Hindu extremists claim that hindu population in pakistan decreased from 30% in post partition days to 3% today. They take it as an genuine reason to access license to spread hatred against muslims and kill them. Lets analyse this issue step by step and find out the truth:
The Hindu population in West Pakistan, that is today Pakistan, was 20% in 1941. That came down to 1.5% in 1951
.http://www.newindpress.com/Column.asp?ID=IEH20020531144657&P=old
According to the 1951 census, the population of west Pakistan was 33,816,000 or better 33.8 million
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Demographics_of_pakistan
Around 6.5 million Muslims came into Pakistan while 5.4 Hindus left it. Therefore there was an addition of approximately 6.5-1.1=1.1 million people in the Pakistan population so we can assume that before the partition it was 33.8-1.1= 32.7 million.
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~akhwaja/papers/The%20Big%20March%20December%202005.pdf(Look through Page 8 of the above pdf link)
Assuming the percentage of Hindus continued to remain 20% till 1947, their numbers before partition would have been 20/100 * 32.7= 6.54 million Hindus.Since we have established that 5.4 million Hindus left during the partition. 6.54-5.4=1.14 million Hindus were left behind. Using the same PDF link, we can estimate that around half a million Hindus were killed during parition riots therefore the net population of Hindus would have been 1.14-0.50= 0.64 million.So basically the percentage they now formed was 0.64/33.8 * 100= 1.89%
So the truth is, inspite of continous migration of pakistani hindus to dubai and other arab countries, their number has actual raised from 1.89% to 3%.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
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Mumbai (AsiaNews) – Four Christian missionary women were badly beaten by Hindu extremists in the northern Indian state of Haryana. Two clergymen were also hurt in the February 4 attack by Sangh Parivar activists. All the victims belonged to Gospel for Asia, which reported the incident.
Open attacks like this one against women are quite rare. K.P. Yohannan, founder and president of Gospel for Asia, told Assist News Service, that “Hindu religious fundamentalists have been making every possible attempt to stop all Christian work in this state for some time, these fundamentalists routinely target Christians, and now they are even attacking women.”
The four missionary women—Vanmala, Lata, Udaya and Ramita—were working in the area for about a year. Four days ago Hindu fundamentalists met them and told them to vacate immediately the house in which they were staying and call their supervising pastors, who came right away to the home.
The women and the pastors were still inside the building when hundreds of people surrounded the house.
A group of the fundamentalists broke into the house and attacked the women and the two pastors who had come to their assistance.
One of the attackers, a policeman, used his police stick against the women; others slapped and kicked them.
When the attackers left, the women sought refuge at a nearby Gospel for Asia-affiliated church.
Gospel for Asia officials have not filed any formal complaint for the time being, but they did inform the local Superintendent of Police.
The Sangh Parīvār is a network of Hindu organisations that share the same Hindutva or Hindu nationalist ideology whose raison d’être is the protection of India’s Hindu identity.
Open attacks like this one against women are quite rare. K.P. Yohannan, founder and president of Gospel for Asia, told Assist News Service, that “Hindu religious fundamentalists have been making every possible attempt to stop all Christian work in this state for some time, these fundamentalists routinely target Christians, and now they are even attacking women.”
The four missionary women—Vanmala, Lata, Udaya and Ramita—were working in the area for about a year. Four days ago Hindu fundamentalists met them and told them to vacate immediately the house in which they were staying and call their supervising pastors, who came right away to the home.
The women and the pastors were still inside the building when hundreds of people surrounded the house.
A group of the fundamentalists broke into the house and attacked the women and the two pastors who had come to their assistance.
One of the attackers, a policeman, used his police stick against the women; others slapped and kicked them.
When the attackers left, the women sought refuge at a nearby Gospel for Asia-affiliated church.
Gospel for Asia officials have not filed any formal complaint for the time being, but they did inform the local Superintendent of Police.
The Sangh Parīvār is a network of Hindu organisations that share the same Hindutva or Hindu nationalist ideology whose raison d’être is the protection of India’s Hindu identity.
Gujarat Massacre
Ahmedabad, India, May 11, 2002: Police inspect the body of a man killed in rioting the day before. Nearly 1,000 people have been killed in riots in the area over the past 10 weeks (Outlook magazine)
The bodies of dozens of burned Muslims waiting for a mass burial lay in a Muslim graveyard in Ahmadabad, India Monday March 4, 2002. (PakNews.com)Monday, October 15, 2007
A Trip to Gujarath
‘Modi Sahib has wrought a revolution in Gujarat’ announced the glum-looking corpulent businessman sitting on the berth next to mine on the train to Ahmedabad recently.He proudly introduced himself as a Nagar Brahmin, even though I did not ask him his caste. ‘We now have regular electricity for our industries, new superhighways and massive shopping malls’, he went on excitedly. ‘Modi ji is the saviour of the Hindus of Gujarat. He taught the bloody Muslims a lesson in 2002 and now they dare not raise their heads’, he belligerently asserted as I squirmed in my seat.
A young Sindhi man sharing our compartment, also a businessman based in Ahmedabad, winced and hurriedly changed the topic. A while later, when the Nagar Brahmin was not within hearing range, he whispered, ‘Not all Gujarati Hindus think like this man, although many do. I, for one, don’t, but we can’t openly counter such views, such is the climate of fear in Gujarat’.
The man was right, I discovered during a recent short trip to the state. Public opposition to Modi and to the Hindutva lobby is muted, not just because of fear but also because the claims of the Hindutva forces have become received truths for many Gujarati Hindus, thanks to years of carefully-planned indoctrination. The BJP and allied Hindutva fronts have made deep inroads among sections of communities such as Dalits and Adivasis, who form a large chunk of Gujarat’s ‘Hindu’ population, who were traditionally opposed to the ‘upper-caste-controlled Hindutva groups and were once earlier strong Congress vote-banks.
‘The Congress is totally ineffective as an opposition force in Gujarat’, says Raju Solanki, a well-known Dalit activist, who works with the Centre for Social Justice in Ahmedabad. ‘In the last six decades, the Congress did precious little for the Dalits and Adivasis besides taking their votes and so the BJP has taken over. There’s no difference, as far as Dalits and Adivasis are concerned, between the two—they both represent broadly the same dominant caste-class groups. Hinduvta fronts are desperately trying to Hinduise the Dalits and Adivasis, to use them as foot-soldiers against the Muslims, setting them against each other so that ‘upper’ caste rule remains unchallenged’, he argues.
Unity between Dalits, Backward Castes, Adivasis and Muslims, who together form the overwhelming majority of Gujarat’s population, is the only way to challenge the BJP and the Congress, Solanki says. Yet, he laments, hardly any efforts are being made in this regard. In the wake of the state-sponsored anti-Muslim genocide in 2002, scores of NGOs entered Gujarat to provide relief, but today, he says, few of them are involved in anti-communal work. ‘Many of them made tall promises of working for empowerment, for Dalit-Muslim unity, for taking on the Hindutva lobby and so on. They got lots of money to fund big projects but nothing much has come of this’. ‘And then there are so many stories of corruption in the NGO circuit’, he wryly adds. ‘And so’, he goes on, ‘the only effective opposition I see today is within the BJP itself, among dissidents opposed to Modi’. ‘But that’, he explains, ‘in no way challenges the ideology and caste-base of Hindutva’. ‘
Solanki speaks of how the focus solely on communalism in Gujarat has led to an obscuring in secular political discourse of the widespread oppression of Dalits and Adivasis in the state. ‘The secularists, self-proclaimed secularists such as the Congress, and the Hindutva lobby all focus only on the issue of Hindu-Muslim relations, thus effectively ignoring the Adivasis and Dalits’, he notes. ‘Of course we need to work for communal harmony, for the rights of the Muslims and Christians, but that must go along with strengthening of the struggles of the Adivasis and Dalits. Hindutva forces seek to whip up anti-Muslim sentiments precisely to sabotage the growing awareness of the Adivasis and Dalits about the oppression that they suffer at the hands of the caste Hindu establishment’. ‘Hence’, he insists, ‘communalism cannot be defeated without taking up the caste issue, without working to unite the oppressed castes and the Muslims at the political and social level against the system of caste-class oppression of which they are the common victims’. ‘We need to make Dalit and Adivasi issues, along with the plight of Muslims, the centre of a new social, cultural and political movement, which alone can challenge the ‘upper’ caste Hindu hegemony which both the BJP and the Congress represent and defend’, he tells me.
Solanki talks of the work of his Centre in taking up numerous cases related to these communities. He speaks of widespread discrimination being practiced against Dalits in Gujarat—for instance, in this state which the Hindutva lobby touts about as about as its most successful experimental ground, a veritable ‘Hindu Rashtra’, Dalits continue to be refused entry into temples in many villages. He cites figures about rape of Dalit and Adivasi women by ‘upper’ caste landlords, many of them firm BJP supporters; of increasing land alienation among these groups; of the squalid slums, deprived of even the most basic amenities, to which the ‘low’ castes have been confined in Gujarat’s towns; and of the rapid impoverishment of Dalits and Adivasis communities in the face of the government’s economic policies.
*
Godhra, a town located in Gujarat’s Panchmahals district, a two hours’ journey from Ahmedabad, has a roughly equal Hindu and Muslim population. This obscure town shot into the limelight when, in 2002, a coach of a train caught fire near the town’s railway station, triggering off a massacre of Muslims throughout Gujarat on an unprecedented scale. Today, Godhra, like many other towns in Gujarat, is geographically completely polarized. A narrow river divides the town into two clearly Hindu and Muslim areas.
A semblance of ‘normality’ prevails in the town, although, its residents are quick to point out that the massacres of 2002, which, curiously, left Godhra itself largely untouched, have severely impacted on inter-communal relations. Almost all the NGOs that appeared in Godhra in the wake of the genocide to extend relief to Muslim victims in scores of villages nearby have now departed. Only a couple or so remain, with much trimmed budgets and staff. ‘As a result’, says Ilyas Bhagat, a local social activist, ‘the victims of the massacre, including families of over 80 men arrested under the deadly POTA law, have been left to fend for themselves’.
Bismillah Behen works with an NGO in Godhra and outlying villages. Her house in Himmatnagar was burnt down by Hindu mobs in 2002. Her husband has taken a second wife, and so she now lives by herself. Her own trauma, as a victim of both the anti-Muslim pogrom and of an insensitive husband, she says, has made her even more committed to working for communal harmony and women’s rights. ‘Women are the worse sufferers in riots’, she explains. She tells me of the efforts she and some of her colleagues, including Adivasis and Dalits, have made to bring women of different marginalized communities in Godhra to fight for their rights. She sees this as important not only in itself but also as one way of countering communalism. ‘We face opposition from patriarchal conservative forces in all our communities. Some Adivasi and Dalit men tell our non-Muslim sisters who are with us that they should not associate with us because we helped Muslim victims of the massacres. Likewise, some maulvis oppose the Muslim sisters in our group because they refuse to cover themselves in burkhas. They are angry with us because they insist that women must not come out of their homes’. ‘But’, she emphatically adds, ‘we women have undergone so much suffering during the riots. We have to come out and speak out’.
Bismillah Behen has not read any arcane feminist texts—what she speaks reflects her own personal and collective struggle, along with that of other women like her, who have experienced what it means to live through a genocide. ‘We have to join hands with sisters from other marginalized communities to fight for women’s rights and also against communalism’, she insists. ‘We have to explain to our sisters in other communities that communalism poses a major threat to women’s rights and to our freedom. The issue of women of all socially marginalized communities must be made a central part of the anti-communal struggle’.
Lakshmi Parmar, 26, is Bismillah’s colleague. She is the only female graduate in her village. Hailing from a poor Dalit family of the Vankar or weaver caste, she faces considerable opposition from her villagers, including some fellow Dalits, for working with Muslim women and for communal harmony. She tells me about how, in many villages around Godhra, Dalits were literally forced by the ‘upper’ castes to join them in attacking and killing Muslims in 2002. ‘They searched Dalit houses to see if any Muslims were hidden there. They threatened to boycott them if they helped the Muslims flee. Many Dalits yielded to this pressure as, being mostly landless labourers, they are dependent on the ‘upper castes for work’, she says.
Lakshmi speaks of how in these villages Dalits continue to suffer humiliation at the hands of the ‘upper’ castes, who consider them as fellow ‘Hindus’ only at the time of anti-Muslim violence, when they are generally used to attack Muslims. ‘In my own village’, she says, “Dalits cannot enter the local temple. A Dalit bridegroom cannot sit on a horse like ‘upper’ castes do. Last year my brother, who was getting married, tried to do that but we were forcibly stopped”.
‘Those days were really harrowing for all of us’, Lakshmi recounts of the brutal events of 2002. ‘I had to stay in a village, where Muslims had been driven out from. We started meetings to bring the different communities together, to facilitate the return of the Muslims to their homes, to rebuild their houses. But, eventually, due to the opposition of a local BJP politician, I had to flee’, she says. ‘However, we carried on working. We tried to bring together Dalits, Muslims and Adivasis through cultural activities, such as observing the anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar, Women’s Day and so on’.
We need to widen the scope of the movement for the unity of marginalized communities from just aiming at the political level to the wider social level’, she explains. ‘We have to work to unite our people through new forms of culture of resistance and struggle’.
*
‘This is, of course, may be easier said than done’, says Raju Solanki, ‘but we have to make it our main focus. From ancient times to this day, ‘upper’ caste forces, including today the Congress and the Hindutva lobby, have used culture, including religion, to oppress us. We now must use those very tools to challenge our oppression’.
Solanki shows me a book he’s written celebrating a fellow Gujarati Dalit activist who recently died, who opposed the entry of Hindutva activists into his slum and also prevented attacks on Muslims in his locality. ‘I’m preparing a book about such unsung heroes’, he informs me. ‘These voices of resistance, be they of Adivasis, Muslims, Backward Castes or Dalits, have been deliberately invisibilised from our history by the Brahminical establishment’, he notes. ‘We need to retrieve their memory, and build up a culture of resistance based on this’. ‘You cannot counter caste Hindu chauvinism without this’, he insists.
Solanki reads to me from a booklet that he has just published, titled ‘Blood Under Saffron’, to make his point about the dire need for marginalised communities in Gujarat to join hands to counter caste Hindu chauvinism, of which he says they are fellow victims. The booklet speaks of Gujarat’s panchayat rules that specify that disposing off dead animals and unclaimed corpses is a responsibility particular to the Scheduled Castes, a continuation of Manu’s ancient code; of the deaths of numerous sweepers belonging to the ‘lowest’ castes from suffocation while cleaning manholes; of the continuing practice of Valmikis in Gujarat being forced to carry human excreta on their heads; of ‘upper’ castes denying Dalits access to burial grounds; of mounting Dalit impoverishment, and, in the face of this, of continuing neglect by the state, and so on.
‘We need to bring the Dalits and other marginalized communities, besides the Muslims, back into Gujarat’s political discourse’, Solanki reiterates. ‘We need to shift the discourse from the secularism versus communalism debate to bring to the centre issues of caste-class domination and subjugation’, Solanki concludes. ‘Only then can Hindutva be effectively challenged, not just in Gujarat, but in the rest of the country as well’.
-By Yoginder Sikand at indianmuslims.in
A young Sindhi man sharing our compartment, also a businessman based in Ahmedabad, winced and hurriedly changed the topic. A while later, when the Nagar Brahmin was not within hearing range, he whispered, ‘Not all Gujarati Hindus think like this man, although many do. I, for one, don’t, but we can’t openly counter such views, such is the climate of fear in Gujarat’.
The man was right, I discovered during a recent short trip to the state. Public opposition to Modi and to the Hindutva lobby is muted, not just because of fear but also because the claims of the Hindutva forces have become received truths for many Gujarati Hindus, thanks to years of carefully-planned indoctrination. The BJP and allied Hindutva fronts have made deep inroads among sections of communities such as Dalits and Adivasis, who form a large chunk of Gujarat’s ‘Hindu’ population, who were traditionally opposed to the ‘upper-caste-controlled Hindutva groups and were once earlier strong Congress vote-banks.
‘The Congress is totally ineffective as an opposition force in Gujarat’, says Raju Solanki, a well-known Dalit activist, who works with the Centre for Social Justice in Ahmedabad. ‘In the last six decades, the Congress did precious little for the Dalits and Adivasis besides taking their votes and so the BJP has taken over. There’s no difference, as far as Dalits and Adivasis are concerned, between the two—they both represent broadly the same dominant caste-class groups. Hinduvta fronts are desperately trying to Hinduise the Dalits and Adivasis, to use them as foot-soldiers against the Muslims, setting them against each other so that ‘upper’ caste rule remains unchallenged’, he argues.
Unity between Dalits, Backward Castes, Adivasis and Muslims, who together form the overwhelming majority of Gujarat’s population, is the only way to challenge the BJP and the Congress, Solanki says. Yet, he laments, hardly any efforts are being made in this regard. In the wake of the state-sponsored anti-Muslim genocide in 2002, scores of NGOs entered Gujarat to provide relief, but today, he says, few of them are involved in anti-communal work. ‘Many of them made tall promises of working for empowerment, for Dalit-Muslim unity, for taking on the Hindutva lobby and so on. They got lots of money to fund big projects but nothing much has come of this’. ‘And then there are so many stories of corruption in the NGO circuit’, he wryly adds. ‘And so’, he goes on, ‘the only effective opposition I see today is within the BJP itself, among dissidents opposed to Modi’. ‘But that’, he explains, ‘in no way challenges the ideology and caste-base of Hindutva’. ‘
Solanki speaks of how the focus solely on communalism in Gujarat has led to an obscuring in secular political discourse of the widespread oppression of Dalits and Adivasis in the state. ‘The secularists, self-proclaimed secularists such as the Congress, and the Hindutva lobby all focus only on the issue of Hindu-Muslim relations, thus effectively ignoring the Adivasis and Dalits’, he notes. ‘Of course we need to work for communal harmony, for the rights of the Muslims and Christians, but that must go along with strengthening of the struggles of the Adivasis and Dalits. Hindutva forces seek to whip up anti-Muslim sentiments precisely to sabotage the growing awareness of the Adivasis and Dalits about the oppression that they suffer at the hands of the caste Hindu establishment’. ‘Hence’, he insists, ‘communalism cannot be defeated without taking up the caste issue, without working to unite the oppressed castes and the Muslims at the political and social level against the system of caste-class oppression of which they are the common victims’. ‘We need to make Dalit and Adivasi issues, along with the plight of Muslims, the centre of a new social, cultural and political movement, which alone can challenge the ‘upper’ caste Hindu hegemony which both the BJP and the Congress represent and defend’, he tells me.
Solanki talks of the work of his Centre in taking up numerous cases related to these communities. He speaks of widespread discrimination being practiced against Dalits in Gujarat—for instance, in this state which the Hindutva lobby touts about as about as its most successful experimental ground, a veritable ‘Hindu Rashtra’, Dalits continue to be refused entry into temples in many villages. He cites figures about rape of Dalit and Adivasi women by ‘upper’ caste landlords, many of them firm BJP supporters; of increasing land alienation among these groups; of the squalid slums, deprived of even the most basic amenities, to which the ‘low’ castes have been confined in Gujarat’s towns; and of the rapid impoverishment of Dalits and Adivasis communities in the face of the government’s economic policies.
*
Godhra, a town located in Gujarat’s Panchmahals district, a two hours’ journey from Ahmedabad, has a roughly equal Hindu and Muslim population. This obscure town shot into the limelight when, in 2002, a coach of a train caught fire near the town’s railway station, triggering off a massacre of Muslims throughout Gujarat on an unprecedented scale. Today, Godhra, like many other towns in Gujarat, is geographically completely polarized. A narrow river divides the town into two clearly Hindu and Muslim areas.
A semblance of ‘normality’ prevails in the town, although, its residents are quick to point out that the massacres of 2002, which, curiously, left Godhra itself largely untouched, have severely impacted on inter-communal relations. Almost all the NGOs that appeared in Godhra in the wake of the genocide to extend relief to Muslim victims in scores of villages nearby have now departed. Only a couple or so remain, with much trimmed budgets and staff. ‘As a result’, says Ilyas Bhagat, a local social activist, ‘the victims of the massacre, including families of over 80 men arrested under the deadly POTA law, have been left to fend for themselves’.
Bismillah Behen works with an NGO in Godhra and outlying villages. Her house in Himmatnagar was burnt down by Hindu mobs in 2002. Her husband has taken a second wife, and so she now lives by herself. Her own trauma, as a victim of both the anti-Muslim pogrom and of an insensitive husband, she says, has made her even more committed to working for communal harmony and women’s rights. ‘Women are the worse sufferers in riots’, she explains. She tells me of the efforts she and some of her colleagues, including Adivasis and Dalits, have made to bring women of different marginalized communities in Godhra to fight for their rights. She sees this as important not only in itself but also as one way of countering communalism. ‘We face opposition from patriarchal conservative forces in all our communities. Some Adivasi and Dalit men tell our non-Muslim sisters who are with us that they should not associate with us because we helped Muslim victims of the massacres. Likewise, some maulvis oppose the Muslim sisters in our group because they refuse to cover themselves in burkhas. They are angry with us because they insist that women must not come out of their homes’. ‘But’, she emphatically adds, ‘we women have undergone so much suffering during the riots. We have to come out and speak out’.
Bismillah Behen has not read any arcane feminist texts—what she speaks reflects her own personal and collective struggle, along with that of other women like her, who have experienced what it means to live through a genocide. ‘We have to join hands with sisters from other marginalized communities to fight for women’s rights and also against communalism’, she insists. ‘We have to explain to our sisters in other communities that communalism poses a major threat to women’s rights and to our freedom. The issue of women of all socially marginalized communities must be made a central part of the anti-communal struggle’.
Lakshmi Parmar, 26, is Bismillah’s colleague. She is the only female graduate in her village. Hailing from a poor Dalit family of the Vankar or weaver caste, she faces considerable opposition from her villagers, including some fellow Dalits, for working with Muslim women and for communal harmony. She tells me about how, in many villages around Godhra, Dalits were literally forced by the ‘upper’ castes to join them in attacking and killing Muslims in 2002. ‘They searched Dalit houses to see if any Muslims were hidden there. They threatened to boycott them if they helped the Muslims flee. Many Dalits yielded to this pressure as, being mostly landless labourers, they are dependent on the ‘upper castes for work’, she says.
Lakshmi speaks of how in these villages Dalits continue to suffer humiliation at the hands of the ‘upper’ castes, who consider them as fellow ‘Hindus’ only at the time of anti-Muslim violence, when they are generally used to attack Muslims. ‘In my own village’, she says, “Dalits cannot enter the local temple. A Dalit bridegroom cannot sit on a horse like ‘upper’ castes do. Last year my brother, who was getting married, tried to do that but we were forcibly stopped”.
‘Those days were really harrowing for all of us’, Lakshmi recounts of the brutal events of 2002. ‘I had to stay in a village, where Muslims had been driven out from. We started meetings to bring the different communities together, to facilitate the return of the Muslims to their homes, to rebuild their houses. But, eventually, due to the opposition of a local BJP politician, I had to flee’, she says. ‘However, we carried on working. We tried to bring together Dalits, Muslims and Adivasis through cultural activities, such as observing the anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar, Women’s Day and so on’.
We need to widen the scope of the movement for the unity of marginalized communities from just aiming at the political level to the wider social level’, she explains. ‘We have to work to unite our people through new forms of culture of resistance and struggle’.
*
‘This is, of course, may be easier said than done’, says Raju Solanki, ‘but we have to make it our main focus. From ancient times to this day, ‘upper’ caste forces, including today the Congress and the Hindutva lobby, have used culture, including religion, to oppress us. We now must use those very tools to challenge our oppression’.
Solanki shows me a book he’s written celebrating a fellow Gujarati Dalit activist who recently died, who opposed the entry of Hindutva activists into his slum and also prevented attacks on Muslims in his locality. ‘I’m preparing a book about such unsung heroes’, he informs me. ‘These voices of resistance, be they of Adivasis, Muslims, Backward Castes or Dalits, have been deliberately invisibilised from our history by the Brahminical establishment’, he notes. ‘We need to retrieve their memory, and build up a culture of resistance based on this’. ‘You cannot counter caste Hindu chauvinism without this’, he insists.
Solanki reads to me from a booklet that he has just published, titled ‘Blood Under Saffron’, to make his point about the dire need for marginalised communities in Gujarat to join hands to counter caste Hindu chauvinism, of which he says they are fellow victims. The booklet speaks of Gujarat’s panchayat rules that specify that disposing off dead animals and unclaimed corpses is a responsibility particular to the Scheduled Castes, a continuation of Manu’s ancient code; of the deaths of numerous sweepers belonging to the ‘lowest’ castes from suffocation while cleaning manholes; of the continuing practice of Valmikis in Gujarat being forced to carry human excreta on their heads; of ‘upper’ castes denying Dalits access to burial grounds; of mounting Dalit impoverishment, and, in the face of this, of continuing neglect by the state, and so on.
‘We need to bring the Dalits and other marginalized communities, besides the Muslims, back into Gujarat’s political discourse’, Solanki reiterates. ‘We need to shift the discourse from the secularism versus communalism debate to bring to the centre issues of caste-class domination and subjugation’, Solanki concludes. ‘Only then can Hindutva be effectively challenged, not just in Gujarat, but in the rest of the country as well’.
-By Yoginder Sikand at indianmuslims.in
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Who are Aryans?
There are many theories trying to explain this question.
1. Aryans are Ancient Iranians-
"I am Dariush, the great king, the king of kings,
The king od many countries, many people,
The king od this expensive land,
The son of Wishtapsa of Archaemenid,
Persian, the son of persian,
Aryan from the Aryan race"
This was said by 'Darius the Great' in "Naqshe-e-Rostam"
Read more about this Here
2.Aryans are Native Indians- This Theory has been disproved by Y chromosome DNA testing which shows that Aryans resemble more to the middle eastern people than the dravidians, who are the oldest residents of India till date. Sanskrit meaning of Aryan means a 'stranger' while Old tamil (Gauda Dravidian in ancient times) dictionaries translate the meaning as 'Uncivilised'. More over there are lot of differences in Dravidians and the sanskrit speaking aryans.
3.Indo-Iranian-The most probable date for Proto-Indo-Iranian unity is roughly around 2500 BC. In this sense of the word Aryan, the Aryans were an ancient culture preceding both the Vedic and Avestan cultures. This further makes intensifies the doubts that Aryans invaded India and forced their religion in India. Read more Here
4. Aryans are warrior-nomads from the steppes of southern Russia and that they were ancestors of the Jews. Read more Here
In ninteenth century, many European racist claimed themselves to be Aryans. Hitler also claimed himself to be an Aryan and that he was superior race than others.
1. Aryans are Ancient Iranians-
"I am Dariush, the great king, the king of kings,
The king od many countries, many people,
The king od this expensive land,
The son of Wishtapsa of Archaemenid,
Persian, the son of persian,
Aryan from the Aryan race"
This was said by 'Darius the Great' in "Naqshe-e-Rostam"
Read more about this Here
2.Aryans are Native Indians- This Theory has been disproved by Y chromosome DNA testing which shows that Aryans resemble more to the middle eastern people than the dravidians, who are the oldest residents of India till date. Sanskrit meaning of Aryan means a 'stranger' while Old tamil (Gauda Dravidian in ancient times) dictionaries translate the meaning as 'Uncivilised'. More over there are lot of differences in Dravidians and the sanskrit speaking aryans.
3.Indo-Iranian-The most probable date for Proto-Indo-Iranian unity is roughly around 2500 BC. In this sense of the word Aryan, the Aryans were an ancient culture preceding both the Vedic and Avestan cultures. This further makes intensifies the doubts that Aryans invaded India and forced their religion in India. Read more Here
4. Aryans are warrior-nomads from the steppes of southern Russia and that they were ancestors of the Jews. Read more Here
In ninteenth century, many European racist claimed themselves to be Aryans. Hitler also claimed himself to be an Aryan and that he was superior race than others.
Aurangazeb- Bad Ruler or Bad History?
Of all the Muslim rulers who ruled vast territories of India from 712 to 1857 CE, probably no one has received as much condemnation from Western and Hindu writers as Aurangzeb. He has been castigated as a religious Muslim who was anti-Hindu, who taxed them, who tried to convert them, who discriminated against them in awarding high administrative positions, and who interfered in their religious matters. This view has been heavily promoted in the government approved textbooks in schools and colleges across post-partition India (i.e., after 1947). These are fabrications against one of the best rulers of India who was pious, scholarly, saintly, unbiased, liberal, magnanimous, tolerant, competent, and far-sighted.
Fortunately, in recent years quite a few Hindu historians have come out in the open disputing those allegations. For example, historian Babu Nagendranath Banerjee rejected the accusation of forced conversion of Hindus by Muslim rulers by stating that if that was their intention then in India today there would not be nearly four times as many Hindus compared to Muslims, despite the fact that Muslims had ruled for nearly a thousand years. Banerjee challenged the Hindu hypothesis that Aurangzeb was anti-Hindu by reasoning that if the latter were truly guilty of such bigotry, how could he appoint a Hindu as his military commander-in-chief? Surely, he could have afforded to appoint a competent Muslim general in that position.
Banerjee further stated:
"No one should accuse Aurangzeb of being communal minded. In his administration, the state policy was formulated by Hindus. Two Hindus held the highest position in the State Treasury. Some prejudiced Muslims even questioned the merit of his decision to appoint non-Muslims to such high offices. The Emperor refuted that by stating that he had been following the dictates of the Shariah (Islamic Law) which demands appointing right persons in right positions."
During Aurangzeb's long reign of fifty years, many Hindus, notably Jaswant Singh, Raja Rajrup, Kabir Singh, Arghanath Singh, Prem Dev Singh, Dilip Roy, and Rasik Lal Crory, held very high administrative positions. Two of the highest ranked generals in Aurangzeb's administration, Jaswant Singh and Jaya Singh, were Hindus. Other notable Hindu generals who commanded a garrison of two to five thousand soldiers were Raja Vim Singh of Udaypur, Indra Singh, Achalaji and Arjuji. One wonders if Aurangzeb was hostile to Hindus, why would he position all these Hindus to high positions of authority, especially in the military, who could have mutinied against him and removed him from his throne?
Most Hindus like Akbar over Aurangzeb for his multi-ethnic court where Hindus were favored. Historian Shri Sharma states that while Emperor Akbar had fourteen Hindu Mansabdars (high officials) in his court, Aurangzeb actually had 148 Hindu high officials in his court. But this fact is somewhat less known.
Some of the Hindu historians have accused Aurangzeb of demolishing Hindu temples. How factual is this accusation against a man, who has been known to be a saintly man, a strict adherent of Islam? The Qur'an prohibits any Muslim to impose his will on a non-Muslim by stating that
"There is no compulsion in religion."
Surah al-Kafirun clearly states: "To you is your religion and to me is mine." It would be totally unbecoming of a learned scholar of Islam of his caliber, as Aurangzeb was known to be, to do things that are contrary to the dictates of the Qur'an.
Interestingly, the 1946 edition of the history textbook Etihash Parichaya (Introduction to History) used in Bengal for the 5th and 6th graders states:
"If Aurangzeb had the intention of demolishing temples to make way for mosques, there would not have been a single temple standing erect in India. On the contrary, Aurangzeb donated huge estates for use as temple sites and support thereof in Benares, Kashmir and elsewhere. The official documentations for these land grants are still extant."
A stone inscription in the historic Balaji or Vishnu Temple, located north of Chitrakut Balaghat, still shows that it was commissioned by the Emperor himself. The proof of Aurangzeb's land grant for famous Hindu religious sites in Kasi, Varanasi can easily be verified from the deed records extant at those sites. The same textbook reads:
"During the fifty year reign of Aurangzeb, not a single Hindu was forced to embrace Islam. He did not interfere with any Hindu religious activities."
Alexander Hamilton, a British historian, toured India towards the end of Aurangzeb's fifty year reign and observed that every one was free to serve and worship God in his own way.
Now let us deal with Aurangzeb's imposition of the jizya tax which had drawn severe criticism from many Hindu historians. It is true that jizya was lifted during the reign of Akbar and Jahangir and that Aurangzeb later reinstated this. Before I delve into the subject of Aurangzeb's jizya tax, or taxing the non-Muslims, it is worthwhile to point out that jizya is nothing more than a war tax which was collected only from able-bodied young non-Muslim male citizens living in a Muslim country who did not want to volunteer for the defense of the country. That is, no such tax was collected from non-Muslims who volunteered to defend the country. This tax was not collected from women, and neither from immature males nor from disabled or old male citizens. For payment of such taxes, it became incumbent upon the Muslim government to protect the life, property and wealth of its non-Muslim citizens. If for any reason the government failed to protect its citizens, especially during a war, the taxable amount was returned.
It should be pointed out here that the zakaat (2.5% of savings) and ‘ushr (10% of agricultural products) were collected from all Muslims, who owned some wealth (beyond a certain minimum, called nisab). They also paid sadaqah, fitrah and khums. None of these were collected from any non-Muslim. As a matter of fact, the per capita collection from Muslims was several fold that of non-Muslims. Further to Auranzeb's credit is his abolition of a lot of taxes, although this fact is not usually mentioned. In his book Mughal Administration, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, foremost historian on the Mughal dynasty, mentions that during Aurangzeb's reign in power, nearly sixty-five types of taxes were abolished, which resulted in a yearly revenue loss of fifty million rupees from the state treasury. Other historians stated that when Aurangzeb abolished eighty types of taxes, no one thanked him for his generosity. But when he imposed only one, and not heavy at all, people began to show their displeasure.
While some Hindu historians are retracting the lies, the textbooks and historic accounts in Western countries have yet to admit their error and set the record straight. Such intellectual dishonesty by historians is dangerous — more explosive and more damaging than nuclear bombs. We have already seen its hideous effect with the destruction of Muslim historic sites (including the Babri Mosque) and recent riots in India that killed thousands of Muslims.
Fortunately, in recent years quite a few Hindu historians have come out in the open disputing those allegations. For example, historian Babu Nagendranath Banerjee rejected the accusation of forced conversion of Hindus by Muslim rulers by stating that if that was their intention then in India today there would not be nearly four times as many Hindus compared to Muslims, despite the fact that Muslims had ruled for nearly a thousand years. Banerjee challenged the Hindu hypothesis that Aurangzeb was anti-Hindu by reasoning that if the latter were truly guilty of such bigotry, how could he appoint a Hindu as his military commander-in-chief? Surely, he could have afforded to appoint a competent Muslim general in that position.
Banerjee further stated:
"No one should accuse Aurangzeb of being communal minded. In his administration, the state policy was formulated by Hindus. Two Hindus held the highest position in the State Treasury. Some prejudiced Muslims even questioned the merit of his decision to appoint non-Muslims to such high offices. The Emperor refuted that by stating that he had been following the dictates of the Shariah (Islamic Law) which demands appointing right persons in right positions."
During Aurangzeb's long reign of fifty years, many Hindus, notably Jaswant Singh, Raja Rajrup, Kabir Singh, Arghanath Singh, Prem Dev Singh, Dilip Roy, and Rasik Lal Crory, held very high administrative positions. Two of the highest ranked generals in Aurangzeb's administration, Jaswant Singh and Jaya Singh, were Hindus. Other notable Hindu generals who commanded a garrison of two to five thousand soldiers were Raja Vim Singh of Udaypur, Indra Singh, Achalaji and Arjuji. One wonders if Aurangzeb was hostile to Hindus, why would he position all these Hindus to high positions of authority, especially in the military, who could have mutinied against him and removed him from his throne?
Most Hindus like Akbar over Aurangzeb for his multi-ethnic court where Hindus were favored. Historian Shri Sharma states that while Emperor Akbar had fourteen Hindu Mansabdars (high officials) in his court, Aurangzeb actually had 148 Hindu high officials in his court. But this fact is somewhat less known.
Some of the Hindu historians have accused Aurangzeb of demolishing Hindu temples. How factual is this accusation against a man, who has been known to be a saintly man, a strict adherent of Islam? The Qur'an prohibits any Muslim to impose his will on a non-Muslim by stating that
"There is no compulsion in religion."
Surah al-Kafirun clearly states: "To you is your religion and to me is mine." It would be totally unbecoming of a learned scholar of Islam of his caliber, as Aurangzeb was known to be, to do things that are contrary to the dictates of the Qur'an.
Interestingly, the 1946 edition of the history textbook Etihash Parichaya (Introduction to History) used in Bengal for the 5th and 6th graders states:
"If Aurangzeb had the intention of demolishing temples to make way for mosques, there would not have been a single temple standing erect in India. On the contrary, Aurangzeb donated huge estates for use as temple sites and support thereof in Benares, Kashmir and elsewhere. The official documentations for these land grants are still extant."
A stone inscription in the historic Balaji or Vishnu Temple, located north of Chitrakut Balaghat, still shows that it was commissioned by the Emperor himself. The proof of Aurangzeb's land grant for famous Hindu religious sites in Kasi, Varanasi can easily be verified from the deed records extant at those sites. The same textbook reads:
"During the fifty year reign of Aurangzeb, not a single Hindu was forced to embrace Islam. He did not interfere with any Hindu religious activities."
Alexander Hamilton, a British historian, toured India towards the end of Aurangzeb's fifty year reign and observed that every one was free to serve and worship God in his own way.
Now let us deal with Aurangzeb's imposition of the jizya tax which had drawn severe criticism from many Hindu historians. It is true that jizya was lifted during the reign of Akbar and Jahangir and that Aurangzeb later reinstated this. Before I delve into the subject of Aurangzeb's jizya tax, or taxing the non-Muslims, it is worthwhile to point out that jizya is nothing more than a war tax which was collected only from able-bodied young non-Muslim male citizens living in a Muslim country who did not want to volunteer for the defense of the country. That is, no such tax was collected from non-Muslims who volunteered to defend the country. This tax was not collected from women, and neither from immature males nor from disabled or old male citizens. For payment of such taxes, it became incumbent upon the Muslim government to protect the life, property and wealth of its non-Muslim citizens. If for any reason the government failed to protect its citizens, especially during a war, the taxable amount was returned.
It should be pointed out here that the zakaat (2.5% of savings) and ‘ushr (10% of agricultural products) were collected from all Muslims, who owned some wealth (beyond a certain minimum, called nisab). They also paid sadaqah, fitrah and khums. None of these were collected from any non-Muslim. As a matter of fact, the per capita collection from Muslims was several fold that of non-Muslims. Further to Auranzeb's credit is his abolition of a lot of taxes, although this fact is not usually mentioned. In his book Mughal Administration, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, foremost historian on the Mughal dynasty, mentions that during Aurangzeb's reign in power, nearly sixty-five types of taxes were abolished, which resulted in a yearly revenue loss of fifty million rupees from the state treasury. Other historians stated that when Aurangzeb abolished eighty types of taxes, no one thanked him for his generosity. But when he imposed only one, and not heavy at all, people began to show their displeasure.
While some Hindu historians are retracting the lies, the textbooks and historic accounts in Western countries have yet to admit their error and set the record straight. Such intellectual dishonesty by historians is dangerous — more explosive and more damaging than nuclear bombs. We have already seen its hideous effect with the destruction of Muslim historic sites (including the Babri Mosque) and recent riots in India that killed thousands of Muslims.
Great Malla Kings
Aryans used to call dravidians who faught with them bravely as asuras. The mountain tribes of dravidians especially malla, maala, malayas, kuruvas, koyis faught bravely agsinst these Aryan invaders. The Aryans wrote stories about these battles depicting the Dravidians as Asuras and worshipers of Ashuras and the Aryans as Gods and worshipers of Gods.
The Mallas ruled the maharastra before the aryans invaded it. Mala tribes were found in all over india and were proud kings. Adding the name malla in their name was thought to be a matter of prestage and good luck for the kings (Ahavamalla, yuddhamalla, Jagadekamalla, trailkomalla, tribhuvanamalla).
Malla were also called Mhar which eventually took the word Mahar. The word Maharastra in those days meant the kingdom of Mahar (mallas). It was also called as Mallarastra. But as the aryans invaded and the fortune of Mallas was degraded down as low caste people by the invaders, the word Mallarastra lost significance slowly and Maharastra was left behind and the aryans gave it the meaning 'great kingdom'.
The word Pariah in marathi still corresponds to Mahar. Even today, Mallas are found scattered all over the country- Malla Arayar, Malacar, Malayalis, Malavas, Malair, Mallar, Maravar. Mallas are even found in Nepal and north eastern states. But very few Mallas are found in north west India because of the influence of Aryan invaders.
What does the Word Aryan Mean?
The word Aryan had different meaning at different times in Tamil also. According to the oldest Tamil Dictionary (Thevaagaram or Nigandu written may be between 1- 3 Century BC) the word ‘Aryan’ – was defined as Millacher meaning ‘Uncivilized’. Later to mean a person who did not learn Tamil properly and later on it meant outsider. (Ref: Moovendar yaar (Revised Edition) – Page 36). Some old tamil dictionaries also say that Aryan means 'destroyer'.
The Aryan invaders were stopped from entering the south by the vindhya mountains.
When Alexander the great invaded India, he was wounded seriously in a war which took place near Multan. Sir Alexander Burnes writes in his 'travels into Bokhara' (vol 3. p.114) that "Mooltan is styled 'Malli than' or 'Malli tharum' , the place of Malli".
Dravidians were the true possessors of Vedas. The Aryans who invaded the land eventually corrupted them. They changed it as per their wishes and took care that their position in society is not harmed. They said that the dravidian sudras and should not touch nor listen to the Vedas. According to them, aryan brahmins must read vedas and visyas could listen to them. they suppressed the brave Malla and sudra kings very horribly.
The Mallas ruled the maharastra before the aryans invaded it. Mala tribes were found in all over india and were proud kings. Adding the name malla in their name was thought to be a matter of prestage and good luck for the kings (Ahavamalla, yuddhamalla, Jagadekamalla, trailkomalla, tribhuvanamalla).
Malla were also called Mhar which eventually took the word Mahar. The word Maharastra in those days meant the kingdom of Mahar (mallas). It was also called as Mallarastra. But as the aryans invaded and the fortune of Mallas was degraded down as low caste people by the invaders, the word Mallarastra lost significance slowly and Maharastra was left behind and the aryans gave it the meaning 'great kingdom'.
The word Pariah in marathi still corresponds to Mahar. Even today, Mallas are found scattered all over the country- Malla Arayar, Malacar, Malayalis, Malavas, Malair, Mallar, Maravar. Mallas are even found in Nepal and north eastern states. But very few Mallas are found in north west India because of the influence of Aryan invaders.
What does the Word Aryan Mean?
The word Aryan had different meaning at different times in Tamil also. According to the oldest Tamil Dictionary (Thevaagaram or Nigandu written may be between 1- 3 Century BC) the word ‘Aryan’ – was defined as Millacher meaning ‘Uncivilized’. Later to mean a person who did not learn Tamil properly and later on it meant outsider. (Ref: Moovendar yaar (Revised Edition) – Page 36). Some old tamil dictionaries also say that Aryan means 'destroyer'.
The Aryan invaders were stopped from entering the south by the vindhya mountains.
When Alexander the great invaded India, he was wounded seriously in a war which took place near Multan. Sir Alexander Burnes writes in his 'travels into Bokhara' (vol 3. p.114) that "Mooltan is styled 'Malli than' or 'Malli tharum' , the place of Malli".
Dravidians were the true possessors of Vedas. The Aryans who invaded the land eventually corrupted them. They changed it as per their wishes and took care that their position in society is not harmed. They said that the dravidian sudras and should not touch nor listen to the Vedas. According to them, aryan brahmins must read vedas and visyas could listen to them. they suppressed the brave Malla and sudra kings very horribly.
Aryan Invasion is Not a Myth
It had been argued [in the December 2, 2005 Curriculum Commission hearing] by the Vedic Foundation (VF) and the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF) supporters on the basis of a 1999 paper by Toomas Kivisild et al that the Aryan Invasion Theory has been “conclusively disproved” and should therefore be discarded from 6th grade school textbooks currently in the review process. Based upon these arguments, the Curriculum Commission had decided to accept many changes proposed by VF/HEF relating to the question of Aryan origin.
The study by Kivisild et al primarily focused on the question of the original migration of the human race from Africa some 50,000 years ago, and as such was not meant to determine the question of Aryan origin that is said to have happened around 3,500 years back. Further, the study was restrictive in that it dwelt primarily on the evolution/mutation of maternal genetic material (mitochondrial DNA) and did not take paternal genetic inheritance into account. Additionally, DNA dates work well for the periods of the Exodus out of Africa (c. 60,000 BCE); but by the time of the Indo-Aryan influx into South Asia (c. 1500 BCE) any DNA calculation has huge temporal error bars that render the exercise useless for the question at hand, at least at the present state of research. Lastly, the presently acknowledged Aryan Influx Theory is based on a combination of cultural-linguistic migration of Indo-European people into India. Since genes and languages do not necessarily migrate in tandem, the findings of genetic migration patterns from Archeogenetic studies are not central to the determination of Aryan origin.
Nonetheless, since the 1999 paper by Kivisild was offered by HEF/VF supporters as “proof” of the indigenous origins of Aryan/Vedic people, we are presenting below a brief summary of more recent Archeogenetic studies as relates to the question of Aryan origin and related theories of Aryan invasion, influx or migration. The several papers cited and included here are more recent than the Kivisild paper and have argued in favor of an Indo-European genetic migration into India. These papers have not been acknowledged by the VF/HEF in the partisan promotion of their Aryan Indigenity Theory.
Abstracts of key studies referred to below along with links/references to the full publication are included at the end of this document.
Summary
A 2001 examination of male Y-DNA by Indian and American scientists [which also incidentally includes Toomas Kivisild as one of the authors] indicated that higher castes are genetically closer to West Eurasians than are individuals from lower castes, whose genetic profiles are similar to other Asians. These results indicate that at some point male West Eurasians provided a significant genetic input into the higher castes, a result which supports the notion that the caste system was an attempt by these predominantly male arrivals to keep themselves separate from the native population. (http://jorde-lab.genetics.utah.edu/elibrary/Bamshad_2001a.pdf)
The genetic studies by Michael J Bamshad and his team (2001) from University of Utah and Dr. Spencer Wells (2003) give strong backing to the Aryan invasion/migration theory.
In the study by M.J Bamshad and his team [4] they wrote, "Our results demonstrate that for biparentally inherited autosomal markers, genetic distances between upper, middle, and lower castes are significantly correlated with rank; upper castes are more similar to Europeans than to Asians; and upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are lower castes."
(http://jorde-lab.genetics.utah.edu/elibrary/Bamshad_2001a.pdf)
The genetic study involves the analysis of genetic material known as the Mitochondrial DNA which is only passed maternally and so it is used to study female inheritance. The male-determining Y chromosome, is passed along paternally and is therefore used to study male inheritance. The evidence implies that few millennia ago group of males with (Eastern) European affinities invaded the Indian subcontinent from the Northwest of the sub-continent.
The researchers went on to state that genetic variations between upper castes and lower castes is the evidence to the origin of the caste system. The people who were either migrating or invading the sub-continent had descendants in the male population largely in the higher castes than in the lower castes. The researchers state that these invading or migrating people might have instituted the caste system.
In the abstract to their paper the researchers stated, "In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European -speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank."
The study also revealed another classic anthropological observation, that of women being significantly more mobile in terms of caste and hierarchical class than men, who are almost not socially mobile at all in terms of caste and hierarchical class. Genetic evidence reveals that over millennia men have married women from lower castes but women have rarely married men from lower castes. Thus the researchers imply that caste and class to a large extent is perpetuated by women and has also thereby contributed to the minimal mixing of Aryan blood with the natives.
A study conducted by Quintana-Murci [2000] present genetic evidence for the occurrence of two major population movements, supporting a model of demic diffusion of early farmers from southwestern Iranand of pastoral nomads from western and central Asiainto India, associated with Dravidian and Indo-Europeanlanguage dispersals, respectively.
A study conducted by R Spencer Wells et al focuses on the non-recombining portion of the Y-chromosome and provide an insight into the earliest patterns of settlement of anatomically modern humans on the Eurasian continent. Central Asia is revealed to be an important reservoir of genetic diversity, and the source of at least three major waves of migration leading into Europe, the Americas, and India. The genetic results are interpreted in the context of Eurasian linguistic patterns.
In the 2003 study, Basu et al provide genomic evidence that (1) there is an underlying unity of female lineages in India, indicating that the initial number of female settlers may have been small; (2) the tribal and the caste populations are highly differentiated; (3) the Austro-Asiatic tribals are the earliest settlers in India, providing support to one anthropological hypothesis while refuting some others; (4) a major wave of humans entered India through the northeast; (5) the Tibeto-Burman tribals share considerable genetic commonalities with the Austro-Asiatic tribals, supporting the hypothesis that they may have shared a common habitat in southern China, but the two groups of tribals can be differentiated on the basis of Y-chromosomal haplotypes; (6) the Dravidian tribals were possibly widespread throughout India before the arrival of the Indo-European-speaking nomads, but retreated to southern India to avoid dominance; (7) formation of populations by fission that resulted in founder and drift effects have left their imprints on the genetic structures of contemporary populations; (8) the upper castes show closer genetic affinities with Central Asian populations, although those of southern India are more distant than those of northern India; (9) historical gene flow into India has contributed to a considerable obliteration of genetic histories of contemporary populations so that there is at present no clear congruence of genetic and geographical or sociocultural affinities.
In a recent research paper in Current Biology, Cordaux et. al. confirms the Bamshad (2001) results and concludes that the paternal lineages of Indian caste groups are primarily descendants of Indo-European speakers who migrated from central Asia about 3,500 years ago. [cordaux:2004 (http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/pdf/CordauxCurBiol2004.pdf)]
Conclusion
The above summary and attached documents are provided to demonstrate the selective promotion of research material by the supporters of Vedic Foundation and the Hindu Education Foundation and the suppression of other, more recently available research that undermines their thesis is reflective of their priorities in promoting their ideological agendas over a factual, methodical and unbiased study of history. Further, this desire by VF/HEF supporters to “prove” by any means that Aryans are “indigenous” people directly relate to their contemporary political agenda back in India of distinguishing the “indigenous Aryan Hindus” from “foreign Muslim and Christian invaders” and thereby characterizing India’s Muslim and Christian minorities as “traitors” that need to be marginalized and persecuted. It is disturbing to witness how dangerously close these Hindu nationalist groups have come to whitewashing California’s school textbooks with their unsavory political agendas.
Abstracts of key studies-->>
The study by Kivisild et al primarily focused on the question of the original migration of the human race from Africa some 50,000 years ago, and as such was not meant to determine the question of Aryan origin that is said to have happened around 3,500 years back. Further, the study was restrictive in that it dwelt primarily on the evolution/mutation of maternal genetic material (mitochondrial DNA) and did not take paternal genetic inheritance into account. Additionally, DNA dates work well for the periods of the Exodus out of Africa (c. 60,000 BCE); but by the time of the Indo-Aryan influx into South Asia (c. 1500 BCE) any DNA calculation has huge temporal error bars that render the exercise useless for the question at hand, at least at the present state of research. Lastly, the presently acknowledged Aryan Influx Theory is based on a combination of cultural-linguistic migration of Indo-European people into India. Since genes and languages do not necessarily migrate in tandem, the findings of genetic migration patterns from Archeogenetic studies are not central to the determination of Aryan origin.
Nonetheless, since the 1999 paper by Kivisild was offered by HEF/VF supporters as “proof” of the indigenous origins of Aryan/Vedic people, we are presenting below a brief summary of more recent Archeogenetic studies as relates to the question of Aryan origin and related theories of Aryan invasion, influx or migration. The several papers cited and included here are more recent than the Kivisild paper and have argued in favor of an Indo-European genetic migration into India. These papers have not been acknowledged by the VF/HEF in the partisan promotion of their Aryan Indigenity Theory.
Abstracts of key studies referred to below along with links/references to the full publication are included at the end of this document.
Summary
A 2001 examination of male Y-DNA by Indian and American scientists [which also incidentally includes Toomas Kivisild as one of the authors] indicated that higher castes are genetically closer to West Eurasians than are individuals from lower castes, whose genetic profiles are similar to other Asians. These results indicate that at some point male West Eurasians provided a significant genetic input into the higher castes, a result which supports the notion that the caste system was an attempt by these predominantly male arrivals to keep themselves separate from the native population. (http://jorde-lab.genetics.utah.edu/elibrary/Bamshad_2001a.pdf)
The genetic studies by Michael J Bamshad and his team (2001) from University of Utah and Dr. Spencer Wells (2003) give strong backing to the Aryan invasion/migration theory.
In the study by M.J Bamshad and his team [4] they wrote, "Our results demonstrate that for biparentally inherited autosomal markers, genetic distances between upper, middle, and lower castes are significantly correlated with rank; upper castes are more similar to Europeans than to Asians; and upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are lower castes."
(http://jorde-lab.genetics.utah.edu/elibrary/Bamshad_2001a.pdf)
The genetic study involves the analysis of genetic material known as the Mitochondrial DNA which is only passed maternally and so it is used to study female inheritance. The male-determining Y chromosome, is passed along paternally and is therefore used to study male inheritance. The evidence implies that few millennia ago group of males with (Eastern) European affinities invaded the Indian subcontinent from the Northwest of the sub-continent.
The researchers went on to state that genetic variations between upper castes and lower castes is the evidence to the origin of the caste system. The people who were either migrating or invading the sub-continent had descendants in the male population largely in the higher castes than in the lower castes. The researchers state that these invading or migrating people might have instituted the caste system.
In the abstract to their paper the researchers stated, "In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European -speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank."
The study also revealed another classic anthropological observation, that of women being significantly more mobile in terms of caste and hierarchical class than men, who are almost not socially mobile at all in terms of caste and hierarchical class. Genetic evidence reveals that over millennia men have married women from lower castes but women have rarely married men from lower castes. Thus the researchers imply that caste and class to a large extent is perpetuated by women and has also thereby contributed to the minimal mixing of Aryan blood with the natives.
A study conducted by Quintana-Murci [2000] present genetic evidence for the occurrence of two major population movements, supporting a model of demic diffusion of early farmers from southwestern Iranand of pastoral nomads from western and central Asiainto India, associated with Dravidian and Indo-Europeanlanguage dispersals, respectively.
A study conducted by R Spencer Wells et al focuses on the non-recombining portion of the Y-chromosome and provide an insight into the earliest patterns of settlement of anatomically modern humans on the Eurasian continent. Central Asia is revealed to be an important reservoir of genetic diversity, and the source of at least three major waves of migration leading into Europe, the Americas, and India. The genetic results are interpreted in the context of Eurasian linguistic patterns.
In the 2003 study, Basu et al provide genomic evidence that (1) there is an underlying unity of female lineages in India, indicating that the initial number of female settlers may have been small; (2) the tribal and the caste populations are highly differentiated; (3) the Austro-Asiatic tribals are the earliest settlers in India, providing support to one anthropological hypothesis while refuting some others; (4) a major wave of humans entered India through the northeast; (5) the Tibeto-Burman tribals share considerable genetic commonalities with the Austro-Asiatic tribals, supporting the hypothesis that they may have shared a common habitat in southern China, but the two groups of tribals can be differentiated on the basis of Y-chromosomal haplotypes; (6) the Dravidian tribals were possibly widespread throughout India before the arrival of the Indo-European-speaking nomads, but retreated to southern India to avoid dominance; (7) formation of populations by fission that resulted in founder and drift effects have left their imprints on the genetic structures of contemporary populations; (8) the upper castes show closer genetic affinities with Central Asian populations, although those of southern India are more distant than those of northern India; (9) historical gene flow into India has contributed to a considerable obliteration of genetic histories of contemporary populations so that there is at present no clear congruence of genetic and geographical or sociocultural affinities.
In a recent research paper in Current Biology, Cordaux et. al. confirms the Bamshad (2001) results and concludes that the paternal lineages of Indian caste groups are primarily descendants of Indo-European speakers who migrated from central Asia about 3,500 years ago. [cordaux:2004 (http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/pdf/CordauxCurBiol2004.pdf)]
Conclusion
The above summary and attached documents are provided to demonstrate the selective promotion of research material by the supporters of Vedic Foundation and the Hindu Education Foundation and the suppression of other, more recently available research that undermines their thesis is reflective of their priorities in promoting their ideological agendas over a factual, methodical and unbiased study of history. Further, this desire by VF/HEF supporters to “prove” by any means that Aryans are “indigenous” people directly relate to their contemporary political agenda back in India of distinguishing the “indigenous Aryan Hindus” from “foreign Muslim and Christian invaders” and thereby characterizing India’s Muslim and Christian minorities as “traitors” that need to be marginalized and persecuted. It is disturbing to witness how dangerously close these Hindu nationalist groups have come to whitewashing California’s school textbooks with their unsavory political agendas.
Abstracts of key studies-->>
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Story of 'Cruel Muslim Invaders' of India
The Hindu extremists cunningly picturise muslim rulers of India as 'cruel' with all bad qualities in them and that they destroyed 'age old' hindu traditions as the 'peaceful hindu' just stood like a silent spectator. Let us look at the history if what they claim is right or not.
Treatment of women and the 'Sati':
Hindu extremists claim that Sati (burning the wife along with his husband's corpse) was practiced to protect the husbandless widow from the 'cruel Muslim ruler' who would take her away and rape her. As if the ruler had nothing else to do other than searching for widows and raping them.
Lets look into History:
Sati was the name of Lord Shiva's (hindu God) wife. She burnt herself alive after cursing her own father for insulting her husband. In olden days, Indians used to regard the practice of Sati (burning wife along with his husband's corpse) as a religious ceremony. They believed Sati to be the 'highest virtue' of a woman. Brahman priests used to force Sati on women. If any lady is unwilling, the people would doubt her fidelity and affection towards her departed husband.
What Muslim Emporers did:
Akbar, one of the muslim rulers was the first king to take Sati seriously. He gave an order which stated "If a woman wants to practice sati on her will, she should not be stoped. But no woman must be forced Sati"
Aurangazeb, who was more strict in this aspect issued orders as soon as he came back from Kashmir in Dec. 1663 AD "In all hands under Mughal control, never again should the officials allow a woman to be burnt".
Polygamy:
Polygamy was practiced by both muslims and hindus of that age especially the upper classes. Lower classes used to have only one wife irrespective of their religion. Mukundaram and Puija Madhava refer to a rich merchant marrying second wife khullana even though he had a wife (Lahana) and she was alive and had children. In Ghanaram chakravarty's 'Dhamamangal', Lausen had four wives namely Kalinga, Amala, Bimala, Kanara. Even the hindu scrptures allow marriage of more than one wife.
Hindu extremists who always point out fingure at Polygamy in Muslims have forgotten these facts and also that there are very few muslims who marry more than one wife in present India.
Cow Slaughter:
Akbar was the first Mughal king who prohibited killing of animals on 'sacred days'. He believed that killing cow was not good. He used to have food called 'Sufiyana food' which was purely vegitarian. This was surely somethingwhich was not taught by Islam. this was induced in him by his respect to Indian culture and beliefs.
Humayun considered beef was bad.
Another historian K.M.P Verma in his book 'Relevance of Gandhian Thought' says "Babar, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Ahmad Shah and Hyder Ali banned cow slaughter" in their kingdom.
Hindu Culture, traditions and Education:
Hindu extremists picturise Mughal kings as cruel invaders who destroyed hindu culture and traditions while actually history speaks quite opposite to this claim.
In Akbar's reign, cities like Banaras, Mithila, Navadwipa, Kashmir, Multan, Sirhind, Thatta and Gujarath flourished as centers for Hindu Education and culture.
Some of Hindu scholars and poets in the 'Cruel Invaders'' court were:
Akbar- Gangadhar, Mahesh, Kishun Joshi, Bhagawan, Tansen, Raja Todar Mal, Narahari Mahaprata, Ganga, Brahmadatta, Raja, Askaran, Manohar.
Jahangir- Jadrup Gosain, Rai Manohar lal, Bishun Das. Raja Surja Singh presented a hindu poet to Jahangir who was inpressed and gave an elephant to him as present.
Shah Jahan- Jagannath Pandith (author of Ras Gangadhar), Siromani Mishra, Vedanga Rai, Harinath (he was gited a horse, an elephant and one lakh Dawrs).
Dara Shukoh- Chanda Bham (a brahmin from Lahore)
Aurangazeb- Birdas, Bhushan, Brinda, Iswardas, Bhimsen.
Aurangazeb who is considered as a deadly enemy of Hindus, learned hindi and even appreciated hindu cultures and traditions. He had Raja Jai Singh, a hindu as his strong Nobel who faught with Shivaji (who is considered as the protector of hindu religion by RSS/VHP hindu extremists). Shivaji inturn had a pathan (muslim) unit under him and one of his strong aides was Didi Ibrahim, a muslim.
Caste System:
Tons of books are written on caste system that prevailed in Hindu society. Mughals were opposed this caste system but used to be genlte in this matter because they did not want to interfere in hindu religious sentiments. Brahmins used to ill treat lower castes called Shudras and Panchum Bundum. They were beaten up quite often if they tried to enter into villages. they were supposed to live in the village outskirts. Francis Euchanan in his book 'Journey from Madras through the countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar writes that Brahmins never touched the plough and their farms were cultivated by shudras.Brahmins used to torture Parriars (Panchun Bandhum is divided into Parriar, Baluan, Schliar, Toti classes) if they tried to enter Brahmin temples or try to participate in their prayers of processions. Shudras were given their own temples and Brahman priests would never enter those temples. They considered a shame for themselves to pray to these 'low level' Gods of shudras. Brahmins used to travel in night along with their desciples beause they use to consider that other travellers (muslims and christians) would not give them the respect they deserve if they travel in the night. Parriars were treated so badly that no one would take the charity they gave. But Francis notes that if the parriars gave 1000 or 2000 pagodas, Brahmins used to accept.
He further writes that Hyder Ali, the king of Mysore used to give Shudras farms of their own and was 'so sensible of their feelings that he would not let them suffer by calling them by their proper name (shudras). He ordered that they should be called cultivators'.
Akbar issued orders declaring a marriage illegal if the girl was elder than the boy. If the girl was more elder by more than 12 years, the marriage was considered as illegal. This was to show respect to the Brahmins who strongly practiced ManuSmriti (hindu book of law) which says that the Bridegroom must be elder than the Bride. It should be noted here that Islam allowed marriages where the bride was elder than the bridegroom.
References: Glimpses of Social Life in Mughal India by Professor P.N.Ojha, Relevance of Gandhian thought by K.M.P Verma.
The hindu extremists and terrorists who are spreading lies about Muslim rulers so that they can keep their anti-muslim propaganda (which is the fuel for their movement) forgot that they can hide the history but can not change it.
Treatment of women and the 'Sati':
Hindu extremists claim that Sati (burning the wife along with his husband's corpse) was practiced to protect the husbandless widow from the 'cruel Muslim ruler' who would take her away and rape her. As if the ruler had nothing else to do other than searching for widows and raping them.
Lets look into History:
Sati was the name of Lord Shiva's (hindu God) wife. She burnt herself alive after cursing her own father for insulting her husband. In olden days, Indians used to regard the practice of Sati (burning wife along with his husband's corpse) as a religious ceremony. They believed Sati to be the 'highest virtue' of a woman. Brahman priests used to force Sati on women. If any lady is unwilling, the people would doubt her fidelity and affection towards her departed husband.
What Muslim Emporers did:
Akbar, one of the muslim rulers was the first king to take Sati seriously. He gave an order which stated "If a woman wants to practice sati on her will, she should not be stoped. But no woman must be forced Sati"
Aurangazeb, who was more strict in this aspect issued orders as soon as he came back from Kashmir in Dec. 1663 AD "In all hands under Mughal control, never again should the officials allow a woman to be burnt".
Polygamy:
Polygamy was practiced by both muslims and hindus of that age especially the upper classes. Lower classes used to have only one wife irrespective of their religion. Mukundaram and Puija Madhava refer to a rich merchant marrying second wife khullana even though he had a wife (Lahana) and she was alive and had children. In Ghanaram chakravarty's 'Dhamamangal', Lausen had four wives namely Kalinga, Amala, Bimala, Kanara. Even the hindu scrptures allow marriage of more than one wife.
Hindu extremists who always point out fingure at Polygamy in Muslims have forgotten these facts and also that there are very few muslims who marry more than one wife in present India.
Cow Slaughter:
Akbar was the first Mughal king who prohibited killing of animals on 'sacred days'. He believed that killing cow was not good. He used to have food called 'Sufiyana food' which was purely vegitarian. This was surely somethingwhich was not taught by Islam. this was induced in him by his respect to Indian culture and beliefs.
Humayun considered beef was bad.
Another historian K.M.P Verma in his book 'Relevance of Gandhian Thought' says "Babar, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Ahmad Shah and Hyder Ali banned cow slaughter" in their kingdom.
Hindu Culture, traditions and Education:
Hindu extremists picturise Mughal kings as cruel invaders who destroyed hindu culture and traditions while actually history speaks quite opposite to this claim.
In Akbar's reign, cities like Banaras, Mithila, Navadwipa, Kashmir, Multan, Sirhind, Thatta and Gujarath flourished as centers for Hindu Education and culture.
Some of Hindu scholars and poets in the 'Cruel Invaders'' court were:
Akbar- Gangadhar, Mahesh, Kishun Joshi, Bhagawan, Tansen, Raja Todar Mal, Narahari Mahaprata, Ganga, Brahmadatta, Raja, Askaran, Manohar.
Jahangir- Jadrup Gosain, Rai Manohar lal, Bishun Das. Raja Surja Singh presented a hindu poet to Jahangir who was inpressed and gave an elephant to him as present.
Shah Jahan- Jagannath Pandith (author of Ras Gangadhar), Siromani Mishra, Vedanga Rai, Harinath (he was gited a horse, an elephant and one lakh Dawrs).
Dara Shukoh- Chanda Bham (a brahmin from Lahore)
Aurangazeb- Birdas, Bhushan, Brinda, Iswardas, Bhimsen.
Aurangazeb who is considered as a deadly enemy of Hindus, learned hindi and even appreciated hindu cultures and traditions. He had Raja Jai Singh, a hindu as his strong Nobel who faught with Shivaji (who is considered as the protector of hindu religion by RSS/VHP hindu extremists). Shivaji inturn had a pathan (muslim) unit under him and one of his strong aides was Didi Ibrahim, a muslim.
Caste System:
Tons of books are written on caste system that prevailed in Hindu society. Mughals were opposed this caste system but used to be genlte in this matter because they did not want to interfere in hindu religious sentiments. Brahmins used to ill treat lower castes called Shudras and Panchum Bundum. They were beaten up quite often if they tried to enter into villages. they were supposed to live in the village outskirts. Francis Euchanan in his book 'Journey from Madras through the countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar writes that Brahmins never touched the plough and their farms were cultivated by shudras.Brahmins used to torture Parriars (Panchun Bandhum is divided into Parriar, Baluan, Schliar, Toti classes) if they tried to enter Brahmin temples or try to participate in their prayers of processions. Shudras were given their own temples and Brahman priests would never enter those temples. They considered a shame for themselves to pray to these 'low level' Gods of shudras. Brahmins used to travel in night along with their desciples beause they use to consider that other travellers (muslims and christians) would not give them the respect they deserve if they travel in the night. Parriars were treated so badly that no one would take the charity they gave. But Francis notes that if the parriars gave 1000 or 2000 pagodas, Brahmins used to accept.
He further writes that Hyder Ali, the king of Mysore used to give Shudras farms of their own and was 'so sensible of their feelings that he would not let them suffer by calling them by their proper name (shudras). He ordered that they should be called cultivators'.
Akbar issued orders declaring a marriage illegal if the girl was elder than the boy. If the girl was more elder by more than 12 years, the marriage was considered as illegal. This was to show respect to the Brahmins who strongly practiced ManuSmriti (hindu book of law) which says that the Bridegroom must be elder than the Bride. It should be noted here that Islam allowed marriages where the bride was elder than the bridegroom.
References: Glimpses of Social Life in Mughal India by Professor P.N.Ojha, Relevance of Gandhian thought by K.M.P Verma.
The hindu extremists and terrorists who are spreading lies about Muslim rulers so that they can keep their anti-muslim propaganda (which is the fuel for their movement) forgot that they can hide the history but can not change it.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Pakistan contribution to Indian Muslim
In India, across the Indian Muslim community it is widely accepted now that the partition of India was the biggest blunder that happened. Instead of safeguarding the interests of the Indian Muslims it reduced the ones who continued to live in India to a position of significantly reduced significance. It impacted the most those who needed the biggest safeguards, the poorest of the poor. A significant portion of the educated cream of the Indian Muslim community migrated to Pakistan; some say they chickened out when the push came to shove. Most of the remaining Muslims in India were poor who would be just fighting to make their two ends meet.
The first silver lining in this was that India was formed as a secular and democratic state. The constitution of India recognized that every citizen will be absolutely equal in his rights and will be free to profess, practice and propagate his religion. The goals were set in the clearest way and the struggle was to achieve the goal and not about the goal itself. It has often been a struggle for the Indian Muslims no doubt but the question has not been the constitution but it has been about upholding the spirit of the constitution. The same Nehru who is often held responsible in Pakistan for the inflexibility fought to uphold the secular fabric of India.
The second is the demographics of the country. India is a unique country, one of its kind. It is like Western Europe put together in a single country. That is true whether you compare it in size, population, languages, cultures, cuisines, dress, habits and many other things. This fact itself makes it a land of huge diversity and contradictions unlike any other place in the world. This structure itself demands that people of different backgrounds have different needs in their daily lives. The result of that is the number of players that have emerged in the Indian political structure.
The identities are not Hindu and Muslim so much as the Muslim League would have thought or the BJP wants.
The result of this diversity has been that even after unleashing its whole might and propaganda machinery through RSS its political offshoot the BJP, at its zenith, could never get more than 25% of the votes. It is only in Gujarat that the worst fears of the Muslims have come true. Other than many of the leaders of BJP no political party questions the Muslims about their existential and cultural position. Many political parties acted as ‘messiah’ of the Muslims and paid just lip service yet perhaps no other party other than the exception of BJP pursued harming the interests of the Muslims.
The worst thing that can happen to the Indian Muslims is adding fuel to the propaganda machinery of the right wing. While Indian Muslims have their own weaknesses and moles that are responsible for this but the focus here is only on Pakistan’s contribution.
Firstly, by opposing India being a member of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC). In 1969, when OIC was formed and India lobbied to be included as it had the third largest Muslim population in the world Pakistan successfully lobbied against it. Pakistan looked at its strategic self-interests and not anything about safeguarding the Indian Muslims otherwise it was a significant move on the part of India to have made that move to be included in the organization as an Islamic country! If Gabon with just 10% Muslims (150,000 Muslim citizens) can be a member, it is a mockery that India with 150 million Muslims and till very recently having the second largest Muslim population on the planet is denied that status. If India was denied significant position vis a vis Muslim countries there was little incentive for her to put the strong feet of her Muslim cultural identity forward and sustain it.
Secondly, the most contentious issue of the way we look at history. The propaganda machinery of the Indian right wing does a great job in picking up all the opinions, lies and rumors against Muslim rulers and paint a picture that the presence of Muslims in India has been the biggest damage and tragedy to the Indian civilization. Whereas invaders like Ghauri and Ghaznavi are understandably condemned even the Mughals who lived in India as their own home are termed as foreigners. While Indian Muslims look at the past as a syncretic culture of great tolerance the Pakistani reading of history is music to the ears of the right wing in India. When Pakistan builds its missile programme it names these weapons as Ghauri, Ghaznavi and Babur as instruments to attack India
This just reiterates the point to every Indian listening to them and reinforcing the deep rooted prejudices.
It matters little to both the sides on this reading of history – of Hindus pitted against Muslims in the medieval ages - that Babur defeated a Muslim Ibrahim Lodhi at Delhi’s throne, Ghauri defeated Prithvi Raj’s army which was led by a Muslim and Ghaznavi had one of his top generals who was a Hindu named Tilak. It also matters little in this reading of history that when Akbar and Maharana Pratap fought at Haldighati then Akbar’s army was led by a Hindu Raja Man Singh and Maharana Pratap’s army was led by a Muslim Hakim Khan Suri. It also matters little in this reading that the Sikh Guru Arjan Dev who was executed by Aurangzeb had the foundation stone of Golden Temple laid by Mian Mir a sufi saint and had included so many sufi songs in the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib. Or that Shivaji who fought with Aurangzeb had a Pathan unit and one of his most trusted aides was Didi Ibrahim, a Muslim and that Aurangzeb sent Raja Jaisingh, a Hindu to fight him. Or that when Babur defeated Rana Sanga at Panipat the latter’s army had around 50,000 Muslim soldiers.
Thirdly, it is the treatment in Pakistan to its minorities. The fuel to the Sangh Parivar is that while the Muslim percentage in India has marginally increased since partition that of Hindus in Pakistan has significantly reduced and they are widely discriminated against at all levels. They say that if Hindu discrimination is so deep in Pakistan then why should Muslims of India claim anything better?
I don’t know about what the social context was in which partition happened but I now know for sure that the leaders who pursued it were shortsighted. Pakistan formed as an ‘Islamic’ country refused to acknowledge the rights of Bangla Muslims and the country split within 25 years. In its sixty years of existence it has been under military rule for a significant portion. The independent presence of judiciary is so impacted that its most famous Prime Ministers are either barred from entering their own country or hanged. A couple of weeks back Dina Wadia (daughter of Jinnah) wanted to spend her last days in Jinnah House in Bombay and not at any place in Pakistan. If today 13% Muslims can impact the political scene in India then definitely about 35% could have never been taken for a ride.
But today let us have bygones be bygones. India needs a strong Pakistan; not as an enemy but as a friendly neighbour. A neighbour that works with India in creating a South Asian super zone similar to the Euro Zone, by looking in the syncretic past and not by picking up twisted irritants from the past. The solution is not by putting Pakistan in contrast to India in everything particularly in identity but in drawing inspiration from the mutual past. Having multi billion dollar budgets to safeguard the borders in countries where still hundreds of millions of its citizens earn less than dollar a day is no way justifiable. Working on projects of recreating national boundaries will not solve anything as we have seen. But peace and respect among the largest ethnic population on the face of the earth can create wonders. It will make life easier for India’s Muslims too as the propaganda machinery of the Sangh Parivar will have lesser fuel to add to the fire.
The first silver lining in this was that India was formed as a secular and democratic state. The constitution of India recognized that every citizen will be absolutely equal in his rights and will be free to profess, practice and propagate his religion. The goals were set in the clearest way and the struggle was to achieve the goal and not about the goal itself. It has often been a struggle for the Indian Muslims no doubt but the question has not been the constitution but it has been about upholding the spirit of the constitution. The same Nehru who is often held responsible in Pakistan for the inflexibility fought to uphold the secular fabric of India.
The second is the demographics of the country. India is a unique country, one of its kind. It is like Western Europe put together in a single country. That is true whether you compare it in size, population, languages, cultures, cuisines, dress, habits and many other things. This fact itself makes it a land of huge diversity and contradictions unlike any other place in the world. This structure itself demands that people of different backgrounds have different needs in their daily lives. The result of that is the number of players that have emerged in the Indian political structure.
The identities are not Hindu and Muslim so much as the Muslim League would have thought or the BJP wants.
The result of this diversity has been that even after unleashing its whole might and propaganda machinery through RSS its political offshoot the BJP, at its zenith, could never get more than 25% of the votes. It is only in Gujarat that the worst fears of the Muslims have come true. Other than many of the leaders of BJP no political party questions the Muslims about their existential and cultural position. Many political parties acted as ‘messiah’ of the Muslims and paid just lip service yet perhaps no other party other than the exception of BJP pursued harming the interests of the Muslims.
The worst thing that can happen to the Indian Muslims is adding fuel to the propaganda machinery of the right wing. While Indian Muslims have their own weaknesses and moles that are responsible for this but the focus here is only on Pakistan’s contribution.
Firstly, by opposing India being a member of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC). In 1969, when OIC was formed and India lobbied to be included as it had the third largest Muslim population in the world Pakistan successfully lobbied against it. Pakistan looked at its strategic self-interests and not anything about safeguarding the Indian Muslims otherwise it was a significant move on the part of India to have made that move to be included in the organization as an Islamic country! If Gabon with just 10% Muslims (150,000 Muslim citizens) can be a member, it is a mockery that India with 150 million Muslims and till very recently having the second largest Muslim population on the planet is denied that status. If India was denied significant position vis a vis Muslim countries there was little incentive for her to put the strong feet of her Muslim cultural identity forward and sustain it.
Secondly, the most contentious issue of the way we look at history. The propaganda machinery of the Indian right wing does a great job in picking up all the opinions, lies and rumors against Muslim rulers and paint a picture that the presence of Muslims in India has been the biggest damage and tragedy to the Indian civilization. Whereas invaders like Ghauri and Ghaznavi are understandably condemned even the Mughals who lived in India as their own home are termed as foreigners. While Indian Muslims look at the past as a syncretic culture of great tolerance the Pakistani reading of history is music to the ears of the right wing in India. When Pakistan builds its missile programme it names these weapons as Ghauri, Ghaznavi and Babur as instruments to attack India
This just reiterates the point to every Indian listening to them and reinforcing the deep rooted prejudices.
It matters little to both the sides on this reading of history – of Hindus pitted against Muslims in the medieval ages - that Babur defeated a Muslim Ibrahim Lodhi at Delhi’s throne, Ghauri defeated Prithvi Raj’s army which was led by a Muslim and Ghaznavi had one of his top generals who was a Hindu named Tilak. It also matters little in this reading of history that when Akbar and Maharana Pratap fought at Haldighati then Akbar’s army was led by a Hindu Raja Man Singh and Maharana Pratap’s army was led by a Muslim Hakim Khan Suri. It also matters little in this reading that the Sikh Guru Arjan Dev who was executed by Aurangzeb had the foundation stone of Golden Temple laid by Mian Mir a sufi saint and had included so many sufi songs in the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib. Or that Shivaji who fought with Aurangzeb had a Pathan unit and one of his most trusted aides was Didi Ibrahim, a Muslim and that Aurangzeb sent Raja Jaisingh, a Hindu to fight him. Or that when Babur defeated Rana Sanga at Panipat the latter’s army had around 50,000 Muslim soldiers.
Thirdly, it is the treatment in Pakistan to its minorities. The fuel to the Sangh Parivar is that while the Muslim percentage in India has marginally increased since partition that of Hindus in Pakistan has significantly reduced and they are widely discriminated against at all levels. They say that if Hindu discrimination is so deep in Pakistan then why should Muslims of India claim anything better?
I don’t know about what the social context was in which partition happened but I now know for sure that the leaders who pursued it were shortsighted. Pakistan formed as an ‘Islamic’ country refused to acknowledge the rights of Bangla Muslims and the country split within 25 years. In its sixty years of existence it has been under military rule for a significant portion. The independent presence of judiciary is so impacted that its most famous Prime Ministers are either barred from entering their own country or hanged. A couple of weeks back Dina Wadia (daughter of Jinnah) wanted to spend her last days in Jinnah House in Bombay and not at any place in Pakistan. If today 13% Muslims can impact the political scene in India then definitely about 35% could have never been taken for a ride.
But today let us have bygones be bygones. India needs a strong Pakistan; not as an enemy but as a friendly neighbour. A neighbour that works with India in creating a South Asian super zone similar to the Euro Zone, by looking in the syncretic past and not by picking up twisted irritants from the past. The solution is not by putting Pakistan in contrast to India in everything particularly in identity but in drawing inspiration from the mutual past. Having multi billion dollar budgets to safeguard the borders in countries where still hundreds of millions of its citizens earn less than dollar a day is no way justifiable. Working on projects of recreating national boundaries will not solve anything as we have seen. But peace and respect among the largest ethnic population on the face of the earth can create wonders. It will make life easier for India’s Muslims too as the propaganda machinery of the Sangh Parivar will have lesser fuel to add to the fire.
RSS Poisoning Children
In Orissa, over the last five years the Sangh Parivar's tentacles have spread and thickened. Minorities, refugees, and the poor -- the social crevices in which they live narrow from neglect. The disenfranchised struggle to confront social violence. The annexation of territory and resources from the subaltern, the imposition of virulent ideologies and alienating economies, have produced diverse identity politics defining contested practices of citizenship. At the intersections of globalization and hyper nationalism, Hindutva intervenes, unravelling the fragile fabric of democracy.
The communalization of education is a serious concern across India. Sectarian education campaigns undertaken by Hindu extremist groups demonize minorities through the teaching of fundamentalist curricula. Such corruption of education incites the political and social fires of communalism. The RSS has spearheaded the movement, successfully penetrating into the educational systems of both the grassroots and centralized regulatory commissions. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has fashioned an institutional umbrella that is having a damaging impact on education at the grassroots. The RSS has established Vanvasi Kalyan Parishads, Vivekananda Kendras, Sewa Bharatis and other groups to advance the ideological agenda of Hindu nationalism. The RSS administers 9,300 Ekal Vidyalayas in adivasi areas. For the diversity of cultures allied under the rubric of 'adivasi', the ongoing reality of Hinduization offers evidence of their gradual and brutal incorporation into this caste system.
Created by the RSS in 1978, the Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan network focuses on moral, extracurricular and physical education for 'mind, body and spirit'. The Vidya Bharati system supervises over 18,000 schools across India, with 1.8 million students and 80,000 teachers. A shared curriculum is used across the country. The Vidya Bharati operates 60 graduate institutions. About 5,000 Vidya Bharatis are endorsed by Education Boards primarily in states where the Bharatiya Janata Party is in power..
Known as Shiksha Vikas Samiti, Vidya Bharati directs 391 Saraswati Shishu Mandir schools with 111,000 students in Orissa. The RSS has constructed a network of educational institutions across the state. Initially the RSS maintained a public distance between the Sangh and Vidya Bharati. In recent years, as Hindutva consolidates its position in Orissa, the RSS has actively declared its affiliation with these schools. Rashtra Deepa, the RSS Oriya weekly, regularly chronicles some of the academic aspirations of the Sangh Parivar. Most RSS run schools are affiliated with the State Board of Education and adhere to the state approved curricula. As the Sangh infiltrates into regulatory bodies and actively leads the rewriting of textbooks and reorganization of the curriculum, the classroom transforms into an agent of Hindutva.
With the increasing impetus on the privatization of education, the RSS has been actively inaugurating schools in areas across Orissa where the government fails to provide public funding. The vigorous assertion of Sanskrit provides for the erasure and Hinduization of minority languages. History, science, geography, literature, religious texts are interpreted into Hindutva. These texts, written in Oriya, are taught in schools and available in bookstores. The texts weave disparaging and malevolent fictions about minority groups, inciting Hindus to revenge history. The curriculum is censored and obscurantist, interpreted to legitimate the sanctity of a 'Hindu worldview' in India and the assembling of a Hindu state. It enables Hindu nationalism in advancing 'righteous' violence for ethnic cleansing. The RSS broadcasts this education as 'holistic', patriotic and accessible.
These schools are financed by individual donations and contributions from various charitable organizations such as the Mumbai based Bhansali Trust. These schools also offer income generation and computer skills. They serve as gathering places for Sangh organizations providing youth contact with Hindutva leaders. Parents say they are drawn to RSS run schools because they are affordable and profess to educate children in culture and religion, history and ritual.
Students receive ideological training through extra-curricular activity as well. They participate in development work and disaster relief, politicizing education and linking it to social service. An RSS worker in Bhubaneswar speaks with pride. "We ask people to devote one hour a day for their country, in the name of the motherland. To gather in a field and play Indian games; with sticks, swords, other exercises, teach youth to march, some musical instruments. And then we workers discuss the ideology of the RSS -- what Hinduism is, how Hindu culture was great and how it is fading, how the youth must become involved to revive and purify it."
Through regular educational camps, he continues, the RSS recruits teachers and campaigners. Their task is to draw people to the Sangh. "To convince people that the country is in danger, the motherland is in danger. To tell people that no matter who they are, if they return to Hinduism there is place for them in the nation." After training, RSS state and district units send campaigners to serve within the different wings of the Sangh Parivar, and to the rural areas to recruit and organize the Sangh cadre.
The RSS holds month long training sessions across Orissa during summer vacations to attract students and young children. From these sessions, the RSS recruits for the Officers Training Camps (OTC). Held twice a year, the OTC provides schooling in self-defense and leadership. Around 500 people attend each year. On completion, approximately100 join the organization as campaigners. Graduates take an oath, "I will devote my body, mind, and money (tana, mana, bhana) to the motherland." For about 10 recruits, this develops into a lifelong, intense and full time commitment. Each December, the RSS organizes the Sita Shibir, a 7-10 day winter camp. The families of attendees finance the camps. The growth of the RSS testifies to the success of these camps. The RSS boasts of 50,000 shakhas in India, 2500 in Orissa with a 100,000 strong cadre.
In Orissa, the RSS charges that aggressive Hinduization is a 'rational' and warranted response to, among other factors, the growth of missionary activity leading to an increase in the Christian population. In fact, Christians constitute less than 3 percent of the population in the state, with a 1 percent increase since 1981. The Christian population in India does not record any appreciable increase from 2.6 percent in 1971, to 2.43 in 1981, 2.34 in 1991, and 2.6 in 2001.
History is animated through extra curricular activities, seminars and workshops. New heroes, timelines, events emerge to construct India's antiquity, to naturalize her geo-political borders, to define her heritage as Hindu. History is rewritten to determine belonging and un-belonging. Difference is represented as 'other', a threat to the integrity of India as a Hindu nation, unless manipulated and straitjacketed. A whole new generation is being grown indoctrinated in Hindutva. It is a devious strategy to teach hate to the young.
The communalization of education is a serious concern across India. Sectarian education campaigns undertaken by Hindu extremist groups demonize minorities through the teaching of fundamentalist curricula. Such corruption of education incites the political and social fires of communalism. The RSS has spearheaded the movement, successfully penetrating into the educational systems of both the grassroots and centralized regulatory commissions. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has fashioned an institutional umbrella that is having a damaging impact on education at the grassroots. The RSS has established Vanvasi Kalyan Parishads, Vivekananda Kendras, Sewa Bharatis and other groups to advance the ideological agenda of Hindu nationalism. The RSS administers 9,300 Ekal Vidyalayas in adivasi areas. For the diversity of cultures allied under the rubric of 'adivasi', the ongoing reality of Hinduization offers evidence of their gradual and brutal incorporation into this caste system.
Created by the RSS in 1978, the Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan network focuses on moral, extracurricular and physical education for 'mind, body and spirit'. The Vidya Bharati system supervises over 18,000 schools across India, with 1.8 million students and 80,000 teachers. A shared curriculum is used across the country. The Vidya Bharati operates 60 graduate institutions. About 5,000 Vidya Bharatis are endorsed by Education Boards primarily in states where the Bharatiya Janata Party is in power..
Known as Shiksha Vikas Samiti, Vidya Bharati directs 391 Saraswati Shishu Mandir schools with 111,000 students in Orissa. The RSS has constructed a network of educational institutions across the state. Initially the RSS maintained a public distance between the Sangh and Vidya Bharati. In recent years, as Hindutva consolidates its position in Orissa, the RSS has actively declared its affiliation with these schools. Rashtra Deepa, the RSS Oriya weekly, regularly chronicles some of the academic aspirations of the Sangh Parivar. Most RSS run schools are affiliated with the State Board of Education and adhere to the state approved curricula. As the Sangh infiltrates into regulatory bodies and actively leads the rewriting of textbooks and reorganization of the curriculum, the classroom transforms into an agent of Hindutva.
With the increasing impetus on the privatization of education, the RSS has been actively inaugurating schools in areas across Orissa where the government fails to provide public funding. The vigorous assertion of Sanskrit provides for the erasure and Hinduization of minority languages. History, science, geography, literature, religious texts are interpreted into Hindutva. These texts, written in Oriya, are taught in schools and available in bookstores. The texts weave disparaging and malevolent fictions about minority groups, inciting Hindus to revenge history. The curriculum is censored and obscurantist, interpreted to legitimate the sanctity of a 'Hindu worldview' in India and the assembling of a Hindu state. It enables Hindu nationalism in advancing 'righteous' violence for ethnic cleansing. The RSS broadcasts this education as 'holistic', patriotic and accessible.
These schools are financed by individual donations and contributions from various charitable organizations such as the Mumbai based Bhansali Trust. These schools also offer income generation and computer skills. They serve as gathering places for Sangh organizations providing youth contact with Hindutva leaders. Parents say they are drawn to RSS run schools because they are affordable and profess to educate children in culture and religion, history and ritual.
Students receive ideological training through extra-curricular activity as well. They participate in development work and disaster relief, politicizing education and linking it to social service. An RSS worker in Bhubaneswar speaks with pride. "We ask people to devote one hour a day for their country, in the name of the motherland. To gather in a field and play Indian games; with sticks, swords, other exercises, teach youth to march, some musical instruments. And then we workers discuss the ideology of the RSS -- what Hinduism is, how Hindu culture was great and how it is fading, how the youth must become involved to revive and purify it."
Through regular educational camps, he continues, the RSS recruits teachers and campaigners. Their task is to draw people to the Sangh. "To convince people that the country is in danger, the motherland is in danger. To tell people that no matter who they are, if they return to Hinduism there is place for them in the nation." After training, RSS state and district units send campaigners to serve within the different wings of the Sangh Parivar, and to the rural areas to recruit and organize the Sangh cadre.
The RSS holds month long training sessions across Orissa during summer vacations to attract students and young children. From these sessions, the RSS recruits for the Officers Training Camps (OTC). Held twice a year, the OTC provides schooling in self-defense and leadership. Around 500 people attend each year. On completion, approximately100 join the organization as campaigners. Graduates take an oath, "I will devote my body, mind, and money (tana, mana, bhana) to the motherland." For about 10 recruits, this develops into a lifelong, intense and full time commitment. Each December, the RSS organizes the Sita Shibir, a 7-10 day winter camp. The families of attendees finance the camps. The growth of the RSS testifies to the success of these camps. The RSS boasts of 50,000 shakhas in India, 2500 in Orissa with a 100,000 strong cadre.
In Orissa, the RSS charges that aggressive Hinduization is a 'rational' and warranted response to, among other factors, the growth of missionary activity leading to an increase in the Christian population. In fact, Christians constitute less than 3 percent of the population in the state, with a 1 percent increase since 1981. The Christian population in India does not record any appreciable increase from 2.6 percent in 1971, to 2.43 in 1981, 2.34 in 1991, and 2.6 in 2001.
History is animated through extra curricular activities, seminars and workshops. New heroes, timelines, events emerge to construct India's antiquity, to naturalize her geo-political borders, to define her heritage as Hindu. History is rewritten to determine belonging and un-belonging. Difference is represented as 'other', a threat to the integrity of India as a Hindu nation, unless manipulated and straitjacketed. A whole new generation is being grown indoctrinated in Hindutva. It is a devious strategy to teach hate to the young.
Hindu Extremism being Ignored
The American media often has a lot to say about Islamic militants and Muslims who commit violence in the Middle East, and it is true that they pose a threat to others (as well as to other Muslims). However, that same media typically ignores similar extremism and similar violence committed by Hindu nationalists in India.
Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at Freedom House’s Centre for Religious Freedom who recently published a book on the rise of Hindu extremism in India, writes that a country once personified by Mahatma Gandhi is fast becoming known for religious hatred and violence. While India remains the world’s largest democracy, the ruling BJP is linked to Hindu extremist groups like the RSS, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which mount hate campaigns and sometimes-violent attacks against religious minorities and demand that Hinduism dominate society and politics. The RSS was founded by admirers of fascism and Nazism, produced Gandhi’s murderers and is now perhaps the world’s largest paramilitary organisation, with millions of members, he adds.
India's political traditions are founded upon liberalism, democracy, and tolerance - but the growth of extremism in that nation threatens those foundations, and threatens to ignite not only internal violence, but also conflict with other nations like Pakistan. There are justifiable concerns about the possibility of Muslim extremists taking over in Pakistan, a country with nuclear weapons, but we should have similar concerns about India as well - a country which is much larger, more powerful, and which possess more nuclear weapons than Pakistan.
This is an article written by Austin Cline from about.com
Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at Freedom House’s Centre for Religious Freedom who recently published a book on the rise of Hindu extremism in India, writes that a country once personified by Mahatma Gandhi is fast becoming known for religious hatred and violence. While India remains the world’s largest democracy, the ruling BJP is linked to Hindu extremist groups like the RSS, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which mount hate campaigns and sometimes-violent attacks against religious minorities and demand that Hinduism dominate society and politics. The RSS was founded by admirers of fascism and Nazism, produced Gandhi’s murderers and is now perhaps the world’s largest paramilitary organisation, with millions of members, he adds.
India's political traditions are founded upon liberalism, democracy, and tolerance - but the growth of extremism in that nation threatens those foundations, and threatens to ignite not only internal violence, but also conflict with other nations like Pakistan. There are justifiable concerns about the possibility of Muslim extremists taking over in Pakistan, a country with nuclear weapons, but we should have similar concerns about India as well - a country which is much larger, more powerful, and which possess more nuclear weapons than Pakistan.
This is an article written by Austin Cline from about.com
Friday, October 5, 2007
Hindu Extremism On The Rise In India
Conservative News Service, Feb 14, 2000
NEW DELHI, India (CNS) -- Hindu fundamentalist groups in India are trying to curb the activities of other religious groups and control the "expressions" of those not conforming to their world view, according to analysts here. As examples, analysts point to Hindu attempts to change the Indian constitution in ways that would curb artistic free expression and restrict the right of minority Christians and Muslims to preach and practice their religion freely.
"Increasing intolerance among the Hindu fundamentalist organizations, which pose a grave threat to democracy, are an indication of the rise of fascist forces in India," said politics professor M. Mohanty of Delhi University.
"What happened with European fascism is now happening with the Hindus," he told CNSNews.com.
Kanti Bajpai, professor of international politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, agreed, telling CNSNews.com that "the rise of right-wing politics in India is far more advanced and violent than in Austria."
More than 80 percent of India's nearly one billion people are Hindus. Muslims form a sizeable minority of around 15 percent, while just 2.5 percent are Christians.
Although Hindu fundamentalist leaders have formally denied responsibility for attacks on minority religious communities, their propaganda is characterized by threats of violence.
In Orissa, where Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were murdered 13 months ago, the local government passed an order last November prohibiting religious conversions without the prior permission of the local police and a district magistrate.
The order, an amendment to the 1967 Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, stipulates that a citizen wishing to convert must undergo a police inquiry to explain his or her reasons.
India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has passed a bill restricting the building and use of places of worship. It is awaiting the approval of the Indian president.
The western state of Gujarat recently lifted a ban on government employees being members of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (national self-service organization, or RSS).
The RSS, which claims to be a socio-cultural organization, is the main think tank of several fundamentalist bodies in India, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The RSS functions as the principal guardian of Hindu ideology.
An RRS member assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. It has been banned three times since independence for its activities.
Also in Gujarat, lawmakers soon will debate a draft Freedom of Religion Bill, which makes it a criminal offense to use force or fraud in converting a person from one religion to another.
Hindu fundamentalists forced an Indo-Canadian movie director, Deepa Mehta, from filming a movie that reportedly depicted an upper caste Hindu widow falling in love with a lower caste laborer as well as widows being forced into prostitution by those in the upper castes.
Taking exception to the storyline of "Water," activists said it "tarnished the image of the country and Hindus."
Actress Nandita Das, who stars in "Water," said the fanatics were misleading people and causing trouble for the whole society "in a country known for its unity in diversity."
Political scientist Mohanty warned that the greatest danger to India's "extremely strained social fabric" may come not from Sikh or Muslim separatists, but from Hindu fundamentalists.
The vice-president of the ruling BJP, J.P. Mathur, said Hindus were known for their tolerance, but that "Muslim fundamentalism has now forced us to raise our head and counter it. It is all because of the survival of the fittest."
India has a long history of violence between the Hindu majority and Muslims. Recently, Christians also have been targeted.
The New Delhi-based United Christian Forum for Human Rights has documented more than 120 attacks against Christian individuals, churches, and schools, allegedly by Hindu fundamentalists, in the past year. Half of the incidents have occurred in Gujarat.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Delhi, Alan de Lastic, said extremists were employing a national-level strategy to try to stem the influence of Christians.
"It is more pronounced in states where there is a government affiliated to the Hindu ideology and a small Christian population," he said.
A resurgence of Hindu fundamentalism has taken place over the past decade, beginning with an RSS television campaign in the late 1980s to forge a self-conscious collective Hindu identity.
In 1991, present Home Minister L. K. Advani undertook a historic "chariot journey" from a Hindu temple in Gujarat to the legendary birthplace of the Hindu god Ram.
The symbolic journey helped transform the BJP from marginal group with just two seats in parliament a decade ago to the ruling party today.
In 1992, Muslims became the main targets of Hindus with the destruction of a mosque built in the 16th century on a site some Hindus believe a Hindu temple once stood.
International politics professor Bajpai compared the strategy used by the RSS to that of Joerg Haider and the Freedom Party in Austria.
"The right here too advocates extreme and flagrant positions and then retreats and recants as a way of disarming critics and opponents - and succeeds only too well."
The fundamentalists had also used the fear of "outsiders within" to build a support base.
"Immigration has been one way of doing this, but more important here has been the portrayal of religious and ethnic minorities as aliens whose loyalty to the nation is questionable," Bajpai explained.
"Measures need to be taken to curb this trend, otherwise it will destroy the multi-cultural fabric of India," warned Mohanty.
NEW DELHI, India (CNS) -- Hindu fundamentalist groups in India are trying to curb the activities of other religious groups and control the "expressions" of those not conforming to their world view, according to analysts here. As examples, analysts point to Hindu attempts to change the Indian constitution in ways that would curb artistic free expression and restrict the right of minority Christians and Muslims to preach and practice their religion freely.
"Increasing intolerance among the Hindu fundamentalist organizations, which pose a grave threat to democracy, are an indication of the rise of fascist forces in India," said politics professor M. Mohanty of Delhi University.
"What happened with European fascism is now happening with the Hindus," he told CNSNews.com.
Kanti Bajpai, professor of international politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, agreed, telling CNSNews.com that "the rise of right-wing politics in India is far more advanced and violent than in Austria."
More than 80 percent of India's nearly one billion people are Hindus. Muslims form a sizeable minority of around 15 percent, while just 2.5 percent are Christians.
Although Hindu fundamentalist leaders have formally denied responsibility for attacks on minority religious communities, their propaganda is characterized by threats of violence.
In Orissa, where Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were murdered 13 months ago, the local government passed an order last November prohibiting religious conversions without the prior permission of the local police and a district magistrate.
The order, an amendment to the 1967 Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, stipulates that a citizen wishing to convert must undergo a police inquiry to explain his or her reasons.
India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has passed a bill restricting the building and use of places of worship. It is awaiting the approval of the Indian president.
The western state of Gujarat recently lifted a ban on government employees being members of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (national self-service organization, or RSS).
The RSS, which claims to be a socio-cultural organization, is the main think tank of several fundamentalist bodies in India, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The RSS functions as the principal guardian of Hindu ideology.
An RRS member assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. It has been banned three times since independence for its activities.
Also in Gujarat, lawmakers soon will debate a draft Freedom of Religion Bill, which makes it a criminal offense to use force or fraud in converting a person from one religion to another.
Hindu fundamentalists forced an Indo-Canadian movie director, Deepa Mehta, from filming a movie that reportedly depicted an upper caste Hindu widow falling in love with a lower caste laborer as well as widows being forced into prostitution by those in the upper castes.
Taking exception to the storyline of "Water," activists said it "tarnished the image of the country and Hindus."
Actress Nandita Das, who stars in "Water," said the fanatics were misleading people and causing trouble for the whole society "in a country known for its unity in diversity."
Political scientist Mohanty warned that the greatest danger to India's "extremely strained social fabric" may come not from Sikh or Muslim separatists, but from Hindu fundamentalists.
The vice-president of the ruling BJP, J.P. Mathur, said Hindus were known for their tolerance, but that "Muslim fundamentalism has now forced us to raise our head and counter it. It is all because of the survival of the fittest."
India has a long history of violence between the Hindu majority and Muslims. Recently, Christians also have been targeted.
The New Delhi-based United Christian Forum for Human Rights has documented more than 120 attacks against Christian individuals, churches, and schools, allegedly by Hindu fundamentalists, in the past year. Half of the incidents have occurred in Gujarat.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Delhi, Alan de Lastic, said extremists were employing a national-level strategy to try to stem the influence of Christians.
"It is more pronounced in states where there is a government affiliated to the Hindu ideology and a small Christian population," he said.
A resurgence of Hindu fundamentalism has taken place over the past decade, beginning with an RSS television campaign in the late 1980s to forge a self-conscious collective Hindu identity.
In 1991, present Home Minister L. K. Advani undertook a historic "chariot journey" from a Hindu temple in Gujarat to the legendary birthplace of the Hindu god Ram.
The symbolic journey helped transform the BJP from marginal group with just two seats in parliament a decade ago to the ruling party today.
In 1992, Muslims became the main targets of Hindus with the destruction of a mosque built in the 16th century on a site some Hindus believe a Hindu temple once stood.
International politics professor Bajpai compared the strategy used by the RSS to that of Joerg Haider and the Freedom Party in Austria.
"The right here too advocates extreme and flagrant positions and then retreats and recants as a way of disarming critics and opponents - and succeeds only too well."
The fundamentalists had also used the fear of "outsiders within" to build a support base.
"Immigration has been one way of doing this, but more important here has been the portrayal of religious and ethnic minorities as aliens whose loyalty to the nation is questionable," Bajpai explained.
"Measures need to be taken to curb this trend, otherwise it will destroy the multi-cultural fabric of India," warned Mohanty.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Orkut- Nursing place for Hindu extremists and terrorists
Orkut, one of the largest social networking site has turned into a nursing and breeding place for Hindu extremists who are spreading hatred for Islam and muslims openly. They have formed communities which have a decent description but the activities theses communities carry out are shocking. They are nursing hatred for Islam and muslims. These extremists do not feel shy to adopt most shameful moves to achieve their goals.
Here is a thread in the community (at Orkut) called HMG which claims itself to be the guard of Hindustan (India).
Hindu Extremists' war strategy against Islam at Orkut:
1. Creating false Muslim profiles and rising contraversial questions about Islam.
2. Abusing the community members.
3. Hacking Profiles of Muslims.
4. Hacking Islamic communities and filling vulgar and dirty language in them.
5. Hacking Islamic communities and deleting them.
6. Tracing out muslim members' addresses and threatening them.
7. Analysing Quran and Islam in their own way and distributing hatred filled, violent and false material among themselves and to other hindus.
A member called 'ILU- Hero no1' says-
"make another community named SHINING INDIA isnpired from HMG.dont abuse there, make it very large. make fake profile of female AND INCREASE THE MEMBER". This clearly shows the mentality of the members in the community.
"DO U KNOW WHAT IS OUR PROBLEM
70% HINDU THINKS MUSLIM WONT DAMAGE INDIA
WE MUST CHANGE THEIR THINKING WE KNOW THE FUTURE...
WE MUST CHANGE IT ACCORDING TO HINUISM
GUYS PLEASE SUPPORT ME I WILL BRING HINDUISM ON ORKUT EVEN MUSLIM WILL UTTER THE GAYATRI MANTRA..... "
"I HAVE SOLID PLAN...I RESEARCHED AND EVEN DID EXPERIMENT. 100% SECULAR CAN CONVERT TO RADICAL THINKERS. BELIEVE ME"
"do this...............
1] dont abuse anyone by hmg profile
2] u can add tag of hmg only to good profile
3] having hmg name profile should be used for discussing social scientific and intresting matters. it will help hmg to reach to heart of every hindu"
Another member Named Jim Morrison (Hindu) says-
Make loads of Fake Profiles of Muslim Girls.
Some of my thoughts are in:
"Marry Muslim Girls.
The recent developments in Bangalore and Calcutta are very disturbing and alarming in nature.Hindus should fight it back else God knows--> Sickular India-->???"
"Even though being an Indian citizen I must condemm the Murder of that SHIT (He is refering to Rizwanur Rehman who was murdered for marrying a Hindu girl in Kolkata, Bengal) in calcutta...but..There is no choice before the POOR DAD of that Silly Girl other than that.So one STRONG Message delivered to all the SHITS and these Silly Girls.Brand all the IDIOT girls who fall in so called love with these SHITs as Prostitutes and Breeding Ground of PIGS called Terrorists. "
Highly vulgar and indecent language used by memebers of HMG- Link
A member named Tango [Ή∙М∙Ģ]™© says "Kill moslems. save world. that's my aim"
Another member हॊय िहंदूच says "Muslims dharatipar boz hai. saale india me rehate hai aur pakistan ke liye kaam karate haigaddar muslims".
Hindutva Extremists' fight against Converted Hindus:
Hindu extremists have launched a war against Hindu people who have converted to Islam or christianity. Their war tactics are-
1. Abuse the converted people
2. Abuse their friends (especially girls)
3. Mass report abuse on their profiles so that those profiles get deleted!
A Hindu extremist community called Hindu- Hindutva calling for mass report of christian profles who are converted hindus.
Over the period of time Taliban and other Muslims were allegedly blamed for hard-line behaviour. In fact their slightest mistakes were magnified out of proportion, criticized, advertised to condemn them and they were forced to back track. Now with the latest ethnic cleansing, mass killing and burning alive carried out by VHP, Bajrang Dal, RSS under the patronage of BJP Government in Gujarat and attack on Orissa Assembly by VHP/ Bajrang Dal is not enough for us to even raise voice to ban these terrorist outfits. I feel ashamed by these acts of real terrorism by so called torch bearers of Hindutva. I think they are thousand times worse than Taliban. Minorities in India are loyal to India only because of Constitutional assurances that everybody has the freedom and security in our democratic and secular country. The present targeted killings of human beings in the remotest places of Gujarat are sending wrong signals to the world. This is high time for all those who want peace to stop RSS and its team of terrorists from forcing others to become terrorists by unjust killings. The children whose houses were burnt, men killed, property destroyed, women raped will naturally try to take revenge.... why should we allow to spread terror tactics of these cruel and fanatic RSS team. Will it be possible for us to have a peaceful and safe future with those who will try to take revenge without giving them justice?
"babri masjid was built destroying the Ram temple. so babri masjid was destroyed to build Ram temple.its the most simple and correct thing which has hapened on this earth.- Yhis was the view of a Hindu extremist named Aditya. Even after archeological digging was done under the destroyed Babri masjid, and was proved that there were no traces of any temple in that place, these extremists want to fight for the non existent building which Aurangazeb, the Moghal king destroyed according to them.
There is no point in fighting for things that happened centuries ago. Its foolishness of people and cunningness of sangh terrorists to take advantage of this. Its idiotic to think of taking revenge for what babar and aurangazeb did thousands of years ago. I agree that karunanidhi (the guy who reminded that Ramayana is a story written by a sage valmiki) should have presented his views in more decent manner. He should apoligise. But what about Advani, Bal thakrey and Thogadia who keep on commenting about Islamic traditions? We should oppose all kinds of terrorist activites may it be hindu or muslim.
Here is a thread in the community (at Orkut) called HMG which claims itself to be the guard of Hindustan (India).
Hindu Extremists' war strategy against Islam at Orkut:
1. Creating false Muslim profiles and rising contraversial questions about Islam.
2. Abusing the community members.
3. Hacking Profiles of Muslims.
4. Hacking Islamic communities and filling vulgar and dirty language in them.
5. Hacking Islamic communities and deleting them.
6. Tracing out muslim members' addresses and threatening them.
7. Analysing Quran and Islam in their own way and distributing hatred filled, violent and false material among themselves and to other hindus.
A member called 'ILU- Hero no1' says-
"make another community named SHINING INDIA isnpired from HMG.dont abuse there, make it very large. make fake profile of female AND INCREASE THE MEMBER". This clearly shows the mentality of the members in the community.
"DO U KNOW WHAT IS OUR PROBLEM
70% HINDU THINKS MUSLIM WONT DAMAGE INDIA
WE MUST CHANGE THEIR THINKING WE KNOW THE FUTURE...
WE MUST CHANGE IT ACCORDING TO HINUISM
GUYS PLEASE SUPPORT ME I WILL BRING HINDUISM ON ORKUT EVEN MUSLIM WILL UTTER THE GAYATRI MANTRA..... "
"I HAVE SOLID PLAN...I RESEARCHED AND EVEN DID EXPERIMENT. 100% SECULAR CAN CONVERT TO RADICAL THINKERS. BELIEVE ME"
"do this...............
1] dont abuse anyone by hmg profile
2] u can add tag of hmg only to good profile
3] having hmg name profile should be used for discussing social scientific and intresting matters. it will help hmg to reach to heart of every hindu"
Another member Named Jim Morrison (Hindu) says-
Make loads of Fake Profiles of Muslim Girls.
Some of my thoughts are in:
"Marry Muslim Girls.
The recent developments in Bangalore and Calcutta are very disturbing and alarming in nature.Hindus should fight it back else God knows--> Sickular India-->???"
"Even though being an Indian citizen I must condemm the Murder of that SHIT (He is refering to Rizwanur Rehman who was murdered for marrying a Hindu girl in Kolkata, Bengal) in calcutta...but..There is no choice before the POOR DAD of that Silly Girl other than that.So one STRONG Message delivered to all the SHITS and these Silly Girls.Brand all the IDIOT girls who fall in so called love with these SHITs as Prostitutes and Breeding Ground of PIGS called Terrorists. "
Highly vulgar and indecent language used by memebers of HMG- Link
A member named Tango [Ή∙М∙Ģ]™© says "Kill moslems. save world. that's my aim"
Another member हॊय िहंदूच says "Muslims dharatipar boz hai. saale india me rehate hai aur pakistan ke liye kaam karate haigaddar muslims".
Hindutva Extremists' fight against Converted Hindus:
Hindu extremists have launched a war against Hindu people who have converted to Islam or christianity. Their war tactics are-
1. Abuse the converted people
2. Abuse their friends (especially girls)
3. Mass report abuse on their profiles so that those profiles get deleted!
A Hindu extremist community called Hindu- Hindutva calling for mass report of christian profles who are converted hindus.
Over the period of time Taliban and other Muslims were allegedly blamed for hard-line behaviour. In fact their slightest mistakes were magnified out of proportion, criticized, advertised to condemn them and they were forced to back track. Now with the latest ethnic cleansing, mass killing and burning alive carried out by VHP, Bajrang Dal, RSS under the patronage of BJP Government in Gujarat and attack on Orissa Assembly by VHP/ Bajrang Dal is not enough for us to even raise voice to ban these terrorist outfits. I feel ashamed by these acts of real terrorism by so called torch bearers of Hindutva. I think they are thousand times worse than Taliban. Minorities in India are loyal to India only because of Constitutional assurances that everybody has the freedom and security in our democratic and secular country. The present targeted killings of human beings in the remotest places of Gujarat are sending wrong signals to the world. This is high time for all those who want peace to stop RSS and its team of terrorists from forcing others to become terrorists by unjust killings. The children whose houses were burnt, men killed, property destroyed, women raped will naturally try to take revenge.... why should we allow to spread terror tactics of these cruel and fanatic RSS team. Will it be possible for us to have a peaceful and safe future with those who will try to take revenge without giving them justice?
"babri masjid was built destroying the Ram temple. so babri masjid was destroyed to build Ram temple.its the most simple and correct thing which has hapened on this earth.- Yhis was the view of a Hindu extremist named Aditya. Even after archeological digging was done under the destroyed Babri masjid, and was proved that there were no traces of any temple in that place, these extremists want to fight for the non existent building which Aurangazeb, the Moghal king destroyed according to them.
There is no point in fighting for things that happened centuries ago. Its foolishness of people and cunningness of sangh terrorists to take advantage of this. Its idiotic to think of taking revenge for what babar and aurangazeb did thousands of years ago. I agree that karunanidhi (the guy who reminded that Ramayana is a story written by a sage valmiki) should have presented his views in more decent manner. He should apoligise. But what about Advani, Bal thakrey and Thogadia who keep on commenting about Islamic traditions? We should oppose all kinds of terrorist activites may it be hindu or muslim.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Panse's Terrorsit views
According to the report, Panse’s (Leader of Bharatiya Vidhyarti sena Organization) motive was to avenge the deaths of Hindus killed in terror attacks. Panse was convinced that the mastermind behind these attacks were underworld dons Abu Salem and Dawood Ibrahim.
The report says that Panse was “pained” by the terrorist attacks in Delhi and Varanasi. He felt that Hindus would be “treated as hijras” if they failed to take any action.
Feeling that retaliation was necessary to uphold Hindu honour, Panse decided after the Varanasi blasts to engineer explosions in Muslim-dominated areas in central Maharashtra with the target of killing at least 300-400 Muslims in each incident.
A closer look at all the recent blasts that have occurred in central Maharashtra reveal a pattern which seems to fit with Panse’s plan. All blasts (including the ones in Malegaon on September 8) occurred between 1.45pm and 2.00pm at the most prominent mosque in these towns, just after the Friday prayers, when attendance is maximum
The report says that Panse was “pained” by the terrorist attacks in Delhi and Varanasi. He felt that Hindus would be “treated as hijras” if they failed to take any action.
Feeling that retaliation was necessary to uphold Hindu honour, Panse decided after the Varanasi blasts to engineer explosions in Muslim-dominated areas in central Maharashtra with the target of killing at least 300-400 Muslims in each incident.
A closer look at all the recent blasts that have occurred in central Maharashtra reveal a pattern which seems to fit with Panse’s plan. All blasts (including the ones in Malegaon on September 8) occurred between 1.45pm and 2.00pm at the most prominent mosque in these towns, just after the Friday prayers, when attendance is maximum
Click above pic for source.
Saffron/Hindu Extremist Terror
Nanded, in Maharashtra, is a town with a significant population of different faiths – Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist. Nanded could well have become a new metaphor for secularism as practised in the Subcontinent, but this was not to be. Instead, Nanded has come to represent the emergent danger of a violent new brand of Hindu militancy, with due support from a section of the state machinery. A place that was once witness to the final days of Guru Gobind Singh, Sikhism’s Tenth Guru, has today metamorphosed into an epicentre of violent Hindutva. Indeed, Nanded represents the build-up of the violent fundamentalist Hinduism of the past half-century. The town has been witness to a new spate of acts that can be inarguably dubbed ‘terrorism’.
The inner workings of this new form of Hindutva were on show recently in two, evidently accidental, explosions in Nanded within a span of nine months, in April 2006 and February 2007. These blasts, which killed four people, took place at the houses of activists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena. The arrival of Nanded on India’s ‘terror’ map was followed by media investigations into similar previous incidents, which also showed the involvement of Hindu youth in terrorist actions.
The new element here is the increasing similarity between Hindu militancy and ‘terrorism’ of other hues. While various enquiry commissions have looked into riots in post-Independence India and corroborated the proactive role played by the RSS in instigating riots, the irony of the situation is that the organisation is still able to maintain its ‘missionary’ image. Part of this is because the group has long maintained a strict division of labour within its ranks, delegating much of the ‘dirty work’ to fringe workers. The Nanded blasts proved to be an exception to this pattern, as the RSS links were obvious. This is why, in the immediate aftermath of the explosions, the Sangh Parivar leadership went to great lengths to suppress the news. Indeed, activist friends of this writer in Maharashtra were themselves unaware that any such incident had taken place.
One set of blasts took place in a house belonging to Laxman Rajkondwar, an old RSS activist, and killed two youths belonging to the Bajrang Dal and RSS, while injuring three others. The explosives that were being made were to be used during the entry into Maharashtra of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani’s Bharat Suraksha Yatra, the idea being to warn of the grave security situation existing in the country. Later investigations found that the plan had been to instigate communal riots in Nanded that could have spread to adjoining areas. Such a situation, it was hoped, would boost the sagging morale of both the BJP and its ageing stalwart, Advani (see accompanying story, “Befuddled, jingoistic party”).
The aim was clearly to instigate a communal conflict. A police raid on one of the deceased’s houses found maps of nearby mosques, as well as clothes and caps usually worn by Muslims in the area, which the activists were going to wear to sneak into and attack the mosques and gurudwaras. The only thing still needed was explosives. The making of bombs in a house owned by an old RSS activist – one who supposedly also dealt in firecrackers, at that – seemed like the perfect plan.
Of course, the story neither begins nor ends in Nanded. Since 2003, at least five, and perhaps six, Hindutva-related explosions have taken place in central Maharashtra alone, in Parbhani, Purna, Jalna and Nanded. Malegaon also witnessed a bomb blast last year, killing 40 people, with strong indications of a Hindutva hand behind it. (The final picture will emerge after an ongoing investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation finishes.) Beyond the geographical similarities, the details of the attacks were uncanny: each took place between 1:45 and 2:00 in the afternoon, just after Friday prayers, at the most prominent mosque in town. (The bomb that went off in Nanded in 2006 exploded on 6 April, a Thursday, but was apparently meant to be set off at an Aurangabad masjid the following day.)
At the same time, this cannot be dubbed a Maharashtra-centric phenomenon. Madhya Pradesh’s former chief minister, Digvijay Singh, has publicly admitted to the involvement of various groups and individuals affiliated with the RSS in similar acts in his state. As for the rest of the country, no systematic study of saffron ‘terror’ has yet been undertaken. One reason for this could be the thin line that separates the different anushangik (affiliated) organisations of the RSS, thereby making it possible to move from the ‘legal’ to the ‘illegal’ without great effort. Indeed, there is every possibility that funds collected from the Hindu diaspora for philanthropic work might also have been channelled to further ‘terrorist’ activities.
Nonetheless, culturally integrated practices are being utilised to arm certain sections of the Hindu community. Back in 2001, Rajasthan’s then-Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot revealed that up to four million trishuls – six to eight inches long and sharp enough to kill – had been distributed by the Bajrang Dal to Hindu households across the country. Meanwhile, in 2002, a group in Orissa, under the district Shiv Sena unit, formed the first-ever Hindu suicide squad, aimed at countering Muslim ‘extremism’ in Jammu & Kashmir and elsewhere. More than 100 youths, including some women, are said to have joined the group.
Hindutva collusion
Nanded’s population is made up of around 500,000 Hindus, 200,000 Muslims and 100,000 Sikhs. The town has seen a significant amount of communal tension in the past, which spiked following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. In more recent years, this tension seems to have also spilled over into surrounding towns such as Parbhani, where, in November 2003, motorcycle-borne attackers hurled bombs into the midst of a large congregation of Muslims assembled for Friday papers. Although the identities of the Parbhani bomb-throwers were never traced, forensic tests following the Nanded blasts revealed that the accused were part of the same group of Hindu militants that had executed the attack in Parbhani.
Following the April 2006 blasts in Nanded, an odd silence ensued – in the local and national media, as well as in the local and national governments. There was also a disturbing lack of sincerity on the part of the investigating agencies in pursuing the case, despite appearing to have gathered significant evidence of the involvement of district and state leaders of the RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). As investigations by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and other rights organisations have made clear, the district administration even saw to it that news of the blasts did not receive wide coverage. After the initial excitement, district officials also allegedly pressured the local media not to follow the case any further.
The lackadaisical reaction also spread through those involved in local and national investigations. Local police made contradictory statements, and failed to make arrests in the initial stages. Despite the sensitive nature of the Nanded case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) expressed its “inability” to conduct the subsequent investigation. In response to a case filed by some social organisations against the tardiness of the investigations, the CBI filed a suo moto affidavit explaining that it was “overburdened” and had “limited hands to deal with such cases”. The cumulative effect of the half-hearted – or wholly obstructionist – initiatives, at both the state and central level, was to show the kid-glove treatment being meted out to India’s new breed of Hindutva militants. Secular activists questioned whether the reaction would have been similar had the explosions taken place in a minority-dominated area, and the involvement of some ‘fanatic’ Islamic group been detected.
The cavalier manner in which the probes of the Nanded blasts were undertaken may have prepared the ground for a stepping-up of similar activities in the area. On 10 February 2007, at little after midnight, biscuit boxes being hauled by 28-year-old Pandurang Ameelkanthwar in another area in Nanded exploded, killing him instantly. His cousin, Dnaneshwar Manikwar, sustained massive burns and died six days later. Ameelkanthwar had been a former shakha pramukh (branch head) of the Shiv Sena, and was also associated with the Bajrang Dal. He hailed from an area in Nanded called Rangargalli, a known hotbed of rightwing Hindu outfits.
A mere ‘fire-related accident’ was how state officials subsequently reported the incident. But preliminary findings of a civil-society inquiry suggest that Ameelkanthwar and Manikwar died due to handled planted explosives. Neighbours near the explosion also told the team that there had been a third person present at the time, who had also been injured but has been unaccounted for in subsequent reports.
These eyewitnesses also said that a police officer, who went on to be part of the official investigation, supervised the seizing and spiriting away of critical evidence from the spot. In their report, the civil-society investigators state that the Maharashtra police, particularly the superintendent and inspector-general, appeared to be in “undue haste to close all possibilities of a possible liquid-substance-driven explosion, preferring to quote oral findings of forensic experts from Aurangabad who are reported to have told them that it was a petrol-ignited fire”. Among other evidence, this conclusion is brought under serious suspicion by the fact the explosion threw the iron shutter of a nearby godown a distance of 40 feet – an extremely long way for a fire set off by burning gasoline.
The civil society team also refers to a “nexus between some police officials and the rightwing Hindu outfits”. According to the probe’s findings, Nanded Police Inspector Ramesh Bhurewar, who was leading the investigation of the 2006 Nanded blast, was also in charge of the investigation into the Parbhani blasts in November 2003. During the course of the long investigation, he had not made a single arrest. A First Information Report was only registered after a legislator raised a question in the state assembly. But following the Nanded blasts in April 2006, the accused admitted to having placed the bombs at Parbhani. As such, the civil-society report concludes: “The Nanded and state police are hence guilty of underplaying crimes wherein members of the minority community are the victims, causing a loss of face for the state police.”
In their conclusion, the fact-finding team demanded that the central government keep a close watch over the increasing incidence of Hindutva ‘terror’ activities. They also asked for independent investigations under a team of neutral officers; and impartial, public inquiries into the Nanded, Malegaon, Parbhani and Purna incidents, in order to ascertain whether state intelligence and police agencies are indeed professional and neutral enough to investigate instances of politically driven Hindutva violence.
History of hate
Post-Independence India is replete with examples of the participation of Hindu extremists in aggravating communal situations, targeting particular communities, and aiding and abetting riots. Those who have watched the organisation since its inception say that the ‘terrorism’ label may be modern, but the acts themselves, fundamentalist to the core, are decades old: making communally sensitive speeches that culminate in riots; leading religious processions in sensitive areas inhabited by Muslims and other minorities; and outright provocations leading people to engage in violence.
Rajeshwar Dayal, chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh at the time of Partition, provides in his 1999 memoirs A Life of Our Times details of another kind: damning evidence of RSS chief Golwalkar’s plans to conduct a pogrom against Muslims. Pyarelal Nayyar, Mohandas Gandhi’s secretary during those tumultuous times, adds to these accusations: “It was common knowledge that the RSS … had been behind the bulk of the killings in [Delhi] as also in various other parts of India.”
Contrary to the perception that the Sangh Parivar has gained momentum only since the 1990s, various commissions that have looked into communal riots since 1947 have gathered a significant body of evidence on the role of the RSS and affiliated organisations. The Reddy Commission, which in 1969 looked into rioting in Gujarat; the Justice Madon Commission, which analysed the riots in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra, in the early 1970s; the Justice Vithayathil Commission, which probed the 1971 Tellicherry riots – all of these provide solid details of the involvement of either the RSS or its mass political platform, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, in fomenting the trouble.
Justice Venugopal’s report, on the Kanyakumari riots of 1982, also severely indicted the RSS for its role in instigating riots against Christians. According to Justice Venugopal, the RSS methodology for provoking communal violence was as follows: rousing communal feelings in the majority community; deepening fear in the majority community; infiltrating into the state administration; training young people of the majority community in the use of weapons; and spreading rumours to widen communal splits. About the shakhas that the RSS organises under the rubric of physical training, Justice Venugopal said that the aim appeared to be “to inculcate an attitude of militancy and training for any kind of civil strife”.
It was only in 2004 that the Terrorism Research Centre (TRC), a US-based institute, declared the RSS a ‘terrorist organisation’, lumping it together with a host of jihadi and secessionist outfits, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the Hizb ul-Mujahideen. This new listing came close on the heels of an internationally embarrassing incident for the Hindutva-wallahs, wherein Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was denied a visa to travel to the US. The two slaps in the face left the Sangh Parivar bosses seething (although it took more than eight months for the RSS to formally react to the TRC’s assessment). But this was not the first time that Hindutva organisations had earned international opprobrium. In 2002, secular activists in the US brought out a thoroughly researched report called “Funding Hate”. For the first time, this document exposed how funds collected in the US by the India Development and Relief Fund (the IDRF, an umbrella organisation floated by the Hindutva brigade) were directly sponsoring sectarian violence in India.
Cover-up
One potential reason for the inability of the powers-that-be to establish a connection between Hindu militants and acts of terror in India could be the near absence of non-Hindus in the central government’s various intelligence wings. Whatever the reasons, this dearth is shocking. Barring the Intelligence Bureau, which has around 12,000 personnel and only a few Muslim officers, none of the other intelligence departments have even a single Muslim officer between them. From 1969 until today, neither the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) nor the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) has hired even one Muslim officer. (Following the Malegaon blasts, S M Mushrif, a retired India Police Service officer, publicly disparaged the Intelligence Bureau for having long been the source of “unsubstantiated rumours” due to “deep-seated bias”.) The state of affairs has inevitably led to what can be dubbed the government’s rather monochromatic presentation of the menace of terrorism in recent years, with sole responsibility for attacks almost immediately placed on various Islamist groups, regardless of evidence.
Despite a ‘secular’ coalition currently holding the reins of power at the Centre and in many of India’s state administrations, there have been depressingly few sincere attempts to move beyond post-9/11 mythology and the rhetoric of the ‘war on terror’, which demonises Islam. So complete is this perspective that it is difficult to decipher any qualitative difference between the ‘secular’ Congress and the ‘communal’ BJP in their responses to any act of ‘terror’. Instead, even while we have been witness to the dilly-dallying of the Congress following the Nanded and Malegaon blasts, the same Congress-led government had no qualms in targeting Muslims as a community after the July 2006 bomb blasts in Bombay. (In the immediate aftermath of the Bombay attacks, an anti-terrorist squad singled out the Muslim community for suspicion, and immediately began ‘combing’ operations.) The Maharashtra state administration has also shown its anti-Muslim bias in times of tragedy. Even while attesting to their sadness over the Malegaon blast, state officials saw to it that victims, the majority of whom were Muslim, received just a fifth of the compensation received by the victims of the Bombay blasts of 1993 – the majority of whom were Hindu.
The fallout of this situation has been the administrative failure to address terrorism unleashed by Hindutva activists and formations. One possible reason for the government’s ostrich-like position could be that, due to electoral considerations, nobody has wanted to displease the majority Hindus. While it is true that Hindutva groups are not currently in a majority at the Centre, the impact of Hindutva nonetheless transcends its strength in government. Note the inability of ‘secular’ groups to bring criminal cases against the likes of communal leaders like Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, and the champions of Hindutva: Praveen Togadia, Lal Krishna Advani or Narendra Modi. Indeed, the present-day Congress itself is a faint shadow of its Nehruvian avatar: after all, it ‘discovered’ the idea of ‘soft Hindutva’ two decades ago, in a bid to further its hold on the reins of power.
It is time that the public be made aware of the rising trajectory of Hindutva criminality. The dangerous understanding that a particular community, region or religious ideology is more prone towards ‘terrorist’ activities needs to be refuted at all costs. The people of Southasia in general, and India in particular, need to be convinced that there is no qualitative difference between the violent acts committed by LTTE suicide bombers, al-Qaeda jihadis, Khalistani militants or members of militant Hindutva organisations. This realisation could be the first step in organising simultaneous social and political strategies to expose, challenge and dissolve these groups.
The Author can be contacted at: subhash.gatade@gmail.com
The inner workings of this new form of Hindutva were on show recently in two, evidently accidental, explosions in Nanded within a span of nine months, in April 2006 and February 2007. These blasts, which killed four people, took place at the houses of activists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena. The arrival of Nanded on India’s ‘terror’ map was followed by media investigations into similar previous incidents, which also showed the involvement of Hindu youth in terrorist actions.
The new element here is the increasing similarity between Hindu militancy and ‘terrorism’ of other hues. While various enquiry commissions have looked into riots in post-Independence India and corroborated the proactive role played by the RSS in instigating riots, the irony of the situation is that the organisation is still able to maintain its ‘missionary’ image. Part of this is because the group has long maintained a strict division of labour within its ranks, delegating much of the ‘dirty work’ to fringe workers. The Nanded blasts proved to be an exception to this pattern, as the RSS links were obvious. This is why, in the immediate aftermath of the explosions, the Sangh Parivar leadership went to great lengths to suppress the news. Indeed, activist friends of this writer in Maharashtra were themselves unaware that any such incident had taken place.
One set of blasts took place in a house belonging to Laxman Rajkondwar, an old RSS activist, and killed two youths belonging to the Bajrang Dal and RSS, while injuring three others. The explosives that were being made were to be used during the entry into Maharashtra of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani’s Bharat Suraksha Yatra, the idea being to warn of the grave security situation existing in the country. Later investigations found that the plan had been to instigate communal riots in Nanded that could have spread to adjoining areas. Such a situation, it was hoped, would boost the sagging morale of both the BJP and its ageing stalwart, Advani (see accompanying story, “Befuddled, jingoistic party”).
The aim was clearly to instigate a communal conflict. A police raid on one of the deceased’s houses found maps of nearby mosques, as well as clothes and caps usually worn by Muslims in the area, which the activists were going to wear to sneak into and attack the mosques and gurudwaras. The only thing still needed was explosives. The making of bombs in a house owned by an old RSS activist – one who supposedly also dealt in firecrackers, at that – seemed like the perfect plan.
Of course, the story neither begins nor ends in Nanded. Since 2003, at least five, and perhaps six, Hindutva-related explosions have taken place in central Maharashtra alone, in Parbhani, Purna, Jalna and Nanded. Malegaon also witnessed a bomb blast last year, killing 40 people, with strong indications of a Hindutva hand behind it. (The final picture will emerge after an ongoing investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation finishes.) Beyond the geographical similarities, the details of the attacks were uncanny: each took place between 1:45 and 2:00 in the afternoon, just after Friday prayers, at the most prominent mosque in town. (The bomb that went off in Nanded in 2006 exploded on 6 April, a Thursday, but was apparently meant to be set off at an Aurangabad masjid the following day.)
At the same time, this cannot be dubbed a Maharashtra-centric phenomenon. Madhya Pradesh’s former chief minister, Digvijay Singh, has publicly admitted to the involvement of various groups and individuals affiliated with the RSS in similar acts in his state. As for the rest of the country, no systematic study of saffron ‘terror’ has yet been undertaken. One reason for this could be the thin line that separates the different anushangik (affiliated) organisations of the RSS, thereby making it possible to move from the ‘legal’ to the ‘illegal’ without great effort. Indeed, there is every possibility that funds collected from the Hindu diaspora for philanthropic work might also have been channelled to further ‘terrorist’ activities.
Nonetheless, culturally integrated practices are being utilised to arm certain sections of the Hindu community. Back in 2001, Rajasthan’s then-Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot revealed that up to four million trishuls – six to eight inches long and sharp enough to kill – had been distributed by the Bajrang Dal to Hindu households across the country. Meanwhile, in 2002, a group in Orissa, under the district Shiv Sena unit, formed the first-ever Hindu suicide squad, aimed at countering Muslim ‘extremism’ in Jammu & Kashmir and elsewhere. More than 100 youths, including some women, are said to have joined the group.
Hindutva collusion
Nanded’s population is made up of around 500,000 Hindus, 200,000 Muslims and 100,000 Sikhs. The town has seen a significant amount of communal tension in the past, which spiked following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. In more recent years, this tension seems to have also spilled over into surrounding towns such as Parbhani, where, in November 2003, motorcycle-borne attackers hurled bombs into the midst of a large congregation of Muslims assembled for Friday papers. Although the identities of the Parbhani bomb-throwers were never traced, forensic tests following the Nanded blasts revealed that the accused were part of the same group of Hindu militants that had executed the attack in Parbhani.
Following the April 2006 blasts in Nanded, an odd silence ensued – in the local and national media, as well as in the local and national governments. There was also a disturbing lack of sincerity on the part of the investigating agencies in pursuing the case, despite appearing to have gathered significant evidence of the involvement of district and state leaders of the RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). As investigations by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and other rights organisations have made clear, the district administration even saw to it that news of the blasts did not receive wide coverage. After the initial excitement, district officials also allegedly pressured the local media not to follow the case any further.
The lackadaisical reaction also spread through those involved in local and national investigations. Local police made contradictory statements, and failed to make arrests in the initial stages. Despite the sensitive nature of the Nanded case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) expressed its “inability” to conduct the subsequent investigation. In response to a case filed by some social organisations against the tardiness of the investigations, the CBI filed a suo moto affidavit explaining that it was “overburdened” and had “limited hands to deal with such cases”. The cumulative effect of the half-hearted – or wholly obstructionist – initiatives, at both the state and central level, was to show the kid-glove treatment being meted out to India’s new breed of Hindutva militants. Secular activists questioned whether the reaction would have been similar had the explosions taken place in a minority-dominated area, and the involvement of some ‘fanatic’ Islamic group been detected.
The cavalier manner in which the probes of the Nanded blasts were undertaken may have prepared the ground for a stepping-up of similar activities in the area. On 10 February 2007, at little after midnight, biscuit boxes being hauled by 28-year-old Pandurang Ameelkanthwar in another area in Nanded exploded, killing him instantly. His cousin, Dnaneshwar Manikwar, sustained massive burns and died six days later. Ameelkanthwar had been a former shakha pramukh (branch head) of the Shiv Sena, and was also associated with the Bajrang Dal. He hailed from an area in Nanded called Rangargalli, a known hotbed of rightwing Hindu outfits.
A mere ‘fire-related accident’ was how state officials subsequently reported the incident. But preliminary findings of a civil-society inquiry suggest that Ameelkanthwar and Manikwar died due to handled planted explosives. Neighbours near the explosion also told the team that there had been a third person present at the time, who had also been injured but has been unaccounted for in subsequent reports.
These eyewitnesses also said that a police officer, who went on to be part of the official investigation, supervised the seizing and spiriting away of critical evidence from the spot. In their report, the civil-society investigators state that the Maharashtra police, particularly the superintendent and inspector-general, appeared to be in “undue haste to close all possibilities of a possible liquid-substance-driven explosion, preferring to quote oral findings of forensic experts from Aurangabad who are reported to have told them that it was a petrol-ignited fire”. Among other evidence, this conclusion is brought under serious suspicion by the fact the explosion threw the iron shutter of a nearby godown a distance of 40 feet – an extremely long way for a fire set off by burning gasoline.
The civil society team also refers to a “nexus between some police officials and the rightwing Hindu outfits”. According to the probe’s findings, Nanded Police Inspector Ramesh Bhurewar, who was leading the investigation of the 2006 Nanded blast, was also in charge of the investigation into the Parbhani blasts in November 2003. During the course of the long investigation, he had not made a single arrest. A First Information Report was only registered after a legislator raised a question in the state assembly. But following the Nanded blasts in April 2006, the accused admitted to having placed the bombs at Parbhani. As such, the civil-society report concludes: “The Nanded and state police are hence guilty of underplaying crimes wherein members of the minority community are the victims, causing a loss of face for the state police.”
In their conclusion, the fact-finding team demanded that the central government keep a close watch over the increasing incidence of Hindutva ‘terror’ activities. They also asked for independent investigations under a team of neutral officers; and impartial, public inquiries into the Nanded, Malegaon, Parbhani and Purna incidents, in order to ascertain whether state intelligence and police agencies are indeed professional and neutral enough to investigate instances of politically driven Hindutva violence.
History of hate
Post-Independence India is replete with examples of the participation of Hindu extremists in aggravating communal situations, targeting particular communities, and aiding and abetting riots. Those who have watched the organisation since its inception say that the ‘terrorism’ label may be modern, but the acts themselves, fundamentalist to the core, are decades old: making communally sensitive speeches that culminate in riots; leading religious processions in sensitive areas inhabited by Muslims and other minorities; and outright provocations leading people to engage in violence.
Rajeshwar Dayal, chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh at the time of Partition, provides in his 1999 memoirs A Life of Our Times details of another kind: damning evidence of RSS chief Golwalkar’s plans to conduct a pogrom against Muslims. Pyarelal Nayyar, Mohandas Gandhi’s secretary during those tumultuous times, adds to these accusations: “It was common knowledge that the RSS … had been behind the bulk of the killings in [Delhi] as also in various other parts of India.”
Contrary to the perception that the Sangh Parivar has gained momentum only since the 1990s, various commissions that have looked into communal riots since 1947 have gathered a significant body of evidence on the role of the RSS and affiliated organisations. The Reddy Commission, which in 1969 looked into rioting in Gujarat; the Justice Madon Commission, which analysed the riots in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra, in the early 1970s; the Justice Vithayathil Commission, which probed the 1971 Tellicherry riots – all of these provide solid details of the involvement of either the RSS or its mass political platform, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, in fomenting the trouble.
Justice Venugopal’s report, on the Kanyakumari riots of 1982, also severely indicted the RSS for its role in instigating riots against Christians. According to Justice Venugopal, the RSS methodology for provoking communal violence was as follows: rousing communal feelings in the majority community; deepening fear in the majority community; infiltrating into the state administration; training young people of the majority community in the use of weapons; and spreading rumours to widen communal splits. About the shakhas that the RSS organises under the rubric of physical training, Justice Venugopal said that the aim appeared to be “to inculcate an attitude of militancy and training for any kind of civil strife”.
It was only in 2004 that the Terrorism Research Centre (TRC), a US-based institute, declared the RSS a ‘terrorist organisation’, lumping it together with a host of jihadi and secessionist outfits, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the Hizb ul-Mujahideen. This new listing came close on the heels of an internationally embarrassing incident for the Hindutva-wallahs, wherein Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was denied a visa to travel to the US. The two slaps in the face left the Sangh Parivar bosses seething (although it took more than eight months for the RSS to formally react to the TRC’s assessment). But this was not the first time that Hindutva organisations had earned international opprobrium. In 2002, secular activists in the US brought out a thoroughly researched report called “Funding Hate”. For the first time, this document exposed how funds collected in the US by the India Development and Relief Fund (the IDRF, an umbrella organisation floated by the Hindutva brigade) were directly sponsoring sectarian violence in India.
Cover-up
One potential reason for the inability of the powers-that-be to establish a connection between Hindu militants and acts of terror in India could be the near absence of non-Hindus in the central government’s various intelligence wings. Whatever the reasons, this dearth is shocking. Barring the Intelligence Bureau, which has around 12,000 personnel and only a few Muslim officers, none of the other intelligence departments have even a single Muslim officer between them. From 1969 until today, neither the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) nor the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) has hired even one Muslim officer. (Following the Malegaon blasts, S M Mushrif, a retired India Police Service officer, publicly disparaged the Intelligence Bureau for having long been the source of “unsubstantiated rumours” due to “deep-seated bias”.) The state of affairs has inevitably led to what can be dubbed the government’s rather monochromatic presentation of the menace of terrorism in recent years, with sole responsibility for attacks almost immediately placed on various Islamist groups, regardless of evidence.
Despite a ‘secular’ coalition currently holding the reins of power at the Centre and in many of India’s state administrations, there have been depressingly few sincere attempts to move beyond post-9/11 mythology and the rhetoric of the ‘war on terror’, which demonises Islam. So complete is this perspective that it is difficult to decipher any qualitative difference between the ‘secular’ Congress and the ‘communal’ BJP in their responses to any act of ‘terror’. Instead, even while we have been witness to the dilly-dallying of the Congress following the Nanded and Malegaon blasts, the same Congress-led government had no qualms in targeting Muslims as a community after the July 2006 bomb blasts in Bombay. (In the immediate aftermath of the Bombay attacks, an anti-terrorist squad singled out the Muslim community for suspicion, and immediately began ‘combing’ operations.) The Maharashtra state administration has also shown its anti-Muslim bias in times of tragedy. Even while attesting to their sadness over the Malegaon blast, state officials saw to it that victims, the majority of whom were Muslim, received just a fifth of the compensation received by the victims of the Bombay blasts of 1993 – the majority of whom were Hindu.
The fallout of this situation has been the administrative failure to address terrorism unleashed by Hindutva activists and formations. One possible reason for the government’s ostrich-like position could be that, due to electoral considerations, nobody has wanted to displease the majority Hindus. While it is true that Hindutva groups are not currently in a majority at the Centre, the impact of Hindutva nonetheless transcends its strength in government. Note the inability of ‘secular’ groups to bring criminal cases against the likes of communal leaders like Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, and the champions of Hindutva: Praveen Togadia, Lal Krishna Advani or Narendra Modi. Indeed, the present-day Congress itself is a faint shadow of its Nehruvian avatar: after all, it ‘discovered’ the idea of ‘soft Hindutva’ two decades ago, in a bid to further its hold on the reins of power.
It is time that the public be made aware of the rising trajectory of Hindutva criminality. The dangerous understanding that a particular community, region or religious ideology is more prone towards ‘terrorist’ activities needs to be refuted at all costs. The people of Southasia in general, and India in particular, need to be convinced that there is no qualitative difference between the violent acts committed by LTTE suicide bombers, al-Qaeda jihadis, Khalistani militants or members of militant Hindutva organisations. This realisation could be the first step in organising simultaneous social and political strategies to expose, challenge and dissolve these groups.
The Author can be contacted at: subhash.gatade@gmail.com
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