Buddhists under threat to embrace Christianity in Arunachal Pradesh
From Jyoti Lal Chowdhury, Silchar
ARUNACHAL PRADESH in north east region of the country is a home to 20 major and about 100 sub tribes. They have been living peacefully for centuries. But, they are now in perpetual fear, particularly after the Chinese aggression of 1962, of extinction of their distinct culture and tribal faiths at the hands of Christian missionaries. In fact, this oasis of peace in the turbulent frontier region has also come under the impact of feverish proselytisation design. Although there was not a single Christian in 1951, their number rose to 1438 in 1961, 2,593 in 1971 and in 2001, the trend is quite alarming.
This is clear from the census report of 2001. Of the total population of 10,97,968, 7,05,158 are schedule tribes, constituting 64.2 per cent of total population. Of the total population of ST, 47.2 per cent has been returned as "other religion followers", besides 26.5 per cent of STs are Christians, 13.1 per cent Hindus and 11.7 per cent Buddhists. Sizeable population among Adi, Nishi, Nocte and Wancho have been converted to Christianity. Khampti, Monpa, Momba, Sherdukpen and Singpho are mostly followers of Buddhism.
Foreseeing the alarming trend of conversion activities of the missionaries, it is to be recalled, all the tribal organisations started mass movement against it and ultimately the territorial Assembly passed the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Indigenous Faith Bill 1978 providing legal and constitutional protection from conversion to other faiths alien to Arunachal Pradesh, "by force, fraud, inducement and allurement."
But despite the Act and the inner line restrictions on movement of non-tribals, missionaries could make considerable headway in bringing a sizeable number of tribals into Christian fold, particularly in Lohit and Subansiri district. Arunachalees still recall with gratitude the fold stand taken by Lt. Governor K A A Raja and the then Chief Minister Prem Khandu Thangon for the enactment of the Religious Freedom Bill in the face of stiff opposition by the Christian political leaders of Meghalaya and Nagaland and the influential ‘Shillong Churches Committee’.
The dreaded terrorist outfit National Socialist Council of Nagaland led by Isac Chish Swu, chairman, and Thuingalem Muivah, general secretary, better known as NSCN (IM) and regarded as the fountain-head of insurgency in north east region, which is claiming and campaigning for the inclusion of Naga inhabited areas of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh in greater Nagaland, has hidden its design to convert the people of these contiguous areas into Christianity.
After Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh is now the soft target of the missionaries with enormous funds from Uncle Sam’s country. It was not long ago that a group of 11 American and Canadian missionaries in the name of four-day harvest and healing festival near Itanagar induced the innocent people of the state for religious conversion. They not only camouflaged their identity but also their intent and purpose, besides four if them could make their entry in the state on the strengthen of two visas and two passports.
The Buddhists monks said that in the last days, of May 22 NSCN (IM) rebels armed with AK 47 and SLRs warned the villagers to convert to Christianity by June 4 or else face dire consequences. They have identified the militant commander leader Mitchel Lingam Tangkhul. Both the Buddhists monks have drawn the attention of the government, security forces and international Buddhists Forum towards the NSCN (IM) threat.
He threatened them to embrace Christianity and cautioned them not to celebrate any festival in glory of Buddha. The role of catholic priests of Miao Bishop’s is also reported by the Forum.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Kashmir’s date with Stone Age
Kashmir is slipping into the stone age, literally and metaphorically. Literally because the terrorists and their hired goons have taken to stone as the easiest weapon to fight the security forces. Metaphorically because their lack of sensitivity is exposed in the fact that the terrorists are pushing children and teenagers to the forefront to fight their messy fight against India.
Earlier the Kashmiri terrorists used to post women in the front, and attack from behind, thereby tying the hands of the security forces. Women have probably become wiser. Now they are pushing children to the front.Teenagers, kids who should be in schools, not in the streets are the latest victims of their so-called holy war. These children are let loose on the security forces. The picture of one policeman surrounded and being beaten by six-seven lathi wielding, masked teenagers, published in all the national dailies on June 29, 2010 explains a lot about these hot-heads of what is going on. The protesters take to the street, provoke the police and security men. When they retaliate, and if any of the protester is killed, it sets the stage for the demonstration the next day. The out-of-power politicians cheer the teenagers from the fringe, blame the security forces and demand their withdrawal.
If the government and the politicians are interested in the safety and welfare of the people of Kashmir and want to protect the so-called local identity then they should appeal to the terrorists not to stoop so low and throw the future generations into the mouth of the cannons. Which is what Omar Abdullah, the Chief Minister has done now. There was a phase when the terrorists used the mosques as their base and attacked the security forces. In one such incident, one of the holiest mosques Char-e-Sharif was partially burnt and was restored by the security forces.
What is more appalling is the huge price the security forces are paying in this. According to the CRPF, 1600 men have been injured and grounded in the past two years in different parts of the valley because of stone pelting. Imagine the enormity, 1600 men, equivalent of 20 companies, injured in about 700 days. Over 200 vehicles have been damaged. According to reports, 52 personnel have been injured in the last one week. If one person is killed in police firing, the valley erupts as if on cue. But when the security forces are maimed or killed in dozens by the terrorist attacks, the government and the society do not even murmer.
We have said it in these columns before and we repeat: What is lacking in Kashmir is the political will. The security measures need to be supported by actions by the governments at the state and the centre. The political forces out of power in the state and inimical to the interest of the nation should be marginalised. There is hardly anything called functioning economy in the valley. The local elected bodies are defunct. People who have visited Kashmir before and recently speak of the huge ecological degradation that has taken place there, Dal Lake being the biggest example. Once the pride of Kashmir, it is now plagued by weeds and stinking water. The Rs 300 crore loan sanctioned by the World Bank for clean-up was spent on it, but with little result.
Omar Abdullah made a warming gesture in inviting the Kashmiri Pandits to worship at the Kheer Bhawani temple. Over 40,000 Kashmiris worshipped there on June 18, 2010. The state ensured their safety. Let this be a beginning. Such measures should be repeated oftener, which would send out a strong message of India’s determination to restore the valley to the Kashmiris.
Every time there is violence, the PDP led by Mehbooba Mufti raise the bogey of excesses by the security forces. Her party has a myopic view, it does not wish to see the stress under which the security forces are. The Army Chief Y K Singh has categorically stated that time was not ripe to reduce forces in the valley as terrorists continue to operate from several hideouts. He is also of the opinion that political steps are needed in Kashmir.
Calming Kashmir is not an impossible task. After decades of violence that has taken them nowhere, the ordinary Kashmiri must be wanting to get on with life. People like Shah Faesal, who topped the IAS this year should be inspiration enough in the political, social and administrative processes to restore the system of local governance in the state. We have powerful instruments in our Constitution like the Panchayati Raj that can go miles in healing the situation there. The major stumbling block is the monetary and military help that the extremists and their hangers on receive from across the Western border, which needs to be addressed by Delhi. Pakistan has been following the diabolic Afzal Khan policy. The answer should be Shivaji’s.
Earlier the Kashmiri terrorists used to post women in the front, and attack from behind, thereby tying the hands of the security forces. Women have probably become wiser. Now they are pushing children to the front.Teenagers, kids who should be in schools, not in the streets are the latest victims of their so-called holy war. These children are let loose on the security forces. The picture of one policeman surrounded and being beaten by six-seven lathi wielding, masked teenagers, published in all the national dailies on June 29, 2010 explains a lot about these hot-heads of what is going on. The protesters take to the street, provoke the police and security men. When they retaliate, and if any of the protester is killed, it sets the stage for the demonstration the next day. The out-of-power politicians cheer the teenagers from the fringe, blame the security forces and demand their withdrawal.
If the government and the politicians are interested in the safety and welfare of the people of Kashmir and want to protect the so-called local identity then they should appeal to the terrorists not to stoop so low and throw the future generations into the mouth of the cannons. Which is what Omar Abdullah, the Chief Minister has done now. There was a phase when the terrorists used the mosques as their base and attacked the security forces. In one such incident, one of the holiest mosques Char-e-Sharif was partially burnt and was restored by the security forces.
What is more appalling is the huge price the security forces are paying in this. According to the CRPF, 1600 men have been injured and grounded in the past two years in different parts of the valley because of stone pelting. Imagine the enormity, 1600 men, equivalent of 20 companies, injured in about 700 days. Over 200 vehicles have been damaged. According to reports, 52 personnel have been injured in the last one week. If one person is killed in police firing, the valley erupts as if on cue. But when the security forces are maimed or killed in dozens by the terrorist attacks, the government and the society do not even murmer.
We have said it in these columns before and we repeat: What is lacking in Kashmir is the political will. The security measures need to be supported by actions by the governments at the state and the centre. The political forces out of power in the state and inimical to the interest of the nation should be marginalised. There is hardly anything called functioning economy in the valley. The local elected bodies are defunct. People who have visited Kashmir before and recently speak of the huge ecological degradation that has taken place there, Dal Lake being the biggest example. Once the pride of Kashmir, it is now plagued by weeds and stinking water. The Rs 300 crore loan sanctioned by the World Bank for clean-up was spent on it, but with little result.
Omar Abdullah made a warming gesture in inviting the Kashmiri Pandits to worship at the Kheer Bhawani temple. Over 40,000 Kashmiris worshipped there on June 18, 2010. The state ensured their safety. Let this be a beginning. Such measures should be repeated oftener, which would send out a strong message of India’s determination to restore the valley to the Kashmiris.
Every time there is violence, the PDP led by Mehbooba Mufti raise the bogey of excesses by the security forces. Her party has a myopic view, it does not wish to see the stress under which the security forces are. The Army Chief Y K Singh has categorically stated that time was not ripe to reduce forces in the valley as terrorists continue to operate from several hideouts. He is also of the opinion that political steps are needed in Kashmir.
Calming Kashmir is not an impossible task. After decades of violence that has taken them nowhere, the ordinary Kashmiri must be wanting to get on with life. People like Shah Faesal, who topped the IAS this year should be inspiration enough in the political, social and administrative processes to restore the system of local governance in the state. We have powerful instruments in our Constitution like the Panchayati Raj that can go miles in healing the situation there. The major stumbling block is the monetary and military help that the extremists and their hangers on receive from across the Western border, which needs to be addressed by Delhi. Pakistan has been following the diabolic Afzal Khan policy. The answer should be Shivaji’s.
Economic blockade cost Manipur two billion rupees a day
IMPHAL: The economic blockade may have ended in Manipur, but the loss that the State has suffered due to the 66-day long blockade is enormous.
Manipur State suffered a loss of about two billion rupees per day due to the economic blockade.
N Mohendro Singh, an economist said that during the blockade petrol was not merely scarce, but its price in black market had gone up to 140 rupees a litre.
For five litres of petrol one had to wait for about 10-15 hours before the petrol pump starts delivering it.
As far as the economic calculation is concerned we lose about 132- 200 crore a day on account of the economic blockade. In 2004-2005, Manipur suffered the setback of economic blockade for about 60 days and daily loss was about 2.32 crore with the result that in 2004-2005 Manipur suffered the loss of 139.20 crore ," said Singh.
The economic blockade he says has not only brought the State to a standstill but it created a space for black marketing.
Singh said that the blockade has dehumanised the people of Manipur on all fronts from educational sector to the industrial sector.
He said that the people have started questioning the existence of the government and its functioning and that the blockade created a gap between the government and the people.
"It (economic blockade) has made a loss of around two billion rupees per day, and we the common mass have suffered the most. How should we describe the situation to our children, said Tharosangbi Devi, a vendor.
Singh added that all the private schools including the government schools stopped functioning because petrol was not available and vans could not ply. The blockade, he says, of such a long period can produce a generation gap in education, in human capital formation and in human resource mobilisation.
Singh says that the government of India and Manipur should apply all rules and regulations to prevent such a situation because it is against the humanity and mankind.
In 2005 and 2006 Manipur suffered a loss of about 2.5 billion rupees per day and in 2006-2007 it suffered a loss of 2.31 billion rupees, said Singh.
Manipur State suffered a loss of about two billion rupees per day due to the economic blockade.
N Mohendro Singh, an economist said that during the blockade petrol was not merely scarce, but its price in black market had gone up to 140 rupees a litre.
For five litres of petrol one had to wait for about 10-15 hours before the petrol pump starts delivering it.
As far as the economic calculation is concerned we lose about 132- 200 crore a day on account of the economic blockade. In 2004-2005, Manipur suffered the setback of economic blockade for about 60 days and daily loss was about 2.32 crore with the result that in 2004-2005 Manipur suffered the loss of 139.20 crore ," said Singh.
The economic blockade he says has not only brought the State to a standstill but it created a space for black marketing.
Singh said that the blockade has dehumanised the people of Manipur on all fronts from educational sector to the industrial sector.
He said that the people have started questioning the existence of the government and its functioning and that the blockade created a gap between the government and the people.
"It (economic blockade) has made a loss of around two billion rupees per day, and we the common mass have suffered the most. How should we describe the situation to our children, said Tharosangbi Devi, a vendor.
Singh added that all the private schools including the government schools stopped functioning because petrol was not available and vans could not ply. The blockade, he says, of such a long period can produce a generation gap in education, in human capital formation and in human resource mobilisation.
Singh says that the government of India and Manipur should apply all rules and regulations to prevent such a situation because it is against the humanity and mankind.
In 2005 and 2006 Manipur suffered a loss of about 2.5 billion rupees per day and in 2006-2007 it suffered a loss of 2.31 billion rupees, said Singh.
A professor’s palm chopped off, leg mutilated
Boors have a field day in Kerala
A professor’s palm chopped off, leg mutilated
By Arun Lakshman Thiruvananthapuram
Taliban court orders chopping off the right hand of Malayalam professor in Kerala
The police on further investigation found that there were Islamic courts which were modelled in Taliban style in different parts of the state and one Eaasa Moulavi who was once a close associate of the PDP leader Abdul Nasser Madani was the person behind this Islamic court or Darul Khada.
PROF TD Joseph who is the head of the department of Malayalam in Newman’s College, Thodupuzha in Idukki district was attacked on July 4, 2010 after, he was returning home, attending the Sunday mass at Nirmala church near his home along with his eighty eight-year old mother and his sister who is a nun in Newzealand.
A group of Islamic fundamentalists who are the cadres and leaders of the Islamic fundamentalist organisation Popular Front of India chopped off his right hand after dragging him out of his car in front of his ailing old mother and elder sister. The reason for this action on Prof Joseph was that he had prepared a question paper for the internal exams of Malayalam paper for the second year BCom students of his college and which contained certain references which were considered blasphemous to Prophet Mohammed and thereby Islamic faith.
This question paper incident occurred on March 26, 2010 and after the state Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan ordering a criminal inquiry into the incident the Professor was arrested and remanded to judicial custody. The police had also tortured his son Mithun who was doing his Engineering course as Prof Joseph was absconding for some days in the fear of arrest.
There were protest marches in Thodupuzha by the Islamic groups and even Congress and Muslim League joined in it .The college management and the Christian diocese also apologised on behalf of the teacher to people if their faith was insulted as alleged by the Popular Front activists.
The judicial enquiry against the issue is still on
Meanwhile the Popular Front of India, which is fast emerging as the terror link in Kerala issued open threats against the teacher and openly asserted that the right hand of Prof Joseph would be chopped off. There were three or four attempts earlier on this but the police even after being informed did not provide him any security.
After the chopping incident, Police swung into action and arrested two Popular Front activists, Ashraf and Jaffer. Ashraf is considered to be the brain behind this action. However on interrogation Ashraf told police that an Islamic Court Darul Khada (God’s court or Gods abode), which is functioning in Erattuepetta in Kottayam district had sentenced to chop off the right hand of Prof Joseph and that he and his group had only implemented the fatwa or the sentence of the Islamic court.
The police on further investigation found that there were Islamic courts which were modelled in Taliban style in different parts of the state and one Eaasa Moulavi who was once a close associate of the PDP leader Abdul Nasser Madani was the person behind this Islamic court or Darul Khada.
However highly placed sources in the state police told Organiser that the police has not opened about this Darul Khada for fear of creating a major issue in the state and society as such. Sources in the police also said that the Islamic court was trying to interfere in all issues concerning the Muslim community in the state and that the Popular Front was behind this. The Islamic court or Darul Khada was trying to interfere in even family disputes and divorce cases in the Muslim community and is also campaigning among the Muslims in the state to reduce their dependence on the state police and the court of law as in Islam it is the religion and the religious court which is the foremost.
Another interesting aspect to the fundamentalist nature shown by the Popular Front is the storm created at the Sacret Heart Higher Secondary School in Malappuram district over the issue of an Arabic lady teacher wearing mafta( veil).
The Popular Front activists with the support of the Edarikkode Panchayath president and the local police officers have staged dharna and protest marches in front of the school and has issued a fatwa against the Principal to leave the school for good or would otherwise be burnt to death. The issue was a rather innocent comment made by the Principal on the mafta worn by the then Arabic teacher Rasiya. The Principal had joked that if the scarf was on both sides of the shoulder it would look more beautiful. The teacher did not like it and had made small issues in the staff room on this. When she came to know that the Arabic teacher did not liked her comment, the Principal had apologised and settled the issue.The Arabic teacher later left the school for getting a better placement and was accorded a warm send off at the behest of the Principal. However several months after she left the school, Rasiya, the Arabic teacher complained to local authorities that she was insulted by Sister Tessy Anto, the Principal of Sacred Heart school on wearing of mafta. This was taken up by the Popular Front activists who have now issued a fatwa on the Principal to quit the school.
Sources in the police and district administration told Organiser that there were certain schools in the area controlled by Islamists who wants to somehow close the Sacred Heart school for non issues as there were less students in schools controlled by the Islamists. The sources said that this was the actual issue rather than any major one. However the Popular Front activists created a situation of fear and dread in the school by barging into the Principal’s room and to threatening her with dire consequences if she did not quit the school.
Of late several schools run by Non Muslim managements are facing this predicament with the Popular Front creating noisy scenes throughout the state on non issues like wearing mafta and threatening the school managements and the teachers with dire consequences including threat to their lives. This is slowly creating a fear psychosis in the state which is exactly what the Islamists wanted to do for their own ulterior motives.
The silence of several human rights activists on the chopping off hand of Prof Joseph and the death threat on Sister Tessy Anto including noted journalist BRP Bhaskar and Gro Vasu chopping of hand of Prof Joseph and the death threat on Sister Tessy Anton is being hotly discussed in the intellectual circles of the state.
A professor’s palm chopped off, leg mutilated
By Arun Lakshman Thiruvananthapuram
Taliban court orders chopping off the right hand of Malayalam professor in Kerala
The police on further investigation found that there were Islamic courts which were modelled in Taliban style in different parts of the state and one Eaasa Moulavi who was once a close associate of the PDP leader Abdul Nasser Madani was the person behind this Islamic court or Darul Khada.
PROF TD Joseph who is the head of the department of Malayalam in Newman’s College, Thodupuzha in Idukki district was attacked on July 4, 2010 after, he was returning home, attending the Sunday mass at Nirmala church near his home along with his eighty eight-year old mother and his sister who is a nun in Newzealand.
A group of Islamic fundamentalists who are the cadres and leaders of the Islamic fundamentalist organisation Popular Front of India chopped off his right hand after dragging him out of his car in front of his ailing old mother and elder sister. The reason for this action on Prof Joseph was that he had prepared a question paper for the internal exams of Malayalam paper for the second year BCom students of his college and which contained certain references which were considered blasphemous to Prophet Mohammed and thereby Islamic faith.
This question paper incident occurred on March 26, 2010 and after the state Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan ordering a criminal inquiry into the incident the Professor was arrested and remanded to judicial custody. The police had also tortured his son Mithun who was doing his Engineering course as Prof Joseph was absconding for some days in the fear of arrest.
There were protest marches in Thodupuzha by the Islamic groups and even Congress and Muslim League joined in it .The college management and the Christian diocese also apologised on behalf of the teacher to people if their faith was insulted as alleged by the Popular Front activists.
The judicial enquiry against the issue is still on
Meanwhile the Popular Front of India, which is fast emerging as the terror link in Kerala issued open threats against the teacher and openly asserted that the right hand of Prof Joseph would be chopped off. There were three or four attempts earlier on this but the police even after being informed did not provide him any security.
After the chopping incident, Police swung into action and arrested two Popular Front activists, Ashraf and Jaffer. Ashraf is considered to be the brain behind this action. However on interrogation Ashraf told police that an Islamic Court Darul Khada (God’s court or Gods abode), which is functioning in Erattuepetta in Kottayam district had sentenced to chop off the right hand of Prof Joseph and that he and his group had only implemented the fatwa or the sentence of the Islamic court.
The police on further investigation found that there were Islamic courts which were modelled in Taliban style in different parts of the state and one Eaasa Moulavi who was once a close associate of the PDP leader Abdul Nasser Madani was the person behind this Islamic court or Darul Khada.
However highly placed sources in the state police told Organiser that the police has not opened about this Darul Khada for fear of creating a major issue in the state and society as such. Sources in the police also said that the Islamic court was trying to interfere in all issues concerning the Muslim community in the state and that the Popular Front was behind this. The Islamic court or Darul Khada was trying to interfere in even family disputes and divorce cases in the Muslim community and is also campaigning among the Muslims in the state to reduce their dependence on the state police and the court of law as in Islam it is the religion and the religious court which is the foremost.
Another interesting aspect to the fundamentalist nature shown by the Popular Front is the storm created at the Sacret Heart Higher Secondary School in Malappuram district over the issue of an Arabic lady teacher wearing mafta( veil).
The Popular Front activists with the support of the Edarikkode Panchayath president and the local police officers have staged dharna and protest marches in front of the school and has issued a fatwa against the Principal to leave the school for good or would otherwise be burnt to death. The issue was a rather innocent comment made by the Principal on the mafta worn by the then Arabic teacher Rasiya. The Principal had joked that if the scarf was on both sides of the shoulder it would look more beautiful. The teacher did not like it and had made small issues in the staff room on this. When she came to know that the Arabic teacher did not liked her comment, the Principal had apologised and settled the issue.The Arabic teacher later left the school for getting a better placement and was accorded a warm send off at the behest of the Principal. However several months after she left the school, Rasiya, the Arabic teacher complained to local authorities that she was insulted by Sister Tessy Anto, the Principal of Sacred Heart school on wearing of mafta. This was taken up by the Popular Front activists who have now issued a fatwa on the Principal to quit the school.
Sources in the police and district administration told Organiser that there were certain schools in the area controlled by Islamists who wants to somehow close the Sacred Heart school for non issues as there were less students in schools controlled by the Islamists. The sources said that this was the actual issue rather than any major one. However the Popular Front activists created a situation of fear and dread in the school by barging into the Principal’s room and to threatening her with dire consequences if she did not quit the school.
Of late several schools run by Non Muslim managements are facing this predicament with the Popular Front creating noisy scenes throughout the state on non issues like wearing mafta and threatening the school managements and the teachers with dire consequences including threat to their lives. This is slowly creating a fear psychosis in the state which is exactly what the Islamists wanted to do for their own ulterior motives.
The silence of several human rights activists on the chopping off hand of Prof Joseph and the death threat on Sister Tessy Anto including noted journalist BRP Bhaskar and Gro Vasu chopping of hand of Prof Joseph and the death threat on Sister Tessy Anton is being hotly discussed in the intellectual circles of the state.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
A study on the mullah demand for Islamic banking in India
EVER since the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation decided to join hands with some groups from the Middle East to launch Islamic banking in the State, the question whether Islamic banking is good for the country or not has attracted animated discussion in different circles-from bankers to financial experts and from vote-bank politicians to patriotic forces.
Islamic Banking, published by India Foundation, New Delhi, discusses Islamic banking threadbare, explains what it is and how it functions and also discusses the global experience with Islamic banking and projects implications for India.
The theoretical part of the book has been done by Shri Amit Malviya, a finance professional in Mumbai. Former Union Minister and expert on economic matters Dr Subramanian Swamy is the moving spirit behind the legal battle against Islamic banking in Kerala. He has given his views on the issue. The petition filed by him in Kerala High Court and the stay order issued by the High Court on the matter have also been included in the book.
Highlighting the truth of Islamic banking the book says that Islamic or sharia banks differ from regular banks in two major ways. One, as commanded in the Koran, the charging to interest is prohibited in all monetary transactions. Two, the Islamic banks are supervised by a board of Islamic scholars and clerics whose job is to ensure that the banks�s activities comply with sharia law. "The truth, however, is that like all banks, sharia banks do charge interest-they just give another name-and that the clerics supervising the banks have ties to extremist, even terrorist groups, which work towards the Islamisation and world dominance."
The author makes a point that those who support the plea for an alternate financing channel to support the Muslim community need to realise that India�s banking is �inclusive� and the reluctance of some Muslims to use banks is a case of self-exclusion, not discrimination. "Islamic banking is not what is needed to help Muslims. When Below Poverty Line (BPL) families can be helped without communal identification and state benefits can be given on socio-economic grounds, why are Muslims being treated any differently, the book asks.
"The sharia is the cannon law of Muslims. A financial services company set up with government participation which would follow the cannon law of a particular religion is a clear instance of the state favouring a particular religion. This violates Article 27 of the Constitution," says Dr Subramanian Swamy further adding that the government order issued in this regard also violates Article 14, 15 and Article 25 of the Constitution also.
Dr Swamy further says that the unwritten and unstated danger from the Islamic institution would be that when thousands of crore rupees arrive in Kerala, Muslim youth would get loan, while the Hindus would be denied on one technicality or another. "Word will be spread that if the Hindu converts to Islam he or she will get the loan easily. Given the high unemployment of educated youth in Kerala, and that Hindus are just 52 per cent of the State population it will be in no time that economic pressures will force the State to become Hindu minority. Then the State will drift quickly to Dar-ul-Islam and like in Kashmir, soon the Hindus will have to migrate out or be driven out, or convert to Islam," Dr Swamy adds.
Islamic Banking, published by India Foundation, New Delhi, discusses Islamic banking threadbare, explains what it is and how it functions and also discusses the global experience with Islamic banking and projects implications for India.
The theoretical part of the book has been done by Shri Amit Malviya, a finance professional in Mumbai. Former Union Minister and expert on economic matters Dr Subramanian Swamy is the moving spirit behind the legal battle against Islamic banking in Kerala. He has given his views on the issue. The petition filed by him in Kerala High Court and the stay order issued by the High Court on the matter have also been included in the book.
Highlighting the truth of Islamic banking the book says that Islamic or sharia banks differ from regular banks in two major ways. One, as commanded in the Koran, the charging to interest is prohibited in all monetary transactions. Two, the Islamic banks are supervised by a board of Islamic scholars and clerics whose job is to ensure that the banks�s activities comply with sharia law. "The truth, however, is that like all banks, sharia banks do charge interest-they just give another name-and that the clerics supervising the banks have ties to extremist, even terrorist groups, which work towards the Islamisation and world dominance."
The author makes a point that those who support the plea for an alternate financing channel to support the Muslim community need to realise that India�s banking is �inclusive� and the reluctance of some Muslims to use banks is a case of self-exclusion, not discrimination. "Islamic banking is not what is needed to help Muslims. When Below Poverty Line (BPL) families can be helped without communal identification and state benefits can be given on socio-economic grounds, why are Muslims being treated any differently, the book asks.
"The sharia is the cannon law of Muslims. A financial services company set up with government participation which would follow the cannon law of a particular religion is a clear instance of the state favouring a particular religion. This violates Article 27 of the Constitution," says Dr Subramanian Swamy further adding that the government order issued in this regard also violates Article 14, 15 and Article 25 of the Constitution also.
Dr Swamy further says that the unwritten and unstated danger from the Islamic institution would be that when thousands of crore rupees arrive in Kerala, Muslim youth would get loan, while the Hindus would be denied on one technicality or another. "Word will be spread that if the Hindu converts to Islam he or she will get the loan easily. Given the high unemployment of educated youth in Kerala, and that Hindus are just 52 per cent of the State population it will be in no time that economic pressures will force the State to become Hindu minority. Then the State will drift quickly to Dar-ul-Islam and like in Kashmir, soon the Hindus will have to migrate out or be driven out, or convert to Islam," Dr Swamy adds.
American Stooges All
The Union Carbide tragedy and the Congress conspiracy
We reproduce without comment some revealing reports that appeared in The Times of India and The Pioneer because of their significance in the wake of local court verdict on Bhopal gas tragedy.
Members of GoM on Bhopal pleaded Dow case in UPA-I
TNN, Jun 11, 2010, 03.25am IST
NEW DELHI: The uproar over the Bhopal gas-leak judgment has put the role of several UPA ministers and functionaries, including those in the newly reconstituted group of ministers (GoM), under scrutiny yet again.
While the UPA might have decided to set up the GoM as a facesaver in the midst of public outcry, making Home Minister P Chidambaram the head of the group and including Minister of Road Transport and Highways Kamal Nath as member, could lead to controversy since both have drawn flak for advocating along with others that Dow Chemicals, the American giant that bought Union Carbide in 2001, be spared the task of cleaning up the 1984 gas-leak site and the contaminated ground water.
In June 2007, TOI had reported how key officials and ministers in the first term of UPA pushed for absolving Dow Chemicals of any legal and compensation liabilities after the multinational showed reluctance to invest in India unless the Rs 100 crore notice slapped by the fertilizers and chemicals ministry for clean up of the industrial site against it was withdrawn.
Those who supported the US company included then Finance Minister P Chidambaram, then Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, then cabinet secretary, B K Chaturvedi and India’s then envoy to US Ronen Sen. Prime Minister’s principal secretary T K A Nair was also involved in the discussions.
All these Congress luminaries and senior officials recommended that Dow’s liability be resolved outside the courts after business tycoon Ratan Tata suggested that instead of asking Dow to cough up the money to clean the site, the private sector in India, led by Tatas, could set up a fund to do the same.
Tata had pointed out in a letter to Ahluwalia and Chidambaram that Dow would not invest in India unless Rs 100-crore notice slapped on it by chemicals and fertilizers ministry was withdrawn. Chidambaram and Ahluwalia concurred with Tata and recommended to PMO that the Tata offer be accepted. This would have ensured an out-of-court settlement, paving the way for Dow’s investments in a petrochemical hub in India.
But an obstacle was put in their path after activists, citing the TOI report, resorted to protests, saying that the move would absolve Dow of any responsibility to compensate those who were affected by the contamination of groundwater in the aftermath of the gas leak.
Pursuing its case, Dow also got in touch with the principal secretary to the PM, T K A Nair. Significantly, the correspondence between Dow and Nair also suggests that the US company discussed its plan to engage Congress spokesman, senior SC lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
Singhvi’s advice tracked the position taken by ministers, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and the cabinet secretary that Dow could not be held responsible for the disaster or was liable for any contamination and consequent cleaning up of the Bhopal site. This advice found its way into the PMO file on the issue later.
Under renewed attack from activists, Singhvi on June 10 reacted claiming his advice had "nothing to do either with Warren Anderson’s criminal conviction or with Bhopal gas tragedy".
(Courtesy: ToI)
Arjun Singh let honcho flee Bhopal
IN the midst of countrywide outrage against the Bhopal gas tragedy verdict, the Madhya Pradesh Government has decided to appeal against the judgement even as the then Bhopal Collector, Moti Singh, has revealed that he was told by the then State Chief Secretary to bail out Union Carbide Corporation chairman Warren Anderson, who was arrested in Bhopal four days after the tragedy.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the way the CBI handled the case, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told mediapersons that his Government would challenge the Bhopal court verdict in the high court. A committee of legal experts has been constituted to go into the issue, he said.
Chouhan wondered why the CBI did not file a review petition in the Supreme Court when it diluted the charges from 304-II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) to Section 304-A (causing death by negligence). The Chief Minister accused the CBI of being not serious in pursuing the case of Anderson’s extradition. Senior advocate Shantilal Lodha, who is also one of the members of the legal team formed to review the case, told The Pioneer that the State Government being the representative of the people, it can file an appeal against any judgement. He clarified that even an individual can appeal in the higher court. He stated that almost all the aspects of the tragedy and what were the mistakes made earlier would be reviewed.
But the story of the day was the revelation by Moti Singh who made a sensational disclosure that he was asked by the Chief Secretary to release Anderson and help him leave Bhopal.
Singh admitted that the Arjun Singh Government had actively helped Anderson to escape law. He said, "I was summoned by Chief Minister Arjun Singh to his residence at 8 am that day. The CM told me that Warren Anderson would be arriving shortly at the airport; however, the airport officials have been instructed not to let his plane land till the District Collector is present. On this, I immediately rushed to the airport, but by the time I arrived the plane had already landed but its door was yet to be opened. I was told that Anderson was being accompanied by the Union Carbide’s chief of India operations Keshub Mahindra and managing director Vijay Gokhale."
Singh said that they were arrested as soon as they set foot in Bhopal. All the three were then taken to the Shyamala Hills guest house of Union Carbide; Anderson was wearing a mask, Singh remembered adding, subsequently the Bhopal police filed a criminal case against him under Section 304 of the IPC at Hanumangunj police station.
"Then at 2 pm, the then Chief Secretary Brahmswaroop called me and SP Swaraj Puri to his office. He told us to release Anderson and put him in the same plane waiting at the airport to go to Delhi. Accordingly, we went to the place where he was lodged. We completed the formalities of granting him bail. "We quickly arranged for a Union Carbide employee to secure his bail for a surety of Rs 25,000. Later, we put him on the same plane at the airport," he added.
Singh said Anderson was not willing to leave Bhopal. Instead, he wanted to visit the affected areas. "I told him repeatedly, you are not welcome, you have to leave Bhopal." The former Collector said during his short stay, Anderson seemed casual and showed ‘symptoms of arrogance’ but toned down when he was told that he was being released.
(The Pioneer)
Anderson blame game begins: It’s Cong vs Cong
TNN, Jun 11, 2010, 01.34am IST
THE dramatic release of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson just hours after his arrest has roiled Congress, sparking a bitter factional war which threatens to claim former PM Rajiv Gandhi as its collateral victim.
AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh on June 10, stunned party circles by virtually holding the Centre responsible for the controversial decision to let off Anderson, soon after he was arrested for the death of thousands from the poisonous gas leak from Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant.
"The whole case was dealt with by the Government of India and the Supreme Court. State government hardly had any role to play in this case," Singh said in a text message he sent to reporters here from the US. In another text message to reporters, he desisted from fixing the blame. Singh wrote, "I was campaigning during that period therefore I don’t know. But I am sure it must have been under US pressure."
However, read along with his other message, even the second message appeared to point the finger towards the Centre. More so, because with a strong PM like Rajiv Gandhi around, Americans could not have dealt directly with the state government.
Singh’s remarks were seen as rebutting the statement of CWC member Satyavrat Chaturvedi on June 9, that Arjun Singh, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh at the time of the leak, needed to explain Anderson’s abrupt release. Rajiv Gandhi was the PM at the time of the Bhopal tragedy.
A gleeful BJP pounced on the fratricidal slugfest, demanding an apology from Congress for giving "safe passage" to Anderson.
The unrolling episode also dragged Arjun Singh into the spotlight after a long spell on the sidelines. The ailing leader, who was passed over by the leadership for important positions, met Sonia Gandhi on June 10, evening. This was his second meeting with the Congress chief since a court verdict handed paltry punishments to those held guilty for the gas leak.
The bickering has factional dyanmics. Like Arjun and Digvijay, Chaturvedi is also from Madhya Pradesh and has a long history of strained equations with the two Thakurs. Unlike Digvijay and Arjun, whose ties have ebbed and flowed, Chaturvedi has been consistent about his feelings.
(ToI)
We reproduce without comment some revealing reports that appeared in The Times of India and The Pioneer because of their significance in the wake of local court verdict on Bhopal gas tragedy.
Members of GoM on Bhopal pleaded Dow case in UPA-I
TNN, Jun 11, 2010, 03.25am IST
NEW DELHI: The uproar over the Bhopal gas-leak judgment has put the role of several UPA ministers and functionaries, including those in the newly reconstituted group of ministers (GoM), under scrutiny yet again.
While the UPA might have decided to set up the GoM as a facesaver in the midst of public outcry, making Home Minister P Chidambaram the head of the group and including Minister of Road Transport and Highways Kamal Nath as member, could lead to controversy since both have drawn flak for advocating along with others that Dow Chemicals, the American giant that bought Union Carbide in 2001, be spared the task of cleaning up the 1984 gas-leak site and the contaminated ground water.
In June 2007, TOI had reported how key officials and ministers in the first term of UPA pushed for absolving Dow Chemicals of any legal and compensation liabilities after the multinational showed reluctance to invest in India unless the Rs 100 crore notice slapped by the fertilizers and chemicals ministry for clean up of the industrial site against it was withdrawn.
Those who supported the US company included then Finance Minister P Chidambaram, then Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, then cabinet secretary, B K Chaturvedi and India’s then envoy to US Ronen Sen. Prime Minister’s principal secretary T K A Nair was also involved in the discussions.
All these Congress luminaries and senior officials recommended that Dow’s liability be resolved outside the courts after business tycoon Ratan Tata suggested that instead of asking Dow to cough up the money to clean the site, the private sector in India, led by Tatas, could set up a fund to do the same.
Tata had pointed out in a letter to Ahluwalia and Chidambaram that Dow would not invest in India unless Rs 100-crore notice slapped on it by chemicals and fertilizers ministry was withdrawn. Chidambaram and Ahluwalia concurred with Tata and recommended to PMO that the Tata offer be accepted. This would have ensured an out-of-court settlement, paving the way for Dow’s investments in a petrochemical hub in India.
But an obstacle was put in their path after activists, citing the TOI report, resorted to protests, saying that the move would absolve Dow of any responsibility to compensate those who were affected by the contamination of groundwater in the aftermath of the gas leak.
Pursuing its case, Dow also got in touch with the principal secretary to the PM, T K A Nair. Significantly, the correspondence between Dow and Nair also suggests that the US company discussed its plan to engage Congress spokesman, senior SC lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
Singhvi’s advice tracked the position taken by ministers, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and the cabinet secretary that Dow could not be held responsible for the disaster or was liable for any contamination and consequent cleaning up of the Bhopal site. This advice found its way into the PMO file on the issue later.
Under renewed attack from activists, Singhvi on June 10 reacted claiming his advice had "nothing to do either with Warren Anderson’s criminal conviction or with Bhopal gas tragedy".
(Courtesy: ToI)
Arjun Singh let honcho flee Bhopal
IN the midst of countrywide outrage against the Bhopal gas tragedy verdict, the Madhya Pradesh Government has decided to appeal against the judgement even as the then Bhopal Collector, Moti Singh, has revealed that he was told by the then State Chief Secretary to bail out Union Carbide Corporation chairman Warren Anderson, who was arrested in Bhopal four days after the tragedy.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the way the CBI handled the case, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told mediapersons that his Government would challenge the Bhopal court verdict in the high court. A committee of legal experts has been constituted to go into the issue, he said.
Chouhan wondered why the CBI did not file a review petition in the Supreme Court when it diluted the charges from 304-II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) to Section 304-A (causing death by negligence). The Chief Minister accused the CBI of being not serious in pursuing the case of Anderson’s extradition. Senior advocate Shantilal Lodha, who is also one of the members of the legal team formed to review the case, told The Pioneer that the State Government being the representative of the people, it can file an appeal against any judgement. He clarified that even an individual can appeal in the higher court. He stated that almost all the aspects of the tragedy and what were the mistakes made earlier would be reviewed.
But the story of the day was the revelation by Moti Singh who made a sensational disclosure that he was asked by the Chief Secretary to release Anderson and help him leave Bhopal.
Singh admitted that the Arjun Singh Government had actively helped Anderson to escape law. He said, "I was summoned by Chief Minister Arjun Singh to his residence at 8 am that day. The CM told me that Warren Anderson would be arriving shortly at the airport; however, the airport officials have been instructed not to let his plane land till the District Collector is present. On this, I immediately rushed to the airport, but by the time I arrived the plane had already landed but its door was yet to be opened. I was told that Anderson was being accompanied by the Union Carbide’s chief of India operations Keshub Mahindra and managing director Vijay Gokhale."
Singh said that they were arrested as soon as they set foot in Bhopal. All the three were then taken to the Shyamala Hills guest house of Union Carbide; Anderson was wearing a mask, Singh remembered adding, subsequently the Bhopal police filed a criminal case against him under Section 304 of the IPC at Hanumangunj police station.
"Then at 2 pm, the then Chief Secretary Brahmswaroop called me and SP Swaraj Puri to his office. He told us to release Anderson and put him in the same plane waiting at the airport to go to Delhi. Accordingly, we went to the place where he was lodged. We completed the formalities of granting him bail. "We quickly arranged for a Union Carbide employee to secure his bail for a surety of Rs 25,000. Later, we put him on the same plane at the airport," he added.
Singh said Anderson was not willing to leave Bhopal. Instead, he wanted to visit the affected areas. "I told him repeatedly, you are not welcome, you have to leave Bhopal." The former Collector said during his short stay, Anderson seemed casual and showed ‘symptoms of arrogance’ but toned down when he was told that he was being released.
(The Pioneer)
Anderson blame game begins: It’s Cong vs Cong
TNN, Jun 11, 2010, 01.34am IST
THE dramatic release of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson just hours after his arrest has roiled Congress, sparking a bitter factional war which threatens to claim former PM Rajiv Gandhi as its collateral victim.
AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh on June 10, stunned party circles by virtually holding the Centre responsible for the controversial decision to let off Anderson, soon after he was arrested for the death of thousands from the poisonous gas leak from Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant.
"The whole case was dealt with by the Government of India and the Supreme Court. State government hardly had any role to play in this case," Singh said in a text message he sent to reporters here from the US. In another text message to reporters, he desisted from fixing the blame. Singh wrote, "I was campaigning during that period therefore I don’t know. But I am sure it must have been under US pressure."
However, read along with his other message, even the second message appeared to point the finger towards the Centre. More so, because with a strong PM like Rajiv Gandhi around, Americans could not have dealt directly with the state government.
Singh’s remarks were seen as rebutting the statement of CWC member Satyavrat Chaturvedi on June 9, that Arjun Singh, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh at the time of the leak, needed to explain Anderson’s abrupt release. Rajiv Gandhi was the PM at the time of the Bhopal tragedy.
A gleeful BJP pounced on the fratricidal slugfest, demanding an apology from Congress for giving "safe passage" to Anderson.
The unrolling episode also dragged Arjun Singh into the spotlight after a long spell on the sidelines. The ailing leader, who was passed over by the leadership for important positions, met Sonia Gandhi on June 10, evening. This was his second meeting with the Congress chief since a court verdict handed paltry punishments to those held guilty for the gas leak.
The bickering has factional dyanmics. Like Arjun and Digvijay, Chaturvedi is also from Madhya Pradesh and has a long history of strained equations with the two Thakurs. Unlike Digvijay and Arjun, whose ties have ebbed and flowed, Chaturvedi has been consistent about his feelings.
(ToI)
Maoist and Islamist tie - up
Interrogation of a senior Maoist reveals startling facts
Maoist plan to take mayhem to South India and tie-up with Islamists
By Arun Lakshman /Thiruvananthapuram
The Maoists were using the sea network of LTTE for shipment of arms and ammunitions and some foreign countries, including the erstwhile Soviet block countries were involved in providing the much required arms and ammunitions to the outfit. However with the LTTE crushed, the Maoists are now getting in touch with the LeT for their arms needs which, according to intelligence sources is being gleefully accepted by the LeT.
THE Maoists which is facing some man power crunch in the Northern Indian states is now in the process of increasing and consolidating their presence in the South India. The Andhra police has recently arrested a top operative of the Maoist movement , Nandakumar alias Ranganna alias Pramod from Kannur district in Kerala and on interrogation he has told that he was a top leader in the movement and was deputed to increase his organisational presence in South India with special emphasis on Kerala , Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. He was arrested by the Hyderabad police while he was meeting top Maoist leaders there. Police sources told Organiser that he is a tough nut to crack and that he is giving information only in tits and bits and that he has mastered the art of diverting the interrogation process.
The Maoist leader said that as there is a basic presence in Andhra at the moment, the outfit is planning to increase its presence felt in the other South Indian states to broaden and widen its red corridor.
It may be recalled that the state police had arrested another top leader of the movement Malla Raja Reddy was arrested from Angamaly in Kerala in December 2007. He was also a top functionary of the organisation and was in charge of the South Indian states while operating from Kerala.
A former leader of the Naxalite movement Ramprakash (name changed) while speaking to Organiser said that the Maoist movement in Kerala is gaining momentum as more and more highly educated youths are loosing their trust in the democratic process in the country and at the massive corruption of senior leaders of political parties of all hue and cry. He further said that the Maoist movement will also be not able to solve the issues faced by the country but added that except for the killing and dacoitary conducted by the Maoist’s, he is in support of the rest of the operations of the organisation.
Sources in the central intelligence agencies while speaking to Organiser also said that the Maoist movement is getting physical training from even foreigners in the dense forest lands of Kerala in Idukki and Palakkad districts. He also said that the Maoist movement is also trying to employ extortion tactics in the state to fund its operations.
There are also indications of the involvement of certain Islamic groups with the Maoists for the supply of arms and ammunition to both the fragments and according to reports from the state special branch police and central intelligence agencies, there is a mutual arrangement taking place between the two outfits .
Sources in the RAW indicated that the Lashkar movement in Pakistan has given a green signal to the Indian operatives to have a strategic tie up with the Maoists in India. The idea behind this move is to destabilise India from within as according to another report Lashkar feels that if there is an attack by a foreigner there are all chances of the spirit of India rising and for this they have evolved the scheme of home grown terrorists. However with the Intelligence net work in the country getting some stupendous success in recent times by breaking the terror or jihadi network based in the middle east and in some parts of India, the Lashkar is trying to piggy ride on the infrastructure created by other organisations who are in a fight with the state of India. Here, according to central agencies fits in the Maoist who has a good infrastructure and with the romance of equality being their motto, the Maoists can engage in more youths for their struggle.
There are also reports that the Maoists were using the sea network of LTTE for shipment of arms and ammunitions and some foreign countries, including the erstwhile Soviet block countries were involved in providing the much required arms and ammunitions to the outfit. However with the LTTE crushed, the Maoists are now getting in touch with the LeT for their arms needs which, according to intelligence sources is being gleefully accepted by the LeT.
Sources in the Central intelligence agencies also revealed that the Maoists had in the past year tried to evolve a major network of intelligentsia in the state with the senior Maoist leader Kobad Ghandi being in charge of the operations. However sources told Organiser that this strategy did not work out to the expected levels of the organisation mainly owing to the reluctance of the intelligentsia to quit their comfort zones and to enter into a purely uncertain fight with the government machinery. Sources in the intelligence indicated that even though the game plan of the Maoists and their intelligentsia head, Khobad Ghandi could not rope in the intelligentsia as expected, they had got some highly motivated youngsters with good professional qualifications into the organisational fold.
Sources in the central agencies also told Organiser that the Maoists had conducted a highly confidential meeting in Palakkad district during December 2009 in which representatives of SIMI and groups like Porattam and Ayyankali Pada took part. There were also some sympathisers of the LTTE movement drawn from the border district of Idukki. A former leader of the Naxalite movement from Kerala was instrumental in organising this meeting which had made a blue print of increasing the presence of the Maoists in all districts of the state.
According to information available, the Maoists and the SIMI leadership had chalked out a game plan by which these organisations would jointly support each other in mass movements and had decided to interfere in all issues which would attract the attention of the common man with special emphasis on the middle class and the landless.
The Maoist’s are also trying to increase their influence among the unorganised workers in the state who are mostly from other states and working in Brick Kilns and in the construction industry. Highly placed sources told Organiser that there are several Maoist workers from different parts of the country who are camping in the state as ordinary workers in the construction industry. Their role is to try and educate other workers and to make them aware of their rights and slowly inject the Maoist ideology in these people. The attempt by Khobad Ghandi to rope in the intelligentsia was to educate these transformed youths on the finer points of Maoism and the fight against the Indian state.
The presence of Malla Raja Reddy in Angamaly near Aluva, which is a hot bed of Islamic terrorism and the arrest of a Maoist leader from Kannur district, which is the home district of Islamist terrorist Thadiyantavida Naseer has ,according to central agencies ,some direct links on the modus operandi of the Maoist groups and Islamic terrorists.
Maoist plan to take mayhem to South India and tie-up with Islamists
By Arun Lakshman /Thiruvananthapuram
The Maoists were using the sea network of LTTE for shipment of arms and ammunitions and some foreign countries, including the erstwhile Soviet block countries were involved in providing the much required arms and ammunitions to the outfit. However with the LTTE crushed, the Maoists are now getting in touch with the LeT for their arms needs which, according to intelligence sources is being gleefully accepted by the LeT.
THE Maoists which is facing some man power crunch in the Northern Indian states is now in the process of increasing and consolidating their presence in the South India. The Andhra police has recently arrested a top operative of the Maoist movement , Nandakumar alias Ranganna alias Pramod from Kannur district in Kerala and on interrogation he has told that he was a top leader in the movement and was deputed to increase his organisational presence in South India with special emphasis on Kerala , Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. He was arrested by the Hyderabad police while he was meeting top Maoist leaders there. Police sources told Organiser that he is a tough nut to crack and that he is giving information only in tits and bits and that he has mastered the art of diverting the interrogation process.
The Maoist leader said that as there is a basic presence in Andhra at the moment, the outfit is planning to increase its presence felt in the other South Indian states to broaden and widen its red corridor.
It may be recalled that the state police had arrested another top leader of the movement Malla Raja Reddy was arrested from Angamaly in Kerala in December 2007. He was also a top functionary of the organisation and was in charge of the South Indian states while operating from Kerala.
A former leader of the Naxalite movement Ramprakash (name changed) while speaking to Organiser said that the Maoist movement in Kerala is gaining momentum as more and more highly educated youths are loosing their trust in the democratic process in the country and at the massive corruption of senior leaders of political parties of all hue and cry. He further said that the Maoist movement will also be not able to solve the issues faced by the country but added that except for the killing and dacoitary conducted by the Maoist’s, he is in support of the rest of the operations of the organisation.
Sources in the central intelligence agencies while speaking to Organiser also said that the Maoist movement is getting physical training from even foreigners in the dense forest lands of Kerala in Idukki and Palakkad districts. He also said that the Maoist movement is also trying to employ extortion tactics in the state to fund its operations.
There are also indications of the involvement of certain Islamic groups with the Maoists for the supply of arms and ammunition to both the fragments and according to reports from the state special branch police and central intelligence agencies, there is a mutual arrangement taking place between the two outfits .
Sources in the RAW indicated that the Lashkar movement in Pakistan has given a green signal to the Indian operatives to have a strategic tie up with the Maoists in India. The idea behind this move is to destabilise India from within as according to another report Lashkar feels that if there is an attack by a foreigner there are all chances of the spirit of India rising and for this they have evolved the scheme of home grown terrorists. However with the Intelligence net work in the country getting some stupendous success in recent times by breaking the terror or jihadi network based in the middle east and in some parts of India, the Lashkar is trying to piggy ride on the infrastructure created by other organisations who are in a fight with the state of India. Here, according to central agencies fits in the Maoist who has a good infrastructure and with the romance of equality being their motto, the Maoists can engage in more youths for their struggle.
There are also reports that the Maoists were using the sea network of LTTE for shipment of arms and ammunitions and some foreign countries, including the erstwhile Soviet block countries were involved in providing the much required arms and ammunitions to the outfit. However with the LTTE crushed, the Maoists are now getting in touch with the LeT for their arms needs which, according to intelligence sources is being gleefully accepted by the LeT.
Sources in the Central intelligence agencies also revealed that the Maoists had in the past year tried to evolve a major network of intelligentsia in the state with the senior Maoist leader Kobad Ghandi being in charge of the operations. However sources told Organiser that this strategy did not work out to the expected levels of the organisation mainly owing to the reluctance of the intelligentsia to quit their comfort zones and to enter into a purely uncertain fight with the government machinery. Sources in the intelligence indicated that even though the game plan of the Maoists and their intelligentsia head, Khobad Ghandi could not rope in the intelligentsia as expected, they had got some highly motivated youngsters with good professional qualifications into the organisational fold.
Sources in the central agencies also told Organiser that the Maoists had conducted a highly confidential meeting in Palakkad district during December 2009 in which representatives of SIMI and groups like Porattam and Ayyankali Pada took part. There were also some sympathisers of the LTTE movement drawn from the border district of Idukki. A former leader of the Naxalite movement from Kerala was instrumental in organising this meeting which had made a blue print of increasing the presence of the Maoists in all districts of the state.
According to information available, the Maoists and the SIMI leadership had chalked out a game plan by which these organisations would jointly support each other in mass movements and had decided to interfere in all issues which would attract the attention of the common man with special emphasis on the middle class and the landless.
The Maoist’s are also trying to increase their influence among the unorganised workers in the state who are mostly from other states and working in Brick Kilns and in the construction industry. Highly placed sources told Organiser that there are several Maoist workers from different parts of the country who are camping in the state as ordinary workers in the construction industry. Their role is to try and educate other workers and to make them aware of their rights and slowly inject the Maoist ideology in these people. The attempt by Khobad Ghandi to rope in the intelligentsia was to educate these transformed youths on the finer points of Maoism and the fight against the Indian state.
The presence of Malla Raja Reddy in Angamaly near Aluva, which is a hot bed of Islamic terrorism and the arrest of a Maoist leader from Kannur district, which is the home district of Islamist terrorist Thadiyantavida Naseer has ,according to central agencies ,some direct links on the modus operandi of the Maoist groups and Islamic terrorists.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Mystery of our origins
India has one of the largest human biodiversity pools
By Dr Lalji Singh
India represents one of the largest human biodiversity pool in the world. There are 532 tribes, 72 primitive tribes and 36 hunters and gatherers. Although the genome sequences of any two unrelated people differ by just 0.1 per cent, that tiny slice of genetic material is a rich source of information. It provides clues that can help reconstruct the historical origins of modern populations.
The kings of South India, like the Chola and the Pandya dynasties, relate their lineages back to Manu. The Matsya Purana moreover makes Manu, the progenitor of all the Aryans, originally a south Indian king, Satyavrata. Hence these are not only traditions that make the Dravidian descendants of Vedic rishis and kings, but those that make the Aryans of North India descendants of Dravidian kings.
Dr Lalji Singh, former Director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, delivered the seventeenth Bhaorao Deoras Memorial Lecture in Lucknow on May 12. This article is based on that lecture.
SINCE the dawn of civilisation, man has been asking questions such as ‘who are we?’ and ‘where have we come from?’ Until 1858 it was universal belief that man is special creation of God. In 1858, based on phenotypic transition of various organisms including plant and animal species, Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution and wrote a book The Origin of Species. Eight years later in 1871, he wrote a book The Descent of Man. Based on the anatomical similarities, he declared that the chimpanzee and the gorilla are our closest living relatives and predicted that the earliest ancestors of humans would turn up in Africa, where our ape kins live today. Now it is widely accepted view that modern human diverged from a common ancestor of chimpanzee and human nearly 6-7 million years ago. Based on fossil records found in Africa, it is now believed that modern human originated from a single mother about 160,000 years ago in East Africa. East-African mega-droughts between 135 and 75 thousand years ago, when the water volume of the lake Malawi was reduced by at least 95 per cent, could have caused their migration out of Africa. The obvious question to ask is which route did they take? Our study of the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands using complete mitochondrial DNA sequences, and its comparison with the mitochondrial DNA sequences of the world populations available in the database, led to the theory of southern coastal route of migration through India, against the prevailing view of northern route of migration via Middle East, Europe, south-east Asia, Australia and then to India. Our earlier study revealed that Negrito tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, such as Onge, Jarawa, Great Andamanese and Sentinelese, are probably the descendants of the first man who moved out of Africa.
This raised many questions such as: (i) what is the origin of mainland tribal and caste populations?; (ii) are there any population(s) in mainland India, which are close to Andamanese?; (iii) how much affinities the Indian populations have with Andamanese?; (iv) did the Indians contribute to the early human spread?
In order to answer these questions and to explore the ancient history of India we have harnessed genomic technology.
Ancient roots for India’s rich diversity
India represents one of the largest human biodiversity pool in the world. There are 532 tribes, 72 primitive tribes and 36 hunters and gatherers. Although the genome sequences of any two unrelated people differ by just 0.1 per cent, that tiny slice of genetic material is a rich source of information. It provides clues that can help reconstruct the historical origins of modern populations. It also points to genetic variations that heighten the risk of certain diseases. In recent years, maps of human genetic variation have opened a window onto the diversity of populations across the world, yet India has been largely unrepresented until now.
To shed light on the genetic variability across the Indian subcontinent, we analysed 132 Indian samples from 25 groups on an Affymetrix 6.0 array, yielding data for 587,753 SNPs after restricting to markers with good completeness. To span the widest range of ancestry in India, we sampled tribal groups from 13 states and 6 language families (Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Great Andamanese and Jarawa-Onge). We also sampled caste groups mostly from Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh to permit comparison of traditionally "upper" and "lower" caste groups after controlling for geography. With tens of thousands of independent loci, we could estimate Fst (F-statistics) - accurately with just 2-9 samples per groups (with average standard error of + 0.0011). We also merged our data with 155 European (CEU), Chinese (CHB), and West African (YRI) samples from HapMap, and 938 samples from the Human Genome Diversity Panel (HGDP).
We analysed these data to address five questions about Indian genetics and history. Does the Indian subcontinent harbour more structure than Europe? Has strong endogamy been a long-standing feature of Indian groups? Do nearly all Indians descend from a mixture of populations, one of which was related to Central Asians, Middle Easterners and Europeans and probably lived in north India? Are tribal groups systematically different from castes, and do some tribal groups provide a good approximation for the ancestral populations of India? What is the origin of the indigenous Andaman Islanders?
All mainland Indian groups have inherited a mixture of ancestries
We provide strong evidence for two ancient and genetically divergent populations that are ancestral to most Indian groups today. One, the "Ancestral North Indians" (ANI), is genetically close to Middle Easterners, Central Asians, and Europeans, while the other, the "Ancestral South Indians" (ASI), is not close to any group outside the subcontinent. By introducing methods that can estimate ancestry without accurate ancestral populations, we show that ANI ancestry ranges from 39-71 per cent, and is higher in traditionally upper caste groups and Indo-European speakers. Groups with only ASI ancestry may no longer exist in mainland India.
The finding that nearly all Indian groups descend from mixtures of two ancestral populations applies to traditional "tribes" as well as "castes". It is impossible to distinguish castes from tribes using the data. The genetics prove that they are not systematically different. This supports the view that castes grew directly out of tribal-like organisations during the formation of Indian society. The one exception to the finding, that all Indian groups are mixed, is the indigenous people of the Andaman Islands, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean with a census of only a few hundred today. The Andamanese appear to be related exclusively to the Ancestral South Indian lineage and therefore lack Ancestral North Indian ancestry. In this sense, they are unique. Understanding their origins provides a window to look into the history of the Ancestral South Indians, and the period of tens of thousands years ago when they diverged from other Eurasians. Our project to sample the disappearing tribes of the Andaman Islands has been more successful than we hoped, as the Andamanese are the only surviving remnant of the ancient colonisers of South Asia.
Medical Implications
Our findings revealed that many groups in modern India descend from a small number of founding individuals, and have since been genetically isolated from other groups. In scientific parlance, this is called a "founder event". It has medical implications for Indian populations. Recessive hereditary diseases - single gene disorders that occur only when an individual carries two malfunctioning copies of the relevant gene - are likely to be common in populations descended from so few ‘founder’ individuals. Mapping the causal genes will help to address this problem. The widespread history of founder events in Indian populations helps to explain why the incidence of genetic diseases among Indians is different from the rest of the world. For example, an ancient deletion of 25 bp in the cardiac myosin-binding proteins-C gene (MYBPC3) is associated with heritable cardiomyopathies as well as with an increased risk of heart failure. Its prevalence is high (~4 per cent) in the general populations from the Indian subcontinent. However, this mutation is completely absent among the people from the rest of the world.
The finding that a large proportion of modern Indians descended from founder events means that India is genetically not a single large population; instead it is best described as many smaller isolated populations. Founder events in other groups, such as Finns and Ashkenazi Jews, are well-known to increase the incidence of recessive genetic diseases; and our study predicts that the same will be true for many groups in India. It is important to carry out a systematic survey of Indian groups to identify which ones descend from the strongest founder events. Further studies of these groups should lead to the rapid discovery of genes that cause devastating diseases, and thus will help in the clinical care of individuals and their families who are at risk.
Indo-European family of language and the concept of Aryan and Dravidian
The story of Indo-European family of languages was proposed by Sir William Jones before the Asiatic Society at Calcutta in 1786 (Jones, 1786). The Indo-European concept was a real breakthrough of scientific linguistics, linking languages widely separated in space, forming two blocks - an eastern one of Persian and Indic languages and a western European block, separated from one another by Semitic and Turkic languages. The Indo-European concept was anything but obvious - the idea, that is, that the two blocks of languages, so distant from one another, are nevertheless related to one another. Its discovery by Jones and others not only created a new science of language but it radically recorded existing ideas about the relations among different natives or races of people. Jones (1746-1794) was an employee of the East India Company who developed the Indo-European concept. He also made important identifications of words in the Romanic or Gypsy languages with Sanskrit (Jones, 1786). Marsdens’ (William Marsdens 1754-1836) early paper, comparing the Gypsy language with Hindustani, makes him one of the co-discoverers of its Indian origins.
Max Muller, who was one of the first to apply the Aryan name to the Indo-European concept identified the racial-linguistic entity as racially white and was instrumental in the formation of the racial theory of Indian civilisation.
The kings of South India, like the Chola and the Pandya dynasties, relate their lineages back to Manu. The Matsya Purana moreover makes Manu, the progenitor of all the Aryans, originally a south Indian king, Satyavrata. Hence these are not only traditions that make the Dravidian descendants of Vedic rishis and kings, but those that make the Aryans of North India descendants of Dravidian kings. The two cultures are so intimately related that it is difficult to say which came first.
The present research findings are consistent with the view of one school of thoughts that the Aryans and Dravidians are part of the same culture and we need not speak of them as separate. However, it contradicts the second school of historians such as Max Muller who for the first time applied the Aryan name to the Indo-European concept. It strongly suggests that dividing them and placing them at odds with each other serves the interest of neither but only serves to damage their common culture.
Our study is important in highlighting important questions still open for future research. One priority is to estimate a date for the ANI-ASI mixture; this may be possible by studying the length of stretches of ANI ancestry in modern Indian samples. Inferring a date is important, as we expect that it would shed light on the historical process leading to the present day structure of Indian groups. A second priority would be to follow up on the observation that many Indian descended from a small number of founders. The groups with the strongest founder effects can then be analysed to identify genetic variants that we predict will account for substantial rates of recessive disease in these groups. Have Eurasians descended from the Ancestral North Indians? This is the question we would like to address in our future research activities.
By Dr Lalji Singh
India represents one of the largest human biodiversity pool in the world. There are 532 tribes, 72 primitive tribes and 36 hunters and gatherers. Although the genome sequences of any two unrelated people differ by just 0.1 per cent, that tiny slice of genetic material is a rich source of information. It provides clues that can help reconstruct the historical origins of modern populations.
The kings of South India, like the Chola and the Pandya dynasties, relate their lineages back to Manu. The Matsya Purana moreover makes Manu, the progenitor of all the Aryans, originally a south Indian king, Satyavrata. Hence these are not only traditions that make the Dravidian descendants of Vedic rishis and kings, but those that make the Aryans of North India descendants of Dravidian kings.
Dr Lalji Singh, former Director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, delivered the seventeenth Bhaorao Deoras Memorial Lecture in Lucknow on May 12. This article is based on that lecture.
SINCE the dawn of civilisation, man has been asking questions such as ‘who are we?’ and ‘where have we come from?’ Until 1858 it was universal belief that man is special creation of God. In 1858, based on phenotypic transition of various organisms including plant and animal species, Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution and wrote a book The Origin of Species. Eight years later in 1871, he wrote a book The Descent of Man. Based on the anatomical similarities, he declared that the chimpanzee and the gorilla are our closest living relatives and predicted that the earliest ancestors of humans would turn up in Africa, where our ape kins live today. Now it is widely accepted view that modern human diverged from a common ancestor of chimpanzee and human nearly 6-7 million years ago. Based on fossil records found in Africa, it is now believed that modern human originated from a single mother about 160,000 years ago in East Africa. East-African mega-droughts between 135 and 75 thousand years ago, when the water volume of the lake Malawi was reduced by at least 95 per cent, could have caused their migration out of Africa. The obvious question to ask is which route did they take? Our study of the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands using complete mitochondrial DNA sequences, and its comparison with the mitochondrial DNA sequences of the world populations available in the database, led to the theory of southern coastal route of migration through India, against the prevailing view of northern route of migration via Middle East, Europe, south-east Asia, Australia and then to India. Our earlier study revealed that Negrito tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, such as Onge, Jarawa, Great Andamanese and Sentinelese, are probably the descendants of the first man who moved out of Africa.
This raised many questions such as: (i) what is the origin of mainland tribal and caste populations?; (ii) are there any population(s) in mainland India, which are close to Andamanese?; (iii) how much affinities the Indian populations have with Andamanese?; (iv) did the Indians contribute to the early human spread?
In order to answer these questions and to explore the ancient history of India we have harnessed genomic technology.
Ancient roots for India’s rich diversity
India represents one of the largest human biodiversity pool in the world. There are 532 tribes, 72 primitive tribes and 36 hunters and gatherers. Although the genome sequences of any two unrelated people differ by just 0.1 per cent, that tiny slice of genetic material is a rich source of information. It provides clues that can help reconstruct the historical origins of modern populations. It also points to genetic variations that heighten the risk of certain diseases. In recent years, maps of human genetic variation have opened a window onto the diversity of populations across the world, yet India has been largely unrepresented until now.
To shed light on the genetic variability across the Indian subcontinent, we analysed 132 Indian samples from 25 groups on an Affymetrix 6.0 array, yielding data for 587,753 SNPs after restricting to markers with good completeness. To span the widest range of ancestry in India, we sampled tribal groups from 13 states and 6 language families (Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Great Andamanese and Jarawa-Onge). We also sampled caste groups mostly from Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh to permit comparison of traditionally "upper" and "lower" caste groups after controlling for geography. With tens of thousands of independent loci, we could estimate Fst (F-statistics) - accurately with just 2-9 samples per groups (with average standard error of + 0.0011). We also merged our data with 155 European (CEU), Chinese (CHB), and West African (YRI) samples from HapMap, and 938 samples from the Human Genome Diversity Panel (HGDP).
We analysed these data to address five questions about Indian genetics and history. Does the Indian subcontinent harbour more structure than Europe? Has strong endogamy been a long-standing feature of Indian groups? Do nearly all Indians descend from a mixture of populations, one of which was related to Central Asians, Middle Easterners and Europeans and probably lived in north India? Are tribal groups systematically different from castes, and do some tribal groups provide a good approximation for the ancestral populations of India? What is the origin of the indigenous Andaman Islanders?
All mainland Indian groups have inherited a mixture of ancestries
We provide strong evidence for two ancient and genetically divergent populations that are ancestral to most Indian groups today. One, the "Ancestral North Indians" (ANI), is genetically close to Middle Easterners, Central Asians, and Europeans, while the other, the "Ancestral South Indians" (ASI), is not close to any group outside the subcontinent. By introducing methods that can estimate ancestry without accurate ancestral populations, we show that ANI ancestry ranges from 39-71 per cent, and is higher in traditionally upper caste groups and Indo-European speakers. Groups with only ASI ancestry may no longer exist in mainland India.
The finding that nearly all Indian groups descend from mixtures of two ancestral populations applies to traditional "tribes" as well as "castes". It is impossible to distinguish castes from tribes using the data. The genetics prove that they are not systematically different. This supports the view that castes grew directly out of tribal-like organisations during the formation of Indian society. The one exception to the finding, that all Indian groups are mixed, is the indigenous people of the Andaman Islands, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean with a census of only a few hundred today. The Andamanese appear to be related exclusively to the Ancestral South Indian lineage and therefore lack Ancestral North Indian ancestry. In this sense, they are unique. Understanding their origins provides a window to look into the history of the Ancestral South Indians, and the period of tens of thousands years ago when they diverged from other Eurasians. Our project to sample the disappearing tribes of the Andaman Islands has been more successful than we hoped, as the Andamanese are the only surviving remnant of the ancient colonisers of South Asia.
Medical Implications
Our findings revealed that many groups in modern India descend from a small number of founding individuals, and have since been genetically isolated from other groups. In scientific parlance, this is called a "founder event". It has medical implications for Indian populations. Recessive hereditary diseases - single gene disorders that occur only when an individual carries two malfunctioning copies of the relevant gene - are likely to be common in populations descended from so few ‘founder’ individuals. Mapping the causal genes will help to address this problem. The widespread history of founder events in Indian populations helps to explain why the incidence of genetic diseases among Indians is different from the rest of the world. For example, an ancient deletion of 25 bp in the cardiac myosin-binding proteins-C gene (MYBPC3) is associated with heritable cardiomyopathies as well as with an increased risk of heart failure. Its prevalence is high (~4 per cent) in the general populations from the Indian subcontinent. However, this mutation is completely absent among the people from the rest of the world.
The finding that a large proportion of modern Indians descended from founder events means that India is genetically not a single large population; instead it is best described as many smaller isolated populations. Founder events in other groups, such as Finns and Ashkenazi Jews, are well-known to increase the incidence of recessive genetic diseases; and our study predicts that the same will be true for many groups in India. It is important to carry out a systematic survey of Indian groups to identify which ones descend from the strongest founder events. Further studies of these groups should lead to the rapid discovery of genes that cause devastating diseases, and thus will help in the clinical care of individuals and their families who are at risk.
Indo-European family of language and the concept of Aryan and Dravidian
The story of Indo-European family of languages was proposed by Sir William Jones before the Asiatic Society at Calcutta in 1786 (Jones, 1786). The Indo-European concept was a real breakthrough of scientific linguistics, linking languages widely separated in space, forming two blocks - an eastern one of Persian and Indic languages and a western European block, separated from one another by Semitic and Turkic languages. The Indo-European concept was anything but obvious - the idea, that is, that the two blocks of languages, so distant from one another, are nevertheless related to one another. Its discovery by Jones and others not only created a new science of language but it radically recorded existing ideas about the relations among different natives or races of people. Jones (1746-1794) was an employee of the East India Company who developed the Indo-European concept. He also made important identifications of words in the Romanic or Gypsy languages with Sanskrit (Jones, 1786). Marsdens’ (William Marsdens 1754-1836) early paper, comparing the Gypsy language with Hindustani, makes him one of the co-discoverers of its Indian origins.
Max Muller, who was one of the first to apply the Aryan name to the Indo-European concept identified the racial-linguistic entity as racially white and was instrumental in the formation of the racial theory of Indian civilisation.
The kings of South India, like the Chola and the Pandya dynasties, relate their lineages back to Manu. The Matsya Purana moreover makes Manu, the progenitor of all the Aryans, originally a south Indian king, Satyavrata. Hence these are not only traditions that make the Dravidian descendants of Vedic rishis and kings, but those that make the Aryans of North India descendants of Dravidian kings. The two cultures are so intimately related that it is difficult to say which came first.
The present research findings are consistent with the view of one school of thoughts that the Aryans and Dravidians are part of the same culture and we need not speak of them as separate. However, it contradicts the second school of historians such as Max Muller who for the first time applied the Aryan name to the Indo-European concept. It strongly suggests that dividing them and placing them at odds with each other serves the interest of neither but only serves to damage their common culture.
Our study is important in highlighting important questions still open for future research. One priority is to estimate a date for the ANI-ASI mixture; this may be possible by studying the length of stretches of ANI ancestry in modern Indian samples. Inferring a date is important, as we expect that it would shed light on the historical process leading to the present day structure of Indian groups. A second priority would be to follow up on the observation that many Indian descended from a small number of founders. The groups with the strongest founder effects can then be analysed to identify genetic variants that we predict will account for substantial rates of recessive disease in these groups. Have Eurasians descended from the Ancestral North Indians? This is the question we would like to address in our future research activities.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Despite internet and breaking news reader is still deprived of information
WAY back in the 1930s and on to the middle of the 20th century, the United States and Britain had some brilliant weeklies. One remembers magazines like The Atlantic, Saturday Review, The New Statesman and Nation and a few others whose editors were held in the highest esteem. One, of course, cannot forget the Henry Luce productions like Life, Time and Fortune. It was Life, more than any other journal, that made photo journalism truly popular. Life became an institution in itself. India, then, had hardly any magazine of note. In the twenties, Kamakshi Natarajan brought forth The Indian Social Reformer. After his passing away, his son, J Natarajan tried to continue it, but it had gone out of fashion. Mahatma Gandhi was doing in real life what K Natarajan was doing through the media, which is not to belittle that great leader.
From Calcutta came Ramanand Chatterjee’s Modern Review. This was for intellectuals and liberals and had occasional contributors from the elite like Jawaharlal Nehru. But that too, had its life-time. From Madras, we had My Magazine and Merry Magazine, awfully produced but provide opportunities for budding writers to exhibit their talent. Mysindia, a weekly edited by an Englishman was published from Mysore. Among the most popular Sunday weeklies was one from old Madras, Sunday Times edited by one MS Kamath who Made Ramana Maharshi widely known. In Bombay, while the daily Bombay Chronicle was edited by Syed Abdulla Brelvi, the more popular Sunday Chronicle was edited by RK Prabhu. The Sunday edition was famous for its Last Page written by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, a 100 per cent nationalist who was later to pay his attention to film production.
There were a few other journals which blossomed in the post-independence period like R K Karanjia’s Blitz, but they belong to a different category. They naturally served a purpose for the times before they went out of circulation like-to provide another example, Baburao Patel’s delightful Filmindia. Baburao was literally the father of Cinematic Journalism in India. Of course, one cannot forget the Illustrated Weekly of India which by any reckoning was the best of the lot and had a national circulation envious of the Gods. In the early eighties it celebrated its centenary anniversary. All this is to remind one that while most of them are no longer there, we today have journals of great excellence like Frontline, Outlook, India Today, each excelling the other in one or other department. The Economic & Political Weekly had hardly any competition from any publisher let alone in India, but in the world at large.
One of the newest entrants into the field of journalistic excellence is Eternal India now hardly two years old but, I would like to submit, should be must reading to anyone who wants to know what is happening in the country in depth. The latest issue (May 10) is especially to be recommended for four article: Aspects of Internals Security by Lt Gen (Retd) AS Alkat, Development of Telangana by T H Chowdary, who is Director of Centre for Telecom Management Studies, Religion and Job Reservation by Arif Mohammad Khan, a former Union Cabinet Minister, but the most fascinating of all is a study of Dharampal’s Indiginous Indian Education by AL Prajapati. And this, for a special reason. One will remember the growth of the anti-Brahmin Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, on the ground that the brahmins, during the British period all but monopolised government jobs, in its time, the most coveted. Was it always like that? It wasn’t. In earlier days, in most areas, especially in Madras Presidency, the Brahmin scholars formed "a very small proportion of those studying at schools" except in disciplines of Theology, Metaphysics, Ethics and the Law". But the disciplines of Astronomy and Medical Science seem to have been studied by scholars from a variety of backgrounds and castes, as the author notes. In Malabar, for instance (the period of time is not mentioned) out of 808 students studying Astronomy, only 78 were brahmins and out of the 194 studying medicine, only 31 were Brahmins. Incidentally, in Rajahmundary five of the scholars in the Institute of Higher Learning were shudras.
According to other Madras Presidency surveys, the best students studying surgery were from the caste of barbers. Brahmins were nowhere in the picture. The figures quoted in a variety of job offerings etc suggest that the role of the Brahmins was minimum in almost all of them. Government jobs formed only a small part of all the jobs available in the country, a point mostly forgotten by anti-brahmins, no doubt purposely. One suspects the caste system precluded brahmins from many highly paid professional jobs like temple building, carving out canals etc, even studying surgery since it was unacceptable for brahmins to touch dead bodies.
But to come back to the present times. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh gives his first press conference in one year which was attended, one is told, by over six hundred reporters, which one finds unbelievable. This columnist does not profess to have read all the newspapers in India, but going by regional papers, the press conference was well reported but instead of summarising the answers given by the Prime Minister, the media could have reported the proceedings verbatim, presenting both questions and answers as they were asked and replied. One would also like to know who asked which question. So many of our dailies are devoted to presenting social events that political reporting has been reduced to a joke. Time was when newspapers like The Hindu would give two full pages of parliamentary proceedings. In Bombay, The Times of India also gave detailed coverage not only of Parliament but of the Bombay Legislative Assembly and even the Bombay Municipal Corporation. In the era of ‘breaking news’ and ‘Instant news’ those wise ways are no longer fashionable. It is the reader who is deprived of information and the totality of information to arrive at major judgements. That is the best way to destroy democracy.
From Calcutta came Ramanand Chatterjee’s Modern Review. This was for intellectuals and liberals and had occasional contributors from the elite like Jawaharlal Nehru. But that too, had its life-time. From Madras, we had My Magazine and Merry Magazine, awfully produced but provide opportunities for budding writers to exhibit their talent. Mysindia, a weekly edited by an Englishman was published from Mysore. Among the most popular Sunday weeklies was one from old Madras, Sunday Times edited by one MS Kamath who Made Ramana Maharshi widely known. In Bombay, while the daily Bombay Chronicle was edited by Syed Abdulla Brelvi, the more popular Sunday Chronicle was edited by RK Prabhu. The Sunday edition was famous for its Last Page written by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, a 100 per cent nationalist who was later to pay his attention to film production.
There were a few other journals which blossomed in the post-independence period like R K Karanjia’s Blitz, but they belong to a different category. They naturally served a purpose for the times before they went out of circulation like-to provide another example, Baburao Patel’s delightful Filmindia. Baburao was literally the father of Cinematic Journalism in India. Of course, one cannot forget the Illustrated Weekly of India which by any reckoning was the best of the lot and had a national circulation envious of the Gods. In the early eighties it celebrated its centenary anniversary. All this is to remind one that while most of them are no longer there, we today have journals of great excellence like Frontline, Outlook, India Today, each excelling the other in one or other department. The Economic & Political Weekly had hardly any competition from any publisher let alone in India, but in the world at large.
One of the newest entrants into the field of journalistic excellence is Eternal India now hardly two years old but, I would like to submit, should be must reading to anyone who wants to know what is happening in the country in depth. The latest issue (May 10) is especially to be recommended for four article: Aspects of Internals Security by Lt Gen (Retd) AS Alkat, Development of Telangana by T H Chowdary, who is Director of Centre for Telecom Management Studies, Religion and Job Reservation by Arif Mohammad Khan, a former Union Cabinet Minister, but the most fascinating of all is a study of Dharampal’s Indiginous Indian Education by AL Prajapati. And this, for a special reason. One will remember the growth of the anti-Brahmin Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, on the ground that the brahmins, during the British period all but monopolised government jobs, in its time, the most coveted. Was it always like that? It wasn’t. In earlier days, in most areas, especially in Madras Presidency, the Brahmin scholars formed "a very small proportion of those studying at schools" except in disciplines of Theology, Metaphysics, Ethics and the Law". But the disciplines of Astronomy and Medical Science seem to have been studied by scholars from a variety of backgrounds and castes, as the author notes. In Malabar, for instance (the period of time is not mentioned) out of 808 students studying Astronomy, only 78 were brahmins and out of the 194 studying medicine, only 31 were Brahmins. Incidentally, in Rajahmundary five of the scholars in the Institute of Higher Learning were shudras.
According to other Madras Presidency surveys, the best students studying surgery were from the caste of barbers. Brahmins were nowhere in the picture. The figures quoted in a variety of job offerings etc suggest that the role of the Brahmins was minimum in almost all of them. Government jobs formed only a small part of all the jobs available in the country, a point mostly forgotten by anti-brahmins, no doubt purposely. One suspects the caste system precluded brahmins from many highly paid professional jobs like temple building, carving out canals etc, even studying surgery since it was unacceptable for brahmins to touch dead bodies.
But to come back to the present times. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh gives his first press conference in one year which was attended, one is told, by over six hundred reporters, which one finds unbelievable. This columnist does not profess to have read all the newspapers in India, but going by regional papers, the press conference was well reported but instead of summarising the answers given by the Prime Minister, the media could have reported the proceedings verbatim, presenting both questions and answers as they were asked and replied. One would also like to know who asked which question. So many of our dailies are devoted to presenting social events that political reporting has been reduced to a joke. Time was when newspapers like The Hindu would give two full pages of parliamentary proceedings. In Bombay, The Times of India also gave detailed coverage not only of Parliament but of the Bombay Legislative Assembly and even the Bombay Municipal Corporation. In the era of ‘breaking news’ and ‘Instant news’ those wise ways are no longer fashionable. It is the reader who is deprived of information and the totality of information to arrive at major judgements. That is the best way to destroy democracy.
Attack on Dr Pravin Togadia in Hyderabad
ABOUT 200 jehadis armed with sticks, stones and swords laid siege to a house under SR Nagar Police Station in Hyderabad at 10.15 p.m. on May 28 to launch a pre-planned attack on VHP general secretary Dr Pravin Togadia who was at the house of a VHP sympathiser for dinner. He came to the city only in the evening after attending an organisational camp far away from the city.
VHP president Shri Ashok Singhal sounded the Prime Minister, Union Home Minister, Leaders of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Chief Minister and Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh about the incident drawing their attention to the fact that this jehadi posture has very serious implications. "After the Godhra incident, this is the first time that jehadi elements tried to repeat their terrorist act of this nature," Shri Singhal reminded them. He informed that the Hyderabad police was very lethargic in taking action. It came after 45 minutes and quelled the jehadis.
"The VHP and all its Chapters have taken this threat very seriously. VHP has requested the Central and the State Governments to bring to book the anti-national jehadis and take stern action against them, so that such incidents do not reoccur anywhere in the country," Shri Singhal said.
VHP president Shri Ashok Singhal sounded the Prime Minister, Union Home Minister, Leaders of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Chief Minister and Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh about the incident drawing their attention to the fact that this jehadi posture has very serious implications. "After the Godhra incident, this is the first time that jehadi elements tried to repeat their terrorist act of this nature," Shri Singhal reminded them. He informed that the Hyderabad police was very lethargic in taking action. It came after 45 minutes and quelled the jehadis.
"The VHP and all its Chapters have taken this threat very seriously. VHP has requested the Central and the State Governments to bring to book the anti-national jehadis and take stern action against them, so that such incidents do not reoccur anywhere in the country," Shri Singhal said.
Western countries must return Indian antiquities.
Western countries must return Indian antiquities. They are India's wealth
THE Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India Dr Gautam Sengupta recently said that India will launch a "diplomatic and legal campaign" to retrieve India’s stolen and looted antiquities that adorn western museums now. Top in the list are the Koh-I-Noor diamond, the Sultanganj Buddha (over 1500 years old), the idol of goddess Saraswati from Raja Bhoj’s temple, and Amravati railings, he said. Sengupta rightly said that the list of items looted, stolen and forced out of the country is too long to handle. And yet, India must make a beginning. The efforts made till now have not borne fruit. Now India has decided to seek the help of UNESCO and the support of other nations like Mexico, Egypt, Greece and China who are also victims of colonial loot.
Routinely Indian artefacts come up for sale in international markets both open and underground. These are mostly precious items taken from India by the colonisers as and when they found it. Any number of idols, made of metals, alloys, stones and crystal have been snatched out of temples and shipped out. There was the classic case of the idol of Nataraja, installed at the Puttur temple in Tamil Nadu, which was traced at London. It was returned to India and restored to the temple after a long drawn legal battle.
One of the rarest of rare Atharva Veda manuscript in Sharda script (dated 900 BC) is now located in the Tubingen University Library, Germany. The library presented a digitised version of this manuscript to India a few years ago. Visitors and scholars to various museums in western countries speak with wonder about the precious manuscripts of India being preserved there. No price can be calculated for these lost antiquities. That they belong to India is not in doubt. That they were taken out of their places of origin by plunder, pillage and theft is also true. Hence these museums cannot claim ownership over these items.
While this issue is undisputable that the precious artefacts should be returned to the countries of origin, it is equally important to ponder over our own track record in caring for the remnants of our great cultural past. Smuggling antiquities is a multi billion business. Almost once a week the police stop idols from being transported out of the country. These are only the cases caught and stopped. There is a law that says that any article of more than 75 years old cannot be taken out of the borders of India. The ASI has the responsibility to give approval for any antiquity to be taken out. The law is never applied in spirit.
Dr Subramanian Swamy had filed a case in the Supreme Court against antiquity smuggling with the collusion of senior politicians. He had sought to expose how the nexus worked. The ASI had a few years ago buried the case of serious allegations against a very senior archaeologist, who was excavating a site. He was accused of giving free access to smugglers into the site even before the excavated objects were registered. More recently Ms Maneka Gandhi, as Culture Minister discovered to everybody’s horror that the master catalogue of the National Museum had not been updated for over a decade and during her visit to the museum found hundreds of non-catalogued art objects lying in the corridors of the museum. It meant that if anybody walked away with any object, the museum would not be even able to complain.
The state of our museums is pitiable. Except the few national museums, the state museums are all badly maintained. The recent theft of Tagore memorabilia and his Nobel Prize medal only highlight the plight of the museums. Again, it had come to light recently that some of Raja Ravi Verma’s paintings were missing from the Trivandrum museum. It was later, explained away as ‘mistakes’ while cataloguing. The truth is not known.
India must make a strong case for the return of the smuggled art objects. No other country suffered such loot as India did, also because no other nation had this treasure of precious things. From Babur to Nadir Shah to Gazni to Khilji to Robert Clive to Dalhousie, it has been one raid after another. That we have withstood them all and continue to flourish is in itself a miracle. And hence our case becomes stronger. The western countries should have the conscience and the grace to return all the material in their possession that once belonged to India. Let them not look at it as assets. They had been the caretakers till now and we are grateful for that. But now, it is time they returned home.
THE Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India Dr Gautam Sengupta recently said that India will launch a "diplomatic and legal campaign" to retrieve India’s stolen and looted antiquities that adorn western museums now. Top in the list are the Koh-I-Noor diamond, the Sultanganj Buddha (over 1500 years old), the idol of goddess Saraswati from Raja Bhoj’s temple, and Amravati railings, he said. Sengupta rightly said that the list of items looted, stolen and forced out of the country is too long to handle. And yet, India must make a beginning. The efforts made till now have not borne fruit. Now India has decided to seek the help of UNESCO and the support of other nations like Mexico, Egypt, Greece and China who are also victims of colonial loot.
Routinely Indian artefacts come up for sale in international markets both open and underground. These are mostly precious items taken from India by the colonisers as and when they found it. Any number of idols, made of metals, alloys, stones and crystal have been snatched out of temples and shipped out. There was the classic case of the idol of Nataraja, installed at the Puttur temple in Tamil Nadu, which was traced at London. It was returned to India and restored to the temple after a long drawn legal battle.
One of the rarest of rare Atharva Veda manuscript in Sharda script (dated 900 BC) is now located in the Tubingen University Library, Germany. The library presented a digitised version of this manuscript to India a few years ago. Visitors and scholars to various museums in western countries speak with wonder about the precious manuscripts of India being preserved there. No price can be calculated for these lost antiquities. That they belong to India is not in doubt. That they were taken out of their places of origin by plunder, pillage and theft is also true. Hence these museums cannot claim ownership over these items.
While this issue is undisputable that the precious artefacts should be returned to the countries of origin, it is equally important to ponder over our own track record in caring for the remnants of our great cultural past. Smuggling antiquities is a multi billion business. Almost once a week the police stop idols from being transported out of the country. These are only the cases caught and stopped. There is a law that says that any article of more than 75 years old cannot be taken out of the borders of India. The ASI has the responsibility to give approval for any antiquity to be taken out. The law is never applied in spirit.
Dr Subramanian Swamy had filed a case in the Supreme Court against antiquity smuggling with the collusion of senior politicians. He had sought to expose how the nexus worked. The ASI had a few years ago buried the case of serious allegations against a very senior archaeologist, who was excavating a site. He was accused of giving free access to smugglers into the site even before the excavated objects were registered. More recently Ms Maneka Gandhi, as Culture Minister discovered to everybody’s horror that the master catalogue of the National Museum had not been updated for over a decade and during her visit to the museum found hundreds of non-catalogued art objects lying in the corridors of the museum. It meant that if anybody walked away with any object, the museum would not be even able to complain.
The state of our museums is pitiable. Except the few national museums, the state museums are all badly maintained. The recent theft of Tagore memorabilia and his Nobel Prize medal only highlight the plight of the museums. Again, it had come to light recently that some of Raja Ravi Verma’s paintings were missing from the Trivandrum museum. It was later, explained away as ‘mistakes’ while cataloguing. The truth is not known.
India must make a strong case for the return of the smuggled art objects. No other country suffered such loot as India did, also because no other nation had this treasure of precious things. From Babur to Nadir Shah to Gazni to Khilji to Robert Clive to Dalhousie, it has been one raid after another. That we have withstood them all and continue to flourish is in itself a miracle. And hence our case becomes stronger. The western countries should have the conscience and the grace to return all the material in their possession that once belonged to India. Let them not look at it as assets. They had been the caretakers till now and we are grateful for that. But now, it is time they returned home.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Conversion of Aristocratic Hindu Princes
Kidnapping and Forced Conversion of Aristocratic Hindu Princes during Muslim Rule in India
Sunday, 28 March 2010 01:07 Dr. Radhasyam Brahmachari
It is well-known that Muslim invaders and rulers enslaved Hindus en masse and converted them to Islam to swell the Muslim population in India. There was another mode. Muslim rulers, given their large harems, used to have too many princesses, and found difficulty of getting suitable grooms from amongst Muslims to marry them off. So, they kidnapped and forcibly converted talented Hindu princes or aristocratic Hindu youngmen to marry off their daughters...
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A Muslim lady, called Nusrat Jahan Ayesha Siddiqa, has written a book in Bengali, titled “Islamic Peace and Massacring the Infidels”. She has given a nice description of the events, in the preface of her book, about how the Muslim kings and nobles used to hijack best Hindu young men, convert them to Islam and give their daughters in marriage to them. The book has been published by another Muslim lady, named Laila Anjumand Ara Banu. The paragraphs below present a translation of the Preface of the book by the authoress (as quoted by R N Datta in his book “The Silent Terror”):
“Many Hindus of Bengal are aware of the Hindu kingdom and the Hindu kings of Ektakia, in the district of Rajshahi, now in Bangladesh. Saptadurga or Satgarah was their capital. When Syed Hussain Shah was the Badshah (king) of Bengal, having capital at Gaur, now situated in the district of Maldah in West Bengal, Raja Madan Narayan, a Brahmin, was the king of Ektakia. These Hindu kingdoms like Ektakia were not independent but tributaries to the Badshah of Bengal and had to pay annual tax or revenue to the Badshah of Gaur. In one occasion, King Madan Narayan took his two sons Kandarpa Narayan and Kamdeb Narayan with him during his annual visit to Gaur for paying his tribute.
Syed Hussain Shah had many daughters out of his four wives. Being a Sayed, the Badshah used to look down upon ordinary Muslims, converts to Islam from Hinduism or Buddhism. So, several of his daughters, though grown up, had remained unwed for lack of suitable grooms. But the two charming, educated, intelligent, young and chaste sons of Madan Narayan instantly attracted the attention of Hussain Shah, who decided to marry his two eldest daughters to them.
When the Badshah disclosed his mind to Madan Narayan, he told the Badshah with folded hands: “O King! You are my Lord and hence you should not play a tyrant to me as it does not look nice and befitting for you.”
But the Badshah very cleverly replied: “O dear King, you should not misunderstand me. I personally have much respect and love for the kings of Ektakia. I, being a Syed, is the guru of the Muslims, as you, a Brahmin, is to the Hindus. As your daughters cannot marry anyone except he is a Brahmin, similarly my daughters cannot marry ordinary Muslims. I want to give the hands of my daughters to your sons in marriage, not as a tyrant, but as respect and deep regards for your illustrious family. I do not say that, your sons will have to embrace Islam. It is a natural and common social rule that the wife must follow the religion of her husband and hence you are at liberty to convert my daughters to Hinduism before marriage. If you do not agree, then I should say that your sons have to be converted to Islam. And we shall be glad to include them into our community. Out of these two proposals, I shall follow which you will consider best, but I shall never apply force in any circumstances.”
King Madan Narayan could smell that, the Badshah would show his real face if he disagreed both the proposal. Secondly, being a devout Brahmin, it would not be possible for him to bring a girl from a Muslim family, though after a possible conversion to Hinduism. So, he gave up the hope of his sons and consequently they were converted to Islam and married to the daughters of Hussain Shah. Later on, he kidnapped 11 more young men of the family of Madan Narayan, including his sons and nephews, converted them to Islam and married them with 11 princesses of his family. Only one boy, Ratikanta, the fourth son of Madan Narayan was spared because of his poor eye sight. “Let the fellow with bad eye sight remain a Hindu and for the others with good eye sight, it has been better for them to convert to Islam”, said the Badshah ironically to Madan Narayan on one occasion. In this way, 20 Hindu princes were hijacked from the Royal family of Ektakia.
This process of hijacking Hindu young men and giving them Muslim princesses in marriage, of course after converting to Islam, was not confined to the Badshah of Bengal only. Even Mughal Emperors, in several occasions, adopted this policy to find suitable grooms for their princesses. Emperor Akbar married two of her daughters using this policy: one to the Music maestro, named Tansen, after converting him to Islam, and the other daughter to Chandra Narayan, a Prince of the Royal family of Ektakia. Aurangzeb married his eldest daughter to a Kashmiri Pundit, named Krishna Narayan, after kidnapping and converting him to Islam. When Sayesta Khan was the subedar of Bengal, Aurangzeb wrote him a letter asking him to kidnap suitable princes of the Royal family of Ektakia and convert them to Islam, and send them to Delhi under strong protection of the security staff. The order also carried a strict instruction that said: no such converted Hindu prince should be sent to Delhi until he turns into a devout Muslim, because the Emperor disliked meeting a converted Muslim, who still possessed the hateful habits of the Hindu kafirs.
We used to listen to these stories from my grandmother. She also told us that we were the descendants of Prince Kandarpa Narayan. Though Prince Kamdeb could have been able to accept his conversion to Islam as his destiny, but Kandarpa Narayan could not. He could never become a Muslim by his heart. As there was no other alternative but to accept it as his fate, he ordered his descendants to carry the remembrance of their Hindu root from generation after generation. I belong to the 23rd generation of Prince Kandarpa Narayan and my blood begins to boil when I remember the Humiliation, coercion and torture that compelled my forefathers to convert to Islam.”
Sunday, 28 March 2010 01:07 Dr. Radhasyam Brahmachari
It is well-known that Muslim invaders and rulers enslaved Hindus en masse and converted them to Islam to swell the Muslim population in India. There was another mode. Muslim rulers, given their large harems, used to have too many princesses, and found difficulty of getting suitable grooms from amongst Muslims to marry them off. So, they kidnapped and forcibly converted talented Hindu princes or aristocratic Hindu youngmen to marry off their daughters...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Muslim lady, called Nusrat Jahan Ayesha Siddiqa, has written a book in Bengali, titled “Islamic Peace and Massacring the Infidels”. She has given a nice description of the events, in the preface of her book, about how the Muslim kings and nobles used to hijack best Hindu young men, convert them to Islam and give their daughters in marriage to them. The book has been published by another Muslim lady, named Laila Anjumand Ara Banu. The paragraphs below present a translation of the Preface of the book by the authoress (as quoted by R N Datta in his book “The Silent Terror”):
“Many Hindus of Bengal are aware of the Hindu kingdom and the Hindu kings of Ektakia, in the district of Rajshahi, now in Bangladesh. Saptadurga or Satgarah was their capital. When Syed Hussain Shah was the Badshah (king) of Bengal, having capital at Gaur, now situated in the district of Maldah in West Bengal, Raja Madan Narayan, a Brahmin, was the king of Ektakia. These Hindu kingdoms like Ektakia were not independent but tributaries to the Badshah of Bengal and had to pay annual tax or revenue to the Badshah of Gaur. In one occasion, King Madan Narayan took his two sons Kandarpa Narayan and Kamdeb Narayan with him during his annual visit to Gaur for paying his tribute.
Syed Hussain Shah had many daughters out of his four wives. Being a Sayed, the Badshah used to look down upon ordinary Muslims, converts to Islam from Hinduism or Buddhism. So, several of his daughters, though grown up, had remained unwed for lack of suitable grooms. But the two charming, educated, intelligent, young and chaste sons of Madan Narayan instantly attracted the attention of Hussain Shah, who decided to marry his two eldest daughters to them.
When the Badshah disclosed his mind to Madan Narayan, he told the Badshah with folded hands: “O King! You are my Lord and hence you should not play a tyrant to me as it does not look nice and befitting for you.”
But the Badshah very cleverly replied: “O dear King, you should not misunderstand me. I personally have much respect and love for the kings of Ektakia. I, being a Syed, is the guru of the Muslims, as you, a Brahmin, is to the Hindus. As your daughters cannot marry anyone except he is a Brahmin, similarly my daughters cannot marry ordinary Muslims. I want to give the hands of my daughters to your sons in marriage, not as a tyrant, but as respect and deep regards for your illustrious family. I do not say that, your sons will have to embrace Islam. It is a natural and common social rule that the wife must follow the religion of her husband and hence you are at liberty to convert my daughters to Hinduism before marriage. If you do not agree, then I should say that your sons have to be converted to Islam. And we shall be glad to include them into our community. Out of these two proposals, I shall follow which you will consider best, but I shall never apply force in any circumstances.”
King Madan Narayan could smell that, the Badshah would show his real face if he disagreed both the proposal. Secondly, being a devout Brahmin, it would not be possible for him to bring a girl from a Muslim family, though after a possible conversion to Hinduism. So, he gave up the hope of his sons and consequently they were converted to Islam and married to the daughters of Hussain Shah. Later on, he kidnapped 11 more young men of the family of Madan Narayan, including his sons and nephews, converted them to Islam and married them with 11 princesses of his family. Only one boy, Ratikanta, the fourth son of Madan Narayan was spared because of his poor eye sight. “Let the fellow with bad eye sight remain a Hindu and for the others with good eye sight, it has been better for them to convert to Islam”, said the Badshah ironically to Madan Narayan on one occasion. In this way, 20 Hindu princes were hijacked from the Royal family of Ektakia.
This process of hijacking Hindu young men and giving them Muslim princesses in marriage, of course after converting to Islam, was not confined to the Badshah of Bengal only. Even Mughal Emperors, in several occasions, adopted this policy to find suitable grooms for their princesses. Emperor Akbar married two of her daughters using this policy: one to the Music maestro, named Tansen, after converting him to Islam, and the other daughter to Chandra Narayan, a Prince of the Royal family of Ektakia. Aurangzeb married his eldest daughter to a Kashmiri Pundit, named Krishna Narayan, after kidnapping and converting him to Islam. When Sayesta Khan was the subedar of Bengal, Aurangzeb wrote him a letter asking him to kidnap suitable princes of the Royal family of Ektakia and convert them to Islam, and send them to Delhi under strong protection of the security staff. The order also carried a strict instruction that said: no such converted Hindu prince should be sent to Delhi until he turns into a devout Muslim, because the Emperor disliked meeting a converted Muslim, who still possessed the hateful habits of the Hindu kafirs.
We used to listen to these stories from my grandmother. She also told us that we were the descendants of Prince Kandarpa Narayan. Though Prince Kamdeb could have been able to accept his conversion to Islam as his destiny, but Kandarpa Narayan could not. He could never become a Muslim by his heart. As there was no other alternative but to accept it as his fate, he ordered his descendants to carry the remembrance of their Hindu root from generation after generation. I belong to the 23rd generation of Prince Kandarpa Narayan and my blood begins to boil when I remember the Humiliation, coercion and torture that compelled my forefathers to convert to Islam.”
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