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Archive for category HEROES OF PAKISTAN

OUR SALUTE TO BRAVE SON OF PAKISTAN: Sepoy Bashir, Who?

Sepoy Bashir, Who?

Posted date: May 01, 2014

By Sohail Parwaz

Today is ‘Youm-e-Shuohda’ (Martyrs’ Day). It should have been a day to be treasured, honoured and feted by the whole nation but regrettably it has generally been restricted to the cantonments, military graveyards and to those hundreds of sacred houses to whom these daring sons of the soil belonged.  I often say that one forgets everyday talk but decent and austere words spoken can never be forgotten. A long time back, a renowned ecclesiastic from a religious party released a statement to the press that since the army failed to deliver the goods, it obligated him to refer to the army as a force of horses and goats. That worthy politician might have forgotten that what he said back in September 1998 because he and others from his political clique only issue statements just to cash in on the prevailing state of affairs and their severity.

Since the last many days, I am watching clips and chunks of military and ISI bashing by solely one channel who started a well-planned vicious campaign against the defenders of the nation soon after the ‘attack’ on one of his anchorperson. The channel acted as the complainant, investigator and  judge at the same time and within one hour of that mysterious attack, declared ISI as the culprit.

I was seriously thinking that if all those elements that would do army bashing, have links with alien intelligence agencies, promote foreign culture, get on-record funding from their masters would be considered as patriots, then sepoy Bashir’s patriotism and devotion was likely to be questioned! Some of us don’t even know who sepoy Bashir was. Sepoy Bashir, airman Abbas, sailor Saleem and a large number of others like them would silently lay down their lives for their beloved country. Sepoy Bashir was posted at one of the Siachen posts under adverse climatic conditions and minus 40 degrees temperature. Let it be very clear that neither was he manning the post merely for a few bucks of an uncertain economy, nor did anyone force him to go to the lonely haunted heights. After all, he also had a heaven-like small dwelling back in his village, where his aged parents, loving wife and darling kids would wait for him to come back. He would also love to slip into a cozy bed; however, he left all these basic charms of a peaceful life and preferred to defend the geographical boundaries of his country. During the freezing winter nights he would remain awake just to ensure that we could enjoy sweet dreams, nevertheless, we never bothered to know who sepoy Bashir was since it wasn’t required. After all he was our ‘paid servant’, a ‘watchman’ whom we hired to remain awake and guard the border posts.

Sepoy Bashir would often come to his ancestral place on leave. Usually, he would come to the village on a tonga and the respect and importance he would earn by the villagers on his arrival was far more precious for him than that petty pay he would get on every first day of the month, but last time he came back on a military truck with his coffin wrapped in the national flag. Bashir was laid to rest amidst our ignorance. Not for a second he thought that who would look after his aging parents? How his beloved wife Nooran would survive without him and would tolerate the torturing loneliness? Who would play with little Manzoor and innocent Bushra? The fact is that Bashir napped and he kipped for good.

No one of us ever bothered to know who he was; instead, our political pals are showing lost sleep for a channel that is openly maligning the sacred national institutions and the added salt to the injury is the word of support by our enemies in that specific channel’s favour. I am failed to understand that why our political elite is afraid to display support for sepoy Bashir and others, who despite having arms in their hands would never kill any innocent person? Why are these politicians reluctant to vouch for the sacrifices of our national heroes? Unfortunately, they lack courage and yet claim to be our leaders. If they really consider these sons of the soil as horses, sheep and goats, then let me assure them that these horses are far better than the disgraceful mules of the political showground.

These so called Pakistanis who utter venomous remarks for the motherland and spread hatred for Pakistan around, have got nothing to lose because tomorrow when the custodians of the land will not remain then these snakes will go and settle themselves into the lap of our adversaries, leaving behind you and me to face the wrath of antagonists. I would not ask them a question; instead, I would like to pose it to you, that if those who are challenging the state’s writ, threaten to bully the nation and harm the sovereignty of the country are acknowledged as heroes, then what is the status of sepoy Bashir, Sepoy Maqbool, Havildar Aslam and hundreds of other martyrs and ghazis of the 1948, 1965, 1971 wars and the Kargil conflict?

Will somebody please tell me?

 

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SSG Contingent in China | Pakistan – China Joint Military Exercise (YOUYI-3) , July 11,2010

 

CHINA-BEIJING-PAKISTAN-XU QILIANG-MEETING(CN)

Xu Qiliang(R), vice chairman of Central Military Commission of China, meets with Khalid Shameem Wynne, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of Pakistan, in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 31, 2013. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

 

BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) — China’s Vice Chairman of Central Military Commission Xu Qiliang met with Khalid Shameem Wynne, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of Pakistan, in Beijing on Saturday.

During the meeting, the two generals pledged to further boost military cooperation between the two countries.

Xu said China and Pakistan are good neighbors, good friends, good partners and good brothers, and the practical military-to-military cooperation will not only benefit the two countries, but also help to safeguard peace and stability in the region.

Hailing the traditional friendship and the smooth development of the military ties between the two countries, Wynne said he looks forward to more exchanges and cooperation between the two militaries to address challenges with joint efforts.

On Friday, Wynne and his Chinese counterpart Fang Fenghui co-chaired the 10th China-Pakistan defense and security consultation in Beijing.

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GODMEN : Life At An Austin Ashram, A First-Person Account: The author of Sex, Lies and Two Hindu Gurus shares her experiences

GODMEN
Life At An Austin Ashram, A First-Person Account
The author of Sex, Lies and Two Hindu Gurus shares her experiences
 

In 1991, American writer Karen Jonson wasn’t in love and was in a dead-end job when she joined an ashram, the Jagad­guru Kripalu Parishat (JKP) in Austin, Texas, attrac­ted by local guru Prakashanand Sara­swati’s talks “about god and loving god”. The JKP proclaims the divi­nity of Kripaluji Maharaj. In the beginning, she was happy to be among a group of people who had the same feeling and purpose, picking green beans by the moonlight, cooking meals, acting in skits. After living in the ashram for 15 years, she quit in 2008, three years before Prakashanand was found guilty on 20 counts of child sex abuse. Jonson published a tell-all book, Sex, Lies and Two Hindu Gurus, which JKP followers dismiss as a ‘Christian conspiracy’. Here Jonson tells Debarshi Dasgupta how her spiritual quest went awry:

 

In hindsight, I always had some small doubts about both Kripalu and Prakash. But I had no proof of anything. I was also very religious and wanted to believe what they were telling us, about achieving God realisation and becoming a gopi in divine Vrindavan. All we had to do was ‘surrender’ to them, they said. So I tried really hard to do that, and whenever I stumbled, I believed it was because of my own lack of devotional qualities. So whenever I had doubts, I would push them back into the corners of my mind.

But the major onset of scepticism occurred when Kripalu was arrested in Trinidad for raping a young woman in May 2007. It was while he was on a ‘world tour’ that year for a few months. He had just spent about four weeks in the JKP ashram in Austin where I had lived full-time since April 1993. His plan was to go to Trinidad, then Canada, then come back to Austin.

Some uncomfortable events took place when he was in the Austin ashram, called Barsana Dham at the time (the name was changed to Radha Madhav Dham later, after Prakashanand fled to Mexico on his own cases becoming public). For the first time ever, I was invited to Kripalu’s bedroom to perform a secret ritual they called ‘charan seva’. I had never heard of it before. But I later learned that many of the women in JKP’s ashrams participated in this ritual, which took place several times every day at specific times.

During this ritual, 5-6 women are brought into the guru’s bedroom. He is lying on his back in the middle of his bed on several pillows with his arms and legs spread out. The women each climb up on his bed and kneel near one part of his body, the thigh, calf and feet. (At that time, one foot was not available for massaging due to an injury, which I later learned was tuberculosis that had gone into his bone.) We had been instructed to “press him very hard.” So we just pressed hard on whatever body part we had.

My first time was his left thigh. The room is very dark so it was hard to see what else was going on. Also, my attention was very focused on massaging him correctly, as instructed. While pressing him as hard as I could, his hand reached down to mine and tried to nudge my hand up to his groin. At the time, I naively thought he wanted me to massage him higher on his thigh, so I tried, but there was really nowhere else to go. He nudged me again. And again I went a tiny bit higher, but that was it. Then it was over and we were told to leave. “Jao!”

I had four more pressing sessions. In two, nothing that I know of happened. But then I wasn’t really expecting anything. But one time, when I was on the left thigh again, I saw movement on his groin from the opposite side. While focusing on my pressing, I also kept glancing over. It looked like another woman, who I knew, was massaging his penis. I really could not believe my eyes. I kept glancing, but was in shock. But I now knew that is exactly what was happening.

 

 
 
 
  That’s when I started putting together pieces of the puzzle—including my past doubts and experiences in ‘charan seva’.  
 
 
 

Another time I was on his left calf, and out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement. When I glanced up, I saw that Kripalu’s hand was up the woman’s blouse. I knew this woman too. Again I was in shock. Each of these three times, I tried not to think about the incidents. I still tried to believe that Kripalu was God and that I could not understand God’s actions. Plus, with him in residence there is way too much work to do and no one gets enough sleep, so we are sleep-deprived every day. I was constantly exhausted trying to keep up with the brutal satsang schedule from 4 am to 10 pm. Plus the work we had to do. My job was baking “birthday cakes”. They offered a thing called a “birthday seva”, where an interested person paid US $2,500 for the privilege of having Kripalu acknowledge their birthday—even if it wasn’t the person’s birthday. I baked over 50 cakes in four weeks for this!

 

About a week after his arrest in Trinidad, one of the preachers gathered us together one night to inform us. After spinning the story in Kripalu’s favour (she didn’t use the word rape), she told us: “Do not go on the internet and read about this.” I think that was the exact moment I got my mind back under my own control and snapped out of my cult delusion. Because I decided that is exactly what I was going to do: I went online, typed in ‘Kripalu’ and ‘Trinidad’, and started reading. I was in complete shock.

That’s when I learned the truth. So many people from around the world were commenting on the real JKP and Kripalu. I just knew they were telling the truth. Everything. The sex, the money collection, the abuse. That’s when I started putting together pieces of the puzzle—including my past doubts and recent experiences during “charan seva”.

It took me a little more time to accept that Prakash was as bad as Kripalu, because I knew Prakash first and had hardly known anything about Kripalu until the fall of 1999. Prakash had stopped talking about him after Kripalu’s first arrest for raping two underage girls in India in the early 1990s (I joined in 1991). That case has never been resolved. He ‘reintroduced’ us to him in late 1999, saying he was the fifth jagadguru, an incarnation of Radha-Krishna and Chaitanya, and a lot of other fairy tales.

One day, I realised that Prakash had to be as bad as Kripalu, because he served him and brought us to him. Within a couple of months, I heard from the young women who had been molested by Prakash as children while living in the ashram.

I’m not sure why certain people calling themselves “gurus” in India are so popular among Indians. I don’t fully understand the beliefs, culture and history surrounding this relationship. I’ve been told by some of my Indian friends living in the US that to worship so blindly is an aberration of the traditional guru-disciple relationship. In fact, an Indian man living in Austin wrote a chapter in my book on that subject. He stressed that there should always be an element of verification on the student’s part. In other words, be sure the person is a true guru. But it seems that some people have completely abandoned this step.

I believe that conmen gurus don’t leave any room for verification. In my case, Kripalu and his preachers went out of their way to teach that it’s a sin to doubt the guru, question him or second-guess him. The only option is 100% unquestioning belief. I now know that this is a red flag. Only a cult would not want a person to use their reasoning mind to make an informed decision.

If a person stays in such a situation, well then they are just sitting ducks. This unquestioning attitude gives the conmen complete control and allows them to shape the followers’ minds anyway they choose. The conman has effectively stolen the individual’s personal power and used it for their own purposes, much like a vampire sucks a person’s blood to stay alive.

At the same time, they claim a kind of shield. Just before his arrest in Trinidad, one day at the Austin JKP temple, Kripalu said: “The actions of a saint may seem more worldly than the most worldly person’s actions. But you cannot judge them, because you are worldly and a saint is divine.” That’s the kind of thinking that gives a person a licence to kill. Very scary.

 

 

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HEROES OF INDEPENDENCE – A SON OF LAHORE: LALA LAJPAT RAI – The leading figure of ‪Lahore‬ in the freedom struggle

 
 
LALA LAJPAT RAI - The leading figure of #Lahore in the freedom struggle</p>
<p>Lala Lajpat Rai  (28 January 1865    17 November 1928)  was an Indian author and politician who is chiefly remembered as a leader in the Indian fight for independence from the British Raj.</p>
<p>After studying law at the Government College in Lahore, Lajpat Rai practiced at Hissar and Lahore. After joining the Congress Party and taking part in political agitation in the Punjab, Lajpat Rai was deported to Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), without trial, in May 1907. In November, however, he was allowed to return when the viceroy, Lord Minto, decided that there was insufficient evidence to hold him for subversion. Lajpat Rai  s supporters attempted to secure his election to the presidency of the party session at Surat in December 1907, but elements favouring cooperation with the British refused to accept him, and the party split over the issues.</p>
<p>During World War I, Lajpat Rai lived in the United States, but he returned to India in 1919 and in the following year led the special session of the Congress Party that launched the noncooperation movement. Imprisoned from 1921 to 1923, he was elected to the legislative assembly on his release. In 1928 he introduced the legislative assembly resolution for the boycott of the British Simon Commission on constitutional reform. Shortly thereafter he died, after being attacked by police during a demonstration.</p>
<p>On 30th October 1928, Simon commission visited Lahore. Naujwan Bharat Sabha led by Bhagat Singh organised big procession against it. Despite differences with Lala Lajpat Rai, the tallest leader of Punjab in freedom struggle, they requested him to lead the procession, which he agreed and led the procession. SSP Lahore police Scot ordered lathi charge, which was led by ASP Saunders, Lala Lajpat Rai was hit brutally and was wounded gravely.</p>
<p>In the evening rally he declared that every lathi on his body will prove kneel in the British colonialism  s Coffin. Lala Lajpat Rai died of his wounds on 17th November and Bhagat Singh and his comrades avenged his killing by shooting down Saunders on 17th December, exactly one month after in day light in front of SSP office Lahore, at the call given by C R Dass  s widow Basanti Devi.</p>
<p>Lala Lajpat Rai  s mother, Gulab Devi, died of TB in Lahore. In order to perpetuate her memory, Lala Lajpat Rai established a Trust in 1927 to build and run a TB Hospital for women reportedly at the spot where she had breathed her last.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 LALA LAJPAT RAI – The leading figure of ‪Lahore‬ in the freedom struggle Lala Lajpat
 
 Rai (28 January 1865 – 17 November 1928)
 
 
 was an Indian author and politician who is chiefly remembered as a leader in the Indian
 
fight for independence from
 
the British
 
Raj. After studying law at the Government College in Lahore, Lajpat Rai practiced at
 
Hissar and Lahore. After joining the Congress
 
Party and taking part in political agitation in the Punjab, Lajpat Rai was deported to
 
Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), without trial, in
 
May 1907. In November, however, he was allowed to return when the viceroy, Lord
 
Minto, decided that there was insufficient
 
evidence to hold him for subversion. Lajpat Rai’s supporters attempted to secure his
 
election to the presidency of the party
 
session at Surat in December 1907, but elements favouring cooperation with the British
 
refused to accept him, and the party split
 
over the issues. During World War I, Lajpat Rai lived in the United States, but he
 
returned to India in 1919 and in the following
 
year led the special session of the Congress Party that launched the noncooperation
 
movement. Imprisoned from 1921 to 1923,
 
he was elected to the legislative assembly on his release. In 1928 he introduced the
 
legislative assembly resolution for the boycott
 
of the British Simon Commission on constitutional reform. Shortly thereafter he died,
 
after being attacked by police during a
 
demonstration. On 30th October 1928, Simon commission visited Lahore. Naujwan
 
Bharat Sabha led by Bhagat Singh organised big
 
procession against it. Despite differences with Lala Lajpat Rai, the tallest leader of
 
Punjab in freedom struggle, they requested him
 
to lead the procession, which he agreed and led the procession. SSP Lahore police Scot
 
ordered lathi charge, which was led by
 
ASP Saunders, Lala Lajpat Rai was hit brutally and was wounded gravely. In the evening
 
rally he declared that every lathi on his
 
body will prove kneel in the British colonialism’s Coffin. Lala Lajpat Rai died of his
 
wounds on 17th November and Bhagat Singh and
 
his comrades avenged his killing by shooting down Saunders on 17th December, exactly
 
one month after in day light in front of
 
SSP office Lahore, at the call given by C R Dass’s widow Basanti Devi. Lala Lajpat Rai’s
 
mother, Gulab Devi, died of TB in Lahore.
 
In order to perpetuate her memory, Lala Lajpat Rai established a Trust in 1927 to build
 
and run a TB Hospital for women
 
reportedly at the spot where she had breathed her last.

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Beemar Wazeer Azam, Beemar Leadership!

 

 

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