Cash prize for Hindus to throw photos of Hindu Gods
Extra money for wearing cross lockets
By R Guru Prasad
IT is said that marketing is an art of making people ‘buy’ without knowing ‘why’ and Christian missionaries are proving it right. Christian missionaries have adopted the latest marketing strategy to hood wink the gullible, poor, uneducated Hindus in Bangalore by offering cash prize for those who dump the photos of Hindu gods and replace with photos of Jesus in their houses. This is not enough. A bonus cash prize will be offered to those Hindus who wears cross symbol secretly! These are the samples revealed in the recent case study conducted by Dr M Chidanandamurthy, noted thinker, Philosopher, researcher, columnist and a social activist from Bangalore.
Dr M Chidanandamurthy unmasked the new avatar of Christian missionaries in his new findings and shared a few points with the media on March 19, 2011 and requested the Hindu youths to protest against an uncivilised way of converting Hindus by allurement of cash prizes. Murthy has exposed immoral acts of Christian missionaries, conversion agents, pro-Christian lobby and evangelists working overtime in Bangalore on a conversion spree. Murthy, however, not specified the exact amount of money given as a cash prize for those who throw Hindu gods and wear Christian symbol. Murthy mentioned that he came to know about this cunning act from his friend Ramachandra Upadhya who lives at Wilson Garden, Bangalore. Both Murthy and Upadhya went to Manjunathanagar locality near Marathhalli, 3-km away from Bangalore HAL old airport on March 15, 2011 and witnessed a shock of their life.
According to Murthy, conversion agents identify Hindu families who are financially weak and promise to provide them with cash prizes for displaying ‘some’ photos. After capitalising on their weakness, evangelists carry a sweet box and an attractive framed photo of Jesus and go to homes belonging to lower strata of the society along with a local conversion agent. By offering money on the spot, agents manage to include Jesus photo in the middle of Hindu gods. After few weeks the round two operation starts by releasing another installment money and influencing them to place the photo of Jesus on the top most lane above Hindu gods in a more visible manner. Again after few weeks, the conversion agents lands there with huge money and convince them to discard photos of Hindu gods and goddesses. Fearing to throw photos and idols of Hindu gods into dustbin, poor gullible Hindus place them in the premises of Vasuki Subramanya Temple, which is situated on the national Highway.
Conversion agents offering huge sums of money and manage to get photos, idols, stickers, symbols of Hindu gods removed from the Hindu homes is just the beginning for yet another round of cheating. They give additional money for embracing Christianity and displaying Christian symbols in their house. "It is a bargain and if converted Christian willing to wear a cross around his neck, will be entitled to claim a bonus which will be happily given to him by agents and will also earn incentive from foreign funds used by Christian Missionaries" Murthy explained in his letter. He has charged the conversion agents with ‘agenda to misuse the situation’. According to him agents play a major role during ill-health of Hindus and offer a free prayer meeting to get rid of diseases only to get them converted to Christianity with a bogus healing power of Jesus.
Murthy has given his address, contact number and the telephone number of his friend Upadhya and requested general public to inform them about illegal conversions anywhere in Karnataka to take appropriate action against the immoral acts. Ramachandra Upadhya is available on his mobile number: 09902400072 and Murthy can be contacted at 1013 B, 4th Cross, 11th Main, Hampinagara, Bangalore - 560040. Landline 080-23300687. To prevent further attack on the Hindu society he urged the Karnataka Government to legislate Anti-conversion law with immediate effect.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
In the Muslim world the armies call the shots
By Dr Jay Dubashi
The Americans have their army all over the place, with perhaps the largest contingent in Saudi Arabia, from where the Americans get most of their oil. Which is also why the Americans spend two billion dollars, or about Rs. 10,000 crore, on the Egyptian armed forces every year, and also, of course, on the armed forces of Israel. The Americans spend more money on armed forces in the Middle East, including, of course, Iraq, than our entire expenditure on defence.
I have strong doubts about the so-called revolution that is supposed to be sweeping the Arab World, which means essentially the Muslim world. Revolution is a strong word and takes you back to what happened in France two hundred years ago and in America about the same time. Nothing of the kind seems to be happening in, say, Tripoli, where an old-time tyrant is facing the all-suffering citizenry, and where his army is the only organised force protecting him.
We had more or less the reverse of what is happening in Libya, earlier in Egypt and before that, in Tunisia, where it all began. There it was the army which had refused to side with the ruler, and forced him to resign. In all the three cases, the so-called revolution was triggered not by Face book, but by the army, whatever the westerners might say. Ultimately, it is the army that matters, for it is the only really organised force in those countries and therefore sets the pace for "revolutionary" changes.
In all Muslim countries, the local dictators are under the thumb of their armies, and while dictators come and go, the armies call the shots. Pakistan is a very good example of how an army rules a country. I have always believed that Pakistan is not a country at all - in fact, it does not exist except on paper, and of course, on the maps. The only thing that works in Pakistan is its army. Take away the army and the country, or the so-called country, will cease to exist and vanish even from the maps. Presidents - so-called presidents - may come and go, dictators may come and go, but the army remains. But for the army, there would be no Kashmir problem, in fact, no problem at all of any kind with Pakistan, and we should rest in peace.
This is true of all Muslim countries, from Tunisia to the west to Indonesia in the east. These countries have oil, and often the only thing they have is oil. But even more than oil, what matters is the army, which is why all their dictators come from the army, or armed forces, and rule the country, though the real ruler is the army, and the man rules on behalf of the army.
Which is why, the Americans have their army all over the place, with perhaps the largest contingent in Saudi Arabia, from where the Americans get most of their oil. Which is also why the Americans spend two billion dollars, or about Rs. 10,000 crore, on the Egyptian armed forces every year, and also, of course, on the armed forces of Israel. The Americans spend more money on armed forces in the Middle East, including, of course, Iraq, than our entire expenditure on defence. The Westerners have always looked at the Middle East through the prism of armed defence in an uncertain world. For them, Face books and Twitters are frivolities indulged in by the cybernetic world of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, a wonderful world to write about but totally worthless when you come to brass tacks.
Which is why, as I said at the start, I have strong doubts about this so-called revolution in the Arab World. In Egypt, only a few hundred people died - maybe not even a hundred - because the whole show was scripted by the Egyptian army behind the back of Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak had proposed, or was about to propose, his son, Gamal, to succeed him and was said to be grooming him for the job. The army didn’t like this as Gamal had no military background and had never tried to get close to the military.
The army is supposed to have warned Mubarak about this several times but the man apparently took no notice. The crowds in Tahrir Square, never more than 50,000 according to some observers, were apparently manipulated by the security forces, though there is no tangible evidence about this. The fact remains that it was a peaceful show, except on occasions when the army suspected that the leaders of the so-called uprising were getting too big for their boots and had to be told to fall in line. Within hours of Mubarak’s resignation, the crowds disappeared, as if on cue, though Mubarak himself was still very much in Egypt, under the strict supervision of the army, and more or less its prisoner. It was the army that won in Egypt, and it is the army that is still calling the shots, and will probably do so until the next elections.
Things are a little different in Libya, which, unlike Egypt, is headed by a mad man, who also controls the army and whose stake in power in more precious to him than, say, that of Mubarak. Mubarak was head of the airforce when he took over, and was the choice of Anwar Sadat, the incumbent President at the time. This is not the case with Muammar Gadaffi, a self-designated illiterate colonel in the army, who was no more than a corporal when he took over. He was never really accepted by the army as its boss, which means he has been at odds with it right from the start.
This explains why Gadaffi is now engaged in a civil war, which means he is fighting his own people. Nobody trusts anyone-the king does not trust his government, the dictator does not trust his commander-in-chief, brother does not trust brother, and husband does not trust wife. So they all kill or try to kill, each other, as Aurangzeb did. The man slaughtered his brothers and their sons, and imprisoned his father. Had the people of Delhi risen against him, he would have killed them too. Murders, massacres and holocausts are an ancient tradition in the Islamic world. Perhaps, this is something they have inherited from Taimur and Genghis Khan and is now so much an integral part of their DNA that it comes to them naturally. It is not an accident of history that a man like Mohammed Ali Jinnah was the instigator of mass slaughter of Hindus before partition, though, for almost throughout his previous political career, those who knew him never had an inkling of this murderous side of his character.
Gadaffi may or may not remain in one piece when the smoke has cleared in Tripoli and the guns have fallen silent. It all depends on the Libyan army, if indeed there is an army. In Islamic countries, only the armies matter and everything else - constitutions, courts of justice, human rights etc-are mere scraps of paper. The French have a saying: when there is a problem, look for the woman. The Muslim have a saying too: look for the army. In the Muslim world, nothing matters more than naked force. Which is why, since force begets force, the Muslim world is never at peace with itself, nor with the world.
The Americans have their army all over the place, with perhaps the largest contingent in Saudi Arabia, from where the Americans get most of their oil. Which is also why the Americans spend two billion dollars, or about Rs. 10,000 crore, on the Egyptian armed forces every year, and also, of course, on the armed forces of Israel. The Americans spend more money on armed forces in the Middle East, including, of course, Iraq, than our entire expenditure on defence.
I have strong doubts about the so-called revolution that is supposed to be sweeping the Arab World, which means essentially the Muslim world. Revolution is a strong word and takes you back to what happened in France two hundred years ago and in America about the same time. Nothing of the kind seems to be happening in, say, Tripoli, where an old-time tyrant is facing the all-suffering citizenry, and where his army is the only organised force protecting him.
We had more or less the reverse of what is happening in Libya, earlier in Egypt and before that, in Tunisia, where it all began. There it was the army which had refused to side with the ruler, and forced him to resign. In all the three cases, the so-called revolution was triggered not by Face book, but by the army, whatever the westerners might say. Ultimately, it is the army that matters, for it is the only really organised force in those countries and therefore sets the pace for "revolutionary" changes.
In all Muslim countries, the local dictators are under the thumb of their armies, and while dictators come and go, the armies call the shots. Pakistan is a very good example of how an army rules a country. I have always believed that Pakistan is not a country at all - in fact, it does not exist except on paper, and of course, on the maps. The only thing that works in Pakistan is its army. Take away the army and the country, or the so-called country, will cease to exist and vanish even from the maps. Presidents - so-called presidents - may come and go, dictators may come and go, but the army remains. But for the army, there would be no Kashmir problem, in fact, no problem at all of any kind with Pakistan, and we should rest in peace.
This is true of all Muslim countries, from Tunisia to the west to Indonesia in the east. These countries have oil, and often the only thing they have is oil. But even more than oil, what matters is the army, which is why all their dictators come from the army, or armed forces, and rule the country, though the real ruler is the army, and the man rules on behalf of the army.
Which is why, the Americans have their army all over the place, with perhaps the largest contingent in Saudi Arabia, from where the Americans get most of their oil. Which is also why the Americans spend two billion dollars, or about Rs. 10,000 crore, on the Egyptian armed forces every year, and also, of course, on the armed forces of Israel. The Americans spend more money on armed forces in the Middle East, including, of course, Iraq, than our entire expenditure on defence. The Westerners have always looked at the Middle East through the prism of armed defence in an uncertain world. For them, Face books and Twitters are frivolities indulged in by the cybernetic world of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, a wonderful world to write about but totally worthless when you come to brass tacks.
Which is why, as I said at the start, I have strong doubts about this so-called revolution in the Arab World. In Egypt, only a few hundred people died - maybe not even a hundred - because the whole show was scripted by the Egyptian army behind the back of Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak had proposed, or was about to propose, his son, Gamal, to succeed him and was said to be grooming him for the job. The army didn’t like this as Gamal had no military background and had never tried to get close to the military.
The army is supposed to have warned Mubarak about this several times but the man apparently took no notice. The crowds in Tahrir Square, never more than 50,000 according to some observers, were apparently manipulated by the security forces, though there is no tangible evidence about this. The fact remains that it was a peaceful show, except on occasions when the army suspected that the leaders of the so-called uprising were getting too big for their boots and had to be told to fall in line. Within hours of Mubarak’s resignation, the crowds disappeared, as if on cue, though Mubarak himself was still very much in Egypt, under the strict supervision of the army, and more or less its prisoner. It was the army that won in Egypt, and it is the army that is still calling the shots, and will probably do so until the next elections.
Things are a little different in Libya, which, unlike Egypt, is headed by a mad man, who also controls the army and whose stake in power in more precious to him than, say, that of Mubarak. Mubarak was head of the airforce when he took over, and was the choice of Anwar Sadat, the incumbent President at the time. This is not the case with Muammar Gadaffi, a self-designated illiterate colonel in the army, who was no more than a corporal when he took over. He was never really accepted by the army as its boss, which means he has been at odds with it right from the start.
This explains why Gadaffi is now engaged in a civil war, which means he is fighting his own people. Nobody trusts anyone-the king does not trust his government, the dictator does not trust his commander-in-chief, brother does not trust brother, and husband does not trust wife. So they all kill or try to kill, each other, as Aurangzeb did. The man slaughtered his brothers and their sons, and imprisoned his father. Had the people of Delhi risen against him, he would have killed them too. Murders, massacres and holocausts are an ancient tradition in the Islamic world. Perhaps, this is something they have inherited from Taimur and Genghis Khan and is now so much an integral part of their DNA that it comes to them naturally. It is not an accident of history that a man like Mohammed Ali Jinnah was the instigator of mass slaughter of Hindus before partition, though, for almost throughout his previous political career, those who knew him never had an inkling of this murderous side of his character.
Gadaffi may or may not remain in one piece when the smoke has cleared in Tripoli and the guns have fallen silent. It all depends on the Libyan army, if indeed there is an army. In Islamic countries, only the armies matter and everything else - constitutions, courts of justice, human rights etc-are mere scraps of paper. The French have a saying: when there is a problem, look for the woman. The Muslim have a saying too: look for the army. In the Muslim world, nothing matters more than naked force. Which is why, since force begets force, the Muslim world is never at peace with itself, nor with the world.
Gita is the source of all existing religions
Islam akin many ways to Sanatan Dharma, says noted Muslim Sanskrit Scholar
SEVERAL principles laid down in Gita and Koran, both the sacred books are surprisingly similar, noted Sanskrit scholar Dr Mohd Hanif Khan Shastri has said.
Dr Khan, a devout Muslim who teaches at the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, a deemed university under the Ministry of Human Resources Development, was delivering a talk on ‘Gita, Koran and Civilisational Harmony’ organised by the Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony (GFCH-INDIA), in collaboration with Vivekananda International Foundation on the eve of Holi on March 19, 2011 in New Delhi.
Maintaining that Gita held the key to entire Indian philosophy and ancient religious discourse, Dr Khan said the sacred book can be hailed as a source for all the existing religions in the world.
Dr Khan also recited extensively from his poetry collection in Hindi ‘Mohan Gita’ which has 700 poems based on 700 shlokas from the ancient Indian scripture. The book is under publication and will soon be available in the market.
"The extract of all the existing religions of the world has been accommodated in this small book (Gita) but still 90 per cent of people cannot read it. The messages of Gita are followed in all the religions in one way or the other," said Dr Khan.
Asserting that Islam was no different from Sanatana Dharma, he pointed out that while Koran highlighted the importance of ‘Roza’ or fasting in leading a pious and virtuous life, the Gita in the Shlokas 59-62 of Part 2 elaborated the way and importance of Vrat (religious fasting). In Patanjali’s Yoga Darshan the importance and process of Namaz or offering prayers to the Almighty has been thoroughly elaborated. "While Koran emphasised on the importance of Namaz, the Gita in Chapter eight explained the spirit in which it is to be done, Dr Khan said, adding that all the religions were similar in their basic philosophy and guideline for leading a better life with harmony.
"What is Panchkarma (Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Aprigraha and Brahmacharya) in Jain, Buddhist and Yam in Hindu tradition is Hukukul Ibaad or Hukukul Naass (The right of humans) in Koran. And the five Niyam (Shauch, Santosh, Tap etc) are Hukukul Allah (the rights of the God) in Islam," argued Khan.
Rabbi Ezekiel Isaac Malekar, Head Priest at the Delhi Jewish Synagogue, and founder patron of GFCH India said all religions taught good principles to enable human beings to lead a peaceful and harmonious life. "We must understand the principles of coexistence and harmony. One can not reform the society by speeches alone. We have to practice good things and attract the others to follow. This is the only way to reform the society particularly youngsters who are increasingly being driven by materialistic western philosophy,".
Industrialist and philanthropist Puneet Dalmia highlighted the need to instill pride for our culture among the youth. He expressed satisfaction that that such events were being organised to maintain civilisational harmony when the entire world was suffering from greed, violence, terrorism etc.
KG Suresh, Director of GFCH (INDIA), said the organisation, which is a partner organisation of the United Nations’ Alliance of Civilisation, worked towards removing misconceptions about each other among followers of different faiths. Like its effort to highlight the service aspect of Hindu spiritual organisations, GFCH India now planned to organize in Delhi a fair entitled ‘Islam in the Service of Mother India’, he said.
VIF Secretary Mukul Kanitkar said it was easier to find differences and disparities but essential to highlight the commonalities so as to bring about better understanding and civilizational harmony.(FOC)
SEVERAL principles laid down in Gita and Koran, both the sacred books are surprisingly similar, noted Sanskrit scholar Dr Mohd Hanif Khan Shastri has said.
Dr Khan, a devout Muslim who teaches at the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, a deemed university under the Ministry of Human Resources Development, was delivering a talk on ‘Gita, Koran and Civilisational Harmony’ organised by the Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony (GFCH-INDIA), in collaboration with Vivekananda International Foundation on the eve of Holi on March 19, 2011 in New Delhi.
Maintaining that Gita held the key to entire Indian philosophy and ancient religious discourse, Dr Khan said the sacred book can be hailed as a source for all the existing religions in the world.
Dr Khan also recited extensively from his poetry collection in Hindi ‘Mohan Gita’ which has 700 poems based on 700 shlokas from the ancient Indian scripture. The book is under publication and will soon be available in the market.
"The extract of all the existing religions of the world has been accommodated in this small book (Gita) but still 90 per cent of people cannot read it. The messages of Gita are followed in all the religions in one way or the other," said Dr Khan.
Asserting that Islam was no different from Sanatana Dharma, he pointed out that while Koran highlighted the importance of ‘Roza’ or fasting in leading a pious and virtuous life, the Gita in the Shlokas 59-62 of Part 2 elaborated the way and importance of Vrat (religious fasting). In Patanjali’s Yoga Darshan the importance and process of Namaz or offering prayers to the Almighty has been thoroughly elaborated. "While Koran emphasised on the importance of Namaz, the Gita in Chapter eight explained the spirit in which it is to be done, Dr Khan said, adding that all the religions were similar in their basic philosophy and guideline for leading a better life with harmony.
"What is Panchkarma (Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Aprigraha and Brahmacharya) in Jain, Buddhist and Yam in Hindu tradition is Hukukul Ibaad or Hukukul Naass (The right of humans) in Koran. And the five Niyam (Shauch, Santosh, Tap etc) are Hukukul Allah (the rights of the God) in Islam," argued Khan.
Rabbi Ezekiel Isaac Malekar, Head Priest at the Delhi Jewish Synagogue, and founder patron of GFCH India said all religions taught good principles to enable human beings to lead a peaceful and harmonious life. "We must understand the principles of coexistence and harmony. One can not reform the society by speeches alone. We have to practice good things and attract the others to follow. This is the only way to reform the society particularly youngsters who are increasingly being driven by materialistic western philosophy,".
Industrialist and philanthropist Puneet Dalmia highlighted the need to instill pride for our culture among the youth. He expressed satisfaction that that such events were being organised to maintain civilisational harmony when the entire world was suffering from greed, violence, terrorism etc.
KG Suresh, Director of GFCH (INDIA), said the organisation, which is a partner organisation of the United Nations’ Alliance of Civilisation, worked towards removing misconceptions about each other among followers of different faiths. Like its effort to highlight the service aspect of Hindu spiritual organisations, GFCH India now planned to organize in Delhi a fair entitled ‘Islam in the Service of Mother India’, he said.
VIF Secretary Mukul Kanitkar said it was easier to find differences and disparities but essential to highlight the commonalities so as to bring about better understanding and civilizational harmony.(FOC)
A story in the backdrop of Kerala's 1957 Communist government
Litanies of Dutch Battery, N.S. Madhavan, Penguin Books India, Pp 312 (PB), Rs 350.00
THIS is a historical-political novel set against the story of a newly independent India and the Communist Party forming the government in Kerala. Narrated by Edwina Theresa Irene Maria Anne Margarita Jessica in first person, this is a captivating novel though at times the political and historical details tend to mar the narrative. This young Catholic girl takes birth at Dutch Battery, hearing the last sound in her Amma’s belly of Tata Company’s 5 o’clock siren. "The sound of the siren tapering into a whimper lingered a little longer in the water in which I lived."
As she grows up, "she finds that in her life outside, these sirens would break up my days into dusk and dawn." Days pass and she becomes heir to stories carried over by the wind and the sea which surround her environment and her life.
She passes her childhood pestering her Amma to tell stories of the movies she has seen. When she becomes six-year old, she is sent to school, much to her Amma’s sorrow. In 1965, she passes her exams to enter the tenth grade, while she dispassionately continues to watch the victories, failures and redemption of the other islanders. Her life is connected to the lives of other ‘bridgeless’ islands, disconnected from the mainland every night with the departure of the last ferry boat.
Jessica narrates the story of the inhabitants of the Malabar coast, beginning from the ancient times to the present - from its caste-ridden Hindu past to the advent of Arab traders who bring Islam and construct mosques to dot the island. She talks of the second influx of foreigners comprising the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, who build churches of their own. She also tells the tale of India’s independence, about Nehru and Hindi films and songs sung by Kundan Lal Saigal.
Soon she finds herself caught in a current of events in which she has no say. Amma engages Pushpangadam Master to teach mathematics to her. While teaching her, the master tries to get familiar with her but Sarika spurns his attention. She announces to all who would listen to her that the master has misbehaved with her. She even visits the church to admit her so-called sin to the priest.
One day a suicide note is found. It has been written by the master saying he was going to commit suicide. After his death, the villagers begin to praise him and shun Jessica. The days that follow now are the loneliest for her. "One by one people deserted me...sound became scarce in our house." Her Appan would get up early in the morning and leave for the boatyard at the Western River where he works as a carpenter and return late at night. "Amma, almost every time, banged plates on the table to let me know that my food was served."
So frustrated is she that she decides to commit suicide and tells this to Appuppan, who advises her to go mad instead. "To go mad is a conscious decision. Insanity doesn’t catch you like fever and cold. You have to will it. It is an alternative to taking one’s life and requires just as much strength of mind."
She takes to the latter course and is taken to hospital to be given electric shocks. A gripping narrative
THIS is a historical-political novel set against the story of a newly independent India and the Communist Party forming the government in Kerala. Narrated by Edwina Theresa Irene Maria Anne Margarita Jessica in first person, this is a captivating novel though at times the political and historical details tend to mar the narrative. This young Catholic girl takes birth at Dutch Battery, hearing the last sound in her Amma’s belly of Tata Company’s 5 o’clock siren. "The sound of the siren tapering into a whimper lingered a little longer in the water in which I lived."
As she grows up, "she finds that in her life outside, these sirens would break up my days into dusk and dawn." Days pass and she becomes heir to stories carried over by the wind and the sea which surround her environment and her life.
She passes her childhood pestering her Amma to tell stories of the movies she has seen. When she becomes six-year old, she is sent to school, much to her Amma’s sorrow. In 1965, she passes her exams to enter the tenth grade, while she dispassionately continues to watch the victories, failures and redemption of the other islanders. Her life is connected to the lives of other ‘bridgeless’ islands, disconnected from the mainland every night with the departure of the last ferry boat.
Jessica narrates the story of the inhabitants of the Malabar coast, beginning from the ancient times to the present - from its caste-ridden Hindu past to the advent of Arab traders who bring Islam and construct mosques to dot the island. She talks of the second influx of foreigners comprising the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, who build churches of their own. She also tells the tale of India’s independence, about Nehru and Hindi films and songs sung by Kundan Lal Saigal.
Soon she finds herself caught in a current of events in which she has no say. Amma engages Pushpangadam Master to teach mathematics to her. While teaching her, the master tries to get familiar with her but Sarika spurns his attention. She announces to all who would listen to her that the master has misbehaved with her. She even visits the church to admit her so-called sin to the priest.
One day a suicide note is found. It has been written by the master saying he was going to commit suicide. After his death, the villagers begin to praise him and shun Jessica. The days that follow now are the loneliest for her. "One by one people deserted me...sound became scarce in our house." Her Appan would get up early in the morning and leave for the boatyard at the Western River where he works as a carpenter and return late at night. "Amma, almost every time, banged plates on the table to let me know that my food was served."
So frustrated is she that she decides to commit suicide and tells this to Appuppan, who advises her to go mad instead. "To go mad is a conscious decision. Insanity doesn’t catch you like fever and cold. You have to will it. It is an alternative to taking one’s life and requires just as much strength of mind."
She takes to the latter course and is taken to hospital to be given electric shocks. A gripping narrative
Arriving as pregnant tourists, leaving with American babies
By Jennifer Medina
SAN GABRIEL, Calif.: The building inspectors and police officers walked into the small row of connected town houses here knowing something was amiss. Neighbours had complained about noise and a lot of pregnant women coming and going. And when they went into a kitchen they saw a row of clear bassinets holding several infants, with a woman acting as a nurse hovering over them.
A diaper box outside houses in San Gabriel, Calif., where officials say Chinese women stayed to have their babies born as citizens.
For months, officials say, the house was home to "maternity tourists," in this case, women from China who had paid tens of thousands of dollars to deliver their babies in the United States, making the infants automatic American citizens. Officials shut down the home, sending the 10 mothers who had been living there with their babies to nearby motels.
"These were not women living in squalor - it was a well taken care of place and clean, but there were a lot of women," said Clayton Anderson, a city inspector who shut down the house on March 9. "I have never seen anything like this before. We really couldn’t determine the exact number of people living there."
For the last year, the debate over birthright citizenship has raged across the country, with some political leaders calling for an end to the 14th Amendment, which gives automatic citizenship to any baby born in the United States. Much of the debate has focused on immigrants entering illegally from poor countries in Latin America. But in this case the women were not only relatively wealthy, but also here legally on tourist visas. Most of them, officials say, have already returned to China with their American babies.
Businesses in China, Mexico and South Korea advertise packages that arrange for doctors, insurance and postpartum care. And the Marmara, a Turkish-owned hotel on the Upper East Side in New York City, has advertised monthlong "baby stays" that come with a stroller.
For the most part, though, the practice has involved individuals. The discovery of the large-scale facility here in the San Gabriel foothills raises questions about whether it was a rare phenomenon or an indication that maternity tourism is entering a new, more institutionalised phase with more hospital-like facilities operating quietly around the country.
Signs of a makeshift maternity houses were evident everywhere. In one kitchen, stacks of pictures showing a mother holding her days-old baby sat next to several cans of formula. In another, boxes of prenatal vitamins were tucked into rice cookers. Several bedroom doors had numbers on them. Some rooms were rather luxurious - B9, for instance, had a large walk-in closet, a whirlpool and a small personal refrigerator.
The Center for Health Care Statistics estimates that there were 7,462 births to foreign residents in the United States in 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available. That is a small fraction of the roughly 4.3 million total births that year.
Immigration experts say they can only guess why well-to-do Chinese women are so eager to get United States passports for their babies, but they suspect it is largely as a kind of insurance policy should they need to move.
Angela Maria Kelley, the vice president for immigration policy and advocacy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning research group, said the existence of businesses helping foreign women give birth in the United States had only just begun to enter the public consciousness.
(http://www.nytimes.com)
SAN GABRIEL, Calif.: The building inspectors and police officers walked into the small row of connected town houses here knowing something was amiss. Neighbours had complained about noise and a lot of pregnant women coming and going. And when they went into a kitchen they saw a row of clear bassinets holding several infants, with a woman acting as a nurse hovering over them.
A diaper box outside houses in San Gabriel, Calif., where officials say Chinese women stayed to have their babies born as citizens.
For months, officials say, the house was home to "maternity tourists," in this case, women from China who had paid tens of thousands of dollars to deliver their babies in the United States, making the infants automatic American citizens. Officials shut down the home, sending the 10 mothers who had been living there with their babies to nearby motels.
"These were not women living in squalor - it was a well taken care of place and clean, but there were a lot of women," said Clayton Anderson, a city inspector who shut down the house on March 9. "I have never seen anything like this before. We really couldn’t determine the exact number of people living there."
For the last year, the debate over birthright citizenship has raged across the country, with some political leaders calling for an end to the 14th Amendment, which gives automatic citizenship to any baby born in the United States. Much of the debate has focused on immigrants entering illegally from poor countries in Latin America. But in this case the women were not only relatively wealthy, but also here legally on tourist visas. Most of them, officials say, have already returned to China with their American babies.
Businesses in China, Mexico and South Korea advertise packages that arrange for doctors, insurance and postpartum care. And the Marmara, a Turkish-owned hotel on the Upper East Side in New York City, has advertised monthlong "baby stays" that come with a stroller.
For the most part, though, the practice has involved individuals. The discovery of the large-scale facility here in the San Gabriel foothills raises questions about whether it was a rare phenomenon or an indication that maternity tourism is entering a new, more institutionalised phase with more hospital-like facilities operating quietly around the country.
Signs of a makeshift maternity houses were evident everywhere. In one kitchen, stacks of pictures showing a mother holding her days-old baby sat next to several cans of formula. In another, boxes of prenatal vitamins were tucked into rice cookers. Several bedroom doors had numbers on them. Some rooms were rather luxurious - B9, for instance, had a large walk-in closet, a whirlpool and a small personal refrigerator.
The Center for Health Care Statistics estimates that there were 7,462 births to foreign residents in the United States in 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available. That is a small fraction of the roughly 4.3 million total births that year.
Immigration experts say they can only guess why well-to-do Chinese women are so eager to get United States passports for their babies, but they suspect it is largely as a kind of insurance policy should they need to move.
Angela Maria Kelley, the vice president for immigration policy and advocacy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning research group, said the existence of businesses helping foreign women give birth in the United States had only just begun to enter the public consciousness.
(http://www.nytimes.com)
Bihar leading the way
By Shivaji Sarkar
BIHAR, not so long ago supposed to be a laggard, most uninnovative, lacking will to take a new initiative, may become leader in setting new trends in agriculture and create food safety for the country that Centre has failed to do.
Two developments are taking place. The people of Bihar as seen in the Nalanda district are breaking away from the past by growing new kinds of crops. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has taken up the cause of farmers in opposing the Seeds Bill as tabled in Parliament.
Another event that has not caused much stir is the visit of Microsoft chief Bill Gates, now heading his Philanthropic Foundation with his wife and foundation co-chair Melinda to the state. They announced to partner with the state in agriculture sector. The foundation has invested $ 80 million worth partnership to the state in health sector during his last visit to Bihar in May last year.
Endowed with good soil, adequate rainfall and good ground water availability Bihar has now realised its agricultural potential. Its agricultural productivity is one of the lowest in the country, leading to rural poverty, low nutrition and migration of labour.
The change in political culture and improvement in law and order situation has started reversing the process of migration of skilled farm labourers, who have turned Punjab and Haryana into granary of the country.
Nitish Kumar believes that the hungry bowl of Bihar would turn into the bread basket of the country. He feels the Seeds Bill as drafted now is too favourable to the multi-national genetically modified seed producers and "is brazenly anti-farmer". He has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar asserting that the bill in its present form would lead to unrestricted commercialisation of varieties in public domain. It would make seeds expensive with doubtful qualities.
He advocating the cause of public sector says their seeds are affordable and scientists take keen interest in interacting with the farmers to improve the seed quality and farm output. "The cost of private sector seeds runs into hundreds or several thousands rupees in case of hybrid seeds while public sector seeds are affordable".
He took up the cause with Bill Gates who visited some Bihar villages and met farmers. "The foundation has shown interest in seed improvement in agriculture sector," Nitish Kumar says.
This new road map is aimed at triggering processes of development in agriculture and allied sectors.
The state is trying to revolutionise the farm sector by creating self-help groups (SHG), many being led by women. Nalanda has emerged as the pioneer. The district administration and the Agriculture Ministry have also come forward to help farmers in finding the markets for their produce.
BIHAR, not so long ago supposed to be a laggard, most uninnovative, lacking will to take a new initiative, may become leader in setting new trends in agriculture and create food safety for the country that Centre has failed to do.
Two developments are taking place. The people of Bihar as seen in the Nalanda district are breaking away from the past by growing new kinds of crops. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has taken up the cause of farmers in opposing the Seeds Bill as tabled in Parliament.
Another event that has not caused much stir is the visit of Microsoft chief Bill Gates, now heading his Philanthropic Foundation with his wife and foundation co-chair Melinda to the state. They announced to partner with the state in agriculture sector. The foundation has invested $ 80 million worth partnership to the state in health sector during his last visit to Bihar in May last year.
Endowed with good soil, adequate rainfall and good ground water availability Bihar has now realised its agricultural potential. Its agricultural productivity is one of the lowest in the country, leading to rural poverty, low nutrition and migration of labour.
The change in political culture and improvement in law and order situation has started reversing the process of migration of skilled farm labourers, who have turned Punjab and Haryana into granary of the country.
Nitish Kumar believes that the hungry bowl of Bihar would turn into the bread basket of the country. He feels the Seeds Bill as drafted now is too favourable to the multi-national genetically modified seed producers and "is brazenly anti-farmer". He has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar asserting that the bill in its present form would lead to unrestricted commercialisation of varieties in public domain. It would make seeds expensive with doubtful qualities.
He advocating the cause of public sector says their seeds are affordable and scientists take keen interest in interacting with the farmers to improve the seed quality and farm output. "The cost of private sector seeds runs into hundreds or several thousands rupees in case of hybrid seeds while public sector seeds are affordable".
He took up the cause with Bill Gates who visited some Bihar villages and met farmers. "The foundation has shown interest in seed improvement in agriculture sector," Nitish Kumar says.
This new road map is aimed at triggering processes of development in agriculture and allied sectors.
The state is trying to revolutionise the farm sector by creating self-help groups (SHG), many being led by women. Nalanda has emerged as the pioneer. The district administration and the Agriculture Ministry have also come forward to help farmers in finding the markets for their produce.
Godhra carnage and pseudo-secularists: An analysis
By Manmath Deshpande
THE verdict on Godhra train burning that convicted 31 people has seen muted reactions from the Congress Party and the media. But to understand the entire pseudo-secular reactions on Godhra right since February 27, 2002, one must go back to 2002. An analysis of "Pseudo-secularists on Godhra" will reveal all the problems of our self-proclaimed secularists not just on Godhra, but on all issues.
On February 27, 2002, a well-armed mob of Muslims roasted 59 karsewaks returning from Ayodhya in Godhra. Vir Saghvi, Chief Editor of The Hindustan Times wrote a wonderful self-confessed article titled "One Way Ticket" on the reaction of self-proclaimed secularists on the gruesome roasting of Hindus by Muslims in Hindu-majority India. He wrote:
"There is something profoundly worrying in the response of what might be called the secular establishment to the massacre in Godhra... A mob of 2,000 people stopped the Sabarmati Express shortly after it pulled out of Godhra station... Some versions have it that the kar sewaks shouted anti-Muslim slogans; others that they taunted and harassed Muslim passengers. According to these versions, the Muslim passengers got off at Godhra and appealed to members of their community for help. Others say that the slogans were enough to enrage the local Muslims and that the attack was revenge...Some things seem clear. There is no suggestion that the kar sewaks started the violence. The worst that has been said is that they misbehaved with a few passengers. Equally, it does seem extraordinary that slogans shouted from a moving train or at a railway platform should have been enough to enrage local Muslims, enough for 2,000 of them to have quickly assembled at eight in the morning, having already managed to procure petrol bombs and acid bombs."
Even if you dispute the version of some of the kar sewaks-that the attack was premeditated and that the mob was ready and waiting-there can be no denying that what happened was indefensible, unforgivable and impossible to explain away as a consequence of great provocation.
And yet, this is precisely how the secular establishment has reacted.
Nearly every non-BJP leader who appeared on TV and almost all of the media have treated the massacre as a response to the Ayodhya movement...
And yet, the sub-text to all secular commentary is the same: the kar sewaks had it coming to them.
Basically, they condemn the crime; but blame the victims.
Try and take the incident out of the secular construct that we, in India, have perfected and see how bizarre such an attitude sounds in other contexts. Did we say that New York had it coming when the Twin Towers were attacked? Then too, there was enormous resentment among fundamentalist Muslims about America’s policies, but we didn't even consider whether this resentment was justified or not....
Why then are these poor karsewaks an exception? Why have we de-humanised them to the extent that we don't even see the incident as the human tragedy that it undoubtedly was and treat it as just another consequence of the VHP's fundamentalist policies?
The answer, I suspect, is that we are programmed to see Hindu-Muslim relations in simplistic terms: Hindus provoke, Muslims suffer.
When this formula does not work-it is clear now that a well-armed Muslim mob murdered unarmed Hindus-we simply do not know how to cope. We shy away from the truth-that some Muslims committed an act that is indefensible-and resort to blaming the victims.
Of course, there are always 'rational reasons' offered for this stand. Muslims are in a minority and therefore, they deserve special consideration. Muslims already face discrimination so why make it harder for them? If you report the truth then you will inflame Hindu sentiments and this would be irresponsible. And so on... When everybody can see that a trainload of Hindus was massacred by a Muslim mob, you gain nothing by blaming the murders on the VHP or arguing that the dead men and women had it coming to them.
Not only does this insult the dead (What about the children? Did they also have it coming?), but it also insults the intelligence of the reader.
There is one question we need to ask ourselves: have we become such prisoners of our own rhetoric that even a horrific massacre becomes nothing more than occasion for Sangh parivar-bashing?"
In other words, on February 27, 2002 it was clear that 2,000 Muslims had roasted the kar sewaks in Godhra, including 25 women and 15 children. So the pseudo-secularists tried to invent imaginary 'provocations'- (which were all self-contradictory) like "shouting anti-Muslim slogans", "not paying for tea and snacks", "pulling beards", "Kidnapping a Muslim girl" etc. As Vir Sanghvi writes, it is impossible for 2,000 people to quickly assemble at 7:45AM having got petrol bombs and acid bombs. Everyone, including pseudo-secularists who invented these concocted 'provocations' insulting the dead kar sevaks, knew that it was a well-planned attack. But since they could not blame Muslims for anything, including roasting of 15 children and 25 women, they decided to kick the dead dog and keep a safe distance from the mad dog.
The pseudo-secularists started a different game after a few days. No doubt, they insulted the dead kar sevaks by making baseless allegation of provocations on them (and they were not alive to deny such third class allegations), but by doing so, the pseudos admitted that Muslims had burnt the train. But some days later, they started raising denying this fact itself, and 'raised questions' (basically, denying the undeniable) like "The fire was set 'from inside'", "Kar sewaks carried inflammatory material with them" and "VHP killed its own kar sevaks to trigger an anti-Muslim wave (a charge also made by many Congress, RJD, SP, Left politicians)".
In the 2002 Gujarat Assembly elections, Godhra was an issue-and rightly so. The more the pseudos tried to attack BJP for the post-Godhra riots, the more they were cornered. Because the moment post-Godhra riots were raised, BJP and VHP raised the issue of Godhra and the pseudos would never admit that 2,000 fanatic Muslims did Godhra or admit that the cause of the post-Godhra riots was not Narendra Modi, but Godhra. The Congress' leaders accused VHP of roasting karsewaks in Godhra and hence the party suffered a crushing defeat in the 2002 elections, because people were angry over Godhra. I personally feel that Godhra has not been raised enough by the Sangh Parivar. The Hindu masses must be made to realise that tomorrow if 59 of them, or their wives, children and other relatives are roasted by Muslims, the self-proclaimed secularists will do nothing to give them justice and use every trick in the book to let the inhuman murderers go scot-free, like they did in Godhra.
In 2005, Lalu-appointed U C Banerjee Committee (as expected) whitewashed the sin of Muslims and said that Godhra was an 'accident' (thereby acquitting BJP, VHP of the charge that they roasted their own kar sevaks). Though fully knowing that the truth, the newspapers tried to defend this as much as possible with new questions being raised "Why did kar sevaks allow themselves to be roasted despite having trishuls?"etc. The fact is, no kar sevak had any trishul, since not a single trishul was recovered from the train. And even if they had, it was impossible to use 4 inch trishul-shaped blunt knives against 2,000 armed people who had swords, petrol and acid bombs and petrol.
When Nanavati Commission (which is a full-fledged commission under the Commission of Inquiry Act, unlike Banerjee Committee which was a departmental committe) said in its report in September 2008 that Godhra was a pre-planned, not of the pseudos would relent and continued to deny the truth. Politicians cannot be expected to change, they have large vote-bank considerations but the media should have known better. Even after the court convicting 31 people, nobody is coming out to tell the truth, blame the attackers instead of the victims, and apologise for lying and making inhuman allegations first on the dead kar sevaks, women and children and then on BJP/ RSS/ VHP and Narendra Modi.
What all this shows. No act from any Muslim, including roasting of children to coal after locking them in a train and pushing them back as they tried to come out, will ever make the media blame any Muslim for any crime. Whether a Muslim attacks VHP rallies, RSS headquarters in Chennai, Nagpur or whether Hindus kill Muslims, the media will always blame the Sangh Parivar.
The media has managed to convince itself that "Reporting Muslim intolerance will inflame Hindu sentiments" and hence Muslim fanaticism should be whitewashed. The reality is exactly the opposite. Muslim suffering should be reported very cautiously as they can very easily take to terrorism in this age of global jehad. The media is guilty of instigating Muslims to terrorism by its inflammatory and biased, exaggerated, one sided reporting of the post-Godhra riots. It was in national interest for the Sangh Parivar to make all attempts to check the media, not just for the sake of BJP, Narendra Modi and Sangh Parivar itself, but also for the sake of the country, since the media lies caused enormous resentment among innocent Muslims making them fanatics. Let us all work together to roll back the media lies on the Gujarat riots (even after Godhra, it was not one-sided) and expose the pseudos on Godhra.
THE verdict on Godhra train burning that convicted 31 people has seen muted reactions from the Congress Party and the media. But to understand the entire pseudo-secular reactions on Godhra right since February 27, 2002, one must go back to 2002. An analysis of "Pseudo-secularists on Godhra" will reveal all the problems of our self-proclaimed secularists not just on Godhra, but on all issues.
On February 27, 2002, a well-armed mob of Muslims roasted 59 karsewaks returning from Ayodhya in Godhra. Vir Saghvi, Chief Editor of The Hindustan Times wrote a wonderful self-confessed article titled "One Way Ticket" on the reaction of self-proclaimed secularists on the gruesome roasting of Hindus by Muslims in Hindu-majority India. He wrote:
"There is something profoundly worrying in the response of what might be called the secular establishment to the massacre in Godhra... A mob of 2,000 people stopped the Sabarmati Express shortly after it pulled out of Godhra station... Some versions have it that the kar sewaks shouted anti-Muslim slogans; others that they taunted and harassed Muslim passengers. According to these versions, the Muslim passengers got off at Godhra and appealed to members of their community for help. Others say that the slogans were enough to enrage the local Muslims and that the attack was revenge...Some things seem clear. There is no suggestion that the kar sewaks started the violence. The worst that has been said is that they misbehaved with a few passengers. Equally, it does seem extraordinary that slogans shouted from a moving train or at a railway platform should have been enough to enrage local Muslims, enough for 2,000 of them to have quickly assembled at eight in the morning, having already managed to procure petrol bombs and acid bombs."
Even if you dispute the version of some of the kar sewaks-that the attack was premeditated and that the mob was ready and waiting-there can be no denying that what happened was indefensible, unforgivable and impossible to explain away as a consequence of great provocation.
And yet, this is precisely how the secular establishment has reacted.
Nearly every non-BJP leader who appeared on TV and almost all of the media have treated the massacre as a response to the Ayodhya movement...
And yet, the sub-text to all secular commentary is the same: the kar sewaks had it coming to them.
Basically, they condemn the crime; but blame the victims.
Try and take the incident out of the secular construct that we, in India, have perfected and see how bizarre such an attitude sounds in other contexts. Did we say that New York had it coming when the Twin Towers were attacked? Then too, there was enormous resentment among fundamentalist Muslims about America’s policies, but we didn't even consider whether this resentment was justified or not....
Why then are these poor karsewaks an exception? Why have we de-humanised them to the extent that we don't even see the incident as the human tragedy that it undoubtedly was and treat it as just another consequence of the VHP's fundamentalist policies?
The answer, I suspect, is that we are programmed to see Hindu-Muslim relations in simplistic terms: Hindus provoke, Muslims suffer.
When this formula does not work-it is clear now that a well-armed Muslim mob murdered unarmed Hindus-we simply do not know how to cope. We shy away from the truth-that some Muslims committed an act that is indefensible-and resort to blaming the victims.
Of course, there are always 'rational reasons' offered for this stand. Muslims are in a minority and therefore, they deserve special consideration. Muslims already face discrimination so why make it harder for them? If you report the truth then you will inflame Hindu sentiments and this would be irresponsible. And so on... When everybody can see that a trainload of Hindus was massacred by a Muslim mob, you gain nothing by blaming the murders on the VHP or arguing that the dead men and women had it coming to them.
Not only does this insult the dead (What about the children? Did they also have it coming?), but it also insults the intelligence of the reader.
There is one question we need to ask ourselves: have we become such prisoners of our own rhetoric that even a horrific massacre becomes nothing more than occasion for Sangh parivar-bashing?"
In other words, on February 27, 2002 it was clear that 2,000 Muslims had roasted the kar sewaks in Godhra, including 25 women and 15 children. So the pseudo-secularists tried to invent imaginary 'provocations'- (which were all self-contradictory) like "shouting anti-Muslim slogans", "not paying for tea and snacks", "pulling beards", "Kidnapping a Muslim girl" etc. As Vir Sanghvi writes, it is impossible for 2,000 people to quickly assemble at 7:45AM having got petrol bombs and acid bombs. Everyone, including pseudo-secularists who invented these concocted 'provocations' insulting the dead kar sevaks, knew that it was a well-planned attack. But since they could not blame Muslims for anything, including roasting of 15 children and 25 women, they decided to kick the dead dog and keep a safe distance from the mad dog.
The pseudo-secularists started a different game after a few days. No doubt, they insulted the dead kar sevaks by making baseless allegation of provocations on them (and they were not alive to deny such third class allegations), but by doing so, the pseudos admitted that Muslims had burnt the train. But some days later, they started raising denying this fact itself, and 'raised questions' (basically, denying the undeniable) like "The fire was set 'from inside'", "Kar sewaks carried inflammatory material with them" and "VHP killed its own kar sevaks to trigger an anti-Muslim wave (a charge also made by many Congress, RJD, SP, Left politicians)".
In the 2002 Gujarat Assembly elections, Godhra was an issue-and rightly so. The more the pseudos tried to attack BJP for the post-Godhra riots, the more they were cornered. Because the moment post-Godhra riots were raised, BJP and VHP raised the issue of Godhra and the pseudos would never admit that 2,000 fanatic Muslims did Godhra or admit that the cause of the post-Godhra riots was not Narendra Modi, but Godhra. The Congress' leaders accused VHP of roasting karsewaks in Godhra and hence the party suffered a crushing defeat in the 2002 elections, because people were angry over Godhra. I personally feel that Godhra has not been raised enough by the Sangh Parivar. The Hindu masses must be made to realise that tomorrow if 59 of them, or their wives, children and other relatives are roasted by Muslims, the self-proclaimed secularists will do nothing to give them justice and use every trick in the book to let the inhuman murderers go scot-free, like they did in Godhra.
In 2005, Lalu-appointed U C Banerjee Committee (as expected) whitewashed the sin of Muslims and said that Godhra was an 'accident' (thereby acquitting BJP, VHP of the charge that they roasted their own kar sevaks). Though fully knowing that the truth, the newspapers tried to defend this as much as possible with new questions being raised "Why did kar sevaks allow themselves to be roasted despite having trishuls?"etc. The fact is, no kar sevak had any trishul, since not a single trishul was recovered from the train. And even if they had, it was impossible to use 4 inch trishul-shaped blunt knives against 2,000 armed people who had swords, petrol and acid bombs and petrol.
When Nanavati Commission (which is a full-fledged commission under the Commission of Inquiry Act, unlike Banerjee Committee which was a departmental committe) said in its report in September 2008 that Godhra was a pre-planned, not of the pseudos would relent and continued to deny the truth. Politicians cannot be expected to change, they have large vote-bank considerations but the media should have known better. Even after the court convicting 31 people, nobody is coming out to tell the truth, blame the attackers instead of the victims, and apologise for lying and making inhuman allegations first on the dead kar sevaks, women and children and then on BJP/ RSS/ VHP and Narendra Modi.
What all this shows. No act from any Muslim, including roasting of children to coal after locking them in a train and pushing them back as they tried to come out, will ever make the media blame any Muslim for any crime. Whether a Muslim attacks VHP rallies, RSS headquarters in Chennai, Nagpur or whether Hindus kill Muslims, the media will always blame the Sangh Parivar.
The media has managed to convince itself that "Reporting Muslim intolerance will inflame Hindu sentiments" and hence Muslim fanaticism should be whitewashed. The reality is exactly the opposite. Muslim suffering should be reported very cautiously as they can very easily take to terrorism in this age of global jehad. The media is guilty of instigating Muslims to terrorism by its inflammatory and biased, exaggerated, one sided reporting of the post-Godhra riots. It was in national interest for the Sangh Parivar to make all attempts to check the media, not just for the sake of BJP, Narendra Modi and Sangh Parivar itself, but also for the sake of the country, since the media lies caused enormous resentment among innocent Muslims making them fanatics. Let us all work together to roll back the media lies on the Gujarat riots (even after Godhra, it was not one-sided) and expose the pseudos on Godhra.
What is the open secret of Robert Vadra's sudden riches?
By Dr Jitendra Kumar Sharma
WHILE the BJP, according to Sushma Swaraj, has tasked Arun Jaitley "to collect facts on Robert Vadra’s rise" and to CPM leader Sitaram Yechury, "It looks like a serious matter" and deserves "a structured reaction", to the common people, especially, the senior citizens, it is an open secret. At their daily get-together in city parks or under the banyan (bargad) tree outside the village panchayat-ghars, they can be seen simply gossiping and entertaining themselves with this question, answer, to which for them is an open secret but worth repeating and entertaining with.
The opposition’s interest in Vadra’s assets stems from a report in the Economic Times of March 14, 2011 which details Robert Vadra’s sudden climb from modest fashion accessories to high-rise DLF partnership, his real estate empire now spreading to Haryana and Rajasthan.
People are admiring and feeling envious about the son-in-law, Robert Vadra, who married into the country's most powerful political family, and instead of going into politics, has made a most enriching use of his political affiliation.
At a time when farmers are committing suicide as their lands have become unyielding and impoverishing, the most powerful son-in-law of the country is acquiring and getting unlimited lands here, there and everywhere. Money is no problem. "Does he apply for a loan?", asks a gossiping senior and the other one in reply gapes at him to express his crony’s slow wits. "Do you think, he is a farmer who would die of a loan?"; "my stupid brother, he is Sonia’s son-in-law. Money bags walk to him, Bankers bow to him. Still, he has not made as much as Raja". Another one joins in and says, "Rahul shall become only a Prime Minister, Robert will become a Raja before his sala (brother-in-law) become Prime Minister!". There is a guffaw of laughter from the gathering as one more voice says with uncontrollable laughter: "The son-in-law shines, as the son rises"!
Aristotle pronounced that man is a political animal. Therefore, one can safely say that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is an animal. When the late Rajnarain was called a "political animal" by another member of Indian Parliament, the redoubtable leader growled: "You called me janwar? The learned Professor Singh knows better and will shyly admit being one.
Gandhiji himself had been called a wily fox in his time. And, Sarojini Naidu called Gandhiji, "mickey mouse".
Mehta’s question is: "Could a non-politician have run UPA-I and UPA-II which has such tricky customers as Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, not to mention M Karunanidhi? Could a non-politician have so effortlessly ditched the Left, secretly roped in Mulayam Singh Yadav and got the N-deal through?
The wily Prime Minister, like other Congressmen of the day, is no Gandhian; he wears too many masks? He is proud to be a bureaucrat most of all.
The Indian bureaucracy was created by the British Raj and remains its perpetual successor. It over-rules Ministers and Prime Ministers. Congress politicians in fact do not like Manmohan Singh. Ask Parnabda? Digvijay Singh? The late Arjun Singh. They all regard him as a usurper. See how Manmohan foisted fellow bureaucrat PJ Thomas as CVC. And escaped the Opposition’s wrath by substituting the bureaucratic phrase "error of judgment" for a gross illegality he had deliberately committed.
And now comes a more stunning gloss, on Manmohan Singh, India’s political wolf numero UNO via the Wikileaks. Another open secret has been revealed that Manmohan Singh survived the July 22, 2008 confidence vote by bribing members of Parliament. Scams and scandals, our political wolf gulps it all right in front of the people. Transparency, it has been said can frighten corruption but has not in broad daylight before all the people the Prime Minister been committing illegal ?
BJP, however, does not see it in that light. Its Parliamentary Wing is shocked by PM's "Immorality"! but immorality is no crime under the Indian Law. Illegality is punishable under the law. So, the BJP is simultaneously creating an escape route for the foxy Prime Minister while crying "foul". Why can’t it say: PM, you have committed a legal wrong and now face the punishment for it?
"One of Manmohan Singh’s unrecognised strengths is that his friends and rivals constantly underestimate his political instincts. He is not a soft touch; he is a survivor. The BJP, which also has many survivors, should first of all, in its own interests, recognise that reality. Then they can probably unseat him", insightfully observes the Outlook editor.
Is Manmohan Singh "the weakest Prime Minister"? Being weak is no crime yet, a more thick-skinned PM Indian people have not seen before. Obviously, the BJP has to re-invent its terminology. It also needs to correct its perceptions about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his bureaucratically perfect phraseology. About bribes he says, "I did not authorise anyone to purchase votes." A bureaucrat may escape with these words but a politician? Never.
WHILE the BJP, according to Sushma Swaraj, has tasked Arun Jaitley "to collect facts on Robert Vadra’s rise" and to CPM leader Sitaram Yechury, "It looks like a serious matter" and deserves "a structured reaction", to the common people, especially, the senior citizens, it is an open secret. At their daily get-together in city parks or under the banyan (bargad) tree outside the village panchayat-ghars, they can be seen simply gossiping and entertaining themselves with this question, answer, to which for them is an open secret but worth repeating and entertaining with.
The opposition’s interest in Vadra’s assets stems from a report in the Economic Times of March 14, 2011 which details Robert Vadra’s sudden climb from modest fashion accessories to high-rise DLF partnership, his real estate empire now spreading to Haryana and Rajasthan.
People are admiring and feeling envious about the son-in-law, Robert Vadra, who married into the country's most powerful political family, and instead of going into politics, has made a most enriching use of his political affiliation.
At a time when farmers are committing suicide as their lands have become unyielding and impoverishing, the most powerful son-in-law of the country is acquiring and getting unlimited lands here, there and everywhere. Money is no problem. "Does he apply for a loan?", asks a gossiping senior and the other one in reply gapes at him to express his crony’s slow wits. "Do you think, he is a farmer who would die of a loan?"; "my stupid brother, he is Sonia’s son-in-law. Money bags walk to him, Bankers bow to him. Still, he has not made as much as Raja". Another one joins in and says, "Rahul shall become only a Prime Minister, Robert will become a Raja before his sala (brother-in-law) become Prime Minister!". There is a guffaw of laughter from the gathering as one more voice says with uncontrollable laughter: "The son-in-law shines, as the son rises"!
Aristotle pronounced that man is a political animal. Therefore, one can safely say that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is an animal. When the late Rajnarain was called a "political animal" by another member of Indian Parliament, the redoubtable leader growled: "You called me janwar? The learned Professor Singh knows better and will shyly admit being one.
Gandhiji himself had been called a wily fox in his time. And, Sarojini Naidu called Gandhiji, "mickey mouse".
Mehta’s question is: "Could a non-politician have run UPA-I and UPA-II which has such tricky customers as Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, not to mention M Karunanidhi? Could a non-politician have so effortlessly ditched the Left, secretly roped in Mulayam Singh Yadav and got the N-deal through?
The wily Prime Minister, like other Congressmen of the day, is no Gandhian; he wears too many masks? He is proud to be a bureaucrat most of all.
The Indian bureaucracy was created by the British Raj and remains its perpetual successor. It over-rules Ministers and Prime Ministers. Congress politicians in fact do not like Manmohan Singh. Ask Parnabda? Digvijay Singh? The late Arjun Singh. They all regard him as a usurper. See how Manmohan foisted fellow bureaucrat PJ Thomas as CVC. And escaped the Opposition’s wrath by substituting the bureaucratic phrase "error of judgment" for a gross illegality he had deliberately committed.
And now comes a more stunning gloss, on Manmohan Singh, India’s political wolf numero UNO via the Wikileaks. Another open secret has been revealed that Manmohan Singh survived the July 22, 2008 confidence vote by bribing members of Parliament. Scams and scandals, our political wolf gulps it all right in front of the people. Transparency, it has been said can frighten corruption but has not in broad daylight before all the people the Prime Minister been committing illegal ?
BJP, however, does not see it in that light. Its Parliamentary Wing is shocked by PM's "Immorality"! but immorality is no crime under the Indian Law. Illegality is punishable under the law. So, the BJP is simultaneously creating an escape route for the foxy Prime Minister while crying "foul". Why can’t it say: PM, you have committed a legal wrong and now face the punishment for it?
"One of Manmohan Singh’s unrecognised strengths is that his friends and rivals constantly underestimate his political instincts. He is not a soft touch; he is a survivor. The BJP, which also has many survivors, should first of all, in its own interests, recognise that reality. Then they can probably unseat him", insightfully observes the Outlook editor.
Is Manmohan Singh "the weakest Prime Minister"? Being weak is no crime yet, a more thick-skinned PM Indian people have not seen before. Obviously, the BJP has to re-invent its terminology. It also needs to correct its perceptions about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his bureaucratically perfect phraseology. About bribes he says, "I did not authorise anyone to purchase votes." A bureaucrat may escape with these words but a politician? Never.
Mizo conference on Ramnavami Day
NAUNNA Lalhnam, a Mizo cultural organisation, organised a Mizo conference at Thingsulkhia, about 55 km from Aizwal. The conference was held on April 12, the Ramanavmi day to celebrate the silver jubilee of the Naunna Lalhnam. A total of 633 people participated in the conference.
The conference was jointly inaugurated by Shri Rorelliana, Shri Lalchanglliana and Advocate Manavi Aizwal with a hammer on dharma ghanta and a traditional song. Kalyan Ashram joint general secretary Shri Kripa Prasad Singh and senior activist Shri Atul Jog were also present on the occasion. A total of 10 delegates from Burma and 6 from Manipur also attended the conference. Advocate Manavi Aizwal, secretary of the organisation, presented annual report at the conference.
The religious leaders present on the occasion appealed to the community members to work for the preservation of Mizo culture which is facing a threat from the church in Mizoram. "Work for peace, God is everywhere and in all creatures. Educate all girls, because it is the root of our culture," they said.
Shri Kripa Prasad Singh congratulated the organisers of the conference for their association with the Kalyan Ashram. He assured full assistance to the organisation in its efforts of preserving the cultural traditions. People from more than 60 villages participated in the conference.
Kalyan Ashram is running 15 Single Teacher Schools, 3 hostels and 7 schools in different parts of Mizoram. Dharam Guru Pu Rorelliana appealed to the Kalyan Ashram to come forward for the protection of Sanatni Mizos. (FOC)
The conference was jointly inaugurated by Shri Rorelliana, Shri Lalchanglliana and Advocate Manavi Aizwal with a hammer on dharma ghanta and a traditional song. Kalyan Ashram joint general secretary Shri Kripa Prasad Singh and senior activist Shri Atul Jog were also present on the occasion. A total of 10 delegates from Burma and 6 from Manipur also attended the conference. Advocate Manavi Aizwal, secretary of the organisation, presented annual report at the conference.
The religious leaders present on the occasion appealed to the community members to work for the preservation of Mizo culture which is facing a threat from the church in Mizoram. "Work for peace, God is everywhere and in all creatures. Educate all girls, because it is the root of our culture," they said.
Shri Kripa Prasad Singh congratulated the organisers of the conference for their association with the Kalyan Ashram. He assured full assistance to the organisation in its efforts of preserving the cultural traditions. People from more than 60 villages participated in the conference.
Kalyan Ashram is running 15 Single Teacher Schools, 3 hostels and 7 schools in different parts of Mizoram. Dharam Guru Pu Rorelliana appealed to the Kalyan Ashram to come forward for the protection of Sanatni Mizos. (FOC)
Nanda Raj Jat: A sacred festival of Uttarakhand
By Dr Kailash Kumar Mishra
THE localised customs and practices of Hinduism are the binding link between the people of diverse geographical locations and cultures. One such festival of Uttarakhand - Nanda Raj Jat-is worth to be described. Nanda Raj Jat or the royal journey of Nanda Devi is a great cultural festival of the Mountains state of India.
Nanda Devi, according to the folklore of Garhwal and Almora, is the daughter of Himvant, the king of Mountains. Nanda is one of the names of Gauri - the Consort of Shiva. There is also a belief that she is the sister of Gauri and hence she has an independent identity. Nanda is the family deity of Katyuri dynasty of Kumaon. There are ancient temples of Nanda in Garhwal and Almora.
It is believed that during the krishna paksha of Hindu month Bhadav, Nanda visits her mother's place and the event is celebrated on nanda-ashtami in Garhwal and Kumaon regions. She lives on Gaungati peak which is believed to be the abode of Shiva. The legend says that Nanda left her village (mait) and went to the Nanda Devi Parbat. Therefore, when the sacred journey starts, heavy rain occurs as if Nanda is crying and shading her tears. This sacred journey covers many villages and in between Nanda meets her sister in the Bhagwati village. She is worshiped in each and every corner of the State and her identity as a result is seen as the cultural unity of Uttarakhand.
In Chamoli, Nanda Raj Jat is organised once in 12 years. This journey is very tough on account of the landscape it goes through. The sacred Jat starts from the Nauti village near Karnprayag and goes up to the heights of Roopkund and Homekund with a four horned sheep. After some propitiating rituals the sheep is freed with decorated ornaments, food etc. The purpose of the 280 kilometers long arduous trek undertaken by thousands of devotees is to escort Nanda to her in-laws place. The Jat resembles the postnuptial rite of ceremonially seeing off a daughter as she leaves for her husband’s home with all her personal attributes.
Soon after the time-schedule is finalised, the customary chief patron of the event, the prince of Kanswa, arrives in the Nauti village to seek blessings of the Goddess and organise the Jat. He brings a locally made finely decorated umbrella and a four horned sheep. Nanda is decorated in bridal make up and is given a tearful farewell. It is an emotional scene with all the devotees in tears, as if they are bidding farewell to their own daughter, leaving her in-laws home to meet her husband. The image of Nanda and offerings are taken in a procession, accompanied by bare footed devotees. The followers observe self-control, partaking of food prepared according to prescribed norms of purity. The entourage halts at night. The local people from villages on the way turn up in large numbers with chanting of mantras and singing of folksongs to appease the deity. Many villagers join the group and remain with it till the journey ends. Rituals are performed at every halt. Groups from far and near, mainly from Kurud near Ghat, Lata near Tapovan and Almora in Kumaon join the procession with their own idols and umbrellas. Some 300 idols and decorated umbrellas assemble at Waan. It is a tradition in this village to keep all houses in readiness for use by the devotees. The doors are kept unlocked on the day the Jat arrives here.
According to the folk songs sung at Nauti during this Jat, King Shalipal of Chandpur Garhi is said to have laid the foundation of this tradition. He directed his royal priests to worship Nanda Devi according to his instructions. Since then, the tradition of the Jat has continued to this day. After every 12 years, it originates from Nauti after elaborate rituals.
The wide spread tradition of Nanda Raj Jat in every geographical area is adequate evidence that the Nanda Raj Jat celebration is a symbol of cultural unity of the State.
Nanda Raj Jat is an extraordinary example of the cultural richness and intangible heritage of Uttarakhand. This sacred festival offers a kaleidoscopic view of the colourful lives of the inhabitants. Visitors are overwhelmed by the feel of the common under-current of spirituality, love and compassion that manifests itself in myriad ways in the area. Rich and poor, men and women, old and young all are seen breathing and enjoying the air of freedom in cultural unity. The harmony is also observed between the animals and humans and nature and humans in different but fascinating manner.
THE localised customs and practices of Hinduism are the binding link between the people of diverse geographical locations and cultures. One such festival of Uttarakhand - Nanda Raj Jat-is worth to be described. Nanda Raj Jat or the royal journey of Nanda Devi is a great cultural festival of the Mountains state of India.
Nanda Devi, according to the folklore of Garhwal and Almora, is the daughter of Himvant, the king of Mountains. Nanda is one of the names of Gauri - the Consort of Shiva. There is also a belief that she is the sister of Gauri and hence she has an independent identity. Nanda is the family deity of Katyuri dynasty of Kumaon. There are ancient temples of Nanda in Garhwal and Almora.
It is believed that during the krishna paksha of Hindu month Bhadav, Nanda visits her mother's place and the event is celebrated on nanda-ashtami in Garhwal and Kumaon regions. She lives on Gaungati peak which is believed to be the abode of Shiva. The legend says that Nanda left her village (mait) and went to the Nanda Devi Parbat. Therefore, when the sacred journey starts, heavy rain occurs as if Nanda is crying and shading her tears. This sacred journey covers many villages and in between Nanda meets her sister in the Bhagwati village. She is worshiped in each and every corner of the State and her identity as a result is seen as the cultural unity of Uttarakhand.
In Chamoli, Nanda Raj Jat is organised once in 12 years. This journey is very tough on account of the landscape it goes through. The sacred Jat starts from the Nauti village near Karnprayag and goes up to the heights of Roopkund and Homekund with a four horned sheep. After some propitiating rituals the sheep is freed with decorated ornaments, food etc. The purpose of the 280 kilometers long arduous trek undertaken by thousands of devotees is to escort Nanda to her in-laws place. The Jat resembles the postnuptial rite of ceremonially seeing off a daughter as she leaves for her husband’s home with all her personal attributes.
Soon after the time-schedule is finalised, the customary chief patron of the event, the prince of Kanswa, arrives in the Nauti village to seek blessings of the Goddess and organise the Jat. He brings a locally made finely decorated umbrella and a four horned sheep. Nanda is decorated in bridal make up and is given a tearful farewell. It is an emotional scene with all the devotees in tears, as if they are bidding farewell to their own daughter, leaving her in-laws home to meet her husband. The image of Nanda and offerings are taken in a procession, accompanied by bare footed devotees. The followers observe self-control, partaking of food prepared according to prescribed norms of purity. The entourage halts at night. The local people from villages on the way turn up in large numbers with chanting of mantras and singing of folksongs to appease the deity. Many villagers join the group and remain with it till the journey ends. Rituals are performed at every halt. Groups from far and near, mainly from Kurud near Ghat, Lata near Tapovan and Almora in Kumaon join the procession with their own idols and umbrellas. Some 300 idols and decorated umbrellas assemble at Waan. It is a tradition in this village to keep all houses in readiness for use by the devotees. The doors are kept unlocked on the day the Jat arrives here.
According to the folk songs sung at Nauti during this Jat, King Shalipal of Chandpur Garhi is said to have laid the foundation of this tradition. He directed his royal priests to worship Nanda Devi according to his instructions. Since then, the tradition of the Jat has continued to this day. After every 12 years, it originates from Nauti after elaborate rituals.
The wide spread tradition of Nanda Raj Jat in every geographical area is adequate evidence that the Nanda Raj Jat celebration is a symbol of cultural unity of the State.
Nanda Raj Jat is an extraordinary example of the cultural richness and intangible heritage of Uttarakhand. This sacred festival offers a kaleidoscopic view of the colourful lives of the inhabitants. Visitors are overwhelmed by the feel of the common under-current of spirituality, love and compassion that manifests itself in myriad ways in the area. Rich and poor, men and women, old and young all are seen breathing and enjoying the air of freedom in cultural unity. The harmony is also observed between the animals and humans and nature and humans in different but fascinating manner.
Church agenda as Dravidian ideology-IV
Foray into media, academia and politics
By Radha Rajan
WHILE the frightening growth of the LTTE gave the Tamil secessionist movement in Sri Lanka a phenomenal impetus, it also caused an equally strong reaction from India and the Sri Lankan government. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi brought to an immediate and full stop all help rendered so far to the LTTE; it also pushed the Sri Lankan government to equip its own army to deal with the LTTE.
Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the subsequent weakening of the Congress Party ushered in the era of coalition politics and the huge returns accruing from participation in Government in Delhi and the compulsions of coalition politics not only tamed the two major Dravidian parties into a semblance of nationalism but effectively turned Tamil Nadu away not only from the path of secessionism it had been treading for long under the Dravidian parties but also turned it away from the LTTE.
The Church had to regroup and formulate a new war strategy.
The rise of Brahmin Jayalalithaa within the ranks of the AIADMK and her eventual coronation as Gen Secretary which shook the very foundations of Dravidian politics, the rise of the BJP in national politics, the fading lure of the idea of secessionist Tamil Eelam and weakening prospects of realising it even within Tamil Nadu, and the new trend in Indian politics which catapulted both the DMK and the AIADMK to Delhi imposing upon them the primacy of national interests over interests of regional political parties forced the Church to forge new strategies and lay a new road towards its objective of carving the Christian state of Tamil Eelam.
The following trends emerged in Tamil Nadu more or less simultaneously from around the mid 1990s decade and continues till the present -
The Church began to invest in television news channels, schools of journalism and mass communication; the Church also pushed for creating the department of human rights in Tamil Nadu colleges and universities.
Foreign governments, notably the UK and US through DFID and USAID began to fund NGOs in India, primarily Christian NGOs.
Foreign Christian funding agencies like World Vision, Action Aid and agencies from Germany, France and the Netherlands began to fund churches and Christian NGOs.
Tamil Nadu is the largest recipient of foreign funds.
The Church began to fund television soap operas and also financed Tamil films.
Christians are entering the Tamil Nadu film industry and the small screen in almost every area - as directors, producers, actors and music directors.
Tamil films and television, Tamil serials routinely make reference to Tamil people and Tamil nation.
The Church is buying hundreds of acres of land across Tamil Nadu; this is visible even in overcrowded Chennai.
Christians are cornering a major chunk of the reservation quota in admission to institutions of higher learning and also in government jobs; there are growing numbers of Christian students in engineering, medical and law colleges and universities.
Churches and prayer houses are being built in almost every street in Chennai and close to every Hindu temple, big and small.
Churches are coming up even in the holiest of holy Hindu temple towns and they are being allowed by Dravidian parties to come up close to temples.
Foreign Christian missionaries from America, Malaysia and South Korea have a free run of the streets in Chennai.
Instigating fisher-folk communities is the Church’s latest ploy[iii].
Every penny and paisa that the Church spends, it spends as investment towards realising its core objective - control of communities leading to control of polity leading ultimately to control of government culminating in bloody or bloodless conquest of territory. The path to this objective is religious conversion; what was achieved solely through enculturation in the 16th and 17th centuries, through the Church’s missionary educational and medical institutions in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is now being achieved through NGOs, through an aggressive political discourse in religious freedom and human rights which always work only to the Church’s advantage to facilitate penetration, conversion and conquest.
Investing in political parties is the Church’s latest venture in Tamil Nadu. The Church’s investment, besides the time-tested and highly successful strategy of planting Christians in important ruling families through the love angle or as close confidants to politicians, is three-pronged -
Donate liberally and in proportion to expected returns to the two largest Dravidian parties.
Besides the generous donations also get Christians to become members of every big and small political party - DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, PMK, DMDK so that these parties, with an eye on the Christian vote bank are compelled to nominate Christians as office bearers at state and district levels.
Start new Tamil extremist parties and create more and more Tamil chauvinist outfits to make shrill noises for Tamil people/Tamil nation, for the LTTE, against the Sri Lankan government, against the Central Government, even against judges of the High Court and Supreme Court, for human rights, against law-enforcing agencies like police and army; in effect create enough noise and generate enough heat to provoke uncooperative and weak governments to either use force or hopefully to surrender to extremist demands.
The ploy has succeeded just as every Church ploy has succeeded because the Church always preys upon vulnerability, ambition, hubris and greed. The State Government-Central Government partnership had yielded phenomenal results for the Christian state of Tamil Eelam but that had ended with Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Temptations of sharing power in New Delhi had weakened even the verbal call and support for Eelam. The Church’s next move was to weaken the two largest Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu by making them dependant upon smaller parties for survival.
The Church was the only force which saw the advantages of weakening national, nationalist and large regional parties. Tamil Nadu politics had been centered around only two poles for close to half a century. A strong DMK and AIADMK were assets to both the Congress and the BJP not only in state elections but also in national elections. The Church saw how regional parties with no support outside of their states could still influence national policies and it applied the rule with great foresight in Tamil Nadu.
As government support for the LTTE ended and the vehicle was destroyed in Sri Lanka, the Church had to keep the idea of Tamil People/Tamil Nation alive in Tamil Nadu. Even as the Church donated liberally to both the DMK and AIADMK, making them both look like subservient agents of the Church, the Church punished them both by eating into their varied constituencies through the innumerable splinter parties which mushroomed to coincide with waning government support and interest in Tamil Eelam.
The two largest Dravidian parties were themselves made vulnerable to intra-state coalition politics which diminished their value and leverage in New Delhi. Neither the Congress nor the BJP were strong enough to accommodate the baggage which now came along with the DMK and the AIADMK in the form of their state coalition partners.
The Congress and the BJP would now be subject to pressures not only from Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa but also from Vaiko, Thol Thirumavalavan and Ramdoss; not to speak of the good reverend Father Jegath Gaspar Raj, the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam and the Indian Christian Front. Muslims and Christians not only form political parties which are overtly Christian and Muslim but also spread themselves tactically in all important political parties for leverage.
The DMK and AIADMK must both realise that only when Tamil Nadu’s non-Brahmin communities, when coastal villages and communities remain Hindu, their own electoral constituencies will remain with them. If they allow Christian donation to their parties to pressure their policies, if they allow foreign money to continue to come on the scale it is now coming into Tamil Nadu, inevitably, inexorably, they will be weakened because the first rule in any business is that all investments must yield profit.
The Church is not going to invest money into their parties and the state only to have Karunanidhi and family, Jayalalithaa and baggage to enjoy the fruits of power. The Church wants the whole of Tamil Nadu and a large part of Sri Lanka. If the DMK, AIADMK and the BJP do not see this even now, it may well spell their doom. The Congress in Tamil Nadu is recruiting Christians into the party at all levels - educated, poorly educated, as leaders and as cadre.
If because of the DMK and AIADMK have already been weakened and if because the BJP in Tamil Nadu is still clueless about what is happening in the state, the Congress resurrects itself, it will resurrect as a Christian party whose Christian content will not be immediately seen or felt. It will either wear an encultured face like it wears now in Delhi and wore in Andhtra Pradesh under Y Samuel Rajasekhar Reddy or it may even opt for a temporary idiot Hindu face.
Sri Lanka’s Tamil Hindus can be protected and Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu protected from the predatory Church only if India’s polity, Tamil Nadu’s polity and the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka wake up to the Church’s agenda for India, Sri Lanka and Asia.
Reference:
[i] The writer has used the word Church generically to mean not only churches of all denominations, including Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Lutheran, Adventist, Pentecostal and New Life, New Mission but also Christian NGOs, Christian funding agencies, White Christian governments and countries which legitimize and use evangelization and militant Christian missionary objectives as instruments of foreign policy in countries of Asia, especially India, China, Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia; the generic Church also includes the United Nations with a charter that enforces Christian ‘liberal’ political principles as the universal socio-political ideal which will be enforced coercively by any one of the arms of the generic Church, including military intervention.
[ii] Indian Tamil people are indentured labour from the erstwhile Madras presidency forcibly transported to Sri Lanka to work in British owned tea-estates.
[iii] South of Cuddalore every fishing hamlet along Tamil Nadu’s vast coastline is almost 100% Christian. The Church wants fisher-folk to be given the status of Scheduled Tribes where even Christian converts are eligible for reservation quota; and that is why the Church is not asking for Scheduled Caste status. The Church is playing a covert role in getting Tamil Nadu’s fishermen to regularly intrude into Sri Lankan waters, not only to pressure the state government and New Delhi to confront the Sri Lankan government, but also to provoke the Sri Lankan government into using force to deal with trespassing fishermen. The idea is to vitiate Tamil Nadu/India-Sri Lanka relations.
By Radha Rajan
WHILE the frightening growth of the LTTE gave the Tamil secessionist movement in Sri Lanka a phenomenal impetus, it also caused an equally strong reaction from India and the Sri Lankan government. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi brought to an immediate and full stop all help rendered so far to the LTTE; it also pushed the Sri Lankan government to equip its own army to deal with the LTTE.
Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the subsequent weakening of the Congress Party ushered in the era of coalition politics and the huge returns accruing from participation in Government in Delhi and the compulsions of coalition politics not only tamed the two major Dravidian parties into a semblance of nationalism but effectively turned Tamil Nadu away not only from the path of secessionism it had been treading for long under the Dravidian parties but also turned it away from the LTTE.
The Church had to regroup and formulate a new war strategy.
The rise of Brahmin Jayalalithaa within the ranks of the AIADMK and her eventual coronation as Gen Secretary which shook the very foundations of Dravidian politics, the rise of the BJP in national politics, the fading lure of the idea of secessionist Tamil Eelam and weakening prospects of realising it even within Tamil Nadu, and the new trend in Indian politics which catapulted both the DMK and the AIADMK to Delhi imposing upon them the primacy of national interests over interests of regional political parties forced the Church to forge new strategies and lay a new road towards its objective of carving the Christian state of Tamil Eelam.
The following trends emerged in Tamil Nadu more or less simultaneously from around the mid 1990s decade and continues till the present -
The Church began to invest in television news channels, schools of journalism and mass communication; the Church also pushed for creating the department of human rights in Tamil Nadu colleges and universities.
Foreign governments, notably the UK and US through DFID and USAID began to fund NGOs in India, primarily Christian NGOs.
Foreign Christian funding agencies like World Vision, Action Aid and agencies from Germany, France and the Netherlands began to fund churches and Christian NGOs.
Tamil Nadu is the largest recipient of foreign funds.
The Church began to fund television soap operas and also financed Tamil films.
Christians are entering the Tamil Nadu film industry and the small screen in almost every area - as directors, producers, actors and music directors.
Tamil films and television, Tamil serials routinely make reference to Tamil people and Tamil nation.
The Church is buying hundreds of acres of land across Tamil Nadu; this is visible even in overcrowded Chennai.
Christians are cornering a major chunk of the reservation quota in admission to institutions of higher learning and also in government jobs; there are growing numbers of Christian students in engineering, medical and law colleges and universities.
Churches and prayer houses are being built in almost every street in Chennai and close to every Hindu temple, big and small.
Churches are coming up even in the holiest of holy Hindu temple towns and they are being allowed by Dravidian parties to come up close to temples.
Foreign Christian missionaries from America, Malaysia and South Korea have a free run of the streets in Chennai.
Instigating fisher-folk communities is the Church’s latest ploy[iii].
Every penny and paisa that the Church spends, it spends as investment towards realising its core objective - control of communities leading to control of polity leading ultimately to control of government culminating in bloody or bloodless conquest of territory. The path to this objective is religious conversion; what was achieved solely through enculturation in the 16th and 17th centuries, through the Church’s missionary educational and medical institutions in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is now being achieved through NGOs, through an aggressive political discourse in religious freedom and human rights which always work only to the Church’s advantage to facilitate penetration, conversion and conquest.
Investing in political parties is the Church’s latest venture in Tamil Nadu. The Church’s investment, besides the time-tested and highly successful strategy of planting Christians in important ruling families through the love angle or as close confidants to politicians, is three-pronged -
Donate liberally and in proportion to expected returns to the two largest Dravidian parties.
Besides the generous donations also get Christians to become members of every big and small political party - DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, PMK, DMDK so that these parties, with an eye on the Christian vote bank are compelled to nominate Christians as office bearers at state and district levels.
Start new Tamil extremist parties and create more and more Tamil chauvinist outfits to make shrill noises for Tamil people/Tamil nation, for the LTTE, against the Sri Lankan government, against the Central Government, even against judges of the High Court and Supreme Court, for human rights, against law-enforcing agencies like police and army; in effect create enough noise and generate enough heat to provoke uncooperative and weak governments to either use force or hopefully to surrender to extremist demands.
The ploy has succeeded just as every Church ploy has succeeded because the Church always preys upon vulnerability, ambition, hubris and greed. The State Government-Central Government partnership had yielded phenomenal results for the Christian state of Tamil Eelam but that had ended with Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Temptations of sharing power in New Delhi had weakened even the verbal call and support for Eelam. The Church’s next move was to weaken the two largest Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu by making them dependant upon smaller parties for survival.
The Church was the only force which saw the advantages of weakening national, nationalist and large regional parties. Tamil Nadu politics had been centered around only two poles for close to half a century. A strong DMK and AIADMK were assets to both the Congress and the BJP not only in state elections but also in national elections. The Church saw how regional parties with no support outside of their states could still influence national policies and it applied the rule with great foresight in Tamil Nadu.
As government support for the LTTE ended and the vehicle was destroyed in Sri Lanka, the Church had to keep the idea of Tamil People/Tamil Nation alive in Tamil Nadu. Even as the Church donated liberally to both the DMK and AIADMK, making them both look like subservient agents of the Church, the Church punished them both by eating into their varied constituencies through the innumerable splinter parties which mushroomed to coincide with waning government support and interest in Tamil Eelam.
The two largest Dravidian parties were themselves made vulnerable to intra-state coalition politics which diminished their value and leverage in New Delhi. Neither the Congress nor the BJP were strong enough to accommodate the baggage which now came along with the DMK and the AIADMK in the form of their state coalition partners.
The Congress and the BJP would now be subject to pressures not only from Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa but also from Vaiko, Thol Thirumavalavan and Ramdoss; not to speak of the good reverend Father Jegath Gaspar Raj, the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam and the Indian Christian Front. Muslims and Christians not only form political parties which are overtly Christian and Muslim but also spread themselves tactically in all important political parties for leverage.
The DMK and AIADMK must both realise that only when Tamil Nadu’s non-Brahmin communities, when coastal villages and communities remain Hindu, their own electoral constituencies will remain with them. If they allow Christian donation to their parties to pressure their policies, if they allow foreign money to continue to come on the scale it is now coming into Tamil Nadu, inevitably, inexorably, they will be weakened because the first rule in any business is that all investments must yield profit.
The Church is not going to invest money into their parties and the state only to have Karunanidhi and family, Jayalalithaa and baggage to enjoy the fruits of power. The Church wants the whole of Tamil Nadu and a large part of Sri Lanka. If the DMK, AIADMK and the BJP do not see this even now, it may well spell their doom. The Congress in Tamil Nadu is recruiting Christians into the party at all levels - educated, poorly educated, as leaders and as cadre.
If because of the DMK and AIADMK have already been weakened and if because the BJP in Tamil Nadu is still clueless about what is happening in the state, the Congress resurrects itself, it will resurrect as a Christian party whose Christian content will not be immediately seen or felt. It will either wear an encultured face like it wears now in Delhi and wore in Andhtra Pradesh under Y Samuel Rajasekhar Reddy or it may even opt for a temporary idiot Hindu face.
Sri Lanka’s Tamil Hindus can be protected and Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu protected from the predatory Church only if India’s polity, Tamil Nadu’s polity and the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka wake up to the Church’s agenda for India, Sri Lanka and Asia.
Reference:
[i] The writer has used the word Church generically to mean not only churches of all denominations, including Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Lutheran, Adventist, Pentecostal and New Life, New Mission but also Christian NGOs, Christian funding agencies, White Christian governments and countries which legitimize and use evangelization and militant Christian missionary objectives as instruments of foreign policy in countries of Asia, especially India, China, Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia; the generic Church also includes the United Nations with a charter that enforces Christian ‘liberal’ political principles as the universal socio-political ideal which will be enforced coercively by any one of the arms of the generic Church, including military intervention.
[ii] Indian Tamil people are indentured labour from the erstwhile Madras presidency forcibly transported to Sri Lanka to work in British owned tea-estates.
[iii] South of Cuddalore every fishing hamlet along Tamil Nadu’s vast coastline is almost 100% Christian. The Church wants fisher-folk to be given the status of Scheduled Tribes where even Christian converts are eligible for reservation quota; and that is why the Church is not asking for Scheduled Caste status. The Church is playing a covert role in getting Tamil Nadu’s fishermen to regularly intrude into Sri Lankan waters, not only to pressure the state government and New Delhi to confront the Sri Lankan government, but also to provoke the Sri Lankan government into using force to deal with trespassing fishermen. The idea is to vitiate Tamil Nadu/India-Sri Lanka relations.
Breaking India: Some Reflections
By Dr Vijaya Rajiva
THE book Breaking India is a landmark event in that it brings together a comprehensive account of the many forces that have in the past undermined and continues to try to undermine the national unity of India. The authors, well known intellectual and scholar in the Indian diaspora Shri Rajiv Malhotra and his co-author Shri Arvindan Neelakandan, have placed together under one title the documentation and analyses gathered over a period of several years. This is the book’s strength. The documentation is meticulous and is provided dispassionately and honestly. The facts are allowed to speak for themselves.
There are 19 chapters to this voluminous work, along with detailed appendices and an impressive bibliography. Each chapter is written with care and attention. The information contained therein should capture the attention of every Indian who believes in the integrity of the nation and how this had been attacked in the past and may well happen again if timely discussion and action are not taken to prevent that happening.
The major thread in the balkanisation of India process started with the emergent West’s desperate search for identity (in the early 17th and 18th centuries) and for colonizing the earth’s resources. The search for European identity began with European scholars appropriating India’s linguistic identity in the shape of Sanskrit to fulfull their own need for identity. Thus began the Aryanisation theory according to which Aryans invaded India, subjugated its indigenous population and instituted the caste system, whereby the Aryan invaders remained on top of the hierarchy. In due time they mixed with the indigenous people and gradually lost the purity of their race.
Whereas, in Europe they retained this purity. Alongside of this, the European Aryans integrated their new found identity with Christian doctrine which harked back to a Semitic identity. In order to eliminate this semitic identity Jesus now became the founder of the new religion of Aryan Christianity. The book shows many leading scholars lending credence to this dubious creation of European identity and both wittingly and unwittingly contributing to the rise of anti-semiticism and the eventual holocaust in Hitler’s Germany. A similar process took place with regard to India. The many icons William Jones (the first translator of Kalidasa), Max Mueller, the Sanskritist, to name only two of those that Indians have habitually respected, are shown to have feet of clay. . . . .
Their aim was not simply the aims of scholarship.
The second thread (which the book does not go into) is the European search for economic dominance of the earth, its people and its resources. This aspect has been written about in detail by other scholars. But while these accounts generally restrict themselves to a type of economism, that is, looking only at the economic component of the phenomenon of colonisation, this book provides the ideological underpinning of the colonisation process.
For India, the significance of both aspects of the European drive for identity/dominance and colonisation for resources resulted in its second major Occupation, the British Occupation, the first one being the Islamic, whose present day avatar is fundamentalism and terrorism.
One of the important contributions of Breaking India is that it shows the Western project to be an ongoing one. It is not a thing of the past. It has a new avatar as Eurocentrism and is being propagated in two ways: the ceaseless attempt at the Christianisation of the Indian population and the ongoing imposition of western models of academic enquiry.
The major part of the book is devoted to what is called the Dravidian-Christian nexus, which started with the pre-independence British policy of divide and rule. India was divided into an Aryan north and a Dravidian south which allegedly had no real connection with each other, other than the dominance of the Aryan/Sanskrit north.
Likewise the tribal population was cut off from mainstream Hindu society by the British rulers. The present day Dalits are being co opted into an anti-Hindu India project. This is being done with scant respect for the very real distinction about the varna-jati system. As is well known, Mahatma Gandhi endorsed the varna-jati system, while working tirelessly against caste discrimination.
The nexus pays no attention to the very real and tangible efforts of the Government of India to promote equality and social harmony. It also ignores the efforts on the ground by NGOs and private organisations to eliminate casteism and the resulting return of many members of the Scheduled Castes to their original religion, Hinduism, from which Christian missionaries had lured them away.
The book demonstrates with clear evidence that the agenda is to implicate India in human rights abuses.
The impact of evangelical Americans who want to use this particular stick with which to beat India, cannot be ignored. Nor can Indians ignore the malicious plans of some of their own fellow citizens to be part of this agenda.
The Dravidian-Christian project is founded on the misappropriation and misrepresentation of Tamil culture and literature in order to create a vacuum which can be filled by the Christian missionary agenda. Both serious efforts in this direction and the ludicrous ones such as L. Samson’s attempt to remove Hindu icons and themes from the famed Bharata Natya dance form are documented by the book. She is now the Director of the famed Kalakshetra in Chennai (Tamil Nadu).
The book goes into great detail concerning the Indian and foreign establishments and agencies that are seeking actively to establish Western dominance on an ancient and great civilisation that continues to ‘resist’ in many unseen and unnoticed ways. The book is a warning to all Indians regardless of their religion or ethnicity that things may not go on as happened in the past, meaning that somehow an ancient and great civilisation survived the savage onslaught and will continue to do so in the future. The book warns against complacency by providing factual data.
A great and ancient civilization is caught in the crosshairs of the civilisational struggle between the West, China and Islamic fundamentalism. The concluding chapter of the book suggests that the on and off relationship with the US and the European West has both its advantages and disadvantages, and it would seem that at present India has no alternative except to stick with it.
Navigating through the present, requires knowledge of what happened in the distant past and in the recent past.
Breaking India provides that knowledge and is a must read for all Indians.
(The writer is a Political Philosopher who taught at a Canadian university)
THE book Breaking India is a landmark event in that it brings together a comprehensive account of the many forces that have in the past undermined and continues to try to undermine the national unity of India. The authors, well known intellectual and scholar in the Indian diaspora Shri Rajiv Malhotra and his co-author Shri Arvindan Neelakandan, have placed together under one title the documentation and analyses gathered over a period of several years. This is the book’s strength. The documentation is meticulous and is provided dispassionately and honestly. The facts are allowed to speak for themselves.
There are 19 chapters to this voluminous work, along with detailed appendices and an impressive bibliography. Each chapter is written with care and attention. The information contained therein should capture the attention of every Indian who believes in the integrity of the nation and how this had been attacked in the past and may well happen again if timely discussion and action are not taken to prevent that happening.
The major thread in the balkanisation of India process started with the emergent West’s desperate search for identity (in the early 17th and 18th centuries) and for colonizing the earth’s resources. The search for European identity began with European scholars appropriating India’s linguistic identity in the shape of Sanskrit to fulfull their own need for identity. Thus began the Aryanisation theory according to which Aryans invaded India, subjugated its indigenous population and instituted the caste system, whereby the Aryan invaders remained on top of the hierarchy. In due time they mixed with the indigenous people and gradually lost the purity of their race.
Whereas, in Europe they retained this purity. Alongside of this, the European Aryans integrated their new found identity with Christian doctrine which harked back to a Semitic identity. In order to eliminate this semitic identity Jesus now became the founder of the new religion of Aryan Christianity. The book shows many leading scholars lending credence to this dubious creation of European identity and both wittingly and unwittingly contributing to the rise of anti-semiticism and the eventual holocaust in Hitler’s Germany. A similar process took place with regard to India. The many icons William Jones (the first translator of Kalidasa), Max Mueller, the Sanskritist, to name only two of those that Indians have habitually respected, are shown to have feet of clay. . . . .
Their aim was not simply the aims of scholarship.
The second thread (which the book does not go into) is the European search for economic dominance of the earth, its people and its resources. This aspect has been written about in detail by other scholars. But while these accounts generally restrict themselves to a type of economism, that is, looking only at the economic component of the phenomenon of colonisation, this book provides the ideological underpinning of the colonisation process.
For India, the significance of both aspects of the European drive for identity/dominance and colonisation for resources resulted in its second major Occupation, the British Occupation, the first one being the Islamic, whose present day avatar is fundamentalism and terrorism.
One of the important contributions of Breaking India is that it shows the Western project to be an ongoing one. It is not a thing of the past. It has a new avatar as Eurocentrism and is being propagated in two ways: the ceaseless attempt at the Christianisation of the Indian population and the ongoing imposition of western models of academic enquiry.
The major part of the book is devoted to what is called the Dravidian-Christian nexus, which started with the pre-independence British policy of divide and rule. India was divided into an Aryan north and a Dravidian south which allegedly had no real connection with each other, other than the dominance of the Aryan/Sanskrit north.
Likewise the tribal population was cut off from mainstream Hindu society by the British rulers. The present day Dalits are being co opted into an anti-Hindu India project. This is being done with scant respect for the very real distinction about the varna-jati system. As is well known, Mahatma Gandhi endorsed the varna-jati system, while working tirelessly against caste discrimination.
The nexus pays no attention to the very real and tangible efforts of the Government of India to promote equality and social harmony. It also ignores the efforts on the ground by NGOs and private organisations to eliminate casteism and the resulting return of many members of the Scheduled Castes to their original religion, Hinduism, from which Christian missionaries had lured them away.
The book demonstrates with clear evidence that the agenda is to implicate India in human rights abuses.
The impact of evangelical Americans who want to use this particular stick with which to beat India, cannot be ignored. Nor can Indians ignore the malicious plans of some of their own fellow citizens to be part of this agenda.
The Dravidian-Christian project is founded on the misappropriation and misrepresentation of Tamil culture and literature in order to create a vacuum which can be filled by the Christian missionary agenda. Both serious efforts in this direction and the ludicrous ones such as L. Samson’s attempt to remove Hindu icons and themes from the famed Bharata Natya dance form are documented by the book. She is now the Director of the famed Kalakshetra in Chennai (Tamil Nadu).
The book goes into great detail concerning the Indian and foreign establishments and agencies that are seeking actively to establish Western dominance on an ancient and great civilisation that continues to ‘resist’ in many unseen and unnoticed ways. The book is a warning to all Indians regardless of their religion or ethnicity that things may not go on as happened in the past, meaning that somehow an ancient and great civilisation survived the savage onslaught and will continue to do so in the future. The book warns against complacency by providing factual data.
A great and ancient civilization is caught in the crosshairs of the civilisational struggle between the West, China and Islamic fundamentalism. The concluding chapter of the book suggests that the on and off relationship with the US and the European West has both its advantages and disadvantages, and it would seem that at present India has no alternative except to stick with it.
Navigating through the present, requires knowledge of what happened in the distant past and in the recent past.
Breaking India provides that knowledge and is a must read for all Indians.
(The writer is a Political Philosopher who taught at a Canadian university)
The evangelical overdrive
A disturbing expose of West’s plot to divide India
By Dr Vaidehi Nathan
Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines, Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan, Amaryllis, Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd, Pp 650 (HB), Rs 695.00
AFTER successfully converting India’s north-east into a Christian-dominated region the evangelists have now stepped up their work in the south, especially Tamil Nadu, using absolutely unethical methods. The church, with overt and covert political support is attempting to spread their concoction - a theory that the Tamils were a separate race and that a popular Hindu cult there Saiva Siddhantam was an early version of Christianity.
A thoroughly researched book on the evangelists’ latest assault has ripped their mask off, revealing an ugly side of religious conversion activities. Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines by Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan explains the elaborate plans of the missionaries hatched decades ago, with the arrival of the early soul harvesters from the West.
The history of Tamil Nadu has been twisted beyond imagination by these "academic" religious men, who in the guise of serving the Tamil language have invented a new version. According to which, Thiruvalluvar, the author of the Thirukural who lived during the Sangam period (the BC era) was influenced by the St Paul, who is supposed to have visited Tamil Nadu around 2nd Century AD. Some even attribute him to belong to Jainism, while the truth is that Thiruvalluvar was a Hindu and his monumental work Thirukural makes several references to Hindu gods and goddesses and is rooted in the Tamil culture and religion. GU Pope, who translated one of the sacred Hindu texts Thiruvachakam was the first to propose the theory that Christianity and Saiva Siddhantam were similar.
"The subsequent theories constructed by the missionaries were attempted to show that the Kural and Saiva Siddhantam were anti-Aryan and similar to Christianity. Recently, the highly endorsed evangelist propaganda book India is a Christian Nation, builds upon the foundations started by Cladwell and Pope to reinterpret Tamil spirituality as a part of Christianity. It discusses ‘the great possibilities to discern the hidden truths of Saivism and Vaishnavism as nothing but "Early Indian Christianity."
The separate ‘Dravidian race’ theory was first articulated by Bishop Robert Cladwell (1814-91). He claimed that Dravidians were the "original" inhabitants of South and were "cheated" by the Aryan Brahmins. He was out to liberate the Dravidians. The authors Rajiv and Aravindan give instances and anecdotes galore to narrate the story of the evangelical overdrive in Tamil Nadu which has reached a near shrill level now because of political patronage. Books that would not receive a second glance from academicians are being included in the syllabus and being taught to innocent students. It is a process of superimposing a new layer of history, so that the real history would be buried, much like demolishing a structure to create a new one in its place. In this, the communist historians are past masters and as recently as last week, one of the celebrated historians from Tamil Nadu, Champakalakshmi, belonging to the JNU brigade unveiled a book on how the religious identity of Tamil Nadu was always secular (read non-Hindu).
According to Rajiv Malhotra, he came across in the 1990s, an African-American scholar at Princeton University, who back from a trip to India spoke of an ‘Afro-Dalit Project.’ This acted as a trigger and this book is the result of years of research. "What I found out should sound the alarm bell for every Indian concerned about national integrity. India is the prime target of a huge enterprise - a ‘network’ of organizations, individuals and churches - that seems intensely devoted to the task of creating a separatist identity, history and even religion for the vulnerable sections of India. This nexus of players includes not only church groups, government bodies and related organizations, but also private think-tanks and academics."
M Deivanayagam is yet another player in this nexus. His books written with a Christian twist, including the translation of Hindu hymns suggesting Christian meaning, are being promoted by academic bodies. He has a say in the International Institute of Tamil Studies and the specially created Christian Studies Chair at Madras University.
These aggressive evangelists also attempted to plant archaeological evidences to ‘prove’ the ancient Christian connection to the land. They did not stand scrutiny. Culturally too, there is assault on the traditions of Tamil Nadu, Bharatanatyam, the classical dance form is being entirely de-Hinduised. Leela Samson’s initiatives in Kalakshetra to remove idols, stop lighting lamps and prayer dances have to be seen in this evangelical context, say the authors.
The Dalit-Dravidian faultline is part of a global network that is working on a three-pronged strategy to dismember India, using religion, violence and social fissures - Islamic radicalism with Pakistan as the epicentre, Naxalism with China support and the caste-communal conflicts fuelled by the West.
Nearly all the denominations of Christianity in the world are represented in India, with funding coming from abroad. In fact recently information presented in parliament showed Tamil Nadu to be one of the highest recipients of foreign aid. And the NGOs, with Christian connections were the biggest dollar baggers.
The authors say: "Besides the indirect role of government played by various US senators and congressmen in their official capacities, and the indirect role of helping non-government think-tanks and activists, the US government has been directly active in foreign evangelism as a part of its foreign policy." They give details of the US government’s direct intervention. Similarly, the European nations and the UK are also part of the evangelical orchestra.
There was a time when the white men coming to India, seeing the ancient civilisation for the first time were awe stuck by the sheer greatness of the Hindu religion, philosophy, spirituality and culture. This was slowly and deliberately replaced by contempt towards us and superiority complex in them. That is when they started their hunt for souls to salvage. But now, it has come down to the number game. The more they convert, the higher the dollar flow. In this dangerous race, for them anything is passé.
This book exposes the dubious network of academicians, evangelists and NGOs who are working in great synchrony to achieve the single goal of converting southern India into Christendom. It needs to be fought at different and all levels.
The book could have done with a little empirical data on the number of Dalit Christians, the rate of their conversion, the most sensitive areas etc. It is definitely an eye-opener and not just a warning bell but a gong, a call for all those who believe in our culture, civilisation and religion to get their acts together.
It is a valuable source material on the subject. Rajiv Malhotra is a public intellectual on current affairs, world religions and cross-cultural encounters between East and West. He is now on the Board of Governors of the India Studies Program at University of Massachusetts. Arvind Neelakandan has been working for the past decade with an NGO in Tamil Nadu with marginalised communities in sustainable agriculture.
(Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., J-39, Ground Floor, Jor Bagh Lane, New Delhi-110 003)
By Dr Vaidehi Nathan
Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines, Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan, Amaryllis, Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd, Pp 650 (HB), Rs 695.00
AFTER successfully converting India’s north-east into a Christian-dominated region the evangelists have now stepped up their work in the south, especially Tamil Nadu, using absolutely unethical methods. The church, with overt and covert political support is attempting to spread their concoction - a theory that the Tamils were a separate race and that a popular Hindu cult there Saiva Siddhantam was an early version of Christianity.
A thoroughly researched book on the evangelists’ latest assault has ripped their mask off, revealing an ugly side of religious conversion activities. Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines by Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan explains the elaborate plans of the missionaries hatched decades ago, with the arrival of the early soul harvesters from the West.
The history of Tamil Nadu has been twisted beyond imagination by these "academic" religious men, who in the guise of serving the Tamil language have invented a new version. According to which, Thiruvalluvar, the author of the Thirukural who lived during the Sangam period (the BC era) was influenced by the St Paul, who is supposed to have visited Tamil Nadu around 2nd Century AD. Some even attribute him to belong to Jainism, while the truth is that Thiruvalluvar was a Hindu and his monumental work Thirukural makes several references to Hindu gods and goddesses and is rooted in the Tamil culture and religion. GU Pope, who translated one of the sacred Hindu texts Thiruvachakam was the first to propose the theory that Christianity and Saiva Siddhantam were similar.
"The subsequent theories constructed by the missionaries were attempted to show that the Kural and Saiva Siddhantam were anti-Aryan and similar to Christianity. Recently, the highly endorsed evangelist propaganda book India is a Christian Nation, builds upon the foundations started by Cladwell and Pope to reinterpret Tamil spirituality as a part of Christianity. It discusses ‘the great possibilities to discern the hidden truths of Saivism and Vaishnavism as nothing but "Early Indian Christianity."
The separate ‘Dravidian race’ theory was first articulated by Bishop Robert Cladwell (1814-91). He claimed that Dravidians were the "original" inhabitants of South and were "cheated" by the Aryan Brahmins. He was out to liberate the Dravidians. The authors Rajiv and Aravindan give instances and anecdotes galore to narrate the story of the evangelical overdrive in Tamil Nadu which has reached a near shrill level now because of political patronage. Books that would not receive a second glance from academicians are being included in the syllabus and being taught to innocent students. It is a process of superimposing a new layer of history, so that the real history would be buried, much like demolishing a structure to create a new one in its place. In this, the communist historians are past masters and as recently as last week, one of the celebrated historians from Tamil Nadu, Champakalakshmi, belonging to the JNU brigade unveiled a book on how the religious identity of Tamil Nadu was always secular (read non-Hindu).
According to Rajiv Malhotra, he came across in the 1990s, an African-American scholar at Princeton University, who back from a trip to India spoke of an ‘Afro-Dalit Project.’ This acted as a trigger and this book is the result of years of research. "What I found out should sound the alarm bell for every Indian concerned about national integrity. India is the prime target of a huge enterprise - a ‘network’ of organizations, individuals and churches - that seems intensely devoted to the task of creating a separatist identity, history and even religion for the vulnerable sections of India. This nexus of players includes not only church groups, government bodies and related organizations, but also private think-tanks and academics."
M Deivanayagam is yet another player in this nexus. His books written with a Christian twist, including the translation of Hindu hymns suggesting Christian meaning, are being promoted by academic bodies. He has a say in the International Institute of Tamil Studies and the specially created Christian Studies Chair at Madras University.
These aggressive evangelists also attempted to plant archaeological evidences to ‘prove’ the ancient Christian connection to the land. They did not stand scrutiny. Culturally too, there is assault on the traditions of Tamil Nadu, Bharatanatyam, the classical dance form is being entirely de-Hinduised. Leela Samson’s initiatives in Kalakshetra to remove idols, stop lighting lamps and prayer dances have to be seen in this evangelical context, say the authors.
The Dalit-Dravidian faultline is part of a global network that is working on a three-pronged strategy to dismember India, using religion, violence and social fissures - Islamic radicalism with Pakistan as the epicentre, Naxalism with China support and the caste-communal conflicts fuelled by the West.
Nearly all the denominations of Christianity in the world are represented in India, with funding coming from abroad. In fact recently information presented in parliament showed Tamil Nadu to be one of the highest recipients of foreign aid. And the NGOs, with Christian connections were the biggest dollar baggers.
The authors say: "Besides the indirect role of government played by various US senators and congressmen in their official capacities, and the indirect role of helping non-government think-tanks and activists, the US government has been directly active in foreign evangelism as a part of its foreign policy." They give details of the US government’s direct intervention. Similarly, the European nations and the UK are also part of the evangelical orchestra.
There was a time when the white men coming to India, seeing the ancient civilisation for the first time were awe stuck by the sheer greatness of the Hindu religion, philosophy, spirituality and culture. This was slowly and deliberately replaced by contempt towards us and superiority complex in them. That is when they started their hunt for souls to salvage. But now, it has come down to the number game. The more they convert, the higher the dollar flow. In this dangerous race, for them anything is passé.
This book exposes the dubious network of academicians, evangelists and NGOs who are working in great synchrony to achieve the single goal of converting southern India into Christendom. It needs to be fought at different and all levels.
The book could have done with a little empirical data on the number of Dalit Christians, the rate of their conversion, the most sensitive areas etc. It is definitely an eye-opener and not just a warning bell but a gong, a call for all those who believe in our culture, civilisation and religion to get their acts together.
It is a valuable source material on the subject. Rajiv Malhotra is a public intellectual on current affairs, world religions and cross-cultural encounters between East and West. He is now on the Board of Governors of the India Studies Program at University of Massachusetts. Arvind Neelakandan has been working for the past decade with an NGO in Tamil Nadu with marginalised communities in sustainable agriculture.
(Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., J-39, Ground Floor, Jor Bagh Lane, New Delhi-110 003)
Organised religion
Organised religion ‘will be driven toward extinction’ in 9 countries, experts predict
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
ORGANISED religion will all but vanish eventually from nine Western-style democracies, a team of mathematicians predict in a new paper based on census data stretching back 100 years. It won’t die out completely, but “religion will be driven toward extinction” in countries including Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, they say. It will also wither away in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland and Switzerland, they anticipate.
They can’t make a prediction about the United States because the US census doesn’t ask about religion, lead author Daniel Abrams told CNN. But nine other countries provide enough data for detailed mathematical modeling, he said. “If you look at the data, ‘unaffiliated’ is the fastest-growing group” in those countries, he said. “We start with two big assumptions based on sociology,” he explained.
The first is that it’s more attractive to be part of the majority than the minority, so as religious affiliation declines, it becomes more popular not to be a churchgoer than to be one, he said - what Abrams calls the majority effect. “People are more likely to switch to groups with more members,” he said.
Social networks can have a powerful influence, he said. “Just a few connections to people who are (religiously) unaffiliated is enough to drive the effect,” he said.
The other assumption underlying the prediction is that there are social, economic and political advantages to being unaffiliated with a religion in the countries where it’s in decline - what Abrams calls the utility effect. “The utility of being unaffiliated seems to be higher than affiliated in Western democracies,” he said. Abrams and his co-authors are not passing any judgement on religion, he’s quick to say - they’re just modeling a prediction based on trends. “We’re not trying to make any commentary about religion or whether people should be religious or not,” he said.“I became interested in this because I saw survey data results for the US and was surprised by how large the unaffiliated group was,” he said, referring to a number of studies done by universities and think tanks on trends in religion.
Studies suggest that “unaffiliated” is the fastest-growing religious group in the United States, with about 15 per cent of the population falling into a category experts call the “nones.” They’re not necessarily atheists or non-believers, experts say, just people who do not associate themselves with a particular religion or house of worship at the time of the survey.
Abrams had done an earlier study looking into the extinction of languages spoken by small numbers of people. When he saw the religion data, his co-author Richard Wiener suggested we try to apply a similar technique to religious affiliation, Abrams said.
The paper, by Abrams, Wiener and Haley A Yaple, is called “A mathematical model of social group competition with application to the growth of religious non-affiliation.” They presented it this week at the Dallas meeting of the American Physical Society.
Only the Czech Republic already has a majority of people who are unaffiliated with religion, but the Netherlands, for example, will go from about 40 per cent unaffiliated today to more than 70 per cent by 2050, they expect. Even deeply Catholic Ireland will see religion die out, the model predicts. “They’ve gone from 0.04 per cent unaffiliated in 1961 to 4.2 per cent in 2006, our most recent data point,” Abrams says.
He admits that the increase in Muslim immigration to Europe may throw off the model, but he thinks the trend is robust enough to withstand some challenges.
“Netherlands data goes back to 1860,” he pointed out. “Every single data that we were able to find shows that people are moving from the affiliated to unaffiliated. I can’t imagine that will change, but that’s personal opinion, not what the data shows.”
(http://in.news.yahoo.com/pope-warns-falling-belief-west-132018545.html)
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
ORGANISED religion will all but vanish eventually from nine Western-style democracies, a team of mathematicians predict in a new paper based on census data stretching back 100 years. It won’t die out completely, but “religion will be driven toward extinction” in countries including Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, they say. It will also wither away in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland and Switzerland, they anticipate.
They can’t make a prediction about the United States because the US census doesn’t ask about religion, lead author Daniel Abrams told CNN. But nine other countries provide enough data for detailed mathematical modeling, he said. “If you look at the data, ‘unaffiliated’ is the fastest-growing group” in those countries, he said. “We start with two big assumptions based on sociology,” he explained.
The first is that it’s more attractive to be part of the majority than the minority, so as religious affiliation declines, it becomes more popular not to be a churchgoer than to be one, he said - what Abrams calls the majority effect. “People are more likely to switch to groups with more members,” he said.
Social networks can have a powerful influence, he said. “Just a few connections to people who are (religiously) unaffiliated is enough to drive the effect,” he said.
The other assumption underlying the prediction is that there are social, economic and political advantages to being unaffiliated with a religion in the countries where it’s in decline - what Abrams calls the utility effect. “The utility of being unaffiliated seems to be higher than affiliated in Western democracies,” he said. Abrams and his co-authors are not passing any judgement on religion, he’s quick to say - they’re just modeling a prediction based on trends. “We’re not trying to make any commentary about religion or whether people should be religious or not,” he said.“I became interested in this because I saw survey data results for the US and was surprised by how large the unaffiliated group was,” he said, referring to a number of studies done by universities and think tanks on trends in religion.
Studies suggest that “unaffiliated” is the fastest-growing religious group in the United States, with about 15 per cent of the population falling into a category experts call the “nones.” They’re not necessarily atheists or non-believers, experts say, just people who do not associate themselves with a particular religion or house of worship at the time of the survey.
Abrams had done an earlier study looking into the extinction of languages spoken by small numbers of people. When he saw the religion data, his co-author Richard Wiener suggested we try to apply a similar technique to religious affiliation, Abrams said.
The paper, by Abrams, Wiener and Haley A Yaple, is called “A mathematical model of social group competition with application to the growth of religious non-affiliation.” They presented it this week at the Dallas meeting of the American Physical Society.
Only the Czech Republic already has a majority of people who are unaffiliated with religion, but the Netherlands, for example, will go from about 40 per cent unaffiliated today to more than 70 per cent by 2050, they expect. Even deeply Catholic Ireland will see religion die out, the model predicts. “They’ve gone from 0.04 per cent unaffiliated in 1961 to 4.2 per cent in 2006, our most recent data point,” Abrams says.
He admits that the increase in Muslim immigration to Europe may throw off the model, but he thinks the trend is robust enough to withstand some challenges.
“Netherlands data goes back to 1860,” he pointed out. “Every single data that we were able to find shows that people are moving from the affiliated to unaffiliated. I can’t imagine that will change, but that’s personal opinion, not what the data shows.”
(http://in.news.yahoo.com/pope-warns-falling-belief-west-132018545.html)
Black money comes mainly from India—Julian Assange, WikiLeaks
AT a stage where governments around the world have tried to hide away from the embarrassment caused by WikiLeaks expose on black money , founder Julian Assange speaks exclusively to Times Now’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami on the Swiss bank data and Indian names features in the same.
Julian Assange, made a stunning disclosure, that there could be Indian names in the data that WikiLeaks would publish. In the course of the interview, Assange appealed to Indians to absolutely not lose hope that the names of those with secret Swiss accounts will come out at one point in the future. Hinting that WikiLeaks might work with specialised agencies before releasing the Swiss bank data he pulled up the Indian government for not being aggressive like Germany in going after the list of Indian account holders. In fact he said India should be more aggressive because India seems like it is losing per capita more tax money than Germany.
This is the first time Assange has spoken about Indian accounts in these Swiss banks, and comes at a time when the national debate over Swiss Bank accounts has sharpened.
You have strong views on it. And I completely appreciate that you can’t talk about it in detail. But let me ask you more generically, that is your heart, you would like to reveal the details...in your heart. I am not asking you when and under what circumstances, but having known about it, you would like to reveal details of how the system operates, wouldn’t you?
Well, we have various types of information about different banking operations in the world. Over time, we have revealed those. In fact, most of the legal attacks on us have been from banks. Banks in Scotland...banks in Dubai...banks in Iceland. We all received legal attacks from these banks. And we will continue publishing data on these banks as soon as we are able to do so.
Have you encountered any Indian names? I am not asking you to tell me where, which banks...
Yes there are Indian names in the data we have already published or going to publish. I can’t remember specifically whether there are Indian names in the upcoming publication. But I have read Indian names. Similarly, in these private Swiss banking concerns, where you need at least a million dollars...which is a significant amount of money...Not an average Indian.
And it is difficult to identify those names. Anything else you can tell us?
I can’t tell you anything more at this stage. As we go through the process of releasing data, as always we have to do extra research. And once we understand which media organisations are best placed to help us with that research, then we operate with them. But we are not at that stage yet that I know all the research that is going on.
To all our Indian viewers, just one point. Should they lose hope that the names will come out at one point.
No
What would you say to them?
That you should absolutely not lose hope. It is quite interesting. There is a...There are different forces at play here. The German government in particular has been very strong. There needs to be transparency in banking operations. It has gone so far as to buy CDs off...in Liechtenstein and so on...To reveal this information. Very, very aggressive approach by the German government and the German government is the dominant power within Europe. So, those German attitudes are seeping into Europe as a whole. The US has also been applying pressure in relation to UBS and tax evaders.
So the problem is, as Swiss bank accounts are opened up there are simply other ways to deal with the situation. So you go and register a trust, in say Charles and then the trust then goes and opens a Swiss account, but what is there is a trust in Charles..Then you have to break that trust in Charles. That is the problem throughout the offshore sector. That is quite hard to deal with. In case you get this through regulation, investigation...you kind of get this at a level that although people can hide their assets in this way, the amount of expense and effort and risk involved in the asset hiding doesn’t make it worthwhile.
Given the economic and political clout that India wields, any reason that India should not be as aggressive?
No. There is no reason why India should not be aggressive. In fact maybe, it should be more aggressive because India seems like it is losing per capita much more tax money than Germany.
(http:economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/black-money-comes-mainly-from-india-julian-assange-wikileaks/articleshow/8088006.cms)
Julian Assange, made a stunning disclosure, that there could be Indian names in the data that WikiLeaks would publish. In the course of the interview, Assange appealed to Indians to absolutely not lose hope that the names of those with secret Swiss accounts will come out at one point in the future. Hinting that WikiLeaks might work with specialised agencies before releasing the Swiss bank data he pulled up the Indian government for not being aggressive like Germany in going after the list of Indian account holders. In fact he said India should be more aggressive because India seems like it is losing per capita more tax money than Germany.
This is the first time Assange has spoken about Indian accounts in these Swiss banks, and comes at a time when the national debate over Swiss Bank accounts has sharpened.
You have strong views on it. And I completely appreciate that you can’t talk about it in detail. But let me ask you more generically, that is your heart, you would like to reveal the details...in your heart. I am not asking you when and under what circumstances, but having known about it, you would like to reveal details of how the system operates, wouldn’t you?
Well, we have various types of information about different banking operations in the world. Over time, we have revealed those. In fact, most of the legal attacks on us have been from banks. Banks in Scotland...banks in Dubai...banks in Iceland. We all received legal attacks from these banks. And we will continue publishing data on these banks as soon as we are able to do so.
Have you encountered any Indian names? I am not asking you to tell me where, which banks...
Yes there are Indian names in the data we have already published or going to publish. I can’t remember specifically whether there are Indian names in the upcoming publication. But I have read Indian names. Similarly, in these private Swiss banking concerns, where you need at least a million dollars...which is a significant amount of money...Not an average Indian.
And it is difficult to identify those names. Anything else you can tell us?
I can’t tell you anything more at this stage. As we go through the process of releasing data, as always we have to do extra research. And once we understand which media organisations are best placed to help us with that research, then we operate with them. But we are not at that stage yet that I know all the research that is going on.
To all our Indian viewers, just one point. Should they lose hope that the names will come out at one point.
No
What would you say to them?
That you should absolutely not lose hope. It is quite interesting. There is a...There are different forces at play here. The German government in particular has been very strong. There needs to be transparency in banking operations. It has gone so far as to buy CDs off...in Liechtenstein and so on...To reveal this information. Very, very aggressive approach by the German government and the German government is the dominant power within Europe. So, those German attitudes are seeping into Europe as a whole. The US has also been applying pressure in relation to UBS and tax evaders.
So the problem is, as Swiss bank accounts are opened up there are simply other ways to deal with the situation. So you go and register a trust, in say Charles and then the trust then goes and opens a Swiss account, but what is there is a trust in Charles..Then you have to break that trust in Charles. That is the problem throughout the offshore sector. That is quite hard to deal with. In case you get this through regulation, investigation...you kind of get this at a level that although people can hide their assets in this way, the amount of expense and effort and risk involved in the asset hiding doesn’t make it worthwhile.
Given the economic and political clout that India wields, any reason that India should not be as aggressive?
No. There is no reason why India should not be aggressive. In fact maybe, it should be more aggressive because India seems like it is losing per capita much more tax money than Germany.
(http:economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/black-money-comes-mainly-from-india-julian-assange-wikileaks/articleshow/8088006.cms)
Proselytising in the name of social service—II
By Anirban Ganguly
FEAR has always been one of the principal weapons of Christian proselytisers. In India these have been effectively and extensively applied on the unsuspecting Hindu, especially in the rural setting. The instilling of fear, the use of violence to occupy material and mental spaces is a method that soldiers of the Gospel have often used and continue to use to this day while operating in this country. What is intriguing – or perhaps not as intriguing – is that human rights organisations, fronts and official bodies have ignored this manifestation of violence and assault on human life and dignity.
This habit of instilling fear, using coercive methods, threat of violence and intimidation is evident in the areas where the proselytisers or their front agencies operate to create the ground for a rich harvest. The role of various church denominations in the abetment and sustenance of insurgency in India’s northeastern part is well documented. I shall not enter into its history but simply put forward a few examples of how the work is carried out even today. This would perhaps be relevant in the backdrop of the central government’s recent ‘grand gesture’ of extending the ceasefire with the NSCN (K) outfit which operates mainly in the districts of Tirap and Changlang in Arunachal Pradesh. Wherever proselytisers operate they energetically work towards ending diversities – of living, of culture and of belief. They begin decimating these diversities through violence, coercion and intimidation. The NSCN (K), like its more illustrious ‘factionpart’ the NSCN (IM) in fact carries out this task of diversity-eradication in these two districts of Arunachal Pradesh without check. The followers of the indigenous faith tradition in the area have been repeatedly threatened and assaulted just because they have displayed the will and temerity to love and worship their gods and religious symbols. In a land that is being claimed for Christ, his sons on earth brook no divergence or variety of faith.
In a memorandum, submitted earlier this year (no. RFPS/CHG/CORR-01/09-10/ dt. 15th Jan 2011) addressed to the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh with copies to the President of India, Prime Minister, Home Minister and the secretary general of the Rangfraa Faith Promotion Society made a moving appeal against this very coercion and fear – reading the details one would almost believe that the writer was perhaps living in a fascist society, leave alone the largest democracy. But the term fascist is obviously reserved by the secular politico-intellectual for exclusive use against those who speak for the traditions of India and especially for the Hindus. The memorandum said that the Central Rangfraa Administrative Council received an order from a ‘Central Intelligence Officer of the Government of Peoples Republic of Nagaland NSCN (K)’ to ‘stop the activities of Rangsomhum (Rangfraa Temple) of Kothung village’ in Tirap district and the whole of Changlang district w.e.f. January 9, 2011.’ 75 years old Shri Wangjam Chatkey, priest of the Rangfraa Administrative Council (RAC) of Kothung village, who refused to follow the diktat was tied to a post and tortured for four hours from 11.00 am to 3.00 pm on January 11, 2011. (Letter of ER L Khimun, secretary-general Rangfraa Faith Promotion Society, dt. 15th January, 2011, Changlang, Arunachal Pradesh).
Shri Khamjam Hangphuk, secretary of the Kothung village RAC was abducted on February 1, 2011 and tortured for six days in a NSCN (K) camp and was released only on payment of a ransom of 65 thousand rupees. Both the insurgent factions have quarantined the villagers and have restricted their movements and even prevented them from attending to their fields. And both, it may be reiterated, claim to fight for a greater ‘Nagaland for Christ.’ Last summer a self-styled area commander of the NSCN (IM) convened a meeting of villagers in the bordering areas of Arunachal’s Changlang district and warned them of roasting in ‘eternal hell fire’ if they worshipped the Buddha and asked them to convert to Christianity or face dire consequences. The celebration of the auspicious Buddha Purnima was banned under the threat of death. (BB Jamatia, Socio-Cultural Destabilisation of Arunachal Pradesh by Insurgent Groups and other Anti-national Forces, VIF, April, 2011, New Delhi).
Surprisingly no human rights activist or organisation, no writer or columnist hell bent on discovering Gandhian virtues in armed insurrectionists, no civil-society member perpetually stuck in a Gujarat of 2002 did even as much as shed an alligator tear for the badly bruised and nearly dead old priest and his terrorised co-religionists! The old man was not even a Hindu priest – at least the habitually communally conscious members of the supreme NAC should have raised a banner of protest, at least the leaders of the church in India, so disturbed by the spectre of violence in the name of religion, should have vocally condemned such acts as barbaric! The Rangfraa letter, drafted in a far corner of this land, ended with words that contradict the belief and stand of the proselytisers and their message of religious-unilateralism and intolerance – ‘Religious practice, according to Rangfraism, is a God-given birthright hence it is purely a personal matter. If we don’t have the right to practice our indigenous faiths and cultures in our own land; where is the land for us and where is our freedom?’[sic] It is this freedom that proselytisers have continuously undermined through fear and manipulation. The vast majority of simple Indians who are rooted to the soil and psyche of this nation have instead always encouraged, welcomed and perpetuated this freedom; and see it as essential for a united national living.
Historically the proselytisers have been a violent lot. And in stepping onto the soil of India and on surveying the extant religious freedom all around they adopted manipulative – fear instilling coercive methods to propagate their ‘truth’. Every proselytiser was and remains an iconoclast – one who thrills at violently denigrating other faiths and revels in destroying their religious symbols. In fact this has been and remains their essential motivating force in the work of foisting their ‘religion of peace’ on an unsuspecting population long used to the widest liberty in religious practices and expressions. One only needs to refer to the ecstatic expressions of their ‘great’ ‘Saint Francis Xavier’ while baptising ‘heathen’ Indian villagers and then asking them to destroy the symbols of their old faith. This is not the construct of some ‘Hindutva or right-wing historian’ the great ‘saint’ passionately describes them himself in a letter dated January 27th, 1545, Cochin, ‘After their baptism’, wrote the ‘saint’ ‘the new Christians go back to their houses and bring me their wives and families for baptism. When all are baptised I order all the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken into pieces. I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done, witnessing the destruction of the idols…’ (Henry James Coleridge, The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, vol.1, Burns and Oates, London, 1881, p.281) Through this destruction ‘saint’ Xavier saw the harvest giving its best yield, ‘This part of the world is so ready’, he gushed, ‘so teeming with shooting corns…that I hope within this year to make as many as hundred thousand Christians. (Pray the Lord of the harvest that He send forth labourers into His harvest (rogate Dominum messis, ut mittat operarios in messem suam)’ (Ibid., p.283).
It is these labourers of the harvest who have repeatedly destabilised the religio-cultural fabric of this nation, decimating with impunity local variations of lifestyles, cultures and religions and yet the church has repeatedly, throughout history, elevated these very scythe-wielding ‘labourers’ into the status of saints!
FEAR has always been one of the principal weapons of Christian proselytisers. In India these have been effectively and extensively applied on the unsuspecting Hindu, especially in the rural setting. The instilling of fear, the use of violence to occupy material and mental spaces is a method that soldiers of the Gospel have often used and continue to use to this day while operating in this country. What is intriguing – or perhaps not as intriguing – is that human rights organisations, fronts and official bodies have ignored this manifestation of violence and assault on human life and dignity.
This habit of instilling fear, using coercive methods, threat of violence and intimidation is evident in the areas where the proselytisers or their front agencies operate to create the ground for a rich harvest. The role of various church denominations in the abetment and sustenance of insurgency in India’s northeastern part is well documented. I shall not enter into its history but simply put forward a few examples of how the work is carried out even today. This would perhaps be relevant in the backdrop of the central government’s recent ‘grand gesture’ of extending the ceasefire with the NSCN (K) outfit which operates mainly in the districts of Tirap and Changlang in Arunachal Pradesh. Wherever proselytisers operate they energetically work towards ending diversities – of living, of culture and of belief. They begin decimating these diversities through violence, coercion and intimidation. The NSCN (K), like its more illustrious ‘factionpart’ the NSCN (IM) in fact carries out this task of diversity-eradication in these two districts of Arunachal Pradesh without check. The followers of the indigenous faith tradition in the area have been repeatedly threatened and assaulted just because they have displayed the will and temerity to love and worship their gods and religious symbols. In a land that is being claimed for Christ, his sons on earth brook no divergence or variety of faith.
In a memorandum, submitted earlier this year (no. RFPS/CHG/CORR-01/09-10/ dt. 15th Jan 2011) addressed to the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh with copies to the President of India, Prime Minister, Home Minister and the secretary general of the Rangfraa Faith Promotion Society made a moving appeal against this very coercion and fear – reading the details one would almost believe that the writer was perhaps living in a fascist society, leave alone the largest democracy. But the term fascist is obviously reserved by the secular politico-intellectual for exclusive use against those who speak for the traditions of India and especially for the Hindus. The memorandum said that the Central Rangfraa Administrative Council received an order from a ‘Central Intelligence Officer of the Government of Peoples Republic of Nagaland NSCN (K)’ to ‘stop the activities of Rangsomhum (Rangfraa Temple) of Kothung village’ in Tirap district and the whole of Changlang district w.e.f. January 9, 2011.’ 75 years old Shri Wangjam Chatkey, priest of the Rangfraa Administrative Council (RAC) of Kothung village, who refused to follow the diktat was tied to a post and tortured for four hours from 11.00 am to 3.00 pm on January 11, 2011. (Letter of ER L Khimun, secretary-general Rangfraa Faith Promotion Society, dt. 15th January, 2011, Changlang, Arunachal Pradesh).
Shri Khamjam Hangphuk, secretary of the Kothung village RAC was abducted on February 1, 2011 and tortured for six days in a NSCN (K) camp and was released only on payment of a ransom of 65 thousand rupees. Both the insurgent factions have quarantined the villagers and have restricted their movements and even prevented them from attending to their fields. And both, it may be reiterated, claim to fight for a greater ‘Nagaland for Christ.’ Last summer a self-styled area commander of the NSCN (IM) convened a meeting of villagers in the bordering areas of Arunachal’s Changlang district and warned them of roasting in ‘eternal hell fire’ if they worshipped the Buddha and asked them to convert to Christianity or face dire consequences. The celebration of the auspicious Buddha Purnima was banned under the threat of death. (BB Jamatia, Socio-Cultural Destabilisation of Arunachal Pradesh by Insurgent Groups and other Anti-national Forces, VIF, April, 2011, New Delhi).
Surprisingly no human rights activist or organisation, no writer or columnist hell bent on discovering Gandhian virtues in armed insurrectionists, no civil-society member perpetually stuck in a Gujarat of 2002 did even as much as shed an alligator tear for the badly bruised and nearly dead old priest and his terrorised co-religionists! The old man was not even a Hindu priest – at least the habitually communally conscious members of the supreme NAC should have raised a banner of protest, at least the leaders of the church in India, so disturbed by the spectre of violence in the name of religion, should have vocally condemned such acts as barbaric! The Rangfraa letter, drafted in a far corner of this land, ended with words that contradict the belief and stand of the proselytisers and their message of religious-unilateralism and intolerance – ‘Religious practice, according to Rangfraism, is a God-given birthright hence it is purely a personal matter. If we don’t have the right to practice our indigenous faiths and cultures in our own land; where is the land for us and where is our freedom?’[sic] It is this freedom that proselytisers have continuously undermined through fear and manipulation. The vast majority of simple Indians who are rooted to the soil and psyche of this nation have instead always encouraged, welcomed and perpetuated this freedom; and see it as essential for a united national living.
Historically the proselytisers have been a violent lot. And in stepping onto the soil of India and on surveying the extant religious freedom all around they adopted manipulative – fear instilling coercive methods to propagate their ‘truth’. Every proselytiser was and remains an iconoclast – one who thrills at violently denigrating other faiths and revels in destroying their religious symbols. In fact this has been and remains their essential motivating force in the work of foisting their ‘religion of peace’ on an unsuspecting population long used to the widest liberty in religious practices and expressions. One only needs to refer to the ecstatic expressions of their ‘great’ ‘Saint Francis Xavier’ while baptising ‘heathen’ Indian villagers and then asking them to destroy the symbols of their old faith. This is not the construct of some ‘Hindutva or right-wing historian’ the great ‘saint’ passionately describes them himself in a letter dated January 27th, 1545, Cochin, ‘After their baptism’, wrote the ‘saint’ ‘the new Christians go back to their houses and bring me their wives and families for baptism. When all are baptised I order all the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken into pieces. I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done, witnessing the destruction of the idols…’ (Henry James Coleridge, The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, vol.1, Burns and Oates, London, 1881, p.281) Through this destruction ‘saint’ Xavier saw the harvest giving its best yield, ‘This part of the world is so ready’, he gushed, ‘so teeming with shooting corns…that I hope within this year to make as many as hundred thousand Christians. (Pray the Lord of the harvest that He send forth labourers into His harvest (rogate Dominum messis, ut mittat operarios in messem suam)’ (Ibid., p.283).
It is these labourers of the harvest who have repeatedly destabilised the religio-cultural fabric of this nation, decimating with impunity local variations of lifestyles, cultures and religions and yet the church has repeatedly, throughout history, elevated these very scythe-wielding ‘labourers’ into the status of saints!
The ethnic cleansing of Hindu Reangs in Christian Mizoram
By Jagdamba Mall
AS per 2001 census, the total population of 4,34,140 Reangs is scattered in three neighbouring states of Mizoram. Assam and Tripura. Over 98 thousand Reangs live in 305 villages of Mizoram’s three districts—Mamits, Kalashiv and Lunglei. There are over one lakh Reangs in 57 villages of Assam’s three districts—Hailakandi, Karimganj and Cachar and 2 lakh 35 thousand population in Tripura’s three districts—North Tripura, East Tripura and Dhalai. This was an injustice done by Central Government to divide Reangs in three states. Because of that, the Reangs are utterly discriminated and marginalised in all the three states. There is no MLA from Reang community in Mizoram and Assam. In Tripura, Bajuban Reang is MP (Lok Sabha) and two MLAs Rajendra Reang and Manindra Reang are in Tripura Assembly. All the three political representatives are from Communist Party and thus are supporters of Church. Rajendra Reang is the Minister for Jail and Primitive Group.
In Tripura Reangs are categorised as primitive janjati whereas they are a devout Hindu and follower of Sanatan Dharma (Vaishnav Dharma). Their culture and traditions are unique and one of the richest and most refined. But due to discrimination and deprivation, they are left behind to the level of primitive condition with regard to the education and economic development. They may be economically poor but how can they be called as primitive with such a rich culture? But they are called so intentionally to undermine their Hindu Dharma. Their folksongs, folk dances and pious life style is superior in many ways in comparision to those who term them as primitive.
In Mizoram, though Reangs are devout in their Hindu Dharma and patriotism but are unorganised and have no political voice. Coupled with these, they are deprived and discriminated beyond imagination and they are categorised as primitive. The Church is very aggressive in Mizoram. In collaboration with political power, the Mizoram Church has reportedly planned to convert all Reangs into Christianity and merge them into aggressive and intolerant Mizo society so that Reang community gets extinct by being merged into Mizo society. When Reangs refused to do so, the Church and Christian Government of Mizoram started torturing them in inhuman ways. Today the Reangs condition is no better than a “slave” in Mizoram. This is classic case of recial discrimination on religious ground.
The genesis of Reangs tragedy in Mizoram :
Mizo Zairlay Pawl (MZP) is a student front and Young Mizo Association (YMA) is a youth front of Mizo National Front (MNF). These MZP, YMA and MNF are guided and supported by the Church. In 1997, MZP distributed a notice from time to time amongst Reang Community stating that Reangs are Bangladeshi. They have no claim over the land in Mizoram. MZP said that a land in Mizoram can be offered to Christ but never to tuikukh (gutter-dwellers meaning Reangs). Many of the Reang villages are not recognised and so, there is no village council. They are denied government facilities on this ground. No school, no medical facility, poor road conditions or no roads, no drinking water, so on and so forth. Over and above the missionary menace and threat to their life by armed Mizos hangover on their head like a sword. The Reang people demanded an Autonomous District Council for the Reang inhabited areas of Mizoram. The Mizoram Govt. was stunned on seeing this development in Reang Society. They thought of teaching them a lesson. Under this plan, they struck off seventeen thousand Reang names from voters list in one go in 1997 so that they will not have any political voice in Mizoram.
The unruly mob allegedly organised by Mizo Zairlay Pawl (MZP) and Young Mizo Association (YMA) attacked over 41 Reang villages, burnt their 1,009 houses, looted their properties and killed over a hundred innocent Reangs which continued from September to December 1997. The first case was triggered when a Mizo forest official was killed. Mizos blamed Reangs for this killing. In this ethnic cleansing programme spear-headed by Christian Mizos, 23 Hindu temples were either burnt or destroyed after defiling it. About 44 girls and young ladies were mass-raped and 87, people were inhumanly tortured. As a results fourty thousand Reangs look shelter in various make-shift refugee camps in Assam and Tripura. The 13 thousand Reang refugees were kept in Gharmora refugee camp in Hailakandi districts of Assam. The other 27 thousand were put in three refugee camps at (i) Naisingpara (ii) Hasapara and (iii) Hajaphera in Tripura. Neither Central Government of that time nor Communist State Government of Tripura could provide essential facilities for the survival of refugees. As a result, an epidemic spread in the refugee camps which, even after appreciable services rendered by some Hindu organisations, swallowed 900 people.
A team of Reang leaders visited New Delhi several time. They submitted a seven page memorandum to the then Home Minister and Prime Minister. But nothing could influence Mizoram Government. A team of National Human Rights Commission visited various refugee camps and submitted its report to Central Government but of no avail. A Reang Protection Committee was constituted in New Delhi to monitor the demand made to Central Government. A PIL was filed in Delhi High Court. The Court ordered the Mizoram Government to take back all the 17 thousand Reang names into voters list which were earlier deleted for no reason. The State Government was also ordered to take back all the refugees restoring their original status. But court order was not conceded on one plea or the other.
However, because of several efforts a “ tripartite” talk could have been started between State government’s of Mizoram, Tripura and Reang representatives. But the cunning Church, meanwhile constituted North-East Council for Relief and Development (NECORD) reportedly with a malafide intention of derailing the tripartite talk so that Reangs remained deprived and discriminated and thereby, vulnerable to Church crusade for mass conversion. A huge assembly of Reangs mostly Christians was organised in the Barapani Church near Shillong where the Reang representatives spear-heading the movement for Reang rights were allegedly threatened of dire consequences if they did not keep the movement within the “manageable” limit. Since there was no corresponding response from Central Government against the inimical attitude of Christian Mizoram government, an armed outfit—Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) emerged from Reang community whose 89 cadres including top ranking leaders were gunned down in one night in one go on July 9, 2000 reportedly by National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) which is a Church sponsored terrorist outfit in Tripura, trained and supported reportedly by NSCN (IM) of Nagaland. The Church mananged to push their men in garb of NECORD social workers in Reang organisations and broke it from within. As a result, the tripartite talk failed.
Today, almost all names of Reangs are deleted from voters list in Mizoram to choke their political voice whatever little they had. The village councils of most of the Reang villages have been cancelled on the mischievous plea that the villagers have been living in various refugee camps because of the fear of fresh attacks by Mizo militants. Their lands have been illegally allotted to Mizos by Mizoram government. Over and above, Mizoram Church is determined to convert all Reangs to Christianity by hook or crook.
The religious demography of Reangs :
As per 2001 census, the religious demography of Reangs in the states of Mizoram, Assam and Tripura are as under :
Mizoram – Total population of Reang—98, 225, villages – 305 ( some villages have mixed population including Mizo and Chakmas but Reangs are in majority). Hindu Reangs- 70 per cent (approx), Christian Reangs – 30 per cent (approx) Assam – Reang population – 1,00,415 , Village – 59, Hindu Reang – 98 per cent (approx), Chrisitan Reang- 2 per cent (approx), Tripura – Reang population – 2,35,500, Christian Reang – 20 per cent (approx), Hindu Reang—80 per cent.
Conspiracy of Mizoram Church :-
The Presbytarian Church in Mizoram is most dominant over political leaders, government of Mizoram and Mizo civil society. The 95 per cent Mizos are Christians. During elections it issues political and electoral diktats for Mizo civil society whom they should vote for and whom should they reject. And Church’s preference is for those who support Church agenda. The Reang Community is divout Hindu following Sanatan Dharma/Vaishanav Dharma from the ages.
Culture and traditions are most scientific and refined. They are very conservative and reject Christian conversion. They also reject Mizoisation—Christian conversion, assimilation with Mizos and finally merger in Mizo community by adopting Mizo culture and Mizo life style. This has incurred wrath of fanatic section of Mizo people which is revealed in their follow up actions. Therefore the league of Church, politicians, Mizo officials and Mizo militant organisations and fanatic civil organisations have jointly started the ethnic cleansing of Reangs (Brus).
The cause of ethnic cleaning of Bru (Reang) Community :
Because of BPL (Below Poverty Line) status of majority of Brus, they have been declared as primitive group but they are denied of even common facilities which are given to one and all. The fund meant for development of Reangs are allegedly diverted to Mizo areas. The crys of Reangs are never heard. Rather they are punished for voicing their grievances. At last they demanded for an Autonomous District Council, job reservation and two seats in Mizoram Assembly and an economic package for alround development of Reangs. Instead of showing any sympathy for poor Reangs, the Mizo communityin league with Church and militants planned to teach a lession because of which forty thousand Reangs took shelter in various make shift relief camps. Mizo Zairlay Pawl ( Mizo Student Union) volunteers went on rampage in September 1997 and the looting, burning, killing and arson continued till December 97. The arson and burning broke out simultaneously in Reang dominated three districts of Mizroam which suggest a deep rooted conspiracy. On 13 November last year (2010), a Mizo person was killed by an unidentified criminal. The Mizo community blamed Reangs for killing. In revenge, 700 Reang houses of Bungthuang village were burnt down, 5 persons were reportedly killed and crores of properties were destroyed. Over 3000 people took shelter in relief camps. Similarly every now and then, the Reangs are targeted.
It has been noticed that when ever the repatriation process of Reangs starts, burning of houses takes place mysteriously. This time also, 2,500 houses of Narsingpara refugee camp were reduced to ashes when a fire caught mysteriously on March 19 this years. Over, 15,000 people have been rendered homeless. At least 21 people including five children and 9 women were burnt to death. More than 100 people suffered burn injuries. The affected include 1,400 children and over 100 expecting mothers.
After a long and concerted efforts, Central government has given 9 crore 97 lakh to Mizoram government for Reang repatriation and rehabilitation. Here again a conspiracy is hatched. Whether Electroal Photo Identity Card (EPIC) or no EPIC every refugee alongwith his family member should be taken back. They should be kept in their original village with surrounding areas earmarked before 1997 the year of mass- exodus. Again, there must not be any attempt to convert them to Christianity and there must not be any discrimination on religious ground. The village council should be recognised and the village boundaries should be demarcated. But these are not being done. They are denied repatriation if they are not able to produce EPIC. Their children who have grown up from 1997 are denied repatriation. Their names are changed to a Mizo name. Their religion is being written as Christian. Their lands have been illegally occupied by encroachers from Mizo community. This is being done in the planned strategy of Church so that the small groups of Reangs can be easily swallowed by Mizos. The Mizoram Bru Displaced People’s Forum (MBDPF) submitted a memorandum dated December 2, 2010 to P Chidambaram, Union Home Minister but the things remain as it is. They have demanded that an independent statutory body be constituted with officials of Union government, State government of Tripura and Mizoram and representatives of MBDPF but nothing has so far been done in this regard. The possible conspiracy in Naishingpara inferno on March 19, 2011 and Hamshapara devastating fire on March 15,2010 is required to be investigated by a retired Supreme Court Justice.
AS per 2001 census, the total population of 4,34,140 Reangs is scattered in three neighbouring states of Mizoram. Assam and Tripura. Over 98 thousand Reangs live in 305 villages of Mizoram’s three districts—Mamits, Kalashiv and Lunglei. There are over one lakh Reangs in 57 villages of Assam’s three districts—Hailakandi, Karimganj and Cachar and 2 lakh 35 thousand population in Tripura’s three districts—North Tripura, East Tripura and Dhalai. This was an injustice done by Central Government to divide Reangs in three states. Because of that, the Reangs are utterly discriminated and marginalised in all the three states. There is no MLA from Reang community in Mizoram and Assam. In Tripura, Bajuban Reang is MP (Lok Sabha) and two MLAs Rajendra Reang and Manindra Reang are in Tripura Assembly. All the three political representatives are from Communist Party and thus are supporters of Church. Rajendra Reang is the Minister for Jail and Primitive Group.
In Tripura Reangs are categorised as primitive janjati whereas they are a devout Hindu and follower of Sanatan Dharma (Vaishnav Dharma). Their culture and traditions are unique and one of the richest and most refined. But due to discrimination and deprivation, they are left behind to the level of primitive condition with regard to the education and economic development. They may be economically poor but how can they be called as primitive with such a rich culture? But they are called so intentionally to undermine their Hindu Dharma. Their folksongs, folk dances and pious life style is superior in many ways in comparision to those who term them as primitive.
In Mizoram, though Reangs are devout in their Hindu Dharma and patriotism but are unorganised and have no political voice. Coupled with these, they are deprived and discriminated beyond imagination and they are categorised as primitive. The Church is very aggressive in Mizoram. In collaboration with political power, the Mizoram Church has reportedly planned to convert all Reangs into Christianity and merge them into aggressive and intolerant Mizo society so that Reang community gets extinct by being merged into Mizo society. When Reangs refused to do so, the Church and Christian Government of Mizoram started torturing them in inhuman ways. Today the Reangs condition is no better than a “slave” in Mizoram. This is classic case of recial discrimination on religious ground.
The genesis of Reangs tragedy in Mizoram :
Mizo Zairlay Pawl (MZP) is a student front and Young Mizo Association (YMA) is a youth front of Mizo National Front (MNF). These MZP, YMA and MNF are guided and supported by the Church. In 1997, MZP distributed a notice from time to time amongst Reang Community stating that Reangs are Bangladeshi. They have no claim over the land in Mizoram. MZP said that a land in Mizoram can be offered to Christ but never to tuikukh (gutter-dwellers meaning Reangs). Many of the Reang villages are not recognised and so, there is no village council. They are denied government facilities on this ground. No school, no medical facility, poor road conditions or no roads, no drinking water, so on and so forth. Over and above the missionary menace and threat to their life by armed Mizos hangover on their head like a sword. The Reang people demanded an Autonomous District Council for the Reang inhabited areas of Mizoram. The Mizoram Govt. was stunned on seeing this development in Reang Society. They thought of teaching them a lesson. Under this plan, they struck off seventeen thousand Reang names from voters list in one go in 1997 so that they will not have any political voice in Mizoram.
The unruly mob allegedly organised by Mizo Zairlay Pawl (MZP) and Young Mizo Association (YMA) attacked over 41 Reang villages, burnt their 1,009 houses, looted their properties and killed over a hundred innocent Reangs which continued from September to December 1997. The first case was triggered when a Mizo forest official was killed. Mizos blamed Reangs for this killing. In this ethnic cleansing programme spear-headed by Christian Mizos, 23 Hindu temples were either burnt or destroyed after defiling it. About 44 girls and young ladies were mass-raped and 87, people were inhumanly tortured. As a results fourty thousand Reangs look shelter in various make-shift refugee camps in Assam and Tripura. The 13 thousand Reang refugees were kept in Gharmora refugee camp in Hailakandi districts of Assam. The other 27 thousand were put in three refugee camps at (i) Naisingpara (ii) Hasapara and (iii) Hajaphera in Tripura. Neither Central Government of that time nor Communist State Government of Tripura could provide essential facilities for the survival of refugees. As a result, an epidemic spread in the refugee camps which, even after appreciable services rendered by some Hindu organisations, swallowed 900 people.
A team of Reang leaders visited New Delhi several time. They submitted a seven page memorandum to the then Home Minister and Prime Minister. But nothing could influence Mizoram Government. A team of National Human Rights Commission visited various refugee camps and submitted its report to Central Government but of no avail. A Reang Protection Committee was constituted in New Delhi to monitor the demand made to Central Government. A PIL was filed in Delhi High Court. The Court ordered the Mizoram Government to take back all the 17 thousand Reang names into voters list which were earlier deleted for no reason. The State Government was also ordered to take back all the refugees restoring their original status. But court order was not conceded on one plea or the other.
However, because of several efforts a “ tripartite” talk could have been started between State government’s of Mizoram, Tripura and Reang representatives. But the cunning Church, meanwhile constituted North-East Council for Relief and Development (NECORD) reportedly with a malafide intention of derailing the tripartite talk so that Reangs remained deprived and discriminated and thereby, vulnerable to Church crusade for mass conversion. A huge assembly of Reangs mostly Christians was organised in the Barapani Church near Shillong where the Reang representatives spear-heading the movement for Reang rights were allegedly threatened of dire consequences if they did not keep the movement within the “manageable” limit. Since there was no corresponding response from Central Government against the inimical attitude of Christian Mizoram government, an armed outfit—Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) emerged from Reang community whose 89 cadres including top ranking leaders were gunned down in one night in one go on July 9, 2000 reportedly by National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) which is a Church sponsored terrorist outfit in Tripura, trained and supported reportedly by NSCN (IM) of Nagaland. The Church mananged to push their men in garb of NECORD social workers in Reang organisations and broke it from within. As a result, the tripartite talk failed.
Today, almost all names of Reangs are deleted from voters list in Mizoram to choke their political voice whatever little they had. The village councils of most of the Reang villages have been cancelled on the mischievous plea that the villagers have been living in various refugee camps because of the fear of fresh attacks by Mizo militants. Their lands have been illegally allotted to Mizos by Mizoram government. Over and above, Mizoram Church is determined to convert all Reangs to Christianity by hook or crook.
The religious demography of Reangs :
As per 2001 census, the religious demography of Reangs in the states of Mizoram, Assam and Tripura are as under :
Mizoram – Total population of Reang—98, 225, villages – 305 ( some villages have mixed population including Mizo and Chakmas but Reangs are in majority). Hindu Reangs- 70 per cent (approx), Christian Reangs – 30 per cent (approx) Assam – Reang population – 1,00,415 , Village – 59, Hindu Reang – 98 per cent (approx), Chrisitan Reang- 2 per cent (approx), Tripura – Reang population – 2,35,500, Christian Reang – 20 per cent (approx), Hindu Reang—80 per cent.
Conspiracy of Mizoram Church :-
The Presbytarian Church in Mizoram is most dominant over political leaders, government of Mizoram and Mizo civil society. The 95 per cent Mizos are Christians. During elections it issues political and electoral diktats for Mizo civil society whom they should vote for and whom should they reject. And Church’s preference is for those who support Church agenda. The Reang Community is divout Hindu following Sanatan Dharma/Vaishanav Dharma from the ages.
Culture and traditions are most scientific and refined. They are very conservative and reject Christian conversion. They also reject Mizoisation—Christian conversion, assimilation with Mizos and finally merger in Mizo community by adopting Mizo culture and Mizo life style. This has incurred wrath of fanatic section of Mizo people which is revealed in their follow up actions. Therefore the league of Church, politicians, Mizo officials and Mizo militant organisations and fanatic civil organisations have jointly started the ethnic cleansing of Reangs (Brus).
The cause of ethnic cleaning of Bru (Reang) Community :
Because of BPL (Below Poverty Line) status of majority of Brus, they have been declared as primitive group but they are denied of even common facilities which are given to one and all. The fund meant for development of Reangs are allegedly diverted to Mizo areas. The crys of Reangs are never heard. Rather they are punished for voicing their grievances. At last they demanded for an Autonomous District Council, job reservation and two seats in Mizoram Assembly and an economic package for alround development of Reangs. Instead of showing any sympathy for poor Reangs, the Mizo communityin league with Church and militants planned to teach a lession because of which forty thousand Reangs took shelter in various make shift relief camps. Mizo Zairlay Pawl ( Mizo Student Union) volunteers went on rampage in September 1997 and the looting, burning, killing and arson continued till December 97. The arson and burning broke out simultaneously in Reang dominated three districts of Mizroam which suggest a deep rooted conspiracy. On 13 November last year (2010), a Mizo person was killed by an unidentified criminal. The Mizo community blamed Reangs for killing. In revenge, 700 Reang houses of Bungthuang village were burnt down, 5 persons were reportedly killed and crores of properties were destroyed. Over 3000 people took shelter in relief camps. Similarly every now and then, the Reangs are targeted.
It has been noticed that when ever the repatriation process of Reangs starts, burning of houses takes place mysteriously. This time also, 2,500 houses of Narsingpara refugee camp were reduced to ashes when a fire caught mysteriously on March 19 this years. Over, 15,000 people have been rendered homeless. At least 21 people including five children and 9 women were burnt to death. More than 100 people suffered burn injuries. The affected include 1,400 children and over 100 expecting mothers.
After a long and concerted efforts, Central government has given 9 crore 97 lakh to Mizoram government for Reang repatriation and rehabilitation. Here again a conspiracy is hatched. Whether Electroal Photo Identity Card (EPIC) or no EPIC every refugee alongwith his family member should be taken back. They should be kept in their original village with surrounding areas earmarked before 1997 the year of mass- exodus. Again, there must not be any attempt to convert them to Christianity and there must not be any discrimination on religious ground. The village council should be recognised and the village boundaries should be demarcated. But these are not being done. They are denied repatriation if they are not able to produce EPIC. Their children who have grown up from 1997 are denied repatriation. Their names are changed to a Mizo name. Their religion is being written as Christian. Their lands have been illegally occupied by encroachers from Mizo community. This is being done in the planned strategy of Church so that the small groups of Reangs can be easily swallowed by Mizos. The Mizoram Bru Displaced People’s Forum (MBDPF) submitted a memorandum dated December 2, 2010 to P Chidambaram, Union Home Minister but the things remain as it is. They have demanded that an independent statutory body be constituted with officials of Union government, State government of Tripura and Mizoram and representatives of MBDPF but nothing has so far been done in this regard. The possible conspiracy in Naishingpara inferno on March 19, 2011 and Hamshapara devastating fire on March 15,2010 is required to be investigated by a retired Supreme Court Justice.
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