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Clash of civilizations - Guest - 09-24-2003
Methinks you have a point, acharya. Let us take for example the popular shibboleth that it was the caste system that contributed to the defeat of the Indians against Islamic invaders. If this is the case then it does not explain why large parts of Asia (Central asia, Iraq, Syria, Persia)were conquered within the space of a few decades after the death of Mohammad. There was no caste system in the Tigris euphrates valley or in Egypt. While, much of Asia was part of a greater Indic civilization, it was not necessarily Vedic(there were various other faiths prevalent like Zoroastrianism) and much of it had been over run by the Huns prior to the advent of Islam. If the caste system was primarily responsible for the defeat of the Indians, then it does not explain why it took 560 years after the death of Mohammad to strike at the heart of India, whereas it took only 2 decades for many civilizations like the Mesopotamian and the Egyptian to be obliterated from the face of this earth. If indeed the caste system is to be blamed for the eventual defeat to the Islamic invaders after 560 years , by the same token it must be given credit for holding off the invader (who made repeated attempts) for 560 years which was a lot longer than the Persian empire took to disappear. So let us be careful when we make blanket statements that the caste system was responsible for the defeat of the Indians against the Islamic invader.
Again the reason why Indians do not make the analysis relative to other events on the planet is ignorance pure and simple or as acharya says they
Quote:"do not have any narrative on other lands and civilizations; Hindus are not able to differentate 'us vs them' like other religions".
One can of course speculate on the reasons for the blandness with which the Hindu says resignedly 'it is the caste system, or some other weakness or we are like this only,but the fact remains that the Indian is woefully ignorant about events in neighboring civilizations like the Chinese.
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 09-24-2003
Prof Balagangadhara, in his thesis has proposed that Hinduism is NOT a religion. The only examples of a religion in our world are the abrahamnic religions of christianity, judaism and islam. Moreover being a non-proselytising religion hindus are less inclined to have that clear-cut us-vs-them picture cut out for them. I would strongly recommend people to get a copy from their library thru interlibrary-system and read Prof. Balu's book (Heathen In His Blindness). Re. Caste-System again "castes of mind" by Nicholas Dirks is a good book.
Clash of civilizations - Hauma Hamiddha - 09-24-2003
[quote name='rajesh_g' date='Sep 24 2003, 10:43 AM'] Prof Balagangadhara, in his thesis has proposed that Hinduism is NOT a religion. [/quote]
Though he has coined a term called "religio" for phenomena like the dharma. Balu's questioning of the foundational axioms is important, but it is probably not going to help the Macaulayites and Abrahamic Indians because they have gone over to the otherside.
Clash of civilizations - Hauma Hamiddha - 09-24-2003
A large Muthuswami's essay sure sparked a great upwelling of confusion in Sulekha.We had several people (like Narayanan) go ballistic and condemn Muthuswami in the strongest terms. Now I am not necessarily taking MM's side or even saying that he is the nicest person to have around. These same people who go ballistic over MM and compare him with the Frueher of the dritte Reich are ready to joyfully recommend mass carnages of the TSPians. To me this smacks of a strange logic. At the same time these people do not want to recognize the problem that MM and many others have seen. MM's solutions many not be wisest, but Indian society cannot shy away from the debate. Because if fail to do so we can be more easily manipulated by the Western propoganda warfare.
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 09-24-2003
With my highly limited understanding and knowledge, I would be doing a tremendous disservice to Balu's book if I start summarising it but I dont think he has equated dharma with religio. Once again strongly encourage people to read his book - first hand..
We dont need to "win over" the macaulayites and abrahamnic indians. We just need to change the terms of the discourse. And what better way to do that then question the foundational axioms ?
We need more papers like these...
[url="http://www.infinityfoundation.com/indic_colloq/papers/paper_sharma2.pdf"]http://www.infinityfoundation.com/indic_co...per_sharma2.pdf[/url]
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 09-24-2003
Speaking of caste systems, I am certain many of you have come across this in the past;
[url="http://www.britishempire.co.uk/article/castesystem.htm"]The Indian caste system and the British[/url]
Ethnographic Mapping and the Construction
of the British Census in India
Contributed by Kevin Hobson
The first few paragraphs
Quote:When the British first gained a foothold on the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century their concern was profit. The men who administered the territory for the East India company were more inclined to profiteering than to attempting to establish an effective government. By the beginning of the 19th century this type of attitude had begun to change. A series of conquests expanded the territory held by the British and the idea of responsible trusteeship began to creep into the thinking of the individuals charged with governing British India. The freebooters of the 18th century were giving way to the bureaucrats of the 19th century. Ironically, it is highly debateable which of the two, freebooters or bureaucrats, were the most dangerous to the people of India. Treasure can be replaced. Cultures, once tampered with, are nearly impossible to reclaim.
The men charged with the governing of British India in the 19th century were creations of the society that they had left behind in Britain. That society had become increasingly intrigued with methods of social management and improvement. Moreover, as the 19th century progressed, it progressively appeared that the British were destined to lead the world. Victorious in the Napoleonic wars and with an empire growing at an unprecedented rate, the British became ever more confident that their destiny was to lead the way to civilization and raise up the lesser races. The British Empire was believed to be the natural heir to the classical Roman Empire. From this mix of belief in their superiority and fascination with methods of social management and improvement, came a variety of so called sciences. These included such things as phrenology and eugenics but at the heart of any of the movements to study either man or society was statistics.
The term statistics can be traced to the 1797 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and was defined as a "word lately introduced to express a view or survey of any kingdom, county, or parish." This definition gives no indication of any kind of methodological approach being used as would be evident at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Rather, the word statistics seems to have been used to indicate a simple compilation of raw numbers used to describe the demographics of a given geographic area. However, while a strict methodological model would not develop for many years, it did not take as long for individuals and groups to begin to collect data on a wide variety of interest areas. By the 1830s statistics were being gathered on everything from crime and occupations to sewage systems.
None of this work, however, was done by individuals who were professional statisticians. Indeed, statistics was not recognized as a science and was not taught in any of the universities in Britain. Rather, these figures were collected by politicians, economists, government officials, physicians, and a few mathematicians. The object of all of this data collecting was to obtain information about the society that would be politically useful and would indicate new means of social improvement and control. Within this framework developed the London Statistical Society. This society had as its goal, the furtherance of statistics as a science and among its many endeavours it gave advice to the government on the types of information that the society felt should be collected as part of the various censuses that were done periodically in the British Isles. ..
Clash of civilizations - acharya - 09-24-2003
[quote name='Hauma Hamiddha' date='Sep 23 2003, 05:37 PM'] We had several people (like Narayanan) go ballistic and condemn Muthuswami in the strongest terms.
These same people who go ballistic over MM and compare him with the Frueher of the dritte Reich are ready to joyfully recommend mass carnages of the TSPians. To me this smacks of a strange logic. At the same time these people do not want to recognize the problem that MM and many others have seen. [/quote]
THis is a direct result of brainwashing to be more 'secular' than the next indian. It is used as a upholder of human rights by the brainwashed people without really understanding that it stiffles the course of debates.
Most of the debates in India during the socialist days was a state controlled in the name of secularism.
Very carefully controversy is raised and then make it s secular vs communal debate and make the person who made the points defensive.
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 09-26-2003
In support of MM article I can tell you about a first hand experience. It happened in 1995. I am from a very samll town in North India and there was a very succesfull effort to arrange money for Kashmiri Muslim in my town. It continues till this day.
rgds,
fanne
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 09-26-2003
Dr.Walid Phares is a frequent guest on Fox news (?). The following are his views
Dr Walid Phares,
P.O.Box 331195,
Miami, Florida 33233
Email: Phares@cmep.com
[url="http://www.pragna.org/Art20615.html"]http://www.pragna.org/Art20615.html[/url]
BHARATIYA PRAGNA
JUNE 2000 VOLUME 2 NUMBER 6
Islamic concept of Al-Taqiyah to infiltrate and destroy kafir countries
- Dr. Walid
This article by Dr. Walid, a top scholar at the Islamic University, exposes our so-called secular Indian Muslims. By the doctrine of Al-Taqiyah, Muslims dominate crime syndicates, increase population by massive Bangladeshi infiltration and make temporary alliances with Dalits, Christians, etc.
In the early years of the Islamic conquest of the Arabian peninsula and in the Fatah (Arab-Islamic invasion and conquest of the upper Middle East and the outside world), a Muslim concept was devised to achieve success against the enemy (non Muslims), Al-Taqiyah.
Al-Taqiyah, from the verb Ittaqu, means linguistically dodge the threat. Politically it means simulate whatever status you need in order to win the war against the enemy ...
According to Al-Taqiyah, Muslims were granted the Shar'iyee right (legitimacy) to infiltrate the Dar el-Harb (war zone), infiltrate the enemy's cities and forums and plant the seeds of discord and sedition. These agents were acting on behalf of the Muslim authority at war, and therefore were not considered as lying against or denouncing the tenants of Islam.
They were "legitimate" mujahedeen, whose mission was to undermine the enemy's resistance and level of mobilization. One of their major objectives was to cause a split among the enemy's camp while downplaying the issues related to Islam ("Oh, I am not religious." "Oh, that is not Islam, you are mistaken, there is so much misinformation." "Oh, it is in the interpretation." "Brother, Islam is all about peace and love and music just like in the 60s.")
In many instances, they convinced their targeted audiences that Jihad is not aimed at them, that indigenous people are not targeted. Meanwhile the (allegedly) "un Islamic" Muslims continued their attacks on the target's property and life (e.g. Lashkar-e Toyiba, Mujahideen and Osama Bin Laden's declaration of war against innocent American civilians).
They convinced many Jews that they will be protected from Christians, and they convinced many Christians that Jews were the mortal enemies, because they killed Issa (Jesus). They convinced the Aramaics, Copts, and Hebrews that the enemy is Greece, and signed peace agreements with the Bysantines Greeks at the expense of Maronite Aramaics, etc.
They convinced the knitted diversity of India to degrade into civil war by introduction of a variant Buddhist / mystical Islam (Sufism which is decried as "deviant Islam" used to ease the transition of new recruits from local communities) creating divisions (based on Muslim - Non Muslim) eventually fomenting unrest and chaos in the land to prepare it for waves of armed Invasion (Mohammad bin Qasim, Mahmud Ghaznavi, etc.).
Even today, India is bitterly divided and getting slowly Islamised as battle lines form between hordes of overzealous Muslims (armed and trained in madrasahs) and the more pacifist civilians of urban dwellings.
This Jihadic agency of subversion was one of the most fascinating and efficient arms of the conquest. In less than four decades, the Middle East fell to the Arab-Islamic rule [since Arab society was divided again between pagan and Muslim resulting in nephews and sons killing their uncles and fathers in cold blood] followed by North Africa and Central Asia [this was the era of hordes like tribal conquests where barbaric savages invaded pacifist civilians in towns of major civilizations; the same scenario replayed itself against the Arab-Islamic world with the Invasion of the Mongolian hordes].
Al-Taqiyah was a formidable weapon, used by the first dynasties and strategists. Today, scholars may identify it as deception. But the Jihadic deception was and still is more powerful than the James Bondian methods of Western classical intelligence tactics, for the simple reason that it has a civilizational, global dimension versus the narrow State interest of the regular Western subversive methods.
Al-Taqiyah is still in use today (and is widely practised and acknowledged by the Shi'ite sect) but not necessarily State-organized. Arab-Islamic missionaries are slowly converting the disillusioned criminal classes of the Western world by feeding them a Western "moderate" version of Islam (at the same time denouncing the actions of Muslims in the rest of the world as Un Islamic e.g. Taliban, GIA & FIA [Armed Islamic Front] of Algeria, Hamas, Lashkar -e Toyiba, Bin Laden and company, etc.)
It is done to prevent the new converts from seeing the real face of Islam; at least until their faith or mental conditioning is strong enough to make them turn against their own country and people.
A good example is the growing influence of Islamists in the Americas. On the one hand, American embassies, trade facilities, soldiers and intelligence infrastructures are under attack (but denounced as un-Islamic for the benefit of the new American converts).
On the other hand, the multiplying Islamic community (due to illegal immigration, paper marriages, religious visas granted to the religious men) attempts to pass itself off as "peace loving" and patriotic. In their own circles, the same community will liberally and violently denounce America, the West and its values (freedom, individualism, secularism, capitalism, scientific materialism, benign rehabilitation of criminals, prevention of cruelty against animals, women and gay rights).
One can easily detect Taqiyah in the two discourses used by Islamist strategists. On the one hand, one comprehensive Islamist theory is attempting to mobilize the Middle East, and sometimes Western Christian leaders and intellectuals, against "evil Jews".
They are forming alliances with everyone from Animal Rights' groups (to attack the Jewish tradition of slaughter which is ironically similar in cruelty to the Islamic way) to Far Right fundamentalists (to push for censorship of critiques of Islam and attack every forward thinking movement like women's rights and gay rights).
We see considerable success on that level. And on the other hand, another Islamist comprehensive theory is attempting - with success also - to mobilize the Jews against "evil and pagan Christians".
One can easily detect the sophisticated work of Taqiyah, for the strategic objective of Islamists is to destroy the foundations of the non Muslim civilizations, as a prelude to the defeat of an isolated Israel, India, United States of America, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Egypt, Afghanistan, etc.
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 09-26-2003
Welcome to fanne, one of the original members of the BR forum, way back in 1997/98.
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 09-26-2003
Thanks Kaushal!!
Actually in one way or other I might have been the first 10 to post on the earliest BR forum
Anyway I have raised a question in the General Topic forum. Could people give it a shot.
rgds and thanks,
fanne
Clash of civilizations - acharya - 09-27-2003
The Condition of Hindus under Muslim Rule
Dr. Jadunath Sarkar
The Hindusthan Standard, Kolkata
Puja Annual (Deepavali special) 1950
[Note from Hindu Vivek Kendra: This article was written
in 1950 when one was not accused of being communal merely
because one spoke the truth.]
What was the condition of the Hindus under Muslim rule in
India? This is a very natural question, and in the
present situation of the country the inquiry has a
significance of the deepest practical importance. Every
tree is judged by its fruit; and the ideal Muslim
Government of India, namely, a theocracy administered for
Allah by His agents, showed its unmistakable practical
consequences in the moral, intellectual and economic
condition of the people of this vast sub-continent when
Muslim rule ended and British administration began. When
Wellesley and the Marquis of Hastings established British
paramountcy after overthrowing the six-century old Muslim
domination, what Indian does not blush as he reads in the
history of that conquest, how hopelessly weak our country
was in defence, how abjectly degraded in spirit and
education our people were, and how inefficient and
corrupt the public administration, conducted entirely by
'natives' had become?
True, our Hindu rulers had shown a similar bankruptcy of
capacity at the end of the Hindu period, when youthful
Islam first attacked India. But in that age the Hindu
intellect was still active and it continued to produce
gems of thought and heroes of action even during he early
stage of the expansion of Islamic political sway over the
country. But in the age of Wellesley and Hastings, 1798-
1818, Muslim rule had turned India into a sort of
"Darkest Affica" as regards culture, thought and
character, and we had to take our inspiration for a new
birth of the spirit only by turning to Europe in the 19th
century.
The poison lay in the very core of Islamic theocracy.
Under it there can be only one faith, one people, and one
all overriding authority. The state is a religious trust
administered solely by His people (the Faithful) acting
in obedience to the Commander of the Faithful, who was in
theory and very often in practice too, the supreme
General of the Army of militant Islam (janud). Every
Muslim sovereign claimed to be the Khalif of the Age, and
as such the "Commander of the Faithful" and shadow
(representative) of God - the true sovereign. There could
be no place for non-believers, not even for the heretical
sub-divisions of Islam (such as the Shias in a Sunni
state like that of the Sultans and Padishahs of Delhi) in
its administration. Even Jews and Christians could not be
full citizens of it, though they somewhat approached the
Muslims by reason of their being "People of the Book" -or
believers in the Bible, which the Prophet of Islam
accepted as revealed, though insufficient for salvation,
unless supplemented by his Quran. The Muslim attitude to
these Ahal-i-Kitab is well expressed in the following
verses quoted by AI Badayieni, an orthodox literary
champion of Islam and enemy of the liberal philosophers
Abul FazI and Faizi:
"The water touched by a jew is impure:
But it will do to wash the corpse of a Christian"
Zimmis
As for the Hindus and Zoroastrians, they had no place in
such a political system. If their existence was tolerated
it was only to use them as hewers of wood and drawers of
water, as tax-payers "Khiraj-guzar" for the benefit of
the dominant sect of the Faithful.
They were called Zimmis or people under a contract of
protection by the Muslim state on condition of certain
services to be rendered by them and certain political and
civil disabilities to be borne by them to prevent them
from growing strong. The very term zimmi is an insulting
title like "the Protected Princes" of British India. It
connotes political inferiority and helplessness like the
status of a minor proprietor perpetually under a
guardian; such protected people could not claim equality
with the citizens of the Muslim theocracy. Could the late
Gaikwar Sayaji Rao, as he trembled and hobbled before
George V at the Delhi Darbar of 1912, be called a ruler
bound in equal alliance with the British King, or even
possessed of the same rights as a British peer?
Quote:Thus by the basic conception of the Muslim state all non-The ideal
Muslims are its enemies and it is the interest of the
state to curb their growth in number and power.
aim was to exterminate them totally, as Hindus,
Zoroastrians and Christian nationals have been liquidated
(sometimes totally, sometimes leaving a negligible
remnant behind) in Afghanistan, Persia and the Near East.
The last remnants of the descendants of Alexander's
soldiers, settled in north-eastern Afghanistan, were
ground down to accept Islam and their province's name
changed from Kafiristan to Nuristan (province luminious
with Islam) in our own lifetime.
Whatever tended to strengthen the Hindus would ipso facto
constitute a menace to Islamic predominance. The same was
seen in the late lamented British Indian Empire, when a
Bengali who learnt military science in Mexico or France
immediately became a political suspect and was ever
afterwards shadowed by the CID as a potential traitor.
But the British, while curbing the martial spirit of our
educated classes, did not try to crush the Hindu mind at
its source: they did not forbid the study of Hindu
philosophy and the practice of the Hindu religion, rather
encouraged them and opened the gates of the Temple of
Western Science to us. Not so, the orthodox Muslim rulers
of India.
Part II
Temple Destruction
The temples of the Hindus often served as seats of
learning besides being scenes of religious worship. The
late Sister Nivedita never wearied in her praise of the
vast temples of South India as exactly like the Cathedral
closes of medieval England. Here in, the many cloisters
running along the inside of the boundary walls, the young
students lived and studied and they joined in the arati
in the evening. To strike at the great temples was to
strike at the roots of Hindu learning through Sanskrit,
then the only vehicle of higher education. Instances are
on record of Hindu teachers and preachers being put to
death by Firuz Shah, Aurangzib and other pious Muslim
sovereigns - who are still extolled as model rulers of
the theocracy. In addition, a slow but sure policy was
adopted for removing all temples from the face of India.
Aurangzib at the very beginning of reign (1658) wrote in
his Benares Farman, "According to our Holy Law, long
standing temples should not be demolished, but no new
temple should be allowed to be built." But he himself did
not follow even this limited restraint of the Shariat. In
his letters collected by his "disciple" and "secretary"
Inayetullah Khan, we find one that states: "The temple of
Somnath was demolished early in my reign and idol-worship
there put down. It is not known what the state of things
there is at present. If the idolaters have again taken to
the worship of images, then destroy the temple in such a
way that no trace of the building may be left." On 9th
April 1669, he issued a general order to the governors of
all the provinces of his Empire to demolish the schools
and temples of the infidels and to put down strongly
their teaching and religious practices. (His official
history, Maasir-i-Alamgiri, Persian text, p. 81). How
this order was everywhere carried out throughout his
reign of half a century, can be read in detail with dates
in my History of Aurangzib, Vol. Ill, chapter 34,
appendix V. At the very end of his life, a new temple
built near Murshidabad was demolished under strict
official orders. The letter translated from Persian is
given in my introduction to Bankim Chandra's Sitaram,
Bangiya Sahitya Parishad edition.
It has been urged by this pious Emperor's ignorant
admirers that temples were destroyed only when they were
strongholds of rebels and centres of plots hatched by his
political enemies. A Persian report, written from Delhi
and preserved among the state records of Jaipur, tells us
that Aurangzib had sent an order to the ever-loyal Raja
of Jaipur to demolish a large number of temples in his
dominions, and when His Majesty read the Muhtasib's
report that the order had been faithfully carried out, he
cried out in admiration, "Ah, he (i.e. Raja Ram Singh
Kachhwa) is a khanazad, i.e., a hereditary loyal slave."
So much for his modem apologists. Even in our own days,
Osman Ali Khan, ninety per cent of whose, subjects are
Hindus, rejoiced thus in a ghazal of his own composition
which was published in the periodical Rahbar-I-Daccan
(25, February 1939):
Band naqus hua sunke nara-e-takbir Zalzala a ho gaya
rishta-e-zunnar poi bho.
It means: The pealing of conches and the ringing of bells
have been stopped on hearing the shout Allah-o-Akbar. An
earthquake is shaking the sacred threads (worn by
Hindus).
What reaction this policy naturally provoked among the
Marathas, Sikhs, Jats and Bundelas when the brute force
of the Muslim Government declined in the 18th century is
a well-known tale of Indian History.
Economic Repression
The Emperor Aurangzib (reign 1658-1707) was an orthodox
Hanafi Sunni sovereign and the political exemplar of
Muhammadan writers, past and present. Every regulation of
his Government was determined like that of Firuz Tughlaq
and Sikandar Lodi - by the letter of the Quranic law. He
reimposed the jaziya or tax per head on the Hindus. The
Quran (IX, 29) calls upon the Muslims "to fight those who
do not profess the true faith, till they pay jaziya with
the hand in humility (ham sagkhirun)." This was a poll-
tax payable by Hindus (and also Christians) for
permission to live in their ancestral homes under a
Muslim sovereign. The object of Aurangzib in imposing it
(by a decree operating from 2nd April, 1679), was "to
spread Islam and depress the infidel faith" as his own
Secretary words it.
Quote:The Italian traveller Nicholo Manucci
at the very time noted this fact: he writes, "Many
Hindus, who were unable to pay turned Muslim to obtain
relief from the insults of the tax-collectors, Aurangzib
rejoices that by such exactions these Hindus will be
forced into embracing the Muhammadan faith."
It has been pleaded in our times that the jaziya was a
fair tax paid by the Hindus for exemption from compulsory
military service. But it was only as late as May 10,
1855, when English and French sympathy had to be secured
by the Sultan of Turkey for the war against Russia that a
decree was issued, replacing the jaziya as a tax on the
free exercise of religion by a tax for exemption from
military service in European Turkey. (See Encyclopaedia
of Islam, i, 1052). We should not forget that every
Muslim was exempt from the payment of jaziya even when he
did not serve in the army, nor was called up as a
conscript; and those Muslims who did serve received full
wages for the work.
Besides, the true nature of the jaziya can be clearly
seen from the Quranic commentary on the method of
collecting the tax; it is laid down that the zimmi must
pay the tax personally; if he sends the money by the hand
of an agent, it is to be refused; the taxed person must
come on foot and pay the money standing, while the
receiver should be seated, etc. This explains the Quranic
direction, ham sagkhirun, i.e. "with marks of
humiliation." That these rules were enforced in India is
illustrated by many examples cited in the Persian
manuscript records, Akhbarat.
In addition to the obligation to pay this poll-tax, the
Hindu was subjected to many disabilities by the very
constitution of the Muslim theocracy. He must distinguish
himself from the Muslims by wearing a humble dress, and
sometimes adding a label of a certain colour to his coat.
He must not ride on horse-back or carry arms - though
wearing the sword was a necessary part of the dress of
every gentleman of that age. He must show a generally
respectful attitude towards Muslims - "Natives must salam
every sahib they meet on the road." The Hindu was also
under certain legal disabilities in giving testimony in
law courts, protection under the criminal law, and in
marriage. Finally, in the exercise of his religion he
must avoid any publicity that may rouse the wrath of the
followers of the Prophet.
Can this "depressed" sect be called citizens of the
Muslim state? No, answers that most authoritative work,
the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. I, pp. 958-959.
Under the Canon Law, as followed in Islamic countries, a
man who converts a Muslim to some other faith is liable
to death at the hands of any private Muslim, and so also
is the apostate from Islam. A Muslim murdering a Hindu on
private grounds was not subjected to the choice between
payment of "the price of blood" and death at the hands of
the heir of the murdered man - which was the legal right
of Musalmans aggrieved in such conditions.
So much for the political and legal equality of all sects
in the Islamic theocracy.
Part III
Women's Fate
What most wounded the hearts of the non-Muslims -
Christians and Jews, as much as Hindus - was the lot of
non-Muslim women under Muslim sway. Whatever may have
been the theory, in practice everywhere it amounted to
this that conversion of the victim to Islam sanctified
the seduction or abduction of non-Muslim women. Kinglake
in his Eothen gives an illustration of it from Turkey as
late as 1830-40: In the city of Nablous, a Muslim Shaikh
of great wealth and local influence had accidentally seen
a beautiful young Christian girl, recently married to a
Christian youth, and plotted to "gratify his passion by
inducing her to embrace his own creed: if he could get
her to take this step, her marriage with the Christian
would be dissolved, and then there would be nothing to
prevent him from making her his own wife... The Shaikh
was a practical man;... he sent no tracts, not even a
copy of the holy Quran. An old woman acted as missionary.
She brought her a whole basket, full of arguments -
jewels, and shawls and scarves. Poor Mariam (the
Christian bride)! She put on the jewels and took a calm
view of the Mahomedan Religion in a little hand-mirror -
she could not be deaf to such eloquent earrings, and the
great truths of Islam came home to her young bosom in the
delicate folds of the Cashmere (shawl); she was ready to
abandon her faith." (Chapter 25).
Similar cases were known in Mughal India and have been
tried in British law courts too, owing to the convenient
doctrine that conversion to Islam dissolves a woman's
previous lawful marriage.
Of the forcible abduction of Hindu women by powerful
grandees and even by Nawabs, which went unpunished and
was not even treated as "cognisable" by the then police
and judiciary, examples are frequent in the histories and
travel-reports of that time. It will be enough to say
here that the French Chief of Chandemagore, M. Jean Law,
who came to fight the English for Siraj-ud-daula, but
arrived too late (after Plassey had been fought), tells
in his Memoire that the young nawab used to ride to any
village where his servants reported the existence of a
beautiful young woman, and then get her abducted and
placed in his harem. This was in 1757.
About the same time Shuja-ud-daula, the Nawab Wazir of
Lucknow, took a fancy on a young Khatri virgin whom he
had seen during his ride, and after getting her abducted
by his servile tools and ruining her turned her out of
his harem. The story is told without any blush by the
historian of his house, Sayyid Ghulam Ali Naqavi in his
Imad-us-Sadat.
The parda system was introduced among the free Arab women
after the incident of Zainab. It has become a rigid
institution among Hindus and Muslims in Northern India,
where Muslim rule was most extensive and lasted longest.
The fact that parda is not observed among the Hindus of
Madras, Maharashtra, Kerala and the Mongoloid fringe
(except among a few rich families that pretend to be
Rajputs) clearly indicates how it originated in North
India during Muslim rule.
Seduction or abduction sanctified by the recital of the
Kalima was only one among the various devices practised
for increasing the number of Muslims by hook or crook.
Public service except of the lowest kind was denied to
the Hindus who were vastly in the majority and usually
superior in capacity. It is recorded by Abul Fazi that
the Muslims of his time called Akbar an apostate from
Islam, a kafir chiefly because he had sought to unite the
nation by granting toleration to all religions (Sulh-i-
kul, peace to all) and by including highly competent
Hindus among his umara or upper nobility of office.
Conversely Aurangzib is admired by many even today, for
having "by one stroke of pen" dismissed all the Hindu
clerks and imposed discriminating custom duties on the
Hindus merchants, while allowing the goods of his co-
religionists to pass free.
In Western Rajputana there is a sect called Bishnois who
are a branch of the Vishnu-worshippers, but have many
nonconformist tenets and practices and do not honour the
Brahmans as priests. Aurangzib wrote to his local
governor there to prevent them from amalgamating with the
orthodox or regular Hindus, but to try every means of
bringing them over to Islam by inducing them to drop
their remaining Hindu rites and beliefs. His orders to
this effect have been preserved among the Persian records
of the Jaipur State. Thus under Islamic theocracy,
religion ceased to be a concern of the human soul in its
quest for the Creator but degenerated into a mere
instrument of political gerrymandering.
The strict theory of the Shariat, however, did not always
and everywhere prevail in Muslim India; such uniformity
of pressure was impossible in this vast continent of a
country. In practice, the Hindus were left to toleration
of a sort and freedom in business in villages and remote
corners, where the mullas did not penetrate and even in
cities when the ulema slept under a just Sultan. The two
creeds touched each other at the very top and at the very
bottom only. As T. W. Arnold remarks: "In mysticism they
found a common basis for religious thought. In Kashmir a
Muhammadan ziarat frequently marks the site of a Hindu
Tirtha; it is then stated to be the tomb of a saint
(Pir)... Such survivals from Hinduism are more marked in
villages and country districts remote from the influence
of the Ulema. Here the Muslims still continue to worship
the tutelary godlings of the village and join the Hindu
festivals."
In addition, some mixed sects were formed, which
attempted to bring about a reconciliation between Muslims
and Hindus; but they were dissenting bodies, and stood
clearly removed - like outcasts - from the vast orthodox
bodies of the two sects. The worst mischief done by the
dominance of Islam in the state was its reaction in
brutalising the Hindu character. Hinduism in many places
lost its liberal tolerant character, which sees God in
every being and admits that every religion, if sincerely
practised, will lead to salvation. "Just as the water of
the Ganges, flowing through a hundred mouths, all enters
the ocean, so the different paths of salvation prescribed
by the different scriptures of the world all lead to
God." (Kalidas). Hindus now learnt to retaliate and pay
the ruling bigots in their own coins. The Jaipur Raja
(bout 1660-100) reconverted some former Hindus from Islam
by Suddhi. Shivaji's general Netaji Balkar had been
forced by Aurangzib in 1646 to embrace Islam as Muhammad
QuIi, but in 1676 the great Maratha king "made him Hindu
again by Prayashchitta." When the pealing of conches in
Hindu temples was obstructed, a Rajput raja forbade the
chanting of the Azan or the Muslim call to prayer. One
jaziya-collector's beard were plucked in Berar, another
of these harsh officers was beaten to death in Rutlam.
The Sikhs retaliated for the desecration of their temple
by the Muslims and the slaying of cows in Amritsar
(1762): when they returned in full force they compelled
their Muslim prisoners to work in chains under the lash
and cleanse the temple and wash the ground with hog's
blood. The mere murder of an infidel (such as a Hindu or
European Christian officer) is considered a pious deed by
the Pathan ghazis of the North-West Frontier Province
(like the murder of Lord Mayo). By a most deplorable
reaction, whenever such a murderer was convicted and
hanged by the British courts, for some years a tuft of
dry grass used to be placed on the navel of the corpse
and set fire to, before it was buried, to ensure that his
soul "went to hell by way of fire". In the late 18th
century a body of Sikh horsemen came to Delhi and
demolished a mosque in Rikabganj as an act of vengeance.
In Lord Robers' Afghan Campaign the Gurkhas (and Sikhs?)
treated the Pathan dead in the same way till stopped by
British orders. (See Ashe's Afghan War.)
Such was the condition to which the Hindus were reduced
by Islamic theocracy. Did the dominant sect profit by
this policy? What was the moral and intellectual
condition of the faithful at the end of Muslim rule in
India? They were even more unhappy and helpless than the
Hindus to face the moving modern world. Look outside for
the reason of it.
Palestine, the holy land of the Jews, Christians and
Islamites, had been turned into a desert haunted by
ignorant poor diseased vermin rather than by human
beings, as the result of six centuries of Muslim rule.
(See Kinglake's graphic description). Today Jewish rule
has made this desert bloom into a garden, miles of sandy
waste have been turned into smiling orchards of orange
and citron, the chemical resources of the Dead Sea are
being extracted and sold, and all the amenities of the
modern civilised life have been made available in this
little Oriental country. Wise Arabs are eager to go there
from the countries ruled by the Shariat. This is the
lesson for the living history.
Clash of civilizations - acharya - 09-28-2003
CAUTION - READ WITH DESCRETION
We emphasize here that strong, fundamentalist-religious emotions motivates these sophisticated theories of economics and politics. The
three major religious systems, Judaism, Christianity and islam, arose in Middle East which was earlier called Sumeria (spanning Israel,
Egypt, Iraq). These religious systems base their philosophies on extreme hate-mongering and fanatic beliefs, and have been responsible
for internecine warfare lasting more than 2000 years, annihilating major civilizations, thousands of subcultures and slaughtering over a
billion people. The lower estimates are 200 million in Africa, 200 million in America, 150 million in Europe, at least 450 million in India,
50 million in Russia, 50 million in China, amongst several others. Each of these ideologies believed that killing of non-believers was
divinely ordained.
Judaism developed around 5000-7000 BC with the advent of Abraham, and the leaving of Ur. He liberated his people from slavery and
arrived in the Middle East around today's Iraq and Israel. The Jews call this the First Exodus. Judaism again flourished around 3000
BC in the time of Moses who liberated his people from slavery of the Egyptian King, Ramses-I, and brought them to the promised and
holy land, which is current day Israel. The Jews call this the Second Exodus.
Christianity saw its main rise in 150-300 AD. Although centered around the life of Jesus Christ, it owes its initial spread to the twelve
apostles, primarily to Jesus' half-brother James, Peter, Paul and Mark (the first apostles). However Christianity however had its early
consolidation in Greece. The first main expansion of Orthodox Christianity occurred with the Greek emperor, Constantine, who
converted in 312 AD. He established an empire of the "New Rome" at Byzantine (today Constantinople, in Turkey) and incorporated
Christianity into the political order. This was the precursor of the Eastern Orthodox church.
By 391 AD however Rome had taken over the seat of Christian authority. The celebration of pagan sacrifices and other pagan rites was
forbidden and punishable with death. The Emperors Arcadius, Honorius and Theodosius II confirmed the judicial authority of bishops,
and authorized the execution of their judgments by civil officials, effectively turning Rome to a Christian fundamentalist state and in
415 AD, pagans were barred from military and civil offices. Roman officialdom now began executing pagans and heretics upon the
advise of the church, in what was called "a relaxation to the secular arm", in a macabre collaboration between the secular establishment
and the Church, with this ironic situation seen even today.
But the church had now split: the Bishop of Rome in the West and the Patriarch of Constantinople in the East. Divisions between the
two power centers in the Christian church gradually intensified. The Church at Rome was the Western Orthodox church, today known
as the Roman Catholic church. In 1054 AD, the split had all the makings of a war with the two churches excommunicating each other.
The Russian Pagans (eastern Aryans) had converted into Eastern Orthodox Christianity around the tenth and eleventh centuries. They
formed a power center, later known as the Russian Orthodox church. Finally, the advent of Protestant Christianity by Eastern
European Aryan Nations including Germany, Austria etc. occurred around thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Protestant church
is another major factor in the game.
Islam started in 7th century AD with Mohammed. He came into direct conflict with the Jews (who refused to accept Mohammed's
claims of prophetism) and with the Pagans, and wars resulted with the conversion of Arabia in a few years. When in, January 630
AD, Mohammed had smashed all the idols at the temple at Kaaba, save a single one, and offered the defeated Meccan leader the choice
of islam or death, the stage for islamic monotheism was set and ideologically defined. Subsequent wars were launched on the Christian
states north of the Arab peninsula. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, had completed the conquest of Arabia and then Palestine. North Africa
fell soon after, and the successive caliphs carried out raids against the declining Roman Catholic, Byzantine and Zoroastrian (Persian)
empires, bringing the booty back to Arabia. The Christians did put up resistance against these attacks, with much blood flowing in the
process. Islam's northward spread into Europe was stopped in 732 AD, at the Battle of Tours in the plains of Poitiers, France. And by
1250 AD, islam was well established in Northern India. After the assassination of Caliph Uthman in 656 AD, disagreements broke out
over the right to the caliphate. This was at the time of the fourth caliph, Ali (656-61 AD) who was Mohammed's son-in-law. The result
was a division in the muslim community into the shias and the sunnis.
These three religious systems and their claims to unique privilege of the knowledge of and access to God and "his prophet", became
the basis for the major battles, struggles and upheavals since. The scale of the slaughter of populations and the destruction of
civilization and sub-cultures, not only across Europe but all over the world, for the past 2000 years is staggering and incomprehensible.
Not only have they waged the most violent wars against each other, but all three were unanimous in their aim of destroying the pagans
- the only fight being over who had the right to convert.
While we hope our reader will spend time studying each of these wars in more detail, for now we provide a brief list of the conflicts in
the recent past. The authors believe that in all of these conflicts, the three ideologies provided the key motivating factor. We shall leave
it to our reader to verify or disprove this claim.
1. Inquisition-Roman Greek (3-7 AD): Forcible conversion of Pagans (a novel term created by Christians to refer to non-Christians
primarily worshippers of various gods and goddesses) and Jews. Slaughter of of both Jews and Pagans of Europe and the Middle East.
2. Islamic Jihad (630 AD-today): Against Pagans of Mecca and Medina, Jews and Christians of middle east. Arab invasions of
North Africa, Persia and subsequently onwards to India, resulting in the slaughter of over 450 million Pagans in India alone.
3. Crusades (starting in 1095 AD, with pope Urban II): Christians (Roman, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek) versus the
muslims. The population of Southern Spain, which had been earlier converted to islam, was reconverted to Christianity. It is interesting
that Jews of Europe fought along side Christians against the muslims to purge the latter from Jerusalem, their holy land, although in
early stages, the German crusaders decided to first "kill the infidels among us" and slaughtered thousands of German Jews on the way
to the Holy Land. The same thing happened to Jews in Prague, massacred by Christian crusaders.
4. The Medieval Inquisition (1231 AD): Mandated by popes Innocent III and Gregory IX in response to heretics (non-believers).
Massacres of Catharists (very close to Indian ascetics) in France, their complete annihilation being completed in the Albegenian
Crusade. When the papal representative was asked how to distinguish the heretics from the true Christians, he answered: "Kill them all.
God will know His own."
5. The Spanish Inquisition (1481-1834 AD): Mandated by pope Sixtus IV in 1478 AD. It is popularly known as the "purge of Jews
from Europe". Following the Christian re-conquest of Spain, it mandated Catholicising of the country. Slaughter and forcible
conversion of Jews (and Moors) all over Europe, confiscation of their properties. Although perpetrated primarily by the Spanish kings
in Spain, the purge of Jews took place in Portugal, Holland and France as well. At least 200,000 Jews left Spain and 323,362 people
were burned (according to official records). Many European Jews moved eastwards into the Balkans and Russia. Encouraged by
every pope with religious fervor, it ended at the close of the nineteenth century when it was (mistakenly) thought that Europe was
cleansed of Jews.
6. The Roman Inquisition (1542 AD): Mandated by pope John Paul III, primarily in response to spread of Protestantism in Italy.
Responsible, amongst several other atrocities, for the arrest and death of Galileo Galilee.
7. Catholic-Protestant Wars-Result of Classical Renaissance, the birth of Protestantism resulted in an internecine warfare between
Protestant Kingdoms (under Germany) and Catholic nations (under the Vatican). It is interesting to note that in these battles the Jews
of Europe sided with the Protestant kings and fought against Catholics. We mention in particular, the Thirty Years war (1618-1648
AD): House of Austria (Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperors Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III together with his Spanish cousin Philip IV on
the catholic side) versus opponents (Danish, Dutch and, above all, France and Sweden, Germany, on the
Protestant/Lutheran/Calvinist). Thousands of Protestants fled France to avoid persecution and some of them ended up in what is now
St. Augustine, Florida. In 1565 AD Catholic Spaniards discovered one such colony and killed almost every single person there,
proclaiming that people had been killed "not as Frenchmen but as Lutherans." On 24 August 1572, in France, the Catholics murdered
thousands of Protestants in a single day (St. Bartholomew Day massacre). We also mention the fight in the 17th century where the
Church of England tried to eliminate the Puritans, led by Oliver Cromwell, leading to a violent civil war.
8. The Spanish Inquisition-Americas ( 1492-1605 AD) â Mandated by popes Innocent VIII, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, Pious
V, Gregory XIII and Clement VIII. Spanish catholics slaughtered around 200 million native Americans for their refusal to convert to
Christianity.
9. The Portuguese Inquisition ( 1494-1878 AD): Slaughters in Africa, India, Japan, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Far East and Japan.
Mandated by popes Pius VI to Pius IX. Perpetrated by Portuguese conquistadors headed by St. Francis Xavier, their spiritual leader. In
Portugal itself nearly all Jews were forcibly converted. This inquisition is responsible for the forcible conversion of Jews in Brazil,
butchery of Brahmins, conversions of Hindus in Goa, amongst other genocides.
10. The European Inquisition in Africa (1400-1945 AD): Slaughter of Africans perpetuated by all European nations and by both
Christians and Jews, for the plunder of Africa, and conversion to Christianity.
11. East India Companies (1600-1924 AD): Involved the colonization of India, China, Asia, Africa. Primarily driven by the Anglo elite
exploitation of colored colonies for aggrandizement of their wealth. Slaughters in India, China and Africa.
12. French Revolution (1787-1799 AD): Rise of French Catholic Power as a revolt against the destruction of France by the Anglo elite.
French Catholics, under Napoleon, fought British-Protestants and Anglo elite, with Anglo elite in control.
13. American Civil War(1750-1789 AD): American Protestants and Baptists and others, fighting British Protestants and the anglo elite.
14. Spanish Civil War (1936-1939 AD): Spanish Catholics, under General Franco, put up a brave resistance with the help of Germans
(Protestants and Catholics), French Catholics and Italian Catholics under Mussolini, against numerous terrorist outfits trained by British
Intelligence and Anglo elite.
15. Italian Revolution (1830-1871 AD ): Catholics versus Anglo elite.
16. Russian Revolution (1905-1918 AD ): Anglo elite, Catholics and Protestants versus Russian Orthodox.
17. World War I (1914-1918 AD): German and Austrians Catholics and Protestants, Turk and Arab muslims, on one side;
British-French-Russian-Protestants, Russian Orthodox Christians, and anlgo elite in control on the other. Japan was minimally involved on
the side of the Anglo elite.
18. World War II (1939-1945): This should be more precisely viewed as two wars in separate theaters. The first is European War -2
German Catholics and Protestants headed by Adolf Hitler (a catholic), Italian catholics, Arab muslims; British Protestants, American
Protestants, Russia and anglo elite in control on the other. The second is the Pacific War, where Japan was pitted against the American
Baptists and the Anglo elite.
This process of mutual annihilation, which has been going on for the past two thousand years, has in the recent past, evolved in to a
perfect science of sophisticated deception. It often uses the euphemism of "saving humanity, civilization and culture".
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 09-30-2003
[url="http://sify.com/news/politics/fullstory.php?id=13271297"]Why do Indians put religion before nationality?[/url]
By François Gautier
Tuesday, 30 September , 2003, 12:24
François Gautier on Sonia Gandhi | Mani Shankar Aiyar column | Subramanian Swamy column | Mahesh Rangarajan column | Premchand Palety column
When James Lyngdoh, Chief Election Commissioner of India, won on July 30 the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, he did proud to his country. After all, had he not defied Government pressure for an early election in riot- torn Gujarat and overseen fair polls in Kashmir ?
Most western correspondents applauded the prize. Business Week wrote: âIn spite of the sweep of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's âfundamentalistâ candidates in the riot-torn state of Gujarat in December, Mr Lyngdoh is being recognised for his convincing validation of free and fair elections as the foundation and best hope of secular democracy in strife-torn India."
As the Assembly elections are nearing in Delhi, MP, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Mizoram, another western correspondent has remarked that âLyngdoh rose from relative anonymity in 2002 when he rejected the ruling âHindu nationalists' plans for a snap poll in Gujarat, where more than 1,000 people died in Hindu-Muslim bloodshed, on security grounds. The move prompted bitter and sometimes personal criticism of Lyngdoh, a Christian, by Hindu hardlinersâ.
The words âChristianâ and âHindu hardlinersâ make me cringe and prompt me to take a closer look at his credentials. Is Lyngdohâs prime value the fact that he is a Christian, with qualities of honesty and fairness, which are much superior to Hindus, who have a tendency to be âfundamentalistsâ? Is this why the Ramon Magsaysay award, a Christian prize, awarded by a Christian country (the Philippines), was given to him? I am born a Christian and was broughtâup on the values of Christianity: love compassion for the others, charity⦠At the same time, my 34 years in India have told me that you cannot find in the world a people, the Hindus, who are more tolerant of others, who accept the fact that God can be Krishna, Christ, Buddha or Mohamed. I also know that Christians still believe, today in the 21st century, which should be the century of acceptance of others, that Christ is the only true son of God and that all other beliefs â particularly those of the Hindus, who adore a multitude of âheathenâ Gods, are false. This is why Christian missionaries are still at it in India, converting thousands of innocent tribals and Harijans, with the millions of dollars that gullible westerners donate, so as to âalleviate poverty in the Third Worldâ.
There is no doubt that James Lyngdoh is an upright honest man, who is trying to discharge his duty as best as he deems it possible. After all, Christians missionaries, whatever you can say about them, are doing service to the poorest of the poor, whereas one of the curses of this country is that many rich Hindus do not look after their less fortunate Hindu brethren, leaving hereby the space to Christian missionnaries. But the question which must be asked to Lyngdoh is this one: Does he also think that Jesus Christ is the only saviour? If he does, that could explain the fact that he delayed elections in Gujarat, a State which, whatever happened during the recent riots, has a long tradition of democracy and tolerance - while allowing them immediately in Kashmir, a region where 3,50,000 Hindus have been forced to flee through terror, for no fault of them and which has seen terrible strife in the past 15 years, without speaking of the centuries of terrible oppression upon Hindus by Muslim rulers. Again this is what passes for secularism in India , The Xtian preachercan preach all day long that Christ is the only savior, but that is not considered to be communal or fundoo, but when a Hindoo utters so much as a single phrse that Hindus belong to an ancient tradition he is automatically dubbed a Hindoo fundoo.
Could it also explain suspicions of a favourable bias towards Sonia Gandhi, she being also a Christian, thus possessing the same qualities of inborn fairness and secularism, which might save India from the âpagan fundamentalistâ Hindus ? Donât laugh: I see many western correspondents who honestly think that Sonia Gandhi is the sane, balanced âcivilisedâ solution to an 'uncivilised Hindu India' (this is what Jean Leclerc du Sablon wrote once in Le Figaro)â¦
Lyngdoh, thanks in greater part to the redoubtable T N Sheshan, possesses today a lot of power and does Indian Christians proud. Here in India, I often hear that Christians only comprise two percent of the population and that their impact on Indian life is thus minimal. I am not so sure about that. If you cross Bangalore for instance, you will realise that the primmest property is in the hands of churches, although they have minimal attendance in comparison with temples or mosques. The same is valid in many cities of India, where you find that churches, presbyteries and Christian schools, sit tauntingly in the best places, thanks to British colonial favours. But above all, Christians still control to a large extent the best colleges in this country and thus shape the minds of the future elite of India in a thousand subtle ways, which are not always discernible.
Many of the schools of journalism in India are also controlled by Christians and produce good Christian journalists, who unfortunately sometimes use the power of the pen for a certain anti-Hindu slant (there are, of course, notable and brilliant exceptions such as T R Shenoy). As a result, the presence of Christians in newspapers is often disproportionate with their numbers. If you take the magazine, The Week for instance and take a close look at their editorial credits on the second page, you will find that out of the 21 senior editors, 14 are Christians. Wow, thatâs 75 percent! It would be impossible in my country, which is predominantly Catholic, to have a mainstream national magazine with 75 percent Hindus or even Muslims, although the French have also a 10 to 12 percent Muslim minority!
It reminds me also of the time when I used to write a column for The Indian Express (the Ferengiâs column). A Christian, A J Philip (no longer with Express), was then in charge of the edit page and invariably, he would censor a little bit my columns, taking out a word, a phrase here and there and sometimes, when he very strongly disagreed (with Pamela Philipose, another Christian in Express), he would not publish it a all. I stopped after some time, when I discovered that the editor, Shekhar Gupta, sided with them. Ah,but you forget Monsieur Gautier, a Christian or a Muslim can say anything about a Hindu or censor to any extent or accept subsidies from the Hindu taxpayer for their Churches and Masjids, that is not seen to be communal or anti secular. You see minorities in India are held to a different standard of conduct than Hindus
Quote:The Graham Staines story is also an eloquent testimony of the subtle and not-so-subtle influence that Christians have on this country. The murderer, Dara Singh, has been convicted to death. His was a horrible deed: to burn a man and his innocent children does deserve the capital punishment. Justice is thus done and the entire press - Indian and foreign - rightly rejoiced.
But one may ask this question: What happens to the murderers of thousands of innocent Hindus who have been burnt, lacerated, bombed, raped, their eyes gauged, their homes ransacked? Why donât their widows get the same sympathy as Mrs Staines? Because they are brown and Hindus and Mrs Staines is white and Christian? Donât dismiss this again lightly: I remember a few days after Graham Staines was killed, 14 Hindu labourers were murdered in Himachal Pradesh by Muslims separatists. The entire English speaking Indian press devoted page after page of outrage on the killing of Staines, but the murder of the Hindus in HP only warranted a few lines in most newspapers without condemnation. I can understand that Western correspondents based in India show such a slant â even if it does not speak much for their fairness â but Indian journalists, most of them Hindus at that! And if Lyngdoh was really fair, he would have seen to it that the NDTV of Prannoy Roy and Rajdeep Sardesai, two brilliant journalists no doubt, was brought to the book for inflaming communal passions during Gujurat riots by constantly showing burnt people and broken bodies.
In my country, France which is truly secular in the sense that the State and the Church are separated, because at some point the Church controlled enormous amount of land and political power, I doubt that a non-Catholic could become Election Commissioner (a post which does not exist anyway). It is a tribute to Indiaâs openness and liberalism that a Christian holds that post, and that a Muslim is President of India at the moment, although Christians and Muslims often complain that they are discriminated against in India. Recently, French President Jacques Chirac asked every Frenchman, specially the French Muslims, âto be French first and Muslims secondâ. In India, one often finds that people put their religion before their nationality, particularly the Muslims and to a lesser degree the Christians. So Lyngdoh, are you a Christian and then an Indian? An Indian and then a Christian? Or simply an Indian?
(François Gautier is a French journalist and writer, who was for eight years the political correspondent in India and South Asia for 'Le Figaro' and now works for Ouest-France, the largest circulation daily (I million copies) in France and LCI, France's 24 hour TV news channel. He has written several books prominent among them being 'Arise O India' and 'A Western journalist on India' and 'India's Self Denial.
Gautier will write exclusively for Sify.com on the run-up and during the State elections.
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 10-01-2003
An excellent paper by Sridhar in the latest BR Monitor
[url="http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE6-2/sridhar.html"]Ethnic Cleansing in Pakistan during Partition: A Preliminary Statistical Analysis[/url]
Sridhar N.
should be read in conjunction with (click on online books and scroll down to this title)
[url="http://www.bharatvani.org/"] Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947[/url]
By S. Gurbachan Singh Talib
There is also an excellent book on Partition by Sheshadri ( i will get the details later) - my computer is acting up now.
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 10-01-2003
Unfortunately, there is ethnic cleansing going on in India too. But wait it is not what you may be thinking,i.e. against the Muslim but against the Hindu.
[url="http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/web1/03sep08/national.htm#9"]Kashmiri Pandits facing "extinction" : Experts[/url]
NEW DELHI, Sept 7: Kashmiri Pandits are "threatened with extinction," Experts have warned.
Premature ageing and premature death, unnatural death, high incidence of serious and potentially fatal diseases, affliction with multiple disease syndromes, poor medical aid, economic bankruptcy and lack of desire to live, are some of the factors that have contributed to an already high death rate among them.
Late marriages and late conception, premature menopause and reduced fertility span, diminished libido and hypo-sexuality of exile, forced celibacy and sexual deprivation, contraception, elective abortion and high divorce rate have spurred low birth rates.
According to a paper presented at a two-day conference here on September one-two, on the problems of Kashmiri Pandits, in 1993 (three years after their migration from the Valley), 108 Kashmiri Pandits died while only 42 were born. In 1995, there were 200 deaths and only five births while in 1997 the figure was 134 deaths and 85 births. The statiistics were obtained after surveys conducted at various camps at Jammu where most migrants stayed in pitiable condition after their migration.
The study conducted by Dr K L Choudhary, a noted physician who himself was forced to flee from the Valley and has been living in Jammu, says there is hardly any system in the body (of a migrant) that has gone unrepresented in the wide spectrum of afflictions from which the exiled community is suffering.
"A whole community has aged prematurely. Multiple disease syndromes have overtaken most of them. Many have died prematurely, others are languishing...Common and uncommon diseases, new syndromes and unique and bizarre constellation of signs and symptoms, have all surfaced giving rise to a wide array of psychological syndromes and mental and physical diseases..." says Dr Choudhary.
The study says they (Kashmiri migrants) have been housed in tents or one-room tenements, living an "animal existence" on petty doles, bereft of basic amenities of life. Others are on the move in search of shelter and livelihood and living a nomadic existence. Health, both mental and physical, has been the greatest casualty.
The All India Census cunducted early this year, which put the total population of the country at around one billion, also did not give the exact number of the Kashmiri migrtants left as most of then have migrated and settled in various parts of the country âfrom Jammu in the North to Chennai in the South, Calcutta in the East to Maharashtra in the West.
"Kashmiri Pandits have scattered all over the country for survival, making it almost impossible to get their official count," a senior official of the Census Department told UNI.
A delegation of Kashmiri Pandit leaders met Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and urged him to order a special census of the Pandits.
The Pandit leaders feared that their language, culture and tradition and also their number was fast disapearing and it was just a matter of time (few years) when they would be lost for ever.
A survey conducted at various Kashmiri Pandit Settlement Centres revealed that 14 years of exile had given rise to dispersal, diaspora and dissipation. The moral fabric of the migrants is tearing apart. The family structure has broken down. The economic, social and administrative support has collapsed. The memories of terror, persecution and violence in the Kashmir Valley are superimposed upon a feeling of being dispossessed and uprooted.
The trauma of forced exodus and the exposure to an alien and hostile environment are further compounded by the problems of acclimatisation, lack of basic amenities like drinking water, drainage and sewerage, absence of proper lavatory facilities, poor housing, over-crowding, extremes of climate, lack of healthcare, joblessness, idleness, depression, disease and death.
According to the survey, the multitude of these problems conspire with the compromised nutritional standards of the displaced population and snap the tenuous reserves of body and mind exploding in myriad manifestations of disease. Medical facilities are almost non-existent and the cost of investigations and treatment prohibitive. The results are devastating in terms of morbidity and mortality.
A study conducted among 2345 inmates of a camp at âMuthiâ on the outskirts of Jammu revealed that they live in 498 one-room tenements of 10 Ft by 10 Ft in size. As many as 41 families having more than seven members each, stayed in one room tenement each.
More than 40 families (in the camps) have lost one or more members to terrorist violence in the Valley and houses of 36 families and comercial establishments of 10 families have been burnt down by terrorists. There were 61 unemployed youth in the camp and two doctorates, 40 Post Graduates and 53 Graduates. There were two camp inmates of more than 40 years of age and 98 inmates between 30 and 40 years while the rest were either very old or very young.
The inmates suffer from physical and mental stress syndromes, environmental and nutritional syndromes. The stress syndromes include cardio-vascular stress, psycho-trauma, endocrine stress, musculo-skeletal stress, stress-belly (ulcers etc) and cranial stress (tension headaches and migraines).
A comparison between 400 females with menopausal symptoms after migration and an equal number who developed menopause before exile, showed that 25 women in the age group 35-40 years developed menopause after exile compared to nine before migration. In the age group 41 to 45 years, 34 developed menopause after exile as against 26 before exile.
More than 36 per cent women become infertile by the time they reach 40 years of age after migration.
An amazing 79 per cent migrants suffer from depression while 76 per cent suffer from anxiety disorders, phobias and panic attacks, eight per cent from post-trauma disorders, 11 per cent from dissociative disorders and hysterical neurosis, 20 per cent from sleep disorders and eight per cent from delusional disorders and psychosis.
Dr Chaudhary says that between 1991 and 1993, immediately after the migration, out of 11,150 patients, 96 per cent suffered from skin disease, 91 per cent from psychiatric disorders, 61 per cent from nutrition syndromes, 38 per cent from allergic syndromes, 21 per cent from ulcer dyspepsia, 11 per cent from hypertension and 12 per cent from stress diabetes.
Between 2001 and 2003, out of 5004 patients, 18 per cent suffered from skin disorders, 44 per cent from psychiatric disorders, 62 per cent from nutrition syndromes, 15 per cent from allergic syndromes, 31 per cent fron ulcer dyspepsia, 18 per cent from hypertension and 15 per cent from stress diabetes. The incidence of tuberculosis, renal stones, renal failure and asthma had also increased markedly.
Nearly 36 per cent women had developed ovarian failure which was a new trend witnessed.
In 1990, 1056 people died because of heat-related diseases while 409 died in 1991, 397 in 1992, 178 in 1993 and 148 between 1997 and 2003.
Dr P K Hak, a Professor at the Srinagar Medical College, says in the study "while the incidence of the ailments the exiled community suffered traditionally has increased, a host of new diseases and syndromes, previously unknown or rare, is also afflicting them."
"Malaria has caused great morbidity among migrants because the community lacked the immunity acquired by people living in endemic areas. Overcrowding has caused a greater number of pneumonia and tuberculosis cases. Skin diseases afflict almost all. Most patients suffer from renal colics, renal stones and renal infections. Angina pectoris has got precipitated. Hypertension is common even among the youth...Stress diabetes is a new syndrome. A large number of displaced Kashmiri diabetics have no other visible factors except stress," says Dr Hak.
Noted Neurologist Dr Sushil Razdan says that dozens of patients have died because of heat stroke. The incidence of neuro-cystocircosis has also increased. Older people, very young and women are the worst sufferers.
A survey conducted at migrant camps in Delhi revealed that families lived in separate enclosures in a single hall partioned by cloth and cardboard. At the community centers at Hauz Rani and Bapu Dham, two of the camps where the migrants stayed, enclosures were made with the help of cloth and cardboard for each family. In Delhi, fifteen camps were sponsored by Delhi Administration in community halls.
In Jammu where most of the Pandits stayed after migration, eighteen camps were set up at Muthi, Purkhoo, Mishriwala and Nagrota on the outskirts of Jammu. A large number of migrant families were housed in Government quarters at various places in the city these people were not given camp facilities which includes Government assistance and subsidies. (UNI)
Clash of civilizations - Hauma Hamiddha - 10-03-2003
[quote name='Kaushal' date='Oct 1 2003, 11:15 AM'] An excellent paper by Sridhar in the latest BR Monitor
[url="http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE6-2/sridhar.html"]Ethnic Cleansing in Pakistan during Partition: A Preliminary Statistical Analysis[/url]
[/quote]
Tremendous effort by the author especially given his secularist proclivity. It is striking to note that he has presented a cogent analysis without any cover up, as is normally the case with the secularwadis.
:thumbsup
Scott Levi's work on Indian slaves sold in Central Asia and Arab markets is another work that gives an array of figures that show that these genocides are merely the proverbial tip of the Islamic iceberg.
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 10-03-2003
Secularists(with the exception of a few candle wallahs) also believe that Pakistan is jihadi, milito/mullahcracy, terrorist, cannot be trusted etc.etc. and needs to be destroyed. Where they differ from 'am janta' like us is that they feel that there are magical forces at work in the terrorist state that make it unique from the rest of the ummah. But the rationalist Hindu believes that such behavior is not unique to the terrorist state and is inherent in the software and the madrassah programming and there certainly are more examples than Pakistan namely KSA, Egypt, Chechnya,certain regions and localities of India, Indonesia, Algeria. It is simply the case that the terrorist state is more brazen because of its demographics and size relative to other states.
The secularist propensity to view the terrorist state as unique among the ummah stems also from a Indo centric perspective and lack of knowledge about Islamic History. It is the exception rather than the rule to find periods in world history where jihadi activity against the Dar ul harb has not been pursued with complete vigor by Muslim sultans.
After all the acts of terrorism today are global and occur in any given year over a half a dozen different locales throughout the planet the only common factor being they are conducted for the most part by Muslims. As for the commonality and universality in viewpoints re. Pakistan , my comment is that the instinct of self preservation (fight or flight syndrome) has a wonderfully clarifying and salutory effect on the mind and has a propensity to remove all wishy washy cobwebs from the mind. of course such tomtoming about Pakistan and the ubiquitous calls for its destruction are never referred to as the acts of a jingo or that of a nationalist, when espoused by a secularwadi.
This is where the point of difference lies between secularists and the rationalist Hindus, namely in the degree of uniqueness of the terrorist infrastructure that is au courant in Pakistan . This is why i am not surprised at the complete study that Sridhar has done. But ask a secularist to do a similar demographic analysis of the growth of Muslims in India and he will tie himself in knots trying to explain that is a non problem, because he doesnt have the gumption to ask the IM to control the number of children as Hindus are already doing.
Apropos of Scot levi, he had sent me a hard copy of a 20 page paper on the central asian slave trade in Indians more than a year ago. At that time he did not want me to publish it on the net even with acreditation because the paper was still under review and had not been published it. Since then he must have published it and so there is no reason to hold back and i need to see how to put it on the net.
Clash of civilizations - G.Subramaniam - 10-06-2003
Please visit [url="http://www.bharatvani.org"]http://www.bharatvani.org[/url]
and see the online books
Clash of civilizations - Guest - 10-06-2003
[url="http://members.tripod.com/naimisha/new_page_1.htm"]THE NEED FOR A NEW INDIC SCHOOL OF THOUGHT[/url]
During the Eurocolonial period, Indian history and civilization were distorted to fit European perceptions. A new school of thought is needed that will see Asian history and tradition with Asian eyes and thought, beginning with India.
David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri)
Background: Clash of Civilizations
A clash of civilizations is occurring throughout in the world today, a war of cultures at various levels in both our personal and public lives. This clash is partly due to rising historical and cultural awareness on the part of newly independent countries, beginning with India. One civilization, the Western-European-American is currently predominant and is strongly, if not rudely, trying to eliminate or subordinate the rest. Yet western civilization is spreading itself not so much by force, as in the colonial era, but by subtle new forms of social manipulation. These include control of the media and news information networks, control of the entertainment industry, domination of commercial markets, continued missionary aggressiveness by western religions, and â as important but sometimes overlooked â control of educational institutions and curriculums worldwide.
This control of education has resulted in a Western-European-American view of history and culture in textbooks and information sources in most countries, including India. Naturally, people educated according to western values will function as part of western culture, whatever may be the actual country of their birth. They will experience an alienation from their native culture that they have not really been raised in. They easily become a fifth column for the westernization of their culture, which also means its denigration or, at best, its commercialization. An authentic Indian or Indic perspective, a worldview coming out of the culture of India and its particular values and perceptions, is hardly to be found, even in India. The western school of thought is taught in India, not any Indic or Indian school of thought...