[This post is written by Galina Krasskova – an academic, theologian, priest and a Heathen (Norse polytheist). It first appeared on the site Gangleri’s Grove and is being reproduced with some minor edits with the permission of the author]
The title is a riff off a video I’ll be discussing toward the end of this article. Still, while I may be engaging in a bit of expressive rhetoric myself with it, there is likewise truth in the concept. Polytheisms today are religions under siege. This is true not just in our communities but for indigenous polytheisms like Hindu Dharma too. There is a trend, and that trend is gross whether it is manifesting in ways large (Hindu Dharma) 1 or small (us).
When the subject of polytheism comes up in community discourse, there are inevitably nay-sayers, non-theists, secular-pagans and the like who pounce in proudly with “but there were non-polytheists in the ancient world too.” They will bring up pantheism, monism, atheism and the like as though this somehow strengthens their attempts to dismantle our traditions.2
I think the time has come to address some of this ideological undercutting because while what they say is technically accurate, it is presented without context and that context is important. We live in a very different world from our polytheistic ancestors. We are an occupied people. Our world is doggedly, demonstrably, and sometimes violently monotheistic. Those ancient Polytheists and others living in a world where the dominant paradigms were all polytheistic had a luxury we don’t have. They could entertain questions about divine ontology and metaphysics, turning polytheism inside out in their arguments solely for intellectual excitement without risking harm to those polytheisms. The world was polytheistic and that wasn’t going to change (little did they know) so what harm was there in batting ideas around? One could even indulge those who didn’t believe in the Gods so long as they remained outside of religious discourse and participated in the civic rituals.
Two caveats to that: when faced with a religious worldview (Christianity) that desired exclusivity and extinction of polytheism, our antique forebears had the good sense to impose a litmus test to ferret out the destructively impious. That litmus test was sacrifice to the Gods (something that I have seen all but pathologized by parts of the community). It was, as I have noted before, crucial to the proper practice of the faith, was the first thing targeted when Christianity gained supremacy, and was also the one rite held up as a standard against which non-polytheists were judged.
Secondly, yes, our polytheistic ancestors were – with occasional exceptions– tolerant of every possible approach to polytheism. Look where it got them. Exterminated. So maybe we might want to rethink reifying “tolerance” of every assed up, non-theistic view put forth as ‘polytheism.’ We have clear evidence of where such tolerance leads. Perhaps we can afford to be tolerant when we’re not under siege but that day is not today.
How Hindus and Polytheists Are Put On The Defensive
I’m taking an online course in world religion in my off time and this week we were assigned to watch and comment on a video titled “Ayodhya, The Battle For India’s Soul: The Complete Story” by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). It is a short video. Take a few moments and watch it. Note the rhetoric.
I was appalled that such a biased video would be promulgated in an academic course. Of course I shouldn’t have been. How is it biased? Were you able to parse it out? Yes? No? Well, I’ll help you. Note the following language:
India must reflect “on what kind of country they want to live in; one dominated by Hindus or one that respects all religions equally.”
This of course puts the onus for the problems and violence on Hindus, ignoring the fact that they are responding to having one of their own sacred sites co-opted, ignoring the fact that they are responding to monotheistic colonization of their spaces, ignoring the fact that they are reacting to incursion into their religious world, and ignoring the fact that they are in fact the religion originally native to the area. While it may be rooted now, monotheism of any stripe was a late comer, a foreign intruder in that land. Isn’t it amazing how “respecting all religions equally” always seems to mean allowing monotheistic incursion and the destruction of polytheistic sites? It never translates as leaving polytheistic religions in peace.
Note also at the end where the narrator comments that this “all started with a tiny statue being placed in a mosque in the dead of night.” No, it didn’t. It started with a monotheistic religion laying claim to a Hindu holy space. Monotheisms have a history of destroying or claiming and repurposing polytheistic spaces. This is not an isolated incident as the briefest of explorations of fourth and fifth century Rome will show (not to mention Christian expansion north). With both Christianity and Islam (and even Biblical Judaism) it was standard operating procedure. Are the people whose religions spaces are being destroyed or polluted supposed to be grateful for it? I think not.
In the TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that I posted last week, she notes that if you want to dispossess a people, start with “Secondly.” In other words, if you want to dispossess Native Americans, don’t start telling the story with the incursions and violence of European invaders, start with the arrows shot by Native warriors and make it look as though it was without provocation. If you want to dispossess Hindus, start with the statue in the mosque, not the appropriation of a site of Hindu reverence. The way a story is told matters.
The community involved is currently involved in a legal battle over their sacred site, and that battle is in its third generation. They are fighting to defend their tradition, and they are fighting to protect their sacred spaces. I think we could learn a lot from them especially in the type of perseverance required in this work.
Nor am I suggesting, as much as I sometimes think it might be a good idea, that we have any type of litmus test for polytheists. Sacrifice is our most sacred rite, but there are those who are not permitted to do it, by will of their Gods. I respect that. What I do not respect are attempts by otherwise sensible people to attack and discredit the practice of sacrifice, which is so integral to polytheistic practice.
I posted this with the video because we’ve been having discussions of rhetoric over the past week, and it gave such a dramatic example of how even someone we assume to be unbiased (a news commentator) can speak from a specific agenda, one that has its biases, and one that is willing to cast a foul light on people fighting for their own religion. We have a lot of buzzwords today that get our backs up. All it takes really to raise people’s ire is to use language that makes readers think one is on the wrong side of certain ideological debates (doesn’t matter if a person actually is or not, that’s the point of effective rhetoric). All it takes is fashioning a public persona for oneself that oozes tolerance and conciliation, and subtly positioning the other side of that debate as radical (note how so many of us were demonized about a year and a half ago as ‘radical polytheists’, specifically to make people assume and then to think that our positions were untenable and extraordinary if not dangerous). Rhetoric is powerful. Words have a life of their own. It pays to be aware of that. 3
Footnotes
Hindu Dharma is not monolithic, with its many sects representing a diversity of viewpoints which managed for millennia to more or less peacefully co-exist before the arrival of militant Islam and Christianity. Even so, they managed to incorporate elements of these traditions, especially on the folk level. It is those who declare there is one god and one way to worship that god who are inherently divisive. For every Hindu who says they are monotheistic, there is one who says polytheistic and even again those who argue that the push to define the polytheism out of Hindu Dharma is in fact, pandering to the West.
And as if these were all the same things, which is rather insulting, I think, to those who hold these diverse beliefs.
Not that I support censorship either. Only the cowardly are afraid to engage directly with unfriendly words.
Disclaimer: This article represents the opinions of the Author, and the Author is responsible for ensuring the factual veracity of the content. HinduPost is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information, contained herein.
The row in ‘prestigious’ JNU has subsided. What makes it prestigious? In forty-six years of its life, it did not produce a single Nobel laureate, a single outstanding inventor, scientist or thinker… It does not figure among the 200 top universities of the world.
A still from documentary film Regai, in which Piramalai Kallar community members are forced to affix their thumb impression under the Criminal Tribes Act. Source: www.chennaifirst.in
In November, 2009, a self proclaimed critic of Hindu Dharma, Prof. Kancha Ilaiah of Osmania University, brought the subject of discrimination against ‘Dalits’ in his controversial tome, ‘Post Hindu India’, though in an altogether different context. Prof. Ilaiah claimed that Hindu Dharma is in the Death Row because of the fast approaching internal war in the decadent caste-ridden society which will soon develop into a war of weapons between the high caste Hindus and the Dalits. He deliberately concealed the murky role played by the British rulers (read Christians) in pushing today’s Dalits into the abyss of gross poverty and backwardness !
The imaginary scenario of a bloody strife erupting between the scheduled castes and high caste Hindus, as painted by Kancha Ilaiah, is highly unlikely. In any case, the imaginary civil strife cannot lead to the demise of Hindu Bharat. The terminal threat to Hindu Dharma, however, comes from radical Islam. The demographic decline of Hindus and relentless jihadi onslaught by Islamists supported by Pakistan, do pose an existential threat to the Hindu identity of Bharat.
While showering lavish praise on the Christians, the Muslims and the Buddhists for practicing equality, Prof. Ilaiah has roundly lambasted Hindu Dharma and Indic civilization for discriminating against the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. In doing so he has exhibited a singular lack of scholarship by not researching certain elementary truths about the perfidy of our former colonial masters, the Christian British, in heaping abominable insults on the huge mass of down trodden Hindus, presently known as Adivasis and scheduled castes, whose cause Prof Ilaiah claims to hold dear to his heart.
Criminal Branding of around 1/3 of Hindus (Dalits) by British
It is amazing that the Osmania University teacher totally forgot that in the year 1871 the British rulers of Bharat (who were practicing Christians) had passed an inhuman, derogatory and discriminatory law, known as The Criminal Tribes Act, to brand hundreds of castes and communities, steeped in grinding poverty, as ‘born criminals’! The inhuman law was first notified and enforced in northern Bharat and subsequently extended to Bengal and other provinces. It notified 160 Hindu castes, who presently constitute the core of today’s ‘dalit samaj’ as “hereditary criminals” on the ground that as an organized community they were passing on the professions like theft, burglary, house-breaking, robbery, dacoity and counterfeiting of coins from one generation to the next. The total headcount of the so-called criminal tribes branded as ‘pariahs’ by our former Christian rulers at that time was approximately six crores (i.e., 60 millions) constituting nearly 30 percent of the Hindu population. Interestingly no Muslim group was included among the Scheduled Castes.
A still from documentary film Regai, in which Piramalai Kallar community members are forced to affix their thumb impression under the Criminal Tribes Act. Source: www.chennaifirst.in
According to Census 1871 the total population of Bharat was 20,34,15000. Among them the Hindu headcount was roughly estimated to be 17 crores or so. Since almost all members of the so-called ‘criminal tribes’ were Hindus, with a single stroke of the pen, the British rulers reduced nearly 25 to 30 percent of the Hindu population to the status of hereditary criminals thereby condemning their unborn generations to work as hewers of wood and drawers of water!. In the annals of world history there is no comparable example of codified discrimination sanctioned by law heaped upon such a large body of human beings.
Among the tribes declared as hereditary criminals were groups of Bhils who had fought against the British oppression on the banks of Narmada and in Khandesh. There were the Kanjars, the Sansis, the Nats of Rajasthan, Chharas of Gujarat, Satnamis of Chhatisgarh, the Konds and Sabors of Odisha (who fought battles against the British in Kandhamal region). Also included among the so-called criminal tribes were the Meenas of Rajasthan who had fought against the Muslim invaders shoulder to shoulder with Rajputs. Similarly the Marias and Murias of Bastar and many tribes of Chhotanagpur belt like the Mundas and the Oraons were classified as criminal tribes. In addition, tribes like Santhals and Ho and certain clans of Chamars were also included in the long list of the 160 castes and tribes branded by the British as born criminals. Their movement was severely restricted by the diabolical law enforced rigorously and they were required to report regularly at Police Stations due to which they could not move out of their villages to seek education and economic progress. The District Superintendents of Police were directed to track their movements.
When the Criminal Tribes Bill was introduced in 1871 by the British jurist, James Fitzjames Stephen (who also authored the Indian Evidence Act), considerable emphasis was placed on the ethnological theory of hereditary caste system which defined their profession, upbringing and background. The wonky logic advanced by James Fitzjames Stephen to deprive the hapless poor of elementary human rights and permanently arrest their socio-economic development by restricting their mobility was that, “……. people from times immemorial have been pursuing the caste system defined job-positions, weaving, carpentry and such were hereditary jobs. So there must have been hereditary criminals also who pursued their forefathers’ profession.”
The draconian law was thus based on an irrational assumption of Christian rulers and not on any empirical research or data. On another occasion, while elucidating his illogical branding of several communities as criminals, he commented , “When we speak of professional criminals, we …… (mean) a tribe whose ancestors were criminals from time immemorial, who are themselves destined by the usage of caste to commit crime, and whose descendants will be offenders against the law, until the whole tribe is exterminated or accounts for in the manner of thugs”. No attempt was made to investigate the causes which had compelled these hapless castes to take to crime for earning livelihood – a phenomenon which took shape overwhelmingly in the long period of enslavement of Hindus by the Muslim rulers and even worse economic exploitation by East India Company, during which many parts of Bharat were laid waste.
Mercifully, the British did not take recourse to the ‘final solution’ hinted at by James Fitzjames Stephen, namely extermination of these hapless tribes, as proposed by this cross-eyed follower of Anglican Church turned lawmaker for Bharat. Why Prof Kancha Ilaiah chose to omit this gross injustice meted out to an important segment of the so-called ‘natives’ (read Hindus) by the Christian British rulers remains a mystery. The gross discrimination continued for 76 long years, i.e., for more than three generations. It was undone immediately after independence by rescinding the Criminal Tribes Act.
Prof. Kancha Ilaiah totally misses the point that during the long history of Hindu Dharma, these tribes and castes were never ever condemned, or branded, as hereditary criminals. They were branded by law as criminals only by the British who were Christians and continue to be adored by Kancha Ilaiah even after departure to distant shores! It is difficult to fathom the reasons which prompted him to shower praise on the Christian rulers and applaud them for being more just and egalitarian, than the so-called ‘backward’ Hindus. He conveniently glosses over the fact that it was the practicing Christians, the British, who did that grave injustice to crores of down trodden masses. Also ignored by him is the important fact that those who agitated for abolition of untouchability and facilitated the passing of The Untouchability Offences Act in the year 1955, were Hindus, mostly high caste Hindus, certainly not Christians, nor Muslims. If the Christian Britishers were so solicitous about the condition of the deprived members of the Scheduled Castes (now called Dalits), why did they not enact a law to ban untouchability during their long rule ? Nor did the Muslim rulers act in a benevolent manner towards the lower castes. Their effort was totally focused on converting them to Islam by force and imposition of jiziya. Similar instances of wanton caste-based discrimination by the Muslims and the Britishers can be found ad infinitum in the troubled history of Bharat.
Hindu reformers against untouchability
The Osmania University teacher took no notice of the fact that due to inherent dynamics of Hindu Dharma many social reformers had relentlessly campaigned against the evil of untouchability. Swami Dayanand, the founder of Arya Samaj condemned untouchability and worked for reforming the Hindu society by preaching equality of all castes. Lokmanya Tilak once publicly declared that he would denounce even God if He accepted untouchability. Veer Savarkar had personally led the so-called untouchables (read Dalits) into temples in order to eradicate the evil. Mohandas Gandhi carried forward the campaign against untouchability started by Tilak and Savarkar, and wrote that freedom was unattainable without removal of the sin of untouchability. Numerous Hindu saints and savants like Guru Ravidas, Guru Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh and founder of Arya Samaj, Swami Dayanand Saraswati tirelessly worked for eradication of untouchability.
The great saint Ramanuja of South Bharat (1017-1137) openly condemned untouchablity and adopted many so-called untouchables as his disciples. In Andhra Pradesh, Veera Brahmendra Swamy (10th century) campaigned against the evil, while Basavesvara, a Minister of the erstwhile Mysore State (1131-1167 A D) vigorously fought the evil. Again in Andhra, a Minister Brahmananda Naidu of Paindu (14th century A D) had openly condemned the evil practice and even appointed an untouchable, named Chenna, as chief of his army. The evil practice of caste discrimination was stoutly opposed by Gopal Krishna Ranade (1842-1901) and Jyotirao Phule (1827-1890). These are just a few of the scores of examples of Hindu social reformers taking up cudgels against untouchability. By ignoring these well documented facts Kancha Ilaiah has poured unmerited ridicule on Hindu religion and scriptures by recourse to inane rhetoric, including the use of undignified language, unbecoming any serious scholar worth his salt.
Revered Hindu Saints Belonging to ‘Lower Castes’
Prof. Ilaiah again forgets that since times imemorial the so-called low caste Hindus have been the torch bearers of Hindu faith for which reason their iconic leaders are held in highest esteem, quite often ranking far above Brahmins. For instance, Maharishi Valmiki, composer of Ramayana, was originally a fisherman and wayward robber who acquired the status of a ‘Maharishi’ by learning the scriptures. Again Maharish Ved Vyas, composer of Mahabharata was the son of a fisherwoman. Matsya Gandha, and Vidur who was the Chief Minister of Hastinapur was son of a dasi and an ardent devotee of Sri Krishna. Another low caste sage who rose to prominence was Maharishi Matanga, who was Guru of Shabari, a Bhil woman whose berries were fondly relished by Sri Ram despite the so-called low caste devotee first tasting each berry to ensure that none of them was sour. It is believed that the famous Hindu king Chandragupta Maurya rose from the Muria tribe who were traditionally collectors of Mor Pankhis (peacock feathers). And it was a high caste Brahmin, Acharya Chanakya, who helped in establishing the Maurya dynasty when Hindus were facing threats from Huns and Greeks. Let us not forget that Sant Raidas, Guru of Meera Bai, was a Chamar (Cobbler), while Sant Namdev was a tailor (Darzi). Yet they were and continue to be held in greatest esteem by Brahmins, Kshatriyas and other high caste Hindus across Bharat. A large chunk of the storm-troopers of Chhatrapati Shivaji included Kunbis and Mawalis who were members of the castes subsequently declared as “criminal tribes” by the British. The widely revered Saint, Tuka Ram, was a Kunbi (the so-called Shudra).
Some revered Hindu Saints from “Lower Castes (Shudra)” – Maharish Valmiki, Sant Namdev, Sant Tukaram (From L to R)
Frankly, the divide between the Hindus on the basis of high and low caste was accentuated by Bharat’s erstwhile colonial rulers, first by the Muslims and then by the British. Both followed the policy of divide and rule.
Indeed so deep is the commitment of the members of Scheduled Castes to Hindu Dharma, the ancient faith of their forbears, that to avenge the tyranny of Muslim invaders who had attacked Gujarat in 1299, sacked the Somnath temple and looted the opulent city of Anhilwara, a retinue of 40,000 so-called Dalits, mostly Barwari soldiers, surreptiously reached Delhi and sacked the main mosque at Siri and restarted the traditional pooja, after installing idols of Hindus gods. They re-converted to Hindu faith the ruling half-Muslim Sultan Nasiruddin Khusrau and for a short time Delhi was re-conquered from Muslim rulers by the warriors of the Barwari caste who were included by the Britishers among criminal tribes due to which now they are branded as ‘Dalits’.
Significant social progress since Independence
Kancha Ilaiah refuses to see the fast changing ground reality in post-independence years. Today the younger generation is rapidly moving away from caste discrimination, especially in urban areas, including small towns and most villages. When one eats at a roadside dhaba or sits down for a cup of tea during travel, where is the scope for practicing caste discrimination? Gone are the days when people ate food cooked only by Brahmins or men belonging to their own caste. Similarly when one travels in a bus or train does anyone bother about the caste of the person sitting next to him or her? Again when a person goes to a hospital, does he or she ask for the caste of the doctor or the nurse ? As pointed out by the well known Dalit intellectual, Chandrabhan Prasad, in an insightful article, anonymity is the greatest weapon against untouchability.
And anonymity has increased with rapid urbanization. The modern day urbanism is infusing a new lifestyle in cities and towns. Who knows that in a beauty parlour the woman giving a massage is a Gauda or Kamma, and the lady customer a Madhiga? Alluding to the much advertised reports in the press about some high caste Hindus students refusing to eat food cooked by Dalit cooks, Chandrabhan Prasad points out that out of 1.81 lakh schools in the State of Uttar Pradesh, it was one thousand schools where the non-Dalit children refused to eat the food cooked by Dalits, which reflects the rapidly changing social equations at the ground level in the heartland State. [Source: Chandrabhan Prasad, ‘Caste revolution’, The SundayPioneer (Foray), p.V] He calls it a splendid story of attitudinal changes highlighting “a great social revolution” and rightly faults the journalists for ignoring the important fact that “in majority of UP schools non-Dalit children are now accepting food cooked by Dalit cooks”
Education, increased mobility and urbanization are three important social levelers for destroying caste discrimination.
The seamy side of the travails of the Dalit Samaj is that they were left behind largely due to the perfidy of the British rulers who happened to be Christians! Today the politicians of Bharat are the most caste obsessed people. They are keeping the caste cauldron on boil for using certain castes as their vote bank. The recent attempts of the casteist political leaders trying to force a caste census reveals their divisive agenda for capturing political power. Otherwise the caste discrimination is now in terminal decline as far as Hindu society is concerned. There might be a small caste conscious minority tucked away in villages. But they too must be eating at dhabas and visting roadside tea stalls during their travels. And everyone knows that the men and women employed at such dhabas, excepting very few, could be the so-called low-caste workers. Frankly, the day our self-seeking politicians abandon their caste promoting politics, caste discrimination will die a natural death. Sooner they do it, better it will be for Bharat.
Over to Kancha Ilahia’s mischievous prophesy that soon there will be a civil war, a war of weapons, between the high caste Hindus and the so-called Dalits because of the simmering undercurrent of caste based hostility between the two constituents of the Hindu society. He asserts that the self-destructing contradictions in the Hindu cultural system are creating tensions which will soon explode into a civil war which is likely to be a “war of power, of nerves and also of weapons”. In making that grim forecast about the impending civil war between high caste Hindus and Dalits, Kancha Ilaiah conveniently forgot that there is no history of any organized violent clashes or regular ‘war of weapons’ between the two segments of Hindu society. On the contrary, there are innumerable examples where all Hindus, irrespective of their caste, had jointly fought against the Muslim invaders and the British imperialists – a fact which Kancha Iliah conveniently ignores.
A Post-Hindu Bharat?
But that does not mean that the idea of a post-Hindu Bharat is far removed from reality. The spectre of a post-Hindu Bharat looms large over Bharat, as surely as the threat of a post-Christian Europe frightens the besieged continent. There is indeed a strong possibility of Bharat becoming a post-Hindu Bharat because of the demographic jihad of Islam, powerfully aided by the current Islamist campaign to overrun and subjugate Bharat. The census 2001 data of the 6 years old cohorts clearly shows that in 31 States and Union Territories of the Republic of Bharat, out of a total of 35, the Muslim population will grow at a faster clip than that of Hindus. In that sense the fate of the Hindu civilization is already sealed.
There is a 1200 years long history of violent wars and unremitting animosity between the Hindus and the Muslims. This important fact has been totally ignored by Kancha Ilaiah in his inadequately researched tome. And now due to the ongoing demographic coup of Islam and repetitive jihadi attacks on Hindus and their places of worship, a stage has certainly been set for “a war of power, or nerves and also of weapons” between the two religious groups. The gory history of Bharat’s partition and promotion of votebank centric grievance politics to garner Muslim votes by ‘secular’ politicians of Bharat have further accentuated the communal divide between the two communities. It needs to be understood that due to historical reasons the Hindus and the Muslims do not merely represent their religious beliefs but are also principal markers of their civilisational identities and political outlook. The concurrent demographic coup of Islam and the fast approaching clash of civilizations between the peace loving Hindus and militant Islamists has the potential to usher in a post Hindu Bharat. The denouement might happen after going through a violent war of weapons for supremacy in the sub-continent. . Hindu society should be grateful to Prof. Kancha Ilaiah for engaging the intellectuals and strategists for discussing the sensitive topic of a post Hindu Bharat.
Till now the manifest threat arising out of the demographic decline of Hindus and incessant illegal infiltration from Bangladesh had been discussed in hush-hush tones only in the drawing rooms of Guwahati and Kolkata. Prof. Ilaiah has brought it to the centrestage, right here in New Delhi. Time has come to throw open the politically incorrect subject for public discourse across the country in the manner of Europeans who are discussing the menace of Eurabia, or emergence of a post Christian Europe, openly and frankly in media and at every forum.
It is time to give a call to the somnolent Hindu leaders and the inadequately informed multitude of Hindus spread across the countryside to stand up and meet the fast approaching threat of post Hindu Bharat. A wake up call for unity of Hindu society is the need of the hour. Hindus now stand at the crossroads of history. They must stop living in the past. This is their last opportunity to make a daring bid to break the siege. Alas, the Hindu society is totally bereft of a dour and dynamic leadership for which reason it continues to be discriminated against and stands marginalized despite constituting a powerful majority.
To borrow the idiom used by Kancha Ilaiah, one can say with certainty that unless the Hindu leaders bestir themselves boldly and assertively, the anticipated demise of Hindu Dharma in the coming decades “would reposition the cultures of the world in a major way”. Anyone studying the demographic changes across Bharat and the high velocity population growth of Muslims will understand the foreboding dimensions of the looming threat.
In the latest incidents of brazen leftist terror in Kerala, 26 Hindu activists from BJP were injured, 3 of whom are in critical condition, after their peaceful protest march was attacked by CPM workers with stones & iron rods at Trivandrum yesterday. In a separate incident, Sunil Kumar from Congress was hacked to death by CPM youth wing DYFI activists in Alappuzha. All this, while CPM leaders like Yechury and Karat mouth homilies for ‘freedom of expression’ sitting in New Delhi.
This brazen hypocrisy of a party (CPM) which to this day idolizes a known mass murderer like Josef Stalin should not come as a surprise. But what is surprising is that the media, intellectuals and even the ruling NDA have not turned the spotlight on CPM/CPI and assorted left organizations for unleashing this reign of terror in their two strongholds – Kerala & West Bengal.
The pattern of murderous assaults by CPI(M) cadre on Hindu activists from opposition parties speaks of a well-planned strategy to assassinate and intimidate socio-political rivals, which in all likelihood was hatched at the highest levels of their politburo. It is high time that the Central Government intervenes and assigns an agency like NIA to investigate the #LeftistTerror. Senior CPM leaders like Yechury and Karat need to be grilled to unearth this deep-rooted conspiracy. Just calling for a bandh (strike) will not suffice. When well-known CPM activists & supporters on social media are brazenly issuing death threats and celebrating murders of ‘Sanghis’ (to be read as any self-asserting Hindu), one wonders why the Union Home Ministry is sound asleep?
Open Admission of Murder as Political Tool
In 2012, M M Mani, CPM Idukki district secretary had made a chilling boast at a public meeting on how the party had eliminated politcal foes. A close associate of CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, Mani went on record saying
“Yes, we have killed the enemies of CPM. We have shot, stabbed and beaten them to death. A hit-list of party enemies was prepared and each of them was executed in that order.”
Recently, CPI-M Kannur district secretary, P Jayarajan, was listed as an accused by CBI under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in connection with the brutal murder of RSS worker E Manoj in 2014.
Marxist supporters on social media cheer Hindu deaths
Below are some tweets calling for the murder of Hindu activists by a well-known Marxist supporter Arun Nambiar on Twitter who’s bio reads “A Marxist. Life’s too short to have the Govt or Religion control it. The Future is the collective! Currently fighting the Fascist Indian Govt and winning!”
Marxist twitter user calling for murder of RSS activists
Are CPM and CPI really different from the banned CPI (Maoist)?
The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is a communist party which aims to overthrow the government of Bharat through ‘people’s war’. It was founded on 21 September 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People’s War Group, and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI). The CPI (Maoist) are often referred to as the Naxalites in reference to the Naxalbari insurrection conducted by radical Maoists in West Bengal in 1967.
In 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh referred to the Naxalites as “the single biggest internal security challenge” for India. CPI-Maoist follows Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its ideological basis guiding its thinking in all spheres of its activities. Interestingly, Maoist ideologues in Bharat also support Islamist jihadi terror which they view as “a progressive anti-imperialist force in the contemporary world’.
In 2010, leftist students from Democratic Students Union (DSU) and All India Students Association (AISA – the student wing of CPI Marxist-Lenninst) organized a meeting in JNU to celebrate the killing of 76 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh. To this day, none of the top ‘mainstream’ communist leaders like Yechury or Karat have condemned the Maoist atrocities or their supporters in university campuses like JNU. On the contrary, the statements of CPM leadership in favor of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar and other leftist students who shouted slogans for Bharat’s destruction are well known.
This gives rise to the question – is the fundamental ideology of allegedly ‘mainstream democratic’ communist parties like CPI-M and CPI really different from the ‘revolutionary’ Maoists? Or is CPM the public face of the same ideological fraternity, tasked with engaging in democracy as a continuation of the same class war by other means? This incisive MyInd piece on the rise of urban naxals says –
“Naxal violence though predominantly a rural phenomenon, has steadily made inroads in urban areas. Naxalites have created many Front Organizations in urban areas to facilitate expansion of their movement through democratic means. Most of the Front Organizations are led by well-educated intellectuals with firm belief in Maoist doctrine. These ideologists act as masks to cover the violent nature of Maoist Ideology. The important functions of these organizations are recruitment of intellectual cadres, raising funds, creating urban shelter for underground cadres, providing legal assistance to arrested cadres and mass mobilization by agitating over issues of convenience. There’s a strong presence of what is known as ‘Urban Naxalites’ in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) often called den of “Urban Naxalites”.”
So the question must be asked – are leaders like Stephens and JNU educated Yechury the suave media friendly front for an ideology that aims to overthrow the State of Bharat?
Who are the CPI-M role models?
Karl Marx
The ideological father of communists of every hue, including CPI-M, is the German Karl Marx (1818 – 1883). Marx’s two prominent views on Hindus and Hindu Dharma are:
1] “That man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his knees in adoration of Hanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow” (The British Rule of India, New York Daily Tribune, June 25, 1853). Marx believed that British rule despite its iniquities was a progressive force for India.
2] “England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating – the annihilation of the old Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundation of Western society in Asia” (The Future Results of British Rule in India, New York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853).
Josef Stalin
Joseph Stalin was a brutal dictator who ruled the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Between 1934 and 1939 he organized and led a massive purge of the party, government, armed forces and intelligentsia, in which millions of so-called “enemies of the working class” were imprisoned, exiled or executed, often without due process. After the Soviet Union dissolved, and evidence from the Soviet archives became available, official records revealed 799,455 executions (1921–1953), around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag and some 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement – a total of about 2.9 million officially recorded victims in these categories. The final number of deaths caused by Stalin’s regime is said to be around 20 million.
This same Josef Stalin is a revered leader for the Left in Bharat. This is what the CPI-M site has to say about Stalin –
“The CPI(M) rejected the approach which, in the name of correcting the personality cult, is negating the history of socialism. The uncontestable contribution of Joseph Stalin in defence of Leninism, against Trotskyism and other ideological deviations, the building of socialism in the USSR, the victory over fascism and the reconstruction of the war-ravaged Soviet Union, enabling it to acquire enough strength to check imperialist aggressive moves, are inerasable from the history of socialism.”
EMS Namboodirpad
EMS Namboodirpad, was an Indian communist politician and theorist, who served as the first Chief Minister of Kerala state in 1957–59 and then again in 1967–69. In 1964, he led a faction of the CPI that broke away to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM). It now emerges that EMS once said “the communists’ project in participating in India’s parliamentary institutions was to wreck the constitution from within“!
Thus spake EMS Namboodiripad, of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). (source: Kafila) pic.twitter.com/RDTO5w6AA2
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARangarajan1972) March 3, 2016
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARangarajan1972) March 3, 2016
Media Silence
Our media, who doesn’t tire of shouting from the rooftops that they represent a liberal & tolerant outlook, routinely runs to CPM leaders and their associates in civil society for news bytes, but have they even once turned the spotlight on a party and ideology that uses murder as a tool for political ends?
A repeat of Malda is happening in Kerala, main stream media has blacked out news of #LeftistTerror and attack on BJP’s leadership!
The ball is now firmly in the central Government’s court. People voted decisively for this Government in 2014 to ensure the rule of law prevails in all parts of the nation. The law & order situation in Kerala, West Bengal, and parts of UP has witnessed a sharp deterioration. Their will be howls of ‘fascism’ from the usual suspects, but the Government must intervene and take meaningful action – the very integrity of the Union of Bharat is at stake.
In his speech in Prague in 2009, President Obama touched on an important subject for the first time. He talked about security against nuclear terror, meaning securing nuclear arsenals against falling in the hands of non-State actors. A year later, the first meeting of Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) numbering no fewer than 53 stakeholder countries, was held in Washington DC to deliberate and gradually inch towards a consensus formula of how nuclear arsenals could be safeguarded.
The fourth and perhaps the final meeting of the NSS, to which Bharat and Pakistan have also been invited, is to be held again in Washington DC from 31 March-1 April, 2016. President Putin of Russia has declined to participate. Bharat and Pakistan, two nuclear countries in South Asia count fairly well in the deliberations and in the decision likely to come out of the final round of talks.
In a news briefing in Washington in the third week of October 2015, Pakistan foreign secretary, Aizaz Chaudhury disclosed for the first time that his country had made low-yield nuclear tactical weapons “for use in the event of a sudden attack by its larger neighbor.” Two days later, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with President Obama. Reports are that they talked about Pakistan’s nuclear programme including Afghanistan and militant groups such as the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, both on banned organizations list of the US.
Quoting Pervez Hoodhbhoy, a nuclear physicist and independent security analyst based in Lahore, BBC reported in a news commentary on October 21, 2015, “The fact that Pakistan was making small tactical nuclear weapons was clear to the world from the day Pakistan started its missile programme. It meant that Pakistan had developed low – yield nuclear warheads to be delivered by those missiles at short ranges in a battlefield having localized impact, unlike big bombs designed to destroy cities.”
Experts say that the 2011 testing of nuclear-capable Nasr missile by Pakistan with a 60 kilometers range was an indication that Pakistan was building an arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons for use in a theater of war. Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based expert on defence and security issues, suspects that Pakistan may have designed even smaller nuclear weapons, capable of being shot from a specially-designed gun.
Objectively speaking, battlefield weapons could be more dangerous than larger weapons because in the event of a conflict, they will need to be spread out, deployed at multiple locations closer to the targets, and would need to be fired at short notice. BBC made the cryptic remark that “evidently, Pakistan has acquired this technology from China and it is not possible to block that pipeline.”
The question is whether nuclear command and control procedures will always be adequately ensured for all the missile units deployed across the theatre? In addition to this concern, should not western powers and the US in particular take note of the fact that Pakistan developed these weapons despite nuclear-related international sanctions in force since 1998 after it carried out its first nuclear test?
US reaction to the situation in Pakistan in the context of NSS programme
Let us put it succinctly. Speaking during a hearing on Pakistan convened by House Foreign Affairs Committee, US Special Representative for Af-Pak, Richard Olson said that Obama administration shares the concerns of lawmakers particularly about the development of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. “We are concerned most by the pace and scope of Pakistan’s missile program, including its pursuit of nuclear systems”, he said.
Replying to a question from Congressman Brian Higgins, Olson said that the US was concerned a conventional conflict in Southwest Asia could escalate to include nuclear use as well as the increased security challenges that accompany growing stockpiles. He said the US had a very active dialogue at the highest levels with the Pakistanis in which US’ concerns were stated. US official circles assert they have urged Pakistan to restrain her nuclear weapons and missile development that might invite increased risk to nuclear safety, security or strategic stability.
On this basis US lawmakers have asked their government to be tough on Islamabad “as it does not seem to be sincere in improving ties with India and has accelerated the pace of arsenals’ production.” According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Pakistan could have 350 nuclear warheads in the next decade, becoming the world’s third biggest nuclear power, outpacing Bharat, France, China and the UK. Expressing himself forcefully on the subject, Higgins said, “We have to call them (Pakistan) out on this double game they have been playing, not this year, not last year, not five years, but for the past 15 years …. Pakistan, let’s be truthful about this, plays a double game. They are our military partner, but they are the protector and the patron of our enemies. US aid to Pakistan economic and military has averaged USD 2 billion a year.”
“NSS and particularly, the US, have to know that Pakistan with 189 million population — many of them Islamic extremists— has nuclear weapons. To have Islamic extremists with nuclear weapons is a primary goal of al-Qaeda and it would be a major victory for them and the outgrowth of al-Qaeda namely the Islamic State,” avers Higgins.
Covering the strategic dialogue between high powered- Pakistani delegation led by Adviser Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, with their American counterpart in Washington, the Webdesk reported on 9 March that “Sartaj Aziz insisted that Islamabad would not accept any unilateral curb on its programme. Any reduction must also apply to India and it must address the conventional imbalance between the two countries.” He pointed out that Pakistan did not have the resources to match India’s ever-increasing arsenal of conventional weapons and was forced to depend on non-conventional means to defend it.” Another important statement which Aziz made on that day was that Pakistan was hosting some Taliban leaders…
It is clear that Pakistan has decided to use nuclear option in case of war with India and that it is not ruling out the possibility of hosting Taliban for whatever purposes. What then should be the foremost agenda of the 4th NSS meeting in Washington on 31 March? Obviously, it should be a detailed review of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the backdrop of how Islamabad tries to justify its relentless effort of increasing nuclear stockpile including limited tactical nuclear weapon.
US double-speak on Pakistan
However, deeper study in the scenario throws up contradiction in the words and practice of the US. The joint statement issued by Kerry and Sartaj after the conclusion of strategic dialogue belies the stated intentions of the US. The joint statement is a long eulogy on the “achievements” of Pakistan in meeting the challenge of the terrorists in the northern part of the country. John Kerry had full-throated praises and encomiums for Pakistani army fighting the “terrorists” in Pakistan’s north but not a single word or hint about the terrorist engines on Pakistani soil working against Bharat and Afghanistan. Proliferation of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and induction of tactical nuclear weapons in that arsenal did not figure in their joint statement.
Newsdesk of February 29, 2016 referred to a transcript released in Washington showing Secretary Kerry arguing in two congressional hearings that “the US has been working really hard” to advance a rapprochement between Islamabad and New Delhi. In one statement he indirectly confirmed media reports that the US was quietly encouraging the two prime ministers to hold bilateral talks.
How he looks at the stand-off between Bharat and Pakistan, is reflected in his statement that Pakistan has deployed 150,000 to 180,000 troops along the Pak-Afghan border and in case of a conflict with Bharat, Pakistan will have to redeploy bulk of its forces on her eastern front. Thus what Kerry actually wants Pakistan to do is to fight against the Al Qaeda and Taliban outfits on her western front and keep the so-called non-state actors active on her eastern front against Bharat.
The Webdesk of March 9 said that unlike it did with Iran the US does not want Pakistan to shut down its nuclear programme. But it does want Islamabad to reduce the size of its arsenal. During a testimony in the Senate where the bill against sale of 8 F-16 to Pakistan was defeated by 71 to 24 votes, Secretary Kerry passionately defended sale of Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 nuclear fighter jets to Pakistan, saying that US is committed to boosting Pakistan’s strategic capabilities in its war against terrorists.
In other words Kerry means to say that only the Taliban and Al Qaeda outfits who are fighting against Pakistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) region are the terrorists Pakistan should fight against, and the scores of other terrorist groups in Pakistan are outside the pale of terrorism. Mumbai attack and recent attack on Pathankot airbase are no terrorist activities for him.
Sale of nuclear powered 8 F-16s apart, the Obama administration in February 2015 asked the US Congress to provide more than $ 1 billion in aid to Pakistan including a six fold increase in foreign military financing. The budget proposal described Pakistan as a “strategically important nation” and the proposed US assistance “will strengthen its military in fight against extremism, will increase safety of nuclear installations”
This lays bare the double speak of the USon much trumpeted Nuclear Security Summit to which President Obama has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to participate. All this notwithstanding, BBC said in its commentary of 9 March that there are suggestions that US may offer Pakistan membership of the Nuclear Supplies Group, with legitimate access to available research and technology, in return for some curbs on fissile material production an its missile programme. Sartaj Aziz already reacted by saying that Pakistan will not accept any unilateral curbs unless same are applied to India.
(The writer is the former Director of the Centre for Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University.)
Disclaimer: This article represents the opinions of the Author, and the Author is responsible for ensuring the factual veracity of the content. HinduPost will not be responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information, contained herein.
I am sure many of you may be smiling on seeing Ethics and our Parliament in the same sentence. But believe me, both houses of Parliament have ethics committees and the Rajya Sabha one is oldest.
A Hindu activist, Kyathemaranahalli Raju (37), who also happened to be a BJP leader, was brutally hacked to death in Mysuru on Sunday. It is said that Raju was standing near a tea stall at Udayagiri extension when a gang of four to five attacked him with lethal weapons.
A recent trip to West U.P., my ancestral homeland, brought the kind of clarity which only direct experience can bring. Having heard reports about the growing lawlessness in the region – frequent riots, political goondaism, targeted attacks on women – it still required a visit to the region to understand the gravity of the situation.
Yet another media hit-job on the NDA Government, this time by an ex-Tehelka ‘journalist’ writing for Milli Gazette (which claims to be ‘Indian Muslim’s leading newspaper’), got exposed today. The reporter Pushp Sharma had filed an RTI query about the Muslim teachers and trainers recruited by the AYUSH Ministry for foreign assignments during the World Yoga Day last year. AYUSH is the abbreviation of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy. He claimed that AYUSH Ministry’s reply contained an ‘Annexure -1′ with the statement “As per government policy – No Muslim candidate was invited, selected or sent abroad’.
But the Ministry of AYUSH has issued a categorical statement that the ‘Annexure 1’ claimed by Pushp Sharma is fabricated. Below are the relevant excerpts from the statement issued by Ministry of AYUSH
Clarification regarding RTI of Shri Pushp Sharma
The Ministry of AYUSH has noted with anguish certain mischievous misinformation being spread in certain section of media and Social media quoting a reply to an RTI by mentioning a fabricated draft as Annexure I to that letter, which has never been issued by the Ministry of AYUSH or any of its agencies.
The Ministry strongly condemns this piece of misreporting, clearly aimed at causing chasm between different sections of Society and promoting disharmony and mistrust with ulterior motives. The ministry further clarifies that RTI request dated 17.09.2015 was received in the Ministry, from one Shri Pushp Sharma…
..On receipt of the query, Ministry forwarded this RTI request to its three agencies namely Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga, Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy and International Cooperation wing of the Ministry vide letter dated 08.10.2015. This is a simple forwarding letter under section 6(3) of RTI Act and therefore does not contain any reply to the queries. The same forwarding letter of the Ministry has been used by a section of the media in this matter, but with a non-existent, fictitious“ANNEXURE- I”, (which has never been issued by the Ministry).
The contents regarding religion based data in the so-called Annexure- I are not only fabricated but factually incorrect also. The response of the International Cooperation Section of the Ministry clearly said that invitations were sent to yoga experts/enthusiasts without reference to their religions. Replies sent to the applicant by MDNIY, CCRYN are also enclosed for ready reference.
The Ministry is initiating appropriate action in the matter.”
Media outlets ignore basic fact checking
Various media outlets propagating the fake news created by Milli Gazette
The usual suspects in media eagerly repeated this piece of ‘investigative journalism’ by Pushp Sharma without adhering to basics of journalism like validating the veracity of the RTI reply by contacting the AYUSH minsitry for their view. The confirmation bias to prove their projection of Modi as a ruthless fascist dictator is driving many big names in media over the edge into outright illegal acts like slander, fabrication of news & fanning communal sentiments. Some prominent outlets and celebrity ‘journalists’ who were brutally exposed today were –
1.) The Wire – one of the breed of plush with funds new digital media outlets that have cropped up in the last 18 months, but which are managed by the same old tired, largely discredited mainstream media voices. Others in this category are Scroll, Catchnews, and Qz. The one common factor that binds these outlets together is their visceral anti-Hindu and anti-Modi bigtory.
What a fall for @svaradarajan his publication @thewire_in reduced to carrying bogus unverified stories.Shd dent his credibility but it won’t
2.) The Wire was founded by Siddartha Vardarajan, a US citizen and controversial ex-editor of left-wing newspaper The Hindu who resigned in 2013 after even the anti-Hindutva family owners of The Hindu became uncomfortable with Vardarajan’s blatant anti-Modi bias. Beside running The Wire, Vardarajan these days also runs a weekly news show and is a prominent face on talk shows for RSTV (Rajya Sabha TV) – a public news channel managed by the Rajya Sabha speaker’s office (currently Deputy President Hamid Ansari).
3.) Samar Halarnkar (former Hindustan Times’s national editor, current columnist with the same paper & editor of IndiaSpend.com) was also quick to propagate the fake news story. This same gentleman has been accused of plagiarism in the past, and is a well known Modi-baiter.
AAP mouthpiece Janta Ka Reporter also predictably joined in spreading the spurious news item.
Criminal antecedents of ex-Tehelka ‘journalist’ Pushp Sharma
It has now emerged that ‘investigative journalist’ Pushp Sharma was arrested for fake stings and blackmail in 2009 by the Delhi police. Read this police report titled ‘Extortionist reporter alongwith associates, who used to extort govt. officials on the pretext of conducting fake sting operations arrested’. Incidentally, Pushp Sharma previously worked with the ideological fountainhead of dubious ‘sting journalism’ – Tehelka (founded by rape-accused Tarun Tejpal). It is not surprising that junior reporters like Sharma have such poor journalistic ethics when senior Tehelka journalists like Ashish Khetan (now an AAP leader) have been accused of writing a planted story for Tehelka in defence of the Essar Company as a quid pro quo for several crores sponsorship by Essar for the Tehelka ‘Thinkfest’ event at Goa.
Final Blow To The Fake Story – AYUSH Ministry does have Muslim employees!
Cursory look at the officials of Ministry of Ayush. 3 muslims. So whats this bogus RTI about? pic.twitter.com/YQiQeytbl4
But, sadly such false media narrative do find some buyers even among educated citizens. The media antipathy for Hindus and consequent silence over Islamist and Christian extremism ends up dividing society by giving rise to false victim-hood in minorities.
That Delhi had sunk into a deep morass of sleazy deal-making during the UPA era became clear the moment the RadiaGate scandal broke in 2010, spilling the beans on how media, politicos, bureaucrats, corporates, and others were part of a mutually beneficial cabal. But how deep the rot went is becoming clear only now. This same nexus (what we refer to as Lutyens’ Delhi) is feeling the pinch since the present Government has largely shut off access to Government corridors for these power brokers and is allowing the law to take its own course with regards to their misdeeds. This is one big factor driving the manufactured outrages we see over matters like JNU, Dadri, Church ‘Attacks’, Yakub Memon, Intolerance etc.
