25. October 2009 by admin.

Chennai Silks , a textile unit has come up with one of its kind and it is seeking an unmistakable entry into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the most unique and expensive sari.
 
The exceptionally stunning sari is meticulously woven with 12 precious stones and metals to depict 11 of Raja Ravi Verma’s popular paintings. Explicitly projected is  ‘Lady Musicians’, it is one of the painter’s very famous works that displays women belonging to diverse cultural backgrounds. 
 
Besides, the border of the sari pictures 10 other paintings of the artist that pays tribute to the 20th century artist. 
The best part of the sari being that the women in the paintings are intricately hand-woven and beautified with jewels of gold, diamond, platinum, silver, ruby, emerald, yellow sapphire, sapphire, cat’s eye, topaz, pearl and corals.
 
Already in the  Limca Book of Records, this Rs.40-lakhs (approx.$80,000 USD) sari will be the first silk sari that required the use of 7,440 jacquard hooks and 66,794 cards during the weaving process. Moreover, a group of consummate workers took nearly 4,680 hours to complete the job.

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24. October 2009 by admin.

Pro-Islamic and anti-Hindu mindset known as dhimmitude (described more fully later) is prevalent in sections of the American academy. The case in point is the recent book by Dr. Wendy Doniger [1] , The Hindus: An Alternative History, The Penguin Press, 2009. Professor Goel reviews the book which has blatant anti hindu and pro islamic tone.


M. Lal Goel
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, www.uwf.edu/lgoel Doniger’s 779-page tome is laced with personal editorials, folksy turn of the phrase and funky wordplays. She has a large repertoire of Hindu mythological stories. She often narrates the most damning mythical story—Vedic, Puranic, folk, oral, vernacular—to demean, damage and disparage Hinduism. After building a caricature, she laments that fundamentalist Hindus (how many and how powerful are they?) are destroying the pluralistic, tolerant Hindu tradition. Why save such a vile, violent religion, as painted by the eminent professor? There is a contradiction here. This review focuses on Doniger’s discussion of Islamic incursions into India. Islam entered south India in the 7th Century with Arab merchants and traders. This was peaceful Islam. Later, Islam came to India as a predatory and a conquering force. Mohammad bin Qasim ravaged Sindh in 712. Mahmud Ghazni pillaged, looted and destroyed numerous Hindu temples around 1000 AD, but did not stay to rule. The Muslim rule begins with the Delhi Sultanate, approximately 1201 to 1526. The Sultanate gave place to the Mughal Empire, 1526-1707. Doniger makes the following dubious points regarding the Muslim imperial rule in India (1201-1707). Muslims marauders destroyed some Hindu temples, not many. Temple destruction was a long-standing Indian tradition. Hindus destroyed Buddhist and Jain stupas and rival Hindu temples and built upon the destroyed sites. Muslim invaders looted and destroyed Hindu temples because they had the power to do so. If Hindus had the power, they would do the same in reverse. The Jizya—the Muslim tax on non-Muslims—was for Hindu protection and a substitute for military service. Hindu “megalomania” for temple building in the Middle Ages was a positive result of Muslim demolition of some Hindu temples. The Hindu founders of the Vijayanagara Empire double-crossed their Muslim master in Delhi who had deputed them to secure the South. Hindus want Muslims and Christians to leave India for Hindustan is only for Hindus. Let us take each point in turn to examine Doniger’s mistaken views. Muslim invaders beginning with Mahmud Ghazni in 1000 CE looted, pillaged and destroyed not few but many Hindu and Buddhist temples. Muslim chroniclers describe the humiliation and utter desolation wrought by the Muslims on the kafirs (unbelievers). Alberuni, the Muslim scholar who accompanied Mahmud to India, describes one such event: “Mathura, the holy city of Krishna, was the next victim. In the middle of the city there was a temple larger and finer than the rest, which can neither be described nor painted. The Sultan was of the opinion that 200 years would have been required to build it. The idols included ‘five of red gold, each five yards high,’ with eyes formed of priceless jewels. . . The Sultan gave orders that all the temples should be burnt with naphtha and fire, and leveled with the ground. Thus perished works of art which must have been among the noblest monuments of ancient India.” [2] At the destruction of another temple, Somnath, it is estimated that 50,000 were massacred. The fabulous booty of gold, women and children was divided according to Islamic tradition—the Sultan getting the royal fifth, the cavalry man getting twice as much as the foot soldier. Hundreds of Hindu and Buddhist shrines were destroyed. Dr. Doniger asserts that Hindus too persecuted minority Jain and Buddhist religions and destroyed their shrines. She narrates the now discarded story about the impaling of Jains at the hands of Hindu rulers in the Tamil country. Then she says that “there is no evidence that any of this actually happened, other than the story.” (p 365). Then why narrate the story? Hindu sectarian violence pales in comparison to what happened either in Europe or in the Middle East. The truth is that both Jainism and Buddhism were integrated into Hinduism’s pluralistic tradition. The Buddha is accepted as one of the Hindu Avatars (God in human form). Exquisite Jain temples at Mt Abu at the border of Gujarat and Rajasthan built around 1000 CE survive in the region dominated by Hindu Rajput rulers, falsifying notions of Hindu carnage of Jain temples. Doniger says that Hindus would do the same to Muslims if they had the power to do so. Hindus did come to power after the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, when the Mughal rule rapidly declined. The Marathas were the strongest power in Western and Southern India in the 18th and 19th centuries, as the Sikhs were in North India. There is no account of large scale demolition and looting of Muslim places of worship either by the Marathas or the Sikhs. If a copy of the Quran fell into the hands of Maharaja Shivaji during a campaign, the same would be passed on to a Muslim rather than being burned. Contrary to what Doniger says, Jizya is a long held Muslim tradition. It was levied to begin with on the defeated Christians and Jews, the People of the Book, as a price for the cessation of Jihad. Hindus, not being one of the People of the Book, did not deserve to live by paying the special tax. If defeated in battle, their only option was Islam or death. This was the position taken by the Islamic clergy. Unlike the clergy, however, the Muslim governors were practical men. If they had killed the Hindus en masse for failing to adopt Islam, who would build their palaces, fill their harems, cut their wood and hue their water? [3] Doniger argues that Hindu ‘megalomania’ for temple building resulted from Muslim destruction of some Hindu temples. In other words, because the Muslims destroyed some of the Hindu temples, the Hindus went on a building spree. If Doniger’s argument is accepted, Hindus should thank Islamic marauders for looting and desecrating their shrines. The truth is that in northern India which experienced 500 years of Islamic rule (1201-1707), few historical temples of any beauty remain. In contrast, temple architecture of some beauty does survive in southern India, the region that escaped long Muslim occupation. That the Hindu founders of the Vijayanagara dynasty in the South double-crossed their Muslim master in Delhi is one among the innumerable editorial negative portrayal of Hindu character. One may ask: why wouldn’t a slave double cross his oppressor? The view that Muslims and Christians should leave India is not one held by most Hindus, only by a small minority on the extreme fringes. Muslim population has increased in India from about 9 percent at the time of Independence to about 13 percent now (1947-2009). In contrast, in Pakistan, Hindu population has declined and now constitutes less than one percent. In Muslim Bangladesh in the same period the Hindu population has declined from 29 percent to less than 10 percent. Muslims hold important positions in government and business in contemporary India, which is 83 pct Hindu. The richest person in India has been a Muslim, Premji; the most popular film stars are Muslim; Christian and Muslim chief ministers and governors head several of the states. The single most important leader in India is an Italian-born woman Sonya Gandhi and the Prime Minister is a Sikh, Dr. Manmohan Singh. The past President APJ Kalam was a Muslim and before that K R Narayanan, a lower caste. In Federal and State civil service, 50 percent of the jobs are reserved for backward classes and Untouchable, in order to compensate for past discrimination. India has moved. Let us look more closely. Doniger describes the invasion of Sindh by Arab soldier of fortune Muhammad bin Qasim as follows: Qasim invaded Sindh in 713. The terms of surrender included a promise of guarantee of the safety of Hindu and Buddhist establishments. “Hindus and Buddhists were allowed to govern themselves in matters of religion and law.” Qasim “kept his promises.” The non-Muslims were not treated as kafirs. Jizya was imposed but only as a substitute for military service for their “protection.” He brought Muslim teachers and mosques into the subcontinent. (paraphrased) From Doniger’s assessment, Qasim should be regarded as a blessing. Contrast Doniger’s description with that written by Andrew Bostom in “The Legacy of Islamic Jihad in India.” [4] The Muslim chroniclers al-Baladhuri (in Kitab Futuh al-Buldan) and al-Kufi (in the Chachnama) include enough isolated details to establish the overall nature of the conquest of Sindh by Muhammad b. Qasim in 712 C.E. . . . Baladhuri, for example, records that following the capture of Debal, Muhammad b. Qasim earmarked a section of the city exclusively for Muslims, constructed a mosque, and established four thousand colonists there. The conquest of Debal had been a brutal affair. . . Despite appeals for mercy from the besieged Indians (who opened their gates after the Muslims scaled the fort walls), Muhammad b. Qasim declared that he had no orders (i.e., from his superior al-Hajjaj, the Governor of Iraq) to spare the inhabitants, and thus for three days a ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter ensued. In the aftermath, the local temple was defiled, and “700 beautiful females who had sought for shelter there, were all captured.” Distinguished historian R. C. Majumdar describes the capture of the royal Fort and its tragic outcome: Muhammad massacred 6,000 fighting men who were found in the fort, and their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoners. Sixty thousand slaves, including 30 young ladies of royal blood, were sent to Hajjaj, along with the head of Dahar [the Hindu ruler]. We can now well understand why the capture of a fort by the Muslim forces was followed by the terrible jauhar ceremony (in which females threw themselves in fire kindled by themselves), the earliest recorded instance of which is found in the Chachnama. Cited in Bostom. Doniger extensively footnotes Romila Thapar, John Keay, Anne Schimmel and A. K. Ramanujan as her sources for Islamic history, providing an impression of meticulous scholarship. Missing are works of the distinguished historians: Jadunath Sarkar, R. C. Majumdar, A. L. Srivastava, Vincent Smith, and Ram Swarup. Doniger writes at page 458: when Muslim royal women first came to India, they did not rigidly keep to purdah (the veiling and seclusion of women). They picked the more strict form of purdah from contact with the Hindu Rajput women. Doniger finds much to praise in Muslim women during this period: some knew several languages; others wrote poetry; some managed vast estates; others set up “feminist” republics within female quarters (harems); some debated fine points on religion; some even joined in drinking parties (chapters 16, 20). Such descriptions are patently negated by distinguished historians. See The Mughal Harem (1988) by K S Lal, available free on the Internet. If Hinduism is the source of strict purdah among Muslim women, as Doniger contends, how does one explain the strict veiling of women in the Middle East, a region far removed from Hindu influence? Or, the absence of it in southern India, a region that escaped Islamic domination? Doniger writes at page 627, “the Vedic reverence for violence flowered in the slaughters that followed Partition.” And, Gandhi’s nonviolence succeeded against the British. But it failed against the tenaciously held Hindu ideal of violence that had grip on the real emotions of the masses. What is one to make of these weighty pronouncements uttered in all seriousness by the author? These are an expression of the hurt feelings on the part of a scholar. While discussing the Hindu epic Ramayana in London in 2003, Doniger put forth her usual gloss: that Lakshman had the hots for his brother Rama’s wife Sita, and that sexually-charged Sita reciprocated these feelings. An irate Hindu threw an egg at her and conveniently missed it. This incident is her cause célèbre. DHIMMITUDE Doniger’s uncritical review of the Islamic marauding raids in India (712-1200) and later the Islamic empire (1201-1707) suggests dhimmitude. The concepts of dhimmi and dhimmitude were developed by the Egyptian born Jewish woman writer, Bat Ye’or (Daughter of the Nile), who fled Egypt in 1958 in the wake of Jewish persecution following the Suez Canal crisis. Her meticulous research puts to rest the myth of peaceful expansion of Islamic power in the countries of Middle East and Eastern Europe. [5] Dhimmitude is a state of fear and insecurity on the part of infidels who are required to accept a condition of humiliation. It is characterized by the victim’s siding with his oppressors, by the moral justification the victim provides for his oppressors’ hateful behavior. The Dhimmi loses the possibility of revolt because revolt arises from a sense of injustice. He loathes himself in order to praise his oppressors. Dhimmis lived under some 20 disabilities. Dhimmis were prohibited to build new places of worship, to ring church bells or take out processions, to ride horses or camels (they could ride donkeys), to marry a Muslim woman, to wear decorative clothing, to own a Muslim as a slave or to testify against a Muslim in a court of law. Ye’or believes that the dhimmi condition can only be understood in the context of Jihad. Jihad embodies all the Islamic laws and customs applied over a millennium on the vanquished population, Jews and Christians, in the countries conquered by jihad and therefore Islamized. She believes that dhimmitude was once the attribute of defeated Christian and Jewish communities under Islam. Now it is a feature of much of the Western world, Europe and America. Her theory of dhimmitude applies to many Hindus in India. Whereas dhimmitude in previous centuries resulted from real-life powerlessness and humiliation, modern dhimmi syndrome results from some combination of the following. The corrupting power of oil money to influence think tanks, lobbyists and academic institutions. De-Christianizing of Europe. It is now also happening in the U.S. See Pew research reports. Guilt feelings in the West on account of the Crusades to liberate the Holy Land (1095-1291). Multiculturalism: the belief that all cultural practices and ways of life are equally valid. Violence by radical Muslims is on account of being poor and exploited by colonial hegemony. Islam provided the West its basis for advancement in math and science. The rising number of Muslim populations in Europe and America. The rising level of alienation from one’s own culture in the West. Doniger’s inflammatory book on the Hindus makes sense only in the light of a larger global trend—a trend that seeks to re-package Islamic history as a force for tolerance and progress. Doniger is not alone in holding such views. Dhimmi attitudes of subservience have entered the Western academy, and from there into journalism, school textbooks and political discourse. One must not criticize Islam. For, to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today. To do so would endanger chances for peace and rapprochement between civilizations all too ready to clash. See, The field of Middle East Studies in the U.S. is now controlled by pro-Middle East professors, according to Martin Kramer, editor of the Middle Eastern Quarterly. “The crucial turning point occurred in the late 1970s when Middle East studies centers, under /Edward/ Said’s influence, began to show a preference for ideology over empirical fact and, fearing the taint of the ‘orientalist’ bias, began to prefer academic appointments of native-born Middle Easterners over qualified Western-born students,” contends Kramer. The book is summarized at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_17_119/ai_90989239/.>
In contrast, the field of Hinduism studies is controlled by non-Hindus and anti-Hindus, with some notable exceptions of course. Hindu gods and goddesses are lampooned and denigrated. Hindu saints are described as sexual perverts and India in danger of being run over by Hindu fundamentalists. In these portrayals, Doniger is joined by Martha Nussbaum, Paul Courtright, Jeffrey Kripal, Sarah Caldwell, Stanley Kurtz, to name a few of the leading academicians. For a critique of the American academy, see Rajiv Malhotra at www.sulekha.com, and a 2007 book titled, Invading the Sacred. [6] Doniger is quite harsh on the British record in India (1757-1947). She compares the British argument that they brought trains and drains to India to Hitler’s argument that he built the Autobahn in Germany (p. 583). Censuring Britain and giving a pass to the more draconian Islamic imperialism in India fits with the dhimmi attitude that I have described. Consequently, attitudes of concession and appeasement are on the rise. A reversal of language occurs. Jihad is called ‘struggle within’ or struggle for liberation. Dhimmitude is called tolerance. Jizya is called protection. Tony Blair declares Islam is a religion of peace and that the terrorists are not real Muslims. Parts of London have been ceded to the control of radical mullahs. Sharia arbitration courts are now part of the British legal system. Melanie Phillips tells that London is becoming Londonistan. [7] Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe. The destruction of life and property caused by Islamic extremists in the last thirty years is simply horrendous. Of course, distinction must be made between moderate Muslims and radicals who wish to bring back the 7th century version of Islam. The British helped abolish the horrible practice of Suttee (widow burning) in India in the 19th century. At its peak in the 19th century, the practice of Suttee claimed the lives of 500 to 600 women a year in India. The honor killing of women, genital mutilation, and the caning of girls for minor sexual impropriety raises only a limited protest in the 21st century. Amid the rising level of alienation, multiculturalism and the feelings of guilt in the West, the moral compass has been lost. politicalislam.com Use and distribute as you wish; do not edit and give us credit.

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18. October 2009 by admin.

How many Indians even know today about the Hindu rulers of Afghanistan? How many of them have read about how the Hindu kings fought the Muslim invaders tooth and nail to save Afghanistan? Their battles and conduct recieved high praises even from their Muslim adversaries. We Hindus of India owe a debt to them. The least we can do to repay this debt is to tell our children their story.
 
Most westerners would be ignorant of the fact that Afghanistan was once a Hindu majority country and the most famous ruling dynasty of Afghanistan is called the Hindushahi Dynasty.
 
Here is a list of the famous Hindushahi kings who ruled Afghanistan:
 
Khingala of Kapisa (7th c.)
Patoladeva alias Navasurendradiyta Nandin of Gilgit (6-7th c.)
Srideva alias Surendra Vikrmadiyta Nandin of Gilgit (6-7th c.)
Patoladeva alias Vajraditya Nandin of Gilgit (6-7th c.)
Kallar alias Lalliya (c. 890-895) of Kabul
Kamaluka (895-921)
Bhima (921-964), son of Kamaluka
Ishtthapala (?)
Jayapala (964-1001)
Anandapala (1001-c.1010), son of Jayapala
Trilochanapala (ruled c.1010-1021-22; assassinated by mutinous troops)
Bhímapála (died in 1022-1026)
 
 
Here is a short story about defence of Kabul and Zabul by the Hindu kings, narrated by Sita Ram Goel:
 

HEROIC DEFENCE OF KABUL AND ZABUL
 
The same story was repeated by the Hindu kingdoms of Kabul (Kapisa) and Zabul (Jabal) which lay to the north-west of Sindh, and which the Islamic armies had started attacking soon after they annexed Khorasan in AD 643. It was in AD 650 that the first Islamic army penetrated deep into Zabul by way of Seistan, which at that time was a part of India territorially as well as culturally. The struggle was grim and prolonged. The Islamic army suffered heavy losses. In the final round, the invader was defeated and driven out.
Another attack followed in AD 653. The Arab general, Abdul Rahman, was able to conquer Zabul and levy tribute from Kabul. The king of Kabul, however, proved desultory in paying regularly what the Arabs thought to be their due. Finally, another Arab general, Yazid ibn Ziyad who had been the governor of Seistan for some time, attempted retribution in AD 683. He was killed by the Hindus, and his army was put to flight with great slaughter. The Arabs lost Seistan also, and had to pay 5,00,000 dirhams to get one of their generals, Abu Ubaida, released.
But the Arabs, inspired as they were by an imperialist ideology, did not give up. They recovered Seistan some time before AD 692. Its new governor, Abdullah, invaded Kabul. The Hindus trapped the Arab army in the mountain passes after allowing it to advance unopposed for some distance. Abdullah agreed to cease hostilities, and the king of Kabul agreed to renew payment of an annual tribute. But the treaty was denounced by the Caliph who dismissed Abdullah. The war against Kabul was renewed in AD 695 when Hajjaj became the governor of Iraq. He sent an army under Ubaidullah, the new governor of Seistan. Ubaidullah was defeated and forced to retreat after leaving his three sons as hostages and promising that �he shall not fight as long as he was governor�.15 Once again, the treaty was denounced by the Caliph, and another general, Shuraih, tried to advance upon Kabul. He was killed by the Hindus, and his army suffered huge losses as it retreated through the desert of Bust. Poor Ubaidullah died of grief. That was the third round won by the Hindu kingdom of Kabul.
In the next round, Hajjaj commissioned Abdul Rahman once again. He made some conquests but could not consolidate his hold. Hajjaj threatened to supersede him. Abdul Rahman revolted and entered into a treaty with the Hindu king to �carry arms against his master�.16 The treaty did not work, and Abdul Rahman committed suicide. The Hindu king, however, continued the war. Masudi, the Arab historian, �makes mention of a prince in the valley of the Indus who after having subjugated Eastern Persia, advanced to the bank of the Tigris and Euphrates�.17 Hajjaj had to make peace according to which the Hindu king was entitled to keep his kingdom in exchange for an annual tribute. The Hindu king, however, stopped payment in the reign of Caliph Sulayman (AD 715-717). Some attempts to force him into submission were made in the reign of Caliph Al-Mansur (AD 745-775). But they met with only partial success, and we find the Hindus ruling over Kabul and Zabul in the year AD 867. The Arabs had failed once again to conquer finally another small Hindu principality, in spite of their being the mightiest power on earth. The struggle had lasted for more than two hundred years.
The kingdom of Kabul suffered a temporary eclipse in AD 870 but not on account of the Arabs, nor as a result of a clash of arms. The Turkish adventurer, Yaqub bin Layth, �who started his career as a robber in Seistan and later on founded the Saffarid dynasty of Persia�, sent a message to the king of Kabul that he wanted to come and pay his homage. The king was deceived into welcoming Yaqub and a band of the latter�s armed followers in the court at Kabul. Yaqub �bowed his head as if to do homage but he raised the lance and thrust it into the back of Rusal so that he died on the spot�. A Turkish army then invaded the Hindu kingdoms of both Kabul and Zabul. The king of Zabul was killed in the battle, and the population was converted to Islam by force. That was a permanent loss to India. But the succeeding Hindu king of Kabul who had meanwhile transferred his capital to Udbhandapur on the Indus, recovered Kabul after the Saffarid dynasty declined. Masudi who visited the Indus Valley in AD 915 �designates the prince who ruled at Kabul by the same title as he held when the Arabs penetrated for the first time into this region�.18
The Hindus lost Kabul for good only in the closing decade of the 10th century. In AD 963 Alaptigin, a Turkish slave of the succeeding Samanid dynasty, had been able to establish an independent Muslim principality in Kabul with his seat at Ghazni. It was his general and successor, Subuktigin, who conquered Kabul after a struggle spread over two decades. The Hindus under king Jayapala of Udbhandapur made a bold bid to recapture Kabul in AD 986-987. A confederate Hindu army to which the Rajas of Delhi, Ajmer, Kalinjar and Kanauj has contributed troops and money, advanced into the heartland of the Islamic kingdom of Ghazni. �According to Utbi, the battle lasted several days and the warriors of Subuktigin, including prince Mahmood, were �reduced to despair.� But a snow-storm and rains upset the plans of Jayapala who opened negotiations for peace. He sent the following message to Subuktigin: �You have heard and know the nobleness of Indians – they fear not death or destruction� In affairs of honour and renown we would place ourselves upon the fire like roast meat, and upon the dagger like the sunrays.��19 But the peace thus concluded proved temporary. The Muslims resumed the offensive and the Hindus were defeated and driven out of Kabul. Dr. Mishra concludes with the comment that Jayapala “was perhaps the last Indian ruler to show such spirit of aggression, so sadly lacking in later Rajput kings.”

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18. October 2009 by admin.

For once, the leftist-liberal ‘Guardian’ has been kind to the Hindus and published a story about the Hindus of Afghanistan. What are the chances that such an article will ever be allowed by the champagne liberals and brown-sahib editors of Indian newspapers?

Read the article:

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.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/aug/02/afghanistan-hindus

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28. September 2009 by admin.

Behind Every Jinnah, there is a Gandhi- III 
Radha Rajan
 
Gandhi’s INC: tap-dancing to nowhere:
The contrast between Jinnah’s Muslim League and Gandhi’s INC could not have been more glaring. In August 1947, Jinnah, the Muslims and the Muslim League were not only free from colonial rule, but had also successfully torn the Indian nation apart; while Gandhi’s INC watched the British leave India at the time and manner of their choosing, a torn and bleeding nation in which the sense of nation and nationhood of Gandhi’s Hindus had been perverted beyond belief by Gandhi’s satyagraha and non-violence, while the pride, dignity and valour of Hindu nationalists lay in ruins.  At the Surat Congress in December 1907, the Indian National Congress split into two distinct ideological groups, the Moderates and Nationalists. The Nationalist group headed by Tilak, Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo set complete political freedom as its objective. The INC split exactly one year after the creation of the Muslim League in December 1906.   - “The ‘Moderate’ Indian politician aspires to be an Imperial citizen. His ambition has at last been screwed up to the point of seeking equality with his ‘colonial brother’. His loyalty draws him towards the Empire and his politics draws him towards self-government and the resultant is self-government within the Empire. Colonies have been granted self-government within the Empire and it logically follows that if the Indians try, try and try again, they too will gain their end because nothing is impossible to perseverance. Thus two birds will be killed with one stone. The ruling people, whose immense power can be turned against us any moment if they happen to be irritated, will be pleased with our desire not to break away from the Empire and, at the same time the spirit of independence which is constantly urging us to demand a greater and greater measure of self-government will have its full play. Such a compromise, such a smooth scheme of accommodating comprehensiveness is being welcomed everywhere as suddenly revealed to a political prophet who is going the round of the country with the inviting message: ‘Come to me, all ye that are heavy-laden, and I shall give rest unto you’.” (Aurobindo, Yet there is Method in It, Bande Mataram, February 25, 1907)  Aurobindo had summed up succinctly the political objectives that Gokhale, Naoroji, Surendranath Bannerjea and the dominant Parsees in India and London had set for the INC – greater participation in government but within the Empire; that is, while the English educated Indians would become ministers in the Viceroy’s Council or the Governor’s Council, the nation would remain enslaved under British colonial rule.   Gandhi returned from South Africa to fill the vacuum in the INC intentionally created by the British by removing Tilak and Aurobindo from public life. It is worth repeating that when Gandhi came back to India his ‘Mahatma’ halo was waiting for him. He climbed to the highest position in the INC with the assurance that the halo gave him, facilitated by the absence of Gokhale who had passed away, Tilak who was weakened by age and colonial persecution, and Aurobindo who had removed himself to Pondicherry for the safe pastures of spiritual practice.    From 1917, the INC was under the effective and despotic control of Gandhi and Gandhi only; all other leaders came a distant second and played at best only second fiddle. Subhash Bose, KM Munshi and Rajaji who had serious differences with Gandhi’s policies and the direction in which he was leading the INC, were summarily thrown out of the party by Gandhi with harsh and insulting words as in the case of Bose, or with sweet reasonableness as with KM Munshi and Rajaji. But the fact remains Gandhi did not tolerate dissent or differences of opinion when the opinion was his. If Jinnah was successful, he owed his success in no mean measure to Gandhi’s leadership of the INC.  British colonial rule of India ended with the vivisection of the Hindu bhumi. Hindu nationalists reject the projection of August 15, 1947 as Independence Day; not the least because it was only self-rule day as the British monarch continued to remain Head of the State until January 1950, but primarily because ending colonial rule was predicated on vivisection. This is the truth that our stalwarts in Nehruvian-secular academe, and the Hindu stalwarts in the Congress and the BJP do not want to see, much less articulate – that the British, tactically using the Cabinet Mission proposals, made their leaving India conditional upon vivisection.  Vivisection of the Hindu bhumi became a certainty because –
- Gandhi and the Hindus in the INC did not understand the political objectives of Islam, or if they did, they had no objections 
- Gandhi did not understand that colonialism (in this case the British government) was only a derivative of the White Church and had the same political objective as Islam with regard to non-Christian nations and peoples 
- Gandhi carried back to India in 1915 the conviction from his years in South Africa that British colonialism civilized the Empire’s enslaved people and lifted them up from sloth, superstition and barbarity 
- Gandhi did not understand in the critical 1940s decade that western nations – America and the nations of Europe, were confronted by anti-Christian and anti-capital Soviet Union and that this intra-Western nations’ conflict and inter-play was impacting the enslaved nations in Africa and Asia in a manner that would determine post-colonial world order 
- In spite of knowing what was happening in Indonesia and Mountbatten’s role in aborting Indonesia’s fledgling independence from colonial rule, Gandhi not only allowed Louis Mountbatten to come to India as the last Viceroy, but had such faith in Mountbatten’s British sense of justice and fair-play that he asked Mountbatten to be the “umpire” (Gandhi’s words) between himself and Jinnah, “not as Viceroy, but as a man” (whatever in God’s name that meant) 
- Gandhi did not choose to correct the gross misconception that Satyagraha - a political instrument, and non-violence - a personal choice, were one and the same 
- Gandhi inflicted upon the INC his personal articles of faith, Satyagraha and non-violence as uncompromising, non-negotiable Congress Creed; and finally, 
- Gandhi had only one tool of engagement with the British – first Satyagraha and then dialogue, and only one strategy to deal with the Muslims – chasing the holy grail of Hindu-Muslim unity   It was Gandhi, Gandhi all the way. Let us start at the beginning – what was the ultimate objective of Gandhi’s INC between 1915 when Gandhi came back from South Africa and 1947 when the Hindu nation was vivisected by Islam? We must first rid our minds of all hagiographic accounts of Gandhi and Gandhi’s life and go back to the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG) for the truth.   The INC from 1910, when all the Nationalist leaders had been either exiled or imprisoned, until 1917 when Gandhi assumed leadership, and even after 1917 and until 1946, did not move decisively or proactively towards freedom. From 1910 the INC was either in limbo for protracted lengths in time or was tap-dancing in the same place. Notwithstanding the frenzied energy with which the dancer shakes his legs while tap-dancing, we know he is not moving from place to place. He is dancing on the same spot. Gandhi’s INC was similarly tap-dancing in the so-called freedom movement even as the Muslims used the Khilafat Committee and then the Muslim League to move decisively towards creating the Islamic state of Pakistan from the body of the Hindu nation.   Was there a freedom struggle?
Gandhi began his political career in India with the much touted Champaran and Kaira (Kheda) Satyagraha which allegedly put the British government on the back-foot and compelled them to concede to Gandhi’s demands. The fact is, Gandhi struck a deal with the Viceroy – grant me my demands with regard to the farmers of Champaran and Kaira and not only will it be seen as a victory for non-violent satyagraha, but I will go back to Kaira and get every able-bodied man to recruit in the army to fight World War 1 for Britain. Gandhi also assured the Viceroy that this concession was being sought only as a “war measure” and that he would ensure such demands would not be made again, and that these concessions would not set a precedent for the future.  - “I would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to the Empire at its critical moment; and I know that India by this very act would become the most favoured partner in the Empire and racial distinctions would become a thing of the past”.   Unnerving echoes from Aurobindo’s “The ‘Moderate’ Indian politician aspires to be an Imperial citizen! His ambition has at last been screwed up to the point of seeking equality with his ‘colonial brother”. What Aurobindo said in 1907 of Gokhale, Naoroji and other Moderates turned out to be just as true of Gandhi in 1918. It is clear now why the British government had no objections, and in fact may have secretly welcomed it, when Gokhale passed on the mantle of leadership to Gandhi, and not to Tilak or Lajpat Rai.  - “In Champaran, by resisting an age-long tyranny, I have shown the ultimate sovereignty of British justice.
Thus, Champaran and Kaira affairs are my direct, definite and special contribution to the war.
I write this because I love the English nation, and I wish to evoke in every Indian the loyalty of the Englishman”. (Excerpts from Letter to Viceroy, Delhi, April 29, 1918, CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 7-10)
- “It will also enable me to fall back for war purposes upon my co-workers in Kaira and it may enable me to get recruits from the district.
I suggest that action in this matter be taken as war measure. This will obviate the fear of relief being regarded as a precedent”. (Letter to JL Maffey (Secretary to the Viceroy), Nadiad, April 30, 1918, CWMG, Vol. 17, pp 10-12)     It is doubtful if any Indian of the times knew of this deal. This secret deal between Gandhi and the Viceroy (much like the little-known letter that Gandhi wrote to Lord Ampthill in October 1909) which saw the British government responding positively to Gandhi’s demands, achieved two things for Gandhi – it projected his satyagraha and non-violence (falsely as we now know) as the best tool of engagement with the British because (or so the ordinary people thought) it succeeded in getting the government to retreat; it also gave Gandhi’s ‘mahatma’ halo an additional coat of polish and gave him the status of undisputed leader with the ordinary people of India.  The excerpts from Gandhi’s letters to the Viceroy and the Viceroy’s secretary at the time of the Champaran and Kaira satyagrahas have been reproduced for a purpose. This article was necessitated by the dishonest public debate where one side blames Jinnah alone for Partition, while the other side holds Nehru and Patel also, besides Jinnah, guilty for Partition. No one in post-independence India, no one in public life, has asked if partition could have been averted and if yes, how could it have been averted. It suits the nation to hold Jinnah and the Muslim League (not the Muslims; now that is an intellectual tight-rope walk) alone to blame for partition. But the guilt attached to the Muslims, Muslim League and Jinnah is only a very small portion of the whole truth. Jinnah is not all. Which brings us back to the most important question – what was the political objective of the Gandhi-led INC?  This article is not intended to add dead weight to the sterile academic debate about Jinnah, Gandhi and partition, but aims to correct our political discourse by inextricably linking vivisection with independence, and also intends to reassess Gandhi’s role in the freedom movement to better understand why Hindus lost and are continuing to lose territory to the two genocidal and predatory Abrahamic monotheisms even sixty years after ending colonial rule in 1947. The article is an attempt to break the conventional silence about Gandhi’s catastrophic-for-Hindus political activism which led to vivisection.  If there was indeed a freedom struggle movement under Gandhi’s leadership as state-funded history writers have been telling us, then freedom can only be understood as ending colonial rule and achieving total political freedom, accompanied by the British quitting India lock, stock and barrel. But Gandhi in 1918, in sharp contrast to Tilak and Aurobindo, is writing to the Viceroy about how he loves the English nation and how he wishes to invoke in every Indian the same love and loyalty for the Empire as that of an Englishman! Now this is not the language or the sentiment of a man leading a political party towards freedom from colonial rule. This was in 1918.  In 1920, the Gandhi-led INC issued the call for Swaraj. But between 1918 when Gandhi wrote gushingly to the Viceroy about his love for the English nation, offering his services to the Viceroy as recruiting agent for the war, and the 1920 Nagpur Congress where Gandhi called for Swaraj, the British government demonstrated the full might of the power of the state. In spite of Gandhi’s sycophantic recruiting agent act, the British government slapped the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act or the Rowlatt Act on Indians with one hand, while with the other it passed the Government of India Act 1919.

The draconian Rowlatt Act gave the government sweeping powers to imprison without trial any individual who picked up arms against the British government and people or conspired against the colonial state. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, with the full knowledge of Michael O’Dwyer, Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, also issued the infamous and humiliating ‘crawling order’ against the people of the province; 1919 was also the year of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

The GoI Act 1919 gave Indians some measure of participation in government, a sop for the Rowlatt Act, “crawling order” and the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. Gandhi’s declaration of love for the English nation must have sent the comforting signal to the British government that under Gandhi’s leadership the INC would not make any demand for complete political freedom. Thus, even as the British government was using the stick of the Rowlatt Act against us and turning the full military might of the state against ordinary people, it also dangled the carrot of self-government before us.   - “The ruling people, whose immense power can be turned against us any moment if they happen to be irritated, will be pleased with our desire not to break away from the Empire and, at the same time the spirit of independence which is constantly urging us to demand a greater and greater measure of self-government will have its full play. Such a compromise, such a smooth scheme of accommodating comprehensiveness is being welcomed everywhere as suddenly revealed to a political prophet who is going the round of the country with the inviting message: ‘Come to me, all ye that are heavy-laden, and I shall give rest unto you’.”   Astonishing how Aurobindo’s discerning analysis of and scathing attack against the leaders of the INC in 1907 was just as true in 1919. Little had changed in the INC’s objectives and even less had changed in the character of its leaders.   We cannot help but think that Gandhi was just such a political prophet who had worked out “a smooth scheme of accommodating comprehensiveness” with the British Indian government.  At the Amritsar Congress, 27 December 1919 – January 1 1920, Tilak and CR Das expressed sharp criticism of the Montague-Chelmsford reforms report which formed the basis for the GoI Act 1919, calling it “inadequate, unsatisfactory and disappointing”. In what would be the precursor to 1946, when Gandhi would once again hastily welcome the Cabinet Mission proposals, Gandhi took exception to Tilak’s criticism of the report and after perfunctorily appealing to Tilak to withdraw his amendment, actually threatened to undertake a tour of the country to explain to the people of India why he disagreed with Tilak and why he wanted to place on record the INC’s gratitude to Montague for the reforms report! Exactly one year after placing on record his gratitude to Montague for enabling the GoI Act 1919, Gandhi issued the cry for Swaraj at the Nagpur Congress. People have the right to know why, if Gandhi thought the Montague-Chelmsford reforms report and the GoI Act 1919 were marvellous things for Indians, did he demand Swaraj in Nagpur and what did his Swaraj mean? Gandhi also declared at Nagpur that he wanted Swaraj within a year. This is 1920.  Ten years later, at the Lahore Congress in 1929, Gandhi demanded Purna Swaraj. Gandhi’s Purna Swaraj was a significant improvement on Tilak’s simple Swaraj, although the nation does not know why Gandhi issued the call for ‘Swaraj within a year’ at Nagpur and then issued a call for Purna Swaraj nine years later. Either there is Swaraj or no Swaraj. Purna Swaraj inter-alia implies something called Apurna Swaraj, which is like half a hole. After Nehru hoisted the flag of complete political independence on the eve of New Year, 1930, Gandhi entered into the infamous Gandhi-Irwin Pact. Gandhi had presented to the nation his version of passive resistance and non-violence as the only instruments for engagement with the British. But with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhi also surrendered the right to Satyagraha and even non-violent protest.  From Swaraj to Purna Swaraj, from the Gandhi-Irwin Pact to the second GoI Act – that is, from 1919 to 1929 to 1931 to 1935, Gandhi’s INC was tap-dancing without moving the nation even a fraction forward towards freedom. The British government used the carrot and stick effectively against the Hindus in 1935 just as effectively as it had used it in 1919; and knowing full well from past experience that the INC will suffer the stick in shameless inaction and silence as long as the carrot is visibly shown to the ordinary Indians, the British government proclaimed the GoI Act 1935 by which Indians were allowed to contest elections in the Provinces to constitute provincial governments. The GoI Act 1935 was the carrot being dangled before the INC as a palliative measure for hanging Bhagat Singh.  The British government sensed the anger of ordinary Indians against Gandhi and his INC for failing to save Bhagat Singh from the gallows, and knowing that discrediting Gandhi at this stage may render him ineffective, thus paving the way for triggering the volcano of seething dissatisfaction among the ordinary people, the British government’s propaganda machinery successfully promoted the idea that the GoI Act 1935 was in response to Gandhi’s non-violent Dandi March which allegedly shook the Empire. If the INC had been serious about Swaraj in 1920, then it ought to have followed Tilak when he expressed disquiet over the reforms report; it was expected that if Swaraj meant total political freedom, then the GoI Act 1919 was only clever temptation to divert the INC away from the road to freedom and trap the slaves in the honey-pot of sharing political power with their masters.  The trap was set enticingly again in 1935 and the INC demonstrated its willingness to bite the bait yet again. Sharing power, self-government within the Empire, self-rule – these were the colonial catch-words to keep India firmly enslaved and keep the INC going round and round in circles. Aurobindo’s “political prophet” was conducting the INC’s tap-dance to nowhere with “accommodating comprehensiveness”. The Muslim League and the British government had good reasons to feel delighted. Gandhi’s INC was going nowhere and the freedom movement led by Hindu nationalists for a brief while between 1907-1909 had been effectively aborted.

(To be continued)
The author is editor, www.vigilonline.com

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28. September 2009 by admin.

Behind every successful Jinnah, there is a Gandhi-II  

Hindus lack political objectives and strategic intent:

“Partition”, like Surf-ka-daag, “accha hai”, repeated Arun Shourie, quoting a similar view expressed by the late Shri Girilal Jain. The writer can see no reason for Shourie to parrot ‘partition was good’ unless it was meant as a short-sighted and faulty stratagem to exonerate Patel and Nehru of the culpability pinned on them for Partition by Jaswant Singh.  A meticulous study of the sequence of events leading up to Partition from any of the primary sources cannot but lead us to Gandhi; but rather than look honestly in the direction pointed by these sources, or even if he did, Arun Shourie has nevertheless chosen not to cast his eyes above Nehru and Patel. Shourie, uncharacteristic of his reputation for forthright writing, has instead opted to go along with Jaswant Singh that Patel and Nehru were indeed responsible for Partition, but adds they are not to be held guilty of the deed because Partition was good for us. If Partition was indeed a good thing, then not only Patel and Nehru, but Jinnah, too, cannot be held guilty and cannot be held up as history’s villain. Arun Shourie cannot fault us for coming to this ridiculous conclusion.  The unprecedented and completely avoidable vivisection of the Hindu nation in 1947 was effected because –
- Important Hindus have never understood that both Islam and Christianity are predatory political ideologies masquerading as religions
- Muslims demanded vivisection of the Hindu nation bluntly in the name of their religion and it was granted and realized by the Christian-colonial British government which had its own reasons for vivisecting the Hindu nation
- Hindus made no decisive and organized effort at any point in the long drawn-out process to avert vivisection; the Muslim League and the British government merely allowed us, the defeatists, to cut our losses and retrieve whatever we could of our territory
- Gandhi was the sole deciding voice in the INC speaking and acting for the entire non-Muslim League Indian people, of which the Hindus constituted the absolute majority populace; Gandhi and Gandhi alone made all the choices and decisions in the INC, at least until the moment the Cabinet Mission returned home at the end of June 1946, admitting failure to get the INC and Muslim League to come together for transfer of power
- Nehru went along with Gandhi between 1942 and 1947, even after Gandhi’s closest colleagues and friends had distanced themselves from him, because as Gandhi’s political heir, anointed by Gandhi himself, Nehru wanted to inherit this Hindu civilization as a de-Hinduised personal fiefdom, without the violent Muslim elements which he knew he could not handle
- Sardar Patel, Rajaji, Rajendra Prasad and all other Hindu leaders in the INC, like Aurobindo, Tilak and Lajpat Rai before them, did not have the capacity or the vision to make the INC a Hindu vehicle; they also did not dare or did not have the capacity to depose Gandhi; this is the nature and the extent of their culpability for vivisection
- Gandhi, even in 1946, still holding on to the belief that the British Empire was essentially a just power, welcomed the Cabinet Mission proposals with alacrity within the first two days after the Cabinet Mission and the Viceroy made the document public, and endorsed it as being the best formula that the British government could have produced under the circumstances; the nation was thus stuck with the Cabinet Mission proposals as the only means to get the British out of the country
- Gandhi chose to make the Imperial Government’s dangerous and loaded Cabinet Mission proposals the instrument by which the British would effect transfer of power, instead of using his authority and power to place the well-drafted Sapru Committee proposals as the alternative Indian instrument
- Gandhi’s insistence on doing politics for which he did not have the sagacity or understanding, made it possible for Mountbatten to present Gandhi in April 1947 with Hobson’s choice – accept the Cabinet Mission proposals or accept vivisection
- The Muslim League under Jinnah’s leadership had demonstrated that they would not stop until they achieved Pakistan, through the Cabinet Mission route, through British-aided and abetted vivisection, or through violence
- The Muslim League was led by a man who ensured Pakistan through all routes, while the Congress was led by a man who led the Hindu nation to humiliating defeat and vivisection through any route   The readiness with which we are willing to retain Jinnah as the sole villain of our freedom movement, and our unwillingness to look beyond Patel and Nehru in the Congress to apportion blame for vivisection, tells us something about ourselves – as a people we lack the courage to ask the right questions because we are afraid that the answers may reveal something about ourselves or bring down our little gods from their pedestals.  Vivisection of the Hindu nation could have been averted only –
- If Gandhi and the other tall Hindu leaders in the INC had understood the political objectives of Islam and Christianity
- If Gokhale, Gandhi and the others had understood the diabolic intent behind the first Partition of Bengal
- If the INC had understood in 1906 the purpose behind the creation of the Muslim League in December 1906 as being the natural progress of the trend that began with the creation of the INC in 1885 and the Partition of Bengal
- If the Hindus in the INC had understood that Islam is always ready to attain its political objectives through sustained and determined violence
- If the Hindus in the INC had rejected at least in 1942 the paralyzing Gandhian non-violence and rejected Gandhi’s leadership and at least then sat down to discuss how the Muslim League could be stopped from attaining its stated objective of creating Pakistan
- If the Hindus of the nation had demonstrated to the Muslims from the time of the Moplah massacre that they would defend the territory of the Hindu nation by all and every means
- If at least in 1940 when the Muslim League declared in Lahore that they would now work for realizing Pakistan, the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha had joined hands to stir the Hindus of the nation to a sense of the impending danger to their nation’s territory and provided the Hindus with a determined Hindu leadership  A self-respecting and determined nation and its people would take stock of a given situation, consult the necessities and proceed to the invention, as Aurobindo remarked; which means a nation devises, invents appropriate tools as demanded by the situation. After reading the corpus of the brilliant and inspirational political writings by Aurobindo from 1893 to 1910, and after reading the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, it emerges that the British government and the Muslim League had always acted with a sound understanding of politics and the determination to achieve their respective political objectives. Had the Hindus in the INC, the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha understood this then, they would have realized that the Muslims and the British both threatened the territory of the Hindu nation. That they did not consult the necessities is evident because they did not proceed to the invention. The Hindu leadership of the times did not, could not stop vivisection of the Hindu nation.  And yet, the INC and/or the RSS-Hindu Mahasabha could have averted vivisection of the Hindu bhumi; the INC because it was the largest and most potent political instrument with a preponderance of Hindus as members and cadre, while the RSS-Hindu Mahasabha though not as large as the INC was however wholly Hindu with the potential to evolve into a powerful, forceful and aggressive Hindu combine and an effective political instrument. Whatever the reasons, while one refused to be a Hindu vehicle, the other failed to become a political instrument.    There is no doubt that the British manufactured the INC first to wean away important sections of the Hindus from ideas of armed resistance for freedom from colonial rule, and then manufactured the Muslim League as a thorn in the flesh of the INC. From 1885, when the INC was created and until 1947 when the British government and the Muslim League had both attained their respective objectives, the INC, especially the INC under Gandhi, remained faithful to British intent. It abjured ideas of nationalism, abjured armed resistance, abjured the Tilak-Aurobindo demand for total and non-negotiable political freedom, flirted with Hindu-Muslim unity on the one hand and coquetted with the British government on the other.   Gandhi’s INC vacillated between political freedom struggle and his social mission, thus blunting the political edge and losing focus; this was in sharp contrast to the Muslim League which saw the possibilities that the first partition of Bengal threw up for Muslims and from then on worked to return Muslim rule over India. The Muslim League and the Muslim leadership was determined to either bring the Hindu nation under Islamic rule yet again, or tear the Hindu nation apart to create a Muslim state. The growth and increasing stridency of the Muslim League was in direct proportion to the lack of focus and the confused drifting of the INC under Gandhi, between a diluted political mission and a challenging social and economic mission. Gorbachev made the same mistake that Gandhi made decades ago and with the same catastrophic results.  From December 1906, when the Muslim League was created, the leaders of the INC ought to have designed their battle-gear to confront both the Muslim League and the British government in the three-cornered war which was nothing less than conquest and control of the Hindu nation. Gandhi led the INC into the battleground with only one instrument – his brand of non-violence, while the British government stood with the full might of state power, and the Muslim League was armed with jihad in its armoury. All other non-Congress Hindus stood on the sidelines and watched Gandhi leading the war decisively towards vivisection.  The Hindu nation must begin the process of asking the right questions with the first set of related questions –
- What was the ultimate objective of the Gandhi-led freedom struggle?
- Was it only to end colonial rule or also to prepare the nation for the consequences of an ascendant Islam?
- Had Gandhi tested his brand of non-violence against organized violence enough to come to the conclusion that his non-violence always succeeded as he claimed in Hind Swaraj?
- Why, if Gandhi’s political leadership was failing under their very noses, did other important Hindus in the INC and other Hindu organizations not lift up their voices against Gandhi’s methods and leadership of the INC? www.vigilonline.com

(To be continued)

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28. September 2009 by admin.

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26. September 2009 by admin.

via youtube.com

Hindus believe in cycle of times. This is the only religion that has survived the millenia. Greeks, Egyptians, Sumerians are also ancient civilizations but have not survived. Vedic religion has survived intact with its ancient language still alive albeit understood by a tiny minority.
All ancient cultures shared a lot of things in common. Ancient Indians knew how to make ships (the word navy is derived from “Navagatha”), weapons, aircrafts etc.

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24. September 2009 by admin.

B. Susheelan

Phony secularists act like mind viruses. They are deliberately selected and planted and behave in our society like a virus does in a body. They are all around us. They infect, they reproduce and they can even have vectors. These bogus secular viruses have been successful in mutating for several years, and successful at reproducing and spreading because it is artfully and skillfully alters our society.What accounts for the wild success of these secular viruses? Every country has a center of gravity that is the key element. In India’s case Hindutva is the key element, the center of gravity. The key Hindutva elements determine how the citizens of India mature, live, and develop their beliefs. These are the focal point secular viruses are asked to attack. These secular viruses are carefully selected, nurtured and planted to destroy the country from within. Their goal is to attack and control the mind of Hindus. The secular viruses shape the mind and control their direction. Why control the mind and control their direction? The secular perverts can lead Hindus down a pathway to hell.

Our enemies are skillful and cunning. They intend to destroy the country from within. The secular deviants are required to destroy our political philosophy, our future and our future generations. How? By controlling the influential people and planting secular deviants in influential positions. To shape and misdirect Hindus, secular virus are planted in the media. Most people absorb what they know about life from the media these days. The media paints the picture for all Hindus to see. These secular viruses are trained to distort truth, spin and concoct, distort and influence using the public forums such as newspapers, television, internet, and radio. They deliberately control the mind of the vast majority of Hindus. These secular virus are skillful in fermenting social problems, insurgency and putting one group against another in order to foment internal discord. This is a much easier task in India since the majority of Hindus are unthinking and apathetic.

The manner in which mind viruses (meme complex) is able to infect its host is through mind games. These mind games are subtly designed to influence thinking and behavior. the current behavior and pronouncement of our political leaders clearly shows that mind viruses are working effectively. Mind viruses deliberately make the individual weak.

Our enemies are planting secular viruses into office at all levels-in judiciary, administration, police, military, educational institutions, political parties-so they can sway the directions of the country. Within a few short period, the country will become full of zombies. They will act like a bull without horns or a tiger without claws-defenseless and vulnerable.

Hindus, wake up. be active rather than a victim of mind viruses.

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24. September 2009 by admin.

Vijay Prasad - professor of South Asian History in Trinity College, Hatford, CT  has written an article in the current issue of “News India Times” denying Hindu Holocoust by Islamic conquests. This is a very clear evidence of how dhimmi hindus are spreading lies in Western countries.

Read some lies, lies and more lies…….

A fundraiser in New Jersey on Aug. 16 raised $50,000 for a “Hindu Holocaust” museum to be built in Pune. The museum is the brainchild of a Frenchman, Francois Gautier, and is under the auspices of the Viraat Hindu Sabha (VHS). They claim that over the past thousand years, millions of Hindus were killed, with the intention to wipe Hindus off the map.

The numbers are vague, as one might expect, but the culprit is precisely defined: Islam. The VHS uses the phrase “Islamic genocide of Hindus” to make its case. To me this is remarkable stuff. It reduces the complexity of the subcontinent’s rich history into a simple morality play that has only two characters: the Hindu and the Muslim. The latter is the invader who has come and killed the former. Nothing else matters.

The idea of the Hindu Holocaust casts the Hindu as history’s victim, who should now become history’s aggressor to avenge the past. But the Hindu was not always the victim. If you read the historical records carefully, you will find that many Hindus participated in the slaughter of other Hindus, and that the Hindu/Buddhist battles of the ancient world were perhaps more bloody than anything that comes afterward. Or indeed, that the systematic violence against dalits and other subordinate castes should hold our attention far more than it does.

Between Hindus and Muslims there has not been an endless rivalry for social power. When Islam enters the subcontinent, it does not come in the saddlebags of the Ghaznis or the Ghouris, but amongst the rumble of goods brought by traders. Early conversions are not by the sword but by the merchants . There was killing, but that was as much for reasons of warfare and plunder as for reasons of God and tradition. An interested reader might want to look at the distinguished historian Romila Thapar’s superb book “Somnatha: The Many Voices of a History” (Penguin, 2005). There, Professor Thapar shows us that Mahmud Ghazni’s destruction of the Shiva temple in 1026 was driven not so much by a fanatical religious belief but because his father, Subuktigin, needed money to sustain his faltering kingdom in Central Asia. Now it is certainly true, as historian Mohammed Habib put it, that there was “wanton destruction of temples that followed in the wake of the Ghaznavid army.”

When one looks at the sources contemporaneous with the Ghaznavid attacks, one finds that they mention these but only as a series among many. There was nothing about them that merits the term “Holocaust,” even as they were certainly destructive of the temples and of the people who worshipped there. What Thapar points to is that this was not all done by the Central Asia marauders.
Many Hindu rulers led attacks on Hindu and Jain temples at this same time, and for similar reasons, as can be seen in the destruction of the Jain temples of Karnataka (which were converted into shrines of Shiva).

Indeed, there is little evidence of animus between Hindus and Muslims in the few hundred years after the entry of Ghazni. In the 13th century, a local raja, Sri Chada, granted a merchant from Hormuz the right to build a mosque on temple land. He also provided the mosque with a disbursement for teachers and preachers, for the daily reading of the Quran and for the celebration of festivals.

The Veraval-Somanatha inscription of 1264 shows us that even orthodox Shaivite priests cooperated in the building of the mosques. In the centuries that followed, common people of Gujarat followed the kind of tradition that runs from the padas of Narasimha Mehta to the padmavat of Malik Mohammed Jayasi, the ethos of mutual cultural development that was the hallmark of India for hundreds of years. Things developed to such a pass in Gujarat that in 1911, more than 200,000 people returned themselves as “Hindu-Musalman.” In Kathaiwar and Kutch, wedding services were, until very recently, solemnized by both a Saraswat Brahmin and a Qazi. Such is the history that is thrown to the wolves by the creation of a “Hindu Holocaust” museum.

Gautier came to India from France about 30 years ago, and settled in Pondicherry. He has written a few tracts and writes occasionally for the newspapers. His work reads like another European apologist for extreme Hindutva, Koenraad Elst. Both went to strict Catholic schools and now hold a deep animus against Christian missionaries, but seem to take their venom out mainly against Islam. Gautier and Elst want to make plain the “Muslim genocide against Hindus.” But neither is a serious student of history, with little idea of how to read historical texts. They draw more from a misplaced passion than from a real, sober scientific exploration of the facts. That they are taken seriously is a sign of the degradation of reason in the world of Hindutva. 

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