim boys and change their religion.
These events follow warnings issued by Archbishop Saldanha last May that Muslim extremists were now trying to force Christians to convert by threatening violence.
In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, the archbishop highlighted a case where about 500 Christians had received anonymous letters warning of violent retribution if a mass conversion to Islam did not follow within 10 days.
At the time, Archbishop Saldanha said: "It distresses us that Christians are threatened in an attempt to force them to convert to Islam. This is something that has never happened before. We Christians are citizens, just like everyone else, and wish to have the same rights."
Aid to the Church in Need provides over $850,000 annually to support Christians in Pakistan.
Hindus have the lowest divorce rate in US: Survey
Aziz Haniffa, Rediff.com
February 26, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/feb/26survey.htm
Not only are the Hindus and Mormons the most likely to be married (78 percent and 71 percent respectively), but also the most likely to be married to someone within their own faith (90 percent and 83 percent respectively), a landmark survey that details the religious affiliation of the American public and explores the remarkable dynamism taking place in the US religious marketplace has found.
The study, titled the US Religious Landscape Survey, released on Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, also found that Hindus also have the lowest divorce rate of any group --only 5 percent have been divorced.
It also noted that nearly half of Hindus in the US, one-third of Jews and a quarter of Buddhists have obtained postgraduate education, compared with only about one-in-10 of the adult population overall.
The survey that was based on interviews conducted in English and Spanish with a nationally representative sample of over 35,000 adults, and includes detailed information on religious affiliation and provides estimates of the size of religious groups that are as small as three-tenth of 1 percent of the population, also found that Hindus and Jews are much more likely than other groups to report high income levels.
More than four in 10 of Hindus and Jews (43 percent and 46 percent respectively) made more than $100,000 per year.
In sharp contrast to Hinduism and Islam, Buddhism in the US is primarily made up of native-born adherents, whites and converts, and only one-in-three American Buddhists describe their race as Asian, and three-in-four Buddhists say they are converts to Buddhism,it said.
The survey also found that Mormons and Muslims are the groups with the largest families with more than one-in-five Mormon and 15 percent of Muslim adults in the US having three or more children living at home.
Hindus were less likely than other traditions to have no children living at home (52 percent), but compared with Muslims and Mormons, "they are more likely to have smaller families, with only a small number (3 percent) having three or more children at home', the study said.
Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum, said, "People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one religious group to another-- or to no religion at all. They'll also be surprised by the extent to which immigration is helping to reshape the US religious landscape."
Greg Smith, Research Fellow at the Pew Forum, who along with John Green, Senior Fellow at the Forum, and Lugo who participated in a teleconference with reporters, said the features and methodological strengths of the project revealed "some fascinating details about the demographics of a variety of religious groups".
"We find that for instance, Hindus, stand out compared with other religious groups for their extraordinary high levels of educational attainment," he said, and pointed out that "nearly half of Hindus in the United States--48 percent--have obtained postgraduate education over and above earning a college degree."
Smith said, "That means that more than four times as many Hindus have reached this educational level as compared with the public overall."
With regard to nativity by religious tradition, when the survey breaks down the various religious traditions by nationality, it found that Hindus, Muslims and members of Orthodox churches were the groups most heavily comprised of immigrants--86 percent, 65 percent and 38 percent of these groups, respectively, were born in another country.
Lugo predicted that "every indication is that adherence of these other world religions, such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, will continue to grow as a percentage of the US population."
He said that when the Census Bureau took its own numbers back in the mid-1950s, "all these groups were virtually a rounding error. So clearly they are growing and we know that you don't need a high percentage of folks who are new of different as perceived by most folks in society to generate a lot of conversation, not least in politics and how do we accommodate the increasing diversity".
Lugo said that "even 5 percent folks from these other world religions, which to most Americans are very new and very strange, generates a significant challenge for the country to begin to expand the process of accommodating beyond the categories that are most comfortable with--Protestant, Catholic and Jew".
Aziz Haniffa, Rediff.com
February 26, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/feb/26survey.htm
Not only are the Hindus and Mormons the most likely to be married (78 percent and 71 percent respectively), but also the most likely to be married to someone within their own faith (90 percent and 83 percent respectively), a landmark survey that details the religious affiliation of the American public and explores the remarkable dynamism taking place in the US religious marketplace has found.
The study, titled the US Religious Landscape Survey, released on Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, also found that Hindus also have the lowest divorce rate of any group --only 5 percent have been divorced.
It also noted that nearly half of Hindus in the US, one-third of Jews and a quarter of Buddhists have obtained postgraduate education, compared with only about one-in-10 of the adult population overall.
The survey that was based on interviews conducted in English and Spanish with a nationally representative sample of over 35,000 adults, and includes detailed information on religious affiliation and provides estimates of the size of religious groups that are as small as three-tenth of 1 percent of the population, also found that Hindus and Jews are much more likely than other groups to report high income levels.
More than four in 10 of Hindus and Jews (43 percent and 46 percent respectively) made more than $100,000 per year.
In sharp contrast to Hinduism and Islam, Buddhism in the US is primarily made up of native-born adherents, whites and converts, and only one-in-three American Buddhists describe their race as Asian, and three-in-four Buddhists say they are converts to Buddhism,it said.
The survey also found that Mormons and Muslims are the groups with the largest families with more than one-in-five Mormon and 15 percent of Muslim adults in the US having three or more children living at home.
Hindus were less likely than other traditions to have no children living at home (52 percent), but compared with Muslims and Mormons, "they are more likely to have smaller families, with only a small number (3 percent) having three or more children at home', the study said.
Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum, said, "People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one religious group to another-- or to no religion at all. They'll also be surprised by the extent to which immigration is helping to reshape the US religious landscape."
Greg Smith, Research Fellow at the Pew Forum, who along with John Green, Senior Fellow at the Forum, and Lugo who participated in a teleconference with reporters, said the features and methodological strengths of the project revealed "some fascinating details about the demographics of a variety of religious groups".
"We find that for instance, Hindus, stand out compared with other religious groups for their extraordinary high levels of educational attainment," he said, and pointed out that "nearly half of Hindus in the United States--48 percent--have obtained postgraduate education over and above earning a college degree."
Smith said, "That means that more than four times as many Hindus have reached this educational level as compared with the public overall."
With regard to nativity by religious tradition, when the survey breaks down the various religious traditions by nationality, it found that Hindus, Muslims and members of Orthodox churches were the groups most heavily comprised of immigrants--86 percent, 65 percent and 38 percent of these groups, respectively, were born in another country.
Lugo predicted that "every indication is that adherence of these other world religions, such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, will continue to grow as a percentage of the US population."
He said that when the Census Bureau took its own numbers back in the mid-1950s, "all these groups were virtually a rounding error. So clearly they are growing and we know that you don't need a high percentage of folks who are new of different as perceived by most folks in society to generate a lot of conversation, not least in politics and how do we accommodate the increasing diversity".
Lugo said that "even 5 percent folks from these other world religions, which to most Americans are very new and very strange, generates a significant challenge for the country to begin to expand the process of accommodating beyond the categories that are most comfortable with--Protestant, Catholic and Jew".
If Kosovo, why not Tibet?
Claude Arpi, The Pioneer
February 28, 2008
Backed by the US and the EU, Kosovo has declared 'independence' from Serbia, although its claim to 'sovereignty' is extremely dubious. But the independence of another nation, Tibet, continues to be denied by China. The US and EU are least interested
We are living in a strange world in which truth and justice are often not the main moving forces. Take the example of Kosovo. Backed by the US and the European Union, though strongly contested by Serbia and Russia, Kosovo declared itself an independent nation. When Parliament Speaker Jakup Krasniqi solemnly stated that "Kosovo is an independent, democratic and sovereign state", members of the House burst into applause.
Reuters reported: "Across the capital, Pristina, revellers fired guns into the air, waved red-and-black Albanian flags and honked car horns in jubilation at the birth of the world's newest country."
Later, Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi and President Fatmir Sejdiu signed the declaration, sure of the support of the US and the European Union. Mr Thaçi, the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, said: "We never lost faith in the dream that one day we would stand among the free nations of the world, and today we do." Though his troops battled the Serbians in a war that claimed 10,000 lives, today he stated: "Dreams are infinite... nothing can deter us from moving forward to the greatness that history has reserved for us."
We are living in a strange world because other people had also dreamt of independence, but is there any hope for them? This is the case of the Tibetans. The Kosovo nation is less than 11,000 sq km, but before the Chinese invasion of 1950 Tibet was spread over 2,5 million sq km, representing 25 per cent of China's landmass. Though sparsely populated due to the high altitude and difficult climate, the Dalai Lama's country, with six million Tibetans, has thrice the population of Kosovo.
The Tibetan nation was independent for two millennia, even if some Chinese or Mongol incursions occurred a few times over the last centuries. One such invasion happened in 1910, but the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was quick to recover his land. What Mr Thaçi did on February 17, the previous Dalai Lama did in 1913. He declared the formal independence of Tibet. The proclamation was distributed all over the Land of Snows. It is dated the eighth day of the first month of the Water-Ox year (February, 1913).
The Tibetan leader not only declared his nation independent, but reminded his people of their responsibilities: "Having once again achieved for ourselves a period of happiness and peace, I have now allotted to all of you the following duties to be carried out without negligence". He told them about the importance to follow the Buddhist precepts: "Peace and happiness in this world can only be maintained by preserving the faith of Buddhism." He asked the civil servants to be honest and serve the people.
Less well known, he wanted to raise an Army to defend his nation's borders: "Tibet is a country with rich natural resources; but it is not scientifically advanced like other lands... To keep up with the rest of the world, we must defend our country." He even promulgated land reforms: "From now on, no one is allowed to obstruct anyone else from cultivating whatever vacant lands are available."
The Land of Snows was to remain independent for the next 37 years, till the day the People's Liberation Army ruthlessly entered Tibet to 'liberate' it. "Liberate from what?" asked Jawaharlal Nehru in Parliament.
But soon the Government of India as well as the British who had signed a Convention with the Lhasa Government in 1914 in Simla, fell silent. The other European countries and the United States kept quiet. The same nations are today, for their own interests, supporting the independence of Kosovo. Tibet was then a separate nation with its own Government, its own Foreign Office, with treaty relations with other countries, with a distinct culture, history, language and religion.
Why did everyone stay mum? It is an inconvenient truth today. If one looks at the legal parameters which define a nation, Tibet fulfilled them all. Unfortunately, the world was not ready to follow its own rules.
In Delhi, many saw a danger for India if it betrayed an 'independent' Tibet. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister, masterfully summed up the strategic implications for India's foreign policy. In a letter, considered as his testament (he was to pass away six weeks later), he wrote to Nehru: "I have carefully gone through the correspondence between the External Affairs Ministry and the Chinese Government. I have tried to peruse this correspondence as favourably to our Ambassador (KM Panikkar) and the Chinese Government as possible, but I regret to say that neither of them comes out well as the result of this study." He then continued: "The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by professions of peaceful intentions... There can be no doubt that, during the period covered by this correspondence, the Chinese must have been concentrating for an onslaught on Tibet. The final action of the Chinese, in my judgement, is little short of perfidy."
The letter goes to detail the implications for India of having a new neighbour. Fifty-eight years later, Patel's words are today prophetic; the Chinese can freely enter Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh and nobody in India dares to say anything to avoid "jeopardising the progress of the border negotiations". In 1950, there was no border dispute; Tibet was, in the Dalai Lama's words, a true chela of India.
In November 1950, after sending his letter to the Prime Minister, Patel told an audience in Delhi: "In the Kali Yuga, we shall return ahimsa for ahimsa. But if anybody resorts to force against us we shall meet it with force." Due to his illness, Patel could not put his words into practice and Nehru did not even answer his letter.
However, 10 days later, he wrote an internal note on the subject on November 18, 1950. Hardly four weeks after the invasion, he had already accepted the fait accompli: "China is going to be our close neighbour for a long time to come. We are going to have a tremendously long common frontier."
Though at that time the Chinese troops were still a few months march from Lhasa, Nehru added: "I think it may be taken for granted that China will take possession, in a political sense at least, of the whole of Tibet." A few months later, Mao took over not only politically, but militarily the 'Roof of the World'.
Nehru admitted that the Tibetan people can nevertheless not expect too much: "Autonomy can obviously not be anything like the autonomy, verging on independence, which Tibet has enjoyed during the last forty years or so." It is beyond comprehension how Nehru, who considered himself to be the hero of the oppressed nations, could allow a nation 'verging on independence' simply lose its freedom.
Today, the Dalai Lama is asking for autonomy, But the world refuses to listen to his voice even as it gives in to Kosovo's clamour.
Claude Arpi, The Pioneer
February 28, 2008
Backed by the US and the EU, Kosovo has declared 'independence' from Serbia, although its claim to 'sovereignty' is extremely dubious. But the independence of another nation, Tibet, continues to be denied by China. The US and EU are least interested
We are living in a strange world in which truth and justice are often not the main moving forces. Take the example of Kosovo. Backed by the US and the European Union, though strongly contested by Serbia and Russia, Kosovo declared itself an independent nation. When Parliament Speaker Jakup Krasniqi solemnly stated that "Kosovo is an independent, democratic and sovereign state", members of the House burst into applause.
Reuters reported: "Across the capital, Pristina, revellers fired guns into the air, waved red-and-black Albanian flags and honked car horns in jubilation at the birth of the world's newest country."
Later, Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi and President Fatmir Sejdiu signed the declaration, sure of the support of the US and the European Union. Mr Thaçi, the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, said: "We never lost faith in the dream that one day we would stand among the free nations of the world, and today we do." Though his troops battled the Serbians in a war that claimed 10,000 lives, today he stated: "Dreams are infinite... nothing can deter us from moving forward to the greatness that history has reserved for us."
We are living in a strange world because other people had also dreamt of independence, but is there any hope for them? This is the case of the Tibetans. The Kosovo nation is less than 11,000 sq km, but before the Chinese invasion of 1950 Tibet was spread over 2,5 million sq km, representing 25 per cent of China's landmass. Though sparsely populated due to the high altitude and difficult climate, the Dalai Lama's country, with six million Tibetans, has thrice the population of Kosovo.
The Tibetan nation was independent for two millennia, even if some Chinese or Mongol incursions occurred a few times over the last centuries. One such invasion happened in 1910, but the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was quick to recover his land. What Mr Thaçi did on February 17, the previous Dalai Lama did in 1913. He declared the formal independence of Tibet. The proclamation was distributed all over the Land of Snows. It is dated the eighth day of the first month of the Water-Ox year (February, 1913).
The Tibetan leader not only declared his nation independent, but reminded his people of their responsibilities: "Having once again achieved for ourselves a period of happiness and peace, I have now allotted to all of you the following duties to be carried out without negligence". He told them about the importance to follow the Buddhist precepts: "Peace and happiness in this world can only be maintained by preserving the faith of Buddhism." He asked the civil servants to be honest and serve the people.
Less well known, he wanted to raise an Army to defend his nation's borders: "Tibet is a country with rich natural resources; but it is not scientifically advanced like other lands... To keep up with the rest of the world, we must defend our country." He even promulgated land reforms: "From now on, no one is allowed to obstruct anyone else from cultivating whatever vacant lands are available."
The Land of Snows was to remain independent for the next 37 years, till the day the People's Liberation Army ruthlessly entered Tibet to 'liberate' it. "Liberate from what?" asked Jawaharlal Nehru in Parliament.
But soon the Government of India as well as the British who had signed a Convention with the Lhasa Government in 1914 in Simla, fell silent. The other European countries and the United States kept quiet. The same nations are today, for their own interests, supporting the independence of Kosovo. Tibet was then a separate nation with its own Government, its own Foreign Office, with treaty relations with other countries, with a distinct culture, history, language and religion.
Why did everyone stay mum? It is an inconvenient truth today. If one looks at the legal parameters which define a nation, Tibet fulfilled them all. Unfortunately, the world was not ready to follow its own rules.
In Delhi, many saw a danger for India if it betrayed an 'independent' Tibet. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister, masterfully summed up the strategic implications for India's foreign policy. In a letter, considered as his testament (he was to pass away six weeks later), he wrote to Nehru: "I have carefully gone through the correspondence between the External Affairs Ministry and the Chinese Government. I have tried to peruse this correspondence as favourably to our Ambassador (KM Panikkar) and the Chinese Government as possible, but I regret to say that neither of them comes out well as the result of this study." He then continued: "The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by professions of peaceful intentions... There can be no doubt that, during the period covered by this correspondence, the Chinese must have been concentrating for an onslaught on Tibet. The final action of the Chinese, in my judgement, is little short of perfidy."
The letter goes to detail the implications for India of having a new neighbour. Fifty-eight years later, Patel's words are today prophetic; the Chinese can freely enter Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh and nobody in India dares to say anything to avoid "jeopardising the progress of the border negotiations". In 1950, there was no border dispute; Tibet was, in the Dalai Lama's words, a true chela of India.
In November 1950, after sending his letter to the Prime Minister, Patel told an audience in Delhi: "In the Kali Yuga, we shall return ahimsa for ahimsa. But if anybody resorts to force against us we shall meet it with force." Due to his illness, Patel could not put his words into practice and Nehru did not even answer his letter.
However, 10 days later, he wrote an internal note on the subject on November 18, 1950. Hardly four weeks after the invasion, he had already accepted the fait accompli: "China is going to be our close neighbour for a long time to come. We are going to have a tremendously long common frontier."
Though at that time the Chinese troops were still a few months march from Lhasa, Nehru added: "I think it may be taken for granted that China will take possession, in a political sense at least, of the whole of Tibet." A few months later, Mao took over not only politically, but militarily the 'Roof of the World'.
Nehru admitted that the Tibetan people can nevertheless not expect too much: "Autonomy can obviously not be anything like the autonomy, verging on independence, which Tibet has enjoyed during the last forty years or so." It is beyond comprehension how Nehru, who considered himself to be the hero of the oppressed nations, could allow a nation 'verging on independence' simply lose its freedom.
Today, the Dalai Lama is asking for autonomy, But the world refuses to listen to his voice even as it gives in to Kosovo's clamour.
Sitar, harmonium to be taught in UK schools
PTI, Hindustan Times
February 25, 2008
For the first time, schools in London will introduce sitar and Indian harmonium in its music lessons from the next academic year starting in September.
The London borough of Harrow, which has a large minority of Indian origin, will introduce the two Indian instruments in the new music curriculum in its schools. The Harrow Council's music services department recently ordered child-size sitars from India for a pilot project at the Pinner Park Middle School.
The sessions were conducted by music teacher Vijay Jagtap, an acclaimed Britain-based sitar artist, who has played alongside former Beatle George Harrison for Queen Elizabeth.
Harrow councillor Anjana Patel said: "Introducing the sitar into the school music curriculum is a great way of expanding pupils' knowledge about music. But it is also a compelling way of introducing children to the broader aspects of Indian culture."
She told newspersons that as one of the most diverse boroughs in London, this awareness was "something we are very keen to promote."
PTI, Hindustan Times
February 25, 2008
For the first time, schools in London will introduce sitar and Indian harmonium in its music lessons from the next academic year starting in September.
The London borough of Harrow, which has a large minority of Indian origin, will introduce the two Indian instruments in the new music curriculum in its schools. The Harrow Council's music services department recently ordered child-size sitars from India for a pilot project at the Pinner Park Middle School.
The sessions were conducted by music teacher Vijay Jagtap, an acclaimed Britain-based sitar artist, who has played alongside former Beatle George Harrison for Queen Elizabeth.
Harrow councillor Anjana Patel said: "Introducing the sitar into the school music curriculum is a great way of expanding pupils' knowledge about music. But it is also a compelling way of introducing children to the broader aspects of Indian culture."
She told newspersons that as one of the most diverse boroughs in London, this awareness was "something we are very keen to promote."
War saga moves minister but its hero feels helpless
Rahul Singh, Hindustan Times
February 25, 2008
Introduction: 1971 Indo-Pak war veteran says India treats its soldiers shabbily
Laungewala, The scene of some of the bloodiest fighting during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, has stirred patriotism and pride in Defence Minister A.K. Antony's heart.
Barely 20 km from the border with Pakistan, the Army took him 36 years back in time and presented to Antony a blow-by-blow account of how a young major leading just 100 men triumphed over a formidable attack by a Pakistani brigade (some 2,800 troops) backed by an armoured regiment of 45 tanks.
The Battle of Laungewala (December 3-6) goes down in the annals of military history as a classic case of human resolve and motivation in the face of heavy odds. The saga of Major K.S. Chandpuri (later brigadier), who etched his name in war folklore after being awarded the Maha Vir Chakra, touched Antony. Just as it had inspired film director J.P. Dutta to make Bollywood blockbuster Border.
The defence minister said on Sunday, "Major Chandpuri and his men are a shining example of valour and sacrifice. By sheer determination they triumphed over heavy odds." But the man who scripted that historic victory says he is saddened by the way India treats her war heroes.
Brigadier Chandpuri (retd) told the Hindustan Times, "War heroes are not getting their due. Take the case of Subedar Bana Singh (a Param Vir Chakra awardee), who gets a measly monthly allowance of Rs 160 or so. There are so many others like him. I feel helpless. If the tradition of gallantry has to be kept alive, the country has to learn to honour its soldiers."
Chandpuri's Alpha company (23 Punjab) - equipped with merely jeeps with recoilless guns, medium machine guns, 81 mm mortars and small arms -inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. The combat ratio of 27:1, as regards manpower and equipment, was in favour of the Pakistanis. IAF support also proved crucial.
The scary prospect of being overrun by the enemy had made Chandpuri's men edgy. He told them at the beginning of the battle in chaste Punjabi, "Anyone who is afraid to face the enemy is free to run away now, although it will bring shame to the battalion and its ancestors. But remember I intend to stand and fight to the last." His leadership and dedication motivated his men to fight to finish.
Antony dubbed it a "fascinating battle," after taking a ride on a T-90 tank, along with Army chief General Deepak Kapoor, on same shifting sands of Thar where Pakistanis suffered a bloody defeat at the hands of Chandpuri and his men, six of whom were given gallantry awards.
Chandpuri said, "I do not want to take any credit. I have no regrets. But war heroes are a fast diminishing community. How many PVC winners from previous wars are alive? Lets honour our heroes while they are still around."
- rahul.singh@hindustantimes.com
Rahul Singh, Hindustan Times
February 25, 2008
Introduction: 1971 Indo-Pak war veteran says India treats its soldiers shabbily
Laungewala, The scene of some of the bloodiest fighting during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, has stirred patriotism and pride in Defence Minister A.K. Antony's heart.
Barely 20 km from the border with Pakistan, the Army took him 36 years back in time and presented to Antony a blow-by-blow account of how a young major leading just 100 men triumphed over a formidable attack by a Pakistani brigade (some 2,800 troops) backed by an armoured regiment of 45 tanks.
The Battle of Laungewala (December 3-6) goes down in the annals of military history as a classic case of human resolve and motivation in the face of heavy odds. The saga of Major K.S. Chandpuri (later brigadier), who etched his name in war folklore after being awarded the Maha Vir Chakra, touched Antony. Just as it had inspired film director J.P. Dutta to make Bollywood blockbuster Border.
The defence minister said on Sunday, "Major Chandpuri and his men are a shining example of valour and sacrifice. By sheer determination they triumphed over heavy odds." But the man who scripted that historic victory says he is saddened by the way India treats her war heroes.
Brigadier Chandpuri (retd) told the Hindustan Times, "War heroes are not getting their due. Take the case of Subedar Bana Singh (a Param Vir Chakra awardee), who gets a measly monthly allowance of Rs 160 or so. There are so many others like him. I feel helpless. If the tradition of gallantry has to be kept alive, the country has to learn to honour its soldiers."
Chandpuri's Alpha company (23 Punjab) - equipped with merely jeeps with recoilless guns, medium machine guns, 81 mm mortars and small arms -inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. The combat ratio of 27:1, as regards manpower and equipment, was in favour of the Pakistanis. IAF support also proved crucial.
The scary prospect of being overrun by the enemy had made Chandpuri's men edgy. He told them at the beginning of the battle in chaste Punjabi, "Anyone who is afraid to face the enemy is free to run away now, although it will bring shame to the battalion and its ancestors. But remember I intend to stand and fight to the last." His leadership and dedication motivated his men to fight to finish.
Antony dubbed it a "fascinating battle," after taking a ride on a T-90 tank, along with Army chief General Deepak Kapoor, on same shifting sands of Thar where Pakistanis suffered a bloody defeat at the hands of Chandpuri and his men, six of whom were given gallantry awards.
Chandpuri said, "I do not want to take any credit. I have no regrets. But war heroes are a fast diminishing community. How many PVC winners from previous wars are alive? Lets honour our heroes while they are still around."
- rahul.singh@hindustantimes.com
Caste discrimination a British invention, bigger than steam engine
R Vaidyanathan, DNA (Daily News & Analysis)
February 26, 2008
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1152940
A major debate on reservation in institutions of higher learning like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), etc is being conducted at the Supreme Court.
A five-member bench is looking into the issues pertaining to the validity of the recently passed Act and also related matters like creamy layer exclusion, etc.
It has recently come to light that the Aryan invasion theory is a concoction by British politicians and academicians to justify their invasion of the country.
Perhaps a similar situation is emerging in the context of caste discrimination since the British had a vested interest in inventing discrimination and viewed the heterogeneous and non-hierarchical Indian society using the European framework of a feudal-bourgeoisie divide.
The colonizers were part of the Abrahamic tradition, which believes in homogenization, and the heterogeneous and non-conflicting Indian society would not have suited their design. That might have led them to construct a class-based discriminating society out of the multiple sampradayas and castes co-existing peacefully. After all, history is constructed to suit the colonisers and victors.
A discussion about backward classes is very often a debate on the backward castes. The backwardness is defined to include social, educational and economic aspects.
In practice, it is identified more with social and educational backwardness and hence, many castes are classified (or, shall we say declared) as backward and provided reservation in institutes of higher learning in most states.
In Tamil Nadu, for example, a whopping 69% is reserved for these categories. One of the major arguments in favour of reservations is that the backward castes are educationally backward due to discrimination in the past and hence cannot compete with others.
History does not support the thesis of discrimination
A renowned Gandhian, Dharampal, visited British and Indian archives and reproduced reports based on surveys conducted by the British in Madras, Punjab and Bengal presidencies during 1800-1830.
According to a detailed survey undertaken during 1822-25 in the Madras Presidency (present day Tamil Nadu, a major part of present day Andhra Pradesh and some districts of Karnataka, Kerala and Orissa), 11,575 schools and 1,094 colleges were in existence in the Presidency and the number of students in them were 1,57,195 and 5,431, respectively.
More important in view of the current debates and assumption is the unexpected and important information provided with regard to the broad caste composition of the students (see table). We find that the position as early as the first part of nineteenth century was significantly in favour of the backward castes as far as secular education was concerned.
Hence, the British-inspired propaganda that education was not available to the so-called backward castes prior to their efforts is not valid. The “secular” education was always a major tool in social transformation prior to British rule.
It is also assumed that caste is a rigid hierarchical system, which is oppressive. However, as observed by renowned sociologist Dipankar Gupta, “In fact, it is more realistic to say that there are probably as many hierarchies as there are castes in India.
To believe that there is a single caste order to which every caste from Brahmin to untouchable would acquiesce ideologically is a gross misreading of facts on the ground. The truth is that no caste, howsoever lowly placed it may be, accepts the reason for its degradation.” (Dipankar Gupta; Interrogating Caste; pp1; Penguin Books 2000).
The debate also does not take into account the fact that backwardness is not a static phenomenon, but a dynamic one.
The great sociologist, M N Srinivas said, “An important feature of social mobility in modern India is the manner in which the successful members of the backward castes work consistently for improving the economic and social condition of their caste fellows.
This is due to the sense of identification with one’s own caste, and also a realisation that caste mobility is essential for individual or familial mobility.”(Collected Essays; pp196-197, Oxford University Press 2005).
May be, the time has come for us to question many of the beliefs and myths perpetuated on educational backwardness. Politics does play a major role in shaping the perceptions of the common man, but it is the duty of academicians and other experts to look at issues more dispassionately so that the future of educational enhancement of our country is not impaired by mythical dogmas. We need “enquiring minds” to investigate the inventions of British other than that of the steam engine.
The writer is Professor of Finance & Control, Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore, and can be reached at vaidya@iimb.ernet.in. Views are personal.
R Vaidyanathan, DNA (Daily News & Analysis)
February 26, 2008
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1152940
A major debate on reservation in institutions of higher learning like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), etc is being conducted at the Supreme Court.
A five-member bench is looking into the issues pertaining to the validity of the recently passed Act and also related matters like creamy layer exclusion, etc.
It has recently come to light that the Aryan invasion theory is a concoction by British politicians and academicians to justify their invasion of the country.
Perhaps a similar situation is emerging in the context of caste discrimination since the British had a vested interest in inventing discrimination and viewed the heterogeneous and non-hierarchical Indian society using the European framework of a feudal-bourgeoisie divide.
The colonizers were part of the Abrahamic tradition, which believes in homogenization, and the heterogeneous and non-conflicting Indian society would not have suited their design. That might have led them to construct a class-based discriminating society out of the multiple sampradayas and castes co-existing peacefully. After all, history is constructed to suit the colonisers and victors.
A discussion about backward classes is very often a debate on the backward castes. The backwardness is defined to include social, educational and economic aspects.
In practice, it is identified more with social and educational backwardness and hence, many castes are classified (or, shall we say declared) as backward and provided reservation in institutes of higher learning in most states.
In Tamil Nadu, for example, a whopping 69% is reserved for these categories. One of the major arguments in favour of reservations is that the backward castes are educationally backward due to discrimination in the past and hence cannot compete with others.
History does not support the thesis of discrimination
A renowned Gandhian, Dharampal, visited British and Indian archives and reproduced reports based on surveys conducted by the British in Madras, Punjab and Bengal presidencies during 1800-1830.
According to a detailed survey undertaken during 1822-25 in the Madras Presidency (present day Tamil Nadu, a major part of present day Andhra Pradesh and some districts of Karnataka, Kerala and Orissa), 11,575 schools and 1,094 colleges were in existence in the Presidency and the number of students in them were 1,57,195 and 5,431, respectively.
More important in view of the current debates and assumption is the unexpected and important information provided with regard to the broad caste composition of the students (see table). We find that the position as early as the first part of nineteenth century was significantly in favour of the backward castes as far as secular education was concerned.
Hence, the British-inspired propaganda that education was not available to the so-called backward castes prior to their efforts is not valid. The “secular” education was always a major tool in social transformation prior to British rule.
It is also assumed that caste is a rigid hierarchical system, which is oppressive. However, as observed by renowned sociologist Dipankar Gupta, “In fact, it is more realistic to say that there are probably as many hierarchies as there are castes in India.
To believe that there is a single caste order to which every caste from Brahmin to untouchable would acquiesce ideologically is a gross misreading of facts on the ground. The truth is that no caste, howsoever lowly placed it may be, accepts the reason for its degradation.” (Dipankar Gupta; Interrogating Caste; pp1; Penguin Books 2000).
The debate also does not take into account the fact that backwardness is not a static phenomenon, but a dynamic one.
The great sociologist, M N Srinivas said, “An important feature of social mobility in modern India is the manner in which the successful members of the backward castes work consistently for improving the economic and social condition of their caste fellows.
This is due to the sense of identification with one’s own caste, and also a realisation that caste mobility is essential for individual or familial mobility.”(Collected Essays; pp196-197, Oxford University Press 2005).
May be, the time has come for us to question many of the beliefs and myths perpetuated on educational backwardness. Politics does play a major role in shaping the perceptions of the common man, but it is the duty of academicians and other experts to look at issues more dispassionately so that the future of educational enhancement of our country is not impaired by mythical dogmas. We need “enquiring minds” to investigate the inventions of British other than that of the steam engine.
The writer is Professor of Finance & Control, Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore, and can be reached at vaidya@iimb.ernet.in. Views are personal.
The "deadly triangle of LTTE+ NGO+ Christian extremists exposed
Srilanka Watch
February 14, 2008
http://www.srilankawatch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=172&Itemid=1
Due to prompt action by the Seeduwa Police in setting up road blocks, police were able to arrest the person suspected to have transported them to Mabole area in a van bearing the licence plate number 57-7399 at the road block at Kala Oya around 1 p.m. The arrested person was later identified as a pastor of a church in Mannar which is a branch of Four Square Church, a Christian evangelist group.
Sinhala Perspective from JHU
Police investigating the seizure of suicide jackets in Mabole on February 1, two days prior to Independence Day celebrations, have arrested 3 Christian priests from a fundamentalist religious sect and recovered several suicide kits.
Under interrogation the priests have confessed that they had brought down around 30 suicide cadres from Mannar to Kandy and Nuwara Eliya.
They also admitted to transporting several suicide kits and weapons to these areas.
Events unfolded when Civil Defence Force personnel K.M. Gunapala and R.M. Gunawardena who were deployed in the Mabole area arrested a suspected LTTE cadre close to the premises of the Colour Guard Company around 8.30 a.m. on February 1.
They were able to arrest the suspect Velupillai Gangadharan after a women tipped off them about two people who had left a parcel there at Mabole. The parcel contained two suicide kits, eight detonators, eight batteries, and six remote controlled devices. The parcel had been transported to Mabole to be given to a person called Suresh.
Due to prompt action by the Seeduwa Police in setting up road blocks, police were able to arrest the person suspected to have transported them to Mabole area in a van bearing the licence plate number 57-7399 at the road block at Kala Oya around 1 p.m.
The arrested person was later identified as a pastor of a church in Mannar which is a branch of Four Square Church, a Christian evangelist group.
The pastor had divulged that he had dropped four more people in Matale and Nuwara Eliya prior to his arrival at Mabole to drop two other people on February 1. The suicide jackets they brought to Mabole had been given to them by a person from Nuwara Eliya.
Police who conducted further investigations into the incident also revealed that the Christian priest identified as Nagulan had on previous occasions transported arms to Colombo concealed inside the seats of his van. After searching the priest's church at Pahankammukotte in Mannar, security forces were able to recover three suicide kits, two claymore mines and three magnet bombs.
Investigations are currently continuing into the involvement of other priests and Christian extremist groups in transporting suicide bomb kits to the south.
Srilanka Watch
February 14, 2008
http://www.srilankawatch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=172&Itemid=1
Due to prompt action by the Seeduwa Police in setting up road blocks, police were able to arrest the person suspected to have transported them to Mabole area in a van bearing the licence plate number 57-7399 at the road block at Kala Oya around 1 p.m. The arrested person was later identified as a pastor of a church in Mannar which is a branch of Four Square Church, a Christian evangelist group.
Sinhala Perspective from JHU
Police investigating the seizure of suicide jackets in Mabole on February 1, two days prior to Independence Day celebrations, have arrested 3 Christian priests from a fundamentalist religious sect and recovered several suicide kits.
Under interrogation the priests have confessed that they had brought down around 30 suicide cadres from Mannar to Kandy and Nuwara Eliya.
They also admitted to transporting several suicide kits and weapons to these areas.
Events unfolded when Civil Defence Force personnel K.M. Gunapala and R.M. Gunawardena who were deployed in the Mabole area arrested a suspected LTTE cadre close to the premises of the Colour Guard Company around 8.30 a.m. on February 1.
They were able to arrest the suspect Velupillai Gangadharan after a women tipped off them about two people who had left a parcel there at Mabole. The parcel contained two suicide kits, eight detonators, eight batteries, and six remote controlled devices. The parcel had been transported to Mabole to be given to a person called Suresh.
Due to prompt action by the Seeduwa Police in setting up road blocks, police were able to arrest the person suspected to have transported them to Mabole area in a van bearing the licence plate number 57-7399 at the road block at Kala Oya around 1 p.m.
The arrested person was later identified as a pastor of a church in Mannar which is a branch of Four Square Church, a Christian evangelist group.
The pastor had divulged that he had dropped four more people in Matale and Nuwara Eliya prior to his arrival at Mabole to drop two other people on February 1. The suicide jackets they brought to Mabole had been given to them by a person from Nuwara Eliya.
Police who conducted further investigations into the incident also revealed that the Christian priest identified as Nagulan had on previous occasions transported arms to Colombo concealed inside the seats of his van. After searching the priest's church at Pahankammukotte in Mannar, security forces were able to recover three suicide kits, two claymore mines and three magnet bombs.
Investigations are currently continuing into the involvement of other priests and Christian extremist groups in transporting suicide bomb kits to the south.
Major victory for Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti
Pramod Kumar, Organiser
March 2, 2008
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=226&page=6
NCERT ordered to remove all 75 objectionable passages from textbooks.
“We have won only one battle and three more battles are still to be won. The second battle to be won is against the Hindi textbooks, which are replete with more poisonous text than that in the history books. The hearing on our PIL against the Hindi books is going on in the court and the court has to deliver its verdict soon. Our third battle is against sex education and fourth battle is against Delhi University, which is teaching highly distorted history to college students.”
The Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, which has been fighting from streets to the courts against distortion of history by the UPA government, achieved a major success on January 30 when a division bench of Delhi High Court headed by Justice T.S. Thakur, ordered the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) to remove all 75 objectionable paragraphs in its history books before the next academic session.
Talking to Organiser Shri Dina Nath Batra, convener of Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti said they won only one battle and three more battles are still to be won. He said the second battle to be won is against the Hindi textbooks, which are replete with more poisonous text than that in the history books. “The hearing on our PIL against the Hindi books is going on in the court and the court has to deliver its verdict soon. Our third battle is against sex education and fourth battle is against Delhi University, which is teaching highly distorted history to college students. We have launched a signature campaign against it in Delhi University and soon we are going to start an indefinite dharna,” he informed.
The Samiti had pointed out 75 objectionable passages in history books in its petition. Four history textbooks by the NCERT were found to contain “factual errors and biased opinion. Objectionable references had been found in Romila Thapar’s book prescribed for Class VI and Ram Sharan Sharma’s book prescribed for Class XI students. Two other textbooks—by Arjun and Indira Dev for class XI and a book on medieval India by Satish Chandra—also had contained objectionable matter. NCERT in 2005 had decided to remove the remarks from these books. However only 10 such remarks were removed.
The NCERT assured the Court of the measures to remove the “objectionable passages” from History textbooks of Class VI to XII. “All objectionable passages will disappear in the new textbooks from April 1, 2008,” the NCERT counsel submitted before the Bench. However, Shri R.P. Bansal, council of the petitioner Shri Dina Nath Batra, expressed his concern on the fact that the old books would continue to be used as reference material by students. “What about those children who have been already taught or those who will use the old books as reference?” Shri Bansal asked. “We cannot stop people from reading the old books. The NCERT is willing to take steps for issuance of new ones,” the Bench replied. The NCERT had earlier informed the court that it would remove objectionable passages, including references to Sikh religious leader Guru Gobind Singh, scientist Aryabhatt, Mughal Emperor Akbar, and describing author Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and freedom fighters Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai as militants, from its books.
The bench told the NCERT to ensure that such errors were not repeated. “Students should not be taught lessons containing objectionable passages about leaders and communities,” the Bench said. Objectionable passages pointed out by the petitioner stand deleted. The NCERT council submitted that the process of deletion has no doubt taken sometime but w.e.f. 1.4.2008 none of the books being taught in the schools would contain the objectionable passages referred to by the petitioner. He urged that the new curriculum has completely overhauled the text and therefore the chance of any misgivings about the description of any personality or community whether engaged in the freedom struggle or not is totally ruled out.
Shri Bansal, however, submitted that the court could go a step forward to hold an inquiry as to how the said passages were included and which forces had worded for such inclusion. He urged that those guilty of distorting of the true facts and prescribing them as curriculum for the students ought to be identified and suitably punished.
On February 2 last year, the Bench had directed the CBSE not to frame questions on controversial passages in the Board examinations and had observed that ‘wrong information about our national leaders and communities should not be communicated to students’. However even after the order, the books still contained the passages. The Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti again approached the court. The division Bench then passed the order that all 75 passages pointed in the petition will not be included in the curriculum from April 1, 2008.
“Some of these passages in our prima facie opinion pass sweeping remarks against some of the recognised and well respected leaders of this country. Similar sweeping statements are there regarding some of the communities like ‘Jat’,” Chief Justice M.K. Sharma and Justice Hima Kohli had then said. “In view of such sweeping remarks contained in the aforesaid passages, we had made the aforesaid observations that these should not form a part of the lessons being taught to the students and that a curriculum which does not contain such sweeping remarks about the leaders of our country and also regarding any specific community should be prepared. The aim of the education is to impart lessons to the young pupils so that peace, harmony and cooperation is fostered in the society. With that aim in view the aforesaid observations were made by us, which shall be taken notice of by the CBSE so that wrong impression about the national leaders of yesteryears and also about any community or communities is not communicated to the young minds. Since, however, these books containing the aforesaid passages are being replaced by new books on the subject under a new curriculum, we are confident that these objections would be put to rest with the introduction of the new books and there would be no scope of those objections surviving in the new curriculum that is being proposed to be introduced. CBSE shall take notice of the observations made by us. As none is present on behalf of the CBSE today, a copy of this order be served on the counsel for the CBSE to enable him to file a response by way of a short affidavit,” they had said.
Pramod Kumar, Organiser
March 2, 2008
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=226&page=6
NCERT ordered to remove all 75 objectionable passages from textbooks.
“We have won only one battle and three more battles are still to be won. The second battle to be won is against the Hindi textbooks, which are replete with more poisonous text than that in the history books. The hearing on our PIL against the Hindi books is going on in the court and the court has to deliver its verdict soon. Our third battle is against sex education and fourth battle is against Delhi University, which is teaching highly distorted history to college students.”
The Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, which has been fighting from streets to the courts against distortion of history by the UPA government, achieved a major success on January 30 when a division bench of Delhi High Court headed by Justice T.S. Thakur, ordered the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) to remove all 75 objectionable paragraphs in its history books before the next academic session.
Talking to Organiser Shri Dina Nath Batra, convener of Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti said they won only one battle and three more battles are still to be won. He said the second battle to be won is against the Hindi textbooks, which are replete with more poisonous text than that in the history books. “The hearing on our PIL against the Hindi books is going on in the court and the court has to deliver its verdict soon. Our third battle is against sex education and fourth battle is against Delhi University, which is teaching highly distorted history to college students. We have launched a signature campaign against it in Delhi University and soon we are going to start an indefinite dharna,” he informed.
The Samiti had pointed out 75 objectionable passages in history books in its petition. Four history textbooks by the NCERT were found to contain “factual errors and biased opinion. Objectionable references had been found in Romila Thapar’s book prescribed for Class VI and Ram Sharan Sharma’s book prescribed for Class XI students. Two other textbooks—by Arjun and Indira Dev for class XI and a book on medieval India by Satish Chandra—also had contained objectionable matter. NCERT in 2005 had decided to remove the remarks from these books. However only 10 such remarks were removed.
The NCERT assured the Court of the measures to remove the “objectionable passages” from History textbooks of Class VI to XII. “All objectionable passages will disappear in the new textbooks from April 1, 2008,” the NCERT counsel submitted before the Bench. However, Shri R.P. Bansal, council of the petitioner Shri Dina Nath Batra, expressed his concern on the fact that the old books would continue to be used as reference material by students. “What about those children who have been already taught or those who will use the old books as reference?” Shri Bansal asked. “We cannot stop people from reading the old books. The NCERT is willing to take steps for issuance of new ones,” the Bench replied. The NCERT had earlier informed the court that it would remove objectionable passages, including references to Sikh religious leader Guru Gobind Singh, scientist Aryabhatt, Mughal Emperor Akbar, and describing author Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and freedom fighters Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai as militants, from its books.
The bench told the NCERT to ensure that such errors were not repeated. “Students should not be taught lessons containing objectionable passages about leaders and communities,” the Bench said. Objectionable passages pointed out by the petitioner stand deleted. The NCERT council submitted that the process of deletion has no doubt taken sometime but w.e.f. 1.4.2008 none of the books being taught in the schools would contain the objectionable passages referred to by the petitioner. He urged that the new curriculum has completely overhauled the text and therefore the chance of any misgivings about the description of any personality or community whether engaged in the freedom struggle or not is totally ruled out.
Shri Bansal, however, submitted that the court could go a step forward to hold an inquiry as to how the said passages were included and which forces had worded for such inclusion. He urged that those guilty of distorting of the true facts and prescribing them as curriculum for the students ought to be identified and suitably punished.
On February 2 last year, the Bench had directed the CBSE not to frame questions on controversial passages in the Board examinations and had observed that ‘wrong information about our national leaders and communities should not be communicated to students’. However even after the order, the books still contained the passages. The Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti again approached the court. The division Bench then passed the order that all 75 passages pointed in the petition will not be included in the curriculum from April 1, 2008.
“Some of these passages in our prima facie opinion pass sweeping remarks against some of the recognised and well respected leaders of this country. Similar sweeping statements are there regarding some of the communities like ‘Jat’,” Chief Justice M.K. Sharma and Justice Hima Kohli had then said. “In view of such sweeping remarks contained in the aforesaid passages, we had made the aforesaid observations that these should not form a part of the lessons being taught to the students and that a curriculum which does not contain such sweeping remarks about the leaders of our country and also regarding any specific community should be prepared. The aim of the education is to impart lessons to the young pupils so that peace, harmony and cooperation is fostered in the society. With that aim in view the aforesaid observations were made by us, which shall be taken notice of by the CBSE so that wrong impression about the national leaders of yesteryears and also about any community or communities is not communicated to the young minds. Since, however, these books containing the aforesaid passages are being replaced by new books on the subject under a new curriculum, we are confident that these objections would be put to rest with the introduction of the new books and there would be no scope of those objections surviving in the new curriculum that is being proposed to be introduced. CBSE shall take notice of the observations made by us. As none is present on behalf of the CBSE today, a copy of this order be served on the counsel for the CBSE to enable him to file a response by way of a short affidavit,” they had said.
A clash of cultures
Randeep Singh Nandal, NDTV.com
February, 25 2008
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/showcolumns.aspx?id=COLEN20080042337
Bhaiya - it's a term commonly used to describe an inhabitant of eastern UP and Bihar. A term used in exact opposite sense of what it means.
In Bombay it is a term of abuse, call a Maharashtrian a Bhaiya, a colleague warned me, and you could get into trouble. I got this piece of advice a few weeks before Raj Thackeray advertised the Marathi Manoos's aversion to these people ...some millions who now live in Bombay.
In the rest of India people tut-tuted this latest exhibition of the Sena's xenophobia ...the media led the charge holding opinion polls and debates ...where statistics were deployed to prove how this fear of the migrants was just plain nonsense ...expert after expert ...eminent citizens of this great metropolis ...spoke about the past ...how this was just a continuation of the Sena's history...look at their record they said ...first it was the Gujarati then the South Indian then in the 90's it was the Muslim ...Raj Thackeray, they said was just following in his uncle's footsteps ..its the north Indians now ...ignore him and it will blow away.
Bombay's North Indians were being targeted for petty gains by a politician on the make. Grim faced news anchors nodded their heads .. This was all a drama and we know who the villain is they seemed to suggest. An open and shut case, don't you think? Well, yes and no.
Let's for a moment look at the entire incident ...the first inaccuracy is that this is a campaign against North Indians, it isn't, this Marathi angst is specifically against the migrants from UP and Bihar. So to term this as an anti North Indian drive is misleading, more so because no one in North India, and here I am talking of the states of Punjab, Himachal, Uttrakhand, Haryana and Rajasthan, considers people from eastern UP and Bihar as North Indians!!! The term used to describe them in these states? You guessed it -Bhaiya!
But then, many would argue that even if it is against a specific group, it is just scaremongering, they are just poor folk who have as much a right to stay in Bombay as anyone else. This after all is a part of India and as citizens of India they have a right over Bombay that no one can take away. This, incidentally, was the view of one of a very eminent Bombay wala, a parsee gentleman who referred to how the Parsees had found refuge in India ...how at the turn of the last century they controlled the island city ..how no one calls them outsiders. This again is an argument that is hard to refute-- it has fact history and reason behind it. Except for one small detail, even at the height of their power the Parsees never outnumbered or threatened to swamp the local Maharashtrian.
And this is the core fear that is propelling this resentment against the Bhaiya. Think of your middle class Maharashtrian, he gets up in the morning and the man who gets him milk from the shop is a Bhaiya, he goes to work and stops to buy a smoke and is sold a pack by a Bhaiya, he gets into a taxi and there again a native of Bihar drives him to work, in his office the guard who opens the door for him again is a Bhaiya ..as is the boy who serves him tea, on his way back he stops to buy vegetables and is sold some by a man from Azamgarh , next to his house is a clutch of boys listening to a Bhojpuri song at full blast. The maid in his house is from Balia and the boy who comes back to repair his cable connection is from Mirzapur . Can you fault Mr Pawar from feeling that his city is being overrun by Bhaiyas?
You may say as many do does this mean that all Gujaratis and South Indians, all the Punjabis and the Kashmiris should be chased out of Bombay, does Mr Pawar support ethnic cleansing? No. he doesn't because of two very different reasons First, he realises that every other group has a sort of mean cap on the numbers who will stay here, a cap that does not apply to migrants from Bihar and UP, he has seen their numbers in the city explode in the past decade and knows that these numbers will keep swelling. The second point that makes the Maharashtrian uncomfortable and this is something that has been ignored by many of us is the one single aspect that scares the Marathi manoos the most, with these increased numbers lies the very real spectre of increased political power. This above all, is what fuels the disquiet.
Here you have to realise that for all the money the Gujarati might make in Bombay, all the resentment the well to do Marwari arouses in Calcutta, both these communities are content with acquiring financial muscle, they never meddle in local politics.
The migrant from UP and Bihar is different, part of it is his socio-economic makeup, the way he behaves in a small group and his behaviour when he has the numbers are completely different. I will give you an example, go to Punjab there for decades now most of the farm work has been done by Biharis, in fact in villages there always a score Biharis who have embraced Sikhism , their Bihari accented Punjabi the butt of thousands of jokes, but the fact is that these men are just trying hard to assimilate in the society they live in, contrast this with the migrants in the twin cities of Jalandhar and Ludhiana, here they have the numbers and there is no attempt to embrace, there are entire suburbs that are virtually no go areas for the local administration ...in the recent elections many Biharis even stood for elections on Samajwadi Party tickets, talk to the local people and you sense the same resentment that you hear here in Bombay - "our city is being taken over"
Not many in Ludhiana were surprised when Khalistani militants targeted a local theatre showing a Bhojpuri film earlier this year. They were trying to tap into this resentment. Five people, all migrants from Bihar and UP died. Speaking to local journalists I was struck by the total lack of sympathy, an SMS started doing the rounds "this is what happens when they think they can form a mini Bihar here". A sentiment easily dismissed as a parochial, racist. Perhaps, but a sentiment that is deeply felt.
The eminent citizens who speak so eloquently of the cosmopolitan Bombay that cannot be held hostage by the lumpens of the MNS are right of course but we ignore the fact that this group of eminent citizens inhabit a different India a city within a city, the Bombay of theirs is very different from the Mumbai that a Marathi sees.
Unlike your film stars and industrialists the Maharashtrian cares how many local corporaters or MLA's are from Bihar and UP. So when the Maharashtrian looks at this unceasing migration into his city and he does see it as his city, this sense of political power slipping away real or imagined is awakened. Each community has its own attachments to their language or culture, the Punjabi to his language his food, the Bengali can be in any part of the world but come Durga Puja and he will celebrate it and of course the Bihari will take with him his language and culture, the Chat Puja that so irritates Thackeray Junior is just one of those cultural imports that are inevitable.
The entire Idea of India is that there is space for everyone, this is the only country in the world where 10 men can sit down to dinner, and each could have completely different food habits, habits dictated by his religion or the region he belongs to, nobody minds and these adjustments are made by millions on a day to day basis, we Indians know this, our land belongs to all of us and to accomodate each others' quirks is the only way we can survive. There is a simple rule that governs this accomodation, do not offend your hosts, so if you go to a masjid, even if you are not a Muslim you cover your head, visiting a south Indian home you take off your shoes, in a Sikh home resist the urge to light up a smoke.
This latest round of violence started after a huge SP rally in Mumbai's Shivaji Park.
Shivaji Park in Dadar is in many ways the heart of Marathi Mumbai, and make no mistake the SP rally was a Bihari UP rally, with loud Bhojpuri music blaring, thousands gathered, it is their unalienable right to do so. But don't ignore the symbolism of a rally like this, here on a turf the Maharashtrian considers his own was a trailer of the political muscle and aspirations of the migrants, a challenge had been thrown out, a sign of things to come, Is it logical, this fear? Was it logical for the anti Hindi protests in Tamil Nadu in the 60's? The struggle that little communities make to get their languages officially recognised, is that logical? why Muslim children in Hyderabad learn Urdu in a state that speaks Telegu, does that make sense? Do you ever question why people in different parts of Rajasthan wear different kinds of turbans? The answer to all these questions is, well, to borrow a phrase, 'We are like this only'
Cultural pride or sensitivities or habits are built over centuries, they mask arrogance, anxieties, tradition, inferiority complexes all rolled into one. And they are emotional bonds these. Many Maharashtrians are proud of Shivaji, his hold on the people here can never be matched by lets say a Bengali, just the same way a boy from Satara can never quite feel as emotionally attached to Rabindra Sangeet as many Bengalis do. A Maharashtrian feels his hold on his state is under threat, his culture is being overwhelmed or disrespected, Raj Thackery tapped onto that discontent .
A lot has been said about this gentleman and it would be futile to do yet another psycho analysis of him and his motives for the stand he has taken, but one thing needs to be taken note off, for those of us who like to contrast his stance with his cousin Uddhav's new found love for North Indians, perhaps we should examine how a party like the Sena ...which has nothing but Maratha pride as its core identity and ideology, how attractive would a party like this be to your average migrant from UP or Bihar? If this were to be true then perhaps the SGPC could also try its luck here. The second thing to remember is that Raj's message is directed at not only the Maharashtrian in Bombay, the grapewine carries it to every village in Maharashtra, every Sena supporter who joined this party attracted by the image of a latter day Shivaji out to restore the pride and status of the people.
Raj realizes that a bird in hand is better than the mirage of a North Indian support base, a realisation that now seems to have dawned on the Sena as well with Bal Thackeray, now belatedly speaking out against migrants as well. Many see Raj's outburst as a ploy for the elections next year, if true it would be remarkably shortsighted for any politician no matter how obtuse, I suspect Raj's audience is different ...he is talking to the Sena's supporters across the state, preparing for a battle that he hopes will come after the Balasaheb era has ended.
This afterall is a man who had the foresight and the political courage to break out of the Sena the moment Uddhav was anointed heir. If he had wanted to do gali mohalla level politics as many now accuse him, he could have done that safely within the Sena. It was only 30 years ago that another cartoonist was accused of street corner politics, he too was mocked as being presumptious in supposing that there was an audience for his words. We all know who had the last laugh.
That brings us to the moot question ...whose India is it? The Supreme Court has called the events in Maharashtra an attempt to Balkanise the nation. Raj Thackeray has called for the Constitution to be amended to curb uncontrolled migration. Both statements are correct. India belongs to all Indians free to move and live where ever they want, it's also true that our Constitution has been amended several times to reflect the realities and problems of the India as it exists now. But this comment of Raj Thackeray's was treated as the ravings of a lunatic, he is crazy many said to suppose that the Constitution of India could be amended to stop people from living where they want to.
Forgetting that the same Constitution prohibits me as an Indian from owning property in Kashmir and Himachal and many northeastern states, what is the danger I pose, what catastrophe would be ensue if 25 lakh Biharis made Shimla their home? If the principle is extended then maybe each state should have the right to curb or decide the percentage or population of migrants from other states. Tamil Nadu has a population of 42 million, its birth rate is 1.2 per cent, it is acknowledged as a well governed part of the country, UP has a population in excess of 200 million! its birth rate is double that of Tamil Nadu , and doesn't look as if its slowing down anytime soon.
Every study tells you just how bad things are in the state, a state of lawlessness, it is Omkara Land . So if over the next 50 years 15 million people from the state make Tamil Nadu their home in search for a better tomorrow , do you think Tamilians will sit by and watch silently . And don't say 15 million won't migrate, it could happen, 40 years ago nobody would have thought that 30 per cent of Bombay's population would be from UP but it is and in the next 40 years it could rise to 50 per cent.
For a lesson let's take a look at the fate of Bombay's twin and the senior twin at that as a cosmoplitian city before partition, Karachi. In poured millions of migrants from India, they were welcomed as the men who had led the struggle for a separate Muslim homeland, but the resentment from the local Sindhi's soon boiled over, the Muhajirs soon cornered all the government jobs because they had an advantage, the new Pakistan's official language was Urdu, not many Sindhis knew it, and it just happened to be the native language of most of the new arrivals.
Even though we are talking about maybe a few lakh clerical jobs, the local Sindhi never accepted them as anything more than ' Mohajirs" or refugees. The felt their own culture and language was being overwhelmed. The resulting tension boiled over in the 80's and the 90's, thousands have lost their lives, it has also killed the city.
The UP Bihari migrants, many say, are hard working, a subtle way of saying that Maharashtrians are not. It isn't so simple, the migrants are hardworking sure they are, but the reason why they are making the most of lower end jobs, lets say in Haryana, is because the average Haryanvi enjoys a better standard of living, education and thus expectations than your migrant.
In a factory he doesn't get a job because the migrant is ready to work for half the money the Haryanvi expects. So the simple biggest advantage that he has because he is a native of Haryana becomes a liability in the job market. So what do we do, make haryana a replica of Bihar UP?
We are a nation of a hundred races, a score religions and thousands of languages.
Most of the time we co-exist happily and the core reason for this co-existence is the single covenant that each social group based whether on language or region or religion be allowed their own realm. As UP and Bihar spiral deeper into poverty and lawlessness, every Indian would want to welcome the people of the state. But not at the cost of losing their own identity. Bihar is India, all of India though, can never be Bihar.
Randeep Singh Nandal, NDTV.com
February, 25 2008
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/showcolumns.aspx?id=COLEN20080042337
Bhaiya - it's a term commonly used to describe an inhabitant of eastern UP and Bihar. A term used in exact opposite sense of what it means.
In Bombay it is a term of abuse, call a Maharashtrian a Bhaiya, a colleague warned me, and you could get into trouble. I got this piece of advice a few weeks before Raj Thackeray advertised the Marathi Manoos's aversion to these people ...some millions who now live in Bombay.
In the rest of India people tut-tuted this latest exhibition of the Sena's xenophobia ...the media led the charge holding opinion polls and debates ...where statistics were deployed to prove how this fear of the migrants was just plain nonsense ...expert after expert ...eminent citizens of this great metropolis ...spoke about the past ...how this was just a continuation of the Sena's history...look at their record they said ...first it was the Gujarati then the South Indian then in the 90's it was the Muslim ...Raj Thackeray, they said was just following in his uncle's footsteps ..its the north Indians now ...ignore him and it will blow away.
Bombay's North Indians were being targeted for petty gains by a politician on the make. Grim faced news anchors nodded their heads .. This was all a drama and we know who the villain is they seemed to suggest. An open and shut case, don't you think? Well, yes and no.
Let's for a moment look at the entire incident ...the first inaccuracy is that this is a campaign against North Indians, it isn't, this Marathi angst is specifically against the migrants from UP and Bihar. So to term this as an anti North Indian drive is misleading, more so because no one in North India, and here I am talking of the states of Punjab, Himachal, Uttrakhand, Haryana and Rajasthan, considers people from eastern UP and Bihar as North Indians!!! The term used to describe them in these states? You guessed it -Bhaiya!
But then, many would argue that even if it is against a specific group, it is just scaremongering, they are just poor folk who have as much a right to stay in Bombay as anyone else. This after all is a part of India and as citizens of India they have a right over Bombay that no one can take away. This, incidentally, was the view of one of a very eminent Bombay wala, a parsee gentleman who referred to how the Parsees had found refuge in India ...how at the turn of the last century they controlled the island city ..how no one calls them outsiders. This again is an argument that is hard to refute-- it has fact history and reason behind it. Except for one small detail, even at the height of their power the Parsees never outnumbered or threatened to swamp the local Maharashtrian.
And this is the core fear that is propelling this resentment against the Bhaiya. Think of your middle class Maharashtrian, he gets up in the morning and the man who gets him milk from the shop is a Bhaiya, he goes to work and stops to buy a smoke and is sold a pack by a Bhaiya, he gets into a taxi and there again a native of Bihar drives him to work, in his office the guard who opens the door for him again is a Bhaiya ..as is the boy who serves him tea, on his way back he stops to buy vegetables and is sold some by a man from Azamgarh , next to his house is a clutch of boys listening to a Bhojpuri song at full blast. The maid in his house is from Balia and the boy who comes back to repair his cable connection is from Mirzapur . Can you fault Mr Pawar from feeling that his city is being overrun by Bhaiyas?
You may say as many do does this mean that all Gujaratis and South Indians, all the Punjabis and the Kashmiris should be chased out of Bombay, does Mr Pawar support ethnic cleansing? No. he doesn't because of two very different reasons First, he realises that every other group has a sort of mean cap on the numbers who will stay here, a cap that does not apply to migrants from Bihar and UP, he has seen their numbers in the city explode in the past decade and knows that these numbers will keep swelling. The second point that makes the Maharashtrian uncomfortable and this is something that has been ignored by many of us is the one single aspect that scares the Marathi manoos the most, with these increased numbers lies the very real spectre of increased political power. This above all, is what fuels the disquiet.
Here you have to realise that for all the money the Gujarati might make in Bombay, all the resentment the well to do Marwari arouses in Calcutta, both these communities are content with acquiring financial muscle, they never meddle in local politics.
The migrant from UP and Bihar is different, part of it is his socio-economic makeup, the way he behaves in a small group and his behaviour when he has the numbers are completely different. I will give you an example, go to Punjab there for decades now most of the farm work has been done by Biharis, in fact in villages there always a score Biharis who have embraced Sikhism , their Bihari accented Punjabi the butt of thousands of jokes, but the fact is that these men are just trying hard to assimilate in the society they live in, contrast this with the migrants in the twin cities of Jalandhar and Ludhiana, here they have the numbers and there is no attempt to embrace, there are entire suburbs that are virtually no go areas for the local administration ...in the recent elections many Biharis even stood for elections on Samajwadi Party tickets, talk to the local people and you sense the same resentment that you hear here in Bombay - "our city is being taken over"
Not many in Ludhiana were surprised when Khalistani militants targeted a local theatre showing a Bhojpuri film earlier this year. They were trying to tap into this resentment. Five people, all migrants from Bihar and UP died. Speaking to local journalists I was struck by the total lack of sympathy, an SMS started doing the rounds "this is what happens when they think they can form a mini Bihar here". A sentiment easily dismissed as a parochial, racist. Perhaps, but a sentiment that is deeply felt.
The eminent citizens who speak so eloquently of the cosmopolitan Bombay that cannot be held hostage by the lumpens of the MNS are right of course but we ignore the fact that this group of eminent citizens inhabit a different India a city within a city, the Bombay of theirs is very different from the Mumbai that a Marathi sees.
Unlike your film stars and industrialists the Maharashtrian cares how many local corporaters or MLA's are from Bihar and UP. So when the Maharashtrian looks at this unceasing migration into his city and he does see it as his city, this sense of political power slipping away real or imagined is awakened. Each community has its own attachments to their language or culture, the Punjabi to his language his food, the Bengali can be in any part of the world but come Durga Puja and he will celebrate it and of course the Bihari will take with him his language and culture, the Chat Puja that so irritates Thackeray Junior is just one of those cultural imports that are inevitable.
The entire Idea of India is that there is space for everyone, this is the only country in the world where 10 men can sit down to dinner, and each could have completely different food habits, habits dictated by his religion or the region he belongs to, nobody minds and these adjustments are made by millions on a day to day basis, we Indians know this, our land belongs to all of us and to accomodate each others' quirks is the only way we can survive. There is a simple rule that governs this accomodation, do not offend your hosts, so if you go to a masjid, even if you are not a Muslim you cover your head, visiting a south Indian home you take off your shoes, in a Sikh home resist the urge to light up a smoke.
This latest round of violence started after a huge SP rally in Mumbai's Shivaji Park.
Shivaji Park in Dadar is in many ways the heart of Marathi Mumbai, and make no mistake the SP rally was a Bihari UP rally, with loud Bhojpuri music blaring, thousands gathered, it is their unalienable right to do so. But don't ignore the symbolism of a rally like this, here on a turf the Maharashtrian considers his own was a trailer of the political muscle and aspirations of the migrants, a challenge had been thrown out, a sign of things to come, Is it logical, this fear? Was it logical for the anti Hindi protests in Tamil Nadu in the 60's? The struggle that little communities make to get their languages officially recognised, is that logical? why Muslim children in Hyderabad learn Urdu in a state that speaks Telegu, does that make sense? Do you ever question why people in different parts of Rajasthan wear different kinds of turbans? The answer to all these questions is, well, to borrow a phrase, 'We are like this only'
Cultural pride or sensitivities or habits are built over centuries, they mask arrogance, anxieties, tradition, inferiority complexes all rolled into one. And they are emotional bonds these. Many Maharashtrians are proud of Shivaji, his hold on the people here can never be matched by lets say a Bengali, just the same way a boy from Satara can never quite feel as emotionally attached to Rabindra Sangeet as many Bengalis do. A Maharashtrian feels his hold on his state is under threat, his culture is being overwhelmed or disrespected, Raj Thackery tapped onto that discontent .
A lot has been said about this gentleman and it would be futile to do yet another psycho analysis of him and his motives for the stand he has taken, but one thing needs to be taken note off, for those of us who like to contrast his stance with his cousin Uddhav's new found love for North Indians, perhaps we should examine how a party like the Sena ...which has nothing but Maratha pride as its core identity and ideology, how attractive would a party like this be to your average migrant from UP or Bihar? If this were to be true then perhaps the SGPC could also try its luck here. The second thing to remember is that Raj's message is directed at not only the Maharashtrian in Bombay, the grapewine carries it to every village in Maharashtra, every Sena supporter who joined this party attracted by the image of a latter day Shivaji out to restore the pride and status of the people.
Raj realizes that a bird in hand is better than the mirage of a North Indian support base, a realisation that now seems to have dawned on the Sena as well with Bal Thackeray, now belatedly speaking out against migrants as well. Many see Raj's outburst as a ploy for the elections next year, if true it would be remarkably shortsighted for any politician no matter how obtuse, I suspect Raj's audience is different ...he is talking to the Sena's supporters across the state, preparing for a battle that he hopes will come after the Balasaheb era has ended.
This afterall is a man who had the foresight and the political courage to break out of the Sena the moment Uddhav was anointed heir. If he had wanted to do gali mohalla level politics as many now accuse him, he could have done that safely within the Sena. It was only 30 years ago that another cartoonist was accused of street corner politics, he too was mocked as being presumptious in supposing that there was an audience for his words. We all know who had the last laugh.
That brings us to the moot question ...whose India is it? The Supreme Court has called the events in Maharashtra an attempt to Balkanise the nation. Raj Thackeray has called for the Constitution to be amended to curb uncontrolled migration. Both statements are correct. India belongs to all Indians free to move and live where ever they want, it's also true that our Constitution has been amended several times to reflect the realities and problems of the India as it exists now. But this comment of Raj Thackeray's was treated as the ravings of a lunatic, he is crazy many said to suppose that the Constitution of India could be amended to stop people from living where they want to.
Forgetting that the same Constitution prohibits me as an Indian from owning property in Kashmir and Himachal and many northeastern states, what is the danger I pose, what catastrophe would be ensue if 25 lakh Biharis made Shimla their home? If the principle is extended then maybe each state should have the right to curb or decide the percentage or population of migrants from other states. Tamil Nadu has a population of 42 million, its birth rate is 1.2 per cent, it is acknowledged as a well governed part of the country, UP has a population in excess of 200 million! its birth rate is double that of Tamil Nadu , and doesn't look as if its slowing down anytime soon.
Every study tells you just how bad things are in the state, a state of lawlessness, it is Omkara Land . So if over the next 50 years 15 million people from the state make Tamil Nadu their home in search for a better tomorrow , do you think Tamilians will sit by and watch silently . And don't say 15 million won't migrate, it could happen, 40 years ago nobody would have thought that 30 per cent of Bombay's population would be from UP but it is and in the next 40 years it could rise to 50 per cent.
For a lesson let's take a look at the fate of Bombay's twin and the senior twin at that as a cosmoplitian city before partition, Karachi. In poured millions of migrants from India, they were welcomed as the men who had led the struggle for a separate Muslim homeland, but the resentment from the local Sindhi's soon boiled over, the Muhajirs soon cornered all the government jobs because they had an advantage, the new Pakistan's official language was Urdu, not many Sindhis knew it, and it just happened to be the native language of most of the new arrivals.
Even though we are talking about maybe a few lakh clerical jobs, the local Sindhi never accepted them as anything more than ' Mohajirs" or refugees. The felt their own culture and language was being overwhelmed. The resulting tension boiled over in the 80's and the 90's, thousands have lost their lives, it has also killed the city.
The UP Bihari migrants, many say, are hard working, a subtle way of saying that Maharashtrians are not. It isn't so simple, the migrants are hardworking sure they are, but the reason why they are making the most of lower end jobs, lets say in Haryana, is because the average Haryanvi enjoys a better standard of living, education and thus expectations than your migrant.
In a factory he doesn't get a job because the migrant is ready to work for half the money the Haryanvi expects. So the simple biggest advantage that he has because he is a native of Haryana becomes a liability in the job market. So what do we do, make haryana a replica of Bihar UP?
We are a nation of a hundred races, a score religions and thousands of languages.
Most of the time we co-exist happily and the core reason for this co-existence is the single covenant that each social group based whether on language or region or religion be allowed their own realm. As UP and Bihar spiral deeper into poverty and lawlessness, every Indian would want to welcome the people of the state. But not at the cost of losing their own identity. Bihar is India, all of India though, can never be Bihar.
Episcopal Christians apologise to Hindus for discrimination, proselytisation
Arthur J Pais, Rediff.com
February 25, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/feb/25apology.htm
An unqualified apology from a Christian community to Hindus worldwide, which also denounced proselytisation by Christian missionaries, has triggered a debate among pastors across the United States.
The apology, tendered by Right Reverend J Jon Bruno, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, is arguably the first of its kind by a major Christian congregation, and was issued 'for centuries-old acts of religious discrimination by Christians, including attempts to convert them.'
While some Episcopal Christians have protested against the apology, made during an Indian-style Mass complete with aarti and kirtans, on January 19 in the presence of over 100 Hindu spiritual leaders and lay people, organisers of the event insist it was the right step in the right direction.
'I believe that the world cannot afford for us to repeat the errors of our past, in which we sought to dominate rather than to serve,' Bruno, who owing to a personal emergency could not be present, said in a statement that was read out by the Right Reverend Chester Talton.
'In this spirit, and in order to take another step in building trust between our two great religious traditions, I offer a sincere apology to the Hindu religious community.'
The apology was made in a ceremony to mark three years of dialogue between Hindus and Christians, initiated among others by the Reverend Karen MacQueen, better known as Mother Karen. She is deeply influenced by Vedanta philosophy, and fiercely opposes the conversions-for-kindness methodology.
The apology was a small act compared to Pope John Paul II's unprecedented apology for the sins of Christians through the ages, made a few years ago.
'We forgive and we ask forgiveness,' the Pope had said during a historic Lenten liturgy in St Peter's Basilica. He, along with Vatican officials, pronounced a 'request for pardon' for 'sins against Christian unity, the use of violence in serving the truth, hostility toward Jews and other religions, the marginalisation of women, and wrongs - like abortion - against society's weakest members.'
"In our case, the apology is part of the dialogue we initiated with a few Hindu leaders three years ago," Mother Karen said. "The healing process will continue," she said but she wasn't sure certain Christian denomination will change their conversion tactics.
The ceremony started with the Hindu priestess Pravrajika Saradeshaprana blowing into a conch shell three times, in a call to Hindu and Episcopal religious leaders to join the ceremony.
The rare joint service included chants from the Temple Bhajan Band of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and a moving rendition of Bless the Lord, O My Soul sung by the St John's choir, the LA Times reported.
The newspaper, which gave considerable space to the story, however erroneously, reported that Hindus had received the Holy Eucharist. "They ran a correction," Mother Karen said. But by then many Christians were upset.
"The fact remains that there were many Indian Christians who received the Eucharist," she said. The newspaper mistook them for the Hindus, she said chuckling.
In its correction, the LA Times wrote, 'Hindu-Episcopal service: An article in Sunday's California section about a joint religious service involving Hindus and Episcopalians said that all those attending the service at St John's Cathedral in Los Angeles were invited to Holy Communion. Although attendees walked toward the Communion table, only Christians were encouraged to partake of Communion. Out of respect for Hindu beliefs, the Hindus were invited to take a flower. Also, the article described Hindus consuming bread during Communion, but some of those worshippers were Christians wearing traditional Indian dress'.
Bishop Bruno's stand against 'proselytising' has meanwhile impressed many Hindus. Swami Sarvadevananda, of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, called Bruno's stance 'a great and courageous step' that binds the two communities.
'By declaring that there will be no more proselytising, the bishop has opened a new door of understanding,' he told the LA Times. 'The modern religious man must expand his understanding and love of religions and their practices.'
Mother Karen, who has visited India many times since her first sojourn at Mother Teresa's hospice in Kolkota, wishes to see Hindu-Christian dialogue in India. "But it cannot be done effectively when some church leaders are going around converting people in the name of charitable work," she said.
"There are enough Christians in the world. What we need to see is more Christians leading an exemplary life and truly loving their fellow man."
In her homily 'A Vision for Inter-Religious Dialogue' at the church event, Mother Karen said in both Hinduism and Christianity, devotees believe that 'the Divine Presence' illuminates the whole world.
Mother Karen, who continues to study Hinduism, also said both faiths revere 'great figures who embody the divine light, who teach the divine truth.'
Arthur J Pais, Rediff.com
February 25, 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/feb/25apology.htm
An unqualified apology from a Christian community to Hindus worldwide, which also denounced proselytisation by Christian missionaries, has triggered a debate among pastors across the United States.
The apology, tendered by Right Reverend J Jon Bruno, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, is arguably the first of its kind by a major Christian congregation, and was issued 'for centuries-old acts of religious discrimination by Christians, including attempts to convert them.'
While some Episcopal Christians have protested against the apology, made during an Indian-style Mass complete with aarti and kirtans, on January 19 in the presence of over 100 Hindu spiritual leaders and lay people, organisers of the event insist it was the right step in the right direction.
'I believe that the world cannot afford for us to repeat the errors of our past, in which we sought to dominate rather than to serve,' Bruno, who owing to a personal emergency could not be present, said in a statement that was read out by the Right Reverend Chester Talton.
'In this spirit, and in order to take another step in building trust between our two great religious traditions, I offer a sincere apology to the Hindu religious community.'
The apology was made in a ceremony to mark three years of dialogue between Hindus and Christians, initiated among others by the Reverend Karen MacQueen, better known as Mother Karen. She is deeply influenced by Vedanta philosophy, and fiercely opposes the conversions-for-kindness methodology.
The apology was a small act compared to Pope John Paul II's unprecedented apology for the sins of Christians through the ages, made a few years ago.
'We forgive and we ask forgiveness,' the Pope had said during a historic Lenten liturgy in St Peter's Basilica. He, along with Vatican officials, pronounced a 'request for pardon' for 'sins against Christian unity, the use of violence in serving the truth, hostility toward Jews and other religions, the marginalisation of women, and wrongs - like abortion - against society's weakest members.'
"In our case, the apology is part of the dialogue we initiated with a few Hindu leaders three years ago," Mother Karen said. "The healing process will continue," she said but she wasn't sure certain Christian denomination will change their conversion tactics.
The ceremony started with the Hindu priestess Pravrajika Saradeshaprana blowing into a conch shell three times, in a call to Hindu and Episcopal religious leaders to join the ceremony.
The rare joint service included chants from the Temple Bhajan Band of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and a moving rendition of Bless the Lord, O My Soul sung by the St John's choir, the LA Times reported.
The newspaper, which gave considerable space to the story, however erroneously, reported that Hindus had received the Holy Eucharist. "They ran a correction," Mother Karen said. But by then many Christians were upset.
"The fact remains that there were many Indian Christians who received the Eucharist," she said. The newspaper mistook them for the Hindus, she said chuckling.
In its correction, the LA Times wrote, 'Hindu-Episcopal service: An article in Sunday's California section about a joint religious service involving Hindus and Episcopalians said that all those attending the service at St John's Cathedral in Los Angeles were invited to Holy Communion. Although attendees walked toward the Communion table, only Christians were encouraged to partake of Communion. Out of respect for Hindu beliefs, the Hindus were invited to take a flower. Also, the article described Hindus consuming bread during Communion, but some of those worshippers were Christians wearing traditional Indian dress'.
Bishop Bruno's stand against 'proselytising' has meanwhile impressed many Hindus. Swami Sarvadevananda, of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, called Bruno's stance 'a great and courageous step' that binds the two communities.
'By declaring that there will be no more proselytising, the bishop has opened a new door of understanding,' he told the LA Times. 'The modern religious man must expand his understanding and love of religions and their practices.'
Mother Karen, who has visited India many times since her first sojourn at Mother Teresa's hospice in Kolkota, wishes to see Hindu-Christian dialogue in India. "But it cannot be done effectively when some church leaders are going around converting people in the name of charitable work," she said.
"There are enough Christians in the world. What we need to see is more Christians leading an exemplary life and truly loving their fellow man."
In her homily 'A Vision for Inter-Religious Dialogue' at the church event, Mother Karen said in both Hinduism and Christianity, devotees believe that 'the Divine Presence' illuminates the whole world.
Mother Karen, who continues to study Hinduism, also said both faiths revere 'great figures who embody the divine light, who teach the divine truth.'
Gujarat spends more, gets good rating
Hindustan Times
February 26, 2008
The UPA government's constant tirade about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi being anti-minorities has not reflected in the Centre's own stock-taking report on minority welfare. In fact, the Minority Affairs Ministry has given a positive rating to the work done in Gujarat for minorities.
The performance of several Congress-ruled states has been found to be poor. The report puts a question mark on the UPA's performance in the area of minority welfare even though the government claims it is implementing most of the Sachar panel recommendations for the uplift of minorities, especially Muslims.
In an evaluation report of the Prime Minister's 15 Point Programme for Minorities, the Minority Affairs Ministry has rated the performance of most NDA rules states as 'good' or 'fair'. The only Congress ruled state to get a good rating was Haryana.
Gujarat, the state said to be most averse to the welfare of minorities, has one of the best ratings when it comes to spending under the nine schemes of the programme and building infrastructure. Its spending was more than 50 per cent in 2007, thereby earning a 'good' rating.
However, ministry officials suspect that the Gujarat government may have diverted funds meant for minorities to non-minority areas, a charge made by UPA during Gujarat elections last year. Other NDA ruled states - Orissa, Uttrakhand and Rajasthan - have also been rated as 'good'.
What may not be a good election slogan for UPA is that Congress ruled states like Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir have been rated as the worst-performing states with a spending of less than 30 per cent. Even West Bengal, ruled by the Left Front, a strong UPA government ally, has been rated among the worst performers.
The only NDA in this category is Punjab. Among the states rated 'fair' with a spending of 30-50 per cent were Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Bihar, Kerala and Assam.
Hindustan Times
February 26, 2008
The UPA government's constant tirade about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi being anti-minorities has not reflected in the Centre's own stock-taking report on minority welfare. In fact, the Minority Affairs Ministry has given a positive rating to the work done in Gujarat for minorities.
The performance of several Congress-ruled states has been found to be poor. The report puts a question mark on the UPA's performance in the area of minority welfare even though the government claims it is implementing most of the Sachar panel recommendations for the uplift of minorities, especially Muslims.
In an evaluation report of the Prime Minister's 15 Point Programme for Minorities, the Minority Affairs Ministry has rated the performance of most NDA rules states as 'good' or 'fair'. The only Congress ruled state to get a good rating was Haryana.
Gujarat, the state said to be most averse to the welfare of minorities, has one of the best ratings when it comes to spending under the nine schemes of the programme and building infrastructure. Its spending was more than 50 per cent in 2007, thereby earning a 'good' rating.
However, ministry officials suspect that the Gujarat government may have diverted funds meant for minorities to non-minority areas, a charge made by UPA during Gujarat elections last year. Other NDA ruled states - Orissa, Uttrakhand and Rajasthan - have also been rated as 'good'.
What may not be a good election slogan for UPA is that Congress ruled states like Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir have been rated as the worst-performing states with a spending of less than 30 per cent. Even West Bengal, ruled by the Left Front, a strong UPA government ally, has been rated among the worst performers.
The only NDA in this category is Punjab. Among the states rated 'fair' with a spending of 30-50 per cent were Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Bihar, Kerala and Assam.
Eminent Parsis
Manju Gupta, Organiser
February 24, 2008
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=225&page=23
Sugar in Milk: Lives of Eminent Parsis, Bakhtiar K. Dadabhoy, Rupa & Co., pp. 462, Rs. 795.00
This collection of 12 profiles of eminent Parsis of India covers the era from the 19th century to the contemporary times to cover the freedom fighter, industrialist, lawyer, scientist, Field Marshal and even a conductor of western classical music.
The Parsis came to western India from Iran more than 1,000 years ago to escape religious persecution at the hands of Arabs. As per the oral tradition, the local ruler Jadi Rana, concerned at the arrival of strange people, presented the Parsis a bowl of milk filled to the brim, denoting symbolically that he had no place for them. A nice Parsi priest added sugar to the milk, suggesting the adaptive and accommodating nature of the Parsis. Over the years the contributions of the Parsis to the moral, social, intellectual, political and commercial life of India—be it in industry, public life, scientific endeavour or profession can never be ignored.
The book describes the life of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, the first Baronet (1783-1859) who was benevolence personified. Born in a ramshackle house in Yatha-ahoo-vanyo Mohalla of Bombay in 1783, he took apprenticeship in selling old empty bottles as his parents died when he was young.
The story of another Parsi, Dadabhai Naoroji, begins with his birth in 1825 and becoming the first Indian to advocate Indian self-rule (swaraj) from a public platform as president of the Indian National Congress. He became the first Asian Member of Parliament to sit in the House of Commons in Britain.
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was an industrial visionary and philanthropist who began his life as a navar, which is the first step of initiation into priesthood.
Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, who came to be known as the ‘Lion of Bombay’, graduated with distinction and did his post-graduation in six months. On special recommendation, he left for England and on return to India started his legal practice. He was a strong nationalist and never tired of declaring that he was an Indian first and a Parsi afterwards.
Madame Bhikhaiji Rustom Cama is considered the high priestess of Indian nationalism; the firebrand nationalist, who worked tirelessly in exile to further the cause of Indian nationalism. She dared to defy an Empire and made history by unfurling India’s first national flag on foreign soil.
Ardeshir Godrej was a pioneer industrialist and inventor. He collected wealth but gave it away to his siblings as he did not believe in keeping what he had not earned. He was stingy but donated a large sum of money to the Tilak Swaraj Fund.
Ardeshir Dorab Shaw Shroff, eminent industrialist, banker and economist was one of the architects of free India’s industrial development. His forthrightness and strong convictions distinguished him from other businessmen and economists.
Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata was an aviation pioneer and eminent industrialist. For 52 years, he was the chairman of the House of Tatas and apart from Air India, he launched Tata Chemicals and TELCO (now Tata Motors).
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, architect of India’s nuclear programme, dominated both science and policy in India’s nuclear affairs. Born in a wealthy and highly cultured family, he was an artist, an accomplished piano and violin player apart from being a scientist. He was responsible for setting up the Atomic Commission, Department of Atomic Energy.
Field Marshal S.H.F.J. Manekshaw, the national hero of the 1971 Indo-Pak war, Nani Palkhivala, legal luminary and Zubin Mehta, the maestro with the golden baton have also been discussed.
In a few cases though the biographical details are sketchy, however good to read about a community which has produced such great stalwarts and which is slowly declining in number due to inbreeding.
(Rupa & Co., 7/16 Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002.)
Manju Gupta, Organiser
February 24, 2008
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=225&page=23
Sugar in Milk: Lives of Eminent Parsis, Bakhtiar K. Dadabhoy, Rupa & Co., pp. 462, Rs. 795.00
This collection of 12 profiles of eminent Parsis of India covers the era from the 19th century to the contemporary times to cover the freedom fighter, industrialist, lawyer, scientist, Field Marshal and even a conductor of western classical music.
The Parsis came to western India from Iran more than 1,000 years ago to escape religious persecution at the hands of Arabs. As per the oral tradition, the local ruler Jadi Rana, concerned at the arrival of strange people, presented the Parsis a bowl of milk filled to the brim, denoting symbolically that he had no place for them. A nice Parsi priest added sugar to the milk, suggesting the adaptive and accommodating nature of the Parsis. Over the years the contributions of the Parsis to the moral, social, intellectual, political and commercial life of India—be it in industry, public life, scientific endeavour or profession can never be ignored.
The book describes the life of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, the first Baronet (1783-1859) who was benevolence personified. Born in a ramshackle house in Yatha-ahoo-vanyo Mohalla of Bombay in 1783, he took apprenticeship in selling old empty bottles as his parents died when he was young.
The story of another Parsi, Dadabhai Naoroji, begins with his birth in 1825 and becoming the first Indian to advocate Indian self-rule (swaraj) from a public platform as president of the Indian National Congress. He became the first Asian Member of Parliament to sit in the House of Commons in Britain.
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was an industrial visionary and philanthropist who began his life as a navar, which is the first step of initiation into priesthood.
Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, who came to be known as the ‘Lion of Bombay’, graduated with distinction and did his post-graduation in six months. On special recommendation, he left for England and on return to India started his legal practice. He was a strong nationalist and never tired of declaring that he was an Indian first and a Parsi afterwards.
Madame Bhikhaiji Rustom Cama is considered the high priestess of Indian nationalism; the firebrand nationalist, who worked tirelessly in exile to further the cause of Indian nationalism. She dared to defy an Empire and made history by unfurling India’s first national flag on foreign soil.
Ardeshir Godrej was a pioneer industrialist and inventor. He collected wealth but gave it away to his siblings as he did not believe in keeping what he had not earned. He was stingy but donated a large sum of money to the Tilak Swaraj Fund.
Ardeshir Dorab Shaw Shroff, eminent industrialist, banker and economist was one of the architects of free India’s industrial development. His forthrightness and strong convictions distinguished him from other businessmen and economists.
Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata was an aviation pioneer and eminent industrialist. For 52 years, he was the chairman of the House of Tatas and apart from Air India, he launched Tata Chemicals and TELCO (now Tata Motors).
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, architect of India’s nuclear programme, dominated both science and policy in India’s nuclear affairs. Born in a wealthy and highly cultured family, he was an artist, an accomplished piano and violin player apart from being a scientist. He was responsible for setting up the Atomic Commission, Department of Atomic Energy.
Field Marshal S.H.F.J. Manekshaw, the national hero of the 1971 Indo-Pak war, Nani Palkhivala, legal luminary and Zubin Mehta, the maestro with the golden baton have also been discussed.
In a few cases though the biographical details are sketchy, however good to read about a community which has produced such great stalwarts and which is slowly declining in number due to inbreeding.
(Rupa & Co., 7/16 Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002.)
UPA inducements for conversion
Dr. Indulata Das, Organiser
February 24, 2008
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=225&page=30
The communities designated as minorities, which include Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Budhists and Parsis (Zorastrains) account for 18.4 per cent of the India’s population according to 2001 Census. Among them, Muslims constitute the largest group with 13.4 per cent of our population followed by Christians 2.3 per cent. The percentage of Muslim population in 1951 was less than 10 per cent and that of Christian about 2 per cent. As analysed by various experts including Justice Sachar, the high growth of Muslim population is contributable to higher female fertility. Unchecked infiltration from the neighbouring country, i.e. Bangladesh, has also enhanced the Muslim population growth substantially, which according to a view articulated by Justice Sachar in his report does not matter. The growth of Christian population, however, is mainly due to conversion among weaker sections of the society, particularly in SC/ST-dominated regions. The methods employed for conversion include allurement, deception and threats.
The policy pronouncements and programmes of the UPA-government seem to have far reaching consequences in disturbing our social equilibrium. In the name of development intervention to help the minority communities, the new schemes that have been introduced actually amount to division of our society. It is unthinkable to visualise inclusive growth through policies and schemes that are divisive and segregative. It will be pertinent to mention here some important features of newly introduced schemes and ramifications of their implementation.
The merit-cum-means scholarship provides that a student of minority community within annual family income of up to Rs. 2.50 lakh will receive course fee of
Rs. 20,000 and scholarship of Rs. 10,000 per annum as hosteller and Rs. 5000 per annum as day scholar. Although educational status of SCs, STs and some of the OBCs in the country is worse than that of minorities, the central government has not considered it necessary to introduce a similar scheme for them. The scheme looks like a government-funded inducement for conversion.
In addition to merit-cum-means scholarship, the central government has started another scheme to provide post-matric scholarship to students of minority communities. Accordingly, a student having annual family income of up to Rs. 2,00,000, is eligible for post-matric scholarship which includes course and maintenance allowances. It is to be noted here that the family income ceiling for SC and ST students to be eligible for post-matric scholarship is Rs. 1,00,000 and for OBCs Rs. 45,000. The income certificates for SC, ST and OBC students have to be issued by the designated revenue officers as per the prescribed norms. No such conditions exist for minority students. A self certification to be filed on a non-judicial stamp paper regarding annual family income of up to Rs. 2,00,000 for post-matric scholarship and Rs. 2.50 lakh for merit-cum-means scholarship is all that is needed. The discrimination is evident.
The scheme of pre-matric scholarship approved by the central government for students of minority communities provides for cost sharing of the scholarship in between the centre and the state at 75:25 ratio. The central government does not consider introducing a similar scheme for SCs and STs knowing it well that their educational and economic status is worse than that of minorities.
The Prime Minister’s 15 Point Programme provides for ear-marking of 15 per cent budgetary allocations under priority sector programmes for minorities. There are no additional allocations from the central government for this purpose. It is to be remembered that majority of SC and ST population is below the government-defined poverty line. This is why 50 per cent to 60 per cent targets under most of the priority sector schemes are required to be achieved by assisting SC and ST families according to the relevant guidelines. Setting apart 15 per cent of schematic grants without any additional allocation under the Prime Minister’s 15 Point Programme means diversion of benefits meant for the poor SCs and STs to that extent. For example, under Indira Awas Yojana, 60 per cent houses have to be given to the SC and ST families as per the prescribed guidelines. Under the Prime Minister’s 15 Point Programme, 15 per cent houses will have to be given to the families of minority communities which account for about 4.5 per cent of Orissa’s population. The fact remains that about 40 per cent of the Muslim population lives in the urban areas where Indira Awas Yojna cannot be implemented and STs do not change their social status.
In brief, the differential and more favourable scholarship norms for minority students from primary to professional courses, and the earmarking of 15 per cent plan resources under the 15 point programme are not only divisive and segregative measures, they can also be viewed as the central government sponsored incentives to promote religious conversion. The society should judge whether inclusive growth and social assimilation can be achieved through the segregative, divisive and discriminatory communal budgeting. Whether the parties in power actually mean development of minorities or want to misuse them as ‘vote banks’ perpetually. There is no country or society where inclusive growth and social integration have been achieved through divisive policies and programmes.
(The writer can be contacted at Qtr. No. 5R 9, Forest Park, Unit-1, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, 751009, indulatadas@yahoo.co.in)
Dr. Indulata Das, Organiser
February 24, 2008
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=225&page=30
The communities designated as minorities, which include Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Budhists and Parsis (Zorastrains) account for 18.4 per cent of the India’s population according to 2001 Census. Among them, Muslims constitute the largest group with 13.4 per cent of our population followed by Christians 2.3 per cent. The percentage of Muslim population in 1951 was less than 10 per cent and that of Christian about 2 per cent. As analysed by various experts including Justice Sachar, the high growth of Muslim population is contributable to higher female fertility. Unchecked infiltration from the neighbouring country, i.e. Bangladesh, has also enhanced the Muslim population growth substantially, which according to a view articulated by Justice Sachar in his report does not matter. The growth of Christian population, however, is mainly due to conversion among weaker sections of the society, particularly in SC/ST-dominated regions. The methods employed for conversion include allurement, deception and threats.
The policy pronouncements and programmes of the UPA-government seem to have far reaching consequences in disturbing our social equilibrium. In the name of development intervention to help the minority communities, the new schemes that have been introduced actually amount to division of our society. It is unthinkable to visualise inclusive growth through policies and schemes that are divisive and segregative. It will be pertinent to mention here some important features of newly introduced schemes and ramifications of their implementation.
The merit-cum-means scholarship provides that a student of minority community within annual family income of up to Rs. 2.50 lakh will receive course fee of
Rs. 20,000 and scholarship of Rs. 10,000 per annum as hosteller and Rs. 5000 per annum as day scholar. Although educational status of SCs, STs and some of the OBCs in the country is worse than that of minorities, the central government has not considered it necessary to introduce a similar scheme for them. The scheme looks like a government-funded inducement for conversion.
In addition to merit-cum-means scholarship, the central government has started another scheme to provide post-matric scholarship to students of minority communities. Accordingly, a student having annual family income of up to Rs. 2,00,000, is eligible for post-matric scholarship which includes course and maintenance allowances. It is to be noted here that the family income ceiling for SC and ST students to be eligible for post-matric scholarship is Rs. 1,00,000 and for OBCs Rs. 45,000. The income certificates for SC, ST and OBC students have to be issued by the designated revenue officers as per the prescribed norms. No such conditions exist for minority students. A self certification to be filed on a non-judicial stamp paper regarding annual family income of up to Rs. 2,00,000 for post-matric scholarship and Rs. 2.50 lakh for merit-cum-means scholarship is all that is needed. The discrimination is evident.
The scheme of pre-matric scholarship approved by the central government for students of minority communities provides for cost sharing of the scholarship in between the centre and the state at 75:25 ratio. The central government does not consider introducing a similar scheme for SCs and STs knowing it well that their educational and economic status is worse than that of minorities.
The Prime Minister’s 15 Point Programme provides for ear-marking of 15 per cent budgetary allocations under priority sector programmes for minorities. There are no additional allocations from the central government for this purpose. It is to be remembered that majority of SC and ST population is below the government-defined poverty line. This is why 50 per cent to 60 per cent targets under most of the priority sector schemes are required to be achieved by assisting SC and ST families according to the relevant guidelines. Setting apart 15 per cent of schematic grants without any additional allocation under the Prime Minister’s 15 Point Programme means diversion of benefits meant for the poor SCs and STs to that extent. For example, under Indira Awas Yojana, 60 per cent houses have to be given to the SC and ST families as per the prescribed guidelines. Under the Prime Minister’s 15 Point Programme, 15 per cent houses will have to be given to the families of minority communities which account for about 4.5 per cent of Orissa’s population. The fact remains that about 40 per cent of the Muslim population lives in the urban areas where Indira Awas Yojna cannot be implemented and STs do not change their social status.
In brief, the differential and more favourable scholarship norms for minority students from primary to professional courses, and the earmarking of 15 per cent plan resources under the 15 point programme are not only divisive and segregative measures, they can also be viewed as the central government sponsored incentives to promote religious conversion. The society should judge whether inclusive growth and social assimilation can be achieved through the segregative, divisive and discriminatory communal budgeting. Whether the parties in power actually mean development of minorities or want to misuse them as ‘vote banks’ perpetually. There is no country or society where inclusive growth and social integration have been achieved through divisive policies and programmes.
(The writer can be contacted at Qtr. No. 5R 9, Forest Park, Unit-1, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, 751009, indulatadas@yahoo.co.in)
No part of India is safe anymore
AK Kaul, The Pioneer
February 25, 2008
Apropos the editorial, "Camping in Karnataka" (February 4), the report on the discovery of an Islamist terrorist training camp in Karnataka only confirms that jihadis have spread their tentacles across the country. What is, however, disgusting is the public apathy towards such unnerving developments.
No political party appears committed to fight terrorism. While the Congress and the Left parties are silent on the subject, lest the Muslim community should stop voting for them en masse, the BJP, too, does nothing more than issuing general statements holding the Congress responsible.
The ruling class is dealing with terrorism as a routine law-and-order issue. Worse, advocates of treason crop up from nowhere to argue that the organisers of the terrorist camp in Dharwad are intensely 'anti-American' and that they wanted to prepare Muslims to fight the US and its allies! The attempt is to exonerate them of any evil designs on India.
More and more areas in the country with substantial Muslim presence have now become safe havens for jihadis. But heads of the community do precious little to shut their doors to terrorists and issue the hackneyed statement -- "They are not one of us." Given that terrorist activities are now being conducted more by sleeper cells, it is obvious that Muslim parents are not doing enough to discourage their children from becoming the foot soldiers of jihad. Even educated Muslim youth are increasingly jumping onto the terror bandwagon.
The terrorism raging in Jammu & Kashmir is connected with that simmering in the rest of the country. Investigations into some recent terrorist strikes reveal a Kashmiri connection. In the last 18 years of its proxy war on India, Pakistan has created several active and sleeper terrorist cells and stores for arms and ammunition, besides recruiting bands of messengers and guides, selecting and training couriers for carrying money from hawala sources and organising groups to be sent on reconnaissance of the places to be targeted.
The demand for free movement across the LoC is a part of a sinister design to turn Jammu & Kashmir into an advance base for jihadis. For, except a small number who live near the LoC, Kashmiri Muslims do not have relations across the border. Terrorist activities in Jammu & Kashmir and the rest of the country must be treated as two aspects of one problem and addressed with a consolidated anti-terror policy.
AK Kaul, The Pioneer
February 25, 2008
Apropos the editorial, "Camping in Karnataka" (February 4), the report on the discovery of an Islamist terrorist training camp in Karnataka only confirms that jihadis have spread their tentacles across the country. What is, however, disgusting is the public apathy towards such unnerving developments.
No political party appears committed to fight terrorism. While the Congress and the Left parties are silent on the subject, lest the Muslim community should stop voting for them en masse, the BJP, too, does nothing more than issuing general statements holding the Congress responsible.
The ruling class is dealing with terrorism as a routine law-and-order issue. Worse, advocates of treason crop up from nowhere to argue that the organisers of the terrorist camp in Dharwad are intensely 'anti-American' and that they wanted to prepare Muslims to fight the US and its allies! The attempt is to exonerate them of any evil designs on India.
More and more areas in the country with substantial Muslim presence have now become safe havens for jihadis. But heads of the community do precious little to shut their doors to terrorists and issue the hackneyed statement -- "They are not one of us." Given that terrorist activities are now being conducted more by sleeper cells, it is obvious that Muslim parents are not doing enough to discourage their children from becoming the foot soldiers of jihad. Even educated Muslim youth are increasingly jumping onto the terror bandwagon.
The terrorism raging in Jammu & Kashmir is connected with that simmering in the rest of the country. Investigations into some recent terrorist strikes reveal a Kashmiri connection. In the last 18 years of its proxy war on India, Pakistan has created several active and sleeper terrorist cells and stores for arms and ammunition, besides recruiting bands of messengers and guides, selecting and training couriers for carrying money from hawala sources and organising groups to be sent on reconnaissance of the places to be targeted.
The demand for free movement across the LoC is a part of a sinister design to turn Jammu & Kashmir into an advance base for jihadis. For, except a small number who live near the LoC, Kashmiri Muslims do not have relations across the border. Terrorist activities in Jammu & Kashmir and the rest of the country must be treated as two aspects of one problem and addressed with a consolidated anti-terror policy.
Letter From A Seattle Chief To The President In Washington
Csun.edu
December 1854
http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/seattle.htm
"The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.
As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.
One thing we know - there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all."
Csun.edu
December 1854
http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/seattle.htm
"The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.
As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.
One thing we know - there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all."
A Drum & A Dream The Suppression of African Spirituality during Slavery in the US
Dorothy Randall Gray, MSc, Interfaith Minister
She gave this speech at World Congress for the Preservation of Religious Diversity, Delhi, 2001
I come to you this evening as Dorothy Randall Gray, but in fact, I don't know my real family name, the name of my lineage. That name was stolen from me 400 years ago when my people were stolen out of Africa. They were sold into slavery in America, "the land of the free and the home of the brave."
My name was taken from me when my ancestors were forbidden to utter its sound or pass it on to their children. When Christopher Columbus invaded the shores of America in 1492, he brought with him diseases that would kill over 70% of the Native American people within three years. Whole tribes disappeared from the face of the earth. Columbus also brought sugar cane.
Within a few years the monstrous demand for this crop would call for the blood, bones and sweat of millions of slaves to keep it fed. In order to supply cheap labor to tend these fields, slave traders came to our African villages, stole us from our homes, put is in shackles. They threw men, women and children into the bowels of foul smelling ships and packed us together like the fingers of a fist. We would lay there naked in that darkened hold for weeks at a time on the treacherous journey from Africa to America know as the Middle Passage. Many of us perished during that crossing. Those who died along the way were simply dumped overboard like garbage. It is estimated that over 75 million Africans lost their lives during the Middle Passage. We call it the Africa Holocaust.
In the name of their Christian god, the slave owners reasoned that Africans needed to be brought to America so they could be civilized. African slaves were considered savges in need of conversion. We were considered property, not people, and as such we could be bought and sold as easily as you could purchase a horse or a sow.
We were often branded like cattle and chosen for our breeding capabilities. We were placed on auction blocks and sold to the highest bidder. Whole families, sons and daughters were sold off to different plantations, never to see each other again. The practice of slavery continued for 360 years and brought over 50 million slaves to the United States. But the decimation of our lives and families were not enough for the slave owners. They wanted nothing less than the complete destruction of our ancestors. Thus, we were forbidden to speak our own language.
Africans who came from the same tribes or regions were separated from each other. They were placed among other Africans who spoke entirely different tongues. And so, in order to communicate at all, we were forced to use English, the language of our oppressor. Our sacred ceremonies were called "pagan rituals" and we were forbidden to practice them. We were not allowed to do our dances or sing the songs of out country. They took away our music and gave us their hymns. We were forbidden to play drums so they gave us bibles and the promise of a wonderful life in the next world. We were forbidden to honor our families.
At any time of the day or night the slave master could come into our cabins, take away our mothers, daughters and sisters, and repeatedly force them into sexual acts. Men who fought to defend their families were considered troublemakers. They were beaten, sold away from their families, then shipped to another southern state, or to Jamaica or Barbados.
The ones who perpetrated this travesty are also the ancestors of those Americans who self-righteously tout "family values." We were forbidden to use our own names. Instead we had to take on the last names of the people who owned us. I say I am a Black woman but there is no country called Black. If I want to return to my roots, what soil do I bend down and kiss? What customs and traditions can I pass on to my children? What national anthem do I sing and what foods can I claim as my own? Who am I without a flag, without a motherland or a mother tongue?
My culture, my religion, my ancestors, traditions, customs, stolen, suppressed, violated, vilified, denied, destroyed – that is what I call terrorism. I know that the spirit of my ancestors still whispers inside me, and I know that they are with me. I stand here as the daughter of the strongest of the strong, a descendent of those who survived the middle passage, who made it through the storms of oppression and degradation, and still managed to shine.
Dorothy Randall Gray, MSc, Interfaith Minister
She gave this speech at World Congress for the Preservation of Religious Diversity, Delhi, 2001
I come to you this evening as Dorothy Randall Gray, but in fact, I don't know my real family name, the name of my lineage. That name was stolen from me 400 years ago when my people were stolen out of Africa. They were sold into slavery in America, "the land of the free and the home of the brave."
My name was taken from me when my ancestors were forbidden to utter its sound or pass it on to their children. When Christopher Columbus invaded the shores of America in 1492, he brought with him diseases that would kill over 70% of the Native American people within three years. Whole tribes disappeared from the face of the earth. Columbus also brought sugar cane.
Within a few years the monstrous demand for this crop would call for the blood, bones and sweat of millions of slaves to keep it fed. In order to supply cheap labor to tend these fields, slave traders came to our African villages, stole us from our homes, put is in shackles. They threw men, women and children into the bowels of foul smelling ships and packed us together like the fingers of a fist. We would lay there naked in that darkened hold for weeks at a time on the treacherous journey from Africa to America know as the Middle Passage. Many of us perished during that crossing. Those who died along the way were simply dumped overboard like garbage. It is estimated that over 75 million Africans lost their lives during the Middle Passage. We call it the Africa Holocaust.
In the name of their Christian god, the slave owners reasoned that Africans needed to be brought to America so they could be civilized. African slaves were considered savges in need of conversion. We were considered property, not people, and as such we could be bought and sold as easily as you could purchase a horse or a sow.
We were often branded like cattle and chosen for our breeding capabilities. We were placed on auction blocks and sold to the highest bidder. Whole families, sons and daughters were sold off to different plantations, never to see each other again. The practice of slavery continued for 360 years and brought over 50 million slaves to the United States. But the decimation of our lives and families were not enough for the slave owners. They wanted nothing less than the complete destruction of our ancestors. Thus, we were forbidden to speak our own language.
Africans who came from the same tribes or regions were separated from each other. They were placed among other Africans who spoke entirely different tongues. And so, in order to communicate at all, we were forced to use English, the language of our oppressor. Our sacred ceremonies were called "pagan rituals" and we were forbidden to practice them. We were not allowed to do our dances or sing the songs of out country. They took away our music and gave us their hymns. We were forbidden to play drums so they gave us bibles and the promise of a wonderful life in the next world. We were forbidden to honor our families.
At any time of the day or night the slave master could come into our cabins, take away our mothers, daughters and sisters, and repeatedly force them into sexual acts. Men who fought to defend their families were considered troublemakers. They were beaten, sold away from their families, then shipped to another southern state, or to Jamaica or Barbados.
The ones who perpetrated this travesty are also the ancestors of those Americans who self-righteously tout "family values." We were forbidden to use our own names. Instead we had to take on the last names of the people who owned us. I say I am a Black woman but there is no country called Black. If I want to return to my roots, what soil do I bend down and kiss? What customs and traditions can I pass on to my children? What national anthem do I sing and what foods can I claim as my own? Who am I without a flag, without a motherland or a mother tongue?
My culture, my religion, my ancestors, traditions, customs, stolen, suppressed, violated, vilified, denied, destroyed – that is what I call terrorism. I know that the spirit of my ancestors still whispers inside me, and I know that they are with me. I stand here as the daughter of the strongest of the strong, a descendent of those who survived the middle passage, who made it through the storms of oppression and degradation, and still managed to shine.
Karnataka youths were planning to revive SIMI
Johnson T A, The Indian Express
February 21, 2008
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/274808.html
After the chance arrest of two youths—Raziuddin Nasir and Mohammed Asadullah—from Karnataka’s Davangere region on January 11 for suspicious activities, much of the focus of the investigations has been on Nasir’s terror connections. The probe has now gone deeper, with officials inquiring into what is believed to be an attempt to strengthen the capabilities of the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India to carry out or logistically support terrorist activities—planned and funded by groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba—in Karnataka, Goa and parts of Andhra Pradesh.
In fact, what was initially an investigation into motorcycle thefts, is now moving into serious charges like waging war against the country and criminal conspiracy to carry out blasts across the country.
Since Nasir and Asadullah fell into the trap of the police in mid-January, four other youths—including three medical students—all hailing from northern Karnataka, have been netted on the basis of information provided by the previously arrested.
Raziuddin Nasir is the son of Hyderabad cleric Maulana Naseeruddin, who himself is facing trial for criminal conspiracy in Gujarat.
On the basis of disclosures made by Nasir, police believe that he is possibly the only foreign-trained terror operative in the group uncovered so far.
Police also believe that several meetings have been held in Karnataka, and a possible reconnaissance of targets—primarily tourist spots in Goa—have been carried out by members of the group.
According to sources, the group was being put together by a senior SIMI leader, Adnan alias Hafeez, an engineering graduate hailing from Bijapur in north Karnataka, who has disappeared following the news of the arrests.
Adnan, son of a retired government bus driver, is believed to have introduced Nasir to the others as a prelude to planning and carrying out an attack, possibly in Goa, they said. He was a source of funds and seems to have travelled abroad, they added. “Nasir was to be used only at the time of an operation. He seems to have gone beyond his brief in personally travelling to Goa and other places. This resulted in his arrest,” police said.
“The ground was probably being set for a SIMI-LeT operations in this region,” a senior state intelligence official said.
Among the arrested, apart from Nasir, are Asadullah, an ayurvedic medicine dropout who had been living in Hubli in north Karnataka; Mohammed Asif, a final-year medical student at the Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences, hailing from the family of a poor silverware polisher at Raichur in north Karnataka; Mirza Ahmed Baig, a KIIMS medical student and considered an ideologue by others and Allah Baksh Yadavada, another KIIMS medical student.
The sixth man, who also participated in meetings held by the members of the group at Castle Rock on the Karnataka-Goa border and near a Dargah in the Kalghati forests near Dharwad, where an air gun practice session was organised, is Shakeel Mali, an electrician from Hubli.
A few meetings of the group were held at a farmhouse owned by Mali, while several members of the group also learnt to drive a car that was bought in Mali’s name.
The group in north Karnataka was tapping into various kinds of resources already available with the new frontal organisations for the SIMI in coastal Karnataka and north Kerala, sources said.
Advisor to the Karnataka Governor on home affairs, P K H Tharakan, a former chief of RAW, has described the arrests as the “tip of an iceberg” and the possible end to a “major, major initiative”.
By way of evidence in the continuing investigations, apart from details of discussions at meetings, provided by the members of the group and jehadi literature, the police so far claim to have unearthed gelatin sticks and electrical wires from a forest near Hubli—on information provided by Mohammed Asif.
The police also have a case of theft against Nasir and Asadullah on the basis of six stolen motorcycles recovered on the basis of information provided by them.
While there has been talk of arms and ammunition being awaited by the group, nothing has been traced yet, sources said.
Johnson T A, The Indian Express
February 21, 2008
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/274808.html
After the chance arrest of two youths—Raziuddin Nasir and Mohammed Asadullah—from Karnataka’s Davangere region on January 11 for suspicious activities, much of the focus of the investigations has been on Nasir’s terror connections. The probe has now gone deeper, with officials inquiring into what is believed to be an attempt to strengthen the capabilities of the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India to carry out or logistically support terrorist activities—planned and funded by groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba—in Karnataka, Goa and parts of Andhra Pradesh.
In fact, what was initially an investigation into motorcycle thefts, is now moving into serious charges like waging war against the country and criminal conspiracy to carry out blasts across the country.
Since Nasir and Asadullah fell into the trap of the police in mid-January, four other youths—including three medical students—all hailing from northern Karnataka, have been netted on the basis of information provided by the previously arrested.
Raziuddin Nasir is the son of Hyderabad cleric Maulana Naseeruddin, who himself is facing trial for criminal conspiracy in Gujarat.
On the basis of disclosures made by Nasir, police believe that he is possibly the only foreign-trained terror operative in the group uncovered so far.
Police also believe that several meetings have been held in Karnataka, and a possible reconnaissance of targets—primarily tourist spots in Goa—have been carried out by members of the group.
According to sources, the group was being put together by a senior SIMI leader, Adnan alias Hafeez, an engineering graduate hailing from Bijapur in north Karnataka, who has disappeared following the news of the arrests.
Adnan, son of a retired government bus driver, is believed to have introduced Nasir to the others as a prelude to planning and carrying out an attack, possibly in Goa, they said. He was a source of funds and seems to have travelled abroad, they added. “Nasir was to be used only at the time of an operation. He seems to have gone beyond his brief in personally travelling to Goa and other places. This resulted in his arrest,” police said.
“The ground was probably being set for a SIMI-LeT operations in this region,” a senior state intelligence official said.
Among the arrested, apart from Nasir, are Asadullah, an ayurvedic medicine dropout who had been living in Hubli in north Karnataka; Mohammed Asif, a final-year medical student at the Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences, hailing from the family of a poor silverware polisher at Raichur in north Karnataka; Mirza Ahmed Baig, a KIIMS medical student and considered an ideologue by others and Allah Baksh Yadavada, another KIIMS medical student.
The sixth man, who also participated in meetings held by the members of the group at Castle Rock on the Karnataka-Goa border and near a Dargah in the Kalghati forests near Dharwad, where an air gun practice session was organised, is Shakeel Mali, an electrician from Hubli.
A few meetings of the group were held at a farmhouse owned by Mali, while several members of the group also learnt to drive a car that was bought in Mali’s name.
The group in north Karnataka was tapping into various kinds of resources already available with the new frontal organisations for the SIMI in coastal Karnataka and north Kerala, sources said.
Advisor to the Karnataka Governor on home affairs, P K H Tharakan, a former chief of RAW, has described the arrests as the “tip of an iceberg” and the possible end to a “major, major initiative”.
By way of evidence in the continuing investigations, apart from details of discussions at meetings, provided by the members of the group and jehadi literature, the police so far claim to have unearthed gelatin sticks and electrical wires from a forest near Hubli—on information provided by Mohammed Asif.
The police also have a case of theft against Nasir and Asadullah on the basis of six stolen motorcycles recovered on the basis of information provided by them.
While there has been talk of arms and ammunition being awaited by the group, nothing has been traced yet, sources said.
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