25. December 2009 by admin.

Jews of India

Jews in India have lived among the predominant Hindu and Muslim population for millennia, making Judaism one of the oldest religions in India. Over the centuries, the Jews preserved their customs and traditions while assimilating with the local population. Unlike many parts of the world, Jews have lived in India without significant violence or anti-Semitism, and have been accorded an honorable place in the social structure. In Mumbai (formerly Bombay), two synagogues are located in predominantly Muslim areas, with no record of ill-will between the two communities. Even so, economic factors, among others, have prompted many Jews to emigrate to Britain, Australia, Canada, the United States, and Israel. Never a large community, the Jewish population remaining in India was estimated to number around 5,000 in the year 2000. There are four major groupings of Jews in India, each with its own unique history. They are the Cochin Jews, the Baghdadi Jews, the Bene Israel, and the B’nei Menashe.

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Cochin Jews (Malabar Jews)
The oldest of the Jewish communities, the Cochin Jews arrived in India 2,500 years ago. Several rounds of immigration from the Jewish Diaspora to the southern state of Kerala led to a diversity amongst the Cochin Jews. The biggest group is called “Meyuhassim” (“privileged” in Hebrew) or Malabar Jews. The forebears of these Jews are considered to have arrived in India during the period of King Solomon. The second group is called “Pardesi” (“foreigner” in some Indian languages), who came to Kerala at different periods from different countries: Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Spain, and Germany. These two groups were successful merchants and had slaves who were converted to Judaism. They were released from their status as slaves and are called “Meshuhararim” (“released” in Hebrew).

In 1524, they moved from the port of Cranganore (now called Kudungallur) further south to Cochin to escape attacks from the Moors and the Portuguese. The Jews fled to Cochin under the protection of a Hindu Raja who granted them their own area of the city, later called “Jew Town.” The Cochini Jews at their height in the 1940s numbered 3,000. Although most Cochin Jews have emigrated primarily to Israel or elsewhere, a small population of mainly elderly men and women still inhabit “Jew Town.”

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Baghdadi Jews
The most recent arrivals are the Baghdadi Jews (sometimes called “Iraqi Jews”) who came to India as traders and religiously persecuted refugees 250 years ago from West Asia-Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. Most of the “Baghdadis” were successful merchants and businessmen and quickly became successful leaders in Mumbai and Calcutta. As philanthropists, they built hospitals, schools, libraries, and monuments in many cities of India. For the most part, however, the Baghdadi Jews remained separate from Indian society, including other Indian Jews, preferring to identify with British culture.

The Baghdadis at their height numbered about 7,000 in the 1940s, although today there are less than 200 left in India, most of them having emigrated to Britain, Australia, and Canada.

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Bene Israel
At the present, the Bene Israel predominate the Jewish presence in India. Their story is an old one, but like many ancient communities, it is the subject of scholarly dispute. According to oral tradition, the Bene Israel are descended from Jews who escaped persecution from the Syrian-Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphan in 175 B.C.E. A shipwreck stranded seven Jewish families at Navgaon near the port of Cheul on the Konkan Coast, thirty miles south of Mumbai. The families multiplied and integrated with the local Maharashtrian population, adopting their language, dress, and food, and became physically indistinguishable from the local population.

However, the Bene Israel were clearly differentiated from others because of their adherence to Judaism. The Bene Israel say their ancestors were oil pressers in the Galilee, hence their nickname shanwar teli (”Saturday oil-pressers”), given by the local population because they abstained from work on Shabbat. They remained isolated from mainstream Judaism until the 19th century when Cochin and Baghdadi Jews became involved in training the Bene Israel religious leadership. The Bene Israel were encouraged to move to Mumbai for better employment opportunities. Over time, the Bene Israel community became successful, producing distinguished military leaders, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals.

It is estimated that there were 6,000 Bene Israel in the 1830s, 10,000 at the turn of the century, and in 1948 they numbered 20,000. When the British withdrew from India in 1947, and the State of Israel was established in 1948, the Bene Israel began to emigrate to Israel. About 60,000 Bene Israel live in Israel today. In 1964, the Israeli Rabbinate declared that the Bene Israel are “full Jews in every respect.” There are approximately 2,000 living in United States and elsewhere.

According to Romiel Daniel, a Mumbai-born Jew who serves as president and occasional cantor for the Rego Park Jewish Center in Queens, New York:

There are 29 synagogues in Mumbai, in a country with about 5,000 Jews. […] Most Indian Jews were traders and merchants, and throughout their long history in the country they enjoyed tranquil relations with their Hindu neighbors.

The Bene Israel adhere to their own traditions and rites. Like the Lemba of South Africa, a DNA test in 2002 confirmed that the Bene Israel share the same heredity as the Kohanim.

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B’nei Menashe
In northeast India, in the land mass that lies between Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Bangladesh, a small group of people have been practicing Judaism since the early 1970s, having returned to the religion of their ancestors. The B’nei Menashe are Mizo and Kuki tribesmen in Manipur and Mizoram who believe that they are descended from the ancient tribe of Menashe. Evidence shows that after the exile of 722 B.C.E., many Israelites made their way across the Silk Road, ending up in China. The Shinlung tribe, as they were called in China, eventually migrated to Burma and northeast India, losing many of their Jewish customs along the way. Although their “leather scrolls” were destroyed, the B’nei Menashe still held on to their oral history and the poems describing their ancestors crossing the Red Sea. After thousands of years of exile, they have rediscovered their roots and are returning to Judaism.

While over 300 have formally converted to Judaism and many of these have moved to Israel, thousands of others live fully Jewish lives without having yet converted. In a historic decision, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar has formally recognized the Bnei Menashe community of northeastern India as “descendants of Israel” and has agreed to send a Beit Din on its behalf to the region to formally convert them to Judaism.50 In a recent turn of events, Rabbi Ekstein, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has informed the government of Israel that his organization would provide the $8 million to settle the 6,000 Bnei Menashe in Israel, citing the recent certification of authenticity by the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel.

In a July 2005 New York Times magazine article, Zev Chafets, founding editor of Jerusalem Report, touches upon the complexity of Israeli politics and the implications of settling the B’nei Menashe in Israel for other communities:

Transporting 6,000 lost Jews from India to Israel is […] a political act. Israeli political parties will tussle over patronage of this new voting bloc. Right-wingers will fight to get it housed in the West Bank; left-wingers will try to prevent that. And the Palestinians will condemn the whole exercise as a Zionist trick to upset the demographic balance.
 

Chafets captures a fear shared ironically by both sides of the spectrum-those who are concerned with preserving the authenticity of the Jewish people as well as those who advocate for the dissolution of the Jewish people: “If a rabbi can turn 6,000 Indians into biblical Jews and take them to Israel, what’s to stop him from finding 600,000 somewhere else?” Some communities of Jews, who are either persecuted or who are extremely isolated, may need to take refuge in Israel, such as the Beta Israel from Ethiopia. However, other communities, both historical, like the Lemba, or new, like the Abayudaya, want to remain where they are. They would like to be able to apply for a visa to visit or study in Israel without undue suspicion, or have the same rights as other individuals to make aliyah as they chose. They would like to be recognized as Jews, without becoming embroiled in Jewish communal politics or the brunt of the “explosive” politics of the Middle East. Their goal is to practice Judaism, not necessarily to make aliyah.

Source: http://www.bechol-lashon.org/population/asia/india.php

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23. December 2009 by admin.

Bassam Nabulsi is a United States citizen and Houston businessman. Sheikh Issa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (Sheikh Issa) is a member of the royal family in the U.A.E. Sheikh Issa is the younger brother of the President of the U.A.E., Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed, and younger brother to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Bassam Nabulsi and Sheikh Issa were business partners. Through the course of their relationship, Mr. Nabulsi learned that Sheikh Issa expected no disagreements from those with whom he dealt, including his partner and business manager, Mr. Nabulsi. As their relationship progressed, Mr. Nabulsi noted that Sheikh Issa grew more aggressive, and less tolerant.

  Indeed, as Sheikh Issa’s moods grew darker, he began a habit and custom of torturing his employees or anyone else with whom he disapproved. Over the years, and particularly after the death of this father (the long-serving and well-respected President of the U.A.E.) in 2004, these torture sessions grew more brutal, vicious, and bloody. As his degeneracy increased, Sheikh Issa began to have such torture sessions videotaped, so he could enjoy viewing them later. Mr. Nabulsi disapproved vehemently with Sheikh Issa’s behavior, and never took part in such conduct.

  One of Sheikh Issa’s many torture victims was Mohammed Shah Poor, an Afghan who did business with the Sheikh. After Poor fell into Sheikh Issa’s disfavor, the Sheikh personally tortured Poor for more than forty-five minutes. Sheikh Issa was assisted by several members of the Abu Dhabi police. The torture involved shooting an M-16 into the ground in front of where Poor was kneeling, stuffing sand into his mouth, sticking nails repeatedly into his buttocks, whipping him with a board containing nails, repeatedly kicking his head, whipping his buttocks until they bled, pouring salt onto his wounds, pouring lighter fluid onto his scrotum and lighting it on fire, sticking a cattle prod up his anus, and running over him with Sheikh Issa’s Mercedes SUV. As has now become his custom, at Sheikh Issa’s direction, the torture session was videotaped.

  Immediately after the torture session, a member of Sheikh Issa’s entourage frantically telephoned Mr. Nabulsi. During that call, Mr. Nabulsi learned about the torture of Mr. Poor, and learned that Sheikh Issa was refusing to allow the injured and bleeding victim to be taken to the hospital. Fearing that Mr. Poor might die, Mr. Nabulsi spoke to Sheikh Issa by phone. In that call, Mr. Nabulsi pleaded with Sheikh Issa to allow Poor to be taken to the hospital. Although Sheikh Issa ultimately conceded to Nabulsi’s frantic requests, Nabulsi’s assertiveness on that call with Sheikh Issa was the beginning of the ultimate end to the two partners’ business and personal relationship.

  As personal and business manager for Sheikh Issa, as well as business partner, Mr. Nabulsi maintained all important business and personal items for Sheikh Issa. One such item was the videotape showing Sheikh Issa torturing Mr. Poor–along with several similar tapes of other torture sessions involving the Sheikh and other victims.

  As the relationship between the partners continued to deteriorate, Sheikh Issa became desperate to retrieve the torture tapes. To that end, by asserting influence with the Abu Dhabi police, Sheikh Issa had Mr. Nabulsi arrested in April of 2005. However, there were no charges, and the police held Mr. Nabulsi only because Sheikh Issa had directed them to do so.

  After his arrest, Mr. Nabulsi was held without charges for several days. The police department, under the direction of Sheikh Issa, thoroughly searched Mr. Nabulsi’s residence in an effort to find the torture tapes. Further, all of Mr. Nabulsi’s computers were confiscated, along with any devices that might contain evidence of Sheikh Issa’s involvement in the torture.

  In an attempt to justify Mr. Nabulsi’s incarceration, Sheikh Issa then fabricated false accusations of marijuana possession against Nabulsi. Of course, the resulting search of Nabulsi’s home revealed no marijuana, and the test performed on Mr. Nabulsi’s urine was also negative for drug use.

  Mr. Nabulsi was kept incarcerated for three months. During the three-month ordeal, Mr. Nabulsi learned from his jailors that the genesis of the false marijuana charges was Sheikh Issa, as well as his brother, Sheikh Nasser bin Zayed Al Nahyan, with the approval of another member of the Royal Family, Sheikh Saif, Minister of the Interior and Chief of Police.

  At one point during the incarceration, the U.S. Embassy attempted to come to Mr. Nabulsi’s aid. In response, the Embassy was informed by the police department that the reason for the incarceration was a personal dispute between Mr. Nabulsi and Sheikh Issa.
Despite the efforts of the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Nabulsi was kept in jail, where he was continuously tortured. Each day, the jailors, at the direction of the Issa, would have a “session” with Mr. Nabulsi, threatening him with immediate death and extreme pain. Because of what he had seen on the torture tapes, Mr. Nabulsi was frighteningly aware of Sheikh Issa’s capacity for cruelty as well as his apparent influence with the police.
During his incarceration, the safety of Mr. Nabulsi’s wife and children were also repeatedly threatened. These threats caused Mr. Nabulsi great stress. Further, members of his personal staff were held hostage for days without food or water. Mr. Nabulsi was threatened with their deaths as well.

  Sheikh Issa himself conducted some of the torture sessions. During such sessions, Sheikh Issa asked repeatedly about the location of the torture tapes, and repeatedly told his business partner Nabulsi that he would be killed, and that his family and staff would be killed.

  In furtherance of the effort to break Nabulsi mentally so he would give up the tapes, Sheikh Issa instructed the police to place Afghan and Iraqi prisoners, who were known to be hostile an aggressive towards Americans, in Mr. Nabulsi’s cell. Sheikh Issa then had the guards taunt Mr. Nabulsi about being an American in front of these cell mates.
Mr. Nabulsi’s criminal charges ultimately came to trial and he was acquitted of all charges of marijuana possession. Still, even after his innocence was proven in court, he was kept in jail. Finally, the U.S. Embassy again intervened to force Mr. Nabulsi’s release. Through the grace of God, and with help from the U.S. Embassy and his family, Bassam Nabulsi was able to escape the U.A.E.

  Bassam Nabulsi is now possession of several videos that show some of the most inhumane treatment the World has ever seen or heard about. These videos will ultimately be released on this site. Sheikh Issa, as brother to both the President of the U.A.E. and the Crown Prince of the U.A.E., has never been held accountable for his inhumane actions.

  Source: http://www.uaetorture.com/index.php?page=nabulsi-s-story

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22. December 2009 by admin.

By George Friedman
 
A small number of Iranian troops entered Iraq, where they took control of an oil well and raised the Iranian flag Dec. 18. The Iranian-Iraqi border in this region is poorly defined and is contested, with the Iranians claiming this well is in Iranian territory not returned after the Iran-Iraq War. Such incidents have occurred in the past. Given that there were no casualties this time, it therefore would be easy to dismiss this incident, even though at about the same time an Iranian official claimed that Iraq owes Iran about $1 trillion in reparations for starting the Iran-Iraq War.

  But what would be fairly trivial at another time and place is not trivial now.

Sending a Message With an Incursion

Multiple sources have reported that Tehran ordered the incident. The Iranian government is aware that Washington has said the end of 2009 was to be the deadline for taking action against Iran over its nuclear program — and that according to a White House source, the United States could extend that deadline to Jan. 15, 2010.

  That postponement makes an important point. The United States has treated the Iran crisis as something that will be handled on an American timeline. The way that the Obama administration handled the Afghanistan strategy review suggests it assumes that Washington controls the tempo of events sufficiently that it can make decisions carefully, deliberately and with due reflection. If true, that would mean that adversaries like Iran are purely on the defensive, and either have no counter to American moves or cannot counter the United States until after Washington makes its next move.

  For Iran, just to accept that premise puts it at an obvious disadvantage. First, Tehran would have to demonstrate that the tempo of events is not simply in American or Israeli hands. Second, Tehran would have to remind the United States and Israel that Iran has options that it might use regardless of whether the United States chooses sanctions or war. Most important, Iran must show that whatever these options are, they can occur before the United States acts — that Iran has axes of its own, and may not wait for the U.S. axe to fall.

  The incursion was shaped to make this point without forcing the United States into precipitous action. The location was politically ambiguous. The force was small. Casualties were avoided. At the same time, it was an action that snapped a lot of people to attention. Oil prices climbed. Baghdad and Washington scrambled to try to figure what was going on, and for a while Washington was clearly at a loss, driving home the fact that the United States doesn’t always respond quickly and efficiently to surprises initiated by the other side.

  The event eventually died down, and the Iranians went out of their way to minimize its importance. But two points nevertheless were made. The first was that Iran might not wait for Washington to consider all possible scenarios. The second was that the Iranians know how to raise oil prices. And with that lesson, they reminded the Americans that the Iranians have a degree of control over the economic recovery in the United States.
There has never been any doubt that Iran has options in the event that the United States chooses to strike. Significantly, the Iranians now have driven home that they might initiate a conflict if they assume conflict is inevitable.

U.S. and Iranian Options

Iran’s problem becomes clear when we consider Tehran’s options. These options fall into three groups:

1. Interdicting the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf through the use of mines and anti-ship missiles. This would result in a dramatic increase in world oil prices on the Iranian attempt alone and could keep them high if Tehran’s efforts succeeded. The impact on the global economy would be substantial.
2. Causing massive destabilization in Iraq. The Iranians retain allies and agents in Iraq, which has been experiencing increased violence and destabilization over the past months. As the violence increases and the Americans leave, a close relationship with Iran might be increasingly attractive to Iraqi troops. Given the deployment of American troops, direct attacks in Iraq by Iranian forces are not out of the question. Even if ultimately repulsed, such Iranian incursions could further destabilize Iraq. This would force the Obama administration to reconsider the U.S. withdrawal timetable, potentially affecting Afghanistan.
3. Use Hezbollah to initiate a conflict with Israel, and as a global tool for terrorist attacks on American and allied targets. Hezbollah is far more sophisticated and effective than al Qaeda was at its height, and would be a formidable threat should Iran choose — and Hezbollah agree — to play this role.

 
When we look at the three Iranian options, it is clear that the United States would not be able to confine any action against Iran to airstrikes. The United States is extremely good at air campaigns, while it is weak at counterinsurgency. It has massive resources in the region to throw into an air campaign and it can bring more in using carrier strike groups.
But even before hitting Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Americans would have to consider the potential Iranian responses. Washington would have to take three steps. First, Iranian anti-ship missiles and surface vessels — and these vessels could be very small but still able to carry out mine warfare — on the Iranian littoral would have to be destroyed. Second, large formations of Iranian troops along the Iraqi border would have to be attacked, and Iranian assets in Iraq at the very least disrupted. Finally, covert actions against Hezbollah assets — particularly assets outside Lebanon — would have to be neutralized to the extent possible.

  This would require massive, coordinated attacks, primarily using airpower and covert forces in a very tight sequence prior to any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Without this, Iran would be in a position to launch the attacks outlined above in response to strikes on its nuclear facilities. Given the nature of the Iranian responses, particularly the mining of the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, the operations could be carried out quickly and with potentially devastating results to the global economy.

  From the Iranian standpoint, Tehran faces a “use-it-or-lose-it” scenario. It cannot wait until the United States initiates hostilities. The worst-case scenario for Iran is waiting for Washington to initiate the conflict.

  At the same time, the very complexity of an Iranian attack makes the United States want to think long and hard before attacking Iran. The opportunities for failure are substantial, no matter how well the attack is planned. And the United States can’t allow Israel to start a conflict with Iran alone because Israel lacks the resources to deal with a subsequent Iranian naval interdiction and disruptions in Iraq.

  It follows that the United States is interested in a nonmilitary solution to the problem. The ideal solution would be sanctions on gasoline. The United States wants to take as much time as needed to get China and Russia committed to such sanctions.

Iranian Pre-emption

The Iranians signaled last week that they might not choose to be passive if effective sanctions were put in place. Sanctions on gasoline would in fact cripple Iran, so like Japan prior to Pearl Harbor, the option of capitulating to sanctions might be viewed as more risky than a pre-emptive strike. And if sanctions didn’t work, the Iranians would have to assume a military attack is coming next. Since the Iranians wouldn’t know when it would happen, and their retaliatory options might disappear in the first phase of the military operation, they would need to act before such an attack.

  The problem is that the Iranians won’t know precisely when that attack will take place. The United States and Israel have long discussed a redline in Iranian nuclear development, which if approached would force an attack on Iran to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Logically, Iran would seem to have a redline as well, equally poorly designed. At the point when it becomes clear that sanctions are threatening regime survival or that military action is inevitable, Iran must act first, using its military assets before it loses them.

  Iran cannot live with either effective sanctions or the type of campaign that the United States would have to launch to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities. The United States can’t live with the consequences of Iranian counteractions to an attack. Even if sanctions were possible, they would leave Iran with the option to do precisely those things Washington cannot tolerate. Therefore, whether the diplomatic or military route is followed, each side has two options. First, the Americans can accept Iran as a nuclear power, or Iran can accept that it must give up its nuclear ambitions. Second, assuming that neither side accepts the first option, each side must take military action before the other side does. The Americans must neutralize counters before the Iranians deploy them. The Iranians must deploy their counters before they are destroyed.

  The United States and Iran are both playing for time. Neither side wants to change its position on the nuclear question, although each hopes the other will give in. Moreover, neither side is really confident in its military options. The Americans are not certain that they can both destroy the nuclear facilities and Iranian counters — and if the counters are effective, their consequences could be devastating. The Iranians are not certain that their counters will work effectively, and once failure is established, the Iranians will be wide open for devastating attack. Each side assumes the other understands the risks and will accept the other’s terms for a settlement.

  And so each waits, hoping the other side will back down. The events of the past week were designed to show the Americans that Iran is not prepared to back down. More important, they were designed to show that the Iranians also have a redline, that it is as fuzzy as the American redline and that the Americans should be very careful in how far they press, as they might suddenly wake up one morning with their hands full.
The Iranian move is deliberately designed to rattle U.S. President Barack Obama. He has shown a decision-making style that assumes that he is not under time pressure to make decisions. It is not clear to anyone what his decision-making style in a crisis will look like. Though not a prime consideration from the Iranian point of view, putting Obama in a position where he is psychologically unprepared for decisions in the timeframe they need to be made in is certainly an added benefit. Iran, of course, doesn’t know how effectively he might respond, but his approach to Afghanistan gives them another incentive to act sooner than later.

  There are some parallels here to the nuclear warfare theory, in which each side faces mutual assured destruction. The problem here is that each side does not face destruction, but pain. And here, pre-emptive strikes are not guaranteed to produce anything. It is the vast unknowns that make this affair so dangerous, and at any moment, one side or the other might decide they can wait no longer.

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21. December 2009 by admin.

Opium in Afghanistan

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20. December 2009 by admin.

Kremlin position papers presented to Prime Minister Putin today on his upcoming meeting with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen state that the European-US military alliance has authorized an ‘emergency request’ from President Obama to utilize American and Canadian NATO troops to put down what is expected to be a “rebellion” after the expected January, 2010 ‘declaration of bankruptcy’ by the State of California.

  According to these reports, Obama’s fears of rebellion are due to the economic health of California (the United States largest State) after the 3rd largest US State, New York, declared a ‘fiscal emergency’ and refused to release to its cities and towns over $750 Million due them this past week with the Governor of New York, David Paterson, declaring “I can’t say this enough: The state has run out of money.”

  New York’s fiscal crisis, however, pales in comparison to California’s, where new economic data points to its expected 5-year budget deficit reaching the staggering amount of over $100 Billion which Russian economists warn will result in budget cuts so steep as to create ‘social chaos’ among this States 36 million citizens.

  Reports from the United States are, indeed, confirming the mass movement of military supplies and thousands of Canadian Special Forces Troops to California from the Canadian Forces Base of Petawawa to join their American military counterparts, with ‘secondary’ reports stating that at least 1,000 tanks are massing their too.

  Russian Military Analysts are further warning in this report that Obama has decided to implement the feared RAND Corporation (one of the most powerful research arms of the US Military-Industrial-Homeland Security Complex) police state ‘blueprint’ tilted “Stability Police Force for the United States: Justification and Creating U.S. Capabilities” that has been modeled on the Nazi German secret police forces organization Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) meant to ‘control and demoralize’ any opposition to the state.

  Even worse for these American people is the legalization process currently embedded in their new health care legislation which will see everyone of them becoming virtual slaves of their government, and as warned about by the Fox News Service in their report titled “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid of Obama’s Latest Big Brother Plan” and which says:
“Under the Democrats’ national health care scheme not only would OPM be charged with overseeing and administering federal employees health care but they will have the added charge of administering civilian federal health care as well. What does that mean? Basically, that Americans will be treated as “civil servants.” Are you starting to see the danger?

  The more government seeks to control our lives the more Orwellian it gets. This “big brother” mentality that “government knows best” and that it is their mission to provide cradle to grave “care” of its citizens will doom America as we know it. Under such a system the individual becomes meaningless and the state becomes the entity upon which we are all forced to rely.”

  Unfortunately, with or without these Americans succumbing to the loss of their Nation through the establishment of a police state, their fate appears to have already been sealed as new reports are showing that by their continued saving they are failing to provide China with the money needed through the buying of goods to purchase US bonds to keep them afloat, and which has led to the incredible circumstance of the United States, through its Federal Reserve and other financial entities, becoming the largest buyers of their own debt.

  Not being seen in all of these dire events by the American people is that their present collapse as an independent Nation was engineered by their own President Obama, who working in concert with the previous President, George Bush, sold them out to Wall Street by packing his administration with banking insiders have, literally, pillaged the entire economic future of the United States for the benefit of their elite classes and, incredibly, supported these once collapsing banks with over $352 Billion in drug money.

  And so grave has it become for ordinary Americans that new reports are now showing that in what was once the most powerful Nation on Earth, there now exists an ‘epidemic’ of child hunger and one their fastest growing cities is a tent-town of newly homeless named “Obamaville” in a stark reminder of the thousands of shanty towns named Hoovervilles built during the Great Depression.

  For those American people believing their propaganda media reports that a recovery is underway they couldn’t be more mistaken, as newly released data shows that of the millions of jobs lost these past 2 years almost all of them are permanent. And, as always, these people are being kept from knowing the full and brutal truth of their economic collapse with reports also showing that the latest unemployment figures released by the US government were faked.

  But to the greatest fears of these Americans should be the newly released information showing that US scientists have perfected, for the first time in history, a new drugless technique to wipe from these people’s minds their very own memories, and as we can read:
“In a scientific experiment that brings to mind the memory-erasing escapade in the 2004 film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” scientists have blocked fearful recollections in human participants, sans drugs. The results challenge the view that our long-term memories are fixed and resistant to change.”

  Russian Military Psychologists have long warned that the West’s longest term plan to control their soon to be rebellious populations lie in memory altering techniques such as are being perfected in the United States and due to be deployed through their mass media in radio programmes, television, and movie broadcasts outlets as these Nations past reliance on the drugging of their citizens through mass fluoridation is becoming more and more ineffectual.

  Important to note too is that the economic collapse of the United States is just one of the catastrophic dangers they are facing, as this past week the giant plant genetics company Bayer admitted in a US Federal Court that it has been “unable to control the spread of its genetically-engineered organisms despite ‘the best practices’ to stop widespread contamination” and which may very well see the destruction of the American’s ability to feed themselves as these ‘monster plants’ reap their destruction on Nature.

  To all of these events, it is not in our knowing if the American people will awaken from their self induced slumber to arise, as they have many times throughout their history, to reclaim for themselves what is now rapidly being stolen from them. But, and if their present actions are a predictor to what they may do in the future, one can only fear for them as they are marched in lockstep towards an abyss they only fail to see because they won’t open their eyes.

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16. December 2009 by admin.

By Johann Hari

  This is the story of the twenty-first century’s trade in slave-children. My journey into their underworld took place where its alleys and brothels are most dense – Asia, where the United Nations calculates one million children are being traded every day. It took me to places I did not think existed, today, now. To a dungeon in the lawless Bangladeshi borderlands where children are padlocked and prison-barred in transit to Indian brothels. To an iron whore-house where grown women have spent their entire lives being raped. To a clinic that treat syphilitic eleven year-olds.

  But this story begins like all these stories begin: with a girl, and a lie. Sufia comes to talk to me in a centre for children who have been rescued, funded by Comic Relief – who have their major Sport Relief funding run this weekend. She has only ever talked about it to her counsellors here. But she wants the world to know what happened to her.
She comes into the room swaddled in a red sari, carrying big premature black bags under her eyes. She tells her story in a slow, halting mumble. Sufia grew up in a village near Khulna in the South-West of Bangladesh. Her parents were farmers; she was one of eight children. “My parents couldn’t afford to look after me,” she says. “We didn’t have enough money for food.”

  And so came the lie. When Sufia was fourteen, a female neighbour came to her parents and said she could find her a good job in Calcutta as a housemaid. She would live well; she would learn English; she would have a well-fed future. “I was so excited,” Sufia says.
“But as soon as we arrived in Calcutta I knew something was wrong,” she says. “I didn’t know what a brothel was, but I could see the house she took me to was a bad house, where the women wore small clothes and lots of bad men were coming in and out.” The neighbour was handed fifty thousand takka – around £500 – for Sufia, and then she told her to do what she was told and disappeared.

  Here, Sufia’s halting monologue stops all together. She looks away; she rocks slightly. And then: “I wasn’t allowed to ever leave. I had to see ten men a day.” Another long pause. “I didn’t know anything about men before. It was the most terrible thing.”
She saw what happened to the older women there. They are forced to “breed”. Their daughters are raised to be prostitute-slaves. After three months, two other girls imprisoned in the brothel approached her with an escape plan. They would save up the sleeping pills they were given at night – to stop them sobbing and howling and putting off the ‘clients’ – and slip them into the drink of the ‘Mashi’ who was imprisoning them. Then they would run as far and as a fast as they could.

  It worked. “I had no idea how to get around the city but they were very clever girls,” Sufia says. When she finally saw her parents’ house once more, she made a resolution to herself: “I could never, never tell my family what happened. I told them I had been working as a maid and I missed them too much. I can never, never tell anyone apart from the people here. Never. If I do, nobody will marry me. I would bring disgrace on my family and my life would be destroyed.”
She knows she should have an HIV test. She has booked to have one twice. But she can’t go through with it. She can’t bear to know.
Sufia was sold into an organised trade that crosses continents and deals daily in pounds of human flesh. It continues every day – and unlike Sufia, most women do not escape.

  I. Into the brothels
On the side of a dirt-track in Jamalpur, a small Bangladeshi city, there is an iron gate. It leads to a dense warren of flimsy huts with iron roofs, and in each one, there is a woman, waiting.
I speak first to Liza, a 19 year old girl wearing elaborate geisha make-up and a broken smile. She is standing outside her hut, talking to a group of girls her own age, smoking a spliff. For a moment, and from a distance, they look like a group of stoned, giggling teenage girls anywhere on earth. But then you see the clump of fat, sweating men waiting for them. They pay 50 to 500 takka – from 5 pence to £5 – depending on what sexual acts they want, and the beauty of the girl.

  When I ask Liza how she ended up here, she offers a strange, rambling, incoherent story – she loved a boy, but her parents forebade her to marry him; she wanted to earn her own dowry; so she came here, but now she has lost touch with the boy. She keeps breaking off, awkwardly giggling at her friends. It isn’t amusement; it isn’t even being stoned; it is the lid on a scream. I ask: are you allowed to leave if you want to? She looks nervously around before answering; then says quickly – “Yes.” She shakes her head as she says it.

  We are interrupted by the sound of a baby crying. This brothel is full of babies: the women have nowhere else to put them, they tell me. This makes me wonder again how free they are to leave.

  Sitting in another hut, I find Beauty, a 34 year old woman. When I tell her I want her to talk about her life, she offers a big, perplexed smile. “My brother-in-law sold me to the Mashi here when I was thirteen,” she explains. “He took me away one day and brought me here. When I arrived the Mashi whipped me and told me I could never leave this brothel. I was devastated. I hated it. I kept thinking about my family, my mother, and crying all the time. But the Mashi just whipped me all the time and told me I had to work.”

  She found a fragment of happiness when she was nineteen. One of the men who came regularly to the brothel said he had fallen in love with her – and proposed marriage. He paid to take her away, back to her village to see her mother and sister. It had been Beauty’s dream: “I thought I was going back to the good life.”

  But her family rejected her. They had heard she had become a prostitute – her brother-in-law said she chose it – so her sister “tortured me,” she says, calling her names and jeering and making the village shun her. Then, after a while, her husband tired of her too – and sold her back to the brothel once more. She says, “I stopped eating, I wanted to die.”
So here she is. She knows “I can never have a husband or a house.” She will always be shunned, by everyone.

  There is one route out of the brothel for these women: to become a “Maasi” themselves, to set up their own brothel and ‘earn’ their freedom. But Beauty says she can’t do it: “No, no, I would hate to be a madam. I’m a bad girl but I’m not that bad.” She runs her fingers though her hair and says: “I know it’s sad. That’s my life story. It’s not much, is it?”

  II. Into the borderlands
The border between India and Bangladesh is a long and rippling river. As I stand there, in front of me, there is the world’s largest democratic republic. Behind me, there is a dungeon with iron bars, where Bangladeshi women are held before being sold to India.
All the people here refer to it as “the trafficker’s place”; it is not disguised.
As they gather around in their quiet, muddy village, the locals – a hardened band of farmers – explain that there is low-level warfare going on out here. Over sweet tea on his veranda, with a crowd watching on, their local elected representative Adul Khaleq– a rugged man in his fifties – says he is paying bitterly for taking on the traffickers.
“My brother, Abdu Saleq, was our elected council member here until three years ago,” he explains. His career ended abruptly when he caught red-handed a trafficker who was trying to take a 25 year old woman over to India: “He thought it was his duty to stop them. He thought selling women was wrong.” The freed woman called her father, who came tearfully to collect her.

  Two nights later, the traffickers turned up at Abdu’s house. They dragged him from his bed by his hair, took him out into the street, and hacked his body to pieces with an axe as he howled.
“The traffickers told his wife they would kill us too,” Adul says. But the villagers refused to be cowed. They set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme, to track the traffickers: “We work as a watchdog at night. Who is trafficking? How many girls are being taken? As soon as something is spotted, we are alerted.”

  But the story does not end with this black-and-white morality tale: it gets grey. Adul says they cannot go to the police, because they are thoroughly bribed and bought off by the traffickers and simply let them go. Instead, they have to “beat the traffickers mercilessly.” And as a result, the police have framed them, they say – on murder charges. Adul is awaiting trial for a murder in Khulna everybody in the town claims he could not have committed, because they all saw him that day in the village.

  I couldn’t slice through the dense thickets of this story – but I could find a total consensus here that the police are in the pay of the traffickers, and merrily arrest anyone who crosses them. So I decided to go to local Police Station – a lovely white-marble building, surrounded with lush, well-tended flower-beds – to question the police. The Sub-Inspector is a handsome thirty-something officer with a brown uniform and a broad smile.

  When I ask him if he or his officers take bribes, he waves his hand through the air. “I will not comment on this,” he says. What do you mean, you won’t comment? It’s surely not a difficult question. “I’m not going to talk about it,” he says, firmer now. Okay then: why do you think everyone in this community thinks your people take bribes? He sucks his teeth. “They’ve got an attitude problem. They’re poor. They blame anyone for their problems.” And he laughs. It is only a small laugh.

  III. Into the street-world
Dhaka – the capital of Bangladesh – is a city of immediate, brain-melting sensory overload. In this megalopolis of fourteen million sardine-people, every crammed street-scene glimpsed for a second is filled with more detail than you could absorb in a week. Swanky Western cars are log-jammed are next to mobile heaps of rust. Ethereal waif-women are wandering between them with babies, begging. Builders are carrying huge loads balanced impossibly on their heads. Children are operating sewing machines on roofs. Painted women ask if you will pay ten takka to see the dancing snake hidden in their wooden box. Men clinging to the top of buses are yelling at rickshaw drivers, who are yelling at pedestrians, who are yelling into their mobiles.

  All this happens against an endless soundtrack I think of as the Dhaka tinnitus: the waaaah-waaaaah of car horns and the bring-bring of rickshaws and the eeeek-eeeek of alarms constantly chorusing and the shouting, shouting, shouting.
Amidst this ceaseless roll, there are 300,000 street-children, living (and dying) on their own. They sleep in clusters, around the boat terminal and the bus station and in the crannies of half-built buildings across the city. They are the traffickers’ dream, a pool of prey with no defences.

  Sitting on the bridge in the Dhaka boat terminal, I find Mohammed and his small gang of friends. He is a fourteen year old boy with a grubby denim shirt and a ragged mop-head of hair. He looks about ten, with a bony, under-developed frame. He has a Pokemon transfer on his ankle: it is Pikachu, waving. They let me hang out with them for a day.

  They spend the daylight hours wandering the streets of Dhaka, collecting pieces of waste-paper and ramming them into a sack. At the end of a good day, they can sell the scraps for ten takka – about five pence, enough to buy a few good meals and a few spliffs. As we wander searching for paper, he tells me he ran away from home four years ago. “I ran away because my stepmother was cruel to me,” he says. His mother left their home when he was a baby to go and work as a maid in Dhaka and send money back for the hungry family. He was left in the care of his father’s other wife – who, he says, hated him.

  “She made me do all the washing and cleaning for her sons,” he says, “and she made me collect water for the whole family every day.” Later, he adds, “She tried to poison me. She made me some rice, and I tasted a bit but it was really horrible, it didn’t taste right at all. She told me I had to eat it, so I slipped it to the dog. That afternoon the dog died.” Is this a child’s fantasy? All the street children seem to have similar tales of extreme horror, created to cover their pain; they can’t all be true.

  He has been with his posse every since he arrived in Dhaka, hoping he would somehow spot his mother. I ask - do you miss your family? He offers a little shrug of bravado. “I miss my brothers and sisters. I wish I could still play with them. Sometimes I think about them when I’m trying to sleep. But no. I don’t miss anyone.”
They wash in the black, stinking river, which might explain the infected lumps of scabies he is scratching on his arm incessantly. Sometimes they save up to watch movies together – Hollywood action films and Bollywood musicals are his favourite, he says.

  At night, they wait outside restaurants for scraps – and then try to steal some more from the all-night fruit market. They lead me there at midnight, to a vast burst of light in the dark of the city. It is a huge crammed vegetable-town, where thousands of sellers perform an elaborate super-speed dance around each other, transporting mountains of potatoes and oceans of cabbages in baskets on their heads, and haggle with grocers and restaurant-owners. As I follow my little gang, seeing them subtly swipe a few fruits as they go, my nose is burned by the chilli that fills the air, and then soothed by the lake of limes.
Then finally, at 3am, they crash in their little corner of the boat terminal, sleeping on and around a large orange bin that says ‘Use Me.’ The sacks they use to collect rubbish-paper become rudimentary sleeping bags; they bunch together for warmth. The terminal is filled with thousands of children and families doing the same, cramming themselves into every concrete crevice they can find. They sleep on the bridge, under the bridge, on top of the roof, in the awnings of the roof – everywhere. Some are burning sacks on a candle, hoping the smoke will keep the mosquitoes and cockroaches away.

  The gang smoke a spliff and swallow some sleeping pills they have bought. “If we get stoned, then it doesn’t hurt if the policemen come and beat you in the night,” they explain. The police strut around with large white sticks, waving them menacingly at the kids, who they call “haralput” (pikey). It is only when they see my white face that they back off from this gang, for tonight.

  I ask Mohammed what the worst thing about this life is. “I know I’ve ruined my life,” he says matter-of-factly. “I know I’m a bad person, and I’ll never get out of here. There’s no hope, no future, for me. What do you think I should do?” I suddenly realize this isn’t a rhetorical question. He is sincerely asking for advice. I have no idea what to say. But it wasn’t a request for cash: in all my time with them, they didn’t ask me for a single takka.
There are two fears that hang over this gang’s life like a cloud of black smoke. They are terrified of being captured and sent to one of the government vagrancy centres. Mohammed was sent there last year, for a month. He says, “It’s the worst place. You have to work all the time. There is a massive bowl and you are forced to carry it on your back and water the trees, and then you have to sweep the room and scrub the floors and do hard labour and if you ever stop, they beat you really hard. I don’t want to ever go there again. They just beat you so much. They beat us in the shins with sticks. They hate us.” (My request to the government to visit one of these homes was refused.)

  But there is an ever greater fear: the traffickers. The only moment when Mohammed betrays emotion is when he remembers a little girl called Muni, who was his friend. One day in June last year, when she was nine-and-a-half, an old man approached and told her she could have a brilliant job if she came with him. She refused, remembering the rumours that spread among the children about what really happened if you went with these men. He snatched her anyway. The other kids tried to tell the police, but they were just chased away.

  Her body was found, raped and strangled, three days later. Mohammed is convinced it was because she refused to be fooled by the traffickers’ tales, and refused to just be taken to a brothel: she fought back. “Yes, we are very frightened of the traffickers,” Mohammed says, yawning. He has to sleep: he needs to get up in four hours, to start collecting waste-paper. One of this little gang of urban Mowglis is supposed to stay awake, to keep watch – “but it’s difficult,” he says. I ask him what he would like to own when he’s older, thinking I will get a child’s reverie about having a big house and a car. “Own?” he says. “I’d like to own my mother.” And with that, he grins and closes his eyes.

  IV The fight-back
There is a small, determined group of Bangladeshis who saw the theft of their children for commercialized rape happening all around them, and decided – like Muni, with her tiny, futile fists – to fight back. They are funded by Comic Relief, and are dependent on the contributions that will flood in from British people this weekend.
Ishtiaque Ahmed is an intellectual who – in long, statistic-packed monologues – tells me how he created Aparajeyo (Undefeated). It is one of the most compelling anti-trafficking forces in Bangladesh. They run schools on the streets and shelters for the abused children, and they pay for an army of kids who have been rescued from prostitution to fan out across the city teaching other kids about how to thwart the traffickers. They are the William Wilberforces of our time, ending slavery one child at a time.
I first glimpse their work in the roomy top floor of a tower block that has been made into a shelter, housing raped children who have escaped. It looks like any children’s playgroup, anywhere on earth, filled with scampering and skipping and squealing. For a moment, they are not scavengers or prey; they are children.

  One tall girl with high cheek bones is singing. She shakes my hand and introduces herself as Shelaka, and says she is sixteen. Then, confidently, carefully, she explains how she ended up here. She grew up in a village three hours from Dhaka, and for as long as she could remember, she loved to sing. “It is the best feeling in the world, to sing,” she says. But when she went through puberty, her fiercely religious parents said it was no longer “appropriate” for a Muslim girl to sing, and she had to leave these “stupid dreams” behind.
“If I tried to sing, they would hit me,” she says. “I didn’t think it was fair, because if I was a boy I would be allowed to sing. It doesn’t make sense. Why should only boys be allowed to choose their own job? Men make women dependent on them, and that’s why they are treated badly.” (Next time somebody tells me feminism is a ‘Western’ concept, I will tell them about Shelaka. She thought of feminism all by herself, in a village in rural Bangladesh.)

  So she decided to run away to the Big City, to become a singer. She sold her only nose-ring, and took the bus to Dhaka with the proceeds. When she arrived at the bus station, frightened but determined, she asked where the singing school was. She wandered the streets; as it got dark, she became frightened, and a female cake-seller told her she could sleep at her house in the slums. Shelaka went with her, and the cake-seller was kind. She stayed there for a week – until the cake-seller’s landlord arrived, and said she could only keep Shelaka if he could pimp her out. The cake-seller was afraid and tearfully let the landlord do what he wanted. Shelaka was kept captive by him for three months and raped-for-cash every day, until finally the cake-seller helped her escape. On the streets, she stumbled across one of Aparajeyo’s street schools – and they took her in.
She has lived here for three years now, receiving daily counselling. She says she “loves” it: “They are like the kindest family.” She is enrolled in the Bangladesh Children’s Academy – where she is studying singing. She asks if she can sing for me, and her voice – even with the car horns and rickshaw bells and the babble of children to compete with – has a pure and beautiful calm.

  In the bus station, every day at nine in the morning, the street-children are approached – for once – by adults who do not want to beat or rape them. Instead, Aparajeyo brings toys and learning materials, to teach them how to read and write – and protect themselves from traffickers.

  The children gather on bright blue mats in the corner of the terminal, excited and gleeful and able to ignore the stench of stagnant water because it has filled their nostrils for so long. They chant the alphabet and practice drawing and vie for the attention of their teacher, waving their hands and laughing. Iman, an 8 year-old, is sitting cross-legged, drawing a frog. He was, he explains, born here in the bus terminal: its walls are the walls of his reality. He lives with his mother by the toilets. “I love the reading games,” he says, concentrating hard on his drawing. “Are frogs green or blue?”
Sitting next to him there is Ammo, another tiny 8 year old, who arrived in the bus station alone a week ago. He thought he would find his runaway brother here, but so far he hasn’t. Are you frightened? “No,” he says, looking anxiously into the distance.

  One of the worst problems for street children is that they live from day-to-day in a permanent pressurized present-tense: they can never keep more than a day’s money on them because it would be stolen – so at the start of every day they are back at a desperate square one. Planning for the future – any future – is impossible.
Until Aparajeyo had s stark idea: why not open a bank for street children? Now, every afternoon, at 4pm, the Children’s Development Bank opens in the Aparajeyo shelter, staffed and run by street-children, where any street-child can deposit money. It costs 5 takka – two pence – to open an account. When I turn up, Moyna, who is eleven, is the first customer. She sells chocolate on the street and often sleeps in the shelter here. She tells me proudly she has come to deposit twenty takka, and has 700 saved up. “I am saving up to start a small business,” she says, with a very serious face. “I want to buy a tea stall. I am also saving so eventually I can have a deposit to rent a room of my own…. No trafficker will get me there.” Reams of children come in with ambitions like this, a bubbling-up of dreams. Suddenly, the bank has given them a future tense – and a future.

  In the brothels, Aparajeyo has decided to face down all the nuclear-strength cultural taboos of ultra-conservative Bangladesh, and turn around the lives of the brothel-babies. Until the organisation arrived in 2002, the children of the Jamalpur brothel were forbidden from setting foot in a school. They were spat at in the street if they stepped out of their mothers’ iron-prisons. Illiterate, uneducated and prey to traffickers, most ended up becoming prostitutes themselves, with rape cascading down the generations.
Standing outside the brothel, scrubbed and smiling, the children tell me how Aparajeyo fought – using the full force of the law – to get them enrolled into the city’s schools. They provided extra support and tuition – ensuring the top three academic places in the city went to brothel kids, busting the notion among the schools that these kids were “backward”. The children now live in safe shelters near the brothel, and visit their delighted mothers as often as they like.

  Parveen, a rosy little ten year old wearing a shiny dress and her hair scrunched into a little bun, tells me: “The brothel was a bad and frightening place,” she says. “Men would be nasty to me, and people smoked drugs and I was scared all the time…. People would call me names, and say my mother was a bitch.” But now? “Now I live in the shelter. I can play games and run around and everything!” As she unties her little bun and lets her hair flop down, she says with a serious look, “now I am going to become a lawyer, so I can help people like my mother.”

  IV Into his mother’s arms
In the vast Khalijpur slums, there lies one of Aparajeyo’s proudest achievements. In a tiny, damp barn-room made of mud and metal sheeting, I find Rehana, a 33 year old woman with worry-lines running like rivulets down her forehead. She tells me about how her brother sold her son for 3000 takka – £21.

  Rehana knew for years her brother was a trafficker in children. “I was ashamed,” she says. “He trafficked children because he was so poor, but it’s no excuse.” There was no point going to the police, she says: they were bribed. But then, over Eid in 2005, her husband had a huge row with him. Two days later, her brother picked up her six-year old son, Shamsul, from mosque – and sold him. He taunted his brother-in-law, saying his son was now in a brothel in India.

  “I went mad, I just went mad,” she says. “I went looking for him everywhere, I spent all day on the streets calling his name. I couldn’t believe it was happening.”
After two years of despair, she spotted an advert in a newspaper. It had been placed by Aparajeyo, and it asked: do you know this child? “It was Shamsul,” she says. The police found him wandering the streets and handed him over to the charity. He didn’t know his name, or address. “When we got him back, he was lean and thin, and he cried all the time,” his mother says. “If he couldn’t see me he would scream. He did some very strange things: he would stare at the sun until he passed out. But to have him back was amazing.”
Shamsul wanders into the house, as the sun sets on the slum behind him. The uncle who sold him has disappeared; Rehana believes he is running a trafficking ring somewhere else. “The traffickers won’t just give up,” she says. “I just thank God every day that there are people like Aparajeyo working to stop them.” Her son clambers into her lap. Here, at least, is one child, saved from a life of rape. He runs one hand through his mother’s hair, and with the other, he hands me a small purple ball, and smiles.

Some names have been changed for child protection reasons.

To save children like Sufia, Mohammed, Shelaka and Shamsul, donate to Sport Relief at www.sportrelief.com or calling 08457 910910 (calls cost no more than 4p per minute from BT landlines. Other operator and mobile rates may vary). You can read a fuller version of this article at www.independent.co.uk

You can see some photos of the people I talk about in this article, and e-mail this article to others.

  POSTSCRIPT: Whenever I stumble into something horrific, to watch and to write – whether it’s the wars in Congo, the crushing of Gaza, the vast rubbish dumps of South America inhabited by children, or the selling of slave-children in Bangladesh that I’ve written about today – there’s a quote I keep close, to ward off the feeling of impotence and despair.

  It was written by the great war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, in a letter to a friend in 1941. She had just heard that the novelist Dos Passos had said people shouldn’t be wasting their time writing at a time of war, and she wrote:

  “I am disgusted to see Dos said that writers should not write now. If a writer has any guts he should write all the time, and the lousier the world the harder a writer should work. For if he can do nothing positive, to make the world more liveable or less cruel or stupid, he can at least record truly, and that is something no one else will do, and it a job that must be done. It is the only revenge that all the bastardized people will ever get: that somebody writes down clearly what happened to them.”

  It’s not much. But it’s something. I have to believe it’s something.

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10. December 2009 by admin.

A Georgia middle school’s lesson on Islam

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8. December 2009 by admin.

Casteism and Sati (Self Immolation) Pratha

Hype and Realities
 

INTRODUCTION

For centuries, ‘Casteism’ and ‘Sati Pratha’ have been criticized as wrong practices in Hindu society. There are incidences even today that come into lime light, which are unquestionably condemnable, though the authenticity of such highlighted news remain unquestioned by common people while as a matter of fact, many times the reasons are criminal offenses and not religious motivations. Media many times are politicized and release even imaginary stories as news under monetary pressure.

  Arun Shourie has taken tremendous effort to expose such realities through his famous book, ‘Harvesting our soul’. And no doubt, there are reasons to believe on the exposed political or personal reasons behind criminal offenses occurring in the name of Hinduism. A simple question clarifies this reason – how can such immature concept like Casteism and Sati Pratha emerge in a society which is rich in knowledge, a society which had negligible poverty, a society so peaceful and tolerant in the world. If concepts like Casteism or Sati Pratha had existed as a part of such high cultured society, there must be some depth unexposed to it. It is not reasonable to simply declare that it is wrong, without going into the Hindu scriptures, specifically if there sits logic to explain the truth.

 
One major difference between Hindu and Muslim life styles is that while Muslim understands only one language – the language of Quran (Quran even being a basis of law and order), Hindus have Law on and above their religious beliefs. Thus most of condemned Hindu offenses fall directly under Criminal Offenses, while this is not necessary for a Muslim. While for a Muslim, any offense is mostly a direct effect of religious motivation, but for a Hindu it has threefold reason – political, criminal or religious. Thus, it becomes necessary to realize to depth of Truth before accepting any offense as a part of Hinduism as are religion.

  We will look into two important aspects of Hindus – Casteism and ‘Sati Pratha’ – how they were, how is it now and what actually is told of it in the Religion. We will evaluate what is formed as scriptures of Hindus and whether there is deformation in practice around it.

 
Casteism

Division or Unification

CASTEISM AS KNOWN TO MODERN WORLD
 
Caste system has always remained strength of critics when it comes to the discussion about Hinduism. This has been in practice in India, quite prominently in past few centuries. In Hinduism, as understood today, the society is divided into four basic castes.

1. Brahmin: This section of society was highly literate, and had the power of knowledge to guide the other sections. They mostly constituted of priests, preachers and teachers.

2. Rajput: This section of society constituted of mostly soldiers and protectors of law.

3. Vaishya: This was the business class of the society.

4. Shudra: This section of society constituted of workers.

 
The criticism goes to say that this distinction is based purely on ‘birth’ and hereditary claim of falling into one of the above categorization. The most criticized caste is Brahmins. They are charged of declaring themselves as the highest castes and abusing lower castes, targeting them to be mistreated. The most effected of the castes, as per the critics and believers of the critics are Shudras, who are treated many times in inhuman fashion.

 
The criticism persists probably because the world around India seems to be changed to the law of equality towards all sections of society including the gender differences. And the world finds India holding this theory of inequality as Casteism. No doubt casteism has existed among Hindus in recent centuries. No doubt that the way we see its practice is condemnable. But there are few questions to be answered before condemning Hinduism as a whole. Is Casteism a gift of Brahmanism as the highlights are? Are Brahmins responsible for caste based differences in the country? Brahmins considered to be the most literate part of the society are made responsible for it and are now days looked upon with disregard and envy, particularly by so called lower castes.

  We anyhow need to find answers of few questions, before we can accept such a declaration about Brahmanism or Hinduism.

1. Was Casteism in same shape some thousand years ago?

2. Is this practice actually as dense as it is hyped?

3. Are the current workouts proving to be solutions to the problem?

 
THE CURRENT POLITICAL TREND ON CASTEISM

The drawbacks as Casteism were visible only in History books and newspaper when technology like television was not in common use. The owners of such news were not within the reach of questions any time, and not even in modern day times. Thus, we will question such authenticity here before accepting or reconsidering our acceptance towards this segregation theory.

  In current view of Casteism, we can see that Brahmin is seen to be sitting at top and Sudra at the bottom. We also see a new division of Untouchable, which do not seem to be an integral part of basic four castes. We also see that top three castes, i.e., Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya are categorized as twice born groups. It is also shown that Brahmin share the lowest percentage of the population. But there are few questions which we have to raise here and answer later on: how is that the population that dominated and sits at the top with the attitude of superiority is of lowest population? What is the concept of twice born people?

People of this country were made aware of the above caste model and convinced that it is wrong, and the majority of such convinced people were either Shudras or Untouchables, categorized in Hinduism as said by Politics. Hinduism is one religion which talks about Ignorance and Knowledge, and the practice of caste system, as it is wrong would obviously come under ignorance. The actuality of Hindu scriptures would be explored in this article, but what is highlighted by Political leaders is that Brahmins have made the Shudras paralyzed. The so appearing problem was plated to the Shudras first. An environment of rage and envy was created in the country against the upper caste – a situation of instability was established with support of ignorant. Politics said that Shudras and Untouchables would get special considerations, barring right education, to help them come up – easy way to grow for an individual and he gets enticed. Thus, the seed was harvested to give a legal status to these differences, the lower caste being unaware that they are actually legalized as lower caste, with a wrong notion of facilities. No human can live peacefully and progressively at the cost of death of another human. If peace and growth was the target, why wasn’t this problem plated before the ones who created it? Why weren’t the Brahmins approached to stop the illegal practices? Why was the legalized categorization of castes made compulsory by the government? Reasons are simple – very simple.

 
In politics, a problem is used as a tool to develop another problem so as to keep politics alive. Problems are the food of politics. More the problems, healthier are the politicians. Hence, if casteism was a problem for lower caste, politics had huge ground to cultivate this to grow the vegetation of separation in the society. Seed for this crop was termed as Reservation. By facilitating reservations to lower castes, this separation gets legalized and gains more permanent place in the society. What seems to the backward class as an opportunity to rise is actually a means to deteriorate their habits and attitude. They get things easy and they cannot therefore develop a genuinely matured habit of living. Their attitude to fight and win never gets created and they get used to easy-come policy. They actually remain where they were before reservation. What government lacks in their vision about reservation is that they feel it is an opportunity for backwards to overcome poverty and casteism, when actually it becomes an authority and power in the hands of ignorant.

  The deteriorating impact of reservation theory can be very easily and simply understood by an example of game cricket. The game constitutes of 11 players supposed to be the best in the country so as to win a game. What if 50% of these players must exist from reserved categories? Will the game meet its mettle? Every answer would be ‘No’, because there is a compromise and injustice to actual contestants. If every individual and every family is responsible for contributing to the progress of the country, how can this theory of reservation work as a success? Lakhs of students deserving success would be deprived of even the opportunity to fight. And important and responsible positions of administration would be held by illiterates. Literacy simply doesn’t mean the ability to read and write. Literacy also means the ability to understand, analyze and control a situation. If the control of our household remains in the hand of ignorant, how can the forthcoming generation see a bright future? Hence, reservations were never a solution. Reservations are clear and concrete segregation of society in the name of caste. If at all, there would have been an intention to close this gap of inequality, Government would have laid a strategy to bring the upper and lower castes together through a culture of equal treatment to all. If India has to see No Casteism, every Indian has to stop talking about caste. Instead, the work around asks explicitly about the caste of an individual. For the Government it is very easy to convince the ignorant lower caste with this, but no rational person would agree to this segregation theory. As another example, it is so easy to understand that ‘No politician would accept to get medical treatment for any of their family members from a doctor who has qualified through reservation’.

The Government of India runs to a great extent on the funding through the Income Tax paid by common people. This set of “common people” belong mostly from the so called upper caste. And the same Governing body has come up against them in an unfair and illogical manner. There is no strategy to cover this pain area of the impacted community. If poverty is the symbol of lower castes, it is a proven property for Brahmins in this country. In fact, most of the Brahmin sections in current time, are living a life of poverty and still they never grow to be criminals in turn. Poverty is not a property of any particular caste. Poverty is simply a result of incompatible integrity among humans which is never an issue of caste. Moreover, it is possible to think of such turn around in Government Sector as the perception continues that Government sector is the most non-working and corrupted sector. It is absolutely not possible to force this on private sectors. Most of the private sectors are pure business which is run on profit basis. There is a huge competition for their existence. In such scenario, if they are blocked from competitive recruitment, there would be a vision of doom in their business which not acceptable at all. How can a business recruit incapable employees and afford to pay them at the risk of market challenges. It is nearly impossible to believe that Government is incapable of understanding even this simple concept. There must be some devastating agenda to implement such a strategy like Reservation. Anyway, we will here explore and expose the realities of Hinduism in the world of casteism, for which it is criticized.

 
TRUTH OF CASTEISM – CASTEISM IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL INDIA

  Even if we look at Hindus as an abstraction, we find them to be the most tolerant society in the world. If such huge tolerance is executed outside its boundaries, how can it be that it is not so internally? It clearly reflects that the differences that are shown outside the boundaries are not actually within, as is exposed.

  The word Caste came from Portuguese word ‘Casto’ meaning ‘pure’. Indian word ‘Varna’ is many times interpreted as ‘color’. I have not found an established categorization, where one color is found to be superior to others. Every color is equally important and can crate an energy ray only when they are together. If this was the meaning of Caste system in Hinduism, if ‘Varna’ or ‘Color’ is the division in the society, if every caste was equally important as every color for the energy society to exist, how come the gap of superior and inferior got established?

  And we get into coming to a meaningful question – was Casteism in same shape some thousand years ago. How is Brahmin made to sit at the top? What is this twice born population? To get the answer of these questions, we obviously have to look into the Hindu texts that contain this information. Ramayan and Mahabharat prove negative to this. ‘Rama’ and ‘Krishna’ were non-Brahmins, yet the Brahmins declared them God through their texts. ‘Karna’ is always quoted as an example of caste differences existing during Mahabharat. I believe that either such conclusion is immature analysis due to incomplete study of complete text or there is purpose to defeat Hindu ideologies through creating a wrong notion. Karna had to face non-kingly humiliation and was called as ‘Sut-putra’ by kingly classes. ‘Sut-putra’ doesn’t mean caste-difference; it simply means non kingly class (son of a fisherman). ‘Draupadi denies marrying Karna by saying that she would not marry a “Sut Putra”. This is interpreted by Historians that the myth reflects the caste system, which is completely wrong. Draupadi simply wanted to marry a kingly class and not someone from non-kingly class. ‘Sut putra’ – son of a fisherman, doesn’t mean in any terms that it belongs to lower caste by birth. Mahabharata is a story of war between kingly brothers and Karna not being a part of that class had to face humiliation from opposing party. This happens in all corners of the world, but no Indian historian goes and declares that Caste system was prominent even in West. Similarly, ‘Eklavya’ was denied education on the ground that ‘Dronacharya’ was conducting specialized training only for the sons of the king. There were differences on the ground of positions, as it is seen all across the world even now. No one noticed that Lord Krishna himself was brought up as a shepherd (Kshatriya by birth). Yet he was considered as the greatest dignity. There are many conclusions in the book that shows differences on case-to-case basis and no-where does it prominently declares division of work on basis of birth. Anyway, Mahabharat and Ramayan are declared by our great historians as myths and have nothing to do with realities. I don’t believe so and I have provided enough evidences that reflect facts of their occurrences in further chapters. Despite of the controversy, we cannot deny that even stories of its times reflects the arrangement of society.

 
Let us see what Bhagwad Geeta has to say about this segregation:

  Brahmankshatriyavishan shudranan cha parantap, karmani pravibhaktani swabhawprabhavairgunaih

Meaning: Of the Brahmanas, Ksatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras the duties are distributed according to the properties born of their own nature. Bhagwad Geeta elaborates further the above mentioned and so understood four castes of Hindu.

  (Chapter 18: Verse 41-44.)
41: Brahmin: Their duties are born out of nature to control the mind and the senses, austerity, purity, forbearance, and also uprightness, knowledge, realization and belief in hereafter.

42: Kshatriya: Their duties are born out of nature constituting prowess, boldness, fortitude, dexterity, generosity and sovereignty.

43: Vaishya: Agriculture, cattle-rearing and trading is their duties born out of their nature.

44: Shudra: Action consisting of service is the duties of Sudras born out of their own nature.

 
We can easily see that Bhagwad Geeta talks about action born out of individual’s own nature and has nothing hard and fast related to birth. It is very clearly written in Vedas and other texts of Hindus that an individual builds himself to stand in one of the above categories. I could not find anywhere this division on the basis of birth and no Hindu text restricts anyone from doing anything, though the use of birth is exposed as a misnomer at some places. Manu Smriti categorizes Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya as twice born group. The actual meaning of twice born and the interpreted exposure are two different concepts. What is exposed is that these castes are achieved due to rebirth from lower caste. While the actual meaning is two births in same life – one the actual birth where one lives as per the social behavior around, and second birth is when he through deep study attains to the lessons of Vedas and brings the learning into behavior and preaching. The word ‘birth’ is played with, leaving behind the depth added to it by the word ‘twice’. Why did Manu Smriti leave behind Sudras from being a part of twice born?

  Obviously, the livings of this group were not in match with other group, by the virtue of birth not because the religion said so, but because their parental and related social structure was not matured. They were found to eat meat, drink and behave inhumanly. Learning of Vedas required right behavior and understanding level in place first, which was not there among Sudras. This didn’t mean that Sudras, by birth were restricted from various opportunities entertained by other groups. It simply was segregation among people purely on basis of their actions like eating meat and drinking wines as an inhuman act.

  Additionally, reading Vedas was not alone enough to reach a stage of realizing Brahma or God. It required a stage of Self Realization to be achieved first, which was not an easy task. Thus, Brahmins were made to sit on top as they were those people who by their effort had reached the stage of understanding Brahma. Obviously, such people would be less in numbers and thus Brahmins were less in numbers. Attaining such maturity Brahmins also understood the meaning of family plan and thus had control over their population, which other groups did not have. Brahmins primary responsibility used to be to preach other groups of the philosophy adopted by them, and motivate them to live a rich and peaceful life.

  As a matter of fact, even in modern world we find that Brahmins are third in place in terms of richness. If a section of society that enjoyed the highest place of regard, it must have also grown to the richest section – but this was never found in the history of this country. Kshatriyas and Vaishyas were the richer section – Brahmins and Shudras lived upon their services to these two categories. Gold and riches were owned by these two groups and Brahmins have always considered such richness as a part of ‘Maya’ – an illusion created by threefold nature. When we hear the term Brahmin, immediately what comes to our mind is a person in simple clothes, without any richness, simple and rich in knowledge, ready to show right path to the seeker. The living standards of Brahmins had always been simple. The difference between these non-kingly classes (Brahmin and Shudras) was that Brahmin, though simple lived in purity – purity in terms of consuming vegetarian diets, not touching wine, not harming any creatures and helping the mankind to grow towards peace. While Shudras did all that was opposite to the work of Brahmins. I could not find in any recognized books of Hindus that a Brahmin has ever disallowed any Shudra from seeking his help. A Brahmin always used to help all sections of the society to deliver prayers in rituals, get married as per rituals, and pray God to come out of difficulties of life. How come then Brahmins are looked at as a caste that has disregarded all other castes?

Hindu ideology starts describing this arrangement from an individual owning all the qualities within. This can be understood from following quote:

  “The Brahman was his mouth,

His two arms became the rajanya,

His thighs are what the vaisya is,

From his feet the Sudra was produced.” Rig Veda 10.90

 
Vedic science lists ten sense organs – five basic work organs (‘Karmendriya’: eyes, ears, nose, mouth and arms) and five basic knowledge organs (‘Gyanendriya’: ‘roop’, ‘ras’, ‘swad’, ‘sparsh’, ‘gandh’: as also known to modern science). In the above quote we find that our body has parts (mouth, arms, thighs and feet) which configure our categorization as per our action born of our own nature.

  Mouth is that part of our body, through which words flow out which becomes the basis of defining our personality through exposure of knowledge gained. And hence, one who excels in using mouth as a mean for existence are Brahmins.

Righteous actions are performed mostly by arms and people adapting to its usage for existence are Kshatriyas born of their own nature. Business, agriculture and similar acts requires lots of travel and thus people who do not care traveling (use of thigh the most) were Vaishyas born of their nature. People with the nature of hard physical work had to stand the most on feet and were people categorized as Shudras, again born of their own nature.

 
An individual thus, has this division within himself and his fall into a particular ‘Varna’ depended on what among the four he opted to emphasize more through his actions and thoughts. As quoted above, Bhagwad Geeta emphasizes exactly on this stating that a person falls into one of the Varnas depending on his actions.

 
Varna system can be understood by comparing it to modern day organization system. Not everyone in an organization have equal rights and roles to play. It hugely depends on background of its constituting people and their expertise, vision and understanding of work. In Varna system, similar division of work was desired to run the society, depending on the education, attitude and inclination of the individual towards type of work he opted to go ahead with as a livelihood. Thus, one opting to do business was grouped under Vaishyas. ‘Brahmin’, ‘Kshatriya’, ‘Vaishya’ and ‘Shudra’ are Sanskrit words and are far different from their English interpretation of Castes. As in an organization we have Managers and Workers, so in Varna system we have Brahmins and Shudras. Who would deny that workers have to obey the managers for effective running of the organization, but such obedience in no way means that the worker looses his dignity? Exactly, the same way, Shudra having chosen his livelihood have to follow the instructions of his master, who would have one of the other two Varnas – Kshatriya and Vaishya. Brahmins most of the time never hardened obedience for rest of the Varnas and mostly provided guidelines to them. The concept of Casteism based on birth, has no relation to the meaning of Varna.

 
At least, going by the scriptures I do not find it. I find the categorization as a guide to people from step one to step four – from Shudra towards Brahmanism, beyond which is the ultimate step of ‘Realization’.

  If we go into history we find that such segregation became visible only after invasions in India. We all know that India was in fact invaded for its richness; it was known as the land of Gold. Before Invasion, this country had not seen beggars in the shape we see today. Muslim invasion first disturbed the tranquility of common people. British followed them and they applied the theory of divide and rule. This is exactly what  Lord Macaulay said in British Parliament. Invasions for hundreds of years slowly impacted the lifestyle in this country. Its richness was looted, cultural values destroyed, and societies disintegrated. With time, the division of work started taking shape of casteism. And now, it is just not the Hindus, but the whole country seems to be politicized and is under criticism. The prominent Caste system is one of the tools in the hands of Indian politician to protect their philosophy of divide and rule. And non-tolerant religions of the world are anyway out to avail options of attack on Hindus and Casteism is one of their un-understood and forced concepts over Hinduism.

  Looking into the facts about how this segregation became eminent, we can also find English Historians often terming Hinduism as Brahmanism with the reason that the religion is dominated by Brahmins. It is so prominent that such statements were shaped so as to divide and disturb the social stability of this country. The name Hindu was given by Muslim Invader in around 1200 A.D. to distinguish the inhabitant of India from the followers of Budhhism and Jainism. This is what historians say, but there is no concrete and complete proof in relation to this. In fact, the word Hindu was given to the inhabitants of Sindhu river region to recognize them as separate religion and impose the law of Islam with force on them.

 
When caste system took practical shape is not known to any historian exactly. But it was surely not in practice till the time ‘Mahabharata’ was written.

Recent controversies have found Brahmins not allowing the so hyped lower castes to enter temples. When a person visits temple, one definitely does not find a system or process that identifies the caste of every visitor. Thousands visit every day to temples, and none knows or asks the caste of anyone. Priests have the business of offering prayers and they simply focus on that. If at all any incidence took place of this sort, it had always been due to personal difference between the Priest and the individual who is not allowed and has nothing to do with Hinduism and its practices. But in modern world of Long Leaders, with the influence on Media and Newspapers, this is shown with colossus hype that Brahmins are creating such arrogant distinctions in society. Every Brahmin knows that the stones of the temples were laid down by the Shudras, Shudras developed the home of Brahmins as well – how can they be then untouchables. It is at least not in the scriptures of the Hindus, not told so by learned Brahmins – at least I have never heard any scholar saying so. This can be also understood from the fact that Brahmins accept food and offerings from other castes even today. Had they been arrogant and greedy, they would have proved to be the richest section of the society as they already enjoyed a place of high respect. But, it is not so even today.

 
Hindu texts like Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and other books of Hindus do not reflect anywhere that Brahmins are of upper castes and Shudras belong to the lower one. Diversity is the basis of existence on earth. And unity in diversity is the basis of human existence. Unity is not possible without respect and regard in nature towards each other. This was always understood and envisioned by Hindus since existence. No matter, to what extent a society progresses with help of scientific advancement, human existence will always need four basic class (mentioned as ‘Varna’ in Hindu texts) of people to exist as a integrated society. All societies have variance in terms of status, living styles of families, knowledge and perception of its people, individual behaviors, etc. And all societies seek its people to rise from lower status to higher one. Categorization from Shudras to Brahmins is meant to show people the path of rise in the world of humanity. This rise can take place only if one of lower status has regards towards higher one and an attitude to touch the higher state. The highest state in Hinduism was not one with abundant richness, but one with colossus knowledge about ‘Brahma’ or God. A culture of respect existed throughout from lower towards higher state. A child respected the parents irrespective of age factor. Students respect teachers to the extent of being obedience in all aspect. Shudras respected all other castes (first as cultural values and second in order to get work). All castes used to respect Brahmins and take their suggestions in difficult times, while taking important decisions, and as cultural values of preaching (called as ‘Satsang’ meaning living with Truth).

  If we look at the soldiers shaping the law and security for the society, nowhere can we find that they were born Kshatriyas. The process of forming the soldiers was the same as today – recruiting them and training them. Once they came into the main stream of soldiers, they were called Kshatriyas. How is birth related to being a Kshatriya – I do not understand at least from history of India, the so hyped ancient India. I say so ‘the so hyped ancient India’ because India was never ancient in its values and cultures – it was far more rich and matured than what we see now days.

  How can a society so rich in education practice casteism based on birth? What is called as ancient India was a time when children used to talk in Sanskrit and comparatively now it becomes too tough for children to even read Sanskrit. We have seen scholars like Aryabhatt, Chanakya, Kalidas, Tulsidas, Jagadguru Shakaracharya, Swami Vivekanand, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Guru Nanak, etc who are of highest literary level even today. If we want to understand what was practiced in those days in the name of casteism, we surely cannot neglect the writings of these great scholars.

 
Respect, regard and value of knowledge were best realized as a social behavior in ancient and medieval India. We have innumerous examples of successful kings taking shelter of knowledge of some Guru – recognized as true Brahmins. In fact, even today we in India understand the importance of ‘Guru’ in our life, and any ‘Guru’ rich in knowledge is a Brahmin – we do not ask the birth of Shri Asaram Bapuji, Shri Murari Bapu, Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, Shri Ramdev Baba, Shri Ramesh Bhai Ojha and hundreds of such saints. India today is seeing thousands of upcoming saints and fortunately these learned section are again not practicing casteism on belief of births. No one, among these saints, claim to be a Brahmin by birth and all of them are looked upon by the society as Brahmins – this is the true shape of Brahmanism in Hinduism, this is the respect of highest value recognized by every section of the society in Hinduism and this is the secret of peace and tolerance in Hinduism. And it is this secret weapon, which attempted to be thrown down by mean politicians and envious religions of the world. And they chose the ignorant non-Brahmin sections in the absence of these saints to attack with the weapon of defaming the saints first through whatever means they can. Unfortunately, these humble people sometimes overlook the fact that the true shape of richness in Hinduism is amount of faith in God and acquisition of true knowledge. They overlook that when they attend the preaching of these Saints (‘Satsang’) in a crowd of thousands, no one questions their Caste anywhere. On the contrary, the very Government of India asks them their caste before they could appear any exam or acquire any role with them. Who is doing Casteism – these Saints of the Politicians and the Western thinking?

  Though, Brahmins were the most educated section of the society, but we never find Brahmins as the richest class in India. From thousands of years Brahmins actually have always remained as the poor section and this is what the text of Hindus reflects at many places. Brahmins held highest regard on basis of their universal knowledge and not richness. How has this happened then that Brahmins are now looked at with hatred? What did not exist from thousands of years; suddenly seem to be happening in past few centuries.

  India has the culture to respect a man who have sacrificed the most and the world respects a man who have earned the most, India emphasizes on truth (the soul), while the world has emphasized on the body. Culturally India and the world has existed at two opposite and opposing themes. India has seen respect towards knowledge since its existence. History of world proves that barring India rest of the world have always seen Kings and Good fighters as the superior class. We now come across the say that Knowledge is Power, but is more used in terms of business and earning. Hindus have realized this say in relation to social existence as well. And this is the reason, why we find Brahmins occupying the most respectful behavior in the society and not the positions. We have never found in Hindu texts that Brahmins have tried to rule any kingdom nor have they ever tried to occupy property by any means. Yet, Brahmins are made victims – How? I have only one clear conclusion about how this took severity. As Lord Macaulay said in British Parliament:

  “I have not seen a country in this world which is so high in its knowledge and which is so rich in its existence that there are nearly no beggar, it is only through breaking their cultural heritage one can rule it”.

  The class that was holding this country was the Brahmins. Kings used to rule on the advice of Brahmins. And the easy solution for the invaders was to put down the regard for the knowledge holders. Slowly, this took the shape of disregard and hatred towards this learned class. And the result was what we all know. If India has to come up at the top of the world, it has to regain the regard towards this class. Brahmanism don’t mean hereditary authority as a class, it simply means bringing into practice the respect towards teachers and priests, which is what had been the backbone of this great nation.

  I do agree that some sections of Brahmin tried to impose their superiority over others in their behavior, but to what extent did they try to criminalize their actions would always be in question. Since, the caste as a practice of birth was already in practice, sometimes, the superiority message was spread by non-learned section of Brahmins. Many times, it was people from lower castes who took the shape of priests and have defamed Brahmins. And at other times, it used to be induced by political invaders. It all happened during the post invasion period when country’s individual living conditions started getting deteriorated. As social stability got agitated, it was not only Brahmanism that evolved as a disdained conduct, but many other criminalized actions erupted which was never practiced earlier. Unfortunately, these two things were never looked together. And what evolved was ‘Brahmanism’, a tool for invaders to break through the strength of this nation. At many places, the whole religion of Hinduism was hyped as ‘Brahmanism’. While it is true that people from recognized caste like ‘Sudras’ got humiliated refrains from growing opportunities, it is also true that such opportunities was least availed by Brahmins as well. Exceptions might be there but then exceptions exist in every aspect of life. Most of such disdained behaviors were executed by other practiced castes. The coin was thrown in the Indian Territory so as to buy the cultural values first – one side of the coin being the arrogant shape of Brahmins and the other side the deteriorated shape of other castes – the gap was big enough to break the country. Unity that was guided by Brahmins was broken with the feel of superior – inferior complex.

 
And there is no country, there is no society, there is no religion in this world which can exist without any of these classes of people practicing relative actions. So, we have tutors in every nation with the responsibility of educating the society to live up to the ever-advancing world (the world called them ‘Teachers’, ‘Professors’ and ‘Preachers’ and the Hindus called them ‘Brahmins’). We have soldiers for every nation, both internal and external working towards protection of law and crime within and security threat outside (The world names them ‘Soldiers and Policemen’ and the Hindu called them ‘Kshatriyas’). We have businessmen in all nations to help meet the day to day life needs of common people (The world calls them ‘Businessmen’ and Hindus called them ‘Vaishyas’). We have worker class in all walks of life everywhere (The world called them with different names under worker class, and Hindus called them ‘Shudras’). The vision of interpreting a Hindu society was to rule it and hence, the names were termed with the meaning of casteism attached to it. While other countries simply interpret the same practices as simple literary words, they have forced such practices as a part of Hinduism, which is bigotry.

  More importantly, this caste difference is actually not so deep in practice in modern Indian conditions as it is hyped by political movements and other religious experts. In fact, people serving their roles are not questioned at all for their caste. Hence, no one knows the caste of upcoming saints in India. No one tries to ask the caste of the dynamic ministers of the country. No one asks the caste of any shop keeper. No one bother about the caste of an employee in private organization. No one thinks about castes in cultural gatherings and ceremonies. This is to be realized first and then only the practices in Hindu society should be challenged. I agree that there are several areas and certain incidences which have occurred in the name of castes, but on scrutinizing those events, it is found that they were more motivated out of other differences than caste but protruded in the name of caste. This happens in all religions and all nations.

 
In short, Casteism in India is a classical model of Organizationism in modern world. As in an Organization, we have people right from clerical positions to directorial position, so in the Organization of God (Hinduism can be seen as an Organization of God), we have people from the position of Shudra to Brahmins and beyond. Thus, what is casteism for the world of critics is actually the ladder for the Hindu society to reach the goal of God.

 
Anyhow, it is up to the people of India to chose, whether they want to respect knowledge and live a life of progression as it used to be in Ancient India, or they want to suppress the knowledge and its holder and exaggerate the plight from bad to worse in recent conditions. It depends on the people of this country to talk in favor of those who continuously frame strategies to force their religions upon Hindus or stand together above caste and creed as a Hindu in protection of their country.

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6. December 2009 by admin.

Courtsey: Paul R. Green Jr

  Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?
Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith. They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a “community organizer,” Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country,way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East , way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future. The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill — a great idea in theory — was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basicallymeans that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama’s plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be — a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away. These are perilous times.. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State,has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation.

Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to “protect us” from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man. Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms. There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America .

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6. December 2009 by admin.

  The British politicians are lying to their citizens & constantly sweet selling Islam. Further include modern day cancer called political correctness, people are not allowed to speak out against the creeping Islamisation of Britain.
 
Anytime people do, they are quickly, unjustly labelled racist. The politicians like Jackie Smith who has no idea what Islam actually teaches, wants people to believe terrorism has got nothing to do with Islam. When well known & followed Islamic scholars around the world are publicly saying Islam allows terrorism. Should people really be listening to people like Jackie Smith? The judges & head of Church are talking about allowing sharia law in Britain. Have they lost their mind? A clear case of political correctness gone too far. (all info mentioned in video).

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