The U.S.-Pakistan Conundrum and Europe’s Existential Test

22. May 2010 by admin.

The U.S.-Pakistan Conundrum and Europe’s Existential Test

 

 

May 20, 2010

 

 

U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JIM JONES and CIA Director Leon Panetta met with Pakistan’s top civil and military leadership Wednesday and reportedly urged it to take more aggressive action against jihadists, especially in North Waziristan. (The region is the main hub of an array of international jihadist actors, which the Pakistanis have yet to target in their yearlong counterinsurgency campaign.) The visit was prompted by revelations about the deep connections the would-be Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, had with Pakistan’s jihadist community as well as its military. Shahzad’s father is a retired Air Vice Marshal, the third highest rank in the Pakistani air force. His uncle is a retired two-star general who once headed the Frontier Corps in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province. The Frontier Corps is the paramilitary force currently playing a key role in the counterinsurgency campaign against Taliban rebels in northwest Pakistan.

Given the level of religious radicalization that the country has experienced over the past three decades or so, it is not unusual for a person with Shahzad’s pedigree to have joined al Qaeda transnational jihadists. Furthermore, being from an elite family also does not mean that senior people within the army have ties to the global jihadist nexus involved in plots to attack the United States. However, Tuesday there were reports that Pakistani authorities had arrested a serving army major suspected of being an accomplice to Shahzad, which further exacerbates an already complicated U.S.-Pakistani relationship.

 

Cooperation between Washington and Islamabad on dealing with the jihadist menace had just begun to improve when the Times Square bomb incident took place. It had hardly been three months since U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus had applauded Pakistani efforts against the militant infrastructure. He said Islamabad’s forces were doing the best they could with limited resources, and should not be expected to expand the scope of their operations anytime soon. The shifting paradigm in Washington vis-a-vis Islamabad came to a screeching halt when it became clear that Shahzad had been dispatched by jihadist elements based in Pakistan.

 

The problem is not that the United States has completely reverted to the old policy of pressuring Pakistan. Rather it has to do with the dilemma where on one hand U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration needs to stabilize Pakistan to deal with the Afghan Taliban, while on the other it needs to pressure Pakistan to take tougher action against al Qaeda, which could further destabilize the already dangerously weakened Pakistani polity. In other words, the U.S. strategy for the region has been knocked off balance.

 

This precarious situation should not be considered an unintended outcome of the plot to detonate an improvised explosive device in the heart of Manhattan. It is very clearly the work of transnational jihadists headquartered in Pakistan who view increased U.S.-Pakistani cooperation as a lethal cocktail. The jihadists have been able to exploit the weakness of the Pakistani state and the contradictions within its security establishment to their advantage.

 

But in the past year they have faced a major onslaught and find themselves caught between U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle strikes and Pakistani ground assaults. They are in no position to resist the combined U.S.-Pakistani offensive. Their only way out is to undermine the bilateral relationship, which, given its fragility and the tools at the disposal of the jihadists, is not hard to do.

 

This strategy mimics efforts to ignite conflict between India and Pakistan by staging attacks in India in an attempt to force New Delhi into taking unilateral action against militant facilities on Pakistani soil. Doing so would lead to an all-out war between the two South Asian rivals, giving militants even more room to maneuver. In the case of the United States and Pakistan, an attack does not have to be successful, such as the case with the Times Square plot. All that is required is an attempt by an individual with easily traceable connections to Pakistan and its security establishment, which would undermine the ties between the two. Ideally, the goal is to create a situation where the United States is forced to be more aggressive about unilateral action on Pakistani soil. Doing so would create further chaos, which is the environment in which the jihadists thrive.

 

It should be noted that the whole idea of the al Qaeda-allied Pakistani Taliban claiming responsibility for the failed Times Square attack makes no sense. Why would the jihadists expend resources on an individual who did not have the skill set to pull off a real bombing? It only makes the organization appear weak, unless of course the intent was not to stage an actual attack, but rather undermine U.S. strategy for the region by creating problems between Islamabad and Washington.

 

Lest our readers think there isn’t anything going on in the world beyond Pakistan, the financial crisis in Europe has not gone anywhere — in fact, it continues to build. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament that Europe is facing an “existential test” from the Greek-triggered crisis, noting that “if the euro fails, then Europe fails.” The chancellor is laying the groundwork for a Friday vote on approving Germany’s 123 billion euro contribution to a eurozone bailout fund.

 

While it was not designed that way, the euro has become the EU. The euro was intended to inject German economic dynamism into the rest of Europe, providing capital and markets that would act like the ocean tide and raise all boats. Instead, the common currency allowed poorer Southern Europe to delay reforms.

The issue of the day focuses on German subsidization of the South versus a series of rolling collapses should Berlin refuse. Unintended or not — and economically beneficial or not — the link between Germany’s checkbook and “the preservation of the European idea” is undisputed. If Germany is to seek global stature, it will have to make donations of similar scale to the European South over and over again. And should it refuse to participate, the great unraveling of Europe will begin with a vengeance.

 

It is not so much that we are attracted to the drama in Berlin — although it is worth noting that there has not been this type of drama in Berlin since the 1940s — but rather that the Germans are enacting policies that have a hint of desperation to them. On Wednesday the Germans instituted a ban on naked short selling, market parlance for betting that a certain horse will lose badly. Such trades usually only affect the margins of the market, and governments only get nervous about them when the ship seems about to go down. 

 

For comparison, the United States instituted a similar policy in July 2008, just before the American markets degraded from wobbly to free fall.

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The Tragic Story of Afzal Khan’s 63 Wives

15. May 2010 by admin.

The Tragic Story of Afzal Khan’s 63 Wives

Prophet Muhammad, by giving divine legitimacy to polygamy and unbounded concubinage, not only degraded the status of women, but his prohibition of remarriage of his harem-inmates–likely fearing that it would divulge his sexual impotency to other men–also set on a legacy of many tragedies for Muslim women..

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Bijapur, the famous capital of the medieval Adil Shah dynasty (1489 to 1686), is a small city in Souther Indian state of Karnataka, whose charm lies largely in the remarkable architectural legacy of those days. Amongst its numerous architectural monuments of the Islamic past is Satth Kabar (Sixty Graves) that bears the memory of a very tragic incident in history of Muslim women.

Afzal Khan was the most powerful General or Sardar (Lord) in the court of the Bijapur Sultanate. He was responsible for many victories for Adil Shah Dynasty. In 1658, Sultan Ali Adil Shah II of Bijapur was preparing to launch a military campaign against Shivaji, the indefatigable Maratha ruler. Being constantly under pressure from Auranzeb on one side and Shivaji from the other, Adil Shah depended on his generals to stall the enemies, and counted General Afzal Khan among his most trusted warriors.

Though Afzal Khan was a brave man, he had but one weakness: auguries and omens. Prior to the campaign, Khan contacted astrologers who predicted doom—his death at the hands of Maratha soldiers. At that time, Afzal Khan had 63 wives in his harem. Fearing that his wives would remarry after his death, the anxious general chose to kill all of them. Some say they were pushed into a deep well, while others say that all the 63 unfortunate wives were slain by Afzal. The astrologers proved correct; for, Khan indeed die at the hands of Shivaji at Pratapgarh.

 

However, his wives lie buried just 5 km from Bijapur at a place now bears titular testimony to the uxoricide: Satth Kabar. Ironically, the tomb built by the general for himself, who wanted to be close to his wives in life and in death, stands adjacent to the one-acre burial ground surrounded by jowar fields. The site has now been declared to be of national importance under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958, and is under the jurisdiction of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Today, the tombstones are scarred by graffiti; people often come to the shady spot for rest.

“People need to hear the heartrending stories that cry out from these graves”, says the 65 year-old man who lives in a nearby house.

 

How Afzal Khan died?

Afzal Khan was aware that Shivaji was on Pratapgarh, and planned to lure him out into the open plateau of Deccan, where he could destroy his forces. Khan’s strength was his giant force. At that time he took with him a force of 12,000 soldiers, many cannons, and troops mounted on elephants, horses, and camels etc. Which was more than enough to crush the force of Shivaji’s newly established ‘Swarajya’ (Self-rule). Shivaji’s men were very few in numbers and Afzal Khan was aware of this fact too. That’s why he tried to bring Shivaji out in the open plains, where they could be destroyed quickly in an open battle.

 

In contrast, Shivaji’s men were masters of what is known as ‘guerilla war’, where one surprises the enemy with a sudden attack causing heavy casualties and retreat quickly. So Shivaji tried his best to avoid a direct confrontation in an open field.

To compell Shivaji to come down to the plains, Afzal Khan started demolishing the temples, the prestigious temple of Bhavani Mata. His idea was that Shivaji, a pious Hindu, would not tolerate such insult of his gods and goddesses; and immediately, he would come down to fight in an open battle. But Shivaji did not bite the bait.

Failing to lure Shivaji out into the plains, Afzal agreed to meet him at Pratapgarh, a fort near the town of Satara, a location which was strategically advantageous for Shivaji’s infantry. For the meeting, a large tent was set up at the foothills of Pratapgarh. It was agreed that the meeting would be unarmed: each side was to bring ten personal bodyguards, who would stand one arrow-shot distance away.

 

Both parties were, however, prepared for treachery: Afzal hid a kataar, a small and sharp dagger, in his coat. Shivaji wore armour under his clothes, and carried a weapon called bagh nakh (”tiger claws”), consisting of an iron finger-grip with four razor claws, which he concealed within his clenched fist.

As the two men entered the tent for meeting, Khan pretended to greet Shivaji with a hug, and stabbed Shivaji in the back with his hidden kataar. However Shivaji, due to the armour under his coat, was saved and opened his fist and disemboweled Khan with his bagh nakh. Afzal managed to hold his gushing entrails and hurtled outside, faint and bleeding, and threw himself into his palanquin. But Khan was decapitated by one of Shivaji’s bodyguards shortly down the slope.

Sambhaji Kawaji and Jiva Mahala, two of Shivaji’s bodyguards, were instrumental in protecting their king from Afzal’s bodyguards.

According to another version, on reaching the tent, Shivaji requested Afzal Khan to send his bodyguard Sayyad out of the place. As per the agreement, no one was to be present when Shivaji and Afzal Khan met. When Shivaji penetrated the tiger claws into Afzal Khan’s abdomen, injuring him fatally, Sayyad Khan entered the tent, running to his mater’s rescue. Just when Sayyad Khan was about to kill Shivaji, Jiva Mahal, a body guard of Shivaji, slashed Sayyad Khan, saving the life of his master.

Shivaji sped towards the fortress as his lieutenants ordered a bugle to be sounded. It was a pre-determined signal to his infantry, which had been strategically placed in the densely covered valley. All of Shivaji’s generals, including his Army Chief, Netaji Palkar, launched a surprise attack and routed Afzal Khan’s army. Afzal Khan’s son managed to escape with help from Maratha generals including Khandaji Khopade, another of many blunders committed by the Hindus against their struggle against Muslim invaders.

The severed head of Khan was sent to Rajgarh to be shown to Jijabai, Shivaji’s mother. She wanted vengeance for the murder of Shahaji, Shivaji’s father, in the captivity of Afzal Khan, and also for the death of her elder son, Sambhaji, also killed by Afzal Khan.

 

Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim Drowned his 280 Wives

Ibrahim I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640 to 1648. He was the son of Sultan Ahmed I, and was unofficially called “Ibrahim the Mad” (Turkish: Deli İbrahim), due to his unstable mental condition. However, Ibrahim was one of the most famous Ottoman Sultans, succeeded his brother Murad IV in 1640. Murad had ordered his three other brothers executed. Ibrahim I was allowed to live because he was too mad to be a threat.

 

Ibrahim is known to have had an obsession with obese women, urging his agents to find the fattest woman possible. A candidate, weighing around 330 pounds (137.4 Kg), was tracked down in Georgia or Armenia. She was given the pet-name Sheker Pare (”Sugar Cube”). Ibrahim was so pleased with her that he gave her a government pension and (allegedly) a governorship. At that time, Ibrahim had 280 wives and concubines in his harem. But when he heard a rumor that his concubines were compromised by another man, he decided to kill them en masse. Ultimately, all the 280 members of his harem were drowned in the Bosporus Sea.

Eventually, Ibrahim was deposed in a coup led by the Grand Mufti. There is an apocryphal story to the effect that the Grand Mufti acted in response to Ibrahim’s drowning all 280 members of his harem. But there is other evidence to suggest that at least two of Ibrahim’s concubines survived the mass murder. Ibrahim was ultimately strangled to death in Istanbul.

 

Idi Amin of Uganda

Idi Amin Dada Oumee, commonly known as Idi Amin, was a Ugandan military dictator and the president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Amin took power in a military coup in January 1971, deposing Milton Obote. His rule was characterized by human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings and the expulsion of Asians from Uganda. The number of people killed by him is unknown, but an estimate from international observers and human rights groups says that it ranged from 100,000 to 500,000. After the fall of his regime in 1979, Amin fled to Libya, and finally took political asylum in Saudi Arabia in 1981, where he died in 2003.

Idi Amin officially had 5 wives (many believe the actual number was much higher), one of which he had killed and dismembered to show her children what happens to someone, who disobeys him. He is also said to have over 34 concubines and many mistresses in his harem. Many believe that he was suffering from STDs, syphilis being one of them. He also had over 20 some children.

 

More importantly, Idi Amin used to refresh his harem regularly by executing the old and condemned wives for inducting new and younger ones. Many of us might have seen the heartrending reports in news papers in 1970s, how the security guards led the wailing victims to the place of execution through thousands of onlookers. But the government of Saudi Arabia, by providing asylum to such a cruel killer, has made the world understand that, Idi Amin had not committed any serious crime or insulted Islam by killing his wives. At that time, some journalists reported that Idi Amin was even a cannibal, who used to taste the flesh of his executed wives.

 

Conclusion

From the above discussions it becomes evident that the status of women in Muslim world is worse than domestic animals. In Arabia, during the Prophet’s times, an Arab could confine his wife in a room and kill her slowly by refusing food and water to her. Even the authors of the Arab Human Development Report 2002, have categorically mentioned that women are not considered as full citizens in the Islamic world, and that this oppression of the women is one of the major reasons for the Muslim world’s backwardness.

 

There is another point to be mentioned in this context. It has been said above that, Afzal Khan killed his 63 wives as he was afraid that, after his death, other people would marry his wives. There is no doubt that Prophet Muhammad was in the grip of a similar fear, because of which he forbade the remarriage of his harem-inmates after his death.

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Destiny of West Bengal Hindus: The Coming Days of Slavery to Islam

5. May 2010 by admin.

Destiny of West Bengal Hindus: The Coming Days of Slavery to Islam

Originally Posted On 23 December 2009 

Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari

How fast-breeding Muslims are turning West Bengal (and entire India for that matter) into a Muslim-majority state and signs of the consequences that await its Hindu populations.

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The State of West Bengal: West Bengal is a state in eastern India, having Islamic Bangladesh on its eastern border. Geographically West Bengal is on the eastern bottleneck of India, stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south. It has a total area of 88,752 square kilometres (34,267 sq mi).

The West Bengal region was part of a number of empires and kingdoms during the past two millennia. The British East India Company consolidated their hold on the region following the Battle of Plassey in 1757, and the city of Calcutta, now Kolkata, served, up to 1911, as the capital of British India. This region was a hotbed of the Indian independence movement through the early 20th century. In 1947, Bengal was divided along religious lines into two separate entities: West Bengal, a state of India, and East Bengal, a part of the new nation of Pakistan (which later became independent Bangladesh in 1971).

West Bengal, the most densely-populated state in India, occupies only 2.7% of the India’s land area, but supports over 7.8% of its population. The Figure 1 shows the political map of West Bengal and its 19 districts.

West Bengal suffered from large refugee influx during the partition in 1947, leading to political unrests later on. The partition of Bengal entailed the greatest exodus of people in Human History. Some 3.5 million Hindus migrated from East Pakistan to India, while only 500,000 Muslims crossed border from West Bengal to East Pakistan, although it was Muslims, who demanded a separate Muslim state and created Pakistan. The influx of Hindu refugees created crisis of land and food in West Bengal lasting more than three decades. The politics of West Bengal, since the partition in 1947, has developed round the nucleus of refugee problem. Both the Rightists and the Leftists in politics of West Bengal have not yet become free from the socio-economic conditions created by the partition of Bengal.

Again, the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 resulted in the fresh influx of millions of Hindu refugees to West Bengal, causing significant strain on its infrastructure. West Bengal politics underwent a major change when the Left Front won the 1977 assembly election, defeating the incumbent Indian National Congress. The Left Front, led by Communist Party of India (Marxist), has governed the state for the subsequent three decades. It may be mentioned here that in 1905, an abortive attempt was made by the British Government to divide the province of Bengal into two zones, but the plan was withdrawn in 1911 due to violent opposition by the people of both East and West Bengal.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, the creator of West Bengal 

As a matter of fact, Shyama Prasad Mookherjee was the creator of the state now called West Bengal. He carved out West Bengal from the then East Pakistan and East Punjab from West Pakistan. He was basically an educationist but the crisis of partition, more pointedly the partition of Bengal, brought him into politics. When the British accepted partition of India and creation of the new Islamic state of Pakistan, it was decided that the state or a Pradesh would be considered the smallest unit. Or in other words, a state with majority Muslim would go to Pakistan and a Hindu majority state would remain in the Indian Republic.

At that time the Bengal Province was a Muslim majority state and hence the entire Bengal was waiting to be included into the Islamic state of Pakistan. But after the massacre of the Hindus by the Muslims in Calcutta and Noakhali in 1946-47, Dr Mookherjee was convinced that it would be devastating for the Hindus, if they continue to live in a Muslim-dominated state and under a government controlled by the Muslim League. It should be mentioned here that most of the districts of East Bengal were Muslim dominated while the districts of western Bengal were dominated by the Hindus. So, Dr Mookherjee demanded that the smallest unit should be a district, not a province.

Similarly, the entire state of Punjab was marked as a Muslim majority state and hence was to be included into Pakistan. But the districts of West Punjab were dominated by the Muslims while in the districts of East Punjab, Hindus and Sikhs were in the majority. Dr Mookherjee argued that the Hindus of the Hindu majority districts of Bengal and Punjab must have their right to self-determination. It was not possible for the British to deny his argument; as a result only the Muslim-dominated districts in eastern Bengal, renamed East Pakistan, went to the new Islamic state of Pakistan, while a new state of West Bengal was formed with the Hindu-dominated districts of Bengal, which remained with India. Likewise, all the Muslim-dominated districts of Punjab, renamed West Pakistan, went to Pakistan, and the Hindu/Sikh-dominated districts were included in the Indian Union as a new state, called East Punjab. The only Muslim majority district that was included into West Bengal, due to geographical reasons, was Murshidabad. And for the similar reason, the Hindu dominated district Khulna was included into East Pakistan.

Table 1 shows the demography in West Bengal, based on census reports of the Government of India from 1951 to 2001. It has been pointed out earlier that only one district, i.e. Murshidabad, was Muslim dominated during the partition in 1947. The Table-1 shows that, according to 1951 census, 44.6 per cent population of Murshidabad were Hindus, and in past 50 years the percentage of Hindus has come down to 35.12 per cent. It also shows that in 1951, the Hindu and Muslim population in the district of Maldah was 62.92 and 36.17 per cent respectively. But after 50 years, i.e. according to 2001 census, Hindu population has declined to 49.28 per cent while the Muslim population has increased to 49.72 per cent, turning it into a Muslim majority district. Another district that has become a Muslim majority district is North Dinajpur. In 1981, the Hindu and Muslim population in the district were 54.20 and 45.35 per cent, respectively. In 2001, Hindu population has declined to 51.72 per cent, while the Muslim population has increased to 47.36 per cent. At present, it has become a Muslim-majority district.

The Table also shows that in all the districts, except Coochbihar, Hindu population is declining and Muslim population is rising. There are mainly three factors for this explosion of Muslim population.

• Firstly, planned and deliberate rejection of family-planning measures by the Muslims;

• Secondly, the uncontrolled influx of illegal Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border; and,

• Thirdly, through conversion of Hindus to Islam.

So far the first reason is concerned, it is necessary for the government to impose strict family planning measures upon Muslims. But no government has so far tried to take such a step over fears of earning their displeasure, thus, loosing their votes. Similarly, no government has ever taken any step towards halting the influx of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. On the contrary, every political party, hoping to swell their vote-bank, is inviting Bangladeshi immigrants and assisting them to obtain Indian citizenship.

Notably, illegal Bangladeshi intruders are not affecting West Bengal alone, but are also fast altering the demography of the neighbouring states of Bihar and Assam. According to estimates of the police and CID departments, nearly 30 million Bangladeshi Muslims have entered West Bengal, Bihar and Assam.  As a result, three bordering districts Bihar, namely Kishanganj, Araria and Katihar, and seven districts of Assam, namely Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Naogaon, Morigaon, Hailakandi and Karimganj, have turned into Muslim-majority districts.

Alarmingly, as the bordering villages of West Bengal, Bihar and Assam become Muslim dominated, they are being utilized as springboards by the jihadi terrorists and ISI agents. Moreover, mosques and madrasas are mushrooming in these districts, and Hindus are being evicted from their ancestral homes under threats and violence. The life and dignity of the Hindus and the honour of their women are no longer safe in those bordering villages.

Table 1: Change of Demography in West Bengal

District	Year	Hindu	Decreased	Muslim	Increased
Darjeeling	1951 2001	81.71 76.92	- 4.79	1.145.31	+ 4.17
Jalpaiguri	1951 2001	84.1883.30	- 0.88	9.7410.85	+ 1.11
Coochbihar	1951 2001	70.09 75.50	+ 4.60	28.94 24.24	- 4.7
North Dinajpur	1981 2001	54.20 51.72	- 2.48	45.35 47.36	+ 2.01
South Dinajpur	1981 2001	75.32 74.01	- 1.31	23.51 24.02	+ 0.51
Maldah	1951 2001	62.92 49.28	- 13.64	36.17 49.72	+ 12.75
Murshidabad	1951 2001	44.60 35.12	- 8.68	55.24 63.67	+ 8.43
Birbhum	1951 2001	72.60 64.69	- 7.91	26.86 35.08	+ 4.22
Bardhaman	1951 2001	83.73 78.89	- 4.84	15.60 19.78	+ 4.18
Nadia	1951 2001	77.03 73.75	- 3.28	22.36 25.41	+ 3.05
North 24 parganas	1971 2001	77.26 75.23	- 2.03	22.43 24.22	+ 1.79
South 24 Parganas	1971 2001	72.96 65.86	- 7.1	26.05 33.24	+ 7.19
Hooghly	1951 2001	86.52 83.63	- 2.89	13.27 15.14	+ 1.87
Bankura	1951 2001	91.16 84.35	- 6.81	04.4 7.51	+ 3.11
Purulia	1961 2001	93.13 83.42	- 9.71	05.99 07.12	+ 1.13
Medinipur	1951 2001	91.78 85.58	- 6.20	07.17 11.33	+ 4.16
Howrah	1951 2001	83.45 74.98	- 8.47	16.22 24.44	+ 8.22
Kolkata	1951 2001	83.41 77.68	- 5.73	12.00 20.27	+ 8.27
West Bengal	1951 2001	78.45 72.47	- 5.98	19.85 25.25	+ 5.4

(Source: Census Report 1951, 1961, 1971, 1981and 2001) Figure 2: Decline of Hindu Population in West Bengal (Courtesy: Mohit Ray)  

As pointed out above (see Table 1), Hindu population is in decline in all the districts of West Bengal, except Coochbihar, while Figure 2 illustrates the pace of this decline between 1951 and 2001. In 1991, Hindus constituted 75% of West Bengal population, which will come down to 70% in 2011. In 2034, the Hindu population will decline to 60%, and in 2051, it will dwindle to about 52%. In other words, entire West Bengal will become a Muslim-majority state in the next 40 years. 

It is needless to say that, as soon as the Muslim population would rise to 40% in 2034, it would be difficult for the Hindus to live in peace in the state. Secret IB report tells that Muslims will claim the land on the eastern side of River Hooghly as an Islamic state or a part of greater Bangladesh. In such a situation, there will remain two options before the Hindus: either to accept Islam or to become refugee again and flee their homes to other parts of India to save their lives, dignity and religious faith.

Table 2: District-wise Hindu and Muslim Population in West Bengal

District	Religion	Percentage of Population	Percentage of Population of Children (0-6 yr old)
Darjeeling	HinduMuslim	76.9205.31	76.1908.26
Jalpaiguri	Hindu Muslim	83.3010.85	80.4513.81
Coochbihar	Hindu Muslim	75.5024.24	69.8229.98
North Dinajpur	Hindu Muslim	51.7247.36	43.1955.93
South Dinajpur	Hindu Muslim	74.0124.02	69.4028.35
Maldah	Hindu Muslim	49.2849.72	43.0156.08
Murshidabad	Hindu Muslim	35.9263.67	29.3570.27
Birbhum	Hindu Muslim	64.4935.08	58.4241.15
Bardhaman	Hindu Muslim	78.8919.78	75.0323.62
Nadia	Hindu Muslim	73.7525.41	66.7132.55
North 24 Parganas	Hindu Muslim	75.2324.22	65.5234.01
South 24 Parganas	Hindu Muslim	65.8633.24	55.4143.85
Hooghly	Hindu Muslim	83.6315.14	78.9419.53
Bankura	Hindu Muslim	84.3507.51	81.8310.09
Purulia	Hindu Muslim	83.4207.12	81.6209.26
Medinipur	Hindu Muslim	85.5811.33	81.3615.36
Howrah	Hindu Muslim	74.9824.44	64.8134.68
Kolkata	Hindu Muslim	77.6820.27	70.2427.81
West Bengal	Hindu Muslim	72.4725.25	64.6133.17

(Source: Census Report, 2001)

Many apprehend that Hindus will be outnumbered by Muslims much earlier than the projection presented above, due to the fact that population of Muslim children is much higher than the population adults, as presented in Table 2. Particularly in the districts of North Dinajpur, North and South 24 Parganas, the population of Muslim children is much higher than the population of adult Muslims. As mentioned earlier, North Dinajpur has already become a Muslim majority district, while high Muslim children population in North and South 24 Parganas suggests that these two districts are on the way to becoming Muslim-majority districts.

It should be pointed out here that the swelling of Muslim population is not confined to West Bengal and Assam alone, but is an all-India affair. Table 3 shows how the Hindu populations are declining and Muslim populations rising throughout India. If continue unchecked, entire India may turn into a Muslim-dominant country in 5 to 6 decades. So, what the 800-year Muslim rule could not achieve with the help of sword would be achieved simply through unrestrained breeding, i.e. using the wombs of Muslim women as the weapon. Table 4 presents the state-wise Muslim populations of India. Table 5, below, shows the state-wise increase of Muslim and Hindu populations during the decade 1991-2001.

Table 3: Religious Composition of India’s Population, 1991–2001, (in percentage)

Year	Indian Religionists	Muslim	Christian
1901	86.64	12.21	1.15
1941	84.44	13.38	2.18
1951	87.24	10.43	2.33
1991	85.01	12.59	2.32
2001	67.56	30.38	2.06

(Source: Religious Demography of India by A P Joshi, M D Srinivas and J K Bajaj, 2003)

Table 4: Muslim population in Indian states.

State	Population	Percentage
Lakshadweep	57,903	95.47
Jammu & Kashmir	6,793,240	66.97
Assam	8,240,611	30.92
West Bengal	20,240,543	25.25
Kerala	7,863,842	24.70
Uttar Pradesh	30,740,158	18.49
Bihar	13,722,048	16.53
Jharkhand	3,731,308	13.85
Karnataka	6,463,127	12.23
Uttaranchal	1,012,141	11.92
Delhi	1,623,520	11.72
Maharastra	10,270,485	10.60
Andhra Pradesh	6,986,856	09.17
Gujarat	4,592,854	09.06
Manipur	190,939	08.81
Rajasthan	4,788,227	08.47
Andaman & Nicobar Islands	29,265	08.22
Tripura	254,442	07.95
Daman & Diu	12,281	07.76
Goa	92,210	06.84
Madhya Pradesh	3,841,449	06.37
Pondicherry	59.358	06.09
Haryana	1,222,916	05.78
Tamil Nadu	3,470,647	05.56
Meghalaya	99,169	04.28
Chandigarh	35,548	03.95
Dadra & Nagar Haveli	6,524	02.96
Orissa	761,985	02.07
Chhattisgarh	409,615	01.97
Himachal Pradesh	119,512	01.97
Arunachal Pradesh	20,675	01.88
Nagaland	35,005	01.76
Punjab	382,045	01.57
Sikkim	7,693	01.42

(Source: Census Report, 2001) 

Table 5: Increase of Hindu and Muslim Population, 1991 to 2001

State	Hindu (%)	Muslim (%)
West Bengal	14.2	25.9
Assam	14.9	29.3
Bihar (including Jhharkhand)	23.4	36.5
Delhi	44.1	82.5
Haryana	27.0	60.1
Punjab	28.7	59.6
Rajasthan	27.8	35.8
Himachal Pradesh	17.0	32.9
Jammu & Kashmir	24.7	29.5
Uttar Pradesh (including Uttarakhand)	24.2	31.7
Madhya Pradesh	21.7	29.5
Gujarat	22.1	27.3
Maharastra	21.6	34.6
Orissa	15.9	31.9
Karnataka	15.3	23.5
Andhra Pradesh	14.4	17.9
Tamilnadu	11.0	13.7
Kerala	07.3	15.8
India	19.3	29.5

(Source: Economic & Political Weekly, September 25. 2004) 

After the partition of Bengal in 1947, Hindus from East Pakistan—fleeing Muslim persecutions, including violence, rapes and forced conversion—came to West Bengal as paupers to save their lives and faith, and honor of their women. But next time, when the West Bengal is Islamized, they would have no place to go. It would be devastating for the Hindus of West Bengal. They would have either to embrace Islam, live as degraded dhimmis or drown themselves in the waters of Bay of Bengal.

As mentioned earlier, in the districts of West Bengal, bordering Islamic Bangladesh, where Muslims have already gained majority due influx of Bangladeshi Muslims, have been turned into mini-Pakistans, where jihad against the Hindus have already begun. It is becoming, day by day, difficult for the Hindus to live peacefully in those areas. Their life and property is becoming unsafe. Forceful eviction of the Hindus, looting their properties, raping and molestation of their women folk are becoming a daily occurrences.

Such incidents are not confined to the border districts alone, but also in isolated pockets of other districts, where Muslims may have gained majority. In the districts of North and South 24 Parganas, there are many such pockets where the Muslims have unleashed their jihadi activities against the Hindus. Several such incidents of oppression and violence by Muslims against the Hindus will be addressed in the next part of this article.

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Indira’s India and the KGB

4. May 2010 by admin.

Indira’s India and the KGB

A “charm offensive” against Mrs Gandhi, agents in the media and the government, attempts to buy influence in Congress — in the second volume of the astonishing Mitrokhin archive Christopher Andrew reveals how the KGB targeted India

by Christopher Andrew 

INDIRA GANDHI NEVER realised that the KGB’s first prolonged contact with her occurred during her first visit to the Soviet Union, a few months after Stalin’s death in 1953. As well as keeping her under continuous surveillance, the Centre (KGB headquarters) also surrounded her with handsome, attentive male admirers. Two years later Indira accompanied her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, the inaugural Prime Minister of independent India, on his first official visit to the Soviet Union. Like Nehru, she was visibly impressed by the apparent successes of Soviet planning and economic modernisation exhibited to them in stage-managed visits to Russian factories. During her trip Khrushchev presented her with a mink coat which became one of the favourite items in her wardrobe — even though a few years earlier she had criticised the female Indian ambassador in Moscow for accepting a similar gift.

Soviet attempts to cultivate Indira Gandhi during the 1950s were motivated far more by the desire to influence her father than by any awareness of her own political potential. Moscow still underestimated her when she became Prime Minister. In her early parliamentary appearances she seemed tongue-tied and unable to think on her feet. The insulting nickname coined by a socialist MP, Dumb Doll, began to stick.

But her political genes were soon to show their worth. Following a split in the Congress Party in 1969, the Communist Party of India (CPI), encouraged by Moscow, swung its support behind her. At the elections of February 1971, Mrs Gandhi’s wing of Congress won a landslide victory.

In August she signed a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation with the Soviet Union. Both countries immediately issued a joint communique calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. India was able to rely on Soviet arms supplies and diplomatic support in the conflict against Pakistan which was already in the offing.

Despite diplomatic support from both the United States and China, Pakistan suffered a crushing defeat in the 14-day war with India.

For most Indians it was Mrs Gandhi’s finest hour. A Soviet diplomat at the United Nations exulted: “This is the first time in history that the United States and China have been defeated together!” In the Centre, the Indo-Soviet special relationship was also celebrated as a triumph for the KGB. The residency in Delhi was rewarded by being upgraded to the status of “main residency”. Its head from 1970 to 1975, Yakov Prokofyevich Medyanik, was accorded the title of “main resident”. In the early 1970s the KGB presence in India became one of the largest outside the Soviet bloc. Indira Gandhi placed no limit on the number of Soviet diplomats and trade officials, thus allowing the KGB and Soviet intelligence as many cover positions as they wished.

Oleg Kalugin, who became head of Foreign Counter-Intelligence in 1973, remembers India as “a model of KGB infiltration of a Third World government”. He recalls one occasion when the KGB turned down an offer from an Indian minister to provide information in return for $50,000 on the grounds that it was already well supplied with material from the Indian foreign and defence ministries: “It seemed like the entire country was for sale; the KGB — and the CIA — had penetrated the Indian government. Neither side entrusted sensitive information to the Indians, realising their enemy would know all about it the next day.” The KGB, in Kalugin’s view, was more successful than the CIA, partly because of its skill in exploiting the corruption that became endemic under Indira Gandhi’s regime. Suitcases full of banknotes were said to be routinely taken to her house and one of her opponents claimed that Mrs Gandhi did not even return the cases.

The Prime Minister is unlikely to have paid close attention to the dubious origins of some of the funds that went into Congress’s coffers. That was a matter she left largely to her principal fund-raiser, Lalit Narayan Mishra, who, though Mrs Gandhi doubtless did not realise it, also accepted Soviet money. Short and obese, Mishra looked the part of the corrupt politician. Indira Gandhi, despite her own frugal lifestyle, depended on the cash he collected from various sources to finance her party. Money also went to her son and anointed heir, Sanjay, whose misguided ambition to build an Indian popular car and become India’s Henry Ford depended on government favours.

When Mishra was assassinated in 1975, Mrs Gandhi blamed a plot involving “foreign elements” — doubtless intended as a euphemism for the CIA. The Delhi KGB residency gave his widow 70,000 rupees, though she doubtless did not realise the source. Though there were some complaints from the Communist leadership at the use of Soviet funds to support Mrs Gandhi, covert funding for the Congress Party of India seems to have been unaffected. By 1972 the import-export business founded by the CPI to trade with the Soviet Union had contributed more than 10 million rupees to party funds. Other secret subsidies, totalling at least 1.5 million rupees, had gone to state Communist parties, individuals and media associated with the CPI. The funds that were sent from Moscow to party headquarters via the KGB were larger still. In the first half of 1975 they amounted to over 2.5 million rupees.

India under Mrs Gandhi was probably the arena for more KGB active measures than anywhere else, though their significance appears to have been considerably exaggerated by the Centre, which overestimated its ability to manipulate Indian opinion.

According to KGB files, by 1973 it had on its payroll ten Indian newspapers (which cannot be identified for legal reasons) as well as a press agency. During 1972 the KGB claimed to have planted 3,789 articles in Indian papers. 

 

India was also one of the most favourable environments for Soviet front organisations. From 1966 to 1986 the head of the most important of them, the World Peace Council, was the Indian Communist Romesh Chandra, who denounced “the US-dominated Nato” as “the greatest threat to peace” across the world.

By the summer of 1975 Mrs Gandhi’s suspicions of a vast conspiracy by her political opponents, aided and abetted by the CIA, had, in the opinion of her biographer Katherine Frank, grown to “something close to paranoia”. In June 1975 she persuaded the President and the Cabinet to agree to the declaration of a state of emergency. Opposition leaders were jailed or put under house arrest and media censorship introduced. Thousands of people were arrested.

Reports from the Delhi main residency claimed exaggerated credit for using its agents of influence to persuade Mrs Gandhi to declare the emergency. But, according to Leonid Shebarshin, head of the Delhi main residency from 1975, both the Centre and the Soviet leadership found it difficult to grasp that the emergency had not turned Indira Gandhi into a dictator and that she still responded to public opinion and had to deal with opposition: “On the spot, from close up, the embassy and our (intelligence) service saw all this, but for Moscow Indira became India, and India — Indira.” Reports from the Delhi residency which were critical of any aspect of her policies received a cool reception in the Centre. Shebarshin thought it unlikely that any were forwarded to Soviet leaders or the Central Committee.

Though Mrs Gandhi was fond of saying in private that states have no constant friends and enemies, only constant interests: “At times Moscow behaved as though India had given a pledge of love and loyalty to her Soviet friends.” Even the slightest hiccup in relations caused consternation. During 1975 a total of 10.6 million roubles was spent on measures in India designed to strengthen support for Mrs Gandhi and undermine her political opponents. Soviet backing was public as well as covert. In June 1976, at a time when Mrs Gandhi suffered from semi-pariah status in most of the West, she was given a hero’s welcome on a trip to the Soviet Union.

The Kremlin, however, was worried by reports of the dismissive attitude to the Soviet Union of Indira’s son, Sanjay. It was reported that one of Sanjay’s cronies was holding regular meetings with a US embassy official “in a very suspicious manner”. Soon after his mother’s return from her triumphal tour of the Soviet Union, Sanjay gave an interview in which he praised big business, denounced nationalisation and poured scorn on the Communists. By her own admission, Indira became “quite frantic ” when his comments were made public. Sanjay was persuaded to issue a “clarification” which fell well short of a retraction.

The emergency ended as suddenly as it had begun. On January 18, 1977, Mrs Gandhi announced that elections would be held in March.

Press censorship was suspended and opposition leaders released from house arrest. To ensure success, the KGB mounted a major operation involving more than 120 meetings with agents during the election campaign. Nine candidates at the elections were KGB agents. Files also identify by name 21 of the non-Communist politicians (four of them ministers) whose election campaigns were subsidised by the KGB.

Agent reports reinforced the Delhi main residency’s misplaced confidence that Indira Gandhi would secure another election victory. Reports that she faced the possibility of defeat in her constituency were largely disregarded. In the event Mrs Gandhi suffered a crushing defeat. Janata, the newly united non-Communist opposition, won 40 per cent of the vote to Mrs Gandhi’s 35 per cent. One of the KGB’s bêtes noires, Morarji Desai, became Prime Minister. In Delhi, Mrs Gandhi’s downfall was celebrated with dancing in the streets.

Her relations with Moscow after she returned to power in 1980 never quite recaptured the warmth shown during her previous term in office.

(The above is extracted from The Mitrokhin Archive, Volume II: the KGB and the World by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin)

The scruffy visitor with dynamite secrets

On April 9, 1992, a scruffy 70-year-old Russian arrived in the capital of a newly-independent Baltic state by the overnight train from Moscow for a pre-arranged meeting at the British Embassy with officers of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as MI6). He began by producing a passport that identified him as Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin, former senior archivist in the First Chief (Foreign Intelligence) Directorate of the KGB. SIS then took the unprepossessing secret photograph of him that The Times publishes today for the first time.

Mitrokhin had made his first visit to the embassy a month earlier, when he arrived pulling a battered case on wheels and wearing the same shabby clothes. Used to the male-dominated world of Soviet diplomacy, he was surprised that the Russian-speaking British diplomat who met him was a young woman. He rummaged beneath the sausages, bread, drink and clothes he had packed for his journey, pulled out a large wodge of paper and told her it was top-secret material he had copied from the KGB archives.

And there the story could easily have ended. The diplomat might well have dismissed Mitrokhin as a down-at-heel asylum-seeker trying to sell bogus secrets. Instead, she asked him a question that changed his life (and mine): “Would you like a cup of tea?” While Mitrokhin drank his first cup of English tea, she read some of his notes, quickly grasped their potential importance, and arranged for him to return a month later to meet SIS officers from its London headquarters.

At his meeting with SIS Mitrokhin produced another 2,000 pages from his private archive and told the extraordinary story of how, while supervising the ten-year-long transfer of the foreign intelligence (FCD) archive from its overcrowded offices in central Moscow to new headquarters just beyond the outer ringroad, he had daily smuggled out handwritten notes and extracts from the files and hidden them beneath his family dacha. The material showed that he had access to even the holy of holies in the FCD archives: files that revealed both the real identities and the bogus “legends” of the elite corps of deep-cover KGB “illegals” stationed around the world disguised as foreign nationals.

On November 7, 1992, the SIS spirited Mitrokhin, his family and his entire archive, packed in six large containers, out of Russia to Britain in a remarkable operation whose details still remain secret.

The FBI has called the Mitrokhin archive “the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source”. In the view of the CIA it is “the biggest counter-intelligence bonanza of the postwar period”. The all-party British Intelligence and Security Committee has revealed that other Western (and some non-Western) intelligence agencies have also been “extremely grateful” for numerous leads from the Mitrokhin archive.

As well as containing extraordinary detail on KGB operations in the West and the Soviet bloc (the subject of the first volume which I wrote in collaboration with Vasili Mitrokhin, who died last year), his archive contains much new material on KGB operations in the rest of the world.

Though no historian of the Cold War would nowadays dream of ignoring the role of the CIA in the Third World, most still make little, if any, mention of the even more important role of the KGB. The result has been a curiously lopsided history of the secret Cold War in the developing world — the intelligence equivalent of the sound of one hand clapping.

As The Mitrokhin Archive II seeks to show, for a quarter of a century the KGB, unlike the CIA, believed that the Third World was the arena in which it could win the Cold War. From the establishment of the alliance with Castro’s Cuba (optimistically codenamed Bridgehead by the KGB) to the disastrous decision to invade Afghanistan 20 years later (which began with the KGB assassination of President Hafizullah Amin), it was usually the KGB rather than the Foreign Ministry that took the lead in the Third World.

Even in the early stages of the war in Afghanistan the most able and longest-serving of all KGB chiefs, Yuri Andropov (soon to succeed Leonid Brezhnev as Soviet leader), was confident that his strategy was working.

He told his Vietnamese counterpart in 1980: “The Soviet Union is not merely talking about world revolution but actually assisting it.” Over the previous few years, he declared, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Afghanistan had all been “liberated” — in other words acquired Marxist-Leninist regimes. Though the KGB won a series of short-term Third-World victories, its operations contained a strong element of fantasy. Brezhnev’s preposterous vanity had to be fed not merely by more medals than those of all previous Soviet leaders combined but also by adulation from around the world, some of it manufactured by the KGB.

The successes of intelligence collection were undermined by the poor quality of intelligence analysis. The KGB was expected to tell Soviet leaders what they wanted to hear. It thus fed them carefully sanitised intelligence.

There is no more convincing evidence of Gorbachev’s “new thinking” in foreign policy when he became Soviet leader in 1985 than his denunciation of the traditional bias of intelligence reporting. The fact that KGB HQ had to issue stern instructions to its officers at the end of 1985 “on the impermissibility of distortions of the factual state of affairs” is a damning indictment of its previous subservience to the political correctness demanded by the Soviet one-party state.

Lure of the West

Though the KGB tended to exaggerate the success of its active measures, they appear to have been on a larger scale than those of the CIA.

By the early 1980s there were about 1,500 Indo-Soviet Friendship Societies, compared with only two Indo-American Friendship Societies. The Soviet leadership seems to have drawn the wrong conclusions from this apparently spectacular, but in reality somewhat hollow, success.

American popular culture had no need of friendship societies to secure its dominance over that of the Soviet bloc. No subsidised film evening in an Indo-Soviet Friendship Society could hope to compete with the appeal of Hollywood or Bollywood. Similarly, few Indian students, despite their widespread disapproval of US foreign policy, were more anxious to win scholarships to universities in the Soviet bloc than in the US.

The great bore

Among the most time-consuming activities of the KGB in India was the preparation for Brezhnev’s state visit in 1973. As usual it was necessary to ensure that the General Secretary was received with what appeared to be rapturous enthusiasm.

Since Brezhnev was such a dreary orator, this was no easy task. His speech in the great square in front of Delhi’s Red Fort presented a particular challenge. According to KGB estimates, two million people were present — perhaps the largest audience to whom Brezhnev had ever spoken.

The speech was extraordinarily long-winded and heavy going. As he droned on and night began to fall, some of the audience began to drift away but were turned back by the police for fear of offending the Soviet leader. Though even Brezhnev sensed that not all was well, the KGB claimed credit for “creating favourable conditions” for his Indian triumph.

Link:http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article567013.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

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INDIA: CAUGHT BETWEEN CHINA & THE DEEP SEA

3. May 2010 by admin.

INDIA: CAUGHT BETWEEN CHINA & THE DEEP SEA

B. RAMAN

 

1.On April 1,2010, India and China embarked on a six-month programme to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. S.M.Krishna, the Indian Foreign Minister, is visiting China for four days from April 5 to join the celebrations.

 

2. Forgotten—at least for the time being— are the suspicions, distrust and harsh words of last year over the visits of Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh to India’s Arunachal Pradesh State on the Chinese border in the North-East to campaign for local candidates in the elections and of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tawang  in Arunachal Pradesh at the invitation of the local people. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as its territory and calls it Southern Tibet. It wants India to hand over to China under the border negotiations under way  without progress at least Tawang if not the whole of Arunachal Pradesh.

 

3.The Chinese have a long memory. They have not forgotten that one of the old Dalai Lamas was born in Tawang and that the present His Holiness fled from Tibet into India in 1959 across the border in the Tawang area. They have made it clear that there will be no border agreement unless India transfers at least Tawang to China. That would mean the exodus of the Indian population from the territory handed over to China. No Indian Government, however popular, may be able to sell such a transfer favourable to the Chinese to the Indian Parliament and people.

 

4.2009 was full of alarming reports about the Chinese further strengthening their military infrastructure in Tibet and Chinese military patrols repeatedly  intruding into Indian territory. Faced with opposition criticism of its perceived inaction against the growing trans-border assertiveness of  China, the Government of India pressed ahead with an already ongoing programme for strengthening its military infrastructure in the Indian territory. India is many years behind China in developing its infrastructure in the border areas.

 

5.2009 also saw non-governmental Chinese analysts discussing in  seemingly unofficial web sites and blogs the options available to China for teaching India a lesson should it become necessary. A repeat of the humiliating defeat of 1962 was one such option discussed. Taking advantage of the various separatist movements  in India in an attempt to balkanize the country was another. An article on possible Indian balkanization by an unknown and insignificant Chinese analyst  added to the already strong Indian suspicions of China.

 

6.China was active and assertive not only in the border areas. It has been equally so right around India’s periphery. Taking advantage of the suspicions and distrust of India in the other States of the  South Asian region, China, which is not a South Asian power, has acquired a growing South Asian presence.

 

7.It continues to help Pakistan in further strengthening its nuclear and missile capabilities which are directed against India. After having completed the construction of the Gwadar commercial port on the Baloch coast, it has promised to develop it further into a modern naval base which would be available for use to the Chinese Navy too.

 

8.It won the gratitude of Sri Lanka by supplying it arms and ammunition to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and is  embarked on the expansion of the Hambantota commercial port, which might one day be developed into a naval base. A grateful Sri Lanka has given a block for gas exploration  to a Chinese company without inviting bids.  India was given a block for exploration without bids and China was treated on par with India.

 

9.There are as many Chinese tourists visiting the Maldives as Indian and a Chinese bank has been allowed to operate in the Maldives to meet the foreign exchange needs of the Chinese tourists.

 

10.In Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, despite her strong friendship for India, has continued with the look East policy of her predecessor Begum Khalida Zia and strengthened the links with China. During her  visit to China in March, an agreement was signed with a Chinese company for oil/gas exploration in Bangladesh. She also sought Chinese help for the upgradation of Chittagong into a modern deep sea port. Her Government has sought to calm Indian concerns by reassuring India that India will also be allowed to use the Chittagong port modernized with Chinese help.

 

11.At least, Sri Lanka and Myanmar have sought to treat India on par with China by granting it equal rights of oil/gas exploration, but Bangladesh has not given any such contracts to India due to strong local opposition to India playing any role in the development of its energy resources.

 

12.Sheikh Hasina also discussed with the Chinese plans for linking Yunnan with Bangladesh through Myanmar by a modern road. If the Chinese company finds oil or gas in Bangladesh it is only a question of time before the  Chinese production facilities in Bangladesh are connected with those in the Arakan area of Myanmar so that oil and gas from Bangladesh can flow direct to Yunnan through the pipeline connecting Arakan with Yunnan now being constructed.

 

13.In Nepal, China is looking for a road link to connect Nepalese roads with those in Tibet and  for an extension of the railway line from Lhasa to Nepal.

 

14.Thus, the Chinese have been developing their infrastructure of potential military significance around India’s periphery. The Chinese think  and plan long-term. Indian response is ad hoc. Just as New Delhi woke up late to the likely threats by land from  the North, one realizes belatedly that the threats are from the South, East and West as well.

 

15.Whatever limited influence India has in South Asia is in danger of being eroded by the Chinese inroads.  India is yet to work out a comprehensive response to it. All the sweet words of the 60th anniversary  cannot hide this harsh reality. ( 3-4-10)

 

( The writer is Additional Secretary(retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

 

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Three Points of View: The United States, Pakistan and India

30. April 2010 by admin.

Three Points of View: The United States, Pakistan and India

 

One of al Qaeda’s goals when it attacked the United States in 2001 was bringing about exactly what the United States most wants to avoid. The group hoped to provoke Washington into blundering into the region, enraging populations living under what al Qaeda saw as Western puppet regimes to the extent that they would rise up and unite into a single, continent-spanning Islamic power. The United States so blundered, but the people did not so rise. A transcontinental Islamic caliphate simply was never realistic, no matter how bad the U.S. provocation.

Subsequent military campaigns have since gutted al Qaeda’s ability to plot extraregional attacks. Al Qaeda’s franchises remain dangerous, but the core group is not particularly threatening beyond its hideouts in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.

 

As for the region, nine years of war have left it much disrupted. When the United States launched its military at the region, there were three balances of power that kept the place stable (or at least self-contained) from the American point of view. All these balances are now faltering. We have already addressed the Iran-Iraq balance of power, which was completely destroyed following the American invasion in 2003. We will address the Israeli-Arab balance of power in the future. This week, we shall dive into the region’s third balance, one that closely borders what will soon be the single largest contingent of U.S. military forces overseas: the Indo-Pakistani balance of power.

Pakistan and the Evolution of U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan

U.S. strategy in Afghanistan has changed dramatically since 2001. The war began in the early morning hours — Pakistan time — after the Sept. 11 attacks. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called up then-Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to inform him that he would be assisting the United States against al Qaeda, and if necessary, the Taliban. The key word there is “inform.” The White House had already spoken with — and obtained buy-in from — the leaders of Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, Israel and, most notably, India. Musharraf was not given a choice in the matter. It was made clear that if he refused assistance, the Americans would consider Pakistan part of the problem rather than part of the solution — all with the blessings of the international community.

 

Islamabad was terrified — and with good reason; comply or refuse, the demise of Pakistan was an all-too-real potential outcome. The geography of Pakistan is extremely hostile. It is a desert country. What rain the country benefits from falls in the northern Indo-Pakistani border region, where the Himalayas wring moisture out of the monsoons. Those rains form the five rivers of the Greater Indus Valley, and irrigation works from those rivers turn dry areas green.

 

Accordingly, Pakistan is geographically and geopolitically doomed to perpetual struggle with poverty, instability and authoritarianism. This is because irrigated agriculture is far more expensive and labor-intensive than rain-fed agriculture. Irrigation drains the Indus’ tributaries such that the river is not navigable above Hyderabad, near the coast — drastically raising transport costs and inhibiting economic development. Reasonably well-watered mountains in the northwest guarantee an ethnically distinct population in those regions (the Pashtun), a resilient people prone to resisting the political power of the Punjabis in the Indus Basin. This, combined with the overpowering Indian military, results in a country with remarkably few options for generating capital even as it has remarkably high capital demands.

 

Islamabad’s one means of acquiring breathing room has involved co-opting the Pashtun population living in the mountainous northwestern periphery of the country. Governments before Musharraf had used Islamism to forge a common identity for these people, which not only included them as part of the Pakistani state (and so reduced their likelihood of rebellion) but also employed many of them as tools of foreign and military policy. Indeed, managing relationships with these disparate and peripheral ethnic populations allowed Pakistan to stabilize its own peripheral territory and to become the dominant outside power in Afghanistan as the Taliban (trained and equipped by Pakistan) took power after the Soviet withdrawal.

 

Thus, the Americans were ordering the Pakistanis on Sept. 12, 2001, to throw out the one strategy that allowed Pakistan to function. Pakistan complied not just out of fears of the Americans, but also out of fears of a potentially devastating U.S.-Indian alignment against Pakistan over the issue of Islamist terrorism in the wake of the Kashmiri militant attacks on the Indian parliament that almost led India and Pakistan to war in mid-2002. The Musharraf government hence complied, but only as much as it dared, given its own delicate position.

 

From the Pakistani point of view, things went downhill from there. Musharraf faced mounting opposition to his relationship with the Americans from the Pakistani public at large, from the army and intelligence staff who had forged relations with the militants and, of course, from the militants themselves. Pakistan’s halfhearted assistance to the Americans meant militants of all stripes — Afghan, Pakistani, Arab and others — were able to seek succor on the Pakistani side of the border, and then launch attacks against U.S. forces on the Afghan side of the border. The result was even more intense American political pressure on Pakistan to police its own militants and foreign militants seeking shelter there. Meanwhile, what assistance Pakistan did provide to the Americans led to the rise of a new batch of homegrown militants — the Pakistani Taliban — who sought to wreck the U.S.-Pakistani relationship by bringing down the government in Islamabad.

The Indian Perspective

The period between the Soviet collapse and the rise of the Taliban — the 1990s — saw India at a historical ebb in the power balance with Pakistan. The American reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed all that. The U.S. military had eliminated Pakistan’s proxy government in Afghanistan, and ongoing American pressure was buckling the support structures that allowed Pakistan to function. So long as matters continued on this trajectory, New Delhi saw itself on track for a historically unprecedented dominance of the subcontinent.

 

But the American commitment to Afghanistan is not without its limits, and American pressure was not sustainable. At its heart, Afghanistan is a landlocked knot of arid mountains without the sort of sheltered, arable geography that is likely to give rise to a stable — much less economically viable — state. Any military reality that the Americans imposed would last only so long as U.S. forces remained in the country.

The alternative now being pursued is the current effort at Vietnamization of the conflict as a means of facilitating a full U.S. withdrawal. In order to keep the country from returning to the sort of anarchy that gave rise to al Qaeda, the United States needed a local power to oversee matters in Afghanistan. The only viable alternative — though the Americans had been berating it for years — was Pakistan.

 

If U.S. and Pakistan interests could be aligned, matters could fall into place rather quickly — and so they did once Islamabad realized the breadth and dangerous implications of its domestic insurgency. The five-year, $7.5 billion U.S. aid package to Pakistan approved in 2009 not only helped secure the arrangement, it likely reflects it. An unprecedented counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaign conducted by the Pakistani military continues in the country’s tribal belt. While it has not focused on all the individuals and entities Washington might like, it has created real pressure on the Pakistani side of the border that has facilitated efforts on the Afghan side. For example, Islamabad has found a dramatic increase in American unmanned aerial vehicle strikes tolerable because at least some of those strikes are hitting Pakistani Taliban targets, as opposed to Afghan Taliban targets. The message is that certain rules cannot be broken without consequences.

 

Ultimately, with long experience bleeding the Soviets in Afghanistan, the United States was inherently wary of becoming involved in Afghanistan. In recent years, it has become all too clear how distant the prospect of a stable Afghanistan is. A tribal-ethnic balance of power overseen by Pakistan is another matter entirely, however. The great irony is that such a success could make the region look remarkably like it did on Sept. 10, 2001.

 

This would represent a reversal of India’s recent fortunes. In 10 years, India has gone from a historic low in the power balance with Pakistan to a historic high, watching U.S. support for Pakistan shift to pressure on Islamabad to do the kinds of things (if not the precise actions) India had long clamored for.

 

But now, U.S. and Pakistani interests not only appear aligned again, the two countries appear to be laying groundwork for the incorporation of elements of the Taliban into the Afghan state. The Indians are concerned that with American underwriting, the Pakistanis not only may be about to re-emerge as a major check on Indian ambitions, but in a form eerily familiar to the sort of state-militant partnership that so effectively limited Indian power in the past. They are right. The Indians also are concerned that Pakistani promises to the Americans about what sort of behavior militants in Afghanistan will be allowed to engage in will not sufficiently limit the militants’ activities — and in any event will do little to nothing to address the Kashmiri militant issue. Here, too, the Indians are probably right. The Americans want to leave — and if the price of departure is leaving behind an emboldened Pakistan supporting a militant structure that can target India, the Americans seem fine with making India pay that price.

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Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part III

21. April 2010 by admin.

Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part III

In the second part of my presentation I gave on the numerous atrocities on the native Indians by the Muslim Warlords and iconoclasts. In the third part of the series of these articles I will be giving you a few more examples where Muslim Rulers prove what true Islam is all about. Far from being the religion of Peace Islam is the epitome of tyranny and oppression. This is proved by the action of Muslim rulers who act with hate in their hearts while implementing the Sharia and the Quran down to the letter and spirit. However I would like to remind you that History does not record all the misdeeds of Tyrants. I have merely been able to touch the tip of the iceberg in so far as Islamic tyranny is in India is concerned. We have to remember that Islamic rule bled the Indian subcontinent for a period of 700 years. Hence it is not possible for anyone to ascertain the actual damage caused by the Islamic invasions and the Islamic rule in India. All we can do here is merely guess the tremendous atrocities that native Indians must have faced during the times of the Islamic rule.

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Name of the Book: Nuh Siphir Name of the Historian: Amir Khusru About the Author: The above mentioned book is the fourth historical mathnavi which Amir Khusru wrote when he was 67 years old. It celebrates the reign of Sultan Mubarak Shah Khalji.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:1. Sultan Mubarak Shah Khalji (AD 1315-1320)Warrangal (Andhra Pradesh)

“They pursued the enemy to the gates and set everything on fire. They burnt down all those gardens and groves. That paradise of idol-worshippers became like hell. The fire-worshippers of “Bud” were in alarm and flocked round their idols…”

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Name of the Book: Siyaru’l-Auliya Name of the Historian: Sayyed Muhammad bin Mubarak bin Muhammad About the Author: He was the grandson of an Iranian merchant who traded between Kirman in Iran and Lahore. The family traveled to Delhi after Shykh Farid’s death and became devoted to Shykh Nizamu’d-din Auliya.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:1. Shykh Mu’in al-Din Chisti Ajmer (AD 1236)Ajmer (Rajasthan)”…Because of his Sword, instead of idols and temples in the land of unbelief now there are mosques, mihrab amd mimbar. In the land where there were the sayings of the idol-worshippers, there is the sound of ‘Allahu Akbar’…The descendants of those who were converted to Islam in this land will live until Day of Judgment; so too will those who bring others into the fold of Islam by the sword of Islam. Until the Day of Judgment these converts will be in debt of Shaykh al-Islam Mu’in al-din Hasam Sijzi…”

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Name of the Book: Masalik’ul Absar fi Mamalik’ul Amsar Name of the Historian: Shihabu’d-Din ‘Abu’l Abbas Ahmed bin YahyaAbout the Author: He was born in AD 1301. He was educated in Damascus and Cairo. He is considered to be a great man scholar of his time and author of many books. He occupied high positions in Syria and Egypt.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:1. Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq (AD 1325-1351)

“The Sultan is not slack in Jihad. He never lets go of his spear or bridle in pursuing jihad by land and sea routes. This is his main occupation which engages his eyes and ears. Five temples have been destroyed and the images and idols of “Budd” have been broken, and the lands have been freed from those who were not included in the daru’l Islam that is, those who had refused to become dhimmis. Thereafter he got mosques and places of worship erected, and music replaced by call to prayers to Allah… The Sultan who is ruling at present has achieved that which had not been achieved so far by any king. He has achieved victory, supremacy, conquest of countries, destruction of the infidels, and exposure of magicians. He has destroyed idols by which the people of Hindustan were deceived in vain…”

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Name of the Book: Rehala of Ibn Battuta Name of the Historian: Shykh Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim al-Lawatt at-Tanji al-Maruf be Ibn Battuta.About the Author: He belonged to an Arab family which was settled in Spain since AD 1312. His grandfather and father enjoyed the reputation of scholars and theologians. He himself was a great scholar who traveled extensively and over many lands. He came to India in 1325 and visited many places. He was very fond of sampling Hindu girls from different parts of India. They were presented to him by the Sultan Mohammed bin-Tughlaq with whom Ibn Battuta came in close contact. He also married Muslim women wherever he stayed and divorced them before his departure.His Travel description:Delhi

“Near the eastern gate of the mosque, lie two very big idols of copper connected together by stones. Every one who comes in and goes out of the mosque treads over them. On the site of this mosque was a Budhkhana that is an idol-house. After the conquest of Delhi, it was turned into a mosque…”

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Name of the Book: Tarikh-i-FiruzName of the Historian: Shams Siraj Alif About the Author: The author became a courtier of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq and undertook to complete the aforementioned history of Barani who had stopped at the sixth year of Firuz Shah’s reign.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq (AD 1351-1388) Puri (Orissa)

“The Sultan left Banaras with the intention of pursuing the Rani of Jajnagar, who had fled to an island in the river…News was then brought that in the jangal were seven elephants, and one old shoe-elephant, which was very fierce. The Sultan resolved upon endeavoring to capture these elephants before continuing the pursuit of the Rai… After the hunt was over, the Sultan directed his attention to the Rai of Jajnagar, and entering the palace where he dwelt he found many fine buildings. It is reported that inside the Rai’s fort, there was a stone idol which the infidels called Jagannath, and to which they paid their devotions. Sultan Firoz, in emulation of Mahmud Subuktign, having rooted up the idol, carried it away to Delhi where he placed it in an ignominious position.”

Nagarkot Kangra (Himachal Pradesh)

“…Sultan Muhammad Shah bin Tughlaq and Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq were sovereigns especially chosen by Almighty from among the faithful, and in their whole course of their reigns, wherever they took an idol temple they broke and destroyed it..”

Delhi

“A report was brought to the Sultan that there was in Delhi an old Brahmin who persisted in publicly performing the worship of idols in his house; and that people of the city, both Musalmans and Hindus, used to resort to his house to worship the idol. The Brahmin had constructed a wooden tablet which was covered within and without with paintings of demons and other objects. An order was accordingly given that the Brahmin, with his tablet, should be brought into the presence of the Sultan at Firozabad. The judges and doctors and elders and lawyers were summoned, and the case of the Brahman was submitted for their opinion. Their reply was that the provisions of the Law were clear: the Brahmin must either become a Musalman or be burned. The true faith was declared to the Brahmin, and the right course pointed out, but he refused to accept it. Orders were given for raising a pile of faggots before the door of the durbar (court). The Brahmin was tied hand and foot and cast into it; the tablet was thrown on top and the pile was lighted. The writer of this book was present at the durbar and witnessed the execution. The tablet of the Brahmin was lighted in two places, at his head and at his feet; the wood was dry and the fire first reached his feet, and drew him a cry, but the flames quickly enveloped his head and consumed him. Behold the Sultan’s strict adherence to law and rectitude, how he would not deviate in the least from its decrees!”

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Here Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq glorifies his own criminal acts in Bharat as sanctioned by the “holy” Koran.Name of the Book: Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi Name of the Historian: Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq About the Author: Sultan had got the eight chapters of his work inscribed on eight slabs of stone which were fixed on eight sides of the octagonal dome of a building near the Jami Masjid at Firuzabad.Prayers of Temple-destroyers in this Book

“The next matter which by God’s help I accomplished was the repetition of names and titles of former sovereigns which had been omitted from the prayers of Sabbaths and Feasts. The names of those sovereigns of Islam, under whose happy fortune and favor infidel countries had been conquered, whose banners had waved over many a land, under whom idol-temples had been demolished, and mosques and pulpits built and exalted…”

Delhi and Environs

“The Hindus and idol-worshippers had agreed to pay the money for toleration (zar-i zimmiya) and had consented to the poll-tax (jiziya) in return for which they and their families enjoyed security. These people now erected new idol-temples in the city and the environs in opposition to the law of the Prophet which declares that such temples are not to be tolerated. Under divine guidance I destroyed these edifices and I killed those leaders of infidelity who seduced others into error, and the lower orders I subjected to stripes and chastisement, until this abuse was entirely abolished. The following is an instance: In the village of Maluh, there is a tank which they call kund (tank). Here they had built idol-temples and on certain days the Hindus were accustomed to proceed thither on horseback and wearing arms. Their women and children also went out in palanquins and carts. Then they assembled in thousands and performed idol-worship….when intelligence of this came to my ears my religious feelings prompted me at once to put a stop to this scandal and offence to the religion of Islam. On the day of the assembly I went there in person and I ordered that the leaders of these people and the promoters of these abominations should be put to death. I destroyed their idol-temples and instead thereof raised mosques.”

Gohana (Haryana)

“Some Hindus had erected a new idol-temple in the village of Kohana and the idolaters used to assemble there and perform their idolatrous rites. These people were seized and brought before me. I ordered that the perverse conduct of the leaders of this wickedness should be publicly proclaimed, and that they should be put to death before the gate of the palace. I also ordered that the infidel books, the idols and the vessels used in their worship, which had been taken with idols, should all be publicly burnt. The others were restrained by threats and punishments, as a warning to all men, that no zimmi could follow such wicked practices in a Muslaman country.”

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Name of the Book: Tarikh-i-Mubarak ShahiName of the Historian: Yahya Ammad bin Abdullah SirhindiAbout the Author: The author lived in the reign of Sultan Muizu’d-Din Abu’l Fath Mubarak Shah (AD 1421-1434) of the Sayyid dynasty which ruled at Delhi from AD 1414-1451.The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:Sultan Shamsu’d-Din Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236) Vidisha and Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh)

“In AH 631 he invaded Malwa, and after suppressing the rebels of that place, he destroyed that idol-temple which had existed there for the past three hundred years. Next he turned towards Ujjain and conquered it, and after demolishing the idol-temple of Mahakal, he uprooted the statue of Bikramajit together with all other statues and images which were placed on pedestals, and brought them to the capital where they were laid before the Jami Masjid for being trodden under foot by the people.”

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Name of the Book: Tarikh-i-Muhammadi Name of the Historian: Muhammad Bihamad Khani About the Author: The author was the son of the governor of Irich in Bundelkhand. He was a soldier who participated in several wars. His history covers a long period - from Prophet Mohammed to AD 1438-39The Muslim Rulers he wrote about:Sultan Ghiyasu’d-Din Tughlaq Shah II (AD 1388-89)Kalpi (Uttar Pradesh)

“In the meanwhile Delhi received news of the defeat of the armies of Islam which were with Malikzada Mahmud bin Firuz Khan…This Malikzada reached the bank of the Yamuna via Shahpur and renamed Kalpi which was the abode and center of the infidels and the wicked, as Muhammadabad, after the name of Prophet Muhammed. He got mosques erected for the worship of Allah in places occupied by temples, and made that city his capital. “

Sultan Nasiru’d-Din Mahmud Shah Tughlaq (AD 1389-1412) Prayag and Kara (Uttar Pradesh)

“The Sultan moved with the armies of Islam towards Prayag and Arail with the aim of destroying the infidels, and he laid waste both those places. The vast crowd which had collected at Prayag for worshipping false gods was made captive. The inhabitants of Kara were freed from the mischief of rebels on account of this aid from King and the name of this king of Islam became famous by this reason.”

Another Moghul ruler by the name of Babur who was in love with a young boy named Baburi glorifies his lecherously Islamic deeds in the Babur-Nama.

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Name of the Book: Babur-NamaName of the Author: Zahiru’d-Din Muhammed BaburAbout the Author: The author of this book was the founder of Mughal dynasty in India who proclaimed himself a Padshah (Ruler) after his victory in the First Battle of Panipat (AD 1526), and a Ghazi (killer of kafirs) after the defeat of Rana Sanga in the Battle of Khanwa (AD 1528) While presenting himself as an indefatigable warrior and drug-addict he does not hide the cruelties he committed on the defeated people, particularly his fondness for building towers of the heads of those he captured as prisoners of war or killed in battle. He is very liberal in citing appropriate verses from the Quran on the eve of the battle with Rana Sanga. In order to ensure his victory, he makes a covenant with Allah by breaking the vessels containing wine as also the cups for drinking it, swearing at the same time that “he would break the idols of the idol-worshippers in a similar manner”. In the Fath-Nama (prayer for victory) composed for him by Shykh Zain, Allah is described as “destroyers of idols from their foundations” The language he uses for his Hindu adversaries is typically Islamic.Zahirud-Din Muhammed Babur Padshah Ghazi (AD 1526-1530)Chanderi (Madhya Pradesh)

“In AH 934 (AD 1528), I attacked Chanderi and, by the grace of Allah, captured it in a few hours. We got the infidels slaughtered and the place which had been a daru’l-harb for years was made into daru’l-Islam.”

Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh)

“Next day, at the time of the noon prayer, we went out for seeing those places in Gwalior which we had not seen yet. Going out of the Hathipole Gate of the fort, we arrived at a place called Urwa… Urwa is not a bad place it is an enclosed space. Its biggest blemish is its statues. I ordered that they should be destroyed…”

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Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part II

21. April 2010 by admin.

Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part II

In my previous article I showcased the gross intolerance of the Muslim rulers during the Islamic rule in India. There have been bigots belonging to almost all religions and cultures. However when every ruler belonging to a particular religion is bigot, maybe there is a problem with the religion than with the man himself.

 

Yes, Islam is intolerant as it is bigoted. There are hundreds of passages in the Quran and innumerable hadith in the Quran that prove this fact. It is these passages of the Quran that motivated these men to become (UN) Holy warriors of Allah. After all there is a reward for every act of injustice committed against the kafirs in the name of Allah. Isn’t this reason enough for a man to become an animal and commit acts which mankind and history can neither pardon nor ever forget. Let us move further in our search of more evidences from the annals of Islamic history

To see the injustices and suffering cast on the native Indians by the Muslims tyrants.

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Name of the Book: Diwan-i-Salman

Name of the Historian: Khawajah Masud bin Sa’d bin Salman

About the Author: Khawajah Masud bin Sa’d bin Salman was a poet. He wrote poems in praise of the Ghaznavid Sultans- Masu’d, Ibrahim and Bahram Shah. He died sometime between AD 1126 and 1131. The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Sultan Abu’l Muzaffar Ibrahim (AD 1059-1099)

“As power and the strength of a lion was bestowed upon Ibrahim by the Almighty, he made over to him the well-populated country of Hindustan and gave him 40,000 valiant horsemen to take the country, in which there were more than 1000 rais.The army of the king destroyed at one time a thousand temples of idols, which had each been built for more than a thousand years. How can I describe the victories of the King…”

Jalandhar (Punjab)

“The narrative of any battles eclipses the stories of Rustam and Isfandiyar. By morning meal, not one soldier, not one Brahmin remained unslaughtered or uncaptured. Their heads were leveled with the ground with flaming fire. Thou have secured the victory to the country and to religion, for amongst the Hindus this achievement will be remembered till the day of resurrection.”

Malwa (Madhya Pradesh)

“…On this journey, the army detsroyed a thousand idol-temples and thy elephants trampled over more than a hundred strongholds. Thou didst march thy army to Ujjan; the lip of infidelity became dry through fear of thee, the eye of plural-worship became blind…”

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Name of the Book: Chach-Namah

Name of the Historian: Mohammed Al bin Hamid bin Abu Bakr Kufi

About the Author: The Persian history was translated from Arabic by the above mentioned author in the time of Nasiruddin Qabacha, a slave of Mohammed Ghori.

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Mohammed bin Qasim (AD 712-715)

Siwistan and Sisam (Sindh) Mohammed bin Qasem wrote to al-Hajjaj, the governor of Iraq:

“The forts of Siwistan and Sism have been already taken. The nephew of Dahir, his warriors and principal officers have been dispatched, and infidels converted to Islam or destroyed. Instead of idol temples, mosques and other places of worship have been built, pulpits have been erected, the Khutba is read, and the call to prayers is raised so that devotions are performed at sacred hours.”

Multan (Punjab)

…”Mohammed Qasem arose and with his counsellors, guards and attendants went to the temple. He saw there an idol made of gold. And its two eyes were bright red rubies. “..Muhammed Qasem ordered the idol to be taken up. Two hundred and thirty “mans” of gold were brought to the treasury together with the gems and pearls and treasures which were obtained from the plunder of Multan. “

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Name of the Book: Jamiu’l-Hikayat

Name of the Historian: Maulana Nuruddin Muhammed `Ufi

About the Author: The author was born in or near the city of Bukhara in Transoxiana. He came to India and lived in Delhi for some time in the reign of Shamsu’d-Din Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236).

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Amru bin Laith (AD 879-900)

Sakawand (Afghanistan)

“It is related that Amru Lais conferred the governorship of Zabulistan on Fardaghan and sent him there at the head of four thousand horses. There was a large Hindu place of worship in that country, which was called Sakawand and people, used to come on pilgrimage from the most remote parts of Hindustan to the idols of that place. When Fardaghan arrived in Zabulistan he led his army against it, took the temple, broke the idols in pieces and overthrew the idolaters…”

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Name of the Book: Taju’l-Ma’sir

Name of the Historian: Sadru’d-Din Muhammed Hasan Nizamii

About the author: The author was born at Nishapur in Khurasan. He had to leave his ancestral place because of the Mongol invasion. He came to India and started writing his history in AD 1205.

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Sultan Muhammed Ghuri (AD 1175-1206)

Ajmer (Rajasthan)

“He destroyed the pillars and foundations of the idol temples and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established…”

Kuhram and Samana (Punjab)

“The Government of the fort of Kohram and Samana were made over by the Sultan to Kutuu-din.He purged by his sword the land of Hind from the filth of infidelity and vice, and freed it from the thorn of God-plurality, and the impurity of idol-worship and by his royal vigour and intrepidity, left not one temple standing…”

Meerut (Uttar Pradesh)

“Kutub-d din marched from Kohran and when he arrived at Meerut which is one of the celebrated forts of the country of Hind, for the strength of its foundations and superstructure, and its ditch, which was as broad as the ocean and fathomless- an army joined him, sent by the dependent chiefs of the country. The fort was captured, and a Kotwal was appointed to take up his station in the fort, and all the idol temples were converted into mosques.”

Delhi

“He then marched and encamped under the fort of Delhi…The city and its vicinity was freed from idols and idol-worships, and in the sanctuaries of the images of the Gods, mosques were raised by the worshippers of one God. Kutub-d din built the Jami Masjid at Delhi and adorned it with stones and gold obtained from the temples which had been demolished by the elephants, and covered it with inscriptions in Toghra, containing the divine commands.”

Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh)

“From that place (Asni) the royal army proceeded towards Benares which is the center of the country of Hind and here they destroyed nearly 1000 temples, and raised mosques on their foundations and the knowledge of the law became promulgated, and the foundations of religion were established..”

Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh)

“There was a certain tribe in the neighbourhood of Kol which had occasioned much trouble. Three bastions were raised as high as heaven with their heads, and their carcasses became the food of beasts of prey. That tract was freed from idols and idol-worship and the foundation of infidelity were destroyed”.

Bayana (Rajasthan)

“When Kutub-d din heard of Sultan’s march from Ghazna, he was much rejoiced and advanced as far as Hansi (a place in Rajasthan) to meet him. In the year AH 592 (AD 1196), they marched towards Thangar, and the center of idolatry and perdition became the abode of glory and splendour…”

Kalinjar (Uttar Pradesh)

“In the year AH 599 (Ad 1202), Kutub-d din proceeded to the investment Kalinjar, on which expedition he was accompanied by the Sahib-Kiran, Shamsu-d din Altmash… The temples were converted into mosques and abodes of goodness, and the ejaculations of bead counters and voices of summoners to prayer ascended to high heaven, and the very name of idolatry was annihilated.”

2. Sultan Shamsu’d-Din Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236)

Delhi

“The Sultan then returned from Jalor to Delhi. And after his arrival ‘not a vestige or name remained of idol temples which had raised their heads on high; and the light of faith shone out from the darkness of infidelity. And the moon of religion and the state became resplendent from the heaven of prosperity and glory.”

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Name of the Book: Kamilu’t-Tawarikh

Name of the Historian: Ibn Asir

About the author: The author was born in AD 1160 in the Jazirat ibn Umar, an island on the Tigris above Mosul.

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Khalifa Al-Mahdi (AD 775-785)

Barada (Gujrat)

“In the year 159 (AD 776) Al Mahdi sent an army by sea under Abdul Malik bin Shahabu’l Musamma’i to India. They proceeded on their way and at length disembarked at Barada (Baroda/Vadodra). When they reached the place they laid siege on it. The town was reduced to extremities and God prevailed over it in the same year. The people were forbidden to worship the Budd (idol), which the Muhammadans burned.”

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Name of the Book: Tarikh-i-Jahan-Kusha

Name Of The Historian: Alaud-Din Malik ibn Bahaud-Din Muhammed Juwaini

About the author: The author was born a native of Juwain in Khurasan near Nishapur. He was the Halaku during the Mongol campaign against the Ismai’lians and was later appointed the governor of Baghdad. He fell from grace and was imprisoned at Hamadan.

The Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Sultan Jalalud-Din Mankbarni (AD 1222-1231)

Debal (Sindh)

“The Sultan then went towards Dewal and darbela and Jaisi. The Sultan raised Masjid at Dewal, on the spot where an idol temple stood.”

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Name of the Book: Mifathu’l-Futuh

Name of the Historian: Amir Khusru

About the author: The author, Amir Khusru, was born in Delhi in 1253. His father occupied high positions in the reigns of Sultan Shamsu’d Din Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236) and his successors. Reputed to be the dearest disciple of Sheikh Nizamuddin Auliya, he became the lick-spittle of whoever came out victorious in the contest for the throne at Delhi. He became the court poet of Balban’s successor, Sultan Kaiqbad. He is regarded as a secular Sufi Saint by the general population in India. The curriculum history books in India describe him as a man of love and peace.

Muslim rulers he wrote about:

1. Sultan Jajalu’d-Din Khalji (AD 1290-1296)

Jhain (Rajasthan)

“The Sultan reached Jhain in the afternoon of the third day and stayed in the palace of the Raya he greatly enjoyed his stay for some time. Coming out, ho took a round of gardens and temples. The idols he saw amazed him… Next day he got those idols of gold smashed with stones. The pillars of wood were burnt down by his order… A cry rose from the temples as if a second Mahmud has taken birth. Two idols were made of brass, one of which weighed nearly thousand “mans” (a measure of weight).He got both of them broken, and the pieces were distributed among his people so that they may throw them at the door of Masjid on their return to Delhi.”

1. Sultan Alaud-Din Khilji (AD 1296-1316)

Vidisha (Madhya Pradesh)

“When he advanced from the capital of Karra, the Hindus, in alarm, descended into the earth like ants. He departed towards the garden of Behar to dye that soil with blood as red as tulip. He cleared the road to Ujjain of vile wretches, and created consternation in Bhilsan. When he affected his conquests in that country, hew drew out of the river the idols which had been concealed in it.

Devagiri (Maharshtra)

“But see the mercy with which he regarded the broken-hearted, for, after seizing the rai (kingdom), he set him free again. He destroyed the temples of the idolaters, and erected pulpits and arches for mosques. “

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What you have read above are not merely quotations from books written by people in the distant past. They are in fact real life events which must have devastated millions of native Indians. That was the time when Muslims were a powerful force, so in their arrogance they left their misdeeds recorded by their own writers. However we must not forget that life comes around full circle. With Islam spreading its tentacles around the world, who knows history might just be repeated on a much larger scale. Who knows, just maybe!

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Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part I

21. April 2010 by admin.

Demystification of the Islamic Rule in India, Part I

by Ibrahim Lone

 

A lot has been said about the peace and prosperity that was abound in India during the Islamic Rule. Even British historians in their zeal to win over Muslims as their allies distorted the true history of the Indian subcontinent under Muslim rule. Apparently most Islamic nations including the breakaway nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh report a distorted version of Indian history under the Muslim rule. In this fabricated version of Islamic History India every attempt has been made by Muslim to portray Muslim rulers as great Secularist, which is an oxymoron in itself, compared to the native Indian kings who are portrayed as Cowards and incestuous rulers.

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Wole Soyinka, African Nobel Laureate, while delivering the 20th Nehru Memorial Lecture on November 13, 1988, made an important, though by no means a new, observation that the colonial histories have been written from the European viewpoint. Speaking about Indian histories, he said that there is a big question mark on everything that the British historians have written. He added that serious efforts are being made by historians back home to rewrite African history. Perhaps the time has come to rewrite the true Indian history but by historians of the subcontinent. Thanks to the attitude of Indian politicians and leftist historians, who dominate the scene, no effort has been made to unearth the true history is Islamic rule. Even the mere mention of the excess committed by Muslims on the natives is considered as non-Kosher. However thanks to Internet Forums such as FFI and Islam-Watch, the truth can finally be told and it is the truth that will eventually set us free. The barbarities of Muslim rulers cover no bounds. The Islamic rule in India covers large number of topics and a span of almost 700 years. It is not possible to cover all of these in one article. I will, therefore, break up my presentation into a series of articles which will cover various topics.It is common knowledge that, if you want to break a people, all you have to do is to attack their belief system. This was precisely the objective of Muslim rulers who came to India. The best way to undermine the Hindus and Buddhists in their own country was to destroy their Temples and Viharas and this is exactly what the Muslim rulers did.There are several books in which the Muslim scholars of yore have recorded the barbarism of the Muslim rulers; they devoted scrolls of paper to prove the destruction of the native Indian psyche. Of course, the Muslim theologians of today don’t put these treatises on display for they might just demolish the beautiful picture of Islam they paint in front of the world. So I will not give any arguments of my own, rather I will let the history written by the Muslim scholars themselves do the talking.The literary evidence stated below is in chronological order with reference to the time at which a particular work was written. Below I have listed the sources of my information, the authors of the treatises and the exact quotes from their books._____________________________________________________________________________Name Of The Book: Hindustan Islami Ahad mein (India under Islamic Rule)Name Of The Historian: Maulana Abdul Hai.About The Author: He is a highly respected scholar and taken as an authority on Islamic history. Because ofhis scholarship and his services to Islam, Maulana Abdul Hai was appointed as the Rector of the DarulNadwa Ullum Nadwatal-Ulama. He continued in that post till his death in February 1923.The following section is taken from the chapter Hindustan ki Masjidein (The mosques of India) of the above-mentioned book. Here we can see a brief description of a few important mosques in India and how each one of them was built upon plundered Hindu temples.1. Qawwat al-Islam Mosque at Delhi:

“According to my findings the first mosque of Delhi is Qubbat al-Islam or Quwwat al_Islam which, Qutubud-Din Aibak constructed in H. 587 after demolishing the hindu temple built by Prithvi Raj and leaving certain parts of the temple outside the mosque proper; and when he returned from Ghazni in H. 592 he started building, under orders from Shihabud -Din Ghori, a huge mosque of inimitable red stones, and certain parts of the temple were included in the mosque…”

2. The Mosque at Jaunpur:

“This was built by Sultan Ibrahim Sharqi with chiseled stones. Originally it was a Hindu temple after demolishing which he constructed the mosque. It is known as the Atala Masjid..”

3. The Mosque at Qanauj:

“It is well known that this mosque was built on the foundations of some Hindu temple that stood here. The mosque was built by Ibrahim Sharqi in H. 809 as is recorded in Gharbat Nigar”

4. Jami Masjid at Etwah:

“This mosque stands on the bank of the Jamuna at Etawah. There was a Hindu temple at this place, on the site of which this mosque was constructed..”

5. Babri Masjid at Ayodhya:

“This mosque was constructed by Babar at Ayodhya which Hindus call the birth place of Ramchandraji…Sita had a temple here in which she lived and cooked for her husband. On that very site Babar constructed this mosque in H. 963 “

6. Mosque at Benaras:

“Mosque of Benares was built by Alamgir Aurangzeb on the site of Bisheshwar Temple. That temple was very tall and held as holy among Hindus. On this very site and with those very stones he constructed a lofty mosque, and its ancient stones were rearranged after being embedded in the walls of the mosque. It is one of the renowned mosques of Hindustan.”

7. Mosque at Mathura:

“Alamgir Aurangzeb built a mosque at Mathura. This mosque was built on site of the Govind Dev Temple which was very strong and beautiful as well as exquisite..”

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Name Of The Book: Futuhu’l-BuldanName Of The Historian: Ahmed bin Yahya bin JabirAbout The Author: This author is also known as al- Biladhuri. He lived at the court of Khalifa Al- Mutawakkal (AD 847-861) and died in AD 893. His history is one of the major Arab chronicles.The Muslim Rulers He Wrote About:1. Ibn Samurah (AD 653) Siestan (Iran)

“On reaching Dawar, he surrounded the enemy in the mountain of Zur, where there was a famous Hindu temple. …Their idol of Zur was of gold, and its eyes were two rubies. The zealous Musalmans cut off its hands and plucked out its eyes, and then remarked to the Marzaban how powerless was his idol…”

2. Qutaibah bin Muslim al-Bahili (r. 705-715) Samarkand (Farghana)

“Other authorities say that Kutaibah granted peace for 700,000 dirhams and entertainment for the Moslems for three days. The terms of surrender included also the houses of the idols and the fire temples. The idols were thrown out, plundered of their ornaments and burned…”

3. Mohammed bin Qasim (r. 712-715) Debal (Sindh)

“…The town was thus taken by assault, and the carnage endured for three days. The governor of the town, appointed by Dahir, fled and the priests of the temple were massacred. Muhammad marked a place for the Musalmans to dwell in, built a mosque, and left 4,000 Musalmans to garrison the place…”"…’Ambissa son of Ishak Az Zabbi, the governor of Sindh, in the Khilafat of Mu’tasim billah knocked down the upper part of the minaret of the temple and converted it into a prison…”Multan (Punjab)”…He then crossed the Biyas, and went towards Multan…Muhammad destroyed the water-course; upon which the inhabitants, oppressed with thirst, surrendered at discretion. He massacred the men capable of bearing arms, but the children were taken captive, as well as ministers of the temple, to the number of 6,000. The Musalmans found there much gold in a chamber ten cubits long by eight broad…”

4. Hasham bin ‘Amru al-Taghlab Khandahar (Maharashtra)

“He then went to Khandahar in boats and conquered it. He destroyed the Budd (idol) there, and built in its place a mosque.”

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Name Of The Book: Tarikh-i-TabariName Of The Historian: Abu Ja’far Muhammad bin Jarir at-TabariAbout The Author: This author is considered to be the foremost historian of Islam. The above mentioned book written by him is regarded as the mother of histories.The Muslim Rulers He Wrote About:1. Qutaibah bin Muslim al-Bahili (AD 705-715) Beykund (Khurasan)

“The ultimate capture of Beykund (in AD 706) rewarded him with an incalculable booty; even more than had hitherto fallen into the hands of the Mohammedans by the conquest of the entire province of Khorassaun; and the unfortunate merchants of the town, having been absent on a trading excursion while their countrywas assailed by the enemy, and finding their habitations desolate on their return contributed further to enrich the invaders, by the ransom which they paid for the recovery of their wives and children. The ornaments alone, of which these women had been plundered, being melted down, produce, in gold, 150,000 meskals; of a dram and a half each. Among the articles of the booty, is also described an image of gold, of 50,000 meskals, of which the eyes were two pearls, the exquisite beauty and magnitude of which excited the surprise and admiration of Kateibah. They were transmitted by him, with a fifth of the spoil to Hejauje, together with a request that he might be permitted to distribute, to the troops, the arms which had been found in the palace in great profusion.”Samarkand (Farghan “A breach was, however, at last effected in the walls of the city in AD 712 by the warlike machines ofKateibah; and some of the most daring of its defenders having fallen by the skill of his archers, the besieged demanded a cessation of arms to the following day, when they promised to capitulate. The request was acceded to the Kateibah; and a treaty was the next day accordingly concluded between him and the prince of Samarkand, by which the latter engaged for the annual payment of ten million of dhirems, and a supply of three thousand slaves; of whom it was particularly stipulated, that none should either be in a state of infancy, or ineffective from old age and debility. He further contracted that the ministers of his religion should be expelled from their temples and their idols destroyed and burnt; that Kateibah should be allowed to establish a mosque in the place of the principal temple….”"…Kateibah accordingly set set fire to the whole collection with his own hands; it was soon consumed to ashes, and 50,000 meskals of gold and silver, collected from the nails which had been used in the workmanship of the images.”

2. Yaqub bin Laith (r. 870-871 Balkh and Kabul (Afghanistan)

“He took Bamian, which he probably reached by way of Herat, and then marched on Balkh where he ruined (the temple) Naushad. On his way back from Balkh he attacked Kabul…”"Starting from Panjhir, the place he is known to have visited, he must have passed through the capital city of the Hindu Sahis to rob the sacred temple — the reputed place of coronation of the Sahi rulers — of its sculptural wealth…”"The exact details of the spoil collected from Kabul valley are lacking. The Tarikh [-i-Sistan] records 50 idols of gold and silver and Mas’udi mentions elephants. The wonder excited in Baghdad by Baghdad by elephants and pagan idols forwarded to the Caliph by Ya’qub also speaks for their high value.”

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Name Of The Book: Tarikhu’l-HindName Of The Historian: Abu Rihan Muhammad bin Ahmad al-Biruni al-Khwarizmi.About The Author: This author spent 40 years in India during the reign of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (r. 997-1030). His history treats of the literature and learning of the Hindus at the commencement of the 11th century.The Muslim Rulers He Wrote About:1. Jalam ibn Shaiban (9th century) Multan (Punjab)

“A famous idol of theirs was that of Multan, dedicated to the sun, and therefore called Aditya. It was of wood and covered with red Cordovan leather; in its two eyes were two red rubies. It is said to have been made in the last Kritayuga …..When Muhammad Ibn Alkasim Ibn Almunaibh conquered Multan, he inquired how the town had become so very flourishing and so many treasures had there been accumulated, and then he found out that this idol was the cause, for there came pilgrims from all sides to visit it. Therefore he thought it best to have the idol where it was, but he hung a piece of cow’s flesh on its neck by way of mockery. On the same place a mosque was built. When the Karmatians occupied Multan, Jalam Ibn Shaiban, the usurper, broke the idol into pieces and killed its priests…”

2. Sultan Mahmud of Gazni (AD 997-103 Thanesar (Haryana)

“The city of Taneshar is highly venerated by Hindus. The idol of that place is called Cakrasvamin, i.e. the owner of the cakra, a weapon which we have already described. It is of bronze, and is nearly the size of a man. It is now lying in the hippodrome in Ghazna, together with the Lord of Somnath, which is a representation of the penis of the Mahadeva, called Linga.”

3. Somnath (Gujrat)

“The linga he raised was the stone of Somnath, for soma means the moon and natan means master, so that the whole word means master of the moon. The image was destroyed by the Prince Mahmud, may God be merciful to him! –AH 416. He ordered the upper part to be broken and the remainder to be transported to his residence, Ghaznin, with all its coverings and trappings of gold, jewels, and embroidered garments. Part of it has been thrown into the hippodrome of the town, together with Cakrasvamin , an idol of bronze, that had been brought from Taneshar. Another part of the idol from Somnath lies before the door of the mosque of Ghaznin, on which people rub their feet to clean them from dirt and wet.”

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Name Of The Book: Kitabu’l-YaminiName Of The Historian: Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad al Jabbaru’l-Utbi.About The Author: This author’s work comprises the whole of the reign of Subuktigin and that of Sultan Mahmud down to the year AD 1020.The Muslim Rulers He Wrote About:1. Amir Sbuktigin of Ghazni Lamghan (Afghanistan)

“The Amir marched out towards Lamghan, which is a city celebrated for its great strength and abounding wealth. He conquered it and set fire to the places in its vicinity which were inhabited by infidels, and demolishing idol temples, he established Islam in them. He marched and captured other cities and killed the polluted wretches, destroying the idolaters and gratifying the Musulmans.”

2. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (AD 997-1030) Narain (Rajasthan)

“The Sultan again resolved on an expedition to Hind, and marched towards Narain, urging his horses and moving over ground, hard and soft, until he came to the middle of Hind, where he reduced chiefs, who, up to that time obeyed no master, overturned their idols, put to the sword the vagabonds of that country, and with delay and circumspection proceeded to accomplish his design…”

3. Nardin (Punjab)

“After the Sultan had purified Hind from idolatry, and raised mosques therein, he determined to invade the capital of Hind to punish those who kept idols and would not acknowledge the unity of God…He marched with a large army in the year AH 404 (AD 1013) during a dark night…”"A stone was found there in the temple of the great Budda on which an inscription was written purporting that the temple had been founded 50,000 years ago. The Sultan was surprised at the ignorance of these people, because those who believe in the true faith represent that only seven hundred years have elapsed since the creation of the world, and the signs of resurrection are even now approaching .The Sultan asked his wise men the meaning of this inscription and they all concurred in saying that it was false, and no faith was to be put in the evidence of a stone.”

4. Thanesar (Haryana)

“The chief of Tanesar was…obstinate in his infidelity and denial of God. So the Sultan marched against him with his valiant warriors, for the purpose of planting the standards of Islam and extirpating idolatry..”"The blood of the infidels flowed so copiously, that the stream was discolored, not withstanding its purity, and people were unable to drink it…The victory gained by God’s grace, who has established Islam for ever as the best religions, notwithstanding that idolaters revolt against it…Praise be to God, the protector of the world, for the honor he bestows upon Islam and Musulmans.”

5. Mathura (Uttar Pradesh)

“The Sultan then departed from the environs of the city, in which was a temple of the Hindus. The name of this place was Mahartul Hind… On both sides of the city there were a thousand houses, to which idol temples were attached, all strengthened from top to bottom by rivets of iron, and all made of masonry work…”"In the middle of the city there was a temple larger and firmer than the rest, which can neither be described nor painted. The Sultan thus wrote respecting it: –’If any should wish to construct a building equal to this, he would not be able to do it without expending an 100,000,000 red dinars, and it would occupy 200 years even though the most experience and able workmen were employed’… The Sultan gave orders that all temples should be burnt with naptha and fire, and leveled with the ground.”

6. Kanauj (Uttar Pradesh)

“In Kanauj there were nearly 10,000 temples, which the idolaters falsely and absurdly represented to have been founded by their ancestors two or three hundred thousand years ago…Many of the inhabitants of the place fled and were scattered abroad like so many wretched widows and orphans, from the fear which oppressed them, in consequence of witnessing the fate of their deaf and dumb idols. Many of them thus affected their escape, and those who did not fly were put to death.”

I rest my case here and allow the readers to judge the facts for themselves.

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WHY HAS IT BECOME SO COOL TO HATE INDIA?

10. April 2010 by admin.

Summary: Everyday in the Bay area, Indian speakers are feted by large crowds of Indians and Pakistanis, for claiming how bad India is? How the Hindus are killing all the Muslims? Association of words like genocide, fascist and fundamentalist with India are common. Not a word on the Islamic terrorism that kills thousands every year, not a word on state support for it, not a word on the complete ethnic cleansing that has happened in the rest of South Asia (3% minorities in Pakistan, down from 20%) – no, that would offend our Pakistani friends.————————-Arindam Banerji, the author of this article, took the usual route of going from the IITs, through a Ph.D in the US, to finally working in sundry research labs. Currently, he is a scientist of some repute, you know the kind whose ideas actually get used by people, and an entrepreneur, with, he says, not much success. Some day, he says, he’ll go back to India, but for now, as time permits, he is a writer and political thinker on South Asian geo-political issues.

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WHY HAS IT BECOME SO COOL TO HATE INDIA?

Saturday morning, last week was a bad one for me – the first thing I read, was an article from Dilip D’Souza. He pontificated,”Then what do we say about those who might plot against the obscenity that blights their land, as Stauffenberg did, who fight to free India of it? Are they patriots? If so, what if they welcomed a force from abroad that toppled this hypothetical regime, as many Iraqis did? Are they still patriots?” – rediff.comI was stunned. D’Souza a recognized and very visible journalist, was insinuating and subtly recommending a foreign invasion of India to get rid of the current government; pretty much like the US did in Iraq. Let’s be sure of one thing- I will die defending D’Souza’s right to criticize, fight legally against, decry or vote out of office the current Indian government – but, calling for foreign invasion?? Now, that’s beyond hate.All this, when I was just beginning to get over the fact that after the Indo-Pakistani thaw had been announced, Praful Bidwai gleefully announced that India “must give up its inalienable right to Kashmir”. No word on strategic goals for India, nothing about not rewarding terrorism.When did this happen? Leading journalists, openly publishing anti-India, hate-India propaganda in Indian dailies, and not a word is said – not a single editorial, no public criticism, nothing? When did it become so cool to hate India?Before we sink into the rhetoric of calling me a scoundrel for bringing up the patriotism issue, let us look at what’s really happening.

Blame India first

Immediately, after the Nadimarg massacre of 24 Indians, including women and children, Farzana Versey wrote a scathing article, criticizing the Kashmiri Pandits, blaming them for leaving the valley – essentially the they-asked-for-it point-of-view. Times of India editorials and Kuldeep Nayar came out and blamed the Government of India. Mind you, not a word – not one word, criticizing either the Pakistani generals or the LeT. Akhila Raman blamed India directly and of course, a columnist in Greater Kashmir blamed the Pandits for it all.All these people, subtly yet completely undermined the case the GOI was trying to build in international media on the persistent and genocidal nature of Pakistani terrorism. In essence, these Indians equated the victims with the perpetrators, and made the case on behalf of Pakistan. After all, nobody in international media would cast any doubt on “Indian” writers, when they place the blame on GOI and the Pandits for such a heinous massacre.The jury had declared their verdict – the ever-so erudite Hafeez Sayeed who postulated “Killing Hindus is the way to move forward” came out looking lily-white, while 4-year old Suraj, who died in his mother’s arms was found guilty – he was an Indian, you see.Remember, the Chitisingpora incident where 35 Sikhs were killed – some Indian journalists even those writing in international publications, declared that the GOI was to blame. It took an American, Bobby Bearak of NYTimes to chase the whole thing down and visit the home of one of the perpetrators in Pakistan.No matter what happens and how it happens, it is India that is at fault, Indians are responsible. Journalists tell me that they must remain balanced. That word again?

The whole balance thing – never allow any good news on India

This balance thing, happens not just about the Hindu-Muslim issue or India-Pakistan issues. Let me give you another example from a different area - Mr. Vishal Thapar’s article on the LCA/Tejas in the Hindustan Times. As you may have heard about the LCA was renamed to Tejas, yesterday. Here is how it was projected in one of the most widely distributed national newspapers in India:”For those ecstatic at the projection of the Tejas’ , this all means that the ‘Made in India’ tag as a symbol of indigenous capability, a sobering thought. Its engine is American, its avionics a combination of French, Israeli and Swedish components, and its carbon composite wings Italian.Given that the three basic components of an aircraft are the engine, airframe and avionics, ’swadeshi’ pride gets a dose of reality.”In spite, of the fact, that a simple internet search, would have given Mr. Thapar access to all possible details on LCA – he either chose not to do so or prefers to remain balanced. So, let us take each of his facts one by one.What he did not tell you was the GE engine is a test engine, to be replaced soon by an India’s Kaveri. Another fact, the most advanced fourth generation fighter called Grippen, also uses the same GE engine, but nobody calls the Swedish Grippen non-indigenous. It also turns out that the new fifth generation aircraft from the US (F/A22) uses Israeli avionics. Truth is, that apart from a few measly displays, almost everything else in the LCA’s avionics- Mission Computers, Radar, Display Processors, Avionics LRU’s, databus associated control equipment -is Indian[Nitin, BRF]. The composite wing technology was co-developed with the Italians – in fact, some of the associated software was sold by INDIA to Airbus.No mention of the most-advanced Fly-by-Wire technology in a fourth-generation aircraft, no mention of the sale to Airbus – simply the balanced approach to hide India’s accomplishments.Remember, the Americans cherish their flights to the moon, in spite of the fact, that many of the leading scientists were Nazi Germany’s rocket scientists. They cherish their jet aircraft which was helped tremendously by Nazi German designs of jet aircraft.So, why was it so important for us to sound balanced – was it important enough to hide the facts and true achievements? Note - not a single clarification issued by the Hindustan Times either. It is fair to point out however, that the Hindu carried a much more positive article on LCA on the next day.Of course, not to be left behind the ever so-prolific India hater, Praful Bidwai writes:”India . . . ranked 54th of 55 countries in an IT survey by International Data Corp. Its score is 871, compared with China’s 915, or the US’s 5041. (The highest is Sweden’s 5062, the lowest Pakistan’s 719.) The penetration of Indian households by PCs is under one-fifth the world average. Today, it stands at three machines per 1000 people.”Probably true – but, no mention of the fact that the Indians are designing some of the most advanced routers in the world, they are at the fore-front of telematics technology and developed the first products on web services, which has now become a $50B technology. So, why the lack of balance on this issue? Would not serve our purpose to make India look good, would it, now.

Protest and you get called Names

Everybody has heard about the Bangladeshi infiltration into India. Most people do not know that large parts of the border areas are now run, owned and practically ruled by Bangladeshis. I have nothing against Bangladeshis – but, when they come to my country, ethnically cleanse Indians out of large areas, happily help the ISI and demand sovereignty for areas that they are squatting on, I have a problem. However, the fact that I have said the above, labels me a Hindu Fascist and supremacist. Never mind, that in the last 17 years in the US, I’ve never visited a temple – never, mind that I’ve probably spent more time in a catholic church in my life-time than a Hindu temple – I’m still a fascist.The recommendations from the Farooquis, Pamelas and Bidwais is very clear – let the flow of Bangladeshis continue. Imply they, that there is nothing wrong in the steady arabization of most of the border areas and even secession is fine – whatever happens, we must not listen to the fascists. I’m sorry this is not OK with me – I’m concerned about the great Indian culture – the one that includes Syrian Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Muslims, as much as it does Hindus. Unfortunately, we become fascists for trying to stem the tide of Bangladeshi Taliban from entering our country, the same people who for long had an “enemy property act”, essentially treating minorities as enemies.Not only, will many news dailies prevent the publication of anything that is strongly pro-India or happens to protest anti-India activities; but, the name calling against the pro-India crowd definitely gets published. All of you must have heard about the slanderous IDRF campaign, but how many of you got to read the excellent de-bunking done by the Friends of India – very, very few. This seems to happen more and more frequently these days –· protest against subsuming India within groups and academic departments that call themselves South Asian (not Indian) – you’re a fanatic· protest against Romila Thapar’s writings – you’re a Hindu supremacist· protest against stopping charity to innocent Indian kids through false and unproven allegations – you’re RSS, VHP or worse

Openly anti-India activities

Kamal Mitra Chenoy, a professor from JNU, actually testified before the USCIRF on Gujarat, with the sole purpose of having sanctions declared on India. While, what happened in Gujarat was vile and reprehensible, how does it make sense to help other countries declare sanctions on India? Who does it hurt most? As a Friend of India member wrote,”In other words, here was an Indian zealously participating in a charade meant to impose hardship on his own country, collaborating with a wing of a government that his own comrades are given to routinely denouncing as “imperialist” and hegemonist.”Canvassing for anti-India acts are the norm now. The Indian Muslim Council, in the US, very rightfully concerned about what happened in Gujarat, is openly courting and canvassing congressmen and congressional staffers on “Hindu fanaticism”. Very thoughtful, but how do we expect the US Congressmen to help? Take action against India!!Mind you - I’m happy to join their protests in front of the Indian embassy, if they spend an equal amount of time, protesting the killing of twice as many Indians (as killed in Gujarat) every year by Islamic terrorists. Or, will they please tell their US legislators, that India actually has minorities, but minorities have for the most part vanished in the rest of South Asia (Bangladesh has gone from 33% to 7%). Will they please tell, the Americans that from negligible numbers, Andamans now have 60% Christians? Why not present the whole picture – who does it help not to do so?Everyday in the Bay area, Indian speakers are feted by large crowds of Indians and Pakistanis, for claiming how bad India is? How the Hindus are killing all the Muslims? Association of words like genocide, fascist and fundamentalist with India are common. Not a word on the Islamic terrorism that kills thousands every year, not a word on state support for it, not a word on the complete ethnic cleansing that has happened in the rest of South Asia (3% minorities in Pakistan, down from 20%) – no, that would offend our Pakistani friends.Our own, Arundhati Roy, who feels compelled to go all over the world and announce that “India is an artificial state”, recently along with some other anti-India stalwarts attended a meeting to remember Marxist-Leninist separatist Naxals. Mind you, these are the same Naxals who recommend partitioning the country and happily extort and kill innocent Indian citizens. The Bidwais, Pandeys and Roys had to honor them, but, would they ever visit the families of soldiers who died at Kargill? Nope, and nobody called them on it – no protests, no editorial scolding.Our politicians outdo all this. While Congress and the left encourage anti-India elements to settle in India, the right has proposed sundry localized sun-of-the-soil theories. All this just to win a few votes. Who does this hurt? You, me and India. I’m not suggesting that all Indian politicians become honest – that would be a stupid expectation. But, where is our press? Where are the national scolds, which are handed out so readily when we dare to kill a terrorist or two, without reading them their rights? Never surprises me that, more people jumped up to help the professor who facilitated the Parliament attack; than ever did to help the Sikh widows of the 1984 riots.

National Lack of Confidence

I’m keenly aware of the impact of history on national psyche and attitudes – let’s face it, at least in the recent centuries, we Indians have been raped, massacred and indoctrinated with gay abandon. But, history in itself is not an acceptable excuse – where are our leaders? Leadership means breaking the mold – not just our politicians, but our managing editors and our news outlet owners – they just standby, they don’t feel the need to direct their ire.I have come to believe that our educational institutions have a role here. Passing through the IITs, nobody ingrained in me or my friends, the arrogance to believe that we could do intellectual work better than the best in the world. Result – we all end up believing, like Mr. Vishal Thapar above, that Indians cannot do the kinds of things that the Anglo-Saxons can – how could they? Other educational institutions are worse – try holding a pro-India, anti-Pakistan program in JNU – chances are you’ll get beaten up. Writes Vrin Parker, an American who has spent time in India,”After having been forced to learn a lot misinformation about India in American schools I became fed up … I began my own research and soon discovered that it was the Indians themselves … who are at the root of all the nonsense taught about Hindus in the West.”

Acceptance as Normal

It isn’t what D’Souza said that has surprised me – it is that this has become accepted behavior in India. Nobody protests, when Arundhati makes up stories that make the Gujarat incidents much worse than they actually were (and they were bad enough), nobody blinks when Bidwais of the world spew their anti-India venom day in and day out, nobody cries foul when anti-India groups are feted by prominent/respected Indians within India and nobody editorializes when Indians go around canvassing foreign governments to take actions against India and Indians.

When did this happen? When did it become so acceptable to hate-India openly?

Please do not get me wrong – we Indians have our faults. Our caste-system, our riots, corruption, fundamentalism, most of our politicians, extreme poverty and our apathy to all this. Protest against all this, change it, elect someone else, expose it, and write about it – that’s all patriotic. But asking for foreign invasion, supporting secessionists, canvassing for US sanctions, inviting arabized Bangladeshis into India, absolving Pakistani terrorism or minimizing Hindu deaths is NOT – it’s anti-India.Remember, that there is a lot of good – ask the Tibetians who have taken refuge in India, ask the Chakma Buddhists, ask the Bangladeshi Hindus, ask the Pakistani Hindus, ask the Afghans who’re being treated and taught by Indians, ask the CEOs of the top five technology corporations in the world and ask the Bangladeshis who remember. Let’s not hide all this or minimize it, but let’s not be satisfied with it, either.

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