Future of Kashmiri Pandits

Mar 24, 2011 by Sudatta Mukherji

Jammu & Kashmir is India’s most controversial territory, facing constant internal conflicts, violence between militants and the Indian Army, wars between countries who claim Kashmir to be a part of their territory and natives fleeing the state in fear of their lives. This is the state of India which is famous for it’s beautiful landscapes, culture, history, serenity and the place knows as ‘God’s Abode’.

Jammu & Kashmir has always remained a land of politics, internal turmoil, conflict for nationhood and many more. The controversy over where does Jammu & Kashmir belongs to is not a problem of today’s but is an age-old. History says the land was a place of peace, advancement of culture and religious diversity. It was since the time of Independence that the problem of where does Kashmir in particular belongs to. The wars between nations, the right to prove Kashmir to be a Muslim dominated state, the want of freedom in the minds of the people, the support to India in the initial days after freedom and declining to annex with Pakistan, Kashmir remains a place refusing to settle down in peace. In the middle of all these, a small portion of the state’s population, the minority Kashmiri Pandits face violent attacks on them by the militant backed MuslimFundamentalists.

Jammu & Kashmir is a Muslim dominated state in India but Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs have a large community in the valley. The proof that Jammu & Kashmir was essentially a Hindu dominated state is the presence of Kashmiri Pandits. The Kashmiri Pandits are the original natives of the valley. In the 18^th & 19^th century most of the Kashmiri Hindus were converted to Muslims. They were converted by the Afghans. Although knowing that the Pandits are the original settlers and inhabitants of the state, they still face siege and attack. There are many reasons for the above cause.

Initially a Hindu state, Kashmiris had to convert to Islam under the Afghans. Later on, when the Dogras came into power many of these Muslims faced injustice and inequality. While under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah and the Muslim Conference (which later change its name to National Conference when it decided to support the secular nation idea and annexation to India), Jammu & Kashmir were asked to choose between Pakistan and India. Abdullah chose to support Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru (Nehru was also a Kashmiri), the Indian National Congress rather than Jinnah’s idea of Muslim country. The reason behind such a decision came after he was imprisoned and found many people retreating from supporting him because he was found to preach religious beliefs rather than rights and freedom. Abdullah already was a favorite figure in the valley and his changed ideology of secularism won.

However later Pakistan invaded Kashmir. Afraid and without any army to protect themselves, the then Maharaja of Kashmir sent Abdullah as his representative to the Delhi to get help and stop the invaders from making Kashmir annex to Pakistan in fear. Finally Abdullah agreed to the idea of accession of Kashmir to the Indian Government much against his previous intentions of having a free Kashmir and becoming its sole leader.

Although nothing changed, Pakistan continued its invasion of Kashmir. From 1950s a change came into the state, with Urdu becoming the official language rather than Kashmiri. Many say the reason behind such a decision was to brand Kashmir different from Indian. The elite, learned came to be known as Pro-Pakistani and the locals as Indian Agents. Thus began a separation between the locals and the elites. Even after the 1965 war, where the Kashmiris helped the Indian army to fight back the Pakistani army, there seem to grow three separate groups, one pro-Pakistan, one loyal to the Indian government and one wanting Free Kashmir.

Pakistan continued its struggle to win Kashmir. Prime Minister Bhutto in the 1979, pledged to fight for the “oppressed Kashmiris”. Finally in 1980 the Islamization of Kashmir started. According to historians, under the Abdullah regime 2500 villages names were changed, like the city of Anantnag was changed to Islamabad, same as the capital of Pakistan. Abdullah returned to his previous behaviour of preaching Islam and started referring to Kashmiri Pandits as Mukhbirs or Informers to the Indian Government. After Abdullah’s death, a pro-Islam, communalism and radical Kashmir emerged. Many say it’s due to the significance of Saudi Arabia from where huge amount of donations were coming. People were asked to fight for Islam, slogans were raised against Pandits – “Batta chu Maran” which meant “Kill the non-Muslims”.

In the year 1986 violence against the Kashmiri Pandits started. Many Pandits were killed and 24-25 Hindu Temples were destroyed. Attacks were lead in the name of Islam. Many of the Kashmiris from that period suggests the people who were preaching such acts were trained “mullahs” from Pakistan who entered Kashmir with the help of Saudi influence.

The concept of violence is totally against the concept of peace-loving Kashmiris. This can prove by the cultural history of Kashmir which says Kashmiris were originally taught to be non-violent under the Rishi Orders.

All these come up through the process of change between years 1300-1800 during the Afghan rule. Even before 1980s there was less discrimination between Islam and Hinduism. Much of Kashmiri Islam comes from the influence of Sufism and Hindu Vedanta. The Kashmiri Rishis were originally Hindus and they preached a peaceful Islam in the valley until the mullahs entered the valley, sent by Pakistan. Although after Mast Gul burned down Sufi shrine of Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani many Kashmiris gave up their weapons. Many large no of Muslims after that came out of their militant groups who previously believed that they needed Shariat Law to become true Muslims and followers of Islam. But Delhi’s lack of support and Pakistan’s continuous manipulations raised criticisms in the valley. The fall of the Soviet Nations, the insurgence of Indian Army in the valley made the Kashmiris turn away from the Indian government. Jihad became the new way of living for the youth; Jamaat-i-Islami came into the political scene preaching Shariat laws and disapproval of non-Muslims. An estimated 10,000 youths went to Pakistan to undergo militant, jihad training. The economic condition of Kashmir started detoriating, with many not paying taxes to the Indian Government as they were against them.

All these resulted in the largest killing of Pandits on January 19, 1990. The only way of keeping Kashmir a Muslim state was to clear the land of Hindus, the Kashmiri Pandits. Pakistan supported it totally because then the accession of Kashmir to Pakistan will be easier. Pamphlets started spreading during the 1990s preaching the killing of the Pandits or asking them to leave the valley. This way many left fearing the death. Thousands were killed, women raped, the wiping out of Pandits underwent with the help of militants backed by Pakistan. Indian Government did nothing to stop. Large grandstand play chanting “Asi gachi Pakistan, batni rosin batta gatssin” were carried out in many cities. This meant – “We will become a part of Pakistan, Pandit women can stay with us but Pandit men must leave.”

Slowly the Pandits left Kashmir and settled down in different parts of the country. Kashmir turned into a militant hub of Pakistan who continued to pursue and annex Kashmir to their soil. Around three hundred thousand Kashmiri Pandits has been displaced from their own land since 1990s. The internal violence in Kashmir continues and the political games of the two nations also. All the conversion, the radicalism, the influence of freedom and mullahs changed a peace-loving state into a battlefield.

The only way the original natives of the valley can return to their place is when Kashmir returns to its peaceful identity which is a thought and idea seen and desired by many. The conflict in Kashmir displaced the Pandits from their homeland, many of them died unable to adjust to different region, many homeless. The solution to this problem remains a question which the Pakistan and Indian Government can only solve.

Who Brought Freedom, Gandhi or Netaji?

October 12, 2009

Ashwin Krushna Navami, Kaliyug Varsha 5111 source;hjs

Recent research shows that Netaji Subhas Bose and the INA were responsible for the British leaving in 1947 in a hurry. The Fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 rather than Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India Movement was the beginning of the end of the British Empire. Dr. N.S. Rajaram finds out more.

There is a story that the late Mao Zedong, when asked his opinion about Napoleon as a leader replied: “How can I say? He is too recent.” Napoleon’s career ended in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and Mao died only in 1976. So what could Mao have meant when he said that Napoleon was too recent? He meant that a certain amount of time has to pass before we can view historical events and personalities objectively. Our reading of recent events is bound to be colored by our closeness to them. This truth was brought home to me a few years ago when I was visiting Penang in Malaysia as the guest of some veterans of World War II, but first some background.

In India, people are brought up on the story that Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru—with others receive grudging notice if at all—led a heroic struggle freeing India from the British rule. Miraculously, the whole thing was accomplished without resort to violence, by the application of a mighty spiritual force called ahimsa (non-violence) unleashed by the Mahatma. If true it is a tribute not only to the power of Gandhi’s (and Nehru’s) spiritual vision, but also a lasting tribute to the spiritual sensitivity of the British rulers. Like the tiger in the children’s poem (govina kathe in Kannada), which killed itself rather than eat the calf, the British gave up the empire and left.

This received a jolt during a recent trip to Southeast Asia where I had occasion to visit some people who had served with my late father during World War II. Their account of their experience in the period from 1942 to 45 casts serious doubt on this beautiful story. Here we are faced with a dilemma— the conflict between what we read in history books and what the people actually saw on the ground. The usual story is that after some initial reverses the British defeated the Japanese. But those who actually served there, now in their late 70s and 80s, remember it quite differently. Uniformly, this is what I heard everywhere and from everyone.

“When the Japanese attacked, the British ran away. They were very clever. They had a wonderful life with bungalows and butlers and cooks and all that, but as soon as the Japanese came, they ran away. And once they got back to India, they sent Gurkhas, Sikhs, Marathas and other Indians to fight the Japanese. They knew it was too dangerous for them. That is how we got independence in Malaya.” Malaysia was then called Malaya and Singapore was its capital.

Not one of them remembered the British fighting the Japanese— only running away. They remember also Indian soldiers coming and fighting; some of them stayed back in countries like Malaya (as it was then called), Singapore and other places. One man, who as a youngster had been my father’s orderly during the War, invited me to his home in Penang for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Singapore. What he told me took my breath away.

“That is why the British left India also. When the war was over, all the Indian soldiers who had defeated the Japanese returned to India, and the British got scared. They didn’t want to fight the Indians who had just fought and defeated the Japanese. So they ran away from India also.”

I tried to explain to him that Gandhiji’s nonviolence was the force that convinced the British to leave. But this man, not an intellectual but a battle-hardened soldier with sound commonsense would have none of it. “If it was non-violence, why didn’t they leave earlier? Gandhi and the nonviolence were there before the war also. Did they have to wait for the Japanese to come and teach them non-violence?”

One may smile at this simple way of looking at history, but as will be seen later, this revisionist view has good support. The ‘authorized’ version with Gandhi and Nehru as central figures continues to be taught in India because it benefits those in power. It shows the British also in favorable light as a magnanimous and even spiritual people, which of course they don’t mind. But history shows a different picture.

The year 1942 was momentous. It was the year in which the British Empire suffered a massive defeat at the hands of an Asiatic people (Japanese); it was also the year in which Mahatma Gandhi launched his famous but ill-fated Quit India Movement. Subhas Bose also entered the picture at about that time, first in Germany and later in Southeast Asia. But first it is necessary to get an idea of the momentous impact of the Japanese victory on the psyche of the colonized people as well as on that of the colonizing powers. What triggered it was the Fall of Singapore.

The fall of Singapore in 1942 heralded the end of the British Empire and of European colonialism in general. Indian independence came in 1947, but what really ended the Empire was the fall of Singapore. This has received scant notice by Indian historians who remain trapped in Eurocentric thinking, but there is ample evidence supporting it. Among Indian historians, only R.C. Majumdar has seen its significance: the fall of Singapore broke the spirit of Imperial Britain. As we shall soon see British historians have themselves admitted it. Let us look at what really happened to the British in 1942.

When the Japanese attacked Singapore in February 1942, its large and well-equipped British garrison surrendered without a fight. These well-attended ‘pukka sahibs’—used to good living—had little stomach for war. For decades, the ruling authorities had avoided facing the truth that they were not a fighting force. They had deluded themselves with resounding slogans— calling Singapore the ‘Bastion of the Empire,’ ‘Impregnable Fortress,’ ‘Gibraltar of the East’ and such. None of it helped when Singapore fell to a Japanese army less than a third the size of the defending forces.

Yet, so far removed from reality were Singapore’s British residents, that even on the verge of surrender, a gunnery officer was refused permission to mount guns on the golf links for defending the city. He was told that he needed permission from the golf club committee. And the golf club committee would not be meeting for at least a week, so he better hold off!

In the fall of Singapore, its symbolic significance was infinitely greater than the military defeat. It destroyed the myth of European superiority over the Asiatics once and for all. Historian James Leasor wrote in his Singapore, the battle that changed the world:

“Dazed by the incredible superiority of the Japanese, the defenders’ will to win had withered. … The psychological damage was even greater than the military defeat— and this had been grotesque enough. …Under the lowering Singapore sky lit by the funeral pyres of the British Empire … a door closed on centuries of white supremacy … ” Actually the Japanese had planned it that way— to break the sense of superiority exuded by the Europeans, by the British in particular, in their dealings with the Asiatics. Leasor wrote:

“At the start of the campaign, each Japanese soldier had been issued with a pamphlet that set out Japan’s reasons for fighting the British and the Americans. Her [Japan’s] claim was that she would liberate East Asia from white rule and oppression,” for since “We Japanese, as an Eastern people, have ourselves for long been classed alongside the Chinese and the Indians as an inferior race, and treated as such, we must at the very least, here in Asia, beat these Westerners to submission, that they may change their arrogant and ill-mannered attitude.”

The Japanese attack on Singapore accomplished much more: it ended the British Empire to be followed swiftly by the end of European imperialism itself. To return to the fall of Singapore, as with the fall of Hong Kong a few weeks earlier, the only worthwhile resistance had come from the Indian garrisons— the Sikh and the Gurkha regiments. The prestige and the mystique associated with the British Empire were shattered by these ignominious defeats.

And this is how my gracious host in Penang and his friends, men who had seen it at first hand, remember it. As they saw it, the massive defeat destroyed the British morale. It was the specter of the whole nightmare being reenacted in India, with nearly three million Indian soldiers just returned from war, which made the British leave India. “They ran away,” the old soldier kept telling me repeatedly.

I may point out that this is also the view of many Indians who saw action in the war— both in the Indian Army and those who fought in Subhas Bose’s INA. Indian soldiers saw that their British officers were frightened to death of the Japanese, while they themselves were prepared to fight them.

After the War, the British defeat in Singapore was followed by the French defeat in Dien Bien Phu at the hands of Ho Chi Min’s soldiers in Vietnam. This laid the groundwork for the American defeat in all of Vietnam and their inglorious flight from Saigon. No one today talks about the superiority of the ‘White Race’. The first nail in coffin was driven by the Japanese in Malaya in 1942.

It was this changed perception, that the British were just ordinary mortals like the rest that allowed Netaji Subhas Bose to recruit Indians in Southeast Asia into the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauz or the INA). Subhas Bose saw that the Indian armed forces were the prop of the Empire— not just in India but everywhere the British went. But Gandhi and Nehru, preoccupied with their utopian dreams of nonviolence failed to realize its significance. When the opportunity arose, Bose seized it to transform the armed forces into a nationalist force, while Gandhi and Nehru started the Quit India Movement which collapsed in a few weeks.

Before we look further, we need to ask: what support do we have for this revisionist view, that Subhas Bose and the INA brought freedom to India? The evidence is ample and impeccable. Several have noted it, but the most distinguished historian to highlight Bose’s contribution was the late R.C. Majumdar, one of modern India’s greatest historians. In his monumental, three-volume History of the Freedom Movement in India (Firma KLM, Calcutta) Majumdar provided the following extraordinary evidence:

“It seldom falls to the lot of a historian to have his views, differing radically from those generally accepted without demur, confirmed by such an unimpeachable authority. As far back as 1948 I wrote in an article that the contribution made by Netaji Subas Chandra Bose towards the achievement of freedom in 1947 was no less, and perhaps, far more important than that of Mahatma Gandhi…”

The ‘unimpeachable authority’ he cited happened to be Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister of Britain at the time of India’s independence. Since this is of fundamental importance, and Majumdar’s conclusion so greatly at variance with the conventional history, it is worth placing it on record (Volume III, pages 609 –10).

When B.P. Chakravarti was acting as Governor of West Bengal, Lord Attlee visited India and stayed as his guest at the Raj Bhavan for three days. Chakravarti asked Attlee about the real grounds for granting independence to India. Specifically, his question was, when the Quit India movement lay in shambles years before 1947, where was the need for the British to leave in such a hurry. Attlee’s response is most illuminating and important for history. Here is Governor Chakrabarti’s account of what Attlee told him:

“In reply Attlee cited several reasons, the most important were the activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose which weakened the very foundation of the attachment of the Indian land and naval forces to the British Government. Towards the end, I asked Lord Attlee about the extent to which the British decision to quit India was influenced by Gandhi’s activities. On hearing this question Attlee’s lips widened in a smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly, putting emphasis on each single letter— ‘mi-ni-mal’.” (Emphasis added.)

Another point worth noting: after the fall of Singapore that ended the British Empire, the most dramatic national event was the INA Trial at the Red Fort— not any movement by Gandhi or Nehru. This led to the mutiny of the naval ratings, which, more than anything helped the British make up their minds to leave India in a hurry. They sensed that it was only a matter of time before the mutiny spread to other parts of the armed forces and the Government. None of this would have happened without Subhas Bose and the INA.

The crucial point to note is that thanks to Subhas Bose’s activities, the Indian Armed Forces began to see themselves as defenders of India rather than of the British Empire. This, more than anything else, was what led to India’s freedom. This is also the reason why the British Empire disappeared from the face of the earth within an astonishingly short space of twenty years. Indian soldiers, who were the main prop of the Empire, were no longer willing to fight to hold it together. This is the essence of leadership.

This brings us back to Mao’s half joking reply— that it takes time to get the proper historical perspective. It is now more than sixty years since India became free. We can afford to look back and see the real reasons for British leaving India in a hurry. To sum up, by the end of the War, Gandhi was a spent force, and Subhas Bose was India’s most popular leader.

Now, sixty years and more later it is time to recognize the truth: first, it was the Fall of Singapore in 1942, not the Quit India Movement that was the beginning of the end of the British Empire; and finally, it was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose more than anyone else who was responsible for India’s freedom in 1947.

Hindus have the right to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome
03/10/2009 12:00:53 V Sundaram, IAS, Retd. source-haindvakerlam

Last week (21-9-2009) more than Five Lakh Muslims "occupied" the National Highway 8 between New Delhi and Gurgaon in a planned and methodical manner and offered their Eid prayers with supreme contempt for the regular users of this busy National thoroughfare. Many innocent citizens who could not avoid using that NH 8 on that day to reach their respective places of destination felt unduly harassed and persecuted by this exercise of "minority rights" by the Muslims.

This reminds me of a mammoth Islamic meeting addressed by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the and the destroyer of United India, one month before the Direct Action Day in Calcutta in July/August 1946. His main aim on that occasion was to terrorize the Hindus of India into meek submission and acceptance of his Two-Nation Theory which resulted in the birth of Pakistan on August 14, 1947. Thanks to the pseudo-secular policy followed by Pundit Nehru and his Congress successors in Office, the Muslims of India today have been able to gain a blanket unfettered political license to blatantly deny the sacred and time-honoured fundamental religious rights of the majority Hindus in their own homeland today. Today the Muslims in India are flexing their political muscles with uncontrolled fervour to intimidate the peace-loving Hindus of India using the unrequited political support of the Congress government, which derives its transitory political sanction from its commitment to minority vote-bank politics.

All the Hindus of India have now come to understand that the Muslims and Christians are the most favoured children of the Government of India. John Dayal is a known Hindu-baiter in India. When he defended the rights of Muslims to lay siege to the National Highway 8 on the specious plea of saying EID Namaz, Sri R. K Ohri I.P.S (retd) and Secretary General, Patriots Forum in New Delhi gave him a fitting rejoinder in this manner: ". Please tell me is it possible suddenly, improptu, for lakhs of Namazis to suddenly converge at a particular point to lay seige to NH-8 on the plea of saying EID Namaz? You know very well that such large numbers of Muslims (according to Indian Express there were 5 lakhs of them) do not, repeat DO NOT, live in the villages adjacent to that particular spot on NH-8. Still you are trying to defend something totally indefensible. Your flimsy excuse that Muslim demand for an Idgah might have been denied is again a typical "John-type" argument. Was any demand for Idgah in that area ever made, was it refused at all? No, never. Yet you must keep on telling lies ad infinitum. . This "show of force" was a very well organised event to showcase the rising crescendo of jihadi footfalls across India and their booming clout in the ruling political dispensation!

At this rate a day might come, in not-too-distant future, when Namazis will lay seige to all major roads leading to most metropolitan cities. That might as well coincide with the launching of a diabolical war by Pakistan based jihad outfits. Please stop befooling Hindus and let them wake up to the growing threat of India emerging as a global battleground of clash of civilization. That might happen around 2020, or latest by 2030."

On Monday (21-9-2009), the day of Eid, Auxiliary Bishop of Delhi Archdiocese Fr Franco Mulakkal read out the Pope"s message to Muslim leaders, including Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad"s residence. Nabi Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Yahya Bukhari said "This has come for the first time. The message talks about Muslim and Christian unity but we should not limit ourselves to that. India has a secular fabric and we are an example of unity". Fr Mulakkal said, "The Pope has invited all of us to work together to remove poverty (Hinduism!)." While the Vatican has sent its greetings to the Muslims by post all these years, for the first time a representative of the Pope personally went to meet Muslim leaders and read out the Pope"s open message. What is the political need for the Pope in Rome to direct his representative in New Delhi to read out a message to the Muslims of India?

In this context I would like to invite the attention of all concerned to the fact of Pope Benedict"s citation (some time ago) of a 14th century Byzantine emperor to the effect that "Mohammad brought things only evil and inhuman and that He spread by the sword the faith he preached." This statement led to world-wide violent protests from the Muslims. The Pope today has completely somersaulted from this antagonistic position and come to terms with the Muslims of India in the same supplicating manner comparable in letter and spirit as the Congress Party in India. No discriminating observer can fail to notice the common bond of political hypocrisy uniting the Pope in Rome with Powers in New Delhi. Perhaps, W. Somerset Maugham(1874-1965) had people like this Pope in mind when he wrote as follows in his famous novel Cakes and Ale (1930): "Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pur¬sue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole time job.".

President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), not belonging to the Sangh Parivar or the RSS or the VHP to the best of my knowledge, declared with Christian authority in 1803: "The Christian God is cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust". The great English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870) wrote with equally Christian conviction (devoid of Indian Christian Hypocrisy!): "Missionaries are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it"". What do we understand from all this?

In these very columns on 23-5-2006, under the title "Unprovoked, unwarranted Papal assault on India", I had observed as follows: "Pope Benedict XVI had come out with his emotional outburst against the Laws of Conversion in India because of his anger at the passage of the "Anti-Conversion Bill" by the Rajasthan State Legislative Assembly. The Pope has the temerity to declare that the Bill goes against the provisions of the Constitution of India. In declaring thus, Herr Ratzinger is only betraying his Himalayan IGNORANCE of the "LAW OF THE LAND"!! "

HINDUS IN ROME DO NOT HAVE THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM TO CELEBRATE DURGA POOJA DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE UPA CO-ORDINATION COMMITTEE, MRS ANTONIA MAINO GANDHI HAILS FROM ITALY AND STILL HOLDS AN ITALIAN PASSPORT!! Kanchan Gupta, the eminent journalist, has raised the right questions: "What does it mean to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome? It means to be humiliated, harassed and hounded by city officials who happen to be pious Christians."

The Municipal Police authorities of Rome have recently withdrawn permission, granted three weeks ago, to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome. The cancellation came a few hours before the Ambassador of India was scheduled to inaugurate the Puja. No acceptable explanation has been given. I understand that some Italian Officials told the organizers of Durga Puja in Rome that the cancellation of permission at the eleventh hour, both last year and this year, was meant to be "retaliatory action against the persecution of Christians in India". Thus we can see that Governments of Christian countries in the West like Italy, who so often blithely criticize the "lack" of "religious freedom" in India, have no compunctions about trampling on Hindu feelings, emotions and sentiments at home.

I fully endorse the view of Kanchan Gupta: "Let the West look at its own ugly, septic warts. If Christians can celebrate Christmas in New Delhi, Hindus have the right to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome. This is non-negotiable."

I spoke to Dr.Subramanian Swamy, a great Field-Marshall for the deathless cause of survival of Hinduism today. He told me: "I strongly condemn the Italian government for arbitrarily and wilfully disrupting the Durga pooja in Rome organised by the resident Bengalis. The Indian Ambassador was scheduled to appear at the pooja, and the organisers had taken prior permission as in previous years. Yet the Rome police entered the pandal and disrupted the arrangements. Let the Italian government be warned that that there is a limit to the patience even for Hindus. Hindus in India know how to reciprocate such vandalism if the Union Government under the influence of an imposter Indian citizen of Italian descent fails to protect the sacredness of Hindu festivals. I demand an immediate summoning of the Italian Ambassador and a strong protest be lodged."

The Muslims of India can stop Durga Pooja or Ganesh Pooja any time any where depending on when they want it and where they want it. This one-sided capricious assertion of "minority rights" is completely supported and sustained by the pseudo-secular Government of India. The Muslims of Undivided India have got their independence both in Pakistan and India today. The Hindus are still awaiting the dawn of their freedom and independence. WE NEED A SECOND REPUBLIC OF INDIA.

This article was first published on guardian.co.uk at 12.00 BST on Sunday 2 August 2009. It was last updated at 12.00 BST on Sunday 2 August 2009

by:Reza Mohammadi

Afghanistan's marginalised Hindus
Despite its long history in the country, Afghanistan's Hindu minority has been pushed to the fringes of society

Perhaps Radha wasn't the most beautiful girl in Afghanistan. But such were this Hindu girl's looks and kindness that all of Kabul's bachelors fell in love with her. Her fame was such that the people of Kabul composed a famous song for her. The song says: "We have made Lala promise not to cremate Radha". Nearly 80 years later, this song is still sung in Afghanistan. Lala, meaning brother, is the term Afghans use to refer to Hindus. In the song, the people ask Lala not to cremate Radha's beautiful body after her death, as is required by Hindu tradition.

During the reign of King Amanullah Khan (1919-1928) Radha's father, Ranji Das, was finance minister, a role that had long been filled by the Hindus of Afghanistan. But the growth of religious fundamentalism has now pushed the Hindus out of government offices, forcing them into the bazaars. It is now many years since a Hindu held a government post in the country. But they are still running a major part of the Afghan bazaars, and come second in trading medical products.

Overlooking Kabul is a mountain called Asmayi. The name is apparently a Hindu term, deriving from the godess Asha. Today, the mountain has become the largest pilgrimage centre for Hindu worshippers. According to a Hindu tale, an eternal fire burns at the summit of Asmayi, a fire which has refused to die out for 4000 years. There are two other centres of worship in Kabul, the Harshari Natha temple in Kabul's Baghban Kucha, and the Shorbazaar Temple. These are Kabul's oldest temples, where Hindus celebrate divali and naradatar. They are also the meeting places of the Sikh and Hindu religious associations. In addition to these, Kabul today has many other newer and larger temples scattered in different parts of the city.

According to Professor Rajesh Kochhar's book, The Vedic People, Afghanistan is one of the oldest Hindu centres of the world. Kochhar says that a large part of Rigveda was written in Afghanistan, with Helmand and Arghandab being mentioned as sacred rivers in both the Rigveda and Mahabharata. The Surya temple, dedicated to the god of sun, and the Yogi of Panjshir, which represents a worshipper turned into stone, north of Kabul, are both ancient Hindu sites. And yet, if foreigners were to travel to Afghanistan today, they would encounter so few Hindus that they would assume the Hindus are either from elsewhere or recent immigrants. They would encounter a community that is neither playing its part in politics nor getting involved with the rest of the world.

Hindus are clearly among the oldest inhabitants of Afghanistan. They are the native people, whom Islamic fundamentalism has turned into unprotected strangers. Strangers, who this year found themselves forced to argue for days with Muslims in the centre of Kabul in order to be allowed to cremate their dead in line with their tradition. Strangers who never dare to send their children to school for fear of mockery.

In February 2001, during the Taliban's reign, Hindus found themselves forced to wear a distinguishing yellow stripe on their arm. Even though the Taliban have been removed, Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf, presently an MP in Karzai's administration, has expressed a similar opinion on TV:
"The Sikhs and Hindus of Afghanistan are considered part of the dhimmi in line with sharia law. The government has an obligation to protect them but they are required to pay a poll tax. They can hold civilian occupations, such as doctors, but they cannot be in charge of a governmental body or office. Upon meeting a Muslim, a Hindu is required to greet the Muslim first. If a Muslim is standing and there is a chair, the Hindu is not allowed to sit down on the chair."

According to MP Anarkali Honaryar, a representative of Sikhs and Hindus in the Afghan parliament, the majority of the country's 200,000 Sikhs and Hindus are now living abroad, and the number of people leaving Afghanistan for India, Europe and or Pakistan grows by the day.
Friends of Afghanistan's cultural heritage increasingly fear that these ancient inhabitants of the country might one day meet with the same fate of other peoples of Afghanistan, including Jews and Buddhists, and so vanish from the the country altogether.
Translated by Nushin Arbabzadah

in due course of time our future generation vil also be third class citizen in our own land-the only

way to stop jihadis and evangelists we should know our culture-dhrama so that v can help our future generation. wakeup hindus other wise v vil be wipped out.

tale of two kashmirs

source:gurumurthy.net
That China too has its Kashmir and problems with Islamist separatists identical to India’s Kashmir is not widely known. ‘Xinjiang’, actually pronounced as ‘Sinkiang’ for postal purposes, is China’s Kashmir. Xinjiang actually shares borders with Ladakh in India’s Kashmir. But unlike Kashmir it is not a small area. Its size is 1.8 million sq km; almost one-sixth of China; half as much as India. India’s Kashmir measures some 2,65,000 sq km. Of which some 86,000 sq km is under Pakistan; some 37,500 sq km under China; the balance, 1,41,000 sq km, is with India. The disputed part of India’s Kashmir, some 1,45,000 sq km, is less than one hundredth of Xinjiang. So China’s Kashmir is physically 100 times bigger than India’s and therefore its problem too is bigger. Yet many do not know about it.

The reason is that China prevented Xinjiang, its Kashmir, from becoming an international issue like India’s Kashmir. Xinjiang, which had a majority of Turkish Muslims (Uighurs) in 1949, had a short-lived state of East Turkestan. China invaded it, crushed it, and won back its territory. The name Xinjiang literally means ‘old frontier returns to China’. See the contrast. A year earlier, in 1948, India almost won back most of Kashmir from Pakistan which had invaded it, but voluntarily offered and turned it into an international issue. It was India, not Pakistan, which went to the United Nations; made it an international issue. It is struggling to say it is a bilateral one. Now, on to how China handled Xinjiang, its Kashmir, and integrated it with mainland China.

Xinjiang has a population of 20 million plus. The Uighur Muslims constitute 45 per cent, other Muslims 12 per cent and the Han Chinese 41 per cent. What was the Han population in Xinjiang in 1949? Just six per cent. In six decades it has risen by seven times. This change did not occur by itself. China did not just trust army or administrative control of its territory in Xinjiang. It trusted only its people. It ensured that the Han Chinese slowly began populating Xinjiang. The result is self-evident. But the 41 per cent Han Chinese population does not include defence personnel and families, and unregistered migrant Chinese workers.

Xinjiang was once known for a variety of agricultural products, but now, for more. Its GDP rose from $28 billion in 2004 to $60 billion in 2008. Its per capita GDP (2008) is $2,864, almost the same as the national average. It has large deposits of minerals and oil. The oil and gas extraction industry in Xinjiang is booming; it has a pipeline to Shanghai. This sector accounts for 60 per cent of Xinjiang’s economy. With a vast area, huge resources, and sparse population, Xinjiang benefits China more than the other way round. In contrast the economic cost of India’s Kashmir is very high. It receives a per capita Central grant of Rs 8,092, while for other Indian states it is Rs 1,137. If the grant were given directly by money order each Kashmir family of five would receive Rs 40,460 every year.

Still, the Uighur Muslims are unhappy with communist China. The World Uyghur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer, a businesswoman based in Germany, is fighting for the freedom of Uighurs. There is violence and terror in Xinjiang like in Kashmir but not on that scale thanks to Pakistan’s ISI being friendly to China as common cause against India. The Uighurs are therefore not getting any support from Pakistan. Yet militancy is growing. There were terror strikes in Xinjiang on August 5 last year, just three days ahead of the Beijing Olympics, killing 16 policemen. On August 11, when the Olympics was in progress, attacks took place near Beijing in which 11 people were killed. And just last week, on July 6, there were huge riots between Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, resulting in 184 deaths and over 1,000 people injured. Most of the dead and injured were Han Chinese even though Urumqi is overwhelmingly Han Chinese, nearly three-fourths. See how the Chinese reacted to the July 6 riots.

President Hu Jintao, who was to attend the G8 meeting, flew back in a tacit admission of the depth of the crisis. His government declared war on ‘three forces’, namely — ‘separatism, extremism and terrorism’. It banned Friday prayers in Urumqi mosques and told the Muslims to pray from their homes, something no other country would or could do. China has also pointed to al-Qaeda as inspiration for the trouble.

Yes, China does have problems with Islamist separatists, extremists and terrorists. But it has, by diplomacy and action, ensured that it remains an internal problem, unlike India, which has on its own made Kashmir an international issue. China has also changed the religious and political demography of Xinjiang by ensuring that 41 per cent of the province’s population is non-Muslim.

Instead of working to change the demography in favour of India as China has done, the Indian government could not even prevent the expulsion of Hindus from the Valley. While Xinjiang is half filled by Han Chinese, Kashmir has been cleansed of Hindus. The result is that India has to defend Kashmir with the army instead of the people.

Had India followed the policy the Chinese adopted in Xinjiang, conquering Kashmir back instead of contracting under Article 370, which prevents Indians in other places from migrating to the Valley, today Kashmir would have demographically integrated with India. We would be dealing with internal riots occasionally like China does; but we would not face or fight wars with Pakistan and with terrorists every day.

The lesson for India is: demography — religious demographic balance that is in tune with the national mainstream — is the guarantee for the nation, more so at the borders. China gradually brought Xinjiang, its Kashmir, into the national mainstream through the Han Chinese. But India constitutionally contracted to keep its Kashmir out of the mainstream; it even cleansed it of the mainstream by making the Hindus refugees in their own nation. What a contrast!

QED: Augustus Comte, the 19th century French philosopher, said, “demography is destiny”. Citing him, The Economist (August 24-31, 2002) emphasised the importance of demographic influences on nations and economies. China understood the critical nature of religious demography; India did not. This is the differing tale of two Kashmirs.

Homosexuality is not a virtue
by gurumurthy source-gurumurthy.net

Homosexuals displaced the Economic Survey for the year 2008-09 from the headlines of most media on July 3, 2009. “Historic bench mark”; “Sexual equality”; “Landmark Judgement”. This is how the media had headlined the Delhi High Court judgment holding Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which makes homosexual acts offences in law, partly unconstitutional. Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code was not Manu's code. It was Macaulay’s. This colonial law made homo sexuality punishable. In Judo-Christian tradition, homosexuality was seen an act against the law of God, punishable even with death. The Islamic rules also prescribed capital punishment for the offence. In all Abrahamic traditions, the hostility to homosexuality originated in the story associated with a city as Sodom (the etymological source of the world ‘sodomy’) where the sexual sin was first committed according to their texts, though the respective accounts varied. This is the philosophy of the law against homosexuals in Abrahamic societies. Macaulay’s law reflected their theological position. Earlier, there was no state law in India to punish homosexuality. Does that mean that the Hindu — read Indian — tradition approved of homosexuality? Read on.

What was the position of the state and state enacted laws in India such matters? The king or the state in India had refrained from handling most issues which the society or families could handle. It is the colonial state, with its laws and courts, that began to intrude the sovereign domain of the family and society. The Indian discipline was always built around unenforced social and family norms; not state laws. Self-restraint and shyness were the tools to regulate the deviants from the norms, not the police or courts. Even today, it is this non-formal moral order — read dharma — not the laws of parliament or state assemblies, that largely governs this society. India is otherwise ungovernable; just some 12000 plus police stations in some 7 lakh towns and villages cannot regulate over 110 crore people. Thanks to this moral order, the Indian society had handled, and even now handles, such sensitive issues with great finesse than does state law. It is in stark contrast to the gross state law and media discourse of today. Historian Devdutt Pattanaik says that in Hindu literature ‘though not part of the mainstream, the existence of homosexuality was recognised, but, not approved’. Narada smiriti prohibited marriage of homo sexual men with women. Manu did suggest mild punishments for homos, but of an extreme type. The Indian tradition therefore neither encouraged nor punished lesbians or gays; nor did it celebrate them or despise them. It regarded them as a small, marginal fact of life, preferring to ignore them; and treating them as not worthy of public discussion for or against that might disturb the rest of the society.

Homosexuals are, in numbers, marginal even in the West. In the US where the gay-lesbians are aggressive in the public discourse, the 2000 US Census data reveals that only 0.42% households are same-sex households. Studies in US or France and Canada show just some 1-2% admit to be gays or lesbians. The deviation from the mainstream behaviour is as marginal as that. Yet it is the geo-Christian hostility to even such marginal groups that turns them into vociferous action groups in the West.

In the Indian — read Hindu — civilisational ethos, humans had never been seen as belonging to one uniform behavioural class. The Indian civilisation had recognised diversity in behaviour and morals. It therefore never imposed one moral value or rule for all. But it believed in a hierarchy of moral principles. It held out right conduct as ideal for the rest to imbibe and follow, but on their own volition. Even as it had evolved normative moral principles for the mainline society, it had subtly ignored, rather than focus on or punish, the deviants. Those who could not follow an ideal were never held as illustration for others to follow.

For example, the Indian society had evo lved one man-one wife as the ideal model for life, but never made it the law. It had indeed celebrated monogamy; but had never prohibited or punished polygamy. It did not even outlaw polyandry. Even today, regardless of the law, polygamy prevails in different parts of India. Even polyandry exists in certain communities in North India. It is neither proscribed nor accepted by others. But even those who did not follow the ideal of monogamy never disputed its virtue; nor did those who followed that virtue look down upon those who did not. Sri Rama was monogamous, but his father, Dasharatha, was polygamous. Yet, Rama revered him; obeyed him totally. Rama is therefore rega rded, besides an ideal being, an ideal son as well. But Prahlada defied his father; he is regarded as an ideal person, though some may not see him as an ideal son like Rama. Likewise, Sita obeyed her husband; but Meera defied hers; and yet both are accepted as great. Obeying one’s husband or one’s father or being monogamous was held as a high virtue. Even the more macro idea of “ahimsa paramo dharma”, namely non- violence as “the highest value”, was regar ded as a virtue of those only who had renounced the world; and not for householders and others. So the society was ruled more by hierarchy of virtues and illustrative conduct than by law. What is correct was never judged by how many people adhered to it; but how virtuous it was and regarded by all as such.

Tolerance for the deviants from generally accepted human conduct is part of the Ind ian ethos. Here, the society would wisely ignore the marginal deviants rather than punish them, even discuss them — a more subtle, sensible social management principle. The society felt, even now feels, shy to discuss them. That is why the traditional religious scholars have refused to be drawn into the current debate on the issue. In the Indian tradition, homosexuals, as elsewhere, were thus regarded as deviants. But, here, unlike in the Abrahamic, the right of these deviants to exist without being punished was never denied; and will never be. Yet no one can argue here or elsewhere that homosexuality is a virtue. No law or court of law can declare it as a virtue. That is the crux of the debate; and that is what is being obfuscated.

QED: The Delhi High Court ruling held only one part of Sec 377 as unconstitutional. But what part is held constitutional — that is, what act of homosexuality is still punishable — cannot be described without allowing the discourse to become shameless; without spilling filth in the discourse. So it is not being described as shamelessness should yield to shyness. But, the media, particularly the visual, has been purveying needless filth using the issue for quite some time now. And growing shamelessness is replacing dignified shyness that marks the public discourse. Is it fair to subject a shy society to a shameless debate?

Inculturation – Crime, corruption and cunningness of Catholic Church HARAN.B.R source:haindvakeralam

Cardinal Oswald Gracias was one of the brains behind the designing, printing and releasing of the “Indian Bible” which contained hundreds of sacred verses usurped from Hindu texts such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata and the Bhagwat Gita.

The motive was to cheat the gullible masses and covertly lure them to follow Christianity. At the time of the Indian Bible’s release in June 2008, the Cardinal had stated that this Bible, made in India and for Indians, would bring the word of God closer to millions of people, not only Christians.

Yet the very same Cardinal Oswald Gracias stoutly denied any knowledge about this Indian Bible at the press conference held immediately after the interfaith dialogue on 12 June 2009 in Mumbai. So much for Catholic honesty! Ironically, the Cardinal is a founder patron of the Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony (GFCH). Even during the interfaith dialogue, the Cardinal and other Catholic leaders, including the representative of the Vatican, denied the ‘inculturation’ charges against them and put the blame on other denominations of Christianity. Their ‘honesty’ regarding the Indian Bible was exposed during the press meet; what follows is an exposure of their honesty regarding inculturation techniques .

Secular Melmaruvathur

Melmaruvathur Adhi Parasakthi Temple is situated on the Chennai-Trichy National Highway (NH45) in a place called ‘Melmaruvathur’, which is approximately 95 kms from Chennai. This is ‘believed’ to be the sacred abode of 21 Siddhars (Saints), male as well as female from different religions (!) and their “Jeeva Samadhis” (meaning the spots where they have attained ‘siddhi’ leaving their human forms, while living still as holy spirits) are believed to be inside the premises over which the temple has been constructed. Starting as a Temple built by Sri Bangaru Adigal, who is called as “Amma” by his devotees with reverence and affection, it has diversified itself into many fields of ‘charity’ such as education and health. Goddess Adhi Paraashakthi herself is believed to have performed many miracles through Bangaru Adigal’s “Oracles” (‘Arul Vaakku’ in Tamil) and that is hwy he is devotionally addressed as “Amma” (Mother). This place is totally ‘secular’ in the sense that people of all caste, colour, creed, gender and religion are allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum and perform pujas to the presiding deity of Parasakthi. The full name of the Temple is “Suyambu Arulmigu Annai Adhi Parasakthi Siddhar Peetam” and Shri Bangaru Adigal has millions of devotees. (Ref: http://www.sakthipeedam.org/siddharpeetam.html ).

Christian Achirupaakkam Hillock

Going from Chennai to Melmaruvathur, one has to cross a place called ‘Achirupaakkam’ (after Chingleput and Madurantakam) where one can see the huge slogan “Mariye Vaazhga” (long live Mary) written on a hillock. Moving closer, a huge statue of Jesus on a Cross will be visible on the top of the hillock. It is more than five years since the Catholic Church encroached upon the hill and took it over. The Catholic Church has built a prayer house at the top and placed a statue of Mary inside it; this Mary is called “Mazhai Malai Maadhaa” (Rain-Hill Mother). The Church also laid a stairway from the basement by digging the ground, breaking the rocks and rearranging the boulders. In between it constructed two arches, one with the slogan “Mariyin vazhiyil manitham malara” (“Let humanism blossom by the path of Mary”) and the other identifying the place as “Arputha Nagaram” (Miracle Town).The hill falls under the Pallipat Panchayat and the porumboke land on the hillock comes under the control of the Forest Department.

A huge Church is under construction and all these conquests, constructions and occupations are illegal and unauthorized, but achieved with the connivance of government authorities who have been “taken care of” by the Catholic Church.

Hindu Achirupaakkam

The Achirupakkam town is situated opposite to the hillock and inside the town a famous ancient Shiva Temple is located. The Temple is called as Pakkapureswarar Temple and the presiding deities are Sundaranayagi (female deity) and Atchikondanathar or Pakkapureswarar (male deity). The ‘Sthal Purana’ (temple history) goes like this: It is said tha Bhagwan Shiva once set out on a mission in a chariot to destroy the Tripura demons, more commonly known as Tripurasamharam. Bhagwan Shiva forgot to think about Bhagwan Vinayaka who has to be worshipped by all before commencing any kind of work for success. In view of this it is said that the axle (‘Achchu’ in Tamil) of Bhagwan Shiva's chariot broke here and hence this Sivasthalam came to be known as ‘Achirupakkam’(‘Achchu-Itru’ meaning ‘Axle-broken’). It is also said that the axle of a Pandiya King's chariot also broke down here as he was bringing soil from the Ganges for building a dam across a river. Kannuva Munivar and Gowthama Munivar are said to have worhshipped Bhagwan Shiva at this Sivasthalam and Thirugnaana Sambandhar had composed and sung a Thevaram Hymn praising the presiding deity. (Ref: http://www.shivatemples.com/index.html ).

There is also a Shiva temple (Pasupathiswarar Temple) on the concerned hillock, which will be visible from this Pakkapureswarar Temple. One Swamiji, who used to stay there in the temple, had replaced the main deity Shiva with Bhagwan Muruga inside the sanctum sanctorum and placed the Shiva Linga in the Artha Mandapam, outside the sanctum sanctorum. On the way to the Shiva / Muruga Temple, a small Vinayagar Temple was also there, which was later brought down by the priest, as he could not climb the hill twice a day due to the difficult terrain, in the absence of proper pathway.

Initiative from a few individuals

A few good samaritans from Madras, who are involved in renovation of dilapidated temples for years, have raised funds and laid some 27 steps from Vinayagar Shrine up to the Shiva Temple, while the actual requirement from the basement is 500 steps. The laying of steps was undertaken by the local Reddiyar community due to the involvement of these individuals, with the permission of the central forest department. Shri Anbazhagan, the son of Shri Bangaru Adigal, had helped with the construction of few more steps later (each step costing Rs.5000/- made and brought from Mysore) and he also organised for the Karthigai Deepam festival once. The Catholic Church, which encroached upon the pathway leading to the Shiva temple, accepted their mistake and orally agreed to compensate by funding the stairway further. But due to lack of further interests and initiative from the Reddiyar community and also due to lack of funds the work had come to a standstill.

Catholic Church’s nefarious designs:

Meanwhile, emboldened by the change of government, that is with the advent of DMK government in May 2006, the Catholic Church refused to fulfill its commitment and became very active. After planting the cross, constructing the prayer house and placing the statues of Jesus and Mary with the full connivance of government authorities, the Christians indulged in a heavy harvest of souls in and around the villages near the hillock. They have already converted 40% of the local populace by fraudulent means.They have organised “Hindu” rituals (inculturation techniques) like lighting lamps (instead of candles), incense sticks (agarbati) and performing of ‘Archana’ inside the prayer house. They stop the devotees of Melmaruvathur Adi Parasakthi Temple midway and force them to visit the prayer house by saying that the same “Adi Parasakthi” of Melmaruvathur is blessing devotees here on the hillock in the form of “Mary Amman.”Similar to the “Girivalam” of Tiruvannamalai hills, the padris here have arranged for “Girivalam” (circumambulation around the hillock) during full moon (Purnima) days. A large section of the ignorant and innocent masses who visit Melmaruvathur have started visiting this hillock on their way to and from Melmaruvathur. As the inflow of ‘devotees’ increases day by day, Christians have started collecting money from them for the construction of the new Church. The weakness of Hindus

The absolute absence of any Hindu organisations in the locality has come in handy for the Catholic Church to go ahead with its nefarious designs very fast. Though the local Hindus were against the Church, they couldn’t do anything due to the absence of an organised Hindu body.Four years ago, the VHP gathered information and published a story about the Church’s activities in its official organ “Indumithran”. The Church briefly kept a low profile after planting the cross due to protests form local Hindus.Meanwhile, the Church converted a considerable section of the local people and again started construction activities on the hillock. After the completion of the stairway, tar road and the prayer house, the Church erected the huge ‘Crucified Jesus’ statue on the top and the statue of “Mazhai Malai Maathaa” (Mother Mary) inside the prayer house. Hindus woke up from their slumber only after seeing the huge statue of Crucified Jesus.

Corrupt government’s connivance and anti-Hindu stance

The officials belonging to the Forest Department, Collectorate, District Revenue office and other departments such as Panchayats, turned a blind eye to the unauthorised and illegal construction activities by the Catholic Church. They also refused to cooperate with the Hindus. When Hindus gave a protest memorandum a year ago, the authorities including the Collector and District Revenue Officer deliberately failed to take any action against the Church.

The local people and Hindu Munnani activists from Chennai say there is a Shiva Temple on the hillock on the other side, which was desecrated and looted by Islamic forces when Malik Kafur invaded South India. As the Church has done everything illegally, Hindu activists attempted to place a huge “Vel” (spear) near a “Neem” tree under which the village deity (grama devata) once stood, and write “Om Nama sivaya” on the top of the hill. But police acted swiftly and arrested all of them; they were released only after paying a fine of Rs.5000/-. Meanwhile the Catholic Church made a false claim that it had got the land on a 99-year lease. When Shri Parameswaran, a Hindu Munnani activist, applied for the details through the RTI Act, the Collectorate replied that no lease was given to the Church and no permission for construction of either roads or stairway or buildings was given. Based on the information given by the government itself, when Hindu Munnani organised a ‘signature campaign’ and submitted a protest memorandum two months ago, the district authorities and local Panchayat President assured them they would take immediate action; so far no action has been taken. Parameswaran recalled that, “Until 1977, the Shiva temple with a Ganesha murti (Uchchi Pillayar) was also there though in a dilapidated condition, and people used to visit it regularly. During the year 1977, anti-social elements at the behest of vested interests, hung a dead body at the entrance. The issue became a police case after which the people stopped visiting. After years of prolonging the police closed the case ten years back saying it was a suicide.

The officials have not given us permission either to place the Trishul or Vel near the neem tree or to write “Om Nama shivaya” or even to dig a borewell for want of water. But the same officials have allowed the Church to construct everything illegally. We are finding it difficult to construct even a stairway to the Shiva Temple, which has been there for ages.” This is a clear case of “Dravidian-Minority” nexus which is wreaking havoc in the state against the Hindu majority.

The present status

The Hindu Munnani activists under the leadership of Parameshwaran, conducted an awreness campaign followed by yet another protest demonstration last Sunday (14 June 2009). The Hindu Munnani had uploaded a three minute film on “You tube”, in which they show a glimpse of the statues, prayerhouse, arches, stairway, tar road and construction activities after a small introduction in Tamil by Shri Parameshwaran. The film bit titled “Acharapakkam Hill & Land grabbing by Christian missonaries” can be watched at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAFDyKLz38U&feature=channel_page At the end of the film, it is really pathetic to see just ten people taking part in the protest demonstration. Unless the Hindu majority ‘organise’ itself unitedly it will end up losing lands and populace, for the Abrahamic religions are well organised and well funded.

Tail Piece

A nagging question remains: “Why there is not even an iota of protest from the Melmaruvathur Adhi Parasakthi Siddhar Peetam, particularly when such a huge land grab is taking place right near its head quarters and when its own devotees are misled, deceived and converted?”

Dr Subramanian swamy on EVM fraud
Dangers of trusting them too much Source: http://www.expressbuzz.com/

There is much talk today about electoral rigging in the recent general elections. These doubts have arisen from the unexpected number of seats won by the Congress, and they are accentuated by the spate of articles recently published in reputed computer engineering journals and in the popular international press.

All raise doubts about the EVMs.For example, International Electrical & Electronics Engineering Journal (May 2009, p 23) has published an article by two professors of computer science, titled: Trustworthy Voting. They conclude that while electronic voting machines offer a myriad of benefits, nine suggested safeguards are absolutely essential to protect the integrity of outcomes. None of these safeguards are in place in Indian EVMs.

In India they do not meet the standard of national integrity.Newsweek magazine (June 1) has published an article by Evgeny Morozov, who points out that when Ireland embarked on an ambitious e-voting scheme in 2006, such as fancy touch-screen voting machines, it was widely welcomed: Three years and 51 million euros later, in April, the government scrapped the initiative. What doomed the effort was a lack of trust: the electorate just didn’t like it that the machines would record their votes as mere electronic blips, with no tangible record.A backlash against e-voting is brewing all over Europe.

After almost two years of deliberations, Germany’s Supreme Court ruled last March that e-voting was unconstitutional because the average citizen could not be expected to understand the exact steps involved in the recording and tallying of votes. Political scientist Ulrich Wiesner, a physicist who filed the initial lawsuit said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that the Dutch Nedap machines used in Germany were even less secure than mobile phones. The Dutch public-interest group ‘Wij Vertrouwen Stemcomputers Niet’ (We Do Not Trust Voting Machines) produced a video showing how quickly the Nedap machines could be hacked without voters or election officials being aware (the answer: in five minutes).

After the clip was broadcast on national television in October 2006, the Netherlands banned all electronic voting machines.Why are EVMs so vulnerable? Each step in the life cycle of a voting machine — from the time it is developed and installed to when the votes are recorded and the data transferred to a central repository for tallying — involves different people gaining access to the machines, often installing new software.

It wouldn’t be hard for, say, an election official to paint a parallel programme under another password, on one or many voting machines that would ensure one outcome or another pre-determined even before voters arrived at the poll stations.These dangers have been known to the Election Commission since 2000, when M S Gill, then CEC, had arranged at my initiative for professor Sanjay Sarma of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Gitanjali Swamy of Harvard to demonstrate how un-safeguarded the chips in EVMs were.

Some changes in procedures were made by the EC, but not on the fundamental flaws. In 2004, the Supreme Court First Bench, of Chief Justice V N Khare, Justices Babu and Kapadia had directed the election commission to consider the technical flaws in EVMs put forward by Satinath Choudhary, a US-based software engineer in a Public Interest Litigation. But the EC has failed to consider his representation.There are many ways to prevent EVM fraud.

One way to reduce the risk is to have machines print a paper record of each vote, which voters could then deposit into a conventional ballot box. While this procedure would ensure that each vote can be verified, using paper ballots defeats the purpose of electronic voting in the first place. Using two machines produced by different manufacturers would decrease the risk of a security compromise, but wouldn’t eliminate it.A better way, it is argued in the cited International Electrical & Electronics Engineering Journal article, is to expose the software behind electronic voting machines to public scrutiny.

The root problem of electronic machines is that the computer programs that run them are usually closely held trade secrets (it doesn’t help that the software often runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system, which is not the world’s most secure). Having the software closely examined and tested by experts not affiliated with the company would make it easier to close technical loopholes that hackers can exploit. Experience with Web servers has shown that opening software to public scrutiny can uncover potential security breaches.Now the Madras High Court is soon to hear a PIL on the EVMs. This is good news. The time has arrived for a long hard look at these machines. Otherwise elections would soon lose their credibility. All political parties must collect evidence to determine how many constituencies could have been rigged. The number would not exceed 75 in my opinion.We can identify them as follows: Any result in which the main losing candidate of a recognised party finds that more than 10 per cent of the polling booths showed less than five votes per booth, should be taken prima facie as a constituency in which rigging has taken place. This is because the main recognised parties usually have more than five workers per booth, and hence with their families would poll a minimum of 25 votes per booth for their party candidate. Hence if these 25 voters can given affidavits affirming who they had voted for, then the high court can treat it as evidence and order a full inquiry.

(The author is a former Union law minister)

Is ‘Tamil Eelam’ a Christian agenda. B R Haran
courtesy:haindvakeralam,vivekajothi.blogspot.com

The White Christian Church has the unique characteristic of gaining entry into non-White, non-Semitic civilizations, by slow infiltration of important establishments to influence them and create unrest by dividing the local populace along communal or linguistic lines, with the sole objective of Christianising those countries.

Several instances in history confirm this. The Church has been partially successful in India, as evidenced by the Christianisation of north-eastern states such as Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, etc., and a few pockets in other States. While interior states have been able to withstand the Christian onslaught, the southern coastal states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have been vulnerable to the evil designs of the Church. This was made possible only because of the help provided by self-serving political leaders in the guise of secularism.

Influencing politics in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka

The Dravidian Movement of Tamil Nadu comprised only such leaders, who even went to the extent of requesting the British to continue their hegemony over Tamil Nadu. Since then, the unholy ‘Christian-Dravidian’ nexus has worked consistently for the cause of ‘Tamil Nation,’ extending it to the north-east of Sri Lanka as well.

Just as it divided the Tamil people through the bogus ‘Aryan (Brahmin) – Dravidian (Non-Brahmin) Theory,’ to alienate non-Brahmins from the ‘Hindu’ fold along linguistic lines (Aryan Sanskrit – Dravidian Tamil), the Church similarly divided the Sri Lankan people along linguistic (Sinhala-Tamil) lines. On the one hand, it backed the LTTE fully against the government, and on the other, it successfully infiltrated the Sri Lankan establishment and influenced the government through Sinhala Christian leadership.

When Sri Lankan Prime Minister Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike introduced the “Sinhala only Act” in 1956, the Island’s first anti-Tamil riots took place. Prior to Solomon Bandaranaike, the Sri Lankan government was headed by leaders like Don Stephen Senanayake and John Kotelawala, and his successors were Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Dudley Senanayake, Junius Richard Jayewardene, Premadasa, Ranil Wickramasinghe, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (married a Christian), Percy Mahinda Rajapakse, who were all either Christians, or Buddhist converts, or married to Christian spouses.

The first Sri Lankan Tamil leader who started the demand for separatism was a Christian - Samuel James Velupillai Chelvanayakam; he also called for a “Greater Dravida Nadu” on both sides of the Palk Straits.

It can be said that LTTE just followed his footsteps, backed by the Church and missionaries. Ever since ethnic riots took place in 1983, Anton Balasingham, a Roman Catholic, assumed the mantle of LTTE’s political leadership and was second only to Prabhakaran, also a Christian.

Ironically, the 85% Hindu majority of Sri Lankan Tamils came totally under the control of a Christian minority leadership, thanks to the Machiavellian machinations of the Church and missionaries. It is difficult to swallow this bitter truth, especially when recalling the glorious past of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus under the leadership of great Shaivite scholars like Arumuga Navalar, great men like Ponnambalam Ramanathan and Ponnambalam Arunachalam, and intellectuals like the Coomaraswamys. All were widely respected by the Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Ponnambalam Ramanathan was the one who pushed for “Wesak” or “Buddha Purnima” to be a public holiday in colonial Sri Lanka.

As for Tamil Nadu, though the Church suffered a slight setback when M.G. Ramachandran left DMK and founded the AIADMK, deviating from “Atheism” to “Theism” (moving closer to Hindu religion), and his successor Jayalalithaa followed his footsteps (at least for a while), it seemed to have cleverly moved its coins to influence AIADMK too. Now we have a host of Dravidian parties changing alliances at the drop of a hat and even at each others’ throats, but remaining perennially close to the Church.

So, whichever party is in power, the Church is able to have its say and continue with its agenda of de-Hinduising the state. Similarly, in Sri Lanka, the Church has been able to influence the leadership of both LTTE and the Sri Lankan government, while causing the death of thousands of Hindus and Buddhists in the decades-long conflict. The Church has also been indulging in blatant conversion activities in both Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.

Influencing Jayalalithaa for the greatest assault on Hinduism

At one point, the Church found it difficult in Tamil Nadu, due to the enormous influence of Melmaravathur Adiparasakthi Movement and Sabarimala Pilgrimage on Scheduled Caste Hindus, and the various activities undertaken by Kanchi Mutt to reach out to them, besides the enactment of the anti-conversion law by the Jayalalithaa regime.

But the Church finally succeeded in influencing Jayalalithaa after her party’s rout in the 2004 parliament elections, resulting in two telling actions. First, she repealed the anti-conversion law, enacted by her own government, to appease the Christian community; secondly, she went to the extent of denigrating and destroying the sanctity of a 2500-year-old institution established by Adi Sankara and flawlessly maintained by his order of disciples as ‘Jagath Gurus’ for millions of Hindus.

Not surprisingly, in October 2004, she received the ‘Golden Star for Dignity and Honour’ (Thanga Tharakai) award from a Ukraine-based Christian organisation named International Human Rights Defence Committee, controlled by America and funded by ‘US Agency for International Development’ (USAID).

The Indian representative for IHRDC was Mallavarappu Prakash, Bishop of Vijayawada and later Chairman of Tamil Nadu Minorities Welfare Commission! In February 2005, the ‘India International Society’, USA, proposed a tribute for her together with 'Barath Jyothi' award, after which evangelist K.A. Paul came to Tamil Nadu in a private jet to give thousands of crores of rupees for Tsunami relief.

Jaya pursuing Christian agenda

Since then, Jayalalithaa has clearly sided with the Christian clergy. Last year, while terming the spontaneous ‘retaliatory’ attacks on Christians in Kandhamal, Orissa, as a “disgrace” to the nation, she conveniently ignored the dastardly murder of Swami Laxmanananda and his disciples, and the distribution of blasphemous literature and pamphlets denigrating Hindu Gods and Goddesses, by his opponents. When the Rama Sethu Protection Movement was at its peak, she spoke against the Sethusamudram Project, not with true faith in Sri Rama, but with an eye on the votebank. And while protesting against the Sethu Project, she exhibited her 'secular' credentials by pointing out that ‘Adams Bridge’ (Ramar Sethu) was significant to Muslims and Christians as well, a myth which no Christian or Muslim scholar has so far endorsed!

Even the present election manifesto of her party makes only a passing mention of Rama Sethu! Yet it gives exclusive commitments for Christians, such as Reservation for Dalit Christians (unconstitutional), subsidy for Jerusalem pilgrimage, ‘All Souls Day’ to be made a holiday, hostels with all facilities at nominal charges in towns of minority religious significance, and addressing the ‘security’ concerns of minorities.

But she gave no commitments regarding repeal of the DMK government’s ordinance on Tamil New Year or returning the Chidambaram Temple administration to the Dikshidars, or any issue concerning Hindus. As if to confirm allegiance to the Christian agenda, she deviated from her original stand on the Sri Lankan ethnic issue and sat on a day-long fast on 9 March 2009, condemning the Indian government’s alleged inaction on the issue and addressed the LTTE as “fighters” instead of her usual remark of “terrorists”. Now she has openly supported the Christian agenda of creation of a separate Tamil Eelam, which amounts to supporting the LTTE and nothing else. After all, the Church-backed LTTE leadership is also fighting for the same cause!

Sabotaging the legislation on conversion in Sri Lanka

In 2003, Sri Lankan Buddhist and Hindu leaders joined hands to draft a legislation, at the request of Hindu Affairs Minister T. Maheswaran, to legally stop conversion activities by the Church. Despite the pressure applied by this joint committee which worked for six months to draft the new act for parliament, the Church-influenced Sri Lankan government has been reluctant to enact the law.

As the Church foresaw that Buddhist-Hindu unity - unity between majority (Buddhists) and the largest minority (Tamil Hindus) - could lead to permanent peace in the war-struck Island, it sabotaged the process of legislation by favouring the creation of an inter-religious council to hammer out a solution. This so-called inter-religious council is a typical Christian strategy (much like the Church-backed inter-faith dialogues in non-Christian countries) to thwart all attempts to ban conversions by an act of parliament; the same has been adopted by the Vatican to stop such legislations in India as well. Though organizations such as ‘All Ceylon Hindu Congress’ (though pro-LTTE), ‘Hindu Council of Sri Lanka’ and ‘National Council of Buddhist Clergy’ are dead against conversion activities, the Church has been able to influence the political leadership across the spectrum to sabotage the legislation of the anti-conversion law (Ref: http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=20884).

In this context, it must be noted that the former Hindu Affairs Minister in Ranil Wickramasinge’s cabinet T. Maheswaran escaped an assassination attempt in 2004, but was finally assassinated on 1 January 2008 while worshipping in a Shiva Temple. Till date, the government has not completed investigations in to the murder, though it has been blamed for allegedly reducing his security level and for continuing Minister Douglas Devananda, widely alleged to be involved in the assassination. The government put the blame squarely on LTTE and Douglas Devananda also denied the allegation of involvement. The BBC Sinhala.com reported, “The DNA samples taken from the murder suspect of a Tamil legislator matched with the blood samples taken from the gun used for the killing, Sri Lankan judiciary said. The legislator’s security guard managed to shoot the suspect, identified as Johnson Collin Wasanthan Valentine
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Maheswaranand
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/news/story/2008/02/080201_maheswaran_dna.shtml).

Importance of Hindu-Buddhist relationship

As early as June 1998, ‘Tamilnet’ reported that an International conference on Hinduism condemned attacks on Hindus and the destruction of Hindu places of worship by Sri Lankan security forces, and urged Colombo to halt such attacks. The report said that, the ‘First International Conference on Hindu Solidarity’ was held in Paris on 27-28 June at the UNESCO auditorium and attended by delegates from several countries, including functionaries from BJP and VHP ( http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=1691).

Though this seems like a conflict between Buddhist and Hindu communities, it must be understood that the security forces are controlled by a political leadership owing allegiance to the Church. The centuries-old cultural relationship and largely peaceful existence of both the Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus can be ascertained from two facts.

First, their coming together to draft a legislation against conversion activities of the Church and missionaries, and second, the statement from the Hindu Council of Sri Lanka that the long-standing cordial relationship between the two religious communities in the Island Nation would go a long way in solving the present crisis and creating peace and harmony.

It is pertinent to note that Buddhists worship Hindu Gods and Goddesses and Hindus worship Buddha as an Avatar of Maha Vishnu, and both communities follow the same calendar and celebrate the same day as New Year. While condemning the politicisation of the ethnic conflict by self-serving politicians of Tamil Nadu, the Hindu Council felt that areas of common interests must be identified and along with religious commonality and cordiality, local capacities built for peace. It opined that furthering political interests and fanning Tamil chauvinism must be discouraged as it would complicate the situation and inhibit the capacity of the Indian government to help find a lasting solution by bringing both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils to the negotiating table.

BJP-led NDA government’s proactive role in the peace process

Journalist M.R. Narayan Swamy (IANS) reported that the Vajpayee government played a secret but vital proactive role in the peace process between Sri Lanka and LTTE, brokered by Norway: “Overseen by New Delhi, a truce document began to be drafted. Norway was deeply involved in the exercise, roping in some of its veteran diplomats. Eventually, this translated into CFA. India also told Norwegian diplomats to let the LTTE know about the Indian involvement in the entire effort. On Feb 21, 2002, LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran signed the CFA. Wickramasinghe put his signature a day later.”

By sheer coincidence, both Ranil Wickramasinghe and A.B. Vajpayee lost power almost at the same time (April-May 2004) and J.N. Dixit, appointed NSA by Sonia-led UPA regime, passed away within a few months of his appointment, with all the details about India’s role in bringing the CFA, which he learnt from Ranil Wickramasinghe, when the later visited India after demitting office. It is natural for a Hindu nationalist party to be deeply concerned about the well-being of a country who’s Buddhist and Hindu people are both tied to Hindu India by an umbilical cord; hence it is no surprise that it tried to bring peace in the interests of both countries. Why did the CFA fail and whether the Sonia-led government pursued the policy of the Vajpayee government with regard to Sri Lanka remain unknown?
( http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=24710).

The present scenario

At present, all Dravidian parties are wreaking havoc in the run-up to the general elections, using the inflammatory Eelam issue as an election talking point. Each party is trying to whip up emotions in Tamil Nadu to bring about a ceasefire in Lanka and thereby save Prabhakaran and the LTTE.

When the Father Jagat Gasper Raj-Kanimozhi combine floated the “Chennai Sangamam” cultural extravaganza in 2007, Jaya TV went to town with investigative reports on the LTTE connections of Gasper Raj; Jayalalithaa wasted no time condemning the government’s association with the project. But last year, both Jayalalithaa and her TV channel kept a conspicuous silence during the Chennai Sangamam festival.

During the last week alone, Father Gasper Raj has been promoted by mainstream electronic media as a representative of Sri Lankan Tamils! Participating in debates on electronic news channels, he blatantly supports LTTE in the guise of voicing human rights concerns, criticizes the Indian government, and in one debate on Times Now Channel had the audacity to call Dr. Subramanian Swamy a “paid agent of Rajapakse”! Yet it is unclear if he is a Sri Lankan refugee or an Indian citizen. His antecedents and present activities in India/Tamil Nadu need thorough investigation.

AIADMK leader Jayalaithaa, who condemned Karunanidhi for saying Prabhakaran was not a terrorist, has not reacted to her ally PMK leader Ramadoss’ identical statement! Why does Jayalalithaa, who questioned Sonia’s silence on Karuna’s statement, remain silent on Ramadoss’ statement?

And what has the Italian-Christian-led UPA done for Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus in the last five years? Why didn’t the Sonia-led regime follow the NDA policy with regard to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue? Why was her government silent when the Geneva round of talks failed despite the presence of a live CFA?

Sad irony and civilisational opportunity

Actually, the West and the Church want to Christianise Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu and form a larger Tamil Christian State. Hence a Sinhala-Tamil divide has been created with the help of the Tamil-Christian leadership of the LTTE and the Sinhala-Christian leadership of Sri Lanka.

Caught in between are the Sinhala Buddhist and Tamil Hindu civil populace. To keep the issue alive without any solution, the Christian leadership of India and the Dravidian, irreligious leadership of Tamil Nadu have been used, just as this diabolic group is using Dravidian politicians and Christian NGOs who have been harvesting souls in both Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. It is a sad irony that the interests of hapless Tamil Hindus of Sri Lanka, who have been persecuted for long by both the Christian leadership of LTTE and the Christian leadership of Sri Lankan government, have been represented by the unholy Christian-Dravidian nexus in Tamil Nadu.

As things stand in Sri Lanka, it looks as though the West might be able to save the LTTE leadership. It will try to send missionaries and NGOs to help the rehabilitation process, so it can clandestinely achieve its evangelical agenda also.

It is said that President Rajapakse instructed setting up of a chapel in the ‘welfare villages’ to look into the spiritual needs of the internally displaced persons and refugees, who number up to 200,000. Sensing the danger of evangelization, the Hindu Council, the Hindu Women’s Society (Saiva Mangaiyar Kazhagam), the Sai Samithi, along with other organizations, swung into action to provide medicines, clothes, soaps, detergents and sanitary napkins and other articles of basic necessity, to augment the shelter, food and water provided by the government. The Hindu Council has also organized singing of Tamil devotional hymns (Thevaram and Thiruvasagam); the Sai Samithi has organized bhajans. These organizations are likely to take care of orphaned children by sending them to orphanages run by the Sri Ramakrishna Mission.

The present situation must be seen as an opportunity to revive Hindu-Buddhist unity and Hindu religious heads from India, especially from Tamil Nadu, would do well to establish contact and communication channels with Buddhist leaders of Sri Lanka. This will go a long way in bringing peace and harmony to the Island Nation. For this to happen, we need a strong “Hindu” political leadership in India. Let us hope it gets ‘elected’ now.