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Posted by admin in Hindu India, HIndu Terrorism, Hindus Ignore Rape, MAKAAR HINDUS on August 24th, 2013
· “A summer of difficulties has dented India’s confidence, and a growing chorus of critics is starting to ask whether India’s rise may take years, and perhaps decades, longer than many had hoped.
· “There is a growing sense of desperation out there, particularly among the young”
· India’s growing economic worries are perhaps its most challenging.
· “I think things will get much worse before they get better,” said Sonal Varma, an India economist at Nomura Securities in Mumbai. “The government is between a rock and a hard place.”
· Unable to build or buy, India is becoming dangerously short of vital defense equipment, analysts say.
· “Many analysts say that India is unlikely to achieve prominence on the world stage until it reaches some sort of resolution with Pakistan of disputes that have lasted for decades over Kashmir and other issues.”
Courtesy: PTT Member-Maqsood Kayani
Posted by Rana Tanveer in Afghan -Taliban-India Axis, ANAY WALEY GHAZWA-I-HIND KAY JAANBAZ, GENOCIDE & DISCRIMINATION OF SIKHS IN INDIA, Hindu India, HIndu Terrorism, Hindus Ignore Rape, India, India Hall of Shame, INDIA'S HINDUISM, Makaar Dushman, Suppression of Women in Hindu India on August 17th, 2013
The Indian government tried to make this year’s Independence Day a special one, despite the country’s economic woes. That was never going to be easy, with the rupee continuing its long slide to record lows. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged the problems of India’s economy in his speech at the Red Fort, the Muslim-Mughal-era citadel in the center of Delhi. “Economic growth has slowed down at present, and we are working hard to remedy the situation,” Singh said as he marked the anniversary of the end of British rule in 1947.
In the days before the Aug. 15 holiday, the government tried to change the subject by publicizing some impressive military breakthroughs. The country activated the atomic reactor for its first Made-in-India nuclear submarine over the weekend, for instance, and followed that up with the launch of its first home-developed aircraft carrier. The 37,500-ton ship won’t actually be operational for several more years, so the debut seemed timed to provide a nice setup for Independence Day.
Then disaster struck. A day before the holiday, an explosion rocked a diesel-powered Indian navy submarine docked in Mumbai. The blast and the fire that followed left 18 Indian sailors dead. India is “deeply pained that we lost the submarine,” the Prime Ministers aid in his speech. “We pay homage to the brave hearts we have lost.”
At the same time that it was trying to use military wins to distract from the country’s economic problems, the government was trying to stem the currency’s weakness. Over the past few weeks, the finance ministry and the central bank have announced measures to prop up the rupee. The Reserve Bank of India yesterday cut the amount Indian companies can invest abroad: The limit had been 400 percent of a company’s net worth, but on Aug.14 the central bank lowered that to 100 percent.
The RBI also curtailed the amount of money Indians can send overseas: The annual limit had been $200,000, and the central bank cut that to $75,000. The central bank has also tried to make foreign-exchange deposits more attractive to local banks by exempting non-rupee deposits of Indians abroad from requirements to keep 4 percent in cash and invest 23 percent in government-approved securities.
The government is trying to discourage Indians from buying gold, too. The country is the world’s largest consumer of the glittery metal—and all the gold comes from abroad. That’s a major source of the country’s trade problems. Last month the government increased tariffs on gold and other precious metals while also increasing taxes on gold. Not everyone is impressed. In a report published on Aug. 14, HSBC (HBC) economist Leif Eskesen called the steps “a new set of plumbing measures” to curb oil, gold, and nonessential imports and open up for more external debt financing. “Will this be enough to fix the leaks?” he wrote. “We do not think so. Ultimately structural reform implementation is the solution.”
Einhorn is Asia regional editor in Bloomberg Businessweek’s Hong Kong bureau. Follow him on Twitter @BruceEinhorn.
Reference
Posted by qinsarfaraz in Hindu India, HIndu Terrorism, MAKAAR HINDUS on July 15th, 2013
Here was an Indian star that I thought no end of, one who symbolised the warm, calming hug her people badly needed after their bruising tryst with foreign rule and an even more lacerating struggle to win freedom.
That was Lata Mangeshkar. She could switch from a gentle morning pick-me-up in a Marathi ‘Bhoopali’ to a more nuanced love expressed in Persianised Urdu, linking two diverse strands of free India’s cultural mix. She could dredge out Ghalib’s soul with a purist’s diction and sway with Shakeel’s rustic verse in an eastern UP dialect for Dhanno in Ganga Jamuna with the gentlest inflection of her vocal cords.
Perhaps she was a born polyglot, I would think with admiration. How else could she deliver Iqbal’s Kabhi ae haqeeqat emuntazar with the swirl of a dervish?
‘When I bowed my forehead in supplication/the earth itself pleaded with me: /Your heart is riveted to an icon of stone/Why do you waste your time in namaaz?’
I have leaned on Iqbal’s complex lines, which Lata sang with uncluttered ease only to illustrate the romance she engendered in the halcyon days that came with independence.
Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi: what a team they made for a newly freed people. Their duets, so popular in Pakistan, in a sense defied the idea of Pakistan itself with their true notes. In some ways the duo single-handedly undid the communal damage that came with the partition, not just in India but in Pakistan too, where she remained a household favourite at the head of other great singers.
Then something snapped last week. In her moment of personal trauma, Lata Mangeshkar bared her heart. She revealed she felt orphaned by Bal Thackeray’s passing away, but she didn’t stop there.
She went on to describe the Shiv Sena chief as a “Hindu hriday samraat”, a ruler of Hindu hearts. We knew that it was how many of his admirers, his less intellectually gifted followers, shall we say, saw him.
People who knew her claimed that Lata Mangeshkar donated a sum of her earnings to the Shiv Sena. But all this was seen as a tithe decent folks often pay after 1992-1993 to keep nuisance at bay. But now she revealed she may have been a devout bhakta of Thackeray, the self-proclaimed fascist whose adulation of Hitler only matched his love for Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin.
Let’s leave alone his hatred of Muslims and of Pakistan. I thought a majority of people Thackeray hated were Hindus. They were Hindu Gujaratis, Hindu Biharis or their cousins from Uttar Pradesh, Hindu Tamils and others from South India, communists, Brahmins.
They were all Hindu, if they must be given that identity at all, but they were all targeted albeit selectively in different stages of the rise of the Shiv Sena. In one stroke Lata Mangeshkar had disowned millions of her ardent fans.
I am not even broaching Thackeray’s documented role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Did the singing diva of India, decorated with the country’s highest civilian honour, agree with the Ayodhya sacrilege? And did she get to read the Justice Shri Krishna Commission report on the anti-Muslim pogroms in Mumbai that followed the outrage in Ram’s birthplace? The killings, according to the report, were carried out by Thackeray’s foot soldiers, that she admires, in 1992-93. Is that what made her proud of the ruler of Hindu hearts?
Lata Mangeshkar has said she learnt some of the tricks of playback singing from listening to Noorjehan. They had a lot in common, including an army of followers that remained loyal to each, often to the exclusion of the other. They also sang for their armies, the real fighting ones.
And yet, as far as I can tell, Noorjehan would never have wooed religious fundamentalists, much less those who earn their keep from fomenting ill-will towards India. She wouldn’t have been a darling of Faiz if she had.
Thackeray of course had bigger fish to fry than playing The Godfather to his favourite admirer. He was a creature of India’s emerging consensus and that is the scarier part. It was his ability to cut across the political redlines, which anointed him as a more successful fascist than his other rightwing rivals have been shown to be.
Consider the grovelling and fawning news channels. And look at the grief writ on movie star Amitabh Bachchan’s face at Sunday’s funeral, or take corporate czar Anil Ambani who looked one of the most bereaved in the mêlée of Mumbai’s elite.
Both of them support the rightwing claimant to India’s top job, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and both have political associations that shore up the supposedly secular government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The fact is that Thackeray fulfilled corporate India’s need to suspend democracy if the going got tough and this would be done by a national consensus. He represented a militant, aggressive pro-market quest of the Indian state, one that can only be placated by bludgeoning its own people.
Every party needs to outdo the other in the bloody act. Lata Mangeshkar would appear to be a misfit in the gory denouement of India that Thackeray’s Shiv Sena revelled in. Else she could allow herself to beguile her fans with the siren call of fascism.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
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Posted by Rana Tanveer in GANDHI-THE HYPOCRITE, MAKAAR HINDUS on June 27th, 2013
Ii is well known that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the most trusted and the most loyal stooge of the British crown, served the British interest through his Satyagraha or the nonviolent freedom struggle. But most of the people of this country, who take him to be a man of high moral, do not know what short vile lechery he indulged in in the name of keeping Brahmacharys or celibacy, or in experimenting with the same. In 1903, when he was only 34 years old ( alternatively in 1906, when he was 37), or in other words, when he was at the zenith of his youth, he took a vow that he will observe celibacy and will remain a brahmachari for the rest of his life (D Keer, Mahatma Gandhi, pp-73)..
But the question remains, what made Gandhi, an extremely sensual man, to take such a vow? Gandhi was so sensual that when his father Karamchand was dying, he preferred to make love and have sex with his wife Kasturba in another room of the same house. So, when such a sensual Gandhi took vow to keep celibacy, one becomes suspicious that there must have been an evil intention behind that vow. Many believe that at that time, he developed some form of aversion towards Kasturba, an illiterate mother of three children, or in other words, he disliked to share bed with her. So, his intention was to abandon Kasturba as a sleeping partner in the name of keeping celibacy.
In 1882, when Mohandas was married to Kasturba, he was 13 and Kasturba was 14. While he was in South Africa, he came in contact with several educated and well bred women through his profession and Gandhi liked their company very much. From their company, Gandhi used to obtain a special kind of intellectual pleasure, which was not possible from Kasturba. At that time, more than a dozen women came very close to him and six of them were of Western origin. They were Graham Polak, Nilla Cram Cook, Madelline Slade (aka Miraben), Margarate Spiegel, Sonja Schlesin and Esther Faering (M V Kamath, Mahatma and Celibacy, Organiser, 2.7.2006). His closest Indian women were Srimati Prabhavati Devi (wife of Jaiprakash Narain), Kanchan Shah, Prema Ben Kantak, Sushila Nair (sister of Pyarelal), Manu Gandhi (wife of his grand-nephew Joysukhlal Gandhi), Ava Gandhi and Saraladevi Chaudhurani. This Saraladevi was a niece of the poet Rabindranath Tagore and her mother was Srimati Swarnakumari Devi (M V Kamath, ibid).
To narrate the affair between Gandhi and Saraladevi, Sri Girija Kumar says, “Saraladevi Caowdhurani came very close to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Their whirl wind romance lasted for barely two years, but it upset the balance of the Gandhian establishment and shook its very roots. She is now a part of history and a footnote in contemporary Gandhian literature. She, however, left a scar in the minds of Gandhiji for the rest of his life.” (Brahmacharya: Gandhi and his Women Associates, as quoted by M V Kamath, ibid.). Gandhi used to admit that his relation with Saraladevi went up to sexuality (Girija Kumar (1997), The Book on Trial: Fundamentalism and Censorship in India, Har-Anand Publishers. pp. 73-107).
Next to Saraladevi was Prabhavatidevi. While commenting on Gandhi’s affair with her, Girija Kumar writes, “Prabhavati became so obssessed with Gandhi that she would not tolerate separation from him even for a single day. …. Her hysteria was highest manifestation of her desperation. She would remain unconscious for hours together…”, (Brahmacharya: Gandhi and his Women Associates, as quoted by M V Kamath, ibid.). “In his own way, without, obviously meaning it, the Mahatma ruined many lives. It was only when he was jailed at the Agha Khan Palace that he came to be reconciled with Kasturba. And it was only after Gandhi died that Prabhavati came to live a normal life with her husband, until she died a premature death. Many detested Gandhi’s so-called ‘experiments’ with celibacy” (M V Kamath, ibid). In 1938, Prema Ben Kantak wrote Prasad and Diksha, narrating her sex life with Gandhi, which triggered a widespread uproar in Maharastra.
However, the entire episode of his sexual perversion in the name of experimenting with celibacy or brahmacharya after coming back to India in 1915 and setting up the Sabarmati Ashram. And as a consequence, Gandhi started naked display of sex with his women associated, in a big way. This obviously aroused commotion among the other members of the ashram. “The main reason behind this uproar was his double standard. While for other members, he declared strict law for renunciation of women, he kept himself above all such restrictions. As an excuse, he used to say that he was an ardhanariswar (or half man and half woman, the other name of Lord Shiva ) and hence devoid of any carnal desire” (Yashodhara Roychowdhuri, Bengali daily Ananda Bazar Patrika, 25.6.2006). To hoodwink the other members, he used to say that he was the mother of all and hence every women of the ashram were either his mother or a sister. He used to deceive others in another way. He used to say that whatever he was doing, he was doing according to the command of his “inner voice”, or, in other words, according to the command of the God and hence all his deeds were sacred.
Though, due to the above mentioned uproar by the other members of the ashram, Gandhi was compelled to stop his sexual activities for a time being. But that was only to resume it with a new enthusiasm in the name of experiments on celibacy and sleeping naked with several naked women on the same bed. At first, he and his women, though shared the same room but slept on different beds. But after a short while, naked Gandhi and his naked women companions started to share the same bed. He used to say that lying with so many naked women kept him warm and the practice was a type of naturopathy for him (Patricia Caplan (1987). The Cultural construction of sexuality, Routledge. pp. 278 & Parekh, Bhikhu C. (1999). Colonialism, Tradition and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi’s Political Discourse, Sage. pp-210 ). He also used to say that lying with so many naked women helped him a lot to assess his success in keeping celibacy, (Kumar, Girja (1997). The Book on Trial: Fundamentalism and Censorship in India, Har-Anand Publications. pp. 98, and Gandhi’s letter to G D Birla in April, April, 1945). It should be mentioned here that Gandhi considered his experiment a success if, despite such extraordinary provocation, his private part refused to erect.
Many will refuse to believe that, after Satyagraha (or nonviolence), sex was his second major subject of his articles and letters he wrote to his eulogists. He wrote a series of five articles of his experiments on celibacy, i.e. lying naked with so many naked women, which were later published in Harijan ( Kumar, Girja (1997). The Book on Trial: Fundamentalism and Censorship in India, Har-Anand Publications. Pp-98.). In the present context, it should also be mentioned that, in general, young and adolescent boys experience wet dream. When he was in South Africa, Gandhi had wet dream at least once in a month. But it is unbelievable that he had such an experience in Mumbai, when he was an old man of 67. This single incidence is more than enough to expose Gandhi’s sexual perversion. Moreover, Gandhi admitted that till his death, he failed to get rid of his sexual perversion (D Keer,ibid, p-678).
According to Gandhi, active-celibacy meant perfect self control in the presence of opposite sex. Gandhi conducted his experiments with a number of women such as Abha, the sixteen-year-old wife of his grandnephew Kanu Gandhi. Gandhi acknowledged “that this experiment is very dangerous indeed”, but thought “that it was capable of yielding great results” (Tidrick, Kathryn (2007). Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life. I.B.Tauris. pp. 302-304). Many believe that, in the name of active celibacy, he not only used those women, but as he never sought for consent of them, he committed sexual oppression on them. On the other hand, the victims had no other alternative but to endure all such oppressions silently (Yashodhara Roychowdhuri, Ananda Bazar Patrike, 25.6.2006).
While commenting on this aspect of Gandhi’s life, Acharya Vinoba Bhave, a real brahmachari and the most earnest follower of Gandhi, said, “There was no need for Gandhi to experiment with brahmacharya. In case Gandhi was a perfect brahmachari, he did not require his brahmacharya to be tested; and if he was an imperfect brahmachari, he should have avioded the experiments on principle” (M V Kamath, Organiser-2.7.2006). But Gandhi maintained that all his experiments yielded very good results (Tidrick, Kathryn (2007). Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life, I.B.Tauris. pp. 302-304).
It has been pointed out above that Gandhi conducted his experiments with a number of young women such as Abha, the sixteen-year-old wife of his grandnephew Kanu Gandhi. Another victim was 19 year-old Manu Gandhi, the daughter of his another grand-naphew Joysukhlal Gandhi. After making her a sleeping partner, Gandhi wrote to Joysukhlal that Manu had started to share his bed so that he may “correct her sleeping posture” ( Tidrick, Kathryn (2007). Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life, I.B.Tauris. pp.302-304.).
Gandhi went to Noakhali in December, 1946, and at that time Manu Gandhi was his sleeping partner. He used to say that at that time he was immensely benefitted by lying naked with naked Manu. And it helped him to assess the serious problems like Partition and the Hindu-Muslim amity. Gandhi used to say that he slept with Manu like her mother and Abha and Manu were his walking sticks. It should be mentioned here that at that time, Manu Gandhi was married and her husband’s name was Surendra Mashruwala. In March, 1945, Gandhi told the press reporters that lying with naked Abha and Manu, he achieved great success in his experiment on celibacy. “Previously I carried out similar experiments with Kasturba, but that did not yield so much” ( Tidrick, Kathryn (2007). Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life, I.B.Tauris. pp. 302-304.).
Obviously, Gandhi became the target of bitter criticism, even by his closest companions, due to his sexual perversion in the name of experiments on brahmacharya. One day his stenographer R P Parashuram, observing him lying naked with naked Manu Gandhi, submitted his resignation letter and left the ashram. Gandhi told him that he was at liberty to do whatever he wanted. He could remain at the ashram or go. (Kumar, Girja (1997). The Book on Trial: Fundamentalism and Censorship in India, Har-Anand Publishers. pp. 73-107).
Nirmal Kumar Basu was one of the closest associates of Gandhi and accompanied him during his Noakhali tour. There an incident took place on 17th December that turned Nirmal Kumar into a severe critique of Gandhi. On that night Gandhi was sleeping, as usual naked, with Manu Gandhi and Dr Sushila Nair. Sushila was a doctor and accompanied Gandhi to look after his healthy. Just before dawn, it appeared that something unusual was happening in the room where Gandhi was sleeping with Manu and Sushila. It was found that Gandhi was screaming in shrill voice and slapping his forehead.
Neither Manu nor Sushila had ever disclosed what happened on that fateful night. But it was not so difficult to guess. Most probably, Gandhi made sexual advances to Sushila and tried to rape an unwilling Sushila. She, on the other hand, prevented Gandhi and cried for help and that made Gandhi to scream out of frustration. After this incident, Nirmal Kumar decided to abandon Gandhi and he permanently left him on 18th March, 1947 (Ghose, Sankar (1991). Mahatma Gandhi, Allied Publishers. pp. 356, D Keer, p-759 & Yashodhara Roychowdhuri, ibid.).
Later on, Nirmal Kumar expressed his grievances through a letter. He wrote that, perhaps he, lying naked with several naked women, wanted to test whether that aroused his sexual passion. But, in fact, he was ruining the lives of his young women associates. It is a shame that we are still using the word Mahatma before the name of such a sexually pervert man.
Posted by Rana Tanveer in Cult of Hinduism, FILTHY PRACTICES OF INDIA & HINDUS, Hindu India, HIndu Terrorism, India Hall of Shame, MAKAAR HINDUS, NAXALITE FREEDOM FIGHTERS, NAXALITE FREEDOM MOVEMENT on June 3rd, 2013
Insurgencies do not emerge in a vacuum. Their underlying root causes are invariably to be found in political, socio-economic or religious domains, their nature and scope depending upon the nature of the grievances, motivations and demands of the people.
India has had its share of insurgencies. In all, an estimated 30 armed insurgency movements are sweeping across the country, reflecting an acute sense of alienation on the part of the people involved. Broadly, these can be divided into movements for political rights – e.g. Assam, Kashmir and Khalistan (Punjab), movements for social and economic justice – e.g. Maoist (Naxalite) and north-eastern states, and religious grounds – e.g. Laddakh. These causes overlap at times.
Wikipedia lists 16 belligerent groups and 68 major organization as terrorist groups in India, which include: nine in the northeast (Seven Sisters), four in centre & the east (including Maoist/Naxalites), seventeen in the west (Sikh separatist groups), and thirty eight in the northwest (Kashmir).
Political Causes
By the very nature of its population mix, one that began evolving thousands of years ago with waves of migrants pouring in from adjoining lands at different periods in history, South Asia has never been a homogenous society. The multiplicity of races, ethnicities, tribes, religions, and languages led to the creation of hundreds of sovereign entities all over the subcontinent ruled by tribal and religious leaders and conquerors of all sorts. Like Europe over the centuries, the map of South Asia also kept changing owing to internecine warfare.
One must remember that India in its entire history, until colonized by the British and united at gun point, was never a single nation, nor a united country. The numerous entities were in many cases territorially and population-wise much larger than several European countries, were independently ruled and qualified for nationhood by any modern standards.
During and after the colonial rule, such territorial entities were lumped together to form new administrative and political units – or states, without, in many cases, taking into account the preferences and aspirations of the people. For the people of these territories, which ranged from small fiefdoms to large princely states, and who had for centuries enjoyed independent existence, this administrative and political amalgam amounted to loss of identity and freedom and being ruled by aliens. The new dispensation – democracy, in many cases brought no political or economic advantage.
To complicate matters, hundreds of religious and ethnic groups, some of which are fiercely sectarian and independent in nature, found themselves passionately defending their religions, ethnicities, languages and cultures, at times clashing fiercely with rival groups, challenging even the writ of the state in the process. As the time passes, it is becoming clear that keeping a conglomerate of nationalities and sub-nationalities together as one nation would be an impossibility, given the absence of a common thread that could weave them together.
Thus the artificial nature of the modern state created by the British colonialists and adopted by post colonial India also triggers violent reactions in different hotspots.
Caste Based Social Discrimination
India’s caste system, which tears apart its social fabric and divides people into potential warring groups, is unique to that country, and has no place in the modern world. This sinister game has historically been played by the Brahmans in collaboration with the ruling class to their mutual benefit. The issue assumes more horrific dimensions when those who practice it among the Hindus insist that it is a divinely sanctioned concept and cannot be abrogated by humans. Even the anti-caste activist – Dr. Ambedkar, acknowledges that ‘to destroy caste, all the Hindu shastras would have to be done away with’.
The system confers on the ‘higher’ castes the absolute right to plunder the wealth of those belonging to the ‘lower’ caste or Dalits (or the ‘untouchables’). For over four thousand years, the system has been driven by the intense hatred and by the yearning of the ‘higher’ castes to accept nothing less than abject subservience from the ‘lower’ castes. Ironically, its defenders have argued that it has kept a sense of order and peace among the people and has prevented society from disintegrating into chaos.
Although dalits make up for the most part of Indian population, they have remained deprived of the benefits of the current economic boom. This is because of the barricades that bar them from having access to education, job opportunities and even state provided healthcare and food. They are forced into menial jobs, denied entry to temples, cremation grounds and river bathing points and cannot even share a barber with the upper caste Hindu. Punishments are severe when these boundaries are transgressed. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, 45 special types of ‘untouchability’ practices are common.
Despite the fact that the Indian Constitution has abolished it, this caste based discrimination continues because it has infiltrated into the Indian polity, serves the vested interests of a powerful minority and gives it a hold over a helpless majority in the name of religion and ancient social customs. It has even been glorified by M.K. Gandhi who is reported to have said that ‘caste is an integral part of Hinduism and cannot be eradicated if Hinduism is to be preserved’.
The mentality of hate this creates in the lower castes in an age when the concepts of socialism, awareness about human rights and equality and dignity of man are spreading fast, this ‘helpless majority’ has begun to resort to violence to overthrow this yoke. The Maoist/ Naxalite uprising in eastern India is just one case in point.
Economic Disparity
Of India’s population of 1.1 billion, about 800 million – more than 60% – are poor, many living on the margins of life, lacking some or all of the basic necessities. Despite its emergence as Asia’s third biggest economy, India has the highest illiteracy rate in the world – 70%, and the people lack adequate shelter, sanitation, clean water, nutrition, healthcare and job opportunities. The groups that are mostly left behind are minorities. There is a growing concern that unless this situation is addressed, the country will be torn apart by the despair and rage of the poor sooner or later.
Hindutva – The Hindu Political Philosophy Steeped in Prejudice
The so called nationalist philosophy – Hindutva, is actually a euphemistic effort to conceal communal beliefs and practices. Many Indian Marxist sociologues describe the Hindutva movement as fascist in classical sense, in its ideology and class support, methods and programs, specially targeting the concept of homogenized majority and cultural hegemony. Others raise issues with regards to sometimes-vacillating attitudes of its adherents towards non-Hindus and secularism.
Defining Hindutva, “The struggle for India’s Soul” (World Policy Journal, fall 2002) states that India is “not only the [Hindu] fatherland but also …. their punyabhumi, their holy land”. To Hindu extremists all others on this land are viewed as “aliens” who do not belong there.
Hindutva is identified as the guiding ideology of the Sangh Parivar, a family of Hindu nationalist organizations of which Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bajrang Dal and Vishva Hindu Parishad are part. Not part of Sangh Parivar, but closely associated with it, is Shiv Sena, a highly controversial political party of Maharashtra. The record of all these right wing radical parties in pursuing discriminatory policies towards minorities, particularly the Muslims, and engaging in their frequent massacres is no secret. This record alone is enough to show the true colors of Hindutvavadis (followers of Hindutva) and what Hindutva stands for.
Explaining the mindset of Shiv Sena, sociologist Dipankar Gupta says: “A good Hindu for the Shiv Sena is not necessarily a person well versed in Hindu scriptures, but one who is ready and willing to go out and attack Muslims … To be a good Hindu is to hate Muslims and nothing else.” This is borne out by the 2002 indiscriminate killings of Muslims in Gujarat for which Shiv Sena was held responsible.
The adherents of Hindutva demonise those who do not subscribe to that philosophy or are opposed to its pre-eminence and dub them anti-state or terrorists just as the Hindu scriptures in earlier times branded such people as rakshasas. As always, these groups have been ‘red in tooth and claw’ in violently resolving all their social, religious and political differences and killing, raping, burning and lynching those who show the audacity to stand up to them for their rights.
In 1947, these groups preferred violent upheaval and vivisection of India to sharing power with the Muslims and killed more people in communal violence, including Sikhs, Muslims, Christians and dalits than ever before in recent history. Citing ‘ekta and akhandata’ (unity and integrity) of India, they have refused to allow self rule to Sikhs (86%) in the Punjab, to Muslims (80%) in Kashmir, to Buddhists (90%) in Laddakh, to Christians in the North East of India and to the tribal population of central India.
It is this intolerance and bigotry that has generated alienation and hate among minorities, dalits and people of other faiths – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists. It lays the ground for angry and rebellious reaction among those who are targeted.
Insurgent Movements
Naxalites or Maoists: The Maoist Movement of Nepal, supported ironically by the Indian Government, came home to roost. Inspired by the Nepalese Maoist forest dwellers who took over and ruled their forests, the lowest of Indian forest dwellers of Naxalbari (West Bengal) – the ‘adivasis’, launched their own Maoist movement and took control of their forests too.
According to one of the legends that support India’s diabolical caste system, the adivasis were punished by the gods for killing a Brahmin (member of the highest caste – the 5% which more or less rules and controls India). As a punishment, the adivasis were expelled to live like animals in the forest and, like them, survive by preying on the weaker, owning nothing.
When huge mineral deposits were discovered in some of the forested areas, the authorities decided to relocate the adivasis in 1967. They refused. Having no other title, they did not want to give up what they held and this set in motion a cycle of resistance and reprisals, including rapes and murders by the powerful vested interests.
It is now recognised that exploitation of billions of dollars worth of mineral wealth of the central and eastern Indian tribal area by the capitalists without giving a share to the poorest of the poor forest dwellers whose home it has been for ages, lay at the root of the Maoist insurgency, modelled after the teachings of the great Chinese revolutionary leader.
These Maoists now inhabit an area known as the ‘Red Corridor’ that stretches from West Bengal to Karnataka state in the southwest. They are active across 220 districts in 20 states – about 40% of India’s geographical area. They also threaten to extend operations in major urban centers, including New Delhi. Indian intelligence reports say that insurgents include 20,000 armed men and 50,000 regular or fulltime organizers and mobilizers, with the numbers growing. In 2007 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged the growing influence of Maoist insurgency as “the most serious internal threat to India’s national security.”
The Seven Sisters: The seven states of northeastern India called the Seven Sisters are significantly different, ethnically and linguistically, from the rest of the country. These states are rocked by a large number of armed and violent rebellions, some seeking separate states, some fighting for autonomy and others demanding complete independence, keeping the entire region is a state of turmoil. These states include Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.
These states accuse New Delhi of apathy towards their issues. Illiteracy, poverty and lack of economic opportunities have fueled the natives’ demand for autonomy and independence. There also exist territorial disputes among states and tensions between natives and immigrants from other states which the governments have not attended to, accentuating the problems.
The Assam state has been the hotbed of active militancy for many years, ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) has been in the forefront of a liberation struggle since 1979, along with two dozen other militant groups, on the grounds of neglect and economic disparity. Over 10,000 people have lost their lives and thousand have been displaced during the last 25 years. The army has been unable to subdue the insurgents.
The divide between the tribals and non tribal settlers is the cause of the trouble in Meghalaya. Absence of effective governance gives rise to identity issues, mismanagement and growing corruption. Like other states in the region there is a demand for independence along tribal lines. The Achik National Volunteer Council has pursued since 1995 the formation of an Achik Land in the Caro Hills, whereas the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council seeks to free the state from Garo domination.
The Arunachal Dragon Force, also known as the East India Liberation Front, is a violent secessionist movement in the eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The ADF seeks to create an independent state resembling the pre-British Teola Country that would include area currently in Arunachal Pradesh as well as neighboring Assam.
Mizoram’s tensions have arisen largely due to the Assamese domination and the neglect of the Mizo people by India. In 1986, the main secessionist movement led by the Mizo National Front ended after a peace accord, bringing peace to the region. However, secessionist demands by some groups continue to insist on an independent Hmar State.
Nagaland was created in 1963 as the 16th state of Indian Union after carving it out of Assam. It happens to be the oldest of insurgencies of India (since 1947) and is believed to have inspired almost all others ethnic groups in the region, demanding full independence. The state is marked by multiplicity of tribes, ethnicities, cultures and religion. It is home to around 400 tribes or sub tribes and has witnessed conflicts, including infighting amongst various villages, tribes and other warring factions, most of them seeking a separate homeland comprising Christian dominated areas of Nagaland and certain areas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The area is rich in oil reserves worth billions and government efforts to strike deals with the rebel groups have yielded no results. Thousands have died since the insurgency began.
The struggle for the independence of Manipur has been actively pursued by several insurgent groups since 1964, some of them with socialist leanings, arising out of neglect by the state and central governments of the issues and concerns of the people. For lack of education and economic opportunities, many people have been forced to join these separatists groups. The disturbed conditions have only added to the sufferings of the general population. The controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (or AFSPA) has been extensively criticized, as it gives wide and unrestricted powers to the army, which invariably leads to serious violations of human rights.
It was the ethnic tensions between the Bengali immigrants after the 1971 war and the native tribal population in Tripura and the building of a fence by the government along the Bangladesh border that led to a rebellion in the 1970s. Very active insurgency now goes on amid very harsh living conditions for thousands of homeless refugees. The National Liberation Front of Tripura and the All Tripura Tiger Force demand expulsion of Bengali speaking immigrants.
Tamil Nadu: In the wake of their defeat by the Sri Lankan military in the Jaffna peninsula, the Tamil LTTE freedom fighters took refuge in the adjoining Tamil Nadu state of India, where on account of common ethnicity, religion, language and culture they mixed easily and enjoyed mass support for their cause. Overtime LTTE regrouped and recruited volunteers from amongst the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and the local population and began to amass weapons and explosives.
There is a strong anti-India and pro-secessionist sentiment in Tamil Nadu. Most people want independence from India despite sharing a common religion – Hinduism, with the rest of Hindu dominated India. Their argument: religion is not a binding force that can override other considerations, such as language, culture, ethnicity, people’s aspirations and an identity that entitles them to an independent existence. They argue that if Nepal can have an independent existence as a Hindu state right next to India why can’t Tamil Nadu? And they argue that one religion does not necessarily translate into one nationality. If that were so, there would not have been so many Christian and Muslim states enjoying independent status. Tamils are inspired by the Maoist/Naxalite movement but their secessionist organizations have been shut down after being labeled as terrorists.
Khalistan Movement of the Sikhs: The Sikh community has long nurtured a grudge against the Hindu dominated governments in New Delhi for having gone back on their word given at the time of partition in 1947, promising autonomy to their state of Punjab, renaming it Khalistan, which the Sikhs considered to be very important from their religious and political standpoint. Real as well as perceived discrimination and a feeling of betrayal by the central government of Indira Gandhi brought matters to the head and fearing a rebellion from the Sikh militant groups, she ordered a military crackdown on their most revered shrine – the Golden Temple, in 1981, where armed Sikhs put up stiff resistance. An estimated 3000 people, including a large number of pilgrims, died. This ended in a military victory but a political disaster for Indira Gandhi. Soon afterwards in 1984, she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards and this in turn led to a general massacre of the Sikhs across India. Although the situation has returned to normal, the Sikh community has not forgiven the Hindus for this sacrilege and tensions continue. The demand for Khalistan is still alive and about 17 movements for a separate Sikh state remain active.
Another factor that has added to the existing tensions between the central government and the Sikhs is the diversion to the neighbouring states of their most important natural resource – river water, which belonged only to Punjab under the prevalent national and international law. This deprived Punjab of billions of rupees annually. With 80% of the state population – the poor farming community, adversely affected, there has been a great deal of unrest. The military was used to suppress this unrest but there are fears that the issue could become the moot point of another Maoist uprising, this time in Punjab.
Kashmir: The Kashmir issue is as old as the history of India and Pakistan’s independence. It arose out of India’s forcible occupation of this predominantly Muslim state against the wishes of its people and in violation of the principle of partition of British India. A fierce struggle for independence continues unabated in the valley in which hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives at the hands of the central and state government’s security forces and have been displaced. There has been international condemnation of human rights violations. India has defied the resolutions of the UN Security Council that have called for demilitarization of the valley and holding of plebiscite to determine the will of the people.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars and efforts at reaching a solution through negotiations have not been fruitful.
Consequences for South Asia
The Indian internal scene presents a very disturbing scenario, one that has prompted Suhas Chakma, Director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights in New Delhi, to say that ‘India is at war with itself’. Alan Hart, the British journalist, while speaking about insurgencies in India at LISA seminar in July this year, agreed with this characterization. There is a consensus that this situation seriously threatens India’s stability and consequently its democracy.
In a changing world, as the poor of India become more and more aware of the affluence of the relative few who reap the benefits from the country’s development boom, the rich-poor division assumes greater significance and cannot not be ignored. “The insurgency in all of its manifestations and the counter-insurgency operations of the security forces in all of their manifestations are only the casing of the ticking time-bomb under India’s democracy. The explosive substance inside the casing is, in a word, POVERTY” said Alan Hart, and said it rightly.
It is also important to understand that newly undertaken unification of India has not yet taken firm roots and it would be a bad idea for it to try and trigger fragmentation among its neighbours. There is imminent danger of the Domino effect taking the whole of South Asia down.
Read his bio and more analyses and essays by
Axis of Logic Columnist, Shahid R. Siddiqi
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