Post Independence History | || Satyameva Jayate ||

Building the Indian Mind - Brick by Brick

I received this email yesterday and could not stop before reading it right through to the end…It is a long read…quite a long read, in fact. And it is seriously thought-provoking. Below, excerpts from a speech delivered by Sh. Gurumurthy at IIT Chennai in 2003 which - although five years old - still retains its and relevance and punch. This is a *must read*.

*** Excerpts from “The Intellectual Scene in Post-Independence India“ by Sh Gurumurthy ***

A critical review of strengths and weaknesses

… Defeat and anger go together. Abuse and defeat go together. So, it is in this norm and with this understanding of what an intellectual debate means, I would like to place before you some of my thoughts today. Some of may find it provocative. I am confident that the audience is competent enough to absorb this and think rather than get into the mood which all of us have got used to in the last 30-40 years abuse.

Background: India before Independence

Let us see the pre-independence background, the intellectual content of India. See the kind of personalities who led the Indian mind Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Gandhiji, Tilak- giants in their own way. Most of them were involved in politics, active politics, day-to-day politics, handling men, walking on the road, addressing meetings, solving problems between their followers. And, meeting the challenges posed by the enemy, the conspiracies hatched against them. They were handling everything, yet, they were maintaining an intellectual supremacy, and a record and an originality which history has recorded.

Let us look at the academic side. Whether it is a P. C. Ray who wrote on Indian Chemistry in 1905 or Sir C. V. Raman who wrote about mridangam, tabala, and violin, and saw the Physics in it (this was in 1913); whether it was R. C. Majumdar or Radhakumud Mukherjee who saw greatness in the Indian Civilization; trying to bring up points, instances, historical evidence to mirror the greatness of India, to the defeated Indian race, they were all building the Indian mind brick by brick. Sri Aurobindo spoke of Sanatana Dharma as the Nationalism of India. He didn”t rank it as a philosophy. He brought it down to the level of emotional consciousness. Swami Vivekananda spoke of spiritual nationalism; it was the same Swami who spoke of Universal brotherhood. For them philosophy was not removed from the ground reality. The nation was at the core of their philosophy. Swami Vivekananda was called the “patriot monk”.

Mahatma Gandhi spoke of Rama Rajya. Bankim Chandra wrote Bande Maataram. The song, the slogans in it, the mantra in it made hundreds of people kiss the gallows smilingly and many others went to jail. It transformed the life of the people; this was the intellectual scene, this was the content…This was the core of India, the soul of the Indian freedom movement.

The symptoms: India immediately after Independence

…Let us look at post Independence India. The persons who led post-Independence India were also trained in the same freedom movement. They went to jail, but they were not rooted in the intellectual content of the Freedom movement!

The first Prime Minister of India, he was in jail for 7 years. He was a great intellectual himself, purely in the sense of his capacity to reason, understand, read, and expound a thought. He told Galbrieth once, “I would be regarded as the last English Prime Minister of India. See the intellectual capability of the man, the enormously competent mind.

But intellectualism doesn”t exist in a vacuum. It has to be rooted in something concrete. Vivekananda”s universal brotherhood was rooted in India”s greatness as a civilization, which proclaimed it. The concept of “Vasudaiva Kutumbakam” cannot exist without a living form, a population which believes in it and believes in itself. You need to have a society, which believes in it.

That is why India could invite the Jews who were butchered, raped, all over the world. In 107 out of 108 countries, this race was butchered. At least they had the courtesy and the gratitude to publish a book, the Israeli govt. published a book that out of 108 countries that we sought refuge, the only civilization, the only country, the only people, the only ideology that gave us refuge was the Indian civilization. They published a book, which most Indians are unaware of.

And we invited the Muslims. The refugee Muslims first landed in Kutch. And they are called the Kutchy Memons even today but not the Memons who bomb Bombay. But the Memons who lived with us.

Keep Reading…

October 26th, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, British Rule in India, Hindu Dharma, Identity, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History, Sanatana Dharma, Women in Hinduism & India | 7 comments

No longer funny…

A Marathi Manoos’ house is ransacked in Jamshedpur for no other reason except that he belonged to the wrong “state”

A 10-year old boy - almost certainly too young to understand what the fuss is all about - gets killed in Bihar

Four people are killed in violence at Kalyan that erupted after Sh Raj Thackeray’s arrest.

The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation suffers a loss of Rs 30 Lakhs in two days of violence which resulted in 286 of its buses being damaged.

And the last “not funny” bit:

A Sikh group supports Raj’s cause and his “approach” since the “state doesn’t provide suitable enviournment for non-violent struggle”…Oh, by the way, they also express alarm at the “heavy influx” of migrant population into the state and accuse all political parties of “pursuing narrow political ends” [ link ].

Will Sh Thackeray now show genuine leadership and commitment to national interest and call off his mis-guided supporters?

Related Posts:

There is a “राष्ट्र” in “महाराष्ट्र”…

After Maharashtra, it is the turn of West Bengal

October 23rd, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, Debates & Discussions, Identity, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History | 39 comments

The not so “communal” clashes in Assam

For the last few days, I have been following the twists and turns of the “clashes” in Assam with great interest…Not least because I have a very strong personal bond with the region but also because I know the region a little better than many other states in India…

As is the case in most situations, initial reports about the killings were sketchy and appeared to be more conjecture than facts…E.g.

…The communally tense twin districts of Assam, Udalguri and Darrang, witnessed yet another day of rioting as the death toll climbed to nine on Saturday. Over 50 people have been injured in clashes between Bodo tribals and Muslims that broke out on Friday…”

Udalguri police said reports about hoisting of a Pakistani national flag at Sonaripara caused fresh turmoil. [ link ]

A report from HT suggested another angle to the attacks:

The immediate provocation for the clashes was the attack on a group of Village Defence Party (VDP) volunteers early Friday by armed miscreants.

“The VDP members belonged to the tribal Bodo community and were attacked by members of a religious minority group and that sparked off the clashes,” the official said.

Meanwhile the death toll continued to climb…but the matter appeared to have dropped off the radar of mainstream media…Latest reports suggest that the death toll is already higher than the number of people killed in attacks in Orissa (49 according to this report)…but I have not yet seen any detailed report on the attacks and what triggered them…

Could it be because the reality appears to be slightly more complicated here?

According to this report, the clashes are not really between “tribals” and Muslims or Hindus and Muslims or even Hindus and Christians but between Christians and Muslims:

“…Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the root cause was a programme of “ethnic cleansing” implemented by the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), a rebel group fighting for an independent tribal homeland.

“They want to drive out all non-Bodos from the area… it’s a systematic pogrom,” Sarma told IANS.

The NDFB, which is a largely Christian outfit, entered into a ceasefire with the Indian government in 2005, but has never renounced its independence struggle.”

Many media reports though have conveniently forgot to mention the word “Christian” and are instead referring to “Ethnic Bodos” or “Bodo Tribals” or a lame “clashes between two communities”…

I will be watching this with interest…and sadness in my heart…

Who is there to cry for the innocents that have been murdered and the lives that have been displaced (1.1 lakh according to official reports)?…or is this something that happened so far away…in such a distant land that all this is merely statistics…and something to be read and forgotten with your next cup of tea?

Related Posts:

“India Breaking” - Read this and Weep

North-East “burning”

Some startling stats from the eastern front…

October 7th, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | Current Affairs, Identity, India & Its Neighbours, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History | 20 comments

Excerpts from “Art of War”

Excerpts from a review of Arun Shourie’s “Are we deceiving ourselves again?” by Brahma Chellaney:

…having forsaken the Kautilyan principles, has proven no match to China’s Sun Tzu-style statecraft. From Nehru’s grudging acceptance of Chinese suzerainty to Atal Behari Vajpayee’s blithe acceptance of full Chinese sovereignty, India has incrementally shed its main card — Tibet.

…it wasn’t geography but guns — the sudden occupation of the traditional buffer, Tibet, soon after the communists seized power in Beijing — that made China India’s neighbour.

…Shourie’s well-researched, powerfully written book relies on Nehru’s letters, speeches, notes and other correspondence to bring out the significance, in Nehru’s own words, of the events from the 1950-51 fall of Tibet to China’s 1962 invasion.

Keep Reading…

September 24th, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | China related, Geo-Strategic Issues (incl. Nuclear, Oil, Energy), India & Its Neighbours, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History | no comments

The great joke that is Indian Media - Part VI

A leading cine-artiste makes the claim that being a Muslim, she has had difficulty finding a home in Mumbai.

A screen writer says that he too faced the same “problem”. The reporter adds…

Top film stars, household names for you and me, as well as TV actors and models almost all have had it tough because of their religion.

…but fails to mention even one of these “household names”…apparently, ”none of them were willing to say it aloud” !!

And in all of this, she sees “a pattern of Muslim artistes simply not finding a place to stay in Mumbai.” (sic)

From what I remember of my English, a “pattern” needs to have regularly repeated occurences…I see none here…or has the meaning of “pattern” changed in the last two decades?

Oddly not one word about…”certain Parsi societies that do not allow non-Parsis” or “…societies (in Bandra) that do not allow non-Christians“…and of course no mention of most of us being unable to buy land in Kashmir - or of Shabana and Javed’s flats in Juhu. [ link ]

The forgotten “J” in J&K

Courtesy “Son of Devaki” by Tarun Vijay, this amazing table that provides a glimpse into how the populatoin in the Kahsmir valley has been rewarded at the expense of the citizens in Jammu.

Please read and circulate widely.

The step-motherly treatment of Jammu

Sr. no	Jammu region	Kashmir valley region

Area	26293 sq kms	15948 sq kms
Total revenue generated	75 %	20%
Total voters	3059986	2883950
Assembly seats allotted	37	46
Voters per seat	66521	49728
Area per assembly seat	710.6 sq kms	346.6 sq. kms.
Loksabha seats	2	3
Cabinet ministers(till 7th July,08)	5	14
Districts	10	10
Area per district	2629 sq. kms	1594 sq. kms
Unemployment status	69.70 %	29.30%
Representation in state govt. jobs	1.2 lakhs	3lakhs
Percentage of employees from local area	less than 25%	99%
Power generation	22 Mega Watt	304 Mega Watt
Annual tourist traffic	80 lakhs plus	Less than 4 lakhs
Expenditure of revenue on tourism sector	less than 10%	Plus 85%
Rural electrification	less than 70%	100%

Time to say One Country, One Law

Amidst the flurry of Op-Ed pieces in mainstream (English language) media, suggesting granting Kashmir “complete autonomy (Khushwant Singh) ” or holding a plebiscite (Swaminathan S Aiyar) or a referendum (Vir Sanghvi), I failed to spot even one Op-Ed suggesting that the answer may lie in scraping Article 370 forthwith.

I believe it is time to say, “One Country, One Law”…and turn Jammu and Kashmir into a normal “State” in the “Union of India”.

This is my 3-point prescription to get out of this mess for good (I do need to think through the consequences in some more detail though):

1. Stop ALL talks with Hurriyat, PDP and other assorted outfits who demand “azaadi”.

2. Stop ALL aid and grants…forthwith (to get an idea of how much money is poured down the drain in Kashmir, read below)

3. Scrap Article 370 and begin an active programme to re-settle and rehabilitate Kashmiri Pandits back in the Valley.

Will this work? I don’t know.

Will Madam Gandhi and co. even consider it? Dream on.

Keep Reading…

August 17th, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | Current Affairs, Identity, Jammu & Kashmir related, Pakistan related, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History | 25 comments

This was The Beginning…

….and the world remained silent….

For those of you who are not old enough to remember how it all started, here is a brief excerpt from The bushfire of Hindu rage (emphasis mine):

…For the benefit of those who have come of age in the last two decades, among them many of the 24×7 news channel anchors who talk utter gibberish while donning an air of supreme confidence to camouflage their limitless ignorance, let me recount the events of January 1990, which mark the beginning of the latest crusade against the Hindus of Jammu & Kashmir. Since ’secularists’ are allergic to events of the distant past, we need not go into the details of how Hindus were decapitated by the Sword of Islam wielded by the original Islamists. The present will suffice to highlight the duplicity of those whose hearts beat for the hate-India hordes in Kashmir.

Srinagar, January 4, 1990. Aftab, a local Urdu newspaper, publishes a Press release issued by Hizb-ul Mujahideen, set up by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to wage jihad for Jammu & Kashmir’s secession from India and accession to Pakistan, asking all Hindus to pack up and leave. Another local paper, Al Safa, repeats this expulsion order. In the following days, there is near chaos in the Kashmir Valley with then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference Government abdicating all responsibilities. Masked men run amok, waving Kalashnikovs, shooting to kill and shouting anti-India slogans. Reports of killing of Hindus, invariably Kashmiri Pandits, begin to trickle in; there are explosions; inflammatory speeches are made from the pulpits of mosques, using public address systems meant for calling the faithful to prayers. A terrifying fear psychosis begins to take grip of Kashmiri Pandits.

Srinagar, January 19, 1990. Mr Jagmohan arrives to take charge as Governor. Mr Farooq Abdullah, whose pathetic, whimpering, snivelling Government has all but ceased to exist, resigns and goes into a sulk. Curfew is imposed as a first measure to restore some semblance of law and order. But it fails to have a deterrent effect. Throughout the day, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Hizb-ul Mujahideen terrorists use public address systems at mosques to exhort people to defy curfew and take to the streets. Masked men, firing from their Kalashnikovs, march up and down, terrorising Pandits. As evening falls, the exhortations become louder and shriller. Three taped slogans are repeatedly played the whole night from mosques: “Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-hu-Akbar kehna hai” (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah-hu-Akbar); “Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa” (What do we want here? Rule of shari’ah); “Asi gachchi Pakistan, batao roas te batanev san” (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men). As the night of January 19, 1990, wears itself out, despondency gives way to desperation. And tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits across the Valley take a painful decision: To flee their homeland to save their lives. Thus takes place a 20th century Exodus.

Their wounds, as also the wounds of Hindu India, have been festering for 18 years. The simmering anger of Hindus has now burst into a raging bush fire that threatens to burn to ashes media’s perverse notions of ’secularism’ and destroy the politics of Muslim appeasement.

If you have a good broadband connection, I would also recommend watching this 12-min video: Terror on Kashmiri Minorities … and the World remained Silent… It includes a brief appearance by the late Benazir Bhutto - clearly showing her support for the “cause” (Courtesy: Ramesh Naidoo)

Cry of the Valley - must read

Amidst the outpouring of years of pent-up anger in Jammu, I came across this vivid, very sad and intensely poignant first-hand account of living in the shadow of terror and the forced migration of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley… Please read and circulate widely…

*** Cry of the Valley ***

A cold winter night has fallen outside and the power cut makes it all the more gloomy inside. Huddled together in the warmth of blankets and a kerosene lamp we just sit silently watching each others expressions. I am too young a kid to understand the full implications of what is happening and my younger sister is busy watching a small bug circling the candle our mother had lit in the gallery just outside the kitchen. My thoughts drift from game of cricket I’d played earlier that day to how bright the snow makes outside look. Among all these childish thoughts is a nagging feeling that I’m just not able to get rid of. I feel I’m never going to be in this house again. Never ever in my life will I play cricket with these friends again. Never ever will mother and father have the careless laughs that I so love. Never ever will the things be same again.

It started a few months before in summer when I came home after an extended play session with my friends. Father was waiting for me on the porch of our relatively new house. We were still building the second floor and it already looked like the biggest and the most beautiful house in the community. I especially liked the way the roof was built. There were multiple parts slanting over each other and I couldn�t wait for winter to see the snow sliding off these. I knew father had worked day and night to take us from a one room kitchen-cum-bedroom place to this house. The evidence of his hard work was on his callous fingertips that had hardened by continuous writing on multiple carbon separated sheets of paper that he used while teaching. I met him at the porch of our house and my instincts had sharpened enough to know that I was in trouble. But usually I knew beforehand. This time did not have the slightest of clues. The day had been good so far and I had behaved within reasonable limits. The bigger issue was not that I was in for a tough time, the problem was that I did not know the severity of the mischief I was going to be accused of and therefore couldn�t estimate the severity of the punishment. Anyway, I sat down with a feeling of a lump in my throat. Then he told me something that surprised me. He had heard me arguing with a couple of friends over a game of cricket a few hours earlier. He told me that I was to stop doing that I should either play without arguments or stop going out for fun altogether. I couldn’t understand this. From the time I could remember, these small arguments were the part of fun we kids had. Elders never cared to comment on such silly things and now I was facing an expression on my fathers face which was as serious as it I’ve ever known it. If I didn�t know my father better I’d have argued to get to the bottom of this but wizened with previous unpleasant thrashings I decided against that.

I didn’t have to wait long to get the cause of my father’s concern. In a couple of weeks one of my cricketing buddies was missing from the game. When I suggested that friend we should go to his home and call him, one other friend said that he was not home but had traveled across the border to get training in handling weapons. Without me knowing so at that time, I’d just had my first brush with the extremism that would change our lives forever. Suddenly the world around me had changed in a way that I could never imagine. My friends one-by-started going missing. Muslim kids went across the border and Hindus mainly started to migrate across to other parts of the country. I started spending more and more time at home. When the schools closed the previous fall for winter break little did anyone know that they would never reopen. As a child that was a welcome development for me. I could have all the time in the world to myself for play and mischief. But the irony was that I couldn’t go out anymore and there was nobody else to go out with.

Keep Reading…

August 4th, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, Elections Analysis, Hindu Dharma, Human Rights and Legal Issues, Jammu & Kashmir related, Politics and Governance in India, Politics of Minority Appeasement, Post Independence History | 10 comments

Make no mistake. This is WAR.

In an eerily prescient post a few weeks back, I had written: Our Kurukshetra is approaching fast.

The terrorist attacks in Ahmedabad and Bangalore are merely the latest consequences of a mis-guided, half-hearted approach to tackle terrorism and ignoring the root of the problem - which is the ideology of “Jihad”…and Islamism…This is the ideology that led to 9/11, the massacre of Beslan and numerous attacks since then - a disturbingly large number of them in Bharat.

As long as we don’t recognise this, we will be fighting the wrong enemy (not terrorists but innocents)…on the wrong front (not at the level of ideas, but at the level of physical force)…and with the wrong weapons (not better policing and quick, efficient justice but Dharnas, Bandhs, Satyagraha etc..)

The FIRST STEP though has to be the realisation that this is WAR - nothing less.

At least someone has realised this…

Terror attacks are a war against India…

I salute Shri Modi for having the courage to speak out.

He at least has more spine than the hundreds of others who claim to represent India. But as Radha-ji of Vigil pointed out in an email to me: “His spine is not in question here, it is his understanding of the nature of the threat - jihad…” I think she has hit the nail on its head.

As I had promised to myself, I will say no more on this until such point when I have some idea of how to deal with this menace.

In the meantime, here are some extracts from a letter written by a concerned father* (in teh US) to his sons back in 2004. Pl. read and think (emphasis mine).

*** Excerpts begin **

…To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go through it. Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII).

The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means.

Keep Reading…

July 27th, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | Current Affairs, Global Terrorism, Godhra, Islam & Terrorism, LeT, SIMI etc., Pakistan related, Politics and Governance in India, Politics of Minority Appeasement, Post Independence History, Terrorism in India | 6 comments

India - Pakistan: Notes from an Island

About two weeks ago,�the Royal Society of Arts in UK, together with�Tehelka, organised a Summit on India and Pakistan in London. It had a stellar line up of speakers and panelists (Jaswant Singh, Farooq Abduallh, Arun Jaitley, Mushahid Husain, Imran Khan, Asma Jehangir, Ram Jethmalani…et al) and I am sure it generated a lot of animated discussions…

I am delighted to present a guest post by my dear friend Ashutosh who attended the summit and graciously agreed to pen down his thoughts to share with everyone on this blog…Ashutosh has a blue-chip CV and he left McKinsey a few years ago to start his own consulting firm in London…Needless to say, he also has a deep and abiding interest in politics and international affairs. Without further ado, here are Ashutosh’s thoughts…in two separate posts…This is the first one (emphasis is mine).

*** POST BEGINS ***

Allow me to begin by saying that I attended the events over two days wearing essentially two separate hats- one that of a politically aware global citizen (after all �vasudhaiva kutumbakam� has not been a more relevant concept that today and best describes the world view of us expat desis) and the second more practical hat of a energy geo-politics analyst (and there is probably no other region than the sub-continent where geo-politics of nuclear- natural gas- renewable energy and climate change is most relevant, fragile and least appreciated); my thoughts on the meeting therefore are in that sequence…

As a relatively more aware follower of international affairs- I question the need to have any reconciliatory relationship with Pakistan. What follows is a brief summary of my thoughts…

A]�Pakistan wants India to forget the recent past (and in my view the most important past of the last 60 years) and reflect on our much longer history before…when we were one country.

If the meeting was about burying the past and moving forward- well it was a very good first step but we have barely scratched the surface in establishing trust at a human level. One example of self contradiction- Mushahid Hussain opening his speech by greeting (read insinuating) the audience in every other language and style but (conspicuously) avoiding�a single hindu greeting like �namaskaar� and then closing his speech (suggesting to India) by - �Thoda Dil Bada Karein�- this was just one example of several self contradictions in Mushahid�s speech.� Grow up dude, look at that inexperienced Sachin Pilot, measured and moderated responses in face of insinuations- logical and consistent- through out.

B]�Search for that sameness - another theme that came out…�We are similar �so there is no reason we cannot move forward�.�

Well- I challenge this notion of sameness- yes , we have common food habits, similar languages and to some extent a common civilization but our life experiences of the last 60 or more years driven by our national ethos have been totally different. Tolerance versus Fanaticism-� and so have emerged our relative positions as a function of our individual national ethos.�

Why should we desperately seek out that same-ness and struggle in this relationship?� When we deal with China, be it at a Governemnt level or in business, the first thing we do is recognize our differences- much stronger footing to craft our way forward. Pakistan and India may have common history and gene pool but our ethos is totally different- we will not only struggle but even get frustrated more easily in making this relationship work.� Lets recognize our differences first- tolerance v/s fanaticism then figure out what is the relative value at stake for each of us!
�
C] Don�t Use the T-word. If you do, then at least don�t use it as IT (Islamic Terrorism)…

Will someone please explain to me why not? Speaker after speaker mentioned that terrorism has no place in Islam. Good passionate rhetoric but frankly this is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and calling it militancy or freedom struggle ain�t any good, any more. Well done Tarun Vijay, for bringing it out into the open, chapter and verse with examples included. Of course no answer/response was forthcoming except a Humphrey Appleby-esque �Don�t use the T word and if you do don�t call it IT�

Keep Reading…

July 9th, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | Debates & Discussions, Geo-Strategic Issues (incl. Nuclear, Oil, Energy), Global Terrorism, Identity, India & Its Neighbours, Jammu & Kashmir related, Miscellaneous, Pakistan related, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History, Terrorism in India | 4 comments

The lies about Amarnath…

My�distrust of the Indian mainstream media deepens by the day.

Courtesy Dina Nath Mishra’s article,�”Amarnath land grant and the reality around it“, I learnt today how even “..in this age of widespread and fast communication”, it is possible to hide facts.

Fact #1:�The land was to be transferred NOT allocated

Fact #2: It was to be only for a period of two�months in a year when Amarnath pilgrims visited

Fact #3:�No permanent structure was to be constructed, for Article 370 forbids the same

And yet, we had the Hurriyat and assorted leaders crying hoarse over threat to demographics, ecological damage and danger to Kashmiriat…

And how has mainstream media reported these facts?

See this Rediff news-report in which�the words “allotment” and “transfer” have been used inter-changeably even though they have very different meanings and implications. And while the report clearly mentions “temporary structures” (which surely cannot be said to threaten any demographics), this important fact is soon forgotten (emphasis mine):

The forest land allotment controversy erupted soon after the state cabinet took a decision in May last to transfer 100 acres of land to SASB for raising temporary structures to facilitate the yatra.

HT refers to “land diversion”�in�this news-report…surely a very different thing from “land allocation”?

After NC patriarch Dr Farooq Abdullah demanded the government order sanctioning land diversion be revoked, PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayed has asked for a cancellation too.

So why is no one talking about these “facts”?�

Keep Reading…

July 7th, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | Ancient Indian History, Current Affairs, Indian Media, Jammu & Kashmir related, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History | 13 comments

China’s claim over Tibet is questionable

From a Sify report on a seminar held last Friday at IIC on ‘1914 Shimla Convention Agreement and Consequences’ (emphasis mine):

The fact that the Chinese refused to ink the 1914 Shimla Convention agreement between India and Tibet puts question mark over the legality or morality of China’s claim of sovereignty over Tibet, a group of India’s top jurists, scholars and security experts feel.

…The participants - who included senior Supreme Court Advocate Rajeev Dhavan, Arunachal MP Khiren Rijuju, Lt Gen. (Rtd.) F.R. J. Jacob, veteran diplomat Dalip Mehta, and writer Dr Parshotam Mehta - felt that this could make a strong case for India to press for autonomy of the Tibet in its negotiations with China during sixth round of discussions on Indo-China border that started today.

…Dhawan argued that China’s case for sovereignty over Tibet was inconclusive, contradictory and un-established. �I have gone through all relevant documents. At best, a nominal suzerainty was imposed by the imperial powers, which lapsed when the Chinese did not sign the agreement,� he said.

Writer Parshotam Mehta and Dr Anand Kumar of Jawaharlal Nehru University drew attention to the July declaration signed by the �plenipotentiaries of Great Britain and Tibet� which said if China did not sign the agreement �she will be debarred from all privileges�.

�It was an agreement between the government of India and Tibet and did not accept any claim by China if the latter did not accept the conditionalities,� they contended.

But all the legalities in the world pale against lack of political will and resolve…I am not in the least optimistic that�the sixth round of discussions with China would be any different from the previous ones…

Tibet - not always part of China�

Dancing with the Dragon�

.

If you liked what you read, consider subscribing to my feed or�subscribe�by Email.

July 6th, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | British Rule in India, China related, Current Affairs, Geo-Strategic Issues (incl. Nuclear, Oil, Energy), India & Its Neighbours, Miscellaneous, Modern Indian History, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History, World History | one comment

Our Kurukshetra is approaching fast

For many of us, the government’s craven capitulation on the�Amarnath issue was less of a surprise and more of a denouement of something�we had feared�all along…i.e. our political leadership can no longer be trusted to look after India’s national interest.

Parama Karuna-ji summed it up neatly in one of her posts on a Yahoo! group:

I understand your point…I (we) have been trying my (our)�best to be as diplomatic as possible, for many years.� My point is that I think we don�t have much time left now.

Our task today is not to convince lukewarm people - not any more.
Our task now is to sort people out for two camps - the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Our Kuruksetra is approaching fast.� When the conch shells start blowing on the battlefield, it means the time for diplomacy is over.

As Winston Churchill said on November 12, 1936: �The Era of Procrastination, of Half-Measures, of Soothing and Baffling Expedients, of Delays, is coming to its close.� In its place, we are entering a Period of Consequences.�

Kashmir looks like it may be slipping away from the Union…but if we do nothing, Kashmir is just the beginning…

Think of Assam and West Bengal…Think of Ladakh…Think of Nagaland…and Arunachal…Today, a spineless, power hungry leadership has the potential to undo all that our freedom fighters fought for…and to extinguish all the values we cherish…If we stay mute, we will be silent accomplices to this act of destruction…

Let us remember the sacrifices that were made to attain what we have today…and the enormous price we�pay�to maintain our freedom and dignity…All of this must not go in vain.

The time to do “something” is now…it is here…I recall what I wrote a few years ago: “Touch someone, somewhere � please try and make a difference. This is the time when inaction is not an option and indifference will be suicidal.”

Related Links and Posts:

No land for the Yatris - Government capitulates

The Online Petition re. Amarnath�

The Beginning��

�India Breaking� - Read this and Weep�

July 3rd, 2008 Posted by B Shantanu | Current Affairs, Jammu & Kashmir related, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History | 2 comments

How many “Hindus” would it take to change the demography of Kashmir?

Amidst all the violence and “protests” around the issue of transfer of 40 hectares of land to Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), I noticed two�questions that appear to have gone unanswered.

The first question…and this is really the elephant in the room, is, “How many “Hindus” would it take to change the demography of Kashmir?

It is important to consider this question as this is what seems to upset most Kashmiris. To wit:

…President of Action Committee Against Land Transfer (ACALT) and former Kashmir Bar Association President, Mian Abdul Qayoom…termed the (SASB) decision as a conspiracy to change the demography of occupied Kashmir [ link ]

Syed Ali Shah Geelani, chairperson of the hard-line Hurriyat faction, has been�quoted as saying, “Transfer of forestland to SASB is a conspiracy to change the demography of the Valley. We will not allow this ploy to succeed,”

Let us look at some numbers.

According to 2001 Census of India, �the population of�Jammu and Kashmir was just over 10m of which�6.8m (66.97%) were Muslims; Hindus were just over 3m�(29.63%) -�note that the % Muslim population has increased since the last census�in 1981 and the proportion of Hindus has decreased (at�least�partly due to migration);�According to the 1981 census, Muslims accounted for 64.19%� and�Hindus were at 32.24%.

However, this distribution hides the skewed demographics in the “Valley”. In Kashmir (Valley), the proportion of�Muslims is generally accepted to be�~ 95% (e.g. see here),�possibly more.�

The 1981 census put the Pandits’ number (in� the Valley) at a little over 124,000 in a total population of 3.1 million (It should be noted that between 1941 and 1981, the Pandit population declined from 15% to just under 5% while the Muslim population grew from 83% to 95%.�The Hindu population in the Valley today is certainly lower than the 1981 number while the Muslim population has grown. According to this report, “…of the estimated 200,000 Hindus, known as Pandits, who lived in the Kashmir Valley…only some 10,000 remain.”�

Against this backdrop, is it�not a joke�to talk about the land allotment to SASB being an attempt�to change the “demographics” of Kashmir - and to reduce Muslims to a minority?

Or am I missing something?

To change the demographics of the Valley, the entire Hindu population in Kashmir will have to move to the Valley and then some…even then, they may be short of a few lakhs, in numbers…

Why does not anyone expose the specious argument?

***

The second question is who exactly are the environmental critics or “local environmentalists” who are�opposing the transfer on ecological�grounds?

E.g. “Critics say building �permanent� structures at base camps of the pilgrimage will ruin the fragile ecology of the mountainous region…” and “…Local environmentalists protested against the decision and local politicians joined them in opposing the issue…”

I did not find a single “expert” being named in any of the tens of news-reports…

It needs to be mentioned that the one department in the government that you would expect to have raised objections on environmental grounds - the Forest Department - has actually approved the proposal.

Specifically, “the matter was examined in the forest department at various levels and was finally submitted to the minister by the Principal Secretary of the Forest Department recommending that the proposal be approved.”�[�link ]

Am I the only one here�with the feeling something is not quite right?

More on Muslim Population Growth in India��

Some startling stats from the eastern front��

P.S. As many of you would know, Kashmir’s association with Hinduism goes back through the ages…The name itself is�said to be derived from Kashyapa, one of the seven Saptarishis…and Kashmir is home to some of the holiest shrines in Hinduism…Amarnath, of course but also Kheer Bhawani,�Shankaracharya Mandir, Hari Parbat etc…

Eminent Kashmiris (from the ancient�past) are said to�include�Abhinavagupta, Kalhana and Charaka (and possibly Kalidasa). More here.

Also recommended:�Amarnath exposes Kashmir Faultlines<

Devoted to “Bharat” and “Dharma”