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Pakistanis attack women, children celebrating Bharat’s Independence Day in London

By
HinduPost Desk
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Screen-grab from TOI video report about violent protests outside Bharatiya High Commission, London

In a major breakdown of law & order in London, UK, Bharatiya diaspora celebrating Independence Day outside Bharat’s High Commission were abused & attacked by an organized 1000-strong mob of violent protesters, comprising chiefly of Pakistanis and Khalistanis.

The hooligans hurled abuse at the Bharatiya diaspora, including women and children, and threw various projectiles – eggs,  glass bottles, shoes, plastic bottles, lighters, bananas, batteries, potatoes, hot coffee, placards, apples – over the heads of the thin line of police who were desperately trying to hold them back. Many PIOs (People of Indian Origin) were hit and some injured.

Screen-grab from TOI video report about violent protests outside Bharatiya High Commission, London

Police was vastly numbered, as many violent Pakistani protesters had even been bussed from other cities like Birmingham and Nottingham at 12 PM.

As per this Times of India report, many wondered why police failed to deter the protesters and questioned the role of London mayor Sadiq Khan, a British Muslim of Pakistani descent (his grandparents had migrated from Lucknow, UP during partition)  –

“The violent protesters on Aldwych were being held back by horses from entering India Place, where the Indian diaspora were celebrating. They had ignored barriers set up for them and taken over the road and, before long, had let off smoke bombs to upset and confuse the police horses.

Then, after a couple of hours, a group of protesters appeared from the other side of India Place which had not been closed off by police. The Indian families, many of whom had children, were then sandwiched in and trapped as obstacles were thrown at them from all sides.

Families with small children were trapped for hours between the violent protesters and the cultural programme was called off. Finally, at 3.30 pm, time hundreds of riot police were called, who, whilst battling items being thrown at them, pushed the protesters back. Hundreds of Indians then took refuge inside the high commission building until the police were able to clear a safe route.

The Metropolitan police said four people were arrested under Section 4 of the Public Order Act, for affray, obstruction of police and possession of an offensive weapon.

Chandrabali Nandy, from London, was trapped in India Place with her six-year-old and four-year-old sons who she had brought for the celebrations, for hours. “We want to leave and we can’t get out” she told TOI at 3pm. “It’s terrible. How can I explain to my kids what is happening? We had come here to peacefully celebrate Independence Day.”

Jay shah, a member of Friends of India Society International, said: “It is very sad that law and order has failed in London. When Trump said it was failing, he was right. I blame London mayor Sadiq Khan for this absolute failure. They knew how many protesters were coming. They should have banned some of them. We have seen nothing but violence, intimidation and abuse.”

A young PIO Kashmiri girl called Ash, 14, who lives in Leicester, said: “I came here to celebrate. I have been hit with eggs twice. They have been violent and we have been peaceful. The police have allowed them to get too close. I don’t feel safe at all.”

Parin Shah, 32, said: “Why were there not more police? There were a few hundred of us and thousands of them had come in coachloads. The police let them go across barriers and get far too close.”

Pravin Patel, 73, had his forehead cut when he was hit by a bottle of mineral water. “We have seen total inaction by the police,” Harish Patel said.”

A clip from a Sky News report shows the size of the large mob which was trying to storm inside the High Commission, and was just about held back by London police –

Predictably, anti-Hindu Western media outlets like Reuters completely played down the violent nature of the organized Pakistani protests.

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Lets remember the unsung heroes of our freedom struggle, which still continues to this day

By
Vikram
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0

Bharat has waged a grim struggle for over 1300 years against those who aimed to not just loot & plunder our wealth, but eradicate our civilization from the face of the earth.

When we talk of the freedom struggle, modern historians refer only to the fight against the British colonizers. The distorted idea of Nehruvian ‘secularism’ keeps us away from openly acknowledging the heroic resistance put up by our ancestors against the fanatical Islamic hordes that periodically invaded this land from Arabia, Central Asia, Turkey and Persia.

When celebrated ‘public intellectuals’ like Ramachandra Guha portray two of our brightest heroes, Chatrapati Shivaji and Maharana Pratap as mere “regional figures”, it goes to show that we might have won our physical freedom from the colonizers to a large degree, but mentally we are still severely colonized.

Even when it comes to the freedom struggle against the British, we have a skewed view of events. There is very little known of the period from 1757 to 1857, when the British East India company plundered the country, and slowly, but surely, gobbled up large parts of the country through deception and war. For eg., most of us know little about the 3 Anglo-Maratha wars or the 2 Anglo-Sikh wars, which resulted in the fall of the two empires (Maratha and Sikh) that had all but obliterated the previous foreign colonizers (Mughals) who ruled over Bharat.

We know next to nothing about the destruction wreaked on ordinary Bharatiya farmers and others, which triggered the mass immigration of around 1 million indentured laborers (‘Girmitiyas‘) to colonial plantations in Fiji, Carribean and Africa, forced to work there in slave-like conditions even after slavery had been allegedly abolished by the ‘enlightened’ British.

And while we thankfully do remember the revolt of 1857 and its leading lights like Rani Lakshmibai, our ‘educated’ class is still confused whether to call it a ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ as the British do, or the ‘First War of Independence’.

We have been led to believe that the freedom struggle started in right earnest only after Gandhi returned to Bharat from South Africa in 1915 and started the non-cooperation movement a few years later. The revolutionary energy coursing through the length & breadth of the country in the period from 1900 – 1920 has been all but forgotten. The role played by Subhash Chandra Bose’s INA (Indian National Army) and the 1946 Naval War Mutiny in finally pushing the British out has been systematically downplayed.

When we look at the 20th century freedom fighters, there is a clear hierarchy that has been seared into our collective consciousness through academia, Government and popular culture.

  • At the top, Tier 1, we have one man above all else – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He is the ‘father of the nation’ – the man who galvanized the masses using the principle of Ahimsa (non-violence) to bring about a change of heart in the British imperialists, or so we are told. There is just no objective analysis of Gandhi’s ideas in our official records, no rational study of the good and bad outcomes of his policies, no enquiry into why a man with such a troubling personal life is looked upon as a Mahatma (spiritually evolved soul) and not just as a political leader.
  • Tier 2 is also occupied for just one man, Jawaharlal Nehru – hand-picked by Gandhi to become the first PM of the country, overruling the majority decision of other Congress leaders who had chosen the far more experienced, grassroots leader Sardar Vallabhai Patel. After Gandhi’s assassination, Nehru ruled Bharat with an iron-grip, proudly expressing his scorn for our civilizational roots when he identified himself as the last “Englishman to rule India”. With such a man as Prime Minister for the crucial first 17 years after Independence, it is no wonder that many Indians still think British colonial rule was ‘good for the country.’
  • Tier 3 is reserved for leaders who have been given secondary status by the Marxist historians who wrote our history after Independence. It consists of people like Subhash Chandra Bose, BR Ambedkar, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Lokmanya Tilak, Bhagat Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Chandrashekhar Azad etc. Their names are still remembered but many of their thoughts and ideas, which do not fit the Nehruvian secularist worldview, have been kept hidden from the public. This group also includes leaders like controversial Islamic scholar Maulana Abul Kalam Azad whose true intentions behind opposing the partition have been masked.
  • Tier 4 is for those freedom fighters who are reviled, or just plain forgotten because they were out & out revolutionaries and as such anathema to the Gandhians who want the country to believe that ahimsa won us our freedom. Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad are the only violent revolutionaries who seem to have stayed on in public memory, but not due to any lack of effort on the part of Marxist historians who are still trying to get them labeled as ‘terrorists’.  And one figure is reviled above all else by the Nehruvians and Marxists – Vinayak Damodar Savarkar – for he dared proclaim an ideology steeped in this country’s civilizational roots.

This group of forgotten heroes also includes the spiritual seers who reminded a brutalized people about the glory of Dharma, and who countered the malicious intellectual propaganda that mentally colonized generations of our countrymen – figures like Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Sri Aurobindo, Swami  Shraddhanand, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya etc. Here again, Swami Vivekananda is an exception whose vision & sheer eloquence couldn’t be suppressed by the secularists, but they are still trying to label him as a ‘Hindu supremacist’.

The list of names of the forgotten freedom fighters is too many for one article to cover, so we will just mention a few – Veerapandiya Kattabomman, Velu Nachiyar, Birsa Munda, Alluri Sitaram Raju, Tirot Singh, Bagha Jatin, V.O.Chidambaram Pillai, Shyamji Krishna Varma, Bipin Chandra Pal, trio of Benoy Badal Dinesh, Khudiram Bose, Pasumpon Thevar, Chittaranjan Das, Chapekar Brothers, Rani Gaidinliu, Lala Har Dayal and many, many more.

Other forgotten heroes include those like Gopal Patha, who ensured that hard won freedom was not frittered away to the enemy within.

So this Independence Day, let us pledge to remember those forgotten and unfairly maligned freedom fighters, who looked a brutal, supremacist, cunning enemy in the eye & fought till the last drop of blood; who kept our civilizational memory alive when all seemed lost; who believed and lived Dharma, so that we could continue striving for the final freedom which is yet to be won – the unshackling of our minds.

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Terror State Pakistan, Western Media & Congress are on the same page in J&K

By
Aman Gupta
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The only unfinished agenda on Kashmir is the liberation of POK from Pakistani clutches. Had the then Prime Minister Nehru not gone to the UN & declared ceasefire when Bharatiya forces were on the verge of expelling the Pakistani army & tribal invaders from what is now POK, the Kashmir problem would not have existed & so many people would not have lost their lives.

The present government has rectified a part of the blunder committed seven decades earlier by abrogating Article 370 & bifurcating the state into 2 Union territories, much to the chagrin of Pakistan along with the oldest national party of our country (or what is left of it).

The sham & the rhetoric played out by Pakistan was on expected lines but the support they are getting from the Congress is shameful & disgraceful. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra called the move undemocratic & unconstitutional, even though the abrogation was passed overwhelmingly by Bharat’s Parliament.

Perhaps she & the CWC forgot about the imposition of Emergency in 1975 by her grandmother which was the biggest undemocratic & unconstitutional act in the history of independent Bharat.

Inspite of opposition from within the Congress, the CWC went ahead in calling the abrogation of Article 370 as ‘unconstitutional & undemocratic’ which showed that it was totally out of sync with the mood of the nation & the voice of the ordinary citizen from Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh who has got nothing from the special status.

This folly of the Congress will haunt it in the years to come & could further hasten its plummeting graph.

As for Pakistan, the terrorist state was jolted & shell shocked at the masterstroke by Modi & Shah as could be seen by the deliberations in its National assembly by none other than the PM, who was seen playing to the galleries and asking whether he should attack Bharat as he had tried everything else.

The Pakistani Foreign Minister’s haplessness after the initial flamboyance was an admission of the ground reality. The Pakistanis were buoyed by the Trump goof up on Kashmir, but since then America has corrected itself leaving Pakistan in the lurch.

The western media’s tirade & fake reporting on Kashmir is nothing new. They love to conjure up human rights abuse stories for their own TRPs, conveniently forgetting their own backyard & the mess that their governments created in third world & developing countries around the world.

BBC’s howler on Kashmir will further alienate the western media from the developing world audience, apart from reinforcing the bias that they harbour against countries like Bharat. Anti-Hindu mindset is deeply embedded in the British establishment, so such bias should not surprise anyone.

These media houses are a pale shadow of what they were in their hey days & such frivolous & fake reporting will further erode their credibility.

Bharat needs to up the ante diplomatically & politically against any attempt by hostile nations & media to project false or cooked-up stories in the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh.

As Pakistan & the western world and their media are ill at ease with the calm prevailing in Kashmir, one can only imagine the level they will stoop to if there are any sporadic skirmishes in the valley. For the moment, the government deserves full credit for handling Kashmir the way it has.

The government would also do well to further strengthen ties with its all weather friend Russia which has provided unflinching support to Bharat amidst sometimes wavering international opinion.

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Ethnic Cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus

By
Yogendra Thakur
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0

Imagine a family living in a large beautiful ancestral home. The house, originally belonging to the family, was an advanced and cultured place where everyone lived happily, independently and progressively. Then came, as a consequence of series of disastrous misadventures, some vindictive, baleful and rancorous ‘invaders’ with duplicitous and destructive ideology and initially nestled themselves in the adjacent house.

Gradually they started expanding their reach, swallowing their vicinity, creating havoc and destruction throughout, eventually forcing in themselves into the adjacent beautiful home. They gradually takes over the house, causes havoc in the lives of original inhabitants, rape their women, kill their children and converts the magnanimous aroma of the house into the dark tenebrous reflection of destruction. 

One day they partition the house into two separate houses – one for themselves. When they have no one to pour their liquid of destruction upon, they threaten the life of original inhabitants left in their part of house. Time turns its wheels and atrocities on ‘minorities’ in the separate house – the original inhabitants – doesn’t stop. Deleterious tides turns into annihilating tsunami. Neighbouring house members jumps into the tsunami to save the others, and with their mighty strength saves the one part of the other house from another part’s inflicted destruction.

The fight ends and as a result new house is created from the other house, which itself was created just few years prior. But the plight of original inhabitants – still the minority in the new other house – sees no improvement. Atrocities continues but in a more sophisticated and silent way, this time by the authorities of the newly created house. Culprit changes but the victim doesn’t. Years later the original inhabitants are mere walking dead.

This is pretty much the story of Bangladeshi Hindus. They’ve been subject to brutal atrocities and destruction committed by the majority of Bangladesh creating a condition of ethnic cleansing. The recent mass addition to the list was made in 2017. In the year 2017 alone, according to the Bangladesh Jatiya Hindu Mojahote, an umbrella organisation representing Hindus within Bangladesh, 107 Bangladeshi Hindu civilians were murdered, 31 Hindu victims disappeared, at least 25 Hindu women and girls were raped, 23 Hindus were forcefully converted and 235 Hindu temples and statues within Bangladesh were desecrated.

The same report also claimed that 782 Bangladeshi Hindus were forced to flee to Bharat due to persecution by the Bangladeshi government and radical Islamist groups. This means that 6,474 different atrocities were committed against the Hindu community in Bangladesh in 2017. Which was even higher at 11,335 in 2016. One example of that was seen in Sovandadi village of Patiya, Chittagong where houses of 20 to 22 Hindu families were burned to the ground.

And these are all just the ‘reported ones’. Shipan Kumar Basu, the head of the Hindu Struggle Committee, believes that many atrocities within Bangladesh are unreported: “A lot of Hindu homes were burned in Chittagong Moheshkhali and there were other crimes that occurred against the minorities but they were not published in any newspaper.”

The problem does not end there. Entire establishment of the state of Bangladesh functions, directly and indirectly, either in support of the culprits or in ignorance of the conflict. The atrocities, most of the time, is the subject of no value to the Bangladesh authorities. And the culprits in fact sometimes gets a helping hands from the establishment. 

A Hindu being beaten by Muslims in a mosque in Bangladesh.  He was captured outside the mosque while going home. After Friday prayers were over, the Muslims came out and grabbed the first Hindu they could.  Mr. Vimal Patak a Bangladeshi born Hindu was beaten to death with sticks as the Muslim mullas (priests) chanted “kill the Kafir!” (non-muslim). With folded hands he begged for his life and died  a brutal death. Source – Hindu Jagruti Samiti.

Following Bangladesh’s War of Independence, almost 10 million Hindus were displaced, thus making it difficult for the authorities to establish direct ownership of property within specified legal timeframes and this reality showed the real face of Bangladesh authorities. The establishment, specifically the Awami League government confiscated 1.05 million acres of the Hindu land through Vested Property Act, 1972 and benefitted from the turmoil, showing absolutely no care for the Hindus. The authorities have time and again proved they hold no sympathy and sense of responsibility towards the Hindus. 

These all are not one off incidents and the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh dates back years. The ugliest turn in the time was, of course, the 1971 War of Liberation.

The 1971 Persecution

In 1971, throughout the 9 month long persecution carried out by Pakistan’s Army in the then East Pakistan, the primary target was the Hindu community. The Muslim Pakistani Army unleashed a series of ‘holocaust’ like deleterious vindictive persecution, abduction, destruction, mass killing and raping of, predominantly, Hindus with an evil objective of quashing Hindu culture and religion in their ‘territory’.

As Sunday Times journalist Anthony Mascarenhas reported at the time, “I was getting my first glimpse at the stain of blood which has spread over the otherwise verdant land of East Bengal. First, it was the massacre of non-Bengalis in a savage outburst of Bengali hatred. Now, it is a massacre carried out by the West Pakistan Army. Hindus, hunted from village to village and door to door, were shot off-hand after a cursory short-arm inspection showed they were uncircumcised. I have seen truckloads of human targets and those who had the humanity to help them hauled off under the cover of darkness and curfews. I have witnessed the brutality of kill and burn missions after the army who cleared off the rebels pursued pogroms in the towns and villages. Women were raped or had their breasts torn out with specifically fashioned knives. Children did not escape the horror. The lucky ones were killed with their parents but many thousands of others go through what remains of them with eyes gouged out and limbs amputated.”

Hindus were subjected to extreme brutality and inhumanity waged on them by the Pakistan Armed forces under the blood soaked veil of jihad. Hindus of East Pakistan suffered the one of the worst of genocides in history. The year was the darkest in the already dark century for them. 2.5 million to 3 million Hindus were slaughtered including women and children. Absolute barbarity and intense hatred was poured over them from the bucket of Jihad. And many (fortunates) fled the blood field to protect themselves and their family.

As Hindus were the prime targets of army, no wonder 80% of refugees fleeing East Pakistan were Hindus. 8 – 10 million Hindus fled as refugees into Bharat during a systematic genocide in 1971 by the then Muslim East Pakistan Army. The destruction was planned and systematically executed.

Reminiscent of the Jewish holocaust, Hindu homes and shops were marked by a yellow “H” to guide the marauding army to their targets. Sydney H. Schanberg, The New York Times correspondent to Dhaka in 1971, gave the first hand account of the brutal massacre of Hindus in Bangladesh. Schanberg reported “Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked ‘H’. All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad.” 

Women were subjected to unimaginable misery and they became victim, for just being born into a different faith, to baleful deleteriousness ‘medieval’ brutality. Schanberg shedding light on the disturbing plight of Hindu women at the hands of Muslim Army wrote “The Pakistan army and the Razakars did not stop at simply massacring Hindus. They also took to raping Bengali women. During nine months in 1971, over 200,000 Bengali women and girls were raped. Many were taken as sex slaves and raped multiple times by the Pakistani army.”

Tribal Hindu housewives, gang raped by Islamic fanatics. The insult made them speechless. (Mukti-Mona.com/Sujit Das)

Insult to injury was Bharatiya ‘secular’ media’s systematic blackout of the massacre. Never they made for the way for realism in reporting and never they reported what foreign media did with grit. Majority of the Bharatiya populace were unaware of that planned destruction of their kith and kin.

The 1971 genocide was a construct and a manifestation of the idea that led to series of minor jihadi incidents affecting the innocent Hindus ever since the 1947 partition. 1971 was neither the start nor the end. 

The Unnatural Change of Demographics

The pattern of degradation and destruction of Hindu community, demography, culture and religion as a whole shows crystallinity about systematic-ness of it. Right from the 1951, we see a rapid and consistent decline in Hindu population in Bangladesh (East Pakistan 1947-1971). 

Before partition Hindus in the then East Bengal comprised 30-31% of the total population. Partition led to huge influx of Hindus in Bharat and out-flux of Muslims in East Pakistan. Migration reduced the number of Hindus in East Pakistan to about 22% of the total population as per the 1951 survey. Decades after partition, when the sands were settled, the religious demography of East Pakistan was supposed to be stable. But it didn’t settle, instead the Hindus were consistently diminishing and reducing in numbers.

With the same Socio-economic conditions, ethnicity, landscape, fertility and mortality rate, stable and continues religious demography was something naturally expected. But despite similar conditions, the minorities in Bangladesh, unnaturally, kept on vanishing. “Due to unabated persecution, intimidation, and forcible conversion to Islam, the Hindu-Minority population kept on dwindling” wrote Rahul Gupta for Hindu Jagruti Samiti.

      Year

    Islam (Population in %)

  Hindu (Population in %)

195178.90%22.00%
196180.40%18.50%
197185.50%13.50%
198186.60%12.10%
199188.30%10.50%
200189.70%9.20%
201189.10%10.70%

Source – Wikipedia

A study of government data from 1941-2011 shows clear signs of diminishing Hindu population and unnatural change in demographics. In 1961, Hindu population decreased to 18.50% of total population. As a result of genocide, it further sliced to 13.50% in 1971. Eventually decreasing to 10.70% according to latest census of 2011. But at the same time the Muslim population kept on increasing and expanding from 78.90% in 1951 to 89.10% by 2011.

The effects of forceful change in demographics touched the vicinal West Bengal also, where Hindu population between 1951 and 1991 decreased by 4.1% while the Muslim population increased by 3.6%. 

The continuous hate crimes, prosecution, killings, forceful conversions, mass destruction, religious desecration and slow demographical vanishing of Hindu community are crystalline and pellucid indications of a horrific ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus. But the world is still either unaware or intentionally silent on this systematic ethnic cleansing.

In a globalised world where illegal Rohingya refugees are revered and garlanded with, the innocent Hindus of Bangladesh are met with step-motherly inhumanly treatment. Large international organisations like United Nations never uttered a word in favour of millions of Hindus subjected to this brutality and hate crimes. 

Every nation has intentionally sided themselves with the culprits by choosing to remain silent, including the state of Bharat. Each global media has betrayed the ethics of journalism and essential values of humanity by ignoring such a huge case of ongoing ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh. Bangladesh establishment is equally responsible and participant in this crime, as they chose to create a system and ‘culture of impunity’ for the culprits. 

But when we try to dig deep and search for the biggest reason behind this generalisation of prosecutions of Hindus, there comes no one to blame more than the Hindus themselves. It is the Hindus across the globe most responsible for such generalisation as they chose ignorance, silence, inaction and pseudo secularism over cultural values, warrior mentality, dharma philosophy, divine teachings of protecting dharma and courageous attitude.

If it wasn’t for Hindu silence on Hindu causes, none would have dared to carry such heinous systematic destruction of Bangladeshi Hindus. The mighty Hindu community must understand that the lack of cultural and religious coordination, the lack of will and determination and the lack of co-religionist cooperation will only harm the Hindu and Santana interests leading to degradation of idea of Bharat. 

It is time, the world speaks against the inhuman barbarity by the subjects of Bangladesh against its minorities and put the Bangladeshi establishment accountable for prosecution of Hindus.

As Elie Wiesel once said, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” It is time the humanity speaks against this ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus.

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Priyanka & Rahul Gandhi’s Key Adviser, an ex-JNU comrade, threatens to thrash reporter

By
HinduPost Desk
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0

For decades they lived with an aura of mystique and infallibility. Their durbaris projected the Nehru-Gandhi family as knights in shining armour, who out of the generosity of their hearts had agreed to rule this intractable country of over 1 billion.

Lesser beings were hauled over the coals for the slightest indiscretion, especially if they had any link whatsoever to that ‘vile’ saffron colour. But the Nehru-Gandhis were ethereal beings, only to be admired from afar, not subjected to the same questioning as was the fate of other politicians, mere mortals all.

But something has changed in the last 5 years. The facade has crumbled a little and what can be seen now is not only ugly, but an oder of magnitude worse than anyone had thought.

On Tuesday, Sandeep Singh, a close aide of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi, man-handled an ABP News reporter and threatened him with ‘‘Thok ke yahi baja dunga’ (I will thrash you and play you like a drum).

The reporter’s crime? He dared ask a question to Priyanka Vadra about the abrogation of Article 370, a hot button issue for the entire country but one which the Congress’ ‘first family’ would prefer avoiding to maintain plausible deniability & ambiguity.

Not surprisingly, Singh is reported to be an ex-President of JNU Students Union and member of AISA, the student wing of the far-left Communist party CPI(M-L). After leaving JNU, he was active in the Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption (IAC) movement and later joined the Congress as a ‘speech writer’. Going by the recent incident, he seems to be moonlighting as the family’s hired muscle as well.

His LinkedIn profile shows no work experience whatsoever, yet he claims his professional domain to be ‘Research’. His Ph.D was discontinued. At the risk of stereotyping social science students, one can safely say that most professional political activists produced by JNU like Sandeep Singh, Kanhaiya Kumar would show a similar trajectory.

LinkedIn profile of Sandeep Singh, Nehru-Gandhi family adviser

The incident occurred when Priyanka, the Congress general secretary, was visiting Sonbhadra in UP on Tuesday. A complaint was filed at the Ghorawal police station against Sandeep Singh. “One Sandeep Singh, mentioned as personal secretary of Priyanka Gandhi, manhandled the reporter and threatened him with dire consequences. We are probing the case,” Ghorawal SHO G P Pandey said.

This profile of Singh shows him to be a big favorite of Rahul Gandhi, and someone who now accompanies Priyanka Gandhi on her sojourns across UP, running the show from behind the scenes. He is also talked of as one of the architects of the much-touted NYAY scheme (cash dole-out to the poor) launched by Congress as a vote-puller for the 2019 LS elections.

Back in 2013, this FirstPost article had asked “Why is it that the mainstream media (MSM) displays, what can only be termed as pusillanimity bordering on the obsequious when it comes to Sonia Gandhi?”

Come 2019, the mood of the nation has certainly shifted, but such is the influence wielded by this dynasty on the country’s establishment that most editors & opinion writers are still nothing better than their durbaris.

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The Unseen Indians: Fading tribal population of Wayanad

By
Guest Author
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0

They were once well off with farming in acres of land and a simplistically comfortable lifestyle close to nature. Now they are invisible. They end as a name or number in the numerous lists made by government policies. Men and women fade away with booze and diseases. The story of the tribal population in Wayanad shall put us, the modern Indians, to shame.

Wayanadan hill ranges host the largest population of Adivasi community in Kerala. Paniyas, Kurumas, Adiyars, Kurichyas, Ooralis, and Kattunaikkans constitute significant tribes. Every aspect of the tribal culture is closely intertwined with the legends and history of Wayanad. Carriers of a rich agricultural legacy, the tribal population of Wayanad got sized into mere refugees along the outskirts of civilisation, as the colonial and postcolonial political and socio-cultural milieu pushed them aside to the margins. 

The misery of the tribes started with the colonial invasion. Through various draconian forest acts, the British punished the Wayanadan Tribesmen since the time they joined Pazhassi Raja to fight against foreign invasion. The colonial attack of the wild, uncontrolled hunting of wildlife and spread of monoculture cash crop farming in the hills affected the life of the forest tribes. After independence, the democratic secular state too neglected these hapless children of the ghats. Migration, encroachment, social forestry and other various development models acted as a means to push the tribals to the rims.

When the Hindu kings were ruling the country, the relationship between the land, ruler and farmers were more flexible. The land was never considered as private property in pre-colonial Kerala. Neither the rulers nor the people tried to assert ownership over the vast tracts of Forests across the western ghats. The various tribes of Wayanad also used to live freely in the forests with autonomy over their lifestyle practices and mode of sustenance. The forest dwellers could cultivate, eat and live without any interference from the outside world. They were offering a share of the forest produces or Paddy for upkeeping the temple rituals. When Pazhassi Raja fought against the British invaders, the tribes of Wayanad extended their full support to the Raja, and put up a heroic resistance against the British in the Wayanadan forests. British imperialism, guided by a racist and colonial philosophy hit the tribals very hard through their property rules and forest laws. Wherever the natives showed resistance, the British enacted their imperial morality with a vengeance.

Introduction of land revenue, money-based economic system along with criminal exploitation of the native population and the natural resources by the colonial morality altered the fate of the Adivasis forever. Large tracts of forests were converted into monoculture plantations. As a result, native adivasis were stripped of all the rights they have been enjoying in their woods. 

The business of Cash crop plantations in Wayanad was started by establishment of Parry and Parry plantation company in the 1830s. Mananthavady Colonials brought in migrant labourers in high numbers to work in these cash crop plantations. The resources from the forests became commodities. Indian Railway was financed with wooden rails, platforms and wagons by the rich forests of Malabar. This large scale reduction in the extent of forest cover and eviction of the Adivasis from the forests altered their food pattern, lifestyle and socio-cultural associations. Many of them had to depend on the local aristocracy for a living. By then, the land revenue system also had been altered by the British and new landlords were assigned to the various areas controlled by the British. Thus began the eternal story of marginalisation and deprivation of the native tribes.

The first world war and the accompanying economic slowdown along with the changing demography of neo Christian converts in Travancore led to the inflow of modern migration to Wayanad in the 1930s. Till 1931, the majority of the population in Wayanad comprised of Adivasi tribes. After World War II, the ‘Grow more food’ scheme enabled massive migration of Christians from Travancore into the forest-clad western ghats region of Malabar pushed the natives further into the margins of civilisation as they ended up losing the land remaining in their possession post the British high handedness. Panoor (1989) maintains that the peasant migration from Travancore to Malabar invariably destroyed the very basis of the tribal economy. It has been observed that the Christian settlers from Travancore were primarily responsible for land alienation of the tribal communities and subsequent uprooting of the tribals from their traditional life.

Land reforms undertaken by the Kerala government were namesake tenancy reforms merely to topple the status of the traditional aristocracy. The scheduled tribes were entirely left out of the ‘reforms’. The democratic State admonished them as unworthy of land ownership.

Migration induced agrarian transformation has proved fatal for the tribal communities of Wayanad. The tribal communities who already were pushed aside by the British forest laws and plantation now wholly lost their native lifestyle. Schemes and policies introduced by the bureaucracy and political establishments could not be of any help.
 
Health and Human Development
Although Kerala has the highest Human Development Index in India, which is on par with the Scandinavian countries, the situation of malnutrition, anaemia, and maternal mortality in the tribal communities is alarming. They remain confounded by the changed socio-economic lifestyle practices along with the compulsion to adapt for accessing the ‘civilised’ world’s health delivery systems. The inability of the government system to gain the trust of the native tribes keeps them away from accessing the government schemes and amenities. Thus, the mothers and children in the tribal hamlets remain most deprived and neglected sections in health and development. 

Health problems such as underweight, anaemia, stunted growth and low birth rate were grave among the tribal communities. A CAG report in 2014 pointed out that during 2008–09 to 2012–13, there were 51 maternal deaths, of which 32 were tribal women in the age group of 19–35. As per a UNICEF-assisted survey by the District Administration, among under-five children in four village panchayats, the infant mortality among the tribal population was as high as 41.47. In 2011 to 2014 around 324 newborns died in the district. Experts attribute undernutrition, underweight, early pregnancy as the reason for the bereaved health indices. The high prevalence of moderate and severe anaemia among tribal women and children are mainly due to the changed food habits and lack of nutritious food. Alcoholism and tobacco chewing habits also play a significant in leading to this deprived economic state as well as malnutrition. 

More than 28% of the tribal population in Kerala is without houses as per the 1996 economic survey. Exposure to chemical fertilisers and pesticides, poor sanitation and housing are also the reason for the poor health. As the tribal communities are still not adapted to the changed financial relationships, money based handling of the daily living, which demands careful saving of money and accumulation of property for a healthy, prosperous life.

Sickle Cell Anemia is another chronic illness that is prevalent in the ethnic communities in Wayanad, mainly Paniya and Kattunayakan tribes and the Chetty community. Many studies suggest that pregnancy in Sickle Cell Anemic women can lead to maternal and foetal mortality. A few months ago, Sickle Cell Anaemia Patients Association in Wayanad accused the Kerala government of neglecting the affected people in providing healthcare and rehabilitation. According to them, there are around 800 people affected by the debilitating illness. 


The State government acknowledged in October 2016, the existence of around 326 tribal unwed mothers in Wayanad. The number of real victims would be much higher. In the late 90s, the State Government and the Women’s commission initiated a project to conduct DNA tests to identify men who have fathered the children of the unwed tribal mothers of Wayanad. These unfortunate women are victims of the appetite of men outside their hamlets especially the politicians, police, forest officials, contractors, farmers and other settlers in the area. Widespread alcohol and tobacco abuse among children makes them more vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

On the other hand, they are arbitrarily slapping POCSO [Protection of Children from Sexual Offences ] Act on the men from Paniya, Kattunayaka community for following the traditional marriage system of the Adivasi community. Twenty boys were arrested in 2015 under the POCSO Act from Wayanad. Ironically, the Padre who headed the district Child Welfare Committee which arrested the tribal boys was very lenient to the rape accused from his own ilk. Both the issue of unwed mothers and misuse of POCSO Act happens because with the advent of ‘civilised modernity’ the tribal Hamlets lost the traditional system of tribal chieftains having a say in the affairs of the socio-economic administration of the hamlets.

The advent of settlers from Travancore and State induced agricultural policies opened the door for Intensive food farming, and Cash crop farming altering the demography and ecology. The farming tribes are no longer considered as farmers by the State. The Settlers replaced the natives as farmers as well as landlords. Every policy decisions and schemes introduced by the State for the farming crisis in Wayanad addresses only the woes of the cash crop agriculturists migrated to the district. Considerably, the worldview of the migrant settlers and the native tribes are on opposite poles, which is why the native tribes lost their home, heritage, and existence. Several migrant settler farmers committed suicide in the late 90s and early 2000s due to crop failure and price fluctuation for the cash crops. Then Wayanad became a hotspot of State intervention to save farmers. Crores of fund flowed into the district, though the tribal population could not benefit. They are invisible when it comes to State’s policy formulation concerning farming and other “civilised” affairs of humanity. 

The Wayanadan Adivasi community is the last reservoir of indigenous farming wisdom, medicinal plants, healing techniques, unique folk cultural practices and knowledge. In olden days, the Wayanadan tribes could accumulate the food for the day from the surroundings. Due to unavailability of forest produce and alineation from land, poverty prevailed, and the communities began to rely on the Public DistributionSystem for food. They used to eat lots of leaves plucked from nature, mushrooms, and animals hunted down from the forests and paddy fields. Wayanad, as the name suggests, housed several varieties of indigenous paddy. With modernity, the traditional farming methods, as well as the ethnic seed varieties, also lost significance. Likewise, millets and other regular dietary supplements also disappeared from the menu of the tribes. Climate change provoked a reduction in the number of honey hives in the forests of Wayanad. The aboriginal tribes who used to be the procurers of wild honey lost their means for sustenance.

Ineffective Government policies
The government had formed large scale rehabilitation projects for the tribal communities in Wayanad such as Sugandhagiri Cardamom Project, Pookkodu Dairy Project, Priyadarshini Tea Estate and Cheengeri Coffee Project. All these projects aimed at enhancing the livelihood of the Adivasis failed to produce the desired outcome mainly due to bureaucratic control and a faulty implementation which failed to motivate the beneficiaries. Most of the alternative government actions to address the tribal issues were unable to provide expected results as corrupt bureaucracy and the middlemen who take advantage of the Adivasis. For example, most of the land allocated for the Cheengeri estate has been encroached upon by the migrant settlers. A large number of programmes for health and education lacks touch with the realities of the Adivasi hamlets. The State measures virtually reinforce the intrusion and exploitation of the Adivasis by other non-tribal people, in varied forms. Mostly, Bureaucrats, contractors, and NGOs became rich in the name of tribal development and emancipation. Brown men replaced whites with the civilising mission. Every project implemented by governmental and Non Governmental bodies aims at transforming the Adivasis into ‘civilised’ modern man. 

Tribals often feel that the indifference of the governments is part of a plan to wipe out native tribes from the district. The alcohol infested, poverty-stricken tribal hamlets are often fertile ground for many vested interests who wish to create discord and chaos. They incite the Adivasis to wage war against the State. The presence of a visibly marginalised population had been an appealing feature for Naxals in the 70s and Maoists in the 2000s to make the tribal hamlets as their post. Over the years, these disruptive elements could successfully limit all the problems of the Adivasis into one point — Land. The so-called emancipators and activists are careful to keep the anger focused on the State alone, thereby condoning the Christian settlers from Travancore. Bloody agitations as happened in Muthanga cannot be the road to the prosperity of the Adivasi folks. It can only reduce the number of already dwindling population and accelerate more turmoil.

Decentralised governance entrusting powers to the tribal chieftains and more rights over forests area without bureaucratic control would have been more beneficial for the Adivasi communities. A clear distinction between the Settlers and Tribals has to be made in administration by forming tribal village panchayats modelled out of the internal hierarchical system as practised by the tribes a century ago. Instead of uprooting the children from the family to send them to government residential schools under the Tribal developmental projects, facilitating education that shall be sensitive to the unique cultural heritage of the Adivasi communities would prove productive. Even the nutrition schemes do not focus on the peculiarities and traditional practices of the community. Here, the State and the NGOs act as the true heirs of the colonial mission. A total rethinking of the philosophies that guide the government’s approach towards tribal Development is essential to protect these unique inhabitants of the Western Ghats from the verge of extinction.

 

References:

  1. District Census Handbook — Wayanad; Census of India 2011
  2. Bijoy, C.R. (1999) Adivasis Betrayed: Adivasi Land Rights in Kerala. Economic and Political Weekly
  3. Bijoy, C.R. and Raman, K. R. (2003) Muthanga: the Real Story. Economic and Political Weekly
  4. Government of Kerala (2009), ―District Human Development Report;
  5. Marginalisation and immiseration of indigenous communities, Wayanad‖, State Planning Board, Trivandrum
  6. Philip RR, Vijayakumar K, Indu PS, Shrinivasa BM, Sreelal TP, Balaji J. Prevalence of undernutrition among tribal preschool children in Wayanad district of Kerala. Int J Adv Med Health Res.
  7. http://www.environmentportal.in/files/Health%20democracy.pdf
  8. https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/in-last-3-years-264-tribal-infants-die-in-wayanad-english-news-1.669021
  9. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/maternal-deaths-high-among-tribal-communities-in-wayanad-comptroller-and-auditor-general/articleshow/36488526.cms?from=mdr
  10. https://scroll.in/article/822538/in-wayanad-an-adivasi-marriage-tradition-at-odds-with-the-law-has-landed-many-men-in-jail

Note: This piece has been authored by Anjali George, who tweets at @IchBinGorg

(Feature Image Source – Wayanad.net)

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Woman abducted & raped for 2 years, threatened with death if she did not convert to Islam

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HinduPost Desk
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Raped and Forced to Convert to Islam Teacher tries to Rape Raped a Patient French Woman Molested Raped Minor Girl Gang-Raped held captive and raped

A chilling case of abduction, illegal confinement and rape for 2 years of a Hindu woman has been reported from Rahuri in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra.

As per the victim’s police complaint, one Muzaffar Latif Patel accosted her on the street and threatened to kill her father if she did not do as he said. He then forcefully took her to the house of a woman, Gulshan Sheikh, where the victim was held captive for 2 years and raped multiple times by Muzaffar Patel.

Gulshan Sheikh threatened her to convert to Islam and marry Muzaffar Patel, else the victim and her father would be shot dead and their bodies burnt with petrol. Somehow, the woman managed to escape and reach the police station.

Ruhari police has registered a case and arrested both Muzaffar Patel and Gulshan Sheikh. Further investigation is in progress.

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Imran Khan threatens more suicide bombings in Kashmir; ducks question about Uighur Muslims

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Vikram
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Imran Khan

Pakistan PM Imran Khan, an ex-cricketer & darling of many in the Lutyens’ Delhi circuit, has issued a brazen threat that Bharat would see more suicide bombings like the Pulwama attack. He was speaking in the Pakistani Parliament after Bharat amended its Constitution to fully integrate the state of Jammu & Kashmir with the rest of the country.

This is probably the first instance where an elected head of state has openly called for suicide terror attacks.

In February this year, a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) suicide bomber had struck a CRPF convoy in Pulwama, killing 44 soldiers in cold blood. JeM is a Pakistani ISI-backed terror organization led by the notorious Maulana Masood Azhar.

In a video recorded before the attack & subsequently released by JeM, the suicide bomber can be seen spewing Islamist hate towards Hindus & claiming that such attacks will finally lead to Ghazwatul-Hind (an Islamic prophesy about Muslim conquest of Bharat).

Imran Khan had denied any Pakistani involvement in the Pulwama attack, despite Jaish-e-Mohammed openly claiming credit for the bombing. Such irresponsible rhetoric from Pakistan is not new, but is increasingly being mouthed openly by senior figures. In October last year, a retired Pakistani General had suggested Kashmiri youth to carry out suicide bombings in Kashmir to ‘teach India a lesson.’

Days after the Pulwama attack, Pakistan’s federal minister for Railways had crudely threatened Bharat with nuclear holocaust to ward off a retaliatory strike for the suicide bombing. Not falling for such blackmail, Bharat retaliated with an air attack on a JeM terror training camp deep inside Pakistani territory, eliminating dozens of jihadis.

Tariq Pirzada, a Pakistani security analyst who is also frequently seen on Indian TV news debates, also called for Hindu genocide on live TV when he stated “Kashmiri Muslims must immediately kill any Hindu who settles in Kashmir.”

Calls for Jihad over Kashmir, quiet as a mouse over Uighurs

But while the entire Pakistani establishment is frothing at the mouth over Kashmir, they are eerily silent about the treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province of China.

Over a million Uighur Muslims have been detained in ‘re-education’ camps where they are indoctrinated to denounce their Islamic beliefs and embrace the ideology of the Communist Party. The camps were started by China to quell the Islamic separatist movement in the region, but some detainees who escaped abroad have narrated horrific tales of torture and abuse.

Yet, Pakistan and other Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, UAE, Qatar were part of a group of 37 countries that signed a letter backing China’s treatment of Uighurs in the Xinjiang region, and even praised China’s “remarkable achievements in the field of human rights.”

China has used its ‘debt trap’ growth model to bring several smaller nations under its sphere of influence, and Pakistan especially is increasingly looking like a Chinese colony. Moreover, Pakistan’s international isolation and reputation as ‘Terroristan’ – the epicentre for global Islamic terror – has made it more beholden to China.

Hence, it is no surprise that when Imran Khan was recently questioned by a foreign correspondent on his thoughts about China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims, he could only come up with a lame, “I do not know much about the Uighur Muslim situation.”

So the lesson for Bharat is that it must continue calling the bluff of Islamist bullies like Pakistan, and now turn its focus on the traitors within who have peddled Pakistani propaganda for decades under the guise of peace & secularism.

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A Very Brief History of Bharatiya Science

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Truth_Hindu_Dharma_Sat_hinduism

The annual Indian Science Congress, which just concluded, had its usual share of controversies about history of Bharatiya science and I have been asked to weigh in. It so turns out that I did precisely that in a brief account titled “Science” for Stanley Wolpert’s Encyclopedia of India(2005) and since that is freely available online, I shall be more selective of themes in this revision of the previous essay. This account does not include the modern period for which many excellent histories exist.

Bharatiya archaeology and literature provide considerable layered evidence related to the development of science. The chronological time frame for this history is provided by the archaeological record that has been traced, in an unbroken tradition, to about 8000 BCE. Prior to this date, there are records of rock paintings that are considerably older.

The earliest textual source is the Ṛgveda, which is a compilation of very ancient material. The astronomical references in the Vedic books recall events of the third or the fourth millennium BCE and earlier. The discovery that Sarasvati, the preeminent river of the Ṛgvedic times, went dry around 1900 BCE, if not earlier, suggests that portions of the Ṛgveda may be dated prior to this epoch.

The third millennium urbanization is characterized by a very precise system of weights and monumental architecture using cardinal directions. Bharatiya writing (the so-called Indus script) goes back to the beginning of the third millennium BCE, but it has not yet been deciphered. However, statistical analysis shows that the later historical script called Brahmi evolved from this writing.

Laws and cosmology

The Vedic texts assert that the universe is governed by ṛta (laws) and that consciousness transcends materiality. The universe is taken to be infinite in size and infinitely old. By the time of the Purāṇas, other worlds were postulated beyond our solar system.

It is asserted that language (as a formal system) cannot describe reality completely and linguistic descriptions suffer from paradox. Because of this limitation, reality can only be experienced and never described fully. Knowledge was classified in two ways: the lower or dual अपरा; and the higher or unified परा. The seemingly irreconcilable worlds of the material and the conscious were taken as aspects of the same transcendental reality.

The texts present a tripartite and recursive view of the world. The three regions of earth, space, and sky are mirrored in the human being in the physical body, the breath (prāṇa), and mind. The processes in the sky, on earth, and within the mind are assumed to be connected. This connection is a consequence of a binding (bandhu) between various inner and outer phenomena and it is because of this binding that it is possible to know the world.

There is evidence of the knowledge of biological cycles and awareness that there exist two fundamental rhythms in the body: the 24 hour related to the sun, and the 24 hour and 50 minute related to the period of the moon (the moon rises about 50 minutes later every day). This knowledge is not surprising since monthly rhythms, averaging 29.5 days, are reflected in the reproductive cycles of many marine plants and those of animals.

The Ṛgveda 10.90 speaks of these connections by saying that the moon was born of the mind and the sun was born of the eyes of the cosmic self:

candramā mana’so jātaḥ | cakṣoḥ sūryo’ ajāyata | RV 10.90.13

The connection between the outer and the inner cosmos is seen most strikingly in the use of the number 108 in Bharatiya religious and artistic expression. It was known that this number is the approximate distance from Earth to the sun and the moon, in sun and moon diameters, respectively. This number was probably obtained by taking a pole of a certain height to a distance 108 times its height and discovering that the angular size of the pole was the same as that of the sun or the moon. It is a curious fact that the diameter of the sun is also approximately 108 times the diameter of Earth.

This number of dance poses (karaṇas) given in the Nāṭya Śāstra is 108, as is the number of beads in a japamālā. The distance between the body and the inner sun is also taken to be 108, and thus there are 108 names of the gods and goddesses. The number of marmas (weak points) in Āyurveda is 107, because in a chain 108 units long, the number of weak points would be one less.

Ancient Bharatiya views of the universe are more subtle than the corresponding Western views.

Physical laws and motion

The history of Bharatiya physics goes back to Kaṇāda (कणाद) (~ 600 BCE) who asserted that all that is knowable is based on motion, thus giving centrality to analysis in the understanding of the universe.

Kaṇāda asserted that there are nine classes of substances: ether, space, and time, which are continuous, and four kinds of atoms two of which have mass and two that have little mass. A brilliant argument was given in support of this view.

Let the basic atoms of pṛthivī, āpas, tejas, and vāyu be represented by P, Ap, T, and V, respectively. Every substance is composed of these four kinds of atoms. Consider gold in its solid form; its mass derives principally from the P atoms. When it is heated, it becomes a liquid and therefore, there should be another kind of an atom already in gold which makes it possible for it to take the liquid form and this is Ap. When heated further it burns and this is when the T atom gets manifested. When heated further, it loses its mass ever so slightly, and this is due to the loss of the V atoms.

The atoms are eternal only under normal conditions, and during creation and destruction, they arise in a sequence starting with ākāśa and are absorbed in the reverse sequence at the end of the world cycle. The sequence of evolution of the elements is given as V→T→Ap→P. The V and T atoms have little mass (since they do not exist in a substantive form), whereas P and Ap atoms have mass. This sequence also hides within it the possibility of transformation from V and T atoms that are energetic to the more massive Ap and P atoms.

Kaṇāda also made a distinction between mind and the self, or consciousness. The conscious subject is separate from material reality but is, nevertheless, able to direct its evolution. He presented laws of motion and also spoke of invariants. He saw the atom to be spherical since it should appear the same from all directions.

The atoms combined to form different kinds of molecules that break up under the influence of heat. The molecules come to have different properties based on the influence of various potentials.

Bharatiya chemistry developed many different alkalis, acids, and metallic salts by processes of calcination and distillation, often motivated by the need to formulate medicines. Metallurgists developed efficient techniques of extraction of metals from ore.

Astronomy

We know quite a bit about how astronomical science evolved in Bharat. The Yajurvedic sage Yājñavalkya knew of a ninety-five-year cycle to harmonize the motions of the sun and the moon, and he also knew that the sun’s circuit was asymmetric. The second millennium BCE text Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa of Lagadha went beyond the earlier calendrical astronomy to develop a theory for the mean motions of the sun and the moon. An epicycle theory was used to explain planetary motions.

Given the different periods of the planets, it became necessary to assume yet longer periods to harmonize their cycles. This led to the notion of mahāyugas and kalpas with periods of billions of years.

The innovations of the division of the circle into 360 parts and the zodiac into 27 nakṣatras and 12 rāśis took place first in Bharat. The schoolbook accounts of how these innovations first emerged in Mesopotamia in the 7th century BCE and then arrived in Bharat centuries later are incorrect.

The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa which was compiled soon after the Vedas says: “The sun strings these worlds [the earth, the planets, the atmosphere] to himself on a thread. This thread is the same as the wind…” This suggests a central role to the sun in defining the motions of the planets and ideas such as these must have ultimately led to the theory of expanding and shrinking epicycles.

Astronomical texts called siddhāntas begin appearing sometime in the first millennium BCE. According to the tradition there were eighteen early siddhāntas, of which only a few have survived. Each siddhānta is an astronomical system with its own constants. The Sūrya Siddhānta speaks of the motion of planets governed by “cords of air” that bind them, which is a conception like that of the field.

The great astronomers and mathematicians include Āryabhaṭa (b. 476), who took Earth to spin on its own axis and who spoke of the relativity of motion and provided outer planet orbits with respect to the sun. This work and that of Brahmagupta (b. 598) and Bhāskara (b. 1114) was passed on to Europe via the Arabs. The Kerala School with figures such as Mādhava (c. 1340–1425) and Nīlakaṇṭha (c. 1444–1545) came up with new innovations of analysis based on advanced mathematics.

Evolution of Life

The Sāṅkhya system speaks of evolution both at the levels of the individual as well as the cosmos. The Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas have material on creation and the rise of humankind. It is said that man arose at the end of a chain that began with plants and various kind of animals.

In Vedic evolution the urge to evolve into higher forms is taken to be inherent in nature. A system of an evolution from inanimate to progressively higher life is assumed to be a consequence of the different proportions of the three basic attributes of the guṇas (qualities): sattva (“truth” or “transparence”), rajas (activity), and tamas (“darkness” or “inertia”). In its undeveloped state, cosmic matter has these qualities in equilibrium. As the world evolves, one or the other of these becomes preponderant in different objects or beings, giving specific character to each.

Geometry and Mathematics

Bharatiya geometry began very early in the Vedic period in altar problems, as in the one where the circular altar is to be made equal in area to a square altar. The historian of mathematics, Abraham Seidenberg, saw the birth of geometry and mathematics in the solution of such problems. Two aspects of the “Pythagoras” theorem are described in the texts by Baudhāyana and others. Problems are often presented with their algebraic counterparts. The solution to planetary problems also led to the development of algebraic methods.

Binary numbers were known at the time of Piṅgala’s Chandaḥśāstra. Piṅgala, who might have lived as early as fourth century BCE used binary numbers to classify Vedic meters. The knowledge of binary numbers indicates a deep understanding of arithmetic.

The sign for zero within the place value decimal number system that was to revolutionize mathematics and facilitate development of technology appears to have been devised around 50 BCE to 50 CE. Bharatiya numerals were introduced to Europe by Fibonacci (13th century) who is now known for a sequence that was described earlier by Virahaṅka (between 600 and 800), Gopāla (prior to 1135) and Hemacandra (~1150 CE). Nāryāna Paṇḍit (14th century) showed that these numbers were a special case of the multinominal coefficients.

Bharata’s Nāṭya Śāstra has results on combinatorics and discrete mathematics, and Āryabhaṭa has material on mathematics including methods to solve numerical problems effectively. Later source materials include the works of Brahmagupta, Lalla (eighth century), Mahāvīra (ninth century), Jayadeva, Śrīpati (eleventh century), Bhāskara, and Mādhava. In particular, Mādhava’s derivation and use of infinite series predated similar development in Europe, which is normally seen as the beginning of modern calculus. Some scholars believe these ideas were carried by Jesuits from Bharat to Europe and they eventually set in motion the Scientific Revolution.

A noteworthy contribution was by the school of New Logic (Navya Nyāya) of Bengal and Bihar. At its zenith during the time of Raghunātha (1475–1550), this school developed a methodology for a precise semantic analysis of language. Navya Nyāya foreshadowed mathematical logic and there is evidence that it influenced modern machine theory.

Grammar

Pāṇini’s grammar Aṣṭādhyāyī (Eight chapters) of the fifth century BCE provides four thousand rules that describe Sanskrit completely. This grammar is acknowledged to be one of the greatest intellectual achievements of all time. The great variety of language mirrors, in many ways, the complexity of nature and, therefore, success in describing a language is as impressive as a complete theory of physics.

Scholars have shown that the grammar of Pāṇini represents a universal grammatical and computing system. From this perspective, it anticipates the logical framework of modern computers.

Medicine

Āyurveda, the Bharatiya medicine system, is a holistic approach to health that builds upon the tripartite Vedic approach to the world. Health is maintained through a balance between three basic humors (doṣa) of wind (vāta), fire (pitta), and water (kapha). Each of these humors had five varieties. Although literally meaning “air,” “bile,” and “phlegm,” the doṣas represented larger principles. Its division of states into three categories rather than two is more efficient than the binary division of other medicine systems.

Caraka and Suśruta are two famous early physicians. According to Caraka, health and disease are not predetermined, and life may be prolonged by human effort. Suśruta defines the purpose of medicine to cure the diseases of the sick, to protect the healthy, and to prolong life. The Saṃhitās speak of organisms that circulate in the blood, mucus, and phlegm. In particular, the organisms in the blood that cause disease are said to be invisible. It is suggested that physical contact and sharing the same air can cause such diseases to spread. Inoculation was practiced for protection against smallpox.

Bharatiya surgery was quite advanced. The caesarian section was known, as was plastic surgery, and bone setting reached a high degree of skill. Suśruta classified surgical operations into eight categories: incision, excision, scarification, puncturing, probing, extraction, evacuation and drainage, and suturing. Suśruta lists 101 blunt and 20 sharp instruments that were used in surgery. The medical system tells us much about the Bharatiya approach to science. There was emphasis on observation and experimentation.

Mind and consciousness

Vedic deities represent cognitive centers. It is asserted that parā-vidyā or ātma-vidyā (science of consciousness) cannot be described in words or design. In the Śrī-yantra, which is a representation of the cosmos, consciousness (Śiva) is shown as an infinitesimal dot in the middle.

The interaction between matter and consciousness is postulated in terms of an observation process called dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi (creation through observation), which is consistent with a world governed by laws. In the orthodox interpretation of quantum theory, consciousness is a separate category as in Vedanta.

Modern scientific subjects like physics, computer science, and neuroscience have been unable to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Philosophy cannot reconcile our sense of freedom and agency with the framework of machine-like laws. In physical theory there is no place for the observer, computer science cannot explain how awareness arises in the brain machine, and neuroscience has not found any neural correlate of consciousness.

At the same time, the very association of information with physical systems as is done using entropy implies postulation of consciousness. So the use of the reductionist method in the analysis of consciousness has hit a wall.

Indian texts assert that the phenomenon of consciousness cannot be studied directly as a material property. Their analysis of consciousness using indirect methods may very well be relevant for further progress of this question in contemporary science.

Scientific speculations and more

Bharatiya thought is unique in the breadth and scope of its scientific speculations that are scattered within its high literature. These range from airplanes (Rāmāyaṇa) to weapons that can destroy the world (Mahābhārata), and to the most astonishing abstract ideas in a text called Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha.

Many texts speak of the relativity of time and space — abstract concepts that developed in the scientific context just a hundred years ago. The Purāṇas describe countless universes and time flowing at different rates for different observers.

The Mahābhārata has an account of an embryo divided into one hundred parts each becoming, after maturation in a separate pot, a healthy baby; this is how the Kaurava brothers are born. There is also mention of a conception in one womb transferred to another: this is how Balarāma is a brother to Krishna although he was born to a different mother. This Epic has a major section on battle with a space ship whose occupants wear airtight suits (Saubha Parva). Are these to be seen as an early form of science fiction?

Universes defined recursively are described in the famous episode of Indra and the ants in Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa. Here Viṣṇu in the guise of a boy, explains to Indra that the ants he sees walking on the ground have all been Indras in their own solar systems in different times. These flights of imagination are more than a straightforward generalization of the motions of the planets into a cyclic universe.

The context of modern science fiction is clear: it is the liberation of the earlier modes of thought by the revolutionary developments of the 20th century science and technology. But how was science fiction integrated into the mainstream of Bharat’s literary tradition over two thousand years ago? What was the intellectual ferment in which such sophisticated ideas arose?

Conclusion

Concluding, Bharat’s civilization valued science and knowledge above all and some of the most extraordinary scientific advances took place there. These include the earliest astronomy, geometry, number theory, the Bharatiya numeral system, the idea of physical laws and invariance, the earliest formal system to describe a complex natural phenomenon (as in Pāṇini’s computer program-like grammar that was not rivaled for 2,500 years), a very subtle Yoga psychology, and the idea of immunization in medicine.

This creativity did not end with the ancient period. For Bharat’s continuing relevance in the world of science, see The Indian foundations of modern science.

-By Shri Subhash kak

(This article was first published on medium.com on January 12, 2019 and has been reproduced here with one minor change – references to ‘India’ have been replaced with ‘Bharat’.)

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Hindu Professor’s Muslim wife abducted by his in-laws, after he refuses to convert to Islam

By
HinduPost Desk
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A Hindu professor in Bengal’s Durgapur said that his Muslim wife, also a professor, was abducted by his in-laws soon after their marriage. His wife has currently been detained at her paternal home in Haroa, Basirhat sub-division, North 24 Parganas district.

As per reports, Soumik Das, assistant professor at National Institute of Technology (NIT) Durgapur, alleged that his in-laws were opposed to their marriage since they are from different religions, and they have threatened  him to either convert to Islam or divorce his wife else he would be murdered.

The couple had registered their marriage on July 23 under the Special Marriage Act of 1954, which allows people from two different religious backgrounds to marry. Soumik’s wife, Sahanara Khatun, is an assistant professor at a women’s college at Dumdum, in the northern fringes of Kolkata.

Das wrote to Hindu human rights organization Singha Bahini on July 31, the day after he found Sahanara missing, seeking their help. In his letter he said that on July 30, when his wife came out of their residence at the NIT campus for shopping, she was abducted by her in-laws.

Interestingly, Singha Bahini President Devdutta Maji in a tweet stated that the abductors have also given an option to Soumik to meet with Basirhat MP Nusrat Jahan, to resolve the matter. 

On August 2, he lodged a complaint with Durgapur police station in West Burdwan district. The police registered a case for kidnapping, abduction and wrongfully confinement and criminal intimidation against Usman Ilias (Das’s brother-in-law) and Bacchu (brother-in-law of Sahanara Khatun).

As per the Hindustan Times report –

“She is at her parent’s house. When we contacted her, she told us she would tell a court whatever she had to say,” said Goutam Talukdar, officer-in-charge of Durgapur police station,

“I had approached Singha Bahini because they had earlier helped rescue some married women who were kidnapped by their family following inter-faith marriage,” Das said on Friday.

Singha Bahini president Devdutta Maji alleged that the family members of Sahanara Khatun were politically influential in Horoa area, around 200 km away from Durgapur.

“It is unfortunate that an adult is being forced against her will on the matter of choosing her life partner. We would try our best to put pressure on the police and administration,” Maji said.”

It is revealing that a Professor did not have enough confidence in the West Bengal police to contact them right away, and instead chose to go to a non-Government body with his plea. It just shows how discredited the police stands in front of the Bengali people today, who view it as a thoroughly politicized, ineffective force which dances to the tunes of ruling TMC’s Muslim appeasement policies.

While the entire liberal class of the country and self-styled social reformist celebrities like Aamir Khan had taken up cudgels over the Rizwanur Rahman-Priyanka Todi case, it remains to be seen whether any of them will utter even one word for Soumik Das & Sahanara Khatun?

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